Siri Mitchell

by Unrivaled

  “What he doesn’t know won’t worry him. And what if I succeed?” I would succeed. All I needed was a chance.

  “No.”

  “Please!”

  “No. I won’t discuss this further. And in any case, I came up here to tell you something.” She took an envelope from my dresser top and presented it to me with a flourish. “You’ve been named the Queen of the Veiled Prophet Ball!”

  How could she think of balls at a time like this?

  “It wouldn’t do for a member of the court to take part in commerce. It’s your debutante year, Lucy.” She grimaced. “It’s actually a year behind your debutante year. The rest of your friends have come out already, and most of them have married. Perhaps this has been fated all along, your coming out into society at a time when your father and I need you. A good marriage would help us all.”

  Marriage? I hadn’t realized I had recoiled from her until she sought my hand and said, “I’m only trying to think of your future.”

  “And I’m trying to think of all of our futures. If you would just let me—”

  “The business needs to be sold.” She spoke the words slowly as if I hadn’t understood them the first time.

  “I can’t believe you’d just give it up without—without even trying to save it! That’s not what Father would want.”

  “Your father has done exactly as he wants for years now, and all it’s given him is a heart attack. Isn’t it about time we tried something else? Found some other way to manage?”

  I pushed from my bed and stalked to the door. “I’m going to tell him. I’m going to tell him exactly what it is you’re trying to do.”

  Something flashed in her eyes. Fear? Guilt? “Don’t.”

  “If you give me a chance to save the company, if you give me time to create a new candy, then I won’t.”

  She gave me a long, steady look, then seemed to deflate before my eyes. “Fine. I’ll give you one month. But promise me one thing: You must take part in the Veiled Prophet Ball. And you have to put your heart into it, Lucy. It’s an opportunity you can’t afford to miss.”

  I thought it over for a moment before nodding. If I could come up with a new candy, then the ball would be the perfect place to introduce it. Standard Candy Manufacturing would never be able to top that. “I wouldn’t think of missing it.”

  The next morning I was permitted to see my father.

  He was awake when my mother ushered me through the door, though the curtains were still drawn against the day.

  “Lucy. My Sugar Plum.” His skin was ashen, his eyes were sunken. Even his voice seemed somehow diminished. I had been alarmed when I had been told of his heart problems. Now I was truly frightened.

  “Papa.” I had come home, hoping to mend the rift I’d made between us. Hoping to prove to him my worth. Now I was afraid even to touch him, for fear of causing more harm.

  He reached an arm out toward me. “You’ve come home. At last.”

  I’d never seen him in his nightshirt before. It made him seem . . . different. Weakened. Less. “I have.” I stood at his bedside, hands clasped in front of me.

  “Sit down. Stay awhile. Did you bring me any candy?”

  Mother helped him to a sitting position, plumped his pillows, and then eased him back onto them. “No candy. Doctor’s orders.”

  “Have you ever considered that just one little piece might give me the strength I need to recover? You can’t make a Fancy without the crunch.” He tried to smile at me.

  Mother pulled a handkerchief from her cuff and dabbed at the sweat that had broken out upon his forehead. “It’s not worth getting upset about.”

  “There’s got to be something worth getting upset about. Something more than the lukewarm soup and dry bread you keep forcing me eat.”

  Mother smoothed his hair back from his forehead and left the room. But not before giving me a stern glance of warning.

  “She refuses to let me eat butter either. Or cream.” He winced for a moment, and then his features relaxed. “Tell me about your travels.”

  “They were nice.”

  He raised a brow. “Nice? You went halfway around the world, and the only thing you have to say is that it was nice?”

  I felt my lips curl into a smile. I hadn’t realized until then that I’d been holding my breath. “It was so . . . amazing. So different. And there were so many things to do and to see.”

  I told him about the ballrooms of Vienna and the cathedrals of France. I described how it felt to stand on the Jungfrau and see the world spread out at my feet. I told him about eating mussels and eels and snails.

