"He is a Scottish terrier," a soft voice replied. "I call him Gordie. He seems to like your dog. What breed is he?"
"Oh, I think he is some sort of mixture. Jamie, that's my son, found him on the street being tormented by some boys. We call him Dandy. There, I think we have them untangled," Barbara added.
The other woman pulled her dog to her side, letting her full skirts separate the dogs. She then nodded politely and began to move past Barbara.
"Oh, Mrs. Francis, before you go. You must think me daft. But I particularly wanted to meet you because I wondered if you ever gave piano lessons. I would like my son, he is eight, to learn. I wouldn't be able to pay much, but...."
"Oh my, no," the woman said. "I don't think that would be possible. My husband wouldn't let…I mean, a small boy in the house…I don't think he...."
Barbara broke into the woman's protestations. "You have misunderstood me. I live at Mrs. Fuller's boarding house on O'Farrell, and she has an upright in the parlor that she lets the boarders use. I thought you might be able to teach him there."
Seeing that the woman was shaking her head and uttering more disjointed phrases, Barbara continued, "Please, just think about it. Now I must let you go on your way. It was a pleasure to meet you."
As she moved past, she thought she heard Mrs. Francis reply faintly, "So kind of you.” Perhaps she is just shy, Barbara thought as she moved on. I could stop by and visit her next week, bring Jamie with me; nobody withstands his charm.
*****
Barbara sat bolt upright in her bed, drenched in sweat. Her heart pounded, the remnants of a dream swiftly evaporating. She had been back in Kansas, lost in the cornfields, and she had shouted. No, someone else had shouted. As her eyes began to focus, she realized Dandy was standing on the bed beside her, staring intently towards the window, whose curtain she had left open in the weak hope that this would permit the ferocious heat of the room to escape.
"Did you hear something, Dandy?" she whispered. When she spoke, he looked back at her briefly and then turned again, leaning forward, his neck stretched out, sharp ears cocked. Without warning, he began to growl while backing up, never turning his head from the window. Barbara snatched the dog to her chest, trying to soothe him. She feared he would wake Jamie or, worse yet, Miss Minnie and Miss Millie across the hall. Then she noticed Dandy was trembling violently, and she could feel his heart beating wildly under her hands.
"What is it, boy? Let's go see. Is there a prowler out there? Do we need to sound the alarm?" Barbara disengaged herself from the bedclothes and got up, all the while stroking the agitated dog. She crossed to the desk in front of the window, which was again piled high with essays to grade. Looking outside, she noticed that, despite the late hour, there was a light on across the way. I bet I am not the only person who is finding it hard to sleep in this heat, she thought. Then she saw a man, she assumed it was Mr. Francis, move into view, his back to the window. He was shirtless, his suspenders over bare skin, and he seemed to be staring at his feet. Dandy struggled in her arms and began to bark. The man swung around to peer out the window, and Barbara scuttled backwards, her heart again pounding, Dandy now silent in her arms.
Surely he couldn't see me. I'm standing in the dark. He just heard Dandy, she thought. Nevertheless, when she crept back to the window, she approached from the side and peeked out again. The light had gone out, and the texture of the square of darkness at the window suggested that the man had pulled the curtains as well. She stared out for a moment, seeing nothing else stirring in the still night air.
"Mother, what's wrong?" Jamie called.
"Nothing, dear. Dandy just heard something, but everything is fine. Probably some cat," she said, hoping this was true. She felt Dandy's hot breath on her cheek, but he was no longer trembling, so she set him down and heard the sharp click, click, click of his toenails as he made his way across to Jamie's bed. As she climbed back into her own bed, she heard the soft murmurs of her son talking to his dog, and she smiled and unexpectedly went to sleep.
*****
"Mother, I told you, he isn't a mongrel. Georgie's Uncle Sean said he saw a dog just like Dandy back east, and he was a special new kind of dog. Part English bulldog, part English terrier, and part French bull dog." Jamie trotted in front of her, holding Dandy's leash.
Barbara replied, "Well, Jamie, if that isn't a mongrel, I don't know what is. Be careful, don't let him! Oh dear, too late." Dandy, who had been weaving back and forth, his minute black nose snuffling up smells from the wooden planks of the sidewalk, had suddenly swerved right and lifted his leg on a barrel of shoes outside a cobbler’s. At least the dark stain on the barrel attested to Dandy not being the first dog to anoint it. But really, did he have to lift his leg every few feet?
