A Race to Splendor (5 page)

“You
can’t
? But then who in the world will hire me?”

Stunned, she sank back into the chair and stared at the woman she had hoped would serve as a professional mentor. All her hopes, all her
assumptions
of at least six years came crashing down to earth. Flashing through her mind were endless late-night sessions at the atelier and a host of arduous design projects at L’École des Beaux Arts. For years now, her principal goal had been to gain a place in Julia’s firm, even when she thought she didn’t have to make her own living.

Now, she
needed
to earn her keep and support her aunt and mother, especially since Victoria had already written from France complaining that “the price of caviar and suitable lodging here are
so
dear.” Mrs. Hunter Bradshaw had been a coddled woman all her life and would expect to continue that privilege.

Yet, Julia Morgan had just said there was no room for another desk and no funds to pay Amelia’s wages.

“You can’t imagine how sorry I am,” Julia continued, but Amelia’s mind could only echo the architect’s earlier pronouncement that she wouldn’t be hiring her.

Julia’s troubled gaze did little to soften the blow. Amelia warded off a sudden sense of panic that could easily bring on tears of frustration.

“There isn’t another firm in all of San Francisco likely to hire a woman architect,” she murmured, ashamed of the flood of self-pity that threatened to drown her.

“I know. Believe me.”

Julia had worked briefly for John Galen Howard, the haughty master architect at the University of California at Berkeley, and had parted company fairly quickly, founding her own firm as a result, with the enthusiastic support of her well-to-do family in Oakland. She gestured toward the adjacent room with its drafting boards squeezed into a tiny space.

“Our friends from college do what they can to give me commissions. A residence here, a garage for a new motorcar there. If it were just me, I’d probably be doing reasonably well, but with my rent here in the city, and the draftsmen on my ledgers—”

“But what about Mills College?” Amelia interrupted, referring to the women’s institution of higher learning in the East Bay. “You wrote me about designing the bell tower. Any chance of further commissions there?”

Julia grew silent, apparently mulling something over. “It’s true… I am being considered as the architect for the Mills College library and I could use some help with my presentation.”

Amelia’s dashed hopes fluttered into the tiniest flame.

“Part of the problem is that I just don’t have the physical space for you to work in this office.”

Amelia recalled the jumble of desks in the outer office and her spirits sank even lower.

Julia paused again then asked, “Would you be willing to work here at night?”

“At
night
?
You mean after everyone else has gone home for the day?”

Julia nodded. “You could use Ira Hoover’s desk.”

Amelia supposed Ira Hoover was Julia’s second-in-command. Working at night alone in this office at someone else’s desk sounded grim, but it was better than the alternative.

“So the ladies didn’t hate your concrete bell tower, after all?” Amelia asked, a glimmer of hope fanning marginally brighter. Julia gave her a startled look. “I had heard from Grandfather that there was considerable public debate in the press that some Mills College alumnae took issue with the campanile’s ‘unorthodox’ construction.”

Amelia meant it as a jibe at Julia’s critics, but the architect obviously saw no humor in the situation and pursed her lips with distaste.

“Concrete is by far the strongest and newest innovation, but the uninformed often prefer wooden geegaws and such. I detest the newspapers and the way they write about subjects with both arrogance and ignorance!” she exclaimed. She wagged a forefinger at Amelia. “And by the way, if I do employ you,
never
speak to reporters. I was upset when the
Call
wrote that you were going to work for me. I never confirmed that.”

“I know, Julia,” Amelia said apologetically. “I never spoke to anyone from the newspaper. Someone at the hotel was contacted by the society page when they got wind I was coming home from Paris, and whoever it was at the Bay View repeated assumption as fact, hoping to get a mention of the hotel in the paper. I’m terribly sorry about that.”

Julia’s frown furrowed the bridge of her nose where her wire-rimmed glasses magnified her eyes to owlish proportions.

“My point exactly! You give those news people an inch, they take a mile. Well, at any rate,” Julia continued, “my thought is that if you will come here evenings at six p.m., when everyone else leaves, you can transfer to proper scale the drawings and designs I’m doing for the Mills College library. No one working for me has the skill and training you do, but as I’ve already hired employees, I can’t decently let them go without cause. I can’t guarantee anything, Amelia, but perhaps if we get this big library commission, we’ll find a way to put you on full time,” adding, “in the daytime, of course.”

Amelia was deeply grateful for this reprieve—and hugely relieved.

“That’s
so
kind of you, Julia. I accept your offer with pleasure,” she added almost gaily, and to make it official, thrust out her hand. “Thank you so,
so
much.”

