Susan Wiggs - The Firebrand

Restless, Rand went to the tall windows that framed a view of the city. Gaslight created blurry stars along the straight arteries of the main thoroughfares and the numerous tall buildings of the business district gathered around the impressive cupola of the massive courthouse.

“Quite a sight, isn’t it?” asked a slender, vaguely sly-looking young man.

Philip Ascot, Rand recalled. Ascot, with some combination of Roman numerals after his name to prove to the world that the family hadn’t come up with an original name in several generations.

It was a mean, petty thought, borne of impatience. Still, he had a low opinion of Ascot, who claimed to be in the publishing business but who, as far as Rand could tell, intended to make his fortune by marrying one of the debutantes of Miss Boylan’s finishing school. Lucy? he wondered, recalling Diana’s assessment that the Hathaways were stinking rich.

Rand stifled a grin. Lucy would make duck soup of a fellow like Philip Ascot.

“It is indeed,” he said at last. Flipping open the gold top of his pocket watch with his thumb, he checked the time. “It’s a bit late for sunset, though.”

“Oh, that’s another fire in the West Division,” Ascot informed him. “Didn’t you hear?”

A cold touch of alarm brushed the back of his neck. “I heard there was one last night, but that it had been brought under control.”

“It’s been a bad season for fires all around. But I can’t say I’m sorry to see the West Division burn. It’s a shantytown, full of immigrant poor. Could stand a good clearing out.” Ascot tossed back a glass of whiskey. “Nothing to worry about, Higgins. It’ll never get across the river.”

Even as he spoke, an explosion split open the night. From his vantage point, