by Poppy
Then she realized that almost all of them were drinking beer. The Palace only stocked beer for the drinkers who liked it as a mix. Nobody ever walked in here and just ordered a beer. But these Australians had.
"Beers and three whiskeys," the man said as if she were lack-witted and had not understood.
Now that she had considered it carefully, she decided she did not like these men at all. "I'll speak to the bartender and see you're served," Poppy said icily.
She flounced over to Pete. "Those men. Those Australians. They say they have a gold rush too, and it's bigger than ours. And better behaved."
"I've lost a few good customers to them," Pete said calmly. "I hear a lot of European ships are going there instead of here. Good thing. Leaves all the more for us."
"Then what are they doing here?"
"Some of them probably are on their way to Washington. Government business. And others could want to see our processes in the deep mining."
Poppy sniffed. "You mean they'd admit we have something they don't? Oh, they want three whiskeys. All the rest beer. Beer!"
"They drink a lot of it. I'll send it down, our best local."
She did not go near that corner again. Those Australians were happy together, and they could stay together, alone together. Plenty of men were happy to buy her champagne cocktails or slip a part of their winnings into her hand if she just stood beside them at a table while they played. Nobody else would even think she should carry great slopping mugs of beer to them. Americans knew how to treat a lady.
No tall English figure appeared. Poppy began to make excuses. Dex had social obligations, business appointments, all doubtless arranged before he ever sailed. He had been able to find only that one short space of time since he arrived, no matter how much he longed to hold her in his arms again, even if he had resolved not to see her again. She thought he had. She did not think now he would be able to hold to that resolve. Her whole being was set now on the belief he could not. So she made excuses: He dealt with large sums, estates, governments, and he probably had to go to Sacramento for a day or two. He might even have to go to look at one of the great ranchos. Some were as large as whole kingdoms. He was not able to call his time his own. That was all. He was the prisoner of the great wealth he handled.
Then she had another idea. Dex would not enjoy coming here and buying her a drink as if he were any casual stranger. How much better if they could' meet and see each other in a pleasant social atmosphere. How much better, too, if she did not have to see Jeremiah at all.
She strolled over to Pete and asked if she could see The Boss. If that was not convenient, would he please say she would like a few days' holiday. She was in need of a change and a rest. The word came back promptly. The Boss appreciated that a change would bring her back to them refreshed. Pete beamed. Plainly word of her impasse with Jeremiah was known to everybody, and what was taken as an effort on her part to avoid an ugly scene at the Palace was appreciated.
She felt tired and bedraggled by the time the carriage arrived to take her home. She told the driver she was taking a few days off to rest and that he need not call for her again. He looked at her sharply as he let her out at her door and said she did look a little down at the mouth and no wonder because working with all them drunks at the Palace was no life for a young lady. He was indeed Jeremiah's echo.
Chapter Thirty
THE day dawned clear, so she planned a day outside. She turned the possibilities over in her mind as she fixed Andy's breakfast. Where would the social and business aristocrats of San Francisco take Dex if they wished to combine business and pleasure? She could think of a number of places, places where she could appear quite naturally.
Andy shook his head when she told him she was taking a short holiday from the Palace. In many ways he was still a scamp. He got in tussles and romps that tore the knees and elbows out of his clothes faster than she could mend them. He would disappear before dawn on a Sunday and return after dark, soaked to the skin, hands raw, face sun-and salt-blistered, smelling of fish and beer, and blandly swear he had only watched the men unloading fish at the dock when she knew perfectly well he had sneaked aboard a boat and spent the day baiting and hauling nets on one of the small, tossing, dangerous craft. Sometimes he would seem shockingly adult and even prim. Now he asked, alarmed, if she could be sure they were holding a place for her at the Palace.
"I've a little dust put away in our poke," Poppy said.
"You'd better," Andy said, gobbling mush. "We haven't had a shipment of iron in a month, and we're getting low. Mighty low."
"So six ships will come in loaded with iron all at once," Poppy shrugged.
"Sure, and they'll make whole buildings out of them instead of selling us the iron to work." Andy was determinedly grim. "Those old iron buildings either explode or bake the people in them when there's a fire. Everything should be brick."
"Most of the new places are. Why are you so worried?"
"We have orders for fancy railings, fences, posts, and bars, and we're running out of iron. If the manufactory doesn't have any iron, we don't have any work."
"I'm only taking a few days, Andy. And we have our rent."
"Gamblers can go broke in one night."
"Young man, you've got an upset stomach," Poppy said. "I'm going to see if I can find some rhubarb and boil it up for you."
"Just give me a couple of rolls for lunch. We've got to be careful."
"I've already fixed fish rolls, and you'd better take them before they go to waste."
Poppy was laughing when she joined Maurice out in back of the house for the shooting lesson. He brightened immediately.
"Today we do not wish to shoot anybody?"
