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Treasure and Trouble Therewith by Geraldine Bonner

G >> Geraldine Bonner >> Treasure and Trouble Therewith




That night she answered the letter, writing it over several times:

MR. BOYE MAYER,

DEAR FRIEND:

Thanks for the flowers. They're grand. I ain't ever before had such
beautys espechully the ones that matched my dress. I looked you over and
I don't think you're so bad, so if you still want to know me maybe you
can. I live in the Vallejo Hotel on Balboa Street and if you'd give
yourself the pleasure of calling I'll be there Tuesday at four.

Yours truly,

Miss PANCHA LOPEZ.

P. S. Balboa Street is in the Mission.

The next evening she received his answer, thanking her for her kindness
and saying he would come.

She prepared for him with sedulous care, not only her room and her
clothes, but herself. She was determined she would comport herself
creditably, would be equal to the occasion and fulfill the highest
expectations. She was going to act like a lady--no one would ever suspect
she had once waited on table in the Buon Gusto restaurant, or been a
barefoot, miner's kid. As she put on her black velveteen skirt and best
crimson crepe blouse, she pledged herself to a wary refinement, laid the
weight of it on her spirit. The only models she had to follow were the
leading ladies of the road companies she had seen, and she impressed upon
her mind details of manner from the heroines of "East Lynne" and "The
Banker's Daughter."

When four o'clock struck she was seated by the center table, a book
negligently held in one hand, her feet, in high-heeled, beaded slippers,
neatly crossed, and a gold bracelet given her by her father on her arm.
She took a last, inspecting glance round the room and found it entirely
satisfactory. On the table beside her a battered metal tray held a bottle
of native Chianti, two glasses and a box of cigarettes. In Pancha's world
a visitor was always offered liquid refreshment and she had chosen the
Chianti as less plebeian than beer and not so expensive as champagne. She
had no acquaintance with either wine or cigarettes; her thrifty habits
and care of her voice made her shun both.

Mayer recognized the room as a familiar type--he had been in many such
in many lands. But the girl did not fit it. She looked to him very
un-American, more like a Spaniard or a French midinette. There was
nothing about her that suggested the stage, no make-up, none of its bold
coquetry or crude allure. She was rather stiff and prim, watchful, he
thought, and her face added to the impression. With its high cheek bones
and dusky coloring he found it attractive, but also a baffling and
noncommittal mask.

He was even more than she had anticipated. His deep bow over her hand,
his deference, thrilled her as the Prince might have thrilled Cinderella.
She was very careful of her manners, keeping to the weather, expressing
herself with guarded brevity. A chill constraint threatened to blight the
occasion, but Mayer, versed in the weaknesses of stage folk, directed the
conversation to her performance in "The Zingara," for which he professed
an ardent admiration.

"I was surprised by it, even after what I'd heard. I wonder if you know
how good it is?"

Her color deepened.

"I try to make it good, I've been trying for six years."

He smiled.

"Six years! You must have begun when you were a child."

This was too much for Pancha. Her delight at his praise had been hard to
suppress; now it burst all bonds. She forgot her refinement and the
ladylike solemnity of her face gave place to a gamin smile.

"Oh, quit it. You can't hand me out that line of talk. I'm twenty-two and
nobody believes it."

Then _he_ laughed and the constraint was dissipated like a morning mist.
They drew nearer to the table and Pancha offered the wine. To be polite
she took a little herself and Mayer, controlling grimaces as he sipped,
asked her about her career. She told him what she was willing to tell;
nothing of her private life which she thought too shamefully sordid. It
was a series of jumps from high spot to high spot in her gradual ascent.
He noticed this and judged it as a story edited for the public, it
tallied so accurately with what he had heard already from the florist.
There was evidently a rubber stamp narrative for general circulation.

After she had concluded he made his first advance, lightly with an air
of banter.

"And how does it come that in this long, lonely struggle you've stayed
unmarried?"

A belated coquetry--Pancha climbing up had wasted no time on such
unassisting arts--stirred in her. She tilted her head and shot a look at
him from the sides of her eyes.

"I guess no one came along that filled the bill."

"Among all the men that must have come along?"

"Um-um," she stood her glass on the table, turning its stem with her long
brown fingers.

