Siri Mitchell

by Unrivaled

  She nodded. Then followed it with a shake of her head. “It’s true that I said it, but it’s not true that we have a German buyer.”

  “Then . . . ? Who is it? Who’s our spy?”

  “I don’t . . . know. I’m not sure. I only told one person about the Germans.” Her brow furrowed as if she were trying to work something out. “It wasn’t true, not when I said it, and it’s not true now. I just wanted to . . . I wanted some time, Charlie. I really don’t want to have to sell.”

  “I know you don’t. But you have to tell me who the spy is.”

  “I only wanted to—”

  “That’s fine, Lucy. It doesn’t matter. The important thing is that we know now.”

  “I wanted, I was hoping—”

  “Who is it!”

  “My mother.”

  Her . . . ? Her mother? “Are you sure?”

  She nodded.

  How could it be her mother? “Wasn’t there anyone else you told?”

  “No. Who else would there have been? But if it’s my mother . . . how could it be, Charlie? How could it be my mother? And what should we do now?”

  What should we do?

  I told Lucy I’d figure something out. It wouldn’t do any good to ask my father directly. I was afraid he’d only deny it. Besides, I had a feeling Lucy needed to hear it from both my father and her mother. And the only way to do that was to get them to meet.

  I convinced my father to have lunch with me at the club the next day, and I asked Lucy to arrange the same with her mother. We met, the two of us, a quarter of an hour before.

  She was trembling.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “No. You’re not.”

  “If you’re nice to me right now, Charlie, I’m going to burst into tears. The best thing you can do for me is say something mean.” She was looking at me expectantly.

  “I . . . can’t.”

  Her features seemed to sag. “Please.”

  The whispered word tore at my heart. “You’re the most ornery, most cantankerous woman I’ve ever known.”

  Her mouth turned up at a corner.

  “And the most beautiful.”

  “Charlie.” Her lips curved into a wobbly smile as she stretched out a gloved hand toward me.

  “If you weren’t a Kendall . . .” I leaned toward her as I took her hand in my own.

  Her mother walked into the dining room and Lucy stiffened, pulling her hand from mine.

  I gave her hand a squeeze before I released it.

  When my father appeared, five minutes later, I led him toward the table where the Kendalls were seated. As we approached, Mrs. Kendall nodded. Lucy glared. If I didn’t know how frightened she was, how betrayed she felt, I never would have known it.

  “I believe you all have met.” I smiled for the benefit of Lucy’s mother.

  Father took the cigar from his mouth. “It’s been a while.”

  Lucy tried to smile, but the warmth didn’t reach her eyes. “Why don’t you both sit with us?”

  I pulled out a chair and sat before anyone could protest, leaving my father standing. He looked away from us toward a table in the corner. “I don’t think—”

  I looked up at him. “You and Mrs. Kendall must have a lot to talk about. With those Germans intending to make an offer for City Confectionery.”

  Mrs. Kendall’s mouth dropped open, but she quickly shut it up.

  My father cleared his throat. “I don’t think you ought to be talking business in front of the ladies, Charles.”

  “Please don’t worry yourself, Mr. Clarke.” Lucy’s look was withering. “My mother certainly has no qualms about talking business in front of you.”

  “Lucy . . . ?” Mrs. Kendall sounded as if she were pleading.

  “It was you, wasn’t it? We knew there was a spy in the company, and it was you.” Lucy’s eyes were begging her mother to deny it.

  Mrs. Kendall only sighed. “It was.”

  “But why?!”

  47

  There was only one way any of this made sense. “Are you . . . trying to sell us to Standard?”

  Mother did nothing to avoid the accusation. In fact, she seemed to welcome it, her eyes flashing. “Who else did you think would want to buy us?”

  “But—Standard?”

  She raised her chin. “Yes. Standard Candy Manufacturing!”

  “You would have sold our company to Mr. Clarke?”

