The Golden Ledger

Volume Eight

The Fever Year

Chapters 701–800

Chapter 701: A Decision to Regret

Caleb got home at nine o’clock that evening.

Annie was still up, going over her schoolbooks, while the Little Scamp, as always, had played until she dropped and was now fast asleep.

Nobody ever had to chase that one to bed.

He had just come out of his bath and was getting ready to turn in when he realized the bell downstairs had been rung several times.

It was only when his mother, Martha, came down from upstairs and knocked on his door that he learned something had happened in the family.

She told him in a hurry to get over to the hospital at once.

Selma had been run down by a carriage full of young people while she was out making deliveries, and she had already been carried to the hospital.

Second Aunt was pacing the corridor half out of her mind, and Second Uncle was on the night train to Bay City.

That very day, driving his hack, Caleb had seen her dash past the crossing policeman’s hand and had thought it far too dangerous. He had meant to warn her.

He had never dreamed the accident would come so soon.

By the time he reached the hospital it was eleven o’clock, and Selma was still in the surgery.

Her six-year-old daughter was sobbing her heart out in the hallway.

Nothing her grandparents said could comfort her. As for the people who had run Selma down, they were not wholly without conscience.

At least they had brought her straight to the hospital.

And among them was a face Caleb knew.

Wasn’t that Zoe Yarwood?

She was there with a few classmates, and they had all plainly been drinking; they had come straight from the saloon.

Selma had been knocked senseless the moment she was struck. She had been dashing past the policeman’s hand, true, but Zoe and her friends had been driving a team while drunk.

They hadn’t dared to send for the marshal.

Whatever could be settled with money wasn’t counted a real trouble.

It wasn’t Zoe who had held the reins, but one of the other girls in her class.

That girl had also put down a deposit of two hundred dollars at the hospital.

They were only waiting for Selma to be well enough to leave, and then the matter would be talked over and settled.

Soon the parents of the girl who had been driving arrived as well.

When they learned their daughter had run someone down with drink in her, their faces changed for an instant.

Hearing from her that no one had sent for the marshal, they quietly packed their daughter off home without a word.

The pair of them were sly old foxes, and a plan had formed in their heads in no time.

By the next day, when the other side thought to raise the question, every trace of drink would long since have left their daughter.

By then it would simply be Selma’s own fault for dashing past the policeman’s hand.

They didn’t care a whit how Selma was faring.

All they could think of was clearing their daughter of blame, and they dreaded getting tangled up with a delivery girl of that sort.

When Caleb went over to speak with them himself, Zoe quietly put in a word.

This was the driver’s father.

“How would you like to handle this?”

Wally Sinclair said, “Don’t you worry. We won’t shortchange you by a single penny of what we owe.”

Caleb nodded. Since they had said as much, he had little else to add.

They seemed to have some sense of responsibility.

They would just wait until Selma was better and see.

Selma worked long hours making deliveries, usually from nine in the morning till eleven at night.

On top of that she had to take her daughter to school and fetch her home again.

For her, every extra penny she earned was a little more security for her daughter’s future.

Having married the wrong man in the first half of her life, she wanted nothing more in the second half than to earn money and raise her girl well.

She hoped that when her daughter grew up and married, it would be to a man she truly loved.

She had never imagined that not long after she began making deliveries, she would be run down by a carriage.

Misfortune always seemed to pick on those who had already had their share of it!

Once she was well, Caleb would not let her go back to running suppers.

The next day.

Selma was slowly mending and could just barely speak, but her foot was in a great plaster cast.

By the look of it, it would be two months before she could walk properly.

“I saw you dashing past the policeman’s hand yesterday while you were out on deliveries. I meant to call out to you, but you went by too fast.”

“I’m sorry, Caleb.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

Caleb said, “The doctor says you were lucky it was only your foot, and it’ll take two months to heal. Once you’re better, don’t go running deliveries anymore. I’ll buy you a storefront in Bay City, and you can run a little business of your own.”

“I…” Selma didn’t know what to say.

When they were young they had got on well, mainly because their families lived close together and they were near in age.

Later, after Caleb went off to Sterling City, they had seldom kept in touch.

Property in Bay City was dear, and storefronts were dearer still. She knew that very well.

Hence her surprise.

“Just see to getting well for now. Money is no trouble.”

Caleb was still trying to comfort her when Martha came in, angry.

If he wanted to know what the matter was, she told him, he had best go out and see for himself.

The family of the girl who had caused the accident had come back, and Zoe Yarwood was with them.

Their manner had changed completely from the day before.

In a single night they had changed their story, declaring that the main cause of the accident was Selma dashing past the policeman’s hand.

They took no responsibility at all, and even hinted that they could make Selma pay for the damage to their carriage.

“Hold on a minute. I don’t follow what you’re saying now.”

“Hmph. If you don’t follow, I’ll say it again. That woman being run down had nothing to do with my daughter. It was mainly because she dashed past the policeman’s hand. The two hundred dollars yesterday was just a token from us, and, of course, the last of it. If you don’t want trouble, you’d best sign this agreement now, and don’t go thinking you can come after my daughter for money later.”

Then Caleb understood. They were afraid Selma would bleed them for money.

They would pay the two hundred dollars they had first offered, but only if Selma signed this paper releasing them from all liability.

And promised never to ask their family for another cent.

Caleb laughed in his anger. “I thought the two of you had a decent enough attitude yesterday. Seems you were only waiting for the drink to wear off your daughter before you came round to deny everything.”

“Say what you like. I’ll tell you just this much: Bay City isn’t as simple as you think, and don’t imagine that because you drive a hack for some rich boss you can handle everything.”

Wally Sinclair threatened him outright. “Our family is not one a hack driver like you can afford to tangle with.”

Caleb wondered why they took him for a mere coachman. Oh… he understood.

It must have been something Zoe Yarwood had told them.

He looked at the young lady he had once driven. “Your classmate was driving drunk when she ran down my cousin last night. You came out of that saloon with her, so you know it better than anyone.

“I’d advise you to think very carefully before you answer!”

Zoe was caught in a bind. Mr. Sinclair had already warned her.

As long as she changed her story, her classmate would be free of all blame.

And it was she herself who had told her classmate’s father that Caleb drove a hack.

The two girls meant to go on the stage and become stars after they graduated. If word got out now that one of them had run someone down while drunk, her best friend’s career would be ruined for good.

On one side was her best friend; on the other, a stranger.

And Mr. Sinclair had already given these people two hundred dollars. So long as they weren’t out to squeeze more money from him, it ought to be enough.

Zoe said firmly, “My classmate truly isn’t to blame. It was your cousin who dashed past the policeman and got herself run down.”

“Fine. Actually, I understand you people well enough. If I’d come to talk with you today as someone else, you probably wouldn’t dare make such a scene.”

Caleb said, “My cousin may only be a delivery girl, but she has me for a cousin, and I will not let her be bullied.

“As for you…” Caleb fixed his eyes on Zoe Yarwood and said coldly, “I’ll see to it that you regret this decision for the rest of your life.”

Zoe very much wanted to ask what gave him the right to say so. He was only a broken-down hack driver, after all.

Chapter 702: Great Joy, Great Sorrow

Zoe Yarwood’s classmate was named Wanda Sinclair.

When the four of them left the saloon that night, Wanda had spoken of hiring a sober driver to take the reins, but the other two girls said there was no need to make a fuss.

At ten o’clock at night there weren’t likely to be any policemen out on the streets.

All four were students at the academy, and it hadn’t been two years since any of them had learned to drive a team.

After Wanda ran Selma down, she was thrown into a panic and for a moment had no idea what to do.

Only after she had sent a boy running to fetch her father did she get Selma to the hospital.

As for Wally Sinclair himself, he was one of the leading lawyers in Bay City, and he knew the law better than almost anyone.

His daughter had been drinking before she took the reins; naturally, the incident must not be allowed to blow up.

Even so accomplished a lawyer as he had been willing to bow and scrape and apologize, simply to settle Caleb and the others down first.

In matters like this, right and wrong hardly came into it.

As he saw it, what he feared was not paying some poor people’s doctor’s bills, but having them come back again and again for money.

He had seen far too many people of that sort.

His own daughter was going to be a star someday, and she could not afford a scandal just as she was graduating.

By the time he arrived at the hospital, he had already brought her classmates round.

Zoe and the others had all agreed that under no circumstances would they tell anyone Wanda had been drinking when she drove.

