A Splendid Ruin: A Novel

by Megan Chance

  I would have sworn every eye in the place focused on me, and that meant it was impossible to turn around again without looking like a fool. “Remember who you are.” I adopted my most confident air as I made my way up the stairs. It wasn’t only architects and bankers and lawyers who had offices here, but artists. Doors opened to show high-ceilinged, light-filled studios. Men smoking and talking and gesturing were on every landing. It smelled of plaster and clay and paint, something acrid that mixed with the earthy sweetness of garlic coming from a downstairs restaurant.

  Then the door was before me. I did not have to go in. No one would know. But my family meant more to me than my nerves. I owed them everything. This was a small enough payment. I took a deep breath and opened the door into an office smelling of paper and tobacco, and a young man pounding on a typewriter. When I entered, he turned to me with a polite expression of inquiry.

  “I’m here to see Mr. Farge,” I told him.

  “Ah. Do you have an appointment, Miss—”

  “No, I don’t. But if you could just tell him that Miss Kimble came to inquire after him? May Kimble.”

  “He’s very busy, Miss Kimble. Without an appointment, I don’t think he’ll be able to see you.”

  “Please. I won’t take up much of his time.”

  The young man sighed, but obediently went down the hall. While he was gone, I glanced at the framed pictures on the wall, photographs of buildings, some sketches. Mr. Farge had been productive for someone his age, which I’d guessed to be early thirties. All of the designs were quite interesting, if not as daring as I’d expected, given everything I’d heard. I was disappointed; I’d expected something more, but I couldn’t say what really. After all, how different could a building be? I knew nothing about real architecture. Perhaps these were visionary. How would I know?

  “He’ll see you.” The young man was back, and he seemed surprised.

  I was surprised myself.

  He led me past a room holding a large table spread with drawings to an office at the back and Ellis Farge. He was just as handsome, but he smiled when he saw me and his blue eyes laughed as they had not yesterday. In fact, there was about him none of the restlessness I’d seen then. I wondered if I’d imagined it. Today, too, he was dressed more warmly than the day warranted, in a thick woolen suit, and the office was heated almost to discomfort.

  He stood at a desk covered with unopened mail. “Well, if it isn’t Miss Kimble. The Bulletin Girl.”

  “The what?” I asked.

  He reached behind him for a newspaper, which he held out to me. That he had been looking at that page recently was not in doubt. There were two pictures from Sutro Baths there, the first with me looking pale and gawky in the revealing suit, and then in the next, my plunge backward into the pool. The caption read: The daring Miss Kimble models at Sutro Baths—and proves that this latest Parisian fashion is all wet.

  I would have laughed at the caption had it been about anyone but me. Goldie must have seen it this morning, but she’d said nothing. Why hadn’t she warned me? My face felt on fire. “Oh dear.”

  “You weren’t wearing that bathing costume when I saw you at the baths.”

  “Thankfully I had it on for a very short time.”

  “You belong to the Sullivans, I understand,” he said thoughtfully.

  I was surprised again, that he knew it, that he’d offered me an opening so quickly, as if he’d known why I’d come. Perhaps, had those eyes been less blue, his smile less ready, I might have been suspicious. But he was attractive, and the drawing tools settled in a velvet-lined case on his desk—brass-plated compasses and rulers, thin wooden templates in triangles and curves—raised the beginnings of a hunger I didn’t recognize. “You’ve heard of us then.”

  “Oh yes.”

  “You know who my uncle is? He certainly knows of you. He’s longing to work with you. He says you’re avoiding him.”

  “Ah, well.” Farge turned to the window. “It has nothing to do with him. I’m not working much these days.”

  “Why not? My uncle says you’re very talented.”

  “And you’re here to beg on his behalf.”

  I paused. “Something like that.”

  He said nothing. An awkwardness fell between us, and I looked at one of the framed drawings on the wall, a building of Egyptian fashion, with geometric walls that hinted at a ziggurat and many-sided columns topped with the distinctive bundled reeds. But it was a confusing mix of styles.

