The Rich Shall Inherit (12 page)

Jeb insisted that as Poppy’s nurse Louise must wear a uniform, and thrusting a packet of money into her small, eager hand, he sent her off to buy whatever she needed. He roared with laughter later when he saw the result. Louise had stripped down to her black corselette and red silk drawers and as she bent down to pull on a frilled red petticoat, she waggled her bottom saucily at him.
Propping one leg high on the table, she hitched up her new skirts and straightened the garter on her beautiful red silk stockings. Jeb groaned with lust as her plump breasts spilled out and she had barely had time to show him her white lace blouse before he ripped off all her new finery and flung her laughing on her back, spreading her legs and taking her fast. And if Poppy cried that night, neither one of them heard her.

Jeb Mallory’s nursemaid, looking like something from a French revue, became the talk of San Francisco. She pattered along in her high-laced boots, red petticoats peeping from beneath her wickedly short skirts, pert breasts bobbing under her low-cut blouse as she pushed Poppy in her smart English wicker perambulator. Tilting her nose in the air, Louise acknowledged the stares with a wide smile, wondering if the scandal might get her a starring role in the
Follies.

Jeb loved the notoriety she created, though he certainly didn’t love Louise, and she was certainly not the only woman to lay claim to his bed. Despite his lavish tips and genial bonhomie, the management of the hotel were beginning to look askance on his roistering and wild parties, and it was with relief a couple of months later that they heard his house was completed and Mr. Mallory would be leaving.

He had given Louise the day off, and with Poppy on his knee, he drove in an open carriage through San Francisco’s early June sunshine to Russian Hill.

The new English butler hurried down the steps to help them, but Jeb shrugged him off, hoisting Poppy under his arm in his usual fashion. She was wearing a white lawn dress with a French lace collar and tiny button boots made from the softest white kid. As he carried her up the steps past the waiting servants, her red hair blazed in the sunshine, and the new housekeeper murmured, smiling, that she looked like an autumn chrysanthemum.

Jeb marched up the grand marble staircase to the nursery, a cigar in one hand and Poppy under his arm. “I bet you thought I’d forgotten, didn’t you?” he said to her with a chuckle. “Well, me darling, you were wrong! No one can ever say your father forgot your first birthday.” Poppy stared at him wide-eyed and he threw back his head, laughing. “Sure, and I bet you know what I’m saying, even though you’re only one year old. You’ve got a look in those fine blue eyes that I recognize. You’re a chip off the true old Irish block all right! Don’t worry, your old father
knows exactly what a girl needs—whatever her age!” Flinging open the door, he plunked her down in the middle of the floor.

He had bought every toy he could imagine a child would like. There were regiments of dolls with porcelain faces and glassy blue eyes that opened and shut, and with real hair, blond and black and carrot red. There were baby dolls who squealed when Jeb tipped them over to show Poppy and rag dolls with painted faces. There were toy dogs with woolly coats and wheels, and patchwork cats and furry rabbits. There was a dollhouse crammed with furniture and toy soldiers and a farmyard, and piles of printed linen picture books. There were brightly colored rubber balls and skipping ropes with bells on. And at the back stood an enormous wooden rocking horse. He was glossy black with a white blaze on his forehead and he had a mane of real white horsehair. His flying hooves were lacquered a smart red and his saddle and bridle were silver and white.

Pushing aside the dolls, Poppy crawled toward the horse. Holding on to the stirrups, she pulled herself to her feet and stood for a while, wobbling uncertainly, glancing beseechingly at Jeb until he picked her up and set her in the saddle. “There you go, Papa’s girl,” he chuckled, “let’s see how you can ride, then.” A great smile lit Poppy’s face and he grinned back at her. “You know what we’ll call him?” he said slyly. “We’ll call him Nik. Because he’s a horse’s ass too!”

His mood changed suddenly as he thought of Nik, and sweeping Poppy from the saddle he rang for the butler to bring him a bottle of champagne. Poppy sat in the middle of her new toys watching solemnly as he quickly drank his way through the first bottle and called for more. He was on his third bottle when he said suddenly, “Hey, it’s bad to drink alone, y’know. Here, have a little sip,” and tilting his glass he spilled a little into her soft mouth. She gasped as the fizzy wine hit the back of her throat, coughing and blinking the tears from her eyes.

“Well, what d’ya know, my daughter has extravagant tastes, just like her father,” he cried, roaring with drunken laughter. “Poppy,” he said, placing a kiss on her round cheek, “you know who you are, don’t you?
You’re Papa’s girl. And don’t you ever forget it.”