Julia shook hands with an even gaze and suddenly switched subjects.

“Are you certain, Amelia, you can perform your duties in this office if you are to continue to pursue your struggle proving J.D. Thayer obtained the Bay View Hotel from you through underhanded methods? He’s become a very prominent figure in San Francisco, you know. Such actions on your part are bound to attract notice of the very people with the means to employ architects.”

Amelia tried not to show her dismay. Of all the reactions she’d anticipated from Julia Morgan, barely masked self-interest had not been among them.

“N-Naturally, the ultimate fate of the Bay View Hotel is of utmost importance to me.” She attempted to steady her voice, hoping she didn’t sound as desperate as she felt. “And to that end, I will have to devote a bit of time and energy to see if there are any further remedies. But I give you my word, Julia, that I will keep as low a profile on this as I can and I will complete every assignment, on time and within the budget you deem appropriate.”

“That is good to hear. There are rumors that J.D. Thayer plans to build another hotel downtown to rival the Palace from the profits of his gambling club. I have a business to run, Amelia, and can’t afford to antagonize the mighty, if you understand my meaning. And I need every hand here to pull equally on her oar, regardless of any personal issues.” She straightened the papers on her desk. “One more thing. I’m afraid in an office environment like this, you will have to address me as ‘Miss Morgan’ in front of other staff. As Lacy does.”

“Of course,” Amelia murmured. “I completely understand.”

But, of course, she didn’t at all. Lacy Fiske was a secretary, but peers and colleagues, if they were friends, routinely addressed each other by their Christian names. Julia’s edict felt like a demotion before Amelia had even begun to work for her firm.

But Julia just offered you employment! Show some gratitude…

Amelia
was
deeply grateful, but it was plain to see that Julia Morgan, architect, was a far different person from Julia, classmate.

Amelia rose from her chair. “I’ll let you get back to your work. Shall I start tomorrow night?”

The founder of the Morgan firm merely nodded and bent over her desk while Amelia quietly let herself out the door.

Chapter 4

J.D. Thayer entered Charlie Hunter’s owner’s suite, walked swiftly to a side table laden with old man Hunter’s handsome cut crystal glasses and a bottle of whiskey, and poured himself a stiff drink.

He avoided the horsehair sofa in favor of a well-worn leather chair that had belonged to the former owner of the Bay View and sank into its comforting girth, staring moodily out the window at the fog curling across the bay.

God, what a day dealing with those damnable partners of his!

Partners?

Swindlers and cheats was a more accurate description. Henry Bradshaw only made the occasional appearance at the Bay View to steal spirits from the bar, and Ezra Kemp blatantly filched money from the till in the wee hours when he thought no one was watching. Thieves and liars, the both of them!

And what do you suppose Charlie’s granddaughter thinks
you
are, my man?

J.D. often found himself thinking about the starchy Miss Bradshaw when surrounded by the very walls that had sheltered her as a girl.

Well, now she was a woman, and a formidable adversary at that, though he’d checked around and discovered she’d virtually no funds with which to challenge him again in court.

He pictured Judge Haggerty pontificating all that legal nonsense from the bench, but it didn’t make him smile as it had that day. Amelia and that lawyer she’d hired through Julia Morgan had done an excellent job making their case. J.D. had put up a confident front during the hearing, but in point of fact, he’d been worried. Very worried.

Luckily, though, he’d won, thanks to a few markers he’d called at City Hall.

Then why did this victory disappoint? Why did the memory of that young woman standing forlornly on the courthouse steps fill him with an all too familiar sense of self-loathing? It had clung to him these last days like the fog on the cypress trees hugging the hills outside his window.

The Mood was upon him, he realized, a sense of melancholy that occasionally overcame him when he slowed down long enough to consider the unconventional path his life had taken since Grandfather Reims had died. He found himself wondering how Amelia Bradshaw was coping with her own loss of Charlie Hunter.

J.D. gazed into his untouched glass of whiskey. Finding no answer in its amber depths, he set it aside and headed for bed.

***

In the late afternoon two weeks into her new job, Amelia dragged herself from the narrow cot wedged into the tiny space that had been serving as Aunt Margaret’s enclosed back service porch attached to her bungalow on Oakland’s Thirteenth Street. All day long she had been attempting without success to sleep while the rest of the world went about its normal business. She began to dress for work, shivering in the dank air that seeped under the screen door as soon as the sun went down. She wondered if she could spare the cash to install some insulation to keep from freezing when April showers tattooed on the metal roof above her head.

