by Ciji Ware
“It’s been quite a saga, but thank you, Lacy. Your sympathy means a lot.”
“Oh yes,” Lacy said with an earnest expression clouding her eyes, and Amelia sensed an odd shyness had crept into her voice. “Julia and I both felt ever so sad for your circumstances.”
Amelia felt awkward in the face of Lacy’s sober compassion. There was something else in her tone that she couldn’t quite identify. She swiftly glanced toward the inner office. “Is it all right if I go in to speak to Julia?”
Lacy bent forward as if imparting a secret. “I suppose so, but I’m warning you, she isn’t in the best of humors this morning. She prepared the monthly billing yesterday. Lately, that exercise puts her terribly out of sorts, so approach at your peril.”
Amelia hung her cloak on a peg where Lacy directed and knocked softly on the office’s glass door. Julia frowned, looked up, and, when she recognized her visitor, beckoned her inside.
Amelia hesitated, surprised by a sudden sense of playing the petitioning acolyte to Julia’s master status—a reminder of their unequal relationship that had originated during college days. It had been a long time since she’d felt she must kneel at someone else’s feet, but the tiny, intense woman was, at times, a force of nature and certainly deserved Amelia’s respect.
“Julia, if this isn’t a good time, I can come back later.”
“Nonsense. Come in, come in. Finally I can officially bid you welcome home and congratulate you on earning your certificate.”
“Well, we did speak briefly on the telephone, but thank you. I would have come to see you long before this, but—”
“I completely understand. No need to apologize. Edith Pratt filled me in a bit.”
Of course Julia would have talked at some point to Nurse Pratt, Charlie Hunter’s private caretaker who’d also been their classmate at Berkeley.
The Old Girls Society, for certain, Amelia reminded herself wryly. After all, how many young women of their set eschewed marriage for continuing academic or business pursuits?
Very few, Amelia silently answered her own question.
Julia pointed to a chair opposite her desk. “Please sit down. And I’m so deeply sorry about your grandfather. Everyone is. I was distressed, also, to learn the results of the hearing. Did John Damler not—”
“John Damler did an excellent job,” Amelia hastened to assure her. “Thank you so much for recommending him. The problem was that awful Judge Haggerty—who is obviously one of Schmitz’s crooked cronies—and the controversy that still swirls around the control of a woman’s separate property.”
“I thought that issue had been resolved,” Julia said, frowning. “At least the suffragists claim it has.”
“Apparently it depends on what judge sits on the bench interpreting the new laws. At the moment, I don’t have the funds to take it to a higher court and can’t chance I’d get another Judge Haggerty deciding the matter.”
“I only wish you’d both had more success.”
A minuscule figure of less than five feet, Julia Morgan stood up from her drafting board. This mild April morning, the architect was dressed in a mannish, olive-green double-breasted jacket, matching skirt, and a silk blouse of exquisite softness complimented by a silk tie that Amelia guessed she’d purchased at a lovely shop they both had patronized on the Rue de la Paix. Julia’s hair was neatly piled on top of her head and her round glasses sat halfway down her nose, giving her a highly studious appearance.
“I so appreciate everything you’ve done on my behalf, Julia. Without people like you and Edith, I don’t know how I would have managed. It’s been just ghastly.” She felt a catch rise in her throat. “I miss Grandfather so much, and you can’t imagine what it’s been like to lose his hotel as well.”
“Your grandfather was a wonderful, generous-spirited man. We all miss him.” Julia resumed her chair facing her drafting table. “Actually, I’m rather surprised to see you so soon. I should have thought there were many loose ends for you to deal with.”
“Not many, now, unfortunately, since J.D. Thayer took over complete control of the Bay View. Though I haven’t given up,” Amelia added quickly. She hesitated. It was so humiliating to reveal, even to Julia, her family’s current state of personal and financial chaos. “I still intend to fight for the hotel, though I’m not quite sure how yet—or with what funds. With Mother in Paris and the hotel now in other hands, my aunt and I barely have a sou between us. Besides wanting to express my thanks for your support, Julia, I’m here to see about employment. Can you take me on, as you said you might? Immediately?” she added with deliberate emphasis.
