A City Tossed and Broken (5 page)

But Mrs. Sump just started wailing again and saying they’ll never get Lily properly married if they can’t be society folk, because what hope does she have, with that plain face? Which I think Lily might have heard because I heard a door slam.

Mr. Sump stomped off, saying he’d had enough of female hysteria and his life had been a lot more serene living in a hotel.

So Mrs. Sump heard this and said, yes, that’s what she’ll do, go to a hotel, and not the residence hotel he’s been staying at, but the Palace. Because the house isn’t even done!

And Mr. Sump roared that they’ll do it over his dead body because he built this house for his family and by God they’re going to live in it.

And then she wondered if the house is too small.

Small! It’s bigger than their house in Philadelphia, and grander, too. Gilt mirrors and marble tables and woodwork curling along and back onto itself in every which way, and chandeliers and a staircase with a landing big enough for a sofa. I think she was just finding fault to punish him.

Mr. Sump promised that tomorrow the agency will send new servants to interview for the jobs, and certainly there will be a cook by nightfall. In the meantime they can make do.

Mrs. Sump doesn’t care to make do.

The cart arrived then, so I ran out to supervise the unloading of the rest of the trunks. They piled everything in the front hall and I directed them to carry the trunks up to the bedrooms, running up and down to say where to put things — and having to guess where she would want them. I remembered to count everything and made sure everything was there.

I forgot to look for my own suitcase. By the time I realized it was missing, the cart was gone.

Two uniforms, three aprons, plus my own day-off dress and boots. All my clothes, so carefully mended and packed. Slippers and a wrapper and my books! Paper to write letters. Thank goodness I had my diary in my pocket.

But I’ll have to tell Mrs. Sump, and I don’t have one particle of faith that it won’t get blamed on me.

Later

I haven’t found the suitcase or told Mrs. Sump yet. There is so much to do! I had to leave off writing to start unpacking the trunks. Tonight Mr. Sump has bought tickets to Enrico Caruso in
Carmen
. They’re to dine out at the Palace Hotel beforehand and go to Delmonico’s after, which is just about the fanciest restaurant in town. Well, didn’t that set Mrs. Sump to rights. She is now proclaiming what a fine and generous man he is.

Such a flurry now, for all of San Francisco society will be there and Mrs. Sump must wear her gold gown and her pearls.

Oh, diary, you should see her bedroom. A thick Turkey rug on the floor and you never saw such an enormous mirror. Her bed is the size of three or four of my bed at home. There are four posts sticking up that make a cage above the bed. There are supposed to be draperies that hang over it, but they haven’t arrived yet. (You can imagine how she felt about
that
.) Porcelain vases almost as tall as I am and full of peacock feathers. She is unhappy because the marble mantel ordered from Italy has not been installed. It’s propped against the wall. Chinese vases, Turkey carpet, Italian mantel, French drapes — if you stood in the middle of the room and twirled, you’d get yourself a walloping trip ’round the world.

If I had this room, I would leave it almost bare and maybe just have a few things, white and blue and gray. Then I’d have a little armchair right by the window so I could just look out the window at the view. A breeze has sprung up and pushed the fog away. I have never seen anything like this blue bay and soft hills.

I wouldn’t like to live in a mansion. But I would like a little house with a view of all that blue.

My own room is in the attic. It is small and spare, but I didn’t expect any better. There’re two more beds in it, so I’ll have to share. There is a view of the chimneys.

There was another argument when Lily said she had a headache and would not take tea with them. Mrs. Sump said she couldn’t stay in her room and sulk, this was their home now. Mr. Sump told Mrs. Sump to let the poor child alone and bade me to bring her a cold cloth for her forehead and her tea on a tray. So that’s what I did.

Here’s what happened just now. I need to set it down just as I heard it so I can study it later. I don’t know what to think.

I brought the tea tray into the study. Mr. Sump had the green case on the desk and was unlocking it. He waited, his hands on the lid, until I’d left the room.

So I waited outside in the hall to listen. Just for a moment, I decided. I was dying to know what was in the case.

It isn’t jewelry. It’s money. Cash money.

“I was terrified the whole journey,” Mrs. Sump said. “I could have been murdered in cold blood.”