"Today we wish to learn to hit the target."
"We will use this ammunition I have fixed. Very light, not to hurt, only to show if you hit where you aim."
The day was almost windless with only a few fluffy clouds in the pale blue sky. This was a day nobody would choose to spend shut in four walls.
After the shooting lesson, she put on a pretty blue suit, trimmed with white braid, a blue-and white-checked blouse with wide ruffled collar and cuffs, and a hat with blue-and white-checked streamers fluttering below her waist. She sent a boy to call a carriage and remembered she had a little blue and white parasol, too, meant to twirl and flirt.
"The races," she said and settled back to enjoy the drive out the planked road past the Mission Dolores to the track.
She hurried to the rail to see the horses parading to the post. She did like the gray, but some man whispered to her that grays never won. Then she saw a bay with such a mean flat head and rolling eyes, she was sure no other horse would dare to pass him. She would bet on him, and if she won she would have a sausage roll, perhaps two sausage rolls.
Then she looked over to where the horses were being saddled before their jockeys mounted. The sunlight faded, and the day turned chill. Dex was there, as elegantly dressed as if he were at a Paris track, and Felicite was clinging to his arm. She was all in creamy white with a broad-brimmed straw hat and a fine wool stole. Her father was beside them, nodding and pointing out a frisky dancing black with a white blaze and feet.
Poppy forgot the bay. She could not have swallowed a bite of sausage roll. Because she knew she was over-dressed, fussy and frumpy, looking just what she was, a girl from a gambling club. Plain-tailored cream was the only dress for a lady. Plain cream to accentuate a pale, fragile beauty. That gloved hand on Dex's sleeve was impossibly long and slender. Like a skeleton, skeleton bones, Poppy told herself, but she still felt sick.
Then she reminded herself why she was here. She was here to see Dex, to remind him of everything between them. She forced herself to stroll around the track, slowly, twirling the parasol slanted over her shoulder, until she stood quite close, with only a railing separating them. As she reached it, the last horses were led out on the track, and the crowd in the enclosure hurried to the rail.
Turning, Dex looked
straight at Poppy. His eyes narrowed slightly, but his expression did not change as he looked away, saying to Felicite, "The sun is too warm here. Let me find you a place in the shade," and strolled off unhurriedly with Felicite on his arm and Mr. Pannet marching beside them.
Poppy gasped with shock. Face to face, he had cut her cold. He could not do that to her. She would go after him, she would say-what should she say? Of course. "Aren't you the man from the bank, my mother's bank?" He could not refuse to answer that, to greet her, introduce her, and include her in their party. She might be overdressed, but once he saw her beside Felicite, he would have to see that she was strong red wine beside the other's thin skim milk.
They were gone, lost in the crowd. She had missed her chance. She should have come prepared, with the words on the tip of her tongue. Now it was too late. She could not elbow through the crowd, openly searching.
She turned and walked blindly out toward the road. She did not think she would have cried in public, but her eyes felt so blurred she could not have seen a race. At least she had told her driver to wait, and he was sensible enough to have found a place where he could see the track and she could see him.
She went home and worked out her fury in scrubbing the house. She was not going to let Dex get away with that, not a second time. There were a limited number of places for the Pannets to take him, and where they could go, she could. Next time she would have her words ready, say she had thought she recognized him at the track but had not been sure at first. He was not going to be allowed to pretend she did not exist and forget her that way. She refused to be out of mind because she was out of sight.
Andy came home, starving as always and delighted to have a hot meal waiting for once. He was quite happy with his gloomy announcement they had only a two-week supply of iron at the manufactory unless a shipment arrived.
"So stretch the work out and make it last," Poppy said. "Take tomorrow off, and we'll pack a picnic lunch and drive out to watch the sea lions on the rocks."
Andy looked shocked. "I've got to work while there is work."
Poppy slammed a baked apple down in front of him. She would not have the boy feckless, but the Pannets were sure to take Dex to see the sea lions and that was one place she could not go alone without looking a freak. Still she could not force Andy. She would have to think of other places.
They would take him to the theater. That was certain. She did not even need to know their taste. She had only to dress, stroll outside the theaters until she recognized their carriage, then follow them inside, and wait her opportunity between the acts.
She dressed in her handsome gray satin, and the second night she saw the Pan net carriage drive up to see the drama. But they were not alone. They were part of a procession of carriages, obviously a party for dinner and the theater, the men in evening black, the ladies in light furs that did not completely conceal the sparkle of gems. If she did go inside, she would not be able to work her way into that close, chattering circle.
By Sunday she felt grim but not yet quite defeated. She told Andy he could spend a civilized day for once away from the fishing boats. So they went strolling in Portsmouth Square. Later there would be a concert. She knew everybody would be there, so she only nodded when Andy nudged her.
"There's Dex. Is that the Pannets in the carriage with him?"
"Yes."
