Toby was one of those who had loved her in secret, who had come to stare at her while she danced and served drinks at Big Mike’s. He had a wife in Seattle and a baby on the way, but he cherished still a warmth for the lovely Dawson blond who had glimmered across his path as shimmering as the pale gold aurora that lit the northern sky.
“I’ll stake you to some clothes, Miss Roxanne,” he said. She started to protest, but he assured her, “You can pay me out of your earnings. We’ve need of a stewardess aboard, and when they see you dressed up in new duds, there’ll be none to match you.”
Roxanne gave him a blinding smile. She couldn’t speak just then, her throat was closed tight.
When the Trade Winds sailed, Roxanne was on her. She would take her plundered heart back to the States and to whatever awaited.
Part Four:
San Francisco 1905—1906
Chapter 36
On a brisk winter day under cloudswept skies, as the SS Trade Winds steamed through the Golden Gate, Roxanne had her first sight of the United States since she had left Seattle bound for her strange adventures in the Klondike. She found the beautiful city on its seven hills fascinating—and uncaring. Although, boldly, she traveled under her own name, there were no policemen waiting for her on San Francisco's docks. Nobody showed any interest. She had been news for a day, a scandal for a day—and then forgotten. It gave her hope. Forgotten, she could make a new life, and perhaps a good one, here on her native soil.
Jobs for women were not plentiful in San Francisco that fall. Waiters rather than waitresses served in the best eating places. Desperate, without references—for she had had an altercation with one of the passengers on board the Trade Winds after he had surreptitiously pinched her—she took the first job she could find. It was washing dishes in a waterfront restaurant. The work was hard and grubby and ill-paid, but at least she got her meals there, and had money enough to rent a small room in one of the wooden shacks that clustered on down-at-the-heel Russian Hill. The room had one great advantage—the view. From it she could see, far below, the greenish-gray sea fog of the Pacific flowing through the Golden Gate toward California’s hot inland valleys . . . and across the Bay, where beyond Belvedere and Sausalito, the wooden slopes of Mount Tamalpais rose. Roxanne was inclined to think the view was the only good thing about it, for her room was hardly bigger than a closet, and the house seemed tenanted by slatterns and bleary-eyed drunks whose raucous parties interefered with her sleep.
Overworked from long hours at the dish tubs, Roxanne concluded bitterly that life was no better at home than abroad. To cheer herself up a bit, she decided to do a little sightseeing one Sunday. She climbed Telegraph Hill, looked down its dizzy two hundred-foot cliff to the sea, then window-shopped here and there, and returned to Market Street. Waiting on the corner of Powell, about to step onto the cable car that led to the top of another hill she heard a familiar voice.
“Well, if it ain’t Roxie!”
A handsome carriage with a liveried driver drew up, and an elegantly dressed woman in bronze taffeta, wearing a picture hat laden with five stuffed birds and innumerable ribbons and orange plumes, leaned out its window. A small pince nez perched over her brown eyes, and a broad dog collar of amber and pearls encircled her aging neck. But the hennaed hair that peeped out from under that sweeping hat and the whiskey voice and broad grin were unmistakable.
“Josie!” cried Roxanne and hurried over to the carriage. “I thought you’d still be in Alaska.”
Josie shrugged. “I’m retired, Rox. Made such a pile up there I decided to stop fightin’ blizzards and corrupt officials who were always tellin’ me to pay off or they’d close me down. I sold out to my best girl—Angie. You didn’t know her; she was after you left. Anyway, I’ve bought me a place on Nob Hill, got it all gussied up, paintings by furriners, little gilt chairs and sofas won’t hold you if you sit down! Come and see it!”
Roxanne climbed in beside perfumed, powdered Josie. The older woman considered her critically. “You look terrible, Rox. Whatsa matter, down on your luck?”
Roxanne thought of her job and grimaced. “Sort of.”
“Money troubles or man troubles?”
“Both.”
Josie sighed gustily. “They go together right enough. I always say, don’t follow your heart. Look where it got me!”
Roxanne waited, fascinated; she had always wanted to hear the story of Josie’s life.