“But you weren’t.”

“I don’t understand why I couldn’t wire the money.”

I heard sounds of footsteps and then something opening. Something clanged.

“Sometimes in business, my dear, it is better not to have a record of things.”

“I did as you asked, Chester.” I heard the clatter of a teacup. “I don’t have to understand it, but I do follow your orders. And tell me this: Why does that Jewell character have the cheek to call on us? What did he do for you?”

“Never mind. He did his job and he’s been paid handsomely for it,” Mr. Sump said. “He had certain skills I required. We won’t see him again.”

Now I
needed
to hear this. Curiosity pushed me down the hall and next door to the reception room. There are double doors in the study that lead to the reception room, I guess so they can be thrown open if the Sumps throw a big party. I stole inside and while Mrs. Sump was talking I cracked open those doors. I could see right to the desk where Mr. Sump sat.

My heart was a hammer.
Bang!Bang!Bang!

He was writing something in a book.

Mrs. Sump asked if he was listening to her.

He still said nothing.

“What are you
doing
?” she asked, her voice rising.

“The secret to success in business,” he said, blowing on the ink and then snapping the book closed, “is two sets of books.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“That’s all right, my dear. You don’t have to.”

He rose and went to the fireplace. There was paneling along the sides, all carved images of leaves and fruit and flowers. It had been painted in gold. His back was to me and he must have pressed something, because the paneling slid up and disappeared into the wall.

Mrs. Sump looked up from the tea table. “Whatever are you doing?”

“I had them conceal the safe.”

“How clever! What is the combination? I should put my jewels in it.”

I was closer to Mr. Sump and I only heard him say:

“My precious flower.”

Which was odd, because I never heard him call her anything nicer than “my dear,” and even that he said in a businesslike way.

She asked for the combination again and he just said she never pays attention to him. He took out a large strongbox and brought it to the desk. Then he reached for his pocket watch. I couldn’t see what he did — there must have been a key on the chain — because he unlocked the strongbox and then put the bundles of cash and some papers and the book inside.

“Here it is, my dear. What you brought will finance our life here for several years. It took me two years of planning to buy up that one square block. Now Philadelphia will have its department store on Spruce Street, and I will have my money, and you will have your society life. Crandall leaves tomorrow to finalize the last deal.”

“I’m sure you’re very clever,” Mrs. Sump said. “Tea?”

Spruce. That’s where the tavern is! Could that be the “last deal”? My head was spinning with it all.

Mrs. Sump sipped her tea and said she hopes his poker days are over and he said yes, but if there’s an advantage to be had in business he’ll seize it, no matter how. And for her to stop questioning him about business matters. Sometimes he needs men like Mr. Jewell in his employ. They are useful, and that is that.

“I thought those types were behind us,” Mrs. Sump said, and he laughed. “You’re joking, Olive. San Francisco is full of them,” he said. “They’re running the town! It’s glorious. Wide open city. And that’s why we’re going to just get richer.”

I don’t care what she said next because my head was already buzzing with all those words, and I’m still trying to sort it out.

Mr. Sump
paid
Andrew Jewell? What did Mr. Sump mean when he said
he did his job
? And
he had certain skills. . . .
And his poker days are behind him. . . .

And the look on Andrew Jewell’s face when he was turned away at the door.

It is too much for my head to sort out. But I will.

I want to see what is in that book.

I’m in the kitchen, which is three times the size of our old apartment, with rooms running off it for the housekeeper and the butler, and there’s a butler’s pantry to lay out plates and things that leads to the dining room and there’s a food pantry, too, that’s already been stocked, so that’s good. I’ll have to make some kind of breakfast tomorrow so I need to look into the larder and figure out the stove, which isn’t a problem. I am used to a big kitchen. Mrs. Sump said of course she didn’t expect me to act as cook, but a breakfast of eggs and ham and toast and corned beef and porridge would be acceptable.

I had my own tea sitting at the big long servant’s table, just me and cheese and bread and tea. It is lovely how food in your belly can make you feel better about almost anything. My head is clearer now to think.

Except what do I know of business deals?

