A Splendid Ruin: A Novel

by Megan Chance

  “I—I don’t know.”

  “You’ll love it, I know! Come, come, we must hurry! There’s so much to do!” She came to me, laughing, urging me from my chair, and pulling me into an impromptu dance, whirling me about the room until I was giddy with joy.

  Goldie was as good as her word. She threw me into the life I’d been promised, the one of which I’d dreamed. We attended more dances and dinners, operas and theater than I’d thought possible. We went to church on Sundays and promenaded after. We went on carriage rides, shopped and lunched and made calls in the afternoons. We roller-skated, and Goldie took me on a tour of the impressive city hall, with its grandiose pillars and its dome reaching over three hundred feet from the curb to Freedom’s torch at the top. She was as proud of it as if she’d built it herself, and made me proud too of Sullivan Building’s achievement.

  These were the activities my mother had taught me to long for. These were the glittering, wine- and laughter-chased conversations and entertainments I’d imagined, lasting well into the night, until one collapsed exhausted into bed, sleeping away the morning until it was time to wake and do it all again. My sketchbook and pencils admonished me from my bedside table, unopened, ignored. There was no time.

  The weeks passed in a whirlwind, then the months, one and then two and then a third. There were days when I was home only long enough to sleep. Days when I didn’t lay eyes on my uncle except for Sunday service, or when the only news of my aunt was Shin’s “She is just the same, Miss May.” There was no more mention of my mother’s letter. Goldie shrugged away the subject with, “Does it matter? You’re here now, where you belong.”

  And yet . . . after all my longing for this life, it felt strangely empty, beautiful but hollow. I did not want to admit that I found it boring, or that I was floundering in its shallows. How little they thought about anything but their own amusement. Their lives were so easy, so full of beauty and money. How much they could do with it, and how disappointing to find them so vacant.

  I missed my drawing with a startling intensity. I missed things I never expected to think about again. At the boardinghouse in Brooklyn, my mother and I had gathered every night for dinner with the other boarders. It had been one of my favorite times of the day—in spite of the food, which had been cheap and tasteless, if filling—because of the warmth of real companionship, even if it had only been for an hour. But whenever I suggested to Goldie that we might go home to have dinner as a family, she seemed confused by the very notion. “That’s so old-fashioned, May. Who does that anymore? It’s almost . . . vulgar.”

  The truth was that what I enjoyed the most were the society columns in the Bulletin. As I sat through another boring conversation about so-and-so’s new bay gelding that was entered in the third race at Ingleside, I would amuse myself remembering how Alphonse Bandersnitch—which could not possibly be his real name; it must all be part of his anonymity—had made mention of the racetrack.

  Wednesday night’s theme at the Literary Club dinner was “What Do Women Need?” The answer, apparently, was not Miss Lucille Traynor, who was given the cut direct early in the evening by Miss Sarah Pastor, in spite of the fact that just last week, the same two ladies were seen arm in arm, pushing against the fence at Ingleside, screaming for their favorites and waving their betting tickets like the veriest hoi polloi. One wonders if Miss Traynor’s rumored friendship with jockey Robert Rudford skewed the betting pool to Miss Pastor’s detriment? On Friday the Traynors departed on a “long-planned” trip to the Continent. Now that Miss Pastor is deprived of her racetrack partner, one hopes she does not take to visiting the gambling hells incognito like the rest of society.

  The day after I’d attended Celeste Johnson’s reception with Goldie, I laughed so hard at the columnist’s irony that I nearly snorted coffee from my nose.

  At Miss Celeste Johnson’s reception at her new home in Pine Street, she shared photographs and brochures from her visit to the Exposition. She was most anxious to tell everyone of her experiences with the tattooed and obscene savages in the Igorot exhibit, and the ferocious Congolese Pygmy with his pointed teeth, whom she declares “the most frightening cannibal I’ve ever known!” Which of course makes one wonder who in our fair city is hiding a terrible secret.

  Goldie had been mystified by my laughter. “What’s so funny?”

