Uneasy Spirits: A Victorian San Francisco Mystery (34 page)

Yet she had stubbornly refused to consider how a relationship with someone who truly cared about her entailed responsibilities on her part in turn. She remembered the reporter, Pierce, had even warned Nate that the Framptons had influential friends and it might be dangerous if it came out that he was investigating them. Unbidden, came an image of Judge Babcock using his legal connections to punish Nate for daring to threaten his contact with his daughter’s spirit.

“
Mrs. Stein, I hadn’t realized . . .”

“
That he is in love with you?”

“
No, I didn’t mean . . . of course I know he cares about me. But he hasn’t said anything to me . . . about the future. I don’t really know his intentions.”

“
Well, my dear, he is probably waiting until he feels he is financially secure enough to offer you a future. Or he is simply unsure about your feelings towards him.”

It’s hard to believe after last night that he has any doubts,
Annie found herself thinking.

Mrs. Stein continued. “And, are you unsure about your feelings for Mr. Dawson?”

“
No, I mean, yes. Oh, Esther, before I met Mr. Dawson this summer, I would have sworn to you that I would never remarry. I promised myself that I would never again become dependent on a man, who by law could do as he wished with my property or my person. But Nate is so different from John. I just don’t know. Do I care about him? Absolutely, and you are quite right, I need to be more careful. But do I trust him enough to marry him? I don’t know. I don’t know if I will ever trust any man that much again.”

“
Annie, dear. Don’t say that. To think that you would deny yourself a future as a wife, a mother.”

Annie’s heart constricted. She thought of the daughter who had been born too soon, a victim of her loveless marriage to a man who had betrayed her trust, over and over. Would she ever risk that kind of pain again? Yet, when Evie May had wrapped her arms about her and Annie had believed, even for a short time, that Maybelle was that lost daughter, she had recognized she wasn’t ready to give up the sweet promise of children forever. A tear, unexpectedly, slid down her cheek.

Mrs. Stein gave a little cry and leaned forward in her chair, taking Annie’s hands in hers. “My darling girl. Please forgive me. I should never have said a thing. Now you know why my children get so furious with me and my meddling. But you are like a daughter to me, and I let my affection take me too far.”

“
Mrs. Stein, you have no need to apologize, and your daughters, who adore you, would be quite as sad as I would be if you stopped caring enough to meddle. Oh, I meant to say, stopped giving us the benefit of your wisdom!”

Annie saw her last statement had returned a smile to the older woman’s face, as she knew it would, and she continued. “And you are quite right. I shouldn’t let my past experience with John ruin my faith in all men. Good heavens, I have the daily reminder of what a good marriage looks like when I see you and Mr. Stein together, so I shouldn’t despair.”

Mrs. Stein laughed again, and, then giving Annie’s hands one more quick squeeze, she leaned back and picked up her crocheting. “Speaking of marriages, if you are still interested, I have a strange tale to tell about the marriage of Isobel and William Larkson, and the mysterious Mr. Sweeter.”

An hour later, Annie thought about what Mrs. Stein had told her as she walked with Kathleen up Hyde towards Hapgood’s Grocery Store. The evening was mild, although a light mist haloed the gas lamps along their way. It was a little after eight, and Annie’s plan was to visit Harold Hapgood’s wife at their store during the hour he would be attending the Monday night séance. She had sent a letter by the morning post to Simon Frampton, telling him that she would not be able to make the séance that night, but hoped for another private sitting with Evie May on Wednesday.

Nate had sent a note to her at lunchtime by one of the scores of errand boys that trolled the financial district for work, asking if he could come by this evening. She had sent an answer back with the same boy, saying that she would not be attending the séance this evening, but was otherwise engaged. She asked if they could meet on Wednesday evening instead. She knew it was cowardly to put off seeing him until after she saw Evie May because she was sure he would interpret the fact that she was skipping tonight’s séance to mean she would stop going to the Framptons’ altogether. But she would rather have that fight after the fact.

“
So, ma’am,” said Kathleen, interrupting this thought, “what exactly did Mrs. Stein tell you?”

