by Megan Chance
Oelrichs went on, “Anyway, she wished to marry me, and she was ruthless about how she went about it.”
“Ruthless how?”
Again, he colored. I thought of Goldie’s seductive smiles that had so beguiled me. “Never mind. I think I know.”
He cleared his throat. “Yes, well. When I realized it, I was appalled at my own stupidity. And yes, I’ll admit that there have been times when I have sometimes added to the gossip about her. I was angry, you see.”
“Are you still angry? Is that the reason you’re helping me now?”
“What if I am?”
“Goldie manipulated me to make all of society believe me a lunatic.” I remembered my desperation when I’d realized how they’d used just enough truth that everything I said or did only made things worse. “I thought I’d never be able to make anyone understand, and now here you are, and . . . and maybe I don’t need to explain how easily she made me a fool.”
“No,” Oelrichs said with a smile that was both embarrassed and compassionate. “No, you don’t need to explain.”
“My uncle named himself my guardian the moment my money became available. He killed my aunt when she tried to warn me, and then he blamed me for it. I have a witness to prove it. Now I want my inheritance back, Mr. Oelrichs. I want to clear my name. And I want to punish the Sullivans for what they did to me. Will you help?”
Stephen Oelrichs seemed surprised that I would ask. “Of course I will. You’re a Van Berckyl. You belong to us. We protect our own.”
And so that afternoon I learned the true significance of my mother’s words, “Never give Them a reason to think you don’t belong.” She was not only talking about etiquette and manners, but about something more amorphous, an entire state of being, membership in a tribe of which I was now a part, simply by virtue of the right name. “You’re a Van Berckyl.”
But again, I could not ignore the frisson of discomfort through my relief, or the echo of my cousin’s reassurance more than a year ago, which turned out not to be reassurance at all, but something else entirely. “You belong to us.”
Dante and I sat on the stoop. The paint of the little house had blistered in the fire, and I picked at it while he wrote feverishly in his notebook. The sun was setting, the fog of his cigarette smoke became tinged with the gold-gray light of sunset, and the evening breeze tickled the loose hairs dangling from my braid and made me shiver. The view was not beautiful, nor was the sunset. It was desolate and hostile, and it stank of smoke and sewage and an oily harbor sea. And yet, I thought I would keep this memory for the rest of my life. The day I took hold of my identity and my destiny.
One would think the world would be colored differently. Or that I would feel it so. But everything felt the same. I had a father—he was dead. I had a family—which didn’t want me. I had a fortune—not quite yet. Nothing had changed and yet everything had, and the truth was the life that had felt so new that morning was already sliding away from me, borne on a breeze sweeping out to sea, dissolving in the mist. I wanted desperately to clasp and hold this moment, breathing in the foul smoke of Dante’s cigarette, listening to his pencil scrape irritatingly across the page.
Tomorrow I would become the guest of Stephen Oelrichs and his mother until I could settle my affairs. They had insisted I stay with them tonight, but I had begged off, saying I needed to collect my things, which consisted precisely of what I wore and the metal rod in my pocket and my sketchbooks. Once Stephen—yes, Stephen now—had contacted my family in New York and had the papers drawn, we would go to the bank. Then, money in hand, I would be free to be anything I wanted. I would no longer be a poor relation. I would no longer be dependent on anyone.
It was time to start the life my mother had promised me.
Dante glanced up from writing. His hair had fallen into his face, and he pushed it away. “You’ll be glad to get away from this shack, I imagine.”
“I’ve rather got used to it.”
He laughed. “A few days with a maid and a cook, and you won’t miss this time at all.”
I put my chin in my hand and stared out at the horizon, the fog bank rolling in, obscuring the line of color. “You know that’s not true.”
“In no time I’ll be watching you at balls and entertainments and you won’t even notice me.”
“That won’t happen. I know who you are now. You won’t be able to hide from me.”
He, too, stared off at the incoming fog. “You’ll have all kinds of new friends among that set. You’ll be too busy with them to think much about me.”
