Fortune Is a Woman - Elizabeth Adler [48]
“I can learn, can’t I?” she retorted. “I could be a kitchenmaid, learn to cook, serve at table … anything….”
“Not here in San Francisco you couldn’t. Nobody would give Harmon Harrison’s daughter a job.”
“Well, I could train to be a nurse, like the nuns—”
“And then I’d never see you, Francie.”
“At least I can sew and embroider, that’s all I’ve ever done in my life—”
“No wife of mine’s going to work in a sweatshop,” he said with a flash of anger.
Francie’s heart skipped a beat and she stopped and looked at him. “Your wife?”
“Aye, lass, that’s what I said.”
She pulled herself together and said with quiet dignity, “You don’t have to feel responsible for me, Josh. I can manage on my own.”
He took her by the shoulders, looking deep into her eyes. “But I’ve never loved anyone before, Francie. I want to look after you and make you happy.”
She suddenly brimmed with happiness; she felt like she had when she was just a kid turned loose on the ranch, ready to whoop and holler and turn cartwheels. She had never loved anyone since her mother died, but this was different, it left her breathless and trembling inside. And when Josh bent forward and kissed her gently on the lips all she wanted was for the kiss to last forever.
When Josh came to fetch Francie home the following week she was wearing a brown woolen dress and jacket donated by the civic charity and she carried a little bundle with a few more cast-offs. The only thing she had of her own were the boots she had worn when she had first gone there. She had covered her head with a plaid woolen shawl and Josh told her she looked like a Yorkshire mill girl on her way to work.
The Reverend Mother bestowed a blessing on them and then she pressed a soft leather purse containing a few dollars into Francie’s hand. “Please take this with our blessing, and may the Lord guide you and help you on your way,” she murmured.
As the great wooden convent doors closed behind her Francie stared down at the purse, her humiliation complete. She possessed nothing, not even her own clothes. She was filled with a deep, burning anger as she vowed to herself that one day she would see the Harrisons humiliated just the way she was. And she knew she would hate her father till the day he died, and even beyond the grave, into eternity.
The Barbary Saloon and Rooming House was a four-story brick-and-timber building on Pacific Avenue, at the foot of Telegraph Hill. It was sandwiched between the trashy Venus Dance Hall on the left and the notorious Goldrush Bordello on the right, and the saloon did good business, catching customers either on their way into the dance hall, or on their way out of the bordello. Either way, the men were hungry and thirsty, and with the workers from the produce market a couple of blocks to the south the long, scarred mahogany bar was always crowded.
Francie smiled as she waited on the sidewalk while Josh paid the cab, remembering her secret nocturnal walks when she had lingered enviously outside the saloons; now she would get to see what they were really like. Josh had got her a room next to his and he had paid for it too. She meant to pay him back from the money from her charity purse, and then, no matter what he said, she would look for a job, because she just couldn’t go on living on other people’s charity forever.
“You must be Francie Harrison.”
Surprised, she looked at the dark, stocky young man leaning against the door. He wore a threadbare jacket with a brown muffler knotted at his throat and a flat, checked cap that he made no attempt to remove. Francie smiled shyly and said, “And you must be Josh’s best friend, Sammy Morris. He told me all about you.”
“Mebbe he did and mebbe he didn’t,” he replied, unsmiling.
She thought he didn’t seem very friendly, but Josh put his arm around her and said, “I see you’ve met Sammy,” and she could tell by the way his eyes lit up that he was pleased, so she smiled politely and said, “I’m very happy to meet you at last, Sammy.