A Race to Splendor

by Ciji Ware

  “Shou Shou can serve as my chaperon,” Amelia replied.

  “A former Chinese—” Margaret halted mid-sentence, and then added worriedly, “That certainly won’t silence a man like Mr. Jasper.”

  “Well, everybody in San Francisco knows by this time that a natural disaster tends to create strange bedfellows,” Amelia replied, thinking that, in her case, that was certainly true. And then corrected herself silently.

  Housemates, Amelia… not bedfellows, surely!

  ***

  Loy Chen’s men continued their stealthy routine of coming to work after sunset to dig a larger, deeper cistern behind the hotel where the house of the wealthy old woman who’d shot at Amelia had once stood. Soon the two cisterns would be joined, guaranteeing the Bay View had more than ample supply of water for its guests—and to fight fires.

  By the end of January in the struggling metropolis, the basement levels and first floor of the new, new Bay View had their interior walls and ceilings plastered and were fit for marginal habitation. J.D. folded his tent and took up residence in the basement headquarters. He soon had set up his own temporary sleeping quarters and office now that the plaster had been applied and finally, thoroughly dried. Soon, Loy, Shou Shou, and little Foo followed suit, moving into various empty rooms and cooking for the owner, as well as providing clean laundry.

  Amelia figured she’d make her move once the locks on the downstairs doors were installed. Given her own untrustworthy feelings when it came to her employer, such prudence seemed the only sensible plan.

  ***

  As for J.D., though he often found himself musing about the admirable Miss Bradshaw more often than was prudent, he dared not postpone paying a call on Matilda Kemp another day or risk antagonizing her father even more.

  Thus, one surprisingly warm winter afternoon, he found himself at Ezra Kemp’s front door in Mill Valley. Fortunately, he was greeted in the foyer by the exuberant Miss Emma Stivers. Her unpleasant host was apparently attending to business at the lumberyard.

  “Would you like to see Matilda’s studio at the bottom of the garden, Mr. Thayer?” asked Emma. “She’s just finished a lovely piece of sculpture.”

  J.D. was relieved that this visit to Matilda’s private domain would at least provide a diversion from the stuffy parlor in which they presently sipped tea and tried to ignore the long silences.

  “Oh no, Emma.” Matilda flushed with embarrassment and turned her head toward the fireplace. “Mr. Thayer cannot have any interest—”

  “Oh, but your friend Miss Stivers is quite correct,” J.D. interrupted. “I would enjoy seeing your work. Very much. And hers as well.”

  Anything to make the time pass faster.

  “I merely dabble in watercolors to avoid feeling useless when Matilda attacks her clay,” Emma protested good-naturedly. “Or I read a book. Life in Mill Valley is sublimely uneventful, it seems.”

  Emma Stivers’s laughing glance put J.D. at his ease. Except for her charming banter, the weekly chore of “paying court” to Matilda Kemp had increasingly become a burden—but his efforts had, indeed, paid a decent dividend: Kemp and his cronies had kept their distance from the accelerated building project at Taylor and Jackson.

  During these strange appointments, Kemp would return from his lumberyard in downtown Mill Valley to join in the tedious business of the dinner hour inside his stone-and-timber fortress. The host would then demand that J.D. stay the night in his guest quarters and J.D. would politely but firmly insist that he make his way back to San Francisco with a promise for a return visit the following week.

  All this to keep Kemp from making my life miserable with the Committee of Fifty and his building supplier…

  J.D. often found himself wondering during sham rendezvous like today’s what his architect would think if she knew the onerous lengths he’d gone to see the Bay View open its doors first among the city’s hotels.

  Matilda was a nice enough woman, he mused, watching her big hands fidget nervously in her lap. The poor creature was mortally shy and terminally ungainly, and her apparent distress over her father’s callous treatment elicited J.D.’s sympathy. Kemp’s naked attempt to barter his daughter’s welfare to gain a toehold in San Francisco society seemed as despicable as that of any Chinese highbinder.

  Emma’s voice interrupted his mental meandering. “Mr. Thayer? Shall we walk to the bottom of the garden now?”

  “Ah, yes. The studio.” He rose from the tea table and extended each lady an arm. “I’d be delighted.”