“I’ve already lived that life, you know. I doubt I’ll find it any more amusing now.”
“Yes, well, you felt you didn’t belong to the Sporting set, and you were right, you didn’t. You’re at the top of the ladder now. It might be different this time.”
“Maybe. Anyway, you won’t be watching me. You won’t be the society reporter after this.” I tapped his notebook. “Older will move you to a different beat and you won’t be attending society balls.”
“Here’s to that, at long last.”
But there was nothing to toast with, and I think that neither of us felt much like toasting, despite the successes of the day. Melancholy rolled in with the fog, a missing for something not yet gone, and I thought he felt it too, and then I knew he did when he set his pencil down on the stair, where it rolled to the dirt below, and he braced his arms behind his back. I leaned against his shoulder, and we sat like that for a long time, watching the fog and darkness sweep over the hill and the campfires flare to life, one after another, until it got too cold to stay, and we went inside.
We spoke no more of it as we went to bed. Even as we made love, I felt a tentativeness that had not been there before, an ambiguity we could not touch or address. What would happen was impossible to know. We’d found in one another a haven in disaster; together we’d gained what we each wanted. But how to make those wants fit together, and whether we should even try . . . The world was too new, as yet unformed and grasping. We hardly knew it, and so the question hovered between us unspoken, cautioning that we make no promises: What now?
What now?
I was to be at the Oelrichs house by noon, but when I woke the next morning, Dante was nowhere to be seen. He had promised to go with me, but as the hours passed and he made no appearance, it was clear that I was going to have to go alone.
There were pencils everywhere, in all stages of wear, and so on the margin of a copy of the Bulletin, I wrote: Off to Stephen’s, thank you for everything. See you soon!—too little, too glib, but anything more would be too much, and I could not think of what else to say. I left it where he would see it, and told myself it was not goodbye. We still had plans. There was still the story that he was writing about the Sullivans, which we hoped would be the thing to destroy them once and for all. There was still the bank and my taking back my inheritance and settling things with China Joe and Shin. But those reassurances didn’t make me feel any better as I packed up my things and closed the door behind me and contemplated the long walk to the Oelrichses’ on my own.
The sketchbooks were heavy; by the time I arrived, I was tired and sweating, and annoyed with Dante for disappearing. Stephen was not there, but his mother, Rose, was, and she welcomed me as if I were a long-lost daughter. She reminded me of my own mother, actually, not because her rather distracted manner and vaguely affectionate smiles and her flurry of powder-scented, brief embraces were like my mother’s, but because of her simple acceptance. She seemed to belong to another world, one more genteel, mannered, and gracious than I’d seen before, and one that bore no resemblance to the one I’d entered with Goldie and my uncle, and it did not take long before Mrs. Oelrichs made me realize that this world could never include the Sullivans.
My second day there, Mrs. Oelrichs came to me where I wandered aimlessly about the library. “This just came for you, my dear.”
When I saw Dante’s handwriting, I nearly ran to the door to catch him, but Mrs
. Oelrichs said it had only been a messenger. Dante had sent a copy of the latest Bulletin with a note:
Here it is, the last of the Chinatown articles. I’ll visit China Joe and finish things there—no need for you to step your pretty foot into Chinatown again. The Sullivan article will be published soon, I promise. And so . . . I guess you won’t be drinking at Coppa’s with degenerate society reporters anymore. Good for you—you deserve the very best and I could not be happier. Dante.
That was all. I felt his sincerity and his affection, but . . . but what? I was disappointed. I wanted more, but I couldn’t say what. The article was excellent: in-depth, well researched, and clearly written. He had been wonderful as Alphonse Bandersnitch, but it was obvious that news was his real talent, and that he loved it was even more so. I could barely contain my pride. It had all turned out so well.
This was the second time in my life that I had everything I wanted, everything I’d dreamed about. And just as then, I was dissatisfied.
