Chapter 12
Hollywood, California
An amber glow softened the sky just outside the windows as I walked down the stairs and into the entry.
Spencer was late, which only added to my nerves.
He’d said he was taking me somewhere special tonight to fulfill our obligations to the contract, but he wouldn’t say where.
I had put on a silk evening gown for the occasion, but it was getting wrinkled as I sat around waiting.
Add that anxiety to my concerns about what had happened in San Francisco the night before and I had been a mess of nerves all day.
The forced entry by a drunken miner was one thing, and the possibility that Sam had a woman in the shed was another, but it was the way my heart had fluttered at Sam’s touch and the effect his words had on me that worried me the most.
“I don’t know how we’re going to keep going, Tacy.
” Papa’s voice trailed out of the dining room to my left.
“Several of our loans have been called in, and even if I had the money to pay them right now, we don’t have enough to finish production.
I’m not even sure we’ll be able to keep the lights on at the studio, let alone pay all the actors and postproduction staff.
I just can’t make the numbers add up, no matter what I do.
The cost of everything has risen so high, we’ve already blown through our budget.
We only have two hundred thousand dollars for this film, but we’ll be fortunate to end production closer to two hundred and fifty or three hundred thousand. ”
I paused on the bottom step, holding my breath.
“This was our last chance.” Papa’s voice was muffled, and I imagined he had put his face in his hands. “I’m going to let so many people down. Everything we’ve worked for is in ashes. How did we let this happen?”
“We didn’t let anything happen,” Mama assured him. “Times change, Grant. Technology, culture—just think about all that has happened in the last thirty years. We couldn’t do things the way we have forever.”
“Maybe I should have given in when L. B. asked us to fold our company into his. At least then I would have a job and a way to support my family. I’ve failed you and the girls, and there’s nothing I can do to fix this.”
“You haven’t failed us, Papa.” I couldn’t stay hidden for another moment.
I entered the dining room and found them sitting at the table where our family had gathered just a few hours before for Sunday lunch.
Grace and her girls had gone to Julia’s for the evening, and the last I’d heard, Vicky was in her room reading.
“Ally.” Papa ran his hand over his face, and for the first time in my life, I saw tears in his eyes.
I ran across the room and hugged him.
He wrapped his arms around me and returned my embrace before I took the seat next to him.
“You haven’t failed us,” I said again, keeping my hand on his forearm.
“I’ve never known anyone who works as hard as you.
Sometimes life’s circumstances are out of our control.
But God has a plan.” Sam’s words at Bess’s funeral returned to me.
God’s work was never in vain. Sometimes it was hard to accept, but I had to believe that there was a purpose for Papa’s troubles.
“Does He have a plan?” Papa wiped his eyes again and shook his head. “Sometimes it feels like He doesn’t, or doesn’t care what happens to us.”
“Grant.” Mama laid her hand over his. “You know that’s not true.”
“Where is the evidence to point to the contrary?” Papa asked, motioning to the house.
“We’re about to lose everything, Tacy, and where is God to rescue us?
Even if by some miracle we can finish the movie, will it be enough to pay for our surmounting debts and create another film?
” He leaned back and crossed his arms. “It’s taken me a long time to accept it, but I think we’ve come to the end.
I can’t see a way forward, and the longer I’m stubborn, the more it will hurt. ”
“There has to be a way, Papa.” I wouldn’t let him give up, not after all he’d done to fight the industry. “God won’t abandon you now. He will honor your faithfulness. He hears your prayers.”
Papa sighed. “Perhaps He used to. But I haven’t seen Him or His plan in any of this for years.”
“We don’t always understand His ways, Grant.
” Mama’s faith was strong. She’d stood up to oppression in her life in the 1600s and been hanged for her Quaker beliefs.
“Perhaps you don’t see it, but I do, and just like Moses had his brother and friend to hold up his arms during the battle against the Amalekites, Ally and I are here to hold up your faith in a time when you are feeling weary and shaken.
Every time Moses lowered his arms, the Israelites began to lose, but when he held them up, they won.
“You’re only human. God does not always expect perfection from you.
You have done your best, and I know He will honor that sacrifice.
