The Madcap (2 page)

Amid the familiar comforts of her family’s renowned
San Francisco kitchen, Marianne Addison fought back
the unpleasant memory and plunged her hands deep into the thick ball of sourdough, pummeling the dough with
all the force of her agitation. It had been three months
since the incident, as she thought of it. She’d believed
she’d put it behind her but a letter from her mother’s
friend in New York, full of news and gossip, had
brought it all back. The letter had been innocuous
enough, mentioning people she and her mother had met
in New York before the incident. But it was enough to
resurrect Marianne’s anger. She’d been treated unfairly
simply because she’d been different.

Marianne shoved the dough into a pan and set it on a
shelf to rise. She grabbed another chunk of dough and
set to work, starting the process all over again. She loved
to make sourdough bread. She’d been doing it ever
since she was a little girl and had tagged along with her
father to the bakery. In those days, the bakery had been
a small establishment on DuPont Street. Father would
give her a chunk of dough and set her up at the big
floury worktable while he went about his business.

With her hands busy in the dough, she could let her
thoughts loose, spinning fairy tales full of castles and
handsome princes. Today, her thoughts were far removed from fantasies. Today her thoughts were focused
on the disaster of her visit to New York in January. Marianne punched the dough fiercely.

The adventure had started well enough. She and her
mother had traveled in high style in her father’s plush,
private Pullman car, arriving at an elegant hotel with hot
running water in her bathroom and other amenities she’d become used to in her father’s large mansion on Powell
Street back home. That was where the similarities between San Francisco and New York ended. In San Francisco, the only prerequisite for status was money. In
New York, money wasn’t enough, no matter how much
you had. A girl also needed sponsorship from the right
patron and acceptance by the right people.

Marianne had quickly learned the importance of that
sponsorship among the Patriarchs, as certain men from
Manhattan’s ruling families were known. Without their
patronage, there was little chance of an outsider being
included in Mrs. Astor’s prestigious Four Hundred Club,
even temporarily.

Marianne sniffed and pushed back a strand of loose
blond hair with a flour-covered hand. The whole premise was ludicrous. The only reason the Four Hundred
Club was significant was because four hundred was the
capacity Mrs. Astor could cram into her ballroom, Marianne thought uncharitably.

Of course, Marianne’s mother had known all that
beforehand and she had planned accordingly as best
she could. Before the train had ever left San Francisco,
they had been assured of invitations to the Academy
of Music and afterward to the Opera Ball. There had
been other guaranteed introductions as well. But the
old saying that “blood will out” was never truer than
in Manhattan. Better families than the Addisons had
been cut by society simply for their questionable
antecedents. She might be San Francisco’s great “Sourdough Heiress” today, but the Addison money
was only two generations old and founded through her
grandfather’s sweat and hard work. There was nothing
glamorous about the Addison family fortune, earned on
the gold fields and in the streets of San Francisco when
it had been Yerba Buena.

Manhattan had made it clear that her father, Cleveland Addison, could have been the richest man on earth
and it wouldn’t have changed the city’s disapproval of
him or of his daughter. Not even her mother’s New England ancestry could prevail against the stonewall of
Mrs. Astor’s knickerbocker hierarchy. However, Marianne ruefully admitted with the wisdom of hindsight, it
might have helped if she hadn’t gone to that Champagne
Sunday.

Marianne put the second loaf into a pan and checked
the other one. She plopped down on a tall stool to wait,
wiping her hands on her apron. The Champagne Sunday weighed on her mind.

Attending the dubious event had started out as a
harmless dare between girlfriends. At least that was how
it had appeared to Marianne at the time. Now she wondered if the other girls had known just how damaging
the prank would be.

