Victorian San Francisco Stories Read online

  She’d seen signs this process was about to start for the stock of the Best and Belcher mine a few days before her second consultation with Voss. He was, rightfully, nervous about sinking any money on Nevada silver, but she advised him to buy twenty shares of this stock, currently selling at $17 a share (half of what the famous Ophir stock was selling). She told him to sell these shares as soon as they hit $25, or in three weeks, whichever came first. The stock hit that $25 price point on March 1 and then immediately began a steady slide in value. If he followed her instructions, even deducting his broker fees, he would have made around $150. Not a bad return for two dollar’s worth advice. If he had followed her instructions.

  A soft knock at the parlor door was followed immediately by the entrance of Kathleen, carrying some logs in her hands. “Ma’am, I thought I would build the fire back up before Madam Sibyl’s next appointment. It’s raining cats and dogs out there, terrible cold. I thought the older gentleman might appreciate the warmth.”

  Annie watched fondly as the girl took the poker and rearranged the embers on the grate before carefully placing three more logs on the fire. Kathleen had quite embraced Annie’s Madam Sibyl enterprise, cheerfully dropping whatever other task she was engaged in to run and answer the door or usher a client out of the house. Annie hoped that if the new income remained steady, she would be able to add a dollar a week onto the girl’s wages to compensate for the extra work.

  “Kathleen, that is excellent. Let’s hope that Mr. Voss is willing to let you take his overcoat this time, so it can dry out. Do you remember how you practically had to pry his hat and gloves off of him the first time he came?”

  “Oh, ma’am. Do you think he was afraid I was going to steal them?”

  The door bell rang and Kathleen dusted her hands on her apron and went out into the hallway to answer it. She left the door to the parlor open, and Annie heard Voss say gruffly, “I can announce myself, girl. No, I don’t need you to take my coat. Skedaddle, I’m sure your mistress has better things for you to do.”

  Matthew Voss strode into the room, Kathleen right behind him, her cheeks pink with suppressed irritation, and Annie repressed a laugh. Instead, she said calmly, “That will be fine, Kathleen. I will ring when it is time to let Mr. Voss out.” She watched as Voss stripped off his gloves and pushed them into his overcoat and hung his hat and umbrella on the coat stand. He then shrugged out of his coat, gave it a shake, and hung it up as well. At least it looks like he intends on staying the whole hour. That is a good sign. But he certainly doesn’t sound too pleased. Annie sat up straighter and folded her hands.

  Walking towards her, brandishing a rolled-up newspaper, he said, “Well, Madam Sibyl…or what ever your name is…have you determined that the moon and Saturn are directing me to buy up some other outlandish crop? Or do you need to look to see if my palms have sprouted a new line in the past month? Tell me that means I should sink all my savings into some such nonsense as oil wells in the Central Valley?” Voss glared at her, hands on his hips, his mouth compressed to a thin line.

  Annie raised her chin up and stared back. He impressed her as someone who wouldn’t respect anyone he could bully. And, if he had taken her advice, he would have made money, so she resisted the impulse to defend herself.

  “Hah,” he barked out with his distinctive laugh, “I guess I just might take that advice, no matter how hair-brained it sounded!” A large smile lit up his face, and as he pulled the chair out to sit down, he thumped the newspaper down in front of her. “I picked up the first edition of the evening Chronicle on the way here, and what do you suppose I read?”

  Before Annie could open her mouth, he said, “After dragging their heels for the past three years, the idiots in the state capital have finally decided to fund the next extension of the harbor seawall. Came up with $100,000 to fund not only the bulkhead but wharves, piers, and a roadway and sidewalk the length of the sea wall. And they stipulate the money has to be spent within the next year. And that means there is going to be a big demand for what, you may ask?”

  “Cement!” Annie crowed.

  “Right you are! A whole lot of cement, both the new fangled Portland stuff and the good old fashioned limestone cement.”