And so things had turned out as they had.

Having ridden in Caleb’s carriage, Zoe naturally believed she knew what he did for a living.

Like those coachmen who took their employer’s carriage out at night to earn a little on the side, he might have seen a so-called big man or two.

But no big man would ever step forward on his account.

People like him were nothing but the bottom rung of society.

When you had enough money, you found that the law of this world could, to a certain degree, be bent in your favor.

Zoe really wanted to tell that bragging uncle that two hundred dollars was plenty, and he shouldn’t dream of making a great business out of it.

And afterward he’d even meant to go to her classmate’s family demanding more money.

She despised people like that.

She even wanted to say: people like you at the bottom of the heap, now that you haven’t even got the one scrap of evidence you had, what have you got to fight with?

Whatever the case, Zoe would trouble herself no further about it.

To her it was just an unremarkable little accident.

When she went back to the academy, she laughed and larked with her classmates as though nothing had happened.

Most of the students at the Bay City Academy of Dramatic Arts came from well-to-do families. The theater of these days was no longer a place ordinary people could break into.

Zoe’s dream, like Wanda’s, had been to become a great star ever since she was a little girl.

The two of them often went to society affairs and public entertainments, partly to build up their own circle of acquaintances and partly, of course, to meet the great men of the theater.

When it came to resources in the theatrical world, there were tiers there too.

Children of managers, children of famous actors, and all manner of sons and daughters of wealth and privilege.

From the moment they were born, they had a higher starting point than ordinary people.

That was the main reason Zoe was never overly worried, even in a trade as fiercely competitive as the stage.

Her family was well off. Not tremendously rich, but a good deal better off than the ordinary Bay City household.

A girl in her class looked at her with open envy.

“Zoe, I really never expected the two of you to get into one of Lily Hayes’s productions before you’d even graduated. She’s the undisputed queen of the stage now. Everything she plays in is a hit.”

Lily Hayes had risen clean out of “Flora of the Crimson Peaks,” and nearly every production she appeared in turned out to be a roaring success.

Every one of her productions was among the most sought-after prizes in the business.

For raw beginners, getting a part in one was nothing short of manna from heaven.

No wonder the girl was so envious.

Zoe gave a light laugh. She said nothing on the surface, but inside she was very proud.

The part had been secured for her personally by a friend of her father’s in the theatrical world.

It was her father’s graduation present to her.

Zoe was looking forward to it enormously herself, mainly because Lily Hayes had grown so wildly popular over the last few years.

“Flora of the Crimson Peaks,” “Green Leaves and Red Blossoms,” “Here Comes Susannah” and the rest had all been undoubted hits of their seasons.

That evening, when Zoe went to the class reunion supper, she met nothing but envious glances.

Some even hoped to make Lily Hayes’s acquaintance through her. What if the leading lady took a fancy to them and handed them a little part too?

Deep down Zoe was thoroughly satisfied, basking in the envy of her classmates.

The gathering was just about to break up.

A messenger boy came to the door asking for her. The note he carried was from her father.

Zoe stepped out to the entrance and spoke to the boy in a low voice. The note was brief and grave.

“Come home at once.”

She sent back a line: “Papa, I’m at the class reunion. Is it something important?”

The answer came: “Just come home.”

Mr. Yarwood explained nothing in writing. When Zoe rode home on her horse, he asked her in earnest,

“Have you offended someone lately?”

“What are you talking about, Papa? Why would I offend anybody?”

Zoe asked in bewilderment, “Why are you suddenly asking me that?”

“Your uncle came to see me today. He asked whether you’d offended someone!”

Mr. Yarwood had never much approved of his daughter mixing in the theatrical world, but since it had been her passion from childhood, he hadn’t wanted to stand in her way.

“Did Uncle say anything else?”

“The Lily Hayes production he was helping you get into has fallen through. What’s more, word is that the whole profession is going to blacklist you and Wanda Sinclair.”

“What do you mean?”

Zoe didn’t understand at all. “Wasn’t that a settled thing? Papa, didn’t you put more than twenty thousand dollars into it?”

“You’re asking me, and who am I supposed to ask?”

Mr. Yarwood was just as much at sea. But he said seriously, “My girl, you really must think hard. Have you offended someone recently? It isn’t a question of whether you can be in this one production. It’s a question of being shut out of the theater for good.

“I asked your uncle, and he says the blacklist came down from the headquarters of the Rising Star Group. Every theatrical company in the business, every manager and every producer, has received it. No one dares put you in a company now.

“Who on earth have you offended?”

The Rising Star Group?

Zoe was stunned. She had always wanted to join the Rising Star Theatrical Company.

Her uncle had already smoothed the path for her. Why would she receive a blacklist from the Rising Star Group?

The theatrical world was neither large nor small.

But if the Rising Star Theatrical Company was set on blacklisting a few newcomers, no one would dare defy it.

What was more, she had never heard of it issuing a blacklist aimed at mere beginners.

Why had it fallen on her?

Just then another messenger came, this time from her best friend, Wanda Sinclair, and hard behind him came Wanda herself.

Wanda was almost in tears. She too had been blacklisted.

It wasn’t only known throughout the profession. The academy would surely hear of it soon.

To be blacklisted by the Rising Star Theatrical Company before they had even graduated: wasn’t that as if the sky had fallen in?

“Papa, you must have some way to put this right, don’t you?”

Mr. Yarwood shook his head helplessly. “I asked your uncle. He even went to one of the senior men at the Rising Star Theatrical Company to find out what had happened. All they would say was this: the person you’ve angered is too high up, far beyond their reach. Unless that person relents, you have no chance of ever getting back into the theater.

“I may have some money, but before men like that I’m nobody. Besides, I don’t even know whom you’ve offended. How am I supposed to fix it?”

A man who could shut every door in the profession with a single word was not someone Zachary Yarwood could measure himself against.

Mr. Yarwood confessed he was powerless.

If there was anything that traveled fastest in the theatrical world, it was surely gossip.

The news that Zoe Yarwood and Wanda Sinclair had been blacklisted spread through the Bay City Academy of Dramatic Arts in no time.

Everyone was stunned for a moment, and then came the knowing smirks and the barely hidden glee.

Who would have believed it? The girl who only yesterday had been the pride of the whole class was now in such a plight.

Such were the great joys and great sorrows of life!

Chapter 703: Two Roads

Late in December, the weather had turned cold.

The broad green links stood nearly empty but for a few pretty caddie girls.

All that remained was Caleb Walker’s family.

People said golf was a game for the rich, and nothing could be truer.

The game had only lately come over from Scotland, and the few private links laid out on its pattern were the playthings of millionaires. At any decent club, a membership started at better than two hundred dollars.

And at a first-rate private links like this one, an hour’s play cost at least a few tens of dollars.

In golf you swung a club to knock a little ball into a hole, not so different from the marbles they had all played as children.

Annie wore a white cap. She had taken two days off from her books to play.

As for the mischievous Little Scamp, she ran all over the green with a golf club slung across her back.

Caleb sat off to one side in smoked-glass spectacles, quietly watching the spoiled little miss play.

Before long his secretary, Linnea North, came to report that Zachary Yarwood and his daughter, Zoe, had been waiting outside for an hour.

She asked whether he wished to see them.

Caleb said, “Have them come here!”

That week had been a nightmare for Zoe Yarwood: her classmates jeered at her, and her friends kept their distance.

The despair of seeing her life’s dream end before it had even begun tormented her every day with doubt and dread.

However much she turned it over, she still couldn’t work out whom she had offended.

Why would anyone go after her, a girl barely past twenty?

Mr. Yarwood watched her sink into gloom, no longer the bright, sunny girl she had been.

He said nothing on the surface, but inside he was frantic.

After endless inquiries, he had at last learned that the man who had shut his daughter out was the big boss of the Rising Star Group.

A heavyweight who owned half of the theatrical world.

For such a man to lay a ban across the whole profession against his daughter was beyond despair. It wiped out every shred of hope.

Every great man in the business, including the owners of the three great circuits, did business with this big boss.

In that world, perhaps only someone on the level of old Mr. Mayhew could have put in a word for his daughter.

A man like that, he couldn’t even begin to approach.

Besides, no one was likely to go to Caleb Walker on his daughter’s behalf and say, “Won’t you do me this one favor?”

If one really had the standing, that might be all right. But if someone without it tried to throw his weight around, the millionairess Jolene Cane was a perfect example.

