A Splendid Ruin: A Novel

by Megan Chance

  I opened the door and stepped inside to the residual warmth of the stove, which had been banked for the night, and darkness, stumbling against a coal hod near the door, which scraped on the floor. I caught my breath, heard a surprised exclamation, a shuffle, and then suddenly there was Shin emerging from the pantry with a lamp. She’d been waiting for me. She reached into her pocket and took out a piece of folded paper, and then raised her finger to her lips, a warning.

  Almost in answer came the scream.

  It came from the foyer.

  “What was that?” I rushed to the kitchen door.

  Shin grabbed my arm as I passed her. “Miss, wait—”

  I brushed her off and kept going.

  When I got to the stairs, the scream seemed still to echo into the domed ceiling. The moonlight cast a dim glow upon my aunt, crumpled lifelessly at the bottom.

  I dropped to my knees beside her. Her head was positioned oddly, her hip at a sickening turn. Her cheek was still warm. “Aunt Florence.”

  Something fell from her hand onto the floor, rolling to a stop at my foot. I grabbed it without thinking, and shook her. “Aunt. Wake up, please.”

  Her head rolled drunkenly to the side, too loose, grotesque.

  “She’s dead,” I said dully to Shin, but she hadn’t followed me. I was alone.

  Someone turned on the light. My aunt stared into nothing. Her mouth gaped open.

  Goldie, in her nightgown, stopped halfway down the stairs. Her hand went to her mouth. My uncle, still dressed, the gold buttons on his vest glinting, misbuttoned, raced past Goldie and knelt on the other side of his wife.

  My uncle looked to Mr. Au and the cook, who were blinking blearily in the hall. Then he looked at me. “May, what have you done?”

  “She must have been sleepwalking again—”

  Uncle Jonny rose and backed away with a horrified expression. Again, he asked, “What have you done?”

  Still, I was too shocked to understand. “She was like this when I came in.”

  My uncle said grimly, “Mr. Au, it’s time to make the call.”

  The butler went to the telephone. The cook shrieked quietly into her hands.

  “I didn’t want to believe it. Even all those times when you upset her. Oh, I didn’t want to believe it. And now you’ve killed her!” Goldie’s voice held the edge of hysteria.

  “What? No. No. Of course I didn’t. I found her this way. She was already here. I heard her scream. Shin—” I looked frantically around for the maid, who was nowhere to be seen. “Where’s Shin?”

  Mr. Au spoke quietly into the phone. He hung up the receiver and said, “They are on their way.”

  “We took you in. We’ve given you everything, and this is how you’ve repaid us!” Goldie cried.

  “I didn’t do this!” I protested.

  “Mr. Au, if you please.” Uncle Jonny said.

  The butler came to me, and the two of them took my arms and propelled me up the stairs, to my bedroom. I was too shocked to fight them. I didn’t believe it was happening.

  I stumbled into the room. My uncle closed the door hard behind me; I heard the rattle of keys, the turn in the lock. I was numb and stupid. My aunt’s death, the accusations . . . I could only stand there in darkness. Finally, I pushed on the bedroom light, flinching at the brightness, then was vaguely surprised that I was still in my coat and hat, still dressed, boots on. Slowly, I began to come back to myself.

  It was only then that I realized I was still holding the thing that had dropped from my aunt’s hand. It was a gold button.

  I stared at it, and then, suddenly, I knew where I’d seen it before. My uncle’s vest, misbuttoned, but no, it hadn’t been. It had gaped across his stomach, the button not in the wrong buttonhole, but missing. This button here, the one in my palm.

  The button that had fallen from my aunt’s hand.

  As the hours passed, the house became even more eerily silent. Dawn, and then day, and again that sense of isolation and abandonment, only this time it was worse because there truly was an absence; the breathing of the house seemed to have changed. I was cold, and now afraid. It was all a mistake. This was not happening. Shin would explain that I was with her, that it was impossible for me to have pushed my aunt down the stairs. And then . . . then there was the button from my uncle’s vest. I tried to remember everything Aunt Florence had ever said to me. Her words seemed ominous now, warnings I should have listened to. Was it madness, really, or had I only believed what I’d been told? How could my uncle’s vest button have been in her hand when she fell—unless she’d grabbed it as she was falling?