"Mother, I'm telling you, they gave this mixture a name! That makes it a pure breed. Least that's what Georgie's Uncle Sean says, and he's an expert on dogs, Georgie says. His Uncle Sean says that they call dogs like Dandy Boston terriers cause they were made in Boston. But seems to me if Dandy was born in San Francisco, he should be called a San Francisco terrier, don't you think?"
"Well, if you ask me, since he is of English and French heritage but made in America, I think that they should call them American terriers. But it doesn't matter what he is. Dandy's a fine dog." Barbara smiled at her son. Whatever kind of dog Dandy was, he was a blessing. They had had to move so often in the first four years after they left Kansas that Jamie had become quiet and withdrawn. Moving last year to San Francisco was even harder on him. San Francisco was such a big city. The papers said when the 1880 census was taken next year, the city might turn out to have as many as 400,000 people! So much noise and bustle, Jamie had seemed afraid to go outside. Moving to Mrs. Fuller's boarding house last January had helped; everyone was so nice to him. But in the last month since he had rescued Dandy, he had become a new boy. He was making friends, and he had begun to roam the neighborhood on his walks with his dog. She was so relieved, and she felt as long as he had Dandy with him, he would be all right.
"Jamie, wait, let that wagon get past before we cross Jones." Barbara moved to the end of the wooden sidewalk to stand by her son, watching to make sure he had a tight grip on Dandy's leash. It was early Saturday morning, a week since she had run into Mrs. Francis, and they were on their way to visit the resale shop, hoping to find her alone.
"Now I know you aren't very excited about having piano lessons, but I want you to give it a try," Barbara said a few moments later as they approached the resale shop. The windows fronting the sidewalk were jammed with hammers, boxes of nails, iron files, several shovels tied together like some gigantic bouquet, and a saw that looked large enough to fell a redwood. Then she noticed that the shade on the front door was pulled down, and a “closed” sign hung against the shade.
Before she had fully digested this obstacle to her plan, her son, who tugged at her sleeve, distracted her.
"Look at Dandy, Mother. What's the matter with him?"
Barbara looked down and saw that Dandy was standing stock still in front of the iron gate across the entryway to the side of the store, stretched out as long as possible from his pathetically small nose to his equally diminutive crooked tail, and his right front paw was drawn up under his belly. He looked for all the world like some miniature hunter, at point.
"Well, dear, he seems to have found some particularly intriguing scent," she said, trying not to laugh. Then Dandy, growling, began to move stiff-legged towards the gate, and as Barbara came up behind him, she was startled to see the fur at the back of his neck standing up. Her son had knelt beside the dog, looking through the gate and down the side of the house, and he said, "There, there, boy. What do you see? Is there another dog down there?"
Barbara, fully expecting to see Mrs. Francis' Scottie, peered down the narrow passageway, but she saw nothing but an empty brick walkway. Dandy then sat down abruptly and began to howl.
*****
"Positively howled! I don't know how t
o describe it, a kind of eerie yodel. It was the most bone-chilling sound," Barbara said to the three women sitting with her in the kitchen later that evening. Mrs. O'Rourke, the cook, Kathleen, the servant, and Mrs. Fuller, the boarding house owner, all looked at the dog in question, who was lying down, his small muzzle between his front paws, his brown eyes looking up at them.
Barbara felt like an interloper in the basement kitchen. Yet she was desperate for advice, and this was the only place she could think to turn. She didn't know why she felt so uncomfortable. Jamie, of course, could be found down here almost every day, doing his homework or playing with Dandy, who stayed in the kitchen when Jamie was at school and Barbara was at work. And she knew that Mrs. Stein often spent the evening down here when her husband was away on business. It wasn't that she felt she was above Mrs. O'Rourke or Kathleen, either. Mrs. O'Rourke had been so good to Jamie; she felt nothing but gratitude towards her. And Kathleen! Well, she just wished the young girls in her English and literature classes had half the intelligence and lively curiosity of Kathleen, who was probably not much older than those students. Maybe it was the third woman sitting across from her in the kitchen rocking chair, Mrs. Annie Fuller, who made her feel so uneasy.
