Calico Palace (56 page)

As she took the twist in her hands Marny felt a bitter sense of loss. This was gold, it could be exchanged for merchandise, but what they needed for their gambling tables was real money, brought from the Mint. She said she would put the twist into her safe here in the store, and to keep from thinking any more about it she changed the subject.

“How is Rosabel?” she asked.

“Cross as a wet cat,” Norman said laughing. “She lost her clothes, and to tide her over she bought a few dresses from the girls at Blossom’s love store. And the price they made her pay!” His eyebrows knotted seriously. “Marny, everybody who wasn’t burnt out is getting rich from the fire. We’ve got to start again, soon.
Soon,
Marny.”

“You might set up a table somewhere,” she said. “But I hear they don’t allow gambling at the St. Francis.”

Norman growled again. No, they would not let him set up a table there. The St. Francis was
respectable,
Norman said with wrathful disdain. He could set up a table at that new hotel on Pacific Street, the Gresham, but he thought he’d better use all his energy getting a new Calico Palace under way. He had some coins in his private safe here, as she had in hers, and this would start them. Norman had already gone to Reginald Norrington and told him they were solvent, and he would get the rent for the lot the day it fell due. Now for the new building.

Norman was speaking in a rush. He told her, now that the plaza had lost the big gambling houses—the El Dorado, the Parker House, Denison’s, the Calico Palace—the lesser spots were booming. The Verandah roof had caught fire five times, but the fires had been put out. Today it was open for business. Same for the Bella Union and the Aguila del Oro and the rest of them. “They’re getting our trade,” said Norman. “We’ve got to start building right now.”

Norman wanted Dwight Carson, because Dwight was the best builder in town. But the trouble was, everybody else wanted him too. Norman had called at Dwight’s office on Montgomery Street, and had found a dozen other men there, all on the same errand as his own. Dwight was considering the offers, taking his time about it like a girl choosing among a throng of suitors for her hand. “Where’s that poke you carried out, Marny?” Norman asked.

“Here, in my safe,” she answered. Marny knew as well as Norman that neither dust nor the twist of melted gold would be much inducement to Dwight. A man so much wanted would insist on coins.

“At least we have cash on hand,” said Norman. “No borrowing if we can help it.”

Marny heartily concurred. “Ten per cent a month!” she exclaimed.

“Ten?” Norman laughed aloud. “Since the fire the bankers are getting twelve and a half. That friend of yours, Hiram Boyd, and his partner, name of Eustis, they’ve got a building on Montgomery Street hardly half finished. But they’re doing business today in one room of it, and I’m told men are begging for loans. I don’t know why they’re lending at twelve and a half a month. I’d charge fifteen. Now tell me, have you been buying any more steamer tickets lately?”

“Why yes. I have them here, in my safe.”

Norman looked up at the ceiling and gave thanks. He had been afraid she might not have bought any, or if she had, they had been kept in the Calico Palace and now were lost with everything else. “Oh Marny,” he exclaimed, “you do use your head for thinking! Most people don’t use their heads for anything but to grow hair.”

With a humorous shrug, Marny asked, “What do you want with the tickets?”

“The steamer
Oregon,
” he retorted, “is due to sail for Panama the first of January. Men are storming the steamer office. They’re sick of the rain, the mud, the rats, and now the fire. They want to ride a mule across the Isthmus and go home. But the steamer line has sold out of tickets. We can sell yours for three, four times what you paid for them. Maybe,” Norman added brightly, “maybe we
can
get Dwight Carson before anybody else. If you should see him, don’t tell him how much we need him.”

Marny answered with a canny smile. “Dwight uses his head for a lot more than to grow hair, my friend. He knows how much we need him.”

Norman brought Mr. Fenway to open the room where the private safes were kept. Sitting on the floor, he counted his own coins and Marny’s, added the probable value of the steamboat tickets, and locked them all into the safes again. “We’re in good condition,” he said to Marny as they went back into the stockroom. “I do believe we can outbid the rest of them.”

Whistling as he went, he hurried off to report their financial state to Dwight Carson.

