“My, what a handsome driver I have today.” Dr. Adelaide Linville came to the top step with a smile.
William took her carpet bag from her, took her hand, and helped her down the steps outside the entrance to the Headlands Hospital and Sanatorium. “Hello, Aunt Adelaide. How are you?”
“I’m very well, thank you.” William set her bag on the back seat. As he reached for the passenger-door handle on his Model T, she set her hand on his arm. Peering up into his eyes, she said, “You, however, are too pale. The whole summer has passed, and you still bear a winter pallor. I’ve never seen you without a brown face at the end of August. You must shake this off, William, before it makes you ill.”
“I’m fine. Just didn’t get out in the sun like I usually do.” He helped her into the car. “I’ve spent the summer cooped up in boardrooms and state halls, fighting for justice.”
Proposition 4, for Senate Constitutional Amendment No. 8, was on the ballot in just more than a month. His mother had been working day and night, and she’d enlisted William for more than his escorting duties. Though his father had not asked her to ‘sit down and stay down,’ he hadn’t been willing to fight for her cause, either. It had been William’s task to speak to men in power in the state and be the male face of women’s suffrage. He’d weathered a great many snide attacks on his masculinity in the past few months and had a long list of men he would have liked to have called out, rolled up his cuffs and impressed upon their faces how much of a man he was. In the interest of the cause, however, he’d absorbed those insults and carried on.
Despite their best efforts, and though the margin was fairly close, polling showed the measure to give women the right to vote in California would likely fail. Not even the men of California, known for its rebels and renegades, could stomach the idea of giving women a say in their governance, it seemed.
His comment earned him a gentle, sympathetic laugh from his aunt. As she tied her veil over her hat, William went around and got in behind the wheel. He’d left the engine running, so he wouldn’t have to crank it again.
His aunt wasn’t finished with her gentle hectoring, however. Before he could engage the clutch, she asked, “And it has nothing to do with a lonely heart?”
Nine months since he’d left England. Nine months since he’d held Nora, or any woman, in his arms. Because she was the only woman he wanted. His first thought, and his last, each day was of her. The only word he’d had of her in all that time were the tiny mentions of her in the society pages of the London Times, which he’d arranged to have sent to him. Occasionally, during the summer, he’d seen her name in a list of guests at some society function or other. She’d had another Season, and maybe this one had been more successful. He dreaded the day he’d find that notice in the Times.
Yes, he was lonely.
“You and your sister talk too much,” he chided. “And I’m far from lonely. Mom has me taking the arm of a different young debutante nearly every week.”
“Precisely,” Aunt Adelaide rejoined with a nod. “Don’t play coy, William. Your mother and I do talk. Often. I know. And it’s my professional opinion that the prolonged pining will make you ill.”
He wasn’t an adolescent schoolgirl. He was a thirty-three-year-old man with a full and busy life, and he was living that life fully and busily every day. But he’d betrayed the trust of the woman he loved, and until and unless he read the notice in the Times that said she’d moved on with her life, he had no intention of even considering moving on with his in that way.
He wasn’t pining. He was simply alone. “I’m not pining, Adelaide.”
“Whatever you say, nephew.”
To celebrate his father’s sixtieth birthday, the family was at the Marin ranch for a long weekend, and a magnificent party was scheduled for that Saturday night. William’s mother and the ranch staff had planned a theme to honor the Frazier family settler history, with the California version of a hoedown—like any other hoedown, William assumed, but more opulent, and with a bit of a Spanish flair.
When William and Aunt Adelaide arrived at the ranch on Friday afternoon, the place buzzed with activity. He pulled up to the house, and Todd, one of their stablehands, ran up. “Hey, Mr. William. You want I should pull it off?”
“Yeah, thanks, Todd.” He stepped out of the way and went to help his aunt from the car. “Is my mother inside?”
“Think she’s out back,” Todd answered. “They’re puttin’ up the tent for tomorra night.”
“Thanks.” William took his aunt’s bag from the back and escorted her into the house.
If the San Francisco house was modest among its fellow mansions, the Marin house made up for it. Half the stories but double the footage, the house spread far and wide. It wasn’t ornately built, just a two-story clapboard farmhouse style, but those plain white walls held two dozen rooms, and the whole building was wrapped with a vast porch. From every point, there was a long view, ranging from lovely to breathtaking.
This was the Frazier family home.
