Fortune is a Woman (12 page)

Francie's difficult childhood years slowly passed and one morning she awoke and remembered it was her eighteenth birthday. She leapt from her bed, the same lumpy, chipped iron bed she had slept in for fourteen years, and ran to the mirror eager to see if she looked any different. But the face that stared back at her was not one bit changed, not one bit more grown-up.

That afternoon her father summoned her to his study. She stood dutifully before him, her hands clasped together, eyes lowered, hating him with every fiber of her being.

His brow furrowed as he looked at her. She was eighteen, no longer a child, and she was virtually unmarriageable. Of course, if he gave her a good enough dowry he could find someone to take her off his hands, but he could not allow her to marry just anybody, she would have children—his grandchildren, and they would have to be a credit to the Harrison name. He frowned, wondering how he could make her more presentable. She must be taught how to behave so that she could redeem herself in the eyes of society and make a decent marriage. If his plan failed, then he would simply claim her health had broken, like her mother's, and banish her to the ranch.

Francie stood quietly, eyes downcast, and he suddenly noticed how tall she was. Her spine was straight, her complexion clear and soft, and her blond hair shiny. Her breasts under the stiff wool of her dress were small but nicely rounded and with a bit of grooming he could see she might be made into an attractive marriage proposition. With the right dowry, of course. And in return he would demand an aristocratic title. Nothing less would do.

He said, "So. You are eighteen today, Francesca."

She lifted her head and looked at him, surprised. He had never mentioned her birthdays before and she thought he had forgotten.

He said, "Please ask Miss James to come to my study at three o'clock. Tell her I have a great deal to discuss with her."

"Yes, Father." She waited, head bowed again until he dismissed her.

His eyes narrowed speculatively as she walked to the door. He was pleased with his plan, he could unburden himself of her very satisfactorily,
and
add the gloss of a title to the Harrison name, but he knew he would need some help. Picking up the phone he called Mrs. Brice Leland, one of San Francisco's grandest matrons, told her he needed her help, and was invited to stop by to take afternoon tea. He explained his problem to her: a difficult, unsociable daughter. He had done his best to bring her up properly but without a mother she knew how hard it had been. Francesca was a shy girl and now that she was eighteen she must be brought out into society. She needed a woman's touch....

Mrs. Brice Leland smiled, thrilled to be of help, thinking of the opportunities it would offer to present her own eligible nieces to the oh-so-rich Harmon Harrison, still a widower after ten years, though not for want of San Francisco's young ladies trying.

And later that day Miss James told Francie she was to make her debut in society.

"But why?" she gasped, bewildered. "I don't know a single member of San Francisco society. What do they care about me?"

"It is your father's wish," the governess replied, leafing through the lists of dressmakers, hairdressers, shoe and glovemakers, the dance academy and deportment classes Mrs. Brice Leland had given her. "Your father is planning to give a ball for you in two months time. We must begin immediately."

The following day Francie was swept off to the ultras-mart City of Paris store to be outfitted from head to toe for every conceivable social occasion. On Mrs. Brice Leland's instructions, she bought daytime skirts of light wool with matching tailored jackets, ruffled lace blouses and silk afternoon dresses, chiffon tea gowns and a beautiful lace ball gown with a velvet opera cape. Each outfit had matching shoes, stockings, and gloves and the appropriate accessories—a ruffled parasol, a flowered straw hat, a plumed hair ornament. All her life she had worn plain, starched cotton and drab woolens and it was intoxicating to feel the swirl of beribboned taffeta petticoats and the strangeness of the narrow, pointed satin evening slippers. But her heart sank when she looked at herself in the mirror dressed in her new finery. She knew that next to the other girls at the ball, she would be like a clumsy carthorse decked out in festive ribbons in a stable of sleek, knowledgeable, well-groomed Thoroughbreds.

Still, there was hardly time to worry; her days were too full. She dashed nervously between fittings and deportment classes, where she was taught how to sit like a lady with her ankles crossed and feet tucked in, how to use a fan, and how to walk in a dress with a train. She learned the proper ritual of a ladies' tea party and how to converse politely at the dinner table, and at the dance classes she learned how to waltz and polka. After six weeks she was considered ready and was summoned to tea to meet the society ladies who had advised her father.

