by Gwen Bristow
“I’ve never been drunk in my life,” said Pocket. “I can’t get drunk. Liquor doesn’t make me drunk, it puts me to sleep. One little sample and I start to yawn. Two little samples and I’m sound asleep with my head on the table. I can’t help it. That’s the way I am. I’ve watched men at bars, raising their glasses and having fun, and I wonder how they feel. I’d like to find out, but I can’t stay awake long enough.” His lips were quivering with amusement. “Now what else is it you wanted to know?”
Still standing by the window, Marny asked, “Why don’t you gamble?”
“Same reason. It puts me to sleep.”
She did not understand this, and he explained,
“I mean, it bores me. I can’t get interested.”
Reaching into the pocket of her skirt, Marny took out her ever-present pack of cards. “I like playing cards,” she reminded him. “For you or anybody else, I don’t mean to stop.”
“I haven’t asked you to stop.”
Marny thought this over. When she spoke again she spoke seriously. “Pocket, I like you. I think I like you better than anybody else I know. But marriage—no. I’m not the marrying type.”
“You’re the type I want,” he said with assurance.
“No,” said Marny. She thought a moment, then went on. “I have a lot of respect for you, Pocket, and I’m proud that you want me. But it wouldn’t work.” She came back to his table and picked up her gloves. “Now I’d better go. I’ll get back to my business and you can get back to yours.”
He shook his head, but she touched the papers lying on the table.
“You were at work this morning. Now go back to it.”
“I’d rather talk to you,” said Pocket.
He spoke with confident good humor, but Marny wanted to discuss this subject no more. To keep the talk away from herself she touched the big sheet with the diagram on it. “What’s this? It looks like a street map.”
“That’s what it is,” said Pocket. “A copy of that map on the wall.”
Marny picked up the sheet. The map was clear and well detailed. With a glance at the sheets covered with figures she asked, “What are you doing? Or maybe you’d rather not tell me.”
“Why no ma’am,” said Pocket, “I don’t mind telling you. I own some property around town. And most of the buildings,” he added with a rueful smile, “were not put up by Dwight Carson. They went down in the fire, which means a big job of rebuilding. I’ve been figuring costs.”
While he talked, Marny had been looking over the map. “These X-marks in boxes,” she said inquiringly. “They aren’t in the wall map. What do they mean?”
“They mark my lots,” said Pocket.
“Oh, I see. Then you own—Pocket!”
“Yes ma’am?”
Marny lowered the map. Her green eyes were big with amazement. In a shocked voice she asked, “Pocket—do you own all these lots?”
“Yes ma’am,” he answered simply.
Thunderstruck, Marny gasped, “Pocket—you must own half of Montgomery Street!”
“Oh no,” he returned modestly. “Not that much.”
Marny’s eyes were searching the map. “And you own this lot we’re standing on.”
“Yes ma’am,” said Pocket.
“And these lots on Kearny Street!” said Marny. “You own the ground under the Calico Palace—”
“Yes ma’am.”
“—so you’re the landlord who’s been squeezing us for that outrageous rent, all this time—”
“Nobody would have let you have it for less,” Pocket said without concern. “If you want a spot on the plaza you’ve got to pay for it.”
“—and you’re the bloodsucker who gets all those other rents from Norrington—”
“Not all,” said Pocket. “Norrington collects rents for other owners besides me.”
“—and you own the house Loren and Kendra lived in,” Marny continued sharply, still studying the map. “You’re that nameless cavalier who offered Kendra the house rent free after Loren died. Yes, she told me about that. Oh Pocket,” Marny exclaimed with reproach, “you’re a skirt-chaser but you’re not a fool! Didn’t you know Kendra wouldn’t say yes to any such proposition?”
“Now this I won’t take,” Pocket interrupted her sternly. “I didn’t have any such notion in the back of my mind. I didn’t know Norrington had dunned her for the rent until he told me she couldn’t pay. I knew what Kendra had been through. I was there, same as you were. I told Norrington never to dun another tenant of mine without getting my approval first, and told him to let Kendra have the house as long as she pleased. It didn’t occur to me she’d read my offer the way she did. I just didn’t think of it, that’s all.”