  “And you invested in both companies? Blochman and Cerf, and Davis and Cowell, as I recommended?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I did. I wasn’t going to at first. But, with the tidy profit I made selling the flax and unloading that silver stock when it hit $25 a share, I had enough to buy a stake in both. And you were right They were looking for investors. David and Cowell needed quick cash to buy another ship—their business had grown so much. And Blochman and Cerf needed some capital as well. Cerf told me that no one made Portland cement on the west coast, and they had promised the last of their inventory to complete the California Cable Car line up Nob Hill. As a result, they needed to import more so they would be ready in case the City Hall extension went forward. Turns out you were right about that, as well.”

  Just a week after Annie advised Voss to get a bid ready to provide furniture for City Hall, the City Hall Commission announced that they had funded the next stage and that all bids had to be submitted March 1, only two weeks later. She asked, “Did you get a bid in for the furniture for the finished section?”

  “Certainly did, and the announcement caught my chief competitor napping. Smeckleson didn’t have his figures together and way over priced his bid.”

  “Oh, Mr. Voss. You got the contract!”

  “Yep, going to be busy as can be at the factory this spring and summer. And, just as you predicted, Blochmann and Cerf were awarded the contract for the foundation work for the new section. With this new seawall and all, you can be sure I will see a good return on my investments for both companies. Cement. Who would have ever thought, after a lifetime casting my lot with wood, I would make money on cement?”

  Annie and Madam Sibyl’s first client grinned broadly at each other, in perfect harmony.

  The End

  Dandy Detects

  Barbara Hewitt sat by the open window, drinking in the faint breeze that barely touched the flame of the candle sitting on the table in front of her. While it was nearly eleven at night, her attic bedroom refused to release the accumulated heat of the day. While it was only her second September in the city of San Francisco, she was already familiar with the odd habit the weather had of producing the first searing temperatures of summer just in time for the fall school term.

  Today, her students at San Francisco Girls High had wilted under the requisite five layers of clothing that female modesty dictated, and she had noted that none of them had been willing to forgo the newly fashionable polonaise wool dresses that had clearly been specially tailored for the start of school. She smiled to herself as she thought of the dampness of their knitted brows as they struggled over their first English literature essays--essays that she was trying to finish grading by candlelight so that she could return them in the morning.

  A raised voice and a sharp sound shattered her reverie, and she looked out the window into the illuminated back room on the top floor of the house across the alley. A lit oil lamp revealed in stark detail the tableau of a man and a woman and a dog. The shaggy black dog was clutched in the arms of the woman, who was sitting at an upright piano, her shining blonde head bowed. The wide-shouldered man loomed over her, his hands pressing down on the lid that covered the piano keys. The sound Barbara had heard probably came from the man slamming the lid down, since the soft notes of a Beethoven sonata had now been replaced by silence. But it just as well could have been the sound a man’s hand made when it came forcibly against the delicate skin of a woman’s face.

  Barbara remembered another room, on another breathlessly hot night, and another furious man. But that room had also contained the increasingly frantic wails of a three-year-old boy, a sound that had driven her across time and space to end up in this attic in Mrs. Fuller's O'Farrell Street boarding house. She stood up and turned her back on the wi
ndow, taking up the candle to move across the room to an adjoining alcove where her young son lay asleep. Jamie was now eight, and he slept in that deep, drugged state that healthy children effortlessly achieve. She briefly stroked his sweat-darkened short hair that the summer’s sun had burnished golden, and her heart turned over.

  She then noticed that Dandy, Jamie's terrier, was sitting upright on the bed, staring alertly at her. The candlelight revealed the blaze of white on his chest and the white around his neck and front paws. The white patches looked so much like a starched white shirt against his black fur that Mrs. O'Rourke, the boarding house cook and housekeeper, had exclaimed, "Oh, Jamie, with that squashed-in face, if he doesn't look like a street tough trying to pass as a high-class gent. A dandy right enough, all dressed up in his fine evening clothes."

  Dandy, ears erect on either side of his round forehead and slightly bulging eyes reflecting the candle glow, cocked his head and wrinkled his short muzzle to emit a soft, questioning, "Woof."

  "Shush, Dandy," Barbara whispered. "Don't wake up Jamie. I am sure everything is all right.”