But if your faith is weak right now, that’s what we are here for—to strengthen you in the midst of battle.
We will find a way to prevail. And if God chooses that we don’t continue making movies, then we’ll find a way to praise Him through whatever is to come. ”
Papa pressed his lips together and took a deep breath, nodding. “I wish we had more money. Things would be so much easier if we didn’t have to worry about finances.”
“Everyone could say the same thing.” Mama smiled. “It would be nice if we hit the jackpot, or”—she glanced at me—“Ally could find some of that placer gold in San Francisco.”
I sat up straight, an idea forming as she spoke. Placer gold was the loose gold on the surface of the earth, usually found in streams and riverbeds by panning. It was the easiest gold to find and didn’t require digging into mountains.
Mama began to shake her head. “I was teasing, Ally.”
“What if I did?”
“It was meant to be a joke. To lighten the mood.”
“But what if I went to the Yuba River and brought gold back to San Francisco? I could keep some of it for Father and Hazel and put the other in a safety-deposit box at the Wells Fargo Bank. It’s still in the same location today, isn’t it? I see it advertised all the time.”
“It’s too dangerous,” Mama said. “It would never work. I’ve heard stories about life on those rivers. Besides, your father in 1849 isn’t well enough to go.”
“But I am.” My mind was spinning with the possibilities. “I could go. I don’t need Father’s help.”
“You can’t go alone.” She shook her head. “It’s out of the question.”
Papa was silent as he contemplated my idea.
“What if I brought someone with me?” As I thought through my options, my hope began to deflate.
The only person I knew was Sam, but he couldn’t leave his restaurant and hotel for several weeks.
And it wouldn’t be smart to travel to the Yuba River alone with him.
He had done nothing to hurt or threaten me in any way, but people might talk if we went alone together.
Not people in Sydney Town, but up on the hill, where he hoped to one day run a respectable establishment.
Was the risk worth the reward, though? More importantly, would he consider going after gold with me?
“Who would you bring with you?” Mama asked and then held up her hand. “It doesn’t matter. It’s a foolish notion, Ally. I don’t want you to risk your other life there to try to help us here.”
“The history book claims I’ll still be alive to die in a fire on November 3rd, so apparently I won’t be killed in the goldfields.”
“What do you mean, die in a fire?” Papa frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“Perhaps you won’t die in the goldfields because you never go,” Mama countered. “And that logic is preposterous. You don’t even know if the history book is true. There are so many variables.”
Papa sat up straighter. “I’m confused. Ally is supposed to die in a fire on November 3rd, 1849?”
“She’s also supposed to marry a convicted murderer,” Mama said, patting his hand, “but that’s ridiculous, as well.”
“What?” Papa frowned as he looked between us.
“I’ll explain later, Grant.” Mama brushed aside his concern. “The issue at hand is trying to convince our daughter not to be foolish enough to go for gold.”
“I don’t think it’s foolish.” Papa turned to me. “You’re smart, capable, and courageous, Ally. There are other women who went mining for gold, some of them alone. If they could do it, I don’t see why you couldn’t.”
“It’s not a good idea, Grant.” Mama looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “And even if she tried, there’s no guarantee that she’d make enough money to help us.”
“There’s no harm in trying.” Papa continued to study me. “If you can find someone to take you, that would be the best option.”
“Do you hear yourself?” Mama put her hand on his arm to make him look at her.
He finally met her gaze. “Tacy, are you telling me that if your parents had told you not to stand up to the Puritans in the 1600s, you’d have listened?
Or, after you were hanged there, if your mother in 1888 had told you not to come to California, you would have obeyed?
You came out here, all by yourself, on a train.
You didn’t know a single person and had no job.
It was still the Wild West, but you had a dream, and you wouldn’t let anyone stop you.
How, then, can you tell your daughter not to go after something she wants? ”
“I wish they had told me not to do those things.” Mama sighed. “But I probably wouldn’t have listened. And if I had, I wouldn’t be sitting here right now with my daughter, trying to talk some sense into her.”
“I don’t want to go alone,” I assured her, “but I don’t have anyone who could go with me except Sam.”