A Race to Splendor (4 page)

She blindly handed her lawyer an envelope containing what was owing—which he refused.

Yet she insisted. “No, please, Mr. Damler. You put on an excellent case. I appreciate your efforts.”

Just then, J.D. Thayer strode down the courthouse steps. As he passed, he offered attorney Damler and Amelia a civil nod, hurrying in the direction of a large, open-air vehicle parked at the base of the granite stairs. Amelia endured the final indignity of watching Thayer turn the crank and then climb into the driver’s seat of her late grandfather’s pride-and-joy, a gleaming, midnight blue Winton motorcar.

She turned back to Damler and nearly shoved the envelope into the lawyer’s hands. “You must take this. Perhaps it will further your work in Chinatown.”

Amelia knew from her brief telephone conversation with Julia Morgan that John Damler also represented Julia’s friend, Donaldina Cameron, the Methodist missionary who ran a shelter for young Chinese women desperate to escape the brothels flourishing mere blocks from Nob Hill. The irony was not lost on Amelia that Miss Cameron was the same person whom both her own mother and the mother of J.D. Thayer had once supported in her efforts to help the city’s poorest women flee forced prostitution.

And now, Thayer had apparently taken the comely Ling Lee as his mistress and recruited similar young Chinese women to serve in the gambling club—or worse. How
could
he have become such a blackguard? What would drive a man who had good looks, breeding, and intelligence to use these gifts to such ill purposes?

Damler clutched the envelop Amelia had forced upon him and flashed her a smile that transformed his earnest expression. “I will use the money to fight for
justice
for those poor beleaguered women, kidnapped from their homelands and brought here to do the Devil’s work. You’ve made me feel better already, Miss Bradshaw. And you? What will you do now?”

Amelia turned to watch Thayer, outfitted in goggles and duster coat, shift the motorcar into gear and swiftly pull away from the curb. She knew it was childish, but she felt like throwing rocks at his windshield. Her chest felt hollow, her heart empty of all emotion but a sense of far-flung blackness like the bay on a moonless night. She stared vacantly as her grandfather’s magnificent machine turned the corner and disappeared.

“What will I do?” she repeated faintly. “I will try to accept the unacceptable, Mr. Damler, and begin to earn my own keep.”

Chapter 3

The day following the hearing, Amelia sat gazing out the Bay View’s Turret Suite window at the persistent fog that was as leaden as her mood. She longed to fling herself upon the silk coverlet gracing the handsome bed in the next room and cry until she had emptied herself of all feeling—but she couldn’t even do that. She supposed she was numb, barely able to summon the energy to look at the gray moisture curling over the bay.

It was hard to countenance that she and J.D. Thayer were still housed under the same roof. To her amazement, she had returned to the hotel prepared to pack her belongings, only to find a polite note in her room from the hotel’s now-legal proprietor urging her to stay as his guest as long as she needed before moving to her aunt’s home across the bay in Oakland.

What’s worse? Thayer’s charity or his double-dealing…

The Ferry Building’s new clock tower at the foot of Market and California streets was partially obscured by this shifting blanket of gray. The structure’s cloaked spire had been the subject of several letters to Paris from her grandfather who was justly proud of San Francisco’s emergence as an important seaport, opening to the vast Pacific.

Amelia ached with the sense that the loss of Charlie Hunter was now a raw wound that simply would not scab over. When she hadn’t slept following yesterday’s court hearing, she poured over her grandfather’s missives, running her fingers over his spiky penmanship to try to recapture his presence and gain some intuition of the actions he would want her to take next.

From Thayer’s point of view, she supposed she could understand why he hadn’t given an inch or proposed any sort of compromise—because neither had she. She felt like the proverbial immovable object that had slammed into an irresistible force.

By early the next morning, the fog finally lifted. Amelia forced herself to face facts. She had no choice but to be the one to give way. She couldn’t impose on Thayer’s pragmatic hospitality forever. Too many loyal hotel retainers of her grandfather’s providing for her comfort at the Bay View would probably pay the price at Thayer’s hand if she stayed much longer.

And besides, she had a profession to ply and a burning desire to make use of all that she had learned these last, arduous years. In the end, she had to admit that her own ambition got the best of her, not J.D. Thayer’s possession of her lost legacy. It was time to move beyond grief and resentment and begin her life over again.

She swiftly packed her trunk and portmanteau and ordered Grady O’Neill at the front desk to have it sent to her aunt’s bungalow on Thirteenth Street in Oakland, on the east side of the bay. Then she dressed and took the elevator to the lobby, vowing to make no public farewells, lest she embarrass herself or the staff by dissolving in tears.