  Unless he’d pushed her?

  I didn’t know what I was waiting for. The police? My uncle? Where was Shin? The bedroom sparkled and shone in the light, beautiful and cold and empty, like the prison I’d drawn at Coppa’s.

  I was so attuned to every sound and movement that the shuffling at my door made me start, though it was hardly perceptible. I turned to see that someone had slid a piece of folded paper beneath my door.

  It was only then that I remembered Shin had taken a folded paper from her pocket when in the kitchen. Had this been why she’d been waiting? Had it been this same paper?

  I knew it before I picked it up, though I had not seen its color in the kitchen, in the lamplight. Cheap paper of pale blue. Yes, I knew it, though my mind refused to believe it. Here in this place it was a thing discordant, a slip back into time, into a boardinghouse room, Mama with piles of lace and pantaloons, sewing away while I studied French conjugations. “I should be helping you, Mama.” “You can help me better by learning French. Now, again—”

  It was much worn and creased, as if it had been carried in a pocket for months. I knew, as I picked it up, that I would unfold it to see the address on the bottom, Central Shirtwaist Factory, Brooklyn, NY. I’d seen such paper many times before, with the items given my mother typewritten on the page, a signature beneath, 16 pantaloons, 43 yds lace trim on one side.

  On the other, my mother’s writing, broken, hurried, dated only days before she died.

  Florence—

  I have waited some time for your apology, even as I knew it would not come, and I have understood as well why it has not. But I have grown tired of waiting, and I have received some news which says that for me, time has run out. I am dying.

  I wish to believe that this news does not please you, that you do not find it comforting to know that I am to receive still more punishment, or to know how I have suffered, and how your niece has suffered because of your cruelty and your jealousy. I wish to believe, as I have always believed, that there is something fine and good in you, and that the years have softened you, and that you feel the regret that I feel. I can only say again that I am sorry Charles chose me over you, Flossie, and had I been able to keep from loving him, I would have, but then I would not have my darling daughter, my May, and she is worth everything. I know you will think it too, when you meet her.

  I worried, when you married Jonathan, that you had found a man so like yourself that, instead of making you the better person I believe you could be, he might make you a worser one. At the time, you praised his cleverness, and I know too well how you turn cleverness to your advantage. I hope I am wrong about him. I console myself by remembering that you can love a good man—you too loved Charles, after all.

  Yes, I know—you thought me a fool for believing in Charles. But it seems that of the two of us, I was the one who knew him best. He was an honorable man; I understood that when he decided not to involve his family in scandal, and I trusted him to keep his promise to leave an inheritance to his daughter, illegitimate though she was. He died two months ago. His family will obey his request to bequeath May, as long as we continue to adhere to my promise to Charles that we never contact them in any way.

  So you see, your niece will soon have a fortune. When I last looked into Sullivan Building, two years ago, the business was not doing well. Bad luck, or bad investments? Perhaps if you are ki
nd, May will help you. But you must promise me this, Flossie. You must take her in and treat her as your own. You must make up to me all these years of suffering we have endured because of your schemes. I will never tell her that you are the source of all our troubles. I will never tell her how you spread lies about me to Charles’s family so they forced him to abandon me. I will not tell her that you sold our family home in Newport without telling me and then left me in the cold with nothing because you were so jealous that Charles preferred me. I will not do this because you are all May has left. She will need family. I desire only that you be there for her.

  My heart is tired, and the doctor says it will soon fail. I can no longer work such long hours. I’ve done my best to keep this from May, but soon I fear I will be gone. Bring her to you, and love her as you could not love me. This is all I ask, Flossie, and if you care at all for my forgiveness, or if the possibility of atonement eases your fear of God’s judgment, I give you the chance for it now.

  Charlotte.

  I stared unseeing at the letter, letting my mother’s words, her voice, the truth, settle. My father had left me an inheritance. My father. Charles. I had come to San Francisco with an anticipated fortune.

