Summers, True

by Poppy

  She wished the night would end. She wished she could walk out and never come back. She half promised herself, touching the nugget warm on her breast, that as soon as the Eureka found a couple of new girls, she would see what the town could offer a girl with a little money to invest in a small business.

  "A busy evening, Poppy."

  She recognized the voice and whirled. "Jeremiah." Then she stiffened, eyes flashing. "I've been working here for some time."

  "I heard you were back in town. I hoped you would drop me a note giving me permission to call." Poppy gasped.

  "Invite you to call after the way you tried to hunt down Andy?"

  "I half tore this town apart to try to take him into custody that night," Jeremiah admitted coolly.

  "You were hunting us down like runaway slaves."

  "People were in an ugly mood. I could have kept him safe until we investigated the fire and settled the cause."

  "And if it had settled on Andy?"

  "We're fair men, only seeking truth and justice," Jeremiah said. "As for the manufactory fire, that Cornishman told a tale about Andy."

  "I heard it. And you believed it."

  "I wanted to hear Andy's side."

  "He's gone. Gone to England where he can get a proper education."

  "That's good, but write that when he wants to come back to you, he needn't come in fear. We always wonder about a man who's too quick to accuse others, and I was satisfied in my own mind when the smith disappeared a couple of days after the fire. He hasn't been seen around these parts since."

  "I think you have the right of it," Poppy said slowly. "We knew him in Cornwall. Knew him to be greedy and treacherous."

  "And you still allowed your brother to associate with him?"

  "Andy liked him," Poppy excused.

  "A little woman with too much responsibility too young," Jeremiah said fondly and then frowned. "I still can't commend your judgment. Why are you in this place?"

  "Because they gave me employment, and I need it. Why are you?"

  "I am here as a citizen. I am investigating a report this is a center of violence and lawlessness."

  "No more than any other."

  "Let me buy you a drink. Please. We can sit over in those chairs. A bottle of champagne and an unopened bottle of brandy, waiter."

  She did not want a cozy, intimate talk in a shadowy comer. "Let's sit over by the bar. We're shorthanded tonight, and I might be needed."

  "You're too decorative to hide," Jeremiah agreed, looking at the dress and the necklace. "You've done well?"

  Poppy laughed as she perched lightly in a chair close to the end of the 'bar. "I prefer it to the diggings."

  "So that's where you were." Jeremiah settled himself and leaned close to her. "In confidence, what kind of a place is this?"

  Poppy bent her head over the glass of champagne to hide the anger in her eyes. She was no spy to tell tales on the man who paid her salary. "Like any such place."

  "With two men killed here yesterday?"

  "The waiter was already half dead from a beating in the streets the night before."

  "But he was killed here."

  "An accident. Like dozens of others in this town every day."

  "Accidents, violence, death. A terrible situation. Something must be done."

  Poppy drained her glass. "I'm sure you'll do your best," she murmured indifferently.

  "I always have. I always will. I don't change. I haven't changed about you. I don't want you working in a place like this. I want to marry you."

  "I am content here," Poppy said sharply. She had not forgotten crouching in Madame's cellar while he searched for her, or washing those heavy, filthy shirts to buy food in the diggings. She stood up. "Clyde asked me to keep moving this evening."

  "I'll wait."

  "But you never stay in the evening."

  Jeremiah's lips tightened. "This evening I want to observe. I'm sure nobody will mind if I sit quietly and read one of your papers. I haven't seen the newest ones from the east."

  That was the final, miserable strain, the dark, quiet figure sitting with a paper in front of his face and watching every move in the room. Poppy wanted to go someplace and stamp her feet, pound her fists, and scream. Instead she moved around, smiling, whispering the words of the songs, always smiling, though she started at every sound-a glass dropping, a gust of laughter.

  Nobody was going to start a fight here tonight, she assured herself desperately. This was the last place, with every waiter and dealer and bartender doubly alert to stop trouble before it started again tonight. The whole place was on guard, and if she could only endure, even this night must end eventually.

  She was standing by a back table, watching a man who had been gambling all evening, winning heavily and then losing and now winning again, when something made her look toward the bar. For a moment she thought what she saw was only a part of the whole nightmare mood of the evening. Then she knew it was Josie, in a garish green dress trimmed with cheap yellow lace, standing there talking to Clyde. The year had marked her, but she still knew how to tilt her head in coquettish appeal and move with a swaying, graceful lilt.

  Clyde's face was impassive, but his pursed lips told he was considering Josie's attractions. Poppy's eyes widened. Clyde had sent out a wide-open call for girls. They were seriously shorthanded enough to take anyone not obviously off the streets.

  But not Josie, not here, never Josie, not in a decent place that was trying to avoid trouble.

  Clutching an empty glass, she hurried to the other end of the bar and called, "Clyde, here, please. Clyde, service, please."

  "Minute, in a minute."

