Ambrose Bierce and the Queen of Spades

24

ROMANCE, n. – Fiction that owes no allegiance to the God of Things as They Are.

–THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY

Sgt. Nix propped his helmet on the desk beside the skull, shaking his head as Bierce told him about the encounter with Jennings at the Palace Hotel.

“He’s too big for the captain to go after,” Nix said. “You’d have to have a squad of ministers swearing on a carload of Bibles that they saw him strangle Judge Hamon’s widow.”

“Any word from the daughter in San Diego?” Bierce asked.

“She and Hamon didn’t get along. She doesn’t know anything.”

“Tom’s been nosing into Mammy Pleasant’s past history,” Bierce said.

“Those’re tolerable high-power Nobs that used to play those games out at Geneva Cottage,” Nix said, shaking his head again. “Course we always knew what Mammy was. Do you know how many abortions a month it takes to keep a crib going? Cowyards and parlorhouses? They’ve got some kind of pessary thing soaked in quinine and some herbs that makes them barren for awhile, but it is still abortions mostly. And was back when Mammy Pleasant was in the business. There’s always midwifes around, but she was the only one for the Nobs. Abortions and baby-furnishing. No one ever went after her for any of that. This is San Francisco. There has been funny business at the Bell house too. But they say she and Allan Pinkerton was pals from the days when she had to do with the Underground Railroad. Captain Pusey is tolerable careful with her. I’ve noticed.

“They say she’s in court every day. Right in the middle of things too. Sarah Althea and her lawyers having a confab at their table, she’ll stick her black head right in the middle of it. Of course she is paying the bills. Miss Hill and her new lawyer’s a couple of turtledoves, I hear. I expect some of that’s for Sharon’s benefit.”

There was some discussion of Sharon v. Sharon, which seemed to be going Sarah Althea Hill’s way at the moment.

Bierce asked if Beau McNair was in custody or out.

“Out,” Nix said. “His mother’s on hand. Got in last night.”

“Now Captain Pusey will spring his trap,” Bierce said.

“Let’s see what you have on Mammy Pleasant,” Bierce said, when Nix had gone. I brought him the typescript:

Mary Ellen Pleasant arrived in San Francisco in 1853, a passenger on the SS Oregon. Also aboard was a young Scotsman named Thomas Bell, and a long-standing connection was formed. Mrs. Pleasant was a quadroon who could pass for white and did so in a San Francisco that was more interested in handsome women than in distinctions of color. It may be that she knew of some crime or aberration in Thomas Bell’s past, because she has kept a rein on him as his fortunes flourished in San Francisco. She was renowned as a chef and was passed from kitchen to kitchen among the aristocracy of Rincon Hill and Nob Hill. It was said that she could command a cook’s wage of $500 a month, with the stipulation that she wash no dishes.

In the employ of wealthy men she found a role as an organizer of elaborate parties, with the service of beautiful females she always seemed to know how to procure. In the late ‘60s she operated a prosperous house of assignation where the Bonanza kings were often to be found: William Ralston, Darius Mills and William Sharon, as well as Thomas Bell, who had become a financier of considerable means. In 1869 she opened a Pleasure Palace at the junction of the Geneva and San Jose Roads called Geneva Cottage. Parties were limited to ten; the fee was $500. Financiers, politicians, bankers and mining kings visited Geneva Cottage for stag parties. A popular amusement was a game of Nymphs and Satyrs, with Nymphs shedding garments as they fled into the darkness of Geneva Cottage’s park, and aging Satyrs puffing in pursuit. There were rumors about harsh treatment of the girls, and at least one troublesome Nymph dropped from sight. Such rumors were not pursued by the police because of Mrs. Pleasant’s connections.

In the ‘70s she purchased a new “boardinghouse” at 920 Washington Street, where the opening revels were presided over by Governor Newton Booth and his Secretary of State, Drury Malone. William Sharon, William Ralston and Nathaniel McNair were on hand for the event.

Out of her party organization and procuring facilities, Mrs. Pleasant progressed to matchmaking. A beautiful young woman of her stable became engaged to, and later married, Thomas Bell. India Howard, who had been the chief ornament at Geneva Cottage, also married well. Another of Mammy Pleasant’s girls was Sarah Althea Hill, who took up residence in the Grand Hotel that was paid for by Senator Sharon. In the current trial of Sharon v. Sharon, Mrs. Pleasant is the chief witness for Miss Hill, or Mrs. Sharon, as the case may be.

In the early ‘70s Mrs. Pleasant held San Francisco real estate of considerable value and, advised by Thomas Bell, had also prospered in mining stocks. These were lost in the crash of the Bank of California in 1875. Many considered William Sharon responsible for the Bank debacle and Ralston’s suicide. Mammy Pleasant may blame her financial downfall on Senator Sharon, and her active participation in Sarah Althea Hill’s claim on the Sharon fortune may be motivated by revenge.

After the Bank crash Mrs. Pleasant moved into Thomas Bell’s mansion on Octavia Street as his “housekeeper” presumably under the direction of his wife, Teresa Bell, once one of the Geneva Cottage attractions.

Bierce didn’t seem much interested in what I had collected, staring out the window frowning. Probably he was disappointed that I had found no Railroad connection. The fact was that the Big Four seemed not to have participated in any of the Geneva Cottage revels presided over by Mammy Pleasant but remained faithful to their wives and husbanded their money.

“She knows who the Slasher is,” Bierce said. “But she does not see any ‘gain’ to helping us. But I will get it out of her!”

And he took the occasion to deliver a lecture concerning the usage of “shall” and “will,” as though he could not pass on a piece of my writing without commentary.