  “And they were all so delicious! But they were nothing compared to all the sweets. It seemed there were at least a dozen confectionaries in every village. I can’t count the number of candies I tasted. In Florence, there was even a—”

  A raspy snore lifted from the bed.

  “Papa?” I could see now that he had fallen asleep, chin resting on his chest.

  I rearranged the blanket, pushed his head back onto the pillows, and left him to his dreams. Then I went down the hall to my room and unpacked all my candy treasures, plucking one of my favorites, a Salzburg Mozartkugel, from the pile. I peeled away the foil wrapper and bit into it, admiring the multitude of layers hidden beneath the dark chocolate coating. How had they managed to make it so perfectly round? My tongue separated and identified the flavors: pistachio, marzipan, and chocolate. My mouth exulted in the contrasting textures. Creamy and crunchy, chewy with just the right amount of graininess. I sighed as the last of it melted away and wondered if there would ever be anyone to share candy with again.

  I reached into the trunk and brought out the gifts I’d collected. The lace tablecloth for Mother. A Bavarian pipe for Papa. And an assortment of embroidered pillow tops and lace doilies for my girlfriends. Really, I ought to transfer them to my hope chest and store them properly, wrapping them in paper instead of my underclothes.

  I asked a maid to bring up some old newspapers, and then I wandered downstairs, looking for Mother. I found her in the sitting room she used as an office, talking to my aunt. They looked up as I entered. “I’d like to go see Annie Farrell. I bought something for her on the trip.”

  Aunt Margaret excused herself. “I’ll go see what your uncle is doing.”

  “Annie Farrell . . . ?” Mother’s brow creased. “Oh! Annie Wagner. She married while you were gone.”

  “She . . . what? But whom? Whom did she marry?”

  “Roy Wagner.”

  “Who is Roy Wagner? I don’t think I—”

  “He’s a third cousin. On her mother’s side, from Kansas City. They moved there last spring.”

  I gave a quick gasp. “Away? From here?”

  “Well, of course! His business wasn’t here. It was out there.”

  Annie was gone? I’d never gotten the chance to say good-bye. “Is there . . . anyone else? Who got married?”

  “Oh my, yes! Harriett Marcus did. And Julia Shaw.” She paused as if debating with herself about something. When she spoke, it was in a whisper. “Julia . . . eloped.”

  The horror! I groped for the chair and sat in it, feeling rather disoriented. Annie and Julia had been my closest friends. They’d married—eloped, even!—and I hadn’t known it. “Did anyone not get married?” Wasn’t there anyone who was still like me?

  “Cora Taylor went away to college. To Vassar . . . or was it Swarthmore? I can never keep them straight. And Stella Lawrence went off to the Orient to be a missionary, if you can believe it. I don’t know what’s gotten into young girls these days.”

  Suddenly, St. Louis felt dismal and friendless.

  The maid presented herself and passed me the stack of newspapers I’d asked for. That dreadful murderer glared out at me from the top page. I turned it over so I wouldn’t have to look at him.

  “I’m sure Harriett Marcus would be happy to see you, although she’s Harriett Patterson now. She’s at-home for calls on Tuesday afternoons.”r />
  I didn’t want to call on her, I wanted to see her. To go up to her room and dance while we listened to phonograph records. I didn’t want to sit in some strange parlor and talk about . . . whatever married people talked about. “Whom did she marry?”

  “She married Archie Patterson.” Mother said it with a bend to her brow as if daring me to disapprove.

  I’d never liked Archie Patterson. And now Harriett was living with him in some new house, taking calls on Tuesdays, and . . . sitting with him at church on Sundays! All of my girlfriends were gone.

  “But Winnie Compton is still here. And she’s not married.” Mother reached across the table and patted my hand. “We can post your gift to Annie in Kansas City. I’m sure she’d love to hear from you.”

  She’d probably forgotten all about me . . . the same way I’d forgotten about her. I thought I’d returned to a city that was just the same, but everything had changed while I was gone.