  Matilda’s retreat lay beyond the terraced garden that descended toward the fast-running creek parallel to the road leading from Mill Valley proper. Like the main house, the one-room stone cottage featured windows framed by thick redwood casements. When the sun shone, leaded glass cast a rainbow of light on the Persian carpet. The shingle roof was covered with the ubiquitous moss spawned by the luxuriant damp of the steep-sided canyon. Stands of redwoods towered overhead, throwing long shadows across the surrounding banks of flowers and ferns. J.D. found the serene coolness of the place soothing.

  “For most of the year, the large window here captures whatever afternoon sunlight there might be,” said Emma, pointing to a wall made of floor-to-ceiling paned glass. A river rock fireplace in one corner glowed invitingly, alight with neatly cut wood.

  In the center of the studio stood a potter’s wheel. On it was a clay sculpture of a woman’s head that J.D. recognized instantly as a likeness of Emma Stivers.

  “Why, Matilda, this is a wonderfully true-to-life rendition.” He turned toward the gawky twenty-seven-year-old and smiled. “I believe you’re very talented.”

  Matilda blushed, and in that instant, her awkwardness grew ten-fold.

  “Y-You’re too kind,” she murmured.

  “She is quite good, isn’t she, Mr. Thayer?” Emma said eagerly. She traced her forefinger along the bridge of the clay figure’s nose. “She’s caught my profile exactly.”

  “I should say so.”

  And a very comely profile it is too, J.D. thought.

  He regarded Emma Stivers more closely. Clearly, she was her school friend’s biggest booster and had remained in Mill Valley much longer than he would have imagined such a lively, outgoing woman would find amusing. She was an attractive young person, with a trim waist; high, rounded bosom; and slender, graceful neck. Her clothes were of current fashion and high quality. He wondered about the circumstances of her life and family before she’d come west. Her cheery, though rather detached, demeanor intrigued him. Emma was quick to engage in friendly conversation with him whenever he visited the Kemp household, but she was no flirt and there was something about her he didn’t quite fathom.

  For no particular reason, J.D. again thought of Amelia Bradshaw and the spirited exchanges he’d had with her during the past few months. Emma and Amelia were rather alike in some ways—equally attractive and intelligent young women, yet Amelia was much more direct and much more to his taste and—

  Now why am I making such absurd comparisons?

  Both women, given the bizarre circumstances in his life currently, were definitely off limits to any random speculations about their individual charms.

  Of course he hadn’t felt that way in the Winton when Amelia had navigated the motorcar successfully from her driving lesson at the Presidio to the entrance to Tadich’s. Kissing her that day should have been off limits, but he just couldn’t help himself… and apparently, neither could she.

  Just then, his self-censored thoughts were abruptly interrupted when Ezra Kemp appeared at the door of the studio.

  “Thayer!” He ignored his daughter and her friend. “I want to see you in my study before dinner is served.” He glanced at the two women and then at the piece of sculpture standing in the middle of the room. “I won’t have that put in the garden, Matilda, so you’d better find some other place for it. A closet perhaps.”

  Matilda darted a mortified glance at her female guest and stammered, “B-But Clarence
thought—”

  “I pay Clarence to please my tastes on these grounds. A bust of your mother near the fern grotto is quite enough, thank you. You’ll make the place look like a mausoleum.” To J.D. he said, “Let’s go.”

  Kemp made no offer of libation when they reached his paneled inner sanctum. Instead he sat behind his desk and glowered. “City Hall says get rid of those Chinks or they’ll shut down your construction.”

  J.D. felt a stab of alarm. Loy and his crew had nearly cleared the old lady’s lot the previous night and could continue digging the new cistern tonight. By tomorrow, or Friday at the latest, he’d be done with using Chinese labor for a while, which would reduce his exposure to prying eyes that might report him to the Committee of Fifty, his principle source of future funding. He couldn’t wait until the day he could call a halt to sneaking Chinese onto his property, not to mention ending these tortuous visits to Mill Valley to “court” poor Matilda.

  “The rubble will be gone in two days’ time,” he replied, affecting a shrug. “Tell them they have my word on that.”

