Dungeness

by Polinsky, Karen;

  In 1887, an upturn in the economy brought an influx of new residents, which drove up the cost of real estate. W.H. Learned, an early settler of Port Townsend, built a new opera house, with drop-down scenery, boxes on either side of the huge stage, an orchestra pit, and gallery. Here, in an atmosphere of gilded elegance, the rough pioneers of the port city were entertained: the light opera The Mikado, the stage version of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and novelty acts of the traveling Negro minstrels. This was the first theater in town with fold-down seats. The eve they were introduced, the chairs thrilled the audiences more than the play.

  If a fellow craved something stronger, the Palace Theater was the place. Here, on the west side of Madison, on pilings above the harbor, the house drink was called “a boilermaker’s delight.” The rowdy audience, not excluding prominent citizens from the uptown, was kept well-plied as they took in a medley of risqué musical entertainments, or even the occasional boxing match. In 1889, the Palace changed its name to the Standard. The standard at the Standard sunk even lower, until it drained through the cracks between the floorboards like the mud and the blood and the beer.

  The City of Dreams, with its array of theaters for men and women of all classes, glittered like a magic lantern picture show. Theater helped to keep alive the dream of a luminous future.

  Interior of the Learned Opera House in Port Townsend, WA. 1915. Courtesy of the Jefferson County Historical Society.

  33

  More Love Medicine

  c. 1890

  A few days later, Thomas Astor returned. Not by chance, at dinnertime.

  From then on, the actor showed up two or three times a week, just in time for a hearty meal prepared by this hand. Day by day, Edith’s health improved. As winter turned to spring, Astor charmed Edith into submission.

  Not that it was much of a challenge. She had never really been courted before. His knowledge of Romantic poetry served him well. He memorized the couplets she loved best and declaimed them with winsome innocence.

  As the beach roses bloomed, Edith, herself a hothouse specimen, decided she preferred flowers-of-the-field to dollar roses from the uptown florist. This suited Astor: his free spirit and his wallet. Regularly, he traipsed a painful thicket to trap an errant blossom. When she was well enough, Edith went with him on his blowsy walks to the perimeter of Port Townsend. She leaned against him as he shouldered the breeze. Like foxgloves, they cupped their blossoms and reached for the sun.

  Throughout the sunny afternoons and evenings, while the two played cards in the parlor, I served a brew made from fresh lemons, or on the grey days milky oolong, to keep Edith from catching cold. When Astor desired a cake, or a plate of toast, or anything at all, he would shout, “Millie, get a wiggle on.”

  Astor purchased a mah jongg set for Edith in a tooled leather case. At the time the “ancient” Chinese game, less than a half century old, was all but unknown in America. Mallory came up with it to amuse Edith in her convalescence. What if Edith only knew that Astor’s gifts were financed by prostitutes.

  In front of the fire the two lovers would sit for hours playing with the pieces. Edith preferred the red archer tile. She said Astor, in a million and one acts of devotion, “hit the mark.” However, even as she turned up the orchid, symbol of lasting summer, I shivered, for the north wind tile clacked as it was played, it whispered in my ear: nothing good lasts. What would happen when Astor’s true character was revealed?

  Astor pledged a love that would not die. But was he in earnest? Could he be trusted? One part of me believed that he was sincere. A devious voice inside of me suspected—even hoped—that Astor was deceiving her. From my place in the wings, I became deeply—too deeply—involved. Often at night, alone in my bed, I imagined that I was the object of Astor’s affection, instead of Edith.

  However, I should assert here, from day one of his campaign to win Edith, he remained perfectly proper in his comportment toward me. His cool courtesy nearly made me forget what he really was.

  Until one afternoon in late July. As Edith was prepared for their walk, Astor paced at the bottom of the stair. As I scrambled downstairs to search for her gloves, he pounced.

  “Millie the Minx,” he whispered, saying the joking nickname he’d begun using for me. “Quick. Come here. Tell me the truth. These days, how do you find me?”

  “Handsome,” I replied.

  “Thank you. But that’s not what I meant. How do I seem with Edith? A rogue? Or in love?”