  “The Hartford building.” He had turned from the window to watch me study it. “Finished earlier this year. What do you think?”

  “It’s very nice.”

  “Do you know what your friend at the Bulletin called it? ‘Bewildering’ and ‘cramped.’”

  “I don’t have a friend at the Bulletin.”

  He ignored that. “Do you agree with him?”

  “I’m hardly an architect—”

  “You don’t need to be an architect. Just tell me what you think.”

  There was an intensity in his question that felt like his distraction of yesterday, and that kept me from honesty. I said carefully, “Surely people wouldn’t be clamoring to commission you if they thought your buildings ugly.”

  “But you do,” he accused.

  “I said no such thing.”

  “Would you commission me, Miss Kimble?”

  “I—”

  “When I first came to San Francisco, I thought, what a place. What a place to do something new. It breathes in a way other cities don’t.”

  “I know exactly what you mean.” I was eager to find common ground. “It feels new and exciting.”

  “I see you understand.”

  “It’s theatrical and yet—”

  “Trying very hard to be classic,” he finished.

  I laughed. “It wants to be flashy, but it wants to be respected too.”

  He smiled now. “You know about the Burnham Plan?”

  I nodded. “The city beautification project? My uncle says that the city doesn’t need it. He thinks it will hamper business.”

  “It will cost too much and cause too much disruption. But it’s an opportunity for San Francisco to make a mark. It needs architects who aren’t afraid to try something new. That’s what I wanted the Hartford to be.” Ellis Farge nodded to the drawing. “Well? Don’t think you can get away so easily. What do you think? Not flashy enough?”

  “What’s it meant for?”

  His brow furrowed. “It’s a business building.”

  “Offices? Then it’s trying too hard. The pyramid styling is interesting, but it does look cramped, and there are hardly any windows. It must feel like a prison inside.”

  He stepped up beside me, a bit too close, and I was too conscious of the space between us. “You’ve studied architecture?”

  “Oh no, just—I draw a bit but—”

  “Is that a sketchbook? In your bag?”

  I had forgotten it was there, and now I was horrified. Why had I not left it in the carriage? Goldie had been so sanguine, but it was Shin’s words that stayed with me, “You should not show him your drawings,” a reminder of impending embarrassment. “Oh, no. No, it’s nothing at all—”

  A short, impatient gesture. “Hand it over. Let me see.”

  “Please, it’s really so stupid—”

  “No commentary please. Let me judge for myself.”

  I handed it over, moved more by his insistence than by any volition.

  He took his time over the pages, studying them intently, no doubt finding every flaw. I would almost have preferred that he look through it quickly and decisively, putting a quick end to my nerves.

  Finally he glanced up. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m very nervous.”

  “Why should you be? These are very good. You’ve a fine eye. I like this one especially.” He flipped to the library that Goldie had said needed statues. “And this.” A dark-paneled dining room with a contrasting wooden floor laid in a rad
iating pattern. It had been a chromo of a winter scene that had given me the idea. I didn’t remember the rest of the picture that had so captured me, only the ice-covered pond glowing against a stormy winter sky. “Really there are too many to choose from.”

  It didn’t seem possible that he might think it. I waited for the but. But there should be more statues. But the wall color is wrong. But, but, but . . .

  He said, “Where did you learn this?”

  “I didn’t. Well, I had a book of watercolors, so I suppose it was that.”

  “No book taught you how to do this. You never had a lesson in design?”

  “I read the Wharton book, and a few others.”

  “Ah.” He looked back at the page. “But mostly you’ve paid attention.” He seemed surprised, and impressed, and my nerves melted into dizzyingly warm pride. “This is beautiful. They’re all beautiful.”

  “Thank you. I’m flattered.” An understatement.

  “It’s a pity that you’re a woman.” He closed the book. Before I could react to that—the truth of it, the unexpected disappointment of it—he tapped the cover and asked, “Have you more of these?”

