The Architect's Daughter

You won't have heard of Lucky Levine. He's a minor figure in Southern California folklore, a Jewish millionaire whose penchant for petite brunettes made him briefly useful as a cautionary tale, best told at bedtime. For the story to work, the girl had to be bookish and gullible: in short, a girl harboring secret notions of greatness.

And she had to have slim ankles.

It begins—as such tales often do—with a neighborhood fête, an attempt by the nouveau riche widower to impress his skeptical new neighbors. It's late January, 1883, just northeast of Los Angeles. Levine has even gone so far as to name his fête, "A Winter Evening at Rancho Santa Isabel." Engraved invitations are sent. And on one of these, he has added a note in his rough, farm-boy scrawl—millionaire though he is, he's never lost it.

Stay on for the weekend, in our guest room at the Adobe, plenty of room for your whole family. Croquet, picnics, ride to the shore if weather holds. Others will be at the Oakdale Inn, but please, do me the honor. –Lawrence Levine.

Should one accept? This is not an easy decision for Mrs. James Demerest. On the one hand, Mr. Levine has observed the six-month mourning period, and has every right to give a party and properly introduce himself to the neighborhood. But Mrs. Demerest is also the mother of a slender dark-haired sixteen-year-old—"the architect's daughter," as she'll be called in the newspapers not long from now—and on this score, a mother has every right to be nervous.

But young Caroline Demerest has already seen the invitation on the hall table and wants to go. Wants, more accurately, to wear her new sea-foam silk, with its perfect pink roses cascading down one side. Her first real party dress. "We have to go, Maman," she cries.

"Only," begins her mother. "If he asks you to take a little walk, or pulls you aside, even in a crowded room, excuse yourself. Be polite. But to say yes would bring the end of all your happiness and youth." Mrs. Demerest lays a hand on Caroline's arm.

"All my happiness and youth?" Caroline opens her eyes mockingly wide.

"Just promise me."

"I promise. But Mother, what would he do to me?"

There is no mistaking the child's tone: reckless, even hopeful. The consequence of reading too many novels. Mrs. Demerest has no choice. She leans in close and says, "Something horrible. Something you would never want to happen to your own beloved daughter." And without the slightest act of will, tears spring from her eyes. "Do I have your word?"

"If I can still wear my new dress," says Caroline.

The truth is, they have to go. Mr. Demerest has already begun work on a railroad depot to be built on the edge of Levine's ranch, against the day, prophesied by Levine himself, the Big Four will at last see fit to break through the granite of the local mountains and connect Los Angeles to the rest of the world. Levine has met with him over other projects, too: chiefly, a coach barn, and a magnificent stable for racehorses. Filigreed ironwork everywhere, inlaid wood between the stalls, arched ceilings like a cathedral's.

At one of their meetings, Mr. Demerest told his wife, he and Levine made small talk about their families, and Levine remarked that he'd seen Caroline at a recent concert. "That little beauty's going to give you trouble," he'd said. "She reminds me some of my Eliza, who gave me the sweetest trouble I ever had."

An awkward silence had fallen. Demerest couldn't for the life of him remember if Eliza was the name of Levine's little daughter, or of the dead wife, so he simply said, "You have my condolences, Sir."

Levine laughed. "And you, my friend, have mine."

It takes almost nothing: a man makes a business deal, unaware that a new clause has been slipped into the contract...