Siri Mitchell

by Unrivaled

  Didn’t understand? I would have thought it was clear as day. We were trying to get rid of her father’s company.

  “It’s at cross-purposes with the plan, and the longer we wait, the worse my position gets, but . . .” He shrugged. “I don’t see that there’s anything more to do right now. Until those supplies get here, we’ll have to shut our doors.”

  That’s about what I’d figured. “I’ll let all the workers go home. Although . . . I did tell them that they’d be paid.”

  He raised a brow. “You told them wrong, then.”

  “It wasn’t their fault we didn’t have the supplies.”

  “Of course it wasn’t. But I can’t pay them if I don’t make any money.”

  I thought of the Boys’ Brigade and how thin some of them were. “If they don’t get paid, then some of them might not eat this week.”

  “That’s not my problem.”

  “Some of the men will probably lose their homes.”

  “Again: Not my problem. My problem is keeping my customers happy. The customer is the person who matters.”

  “Do you even know who that customer is?”

  “Of course! It’s the variety stores and Stix and Vandervoort’s and places like that.”

  “The real customers are people just like those workers down there. They’re the newsies who earn a few cents a day and spend some of it on a Royal Taffy. Do you—do you even realize what you’re selling? It’s not candy. It’s a—a dream. It’s not sugar and oil and flavoring. It’s a blessed five minutes when they don’t have to think about anything else but how perfect a Royal Taffy tastes. You’re selling a vision of all that’s right in the world. That’s your product. And that’s your customer. And you won’t have any of them if we can’t keep the workers.”

  He dismissed all of my outrage with a wave of his cigar. “I’ve never had a problem keeping workers. The minute one walks out of the factory, there are ten more willing to take his place. Why should you care what happens to them?”

  “Because I used to be one of them! I scraped together every penny I could so that we could pay the grocer’s bill. And I never had any left over for candy.”

  At least he had the grace to looked shamed. “I . . . didn’t know.”

  “Because you didn’t care to.” I couldn’t stop the words from coming out of my mouth. “What did you think happened to us once you left?”

  “Your mother’s the one who sued for divorce.”

  “You left us. She only made official what you’d already done. You left us in a house that was falling apart with no food in the cupboards and no wood for the fire. Do you even know what happened to Tillie? Do you want to?”

  For a moment he looked just as weary as my mother always had. “Of course I know. How could you think I would forget about all of you? Just because I wasn’t there didn’t mean I didn’t care, that I didn’t know.”

  “You knew? About the consumption?”

  “Your mother wrote to me.”

  “You never . . . said . . .” He’d never said anything about it. Never showed his face at all in the fifteen years since he’d left.

  “I’d made such a mess of things, I figured the best I could do for all of you was just to stay away.”

  “The best you could do. So . . . you knew and you didn’t do anything about it.”

  “I did do something. I sent your mother money so she could take Tillie to a special doctor. In fact, I started sending your mother money the moment I got established here. And I kept sending money. But she wouldn’t take any of it. She always sent it back . . . until Tillie.”

  I remembered that. I remembered taking my mother and my sister to a doctor. Remembered thinking that at last all my work had been good for something. That I’d finally earned enough money to do my family some good. Only I hadn’t. It was my father’s money that had paid for it. And Tillie had grown too ill by then. “But you never came. Not when she was sick. And not to the funeral.”

  “Son. I’d given up that right.”

  “Did you know about Ruthie? How she got married at sixteen to a lout who isn’t worth ten dimes?”

  “Your mother didn’t—”

  “Because he had a car. She married him because he had a car. They don’t have a house and they hardly have anything to eat, but he has a car.” I felt like hitting something.

  “You can’t blame me for her poor judgment.”

  “I could blame you for her lack of any model to judge by, but as I look at you I realize that’s not fair.”

  He fumbled with his lighter.

  “Even if you’d been there, you couldn’t have given her an example good enough to measure anyone by.”

  He set the lighter down. “That is not fair, Charles. I run a business, not a charity.”

  “You’ve made that more than clear to everyone who works here!”

  “I didn’t get where I am by worrying about my workers. Or their pay.”

  “No. You got where you are by stealing someone’s recipe and then taking care of yourself.”

  “That’s not what happened. I was given that recipe, fair and square.”

  “You can’t just—just steal someone else’s life because you don’t like yours. You don’t get to throw people away and start over!”

  “I never threw you away.”

  “You might as well have.”

  He sighed. “I’m sorry you feel that way.”

  “I don’t even know why I’m standing here listening to you. I don’t even know why I came.”

  He put his cigar down and came around his desk to put a hand to my shoulder. “Because I want to make it up to you. I want to help you. I want to give you the success that I spent years working for.”

  He wanted to give me something. Well. It was about time. It was past time. He was offering me everything I’d always wanted as a boy. The chance to work with him. The chance to be with him. The chance to know him. He finally wanted me to be his son. But I no longer knew what I wanted. And I didn’t know who I was.

  I had Nelson drive me back to the house. I pulled my mother’s old satchel out from under the bed and put one of the worsted suits into it, followed by three of my new shirts. The rest of the clothes weren’t worth the space. I’d come to St. Louis wearing a suit that Mr. Dreffs had thrown away and an old derby hat. If the only thing I took with me was a change of clothes, then I would leave a better man.