"We'd better get out of here."
"Why?" Poppy widened her eyes innocently. "Maybe we should go up and speak to him."
"No. Come on." Andy tugged at her arm. "We don't want to see him."
"Why not?"
"Dex is clever. He's still looking for Jack, and he might trick us into telling him something."
"We wouldn't."
"We shouldn't take a chance. Jack'll go back and be an heir when he's good and ready and not before, and we mustn't give him away. Come on. He's with that other girl anyways."
"So he is," Poppy said flatly. "All right. Let's go."
She wrote Jack that night to tell him Dex was in San Francisco and had questioned her. He had not mentioned Jack's family, so she judged all was well with them. She did not know what business had brought Dex to California, but he was seen almost daily with the banker Pannet's daughter.
When she was through, she discovered her hands and wrists were bruised where she had pounded them, unknowing and unfeeling, on the table as she wrote. She looked drearily at the marks. She could wear long gloves until those bruises faded. The bruises inside might last a lifetime.
She was through trying to force Dex to recognize a passion he could not deny but did not want or value. He had made love to her, yes. She had been waiting for him, seductive and eager. He had responded physically as any man would to an attractive woman who offered herself. If she had not offered, possibly he would not have lifted a finger to possess her. Now, if he truly loved Felicite, he might even resent that she had played on his masculine weakness and made him betray the woman he loved.
No, that was drawing it too strong. Dex was not a man to have regrets after pleasure. But neither would he value what came too cheaply.
Their lovemaking had meant nothing to him beyond the moment. He had glimpsed her more than once, and his failure to give her the slightest nod or look of recognition had been deliberate and not because he feared a break in his perfect friendship with Felicite. He had been saying, in all but words, in every way short of a brutal demand to leave him alone, that he was through with her. He had finished when he had shipped her out of Paris.
She went back to work at the Palace the next day. Jeremiah was there the following morning, but he made no attempt to resume their old ritual. He simply ordered a bottle of whiskey to take to the firehouse and sent drinks over to the band.
To Poppy he said only, "You don't need to run away and hide from toe. Someday you're going to marry me, and I'll be here when you're ready."
Then he bowed, an impressive-looking man with his white hair and dark face, and walked out. Poppy watched him with a shiver running through her. Jeremiah was only waiting for a chance. She would have to watch every step and every word. Each day she would be uneasy, for she could not even imagine to what lengths his scheming might go.
She found a carriage and arranged for the driver to call for her regularly. Jeremiah might watch and question him, but she was helpless to stop that.
A week passed, and she saw Jeremiah only once when he stopped in to glance at some eastern newspapers. She had a letter from Jack. He had moved on again and sounded low in his mind. The season was passing. The best claims were taken or worked out. Still it was all luck, and his luck might turn.
That night started badly. A drunken miner, collapsed in a chair, caught at her skirt as she passed and tore it at the waist. She had to pin it up as best she could and felt a sloven. Phillipa, lack-witted as always, stood too long behind a man who was losing at the poker table until he jumped up and claimed she had been signaling his cards. Everybody knew Phillipa had only been staring into space, big blue eyes in her china doll's face seeing little, but it was an ugly scene, the kind the Palace abhorred. The man's money was restored with the request that he never return, but it broke up the game for the night.
Poppy did not know when the rumor began to stir through the Palace. She saw men starting to slip away, but a fight or word of a big game at one of the other places could cause that. Then she heard the first clanging of the fire engine bells and minutes later heard the pounding of galloping hoofs as the first engine raced past and down toward the wharves. The band struck up "The Moon on the Lake Was Beaming" which usually had a soothing effect on a crowd.
Pete beckoned to her. "Keep moving. Don't lose the crowd. Last fire I might as well have been tending bar at a camp meeting. Only I've seen livelier camp meetings. Didn't have six customers until afterwards, and then they dragged in so much mud and soot on their shoes we had to put new carpet under the foot rail, and it took us two hours to get that brass shining right again."
"What if it
's a bad one?" Poppy whispered.
Pete made a great rattle with ice and glasses. "Won't be a bad one. We got all the Volunteer Companies now. If the idiots don't get to fighting each other. And this ain't a wood and canvas town any more. Go on. Sweeten up the customers."
Poppy swirled her skirts, walking slowly, smiling, and men relaxed and gestured to ask if she would like a drink. She smiled and nodded; she played with a glass and murmured. All the time her heart was pounding until she could hardly breathe. A sense of impending doom had been hanging over her ever since she returned to work. She did not know how Jeremiah could turn a fire to his advantage, but she knew he must be at this one, standing high on the engine of his company, and bawling orders.
This town had had dozens of fires. It had burned to the ground more than once, three times in a single year, all before they ever arrived. It was just she always had a nagging worry about Andy, who loved to watch any little fire that started. And this terrible fear of what Jeremiah might contrive.