Julia glanced down at her desk. “I feel absolutely horrid about this, Amelia, but I can barely pay my employees’ wages as it is.” She shook her head. “I don’t need to tell you, it’s an uphill battle, being the only female in a male profession. I’m terribly sorry to disappoint us both, but with the limited number of commissions I have presently, I’m afraid I can’t put you on as a full-time architect as I’d hoped.”
“You can’t? But then who in the world will hire me?”
Stunned, she sank back into the chair and stared at the woman she had hoped would serve as a professional mentor. All her hopes, all her assumptions of at least six years came crashing down to earth. Flashing through her mind were endless late-night sessions at the atelier and a host of arduous design projects at L’École des Beaux Arts. For years now, her principal goal had been to gain a place in Julia’s firm, even when she thought she didn’t have to make her own living.
Now, she needed to earn her keep and support her aunt and mother, especially since Victoria had already written from France complaining that “the price of caviar and suitable lodging here are so dear.” Mrs. Hunter Bradshaw had been a coddled woman all her life and would expect to continue that privilege.
Yet, Julia Morgan had just said there was no room for another desk and no funds to pay Amelia’s wages.
“You can’t imagine how sorry I am,” Julia continued, but Amelia’s mind could only echo the architect’s earlier pronouncement that she wouldn’t be hiring her.
Julia’s troubled gaze did little to soften the blow. Amelia warded off a sudden sense of panic that could easily bring on tears of frustration.
“There isn’t another firm in all of San Francisco likely to hire a woman architect,” she murmured, ashamed of the flood of self-pity that threatened to drown her.
“I know. Believe me.”
Julia had worked briefly for John Galen Howard, the haughty master architect at the University of California at Berkeley, and had parted company fairly quickly, founding her own firm as a result, with the enthusiastic support of her well-to-do family in Oakland. She gestured toward the adjacent room with its drafting boards squeezed into a tiny space.
“Our friends from college do what they can to give me commissions. A residence here, a garage for a new motorcar there. If it were just me, I’d probably be doing reasonably well, but with my rent here in the city, and the draftsmen on my ledgers—”
“But what about Mills College?” Amelia interrupted, referring to the women’s institution of higher learning in the East Bay. “You wrote me about designing the bell tower. Any chance of further commissions there?”
Julia grew silent, apparently mulling something over. “It’s true… I am being considered as the architect for the Mills College library and I could use some help with my presentation.”
Amelia’s dashed hopes fluttered into the tiniest flame.
“Part of the problem is that I just don’t have the physical space for you to work in this office.”
Amelia recalled the jumble of desks in the outer office and her spirits sank even lower.
Julia paused again then asked, “Would you be willing to work here at night?”
“At night? You mean after everyone else has gone home for the day?”
Julia nodded. “You could use Ira Hoover’s desk.”
Amelia supposed Ira Hoover was
Julia’s second-in-command. Working at night alone in this office at someone else’s desk sounded grim, but it was better than the alternative.
“So the ladies didn’t hate your concrete bell tower, after all?” Amelia asked, a glimmer of hope fanning marginally brighter. Julia gave her a startled look. “I had heard from Grandfather that there was considerable public debate in the press that some Mills College alumnae took issue with the campanile’s ‘unorthodox’ construction.”
Amelia meant it as a jibe at Julia’s critics, but the architect obviously saw no humor in the situation and pursed her lips with distaste.
“Concrete is by far the strongest and newest innovation, but the uninformed often prefer wooden geegaws and such. I detest the newspapers and the way they write about subjects with both arrogance and ignorance!” she exclaimed. She wagged a forefinger at Amelia. “And by the way, if I do employ you, never speak to reporters. I was upset when the Call wrote that you were going to work for me. I never confirmed that.”