Marny regarded him with a faint smile, as if reproving a naughty boy. “You are pretty simple-minded sometimes,” she remarked.
“I’m afraid so,” he admitted meekly. “Anyway, that’s how it was. But when I heard she was going back to the Calico Palace, I thought if I really wanted to do her a service I’d let her go. It was better for her to keep busy than to sit alone all day with nothing to do but brood about her sorrow. Don’t you think so?”
“Yes, I think so. You’re a nice fellow, Pocket. Even if you do have your witless moments.” Marny had laid the map on the table again. Looking down at it, she stroked the design with her fingertips. “Pocket,” she asked thoughtfully, “how long have you been buying town lots?”
“Ever since I’ve been in California,” said Pocket. “When I got here nobody knew anything about gold, but with such a harbor and such fine ranch land around it, I could see that San Francisco was a settlement bound to grow. I bought some lots in town while I was a clerk up at Sutter’s Fort. That was four years ago, back in ’47, before you got here.”
“I’d love to know,” said Marny, “what you paid for them in those days. Do you mind telling?”
“Why no ma’am. At an auction you could get a lot close to the water for fifty or a hundred dollars—”
“On Montgomery Street!”
“Yes ma’am. The town lots farther inland cost twelve dollars, and you paid three dollars and sixty-two cents more to register your title.”
Marny thought of the fortune those lots would cost today. She gave a deep respectful sigh. “And you’ve been buying land ever since.”
“Yes ma’am.”
Marny looked down at the map. Pocket waited politely. She wondered if he had ever been noisy about anything, or impatient, or uncivil. Impulsively she looked up and spoke.
“Pocket, I asked you why you didn’t drink or gamble, and you told me. Now tell me something else.”
“Why of course,” he answered. “Ask me anything.”
He smiled at her, and his eyes met hers. They were standing on opposite sides of the table. What pleasant eyes he had, she thought, that hazelnut color of bright ruddy brown, with dark brows and lashes. She asked, “Pocket, why do you keep it a secret, how rich you are?”
“Why, it’s not exactly a secret,” he answered genially. “Hiram and Mr. Eustis know my holdings because I do business through their bank; and Norrington knows.”
“But you don’t live rich!” she exclaimed. “Why did you choose to live in that little room downstairs, when you might have had a suite in some comfortable place like the Union Hotel?”
“I’m right comfortable in my little room,” said Pocket. “I don’t have to go out in the wind and rain to get to my office, and anyway, I’m not a showy fellow.”
“Oh for heaven’s sake, Hiram wasn’t being showy when he lived in the Union Hotel! Why shouldn’t a man live well if he can afford it?”
“Hiram’s a banker,” said Pocket, as if this gave her a key to her question. “People expect a banker to be hard-hearted.”
With a puzzled frown Marny asked, “What’s that got to do with it?”
“Quite a lot,” said Pocket. He spoke with amusement. “Marny, rich men get pestered so. I’m not mean or stingy. I’m glad to help
folks in trouble. But I won’t be pestered by every whining lazybones in town.”
Marny smiled in assent. “And you couldn’t get a stony reputation if you tried.”
“No, I couldn’t,” he answered with innocent regret. “You know, Marny, if a man has been raised to have manners, and if he has an easy voice and kindly ways, folks get the idea that he’s not only soft-hearted, he’s soft-headed. And if word goes out that he’s rich too, then the leeches come swarming.” Pocket gave a shrug and a sigh.
For a moment or two Marny said nothing. She looked at the map. Then, raising her head, in a wondering voice she asked, “Pocket—all this—why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why should I?” he asked.
“You’re a very rich man,” said Marny.
“Well, yes, I suppose so.”
“Don’t ‘suppose so.’ Any man who has sense enough to acquire this much property in the right places has sense enough to know what it’s worth. Now answer me this. When you asked me to marry you, why didn’t you tell me how rich you were?”