  It wasn’t the first time she’d missed his jabs. Her friends often seemed equally dense. He was making fun of them, how could they not see it? But either they didn’t, or they were so glad to be mentioned in his pages that they didn’t care. I began to think of Mr. Bandersnitch as belonging to me, somehow, a confidant. Someone only I understood. I was never at an entertainment where I didn’t wonder if he was there too, though I had no idea what he looked like, and no one else seemed to know, either. He was either a master of disguise, or he was a member of society slumming as a reporter, and there was a great deal of speculation either way.

  I personally leaned toward the member-of-society theory. I imagined him as rather short. Portly, with a love of sherry and cream puffs. Blond, perhaps, well dressed, educated, and with a sense of humor and an eye for absurdity. No one I’d met matched that description, but I thought of what I might do if I found him, how the two of us would stand back in a corner and watch and comment, amusing ourselves all night long with our asides . . . Oh, but that too was a fantasy, and I resigned myself to spending my hours pretending this was exactly what I’d always wanted and trying not to disappoint Goldie. I didn’t want her to accuse me of being a Mabel. My ever-present loneliness only grew worse. How could I complain? I’d come from nothing. I was the luckiest girl in the world. I had a family now. How ungrateful I was, to want anything more.

  And now, this beautiful October day, Goldie had whisked me away on a safety bicycle ride along the oceanside highway.

  The view was magnificent. Twice I’d stopped pedaling to stare at waves crashing on a sandy beach and huge rocks dotted with black and shining seals. The fog that had cloaked the morning was now only spun sugar clouds in a blue sky, shifting with the salty, sweet breeze.

  “Come on!” Goldie shouted from ahead. The front wheel of her bicycle wobbled as she slowed. “You’ll have plenty of time to look from the restaurant!” Then she turned back again, pedaling fast.

  I caught up with her and Thomas O’Keefe, Jerome Belden, and Linette Wall—the group of Goldie’s closest friends I’d met the night of my arrival—just as we reached the Cliff House, a red-roofed, Bavarian-styled resort with turrets and a profusion of spires perched on the very edge of the cliff like an elegant steamer come ashore. The barking seals on the rocks below sounded like a pack of dogs. There had to be dozens of them, and just as many people populated the railed pathway sweeping to the beach, more promenading and picnicking on the sand, some even daring the water.

  I came up beside my cousin just as Goldie dismounted. Her skirt caught on the pedal, and she nearly lost her balance. Fortunately, Thomas was right there to catch her. He was sandy haired and long faced and very patrician, with spectacles that made him look the perfect scholar, though his only studies were yachting and polo.

  Goldie batted him away with a flirtatious smile. “The next time, I’m going to wear knickers like you and Jerry.”

  “Knickers, ha! The next time, we’ll wear bloomers.” Linette, who had been Goldie’s best friend in finishing school, dumped her bicycle on the grass and delicately patted her pinkly glowing cheeks with her handkerchief. Beneath her tam her chestnut hair shone like copper in the sun.

  Jerome, who at twenty-five was our senior, made a face and smoothed his dark beard. “Bloomers? Good God, no. I’m afraid I cannot be seen with any woman who wears bloomers.”

  “And we should never wear anything of which you don’t approve, no matter how inconvenient,” Goldie said dryly.

  “Even beauty can’t keep some things from looking ridiculous.” Thomas freed Goldie’s divided skirt from the pedal.

  She gave him a grateful sm
ile and said to me, “It took you forever to catch up.”

  “I thought I did well, especially since it’s been ages since I’ve ridden. Not since grade school.”

  “I told you, they say one never forgets.”

  Jerome pulled at the high neck of his jersey. “Let’s go in. I’m starving.”

  “You’re always starving,” Goldie teased.

  “You make me ravenous, darling,” he teased back, taking Linette’s arm.

  It seemed that nearly everyone in San Francisco had the idea to go to the Cliff House that Sunday—or to the enormous, Grecian-styled Sutro Baths nearby. The oceanside highway had been lively with horses and carriages, other bicyclists, and automobiles, and now they crowded the entrance. Men in their driving and bicycling caps dallied on the huge porch, women with colorful parasols and scarves and tams and, yes, one or two in bloomers.