“I know, Julia,” Amelia said apologetically. “I never spoke to anyone from the newspaper. Someone at the hotel was contacted by the society page when they got wind I was coming home from Paris, and whoever it was at the Bay View repeated assumption as fact, hoping to get a mention of the hotel in the paper. I’m terribly sorry about that.”
Julia’s frown furrowed the bridge of her nose where her wire-rimmed glasses magnified her eyes to owlish proportions.
“My point exactly! You give those news people an inch, they take a mile. Well, at any rate,” Julia continued, “my thought is that if you will come here evenings at six p.m., when everyone else leaves, you can transfer to proper scale the drawings and designs I’m doing for the Mills College library. No one working for me has the skill and training you do, but as I’ve already hired employees, I can’t decently let them go without cause. I can’t guarantee anything, Amelia, but perhaps if we get this big library commission, we’ll find a way to put you on full time,” adding, “in the daytime, of course.”
Amelia was deeply grateful for this reprieve—and hugely relieved.
“That’s so kind of you, Julia. I accept your offer with pleasure,” she added almost gaily, and to make it official, thrust out her hand. “Thank you so, so much.”
Julia shook hands with an even gaze and suddenly switched subjects.
“Are you certain, Amelia, you can perform your duties in this office if you are to continue to pursue your struggle proving J.D. Thayer obtained the Bay View Hotel from you through underhanded methods? He’s become a very prominent figure in San Francisco, you know. Such actions on your part are bound to attract notice of the very people with the means to employ architects.”
Amelia tried not to show her dismay. Of all the reactions she’d anticipated from Julia Morgan, barely masked self-interest had not been among them.
“N-Naturally, the ultimate fate of the Bay View Hotel is of utmost importance to me.” She attempted to steady her voice, hoping she didn’t sound as desperate as she felt. “And to that end, I will have to devote a bit of time and energy to see if there are any further remedies. But I give you my word, Julia, that I will keep as low a profile on this as I can and I will complete every assignment, on time and within the budget you deem appropriate.”
“That is good to hear. There are rumors that J.D. Thayer plans to build another hotel downtown to rival the Palace from the profits of his gambling club. I have a business to run, Amelia, and can’t afford to antagonize the mighty, if you understand my meaning. And I need every hand here to pull equally on her oar, regardless of any personal issues.” She straightened the papers on her desk. “One more thing. I’m afraid in an office environment like this, you will have to address me as ‘Miss Morgan’ in front of other staff. As Lacy does.”
“Of course,” Amelia murmured. “I completely understand.”
But, of course, she didn’t at all. Lacy Fiske was a secretary, but peers and colleagues, if they were friends, routinely addressed each other by their Christian names. Julia’s edict felt like a demotion before Amelia had even begun to work for her firm.
But Julia just offered you employment! Show some gratitude…
Amelia was deeply grateful, but it was plain to see that Julia Morgan, architect, was a far different person from Julia, classmate.
Amelia rose from her chair. “I’ll let you get back to your work. Shall I start tomorrow night?”
The founder of the Morgan firm merely nodded and bent over her desk while Amelia quietly let herself out the door.
Chapter 4
J.D. Thayer entered Charlie Hunter’s owner’s suite, walked swiftly to a side table laden with old man Hunter’s handsome cut crystal glasses and a bottle of whiskey, and poured himself a stiff drink.
He avoided the horsehair sofa in favor of a well-worn leather chair that had belonged to the former owner of the Bay View and sank into its comforting girth, staring moodily out the window at the fog curling across the bay.
God, what a day dealing with those damnable partners of his!
Partners?
Swindlers and cheats was a more accurate description. Henry Bradshaw only made the occasional appearance at the Bay View to steal spirits from the bar, and Ezra Kemp blatantly filched money from the till in the wee hours when he thought no one was watching. Thieves and liars, the both of them!
And what do you suppose Charlie’s granddaughter thinks you are, my man?
J.D. often found himself thinking about the starchy Miss Bradshaw when surrounded by the very walls that had sheltered her as a girl.
Well, now she was a woman, and a formidable adversary at that, though he’d checked around and discovered she’d virtually no funds with which to challenge him again in court.