After running her mouth, what had happened?

She had tucked her tail between her legs and gone to apologize the very next day.

He still had no idea how his daughter had come to offend such a man.

By rights there was no connection at all, yet his daughter had somehow crossed his path.

Zoe no longer wore her close-fitting leather riding costume, but a plain white wool coat.

She came over with a heart full of dread.

A single word from another person could bar her from the profession, and she dared not harbor even the faintest thought of resisting.

What she really wanted to know was why she had been banned.

What unforgivable thing had she done?

After waiting outside an hour, she finally saw the man, and then she understood.

“It’s you? That hack driver?”

Caleb’s eyes behind the smoked glass were impossible to read, but Linnea North, standing beside him, rebuked her sharply:

“What nonsense are you talking? He is the head of our Rising Star Group.”

Zoe’s face changed color again and again, and Zachary Yarwood, watching her, silently cursed their bad luck.

His daughter had plainly had no idea who this man was, and offenses of that sort were often the most disastrous of all.

“You’re the head of the Rising Star Group?”

“Ask one more foolish question like that, and you can go stand outside a few more hours.”

The secretary had no wish even to bother with her, but Zachary Yarwood spoke up. “Mr. Walker, my daughter is still young. If she’s done anything wrong, I am willing, as her father, to apologize on her behalf. I only hope that you, being a generous man, can find it in you to forgive her.”

Caleb said, “Do you know why you’ve been allowed here today? Because I allowed it. I told her before: if I’d dealt with you as somebody else, you wouldn’t have dared make such foolish mistakes.

“My cousin was run down by your daughter’s friends, and the first thing she said when she came to was ‘I’m sorry, it was my fault for dashing past the policeman.’ And you people?

“Once you’d sobered up, you put on airs and even tried to use your standing to teach us to mind our place.

“Now I’m using my standing to teach you to mind yours, and look at that, suddenly you want to be reasonable again.”

“So everything has to be decided by you, does it?”

Zachary Yarwood finally understood that the woman they had run down was this great man’s cousin.

And his daughter, knowing nothing, had given false testimony for her classmate, Wanda Sinclair.

She had even tried to force the other side to sign a paper saying they were at fault.

When the other side had tried to talk reasonably, you had put on the airs of the moneyed class.

Now that they were no longer willing to reason with you, you demanded a society governed by law, where all men were equal.

If that were allowed, where would the great man’s face be?

Mr. Yarwood knew this could not end pleasantly, and his back bent lower still.

“Mr. Walker, it truly is my daughter’s fault. I only ask that you give her a way out. Whatever it is, I, Zachary Yarwood, will see it done.”

“You aren’t yet qualified to settle this for your daughter. Your family doesn’t even have the standing to meet me in Bay City.”

Caleb said without expression, “Now I’ll give your daughter two choices. One: she goes to the marshal’s office herself, tells them exactly what happened, and stands witness against her good friend Wanda Sinclair and against Lawyer Sinclair, who coached you all to give false testimony.

“Two: she hangs a placard round her neck reading ‘I am a cheap, lying woman’ and stands at the hospital gate with it for three days.”

“This…” Zachary Yarwood’s face changed completely. It wasn’t that Caleb had used such demeaning words; it was that both choices meant lifelong disgrace for his daughter.

Especially the second. What girl could ever accept a condition like that?

As for the first, abandoning a friend to save oneself might at least be bearable.

But a leading lawyer, once publicly accused of coaching others to give false testimony…

It would no longer be a question of whether he had a future. It was a crime!

Caleb Walker wanted his daughter to sacrifice her best friend to win her way back into the profession.

Whichever path Zoe chose, it would hurt.

On the way home, Mr. Yarwood said nothing.

Only after his daughter had cried herself out did he say something that mattered.

It was Wanda Sinclair who had run the woman down, and Wally Sinclair who had coached his daughter to give false testimony.

If this time Caleb Walker had gone to the Sinclairs first and given Wanda and her father the very same choice,

Mr. Sinclair would probably not have hesitated a moment to sacrifice the Yarwoods.

Since they had offended Caleb Walker, there was no second road open to them.

That being so, better to sacrifice others than to be the cannon fodder themselves.

Mr. Yarwood made his daughter choose without a moment’s hesitation.

The next day, Wanda Sinclair was stunned.

She couldn’t believe her father was going to jail because of a report from her best friend.

For her family it was as if the sky had fallen in. His license to practice law would certainly be suspended at once.

How long he would have to stay inside, nobody yet knew.

A lawyer breaking the law, brazenly coaching witnesses to lie: in his profession there was hardly anything worse.

At the academy, Wanda cursed Zoe, her former best friend, at the top of her voice.

Everything was in chaos.

The whole school was watching the spectacle.

Zoe was bewildered. She had thought that by informing on her best friend, everything could go back to the way it had been.

But it couldn’t.

Wanda’s reputation was ruined, and so was hers.

With both their names blackened like this, even if the Rising Star Group lifted the ban, how could she ever go back to the road she had been on?

Zoe gave a bitter, miserable laugh. So this was what a real great man of the theatrical world was like?

He had never thought of forgiving her. He had given her a choice only to sink her deeper into self-reproach.

Wanda was nearly out of her mind, and Zoe was faring no better.

Their old vows still rang in her ears.

“Wanda, we’ll be best friends for life.”

“Zoe, whichever of us becomes a great star, we’ll always stand by each other.”

“Wanda, I got my first part.”

“Zoe, so did I.”

“Zoe, when I’m a great star, I’ll tell the whole world that you’re my best friend.”

Chapter 704: Storefronts on Market Street

A sudden downpour drew wisps of mist over Bay City.

Great raindrops beat without letup against the coach’s front glass. In weather like this, the best thing to be driving was undoubtedly a big, heavy ranch coach.

Caleb brought his long-neglected Black Goliath out of the carriage house.

It rode high and had a powerful team in the traces.

He took his cousin Selma to Market Street to look at storefronts. Market Street was hailed as the finest shopping street in the country.

There, storefronts went for anywhere between two hundred and twenty and three hundred and seventy dollars a square foot.

The price depended on the spot, and anywhere a little better placed wouldn’t go for less than two hundred.

Even the smallest shop would cost at least a hundred to a hundred and twenty thousand dollars.

He owned a vast Cloudwater flagship parlor there, as well as the Sunburst Department Store.

Those two properties alone came to a staggering three million dollars.

Selma’s foot was still in its cast, and she had to walk with a crutch.

Caleb meant to buy her a small storefront there to run a business in, and she could let part of it out as well.

He’d charge her only about half the going rent.

With the crowds and the spending on this street, almost any business would do well.

If she could manage a shop on Market Street properly, it would be far better than running suppers.

His elder sister Ruth came too. She wanted to rent a storefront here as well and thought it would be nice to try her hand at the clothing trade.

With the two women’s shops close together, they could chat and keep each other company.

Molly and Lettie were grown now, and every one of Ruth’s shops stood on property he owned.

Paying no rent, she took in fourteen to sixteen thousand dollars a year without lifting a finger.

Opening a shop on Market Street had been her own idea.

“Ruth, why don’t you send word to Katie and have her open a shop here too?”

Katie wasn’t planning on a second child; Kip was enough.

The little fellow would soon be starting infant school, so she would have time on her hands.

It wasn’t good for her to be too idle. She needed something of her own to do.

“Katie loves running clothing shops. If she hears you’re buying her a storefront, she’ll come running for sure.”

“All right. From now on the three of you can be shopkeepers here together. That wouldn’t be bad at all.”

Caleb had his secretary pick out good spots for them: three storefronts side by side.

The smallest was just over a thousand square feet and the largest nearly thirteen hundred, all with lofts above.

Shops like these, opened as rather high-class clothing stores, were sure to do well.

Though ordinary shopkeeping had been on the decline, the good shopping streets still drew swarms of people.

All three shops belonged to one owner, a retired old gentleman past sixty.

He had first grown rich when the railroad bought his land for its right-of-way, and after that he’d speculated in town lots, stocks and storefronts.

The Bay City old fellow certainly had style, dressed head to toe in a suit from Arnaud’s.

He owned more than these few shops, and he was selling mainly because his grandson needed money to start a company.

His asking price was six hundred and forty thousand dollars for the lot, and he wouldn’t haggle.

For a spot like Market Street, that price was fair enough.