  "Special order."

  That was a signal. Clyde came with deliberate speed. Poppy leaned over the bar, smiling and holding out her glass.

  "Special for me, Clyde," she said loudly and then mouthed, "Not that one. No, no," and looked up to see Josie had moved close behind her and was reading her lips reflected in the mirror.

  Poppy froze and then whirled. "Why, Josie," she said with a high, artificial laugh. "I didn't know you were in San Francisco."

  "No, you thought your friend Madame had finished me," Josie sneered. "Shipped me out to be pulled down and die in a dollar crib. But you don't do that to Josie, not to Josie."

  "So you're doing well?" Poppy babbled.

  The strange, close-set eyes were a little mad. "As well as you, if I could have got a job here. But that's too good for me. You won't let me have that. No, you told him, no, not that one."

  "I meant, I meant my drink, the special."

  "You meant me. I know you. Chunks of gold for you and the mud of the alleys for everyone else. I'll give you gold."

  Poppy knew even before the knife flashed in Josie's hand. This had happened before, in the dark shadows on the waterfront. She was hemmed in, flat against the bar, but she flung up her hand. She felt the knife slash across her wrist and saw the bright blood spurt. With a shriek, she dropped her arm, and the knife stabbed into her side. She sagged as a long arm grasped Josie and flung her to one side, holding her at arm's length. Jeremiah shook her once, and her head cracked back, but she writhed in his grasp, slashing at the arm that held her. Then from the door, a gun cracked. She jerked upright on her toes and then collapsed like a rag doll. Jeremiah let her fall to the floor.

  "Thank you, Deputy," he said to the lawman in the doorway. "Fortunately I realized there was likely to be trouble here tonight and asked to have a guard outside while I came in."

  "She was attacking you," the man said slowly. "I never-I never killed a woman before."

  "That's the third," Clyde whispered, and the words echoed loudly in the appalled silence.

  "Remove the body," Jeremiah said. "I'll make a statement to your superiors about this. You're to be commended." Then he turned to Poppy, and his face went gray. "What is this? She's bleeding to death. Somebody do something!"

  Poppy stood hypnotized, looking at the blood spurting from her wrist an
d soaking the front of her velvet gown. The lifeblood was pulsing out of her with every beat of her heart, but she was so numbed with shock and horror she could not move.

  "I'm a doctor," said a voice she had heard before, and the man shouldered Jeremiah aside. "I'm going to start charging this place for standing night duty here. Stand back, gentlemen. Let me through to the young lady." He grasped Poppy's wrist, deftly wrapped his white handkerchief above the cut, twisted the linen tight, and the terrible pulsing flood stopped. "We'll have to take her someplace before I look at the other wound. My guess is it went into the lung."

  "Home," Poppy whispered.

  "You're alone there?" Jeremiah demanded.

  "Maurice, next door," Poppy managed to say.

  "You need care and not in a hospital ward," Jeremiah said decisively. "Doctor, this young lady is an old friend. I live in a respectable boardinghouse, and the owner is a fine woman with an ample staff. I'm sure she can find a spare room and somebody to nurse. Will you come?"

  "Call a carriage," the doctor said, then looked around and shook his head. "Two nights in a row is too much. Hereafter I do my drinking elsewhere. Now let's go."

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  POPPY sat propped up in the big velvet armchair if by the front window with the lace curtains pulled back so she could look down on the street. A thick fog, so thick she had thought it was snowing when she first looked out, obscured the row of fine residential boardinghouses, so she saw only an occasional maid or urchin scurrying along on an errand.

  A lively fire crackled in the fireplace, and new books just arrived from London were stacked on the table at her elbow. A jingle of the silver bell there would bring her morning tea and sugared toast. She was so bored she felt like screaming.

  When Dr. Armstrong had said she was stabbed in the lung, she had pictured herself, if not dead, as a lingering invalid, not quite strong enough to sit erect as she reposed on a chaise longue, useless limbs gracefully arranged under a silk coverlet, delicate hands barely able to raise a china cup, hair brushed around her shoulders because having it dressed was too exhausting. She had thought she might linger thus for months, perhaps a year, while people smiled bravely when they were with her and went outside to weep and tell each other they would miss the sweet, patient little saint when she was gone. She thought she would wear white, with dainty blue ribbons drawn through the edging, and ask people to bring her only violets, as the scents of other flowers were too strong for her weakened sensibilities. '

  Instead it seemed a hole in the lung was no lethal matter. If she rested quietly and gave the wound a chance to heal, the lung was capable of repairing itself miraculously and would soon be as strong as ever. Even the slash across her wrist, since it had been sewed promptly and young flesh was resilient, should show no more than a hairline in a few months.

  Once she was certain of all that, her spirits soared. Only her body remained weak. She could picture a dozen amusing things to do with each hour if only she could leave this room in Jeremiah's boardinghouse. But she still trembled with weakness when she walked from bed to chair.