Sundays in Manhattan were notoriously boring. No
social events were scheduled except for those that were
held in a few suspect venues and hosted by women of
ambiguous social character and attended by rich men
looking for ways to escape the rigid pressures of their stifling Fifth Avenue mansions. It wasn’t only men in attendance. Some women went too; Marianne had been
assured of this by her so-called new friends. She soon
found out these women were not the women with whom
New York society socialized. These were the mistresses
of the wealthy husbands, the opera singers and actresses
who would never grace Mrs. Astor’s ballroom. In short,
they were Manhattan society’s “unreceivables”

Too bad the evening had been so much fun. There had
been singing and some dancing. Everyone had seemed
much more relaxed than at the Patriarchs’ balls. Marianne had enjoyed herself. But the aftermath had been
horrendous.

She’d been given the cut direct two days later in the
middle of a ballroom floor. Invitations had stopped
immediately, a resounding endorsement of the cut. Her
mother’s pleading had found no sympathy. It had only
taken their sponsor two days after the debacle to figure
out that the situation was not redeemable by New York
standards.

No one could be cut at a Patriarchs’ ball and survive,
especially not an arriviste whom Old New York didn’t
want in its midst anyway. Her mother had been quietly
told that it would be best if they packed themselves
back to San Francisco where society was more to their
tastes. They would no doubt be bored in New York,
they’d been told-the implication being that there
would be no further invitations. They would spend the
remainder of the social season in their elegant hotel suite with nowhere to go and no further expectations.
When New York’s best families removed to Newport in
June, the Addisons would not be invited.

She had not deserved to be ostracized and she certainly hadn’t deserved the disparaging comments the
girls had made in quiet voices behind their fans. They’d
meant her to hear, of course: “What can you expect?
San Francisco society puts on airs but they’re still so
uncivilized, so showy and loud out there” The last had
been said with derision, relegating San Francisco to the
category of an oddity, a fraud only capable of superficially aping its betters.

The snub had hurt her as much as it had made her
angry. Marianne loved her city with its hills and cable
cars. She loved the sun bouncing off the bay, making
the water sparkle. She loved the breeze that blew in
from that bay, keeping the city cool. Most of all, she’d
love a chance to show those girls in New York that she
and San Francisco were better than all of them put together. But how to do it? What could she do that they
couldn’t copy?

She stood up and reached for a third loaf to knead.
She massaged the dough, deep in thought. Her father
would build a cottage in Newport if she asked, but that
wasn’t what she wanted. She didn’t want to purchase her
acceptance and the right to grovel at Mrs. Astor’s feet.
But Marianne recognized that attempting to break into
their supercilious society wouldn’t exactly be “besting” them, but becoming one of them.

She had to think. What did they covet that they
couldn’t readily obtain? Marianne smiled to herself.
That was her father coming through in her thoughts.
She’d once asked her father how he knew what to invest
in. He’d said simply, “Find something people want and
then find a way to give it to them. To do that, ask yourself, what do people want that they can’t get for themselves?”

Marianne knew from years of watching her father
do business that the best way to determine what people
wanted was to look around and see what they admired
in others. She thought of whom people at the social
functions in New York had revered. Her mind lit instantly on the Earl of Camberly and his lovely wife, Audrey Maddox nee St. Clair, once an American girl like
herself and now the Countess of Camberly. They’d
been the center of attention wherever they went, always
in the presence of their friends the Carringtons. She’d
had the good fortune to become acquainted with them.
They may even have become friends if the incident
hadn’t interrupted her stay.

Now she had her answer. New York Society coveted
a title. Not just any title, but an English title. This was
something that couldn’t be bought or constructed simply because one had enough money. Her idea formed
quickly after that. New York would bow to her if she
married an English lord. They would be sorry they had
ever looked down their noses at her.

Her excitement grew. She set aside the dough and wiped her hands on a towel. There were plans to be
made, lists to be drawn up. This gambit would need
meticulous strategies.

Marianne rubbed her hands together in delight,
brushing flour motes into the air. After weeks of feeling directionless, she felt reborn. She had a purpose
now. She was going to snare a lord. She was going to
show them all! It never occurred to her as she sailed up
the stairs to her room, humming under her breath, that
she might actually succeed or that along with the title
came a husband. Snaring a lord meant marriage when
all was said and done. But if the thought crossed her
mind, it did so fleetingly only to be pushed aside. There
were so many steps to take before that marriage became
a consideration that it was hardly worth dwelling upon.