Mrs. Oelrichs was kind, and Stephen was kind, but I was impatient and tense and restless. The loneliness I’d thought I’d banished returned with a vengeance. I was unused to doing nothing. The change from struggling to survive in a destroyed city to the luxury of a mostly undamaged manor was jarring. I waited for something to worry about, for something to do. I wondered about Goldie and Ellis and hoped that Joe had truly given Shin the freedom he’d promised. I wondered what was happening with the advertisement Dante had placed for me in the Bulletin, because I’d heard nothing. I supposed no one had responded and told myself I shouldn’t feel disappointed. Why should I have expected anything? But I was haunted by the existence of that library, the plaque with Ellis’s name. I sent Dante a message, hoping for good news. I received no response, not a word. I wondered if I’d been gullible again, if Dante had only used me, but I couldn’t make myself believe it this time. He was simply afraid to tell me the advertisement was a failure when he’d been so encouraging.
All I could do was wait. Before I’d come to San Francisco, I’d never had a dull moment. I’d been busy working or helping Mama. The life I’d actually been living had spun the hours of the day so fast they blurred. I had my sketchbooks, but even drawing now could not make enough hours pass quickly. Not only that, but I found myself drawing a different world in my sketchbooks now, other rooms, not those rich with ornament and luxury, but those inspired by gray-pallored streets, smoke- and fog-smothered sunsets, and a kitchen where I drank wine with a man who was nothing as I’d imagined him.
And I longed for something more with an intensity that surprised me.
Stephen and I were ushered into the house quickly and shown directly to the large study, which had been converted into a banking office, something many of the city’s banking executives had done. The leading banks had opened soon after the fire in whatever rooms or buildings could be procured, even with their vaults too hot to open and their records burned. As large as San Francisco was, most bankers knew their own customers, and by collaborating with the US Mint, they had worked to get the city up and running again.
Mr. Johnson was an easy man, Stephen added. Or he would be now that he’d seen the papers demanding the return of my accounts.
Johnson was tall and thick, but he had a grace that belied such a tree trunk of a man. His dark hair was graying; delicate spectacles perched on a face too broad for them. He welcomed us with a sober handshake for Stephen and a perusal of me that was not unkind.
“You’re Miss Kimble, then?” he asked as Stephen and I settled in two armchairs. “You’re the young woman all this fuss is about?”
“Rather an important fuss to me,” I said.
“Indeed.” He seated himself behind the desk and picked up the papers that Stephen had sent over the day before. “Such curious happenings. But I assure you, Miss Kimble, that all was in order. All the papers were correct. The guardianship—”
“Nonexistent now, and fraudulently obtained,” Stephen put in.
“I’m certain Mr. Sullivan meant only the best for his niece. I am very glad that you are fully recovered and able to take control of your account, Miss Kimble. It is a great deal of money.”
“You’ve seen the papers from my father’s people, Mr. Johnson?”
“Oh yes. Charles Van Berckyl. Very impressive. I assume you intend to keep your account with us? This bank has served the very best families of San Francisco.”
“I imagine that depends on how helpful you are,” I said.
Mr. Johnson looked surprised.
I said firmly, “You do understand that any monies drawn from this account from this point on will be approved only by me?”
“Of course.” Mr. Johnson slid papers toward me. “Here are the checks Mr. Sullivan has written and the bills he’s approved for payment. I assume you wish to honor them.”
“No.”
Mr. Johnson pushed his spectacles farther up his nose, as if they might aid his hearing. “No?”
“No,” I affirmed. “I will be paying nothing more for the Sullivans.”
“But Miss Kimble, there are several outstanding accounts—”
“Those are not my concern. I still haven’t decided, in fact, if I mean to sue my uncle for what he’s already spent. I would appreciate it if you could please provide me with a history of the transactions.”
Mr. Johnson looked to Stephen, who merely smiled and gave a slight nod.
Johnson said, “Perhaps you don’t understand that they have few funds of their own. I had assumed, given that you are Mr. Sullivan’s niece, you would continue to support the family.”