  Maurice had come once to bring the rent, but she gathered from his quirked eyebrow and meaningful glances that professional gamblers were not welcome visitors in these respectable quarters.

  Madame, doubtless warned by him, had sent a fine French ivory fan, painted with lilies, and a note saying she hoped it might stir the air. Poppy had laughed at that until her side hurt. The Eureka sent a dozen bottles of their best champagne, and Everett G. Wilton a mass of red roses, but nobody called. Poppy decided they had been warned off and vowed to get herself home as soon as possible.

  The days were long and empty. Jeremiah visited before lunch and before dinner, but he stayed only a short time. Mrs. Stander, the dark hawk-faced owner of the house, inspected the room briskly after breakfast and after dinner and spoke little. The small Irish maid, Mary, scurried around like an intimidated mouse and squeaked rather than spoke.

  So Poppy sat alone by the window looking out at the fog and planned. Somebody had brought her night-clothes from home, but they were shockingly ragged. Only the blue satin robe and slippers were presentable. She could send home for a dress to wear when she left here, but she would still need a whole new wardrobe. She would have to sell the wonderful chain with the nugget and the jade earrings.

  She knew that knock on the door. This was the hour of Jeremiah's before-lunch call.

  He said, "Dr. Armstrong is as good as his word. He is doing his drinking at the Palace these days. I had a word with him there."

  She never knew what to say to Jeremiah. He had saved her life, but she could not feel easy with him. "What did he say?"

  "He hopes you are walking in the room, no further."

  "Tell him I am doing exactly that."

  "He will be in to remove your stitches in a couple of days. After that you may get dressed but do not attempt the stairs or to leave the house for another week."

  "I'll remember. He's a good doctor."

  "He said something about Edinburgh, if that means anything."

  "The best medical education, I think."

  "Indeed," Jeremiah acknowledged indifferently. "I'll speak to Mrs. Stander then."

  "Don't you ordinarily speak to her?" Poppy laughed. "Or is she my guard?"

  "There, that sounds more like my girl."

  I'm not your girl, Poppy wanted to cry. "I'm better," she said primly. ''That's the reason I'm speaking to Mrs. Stander. I'll see you this evening."

  Jeremiah was planning something, but she did not know what and could not stop him if she did. Still, only a week more here. By the time she had assembled a wardrobe, gone out to see people and hear the news, she would be strong enough to work again. The Palace would not have her, and she could not face the Eureka again, but she would find something. Perhaps Mr. Wilton could advise her.

  The stitches came out one morning, and when she brought the lunch tray, Mary seemed puffed to half again her diminutive size with suppressed excitement. After she removed the tray, she began to bring in parcels, small boxes and large boxes, flat paper bags and large bulging ones. All Poppy's inquiring glances could not get a word out of her. She simply ducked her head and giggled behind her hand.

  Mrs. Stander, arriving out of her usual time, came in and, hands clasped at her waist, surveyed the heap.

  "Do you feel strong enough to consider these now?"

  "What are they?" Poppy asked and succeeded in sounding mild.

  "You'll be going out soon now. I didn't like to rummage too closely through the drawers and cupboards at your house when I went to get your bed gowns, but it appeared to me your wardrobe was in need of replenishing."

  Poppy did not doubt Mrs. Stander had fingered every one of her worn possessions. "I'd planned to go to the shops myself."

  "Mr. Dunbar thought you would need something when you first go out."

  So this was what Jeremiah had been planning. "What have you found me?"

  Mrs. Stander began unwrapping. Poppy could not fault the sizes, since Mrs. Stander had had her garments to measure against. The stockings, a half dozen each of silk and lisle, were of the finest. The slippers, black, brown, and cream, were of English leather and make. The undergarments and night robes were of plain white linen, fine as silk.

  "Just the necessities," Mrs. Stander apologized. "I knew you'd want to make most of the selections for yourself."

  Poppy nodded. These were the exact things she would have had to buy, though she would have hesitated and worried over every single item. She hoped she did not look surprised. Mrs. Stander's behavior had been impeccable, but she had felt an undercurrent there, a subtle attitude of condescension toward her and possessiveness about Jeremiah. Perhaps that was natural, since apparently he had lived here since the place first opened. Still, she would have expected Mrs. Stander to be less careful in her selections. She would not have been surprised if Mrs. Stander had produced, not these fine garments suitable for A gentlewoman
's wear, but the sleazy, lace-trimmed, gaudy clothing of a street girl. Then Poppy told herself even if Mrs. Stander had not prided herself on her taste-and that showed in every appointment in this room-she might well fear Jeremiah's anger if she showed less than respect for this lady.

  "I noted where you had purchased the purple velvet gown. She always labels her garments."

  "Yes?"

  "I'm sorry, but it could not be saved."

  Poppy shuddered. "I hope you burned it."