Forgiven (14 page)

Mei Lien looked at my work, a tiny murmur of delight escaping her lips. I could read her feelings better the more time I spent with her. “I’ll teach you,” I said. “It’s not so hard.”

Miss Everts brought us old linen scraps to work on, and then left us alone. I started Mei Lien on simple stitches: chain, blanket, satin. I made her work over and over. She was a patient one, willing to repeat those boring practice stitches until they were decent. It was good distraction for me to instruct, and shy Mei Lien began to open like a spring bud as we worked.

“You teach me the flower?” she asked, pointing to the forgetme-not I worked on now.

“Yes. Here. Watch me. Try it on the scrap first.”

Thunder rumbled, causing me to lift my head and purse my lips and scowl. I looked back at the stitching as she’d started it.

“That’s good, Mei Lien. That’s lovely.”

She lifted her head and smiled. I sought to make friends. Mei Lien knew the workings of this house and Miss Everts.

“She confuses me, Miss Everts does. What is she like to you? Does she treat you all right?”

Mei Lien drew up. “She saves me.”

“She saved you?” I stared. Mei Lien’s face had gone as red as a poppy. “Saved you from what?”

Mei Lien shook her head. “Cannot speak. All shame.”

All shame. I pulled my needle through the linen, concentrating, keeping my face a mask. “She saved you.”

Her grave eyes met mine. “I come here on ship. I come here to be bride.”

“Bride! Why, how old are you?”

“Fifteen.”

I was staggered. She was younger than I was. “Well, I hope you like him. Or that he’s rich at least.”

Her face darkened. “No husband. Many husbands. Miss Everts save me.”

I understood then. Those girls in the alley who would not leave my mind. My eyes filled, and I looked away. “I’m sorry.”

Mei Lien stood up. “She saves me. She saves you, too.” A tiny accusation lay in the way she said that. I heard the tremor in her voice.

“Me?”

“Yes.”

I wanted answers, but I couldn’t bring myself to be direct with her. I thought of Miss Everts’s odd behavior the day before. I examined my work, pulled on a stitch. “I found one of your shoes in the back of the horseless yesterday. I think Jameson must have it, or maybe Miss Everts. So it isn’t lost after all.” I hoped she would explain it, explain the blackened thread.

But her hand flew to cover her mouth as she whispered, “You found . . .” She dropped the stitching and ran from the room in a fast swish of skirts. Now I was as perplexed as anything. It was the shock of pushing the needle into my own finger, and seeing the fat drop of blood that bloomed there until I stuck it in my mouth, that jerked me back to sense.

 

In the afternoon, David did call, and his presence brightened this gloomy and confusing day. I met David at the door and edged Jameson, all arched brows, out of the way until he performed his ghostly disappearing act. I brought tea into the small parlor. As I sat with David I knew that we shared something inexplicable. How could this be? He was not the man of my dreams—not the one I’d hoped would come and provide me with the means and the opportunity to rise above having been brought up an outlaw’s daughter and a lady’s maid. He was not rich, he had no social standing that I knew of. And though handsome, he was not so beautiful as Will. David was an outcast.

He was like me. We understood one another. We sat without speaking; I could almost read his thoughts.

Sitting there in that quiet parlor with our tea, I knew he would understand things that Will, sweet Will, would never fathom. Even if Will could give me everything I wanted.

I sighed, and turned my thoughts to what now plagued all my waking moments. “Would you answer me a question?” I asked.

“Anything.”

“Don’t mock me.”

He set down his cup.

“I was lost in Chinatown yesterday.”

“Kula, I begged you to be careful. You should never have gone there.”

“But I did. I’m fine. That’s not why I bring it up. It’s about what I saw there.”

His face grew solemn, his lips drawn tight.

“There are children.” My throat contracted—their eyes. I couldn’t say more, but I knew he understood my meaning. “What can be done?”

He stood up and paced away, then came back to sit. “Kula. Things
are
being done.”