It was a working ranch as well, with a full staff and a livestock of five hundred head of angus cattle. Neither William nor his father was a cattleman, but they had the finest on the payroll. Growing up on this ranch, William had learned a fair amount from the men who worked for his father, but the thing he’d learned best was to defer to the experts and stay out of their way. He occasionally rode out with them, but everyone knew he was touring, not working, so he didn’t do it often.
Still, there was little he liked better in his life than to sit on the wide porch on a summer evening, with the sun low and rosy gold, a bourbon in his hand, his feet stretched out before him, and listen to the soft lows of a quieting herd of cattle.
The ranch today did not have that sense of warm serenity.
While Adelaide went off to settle into her bedroom for the weekend, William went in search of his mother, weaving through the obstacles of a party in preparation.
In the kitchen, he found their San Francisco housekeeper, Mrs. Ma, up to her elbows in silverware. “She dragged you into this, too, Mrs. Ma?”
The old woman grinned at him. “Hello, Mr. William. I don’t mind. I like to help for Mr. Henry’s party.”
“You’re a saint. Is she outside?”
Mrs. Ma cast a worried glance out the wide windows. “She is. Tent is causing trouble, I think.”
William looked out and saw a wide expanse of white canvas, billowing like the sail on a tall ship. He laughed. “I’ll go out and see if I can get in the way.”
Out on the lawn, he saw half a dozen men struggling to erect a tent that seemed nearly the size of a big top circus tent—and his mother, standing back with her hands on her hips. The wind coming off the Headlands had stiffened sharply in the few minutes since he’d stepped out from behind the wheel of his Ford; his mother’s dark hair whipped around her head in disarray.
“How many people did you invite?” he asked as he went up to her.
She spun at his voice. “Oh, William, help them! This is ridiculous!”
William shrugged off his suit coat and handed it to his mother. Folding back his cuffs, he went to the nearest worker, another stablehand. “Hey, Randy. Can I help?”
Gripping the canvas in both hands and struggling against the pull of the wind, Randy grunted his answer. “How do, Mr. William. There’s a problem inside, but I can’t see what.”
William nodded and ducked under the sail of the tent. Inside, the wooden frame of the tent rocked and creaked as another half dozen men worked to stabilize it. Feeling more in the way than helpful, he asked their ranch manager, Walt, if there was anything he could do.
“Yes sir,” Walt answered. “Take all the hands we can get. We can’t get the main pole up until the supports are sunk, but these ijits didn’t sink ‘em deep enough, and soon’s we started to tie the top down, the frame pulled up. This little bit o’ wind’s about to take the whole thing off the hill. Mind grabbin’ a hammer and driving some stakes down?”
“You got it.” He went to a pile of tools and picked up a six-pound sledgehammer. Still in his tie and vest, he found his place among the ranch hands and got to work.
Family dinners had never been a daily event in William’s life; his father’s business and his mother’s causes had normally kept one or both of them away at any given time. If he plotted it out, he was sure the record would show that he’d shared dinner with his parents more often away from home than in it—at benefit dinners or in hotels across the country and the globe. Even as a young boy, as often as he’d taken a meal with his mother, he’d eaten with his nanny or in the kitchen with Mr. and Mrs. Ma, in San Francisco, or with Lupe, their Marin housekeeper.
He’d never felt neglected. His parents did important things that changed the world—or at least this corner of it—and they’d lavished attention on him when they were home, or when they took him along. He remembered his childhood as exciting, full of adventure and love.
Perhaps that had been why he’d been in no rush to start a family of his own, before he’d met Nora. He liked his life and had no real interest in sharing it. He’d enjoyed women to his heart’s content—as an adult, he’d been away himself more nights than anyone else in the house—but he stayed out of the courting and marriage racket.
On the night before his father’s party, it was four for dinner at the ranch—William, his parents, and Aunt Adelaide, and as they dined on salmon steaks and wild rice, William considered the long table. Even without its leaves, it was far bigger than they had need of tonight, and they four sat clustered at one end. Lately, all this space that he’d grown up in felt empty.
“William.”
He turned to his father. “Yes?”
“I asked you how this morning went.”
Before he’d come over on the ferry to Marin, he’d started the day in labor negotiations. The American Federation of Laborers was in the city again, trying to organize the transit workers. The Scot-Western policy on labor unions was to let the unions talk with their workers, and then sit down with the workers themselves and see what they had to say. So far, the policy had staved off the unions, because William’s father treated his employees like they were part of the company’s success and not merely the tools of it.