  There was no one in the city to say good-bye to, except for Winnie, maybe. But she’d probably only ask me questions about church and accuse me of not listening to anything. And there was Lucy. But I didn’t want to see her gloat. She’d figure out soon enough that I’d gone. And it wouldn’t take her much longer to realize that my leaving changed nothing. My father was bent on the Kendall family’s destruction. If I could say nothing else about him, he always seemed to get what he wanted.

  I went down the service stairs and out to the garage.

  Nelson was bent over Louise, a rag in his hand. He straightened as he saw me. “Going somewhere, Mr. Clarke?”

  “I was hoping you’d take me over to Chestnut Valley.”

  “Gonna do some dancing tonight?”

  Or play some cards. I’d sent most of last week’s pay check to my mother in Chicago, just like the week before. At least she hadn’t sent any of it back. But if I wanted to leave the city with a train ticket in my pocket, then I needed some way to buy it.

  I didn’t take my satchel with me; I left it in the garage. Only a fool brings everything he owns with him to the gambling table. I was down to my last Royal Taffy when I finally won enough money to make it worth going to the train station.

  “Sure would have liked to have won that candy.”

  I looked over at the man who was staring at the taffy with true regret. Tossing it to him, I gave a nod and a wink to the others.

  “Tell us we have a chance at winning back our money tomorrow night.”

  “Sorry to disappoint.” By the next evening, I hoped to
be in Colorado.

  I walked back to the house. The wind was brisker than when I’d left. I turned up the collar of my overcoat against it, but the cooler air did me some good, helped to clear my head. Once home, I grabbed my satchel, pushed my hat farther down on my head, and set off for the train station.

  Or I would have if I hadn’t nearly run my father down in the process.

  He stepped back from the walk onto the winter-hardened grass, looking pointedly at my satchel. “Where are you going?”

  I shrugged. “San Francisco.”

  He took the cigar from his mouth and motioned back into the house. “Don’t. I hadn’t realized . . . I thought . . .” He sighed. “I might not have been the man I should have back then, but I’m worth knowing now. Now I’m a man you can be proud to call your father.”

  “It was never about you.” It was about me. And my sisters. And my mother.

  “I understand I did a lot of things wrong. But I want you to stay.”

  He wanted me to stay. “And what about me? I wanted a lot of things back when you left, and I never got one of them.” My throat had gone tight, and there was a lump in it that I couldn’t quite swallow. Cold air always did that to me.

  “I’ve missed you.”

  “And you think that can make up for the past fifteen years?” Somehow I managed to get the words out.

  “I hope so.”

  I swallowed. And then I swallowed once more. “I’ll take that into consideration.”

  He moved to embrace me, but I put a hand out to stop him. And then, because I couldn’t speak, I turned and went back into the house.

  He wanted me to stay. Though his words had done me good to hear, I would have said no if I’d known what was waiting for me down at the factory. Getting the machines back to work was more of a headache than anyone expected. The different sugars came quickly, but there was a delay in getting the flavoring. And additional butter couldn’t be delivered until the beginning of the next week. It took sugar, vinegar, flavorings, water, and butter to make Royal Taffy. We couldn’t start production until all the ingredients arrived.

  Dwindling numbers of workers showed up at the gates each morning. And each morning we turned them away. When my father asked me to sit in on his meeting with the company’s lawyer, I was more than happy to.

  It was with a bad temper and a growing headache that I attended a concert Thursday evening. Every beat of that big drum drove the pain further into my skull. By intermission, all I wanted was to leave. Knowing that I couldn’t, I decided a stiff drink would have to do. I angled my way to the bar and ordered a whiskey for myself and a lemonade for Augusta. As I turned to leave, I saw Lucy Kendall. Everyone else seemed to be deceived by her bright blue eyes and caramel-colored hair. Everyone else was taken in by the way she smiled as if you were her favorite person in the world. By the way she looked you in the eyes when you were talking as if what you had to say was important.

  But I knew the truth.

  I handed Augusta her drink, downed my own, then made my way through the crowds to Lucy. There were a few things I wanted to tell her.

  When she saw me, alarm flared in her eyes. She stepped behind Alfred as if she hoped he would protect her.

  I pushed him aside, grabbed her by the arm, and pulled her along with me toward the far wall. “It was you, wasn’t it? You’re the one to blame.”

  Alfred trotted along beside us. “Here, now! Watch yourself, Clarke! You’re going to tear her sash.”

  Her sash. The ever-present reminder that she was the Queen of Love and Beauty. I almost laughed in his face. I would have if my head hadn’t been hurting so badly. “She’s no queen! And there’s not one ounce of love in her cold, black heart!”

  Lucy put a hand on her fiancé’s arm. “I’m fine. If Mr. Clarke has something to say, then we might as well let him say it.” Her chin tipped up as her eyes glinted.

  I stepped toward her.

  She stood her ground.

  One more step, one more inch, and I could have devoured her.

  Or murdered her.