  “I already gave it to him once. I thought that would be the end of it. But then your father started the confectionery—”

  “Wait a minute.” Charlie was pointing a finger at his father. “Just one minute. This favor you’ve always talked about owing . . .”

  His father had pulled a cigar from his coat pocket and was rolling it between his fingers. “Well, you see . . .”

  “There’s no point in denying it, Warren.”

  Warren? My mother had called him Warren? As if they were . . . friends?

  “We made a deal, back ten years ago.” Mr. Clarke was looking at my mother from the corner of his eyes as he spoke.

  Mother was nodding. “I arranged it so he could have the company.”

  Arranged it? “You stole it!”

  “Stole it?” Mr. Clarke laughed. “Edith had the contracts written up for me. All I had to do was sign them.”

  Lies! Why wouldn’t they tell the truth? “Stop being friends!” I must have said it too loudly, for the members at the other tables turned to look at ours. I lowered my voice. “Stop it.”

  Mr. Clarke blinked. “But your mother did me the favor of a lifetime.”

  “And so this past summer, after I realized your father wasn’t getting better, I asked for his help in return. The company would already have been sold if you hadn’t come back from Europe so set against it.”

  “But—”

  “And if you hadn’t contacted the Germans.”

  “I didn’t!” At least I gained some satisfaction from the confusion that clouded her eyes. “I made that up.”

  Her mouth crimped down. “Then all you’ve done is delay the inevitable. I’ve already accepted Warren’s offer. All you’ve done by delaying is to leave the company in worse shape for him.” She looked over at him. “I’m sorry. I meant to offer you a company worth your money and now . . .”

  Mr. Clarke looked at me. “At the time of my offer, back in the summer, it was a fair price. But then you threatened to tell your father and you insisted on keeping things going . . .” He stared at his cigar. “I don’t mind telling you what I agreed to is now an overpayment. The longer I had to wait, the more I wanted to have it all over and done with. So your mother agreed to help things along by telling me your plans.”

  My mother reached for my hand. “All I’ve ever wanted is to be rid of the candy business. Your father could have had a perfectly decent job down at your grandfather’s bank, and he would still have his health. He could have been the chairman by now. We could have moved from Vandeventer Place. And . . . and I could have been the one to take you to Europe! You could have loved me.”

  I looked over at the man who had once loomed so large in my life. He no longer seemed especially fearsome. I turned back and spoke softly. “I didn’t ever not love you, Mama.”

  She began to cry. “That’s the first time you’ve called me that since you’ve been back. Did you know that? I sent you to Europe with my sister knowing that it could only take you further away from me. Only put more distance between us. But how could I not have allowed you to go? How could I not let you improve yourself?”

  Why hadn’t I ever been good enough for her the way I was?

  “Truly, Lucy. What I’ve done, I’ve always done for you.”

  I pushed away from the table. “But you’ve betrayed us. Both of us.”

  “Betrayed you! All I’ve ever done is try to look after you and your father. You haven’t an ounce of sense between you. Candy won’t keep you in clothes or in food.” />
  “You’ve never understood us.”

  She threw up her hands in apparent exasperation. “No, I guess I never have. I’ve never understood what it’s all about.”

  “It’s about money.” Charlie’s father pronounced those words quite firmly.

  Both Charlie and I turned on him. “No, it’s not!”

  “It’s about . . . it’s about dreams.” Charlie spoke to his father almost viciously. “And the world being perfect for just one moment.”

  Mr. Clarke shook his head as he looked at me. “Things have a way of working out for the best. Once I buy City Confectionery, I’m going to give it to Charles to manage. I can see you have some hold on his affections. Maybe he’ll even keep the name.”

  It would have been kinder to have struck me. I closed my eyes against the greatest betrayal I had ever experienced. I’d known Charlie was my enemy. I had fought against him knowing that we only wanted what our fathers did, but I could never look at him again knowing he’d wanted to take what was mine. “Charlie?” I was hoping that he would tell me it wasn’t true. That his father was mistaken.