  He twisted the brim of his hat, repositioned it, and then dropped it on the floor, and crushed it under heel. “Damn it. I want her to make her believe that my heart is true. But I feel I mustn’t overplay it. Relaxed is good. But then again, I mustn’t appear bored.” He seized both of my hands. “For you she is a familiar territory. Therefore, show me the map of her heart.”

  He hurt my work-calloused and blistered palms. Ashamed to have him touch my rough skin, I put my hands inside my apron.

  “All right, I will,” I replied. “But before I do, tell me this: Do you really care, or are you in it for the cash?”

  For an instant he looked troubled. “I admit, at first, it was all in a day’s work. I liked the idea that I could satisfy Mallory by making love to Edith. The notion suited me.”

  His bemused smile faded. “That first night, when I fed her the elixir inside the little blue bottle, it was like resuscitating a corpse. She was worse than anything I had ever imagined. The sight of her was so horrifying, I think I really meant to poison her.”

  He shuddered, recovered himself, and went on. “Lately, a change has occurred. I’ve stopped playing the charlatan and have moved on to a more serious role.”

  “Pray, what?”

  “How can I be sure? I’m acting without a script. If I do say, brilliantly. All I know is this. Making Edith happy makes me happy. Pretending to care has made me care.”

  He retrieved his hat and put it on. “I have been typecast as a gentleman. I say this: If the half-boot of suede and patent leather fits, so be it.”

  “Well?”

  “The problem is, by acting like I pity her, I’ve actually begun to feel that way. If Edith were ever to experience real pain, or even the slightest discomfort, as a result of the deception that I’ve perpetrated upon her, I think I would feel terrible.”

  “I see.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes.”

  “What should I do?”

  For her sake, I made myself say the words. “Marry her.”

  “If only I could. You say you comprehend me, but it’s obvious you understand nothing—” With that he threw up his hands in a gesture of despair. Feigned or real, I could not tell.

  “I shall try again. Mallory O’Quinn pledged to pay me a substantial sum to make Edith happy. If marriage is what it takes, I’m her man . . . Mallory’s, that is. Which is why I can never be Edith’s husband.”

  He declared, “Therefore, any earnest attempt to express my real feelings can only come off as a contemptible act of deceit. The more sincerely I love Edith, the less likely it is that I can ever confess my love.”

  Poor Astor. Trapped by his own deceit.

  He lamented, “As you know, I have few scruples. But this contrived version of myself, the one that pretends to love Edith, and really does, is determined to act with uncompromising decency. Therefore, if marriage is my heart’s most earnest wish, then I must keep that desire hidden, even from myself. This is the minimum requirement if I ever hope to raise myself up to the level of the one for whom I have counterfeited a love most sincere.”

  He paused. “Now do you see?”

  Yes. I nodded my head slowly.

  And no.

  Still, I could not help but pity him.

  “Poor Thomas. Really, your intentions, aside from the baser ones, are commendable,” I gently offered. “It’s true that your connection to Edith started out as a despicable intrigue. Thomas, you are, after all, an actor. Use your talent. Simply convey no more or less than
what you actually feel. That will give leaded glass its crystal ping.”

  For nearly a minute, Astor remained downcast. Then, his countenance lifted. “Millie, how can I ever repay you? Your insight and your command of syntax has shown me a way forward. To persuade Edith of the truth, I must lie so earnestly that she’ll, in fact, believe me. That’s it, isn’t it?”

  I nodded.

  “Here it is. The only way to persuade Edith of the truth is to lie to her so earnestly that she will in fact believe me. Is that it?”

  I nodded in affirmation.

  Astor gave me a squeeze, then a peck. I tried to make it last, but he had more to say. “Millie, one more thing. She may yet die of fever.”

  I thought a moment. “That’s so. But if the pretended love is real, she might be saved. Let her believe that for as long as she lives; for if Edith ever experiences the slightest doubt, I suspect she’ll perish.”

  “One night long ago, you and I lit a lamp, an opium lamp,” I recalled. Astor placed his hand upon his heart. “That ember still glows. I—”

  Just then, at the top of the stairs Edith appeared in a diaphanous white dress. The gauzy fabric clung to her shoulders and enveloped her like crystallized frost. And me? Hard work had made me brawny as a boy. I had sprawled like some weird vine while Edith had emerged from her chrysalis a midnight moth, or a fairy. How could I compete?

