The Rich Shall Inherit (23 page)

Her eager smile and bright blue eyes were so like Jeb’s it hurt. Nik turned away. “That’s nice, Poppy,” he replied, stepping out onto the wooden porch.

She ran after him anxiously. “Mr. Konstant,” she called. “I’d really like to meet another little girl.”

Her wistful gaze stabbed him and he cursed Jeb once again for what he was doing to the poor lonely child. “We’ll see,” he called, waving good-bye.

“Nice to have met you, Mr. Konstant,” Poppy called sadly, leaning over the porch, watching as he walked away.

Farther down the street, in Goux’s Liquor Store, Nik heard the full story about Jeb’s financial disasters from a man just disembarked from the steamer. And before the day was out the whole of Santa Barbara knew it. It only confirmed their opinion that Jeb Mallory was a bad lot.

“It can’t be true,” Rosalia gasped, horrified, when he told her. “How could he lose his fortune? He came back from Monte Carlo with millions!”

“Jeb could run through a million dollars so fast, you wouldn’t even have time to blink,” Nik replied with a shrug. “He’s a selfish man. The world revolves around him and his needs. Don’t you see he’s like a child, Rosalia? When he wants something he wants it
now
—and what he wants most is to gamble. He doesn’t care what it costs—or who it hurts.” Pouring himself a brandy from
the decanter on the sideboard, he looked at her somberly. “Poppy has his eyes, you know,
and
his smile. There’s no mistaking whose daughter she is. She’s a lovely child, Rosalia. And a very lonely one.”

Rosalia counted her blessings; happy little Angel, safely asleep in the nursery; and Greg, home for the summer vacation; and Nik. She thanked God that her home was more than just four walls that gave them shelter, it was a place that offered the warmth and stability, the love and security, of a true family.

“We must invite her to come here,” she said quietly. “After all, we cannot visit the sins of the fathers upon the daughters, can we?”

Poppy scuffed her feet in the accumulation of dead leaves and dust on the porch of the Mallory House while Jeb rang the bell impatiently for the third time. It looked run-down and shabby; its white paint was chipped, and the faded green shutters hung lopsidedly at the grimy windows. The picket fence around Margaret’s overgrown flower beds was tangled with ivy and the once baize-green lawns were brown and withered from neglect.

There was the sound of slow, shuffling footsteps, then the heavy bolts were drawn back, a key turned rustily in the long-unused lock, and at last the door swung stiffly open.

Poppy shrank terrified behind Papa as an Indian, looking as old as Methuselah, peered out at them. His nut-brown face was folded into a thousand creases and his eyes were clouded with cataracts that almost blinded him; nevertheless, he knew somehow that Jeb Mallory had returned, and he bowed. Jeb strode past him into the gloomy hall, switching back the drapes until sunlight flooded the room. Pausing by the hall table, Poppy wrote her name in large, straggling letters in the thick layer of dust. Then, telling the Indian that Lian Sung, their Chinese servant, was waiting in the gig to bring in the provisions, Jeb marched her up the oaken staircase.

“The child,” the Indian called after him in his slow, sonorous voice, “has her mother’s hair.”

Jeb glared at him; the wily old bastard could still see exactly what he wanted to see, despite the cataracts!

“He’s the second person to tell me that,” Poppy remarked excitedly. “Did he know my mother too?”

“What do you mean? Who else has been talking to you about your mother?” Jeb asked, surprised.

“I forgot to tell you, I met a man in Mrs. Price’s Candy Store the other day. He said he knew who I was because I had my mother’s red hair. Papa, why did you never tell me she had red hair?”

“Who did you talk to?” he demanded, gripping her shoulder fiercely. “Who was it?”

Poppy’s eyes were round with fright as she answered. “He said his name was Nik Konstant and he has a little girl my age. She’s called Angel. I told him I thought it was a silly name, Papa—”

“I don’t want you to speak to Nik Konstant again!” he commanded in an icy voice she barely recognized. “Or any other of the Konstants. You understand me, Poppy?
Never!
”

“But he seemed such a nice man …” she faltered.

“Just do as I say!” Jeb commanded, letting go of her so abruptly, she fell back against the banisters.