Caleb felt no strain at all, mainly because his wife was not only running Cloudwater’s Splendid Night Gala in Sterling City but in Empire City, Galveston and Pueblo Springs too.

In another year or two she’d be spreading into eight more cities, and the income from that was enormous.

“What do you think of these storefronts?”

There was no such thing as a bad spot on Market Street, and Katie arrived in no time.

Being the youngest, she asked without the least shame:

“Brother, if you buy this, how much rent do you mean to charge us each year? If it’s too high, your little sister here just can’t afford it.”

“Oh, come off it.”

Caleb itched to give his little sister a smack.

“I’m only doing this to give you something to do, because you’re too idle. Two thousand dollars a year to rent a place like this, what strain could that possibly put on you?”

“Two thousand a year? You’ll scare me to death.”

Katie thought it over and first held up three fingers. Then, feeling the pressure, she folded two of them down again.

Two hundred dollars a year was the most she could put up.

Even that, she said, would take good luck and uncommon talent to turn a profit.

“You’re offering two hundred dollars a year?”

Caleb didn’t even feel like arguing with her. Whatever happened, he had to buy the property first.

They could talk about rent later. He wasn’t counting on it to make his fortune.

He just wanted them to feel a little pressure.

Two hundred dollars a year! Even if you sold nothing but lemonade here, you’d make more than that in a year.

Caleb looked at Selma’s crooked foot, and then at her poor little daughter.

After thinking it over, he decided to let it to them at that price.

As for what kind of shops they would open, that was no concern of his.

He didn’t have the energy to spare for it, especially since, at such a rent, it would be a joke not to make money on Market Street.

All the water in the bay couldn’t wash away a joke that big.

Selma had never been in business and knew nothing about it.

But Katie was like a bandit, propping her up and poking about here and there.

When it came to fleecing her own brother, she knew no limits.

It was because her brother was simply too rich; he’d handed her a silver mine to dig in day after day.

She would never dig it dry in her whole life.

Katie had long wanted to open a fashionable dress shop. What woman didn’t like selling clothes?

The three of them talked it over for a while. Katie decided to sell dresses, Selma meant to sell shoes, and the eldest, Ruth, would sell handbags and the like.

In a place like Market Street, there was no such thing as small profits and quick turnover; the rents were too high for that.

Second, many of the customers were travelers who would never come back to buy again.

Third, the Bay City people who had a bit more to spend didn’t care for cheap goods.

Even if you wandered into some little shoe shop down a side alley, most pairs started at two to four dollars.

Plenty of people couldn’t afford that, but plenty could.

In any case, the shopkeepers there kept to an unspoken rule: everyone sold middling to fine goods.

They competed in everything except price.

Any newcomer who knew nothing of the street and tried to undercut on price would be crushed in no time.

Here, the shopkeepers truly all came from families with money.

Caleb’s Antler Coffee House had a place on this street, and though it did good business, it still lost thousands of dollars a year.

For no other reason than the fearsome rent.

Some shops were like that. They didn’t expect to make money; they were there only to be seen where the crowds passed.

The Antler Coffee House stood in the very heart of the street, taking up over two thousand square feet.

The yearly rent was twenty-four thousand dollars.

If you wanted to buy a property like that, don’t even think about it without eight hundred thousand to a million dollars.

It was no longer a matter of one property keeping three generations; it would keep ten.

Caleb owned a great deal of property himself, so he could hardly complain about high rents.

It was just that his little sister had quietly squeezed him yet again.

Only she would have the nerve to knock the rent down to two hundred a year.

It would be good for the three women to run their shops together. They could keep an eye on one another and chat out front at their leisure.

Watching the bustle of Market Street had its own charm too.

Once he’d bought the property, a good many relatives came to see him.

Mainly because, though the family’s business fund had been done away with, that didn’t mean he would no longer help his relatives.

Selma was an example. After she’d been run down, wasn’t it Old Walker who saw to everything for her?

Now he was even spending better than six hundred thousand dollars to buy property for her to do business in, and charging her all of two hundred dollars a year for a spot like that.

It was practically giving it away.

Chapter 705: Another New Year’s Day

Caleb sat at home, and money fell from the sky.

By the end of December, Cloudwater’s parlors in Sterling City, Empire City, Pueblo Springs and Galveston were all holding their Splendid Night Galas.

The rich ladies of those cities had money, and they were more than willing to spend it on themselves.

In just three days, the four cities together took in seven million two hundred thousand dollars in prepaid year passes and scrip.

After deducting all manner of costs and the price of goods, and adding in his own share, he still had three million eight hundred thousand dollars to put to a random multiplier.

Caleb called up the familiar Golden Die. It rattled and tumbled and at last came to rest on four.

That was reckoned uncommonly good luck.

[Holder: a random multiplier has been applied to this income. $3,800,000 × 4 = $15,200,000.]

One roll, and he had made a fortune again. It looked like a great deal, but it still wasn’t enough to keep the Sunflight Steam Carriage Works running for a single quarter.

Caleb sent twelve million dollars over there, just enough to cover their expenses for January and February of 1879.

Though they had reached building in quantity, the present sales still couldn’t carry more than sixty million dollars a year in research and development.

He would have to hold on for at least another three years, until horseless carriages made up more than half of the whole carriage trade.

Only then might there be real profits to be had.

There was no rushing it. No company of invention could be built in just a year or two.

At the end of the month he also took the headquarters staff out to Goldhill for a visit. The total investment there had passed a hundred and twenty million dollars.

It had been building for nearly two years now, and the outer frames of the buildings were all complete.

Eighteen headquarters blocks of eleven stories each stood flanking a great nineteen-story tower that people had taken to calling the Invention Tower.

It was called that because it was fitted with every modern wonder: steam elevators, electric lamps and telephone wires on every floor.

And it was set among the unique Forest Town.

Besides the headquarters buildings, there were also the Rising Star apartment houses, a high-class quarter for the staff, and the Rising Star Eastern Court.

These were fine homes for employees, built on land he had bought for a few million dollars, and they were meant to go together with the Forest Town of the headquarters.

And not far off stood the newly built Rising Star College of Management.

Except for the college, which had been added later, all the headquarters and residential buildings had already been topped out.

In another year at most, all the scattered offices of the Rising Star Group could be moved here together.

It would make one of the greatest private companies of invention in the country, and the very thought of it was thrilling.

In its original plan, the place had its own headquarters buildings, residential streets and apartment houses, as well as shopping streets, a hospital, hotels and schools.

Once everything was finished, it would be a little kingdom of its own, with everything a person could need, and well away from the maddening crush of the city streets at the hours when offices opened and closed.

Here there’d be no need to drive to work and home again. Less than twenty minutes on foot would bring you to the staff quarters.

In about ten months they should generally be able to move in.

Both the headquarters buildings and the staff quarters needed to be finished and fitted out uniformly before anyone could move in.

They wouldn’t be bare shells; that would be inconvenient.

Since growing rich, Caleb had come to enjoy a life of some extravagance himself, and a whole crowd of relatives went off to help Selma and his elder sister Ruth with their plans.

In Bay City, an ordinary clothing shop wouldn’t make much money.

After much thought, Katie decided to open a gown shop that sold nothing but dresses in the style of old Bay City in the Gold Rush days.

Clothes like that were especially dear; the better ones cost ten dollars or more.

As for Selma, since she had no experience of business, Ruth even suggested she open a little general store.

That wasn’t a clever idea. The rent on her premises alone would be no less than four thousand dollars a year at the going rate.

What sort of general store could make that much in a year?

It would have to stand at some fashionable spring resort where a glass of water sold for a penny to make it pay.

The idea was thrown out. Travelers who shopped here preferred goods with some character of their own.

Why would anyone buy something on Market Street that could be had anywhere?

Selma couldn’t make up her mind, so she simply sent a note to Clara.

His wife was the reliable one. Don’t sell clothes, she said. Everyone knew clothes on Market Street cost more than anywhere else.

Katie and Ruth were different; they were under no pressure.

For them, keeping a shop was just a way to pass the time. Best if they made money, but they could count on a steady income of over twenty thousand dollars a year from elsewhere.

Selma’s situation was quite different.

Clara suggested she sell coffee and open an Antler Coffee House.

At twenty-four thousand dollars a year in rent, an Antler Coffee House on that street made no profit; it might even lose better than four thousand dollars.

But at two hundred dollars a year in rent, it would be another story.

The gross profit on coffee was very high, at least seventy percent.