But this time, the AFL had come in hot. It was about more than the workers themselves. Their power came in numbers, and they wanted the whole industry unionized. Scot-Western holdouts weakened their negotiating power elsewhere.
“They want a ten percent wage increase, double pay for work over fifty hours a week, and triple pay over sixty. ”
His father cut and ate a piece of salmon before he answered. “We already pay plus a half for hours over fifty. Are we working anybody more than sixty hours?”
“A handful. Maybe a dozen. They put in for it.” Scot-Western paid well, compared to their fellows, but a ferryman’s wages weren’t going to make him rich.
“It can’t be healthy for anyone to work hard labor for more than sixty hours in a week,” his mother observed.
Adelaide set her fork on her plate. “It’s not, and that’s why unions exist in the first place. Most companies grind their workers down to a nub. It’s even worse back East, in the coal mines, though it’s no picnic here. Henry, I didn’t think you were one of those companies.”
Henry Frazier stared at his sister-in-law while he chewed his latest bite. Then he shifted his attention to William. “Tell the managers to stop schedules at fifty. Offer them a two-and-a-half percent increase.” He focused again on his dinner.
“Or we could let them sign on with the AFL.”
All eyes landed on him at once. “Say your thinking, son,” his father said, and his mouth went finally still.
“The union wants the whole city. They’re more powerful negotiating anywhere if all the workers are on their roster. If we keep holding out, they’re going to fight harder every time. They want our people.”
“We’re not the only holdouts.”
“No. Golden Rail and Bay Ferry Lines, too. But they both had to bust strikes to push the union back. Do you want to be in a position of busting our own workers?”
“What I don’t want is a stranger’s fingers in my damned pie. That’s why I didn’t put Scot-Western up for shares. This is a family business, and the family decides how it’s run. I respect our workers.” He eyed everyone at the table in turn. “I value them. That’s why I pay them the best wages in the industry and sit down with them to work out terms. But I don’t want to hand some goddamned union a Sword of Damocles to hold over my head. Lionel knows he’s got a straight line to my office door, and to yours. You said it yourself, son—it’s a numbers game to the union. They don’t care about Lionel or Stanley or Mick. They don’t know about Gerald’s little girl with the twisted leg. We do. We paid for her operations. Your mother arranged for somebody to mind their other little ones while Gerald and Mary stayed in the hospital with her. It’s not just them, either. When our people have need, we help. That’s what’s going to keep the AFL out of our house. We give a shit.”
William’s mother clucked her tongue. “Henry, honestly. This is our dinner table, not a poker table. Watch your mouth.”
“Sorry, sweetheart. Do you understand, William?”
“I do, Dad. But you’re not hearing me. The union will push until they find our breaking point. I sat there this morning and listened to their representative, and he is as deft a politician as I’ve met. He turns the good we do inside out and makes it dark. They want our people. They need them. And, you know, I agree with you about the way you run Scot-Western. I’m proud of us. But I understand the union’s point. For them, it’s not about the workers individually. It’s about them all. They help the people who don’t work for a company that pays for their kids to get well, and they can offer more help when they have the power of all the workers behind them.”
“He makes a good point, Henry,” Aunt Adelaide said.
“Stay out of this, Addie.”
William’s aunt bristled at her brother-in-law’s dismissal. So did William’s mother. Neither woman took kindly to being set aside by any man, much less one of their family. This conversation was about to take a decidedly sharp turn into argument.
It had been a mistake to express any sympathy for the union right now. William changed his tone. “Dad, I just think we should sit down with Lionel and Nev—both of us—and talk out a longer strategy. The union is going to keep pushing. We need to think about what we can do so it’s the workers who push back, instead of us.”
His father smiled. “I like that. You’re right.”
“Excellent,” his mother sighed. “Can we talk about something else now?”
“How the campaign going?” Adelaide asked. “Have you punched anyone yet, William? Or you, Angelica?”
“I’m waiting until after the election,” William answered with a smirk. “I’ve got a list.”
“So do I,” his elegant mother said, and they all broke out in laughter. Even William’s father, whose eyes sparkled adoringly at his wife.
At this father’s party, William had no escorting duties. Not in the mood for a party, and with no obligations beyond the welcoming toast he’d made, he snagged a bottle of bourbon from one of the bars and found a convenient moment to slip out of the big tent on Saturday night.
