A-Splendid-Ruin(6)

Softly, I knocked upon one closed door. There was no answer, cautiously I opened it. The curtains were drawn, but the candlelight from the window seeped inside, shifting across a bare wooden floor, reflecting off the crystals of a hanging chandelier. Otherwise, the room was completely empty.

As was the room beside it. And the one beside that. After the overdecoration of the other rooms, it was disquieting that these were so barren. I could not rid myself of a creeping unease.

I’d opened three doors before I came upon one with any furniture, and even then, it was only books piled every which way, awaiting shelves, which were only planks leaning against a wall.

There was no puzzle in this, only unfinished rooms. This was obviously to be a library, and the other empty rooms were only awaiting their assignments. The house was newer than I’d thought. I should have known it, given the construction I’d seen elsewhere on the hill, mansions and a large hotel looming unfinished in the fog. I wondered how long the Sullivans had lived here. I’d asked not a single question of them beyond my aunt’s health. I had no idea if they were new to San Francisco, or where their wealth came from, or even what my uncle did for a living. Of course, my mother would roll over in her grave if I were ever so crass as to ask such questions.

There was plenty of time to discover these things. I’d only been here a day. Less than that.

They would be missing me. But as much as I didn’t want to be in these empty, creepy halls, I didn’t want to go back to the party—my party—where I felt so out of place. Yet this was where I belonged now. It was where I must belong. I had no desire to return to my old life.

It was only that it had been a very long day, and I was thoroughly lost. But as I made my way back, my discomfort didn’t settle. I might still be wandering the halls if I hadn’t happened upon a Chinese maid with a heart-shaped face who stared at me as if I were a ghost. Hardly surprising, given the way I’d emerged from the darkness.

“I’m afraid I’m lost. How does anyone find their way in here?”

“The ballroom is that way, miss.”

When I found it again, Goldie fell upon me. “Where did you go off to? I wanted you to meet my friends.”

We’d barely approached the group—the woman Goldie had called Linette, and the two men with her—when Uncle Jonny announced that Benjamin Sotheby was going to grace us with his rendition of Hamlet. By the time the portly, balding man dressed extravagantly in a burgundy velvet coat and gaudily patterned vest finished the soliloquy, I had forgotten entirely that I had been anywhere but in this room. My time alone in the empty hallways felt to be an interlude from a dream, my former disquiet only a ridiculous fancy.

Goldie yawned. She did even that elegantly, with a little flutter of her hand. “That went well, I think, don’t you?”

“It was perfect.”

I swallowed the last of my oysters and set aside the shell, having eaten my fill of the delicious things at last. Mama had been right. The rich ate well. A few of Uncle Jonny’s cronies had gone with him to his study to end the evening—which was approaching morning—with a last drink and smoke. The ballroom was empty but for the maids and footmen and that alarming statue, the gleaming woman with the grotesque little putto grinning in a way that made the lingering scents of spilled punch and champagne, overbloomed roses, smoke, and muddled perfumes uncomfortably decadent.

“We’ll go to the Emporium in the morning—or no, probably the afternoon. Do you mind? I could sleep for a year.”

Once again, I struggled with how to tell her I had no money, nor even the promise of it.

“Papa instructed me to buy you whatever you need,” she said airily.

I struggled with pride and want and chagrin. Finally, I said quietly, “Thank you.”

“You’re a Sullivan now, May. You belong to us.”

She knew so well how to snare me. From the very beginning, she knew.

Goldie headed for the door. “Good God, if I’m falling asleep on my feet, you must be ready to collapse. Good night!”

She was right. But the emotions of the day and the evening roiled, and after Goldie left, I watched the flurry in the ballroom until the maids began to frown and trade glances, and the butler—Au—asked, “Might I show you to your room, miss?” and I realized I was in the way. Another awkward mistake. Again I was acutely aware of the gaps in my education. Mama’s lessons had not taught me everything I needed to know of this world.

I went upstairs. Once again, as in the unfinished hallway, I felt the house’s quiet. How could that be, when the maids and the footmen were still cleaning up from the party? And yet, it was so.

It had never been quiet in the boardinghouse. Always women chattering, groaning, creaking, and sighing. Always the timbers of the house answering with their own settlings. The gaslight had hissed contentedly. Noise rumbled from the streets at all hours. Even in my loneliness, I’d felt the presence of others. But here . . .

I stepped into my room. A push of a button, and light blazed from onyx and gold lamps, blasting off the walls so that I walked into a maw of pink. The bluebirds on the wallpaper fluttered nauseatingly before me. I was exhausted.

I’d just laid aside the fichu and taken the pins from my hair when I heard a sound—a light tap, almost indiscernible. I turned just as my door opened and a woman stepped inside.

Mama.