Long before most guests were awake, Amelia marched through the lobby, seeing her profile reflected in the glittering succession of gold-framed mirrors that lined the walls. An unpleasant scent of sauerkraut permeated the hallway, the hallmark of the new chef that had replaced the wonderful Mrs. O’Neill, Grady’s wife and long-time hotel cook.

Amelia was dismayed to spot J.D. Thayer talking to Grady himself, along with a slender Chinese woman whom Amelia already knew was Ling Lee, Thayer’s Chinese concubine.

“Miss Bradshaw!” he hailed her across the lobby. “I see you’re—”

“Leaving,” she abruptly finished his sentence, continuing her pace.

“Can we call you a driver to—”

“The cable car stops at the corner,” she said between clenched teeth. “Grady has kindly seen to my luggage—which I hope will not jeopardize his future in any way,” she added, and realized how peevish her words rang.

“Of course not,” J.D. replied shortly. “He’s a good man, Grady.”

“The best… as are all my grandfather’s employees. I hope you’ll remember that, Mr. Thayer.”

And before her despised adversary could respond or defend the changes already wrought at the Bay View, she marched through the swinging brass-framed doors with a brief, stricken nod to Joseph, the hotel’s longtime doorman. Barbary, her grandfather’s faithful hound, stood sentinel beside the hotel’s majordomo, and when he wagged his tail at her passing, she nearly burst into tears.

Amelia virtually sprinted down Taylor Street, hardly glancing at the Bay View’s newest competitor, the spanking new Fairmont Hotel crowning the hill and due to open its doors to the public soon. She boarded a cable car poised on the summit of Nob Hill and blindly sat down on the hard, wooden bench, her chin on her chest so no one would see the moisture streaming down her cheeks.

Nothing in this world or the next could make her turn around to watch the Bay View Hotel receding from view.

***

Number One cable car squeaked and creaked down California Street past the quiet world of Nob Hill in early morning, toward the Ferry Building at the foot of the steep incline. The few people out at this hour went about their business in the usual fashion, yet to Amelia, everything was changed.

As far as she’d heard from Grady, no one—including Thayer or Kemp—had caught even a glimpse of Henry Bradshaw since the day of Amelia’s fiery arrival at the basement office of the Bay View. Brushing the moisture from her cheeks with her gloved hand, she finally raised her head to look out at the sapphire and green water at the foot of California Street, trying to convince herself that she hoped the father whose drunken behavior had caused her mother and her so much heartache had drowned himself in San Francisco Bay.

By quarter to eight, she had trudged from Market Street to the office building on Montgomery where Julia Morgan had established her fledgling architectural firm barely two years earlier. Nothing prepared her, however, for the small room on the ninth floor where slanted drafting boards were crammed into a space that could barely accommodate three normal-sized desks. The place had nothing in common with the airy ateliers she and Julia enjoyed while studying at L’École. Those featured large, open spaces and floor-to-ceiling windows to allow for natural light and a glimpse of the rooftops of Paris.

The glass door to Julia’s minuscule inner office was guarded by a table where a secretary pounded the keys of her typewriting machine.

“Well, my stars!” the young woman exclaimed, scrambling to her feet. “Amelia Bradshaw, you are a sight for sore eyes!” Blonde and pretty as a milkmaid, Amelia’s former college classmate Lacy Fiske rushed to embrace her. “Dear, dear Amelia,” the young woman added with burbling sympathy, “I cannot tell you how sorry I am about the loss of your grandfather and what’s happened at your family’s hotel.”

Amelia gazed with surprise at the buoyant Miss Fiske. Lacy had been the person least likely of all the women she’d known at Berkeley to end up as an office mate. Lacy had changed her field of studies so often during college, Amelia didn’t actually know which department at Berkeley had ultimately granted her friend a degree. She was pleased, however, to see that the younger woman had finally settled on office administration.

Lacy reached out and gently patted Amelia on the shoulder.

“Your grandfather was such a dear man. I have so many happy memories of parties at the Bay View when we were in school.”

As usual, Amelia found herself fighting tears whenever someone spoke kindly of Charlie Hunter, the only person in the world that had stood between herself as a little girl and the utter chaos of her parents’ disastrous marriage. Lacy sensed Amelia’s distress and immediately changed the subject.

“I can’t
believe it. Since we saw each other last,
I’ve
finally learned to type—can you fancy?—and you’ve become an architect!” She eyed the empty desks. “I suppose you’re accustomed
to being around men all day, but I must admit, it still takes getting used to.” She lowered her voice a notch. “I’d better be quiet. The thundering hordes’ll be here any minute.”

Amelia glanced over Lacy’s shoulder at Julia, hunched over her desk in the inner office. “How long have you worked here?”