As she returned to her sewing, Marny laughed under her breath. She would have been willing to lay a bet that Norman, like herself, had shed tears yesterday. But he would not own up to it today, any more than she would. Today they did not feel like crying. They felt like fighting. So did those others who were hastening to rebuild. There
was
something about this fogbound ratty bug-ridden town. She liked being part of it.

The day after Christmas was raw and murky, but the stockroom was warm and the store was clackety with business. The boys rushed about, lamenting that Loren had to be at home just when they needed him more than ever. Ralph said Loren was doing well and would be back soon, but this didn’t help them do the work today. Marny sat by the window, sewing and waiting for news.

Right now, Norman was no doubt talking to Dwight Carson.

—That Norman, thought Marny, he’s really a cannonball. No more principles than a tomcat, but
smart.
I wonder why Rosabel wants to marry him. Love is strange and wonderful. At least it’s strange.

In the midst of her reverie Norman burst noisily into the stockroom. Brushing past the clerks and packing boys, he hurried over to where she sat. Usually so dapper, Norman had been too busy since the fire to care how he looked. His shirt was rumpled, his cravat askew, his pointed beard untended, but his face was full of joy and he was so breathless he could hardly talk.

“Marny!” he blurted as he reached her. “I can’t stay but a minute—just wanted to tell you—we’ve got him!”

“Oh glory!” she cried, and dropped her sewing. “How did you manage it?”

For once in his life, Norman’s face went blank. “I don’t know,” he answered. “I went by his office again yesterday after I talked to you—”

“When is he going to start?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you!” Norman retorted. “I went by his office and he’d already started.”

Marny gasped. Norman caught his breath and hurried on.

“He had hired a wagon to carry off the ashes, and he was working on a floor plan. And what’s more”—Norman spoke with wide-eyed wonder—“he wasn’t concerned about price. Said we’d discuss money later.”

Marny gave a happy sigh. Norman was still talking.

“He’s on the lot now, getting the rubble cleared. He asked where you were staying, and said he’d be over to see you soon as he got things organized. Now I’ll get hold of Bruno Gregg and send him here so you can talk to him about pictures. Oh yes, here’s today’s
Alta.
Now I’ve got to go.”

Norman exploded out of the room, bumping into two of the boys in his hurry. Marny smiled as she looked out at the fog and gloom. She did not know why Dwight had been so amenable, and at the moment she did not care. It was enough to be told the new Calico Palace was on its way.

She began to read the
Alta.
Storekeepers advertised auctions of goods they had carried to safety before their buildings fell in. Others begged for the return of papers locked up in stolen safes, promising to pay rewards and ask no questions. Several honest men announced that they had picked up property belonging to other people, and said it would be returned if the owners would come and claim it. After the disgraceful scenes she had witnessed that night, Marny liked finding this evidence that there really were some upright folks around.

Her meditations were broken by the entrance of Bruno Gregg. Sketching pad in hand, Bruno opened the door that led from the salesroom, and stood on the threshold looking doubtfully around him, as though not sure he ought to interrupt all this important bustle. Calling, “Here I am, Bruno,” Marny went to meet him and brought him to sit beside her at the window. Here in her private nook, ignoring the racket, she began the joyous task of planning the new Calico Palace.

For the rest of that day and most of the next, Marny and Bruno talked about pictures. Besides those that she would hang on the walls Marny wanted him to do some of the new type called transparencies. A transparency was a painting on cloth, hung in a window with a light behind it, to give men in the street a foreglimpse of the delights within. A transparency might show a table with stacks of coins, and Marny dealing cards to a throng of happy players, all winning. Or it might show a bar, with men celebrating their good luck while Lulu or Lolo poured drinks. Or Rosabel at her piano, making music while other happy men looked and listened.

Bruno understood. While they talked he made sketches. The next afternoon he came back with completed designs for transparencies to deck all the front windows. He brought her a pack of cards, and when she had posed for several sketches of herself—to the great interest of the packing boys—Bruno said he would start the paintings first thing tomorrow morning. And he would finish them on time, she need not fear.

The next day Marny had a call from Dwight Carson.

Dwight did not burst in, like Norman, nor give a questioning look around, like Bruno. He was too important a personage for either. Dwight was escorted into the stockroom by Mr. Chase, who presented him to Marny with a bow that really gave her a shock, and the formal speech, “Mr. Carson to see you, ma’am.”