“I fell in love with a no-good drummer when I was thirteen,” said Josie. “Run away with him to Nashville, and he left me stranded. Took up with the hotelkeeper, and first thing I knew he was rentin’ me out! That made me mad. I decided I’d go into business for myself. Made enough to set up as a madam in Chicago—ran a good house, if I do say so. Met Case there. Then I had to go and fall in love with a politician named Harps, and when he lost the election, his opposition got me run out of town. Harps didn’t care; he just went back to his wife. I went on to Seattle, but found trouble there too. That’s why I teamed up with Case to go to the Klondike, Rox. There was plenty of gold in the States—I didn’t have to go any farther north for it, but I thought maybe all that ice and snow would cool me down.” She guffawed. “It sure did! Damn near froze me solid! Well, here we are!”
Leaping out, the driver handed down the ladies with a flourish and Roxanne looked up at a handsome house set into the steep hillside.
“Not much to look at outside,” remarked Josie. “But wait till you get inside!”
Inside, the mansion was indeed remarkable. Roxanne had never seen quite so many huge gilt mirrors, quite such extensive use of red velvet and velour. Josie’s favorite color was red. “Always liked those red lights,” she confided, chuckling. “I’ve got real white skin, and them red lights always made me look rosy. See them carpets, Roxanne?” She pointed the toe of her high-buttoned boot at the deep red Oriental rugs. “All made by furriners—Chinee, Injun. And them chairs, ain’t they elegant?”
Roxanne looked wistfully at the gilt chairs and loveseats, which were almost as delicate as Josie had described, all Louis XIV and upholstered in deep red velour. The drapes—of such heavy velvet that it took massive brass rods to hold them up—were red too, and completely shut out the daylight. Illumination was supplied by glowing globes with red painted roses. Even the satin brocade that covered the walls above the dark mahogany wainscoting was red.
“Josie, I can't believe it,” said Roxanne inadequately.
“Ain’t it pretty?” agreed Josie in a complacent voice. “Well, sit down, Rox, and tell me what happened to you after you left Nome.”
Roxanne perched herself on one of the pretty gilt chairs. “Leighton and I went to Singapore, and then his wife got hurt back in Washington and he went back to her.”
“They do that!” sighed Josie. “You sure can’t trust men—always goin' back to their wives! Bring us some champagne, Princeton,” Josie said to the liveried servant who hovered in the background. “So what you do then, Roxie?”
“I stayed there trying to find a place for myself. And then Rhodes found me and kidnapped me.”
“Kidnapped you? That big fellow you brought in half-dead on a dogsled into Nome? Well! I always thought he was the man for you, Rox. What a man! You should have heard him when he learned you’d shipped out with some other fellow—like to tore the place up cussin’! He paid me for his keep by givin’ me his dogs and his sled—said he had a ship somewhere.”
“The Virginia Lass. We sailed away in it. But we were attacked by pirates and got separated.” Roxanne’s eyes were shadowed. Looking down into the sparkling wine, she could relive those golden moments with Rhodes spent on a tossing ship in sultry southern seas.
“I waited for him in Singapore, but he never came. I don’t know where he is.” She drained her glass.
Josie sighed. “Like I say, don’t follow your heart, Rox. Follow your pocketbook. The road to the bank is the only road there is for women whose blood runs as hot as ours.” She sounded sad,
but roused herself suddenly. “Fill up the lady’s glass, Princeton—I like that name, don’t you, Rox? Sounds sort of genteel. His real name’s John, but I renamed him. That’s right, Princeton—splash it right up to the rim. The girl needs courage!”
Roxanne smiled. Warmed by the bubbling champagne, she was feeling better. When Josie asked, “What you doin’ now, Rox?” she admitted she was washing dishes in a waterfront dive.
“Laundry in Dawson, dishes in Frisco—you must have a secret yen to be a housewife, Rox,” observed Josie, looking swiftly at Roxanne’s hands. Roxanne was glad she was wearing mended gloves so Josie couldn’t see how red her hands were. Josie’s keen gaze switched to her face. “This fellow you’re in love with—he ain’t worth all this,” she said. “You’ve got to get on your feet, Rox.”
“How?” asked Roxanne bitterly. “I’ve got no reference, I can’t get a job and, no”—she lifted a warning hand—“I don’t want a reference to some posh sporting house, Josie.”
“I know you don’t, Rox. That ain’t your style. But . . .” She meditated. “Stand up, Rox. Turn around.”
Feeling a little foolish, Roxanne rose and turned about for Josie’s inspection.