  “Dozens. I’ve been drawing them forever. It was a way to—” I stopped, surprised that I’d almost said the truth about my mother and what these drawings had meant, about the future I’d been promised, my loneliness and need.

  He did not let it go, as I’d hoped. “A way to what?”

  “Nothing. Nothing.” I’d wanted to put a stop to his inquiries, but then I was disappointed when he only nodded.

  He handed back the sketchbook. “Well, you’ve done what I thought was impossible, Miss Kimble. You’ve won my attention. Ask your uncle to call me.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Farge.” I nearly dropped the sketchbook in the flurry of my gratitude. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”

  He considered me again, this time quizzically. “You care very deeply for your family, don’t you, Miss Kimble?”

  “They’re everything to me,” I said simply. “They saved me, you see.”

  On the way home, I expected to be basking in glory. I wasn’t. I’d won what my uncle had wanted, but I was not satisfied, and Farge’s admiration for my work, his office, the unfamiliar tools on his desk, had spurred a surprising little ache that was not quite an ache, an excitement shivering with both hope and fear, as if the world had briefly opened to show me something I had never before allowed myself to glimpse. Possibility. Opportunity. And then disappointment. “A pity that you’re a woman.” I was uncertain what I’d wanted from him, but I knew I wanted something—and that I longed for it still.

  As brilliantly as the Sullivan mansion shone in the sunshine, it looked cold and austere, the windows blank and still and blind. In spite of the fact that I had good news to tell my uncle, I was unsettled now by Ellis Farge, and a yearning I could not quite put a name to, and the house only exacerbated my discomfort.

  There was no one about; the place was again eerily silent. Not even the footsteps of a maid, and Au did not appear out of nowhere to take my coat and hat. Goldie must be in her room. I went upstairs, meaning to ask her why she hadn’t told me about my picture in the Bulletin, but before I could go to my cousin, the door to my aunt’s bedroom opened, and Shin motioned for me to come.

  I shook my head. “Dr. Browne said I wasn’t to see her without permission.”

  “Please, miss. She is good today. She wishes to see you.”

  “I cannot.”

  “Mr. Sullivan is gone.”

  I knew she meant to reassure me; it only made this more illicit. “The doctor warned me—”

  “Please.” How ardent she was, almost pleading.

  Shin was so adamant, and she knew better than anyone the effect I had on Aunt Florence. There must be a reason for her insistence.

  It was not a good idea, but I followed Shin inside. The maid was so obviously relieved that I was glad I had. My aunt reclined listlessly on the chaise. Her hand swayed to some music only she could hear. Like my mother swaying to music, humming to a waltz. The same expression. Mama’s smell—a ghost of talc and wool stored in cedar—here and gone, startling and disconcerting.

  I worked to right myself again, to focus on the corporeal and not the memory: a softly burning lamp, a book of Browning’s poetry splayed open beside it, and beside that, a copy of the Bulletin, folded to the page of my poolside humiliation.

  I went to sit on the edge of the chaise. “Hello, Aunt Florence.”

  My aunt’s gaze came slowly to rest upon me, faded blue, not so vibrant as my mother’s, not so beautiful. “May. Where have you been?”

  “In town.”

  “No,” Florence murmured. “No, you were somewhere else. Somewhere . . .” She glanced to the newspaper. “She took you there.”

  “Goldie, you mean? Yes, we were there yesterday.” I reached over to close the newspaper.

  She stopped me. “Indecent. She told you to wear it, didn’t she?”

  “It’s the latest fashion, Aunt.” It didn’t matter if I agreed; I was not going to blame Goldie.

  “No respectable young woman has her picture in the newspaper.”

  She sounded so like my mother that I was taken aback. “I didn’t know the photographer was there.”

  Aunt Florence closed her eyes. “There is always one around. Remember who you are, May. Never forget that.”

  Another uncomfortable echo.

  She went on. “You mustn’t always do as Goldie says.”

  “It was my own decision, Aunt. I’m a modern woman.”

  “Those are her words, May. You are what she makes you.”

