Toward the Sunrise (6 page)

The scent of warm bread and spicy sausages filled the air as he passed a row of street vendors hawking their wares. He hadn’t eaten since this morning. It was impossible to eat while trapped on the gallery of the trading exchange, but he dared not leave his post even for a minute. This had been the biggest triumph of his professional career, and it was worth a little hunger.

He passed the old German woman selling sausages from the back of a wagon and the fishmonger hawking baked eels and pickled whelks. He walked until he came to the Chinese woman turning out
jianbing,
an egg pancake filled with scallions, bean paste, and some kind of sweet-spicy sauce Ashton could never get enough of. He paid for the jianbing while his mouth watered and he felt dizzy from hunger.

“
Syeh-syeh
,” he said to the woman.

She smiled and corrected his pronunciation then replied in heavily accented English. “You are welcome.”

He rolled the jianbing into a tube and took a hearty bite as he strolled back toward the Vandermark offices. This was what he loved about New York. He’d sacrificed his childhood dreams of seeing the moon rise over the Great Wall of China, but he had the thrill of riding the crest of the business world as it careened toward the twentieth century. And he could still indulge his love of Asian things at any street-corner vendor, at the art museums, and at the bookstores.

The jianbing restored his energy as he jogged up the stairs to the law offices. It was late, and some of the clerks and attorneys were already leaving, but Johnston was still at his post at the front desk.

“Mr. Vandermark is here to see you, sir. He is in the conference room.”

Ashton smiled. Nickolaas Vandermark knew of his plan to capitalize on the gutta-percha market. Ashton never would have committed such a staggering sum without authorization. Nickolaas still had a sharp mind, but he was becoming less interested in commerce with each passing year. Most of the business administration was being turned over to his grandson Quentin, a grim, difficult man who rarely deigned to travel to the United States. Meanwhile, Nickolaas traveled the world and boasted of having personally set foot on each of the seven continents and all twelve Vandermark properties scattered from
remote Malay plantations to a castle high in the Black Forest. Ashton hadn’t realized Nickolaas had returned to the country or he would have asked the man if he’d like to watch some of the excitement from the stock exchange gallery.

He could hear the rumble of laughter coming from the conference room before he entered. This was it, then. The news of his triumph had already reached the offices. He swiped at the dirt clinging to the front of his suit from lying on the floor to reach down for the tickertapes. He couldn’t get much off, but he straightened his cuffs and tie before entering.

“Here, here!” one of his colleagues shouted the moment Ashton passed through the doors.

A dozen attorneys were gathered at the table, and given the opened champagne bottles, it looked as if the celebration had already begun. Nickolaas Vandermark stood in the corner beneath a portrait of a seventeenth-century Vandermark general who had once led the Dutch in their failed attempt to keep New York out of British hands. The family resemblance between the grim, austere men was unmistakable. Nickolaas Vandermark was a tall man whose slender frame might be mistaken for gentility until one witnessed the pure steel in his eyes.

“Gutta-percha,” one of the attorneys jested. “It sounds like a skin disease, but I understand General Electric and Bell Telephone are already clamoring for it.”

The senior attorney for shipping contracts raised his glass. “I expect when we are all dead and buried, our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren will still be using wires coated with Vandermark gutta-percha. Congratulations, Mr. Carlyle.”

Ashton smiled in acknowledgment. The financial security bought by this deal was priceless. Having been raised by a father who mortgaged his house and entire life’s savings to get Ashton through law school, he didn’t ever want to flirt with financial insolvency again.

A glass of champagne was pressed into his hand, but Ashton set it down, still looking at Nickolaas Vandermark, whose enigmatic expression was impossible to read. The old man watched the celebration from a distance, his sharp eyes scrutinizing the men in the room.

Ashton cleared his throat. “Thank you,” he said. “We’ll still need to finalize the contracts with a factory to produce the wire coatings, but
we are now the only company that can guarantee an uninterrupted supply of gutta-percha in the United States.”

Another round of applause and back clapping followed. At last, Nickolaas Vandermark pushed away from his spot in the corner and reached out to shake his hand. “Well done, Mr. Carlyle,” he said simply. “It looks as though that suit has been through a stampede of buffalo—”

“A stampede of
bulls
!” another attorney jested.

“Indeed,” Mr. Vandermark acknowledged with a tilt of his head. “Please send the cleaner’s bill to me. It’s the least I can do for such bravery in the face of corporate combat.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Those were likely to be the only words of praise he could expect from his employer, for the Vandermarks were famously stern and aggressive men of business. Their ships traveled in convoys complete with cannons and armed mercenaries to serve as protection as they sailed into the dangerous ports of the world. They leveraged their vast wealth to corner markets and intimidate competition. They had been this way ever since the seventeenth century.

Nickolaas glanced at Ashton’s untouched glass of champagne. “I’d like a moment of privacy in your office, since it appears you have concluded your celebration.”

That was abrupt. Mr. Vandermark’s face was still expressionless and revealed nothing, but the signal was clear. He wanted everyone to move on. The good humor in the room evaporated as the other men set down their glasses and drifted away.

Ashton led Mr. Vandermark to his office. Perhaps the old man had reservations about praising such a junior attorney in public. Having just turned thirty, Ashton was considerably younger than most of the men here who had served the family for decades.

