by Janet Fox
This was quite a house. I froze and let my gaze drift from corner to corner.
“What do we have here? Are you a nincompoop? Come here, girl. Don’t stand in the doorway with your mouth hanging open.”
She sat in a chair by the fire, looking for all the world like a monarch. Her gray hair was piled high upon her head in waves and folds that must have taken hours of someone else’s time; her voluminous dress was of such a fine gray silk that it scattered light; lace lay across her shoulders and knotted over her bosom.
Phillipa Everts peered at me, her lips pursed in a manner that suggested distaste. Or, as I observed her more closely, what might suggest confusion.
She was quite the opposite of my dear Mrs. Gale.
I squared my shoulders. “Miss Everts. I’m pleased to meet you. My name is Kula Baker. Mrs. Gale—”
“Hannah,” she interrupted. “You are employed by Hannah Gale?”
“Yes.”
“She sent you?”
“Yes.”
She smiled. It was a triumphant smile. “Well, well, well. My dear Hannah. Finally come to beg.”
“Ah, well, I . . .”
“Oh, come, now.” Miss Everts rose. “She’s finally broken, alone, poor—probably penniless—and now that Edward is dead, she’s desperate to reconcile.” Miss Everts went to the window. Swished to the window. “What does she want? My money? My love? My forgiveness?” She turned to me, her back as stiff as a lodgepole. “Well?”
The breath was knocked clean out of me.
“For pity’s sake, girl. What message did she send me?”
“None.”
“None?” Miss Everts drew back.
“That is, she sent her respects. I have a letter of introduction from her. She wishes you well. And said that if you could see it in your heart to take me into your employ—”
“I don’t need an employee. What of an apology? That’s what I want! In fact, a grovel would be more like it, but I’d settle for a simple and gracious apology.”
“I’m sorry . . .”
“That’s a start.” She smiled.
I was so confused I must have looked like a fish out of water, my mouth opening and closing. “I don’t think you understand my meaning, ma’am.”
“We’ll discuss it no further. You must return to her with a message from me.”
I stepped forward. “But . . . I have to speak!”
“And so you have.”
Was she mad? “But I haven’t. I’m not here for Mrs. Gale. I’ve come for my father.”
“You’ve lost me, girl. I do not have your father.”
“Please!” All the emotion that I’d been bottling inside bubbled up like a hot spring. It had been a feckless day, a day of ruin and catastrophe, and I was boiling over with it. My mouth ran, and there was no use my trying to stop it. “My father has sent me here. He’ll die. I have nowhere else to turn. I’ve been robbed of all my things, every last blessed thing, including all my clothes and my only gown, and it was blue velvet, too, and I was lost in Chinatown, and saved by a young man to whom I owe everything, except I don’t know how to find him, and the only thing I know now is I have to find a man named Ty Wong—”
“Ty!” Her hand flew to her mouth, and Miss Everts whirled away from me. She stood like that for some minutes, while I fought to recover my own self. When she turned back again, she seemed a different person. Now her voice was sharp, firm, her eyes fixed on me like polished gray gemstones. “Are you sure about that name?”
I shifted my feet. “Yes—Ty Wong.”
She crossed the room, returning to her chair. She sat and placed her chin on her fist and stared at the floor for some minutes. When she spoke again, it was to the floor, not to me. “Well, girl, you have sent me into a tizzy, and no mistake.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am.” I picked up my nerve, which lay in pieces on the floor. “I’m here because if I don’t find Ty Wong, my pa will hang. That’s all I care about in San Francisco. He may hang anyway. But I can’t leave this terrible place until I discover what my pa needs me to find, because it may be the only thing that will save him.” I straightened. “All I ask is a room, for which I’ll work hard. For the rest, I’ll make my own way.”
Her eyebrows went up. “Well!”
That was it, then. She meant to throw me out. Kula Baker knows when she’s not welcome. That was that, I’d failed.