“I’ve got your supper all ready, dear,” Aunt Margaret called from the kitchen of her modest one-story cottage where a row of similar abodes lined the narrow street.

Amelia had been startled to learn that Aunt Margaret’s new home, leased while Amelia was in Paris, was less than a mile from the large, shingle-style house belonging to Julia Morgan and her family. Margaret’s bungalow, however, was only big enough to provide bedrooms for herself and her brother—should they ever find Amelia’s father. Meanwhile, Amelia made do in makeshift quarters off the kitchen.

“Thank you, Aunt Margaret” she called through the half-opened door. “I’ll be right there.”

Amelia had been faithfully turning over her weekly pay packet and, in return, Margaret paid their rent and produced hearty meals to appease her robust appetite and Amelia’s modest one. Her elderly aunt had had a suite at the Bay View for some twenty years, courtesy of Margaret’s wayward brother’s father-in-law, Charlie Hunter. Following her benefactor’s death, the bombastic Ezra Kemp had been rude to the kindly woman one time too often and she’d relocated across the bay. Amelia greatly admired how her aunt had adjusted to her reduced circumstances. In fact, the older woman almost seemed to relish shopping for and cooking her own meals after years of eating gratis, in the hotel’s excellent dining room.

True to form, Aunt Margaret presented Amelia with a mounded plate of fried pork chops and thick slabs of corn bread slathered in butter. Not only had Margaret endured the loss of her husband in a mining accident when she was just a bride, but as a child, along with Amelia’s father, she lived through an unimaginable tragedy in an ice cave in the High Sierras that even today she refused to describe—or discuss.

Her portly aunt plopped a fourth chop on her own plate. Amelia sensed that the woman, who, at the tender age of seven back in 1864, had survived the legendary horrors of Donner Pass, never wanted to go hungry again.

At five p.m., Amelia boarded a ferry bound for San Francisco and another night as a very junior member of Julia Morgan’s architectural firm. She paid her fare to the purser, Harold Jasper, whom she knew slightly from her college years going to and from her undergraduate classes at Berkeley. She immediately pulled a sketchbook from her portmanteau, signaling to the renowned busybody that she was in no mood for a chat.

But Purser Jasper was oblivious to her signals.

“Living with your aunt now, are you?” he said, cranking out her receipt from the metal machine strapped around his waist. “Just goes to show, don’t it, that in the end, life is just about paperwork? Such a shame the court said your grandfather was so weak that he couldn’t do more than sign an X. Anybody could’ve done it and said it was his, so they say. Pity.”

Amelia resorted to her familiar habit of calculating the multiplication tables backwards to try to calm her nerves. How in the world did Jasper know the particulars on a legal case with the ink barely dry?

The purser’s expression grew dour. “I ’spose you’ve heard the private gambling club’s opened on schedule up at the Bay View. Those fellas stand to make a fortune, they say.”

Now that she had moved to her aunt’s, she didn’t want to hear anymore about J.D. Thayer and his damnable gambling enterprise. Fortunately, she was spared any more conversation as the
Berkeley
’s horn sounded and the boat
pulled away from the dock. However, ten minutes later, Harold Jasper reappeared by her side.

“I ’spose you know your father was seen bummin’ drinks on the Barbary Coast a few days back.” Amelia suppressed her dismay and merely shook her head. Harold Jasper shrugged at her silence, adding, “Don’t it just prove that even fancy folk like you’un have skeletons in the closet like your da?” and ambled down the deck while she busied herself by sketching neat rows of bookshelves that might be suitable for the second floor of the Mills College library.

During the rest of the trip across the bay, she tried unsuccessfully to avoid either thinking about her father—who was probably lying in a gutter—or replaying in her head the purser’s cutting remarks or the courtroom scene and memories of the disintegration of her family that preceded it. Deep into her unhappy reverie, she hardly noticed when the ferry docked in San Francisco and the passengers began departing the gangway.

“Better step lively, Miss Bradshaw,” chided Jasper, baldly peering over her shoulder at her notebook, “or you’ll be finding yourself on your way back to Oakland.”

***

A cable car clanged and clattered nearby as Amelia walked a block up Market Street and turned right to reach California Street, heading for Julia’s office farther down on Montgomery. As anxious as she was to get to work, it was hard to ignore the staccato rhythm of hammers and the hiss of welders’ torches at so many construction sites in the downtown district. Most of the new buildings were standing on “made land” that skirted San Francisco’s hills. The shifting mudflats had been filled in along the shoreline with the residue of rotting ships abandoned by gold-fevered crews during “The Rush” fifty years earlier, along with decades of garbage buried by the ebb and flow of tidal sands. Now a thriving new city was thrusting up, proud and tall, on its marshy banks.

