Mercedes Lackey: The Fire Rose

"I'll get a cab," the Professor replied.

Bergdorf's was not crowded at this time of the early evening; the theater crowd had not yet begun to arrive. Fortunately, the German restaurant had never been one of her father's choices for dining out, or the memories the place evoked would have been too painful to permit her to eat. No, she had no sad ghosts waiting for her here, and Bergdorf's was clearly professor Cathcart's favorite, for the waiters all recognized him and they were shown to a secluded table out of the way of traffic. She wondered what they made of her; too plain to be a member of the demimonde, too shabbily dressed to be a fiancee or a relative. Did they assume she was his housekeeper, being granted a birthday treat?

Perhaps they take me for a suffragette relation, or one who has a religious mania and has given all her worldly goods to Billy Sunday. No matter. The respect they accorded to Professor Cathcart extended even to such peculiar females as he chose to bring with him; service was prompt and polite, and the headwaiter treated her with the deference that might be accorded to one who wore a gown by Worth, rather than one from the cheaper pages of Sears and Roebuck.

She had once worn fine gowns not by Worth, perhaps, but by one of the better Chicago seamstresses. That had been before her father's run of bad luck with his investments, and she had chosen to economize on her gowns as well as in other household matters. It had not mattered to her teachers and fellow students; they probably would not have noticed unless she had donned the chiton and stola of an ancient Greek maiden, and perhaps not even then. Her economies had gone unremarked, which had saved her pride. Since another of her economies was to abjure eating out, she was not forced to parade the slender state of their purses in public.

The Bergdorf was comfortably warm, lit softly with candles and a few well-placed gaslights. The only sounds were those of conversation and the clink of silver on china. The Professor was one who gave a gourmet meal all its due reverence, so they ate in silence. Rosalind was not loath to do so either; the peculiar sour-savory tang of the sauerbraten awoke a hunger of intensity she had not realized was possible, and although she seldom drank, she joined the Professor in a lady sized stein of the Bergdorf's excellent beer. The food vanished from her plate so quickly she might have conjured it away, and the attentive blond-haired, blue-eyed waiter brought her a second serving without being asked.

"Vielen dank," she said to him, surprising a smile from him. He winked at her, and hurried to answer the summons from another table.

She devoured her second helping with a thoroughness that would have embarrassed her a month ago. Now her capacity for being embarrassed had been exhausted, and her pride flattened like a sheet of vellum in a press.

The waiter returned at the Professor's signal, and cleared away the plates as the Professor ordered Black Forest torte for both of them. Rosalind did not even make a token protest; it might be a long time before she ever ate like this again. Her torte was long gone before the Professor had finished his, and she settled back in her chair with a sigh of melancholy mixed with content.

I must think of some way to earn my way. She had a vague idea that she might take a position as a governess somewhere, or even as a schoolteacher in some Western state. Any thought of achieving a Ph.D. in the classics and medieval literature was out of the question now, of course. She only hoped that she could convince someone that her unconventional education had made her fit to teach the "Three Rs."

The waiter arrived to clean off the dessert plates, and with him came coffee. Professor Cathcart settled back in his chair as she sugared and creamed hers liberally, cradling his cup in both hands.

"You must forgive your old friend and teacher his bluntness, but how did you come to such a pass?" he asked. "I had not thought your father to be the improvident sort."

She shook her head, bitterly. "You may lay the cause of our loss at Neville Tree's door," she replied, with bitterness not even the savor of her dessert could remove from her mouth. The Professor had the grace to blush, then, for it was he who had introduced that scion of prominent politicians to the elder Hawkins.

He said nothing more, for indeed, there was no more to be said. For all of Neville Tree's illustrious parentage, the man was no better than a common sharpster. He had come looking for investors in his bank, and he got many, including Professor Hawkins; he then ran the bank into the ground with his poor management-all the while drawing a princely salary-leaving investors and depositors alike holding nothing but air and empty promises. Not content with that, he concocted another scheme, with many promises that he would get the money back and more-he would go and find oil and make them all rich. Throwing good money after bad, Professor Hawkins and others had fallen for his plausible tale a second time, and once again found themselves with shares of useless stock in a company that had drilled for oil where no geologist would ever anticipate finding any. Presumably he had taken himself to another state with more schemes designed mainly to allow him to draw a handsome wage at the expense of others.

Under the table, Rosalind's hand clenched on her napkin. When her father had told her of the loss of all of their savings and more, she had not had the heart to reproach him. "I only wanted to give you what you should have had, Rose," he had said plaintively...

"But the History Department Cathcart began again."

"You know that none of them have ever approved of my I 'unwomanly' interests," she retorted sourly. "Doubtless, if they knew, they would be pleased enough, and advise me to go and get married like a proper female."

As if any young man had ever, or would ever look twice at me. Plain, too clever by half, and with the curse of always saying what I think. That latter habit had gained her no friends among her fellow students, who could look elsewhere for romantic interests. Any man at the University can find himself a nice, stupid girl with good looks or money who will assure him he is the cleverest creature on earth. Why should he take one with neither who will challenge him to prove he is her equal?

"Your mother's people-" Cathcart ventured.

He knew nothing about her parents' relationship with her maternal grandparents-Professor Hawkins had been careful to keep that unsavory situation very private. It was natural for Cathcart to bring them up, but only the fact that she had already borne with so much already made it possible for her to bear this as well. "They appeared the day of the funeral," she said. I will not call those-creatures-my grandmother and grandfather. "They insulted my father, slandered my mother, and told me that if I admitted some specious sort of guilt, agreed to be a good and obedient girl, and gave up my nonsense about a University degree, they might consider permitting me to take up some position within their household. I assume they meant for me to come be a drudge to Uncle Ingmar, and be grateful to them for the opportunity."

Cathcart's expression grew horrified. "Even when he was still sane, Ingmar Ivorsson was not fit company for a female, and certainly is not to be left alone with one!" he blurted.

She only nodded. "I told them what I thought of them, what Mother had thought of them, and what they could do with Uncle Ingmar, and showed them the door." That might have been what brought Mr. Grumwelt down upon my head with such uncanny swiftness. They probably went off and alerted every one of Papa's creditors. Did they expect me to come running to them as soon as the vultures arrived, begging forgiveness?

Cathcart gave her the ghost of a smile. "So you have burned all your bridges, then. That was brave of you. Not necessarily wise, but-"