“Why Marny,” he said with surprise, “I didn’t think of it. Why should I tell you?”
“Why shouldn’t you?”
“Oh, it sounds—so mercenary. It sounds like I thought you were in love with money.”
There was a moment of silence. Marny stood looking straight at him. She said clearly, “Pocket, when did I ever say a word, or do one single thing, to suggest to you that I was not in love with money?”
Pocket caught his breath. His eyes opened wider. “Why Marny!” he almost gasped. “If you had known I was rich—would you have said yes?”
She gave a short little laugh. “Now that it’s too late, I might as well tell the truth. Of course I would.”
“You would?” Pocket echoed.
Marny shrugged. “I would. But I didn’t know you were a gold mine, so I didn’t stake a claim.”
Pocket gave the merriest chuckle she had heard from any man in a long time. He said, “All right, now you know. Will you marry me?”
68
MARNY PUT HER HAND to her throat as if she felt herself choking. She stood staring at him. With an effort she found her voice. “May the Lord take care of you,” she said slowly. “You don’t know enough to take care of yourself.”
“You haven’t answered,” said Pocket.
“I’m answering,” she returned. “I’m saying I never met a man so stupid in my life.”
“It’s not stupid,” said Pocket, “for a man to know what he wants.”
“It’s imbecilic,” said Marny, “for a man to want a woman who’d be marrying him for his money.”
Pocket gave his head an exasperated shake, like a teacher tired of trying to teach a pupil who did not want to learn. “Marny, I keep on telling you, I love you. And when I say that, I mean I want to give you what you want.”
“Do you think I ought to want money so much?”
“How do I know what you ‘ought’ to want?” he exclaimed. “I don’t know what I ‘ought’ to want myself. But I know what I do want, and I want you. Now will you say yes?”
“No!” said Marny. She shot the word at him like a bullet.
“But why not?” he demanded. This time his manner was forceful. “Tell me, Marny.”
She did not answer.
Pocket repeated, “Tell me, Marny.”
Marny took out the cards again. She looked down at them, fondling them, as she spoke. “It wouldn’t be fair of me not to answer,” she said slowly. “Pocket, you say you love me and I believe you. It would be easy for me to love you back. But marry you—no. Not you or anybody else.”
More gently now, Pocket said, “Why not, Marny?”
Marny stroked the cards. “You think I would change when I got married. You think I’d be like Rosabel. A happy housewife. Pouring tea by the fire. Going to market to buy carrots for dinner. Getting a thrill out of being approved of by Mrs. Eustis and Mrs. Chase—”
She stopped, because Pocket had burst out laughing and was holding a handkerchief over his lips to smother his mirth. When he could speak he said,
“Marny, I haven’t got a fancy education like yours but I’m not half-witted.” Crumpling the handkerchief, he pushed it back into his pocket. “I do not think,” he said with emphasis, “that you would be in the least like Rosabel. I don’t want you to be like Rosabel. If I love you the way you are why should I want you to be different?”
Marny’s look was full of perplexity. “Then what do you want me to do?”
“I want you to marry me,” said Pocket.
Marny shook her head. “You’d want me to give up the Calico Palace—”
“I would not,” said Pocket. He stood with his hands thrust into the untidy pockets at either side of his coat. “Why do you keep imagining you can look into my mind and tell me what I want? I know what I want.”
Marny looked down at her cards, as if drawing courage from her best friends. “Now that I’m telling you the truth, I’d better tell you all of it. Pocket, I don’t want to get married because—because I’m scared.”
This time Pocket was the one astonished. “Scared?” he repeated. “Of me?”
“Not of you,” said Marny. “I’m scared of getting too close to anybody.” She looked up, and almost fiercely she exclaimed, “I won’t take any more well-meant meddling. I won’t have any more attacks on—well, on me.”
Her words snapped at him. She paused abruptly, as if startled and embarrassed by her own candor. Pocket realized that she had not finished all she had to tell him. He waited, and after a pause she went on.