I leaned over and put my two hands on his arm. “Truly? But . . . how?”

“You have to believe me. As much as possible, things are being done.”

My throat burned and I turned, trying to swallow. “Can I do anything?”

“You can stay out of Chinatown. And away from the Barbary Coast.”

“But—”

“No, Kula.” He placed his free hand on mine. “You must not go into these places. Promise me.”

I didn’t answer. Much though I felt a kinship with David, I did not like anyone telling me what I could do. And I had to find Wilkie. Min. The box.

The door opened—Miss Everts. David stood at once. Either she did not see us in an intimate setting, or she chose to ignore the obvious.

“Mr. Wong, I did not know you were here.”

I looked between them, surprised. “You know one another?”

Miss Everts said, “We are long acquainted. This is a small town, as I once told you. San Francisco has many overlapping layers. Wouldn’t you agree, Mr. Wong?”

“I didn’t have a chance to tell you what I do for a living, Miss Baker,” David said.

He didn’t call me Kula; he still stood, formal and polite. I played along. “That’s true. So what do you do?”

“I import things from China. Art, tea, things for the Chinese people.”

“It is the art that most interests me,” said Miss Everts. “Mr. Wong’s family has a long history of importing art. There are people the world over who love the Oriental art. I help Mr. Wong find a home for his collections.”

“Ah.” I took a chance. “It would be a family business, then.” I looked up at David.

“Yes.”

“And your family has been in business for some time.”

He nodded. That settled it in my mind. He was, in fact, related to Ty Wong. And the Hendersons, too—there was another connection here to Will and his father.

“Kula, Mr. Wong and I have some business to discuss.” Miss Everts gestured at the door.

I exchanged a look with David, then I left them alone. I headed upstairs to my room. It was time I took a closer look at my Blue Boy wearing the ring in that painting on the wall of my bedroom.

Safely in my room with the door shut to prying eyes, I dragged the heavy upholstered chair over to the wall and removed my boots. I hiked my skirts and stood on the chair in my stocking feet, pulling myself up to try to read the words on the rolled-up paper in his left hand, where he pointed it toward heaven.

The printing was tiny; I had to tilt my head until my neck ached. Some of the words were illegible, but what I could read by squinting was this:

I read it several more times as my chest grew tight.

Baker.

It was a common enough name, I told myself. Why, there were Bakers all over the world, in all likelihood.

Everts, Baker & Henderson. Wong Brothers.

I plopped down in that chair and stared across my room at the window, through which I could see the rain slashing down as the dusk grew. The house groaned and whistled around me like I’d imagine a ship would sound as it bounced on a storm-wracked sea. Baker. Everts,
Baker
& Henderson.

I knew Pa hadn’t always been an outlaw. He spoke so rarely of his upbringing, and never in front of his men. I tried to remember what Pa had told me of his family and of where he’d come from.

I knew my given name was his grandmother’s given name. And I knew that she was native, but that’s all. I had never inquired as to her people, where they had come from, where
she
had come from. Why I was reminded of her every time I saw my reflection, every time someone commented on my native looks.

But what of Pa’s other side? He’d said he’d been an unhappy young man. That he’d made his way to Wyoming and Montana in search of adventure and had fallen in with a gang of hold-up men, and that life had been a thrill to him until he met my ma. From then, and from when I was born and Ma was taken from us, Pa did what he had to do to survive. I lost her before I ever truly knew her. He did what was needed to keep me in food, to raise me up, to teach me my letters and numbers.

And that was all I knew. I hadn’t known whether Pa hailed from east or west or north or south, or who his people were.

Henderson and Everts, clearly mixed up together long before Miss Phillipa Everts and Mr. William Henderson had dealings with art. And the Wongs. All the families were mixed up together.

I thought about what Will had said when I asked about the dragon symbol. That the family crest was the result of their relationship with a Chinese outfit—surely the Wongs—and gold.