I turned my back on Phillipa Everts and marched across that vast space and was almost out the door when I heard her voice again.
“Girl! You!”
I turned.
“What did you say your name was?”
“Kula Baker.”
She looked puzzled. “Baker. Well, we’ll see about that.” She came to me, and took my chin between her two fingers, turning my face from side to side. “You have a touch of the exotic.”
I felt my cheeks grow dark.
“You are quite a handsome young woman.” She let my chin drop. “Who are your people?”
“My people?” My cheeks grew hot, now, fairly burning. “My name is Baker. Kula. My given name was also my great-grandmother’s.”
“Hmph.” Her lips pursed. “What’s this about your being robbed?”
I cleared my throat. I tried to clear my confusion. “I was robbed by a boy who picked me up at the railway station.”
She raised her eyebrows. I met her stare.
“He said he would deliver me here. But he dropped me in a dreadful place. And then I had a problem in Chinatown. Had it not been for another young man who came to my aid there on the street, I might be in Chinatown still.”
“Took everything, did this robber? Was there anything of real value?”
I lowered my eyes. “My clothes. My books.”
She sighed. “The books—you might console yourself with having aided his education. But the clothes . . .” She waved her hand dismissively. “Inconsequential.”
I drew up. “Not to me.”
“We can replace the clothing, Miss Baker. The soul is another matter.”
“The soul!”
“Yes, the soul. Your soul, I will assume for the moment, is intact. The young thief’s soul, not likely. He is sadly duped by the idea that material gain is all that matters. That possessions are of utmost importance. He would be wrong. Possessions, my dear girl, are meaningless.”
This woman twisted my mind round like a vane in a high wind. She had possessions aplenty, that was beyond doubt. So what was this talk of soul and meaningless possessions?
“Now there’s another issue. Your father. He’s about to hang, is that what you said? Men don’t hang for no reason.”
“He’s been wrongly accused.” He has his soul intact, I wanted to tell her. He knew possessions weren’t the most important thing in life. He did what he did to survive. Not all thieves were the same. And I knew he could change. “He did not commit that crime, the one of which he is accused.”
“I see. Not that crime, then. And there’s something, you say, that will exonerate him from this hanging offense?”
“I think there may be something here in San Francisco—that is, he told me to come here. He wanted me to recover something of his. He said it was all he had. Whether it helps free him, I have to hope.”
“And your father is connected with . . .” Her voice trailed off. Her face worked, and I was trying to sort her out. She seemed crazy one minute, clever the next. She lived in a house grander than I’d ever imagined in my wildest dreams, yet she spoke of possessions as soul stealing. And she knew Ty Wong, at least the name. Of this I was sure.
“He said I had to find Ty Wong,” I said, making my voice firm.
She tapped her index finger on her lips, as if coming to a decision. “I like you, Miss Baker. Hannah may have opened a door after all, with or without her apology. I’ve no wish to see you thrown to the wolves, or watch you wander the streets of San Francisco unaided. You are welcome to stay and work for me while you sort this out.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” The wind was knocked clean out of me, I was so relieved.
She walked into the hallway, me trailing her. “Jameson!” Her voice echoed through the house.
He appeared like smoke in the doorway at the end of the hall.
“Show Miss Baker to the blue bedroom. She’ll be my personal maid for a time. And fetch Mei Lien.” She turned to me. “You’ll need a change of clothing.”
“I have money.” I began to open my reticule. “Not much, but I can pay for some new things.” Not many new things, but I kept my tongue still.
But she waved her hand. “I will send the girl out for clothing. You can purchase things more to your liking later. Remember, girl, possessions. That’s all they are. Look to your soul.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but she was already gone, back into the drawing room. Jameson hovered, specterlike. He spread his hand, directing me to the stair.
Jameson’s eyes were pale and distant; he revealed nothing. In point of fact, he made my skin crawl. I led the way up the stairs, quite alone except for Jameson’s eyes on my back.