The English butler lasted only a month in the Mallory household. Telling Jeb he found the position “unsuitable,” he left, shocked by the wild parties and weeklong gambling sessions,
and by what the housekeeper called the “criminal neglect” of Poppy.

“She’s being brought up like a little heathen,” the housekeeper told Jeb stoutly, “no regular hours and all those … those
fancy women
around. And that
nursemaid
who’s no better than she ought to be. I can’t put up with it any longer, Mr. Mallory, I tell you it’s just breaking my heart.”

“Well, we can’t have a housekeeper with a broken heart, Mrs. Drake, so you must go. Immediately,” Jeb replied coldly. “I’ll give you a week’s wages in lieu of notice.”

Mrs. Drake bridled, her plump face red with anger. “By rights I’m entitled to a month,” she retorted.

Jeb shrugged. “In that case, stay and work the month.”

She glared at him furiously, but she knew he’d beaten her and she flounced off, muttering under her breath about “immorality and God’s judgment on the wicked.”

Jeb merely sighed and sent another message to Maraya. Soon the big house was staffed with sufficient out-of-work dancers and singers to form his own chorus line, and some nights he did just that, entertaining his friends royally with enough champagne and lobster to stock an ocean liner. The Russian Hill house became a rendezvous for theater people arriving in San Francisco, and Jeb hosted parties for opera singers and Shakespearean actors, variety stars and aerial artistes, musicians and playwrights.
And gamblers.

But he still had sufficient charm and more than enough money to maintain his position in San Francisco’s snobbish society. He appeared nightly at his box at the theater, immaculate in white tie and tails, and he was invited to all the cotillions and parties and musical soirees. Lovely girls from good families, intrigued by his reputation, flirted extravagantly with him, while Jeb flirted discreetly with—and quite often seduced—their mothers. And every one of them felt that only
she
could reform the charming black sheep and make him a respectable member of society. All he had to do was marry her.

Poppy was kept like the pampered little pet of the household. “A pretty little blue-eyed tabby cat,” Jeb called her. When Louise grew too demanding, he replaced her with a new “nursemaid,” and then another, and another. No one stayed for more than a few months. And he quite forgot Poppy’s second birthday, and her third, but it made no difference because she knew no other children to invite, and anyway there were parties all the time when she was permitted to sip her own glass of champagne
through a straw and to eat lobster and chocolate cake, and Jeb was proud of her because she didn’t throw up.

When she was four, Jeb got the urge to travel again and he took her with him to France. Poppy dashed excitedly around Union Square Railroad Station, watching the great trains puffing and snorting steam, and when they boarded she found she had a little room all her own with a special bed that folded from the wall, while outside all the world rushed by. After two days and nights they woke up in Chicago and then took another train to New York. She and Papa and the latest nursemaid, as well as Papa’s huge entourage of friends, stayed at the Waldorf Hotel overnight, getting up early to drive down Wall Street to the pier where the big ocean liner waited for them. Poppy thought the journey was quite the best part of traveling, because once she got to France no one understood a word she said. But she did get a lot of presents and pretty dresses from smart shops. And then, after another train journey south—there was Monte Carlo.

This time Jeb had rented a villa in the hills. Before too long her own nursemaid disappeared and a new, French nursemaid took her place, driving down with her each morning to the sea. Poppy thought it was bliss, running along the water’s edge, wiggling her toes in the wet sand and digging with her little spade. But she missed Papa a lot because now he always went out without her. Sometimes when she was having her breakfast in the sunny dining room he would just be getting home. He’d come in to see her, his jacket slung over his shoulder, his stiff white collar and his white tie stuffed into his pocket. She thought he looked tired and very handsome as he called to her, “Hey there, me little darling, how’s Papa’s girl?” And he’d drop a big whiskey-scented kiss on top of her head before climbing upstairs to sleep away the day.

When she was five and back in San Francisco again, Jeb decided it was time Poppy had some book-learning and he hired a young woman called Mademoiselle Grenier to teach her the alphabet and numbers. Ma’mzelle Grenier was a Parisian soubrette with wondrously long slender legs who’d been stranded without a cent when the touring company she was appearing with went broke. Occasionally Jeb would wander into the nursery to see how the lessons were going and Poppy noticed that Ma’mzelle would pat her hair and blush and become even more “French.” Jeb just smiled understandingly at Ma’mzelle and told her to come to his study that afternoon at two o’clock.