The moment the door to his office was closed, Nickolaas Vandermark’s voice lashed out like a whip. “All well and good about the gutta-percha, but what’s this I hear about your refusal to assist Julia Broeder back into college?”

Ashton blinked, stunned at the abrupt change of topic. “What?” He took a step back, bracing his hand against the surface of the desk while the older man paced like a caged lion in the confines of the office.

“My family has looked after the Broeders for centuries,” he said in a voice simmering with heat. “I made it quite clear when you were assigned to manage the accounts at Dierenpark that you were to ensure that family had everything they needed.”

Ashton felt poleaxed. He’d done everything for Julia! Wrote her tuition checks, provided money for books and supplies. He sent her regular packages filled with gifts and encouragement . . . all signed using Nickolaas Vandermark’s signature stamp. What more could he possibly have done?

“I was informed Miss Broeder was expelled from college for legitimate reasons,” he said stiffly. “Moral turpitude, to be precise.”

“Well, I want her back in school,” Nickolaas snapped. “If Miss Broeder wants a medical degree, you are to ensure she gets one.”

“That may be difficult, sir. There are very few medical schools that accept women.”

Nickolaas narrowed his eyes. “Allow me to be explicit. If the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania refuses to reenroll Miss Broeder, I want you to persuade the Harvard Medical School to open their doors to females. Failing that, get Yale to do so. I don’t care how you do it, but I want Miss Broeder reenrolled in a prestigious medical college with all haste. Have I made myself clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

The door slammed behind Mr. Vandermark while Ashton’s mind still reeled. He had no idea how this incident had come to Mr. Vandermark’s attention, but it was well known the Vandermarks had people on the payroll to keep an eye on such things. In other words, they had spies. One of those spies must have passed this information on to Nickolaas, and it had set the old man off.

Ashton braced his palms against the surface of his desk, wishing he could stop the trembling in his hands. If he was fired by Nickolaas Vandermark, no other law firm in the city would hire him. He closed his eyes and scrambled to remember everything his predecessor had told him about dealing with Dierenpark and the Broeder family.

“Nickolaas Vandermark is outrageously superstitious,” the former attorney had warned him. “He doesn’t care about the other servants in the mansion, only the Broeders. It’s strange, but I’ve never questioned the whims of millionaires. Give the Broeders whatever they want, but you will find them to be an easygoing lot. The Broeders are simple people who never ask for much.”

Ashton sighed. There was nothing simple about Julia Broeder.

5

“You did fine, sweet pea,” Julia murmured to the goat sprawled in the hay. The doe rested only a moment before turning to lick her newly delivered kid that already struggled to rise in the bed of sodden hay. It was just after midnight, and Julia leaned back on her haunches to watch the twin baby goats that had just been born.

She’d been here six days and had taken to sleeping in a cot set up in the corner of the barn. Goats could give birth at any time, and it was easiest for her to be close at hand. As soon as she recognized the signs of labor, Julia guided the doe into a kidding stall and made sure fresh hay was on the ground. Goats were legendary for their curiosity, and the goats in the pen behind the kidding stall tended to gather at the fence to watch.

What wonderful creatures these goats were! Aside from an occasional bleat and a smidge of hoof thrashing, goats were stoic as they gave birth, until the very end, when the doe’s entire body seized up with tension. They seemed comforted by her presence, which was why Julia didn’t mind hunkering down and chatting with them throughout the process. So far she had helped fifteen goats through their deliveries.

Twins were typical for goats, and as soon as Julia was sure both baby kids were doing well, she swept away the sodden hay and replaced it with fresh. Goats were finicky about cleanliness, and as much as she wanted to collapse into her cot in the corner of the barn, she cleaned the entire kidding stall before heading to a bucket of water to clean herself up before dimming the lantern and bedding down again.

She sat on the cot, groaning as she unlaced her shoes, but she froze at the telltale sounds coming from the kidding stall she had just cleaned.

Triplets? She had yet to see a goat deliver triplets, but it was possible. She scrambled to lace her shoes again then climbed back into the stall, swinging a leg over the top bar. After her first day on the job, she’d begged for some trousers from Mr. Hofstad, who presented her with a stack of clean pants and a belt. This work was
simply too physical to be bothered with skirts, and she was becoming accustomed to the freedom of wearing trousers.

She knelt beside the goat, angling the lantern to get a better look at the doe’s hindquarters. Sure enough, another glossy sac of fluid was nudging its way out of the birth canal.

“Well, look at you, triplets!” Julia smiled at the tiny snout that could be seen through the membrane. She shook off her exhaustion. No matter how tired she was, this goat had it worse. She stroked the doe’s flank, staring at the miracle of birth happening before her eyes. There wasn’t a lot to do at this point, just be on hand to sweep the baby kid away from the danger of the mother’s thrashing hooves.

A gush of warm fluid spilled from the goat, and the kid slid out quickly. In short order, Julia cleared the membrane from the kid’s snout, pleased to see how quickly this one sucked in a sloppy gulp of air. Moments later, it tried to stand. She watched, exhausted and entranced. That baby goat had a lot more energy than she had.

Julia glanced at the cluster of other goats watching from the neighboring pen. “I’ll bet you are all praying you don’t have to do this three times,” she said as she began clearing out the soiled hay.