A Splendid Ruin: A Novel Read online

The answers had gone to the grave with my mother, and I told myself, once again, to be patient. No doubt my aunt knew. For now, I wanted to enjoy everything. So I ignored the twitchy prick of discomfort that this was all some terrible mistake. I was to go to my first ball tonight. My life had so suddenly changed for the better that I didn’t want to ruin it with old dissatisfactions.

  I had no ball gown, of course. My Sunday best would have to do. It was a decent fawn-colored mousseline, and I’d been complimented on it many times in church and knew it became me. Still, when I put the dress on, the room itself seemed to mock me. I had no jewelry, but Mama had always said that a proper lady did not depend upon ornamentation. Yet my poverty had never been so evident. I looked a poor church mouse in a gilded, bejeweled box.

  Then, there was a knock on my door. Before I could answer, Goldie rushed in with an armful of billowing pink silk. “I knew it.” She dumped the silk carelessly on the bed. “Nick said your trunks must be delayed. You really cannot trust the trains these days! I knew no ball gown could fit in that tiny case of yours, so I thought . . . if you wished it, well, why not borrow something of mine? No one’s seen me in this in ages.”

  I had no trunks. I did not know how to say that, nor how to tell Goldie that I had not lived the life she obviously thought I had. Not only that, but I was at least two inches taller than my cousin, and I could not come close to approaching her perfect figure. Yet I would have worn that dress for the rest of my life out of sheer gratitude.

  “Thank you for thinking of it. I didn’t wish to embarrass any of you.”

  She waved that away. “I shall send a complaint to the station on your behalf.”

  She blew me a kiss and left me alone with the gown, which was beautiful, and finer than anything I’d ever possessed, but yes, it would have taken a magic corset to give me my cousin’s bosom, and the décolletage sagged horribly and far too low until I tucked an old lace fichu of my mother’s about my shoulders. It was ancient and tattered at the edges, but if I arranged it just so, the ragged parts were hidden. The gown was too short as well, but it was more elegant and beautiful than the fawn, and the pink did put color in my pale cheeks, and at least I looked dressed for a party rather than a sermon.

  I spent a great deal of time on my hair, which was frizzy and unmanageable at the best of times, trying to coax it into something approximating Goldie’s stylish coiffure. I strained for the sounds of guests arriving, but I heard nothing. It was as if the bustle I’d witnessed earlier had completely vanished. I spent an hour deciding which of the many perfumes to wear, finally choosing the orange blossom.

  I was starving, and I wished Goldie had not refused tea, but surely there would be food at the ball. I waited for someone to come for me. A knock on the door. A maid. Goldie or my uncle to tell me the party had begun. I went to the window and watched the carriages arrive through the densening fog, the nimbi of their lamps floating disembodied in the mist. Still, no one came. I wondered if there was some protocol for the guest of honor that I didn’t know. Should I arrive on time? Late? Did I make a grand appearance? In all my mother’s lessons, we had not discussed this scenario.

  I opened the bedroom door and stood in the hallway—far too bright now, electric lights blazing, and soundless. How very strange. I would have thought there was no party at all had I not seen the guests arriving. I knocked on Goldie’s door, but there was no answer, and when I opened it to a waft of jasmine and a glimpse of gold and white, there was no one inside. She must already be downstairs. They were waiting.

  I went to the top of the stairs and grasped the rail. I was holding up everything. The guests would be impatient. I closed my eyes, thinking of my mother taking my hand in the sitting room as she taught me the waltz. “The grandest dance of them all. A woman can charm anyone in the waltz, if she does it correctly.” That wistful smile.

  “Remember who you are, May.” The balm of my mother’s oft-repeated words and the softness of memory banished my unease. I flew down the stairs to the party.