  4

  I slept most of the way to St. Louis as the train swayed along the tracks. The previous day I witnessed my mother’s marriage and visited the grave of my little sister who’d died several years before. I hadn’t told anybody I was leaving. I figured it was better if no one knew where I was headed.

  I’d decided to give my father’s company a try. He owed me that at least. If it didn’t suit me—and why should it?—then I’d skip town and head out to Seattle. Or San Francisco, maybe.

  As the gaps between towns narrowed and the landscape outside my window lost its wheat fields and gained more roads and smokestacks, I sat up straighter. Spitting into my hand, I smoothed it over my hair and then I used my reflection in the window to straighten my tie.

  I set my derby back on at a tilt, barely pushing it down on my head, and regarded my reflection. A club man stared back at me. I grasped the hat by the brim and set it straight. Then I took hold of my rubber collar and stretched my neck, adjusting the way it lay. That was better. Now I was just plain old Charlie Clarke, who could be anything he wanted. I glanced around the train at the men riding in the car with me.

  There wasn’t anyone with Manny’s style. No one who wore his hat with the same tilt he had or held himself with quite the same flair. But then again, none of them had probably ever beaten a man to a pulp in an alley. I put a hand to my tie and tried to make the knot smaller. Tighter. The way everyone else was wearing theirs.

  I wished I could have traded my blue shirt for a white one. That’s what all these respectable folks were wearing. Slumping into the seat, I stared at myself while the world rushed past.

  I hadn’t seen my father in fifteen years. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea. Had Mother told him about Manny? She couldn’t have. If she had, he never would have asked me to come. I wondered if it were really true that he had asked for me. That he wanted me.

  He hadn’t before. Why should anything have changed?

  As I sat there, staring out the window, I thought of everything I’d done in the past fifteen years. There wasn’t one thing I was proud of. A familiar wave of fear lapped at my stomach. That old sense of doom. The thought that I could do nothing that would please my father. I pulled my flask from my pocket and downed a swig of whiskey, reminding myself that I was headed toward a new start, a new chance. Telling myself this time I wasn’t going to make a mess of it.

  He wasn’t there. After the crowd meeting the train had melted away, I’d found myself alone. But what had I expected? That he’d be there waiting to greet me like some long-lost son when he hadn’t even bothered to say good-bye all those years ago?

  A wiry old man wearing a suit festooned with shiny brass buttons came over and squinted up at me. Then he reached for the satchel I held in my hand. “With looks like yours, you’ll be Mr. Clarke’s son. I’m to take you on up home.”

  I followed him out to a touring car that had the top pulled up. The dark green chassis had been polished to a shine. I squinted from the sunlight’s glare off the white tires. It was the kind of car I had only ever dreamed of riding in. The mayor of Chicago himself had nothing half so fine.

  The man opened the door for me. I stepped up inside. The black leather seat was so long and so comfortable, I could have laid down on it and gone to sleep. And it smelled . . . it smelled just like money.

  Though I spent the ride through the city staring out the window, I couldn’t have told anyone what I’d seen. Eventually the driver slowed the car to turn onto a street lined with some of the biggest houses I’d ever seen. And then, down at the end of the long block, he stopped the car entirely.

  “This is my father’s house?” It was too big, with too many columns, too many steps and . . . too many windows. I couldn’t live here.

  “Fifty-four Portland Place. Guess it’s your house now too.”

  My house.

  No. It wouldn’t be my house. It would never be my house. My house was back in Chicago on the South Side. People like me didn’t live in places like this.

  The driver hopped out, then came back to open the door for me.

  I didn’t want to get out.

  “Are you coming, sir?”

  Of course I was. I wasn’t some seven-year-old kid anymore. What did I have to be afraid of? What more could my father do to me than he had already done? If anyone was leaving, this time it would be me. Maybe I should have done it right then, because as the driver was reaching past me for my satchel, the door to the mansion opened and my father walked out.