  Edith silently slid down the steps and pulled him out the door, without a backward glance in my direction. With Astor around, she had no need for me. The two departed arm in arm.

  If Edith forgot my lessons, Chris did not.

  One warm Sunday afternoon, back from church, I studied with Chris in the parlor. An hour or so before, the lovers had gone on a ramble. They reappeared in time for tea. Somehow always managing to show up in time for their afternoon tray. Though they most often forgot to say thank you, they devoured the morsels I prepared for them. They were now seated on the front porch swing, dangling their feet over the bluff, like twittering finches.

  Chris offered, “For frivolous types, every morning is like a dozen muffins hot off the rack. Teatime lasts all day, and every eve is Christmas.” His eyes were bright with irritation. “We’re different. Our lives our guided by a discipline and logic derived from the pursuit of a higher principle.”

  At the time we were kneeling on hearth rug, studying a map of Africa. To my surprise, Chris, seized my hand.

  He declared, “Millie, you are making remarkable progress. In the quiet moments I find myself dwelling on your good points, rather than otherwise. From now on, you may think of me as someone who approves of you, instead of the opposite.”

  Though not exactly elated, I felt some satisfaction at his earnest declaration of—what? Friendship? Teacherly pride? Brotherly affection? The fact is I was lonely and hungry for affirmation. Edith, on fire for Astor, had thrust me out into the cold. Though Christopher’s praise was tepid, a shivering person will happily accept a rag if no blanket or overcoat is proffered. If love is a hot blueberry muffin, I pecked at the crumbs.

  As summer wore on, Thomas Astor anxiously pondered, consulting with me often if and how he should propose. Maybe he was stalling, yet I could not help but sympathize with a soul in crisis, praying for all he was worth to withstand the very real temptation to do good.

  In the end, his riddles, rhetoric, and rhymed couplets gave way to a simple heartfelt appeal. One clear fall eve, our little family was assembled on the front porch to swoon over the alchemy of a rose-scented sunset that had transformed the harbor into gold brick. Edith, seated on a low stool, feeling a bit chilled, had gathered her full skirt all about her. Astor tried to find enough floor space to get down on one knee beside her. When this failed, he tumbled into her lap, holding her awkwardly about the waist.

  He fervently declared, “Edith, I love you. I don’t deserve a goddess like you. But I want to make you happy. At least I want to try . . . will you, darling Edith, consent to marry me?”

  His address was so simple and to the point that for once I almost believed him. Almost.

  Edith, unable to speak, simply nodded her assent. The Reverend, without hesitation, blessed their union. At the same time he asked them to postpone the wedding until she was fully recovered. In the background, I noticed Christopher’s face darken.

  Summer dallied, until autumn, like a roused honey bee, bumbled in. Inside our house on the bluff the wood stove in the kitchen glowed. Edith’s engagement to Astor brightened the atmosphere as the evening shadows grew longer.

  That summer, the first spur of the rail line, from the downtown to Lake Hooker on the Hood Canal, finally opened, spurring hopes that Port Townsend one day would serve as the terminus of the transcontinental railroad. High hopes inspired a fever of land speculation. Chris, never without his leather portfolio, came home for meals and to rest for an hour. After that, he was off to pursue the next real estate tip. Often he would disappear for days.

  According to Edith, unselfish Chris wanted only to secure the family’s future. “And yours, too,” she added significantly.

  Christopher criticized me less, and even boasted to others of my modest gains, attributing the majority of it to his skill as a teacher and moral mentor. At times, his gaze lingered. At times, the intensity of the critique suggested something more than a fraternal regard. Though my feelings for him had not changed, I’m sorry to say I encouraged him. A lonely girl far from home, I still preferred condescending compliments, dropped like breadcrumbs, to disapproval.

  I justified my actions one other way: Christopher’s antipathy toward the actor had only increased. If I sometimes allowed Chris to flirt with me in his insinuating way until my mistress married, it might distract him from other matters close at hand. The more attention I paid to Christopher, the fewer questions he was apt to ask about Astor.