Wearing a blue silk georgette tea gown that exactly matched her eyes she trailed reluctantly down the big oak staircase toward her father's study, wondering for the hundredth time why, after all these years of ignoring her he now seemed determined she should become a star of San Francisco society. She hesitated outside his door with the old familiar feeling of foreboding. Then, with a sigh, she straightened her spine, lifted her chin, and knocked.

"Enter," he said, and her heart sank to the soles of her new kid shoes as she obeyed.

His critical gaze swept her from head to foot. "Turn around," he commanded, and she swung around obediently. "For once you look presentable," he said finally. "You will thank Mrs. Brice Leland for her help and you will behave like a lady. I expect you to be a credit to the Harrisons. Do you understand?"

She nodded. "Yes, Papa."

"Then you may go."

She felt his critical eyes watching her as she walked away and heard his exasperated sigh as she tripped nervously.

"For God's sake, Francesca, haven't they taught you to walk like a lady?" he exclaimed angrily.

"Yes, Papa," she murmured again, biting her lip, convinced more than ever that she would make a fool of herself at this tea party.

Mrs. Brice Leland's home was an Italian-style stone palace a couple of blocks away on California Street between Mason and Taylor. Inside was dark with lots of carved oak paneling, and satin and gilt Louis XIV furniture and hundreds of potted palms. Half a dozen ladies perched on small overstuffed brocade chairs around their hostess, presiding like a queen over the silver teapot. Mrs. Brice Leland was a bosomy lady, regal in purple lace and her pink "afternoon" diamonds. She possessed much larger and grander diamonds for evenings, which she claimed were inherited from her ancestors, though everyone suspected that, like her husband, she hadn't possessed beans —let alone diamonds—until he'd made a killing in gold stocks. But they were used to glossing over pedigrees—as long as there was enough money in the bank to cover the lie. The ladies wore elaborate silk tea gowns sparkling with jewels, and there was a buzz of genteel laughter and conversation as they sipped China tea from fragile Wedgwood cups and nibbled delicacies prepared by the French chef. When the butler announced Francie they swung around, staring at her, their feathered hats quivering like a flock of birds.

Mrs. Brice Leland smiled and said in a loud whisper, "Well, well, the skeleton in the Harrison closet." Putting her lorgnette to her eye she looked the waiting Francie up and down. "And a rather pretty skeleton at that," she acknowledged.

"Come here, girl," she called, waving an imperious arm and frowning as Francie tripped over the fringed Turkish rug. She introduced her to the ladies and said, "Sit here by me, Francesca, we would like to get to know you a little. After all, your father asked us to help him and we have done our best. I must say you look a credit to the Harrison name and I shall tell your father so."

"Thank you, ma'am." Francie blushed, clutching her cup and saucer and refusing a wafer-thin cucumber sandwich because she was afraid she might drop it, and besides she was so nervous she knew it would choke her.

She had no idea how she got through the next forty-five minutes of polite questions and answers, but she supposed she must have because they smiled at her as she left and one lady said, "I'm having a little tea for my daughter tomorrow, dear. Why don't you come along and meet some other girls your age?" It was kindly said but the thought of meeting girls her own age filled Francie's heart with dread and she knew it would be awful.

It was worse. Oh, she looked like them in her rose-pink silk dress with the puff sleeves and the bows on her shoulders; like them, she sat with her ankles neatly crossed; like them, she spoke quietly and politely. But she didn't know what they knew, she just had no idea of what or
who
they were talking about so merrily. She didn't know about the schools, the resorts, the houses, the friends, the parties. She felt like a visitor from another planet and she knew they thought so too; she could see it in their surreptitious glances and their half-hidden, supercilious smiles and she burned with humiliation at the secret whispers whenever two young, shining, well-coiffed heads bent together.

Still, there were no refusals to the supper and dance given by Harmon Harrison for his daughter Francesca a week later, because by then the whole of San Francisco, except Francie, knew that the millionaire was looking for a husband for his errant daughter.