Mrs. Fuller was a young widow, in her mid-twenties, who had inherited the house on O'Farrell Street and last year had turned it into a boarding house, although Mrs. O'Rourke was in charge of the day-to-day running of the household. She was a slender, graceful woman with reddish blonde hair and deep brown eyes--eyes that were now looking at Barbara with disconcerting directness. She sees too much. That's what makes me uncomfortable, Barbara thought. Everyone else just sees me as Mrs. Hewitt, the schoolteacher and doting mother of Jamie. She looks like she can see into my very soul. She couldn't possibly be really clairvoyant, could she?
Barbara tore her eyes away and looked back down at Dandy. As "Madam Sibyl," Mrs. Fuller spent most of her days reading palms and charting stars in order to advise a number of proper middle-aged women and prosperous businessmen. Mrs. Fuller had explained to Barbara, when she had interviewed her about becoming one of her boarders, that she billed herself as a clairvoyant because this was the only way she could get paid for the domestic and business advice she gave. She had assured Barbara that her clientele was very select and that there would be no reason for her to worry about the effect living in the same house as Madam Sibyl would have on her son or her own reputation. At the time, Barbara had been so eager to move out of the wretched rented room she and Jamie had been living in that she had paid little attention to these assurances. But Mrs. Fuller had been true to her word. In fact, she was so discreet that Barbara had only once gotten a glimpse of her dressed in the odd clothing and wig that made up her alter ego, and Jamie seemed oblivious to the fact that the Madam Sibyl who worked in the front parlor of the house and the "nice Mrs. Fuller" were one and the same.
Of all the women in the boarding house, Mrs. Fuller was closest to her in age and education. They both had been married but were now without their husbands, and it would have been natural for the two of them to become close. Nevertheless, Barbara had been relieved that Mrs. Fuller seldom ate with her boarders and that there hadn't been many opportunities to get to know her better. Until now. Why do I have such difficulty making friends? Surely none of these women would ever deliberately hurt me, she thought.
"Mrs. Hewitt, dogs do howl. Why has this upset you so?" Mrs. Fuller's crisp clear voice interrupted Barbara's thoughts. "Was there a particular reason you needed to see Mrs. Francis today about the piano lessons?"
"Oh, no. Not really," Barbara replied. "But afterwards, I began to worry about Gordie, Mrs. Francis' little black Scottie. You know, from my window I can look down and see into their back yard. On the days I'm not working, I always see Gordie, digging in the back or sitting in the shade of a bush by the back door. And every evening, about when the sun sets, I hear Mrs. Francis call for him to come into the house. But I haven't heard her or seen the dog in a few days."
"Perhaps Mrs. Francis is away," Mrs. Fuller said.
"Yes, yes," said Barbara. "That is what her husband told me, but I don't know...."
Kathleen interrupted, "Did you speak to the lady's husband then? A handsome man but ill-mannered from what I have heard."
"Yes, I did. Maybe that is what has me so rattled. While we were trying to figure out what was wrong with Dandy, suddenly Mr. Francis loomed over the gate and asked us what was going on. Quite startled us, Dandy included, because Dandy started snarling and then leaped up, as if he wanted to bite the man on the nose. Of course, he couldn't reach him, but he can leap awfully high, and Mr. Francis pulled back and began to curse. Quite abusive. Ill-mannered is the least of it!"
"Heavens be merciful," said Mrs. O'Rourke. "What did you do?"
Barbara smiled at Mrs. O'Rourke and said, "Well, first I instructed Jamie to pick Dandy up and take him down the block and hold on to him. Then I tried to apologize to Mr. Francis. To be fair, Dandy had been very fierce, and I think he gave Mr. Francis a start." Barbara saw the three women look down at the small dog at their feet, appearing anything but fierce as he lay on the floor, gently snoring.
Barbara went on. "In my apology, I had mentioned that I had hoped to see his wife, and that is when he said Mrs. Francis had left Wednesday evening on a trip. In fact, he became quite friendly. Told me his wife's sister had turned ill and his wife had left very suddenly. Called himself an old bachelor, having to cook for himself."