“Since the day the firm opened,” Lacy said proudly. “Julia was terribly long-suffering in the beginning while I was taking my typing course, but here we all are. Isn’t it grand?” she enthused. Then her face fell. “How thoughtless of me. I can only imagine how hard everything’s been for you since you came home.”

“It’s been quite a saga, but thank you, Lacy. Your sympathy means a lot.”

“Oh yes,” Lacy said with an earnest expression clouding her eyes, and Amelia sensed an odd shyness had crept into her voice. “Julia and I both felt ever so sad for your circumstances.”

Amelia felt awkward in the face of Lacy’s sober compassion. There was something else in her tone that she couldn’t quite identify. She swiftly glanced toward the inner office. “Is it all right if I go in to speak to Julia?”

Lacy bent forward as if imparting a secret. “I suppose so, but I’m warning you, she isn’t in the best of humors this morning. She prepared the monthly billing yesterday. Lately, that exercise puts her terribly out of sorts, so approach at your peril.”

Amelia hung her cloak on a peg where Lacy directed and knocked softly on the office’s glass door. Julia frowned, looked up, and, when she recognized her visitor, beckoned her inside.

Amelia hesitated, surprised by a sudden sense of playing the petitioning acolyte to Julia’s master status—a reminder of their unequal relationship that had originated during college days. It had been a long time since she’d felt she must kneel at someone else’s feet, but the tiny, intense woman was, at times, a force of nature and certainly deserved Amelia’s respect.

“Julia, if this isn’t a good time, I can come back later.”

“Nonsense. Come in, come in. Finally I can officially bid you welcome home and congratulate you on earning your certificate.”

“Well, we did speak briefly on the telephone, but thank you. I would have come to see you long before this, but—”

“I completely understand. No need to apologize. Edith Pratt filled me in a bit.”

Of course Julia would have talked at some point to Nurse Pratt, Charlie Hunter’s private caretaker who’d also been their classmate at Berkeley.

The Old Girls Society, for certain
, Amelia reminded herself wryly. After all, how many young women of their set eschewed marriage for continuing academic or business pursuits?

Very few
, Amelia silently answered her own question.

Julia pointed to a chair opposite her desk. “Please sit down. And I’m so deeply sorry about your grandfather. Everyone is. I was distressed, also, to learn the results of the hearing. Did John Damler not—”

“John Damler did an excellent job,” Amelia hastened to assure her. “Thank you so much for recommending him. The problem was that awful Judge Haggerty—who is obviously one of Schmitz’s crooked cronies—and the controversy that still swirls around the control of a woman’s separate property.”

“I thought that issue had been resolved,” Julia said, frowning. “At least the suffragists claim it has.”

“Apparently it depends on what judge sits on the bench
interpreting
the new laws. At the moment, I don’t have the funds to take it to a higher court and can’t chance I’d get another Judge Haggerty deciding the matter.”

“I only wish you’d both had more success.”

A minuscule figure of less than five feet, Julia Morgan stood up from her drafting board. This mild April morning, the architect was dressed in a mannish, olive-green double-breasted jacket, matching skirt, and a silk blouse of exquisite softness complimented by a silk tie that Amelia guessed she’d purchased at a lovely shop they both had patronized on the Rue de la Paix. Julia’s hair was neatly piled on top of her head and her round glasses sat halfway down her nose, giving her a highly studious appearance.

“I so appreciate everything you’ve done on my behalf, Julia. Without people like you and Edith, I don’t know how I would have managed. It’s been just ghastly.” She felt a catch rise in her throat. “I miss Grandfather so much, and you can’t imagine what it’s been like to lose his hotel as well.”

“Your grandfather was a wonderful, generous-spirited man. We all miss him.” Julia resumed her chair facing her drafting table. “Actually, I’m rather surprised to see you so soon. I should have thought there were many loose ends for you to deal with.”

“Not many, now, unfortunately, since J.D. Thayer took over complete control of the Bay View. Though I haven’t given up,” Amelia added quickly. She hesitated. It was so humiliating to reveal, even to Julia, her family’s current state of personal and financial chaos. “I still intend to fight for the hotel, though I’m not quite sure how yet—or with what funds. With Mother in Paris and the hotel now in other hands, my aunt and I barely have a sou between us. Besides wanting to express my thanks for your support, Julia, I’m here to see about employment. Can you take me on, as you said you might?
Immediately?
” she added with deliberate emphasis.

Julia glanced down at her desk. “I feel absolutely horrid about this, Amelia, but I can barely pay my employees’ wages as it is.” She shook her head. “I don’t need to tell
you
, it’s an uphill battle, being the only female in a male profession. I’m terribly sorry to disappoint us both, but with the limited number of commissions I have presently, I’m afraid I can’t put you on as a full-time architect as I’d hoped.”