by Poppy
As she stepped into the Palace, she twitched her skirts so they made a rich rustling sound on the red carpeting. Perhaps nobody could hear that sound over the six-piece band playing full blast, but when sailors and miners had not seen a woman for six months, it was amazing how sharp all their senses were. She tilted her head this way and that so the blaze of light from the crystal chandeliers, reflecting back from the gilded ceiling, would catch the glint of gold in her curls. A drunken miner had thrown a whole handful of gold dust over her head last night, and while she had brushed her hair carefully over a sheet when she got home, she knew enough remained to sparkle beautifully. Strolling across the room, she paused under one of the large oil paintings. She was not nude, but anyone could observe that her wrist was more finely turned and her bosom and waist neater than the painted beauty's.
From the end of the bar, Pete murmured, "You're late."
She slipped around to him and smiled. They were firm friends. She was the most beautiful and popular girl at the Palace, and he was the best bartender in San Francisco.
His handlebar mustache was always groomed to a hair, his white shirt immaculate and his red velvet waist-coat impeccable, but it was his art that fascinated Poppy. He could serve a party of thirty and never write down an order or mistake one. Men swore he could remember their drink if he had served them only once, even if that was six months before. He kept the long mahogany bar, the great ceiling-high mirrors in their ornate carved frames, and every bottle and glass sparkling. There were no fights at Pete's bar. He never had to do more than lean forward, his great fists resting on the gleaming mahogany, and speak quietly. Loud voices dropped, and angry men turned away. Only last week when a new assistant, who simply did not understand the proper Palace tone, had thought he saw a man starting to draw a gun and jumped over the bar, everyone had been so horrified there was hardly a sound in the great room for a full thirty seconds. Then Pete had moved quietly around the bar, picked up the new assistant by his pants and shirt collar, carried him to the door, and kicked him into the street. Everybody drew a vast sigh of relief. This was still the best-run bar in town. The band started playing louder, the gamblers slapped down their cards with elan, and every customer bellied up and ordered a double.
Poppy stepped out of her boots and shawl, into her slippers, and handed the filled basket to Pete to put under the bar. "Has he been waiting long?"
"Got here early to read the papers."
Poppy glanced toward the comer where easy chairs were set around tables covered with newspapers and periodicals. "Did you get a Punch or Illustrated News?"
"No, but somebody brought in a London Times an hour ago."
That was good. In Pallminster Lane, they naturally had never read the Times, but the gentlemen sometimes discussed what it had said, and Daisy repeated their remarks. Now Poppy had come to feel the Times was a great comfort because once you knew what it said, you knew exactly how you should stand on any issue. It settled what was right and proper. The San Francisco papers were most confusing. Each paper reflected its editor's attitudes, and no two editors agreed on anything.
"Perhaps later," Pete said. "There's an English ship unloading today."
"Is there?" Poppy said, moving toward the back.
Jeremiah was waiting beside the table where Maurice was playing. It was not only his great height, his prematurely white hair framing a clean-shaven face, and his impeccably tailored black broadcloth suit that made him conspicuous; it was that he was not gambling, smoking, or drinking. In a town where two men could not meet without a quick drink, he never touched a drop of anything. He was only there waiting for Poppy, as he did every day.
Poppy smiled, tilted her head, and drifted gracefully toward an upholstered chair set against the wall. Jeremiah drew another up beside her. A waiter appeared instantly with a small table and a bucket of ice holding a bottle of champagne. Another brought a silver tray set with a glass, a bottle of whiskey, two cups of coffee, and an oyster roll in a heavy linen napkin.
The waiter opened the champagne, and Poppy took a dutiful sip from the glass while he slipped the bottle back in the bucket, then whipped it away again. Pete could make champagne 'cocktails from that for the miners to buy for the other girls. Jeremiah put the bottle of whiskey in the deep pocket of his coat. He would take that to the clubhouse of his Volunteer Fire Company. Poppy drank coffee and nibbled on the oyster roll. This was a daily ceremony, the price Jeremiah paid for fifteen minutes of her company.
"You look tired," Jeremiah said jealously.
Until then Poppy had felt in the bloom, though the flush on her face rose from rage at the thought of Dex and Felicite.
"You should let me send a carriage for you."
That walk was the most pleasant part of her day and her freedom. "It's enough that you send one to take me home at night." At least she had stopped his accompanying her, but she was certain it would be reported to him if she ever went any place other than home and alone.
"I have to go to Sacramento next week. You've never been on a steamer. It's a pleasant trip there. We could stay the night and return the next day. You need a little rest and a holiday."
"Andy and I must make the trip sometime. You are settled on running for this senatorship?"
"Running for the Senate," Jeremiah corrected, smiling fondly.
"You are?"