  I was indeed late. The ballroom swarmed with more people than I’d met in my entire life. Many milled around a tall gilded statue of a lithesome—naked—woman in the middle of the room, but it was too crowded for me to get a good look. A small orchestra performed between pillars at the far end. Clouds of smoke obscured the gilded stucco decorations on the walls and hovered about the chandeliers, making a bright haze of the candlelight. Goldie had been right when she’d said she’d bought enough candles to light the street. Swaths of flame from tall candelabras and golden stands flashed on the studs in men’s shirt fronts, glittered on their watch chains, and sent sparkles onto the ears and throats and wrists of the women. Bouquets of white roses softened every surface, their perfume so thick one could almost drink it.

  I had imagined such a scene a hundred times, but the reality was much different. I felt like the outsider I’d been all those times I’d stood on the street with other onlookers to watch the guests arrive at a Vanderbilt or Belmont party, angling for the glimpse of a gown or a famous necklace. I could not possibly belong here, whatever my mother had said. But at the same time, the excitement of being among them, one of them, made my fingers itch with the desire to claim the moment, to translate those colors, those lights, into something I could keep.

  I was also hideously aware of the shortness of my gown. It seemed that everyone glanced at the hem, and the fichu was too old-fashioned. A waiter went by with a tray, and I recognized champagne. I’d had it once before. Mrs. Beard’s brother had brought a bottle one afternoon to celebrate the birth of his son, and I remembered the hot tickle of the bubbles in my throat and my wavering walk home and how I’d flirted with Michael Kilpatrick next door before Mama caught sight of me and ordered me inside. How at ease with the world I’d felt.

  I wanted that feeling again now. I grabbed a glass and sipped with as much nonchalance as I could muster, trying to swallow my anxiety with it. My mother’s advice to remember that I belonged to this society fluttered uselessly at my ears. Goldie appeared at my side just as I finished the glass and gave it to a passing waiter.

  “There you are! Where have you been? We’ve been looking all over for you. You should be in the receiving line with me and Papa.” Her scold was light, but loud enough that those nearby turned to look. She held two glasses of punch, handed me one, and led me to the door where my uncle greeted his guests. I had managed to miss the arrival of most of them.

  “I’m so sorry,” I whispered to my cousin.

  Goldie whispered back, “Never mind that now,” and turned to greet a woman swathed in silk with lace and fur trim.

  It soon became obvious that my aunt was not present, either. Almost everyone asked about her—“And how is dear Florence?” “She missed our last two luncheons! I do hope she’s better soon.”

  So she’d been ill for a little while, but there was no time to wonder; I was too busy responding to a dozen choruses of “Welcome to San Francisco!” and “How do you find our fair city?” The punch, sweet and potent and seemingly bottomless, made it all much easier, but by the time Uncle Jonny said, “Why don’t we join our guests?” I was unsteady on my feet and all too aware that I had not eaten since the train.

  “Where is Mrs. Hoffman, Papa?” Goldie asked.

  “Oh well, as to that”—Uncle Jonny cleared his throat—“I’m afraid she’s sent her regrets.”

  “Her regrets? When?” Goldie’s voice was sharp.

  “A few hours ago. I’m sorry. I know you were looking forward to seeing her, but there’s no help for it.”

  Goldie tightened her lips in obvious vexation.

  It was equally obvious by my uncle’s uncomfortable smile that he disliked displeasing her. Placatingly, he said, “My darling, why don’t you take May about? She is the guest of honor.”

  “Of course.” Goldie took my arm, muttering beneath her breath, “She sent her regrets. Yes, no doubt she did.”

  I offered, “Perhaps she was feeling unwell—”<
br />
  “She was shopping just this morning. I saw her myself.”

  I had nothing to say to that. I didn’t know who Mrs. Hoffman was, or why Goldie would be upset at her absence. Goldie snagged two more glasses of punch. She gestured toward the statue. Now I could see that the golden maiden leaned languorously on a staff that some tiny gilded putto crawled up. “Don’t you just love it?” Goldie asked. “It’s French. A bacchante. It’s a copy of a Gérôme.”