Me. Miss Everts and Mrs. Gale. David. Will. All of our families mixed up together—mixed up with gold. Such a long history together, long and complicated. A history that I knew nothing about.

Chapter
TWENTY

April 6, 1906

 

 

 

 

THE STORM HAD NOT LET UP EVEN THE NEXT MORNING. Miss Everts did not make an appearance at breakfast.

Around noon, my new gown was delivered. I had to call upon Mei Lien to help me try it on with the corset and all, for she had to lace up the strings that would hold me in. Pulling corset strings was a job I had done many times, but this was the first time I’d be subjected to compression of my own innards.

When she arrived in my room, she kept her eyes downcast. I took her delicate hand and held it between my own.

“Mei Lien, whatever I said yesterday to disturb you, I’m humbly sorry for it.”

She was still and silent.

“I wish you would forgive me.”

Mei Lien nodded. She seemed to accept this. I changed the subject.

“Will you help me with this dress?”

She smiled a little for the first time. It was a relief to have something pleasant to occupy us.

Yet after struggling with whalebone and starched fabric, I wondered why I thought anything involving corsets would be pleasant. Corsets, in my opinion, were a curse to womankind. Why, it was impossible to bend over. No wonder rich ladies dressed in their finery needed someone else to lace up their boots. I hated feeling as though I could not move in that contraption. Even if I was astonished when I regarded myself in the mirror, my waist narrowed to almost nothing. It took my breath away in every sense.

But the scarlet-colored gown was the most gorgeous thing I’d ever seen. And now that I wasn’t being poked and prodded by the overly intimate and unfamiliar hands of the seamstress, I could take the time to admire the work in that gown.

It was of crepe, and adorned across the bodice with embroidered flowers in silk thread of the same color. The skirt sported layer upon layer of fabric plummeting to a train. I studied the embroidery and then showed it to Mei Lien, describing how I thought the flowers could be made, and what stitches would work best. The neckline draped across my not-quite-bare shoulders—they were covered with more ruffles. It was a minimum of modesty.

My olive skin had never before been so exposed, and I ran my fingers up my arms, feeling the goose bumps.

I’d never spent such time before a mirror. Here and there in the past, yes, while I worked in the homes of my employers I’d sneaked a look at my reflection. But I’d had no proper looking glass at camp, and even if there had been, I knew what I’d see looking back at me: a part native, plain-faced girl. But this, this was different. It felt peculiar. I looked at the girl who looked back at me, and I saw not myself but someone exotic and fancy, with my crow-black hair all done up at the hands of Mei Lien in ringlets and swirls that trailed down the back of my neck.

I saw my features clearly, and had a sense now what people here in San Francisco must have thought when they looked at me, for I was not a fair-skinned delicate creature. My dark eyes burned out from that angular face in the mirror.

For so much of my life I had wanted nothing more than to have what those rich girls had growing up. Pretty things and parties. I imagined seeing myself just like I looked now, dressed up and fussed over, in a mansion, and in my imaginings I was blissful.

Well, here I was, dressed up and fussed over, except that my stomach was in knots. There was no bliss for me, only knots over my situation. Pa. The future. Without Pa I’d be an orphan, and maybe a servant forever. Even if by some means Pa didn’t hang for that murder, where did that leave me? The daughter of a thief, an outlaw. What kind of future did that hold for me? I couldn’t work my way out of servitude—I could only marry my way out, but only if my intended never discovered my past. Someone like Will Henderson might answer my dreams. He would raise me from my station if he married me, that was sure.

But would that be what it took for me to find bliss?

My glance strayed to Mei Lien and back to my reflection. Mei Lien fiddled with my petticoat, training it out behind me. “Pretty.”

“Yes. Well, we’d best take it off now so I can wear it on Thursday next. And so I can suck in some good air.”

Once I was back in my everyday clothes, I turned to Mei Lien. “Would you like to learn more stitches? Maybe we can figure out how to make rosettes like these.”