by Megan Chance
“I hadn’t thought they even socialized. Has something changed since I’ve been away?”
“Changed how?”
Ellis and Goldie in the kitchen tent at the camp, her golden hair in the lamplight. All of Nob Hill forced to hobnob together. “Come now, put on your Alphonse Bandersnitch hat for a moment. Has Goldie’s marriage to Ellis made a difference socially? Have they moved into a different tier? Has Ned Greenway invited them to join the Cotillion Club?”
“You think Farge could get her in?” Dante snorted.
“If he’s so famous now—”
“No. He’s been invited to the Bohemian Club, but that’s a different thing altogether.”
“The Sullivans are still in the Sporting set?”
“And never the twain shall meet—unless they have business together,” he confirmed. “But that’s not likely with the Sullivans, especially after Goldie jilted him.”
I was quiet.
Dante frowned. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“It wasn’t Goldie who jilted Stephen Oelrichs. It was the other way around. He found out she was gambling and probably about the opium too, and he jilted her. But he let everyone think that she broke the engagement. He was trying to protect her, but Goldie thinks he did it to humiliate her. She hates him. And Dante . . . At the Anderson soiree, Oelrichs told me to be careful of the Sullivans, and he warned me about China Joe.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. He told me that I was in over my head. I think he was afraid for me.”
Dante went thoughtful. “I wonder what it means?”
“Maybe that he wanted to help me?”
“Do you never suspect anyone of ulterior motives?” he asked. “That’s what got you into trouble, you know.”
Tartly I said, “Mr. Oelrichs jilted Goldie and warned me against the Sullivans. I can’t help but think that it’s possible his motives aren’t in conflict with mine. But it’s strange that he would be arguing with my uncle, and I don’t like it. I want to know why.”
“I’ll see what I can find out today.” He rolled to face me. “But not yet. First there’s the little matter of a rude awakening . . .”
I was, of course, happy to make it up to him.
Stay here today, please. Can you do that for me?” Dante said. “I’ll be back before long. I want to see if there’s an answer from New York about your father, and check on this Oelrichs business, and I don’t want to worry where you are.”
I promised I wouldn’t leave. I sat on the stoop with one of my sketchbooks. Dante had taken one with him to the Bulletin. I knew he meant to put the advert in the newspaper today, and I had trouble settling. But the morning felt fresh and new, even with its familiar scent of salt and wet ash and smoke. Perhaps my life was not turning out exactly as Mama had hoped, or as I dreamed, but it was turning into something rather more interesting.
I drew in the foggy air until my hands were too cold, and then I went inside and put the sketchbook away and wondered if standing in the relief line for today’s provisions would be breaking my word to Dante. Before I could decide, there was a knock on the doorjamb, a “Hello?” at the open door that made me jump.
I turned to see a man standing there. He wore a dark heavy coat, and a hat with its brim pulled low, and he held a folded newspaper.
It was the same man who had followed me yesterday.
My instinct was to run. But he blocked the door, and I didn’t think I could get to the back without him catching me.
“Miss Kimble?” he asked. “May Kimble?”
I’d been found. I’d been caught. Too late. My uncle had won after all. Still, I tried. “N-no. No, I’m afraid you—”
“I’m David Emerson.” The man reached into his pocket and took out a card, stepping inside to offer it to me. “I’ve been hired by—”
“I know,” I murmured.
“—Mr. Stephen Oelrichs, to find Miss May Kimble, of the New York Van Berckyls.”
The words did not register at first. I was too busy trying to find a way out, to wonder how fast I could run, if he would follow, if I could push past him, but then what he’d said landed hard in my panicked brain.
“Stephen Oelrichs?”
Mr. Emerson nodded. “He’s been looking for you, miss. He asked me to tell you that he personally guarantees your safety.”
I stared at him, speechless.
“You’re the daughter of Charles Van Berckyl, of the New York family, are you not? Friends of Mr. Oelrichs?”
“The daughter of Charles Van Berckyl.” I repeated the name woodenly. The name I’d been waiting my whole life to hear, and to hear it now, so unexpectedly, from such an unexpected source . . . I could not fathom that this was me. It had nothing to do with me.