  He’d hardly changed since the night I’d last seen him fifteen years before. But I knew now what I would look like when my dark hair turned gray and my already thick eyebrows got tangled up with hair. The mouth that had been so swift to make promises, the eyes that had been so quick to wink, had left lines in his cheeks.

  He paused. And then he smiled.

  It was that same smile I used to see in my sleep when I was younger. The smile that had always made me feel as if everything would be all right. The smile that used to make me cry when I’d wake up and realize I would never see it again.

  He jogged down the walkway and came up to me, arms extended.

  I stuck out my hand.

  He took it between both of his and pumped it up and down. “It’s good to see you again.”

  I bit back the first reply that came to mind: It’s good to see you again too. I’d been right there where he’d left us for all those years. He could have seen me anytime he’d wanted to. Apparently he hadn’t.

  Some sort of fancy-smelling oil had finally managed to tame the hair that had always fallen forward, onto his brow. “You look good.” He clapped me on the forearm. “Come on inside. We’re leaving for the theater in just a few minutes, but that’ll give you a chance to get settled.” He propelled me up the walkway with a hand to my back.

  I walked a few steps ahead of him in order to be rid of it, but that meant I was first through the front door. Once I was inside, I didn’t know what to do. I’d stepped into a cavern framed by shiny wood panels that stretched two stories above my head.

  My father stopped to talk to the man who had opened the door. Then he joined me, hand extending toward my satchel.

  I gripped it tighter.

  “Is that all you brought?” He glanced at it with a frown. “I’ll have the butler take you upstairs and make sure you have everything you need. The kitchen will have supper ready for you whenever you want it.” He pulled a watch from his pocket. “I was thinking of having a drink and smoking a cigar before I go. If you care to join me, I’ll be in the library, just there.” He nodded down the hall.

  I didn’t care to, so I followed the butler up a long, curving flight of stairs and then took my time putting my few things away. And I didn’t go back downstairs until I was sure he’d left.

  I woke to the sound of . . . nothing at all, to find I’d slept straight through the night. There’d been no fights on the streets outside. No sounds of an argument in the apartment next door. Indeed, there was no apartment next door. And this morning there were n
o wheeled carts tumbling through the streets. No clatter of horses’ hooves. No cows mooing in their pens as they waited to be taken to the South Side slaughterhouses.

  Maybe this is what wealth bought: silence.

  My stomach began to rumble, and I decided I should find out what rich people ate for breakfast. I walked around the room opening doors before I remembered which one led into a bathroom. I turned a spigot and water came gushing out into a sink that was attached to the wall. Imagine that! I splashed some onto my face and shaved. After cleaning my rubber collar with a cloth, I fastened it to my blue shirt and dressed. Finally, after brushing off my coat, I took it from the stand where one of those servants had placed it. Then I fastened the hook on my already-knotted teck tie.

  All was quiet downstairs too—there seemed to be no one about.

  The previous evening I had eaten supper alone, served in a dining room that had sparkled with china plates and fancy glasses. All of that had been put away somewhere. But a few covered silver bowls were sitting on a sideboard. I lifted one of the lids.

  Eggs.

  I lifted another.

  Bacon.

  I looked beneath a third.

  Toast.

  So rich people ate what poor people did. They only served it from fancier dishes.

  “May I help you, sir?”

  I turned to see a girl standing at the entrance of the dining room. “I just . . . well . . . I wanted . . . breakfast?”

  She took a plate from a glass-fronted cupboard and filled it from the silver bowls. I moved to take it from her, but she stepped past me and placed it on the table. “Please, sir.” She gestured toward the chair.

  I sat.

  She brought me a cup and a silver pot filled with something. “Is that . . . ?”

  “Coffee. Would you like anything else, sir?”

  I might have, but I didn’t know what else there was. “No. Thank you.”

  She moved toward the door, but there was one thing I wanted to make plain. “I’m Charlie.”