Chapter ELEVEN
March 28, 1906
“The number of servants has increased since 1870
by only half the rate of increase in population . . .
The decrease in supply is parallel, too, with the rising
demand for servants among wealthy families.”
—“Servant Girls,” Editorial, The New York Times,
November 5, 1906
MEI LIEN WAS A TINY SLIP OF A CHINESEGIRL. She was silent and furtive, and reminded me, in her silent acquiescence, of Min. She smiled shyly at me when she showed up at the door to my room with tea. Until she laid out the tray, I hadn’t realized how starved I was; it was now midafternoon and I hadn’t eaten since early morning when, just before the train arrived at the station, I’d finished the few scraps that remained in my now long-gone hamper.
The silver tray bore little sandwiches and cakes and a steaming china teapot. The sandwiches were cut in perfect squares and set on lace doilies. This tea reminded me of the most elegant meals served in Mammoth’s National Hotel—the ones I cleaned up after, when employment there suited both the management and me.
I’d nipped a few of those cakes as leftovers, but these were far better, sweet and delicate. And I could eat them slow and easy, leisurely. In a small but comfortable room housing me as if I was a guest.
But I wasn’t a guest. This I could not forget. I was a servant to Miss Phillipa Everts, however well treated.
Across from where I sat hung a painting. It was a portrait of a young man. Even through my weary eyes he looked so familiar I felt I surely must know him.
Once I’d filled my belly I slipped into an exhausted sleep, right there in the chair.
Two hours later Mei Lien woke me with a soft knock. She carried several large boxes. She placed them on the bed, opening them and pulling aside the paper and spreading their contents for me to see.
The boxes bore a label of shiny, embossed gold—it must have been a choice shop. I ran my fingers over the smooth surface of that label, back and forth. My stomach twisted a little; I didn’t know how I’d be fit to pay Miss Everts back. Whatever she thought of possessions, pretty clothing was treasure to me. And make no mistake, I fairly lusted after some of the things I’d seen in Maggie’s closet; and my one and only beautiful dress, the blue velvet, was now gone. So my eyes grew wide at the contents of the boxes laid before me now.
I withdrew a simple dark red skirt of fine, soft wool. Three tightly pin-tucked white cotton shirtwaists; silk undergarments. A smart jacket with black and red braiding and a nipped-in waist—the latest fashion from all I’d seen—and the weight seemed right for this damp but not frigid climate. In one box nested a pair of short leather boots that Mei Lien gestured for me to try on at once. Her English was poor, but we understood each other.
The boots fit perfectly. I smiled my thanks to her, and she blushed pink. She pointed at my traveling clothes, miming a scrubbing.
“Yes. I’ll change and then they can be cleaned.”
She turned to leave, and I stopped her. I pointed to the painting on the wall of my room. “Mei Lin, do you know anything about that?”
Like everything else in this enormous, high-ceilinged room, from the wallpaper to the bed hangings, the primary color of the painting was blue.
Mei Lien shook her head.
I had other questions, and maybe this girl could help. “Do you know someone here, perhaps connected with Miss Everts, named Wong?” And I wondered at myself: was I asking after Ty Wong? Or David?
Even the thought of David Wong caused my stomach to do a surprising little flip.
Mei Lien’s eyes widened, but this time she shook her head vigorously and her cheeks grew so scarlet I was afraid she’d faint. I asked no more. I knew how it felt to be put on the spot. And I knew when someone was hiding something. I’d hidden the truth plenty of times myself.
Mei Lien showed me the bathroom that was just next door to my bedroom. She left and I drew my first bath in days. The water came steaming hot straight from the tap. The tub was as big as a horse trough, and the soap smelled of lavender. This bathroom made the bathroom I’d thought so fine at Mrs. Gale’s look tiny.
