And as Osborne took stock of his life and tallied the reputable paths he might have taken, which had eluded him, and faced the sad verity that he was in fine neither healer nor the best provider for a wife and child who had died in his deficient custody, and was not by any means the best claimant upon the heart of anyone, let alone the woman he now wished to marry, and was not nearly the prosperous and sober-headed father he should have been for his daughter Molly, he sank into a pit of despair and self-doubt, and then, by and by, into a state of wretched self-loathing, which caused him to drink ever the more and to lose all sense of himself.
In her dream Molly found herself in the middle of a field of daisies, or was it pennywinkles or marigolds or sunflowers? Yes, it was great sunflowers, bent like genuflecting Mussulmans from the weight of their Brobdingnagian seeds. She wandered amongst the flowers and did not know if she should be happy in their crowding presence or affrighted, for there were a good many of them and they choked her path and rose up to her own height. And there seemed traces of something lurking behind them — creatures of some mysterious sort. Lurking, Molly wondered, or merely abiding? Was there a human form to the creatures? If so, were they known to her? Dreams are never unambiguously revelatory, and sometimes they are not revelatory at all. So Molly was happy to have done with this one when into the field intruded the sound of a hand rapping upon a door. There being no doors in the out-of-doors, Molly found in this incongruity reason to waken herself. Once she had come fully to herself and realised the knocking had not suspended, it became incumbent upon her to rise and discover the identity of the visitor to the rooms she shared with her father over the stationer’s and prints-seller’s shop (for there was no maid or footman to do it, and of her father’s whereabouts at the moment she had not the faintest idea).
With no need to dress, for she had lain down upon her bed without bothering to take anything off or to put anything on which was more appropriate for retirement, Molly plodded sleepy-eyed to the door that communicated with the public corridor and found, when she opened it, the young man who had touched her heart as no man had ever done before.
The two fell into one another’s arms without the exchange of a single word. The door was shut, and all the world that had no place or claim on this moment was shut out with it.
Chapter Seventeen
San Francisco, April 1906
The waiter swept his arm before him — silent indication that Cain and Ruth had their pick of all the tables in the empty tearoom.
“That sunny spot over there,” suggested Ruth, “right next to the door to the balcony.”
The waiter nodded and led the couple to the table Ruth had selected. But Ruth didn’t sit down. Instead, she stepped through the open door. The balcony commanded a generous view of Dupont Street all the way down to Bush. Cain joined her.
“How did you find this place?” Ruth asked, her gaze drawn to a fish stand and the two men haggling stridently in front of it. This being a Saturday afternoon, Chinatown’s main thoroughfare was bustling with boisterous, clamorous activity.
“I come here now and then. It’s popular with some friends of mine.”
“The men with whom you work at the advertising agency, or a different set?”
“A very different set. The proprietor of this place is happy to entertain the patronage of Occidentals for whatever their purpose might be. The Plague’s been over for some time now, but non-Asians — as a rule — still can’t find the nerve to venture back into this part of town.”
Ruth stepped back into the room and sat down. Her eyes wandered about the room. She counted herself among those who seldom came to Chinatown, though she’d heard that it had many interesting restaurants and tasty noodle shops. The room was gaudily ornamented in the Oriental style. The walls were painted bright blue and adorned with vertical Cantonese legends in silver and red. The tables were partitioned off from each other by large screens of elaborately gilded ebony, a material echoed in the tables and stools themselves, each stool inlaid with a slab of speckled marble. The gas chandelier suspended from the ceiling in the center of the room was strung with tinsel, which glittered even in the suffused light of its subdued gas jets.
“It seems to me,” said Ruth, running her palm along the contour of the smoothly polished table, “that this is one of those places where San Franciscans come who want very much to be left alone.”
The waiter handed Cain a menu and took a few steps back. “And you’d be totally correct in that assumption,” said Cain, his eyes now lowered upon the menu.
“What happens in those curtained-off rooms over there?” asked Ruth with casual curiosity.
Cain glanced up. “Opium smoking, for the most part, but other things take place there too — human activities that aren’t much spoken about in polite company. Do you mind if I order for the both of us?”
“Not at all.”
Cain signed to the waiter that he was ready to place his order. “A pot of Black Dragon, if you please. And we’ll have a platter of the pickled watermelon rinds and candied quince.” Turning to Ruth: “Do you like dried almonds?”
“More than pickled watermelon rinds, I think.”
Cain laughed. “Today you are being adventurous, whether you like it or not.” To the waiter: “And the dried almonds. Thank you very much.”
As the waiter receded from the room, two young Occidental men retreated on his heel. They had just emerged from one of the curtained rooms. Both were dressed in bright and unconventional colors, the more pavonine of the two fumbling with the tying off of a large purple cravat, which had apparently been removed and was now being restored to his ensemble.
Ruth arched an eyebrow. “Do you come here often?”
“Not as often as some.”
“Well, Mr. Pardlow, your secret is safe with me, as is anything else you may wish to tell me this afternoon — including whatever it is that has necessitated our coming to your hideaway in the first place.”
Cain, who had been distracted by the sudden emergence of the two young men, now purposefully returned his gaze to the woman seated across from him. “I’ve made a decision, Miss Thrasher — one which obviates the need for the two of us to do or pretend to do anything.”
“Have you arranged with a few of your Barbary Coast associates to have certain individuals we know shanghaied? I hear there’s a lot of that going on these days, and it could prove very advantageous in our present situation.”
Cain hooted with laughter. “Now just what do you know about shanghaiing?”
“I read, Mr. Pardlow.”
“That, Miss Thrasher, is undeniable fact.” Cain settled back in his chair and laced his fingers. “My decision has to do with me, Miss Thrasher. I’m leaving San Francisco — moving to New York. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s only been my fondness for Pat Harrison that’s kept me here for so long. But it’s sheer lunacy for me to continue to maintain a professional and fraternal association with three men who utterly repel me, all for the, the, the tenuous privilege of sustaining a friendship with Mr. Harrison that is — if I may be honest — one-sided and totally unfulfilling. So I will fly, Miss Thrasher, and I will start my life anew. And you’ll be happy to know that I require nothing from you but your valedictory good wishes.”
“Which I’m most happy to give you. But what about Will Holborne’s threats to expose you if you don’t play out that diabolical game of theirs?”