“You assumed wrong. I want nothing to do with them. Can I trust you to obey my instructions in this, Mr. Johnson, or will I be better served by another bank after all?”
He looked shocked. “No. No, no, of course not! A Van Berckyl! Absolutely unthinkable.”
“You have had a long relationship with my uncle.”
“Long, yes, but hardly exclusive. In fact, if that association troubles you, I would be happy to suggest that Mr. Sullivan find another bank for his business.”
“Why, I think that would be a wonderful idea. Thank you for suggesting it, Mr. Johnson. I should like that very much. I know I will feel much more comfortable if my uncle is nowhere near my money.”
“Consider it done.” Mr. Johnson wrote hastily on a piece of paper. “I’ll inform Mr. Sullivan by the morning.”
“I’d prefer it done by the end of today,” I said.
He bobbed his head. “Absolutely. End of today.”
I smiled. “Very well, Mr. Johnson. The account stays here for now. And just so you know, in the event that anyone asks, not only will I have nothing to do with the Sullivans, I will not do business with anyone who does. Is that clear?”
Mr. Johnson straightened, and I saw in his face a respect that I had not seen when we first came into this study. “Completely, Miss Kimble. Completely.”
“Now,” I said with satisfaction, “I would like to make a small withdrawal . . .”
Sullivan Scandal: Debt, Theft, and Murder!
Jonathan Sullivan Accused of Murdering His Wife.
Sullivan Heiress Well Known in Chinatown Opium and Gambling Halls.
Graft, Corruption, and Lies.
The headlines were on everyone’s lips, as was the name of the reporter who’d written the story—Dante LaRosa.
The Bulletin sold so many copies it had to go back to press.
For a week, it was all anyone spoke about.
But then, well . . . the main witness to Florence Sullivan’s murder was a Chinese maid, and it was rumored that Florence Sullivan was a laudanum addict. No doubt she fell.
As for Goldie Sullivan, it was unfortunate, but she was not the first woman in society to have a love of gambling, or opium, for that matter. Her debt was regrettable, but it wasn’t as if she owed money to anyone respectable, and Chinamen had their own ways of dealing with such things, and it was really no concern of anyone else’s.
And who could blame Ellis Farge’s business for declining after such a shock? It was not at all surprising that he could not work and talked of retiring for a few months to the country. Those rumors that he’d stolen another interior architect’s ideas . . . What harm was done, really? His clients were satisfied, and could anyone even remember the other man’s name?
As for the accusations that Jonathan Sullivan plotted to keep the Chinese out of Chinatown and buy up the land himself . . . It was one thing when it was only the Chinese nattering on about it, but when it was China threatening to stop trade, and the white landowners of Chinatown saying that they didn’t want to lose their lucrative Chinese renters, and the threat of millions of Chinese business dollars moving elsewhere, well . . . The Chinese had won that battle, and all was as it should be. It was time to move past it and get San Francisco back on her feet.
Surely too the concerns over city hall and Sullivan Building’s crimes in its construction were overstated. So much hullabaloo when no one had actually died in its collapse! Everyone had escaped, and not that many people had been badly injured. And all that about the board of supervisors and Ruef and the mayor involved with the denizens of the underworld in city graft . . . What mattered now was vision and rebuilding. How could the city prosper if it was tangled up in indictments and arrests and trials? No one cared about corruption.
And wasn’t it astonishing that a Van Berckyl had landed in San Francisco? It was proof indeed that San Francisco had no reason to feel inferior to New York City. The highest echelons of society were right here. As for the difficulties of May Kimble’s arrival and all that nonsense about insanity and inheritances—she had come at a trying time for her family. It had been such a terrible misunderstanding. Best that the parties agree to put it aside.
San Francisco herself, after all, was the main concern.
Two weeks after the article was published, I received a postcard. On a photograph of palm trees lining a street, someone had drawn a girl smiling. The figure was crudely drawn, but she had long black hair, and beneath the picture’s caption—Palm Drive, West Adams St., Los Angeles CAL—were written two Chinese characters. I could not read them, but I understood the message.