A-Splendid-Ruin(17)
I picked up my sketchbook. I began to draw, letting my pencil take me where it would, and the comfort and certainty of draperies and wall coverings made stories about candy jars and passing fancies and impressions that made no sense to me fade, while the memories of my mother strengthened with every decoration I drew, the things I knew of her, the stories I had always trusted.
No one called me to dinner, and I don’t know how much time passed. A few hours at least, because the sun had gone down when I heard the step in the hall; I was drawing in the twilight. Another footstep. I tensed, remembering my aunt’s sleepwalking, but this time there was no knock on my door. More quiet steps down the hall, and suddenly I was thinking of Aunt Florence as I’d left her, how Shin and I had nearly dragged her up the stairs. She should not be walking about alone.
I put aside my sketch and cracked my door quietly, not wanting to disturb if it was nothing, and was surprised to see not my aunt, but Goldie. Goldie wearing a low-brimmed hat and a dark coat, moving quietly to the stairs. She’d said nothing about an entertainment tonight, and she wasn’t dressed for a party or a ball—where could she be going?
I started to call out, then bit it back. How furtive she was. It was obvious she didn’t wish to be heard or seen.
I waited until she disappeared down the stairs, and then I crept into the hall. I heard the soft tap of her boots on the tiles below, and then the quiet—oh-so-quiet—opening of the front door.
Leave it alone, I told myself. Ask her about it tomorrow.
I went back to my room. I sat again on the chaise and picked up my sketchbook, but now my curiosity was such that I could not distract myself by drawing. Instead, I sat listening so hard to the evening that the tiniest sound became amplified, and the strain of it made my head ache. I closed my eyes, and then the day ran over me like a train, images jumbling together—Chinatown and the wind blowing my hat from my head while the men watched and the Palace Hotel and Aunt Florence saying, “You can trust me,” and the next thing I knew, I was opening my eyes to gloomy gray fog, and the morning.
When I tried my cousin’s door the next morning, it was locked, and there was no reply to my quiet knock, my whispered, “Goldie, are you awake?”
She was probably asleep. She would make an appearance soon, and I was starving.
I followed the smell of food to the dining room, which was empty but for Uncle Jonny, who was at a huge mahogany table that must seat twenty. He was again impeccably dressed, this time in a charcoal suit. A gold watch chain draped across his chest with such studied perfection I wondered if it were glued in place. He read the San Francisco Chronicle as he sipped coffee. Beyond him, a footman stood against a pale gray wall painted to look like stone. I stared at the horns protruding from his head until I realized that behind him was one of several animal skulls mounted on wooden plaques, horned animals all.
Presumably they were meant to make the room look like an old hunting lodge. Skulls, not trophy heads, which would have been bad enough.
My uncle lowered the paper. “Well, it seems that at least one of my family has deigned to make an appearance. Good morning, May.”
I could not help thinking of him at that table in the Palace Bar, with his mistress beside him while Aunt Florence waited in her sitting room with cold tea. But I knew nothing of their relationship, and here was my uncle smiling up at me, and I should not judge, especially when he’d been so kind.
“Good morning, Uncle Jonny. I’m sorry I missed dinner last night. I fell asleep.”
“Dinner?” He seemed surprised at my apology. “Oh, well, no harm. No harm at all. I’m afraid I wasn’t here.”
Again came the image of Mrs. Dennehy smoking her cigar, the flashing diamond. I searched for something to say that wasn’t about that. “You’re not reading the Bulletin? Goldie will be disappointed. She’s hoping the ball was mentioned on the society page.”
I’d been half joking, but my uncle laughed with a scorn that took me aback, a bitterness that clashed with the good nature he’d previously shown me. “The Bulletin? I leave that trash for my daughter.”
“Oh. Oh, I see . . . I . . .”
His smile came quickly, reassuring. “It’s all right, my dear. It’s not the society page I despise. It’s the paper’s editor. Please, get something to eat. Sit down. Let us get to know one another.”
I went to the sideboard, which was laden with more food than I’d ever seen in one place. Eggs, both scrambled and poached, a carved breast of turkey, steaks and bacon, roasted potatoes and tomatoes. I had no idea how my uncle stayed so trim presented with this bounty each morning.
“Has the Bulletin editor offended you in some way?”
“My dear May, it’s very good of you to pretend to be interested, but I know young women aren’t much for business. No one really wants to listen to me drone on about Fremont Older.”
Earnestly, I said, “But I am interested. I know so little about the city. I wish to truly be part of the family, Uncle. I want to know everything about you.”
He chuckled. “Well, perhaps not everything. Young ladies should not be saddled with such worries.”
I took eggs and tomatoes, but the staring skulls on the walls made the thought of meat suddenly distasteful. “What worries are those?”
Uncle Jonny studied me as he rose to pull out my chair. “Why, you’re quite serious, aren’t you? It’s nothing for you to concern yourself with, I assure you. The usual business things.”