  “We need a table at the west windows,” Goldie said as we went inside. “I want May to see the view.”

  The hall was long, the woodwork gleaming, the decor elegant, beautiful, and soothing. Places like this accentuated how truly the Sullivan house unsettled, that a resort should feel more like home.

  Pillars punctuated the dining room, which was tastefully ornamented with palms and ferns and hanging lamps. It was indeed crowded, but we were seated promptly at a white-clothed table next to a window overlooking a veranda and the Pacific Ocean. Talk, silver clinking against plate, and the wonderful smells of food and smoke and that underlying, ever-present scent of the sea only added to the stunning view.

  “Don’t you love it, May?” Goldie asked. “Aren’t you glad you’re here instead of gloomy old Brooklyn?”

  “You know I am. How many times must I say it?”

  “If we don’t eat soon, I’m going to collapse,” Jerome said.

  “The ride a bit too much for you, was it?” Thomas teased. “I thought I saw you lagging.”

  “I wasn’t lagging,” Jerome said in indignation. “I was distracted.”

  “By what?” Linette asked.

  “By the sight of your lovely ankle.” Jerome threw an annoyed glance over his shoulder. “That woman’s hat keeps hitting the back of my head. Why the hell do they need to be so big? They’re devilishly annoying. Not only that, but they get in the way at the theater.”

  “Only last night I had to watch a play through the flock of birds in front of me,” Thomas agreed. “Though, I have to admit it amused me to imagine them pecking the villain to death.”

  I smiled, though I was weary of the talk already. Fortunately, the view was worth the boredom I anticipated.

  Jerome brought his chair closer to the table, away from the offending hat. “Well, what shall it be, ladies?”

  “I’m partial to the baked oysters,” Linette said.

  The suited waiter came to take our order. Jerome and Thomas talked over one another to be the one who gave it. “No, let me,” Jerome said finally. “There’s something special I want May to try.”

  I glanced up from the menu. “How do you know I’ll like it?”

  “Because I know just by looking at you. Trust me, I’m very good at this.”

  “You’re horrible at this,” Linette disagreed. “You ordered snails for me once and swore I’d like them!”

  “You told me you liked escargot.”

  “I was trying to impress you. Yes, I know, silly of me, wasn’t it? Anyway, it sounded very French.”

  “It is very French.”

  “For snails.”

  The waiter hovered politely, but I sensed his impatience.

  Jerome studied me in a way that made me shy again. I was still not quite used to their flirting, or the fact that it meant nothing. “Let me see—ah, I have it! You’re a very serious girl, therefore nothing too decadent. Something like the Chicken Mayonnaise.”

  Goldie sighed heavily. “She already has a tendency to be boring. You’ll only make her more so. We’ll start with the caviar.”

  “And champagne,” Thomas said to the waiter. “Sir, we will indeed need plenty of champagne.”

  The waiter departed with what seemed to be relief.

  Jerome glanced toward the far end of the room. “My God, Ellis Farge is here.”

  I looked to where a dark-haired man sat alone at a table, toying with a glass of wine. He was very pale, his face chiseled, almost gaunt. He huddled in a heavy coat as if he were cold, though the day was fine and the sun poured warmly through the windows. “Who’s Ellis Farge?”

  “Only the most sought-after architect in San Francisco,” Jerome explained.

  Linette leaned forward, lowering her voice. “I’ve heard he’s been refusing all commissions.”

  “Well, he can’t take them all, can he?” Jerome asked reasonably. “Everyone wants him. He’d be swamped.”

  “But to turn them all down!”

  “I doubt that,” Goldie said firmly. “Why, my father has asked him and I don’t imagine even someone as famous as Mr. Farge will refuse Sullivan Building.”

  “No, no one refuses Sullivan Building,” Thomas murmured, so low that I didn’t think Goldie heard him.

  “I’m surprised to see him here. I heard he was at Del Monte,” Linette said.

  Goldie glanced up from her menu and gave Mr. Farge a casual look. “He’s been back for days now.”