  “It wasn’t my idea.”

  “So you’re really going to . . .”

  “That was never what I wanted. It was his idea. Lucy, you have to believe—”

  I walked from the room, trying my best not to give voice to the sob that was strangling my throat.

  Once home, I fled to father’s room. I couldn’t help it. Mine seemed so desolate and lonely. “It’s over. Mother’s sold the company.” There was no point in keeping it from him any longer. Tears cascaded down my cheeks. I pulled off my gloves and swiped at them with one of the leather fingers.

  “She told me.”

  “I tried, Papa. I tried to save the company.”

  “I don’t see how you could have done much about it.”

  “I tried to make a new candy, and I tried to make people buy more Fancies. And then, I tried to marry Alfred Arthur. But none of it worked!” Nothing I’d tried had made the slightest bit of difference.

  “I know, Sugar Plum.” He opened his arms to me, and I knelt beside the bed and took refuge in them.

  “I wanted to save the company for you.”

  “I know you did. But now it’s time to let it go.”

  “I tried. I tried to do it, but you were right about me.” That’s what hurt the most. “I’m not any good at making candy. I’m not good at any of it.”

  “Not good at it? You’re better than I ever was.”

  “But . . . but you always said . . . you said you didn’t want me making candy.”

  He leaned forward and brushed my tear-drenched hair from my cheek. “I always said I didn’t want you in the confectionery because I knew what it would do to you, not because you weren’t good at it. You’re too much like me. I didn’t want you to make a mess of things the way I had. You have all the talent in the world, but even talent won’t keep sugar from burning if you keep it on the stove too long.”

  Lines of fatigue had set in around his mouth. I’d overtaxed him with my worries. I kept forgetting he wasn’t well. “I just wanted you to be proud of me.”

  “I’ve always been proud of you.”

  Now I was crying in earnest. “It’s not fair.”

  “Life’s not fair, Lucy. It’s not fair that a moment’s inattention can turn taffy into toffee. But they both have their uses.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “We’re selling the company, just like last time, and we’re letting someone else worry about it.”

  “ . . . last time?”

  “Just like when we sold it to Clarke the first time. We’ve done this before, we can do it again.”

  “But you always said that he stole it. Did . . . did he not steal it?” Had Charlie really been telling the truth the whole time?

  He put a hand atop mine. “That’s what it felt like, Sugar Plum. Imagine walking into work, into my own company even, and being told I didn’t have the right to be there anymore. That I couldn’t even make my own candy. It felt . . . it felt like . . . it felt like watching sugar burn. There’s nothing you can do to stop it or make it better. It’s too late to do anything at all.”

  “Then he didn’t steal it from you?”

  “That’s sure what it felt like.” He was staring off into the space beyond my left shoulder, and what color had been in his face had drained away.

  “You should get some rest, Papa.”

  He started. “What?”

  “Rest. You should get some rest.”

  “I’ve had a lot of time to think in the past few months. Your mother has always been right about me. And you can say anything you want about Warren Clarke, but he’s done better with that taffy than I ever did. Can’t fault him for profiting from my mistakes. He deserved the company.”

  I tried to smile, but I just couldn’t. How could he say a Clarke deserved anything? I left him and went down the hall to my room, sat down on the floor in the corner where my silk chair used to be, and wept. If father had actually made an agreement, then the loss of Royal Taffy wasn’t Mr. Clarke’s fault. It was my father’s fault.

  Everything I’d believed to be true was a lie.

  That night I woke with a fright. I sat, hand at my heart, listening for whatever had jolted me from sleep. As I waited there came a thunderous explosion. It rattled the windows in their casements and it lightened the curtains drawn over them, sending light streaking across the bedroom.

  I jumped from bed and drew the curtains back. The sky glowed above the rooftops of the houses across the street.