  *****

  “Gracious me, I do declare that if this heat continues, I shan’t be able to eat a bite. Now, dear sister, I do insist that you take some of this chicken; you must keep up your strength. How clever of Mrs. O’Rourke to think of making this cucumber soup; a fine choice on a day like this. I don’t remember when we have had such a string of hot days, not here in San Francisco. Now, in Natchez, where Miss Millie and I spent our youth, this would be a mild summer day. Oh my goodness, Millie, do you remember how hot it got back in Natchez? I….”

  Barbara let the older woman’s conversation wash over her as she picked at her dinner. She was exhausted from several sleepless nights, and her head had been so muzzy at school today that she had finally let her last period students work silently on their poetry assignments because she couldn’t summon the energy to listen to their recitations. She looked over at Miss Minnie Moffet, who was continuing to tell the rest of the boarders about summers in Natchez, and she wondered at the woman’s determined cheerfulness. Miss Minnie and her sister, Miss Millie, who must be in their early seventies, shared a tiny room across the hall from Barbara. If Miss Minnie’s stories had any connection to the truth, she and her sister had not been born poor back in Natchez. Nevertheless, some hinted-at tragedy had landed them in San Francisco, where they eked out their living as skilled seamstresses. Barbara noticed that Miss Millie, who looked so like Miss Minnie that they could be twins, was smiling benignly at her loquacious sister. Jamie swore that Miss Millie did speak, but Barbara had never heard her utter a syllable. She wondered if Miss Millie had simply given up trying to get a word in edgewise some time in the distant past.

  Well, at least with Miss Minnie at dinner, I won’t have to worry about making conversation, Barbara was just thinking when a masculine voice on her right destroyed that hope.

  “Ah, excuse me, Mrs. Hewitt. Jamie was just telling me that you had promised him that you would take him up to Nob Hill this weekend, and I wanted to let you know I would be free to accompany you.”

  Barbara looked over at Mr. Chapman, who was leaning forward to speak to her around Jamie, and suppressed her irritation. A tall, awkward man in his thirties, Mr. Chapman had some sort of office job, and he seemed to feel it was not safe for her to walk in the city without a male escort.

  “Why, thank you, Mr. Chapman. I will certainly let you know if we do decide to do so. It all depends on the weather and my students’ essays. It is the beginning of the term, and I am afraid that, between the heat and their apparent failure to retain anything they learned last year, I may be in for a difficult weekend of grading.”

  Relieved that Jamie had immediately reclaimed Mr. Chapman’s attention, Barbara shifted her attention to the rest of the boarders at the table. On her left was Mr. Harvey, a clerk in a dry goods store who shared a room on the second floor with Mr. Chapman. He had an ailing wife who lived up near Sacramento, and she had noticed that he seemed as reluctant as she to engage in dinnertime conversation. Next to him at the head of the table sat Mr. Herman Stein, a wealthy businessman, who was steadily making inroads into his roast chicken and potatoes. Across the table from her sat Mr. Stein’s friendly wife, Esther, who was listening politely to Miss Minnie, and next to Miss Minnie was her sister, Miss Millie. The boarding house owner, Mrs. Fuller, was absent, as was Miss Pinehurst, a cashier in a fashionable restaurant off Market, who was, as usual, at work at this time of day.

  Boarding houses bring together such an odd assortment of people, Barbara thought to herself. She looked down at her son, who now had the full attention of the entire table as he reported that he had heard that there were wildfires on Mt. Diablo to the east. But they are all so kind to Jamie, and I supposed can’t ask for more than that.

  “Ma’am, are you finished? You didn’t hardly touch your dinner. Will I be able to tempt you with raspberry compote?”

  Kathleen, the boarding house maid, leaned between her and Jamie to take their plates and continued, “But your son sure had a good appetite, and I don’t even have to ask if he wants dessert.”