“It’s amazing,” said Josie,, studying her. “I think you’re in even better shape than you were in Nome.”
Roxanne sat back down. “What about the people we knew in the Klondike, Josie? What ever happened to Case?”
“Case never came to Nome, Rox. But I heard he broke up with that black-haired Yvonne he was livin’ with. Heard he left Dawson. Nobody knows where he went. Australia, maybe. Most of the people we knew left Alaska long ago. Now shut up, Rox. I’m thlnkln’.” And as she thought, Josie mused aloud. “Never saw a face like it—sort of stuns you. Figure good as ever—better maybe. Hair like sunshine through the clouds. Rox!” She banged her stemmed glass down on a little table inlaid with brass and tortoiseshell. “You’re wastin’ your time down on the waterfront. Why don’t you come and live on Nob Hill?”
Roxanne sighed. “I can’t accept your hospitality, Josie. I couldn’t pay you back, and it wouldn’t be right.”
“Hell, I’m not asking you to accept my hospitality. I’m talkin’ about settin’ you up with good-lookin’ clothes and your own place where you can wander about, an unattached woman—I’ve got a few connections, you know—so’s you can snag yourself a financier! This is a man’s town, Rox—all the money here is owned by men. And you could strike it rich!”
“You mean—marry?”
Josie shrugged. “Or some such like arrangement. You’re not a woman wants to live alone—you need a man, Rox!”
It was true. She wasn’t a woman who wanted to live alone. Roxanne looked at Josie and, for the first time since she’d taken that job on the waterfront, hope sprang up in her. Why not? She’d left her heart with Rhodes in equatorial waters, but she was stuck with a body that wanted good clothes, good food. What did she have to lose?
“Josie,” she marveled, “you’re a fairy godmother!”
“Come off it, Rox,” shrugged Josie, growing as red as her drapes with pleasure. “I’m sittin’ around here with a sliver spoon in my mouth and nothin’ to do. I’m spoilin’ to be doin’ somethin’ and it’ll give me a rare old time to watch you shake golden apples off the trees here in San Francisco. You can pay me back when you get your man.”
Smiling, Roxanne agreed, and together they toasted the future.
As she had promised, Josie costumed Roxanne. She paid for a honey-beige walking suit and a blue one that clung to Roxanne’s figure and matched her eyes. And scented underthings, stockings, dainty boots. An afternoon dress of shimmering peach taffeta and a sweeping hat aswirl with exotic feathers and peach taffeta bows. Plus an evening gown of rustling black silk, low-cut and startling against Roxanne’s fair white skin.
“Josie, you've done too much,” murmured Roxanne, as Josie ushered her into a tiny but handsome town house she had rented for her.
“Nonsense. Jewels has got to have a setting, ain’t they? Brush your hair a little fuller on the side there, Rox—and pile it higher atop your head. Sure, it looks like it needs a crown. Won't be long before someone will stick a diamond tiara on it, you’ll see! And then you can pay me back and maybe—” her voice grew wistful—“maybe once in a while you’ll have me to the house, maybe to some big ball you give?”
“Josie.” Roxanne's voice grew husky at Josie’s admission that she was lonely, that she wanted to be “in society.”
“Every ball I ever give, you're invited to right now!”
Josie grinned. “Shucks, Rox,” she said. “You can’t do that—people would drop you if they knew who I was. But maybe once in a while. . . .” She became businesslike again. “Now there’s this sassiety woman, she meets her lover down at Belle’s—you don’t know Belle, but she’s got a real plushy house here. Well, this sassiety woman is gonna invite you to her party next Friday night and introduce you around, because if she don't, a letter is gonna arrive at her husband’s office in Montgomery Street suggestin’ he stroll down to Belle’s some afternoon and see what his wife is doin’.”
Roxanne stared. Her new career was to be launched on blackmail?
“Don’t look so shocked, Rox. How’d you think someone with a background like yours was gonna get herself launched? You’ve got a past these sassiety ladies would slam the door on, you know!”
Roxanne sighed. Of course she had. She had for the moment forgotten it.
Like a clucking hen, Josie made her plans. Roxanne was to go here, appear there. A certain gentleman would introduce her, a certain lady. . . .
To Roxanne’s surprise, it worked. The glamorous and somewhat mysterious young widow, Roxanne Barrington, found herself launched in a small way into San Francisco society. Parties, balls. Roxanne was reminded of Singapore and her years with Leighton.