Poppy nodded. Her head drooped and frightened tears squeezed from her eyes; she just hated it when Papa got angry, it was even worse than when he drank a lot and just ignored her, or when he became involved in some card game and forgot to come home. She trailed despondently after him down a long, gloomy corridor to her old nursery.

It was a large room on the southeast corner of the house, with long windows on two sides, but even when the curtains were drawn back and sunlight filled it, Poppy thought somehow it looked unfriendly. She longed suddenly for her lavish satin and silk and lace nursery on Russian Hill, with all her familiar toys and books and Nik the rocking horse. She’d even be willing to put up with Ma’mzelle if only she could go back there. Blinking away her tears, she smiled bravely as she wandered around touching the neat white-painted iron bed with its patchwork quilt, thinking how hard it felt. She stared sadly at the little pine dresser and the straight rush-bottomed chairs and then, spotting a comforting old rocker by the window, she climbed into it. With her rag doll clutched to her chest she rocked gently backward and forward, taking in the details of her new—old—home. She tried to imagine her mysterious red-haired mother in here, putting her to bed when she was very small, and holding her on her lap in this very rocker, the way she knew from stories mothers did. And she wondered again why nobody ever talked about her mother. She turned to ask Papa but he had disappeared and she ran to find him.

He was standing at the doorway of a large dark room. A chink
of light came from a gap in the curtains and a long mirror, spotted with gray where the silvering had worn off, reflected their distorted images. Everything in there was dark, Poppy thought, lurking nervously behind him—the big carved bed, the heavy dresser, the dusty velvet drapes … it wasn’t a very pretty room. “Was this yours and Mama’s room?” she whispered, because somehow the room had been too long silent for her to talk in normal tones.

“It was,” Jeb replied abruptly, closing the door. She followed at his heels like a little dog as he strode along the corridor flinging open doors and opening the drapes. “I shall be sleeping in here,” he said, choosing a room at the opposite side of the house, and Poppy thought nervously that it seemed an awful long way from the nursery.

It was getting late, and after a strange supper of Chinese rice made by Lian Sung she curled up in her chilly bed in the old nursery, her rag doll clutched in her arms and her eyes squeezed tight shut. Papa had left the door open and a night-light burning but even so, her mind was full of strange thoughts about the shuttered silent room that used to be her mother’s, and the frightening Indian with the strange white eyes, and why Papa didn’t want her to talk to Nik Konstant when he was such a nice man. Sadness filled her as she realized that now she would never get to meet the little girl, Angel, and tears of fear and bewilderment flowed from her eyes until, at last, exhaustion sent her into an uneasy sleep.

“Papa,” she said a few weeks later as she paced up the hill at the back of the house beside him, “where are the poppies?”

His blue eyes narrowed as he glanced at her. “The poppies haven’t grown here in years … not since you were born. Why, who told you about them?”

“No one,” she replied innocently, “I just remember.”

“Don’t lie to me, Poppy,” he said angrily. “It’s impossible for you to remember. The old Indian must have been talking to you … or maybe it was Nik Konstant, eh?”

Poppy hung her head, saying nothing, mortified that he had thought she was lying, wondering why Papa wasn’t behaving the way he used to, when everything was jolly and nice.

“Papa,” she said a little while later, “why don’t we invite all your friends and have a party, the way we used to at the other
house? It’s so lonely here and I miss everyone so much.” She looked up at him hopefully, adding, “Don’t you miss it, Papa?”

With a pang Jeb remembered the note he’d received from Rosalia asking if Poppy could visit them and his curtly penned refusal. But God damn it,
he
was lonely too. He was bored with the ranch and bored with Poppy, and he missed his extravagant life-style … he needed a woman, and he needed a poker game! And he surely wasn’t going to find either at the Rancho Santa Vittoria.

“Tell you what, Poppy,” he said suddenly, “what you really need is a pony. Yes, a snappy little black pony just like Nik the rocking horse—but a real one this time. How’d you like your old Papa to teach you to ride, me girl?”

Her blue eyes sparkled and she jumped up and down with excitement. “Oh, yes, Papa, yes. When? When can I have it?”

“I’ll go right now and buy him for you,” he replied, hoisting her onto his shoulders and jogging back down the hill.