He pictured Judge Haggerty pontificating all that legal nonsense from the bench, but it didn’t make him smile as it had that day. Amelia and that lawyer she’d hired through Julia Morgan had done an excellent job making their case. J.D. had put up a confident front during the hearing, but in point of fact, he’d been worried. Very worried.
Luckily, though, he’d won, thanks to a few markers he’d called at City Hall.
Then why did this victory disappoint? Why did the memory of that young woman standing forlornly on the courthouse steps fill him with an all too familiar sense of self-loathing? It had clung to him these last days like the fog on the cypress trees hugging the hills outside his window.
The Mood was upon him, he realized, a sense of melancholy that occasionally overcame him when he slowed down long enough to consider the unconventional path his life had taken since Grandfather Reims had died. He found himself wondering how Amelia Bradshaw was coping with her own loss of Charlie Hunter.
J.D. gazed into his untouched glass of whiskey. Finding no answer in its amber depths, he set it aside and headed for bed.
***
In the late afternoon two weeks into her new job, Amelia dragged herself from the narrow cot wedged into the tiny space that had been serving as Aunt Margaret’s enclosed back service porch attached to her bungalow on Oakland’s Thirteenth Street. All day long she had been attempting without success to sleep while the rest of the world went about its normal business. She began to dress for work, shivering in the dank air that seeped under the screen door as soon as the sun went down. She wondered if she could spare the cash to install some insulation to keep from freezing when April showers tattooed on the metal roof above her head.
“I’ve got your supper all ready, dear,” Aunt Margaret called from the kitchen of her modest one-story cottage where a row of similar abodes lined the narrow street.
Amelia had been startled to learn that Aunt Margaret’s new home, leased while Amelia was in Paris, was less than a mile from the large, shingle-style house belonging to Julia Morgan and her family. Margaret’s bungalow, however, was only big enough to provide bedrooms for herself and her brother—should they ever find Amelia’s father. Meanwhile, Amelia made do in makeshift quarters
off the kitchen.
“Thank you, Aunt Margaret” she called through the half-opened door. “I’ll be right there.”
Amelia had been faithfully turning over her weekly pay packet and, in return, Margaret paid their rent and produced hearty meals to appease her robust appetite and Amelia’s modest one. Her elderly aunt had had a suite at the Bay View for some twenty years, courtesy of Margaret’s wayward brother’s father-in-law, Charlie Hunter. Following her benefactor’s death, the bombastic Ezra Kemp had been rude to the kindly woman one time too often and she’d relocated across the bay. Amelia greatly admired how her aunt had adjusted to her reduced circumstances. In fact, the older woman almost seemed to relish shopping for and cooking her own meals after years of eating gratis, in the hotel’s excellent dining room.
True to form, Aunt Margaret presented Amelia with a mounded plate of fried pork chops and thick slabs of corn bread slathered in butter. Not only had Margaret endured the loss of her husband in a mining accident when she was just a bride, but as a child, along with Amelia’s father, she lived through an unimaginable tragedy in an ice cave in the High Sierras that even today she refused to describe—or discuss.
Her portly aunt plopped a fourth chop on her own plate. Amelia sensed that the woman, who, at the tender age of seven back in 1864, had survived the legendary horrors of Donner Pass, never wanted to go hungry again.
At five p.m., Amelia boarded a ferry bound for San Francisco and another night as a very junior member of Julia Morgan’s architectural firm. She paid her fare to the purser, Harold Jasper, whom she knew slightly from her college years going to and from her undergraduate classes at Berkeley. She immediately pulled a sketchbook from her portmanteau, signaling to the renowned busybody that she was in no mood for a chat.
But Purser Jasper was oblivious to her signals.
“Living with your aunt now, are you?” he said, cranking out her receipt from the metal machine strapped around his waist. “Just goes to show, don’t it, that in the end, life is just about paperwork? Such a shame the court said your grandfather was so weak that he couldn’t do more than sign an X. Anybody could’ve done it and said it was his, so they say. Pity.”