  Barbara found her spirits lifting as they often did around Kathleen, a freckle-faced young Irish girl whose sparkling blue eyes radiated good humor. She replied, “Oh, Kathleen, it’s just too hot. I don’t know how you and Mrs. O’Rourke can stand it down in the kitchen; it must feel like you are in an oven. Do tell Mrs. O’Rourke how much I did enjoy the soup. I don’t want her to feel her efforts were wasted on me, and they certainly weren’t wasted on Jamie!”

  Kathleen placed the dishes on the stack she had been accumulating on her tray and said, “Well, the kitchen is in the basement, and that is a help. I don’t know how you can sleep nights up there on the third floor! When I went up to sweep this morning, I like to died from the heat!”

  This comment prompted Barbara to ask a question that had been niggling at her for several days. “Kathleen, that reminds me, with the windows open in the evening I have been hearing the woman across the alley play the piano. Quite lovely. I wondered if you knew her name or anything about her? I do believe they moved in this spring.”

  Kathleen’s face lit up, “Oh, Ma’am, that would be Mrs. Francis. Don’t that piano sound glorious? She was famous, used to do concerts and everything. That was before she was married. Her husband, though, I dunno. I heard he dotes on her, but I also heard he's a rough sort. They do say opposites attract. He runs a store for second-hand tools in the first floor of the house. Well, I guess Mrs. Francis does most of the work in the store while he just runs around town, finding goods to sell.”

  Barbara watched as Kathleen moved away to finish clearing the table, and she wondered about Mrs. Francis, “who used to be famous.” It had been so long since she had someone with whom she could share her love of music. She had hoped that she might find one of the teachers at her school compatible, but so far there had been no one she really felt she could trust. Schools could be such gossipy places, and she couldn’t afford to make any enemies, which somehow meant she hadn’t been able to make any friends.

  *****

  The next day, Barbara found herself again wondering about Mrs. Francis when her thoughts were interrupted by Dandy, who was barking in great indignation at an emaciated hound who was tied to the hitching post outside the Ellis Street butcher shop. Saturday mornings she walked Dandy while Jamie made spending money by doing errands for Mrs. O'Rourke. This Saturday, despite the continued heat, she had extended her usual route so that she could go past the Francis house.

  Barbara had some vague idea that she might stop in the store and, if Mrs. Francis was alone, strike up a conversation. But she had forgotten the butcher's dog, which always sent Dandy into a frenzy. Dandy was still a pup and didn't weigh more than fifteen pounds, so she wasn't worried he would get away from her, but he was creating a good deal of commotion on the crowded sidewalk.

  She scooped Dandy up in her arms, immediately subje
cting herself to several swift doggy kisses on her nose, and she laughed, saying, "Oh, you rascal. Proud of yourself, aren't you? Defended me against that ruffian. Now settle down."

  Having made it safely past the butcher shop, Barbara put the wiggling dog down at her feet, just in time for him to begin straining at the leash again. Looking up, she saw the object of his excitement was a short, boxy black dog with a shaggy coat that was pulling his mistress towards them with equal fervor.

  "Oh, Mrs. Francis. That is your name, isn't it? I have so wanted to meet you," Barbara exclaimed when she noticed that the slender blonde in front of her was her back alley neighbor. Before the woman had a chance to respond, she went on. "My name is Mrs. Barbara Hewitt. I live just over on O'Farrell Street, and I wanted to tell you how much I have enjoyed hearing you play the piano these warm evenings. You are quite accomplished."

  Heavens above, I sound like an idiot, accosting a stranger on the street this way, she thought. Embarrassed, Barbara looked down at the two dogs who were enthusiastically trying to sniff each other's rears, which, because they were about the same length, meant they were going around and around in a tight circle, completely entangling their leashes.

  "Oh, dear," she said. "They are getting tied up!" She looked up and saw that the other woman was awkwardly trying to control her dog with her right hand while she used her left to hold the half veil of her hat down over the left side of her face.

  I wonder what she is trying to hide? Barbara’s heart squeezed painfully as she remembered her own fearful attempts to hide the cuts and bruises that bloomed periodically on her face after her husband's rages. Not wanting the woman to catch her staring, Barbara again looked down at the dogs at her feet and said, "Oh, what a splendid dog you have. What kind is he?"