  I was convinced that no matter what his flaws, if Astor really loved Edith, nothing really bad could happen. But, of course, I was wrong.

  “Sir, There Shall Be No Alps!”

  c. 1890

  In the latter half of the nineteenth century, in America, prosperity rode the rails.

  The Almighty, a paper founded to promote the city of Olympia, confidently decreed that “any great terminus of the north continental railroad should terminate on Puget Sound.” Through the 1880s before Tacoma, Seattle, and Portland, and even tiny Port Gamble, the Victorian logging port on the other side of the Hood Canal, competed with Port Townsend for the chance to make their city a world capital.

  In the early 1870s, James Swan was commissioned by the Northern Pacific to shill for the rail. He called upon the citizens of the Key City to support a line from Port Townsend to Portland, which would link with the transcontinental line proposed to terminate in Tacoma. For a time, the scheme seemed viable. Real estate prices shot up; some properties changed hands more than once in a week. However, in 1873, due to an economic downturn, the Northern Pacific Rail rejected the transcontinental line to Tacoma. Recent arrivals to the City of Dreams, who had been attracted by the vision of the transcontinental rail, packed up and left on a steamship or a mule but not on a train.

  Despite this reversal, men who had staked their reputations and cash on the Port Townsend railway refused to let the dream die. Nearly fifteen years later, local leaders, many of them original pioneers, founded the Port Townsend Southern Railroad (PTSR). The PTSR proposed a line from Port Townsend to the state capital in Olympia. By the end of the decade, a fever of land speculation swept the Pacific Northwest. Eager to capitalize on the new optimism, the PTSR raised funds to lay down its first six miles of track. After just one mile, the cash ran out. Still the mile-long run of wooden ties and steel, this as a public relations ploy by Swan and others, did help to promote the scheme to the railroad tycoons.

  In 1889, the Union Pacific named Port Townsend as the final stop in its Northwest line. A jubilant editorial in the Leader celebrated the decision: “ . . . Port Townsend will be the shipping point and supply statio
n of a vast fleet that will bring to it the commerce of China, of all Asia and Western Europe and the world . . .” Within a week of the decision, the PTSR met with Union Pacific officials to create a subsidiary corporation known as The Oregon Improvement Company (OIC). To seal the deal, the PTSR offered their land deeds and assets along with $100,000 in cash.

  That fall the new line was christened in a ceremony that attracted seven thousand, the largest public gathering in the region to date. A photograph shows an assemblage of citizens, old and young, in their Sunday best. In the lower right-hand corner, two harnessed plow horses appear to be representing the technology of the bygone era.

  If so, it was just another sign of the runaway hopes of the crowd that day. One of the orators that day, Reverend D.T. Carnahan, likened the proposed line to one of Napoleon’s military campaigns. “When Bonaparte’s lieutenant asked how he would cross the Alps,” according to Carnahan, “the little emperor replied, ‘Sir . . . there shall be no Alps.’ ”

  It was a heady time.

  On Valentine’s Day of 1890 the OIC stockholders pledged twenty-five miles of the new line by fall. The contract was signed on April Fool’s Day. Almost immediately, the OIC called for six hundred horses and two thousand men. The company established eighteen construction camps, with warehouses full of provisions. A lagoon was drained. Two hundred tons of steel were shipped in. By July a Port Townsend Leader headline exclaimed: RAILROAD WORK BOOMING. That same month the railroad opened a ten-mile run from Port Townsend to Quilcene. The train took fifty-five minutes each way, with round-trip fare: $1.50.

  By the autumn of 1890, on the west side of town, better known as the swamp, a depot and a roundhouse were erected brick by brick. Next to the train yard, other new businesses temporarily thrived: J.J. Hunt’s hotel and saloon and the McNeil Hotel. Of Hunt’s hotel, the Leader reported, “He has about 35 rooms in all, a nice parlor, 16 x 26 feet, elegantly furnished, a large dining-room 22 x 80 feet, and a barroom of some dimensions.” The buildings’ facades gleamed like the freshly painted set of a staged drama.