“Maybe you don’t understand that. But I’ve fought so long and hard for the freedom to be myself. Now I’ve got it, and that’s my dearest treasure. I’ll gamble with everything else, but not with that. For a minute there, I thought your bank account would be worth the risk. But as soon as you offered it to me, I knew it wasn’t. Never again am I going to try to fit anybody’s pattern but my own. All right, now you know.”
Pocket did not reply at once. His look had changed. He was regarding her now with a new tenderness. Softly and lovingly, he said, “Marny, there’s something about me you simply haven’t got in your head yet. Put up those cards and let me explain.”
Frankly baffled, Marny put away the cards. Pocket took her hands in both of his, and gently led her back to the chair. She yielded, though reluctantly, and sat down. Pocket went around to his side of the table and sat down too. He spoke to her earnestly.
“Marny, I’ve heard a lot of people talk about love. But they don’t seem to mean what I mean. They say, ‘Because I love you, you must do what I want you to do.’ That’s not what I mean at all. What I mean is, because I love you, I want you to do what you want to do.”
There was another pause. Marny cupped her chin in her hands and faced him. “I don’t believe you,” she said.
“Why not?” asked Pocket.
“Because,” she returned, “there isn’t anybody like that in the world.”
“Yes there is,” said Pocket. “There’s me.”
She shook her head.
“I’ll say it again,” said Pocket. “I want you to do what you want to do. I don’t want to change one thing about you. I don’t want you to be like me. I want you to be like you. There’s a lot of difference.”
Marny sat up straight. She struck the table a blow. “Oh, what a difference!”
She lifted her shoulders and dropped them as if trying to throw off a burden. When she spoke again she spoke slowly, again with a frankness she did not often show.
“Pocket, a lot of people have said they loved me. My family, my teachers, all those fine characters in Philadelphia. They said they loved me, then they tried to prove it by nearly driving me out of my mind. All they did, morning-noon-and-night, was try to make me different from the way I was. They could not understand that I wasn’t like them and couldn’t be like them. I couldn’t change my nature any more than I could change the color of my eyes. I tried to
please them.”
Pocket was listening closely. He did not try to interrupt her. He realized that what she was saying had been piling up in her mind for a long time, and it was a relief for her to talk about it now.
“I tried to please them,” Marny repeated, “and everything I did was wrong. Oh, I laugh about it now, but I laugh because I don’t want anybody to know—I suppose I don’t want to remember—that I had such a painful time growing up. No matter how hard I tried, I didn’t fit. I was always out of place, I was always wrong. So at last I quit trying.”
This time he answered her. “And none too soon,” he said. His voice was low and full of compassion.
She smiled at him gratefully. Pocket said,
“But I’ve told you and told you, I don’t want you to change. I’m in love with you. If you changed you’d be somebody else and I wouldn’t be in love with that somebody else.” He smiled at her, Pocket’s sweet, engaging smile. “Now do you understand?”
Marny spoke with wonder. “And you don’t want me to change in any way at all?”
“Not any way at all.”
“You don’t want me to leave the Calico Palace?”
“No,” said Pocket.
“You wouldn’t want me to live in some dim little cubbyhole, just to keep the leeches from pestering you?”
“Of course not. If I had an extravagant wife I could always say, ‘She spends every cent as fast as it comes in, I can’t give you anything.’”
Marny had not meant to laugh, but now she was laughing. She asked, “Where would we live?”
“One of my tenants,” said Pocket, “is planning a hotel more sumptuous than the Union Hotel ever was. He could put in a suite for us. You’d plan the suite, and furnish it. I wouldn’t know how. The fact is, Marny, I’ve never lived in real luxury. I’d like to try it.” He began to laugh too. “You and I are a lot more alike than you realize. And as I mentioned before, I love you. It would work, Marny.”
Marny looked down. She considered, long and thoughtfully. “I—wonder,” she said slowly. “I wonder. Wait. Let me see.”