"We are holding discussions. Policy. How best to maintain law and order. We brought back respect for law once, but the disorders are growing again. Rowdies still infest the town. The Sydney Ducks are still with us. A whole shipload of Chinese prostitutes landed lately. We have thefts on the wharfs, cases of arson, robberies, and violent deaths every night."
Poppy put down the crust of her oyster roll. She knew Jeremiah was proud of his service with the Vigilantes, but she thought San Francisco was doing very well for a town that was growing like a balloon inflating. What Jeremiah said was true. Yet he made it sound like a forest fire of lawlessness running out of control, and she thought of it as more like a constant series of little bonfires that only needed watching so they did not spread. She knew she would not like to live in a place where plain citizens took it on themselves to act as judges and hang other men. In England, they sometimes had hanging judges, but at least they were judges.
"I think this is a fine city, Jeremiah," she said gently.
"You've told me what happened the day you landed -robbery, assault, close to murder. Lawlessness, violence, rampant, rampant."
She had told him, and she heartily regretted it. "Now we find living here very pleasant."
"Women do not understand the broader aspects," Jeremiah pronounced, patting her hand. "You need a man to think and act and care for you."
Poppy was startled at how warmly she disagreed. She enjoyed reading the Times and being informed, and once she was informed, depending on the respect she felt for the source, and she did respect the Times, she felt she could make up her own mind, decide what she thought was right. She did not think she respected Jeremiah, and she was far from sure he was right. She certainly did not want him to decide and control her life.
She fluttered her lashes, only grateful he could not dream how she resented his remark, while she groped for words. In the little silence between them, she was aware of a stir rippling around the room, indrawn breaths and a murmuring. She glanced toward the door and felt a chill run through her. The tawny-haired man standing there, wearing a pale, elegant gray suit, was handsome and distinguished looking. He was poised like a man looking for trouble. Conversation stopped Every man and woman in the room knew Jeremiah Dunbar had only been stopped from drawing on Amberson, not once but at least twice, because the editor had announced he was not armed. He said he believed in settling political disputes by intelligent debate, not gunpowder. But everybody believed that one day Jeremiah's taunts would bring him out armed and ready to fight.
Now Amberson strolled across the room as Jeremiah got to his feet. He bowed to Poppy and held out a copy of hi
s newspaper to Jeremiah.
"I considered my editorial today might be of interest to you, so I brought you this. I didn't want you to miss it."
Jeremiah did not move or take the paper. ''The subject?"
"In honor, if you can call it that, of the first anniversary of the Vigilante-type hanging of a woman. You remember Juanita?"
"She was a killer."
"She was protecting her man. Maybe he wasn't much, but he was hers."
"You'd have turned her loose to kill again?"
"Such people don't kill twice. She was a simple soul, a woman, a very young woman. She was murdered by a mob. There are mob murders going on again around the mining camps, lawless hangings, brutal hangings, slow strangling deaths."
"Because for too long such snakes were turned loose with only a warning to leave town and allowed to carry their venom to the next diggings. Now the lawless are being hung. As they should be."
"We have provisions in this state for due process of law and proper procedures of trying and sentencing." Amberson's voice was soft, but clear and carrying. "I believe in our state constitution. I believe in law and order. I don't want to see a return of so-called law enforcement outside the law."
"I am proud of my record with the Vigilantes."
"At the time you probably rendered a necessary service," Amberson admitted. "It is no longer necessary. I don't want to see it return."
"I think you will see it return."
"I may. I hope not. But I don't want to see it return because of trumped-up, false charges of the failure of proper procedures when there is no failure. I don't want to see it return simply to feed the vanity and greed of power-hungry men."
"Sir, I think we should continue this discussion outside. There are ladies here."
"I am saying nothing improper for a lady to hear. I want everybody to know and hear how I feel about this."
"Use your filthy newspaper for that purpose. I won't dirty my hands with it."
"I'll spread my ink thinner. But not my convictions, Dunbar. This is a fine town, a lusty town with growing pains, but it's going to be a great city. I won't have your warped views from another day distorting the present situation."
Jeremiah's face was white. "Do you care to make that clearer?"
"We'll soon have fifty thousand people here. We have fine homes, churches, schools, theaters. We have a busy port, many manufactories, prosperous trade. Your warped view chooses to see none of this. You see, 'Here malice, rapine, accident conspire, And now a rabble rages, now a fire... .' "
"You phrase it well"
"I?" Amberson laughed, turned on his heel, and went toward the doors. "What was he laughing at?" Jeremiah demanded and started after him. "He's going to explain that to me."
"Please, please." Poppy caught his arm. "It was-I just remembered. I heard The Rev say that." Jeremiah glared at her. "What are you babbling about?"
"That's from a quotation. I mean it is a quotation. About London. By Dr. Johnson, I think."
"A sawbones." Jeremiah relaxed. "Those university fellas have their heads stuffed full of books and their mouths full of words, but sometimes they do manage to hit the nail on the head. I'm surprised Amberson would quote him." He paused. "Just trying to show off his own fancy education," he decided.