At that rent, an Antler Coffee House would surely clear no less than six thousand dollars a year.

The most important thing for Selma was to make money first, to feel secure.

Otherwise even a rent of two hundred dollars a year would weigh on her.

Having her cousin behind her saved her hundreds of dollars in fees for the Antler name.

Why try to sell clothes when there was a sure business right in front of her?

Only Katie had the luxury of doing whatever she pleased.

Selma hardly hesitated before taking Clara’s advice and turning her shop into an Antler Coffee House.

Put up a couple of awnings outside, set out a few little tables, and there you had a coffee house with some style.

As for her elder sister Ruth, she still meant to sell handbags.

A number of relatives were busy helping them. Only Selma’s shop turned a profit in the very first month.

Katie’s gown shop and Ruth’s handbag store were still an open question.

When his wife came back from Sterling City, it was already the day before New Year’s Day.

Every New Year’s Day the family gathered at home, and this year was no exception.

“Papa, are we going to Empire City this New Year’s to play on the big yacht?”

“New Year’s is only a three-day holiday. That’s a bit too short.”

Caleb said, “Let’s wait for your midwinter holidays, and then we’ll take the whole family roaming the seas.”

A thirty-six-million-dollar ocean yacht was a luxury on the level of the richest men in the world.

Taking dozens of family members on a two-week cruise over the midwinter holidays would be no trouble at all.

The grandparents could taste the thrill of the high seas.

Annie liked the idea too, and the Little Scamp’s chubby face said she couldn’t wait to play on the family’s big yacht.

“Dear, let’s go have supper with Grandpa tomorrow!”

“Sure. New Year’s Day is just the time for everyone to get together.”

Caleb said, “And invite your sister Winnie. She’s expecting her second, and I’ll bet your mother already has the names picked out.”

“This child is going to carry her daughter’s surname. How could she not be happy?”

Clara tidied up the hall a little. Little Luke wasn’t home; they had always lived in this great apartment on the upper floor.

It was spacious, over six thousand five hundred square feet.

The advantages were obvious, and so were the drawbacks.

Namely, it was very hard to keep clean.

Even a team of housemaids going round and round couldn’t get the whole place truly clean.

Annie was no trouble; she already loved keeping things tidy.

The Little Scamp, on the other hand, left ruin wherever she went, and was famous for it throughout the family.

Chapter 706: The Family Gathers

New Year’s Day, the first of January, 1879.

Whether you were willing or not, time pushed you on.

It was the same with people: once we were children ourselves, and later we became the parents of children.

Clara was cooking in the kitchen with Ruth and the other women, while the spoiled little miss went off to play with Molly and Lettie.

The Little Scamp was leading Kip, Chester and the rest of the little ones about, each with a little gilded spade, digging here and there.

The three little ones bustled about happily. There were more and more children in the house.

Grandpa’s generation loved that above all; it was the sign of a family that was thriving.

Caleb even proposed that for the midwinter holidays this year, instead of going anywhere else, everyone should come with him to Empire City.

They would spend a very special holiday aboard the great yacht.

Charlie Yarborough, that shameless fellow, lit up at once.

“I say, brother-in-law, could I borrow that yacht of yours for a little cruise?”

“Of course. Shall I send along a few young actresses to keep you company?”

“Absolutely, yes!”

Winnie had certainly landed herself a prize, a man who thought about nothing but women all day long.

He dared to look, but if he ever dared lay a finger on a starlet, he’d be sent straight back to where he started.

There was hardly a greater sorrow in the world.

Caleb couldn’t be bothered with him and went to play chess with Grandpa, who brought up something else: Caleb’s father was about to come to Bay City too.

Now that all the relatives were here, it made no sense for him to go on holding the post of mayor of Prosperity all by himself.

He was past sixty. It was time for him to live out his days in Bay City as a stylish old gentleman.

“Your father has been mayor all these years. He’s had his day. Once he’s here, the Walker family will be well and truly together again.”

“He ought to have come long ago. He just wouldn’t listen, however many times I tried to persuade him.”

Grandpa smiled. “Your father always wanted to do more for the village folk. Now he’s done a great deal, and I’m an old man without many years left. It’s time he came.”

“Grandpa, you’ll live to ninety-nine at least. There’s plenty of life ahead, so don’t talk about gloomy things.”

“Ninety-something? There’s really nothing much to enjoy at that age.”

Caleb smiled and said nothing. He knew of certain very great men of fortune.

Old Lucius Kingsley, the king of the gambling steamboats and others like them were quietly backing physicians and chemists in Europe who were hunting for elixirs to lengthen life.

Of course, no elixir of eternal life would ever be found, but something that bought a few more years might well be discovered.

To speak seriously, if such a thing were ever made, it would surely be a tragedy for the world. If there was one absolute fairness left under heaven, it was the round of birth, age, sickness and death.

And now the rich could use money to add five years, ten years, or even more to their lives.

It might not seem like much in the short run, but in the long run there was bound to be trouble.

Clara called everyone to eat. One table wasn’t nearly enough, so five great round tables had been set up in the house.

Most of the dishes had been cooked by restaurants and sent over, and only a few special, old-fashioned home dishes had been made in the house.

Like the fish head smothered in chili peppers, done the Southern Territory way.

When the Walker family gathered like this, it might well become a tradition, meeting here every New Year’s Day.

They could talk over how each of them was getting on and watch the children grow up year by year.

Most of the aunts and uncles of the older generation had found work of some kind, usually easygoing jobs.

There were building superintendents and night watchmen, and even nursemaids looking after people.

Many of them simply couldn’t sit still. At just past fifty, spending every day staring at each other was no fun at all!

Most of the younger cousins had gone out to work, and a few were trying to start businesses of their own.

Only a handful had made anything of themselves, and of those, Winnie’s picture-card and variety agency was doing best.

Next came the new picture-card company Shirley Sutton had started. In this day and age, most of the best-paying businesses had to do with the picture cards.

It couldn’t be helped. That was how most people spent their spare time now.

Cousin Percy Yule was doing quite well too, only his line of business wasn’t the sort a man could boast about in front of his elders.

Bit by bit, the young people in their early twenties had found their own paths through all this.

They all knew, without anyone having to tell them, that becoming a picture-card favorite was now the surest way to money.

Even the Little Scamp took in nearly two thousand dollars in pennies every time she put out a new series of cards, so why shouldn’t they?

They even went to five-year-old Little Joy for advice on becoming picture-card favorites.

The Little Scamp perked up at once and swung her hips, and her papa’s cousin on Grandma Martha’s side, Peggy Jay, read her at a glance and slid a little stool under her.

Her little nose twitched, and sure enough, an aunt from her father’s side presented her with a strawberry soda in one hand and a coffee in the other.

With a little wiggle of her feet, Kip came over and started rubbing them.

In her green-glass goggles, the Little Scamp had an air nobody could match.

“Becoming a favorite is too easy.”

“With me, the one and only Little Smarty, helping you, Auntie, you’ll be famous in no time.”

She wasn’t just boasting. Though the Little Scamp never showed her face on the cards, she was already known across the country as a little princess.

Under her own shrewd management, none of the countless small picture-card favorites could compare with her for wealth.

There was no need to show off on purpose. Simply having pictures taken of daily life at home did the trick.

Picture cards had been all the rage for several years now, and the quickest way to catch on was still to flaunt wealth.

That also meant most of the people who liked looking at picture cards were ordinary folk.

The Little Scamp was clever to begin with and had been playing at picture cards so long that she could easily list half a dozen quick ways to get famous and make money: calling at the great Paris shops, staying in hotels that charged twenty to sixty dollars a night, eating lobsters that cost several dollars apiece, drinking wines worth two thousand dollars a bottle, or showing off watches worth thousands.

Just having pictures taken of those things could make a person famous overnight.

Ordinary people had no such advantages, but the relatives in her family faced no such barriers.

Her papa just didn’t like them showing off and chasing girls with the family’s things, but he wouldn’t stop them using those things as tools to earn a living.

The Kingstower villa, worth a couple of million dollars, was a place ordinary people couldn’t even afford to rent.

To say nothing of Bay City’s most luxurious establishments, where merely mentioning her papa’s name meant you didn’t have to pay cash.

The Little Scamp shook her head with great authority. “Even I, a five-year-old little girl, know that making a few thousand dollars a month is easier than eating and drinking. And you can’t even make a few tens of dollars.”