  My father had not betrayed my mother, as I believed. She had released him to his family and promised never to contact him if he would provide for me in the end. He had kept his promise, as she had kept hers. She had never even told me his name, knowing as she must that I would not be able to resist searching him out. Charles. Charles who? The names raced through my head—Astor, Vanderbilt, Belmont, others. Where was there a recently deceased Charles? I could think of none. I was too distracted by the most fantastic part of it.

  I had a fortune.

  My aunt was dead. My uncle had a business that suffered “bad luck” or “bad investments,” an expensive mistress, and, according to Dante LaRosa, was involved in city corruption. My cousin was smoking opium and had not paid whatever she owed to China Joe.

  Stephen Oelrichs’s words sneaked back. “You’re in over your head. Learn to swim. Or drown.” What was it Dante had said? “I’m still trying to figure out where you belong.” I was in the middle of something, but what exactly?

  I heard my aunt’s laudanum-drunk voice in my ear. “You must listen. It will be soon. Soon, the papers—”

  The papers. What papers? The papers concerning my father’s will? My inheritance? She’d been trying to warn me and now she was dead and my uncle’s vest button had rolled from her hand. My uncle and my cousin needed my money—I had seen the evidence without understanding. The foyer mirror disappearing and never returning. Sold? Pawned? The angel on the hallway table? All the empty, unfinished rooms. Everything placed in the front rooms for show. And all this time their feigned generosity. No one had ever told me I was not a poor relation. They meant to steal from me and keep me believing I was beholden to them. “Soon,” my aunt said. When? How much money did I have? Was it in their hands yet? How much had they spent?

  Shin had known all this. She’d known I was looking for this letter. Where was she now?

  Too many unanswered questions, too many dawning realizations, and all of it too late—far too late. They were accusing me of murder. Still, I did not really believe that the accusation would stand. Still, I believed that I could win.

  But I had no idea just how oblivious I’d been, or for how long.

  I heard the horses and the carriage, but I could see nothing but dark shapes through the fog. Voices in the foyer rose into the angel-hosted dome. When my door burst open without a knock, I turned from the window to see a group of people standing at my open door. Dr. Browne and Uncle Jonny, along with a man and a woman in dark coats and hats. Goldie too, and next to her—

  “Ellis?” I breathed.

  “I’ve brought some people to take care of you, May,” Uncle Jonny said in a careful, soothing tone.

  Dr. Browne stepped forward. “These good people are going to take you with them, Miss Kimble. For a rest.”

  “A rest?”

  He smiled. “I think you’ll find everything to your liking. Blessington is well known for its beneficial treatments.”

  I looked at my uncle. “What is this?”

  “I’ve agreed with Dr. Browne. You’ll do as we say in this, May.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You see?” said Goldie to the man I didn’t know. “She doesn’t see what she’s done. Didn’t you say that was a symptom, Doctor, to be unaware of one’s own behavior?”

  “Indeed.” Dr. Browne nodded sagely.

  “She’s killed my mother.” The tears in Goldie’s eyes were ones I’d never seen for her mother before now. Only impatience. They were so obviously false and she was so obviously playacting that I would have laughed had it not been so dire.

  “That’s not true,” I said. “You know it’s not. She was at the bottom of the stairs when I came home. I had nothing to do with it! Ask your father what happened. Why did she have your vest button in her hand, Uncle Jonny? Where’s Shin? She—”

  “Shin? You won’t need a maid at Blessington.” Uncle Jonny shook his head sadly.

  “You see? She’s so mad she thinks she must have someone to do her hair.” Goldie reached for Ellis’s hand, grasping it hard—his hand—a bewildering intimacy; as far as I knew, they’d never even met. “She made me a laughingstock. The very first day, she insisted on going round the Horn like a . . . a loose woman! Thanks to her, I’ve been gossiped about, written about in the paper”—she choked as if the words were too distressing to say—“and she nearly made Mr. Farge insane, the way she followed him around. Didn’t she, Ellis?”

  Ellis. Ellis nodded. “I tried to dissuade her. I could not.”

  “She knew of our attachment, and still she tried to come between us.” Goldie patted her eyes delicately with her handkerchief.