It seemed that the entire population of California had been invited to the Frazier ranch to celebrate Henry Frazier advancing to the ripe age of sixty. Besides the crowd in the tent, several dozen people milled about on the grounds. William smiled and nodded and made quick small talk as he navigated the loiterers until he was able to step up onto the porch.
The house, too, was ablaze with light and abuzz with activity, so he roamed to the far side of the porch, and finally found quiet. This side, with all the windows leading into private rooms, was dark, and the clamor from the party was not much more than a murmur. Even the glow from the tent was only a faint impression of light.
He sat in a wicker rocking chair and opened the bottle of bourbon. He hadn’t brought a glass with him, but etiquette expert Daisy Eyebright was perhaps the one person his mother hadn’t invited to the ranch, so he thought he’d escape censure. He leaned back and took a long drink.
Out ahead of him, just shadows in the moonlight, the cattle wandered sleepily, dotting the dry, late-August hills. Music wafted on the air, blowing in from behind him. He took another drink and closed his eyes. He could hear his father’s voice, singing a cowboy song with the band.
His mother had gone all out for this party, despite his father’s resistant grumbling about it for the past several months. And tonight, he was having the time of his life. Rather than the usual elegant soirée, she’d given him a rough-and-tumble country dance, a throwback to his youth on the railroad. She knew him better than anyone, loved him better than anyone, and had given him a gift no one but she could have.
In December, his parents would celebrate their thirty-fifth anniversary. To William’s knowledge, they’d never had a rough patch in all those years. They argued—sometimes loudly—but they always found their common ground. They negotiated their differences in compromise. Sometimes he gave in, and sometimes she gave in, but neither was ever more important than the other.
It was a high bar to reach for, a marriage like his parents’. William had never thought he’d be able to—maybe another reason he hadn’t hurried to the altar. In truth, he had no idea if he and Nora might have gotten along so well. But she was the only woman he’d ever wanted to try with. To try for.
All he wanted was to bring her to this place, give her this life, where they argued at the dinner table and threw ridiculously themed parties, where women like his mother and aunt wore split skirts when they rode so they could ride astride, where they did the work they wanted and fought the fights they wanted, and it was the way of things.
It wasn’t perfect, far from it. The United States, and California, had its share of prigs and prudes and backward thinkers, robber barons and brutal bosses, but out here at the far-flung reaches of the country, a man or woman could carve out the life they wanted, and demand that room be made. His grandfather had elevated himself from a starving street wretch to a titan of industry by digging in the California mud, and no one in William’s knowing had ever thrown his roots back at him. He’d worn his humble origins like a badge on his chest, and he’d taught his descendants to do the same.
William could make Nora happy here, if only he could have her.
He’d taken enough long drinks from his bottle that the world had gotten fuzzy at its edges, and a real melancholy had sunk into his bones, when footsteps on the porch floor turned his head. His aunt came up, dressed in a brown leather skirt and a ruffled plaid blouse, her greying blonde hair in a loose tail down her back, and a hat slung back on its string, like a ranchera of forty years ago. She sat in a wicker rocker at his side. “Feeling dark and gloomy again, dear heart? But you’re not pining, of course. We established that.”
He shrugged and took another drink.
“There’s more to life than romantic love, William. I thought you understood that.” His aunt had never been romantically involved, as far as William knew. She was married to her work.
“I don’t want a heart-to-heart right now, Adelaide. I just want to get drunk.”
“Well, plant a flag on that peak, dear. You’ve achieved it.” She patted his knee and stood up. “Your mother’s looking for you. If you can still walk, come back to the party with me.”
“I can walk.” He stood up, but he’d forgotten he was in a rocking chair and had to jig a little to keep his feet.
Adelaide grabbed his arm and laughed. “Are you sure?”
As the ranch surged and swelled like the open sea, William reconsidered. “It’s possible I might need a hand. I don’t have to speak again, do I?”
She laughed again. “Goodness, I certainly hope not. No—your mother’s going to sing. Remember?”
Right. She’d been practicing a song that his father had sung to her while they were courting. They thought of it as ‘their song.’ “I want to have a song.”
“With your English girl.”
“Obviously.” That word had a lot of letters and sounds. It was tricky.
Before he could put the bottle back to his mouth, his aunt snatched it away. “That’ll be just about enough for you, dear. I’m taking you into the house. You can apologize to your mother in the morning, when you’re conscious again.” She tossed the bottle away and, holding him up with her arms around his waist, she led him toward the front of the house.