  “Face it, J.D. Your fool cement bunker has already eaten up all the funds you found in your safe, hasn’t it? You don’t have a plug nickel right now and can’t afford for me to raise questions about your illegal hiring practices with the Committee of Fifty.”

  So Kemp hadn’t yet played this card with the Committee—or his father.

  “You’re right,” J.D. agreed pleasantly. “But by now the point is moot. I’m virtually done with using Chinese labor at the site.” He glanced at the watch dangling at his waist. Sears Roebuck’s best. “I’ve so enjoyed my time with your daughter and Miss Stivers this afternoon, but I’m afraid I must depart before dinner.”

  “You may not be staying to dinner, but you’re marrying Matilda, Thayer. Either that or, I warn you, there are many more ways I can think of to ruin your plans at Taylor and Jackson.”

  “Until next week?” J.D. said, smoothly ignoring this latest of Kemp’s threats.

  ***

  A few hours before dawn, Amelia was abruptly awakened by someone pounding on the door to her small room in the Fairmont’s basement. She was due to move over to the Bay View very soon and leapt out of bed at the thought that something terrible had happened at J.D.’s hotel—yet again.

  “Missy! Missy, come! Bad men hurt boss man! Come! Come!”

  “What?” Amelia was still too sleepy to be self-conscious about wearing her nightclothes in front of a Chinese laundryman who was whispering hoarsely at her from the door of her bedchamber.

  “We need doctor! He very sick in Chinatown. Come quick!”

  “Who is very sick, Loy?”

  “Boss at Bay View!”

  “Mr. Thayer?”

  “Yes! He very, very bad.”

  “Good heavens!” she exclaimed. “Wait outside while I dress.”

  Fortunately, Julia wasn’t there to hear all this commotion. She had taken the last ferry to Oakland and wasn’t sleeping at the Fairmont this night.

  Loy stood outside Amelia’s door as she scrambled into her clothing. Her fingers were trembling as she buttoned the fastenings on her shirtwaist and donned her boots without bothering to find her stockings. Why in the world would J.D. be in Chinatown at this hour? Unflappable Loy had said he was “very, very bad,” which could only mean something truly dreadful had happened.

  “We get Dr. Angus?” Loy asked as they ran down Taylor Street toward the Bay View. Amelia could just make out the Winton parked in front of the entrance.

  “Yes,” she said breathlessly. “I’ll drive to the Presidio to get him. Then we’ll go to Chinatown.”

  In minutes she was trotting beside Loy, racing to the spot where the Winton was parked in front of the Bay View.

  “What happened, Loy?” she said, panting from exertion. “Where, exactly, is Mr. Thayer?”

  “Bad men came tonight and hit him. Hit Chinese too. Chinese all run away. Bad men took him in wagon to China Alley.”

  “Chinese men did this?”

  “No. Round-eyes. They hurt Mr. J.D. very, very bad,” he repeated.

  So the Chinese called Caucasians unflattering names as well, she thought.

  Fortunately, the Winton started right up when Loy turned the crank, hopped into the passenger seat, and Amelia sped away from the curb in a squeal of wheels. She didn’t allow herself to focus on J.D.’s condition in some hellhole a few blocks away and, instead, allowed the sheer panic that had taken hold to force her to concentrate on piloting the vehicle down Lombard Street as if the Devil himself were chasing their tailpipe.

  “Very, very bad” could mean the worst had already happened…

  As they barreled through the night toward the Presidio and the possibility of recruiting medical help, Loy shouted through the wind, “We almost finish out back just as bad men come. Many others hurt too, missy.”

  Amelia felt wretched to think Loy’s friends had come to grief on a job she’d secured for them.

  “Do you know why they attacked Mr. Thayer?”

  Perhaps J.D. had been gambling and neglected to pay his debts. Or maybe some old lover of Ling Lee’s decided to even the score.

  “Bad men no like Chinese working for Boss. Banged on heads with sticks…”

  Sick at heart, Amelia focused her gaze on the road ahead and suddenly swerved just in time to avoid running over a dog that had wandered onto Lombard Street.

  “Ahhhh…” Loy cried. “Missy bad driver!”

  “I’m a good driver!”

