Calico Palace by Gwen Bristow Page B

like to waste money that way. But when Captain Pollock saw her, he simply would not believe I hadn’t known who she was when I let her board the ship.”
    “When did he see her?” Kendra asked.
    Loren said not until the next day, for Marny had not come to table that evening. This surprised nobody; passengers often had no appetite for the first meal or two on shipboard. When Pollock did catch sight of her, strolling in the sunshine of the quarterdeck, the ship was well out to sea. Pollock had stormed into his own quarters and sent for Loren.
    “He was in a rage,” said Loren. “I couldn’t persuade him that I was as surprised as he was.” Loren turned his chair so as to face Kendra, speaking with puzzled thoughtfulness. “And do you know, there was something surprising about her. I had been told Marny was a siren who sent men out of their heads. But the Miss Randolph who came on board that day looked like a perfect lady and talked like one. She wouldn’t have attracted any attention at a church tea party.”
    Remembering Marny’s opinion of church tea parties, Kendra was astonished. This did not sound like the girl she had seen in that gush of sunshine.
    Loren said Captain Pollock had summoned Marny and asked what she meant by daring to board his ship.
    “What did she say?”
    “She talked back to him,” said Loren, “like a soldier. And not,” Loren added humorously, “like a perfect lady. Marny has—I guess you’d call it a double personality. I never knew anybody like that before.”
    “What did Captain Pollock expect to do?” Kendra asked wonderingly. “He couldn’t throw her overboard like Jonah and hope a whale would come along.”
    “No,” said Loren, “but he did threaten to turn the ship back to Honolulu and put her off. She told him if he did she’d take him to court and he wouldn’t get his precious Cynthia out of the harbor for six months. When he accepted her money for a ticket he had made a contract to take her to San Francisco. And of course, she was right.”
    “Then what happened?” Kendra asked.
    “Then,” said Loren, “for ten days we had smooth sailing. The weather was perfect. Marny spent most of her time on the quarterdeck. At meals she was pleasant and quiet. And yet—” Loren frowned and bit his lip—“everything was going well, and yet there was a kind of tenseness on the ship. You might almost say Captain Pollock knew something was going to happen. And when the captain is uneasy everybody else is.”
    Kendra nodded. She remembered how, at Cape Horn, the captain’s confidence had given confidence to her. Certainly it would work the other way.
    “And then, eleven days out of Honolulu,” said Loren, “the storm broke. That storm was really a shocker. We came through it, but by the time the wind calmed down and we got back on course—Kendra, Captain Pollock was like a man with a demon. The storm was her fault, and my fault for letting her come on board, and Mr. Galloway’s fault for buying her a ticket.”
    “How did Mr. Galloway like that?”
    “He was amazed. He had seen Captain Pollock in Marny’s gambling place, he couldn’t understand that this was any different from having her on the ship. But the person Captain Pollock was really angry with was Marny herself.”
    “How did she take all this?”
    “She laughed at him.”
    “To his face?”
    Loren nodded. “She told him he was the biggest fool she had ever seen.”
    Kendra reflected a moment. She thought making fun of the captain directly was not wise. “Did you laugh at him when he blamed you?” she asked Loren.
    “No, I couldn’t,” he replied soberly. “I know him better than she does. I understand how seriously he takes this. But I can tell you, the rest of the voyage wasn’t comfortable. By the time we got to San Francisco I knew he and I couldn’t work together any longer. So I told him I was willing to tear up our contract.”
    Loren left soon after this, and Kendra went indoors to make