“Yes. Might I take you to Mr. Oelrichs, Miss Kimble? He is most anxious to speak with you.”
“Stay here,” Dante had said. I did not know if I could trust Stephen Oelrichs. Except that he’d tried to warn me. He’d been arguing with my uncle. Why? Emerson said Oelrichs was a friend of my father’s family. The New York Van Berckyls. The daughter of Charles Van Berckyl. My father, who had left me an inheritance, but who had allowed me and my mother to live in poverty and hardship. The man with whom I’d been angry most of my life.
“Do you never suspect anyone of ulterior motives? That’s what got you into trouble, you know.”
The button in my pocket was again in my fingers, turning and turning. Mr. Emerson waited for my answer with a pleasant expectancy, the card still proffered.
I plucked it from him and perused it quickly. “Thank you, Mr. Emerson, but I expect Mr. Oelrichs can wait a bit longer for my visit.”
“But Miss Kimble—”
“Tell Mr. Oelrichs that I’ll call on him later this afternoon. I’ll bring a friend.”
“This is a private matter, I’m afraid.”
A private matter. My family had wanted nothing to do with me. My inheritance was predicated on accepting those terms. According to Shin, they wished only to know whether I was dead or alive. This did not involve the Sullivans, or the police.
“It is my private matter,” I told him with my haughtiest manner. “I am not Mr. Oelrichs’s chattel, nor his relation, and I am not obliged to answer his summons. Tell him I’ll visit him at his home this afternoon, with a friend. Thank you, Mr. Emerson. That is all.”
The man looked flustered, but, as inconsequential as I looked in my trousers and my shirt, dirty and sweating and not at all the lady I was supposed to be, I had learned such a manner well, and I knew how to use it.
Mr. Emerson sighed. “Very well, Miss Kimble. I will give Mr. Oelrichs your message.”
When he left, the courage and hauteur that had sustained me collapsed. I sank into a chair and tried to swallow a hysterical urge to laugh—or to cry. I did not know what to think. Van Berckyl. The name should have meant everything to me, and yet, I could not find my center; I did not know how to feel about it.
I heard Dante before I saw him, bounding up the short front stairs and through the still-open door. A paper—a telegram—fluttered in his hand, and excitement animated his every move. The moment he saw me, he burst out breathlessly, “It came, May. It’s here—the answer. Your father is Charles Van Berckyl.”
“I know,” I said.
He stopped short. His hand dropped to his side. His surprise was almost comical. “You know?”
I nodded.
“How in the hell do you know that?”
“He found me,” I said. “Mr. Emerson. The private detective. He found me.”
More surprise. “He came here?”
“After you left. The Sullivans didn’t hire him. Stephen Oelrichs did.”
Silence. I could almost hear his mind spinning. “What?”
“You’d best sit down.”
I waited until he had, and then I told him about Emerson’s visit.
He handed me the telegram. “This was waiting at the office.”
I looked down at the paper. Charles Van Berckyl fits dates STOP Died mining accident NV STOP Age 50 STOP.
Charles Van Berckyl. The name felt alien. “It doesn’t change anything. I’m still me.”
Dante said, “But you’re not. Do you know what being a Van Berckyl will mean to San Francisco society? A New York Van Berckyl?”
I didn’t like the way he said it with such wonder. “Of course I do. They’re one of the Four Hundred families, just as Mama always said.”
“A pedigree that goes back to the Dutch founders of New York City. You’ve just been put into the Hoffman/McKay set—do you realize that? No one can touch you.”
“My parents weren’t married—”
“It doesn’t matter. They’ll fall over themselves to accept you. You’re as good as royalty. A bastard Van Berckyl—I couldn’t write a better story if I came up with it myself. Still, I don’t understand why Oelrichs is involved, and I don’t trust anyone but myself when it comes to you. I’m going with you to see him.”