Poppy let go of her long-held breath. Amberson had come in here looking for trouble, and it was a mercy she had managed to distract Jeremiah to herself.
"I'm going over to the Firehouse," Jeremiah said. "I want the Company to know Amberson's up to something. He's going to fight us on every issue straight down the line, and he must have strong backing."
"He just doesn't want to see the Vigilantes back again."
"Sweet child, stay that way," Jeremiah said absently and then roared, "He was trying to trap me. He was trying to get me to make a statement that would defeat me in this election. It's going to be an all-out fight."
"Then you won. You didn't say anything."
"I will. I will. I have a civic conscience. I'll make a statement. I'm not going to stand still until he manages to convince people they're living in paradise and can relax so they end up with their throats cut and playing their harps in a heavenly paradise before they figured on it. I'll have a statement in our papers before I see you tomorrow, sweetheart."
Shaking her head, Poppy watched him go and then drifted over to watch Maurice play. He had been tight-lipped and tense ever since he had had to draw on a player last week. The man had backed down without shooting, but Maurice's eyes still seemed to glitter as brilliantly as the diamond in his stickpin while his fingers dealt the thin Spanish cards. Today he smiled briefly and looked more natural.
She sat for a time with a weeping miner who repeated over and over, "Finest partner a man ever had," until she realized the partner was dead and the mourning man was the sole owner of a rich claim. Then she strolled over to the entrance. The tone of the Palace did not permit the display of a table heaped with gold, or girls waiting just inside the doors, but a glimpse of a smiling face and a fluttering skirt never hurt business.
She fluffed her ruffles, catching a breath of fresh air and laughing at a small boy being pulled along by a large dog on a rope. She stiffened as she caught a glimpse of the pale blue carriage rolling down the street toward her. A man was sitting beside Felicite, a tall man with his tall hat tilted jauntily over one eye and the gold head of his cane glinting between his knees. Felicite was leaning forward, her pale face animated, gesturing and laughing, making a pretty play of a delightfully flustered lady showing some dubious sights to a visitor.
She pointed her ivory fan straight at the Palace and at Poppy standing in the doorway. Dex's head turned, and their eyes met, but his face did not change, and he made no sign. He did not smile, bow, or acknowledge Poppy in any way. Instead he turned to Felicite, his head tilting attentively, and made some small comment that made her shake her head and laugh again.
Poppy clutched the door frame and watched the carriage drive away down the street.
Chapter Twenty-six
SHE was fainting inside, sinking away into nothingness, while outwardly she still stood by the door, smiling in the sunshine. Then with a surge of rage the blood rushed through her, and she turned with a graceful swing of her skirts, to stroll back across the red carpet. She was blind and deaf and shaking inwardly with fury while she stood and seemed to listen admiringly to the musicians and move slightly, enticingly, to the beat.
He had not even given her a private smile or glance. He had looked straight through her, cut her dead. She had been right. Felicite was the only woman he valued. For Felicite, he had risked her life. When he was with Felicite, she, Poppy, was merely one of the sights of a gaudy part of town, a cause for shared secret smiles, made sweeter by a slight maidenly confusion.
Poppy did not know what she was doing or saying. Once or twice she had a fleeting impression Pete or Maurice had been staring at her. From somewhere outside herself, she heard laughter and a high shrill voice chattering and knew they were her own.
Yet she could not have appeared too strange. A nice young miner who had hit it rich bought a bottle of champagne to sit with her and made a small jest about anything so light costing so heavy. He told her about his girl back in Connecticut and asked if she thought the girl's parents would consider a necklace of gold nuggets improper. They were betrothed. Poppy had no idea what she answered, but the young man seemed happy.
She knew she talked and laughed with others, but finally she was only sure it was midnight, and she could leave.
The carriage Jeremiah hired for her was waiting.
"Big doings up on the hill tonight," the driver chatted. "The banker's got some important man visiting from France. Or maybe it's England. With those follows, you never can tell."
"A dinner? Important men?"
The driver hooted. "Important everybody. A reception. All the big men and their ladies, and I honest-to-God think they was all wives there tonight, and everybody in their best
bib and tucker and stepping high. They even had the old Mexican government officials and their ladies in those fancy mantillas. Real polite spoken, those always are. Didn't really fight us when we came in here and raised our flag, and I know because I was here."
Her head was bursting, but she did not need to answer. The driver was a man who liked to talk.
"I think maybe it was for the girl. The girl and him, the visitor. Yes, siree, that's it. I heard she met him at the boat, and they both got bags of gold, and they like somebody of their own kind, no matter where they're from, to sit with them, don't they? Didn't your Queen marry a German?"
"A queen and a banker are a little different."
"Anyhow, I'll bet this was to let people know they're getting hitched." The driver cackled. "I'd like to see a big wedding in this town. We got the churches, and they could put on a show for us."