  “It’s very nice.” Like everything in the house, the statue seemed too much, this time rather obscenely so.

  But Goldie was done with the bacchante. In a low voice, she said, “Have you seen Mr. Bandersnitch anywhere?”

  It took me a moment to remember that he was the Bulletin society columnist. “What does he look like?”

  “No one knows. He’s very anonymous.”

  “Then how should I know if I’ve seen him?”

  She scanned the crowd as if she might somehow divine his presence. “Of course he must be here. He simply must. Where else would he be? It’s the party of the night, even without Mrs. Hoffman.” Goldie’s face fell, then snapped into joy again. “Oh, there’s Linette, thank God.”

  She hurried off toward a young woman laughing with two men. I knew I should follow—the key to being comfortable was feigning it—but my light-headedness had become nausea, and I could not negotiate another introduction. I put aside my empty punch cup and took a toast spread with something pale and unappetizing from a passing waiter, but the smell of whatever it was only made my nausea worse, and I abandoned it on a candlelit gold salver and headed for the garden door, suddenly desperate for a breath of air.

  The garden was no relief. I was immediately disoriented as I stepped out. I’d had far too much punch. Here, too, dozens of candles flickered inside their glass lamps, creating a maze of the stone benches and statues—so many statues that twice I stumbled right up to people, thinking they were made of marble, interrupting those who had escaped the ballroom looking for privacy. I walked along the wall until I found another set of French doors, which opened into a darkened room. I hurried inside with relief, relishing the coolness. I could no longer hear anything from the ballroom.

  I’d come into a small sitting room, one crowded with shadows. Light from the garden glanced upon the mantelpiece—two eyes flashed at me, and then another two, small, like those of mice. I tensed, but they were only jeweled eyes, a glass menagerie stalking across the mantel, some glowing red, others blue, others in prism. The room reeked of patchouli. This must be my aunt’s private parlor. Or Goldie’s. But no, Goldie’s would have smelled of jasmine, as did her room, as did her entire self.

  Almost the moment I had the thought, the room became suddenly oppressive; I wanted only to be out. I didn’t want to go back into the garden, so I crossed the room, avoiding the shadows as best I could, and opened the door, not into a bright hallway, as I’d expected, but a dark and eerily silent one. Had I not known that the ballroom just now held a hundred people or more, I would have thought the house empty. I half expected to run across dusty cobwebs, to hear my footsteps echo, but then, no—it wasn’t desertion I sensed, but something else, something more unsettling. I couldn’t help shivering.

  There were no tables in this hallway, no mirrors or paintings, no decoration at all. I had no idea where I was. Anxiously I remembered the many hallways I’d noted earlier branching off one another. How many rooms were in this mansion? Thirty? Fifty? More?

  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.

  I froze in shock. My mother, alive, her blond hair in a braid down her back, her nightgown unbuttoned at the throat as she preferred it. But almost in the same moment, I knew it was not her. “Aunt Florence.”

  “Who are you?” she asked in a hoarse whisper.

  “I’m May. Your niece.”

  “My niece is dead.” My aunt frowned. “They told me she was dead.”

  She was not awake. I recognized that blank stare. There had been a woman in the boardinghouse like this. Old Mrs. Welling disturbed the rest of us with her sleepwalking so often they’d had to lock her in her room. I spoke gently, “No, it’s my mother who died. Your sister, Charlotte.”

  “May.” Aunt Florence spoke my name as if it were foreign. “Oh May, oh May! It can’t be. Why are you here? Oh, why have you come?”

  “You invited me. You asked me to come.”

  “No, no.” She shook her head, backing away. “No, you must go now. I told them not to. I told them.”

  “I—I don’t understand. Told who?”

  “You must go!” she shouted. “You don’t belong here!”

  Now it was my turn to back away. She was asleep. She had no idea what she was saying. Still, the force of her rejection shook me.