The house had been in a turmoil of preparation for days; the parquet ballroom floor had been polished a dozen times and scattered with French chalk, the enormous crystal chandeliers had been cleaned and their hundreds of candles lit, garlands of pink roses were looped around the marble pillars and walls and piled in great bouquets on every possible surface. Buffet tables groaned beneath carved ice swans mounded with glistening black caviar, and giant ice cornucopias were filled with fresh pink lobster. There were dozens of shiny silver platters of baked meats, small mountains of fresh asparagus, towers of enormous hothouse grapes, peaches, and figs, and tier upon tier of
gâteaux,
tortes, pastries, wobbling iced souffles, and colorful jellies. There was a champagne fountain eight feet high and dozens of extra waiters to supplement the normal household staff.

Fifteen-year-old Harry had been summoned home and he stood next to his father and Francie as they waited to greet their guests in the domed marble hall. He was already as tall as Francie, broad shouldered and a younger version of his father. And, like his father, he did not speak to her.

Francie's dress was made from yards and yards of fragile white lace over half a dozen swirling pink taffeta petticoats threaded with narrow pink velvet ribbon. Her stockings were pure white silk, her shoes embroidered white satin, and her gloves the very softest white kidskin fastened with dozens of tiny satin buttons. Her blond hair was piled on top and fixed with a glittering diamond tiara and she wore a corsage of pink roses.

Josh Aysgarth thought she looked like a princess in a fairytale. He was one of the extra waiters hired specially for the night and his job was to offer the guests champagne, but he couldn't take his eyes off Miss Francesca Harrison. She was an unobtainable dream for a lad like himself, fresh off the boat from England without a penny in his pocket.

He and Sammy had been lucky to get this waiting job tonight because without it they would have gone hungry, and that wasn't something either of them liked. He just couldn't take his eyes off the girl, though, and he was puzzled because he could swear she was frightened; her face was so pale and her blue eyes enormous. He wondered what she'd got to be scared of—she had everything anyone could ever wish for: beauty, wealth, a wonderful home, and a devoted family.

"Better get your eyes off her," Sammy Morris whispered jealously as he walked past balancing a silver tray laden with glasses. "She's too rich for your blood."

"A cat can look at a queen, can't he?" Josh retorted, but he knew Sammy was right.

Those who attended the Harrison ball remembered it to their dying days. Later, they spoke of it in shocked whispers, telling each other that it was obvious even then that Francie Harrison was no good.

She stood there between her powerful father and her handsome brother, looking as pretty as any girl could in white lace and roses and her mother's diamond tiara. She greeted her guests without so much as a smile on her pale face. She sat, frozen with nerves, at the top table and not a morsel of food or drink passed her lips. She looked terrified as she led the dancing with her father and then old Count von Wurtheim danced with her. In fact, the count monopolized her—Mrs. Brice Leland saw to that. Of course, he was old enough to be her grandfather and everybody knew he had no money, but he had an ancient title and vast estates in Bavaria. There was a lot of cynical laughter and raised eyebrows—it was so obvious that Mrs. Brice Leland was matchmaking. Everyone was talking about it. Then someone commented on it a little too loudly. "Everybody knows Harrison's trying to marry off his crazy daughter," he said, "giving her away with a million dollars just to be rid of her."

The color drained from Francie's face; she turned absolutely chalk white and then an ashen gray, and with a cry of distress she picked up her skirts and fled from the ballroom. People parted in front of her like the waters of the Red Sea, staring astonished at her as she ran past. Her father went after her and Mrs. Brice Leland went after him, but they soon came back. It seemed they hadn't been able to find her. The dance went on as normal with everyone pretending nothing was wrong, but they were all watching and waiting to see what would happen next.

Then her brother came rushing in and they watched as he spoke to his father. It was Harmon Harrison's turn to go pale, only this time they all knew it was from anger. He strode from the room trying to keep his dignity, but he looked fit to kill someone. And that's what he almost did when he found her on the balcony, sobbing her eyes out. In the arms of a handsome young waiter.

And while the ball to celebrate her debut continued downstairs Francie was locked in her room again. She flung herself across the bed, her cheeks burning with humiliation, pounding the pillows with anger. After a while she got up and stood in front of the mirror and looked at herself, "the crazy daughter," dressed in her foolish finery with an invisible label pinned to her shoulder that said "one million dollars." Her father had humiliated her in front of the whole world. Everybody but she had known he wanted to be rid of her, everybody knew he thought she was crazy, wicked, unfit to be in society. And she had just proven him right.