"The lady must be hard to please."

"Maybe she is."

Her eyes rested on the ruby liquid in the glass. The lids were fringed
with black lashes that grew straightly downward, making a semicircle of
little, pointed dashes on each cheek. He could not decide whether she was
embarrassed or slyly amused.

"Or perhaps she's just wedded to her art."

"That cuts some ice, I guess."

"Love is known to improve art. Haven't you ever heard that?"

"I shouldn't wonder. I've heard an awful lot about love."

"Only heard, never felt? Never responded to any of the swains that have
been crowding round?"

"How do you know they've been crowding round?"

He leaned nearer, gently impressive:

"What I'm looking at tells me so."

She met his eyes charged with sentimental meaning, and burst into
irrepressible laughter.

"Oh, _you_--shut up! I ain't used to such hot air. I'll have to open the
windows and let in the cold."

It was not what he had expected and he felt rebuffed. Dropping back in
his chair, he shrugged his shoulders.

"What can I say? It's not fair to let me come here and then muzzle me."

"Oh, I ain't going as far as that. But you don't have to talk to me that
way. I'm the plain, sensible kind."

He shook his head, slowly, incredulously.

"No, I've got to contradict you. Lips can tell lies but eyes can't.
You're a good many other things but you're not sensible."

"What other things?"

"Charming, fascinating, piquant, with a heart like a bright,
glowing coal."

She threw back her head and let her laughter, rich and musical, float out
on the room.

"Oh, listen to him! Wouldn't it make a dog laugh!" Then, swaying on her
chair, she leaned toward him, grave but with her eyes twinkling. "Mr.
Man, you can't read me for a cent. Right here," she touched her heart
with a finger tip, "it's frozen hard. I keep it in cold storage."

"Hasn't it ever been taken out and thawed?"

"Never has and never will be."

She swayed away from him, keeping her glance on his. For a still second
a strange seriousness, having no place in the scene, held them. She was
conscious of perplexity in his face, he of something wistful and
questioning in hers. She spoke first.

"You're very curious about me, Mr. Boye Mayer?"

She ought not to have said that and it was his fault that she did. She
was no mean adversary and that she had seen through his first tentatives
proved them clumsy and annoyed him. He smiled, a smile not altogether
pleasant, and rose.

"All men must be curious where you're concerned."

"Not as bad as you."

"Ah, well, I'm a child of nature. I don't hide my feelings. I'm curious
and show it. Do you know what makes me so?"

She shook her head, anticipating flatteries. But he did not break into
them as quickly as she had expected. Turning to where his hat lay he took
it up, looked at it for a moment and then, with his gray eyes shifting to
hers, said low, as if taking her into his confidence:

"I'm curious because you're interesting. I think you're the most
interesting thing I've seen since I came to San Francisco."

This was even more than she had hoped for. An unfamiliar bashfulness made
her look away from the gray eyes and stammer in rough deprecation:

"Oh, cut it out!"

"I never cut out the truth. But I'm going to cut out myself. It's time
for me to be moving on. Good-by."

His hand was extended and she put hers into it, feeling the light
pressure of his cool, dry fingers. She did not know what to say, wanted
to ask him to come again, but feared, in her new self-consciousness, it
wasn't the stylish thing to do.

"I'm real glad you called," was the nearest she dared.

He was at the door and turned, hopefully smiling.

"Are you?"

"Sure," she murmured.

"Then why don't you ask me to come again?"

"I thought that was up to you."

He again was unable to decide whether her coyness was an expression of
embarrassment or an accomplished artfulness, but he inclined to the
latter opinion.

"Right O! I'll come soon, in a few days. _Hasta manana_, fair lady."

After the door had closed on him she stood sunk in thought, from which
she emerged with a deep sigh. A slow, gradual smile curved her lips; she
raised her head, looked about her, then moving to the mirror, halted in
front of it. The day was drawing toward twilight, pale light falling in
from the bay window and meeting the shadows in the back of the room. Her
figure seemed to lie on the glass as if floating on a pool of darkness.
The black skirt melted into it, but the crimson blouse and the warm
pallor of the face and arms emerged in liquid clearness, richly defined,
harmoniously glowing. She looked long, trying to see herself with his
eyes, trying to know herself anew as pretty and bewitching.