Marny politely shook hands, saying, “How do you do, Mr. Carson.” Dwight, taking the hint, replied, “It’s a pleasure.” He did not call her by name. The occasion was too stately for him to call her Marny, and neither he nor Mr. Chase had ever thought to inquire what her surname was. But as Mr. Chase withdrew, Marny grabbed Dwight Carson’s hands in hers, exclaiming, “Oh, I’m so glad to see you! Thank you, thank you—Norman says you’re starting a new Calico Palace for us.”

His hands in hers, Dwight Carson smiled down at her, looking directly into her eager green eyes. “For
you
,” he said clearly.

M
ARNY’S EYES WIDENED SLIGHTLY.
She was thinking—Of course, how stupid of me not to have realized this before.

Dwight drew up a chair, and sat facing the window, his back to the room. He spoke in a low voice but his every word was plain.

“What’s Norman Lamont to me? He’s no better than any other gambler on the plaza.”

Marny could have told him that Norman
was
better than any other gambler on the plaza, except herself, and this was why she was partner to Norman instead of somebody else. But Dwight was evidently making a speech he had planned, maybe one he had been planning for a long time. Besides, she was interested in what he had to say. She let him talk on.

“But you—” he continued. “I mean it, Marny. It’s not often a man sees such a fine girl as you. A girl who keeps steady and plays straight and stays in good humor through everything. And now to see this happen—makes a man’s heart ache for you.”

Marny knew how to answer this sort of talk. She spoke softly, gently. “Oh Dwight, you’re so understanding!”

“I think a lot of you, Marny,” Dwight assured her earnestly. “I’ve been admiring you for a long time. Not many people are like you. And now—why, any other woman on the plaza would be having hysterics if she’d put as much as you’ve put into that place and then watched it go up in smoke. But not you. I want to help you. You don’t know how well I think of you, Marny.”

Marny thought—I didn’t, but I’m a girl who learns fast.

Dwight went on talking. His sympathy was sincere and so was his regard. He was so earnest that Marny had a moment’s fear that he was going to ask her to marry him. She did not want to marry Dwight or anybody else; marriage had such a frightening permanence about it. But as he talked on, she felt assured that he was not interested in marriage any more than she was. But he was deeply interested in herself.

Though Marny and Dwight had both lived in Honolulu, they had not known each other there. Dwight had formerly lived in New York. By the time he reached Honolulu, Marny had already left, and he had lived there for several months before the gold rush brought him to San Francisco. He had been into the Calico Palace often, but this was the first time he and Marny had had a real conversation. As he talked, she listened with growing attention.

—He does like me, she was thinking.

Most men who made proposals to her had a wearying sameness. They wanted a woman, and they wanted her in particular because Marny of the Calico Palace would have been a trophy at any man’s belt. But Dwight did not want her merely because she was a good-looking woman who had prestige value.

—He likes
me,
she reflected. I know the difference.

As he talked, and she encouraged him with a few words here and there, she thoughtfully appraised him. Dwight was a rugged fellow, not handsome, but he had a look of humor and his expression showed the quick changes of an alert and attentive mind. He had straight light brown hair, and steely blue-gray eyes that moved eagerly, noting all that went on around him. He looked healthy—good teeth, ruddy skin with an outdoor tinge in spite of the fogs. He wore heavy practical boots and heavy practical clothes, and a gun in a holster at his belt. Nothing parlor-style about him, but he kept himself neat and in order.

Agreeable disposition, she told herself, and good sense. He won’t be dull. He cares about me, and right now I need somebody to care about me. Before the fire I wasn’t in the mood for a gentleman friend. But now I believe I am. It’s been a hard knock. I need a little cuddling.

Dwight was saying, “Marny, I guess I think more of you than I’ve ever thought of any other girl.”

She was thinking—I need a little cuddling and I need a new Calico Palace. If I say yes I can be sure of getting the Calico Palace
now.
He has begun the work, but that’s only a gesture to prove he means what he’s saying. Everybody else on the plaza wants him. He could start six other buildings and have them all going up at once and meet “unavoidable delays” with ours. But if I say yes he’ll finish the Calico Palace before he lays a brick for anybody else. He’d better.