Kathleen scoffed, "What cheek! His wife isn't gone three days, and he's trying out his blarney on you. Georgeanne, who works in the house next to them, she said he was a flirt and how it was such a shame with that pretty blonde wife of his. But they do say, 'When the cat’s away, the mice do play.'"
As the women laughed, Barbara thought, Was that why I felt so uneasy? Because Mr. Francis was trying to flirt with me?
"Mrs. Hewitt, if Mrs. Francis' absence is accounted for, why are you still uneasy?" Mrs. Fuller said, disconcertingly echoing her thoughts. "It's Gordie, isn't it?"
Barbara looked in those clear brown eyes and nodded. "Yes, I shouldn't be worried. I even asked after Gordie, offered to take him for walks with Dandy while his wife was away. He told me it wouldn't be necessary, that his wife had taken the dog with her on Wednesday night. But you see, I remember Wednesday night because I had trouble sleeping, and later I woke up from a disturbing dream. The light was on across the way, and I saw Mr. Francis in the upstairs window. Not his wife, but then she would have left earlier in the evening. What worries me is that right before I fell asleep the first time, around midnight, I could swear I heard Gordie furiously barking at the back door. If that is true, why did Mr. Francis lie about his wife taking the dog, and what has happened to Gordie?"
*****
It was Sunday afternoon, and Barbara was sitting on the front porch of the boarding house, escaping the heat of her attic room. Jamie was off with Dandy and a friend; they said they were going to the wharf to watch the ships, but she suspected they were primarily hoping that it would be cooler nearer the bay.
Mrs. Fuller came through the front door to the porch, trailed by a man, and said, "Mrs. Hewitt, I would like to introduce you to Patrick McGee."
Patrick McGee was an open-faced young man who had tried to counter his youthful freckles with a fiercely waxed mustache that was several shades darker than the copper curls on top of his head. She had heard a good deal about Patrick from Jamie. She knew that he was Mrs. O'Rourke's nephew and, as Jamie put it, that he was "sweet on Miss Kathleen" and that he was in the city police department. It turned out that it was in this latter capacity that he might be of help to Barbara.
Mrs. Fuller continued, "This morning, Kathleen mentioned your concern about Mrs. Francis' dog to him, and he thought he might have a way of setting your mind at rest."
Yesterday evening's discussion in the kitchen about what might have happened to Gordie had gone on for some time, with no resolution. Mrs. O'Rourke had been of t
he opinion that Barbara had heard another dog and that Gordie was happily traveling with his mistress. Kathleen, who had developed a strong antipathy to Mr. Francis from her friend Georgeanne, asserted her belief that he had taken advantage of his wife's absence to give the dog away.
She had said, “Georgeanne told me that when she is in the back yard, hanging the laundry, she's heard him yell at the dog something terrible. Can you imagine? His poor wife will come back, and that blackguard will say, ‘Oh, my dear, somehow your poor dog got out. I promise I looked every where for him!’”
Mrs. Fuller had held her own council until she had finally turned to Barbara and said, "Mrs. Hewitt, do you think he harmed Gordie? Is that why you are so upset?"
When she had said those blunt words, Barbara had realized that was exactly what she thought. She had said, "I just can't get the image out of my mind of Mr. Francis striking the dog in anger, perhaps killing him accidentally, and burying him under his new sidewalk."
She had gone on to tell them about how she had noticed last Thursday that a stack of bricks and a pile of sand that had been sitting in the Francis' back yard for a month was gone. Instead, there was a new brick walkway from the back door to around the side of the house.
"At the time, I thought how odd of Mr. Francis to do this work when it was so hot. But then later, after I thought of how upset Dandy was, sitting in front of that new walkway and howling. Well, I just couldn't help but think that poor little Gordie might be buried under those bricks."
Barbara remembered the look of horror on everyone's face when she had confessed her fear. However, after much more discussion, no one could think of how to determine if it was true. Yet here was Mrs. Fuller, the very next day, telling her she had found a way to do so. Barbara stood up and shook hands with Mr. McGee, saying, "I am so pleased to meet you. You were so kind to help Jamie get the dog license for Dandy. I would be glad to hear your ideas about how to find out what happened to Mrs. Francis' little dog."
Victorian San Francisco Stories Page 5