  “Hurry, but careful! Mr. Thayer maybe dead now. Doctor will know.”

  “You actually think he might be dead?” Loy’s words echoed her own terrified thoughts. She pressed harder on the accelerator. Fear gripped her stomach and made her short of breath. What if he’d actually been killed?

  Amelia fought a mental picture of J.D. lying dead in some dark alley a few blocks away. A lump rose in her throat. She couldn’t deny she was close to tears over the possibility that the notorious James Diaz Thayer had been shanghaied—or worse. She strained to hear Loy’s words buffeted by the wind whistling past the open-air car.

  “I follow bad men down Jackson Street. To China Alley. Wait long time outside. Then, go see Mr. J.D. He not speak. So come find you. You bring doctor.”

  If he were still alive, would they be able to get help to him in time?

  Amelia steeled herself as the Winton’s tires screeched once again when she rounded a corner at high speed.

  ***

  Angus McClure was easily awoken, having spent his adult life being roused for such emergencies. Within fifteen minutes, Amelia had wheeled the motorcar to a halt on a steep incline on Jackson Street next to a narrow alleyway.

  “You’ll have to come inside with us,” Angus directed. “It’s not safe for anyone, especially a Caucasian woman, to be in this neighborhood in the wee hours. Stay close.”

  Loy led them down a narrow, steep-sided lane that smelled of urine and chickens and strange herbal scents that Amelia couldn’t begin to identify. All the windows had iron bars designed to keep thieves out and the harlots in. Sad, silent faces peered out at them as the trio moved gingerly along the shadowy cobbled walkway in an alley that was half new construction, half burned out hulks.

  Shou Shou and Ling Lee once lived near here…

  Amelia could hardly bear to look at the poor creatures staring back at her, Asian women who were slaves in a country where some white women already had the vote! It was revolting. No wonder Donaldina Cameron had become their devoted advocate.

  Loy pounded his fist repeatedly on a door at the end of the alley. Finally, someone opened its little sliding window and peered out. After a lengthy, high-pitched exchange with much gesturing on Loy’s part, the door itself swung open and Amelia caught a whiff of what she could only assume was opium smoke.

  “Follow closely and don’t say anything,” Angus ordered.

  “I’ll try not to breathe either.”

  Amelia pulled her
shawl more tightly around her head and shoulders and ducked her chin to her chest as they made their way through several foul-smelling corridors where tiny rooms branched off on both sides. Rough-hewn beds, cribs really, were built into the walls. Half naked women and effeminate young boys lolled beside glazed-eyed men snoring in drug-induced sleep. An odor of cooked cabbage nearly made Amelia gag, but she forced herself to swallow and keep up with Angus and Loy.

  At length, they halted at a closet-sized room shaped like the others they’d seen. On the bed lay J.D., still and deathly pale, sprawled across a filthy mattress devoid of any covering beyond soiled ticking. An empty leather pouch used for carrying coins and nuggets lay at his side. For all intents and purposes, the man was nude, his trousers pulled down to his knees. His shirt—bloodied from a beating to his arms, ribs, and face—was wrapped around his shoulders and neck.

  “Amelia, stand outside,” Angus barked.

  “Don’t be absurd,” Amelia exclaimed, advancing into the cramped quarters. “You and I dealt with far worse at the Presidio.”

  Angus leaned down and listened to J.D.’s chest.

  “Robbed, beaten, and left for dead,” he muttered, swiftly opening his medical bag. “Well, at least he’s breathing.”

  “Oh thank God!” Relief swept through her, leaving her almost giddy. “Do you think he’s got another set of cracked ribs?”

  “He’s badly bruised, but I think his ribs withstood the pounding.” He bent down and sniffed Thayer’s hair. “Opium.”

  “Will it kill him?”

  “I hope not.”

  Amelia thought she might be sick if they didn’t immediately escape from this nightmarish hole. “Well, don’t you think we should remove him at once?”

  “Yes. Let’s get him home.” Angus pulled up J.D.’s trousers and together, the physician and Amelia, pulled down his shirt and put his jacket on his battered torso as gently as they could.

  “Angus?”

  J.D.’s voice was barely above a whisper.