San Francisco
, she thought with a glow of pride. Beautiful… bawdy… brand new San Francisco. And she would now be part of it becoming a great metropolis!

She lowered her rooftop gaze and came face-to-face with a tall figure in a smart black cape, gloves, and top hat.

“Why good evening, Miss Bradshaw.”

J.D. Thayer was obviously headed into Tadich’s Grill at 240 California Street.

The restaurant had been a coffee stand for incipient gold miners about to head off for Sutter’s Fort in 1849, but for decades now, Tadich’s had been a staple of fine San Francisco dining.

“Hello,” Amelia answered, her abbreviated greeting just short of rudeness. Thayer was alone, she noted, but then Chinese concubines were not welcome at such establishments as this culinary landmark.

The new owner of the Bay View Hotel was dressed impeccably, as usual, and appeared to her poised to meet someone for supper. He had seen her first. Even so, he looked as surprised to encounter her on the street corner as she was to nearly bump into him. He glanced at the large sketchbook under her arm.

“I heard you are now employed by Julia Morgan,” he commented with a quizzical look. “Aren’t your day’s labors at an end? Why are you trudging up the street, rather than heading towards the Ferry Building at this hour?”

Did the man know
every
detail about her life? But, of course, the Bay View’s staff would have told him her trunks were sent to her aunt’s in Oakland.

Well, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing that she worked at night.

“I spend time in the city for reasons and at hours for which I have no need of accounting to you, sir. Now, if you’ll just excuse—”

J.D. rested his hand on her forearm, halting her forward progress, and she suddenly felt the fool for sounding so churlish.

“Miss Bradshaw, I…”

Amelia felt herself stiffen. She glanced at her arm encased loosely in his grasp. He released her but remained silent, his expression unreadable.

“What is it, Mr. Thayer?”

“I was wondering how you were faring in your… in your new…”

“Circumstances?” she filled in. “I’m working hard. I’m looking after my aunt who used to live with us at the Bay View. And I’m worried about my father. Have you seen him?”

“I? No, not I. The barman sees him in the storeroom occasionally.”

“Oh.”

An intense awkwardness bloomed between them.

“Miss Bradshaw…”

J.D. took her gloved hand in his, and the familiarity of the gesture, coupled with his having seized her forearm to halt her in her tracks a few minutes earlier, somehow infuriated her.

“I must be on my way, Mr. Thayer,” she announced abruptly, pulling her hand away.

“The ferry to Oakland won’t leave for another hour. Won’t you to allow me to buy you dinner after such a long day of toil?”

She was flabbergasted by his invitation. She studied his face and detected the faintest curve of his lips beneath his jet-black mustache.

“You are mocking me, Mr. Thayer, and such an approach is unlikely to persuade me to take anything you say to me seriously.”

“But I
am
serious, Miss Bradshaw,” he replied. “I would very much like to have supper with you. There are a few loose ends concerning the Bay View we need to discuss.”

“Loose ends? Such as what?”

“Well, for one thing, you mentioned on that day you burst into my office—”

“My
grandfather’s
office!” she interrupted.

“—that day you noted that part of the gambling annex needs to be shored up for safety’s sake. Perhaps you, Miss Morgan, and I could discuss ways to ameliorate—”

“Ah… so your conscience
is
pricking you ever so slightly and you intend, by throwing me a bone, I’ll just quietly accept the fact that you propositioned a known drunk into an all-night poker contest and thus swindled the Bay View away from my mother and me.”

J.D. paused a moment and Amelia guessed she’d managed to challenge his scruples—that is, if he had any.

“My intentions are rather more mundane,” he replied at last. “I agree with you that the construction work was shoddy. I’d like to remedy the problems if I can. And besides, I think I’d enjoy your company of an evening.”

He had ignored her insult and appeared, instead, actually to be flirting with her!

“And Miss Lee?” Amelia asked, gazing at him steadily. “Would she be joining us?’

Thayer’s eyes narrowed, but he did not reply.

“I think not, Mr. Thayer,” Amelia said, securing her sketchbook more tightly under her arm. “I’m not interested in assisting you with your structural problems at your club, and I won’t have supper with you at Tadich’s this evening. Good night, sir.”

And without further exchange, she hurried on her way, praying Julia wouldn’t notice she was five minutes late—or ever find out that she’d turned down a potential commission.