It was what I’d hoped. “I told him I was bringing a friend.” I took his hand, nestling my cold fingers in his warm ones. “I admit I’ll feel better going to see Stephen Oelrichs if you’re with me. He’s a lawyer; perhaps he can help me get my inheritance back. And clear my name.”
Dante laughed. “You really don’t understand, do you? Once San Francisco society learns who you are, there won’t be anything for you to fear. They’d rather fling themselves into the ocean than accuse a Van Berckyl of murder—you can quote me on that. We’ll find out what Oelrichs wants, but whatever it is, I promise I’ll keep you as safe as I can. And that means splashing this news all over the Bulletin. By the day after tomorrow, everyone in San Francisco will know exactly who you really are. No one will dare to touch you with scurrilous rumors. Even I wouldn’t dare.”
“You? I don’t believe it.”
“I’d be run out of town.”
He was smiling. But there was something of regret in his relief and joy that checked my own, and I found myself wishing that David Emerson had not found me.
The oldest families in San Francisco, and the old money, as Goldie had once told me, were not on Nob Hill. First, they’d built on Rincon Hill, and then had spread elsewhere, many—like the Oelrichs—to Van Ness. The fire had reached Van Ness but had not crossed it, and even with the evident earthquake damage—the cracked and broken boulevard, ruptured watermains, crumbled chimneys—the residential parts had a peaceful, settled look with their shade trees and their stately homes with pillars and turrets and little of the ostentatiousness of Nob Hill.
The Oelrichs home had a genteel and reassuring solidity, no doubt accented by the fact that, from the outside, the only earthquake damage it seemed to have suffered was broken cornices, an off-balance turret already surrounded with scaffolding, and a tumbled stair, of which pieces had been carefully and neatly stacked beside it.
Stephen Oelrichs’s study too, unlike my uncle’s, had the deep, luxurious textures of old money. Worn, rich leathers and expensive carpets that looked as if they had been in place, exactly this way, for a hundred years, though San Francisco had not even existed as a city that long. An oil portrait of his father, whom Oelrichs looked very like, hung above a mantelpiece. Shelves of books, not a paper cover among them, and ones whose pages I was certain had all been cut, lined one wall. The room had the feel of having been lived in, of things purchased for beauty and utility instead of show, and with none of the frenzy that had marred my uncle’s rooms.
Which is to say that I felt comfortable, though I was acutely aware of how little I looked as if I belonged there. I was, after all, dressed in men’s clothing. Stephen Oelrichs did not seem the least taken aback by that, though he was obviously discomfited by Dante when I introduced him as a reporter for the Bulletin.
“I hope you aren’t here in a professional capacity, Mr. LaRosa.”
“I’m here as Miss Kimble’s friend,” Dante said easily, but firmly. “And to make sure she’s well treated, given that it seems to have been a problem in the past.”
“Indeed. Miss Kimble. Might I call you May? I feel we are to know one another quite well.”
“Are we?” I sat, as did Dante, when Oelrichs motioned to the facing chairs. “You appear to have weathered the earthquake well.”
“We’ve cleaned up quite a bit. Fortunately the house is sturdily built, but for the servants’ quarters in the back, which were badly damaged. Our troubles are slight compared to the rest of the city. I’d despaired of finding you in this chaos. I’ve been looking for you for weeks. Also, I feel I must offer my sincere apologies that I did not act on my first impulse.”
“What impulse was that?”
He smiled, that same charming smile he’d offered when I’d first met him at the Cliff House, smoothly assured. I remembered Goldie’s tension as she’d sat beside me, the set of her mouth. “The impulse to tell you to run screaming from the Sullivans.”
“I believe you wished me luck. And then, later, you told me to learn to swim.”
“Too little too late, I’m afraid. All I can say is that I didn’t know that you were a Van Berckyl until very recently.”
“Perhaps you could tell us how you know now,” Dante put in.
Stephen Oelrichs went to his desk and rifled through the papers there until he found what he was looking for. “Shortly after the earthquake, I received this.”
He handed it to me. It was a letter from a Peter Van Berckyl in New York City.