Mayer walked home wondering. He was completely intrigued by her. Her
performance in "The Zingara" had led him to expect a girl of much more
poise and finish, and yet with all her rawness she was far from naive.
His own experience recognized hers; both had lived in the world's squalid
byways; he could have talked to her in their language and she would have
understood. But she was not of the women of such places, she had a clean,
clear quality like a flame. Daring beyond doubt, wild and elusive, but
untouched by what had touched the rest. He found it inexplicable, unless
one granted her unusual capacity, unsuspected depths and a rare and
seasoned astuteness. He had to come back to that and he was satisfied to
do so. It would add zest to the duel which had just begun.




CHAPTER X

MICHAELS, THE MINER


So distinguished a figure as Boye Mayer could not live long unnoticed in
San Francisco. He had not been a month at the hotel before items about
him appeared in the press. Mrs. Wesson, society reporter of the
_Despatch_, after seeing him twice on Kearney Street, found out who he
was and rustled into the Argonaut office for a word with Ned Murphy. Mr.
Mayer was a wealthy gentleman from New York, but back of that Murphy
guessed he was foreign, anyway the Frenchwoman who did his laundry and
the Dutch tailor who pressed his clothes said he could talk their
languages like he was born in the countries. He wasn't friendly, sort of
distant; all he'd ever said to Murphy was that he was on the coast for
his health and wanted to live very quiet to get back his strength after
an illness.

It wasn't much but Mrs. Wesson made a paragraph out of it that neatly
rounded off her column.

Even without the paragraphs he would not have been unheeded. Among the
carelessly dressed men, bustling along the streets in jostling haste, he
loomed immaculately clad, detached, splendidly idle amidst their vulgar
activity. He had the air of unnoticing hauteur, unattainable by the
American and therefore much prized. His clean-shaven, high-nosed face was
held in a brooding abstraction, his well-shod foot seemed to press the
pavement with disdain. Eating a solitary dinner at Jack's or Marchand's,
he looked neither to the right nor the left. Beauty could stare and
whisper and he never give it the compliment of a glance. Ladies who
entertained began to inquire about him, asked their menkind to find out
who he was, and if he was all right make his acquaintance and "bring him
to the house."

He was not so solitary as he looked. Besides Pancha Lopez he had met
other people. The wife of the manager of the Argonaut Hotel had asked him
to a card party, found him "a delightful gentleman" and handed him on to
her friends. They too had found him "a delightful gentleman" and the
handing on had continued. He enjoyed it, slipping comfortably into the
new environment--it was a change after the sinister years beyond the
pale, and the horrible, outcast days. Also he did not confine himself to
the small sociabilities to which he was handed on. There were many paths
of profit and pleasure in the city by the Golden Gate and he explored any
that offered entertainment--those that led to tables green as grass under
the blaze of electric lights, those that led to the poker game behind
Soledad Lanza's pink-fronted restaurant, those that led up alleys to
dark, secretive doors, and that which led to Pancha's ugly sitting room.

He sought this one often and yet for all his persuasive cunning he found
out nothing, got no further, surprised no admissions. He was drawn back
there teased and wondering and went away again, piqued and baffled.

One evening, a month after her first meeting with him, Pancha, going home
on the car, thought about her father. She felt guilty, for of late she
had rather forgotten him and this was something new and blameworthy. Now
she remembered how long it was since she had seen him and that his last
letter had come over a month ago. It was a short scrawl from Downieville
and had told her that the sale of his prospect hole--he had hoped to
sell it sometime early in September--had fallen through. He had seemed
down-hearted.

Despite the divergent lines of their lives a great tie of affection
united them. They met only at long intervals--when he came into town for
a night--and all correspondence between them was on his side as she never
knew where he was. Even had he not lavished a rough tenderness upon her,
the memory of pangs mutually suffered, of hardships mutually endured,
would have bound her to him. He was the only person who had passed,
closely allied, an intimate figure, through the full extent of her life.
Though he was so much to her she never spoke of him, except to Charlie
Crowder, her one friend, of whose discretion she was sure. This reticence
was partly due to tenderness--the past and his place in it had their
sacredness--and partly to the miner's own wish. As her star had risen it
was he who had suggested the wisdom of "keeping him out." He thought it
bad business; an opera singer's father--especially a father with a pick
and a pan--had no advertising value and might be detrimental. When he put
it that way she saw the sense of it--Pancha was always quick to see
things from a business angle--and fell in with his wish. She was not
unwilling to. It wasn't that she was ashamed of him, she cared too little
for the world to be ashamed of anything, but she did not want him made a
joke of in the wings or written up satirically in the theatrical column.
When small road managers who had known her at the start came into town
and asked where "Pancha's Pa" was, nobody knew anything about such a
person, and they guessed "the old guy must have died."