“
She had dinner with her daughter, Hetty, yesterday and it turns out Hetty had done a little investigating herself,” Annie replied. “She invited an acquaintance over to lunch this week, a Mrs. Frankle, who had gone to school with Isobel Larkson back in Portland and was quite willing to talk about her. Hetty told her mother she was actually a little shocked at how much this woman revealed, but the woman’s excuse was how worried she was about their friend.”

Annie then went on to recount what Hetty had learned. Isobel Larkson had been raised primarily by her maternal grandparents in Portland, Oregon, her father having died at Gettysburg, and her mother dying shortly after, of the usual cause of heartbreak. Her grandfather eventually died as well, as old men do, leaving his wife a substantial fortune, which kept Isobel in private schools, dancing lessons, and silk frocks.

Life, however, was not a complete bed of roses for Isobel since by the time she was in her late teens her grandmother was completely bedridden with arthritis, and Isobel was the only one of her descendants (she had five living children and fourteen grandchildren) who could successfully alleviate her pain, which she did by brewing special teas and reading and rereading the entire works of Charles Dickens out loud to her.

Then, when she was twenty-three, Isobel met William Larkson, a man thirty years her senior, who was in Portland for a week on business. At the end of that week, she and Mr. Larkson were married and off on a honeymoon. While they were away, Isobel’s grandmother, who by this time was paralyzed by a stroke, died, leaving all her money to Isobel.

“
Mrs. Fuller, what about all the other relatives? Didn’t they get anything from the old lady?” interjected Kathleen at this point, as the two of them stood at the corner of Hyde and Geary, waiting for a heavily laden wagon to pass by. “I mean, isn’t Mr. Sweeter one of those other fourteen grandchildren, and mightn’t he be upset that Isobel ended up with it all?”

Annie smiled broadly. “Kathleen Hennessey, you are a clever girl. Hetty said Mrs. Frankle specifically mentioned a rumor that the rest of the family was going to challenge the grandmother’s will. Evidently, nothing ever came of it. However, according to Mrs. Frankle, Isobel had a rude awakening when she arrived in San Francisco from that honeymoon. Turns out it wasn’t just her pretty face and possible inheritance that had attracted Mr. Larkson. His mother, in her eighties and crippled with rheumatism, lived with him, and he believed that Isobel’s experience with her grandmother would make her the perfect daughter-in-law to look after his mother.”

“
Oh, my,” said Kathleen. “Mrs. Larkson must’ve thought she had jumped from the frying pan into the fire.”

“
Exactly. Hetty told her mother that Isobel’s friends all agreed she had a hard time of it in her marriage, adjusting to an older man who was set in his ways and catering to his cranky mother. That’s why they were all happy for her when Jack Sweeter came to town, which happened just a few weeks after her mother-in-law finally passed on. Everyone thought it would make a nice change for her to spend some time with someone more her own age, everyone but Mrs. Frankle. Having grown up in Portland, she actually knew Jack Sweeter. In fact, her older sister had been courted by him at one time.”

Annie paused to catch her breath. The last two blocks up Hyde to where the Hapgood’s store sat on the corner of Hyde and Sutter were fairly steep, and she wanted to finish her story before they got to their destination.

“
Mrs. Frankle had a lot to say about Mr. Sweeter. Most of it was about how he had led her sister on, practically leaving her at the altar; however, there were two very important pieces of information that are relevant to our inquiries. Mrs. Frankle told Hetty that Mr. Sweeter had been fired from his position in a stock brokerage firm for selling inside information. And, when he moved to San Francisco, he expected Mr. Larkson to give him a position in his company. Something that Mr. Larkson, clever man, has so far refused to do. So, you see, Mr. Sweeter might very well be the kind of man who would go into partnership with the Framptons.

“
A BOLD DAYLIGHT ROBBERY. Two thieves enter a Grocery Store and Steal $400.”
—
San Francisco Chronicle,
1879

By the early sixties, Hapgood’s Grocery Store had made a name for itself for stocking a wide range of canned goods as well high-quality, fresh produce. At that time the store was located on Sutter and Kearney, putting it equidistant to the financial district, the docks, and the upper class suburbs of Rincon Hill. When Annie came back to San Francisco a year and a half ago, she had discovered that ten years earlier Hapgood’s had followed the western path of the Sutter Street Railroad. The store was now located at the southwestern corner of Sutter and Hyde.