In that bath I had time to think, to examine the threads of my experiences as if I was examining a fine embroidery. My pa wanted me to find Ty Wong. Each time I mentioned Ty’s name—to Miss Everts, to Mei Lien—I sensed recognition, but no one would answer me directly. They were keeping some secret; about that, my instincts were good. But could they know Ty Wong? Surely the world could not be that small. Surely the coincidences could not be that extreme. Surely not.
The more I reflected the more those threads began to weave into a pattern. I needed to move quickly, and puzzle out how these connections were made before they wove a net, a snare. I feared a trap that would keep me from helping Pa.
I wondered if that David Wong was connected to Ty, and felt my cheeks color again. I felt a shocking attraction to David Wong. I cupped the bathwater and splashed my face but good. This was no time for such things. I had plans. Plans that did not include attachments to unsuitable men. Suitable men, maybe, if the opportunity presented.
Kula Baker does not fall frivolously in love with unsuitable men.
Even when the thought of that dark-haired David made my stomach do little flips.
My thick hair was damp although I’d given it a good toweling, so I braided it, letting the braid hang down my back to finish drying. I dressed in my new clothes, sniffing at the starch in the brand-new fabric and fingering the tiny stitches on the shirt placket. I noted with satisfaction that those stitches were no better than ones I could make on my own.
Then I set myself to stare at the portrait in my room.
The young man leaned against a pillar—it looked like one of the columns on the porch of the Lake Hotel, those same kind of lengthwise ridges—and he stared out from the canvas with eyes as blue as the rest of my room. Eyes not unlike my pa’s. In his left hand was a rolled-up paper; on his right hand he wore a ring. Behind him were hills, covered in green and brown and flecked with the red of some kind of wildflower—bee balm, or poppies, maybe. The hills rolled away and away into the deeper blue of the sky.
I recognized that ring. I stepped close to the portrait, picking myself up on my tiptoes.
It took me only a moment to place it. The painter had executed it with great detail; it was almost as if he was sending a message. Mrs. Gale wore that ring. I knew it without a doubt. It was one of the very same rings that had landed in Pa’s hands for a time before he returned it to its rightful owner.
When I’d last seen it up close at Mrs. Gale’s, it had seemed too heavy for a lady’s fingers, and here was proof that the ring had once belonged to a man. Could this boy have been Mrs. Gale’s husband?
I tilted my head to look closer. The golden dragon raised off the surface of that painted ring in such d
imension that it looked ready to pounce.
I turned my attention to the rolled-up paper in his other hand. At the top of the paper was a seal or emblem, that same dragon only larger, its head turned to the left as on the ring and a long tongue of flame emerging from its open mouth and spikes running down its back to the tip of its coiled tail. Below the dragon the paper was a rolled-up tube with words written across it, but the young man held that paper pointing heavenward so that it was too far above my eyes to read.
And then another thought crossed my mind. Mrs. Gale and Miss Everts were sisters-in-law. But how? Why did they not share last names? If this man was indeed Mrs. Gale’s husband, then he must also be Phillipa Everts’s brother. I had never thought to ask Mrs. Gale, but now curiosity pricked at me. Miss Everts felt she’d been slighted; why, she fairly despised sweet Hannah Gale. All odd little pieces scattered about a game board, and that made no sense.
One thing for sure: Miss Everts put me in this room on purpose.
I heard a soft knock—Mei Lien.
“I show you Miss Everts’s room.”
Time for me to start slaving away for the peculiar Phillipa Everts. I followed Mei Lien down to Miss Everts’s suite on the second floor. Hers was an elegant bedroom with fine furniture of dark wood and a canopied bed and a private bathroom and water closet. Mei Lien opened the wardrobe. Silk and velvet, and delicate embroidered shawls, and polished leather shoes.
My job was to straighten and tidy the room and take out the clothes that needed cleaning. “Chinese laundry,” Mei Lien said with a smile. “They pick up.”
In about an hour I had the rooms as neat as a pin. I opened the drapes to let in the light and the long hinged windows to let in the air, noting with a sigh the grime on those windows that it was now my duty to wash.