“In the first person a mere intention is indicated by ‘shall,’ ” he said. “I shall go. Whereas ‘will’ denotes some degree of compliance or determination. I will go‌—‌as if my going had been requested or forbidden. In the second and third person, ‘will’ merely forecasts, but ‘shall’ implies something of promise, permission or compulsion by the speaker.”

“We shall track the Slasher down,” I said.

“That is correct,” Bierce said.

I sat with Amelia Brittain in the pergola behind the Brittain house. Squares of sunlight fell through the interstices of the laths of the roof onto the table, the pitcher of iced tea, our glasses, my hat and Amelia’s hand, fingers spread on the table before her. She wore light blue with tricky sewn ridges of material that made little epaulets on her shoulders. I couldn’t keep my eyes off the smooth flesh of her neck. Her pink lips smiled at me. She had greeted me as her hero, but she seemed sad today.

Constable Riley, her day-guardian, sat on the stoop above us with his chair tilted back against the wall behind him, and his trousers stretched over his fat knees.

“Do you remember the clock in Vanity Fair?” Amelia asked.

I sipped iced tea. “Remind me.”

“In the Osbornes’ house there was a clock decorated with a brass grouping depicting the sacrifice of Iphigenia.”

“Sacrificed so the Greek fleet could set sail against Troy,” I said, to prove I knew my mythology.

“The daughter of Agamemnon,” Amelia said. It was as though she was assisting me with answers to the questions of an examination. “Because the winds were blowing the wrong way, preventing the fleet from sailing.

“In the novel the clock is tolling. Mr. Osborne is wearing a kind of military suiting, brass buttons and so on. Something is wrong. The daughters ask what is wrong. And one of them says, ‘The funds must be falling.’ ”

I didn’t remember.

“The winds were unfriendly,” Amelia said, watching me. “One of the daughters would have to be sacrificed.”

I was irritated that she should have read more into Vanity Fair than I had.

“Sacrificed?” I said.

“To a marriage for economic reasons. A girl’s girlhood ended before she is ready for it, because the funds are falling.”

She looked disappointed because I had had to be prompted.

I could feel my heart beating. “And the funds are falling?”

She plucked up her damp-glistening tumbler and cooled her cheek with it. She nodded.

I could hardly say it. “Beau McNair?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Poppa will not have that.”

“What does he have against Beau?”

“Beau reminds him of my uncle. My Father has a twin brother who is always off somewhere writing back for money. He’s a rake and a drunkard and charming. He’s in the Hawaiian Islands now. I don’t think Beau is like him at all.”

I didn’t care what her father had against Beau, but I cared that her face had been naked with relief when she had realized it could not have been Beau who attacked her on the porch, because he was in jail. I cared that she cared for Beau.

“Did you want to marry Beau?”

She smiled at me. “I was not ready for my girlhood to be ended.” She looked down at her hands spread on the tabletop, striped with sunlight.

“Who will you be required to marry, then?” I asked. I couldn’t believe that I was having this conversation with my True Love.

“Someone very wealthy. I don’t know yet.”

My jaws ached. “It is terrible,” I said. “It is medieval. It’s like the Middle Ages. It is a terrible thing to do to a‌—‌lovely young woman.”

“Oh, I think it is a comedy. Except when it happens to you it is not so comical.”

“Will you run away with me?”

She shook her head, smiling still. “Thank you, Tom.”

I made a business of picking up my own tumbler, and examining the contents and sipping the sweet tea. On the stoop Constable Riley sat sweating in the sun, gazing into the distance.

“Do you love me?” she whispered.

I closed my eyes. “I thought you were my True Love. I’ve never—” I stopped myself.

“It’s not the way it should be,” she said. “You saved me from the Minotaur, so the king should give you my hand. But the funds are falling.”

My anger had risen to choke me. “It is‌—‌terrible!” was all I could say.

“I am quite lucky,” she said, shaking her head. “If I had no social standing, no resources, no family, my fate could very well be like that of Miss Hill.”

“What’s the difference?” I said.

“There is all the difference in the world! As a married woman when my husband passes on I will be a woman of independent means. Miss Hill, who has no husband, has no such bulwark.”

I did not wish to argue with her about the Rose of Sharon.

“I will never forget you,” she said in her cool voice. “Perhaps you will never forget me. We will go our separate ways, but it will have been‌—‌something. That will be important all our lives. That will become a part of our lives and our characters, and our being. It is something I have already written pages in my diary about. That I will write poems about.”

“This is America!” I said helplessly. The Democracy! I felt sick with anger. And despite myself my anger focused on Amelia, who would let herself be sold like a Negro slave because it was part of some society comedy that amused her. For her character and being!

My own father and mother suddenly seemed paragons, and I felt a swell of righteousness at being poor and honest, and free. My father who might have been a silver king if the foxes and sheep had been differently arrayed. Thank the Good Lord that they had not!

I stood up. The patterns of sunlit squares swam in my eyes.

“I don’t want it to be like this,” Amelia said.

“I guess you don’t have any say in it, do you?” I hadn’t wanted to say that.

“My offer remains,” I said. I knew my offer was as silly as she must know it. What did I have to offer her?

“Thank you, my hero,” she whispered.

Her hand stretched across the table where I could have taken it, but I turned away from her. I didn’t want her to see my face.

I tramped up the back steps past Constable Riley, who made a saluting gesture as I passed, and strode through the dark hallway and out onto the veranda, where the broken railing had now been repaired, and down the steps to Taylor Street.

It was too early in the day to visit Annie Dunker.