Her beauty attracted men: rich men, important men. Josie told her who “had it” and who didn’t. Josie had a housekeeper’s mind. Afloat on a sea of invitations, Roxanne was wined and dined and feted. Even though she knew she had not yet stormed the citadels of the truly wealthy at which Josie aimed, Roxanne found herself wanting to drift, to postpone making up her mind. She knew it was because of Rhodes . . . she did not really want to marry any of these men.
The day she faced that truth, she came back to her tiny town house and found Josie waiting for her in the small second-floor salon. Josie was wearing an enormously gaudy ostrich feather hat adorned with amethysts, and her ample chest was ablaze with beaded lace overlaying magenta taffeta. She sat jauntily on one of Roxanne’s little chairs, tossing down a whiskey that Roxanne’s maid had brought her. She looked smug.
Attired in the peach confection, Roxanne swept into the room and tossed her hat to a chair. “I just don’t seem to be interested in any man I meet, Josie,” she sighed, stripping off her peach kid gloves.
“Well, that’s good, Rox,” said Josie surprisingly, “because I wouldn’t want you to be.” She chuckled. “We’ve netted our fish, sure enough, and he’s the right one! I knew if I was to waltz you around the town you’d attract attention, and here’s the proof I was right!” She waved a note gleefully. “I’d just arrived when all those flowers come—Emma’s putting them in water now, but I had her give me the note.” She patted her beaded purse.
At that moment Emma, Roxanne’s maid, came into the room almost obscured by an enormous vase of long-stemmed red roses.
“Who sent them?” asked Roxanne.
“She don’t know,” chuckled Josie, “and I ain’t tellin’. But it’s a gentleman who’s been in Europe. He just got back and he saw you riding by in a carriage and found out where you lived. He’s from the East Coast, but he transferred his business out here. Says he knows you, Rox!” Her brown eyes sparkled.
Roxanne stared at her. Leighton! Allison must have died and he’d come to San Francisco to live. He’d probably been in Europe visiting his diplomatic connections there.
“Oh, Ro
x!” Josie went over and hugged her. “You got yourself a real tycoon at last! Hurry up, the gentleman’s expecting you at his house.”
Roxanne frowned. Why hadn’t he come here? But then, she and Leighton had never stood on ceremony. Doubtless he had his reasons. Swiftly she combed out her hair, touched a little French perfume to her earlobes and throat and the white hollow between her breasts. Resisting Josie’s urging to add a touch of rouge to her already flushed cheeks, Roxanne pulled on her kid gloves and studied her reflection critically in the tall pier glass that stood in one corner.
A peach and gold vision looked back at her. Her long dress, which rustled nicely as she walked, fitted her like her own skin and molded her firm young breasts and deliciously slender waist as if it had been painted on.
“Come on, you look good enough to eat,” said Josie impatiently. “I’m droppin’ you off at his house.”
Roxanne found herself hurried out to Josie’s carriage, which promptly clattered away to Nob Hill and stopped before a white marble mansion of awe-inspiring proportions. Plainly Leighton was even wealthier than she had thought. She tried to ask the butler who answered the door whose house this was, but Josie pushed her forward with a crisp, “The lady’s expected,” and went her way, chuckling.
The door closed and Roxanne looked about her nervously. She found herself in a large octagonal high-ceilinged entrance hall with floors of black and white marble squares. On both sides a heavy white marble stair curved upward to a balcony-like landing at the top. All the downstairs walls were of white marble and were hung with French paintings of nymphs in forest glades, of ladies in huge pastel hoop skirts and powdered wigs, dallying in dappled light and shade. About her she saw a sprinkling of small gilt furniture covered in satin brocade.
She was promptly escorted through tall white double doors to a huge room that was almost frighteningly magnificent. Its ceiling reached up two stories and was ornately carved and painted. The walls were of rococo plaster, gilded and painted with vast murals. Looming against one wall was a huge green marble fireplace that a horse could have stood up in, and on the black marble floor of this treasure house were several large Chinese rugs in soft, glowing shades of green. The furniture was heavy and ornate, with brass ornamentation and painted inlays—all of it looked as if it might have been stolen from a museum. Did Leighton really live this way? Roxanne marveled.
These Golden Pleasures Page 44