  As I stood there, I heard another explosion and saw flames flash against the night sky. I put a hand to my eyes to block the brightness. It looked to be happening down south. At just about the place where I used to see the Standard Manufacturing smokestack pierce the sky.

  Only . . . it wasn’t there anymore.

  Apprehension squeezed my heart as I slipped away from the house the next morning. I had tried, all night, to convince myself that the explosion had nothing to do with Standard.

  It hadn’t worked.

  I took the streetcar to Grand Avenue and then walked south, hat pulled low across my forehead, fur coat drawn tight about me. Curls of smoke drifted across a pale sky. The farther I went, the more an acrid odor permeated the air. It was interlaced with the smell of burnt sugar. When I finally reached the corner of Magnolia and Nebraska, I saw my fears had been well-founded. Standard Candy lay blackened and broken, the ribs of its factory steaming in the morning’s light. Though I had thought to get there before anyone else had risen, and in spite of the fact it was a Sunday, I joined a crowd of dozens who had gathered to view the sight.

  Firemen were about, rushing here and there, when flames flared from the charred ruins.

  Charlie was there. He was standing beside his father, staring silently at the scorched and twisted mess. As I watched, a creaking groan spread through the building. A fireman shouted. The crowd shifted backward as the last of the supports crumbled and fell into the smoldering ruins.

  A heady kind of elation soared in my heart until the words of Winnie Compton came back to me: “You’re mean and bossy and selfish.” She’d been absolutely right. I was.

  I hurried from that place, stumbling back north. I nearly ran the first four blocks, but I had to pause, lungs heaving, to collect my breath.

  I returned to the house just as Mrs. Hughes was stirring up the fire.

  “You’re up early. Did you hear that excitement last night? Sounded like the Fourth of July!”

  “I heard it.” I walked past her toward the front hall.

  “Don’t you want any breakfast?”

  I wasn’t hungry.

  “You’re mean and bossy and selfish. . . . You’ve never been nice.”

  Winnie was right. I’d been all those things. I still was. What I’d felt as I saw the smoldering ruins was triumph, not pity. Only it wasn’t a victory. The Clarkes weren’t the villains in all of t
his. My father was.

  And so was I.

  We were two candies pressed in the same mold who wanted to blame others for their failings. I took after my father in more ways than I had ever wanted to. But now, I could finally see the truth. My mother was the hero of my family. She’s the only one of the three of us who had always maintained a firm grip of the possible, who had never stooped to lying, cheating, or sabotage . . . until I’d forced her to.

  I begged off going to church that morning, saying I wasn’t feeling well. But the fire was all anyone wanted to talk about. Mother mentioned it in passing when she came up to see me after church. And that’s all Sam could speak of later that afternoon when he came over with his father to have dinner with us. By then, nerves had driven me from my room down to the parlor. I couldn’t stand to be alone with my thoughts any longer.

  “It burned all the way to the ground. You should see it, Lucy!” He whispered the words as we ate dessert.

  I had.

  “I doubt they’ll be able to rebuild.”

  That’s what I’d wanted, wasn’t it? I’d wanted Standard to be destroyed.

  “It’s uncanny, isn’t it?”

  “What is?”

  “That fire. It’s like God heard your prayers or something.”

  After Sam and his father left, I wrapped the fur coat around me and headed out the door. I needed . . . something.

  I needed not to be myself anymore. I needed to change.

  Though I had no place to go, I struck off down the street and out of Vandeventer Place. Before I knew where I was going, I was walking up the steps of the church.

  It’s not that I wanted to talk to God.

  That’s what I’d been trying hard not to do ever since I’d left for the Continent. In all of the churches that I’d visited in Europe, in all the cathedrals that I’d seen, I’d made a point of ignoring the divine. If God had given me such a passion and talent for something I wasn’t allowed to do, I’d decided He deserved it. But it turned out my passion was misguided, and I didn’t have all that much talent for making candy anyway.