  “You’d better just—just—watch out!” I’d never wanted to strangle or kiss a girl so badly in all my life. It must have been the headache. Or the whiskey.

  She smirked.

  That decided me. “It’s all a game to you, isn’t it? Standard will survive, and we’ll start making Royal Taffy again by the end of next week. You haven’t hurt us at all. But you’d better explain yourself to all those boys and girls who aren’t working. They aren’t getting paid for yesterday or today or tomorrow. And while you’re explaining, you might want to figure out where their families are going to sleep once they get turned out of whatever shack it is they’ve been using. That’s the problem with you rich people, you have no idea how people really live!”

  The smirk had fallen off her face, and she took a step back as if she were afraid I might hit her. “I didn’t mean—”

  “Don’t tell me what it is you meant to do! Just figure out how to fix what you did.”

  35

  As I stood in front of my dresser after the concert on Thursday night, I tried to unfasten my pearl necklace, but my trembling fingers kept slipping from the clasp. I hated pearls! They were just so—so round and perfect. I choked back a sob.

  “Just figure out how to fix what you did.”

  Every boom of the drum in the symphony’s fourth movement had driven a stake into my heart. It was only due to the greatest of efforts that I hadn’t dissolved into tears during the carriage ride home.

  I put the necklace back into its case, then drew a kimono on over my corset and drawers.

  I hadn’t really given a first or second thought to the consequences of canceling Standard’s deliveries. As much as it grieved me to say it, Charlie was right. The people I’d hurt weren’t him and his father; it was the workers who labored at the factory. I’d hurt people like Sam and Mr. Blakely, Morris and Edna . . . the very kind of people I’d thought I was protecting. My father would be so ashamed of me.

  I sat down on my bed, covered my face with my hands, and wept.

  How had everything gone so wrong?

  All I’d wanted was to save the confectionery for my father. To make him see that I was worthy of helping him. The only thing I’d ever wanted to do was make candy. And now, even that talent had deserted me. The Veiled Prophet candy had made it plain that I had no taste.

  I might as well be Walter Minard.

  Father was right. Girls shouldn’t meddle in business.

  And Winnie was right: I was mean.

  But Charlie was the right-est of them all: Maybe I really did have a cold, black heart.

  I pushed away from the bed and took a deep, steadying breath. Then I gave myself a long, hard stare in the mirror. In the morning I would tell Mother to sell the company. I would still be engaged to marry Mr. Arthur, but that wasn’t the worst of things. He was the most eligible bachelor in the city. Making a good marriage was what I was supposed to do. Maybe that’s the best that I could do. Maybe I’d expected too much from life and from myself.

  I couldn’t be unhappy with my engagement; it was a brilliant match. Mr. Arthur was every girl’s dream. I may have encouraged him for the wrong reasons, but in the end it had turned out right, hadn’t it? It was the only smart thing I’d done these past few months.

  As I stood there sniffling, I pulled the pins from my hair, letting it tumble down over my shoulders. Then I picked up a hairbrush and started counting strokes. One, two, three . . . I would put an end to all this foolishness and I would concentrate on becoming Mrs. Alfred Arthur. I sighed as I watched myself in the mirror. Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four . . . I would do what I was meant to do because what I wanted to do wasn’t possible. I brushed my hair for a while longer before bending at the waist to let my hair fall toward the floor. Then I started brushing it out from underneath. Forty-seven, forty-eight, forty-nine . . . I couldn’t create a candy worth eating, and I couldn’t keep Standard from destr
oying City Confectionery. I hadn’t been able to do anything at all since Charlie Clarke had come to the city. Eighty-one, eighty-two, eighty-three.

  Ouch!

  I took some extra care untangling a knot at the nape of my neck before I started counting again. Ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred.

  I swept away the last of my tears, put my brush away, and turned the light off. In the past, tears had always made me feel better. They’d always made room for more comforting thoughts. But tonight I discovered that nothing had come to replace them. No hope and no peace. I felt even more empty than I had before.

  I had just broached the topic of the sale with Mother over breakfast when Sam banged through the kitchen and into the dining room.

  Mother greeted him with a look of exasperation. “May we help you, Mr. Blakely?”

  “I just needed to know what to do with the extra Fancies.”

  “Extra?” Mother said the word slowly as if she didn’t quite know what it meant. Today was delivery day, and he usually only took enough in the wagon to cover what had been ordered.

  “Stix, Bauer and Fuller wouldn’t take theirs.”

  “They wouldn’t take their own order?”

  “Nope. Said something about a contract with Standard.”

  I had a bad feeling in the depths of my stomach where my hate for Charlie Clarke normally dwelled. “What exactly did they say?”

  “Said they wouldn’t take it.”

  “Besides that.”

  “On account of the contract.”

  “What contract?” Mother and I echoed the same question.

  “With Stix—”

  Mother was going to wring his neck if he wasn’t careful. “Yes, but did they say what the contract was about?”

  He shrugged. “Candy, probably.”

  “I’m going to go and straighten this out.” I put my napkin on the table and rose from my chair.

  Mother covered my hand with her own. “That’s what we have Mr. Blakely for.”