“Here
ma petite,”
she said at five minutes to two, sitting Poppy hastily at a table with some pots of colored paints and a brush. “Paint a nice picture for your father, won’t you? I’ll be back very soon.”

Poppy decided to paint a picture of her favorite friend, the rocking horse. She would give it to Papa and maybe he’d put it in a frame with some glass over it and hang it up beside all those dull, dark paintings in his study. When she’d finished, she regarded it, satisfied, and then looked around for Ma’mzelle. She had been gone a long time and it was awful lonely here in the nursery, even with Nik the horse to talk to. And she really wanted to give her picture to Papa … but Ma’mzelle had said to stay here …. She waited for what seemed like ages and then, wriggling from her chair, she ran to the door.

The red-carpeted corridor leading from the nursery wing was empty and Poppy tiptoed to the upper hallway and leaned over the banister, listening. The house was completely silent and suddenly she felt frightened. What if everyone had gone away and left her? She’d never been all alone before …. Clutching her painting to her chest, she stole silently down the grand curving marble suitcase. There was still no sound as she crept along the corridor toward Papa’s study because that’s where she’d heard him say Ma’mzelle should go.

The big brass doorknob was quite difficult for her small hand but she finally managed to turn it, and pushing open the door, she slid inside. Papa’s study was one of the largest rooms in the house, with a vast mahogany desk and a big leather chair that Poppy loved because it swiveled like a carousel. The walls were paneled in dark carved oak, and sofas and chairs were arranged around an elaborate gray marble fireplace. Tall glass-fronted cabinets held important-looking books bound in dark leather and heavy green velvet drapes were swagged and looped across the three high windows. At the far end of the room stood a full-size billiard table with massive bulbous legs and a green baize top. It was lit by a fancy chandelier, its red globes dripping with ormolu crystal drops that tinkled prettily whenever Poppy ran her fingers over them.

Only today they were tinkling anyway, and the pinky-red light glowed onto the green baize and onto Ma’mzelle, who had taken off all her clothes and was spread-eagled across the table, while Papa lay on top of her.

Poppy stared at them puzzled, wondering at Ma’mzelle’s
strange cries and Papa’s odd behavior. Deciding it must be some new game, she smiled. “Papa?” she called in her low, sweet voice. “Can I play too?”

Ma’mzelle shrieked and sat up, clasping her hands over her large, wobbly breasts. Poppy put her hands over her ears, shocked.
“You
shouldn’t scream, Ma’mzelle,” she informed her sternly, “it’s rude.”

“Oh, my God,” exclaimed Jeb, climbing hastily from the table and adjusting his clothing. “Poppy, what are you doing here?”

“I came to bring you my picture, Papa. I waited and waited for Ma’mzelle to come back but instead she was here, with you.” She stared at him reproachfully and Jeb groaned. Taking her arm, he led her to the other end of the room while Ma’mzelle gathered her scattered garments and dressed hurriedly.

“This was … er … grown-up business, me girl, nothing to do with the nursery,” he explained sternly. “You should have stayed in your room as you were told. I’m very angry with you, Poppy.”

Tears sprang to her eyes. “But I just wanted to give you the picture because I love you,” she whispered.

Jeb stared at her. “Very well, then, Papa’s girl,” he said, ruffling her red hair that still reminded him of Margaret, “but I want you to promise me that you’ll forget that you ever came into this room. Forget that Ma’mzelle was in here. All right?”

Poppy nodded. “I promise, Papa,” she agreed. But she thought Papa must really have liked Ma’mzelle a lot because she stayed with them for a long time, and that’s why the first language Poppy learned to read and write was French.

There was no “bedtime” for Poppy, no special times to get up or to have lunch. Quite often if there’d been a party the night before, she wouldn’t even wake until the afternoon and then she’d have supper at eleven o’clock at night. Sometimes she’d be in bed and the noise would wake her and she’d wander downstairs in her white flannel nightdress, her glossy red hair in two fat braids and a plump rag doll clutched under her arm. The green tables in the card room would be filled with silent tense men, puffing cheroots or cigars, sending swirls of blue smoke into the low green-shaded lights. “Housemaids” in jaunty black soubrette skirts and high-button boots would be strolling around offering refreshment, and the smell of Irish whiskey and of southern bourbon hung in the air. Two sideboards groaned under enormous
silver platters of meats and puddings and dishes of fruits and nuts, while opened bottles of fine claret stood neglected alongside decanters of rare vintage port.