The founder, Jezidiah Hapgood, had certainly been a visionary because the store was now within easy reach of the occupants of both the Nob Hill mansions to the north and the miles of new homes for the prosperous business classes west of Van Ness. In fact, the one time Annie had walked the five blocks from her home to the store, she had found it too crowded and the prices too dear, so she did her shopping at a smaller store on Taylor.

Given the nasty comments made by the spirits who had addressed poor Mr. Harold Hapgood, the current owner, Annie half expected to find the store had undergone some terrible financial disaster in the year since she had been there. However, as she and Kathleen crossed the street to get to the gas-lit front entrance to the store on Sutter, the number of people coming and going suggested that the store was doing just fine. The sign over the door still said, in gilded letters, Hapgood and Sons. Annie wondered if Harold had kept the sign when he inherited in the hope that some day there would be a new generation of little Hapgoods to carry on the family business. Maybe that was the failure in doing his duty that his dead relatives were pointing out during the séances. He wasn’t being fruitful and multiplying.

“
Ma’am, I don’t see Mrs. Hapgood. Do you think we’ve missed her?” Kathleen asked, as they wove through the press of people lined up to pay a harried young male clerk at the front counter.

“
I don’t imagine we have. If the store is usually this busy this time of night, the Hapgoods wouldn’t leave a single clerk. She is probably somewhere else in the store. However, I’m not sure if we do find her that she will feel free to talk.”

“
I see her, ma’am; she is in the corner talking to that lady.”

“
Let’s get the things Mrs. O’Rourke asked us to pick up. Maybe, once we’ve paid, she will be free,” Annie said as she walked over to slanted boxes by the front window of the store where apples, oranges, figs, and grapes basked in the harsh glare of the gaslights mounted on all the walls. She knew that her local store didn’t yet have figs in, so she added a few of these oval fruits, plus some lovely, purple grapes, to the basket she carried. Moving to the next row of boxes, she was surprised to see that there were actually fresh peas, which must have been grown in greenhouses to the south, since her local store hadn’t carried any in a month. They were too expensive to buy, but she did pick out carrots and acorn squash.

“
Kathleen, look, the first of the walnuts have come in; would you get about two pounds?” Annie asked, pointing out a barrel off to the side. Really, Hapgood’s did have a great selection. Perhaps she should think about coming at least once a week to pick up some of the items she just couldn’t get at her local store. She then finished off Beatrice’s list, getting half a dozen eggs, blocks of aged cheddar and Swiss, a pound of rye flour, and a packet of sea salt. By the time she was done and made her way to the counter, she saw that the store had thinned out and there was only one woman in line ahead of her. Just then, Mrs. Hapgood came up beside the clerk and motioned Annie forward.

Kathleen, who stood beside Annie, took the initiative as they moved up to the counter, and she said, “Mrs. Hapgood. I had hoped I would see you. You have such a beautiful store. I’d never been here before. Please, I don’t believe you have met my mistress, Mrs. Fuller. She asked me to introduce her to you and wondered if there is any way you could spare some time this evening to talk with her.”

Mrs. Hilda Hapgood looked to be of Scandinavian stock, dark-blue eyes, silvery-blond hair, pale skin that stretched over broad, flat cheekbones. Cheekbones along which a thin raspberry stain of embarrassment spread as Kathleen spoke to her. The woman, older than Annie, but probably no more than her mid-thirties, was certainly attractive. Annie could imagine Harold Hapgood, such a thin, ungainly sort of man, would have found a fresh-faced young farm girl, ten years younger than he, pretty irresistible. Mrs. Hapgood’s dark-blue cashmere dress and the tasteful gold brooch at her throat suggested her marriage had brought with it some degree of town polish. This should have enhanced those original good looks even further.

Yet, the gray smudges under those blue eyes, which darted back and forth nervously, and the loose tailoring of her outfit, reflecting a recent loss of weight, did the opposite. Annie was reminded of the faded looks of another blonde she had met recently, Sukie Vetch, and she realized that in front of her stood another one of the Framptons’ victims.