  They all looked at her in surprise.

  “Don’t you ever read the society page? He was in the Arrivals column just last week.” Then she grinned and nudged me. “Perhaps you should go over and introduce yourself.”

  For a moment I thought she was serious. Then I decided she must be joking, and I laughed. “Yes, of course. It’s not the least bit brazen, is it? He wouldn’t think me fast at all.”

  She whispered in my ear, “I don’t mean that. I mean you could tell him about your sketches.” Suddenly she stiffened and murmured, “Oh, dear God.”

  I had never seen my cousin wear that expression. Dread—or perhaps even fear. I hadn’t thought Goldie feared anything. “What?” I asked in alarm. “What is it?”

  Jerome glanced over his shoulder.

  “Don’t look!” Goldie reached over the table to slap his hand.

  “Who is it?” Linette whispered.

  “Ah, I’d recognize those feathers anywhere.” Thomas whistled quietly. “My, my, how interesting.”

  “What’s interesting?” Linette demanded. “If you don’t tell me, I’ll look for myself.”

  But Goldie looked as if she might be sick. She grabbed the napkin from the table, pulling it to her lap, crumpling it in her fingers.

  “Goldie, what is it?” I asked again.

  The words had barely left my lips before a tall, aristocratic man with dark, oiled hair wearing a checkered scarf about his neck and a much older woman with black and gray feathers bobbing on her hat approached our table.

  “Miss Sullivan. You’re well, I hope,” the man said with a tiny smile. Then his gaze came to me. “I’d heard your cousin was visiting. It’s all the talk.”

  Goldie said nothing. In fact, she looked as if she were incapable of speech.

  Another thing I’d never seen: Goldie at a loss for words. Not only that, but the others looked startled into silence as well. The man waited. Politely, I said, “Hello. I’m May Kimble.”

  The man tipped his hat. “I’m very glad to make your acquaintance, Miss Kimble. Allow me to present Mrs. James Hoffman. I’m Stephen Oelrichs.”

  Mrs. Hoffman. The Mrs. Hoffman? The Mrs. Hoffman who had sent her regrets to my welcoming party? The Mrs. Hoffman who seemed to matter so much to Goldie? I threw a quick glance at my cousin, whose expression had set mutinously.

  Mrs. Hoffman said, “You’re from New York, I understand, Miss Kimble? Will you be in our city long?”

  I wondered what about this woman had so silenced my cousin. “It’s my home now.”

  “Really?” Stephen Oelrichs spoke to me, but he looked at Goldie, again with that tiny smile. “Well then, I wish you luck, Mis
s Kimble. Good afternoon.”

  The encounter had lasted less than two minutes, and yet it set a pall over our party. The waiter arrived immediately after with the champagne. None of us said a word as he opened it with a flourish. Goldie had twisted her napkin into a coil, and she looked ready to cry—or to destroy something.

  The waiter poured the champagne and left.

  Jerome said, “Well,” and lifted his glass.

  Goldie lurched to her feet. “Excuse me.” She pushed past Thomas and me.

  Thomas looked after her in concern. “I suppose I should go after her.”

  “No, I’ll go.” Apparently I was not to be bored after all. This was so out of character for my cousin that I had to know the reason. So I did exactly what Goldie wished for me to do—I hurried off in search of her. She was walking so quickly that she was already gone by the time I stepped from the dining room. I saw no sign of her until I went out onto the porch, and spotted her striding down the pathway to the beach.

  I ran after her. “Goldie, what is it?”

  Goldie shrugged my hand from her shoulder and kept walking. She was crying. “I’m fine. Truly.”

  I had not known my cousin long, that was true. But to see her this way, so discomposed, affected me more than I expected. I had no idea what to do, or what to say. All I could do was accompany her and give her my handkerchief. Goldie took it, but only clenched it in her fist.

  Warily, I said, “Why does she matter to you? What did she do?”

  Goldie frowned at me. “Who?”

  “Mrs. Hoffman. I don’t understand. She seemed perfectly polite. I know she didn’t come to my party, but—”