Victorian San Francisco Stories Read Online Free Page B

stain. This, plus a recently healed cut on his index finger, indicated that Voss was the kind of business owner who wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty.
    The tell-tale sheen of the wool at the elbow and knees of his black suit suggested they were decades old, but his shirt had one of the modern-styled collars, his cuffs were nicely starched, and his watch chain and cuff links were solid gold. In addition, his thinning grey hair and modest mustache and beard were freshly barbered. Voss was clearly not a man who was about to throw out a suit if it was still serviceable, but he wasn’t poor by any means, and he probably had a manservant who made sure he went out of the house properly groomed, his clothes neatly pressed.
    “Please, could you turn your hands over now?” Annie responded after he added that he’d give anything a try once, if it would make him money. He barked out another short laugh and complied, staring at her challengingly.
    She’d prepared a whole speech about heart lines and the mount of Saturn, but she knew that this would just sound like some “hocus-pocus” to him. Picking up his right hand and examining the darker vertical and horizontal lines on his palms that intersected with white lines of more old scars, she said, “Mr. Voss, the purpose of our consultation today is for me to assess how your past is going to influence your future. Only then can I adequately advise you.”
    Ignoring his sound of derision, she continued. “As a carpenter, when you have a piece of wood in your hands, don’t you examine it? Determine what kind of tree it came from, read its history in the grain, the evidence of foxing, the placement of knotholes? And don’t you use that knowledge to decide how to make the best use of the wood, what its future should be? Should it be turned into the back of a chair, the legs of a sofa, an ornate frame for a mirror?”
    Seeing the first glimmer of interest in his slate grey eyes, she went on, using the bits of information she had gotten from the Steins, her knowledge about San Francisco’s history and economy, and her understanding of human nature, to tell Matthew Voss a story that she hoped he would find familiar enough to embrace as his own.
    “Your life line tells me there have been three stages to your life so far. The first part of the line shows decades of steady progress, then the line nearly breaks, which represents an abrupt change in your way of life. When you traveled west, perhaps? This was a time of struggle for you, but it was very short. See there, where the life line becomes progressively deeper and darker as it curves towards the base of your thumb? You found your life’s work, I believe. Wait, oh my, Mr. Voss. See where the vertical line of fate connects your heart line to your life line—right there.”
    Annie felt Voss’s hand jerk slightly. She paused, looked into his eyes, and said, “Mrs. Voss came into your life at that point, didn’t she? Tell me about her.”
    As if she had found a secret lever that opened up a locked box, Mathew Voss’s words tu mbled out.
    He told Annie about the first time he met his wife, Amelia, who’d been living among the Rincon Hill enclave of wealthy Southerners, and how he was instantly charmed by her gentle beauty. He described the progress of his courtship in detail. “Her mother didn’t think I was good enough.” Voss frowned at the memory. “Didn’t think this Yankee could treat her precious daughter like a lady. Far as I could find out, the two of them had been left penniless by Amelia’s father, some shiftless gambler, and they were living off the charity of a rich cousin. You can bet her mother changed her mind quick enough about me when I let slip how much I was worth.”
    He then proudly recounted to Annie how he had made his fortune by taking advantage of the opportunities offered by a city that was growing by over a thousand persons a day in the early fifties. “Every saloon needed a bar and stools,