The Little Scamp got tired of sitting, and cousin Peggy Jay at once brought over a little reclining chair so she could shift her chubby little body onto it in comfort.

“Little Joy, you’re so clever. Your papa would be so happy to know how smart you are.”

“No way. On my papa’s side, making a few thousand a month wouldn’t even be enough for pocket money.”

She wasn’t wrong. Caleb might let her play at it, but for the family to rely on picture cards to make money was a loss of face they couldn’t afford.

To this day she had not drawn out a single cent of what she had earned, and if she ever did, it would only be given to her sister’s Annie Fund.

And that would be made public.

Others might not understand, but she knew perfectly well what she was about.

Not many people could handle her, but her sister Annie was certainly one of them.

Chapter 707: Daisy Dunn Asks for Help

As time went on, the unreliable relatives in the family had mostly been weeded out, like chaff winnowed from the wheat.

Most of those who remained were the dependable sort, like his younger cousin Peggy Jay.

She had finished college only half a year before. She was the eldest daughter of his mother’s brother, and she had a younger brother in his last year of high school whose chances of getting into one of the good colleges in Bay City weren’t great, though he had a fair shot at a lesser one.

Right after graduating, Peggy had come to Bay City, and for half a year she’d been going from one job to the next.

She wasn’t picky. Whatever paid, she’d do.

But after seeing the lavish way her cousin and his family lived, she wasn’t too keen on jobs that paid only ten dollars or so a month.

Since she had no taste for climbing step by step, her only choice was to try her luck as a picture-card favorite.

The Little Scamp, still not satisfied, went on handing out advice to her aunts and uncles, brimming with enthusiasm.

In the end it was Annie who hauled her off to do her lessons with Lettie, and the Little Scamp went off in a huff.

Peggy and the others did have jobs of their own, with modest wages of fourteen or sixteen dollars a month.

In Bay City that counted as a fairly ordinary income.

The mills and factories around Bay City and up and down the coast usually paid twelve or fourteen dollars a month.

And these were college graduates, after all.

Caleb couldn’t guide them all himself. Young graduates needed to go out on their own for a few years and learn something of the world.

After New Year’s, he was going down to Galveston.

First, to see how the Dream Fund was coming along, and second, to set up a base there for selling goods from the stage.

The main aim was to push the Rising Star Picture-Card Company toward a listing on the exchange.

It was the most important cashing-out venture of 1879, and there could be no slips.

As it happened, his wife Clara and their two daughters had some free time, so Caleb took his private railroad car south to the Gulf.

His secretary Wanda Zell had become a famous beauty among company presidents in Galveston, and since Autumn Carrow had moved to the Dream Fund as vice-president, she had found her zest for work again.

She still loved investing.

By the time Caleb’s car pulled into the White Cloud depot, it was already ten o’clock at night.

Wanda Zell had been waiting for him all along, but to his surprise, he also found Daisy Dunn there, come to ask for his help.

Daisy Dunn had once been an ordinary factory girl, and her life had been changed completely after she met Hugh Gordon.

When they married, Caleb had given her a dowry worth no less than a hundred thousand dollars, all in her own name.

Daisy had no other schemes in mind. She only wanted to divorce Hugh Gordon and take back the dowry Caleb had given her at the wedding.

Before his marriage, Hugh had been a rake who liked nothing better than running around with the dining-car girls on the railroad.

She had put up with it for two years, and after the wedding he had settled down for a while.

But later he had brought a great scandal on the Rising Star Group with that selection-circle business.

At the time, Daisy had had no idea how to deal with a thing like that.

She only found out about it when Hugh left the Rising Star Group, and that led to their first great quarrel.

Mr. and Mrs. Dunn still urged her to keep calm, telling her that without Hugh Gordon they could never have had the life they were living.

Daisy didn’t raise the matter again, but after he left the Rising Star Group, Hugh grew colder and colder. He often didn’t come home, and when he did, he said nothing.

He took up with one woman after another, and some of his kept women even had the gall to send notes to Daisy herself, telling her to leave Hugh Gordon.

Daisy couldn’t bear it any longer. She had gone to Grace Keller and Clara for help.

Back in the old days, she had always called Clara “sister.”

Now she was waiting here, hoping Caleb could help her get back the dowry he had given her when she married.

As for Hugh Gordon’s own money, it was all tied up in his ventures.

Unsurprisingly, Hugh’s present chain of stew houses was on the brink of collapse.

The cooks and managers he had lured away were sending message after message to the Fat Lamb, hoping to come back to their old places.

Caleb simply wouldn’t have it.

Hugh’s latest venture was bound to make him cough up every cent he’d earned at the Fat Lamb.

Not only that, he’d signed an agreement with his backers holding him personally answerable for their investment.

That meant if the business failed, Hugh Gordon would have to buy back their shares at the original price.

Apart from Walter Yancey, that overconfident rich man’s son, Caleb had rarely seen anyone willing to sign a paper like that.

Daisy probably didn’t even know about any of this. For now she had only two demands.

To divorce and keep the child, and to get back the dowry Caleb had given her.

For a man of business, and above all for the man at the top, getting mixed up in matters like these was, strangely enough, a curse on any thriving concern.

Though Daisy had lived in comfort these past years, her life had been harder than words could say.

If he didn’t help her now, by the time Hugh’s stew-house business went belly-up, she would probably be left with nothing.

The money men would devour Hugh Gordon whole.

Caleb said, “Tomorrow I’ll have my lawyer step in and reclaim the property that rightfully belongs to you.”

Daisy was close to tears. “Thank you, Brother Caleb. Hugh doesn’t know how to value what he has. He’s bound to take a terrible fall this time.”

It wouldn’t just be a terrible fall. It would be a struggle to ever get back up again in this life.

Caleb hadn’t been in touch with Hugh Gordon for over a year, not since he’d struck out on his own, not a single letter.

That Daisy had come looking for him showed that Hugh’s own situation must be harder than words could say too.

Chet Fuller probably knew more of the details, and even he found it hard to talk about.

His home in Galveston was still the great house at Grand Manor Park, a vast place of some thirty-six thousand square feet.

It looked out over a broad stretch of White Cloud Hill.

Clara felt a good deal of sympathy for Daisy Dunn. She had been a fine young woman, and her life had gone badly after she married that philanderer Hugh Gordon.

Now all she could do was try to get back what was hers before the divorce.

When she married, Caleb had given her a six-room apartment in the middle of town and a Kimball cabriolet, along with several thousand dollars in cash.

If she could get all of that back, Daisy’s life from here on would certainly not be too bad.

Early the next morning, Clara went with her to the company offices.

She even sent a note to Hugh Gordon herself, and he answered without much hesitation. He probably understood his own position.

He let Caleb send a lawyer’s letter formally claiming Daisy’s property from before the marriage in the name of the law.

The men who had invested in him would raise no objection.

After Daisy got back what was hers, Clara even advised her to think about marrying again someday to someone suitable.

She was still young, only twenty-five. She couldn’t stay alone her whole life.

Daisy said nothing, only kept thanking her through bitter tears.

However you looked at it, it was a marriage she had once put her true feelings into.

Along with several years of her youth. If there had been any other way, she certainly would never have taken this step.

The happier she had been on her wedding day, the more desolate she felt now, at the divorce.

These were all choices she had made herself.

Clara gave a little snort. “Hugh Gordon doesn’t care now, but when Daisy marries again and her child starts calling another man Papa, he’ll see how ridiculously wrong he was.”

Caleb shook his head. “The lusts of the flesh are a trap. Breaking up a child’s family for the sake of a moment’s weakness is a tragedy too.”

Divorce might sound simple, but who could say how badly it hurt a child?

Right now Hugh Gordon could still act as if he hadn’t a care, but in a couple of years he would likely be full of endless regret.

In the grown-up world, whatever you did, you had to think three times before you acted.

Chapter 708: Merge, Merge, Merge

As for how Hugh Gordon was faring,

Chet Fuller was still keeping an eye on it.

After leaving the Fat Lamb, Hugh had started his own chain, Old Gordon’s Stew Houses.

It had begun with tremendous momentum, and he had put in four hundred thousand dollars of his own money besides what his backers had given him.

Later he had also lured away a great batch of managers and cooks from the Fat Lamb and pushed ahead hard for more than half a year.

Then all sorts of problems had come to light.

First, Hugh, as ever, couldn’t control his appetites. Not only did he like to amuse himself with the young girls who posed for the fashion plates, he didn’t spare the prettier waitresses in his own stew houses either.