She would have to plan this carefully. Fragments of a
plan began to take shape. Throughout the afternoon, lists
began to pile up at her writing desk as thoughts flew
onto paper. By dinner that night, the plan had achieved
full-blown maturity. Marianne was ready to launch the
first phase of her stratagem: persuading her father to
take the family to England.

Dinner was, without fail, an elegant affair at the Addison home at precisely seven o’clock every evening.
Most nights, her father entertained business acquaintances or friends, many of them oftentimes unannounced until Cleveland Addison arrived with them in
the drawing room. Such impetuosity would be frowned upon in New York with its social etiquette and callingcard rules. But in San Francisco the spontaneous gesture was welcomed as a matter of course.

Understanding her father’s penchant for impromptu
dinner parties, Elizabeth Addison and the well-run staff
made sure the Addison dining room stood perpetually
ready to accommodate guests with its long, polished
table at which twenty people could easily be seated. The
room and the adjacent drawing room were decorated
impeccably and authentically in the style of Louis XV
right down to the Sevres china that adorned the table, a
tribute to the French chef who dominated Cleveland Addison’s kitchen and made an invitation to dine at their
table a most-coveted item among San Francisco’s business community.

Tonight was no exception, Marianne thought, as she
neared the drawing room at ten minutes before seven.
Masculine voices drifted from the drawing room. She
had hoped for the privacy of a family meal in which to
launch her campaign, but guests might help her cause
as well. Perhaps one of them could be unknowingly engaged as an ally.

Marianne smoothed the expensive silk of her jonquil
evening gown and took a last look in the gilt-trimmed
hall mirror to check that her coiffure was steady on her
head. She gingerly touched the pile of neat curls gathered at the top of her head. A few random wisps had
deliberately been left loose at her neck and Marianne
reached for a strand of the pale blond hair and wrapped it around her finger, giving it a fanciful curl. She smiled,
pleased with the results. She drew a deep breath and entered the drawing room, determined to see her plans
launched with resounding success. After all, she was her
father’s daughter.

“Ah, there’s my lovely daughter,” her father’s bluff
tones announced from the fireplace where he stood talking with three of his guests. “Marianne, come and meet
everyone” He waved her to his side. Marianne smiled
as she made the acquaintances of the men dining with
them. One of them had brought his wife and she was
deep in conversation with Marianne’s mother on the far
side of the room. There wasn’t time for much more than
the usual exchange of small talk before the butler announced dinner. Once at the table, however, there was
ample opportunity to broach the subject on Marianne’s
mind.

“Miss Addison, your father mentioned you are recently returned from New York,” the guest on her right,
a Mr. Green, said over lobster bisque.

“My mother and I were there in January,” Marianne
said politely. “We were there for most of the social highlights. We took in the opera on several occasions.” No
one at the table tonight, looking at her dressed her yellow silk and demure pearls, would ever suspect she’d
been evicted from that rarefied society for her indiscretion in attending a Champagne Sunday.

The guests expressed sounds of interest at her trip. “How did you find New York, Miss Addison?” the man
across the table asked.

This was her moment now, while she held everyone’s attention. “I found it entertaining, although perhaps a bit confining with its Patriarchs and Mrs. Astor’s
Four Hundred. I did enjoy the museum, of course, and
many of the cultural venues New York had to offer. I
would like the opportunity to travel again.”

“Travel back to New York?” Mrs. Green inquired.

Marianne sipped from her Waterford crystal wine
glass. She was aware of her mother’s eyes on her, wondering why she’d told such a lie. “A little farther than
that, I think, next time. I’d like to try London. I’ve heard
the National Gallery is not to be missed and the Season
is a sight to behold” Marianne smiled at them all, saying disingenuously, “All those balls and Venetian breakfasts to attend sound positively wonderful. Just think of
all the interesting people one would meet” She turned
her gaze toward her father. “London in the late spring
would be spectacular-quite the experience, don’t you
think, Father?”