Since she had lived at the Vallejo Hotel he had been there five times,
always after dark. She had told Cushing, the night clerk, that Mr.
Michaels was a relation of hers from the country and if he came when she
was out to let him into her rooms.

As she drew up at the desk and asked for her key--it hung on a rack
studded with little hooks--Cushing, drowsing with his feet on a chair,
rose wearily, growling through a yawn:

"Mr. Michaels has came. He's been here about an hour. I done what you
said and let him in."

She smothered an expression of joy, snatched the key and ran upstairs.
Lovely--just as she was thinking of him! She let herself in anticipating
a glad welcome and saw that he was lying on the sofa asleep.

The only light in the room was from the extension lamp on the table and
by its shaded glow she stood looking at him. He was sleeping heavily,
still wrapped in the old overcoat she knew so well, his coarse hands,
with blackened finger nails, clasped on his breast. His face, relaxed in
rest, looked worn, the forehead seamed with its one deep line, the eyes
sunk below the grizzled brows. It came upon her with a shock that he
seemed old and tired, and it hurt her. In a childish desire to bring him
back to himself, have him assume his familiar aspect and stop her pain,
she shook him by the shoulder, crying:

"Pa, Pa, wake up."

He woke with a violent start, his feet swung to the floor, his body
hunched as if to spring, his glance wildly alive. Then it fell on her and
the fierce alertness died out; his face softened into a smile, almost
sheepish, and he rubbed his hand over his eyes.

"Lord, I was asleep," he muttered.

She kissed him, pulled him up, and with an arm round his back,
steered him to an armchair, asking questions. His hand on her waist
patted softly.

"Well, you ain't fattened up any," he said with a quizzical grin and
side glance.

That made him look more like himself, but Pancha noticed that his
movements were stiff.

"What's the matter?" she said sharply. "You ain't got the rheumatism
again, have you?"

"Nup," he sank slowly into the chair. "But sometimes when I first move
I sort 'er kink at the knees. Gets me in the morning, but I limber up
all right."

She stood beside him, uneasily frowning.

"What are you goin' to do this winter when the rains begin? You can't run
risks of being sick, and me not able to get to you."

"Sick--hell!" He shot a humorous look at her. "I ain't sick in God's own
country--it's only down here. Why y'ain't all as stiff as stone images in
this sea-damp beats me."

"Oh, it's the damp," she said, relieved.

"Course it's the damp. I wouldn't expect a rope dancer to live here and
stay spry."

That was like Pa; her anxiety evaporated and she began to smile.

"Well, there's one person who does--yours truly. If you don't believe it,
come to the Albion and see."

"There ain't another like you, hon. There's not your match from the
Rockies to the Pacific."

"Oh, old blarney!" she cried, now joyous, and, giving him a pat on the
shoulder, moved about collecting supper. "Sit tight there while I get you
a bite. I've some olives that'll make you think you're back among the
greasers."

The supper came from divers places--the window sill, the top bureau
drawer, the closet shelf. Beer and sardines were its chief features, with
black olives soaked in oil and garlic, cheese straws taken from a corset
box, and ripe figs oozing through their paper bag.

They ate hungrily without ceremony, wiping their fingers on the towel she
had spread for a cloth. As they munched they swapped their news--his
failure at selling the ledge, her success in "The Zingara." He listened
to that with avid attention.

"Can you stay and see me tomorrow night?" she asked.

He shook his head.

"'Fraid not. I got a date with a feller in Dutch Flat for tomorrow
afternoon."

"About the prospect?"

"Yep--it's a chance and I got to jump at it."

"Why did it fall through before?"