“Peter is a good friend of mine,” Stephen explained. “We went to school together, and he was my companion on my grand tour. As you can see there, Peter wrote to me inquiring about an inheritance received by an illegitimate daughter of his late cousin, Charles Van Berckyl. Charles was a bit of a black sheep. He kept his distance from the family. Went out west shortly after a scandal involving, well, your mother, I believe, which is where he died. Apparently, he never forgave his family for forcing him to abandon her.”
It was some consolation to know that she had mattered to him. My mother had called him honorable, and I supposed I would never know the entire story, or why she could so easily forgive him for leaving us. I didn’t think I could, but it was good to know that I agreed with my father on one thing: his sentiments regarding his family. My family. Really it was remarkable, given my bloodlines, that I’d turned out at all well.
“In any event, the daughter—you—had been given this inheritance on the condition that she never contact the family, but he said they’d received word that she’d gone to San Francisco, and that they were concerned that she may have perished in the disaster, and—” He waved at the paper in my hand as if he did not wish to say the rest.
I glanced down at the letter, easily finding what he must be referring to. It is a rather substantial amount of money, and if she is dead, we should not like it to be lost, but returned to us, as the original agreement states.
Just as Shin had said. It was impossible not to laugh at my family’s . . . well, I would be generous and call it practicality.
Stephen made a face. “Peter is a good man. I can’t vouch for the rest of his family. I do know they’ve endured their share of scandals over the years, and so . . .”
“And so you agreed to look for me?”
“Yes. It’s been difficult, of course, given the circumstances. Mr. Emerson had learned little. You’d simply disappeared. I did go to speak to your uncle. Knowing as I do of Jonathan Sullivan’s unsavory business dealings, I was reluctant to involve him, but I felt I had no choice by that point. I was disturbed as to how unconcerned he seemed to be about you. He said your name had not appeared on any lists, and so you could not be presumed dead without investigation—”
“Because if I were dead, the money would have to go back,” I said.
“—and when I asked about the money, he told me it was none of my concern and accused me of harassing Goldie and informed me that I would be very sorry if I did not leave them alone. I was sus
picious, but I felt I should be cautious before I contacted Peter. I knew so little of what had happened, you see. So many city records burned, and there was the fact of . . . well . . .”
“Blessington,” I said.
“Yes. Blessington.” The play of emotions across his face was wonderful to see. He hid nothing; he would have been easy prey for Goldie, and I was grateful that he had escaped her.
“You wanted to be certain I wasn’t insane.”
“Your uncle had appointed himself your guardian.”
Dante said, “You’ll pardon me, Oelrichs, but why should Miss Kimble trust you—especially as a representative of a family who wishes to have nothing to do with her? Why are you involved at all?”
Oelrichs sighed deeply and sat on the edge of his desk. “I’ve told you. Peter Van Berckyl is a friend.”
“There’s more to it,” Dante noted.
“Let’s just say I feel sorry for anyone attached to the Sullivans.”
“And yet you almost became attached to them yourself.”
Stephen Oelrichs colored and glanced away. “Yes. A momentary madness. Miss Sullivan is quite beautiful. And she can be charming.”
“She said you taught her to gamble,” I informed him. “And then jilted her when she grew to like it.”
He was obviously taken aback. “That’s what she said?”
“She also said that you took every opportunity to shame and humiliate her.”
“Ah. I’m sorry she thinks so.”
“Is there any merit to it?”
His finely arched brows—a perfect foil for Goldie’s, dark where hers were gold, what a perfect couple they would have made—came together in a thoughtful frown. “It was only a matter of time before I realized that your cousin cared little for me, but wished only to move in a—forgive me—better class of society. Also, she needed money. I did not teach her how to gamble, May. She was already very proficient when I met her. I knew she visited China Joe. I have no idea how she became involved with him. He’s no one to toy with, you know.”
I thought of the folder full of IOUs. Shin’s missing finger. That menacing smile. “If you do not . . . Your cousin finds out what happens when I don’t get paid.” I tried to feel nothing. Goldie had set her own fate. That she didn’t realize it should not be my concern.