The consequences of that sort of conduct were bound to be disastrous.

The senior men under him followed his lead, and hardly a one of them was faithful.

Those might be a man’s private failings, but his constant docking of wages was fatal.

The Fat Lamb’s shares were priced low mainly because its people were paid so well.

Without hesitation that nowhere else in the trade did cooks and waitresses earn more than at the Fat Lamb.

Those he had lured away soon found they were earning not even half what they had at the Fat Lamb, and naturally they weren’t happy about it.

What they actually got was miles from what Hugh had promised them at the start.

Even if Hugh had wanted to pay more, his backers wouldn’t allow it.

And besides, he simply didn’t have the means to pay high wages.

After parting ways with Caleb Walker, Hugh had met opposition on every side and learned just how hard it was to manage a big company. He had never recovered his old drive.

Now that Daisy Dunn wanted a divorce, all he could do was agree helplessly.

Of the old “Four Brothers” (himself, Chet Fuller, Tom Tate and Caleb Walker), he was the only one who had left the Rising Star Group, while Chet and Tom were living very comfortably.

They had all become great bosses in their own right, while he had fallen into an uncertain and shaky state.

Caleb didn’t step in. Since Autumn Carrow had come down to Galveston with the Dream Fund, she had brought about great changes for the better.

First, she reorganized the twelve small quick-lunch chains that had been growing up separately, sorting them into four different brands, chili-hot Southern Territory cooking, light coastal cooking, steamed dumplings and buns, and noodles, each managed on its own under one common hand.

After being merged into four great brands, each of them landed better than a hundred thousand dollars in a third round of investment, to spread into the great cities all over the country.

Put simply, the scattered investments in the eating trade were gathered together by kind, then raising still larger sums so the four brands could each spread across the country on their own.

No one could say yet which would take the lead, but surely one or two would stand out in the future.

It wasn’t only the eating trade that was being consolidated; retail was the same.

Whatever served the overall direction, Autumn Carrow would merge, and merge again.

Then she would draw money from the Group to back these growing concerns.

She had built Bobo’s Soda Parlor from nothing and had a rare store of experience in taking a company to the exchange.

It wasn’t only the Dream Fund that was growing fast. The Rising Star Picture-Card Company was the same.

After absorbing Clothing Depot No. 9 and the Sunburst stores, well over a hundred emporiums in all, the Picture-Card Company had become the first giant in the trade to join the picture-card business to shops of brick and mortar.

On the second of January, 1879, the Rising Star Picture-Card Company formally called the gentlemen of the press together.

It announced a plan to complete its public offering at a valuation of a hundred and sixty million dollars by the end of February.

The target for this round was a full sixty-four million dollars, which meant it planned to sell off forty percent of its shares.

When the news broke, the whole world of picture-card favorites was in an uproar.

Caleb’s investment in New Summit Vaudeville, together with the present Picture-Card Company, had become the great harvester of capital in the whole trade.

Not only was it bound up tight with the Tick-Tock picture parlors, it had built up a stable of more than ten thousand picture-card performers.

Of all the countless picture-card favorites in the land, half belonged to the Rising Star Picture-Card Company.

The great corporations were only now getting ready to enter the market, and his side had already grown into a colossus.

Like it or not, the new era had quietly arrived.

The plainest sign was that the Big Three were no longer the lords of the wires and the mails. Tick-Tock, belonging to Emmett Zander’s company, had become the young people’s favorite picture parlor.

A valuation of a hundred and sixty million might seem a great deal, but at its size it was entirely within reach.

For the next two months, the lovely company president Wanda Zell would travel the country on the Picture-Card Company’s behalf, holding talks with men of business.

Mainly to make sure the Picture-Card Company’s listing went off smoothly by the end of February.

Caleb himself would also meet some of the great men of the Gulf Coast. The base for stage-selling that he’d already put four million dollars into was still under construction.

In the future it was sure to push Galveston, the great port of foreign trade, further still, through enormous sales from the stages of picture-card favorites.

When the tide came in, you either ran with it or were swept away by the times.

Plainly, Caleb was the former.

He had begun investing in picture cards three years ahead of everyone, and now at last it was bearing fruit.

One could only say it was all fated.

Caleb stayed there two days, then went back to Bay City in his private railroad car with Clara and the others after New Year’s.

Wanda Zell and other officers of the Picture-Card Company also put a proposal to him: that the Rising Star School of Dramatic Arts, which belonged to the Rising Star Theatrical Company, be sold to the Picture-Card Company.

The main benefit would be to improve the basic training of picture-card favorites.

To speak seriously, the general quality of the favorites in this trade did not match what they were earning.

Wanda Zell wanted to take over the School of Dramatic Arts and turn it into a training ground for picture-card favorites.

That was far easier than training stars. The school had been running for two or three years and hadn’t produced a single star of any substance.

Instead it had turned out countless fairly good little picture-card favorites.

Caleb thought it over and agreed. The school in the Blossom District of Galveston had been founded by him in the first place, with more than six million dollars.

Selling it now to the Picture-Card Company, he certainly wouldn’t lose by it.

Six million was still a fair price.

A first-class private school of the arts on nearly a thousand acres thus became the new era’s training ground for picture-card favorites.

Caleb’s original idea might have been excellent: to use the school to send more talents like Lily Hayes and Moe Dawes into the profession.

Three years on, the results could only be called disappointing.

If the Rising Star Theatrical Company hadn’t changed course so swiftly, keeping its market value above three hundred million dollars by stage productions alone would have been impossible.

In three years of running the School of Dramatic Arts, its only contribution had been turning out nearly a thousand minor picture-card favorites a year.

If not for that, it would have been a total loss.

Selling it off to concentrate on training favorites was a good thing, especially since the Picture-Card Company wasn’t short of cash these days.

Three million dollars in cash on the spot, and the other three million to be paid by the end of 1879.

Within the Group, such talks always went smoothly.

It could only be said that the School of Dramatic Arts still meant a great deal to the Picture-Card Company, while for the Rising Star Theatrical Company it had always been a heavy burden.

Chet Fuller had wanted to shed that burden for a long time.

He just hadn’t been able to find a suitable sucker, and now the Picture-Card Company taking it over was the best possible outcome.

Chapter 709: Life’s Long Road

The Rising Star School of Dramatic Arts had originally been bought with his own money.

So the proceeds of this sale would naturally flow straight back into his own hands.

Three million dollars, and once he had it, he couldn’t even find anything to spend it on for a while.

Mainly because, apart from the Sunflight works, there was nowhere else that needed money.

Once New Year’s was past, his small, everyday life went back to the way it had been.

Caleb carried on with his routine of going to the office and then driving a hack.

On the evening of the eighth, something unpleasant happened at the Embarcadero apartments.

His own Hooper state landau was actually trampled and dented by three young people.

Only after questioning the night watchman and the doorman did he learn that they were picture-card hopefuls, two of them carrying counterfeit Paris handbags, who hired fancy carriages to pose beside.

That sort of thing was no longer a surprise. Among the would-be favorites it was quite normal to carry counterfeit goods and hire grand carriages for their picture cards.

But having your picture taken was one thing. Dancing on the roof of the carriage was simply absurd.

Caleb sent a note to Wanda Zell asking whether these were some of the foolish performers the Picture-Card Company had signed. If they were, they were to be let go at once.

If not, he’d have to send the carriage in for an estimate.

Wanda Zell looked into it. Thankfully, they had nothing to do with the Picture-Card Company.

Caleb simply sent the landau back to the coachworks that had built it. It wasn’t going to be put right for less than several hundred dollars.

The would-be favorites of these days were outrageous.

This time he didn’t drive his hack alone. He took the spoiled little miss along to see something of life.

Annie’s marks were improving, and the midwinter holidays were just around the corner.

There was a big examination coming up at the end of term, and by June her primary schooling would be over for good.

In September she would officially enter the upper school. Children really did grow up fast!

Annie sat up on the box beside him with the lap robe tucked round her, while Papa drove the red Hooper “Cullinan” mountain coach for the day’s fares.

He took it easy and didn’t drive too fast. Annie asked him, “Papa, do you really find it worthwhile, driving like this an hour every day?”

“Of course!”

Caleb said, “You see, when you were little, you lived in a rented room too. Our family’s circumstances are better now, but don’t forget you’re just an ordinary person. Never feel you’re above anyone else.”