  “What attachment? I did no such thing.” I realized then the true extent of my danger. I saw my aunt again, reaching for me. “You must go, May.” My poor aunt. Her headaches had started a few months before I’d arrived, Goldie said. With the arrival of my mother’s letter. They’d doped her with laudanum. They’d made her insane. I wondered if Aunt Florence had even written the letter that had summoned me to San Francisco. Perhaps Goldie had done so, or my uncle. I would not know the difference; I’d never seen my aunt’s handwriting. And now she was dead. I knew I could say nothing more of Shin. Not now. Not here. She would be in danger if I did. I needed a lawyer. “I think I would like to speak to Stephen Oelrichs.”

  As if this were a fair game. As if I had any chance at all against them.

  “Stephen?” Goldie blinked. “Whatever for?”

  Uncle Jonny sighed. “Enough of this. It’s all in the order signed by Judge Gerard. The papers are all correct.”

  “Order?” I asked. “What order?”

  No one answered.

  “No,” I said, and then more loudly. “No! I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Please, May.” My uncle truly looked pained.

  “I’m not the least bit mad!” I appealed to the man and the woman. “They plan to steal from me. My fortune—I have a great deal of money. My father left me . . . My father is . . . Charles . . . I don’t know his name, but they do . . .” I trailed off at their sorrowful expressions, at their frank disbelief and impatience, at Dr. Browne sadly shaking his head, and though I knew I was only making it worse, I could not stop. “I have proof. My mother wrote a letter. I have it right here, on the dressing table—” I started toward it.

  The dark-coated man held out his hand to me. “Now, now, miss. Do as your uncle says. We don’t want to have to confine you.”

  “That imaginary letter again.” Goldie sighed. “It’s become a—what does one call it?”

  “An idée fixe,” Dr. Browne provided.

  “Please don’t distress yourself so, May,” Uncle Jonny said.

  The nameless couple each took one of my arms, tightly, pinching. I fought them, but t
hey clung as if they’d hooked into my skin. Goldie gave Dr. Browne my coat, and he followed me as the couple dragged me from the room. I set my heels, but they pulled me, flailing and half falling, down the stairs. At the bottom, Dr. Browne held out my coat, and they released me to put it on. I ran for the door.

  My custodian was on me before I’d gone three steps. She shoved me against the hall table, sending the salvers scattering and the telephone skidding. Glass shattered on the floor.

  “That’s enough, miss.”

  She slapped me across the face. I gasped in pain and shock, and she jerked me again to my feet and thrust me into my coat. “Let’s go.”

  Goldie, Ellis, and my uncle stood at the top of the stairs. Each of them wore the same expression. Polite interest, now not even the pretense of sorrow. I could have been anyone, no one, as I was dragged away.

  PART TWO:

  LESSONS

  BLESSINGTON HOME FOR THE INCURABLY INSANE

  SAN FRANCISCO, NOVEMBER 1904

  We did not go far, that was all I knew. The leather curtains on the carriage windows were drawn so I could not see out, the thin lines of daylight peeking from the edges lent a coppery gloom. My captors sat, silent and stone-faced, on either side of me.

  The carriage stopped, and the light escaping the curtains dimmed. Before the driver opened the door, my custodians had grabbed my arms again, but when I stumbled from the carriage into a dank and dim porte cochere, there was no place to run. They were closing the wooden gate that had been opened to admit us. Brick walls enclosed the other three sides. Before me was a rounded stoop of shallow stairs, also brick, and a heavy wooden door scarcely illuminated by a gas lamp turned very low.

  The door opened; a tall and well-proportioned woman with flawlessly upswept chestnut hair stood waiting. She smiled reassuringly and said, “Hello, miss. Don’t be frightened, but hurry now, before you let the heat out. It’s chilly today.”

  I was too stunned to be frightened or anything else. A none-too-gentle push up those stairs, and we followed the woman into a narrow hall redolent with the long-trapped odors of stewed mutton and fish and acrid soap. Steam billowed from an open door—a laundry room bustling with the hazy shapes of women. On the other side, a kitchen with great stoves and blackened kettles. The door slammed shut behind us, the bolt jammed home with a solid click.