A-Splendid-Ruin(53)

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 kind, 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.