I do know about ledgers. Mama kept a ledger for the tavern and showed me how it worked, how you write amounts in columns, what money you take in and what money you pay out. We only had one ledger, however.

The bell will ring in a moment summoning me to get the tea things in either Lily’s room or the study.

When I unpacked Lily’s trunk I took a nightgown so I’d have something for tonight. She has six. I took the one with the tear at the hem, so I could say that I took it for mending if I get caught. One handkerchief, because she has at least ten, her initials embroidered on them, and not by her, I’ll tell you, because the stitches are so neat. I’ve seen her embroidery.

I don’t have a day off until next week. Tomorrow I’ll need a uniform. I’ll have to tell Mrs. Sump that I need clothes, but I’m not looking forward to that conversation. She’ll have to advance me money. She will certainly blame me — she could fire me, with the temper she’s in. As much as I don’t want to be here, I want even less to land back home in disgrace, fired on my first real day.

And now I have to find out what Mr. Sump knows and I do not about the sale of the tavern.

We lost the tavern.

Papa gambled it away.

His fault.

But what if someone . . . pushed him?

Right here is where a knock came at the kitchen door, so loud it made me jump. That is the spill of the tea here that I circled. Next to it is the name JAKE, for me to remember.

I opened the door. A dark-haired boy in a cap stood outside with a carton in his arms. “Delivery,” he said, as if it wasn’t obvious by the greens sticking out. He followed me inside and put the carton down on the counter but didn’t leave.

He said something about how he’d been walking by this house every day, and how fast it went up. That’s the way of it in San Francisco, he said. The quicker the better — it was the talk of Nob Hill. Had I seen City Hall yet? Now there’s a building, though they say that bribes and payoffs got it built.

I didn’t answer, because the rush of words didn’t leave me much room.

“Heard all the servants quit and went over to the Langley house on Clay.” The boy shook his head. “Hoo boy, what a dustup. Then the workmen up and quit, too.”

“You seem to know the business of this house very well,” I said in my most prim voice.

“Aw, not really. It’s not like I’m a snoop, if that’s what you’re saying. I’ve been here with deliveries while the cook built up the larder. Mrs. Pyle — she was a good sort, and what a cook! Gave me a ham biscuit once. She told me what’s what the very day she left, how Mr. Langley himself knocked on the back door and offered them double their salaries to leave. And they had no loyalty built up to Sump, you see. They’d only been here for two weeks, setting up the household. And in that time they saw what it would be like, working here, so they left. They didn’t like your boss much.”

Nor do I, but I’ll keep that to myself.

“Don’t worry, though, I’m sure he’s not as bad as all that,” he said, because I guess I looked worried.

He asked me where I was from and I told him Philadelphia and then he whistled and said he’s a born and bred Californian and never been east of Oakland.

I didn’t want to be seen standing there chatting with a delivery boy. But then I thought maybe I need him to help me. I do have a little bit of money Mama gave me back in Philadelphia, ten dollars, and with that I could buy a uniform I’m sure, it being so plain. I could buy a few things to tide me over. Maybe then I wouldn’t have to tell Mrs. Sump I lost my suitcase. I asked him if there was a seamstress nearby.

“’Course there is, this is San Francisco, greatest city west of Chicago. Plenty of ’em. But why don’t you try a department store for ready-made things? First off there’s City of Paris down by Union Square. You don’t know where that is, do you?”

“We passed it on the way. I haven’t seen much of the city.”

“All right, then.” He plucked a package of carrots wrapped in brown paper out of the box and then fished a stubby pencil out of his pocket.

“You’re here, see? On Sacramento Street.” He drew thick lines on the paper, sketching quickly. “This here is California Street — that’s where you might have seen the big mansions, Crocker and Huntington, and the new Fairmont Hotel. If you walk down that street, straight down, and then turn right on Powell, you’ll be at Union Square. Or you could catch the cable car from here for a corking ride down the hill. The Powell Street line will take you right to the square, and then if you look straight across you’ll see the City of Paris department store right here.” He grinned. “Might be too expensive for the likes of us, but there’s plenty of other stores. There’s a place on Mason Street for more working folk, I can give you the address.” He wrote it down on the paper.