He shoveled in a cracker spread with sardines before he answered.

"Oh, same old story--thought it didn't show up as big as they'd expected.
You can't count on it, no more'n you can on the weather."

She smothered a sigh. The "prospect" and the "ledge" had been part of
their life, lifting them to high hopes, dropping them to continual
disappointment. She would have counseled him to give it all up, but that
he now and then had had luck, especially in the last five years. She went
back to herself.

"'The Zingara' has been a great thing for me. Everybody says so. If the
next piece goes as big I'm going to strike for a raise. Wait till I show
you," she jumped up, rubbing her oily fingers on the towel, "and you'll
see why little Panchita's had to get an extra-sized hat."

She took from a side table a book--the actress's scrap album--and came
back flirting its pages. At one she pressed it open and held it toward
him, triumphantly pointing to a clipping. "There, from the _Sacramento
Courier_."

He gave a glance at the clipping and said:

"Oh, yes, _that_. Grand, ain't it?"

She was surprised.

"You've seen it. Why didn't you send it to me?"

"Who said I'd seen it?" He took the book from her, staring across it,
suddenly combative. "Don't you run along so fast. Ain't you known if I
had I'd have mailed it to you?"

"But how did you know about it?" she said, her surprise growing, for she
saw he was moved.

"You're gettin' too darned quick." He pushed the book in among the dishes
roughly, his irritation obvious.

"Ain't it possible I might have heard it? Might have met a feller that
come up from Marysville who'd seen It and told me?"

"Yes, of course it is. You needn't get mad about it."

"Mad--who said I was mad?" He bent over the book, muttering like a storm
in retreat. "I guess I ain't missed so many that when one does get by me
you should throw it in my teeth."

She smoothed the top of his head with a placating hand and went back to
her seat. Nibbling a ripe olive she watched him as he read. Her eyes
were anxiously questioning. This too--anger at so small a thing--was
unlike him.

When he had finished his annoyance was over; pride beamed from his face
as if a light was lit behind it.

"I guess there ain't many of 'em get a write-up like that." He put the
book aside and began a second attack on the supper. "Crowder's some
friend. His little finger's worth more'n the whole kit and crew you've
had danglin' round you since you started."

"You're right." She stretched her hand for a fig, spilling, bruised and
bursting, from the torn bag. "There's a new one dangling."

With her father Pancha was always truthful. To the rest of the world she
lied whenever she thought it necessary, never carelessly or prodigally,
for to be fearless was part of her proud self-sufficiency. But as she had
learned to fight, to battle her way up, to climb over her enemy, to wrest
her chance from opposing forces, she had learned to lie when the occasion
demanded. She was only entirely frank and entirely truthful with the one
person whom she loved.

He put down his glass and looked at her, in sudden, fixed attention.

"What's that?"

"I've got a real, genuine, all-wool-yard-wide beau."

She leaned her elbows on the table, holding the fig to her mouth, her
thin fingers manipulating the skin as she sucked the pulp. Her eyes were
full of laughter.

"What do you mean?"

"Just what I'm telling you. You needn't look like I'd said he was a
defaulting bank cashier, nor so surprised either. It ain't flattering to
your only child."

Her father did not respond to her gayety.

"Look-a-here, Panchita," he began, but she stopped him, flapping a
long hand.

"Cut it out, Pop. I know all that. You needn't come any stern parent
business over me. _I'm_ on. _I_ know my way about. I ain't going to run
my head into any noose, or tie any millstone round my neck. Don't you
think by this time you can trust me?"

Her words seemed to reassure him. The bovine intensity of his gaze
softened.

"You've had a heap of beaux," he said moodily.

"And kept every last one of 'em in their place, except for those I kicked
out. And they got to their place; my kick landed them there."

"Who is he?"

Pancha returned to her fig, looking over its wilted skin for
clinging tidbits.

"Named Mayer, a foreigner--at least he's born here, but he looks foreign
and acts foreign; hands out the kind of talk you read in books. Awful
high class."

"Treats you respectful?"

She gave him a withering glance.

"_Respectful!_ Treats me like I'd faint if he spoke rough or break if he
touched me. I ain't ever seen anything so choice. You said I was
thin--it's keeping up such a dignified style that's worn me down."