  I didn’t understand the criticism of her own daughter, and Goldie had been so good to me that I opened my mouth to defend her. But then Shin, at the dressing table, shook her head at me, and though that too was confusing, I let my argument slip away.

  Aunt Florence said, “Charlotte has never forgiven me for what happened. She has hated me for years.”

  A leap in thought, a connection I could not follow. I meant to let it go. I was not going to ask. I could not upset her. But Shin did not stop me this time, and so I tried, “What happened, Aunt Florence? Why did Mama hate you?”

  “I was wrong. Will you tell her that? I meant to write, but I could not. I was too proud. That old saying . . . we despise most those who know us at our worst. It’s true. It’s so true.”

  I frowned, only more confused. “But she wrote you, didn’t she? She sent you a letter—”

  “I was wrong.” My aunt gripped my hand with skeletal fingers. “You must tell her. I would make it up now. I would protect you. Do you see?”

  Her lucidity was fading. Desperately, I tried to snatch from it what I could. “Protect me from what? What happened? Did you know my father? Do you know who he is?”

  She leaned so close I smelled her laudanum-tainted breath, stale and unpleasant. Her hair brushed my cheek. “Shhh. They watch. Always they watch. They listen.”

  I could not temper my frustration. “What does this have to do with my mother?”

  “I wish . . . oh, I cannot keep my . . . thoughts together. I cannot think.” She hit the flat of her palm against her head. “Think!”

  I took her hand away and spoke as soothingly as I could. “Perhaps you should rest—”

  “No!”

  A crash from the dressing table made us both jump. Shin had dropped something at my aunt’s outburst.

  “You must listen. It will be soon. Soon, the papers—you must hurry.” This time, my aunt pressed a fist to her temple. Her skin was taut with strain, or pain, or perhaps both. “Shin!”

  The maid scurried over with the bottle of laudanum, but she made no move to give the medicine. “Mrs. Sullivan, you told me to say no.”

  “I’ve changed my mind,” Aunt Florence said.

  Was she speaking of the laudanum, or something else?

  Aunt Florence sagged back upon the chaise and stared at the drape-concealed window
as if fascinated. “You must go, May.” Only a whisper now, barely discernable. “Take whatever you want. Go back to New York.”

  “I can’t. This is my home now. I don’t want to go back.”

  Her expression stole my words. I’d never seen a face so hard, so chillingly stark, such bleak and empty eyes. Then she reached out to Shin, fingers outstretched, a demand that could not be denied.

  Shin gave her the laudanum, and my aunt turned her head away from me as if I had ceased to exist. I was dismissed.

  I went slowly to the door, confused and unsettled and apprehensive about nothing I could define. What memories existed of my mother were lodged so deeply in my aunt’s mind that I was afraid I would never discover them. And how could I be so selfish as to keep trying? To see her this way, so much like Mama and yet not at all like her, was unbearable. Yet Shin had not stopped me from asking what had happened between my mother and my aunt. She had even helped me. It was then that I understood her silence about my snooping had been deliberate. She was my ally, but in what, exactly, I had no idea.

  The next morning at breakfast, Uncle Jonny could barely contain himself. “Champagne, please, Arthur.”

  The footman did not even blink at the early morning request.

  Goldie asked, “Are we celebrating?”

  “Oh, we are indeed.”

  I looked up from my coddled eggs and ham. “What are we celebrating?”

  “The day you came to us,” Uncle Jonny said, smiling so broadly I could not help smiling in return. “Thanks to you, my dear May, Mr. Farge is at work on the Nance building.”

  “That’s wonderful.” Goldie spoke without her usual enthusiasm. She had awakened irritated. I had decided against asking her why she hadn’t told me about the Bulletin picture. She was in a mood and I didn’t want to be a Mabel and I knew already that Goldie considered any mention in the society pages to be a good thing.

  Uncle Jonny didn’t seem to notice her displeasure. The champagne came; Uncle Jonny toasted, “To you, May, and to the very bright future of Sullivan Building.”