“I won’t. Little Joy sometimes does, a little.”

“She’s lived too richly. When she’s a bit older, I’ll certainly make her go out and work for a couple of months.”

“She’s been to the mountain villages before.”

“Let’s not talk about your sister. How’s your Annie Fund getting on?”

“It’s all right!”

Annie’s fund had people of its own to manage it, and she only looked in on it during the holidays.

Soon they picked up their first fare of the day.

Another young woman, fashionably dressed, who probably worked for some large firm.

“Driver, you’re taking fares and bringing your daughter along?”

“Of course. There’s nobody at home to mind her, so she has to come out with me to earn a living.”

Caleb chuckled. “My girl is very well-behaved.”

“It shows, driver. With a daughter as pretty as that, you’ll be well looked after when you’re old.”

The young lady was certainly chatty, perhaps because she had never ridden in a Hooper mountain coach like this before.

She figured Caleb must be a coachman who had seen a few great bosses, which was why she was willing to talk to him a bit more.

Wendy Alden was only a girl from out of town; she had been struggling in Bay City for three or four years.

Apart from a decent wage, she could honestly say she had nothing.

She earned just twenty to forty dollars a month, yet she often splurged on fine handbags and gowns.

For girls like her, the greatest fear was being called “that country girl” by the women she worked with.

To fit in in this city, the expenses were unusually high.

Ordinary people liked to dress up their appearance with luxuries, believing that carrying a costly handbag raised their standing.

Little did they know that to the truly rich, that sort of thing looked naive and foolish.

Yet this foolishness was shared by at least half of Bay City’s stylish young women.

It was hard to say whether it was right or wrong, just like Wendy Alden herself, trying desperately to become part of this city.

Only by talking with them could one truly feel the joys and sorrows of ordinary folk in the city.

When he drove a hack, Caleb was no great boss, just Old Walker the driver.

When Wendy Alden got down, she still had to hurry from one party to the next.

All to make more connections in her spare time and find her Prince Charming, or some masterful company president.

Girls like her would rather stay single than settle for “phoenixes flown up out of the henhouse” who didn’t own a house.

Only in the great city did you realize how many single women there were. Far too many.

The second fare was a bespectacled young man under thirty, clutching a big hothouse rose.

His face was shining with happiness. When Caleb asked, it turned out it was his sweetheart’s birthday, and he meant to surprise her.

Before he had given her the surprise, the girl would still sometimes stay with him in his little rented room.

But once he’d given it, all she showed was disappointment.

He watched his beautiful sweetheart climb into a Brewster brougham with a balding man in his fifties.

The man, rich as sin, took the girl straight to his hotel.

He had no need of romance, or of flattering her on purpose.

He could even make that proud, headstrong girl of his humble herself before him.

He only had to hand her a Paris handbag after supper, and there you had it: another sad love story.

No matter which corner of Bay City you looked in, ordinary folk simply couldn’t hold on to their own love stories.

Especially if the girl was beautiful.

After two fares, Old Walker the driver called it a day.

Caleb asked his daughter, “Annie, what do you make of it?”

“Papa, if you hadn’t made a lot of money, would you be living in this city without any dignity too?”

“No. Dignity is something you give yourself. It’s only that when you have no money, other people can trample on it.”

Caleb said, “You see, they’re all fighting to live, reaching for the sky. But the world at large will never change just because one person tries hard. We’re all just very small parts of it.”

Annie nodded solemnly. Her papa had always taught her principles; some she took in quickly, others she wouldn’t understand until she’d lived through them herself.

Just as her father couldn’t help everyone, being alive meant having regrets.

By the time they got home it was already nine o’clock.

Annie had to go to bed soon, but before sleeping she still had to write in her diary.

The next day at school, she would share these stories with her classmates.

Her papa didn’t know it, but her teacher especially loved hearing her talk about her papa’s stories.

Even something as ordinary as riding along while he drove a hack.

The teacher liked her telling them in front of the class just as much.

Just like the saying the teacher agreed with most: we are all ordinary people, and we should keep an ordinary heart.

She was about to finish primary school, and Annie treasured these last moments of her childhood.

Once childhood was over, she would really become a little grown-up.

Chapter 710: Under the Railroad Trestle

The midwinter holidays were almost here.

Annie still felt reluctant to part from her classmates.

The midwinter holidays fell on the fifth of February that year, and school would let out on the twentieth of January.

The closer the holidays came, the rowdier her classmates grew.

Annie had been preparing a long while for the end-of-term examinations, which were almost upon them.

She had even written an essay called “My Papa” and read it aloud from the platform at school.

When her teacher asked how she meant to spend the holidays, Annie said she wanted to go roaming the seas of the world, a promise her papa had made three years before.

She had done her very best, longing to make her parents proud.

She might not be as clever as the Little Scamp, but she was plainly a great deal more diligent than Little Joy.

The teacher smiled encouragingly and said that if Annie went to Empire City for the holidays, she should call on her there.

The teacher was going to Empire City herself this year. What a teacher at a first-class international academy earned hardly needed saying.

Even for someone from an ordinary family, it wasn’t a bad life at all.

Annie also invited Zinnia and Mabel from her class to come to Empire City.

Their parents had houses there too, only of different sizes.

Zinnia and Mabel had grown up with her and had been calling her Annie for four or five years, and the three of them were still fast friends.

When Caleb came to fetch her, he happened to meet her form mistress, Miss Jillian Lindsey.

“Miss Lindsey.”

“Mr. Walker, your Annie has really done remarkably this year.”

“It’s all thanks to your guidance.”

“Not only that. I’ve heard all about it from Annie. She says it’s because you, as her father, set the example, showing her so many people and things she’d never seen before.”

Miss Lindsey was not a Bay City native. Her home was in Galveston, and she had moved to Bay City for work.

She usually went home to Galveston only for the midwinter holidays.

“To be honest, I think your way of bringing up Annie is very wise. It’s only a pity it can’t be spread more widely. For a man in your position to spend so much time on his child is rare.”

The teacher certainly knew how to talk. Caleb laughed. “Children are our future. Naturally we have to put more effort into them.”

“Mr. Walker, I have a feeling that when Annie grows up, she’ll become a very successful, very great woman.”

“I hope you’re right.”

Caleb felt that Little Annie was already quite great. She hardly spent money on herself anymore, choosing instead to give it to charity.

A heart like that was rare among the privileged.

After leaving the school, Caleb secretly took Annie to see her cousin, Aunt Peggy.

To see what her unreliable cousin was up to these days.

“Papa, isn’t Aunt Peggy learning to be a picture-card favorite from Little Joy?”

“The Little Scamp can’t even manage herself, let alone teach anyone else. Just wait and see when we get there.”

Caleb drove her in the stately gilded Concord coach, which rode very smoothly.

Even the Concord works had started building coaches for rough mountain roads now, and he’d had to get the newest model to try.

Father and daughter drew up near an old railroad trestle, not too close.

They didn’t want Aunt Peggy to recognize them and be embarrassed.

In this age of picture-card favorites, things really were a mess.

Under that one small trestle, nearly a hundred girls and women of every kind had gathered to perform for passersby, each with a hat or a basket at her feet.

The oldest were past fifty, plastered with greasepaint and powder and standing right in the glare of the limelight, calling out endlessly to the young men going by.

They weren’t afraid their most faithful admirers would cry swindle.

Then there were some who looked perfectly homely, but once the greasepaint was on and the limelight hit them, they looked like something out of a nightmare.

The ones who hated greasepaint and limelight most weren’t the customers, but the true beauties.

True beauties were a rare thing to begin with, one in a hundred. Now, under enough paint and a strong enough lamp, everyone looked much the same.

Even if you brought Evangeline Frost, the Angel of the Footlights, down here, she couldn’t have outshone a girl painted to the eyes under the limelight.

Annie, like her papa, craned her neck forward, and actually spotted her cousin, Aunt Peggy.

She was standing in a little cleared space doing a waddling duck dance, her body stiff. Aunt Peggy had never learned to dance, and she looked especially awkward.

If anyone passed a picture of it round the family, she’d probably embarrass half of them to death.

Annie was quite taken aback. Aunt Peggy, her aunt a few times removed, was naturally a little plump, with short legs and a roundish face.

With her slightly bent knees doing the duck dance, it was strange beyond words.

At first glance you’d think some chubby little girl had wandered out of the crowd.

A little painted board beside her said she was performing