This description was so unlike the bandit's idea of love-making that he
became incredulous.

"How do you know he's a beau? Looks like to me he was just marking time."

She smiled, the secret smile of a woman who has seen the familiar signs.
She had taken another fig and delicately breaking it open, eyed its
crimson heart.

"He's jealous."

"Who of?"

"Nobody, anybody, everybody." She began to laugh, and putting her lips to
the fruit, sucked, and then drew them away stained with its ruby juice.
"He's always trying to draw me, find out if there isn't somebody I like.
Pop, you'd laugh if you could hear him sniffing round the subject like a
cat round the cream."

"What do you tell him?"

"_Me?_" She gave him a scornful cast of her eye. Her face was flushed,
and with her crimsoned mouth and shining eyes she was for the moment
beautiful. "I got my pride. I told him the truth at first, and when he
wouldn't believe me--'Oh, no, there _must be_ someone'--I says to myself,
'All right, deary, have it your own way,' and I jolly him along now,"
she laughed with joyous memory. "I got him good and guessing, Pop."

The old man looked dissatisfied.

"I ain't much stuck on this, Panchita. What good are you goin' to get
out of it?"

Scottish book of the year goes to Kieron Smith, Boy by James Kelman

The barrister Constance Briscoe has won the libel case brought against her by her mother, Carmen Briscoe-Mitchell, over her bestselling misery memoir Ugly, in which she accused Briscoe-Mitchell of childhood cruelty and neglect.

Briscoe-Mitchell claimed the allegations were "a piece of fiction", and sued Briscoe and her publishers Hodder & Stoughton for libel.

A 10-day hearing at the high court in London concluded earlier today with a unanimous verdict from the jury after more than a day's deliberation. Speaking outside the court, Briscoe, a part-time judge, said she was "very happy" with the verdict.

"It is sad that my mother still feels the need to pursue me. Now I just want to get on with my career," she said. "I can quite understand why my family went into collective denial, but whilst child abuse may be committed behind closed doors, it should never be swept under the carpet."

The hearing saw Briscoe tell Mr Justice Tugendhat and a jury how her mother beat her with a stick for wetting the bed, called her a "dirty little whore" and drove her to attempt suicide by drinking bleach.

Briscoe's account of her upbringing was published in 2006 and has sold more than 400,000 copies in the UK.

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Would you have your ashes scattered in Jane Austen's garden?
American film producer to publish version of the Bible in which God says it is better to be gay than straight

The royal family doesn't need a poet

The power of Jane Austen never ceases to amaze: the myriad film and TV adaptations, the biopics, the spin-off self-help books, the novels about Austen book clubs and Austen obsessives and even, next spring, the publication of a book about "how Jane Austen conquered the world" (Jane's Fame, by Clare Harman). And now comes the just-too-weird story that deceased fans of Jane Austen have been banned from having their ashes scattered in her garden. In a letter to the Jane Austen Society, Louise West, the collections manager of Jane Austen's House Museum, wrote: "While we understand many admirers of Jane Austen would love to have ashes laid here, it is something we do not allow. It is distressing for visitors to see mounds of human ash, particularly so for our gardener. Also, it is of no benefit to the garden!" (Or is it? Surely a small quantity of fresh ashes judiciously placed beneath a hydrangea bush is just the ticket?)

Anyway, leaving aside the Gardeners' Question Time minutiae, what on earth is going on here? I like an Austen novel as much as the next person – I probably reread my way through the complete works every couple of years – but I am baffled as to why one would want to be laid to rest among the flowerbeds of Chawton. The only explanation is the currently unstoppable power of the Austen cult, fuelled by Colin Firth in a wet blouse, by Andrew Davies's adaptations, and by Hollywood. I'm all for enjoying books, but the cult of Austen has reached ridiculous proportions. In a post-feminist world that should know better, she seems to be adored as the comforting provider of romantic, happy-endings nonsense instead of the sharp and acerbic social satirist she deserves to be seen as.

(Does anyone actually believe her, by the way, when she foretells a happy marriage for Darcey and Elizabeth? I fear a woman as interesting as Elizabeth would be sorely disappointed with this standard-issue British Repressed Public-school Man - hopeless emotionally, and probably hopeless in bed.)

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