A Splendid Ruin
Megan Chance
PART ONE:
SECRETS
SAN FRANCISCO, JULY 1904
When I arrived at the Nob Hill mansion belonging to my aunt Florence and her husband, Jonathan Sullivan, it was still more than a year from its fate as a crumbling, smoldering ruin, and I was still naive enough to believe in the welcome I found there.
My mother had died two months ago and left me abandoned and lonely. I thought I knew to trust only myself. But I underestimated the astonishment of white stone and three stories, of windows glinting in afternoon sunlight breaking through a veil of fog, of the fragrance of roses and horses and men’s sweat blooming in the clammy, tangy air. Had I known what awaited me in that house, I would have done everything differently. But that day, I was too bedazzled by the men carrying chairs and boxes and crates up the marble steps and past the pillared portico to see the truth hidden by the Sullivans’ money and inclusiveness.
The driver hefted my suitcase to the crushed white stone of the drive. “There’ll be a footman coming for it,” he said, moving back to the horses. “Au’s expecting you.”
Ow? I frowned, but the driver climbed aboard and drove off to the stables, leaving me standing uncertain amid the fuss.
Mama had never said anything of her family having such wealth, not once, in all our years of suffering. But then again, neither had she told me she had a sister. I should not be surprised. She’d kept so many secrets. But this . . . Why had she said nothing of this? Perhaps she had not known of her sister’s good fortune. I told myself that had to be the reason.
I hadn’t thought to see such a house in all of San Francisco, much less an entire neighborhood of them. The driver had called the area Nob Hill, and it was nothing but mansions, Gothic style and Beaux-Arts, turreted and terraced, gimcracked with all the embellishments money could buy—and each probably holding more rooms than the sum of those on my entire street in Brooklyn.
In the twenty-three years of my life, I’d dreamed of such houses, drawing their contents and imagining myself within them, but I’d never, never expected anything like this when I received the letter from the woman claiming to be my aunt Florence, expressing her sorrow over Mama’s death, and inviting me to come live with her family in San Francisco. I cannot bear the thought of Charlotte’s daughter alone in that terrible city. Please. You must come.
The train ticket had been enclosed as if there was no question that I would agree. Which I did; I had nothing to leave behind but a job as a shopgirl selling gewgaws at Mrs. Beard’s Shoppe for Ladies, and a boardinghouse smelling of talc and mutton, where I’d shared a room with my mother that I could not afford on my own. I’d been days from having to find another establishment, and fearing an uncertain future.
On the train to San Francisco, I had envisioned a hundred different things: another boardinghouse, a flat perhaps, or, in my most elaborate scenarios, a small house or a brownstone. And now, here I was, and none of this felt the least bit real.
Nervously, uncomfortably, I made my way through the moving men, past pillars carved with cupids embracing a coat of arms. I paused at the open door.
“Excuse me, miss.” A burly man pushed past with a crate of white roses. Their perfume engulfed me as I followed him into a foyer laid with rhomboid tiles in green and brown, pink and white. The ceiling reached two stories into a dome painted with angels. Unbelievable. The foyer, too, bustled with men unloading boxes and maids scurrying about.
A huge golden-framed mirror with a velvet banquette was to my left. Beside it stood a gold and marble table where a filigreed, claw-footed silver telephone crouched amid a riot of vases and salvers. I’d never seen a telephone so decorated. I’d no idea such a thing existed. It shuddered to life with a raucous ringing, and I jumped, startled.
A harried-looking Chinese man wearing a formal suit rushed into the foyer. He picked up the wooden-handled receiver and barked into it, “Sullivan residence.”
It surprised me. There had been no Chinese in my old neighborhood, and the last thing I’d expected was to find one answering the phone in my aunt’s house. The domestics I knew in Brooklyn were almost always Irish. I’d never heard of anyone having a Chinese butler. When I stepped back, he noticed me and motioned for me to wait. “No, no,” he barked into the telephone. “The order was for ten, not four.” At the finish of the short conversation, he put the receiver into its cradle. “You are Miss Kimble?”
His briskness and authority surprised me again. I nodded.
“The family has been expecting you. This way, miss.” He turned on his heel so sharply that the braid trailing between his shoulder blades jumped. He led me past a curving set of stairs and down a hallway that branched every few feet in what seemed a dozen different directions before he stopped at an open doorway and announced, “Miss Kimble has arrived.”
“Excellent!” pronounced an enthusiastic male voice.
I stepped into a relentlessly lavish drawing room as a tall, slender man dressed in a well-tailored suit rose to meet me. His close-cropped beard was the same red gold as his oiled hair. Every bit of him was expertly turned out, so much so that I might have found him intimidating if not for the warmth in his protuberant pale eyes, and his hands outstretched in greeting. “Miss Kimble, I’m Jonathan Sullivan, your uncle Jonny. How pleased we are that you’re here at last.” He clasped my hands with a smile that further eased my nerves. “We were so sorry to hear of your mother’s passing. No one can replace her, of course, but I do hope we can help to ease her absence.”