“Can I come too?” she cried, clutching at his hair, laughing.

“Well, no, not this time,” he said, setting her down on the porch. “It’s better if Papa’s girl waits here for him. That way it’ll be more of a surprise, won’t it?”

Poppy watched, disappointed, as he called instructions to Lian Sung and commanded the Indian to take care of her. And then he was off in the shabby little black and yellow gig, whisking the bay into a trot as he sped down the shady drive. “Be right back, sweetheart,” he called, waving. But she sat on the front steps for a long time, watching the plume of dust raised by the horse’s hooves die away into the distance.

Lian Sung was sweeping the hall when she finally went inside. “Can I help do that?” she asked, sneezing loudly, hoping she could make patterns in the dust, but he just shrugged and she remembered that Lian Sung spoke very funny English that only Papa understood. Hopefully, she tried a few words of French, but Lian just kept on sweeping.

Her tummy rumbled hungrily and she looked into the kitchen, but the scary old Indian was sitting in his usual place by the fire and she shrank back again. The nursery seemed empty and even more silent as she sat in the rocker thinking about her mother. Her father had told her that she had died when Poppy was still a baby and she thought it seemed such an unfair thing for a mama to do. Suddenly curious, she tiptoed along the corridor to the mysterious room.

The big brass key was in the lock, and by using both hands and all her weight, she managed to turn it. A chink of light came from the drapes and she stole across the room and drew them back cautiously, staring around in the bright sunlight, searching for a picture of her mother, wondering what she had looked like, what she had sounded like, and whether she had loved her. But there were no portraits or pictures on the walls, just a few gloomy woodcuts of saintly-looking men and women.

Under one window stood a small davenport desk made from some rich dark wood inlaid with patterns of mother-of-pearl. Poppy ran her hand over its surface, letting her fingers hover guiltily on the tiny gold key. She knew it was wrong to look at other people’s things, but after all, this was her mother … turning it quickly, she peered inside. She rummaged through a disappointing mass of old papers and letters, and then turned her attention to the cupboard below. There was a whole shelf of sketchbooks filled with pretty little watercolor paintings of the house and the gardens, and Poppy looked through them curiously for a while. Then she noticed a flat brown leather book in the far corner of the cupboard, and she recognized the name
Mallory
in gold letters on the front. Mallory! Her own name! Struggling, she deciphered the name
Margaret
… and beneath that
Her Journal.
Flushed with excitement, she held the precious book close to her chest … this was her mother’s very own book and in it she would tell what she did, how she felt, what her world was like … maybe she’d even talk about
her.

Poppy peeked eagerly at the yellowing pages but the writing was much too difficult for her limited reading ability. She ran her finger across the pages sadly, wanting to feel her mother’s presence, and there, on a page near the end, she recognized one word:
POPPY
. Her own name written by her own mother!

She held the book close once again. She would treasure it forever, and one day, when she was grown up enough and could read properly, she would know what her mother had said about her. Until then it would be her very own secret—she wouldn’t even tell Papa because then he might want to take it away from her.

Tucking the book under her pinafore where no one could see it, she stole from the room and ran back to the nursery where she hid it at the very back of the old toy cupboard. Breathing a sigh of relief that no one had noticed her “theft,” she dusted off
her hands and went back outside to her place on the front steps to wait for Papa to return.

The first night he didn’t return she told herself that he must be waiting for the pony to be ready. She was at her usual place on the front steps at dawn, peering down the road, and she didn’t leave until it was too dark to see anymore. Even though she tried to tell herself that Papa was late because he was taking his time choosing exactly the
right
pony, she cried herself to sleep. The third day seemed endless. Lian Sung placed food beside her, but she couldn’t eat. She just sat on the steps until darkness fell, waiting. The old Indian appeared suddenly in the gloom, grabbing her hand, and Poppy screamed, terrified as he forced her back into the house. But he merely shook his head and said, “Mr. Jeb come back when he come back. It is his way. You are child, you go to bed.”

No one had lit her night-light or brought her a glass of milk, and stifling her sobs, Poppy tossed and turned in the dark listening to the barking of the coyotes in the hills and the eerie hoot of marauding owls, imagining she could hear the fluttering of strange, nightmarish creatures in her room.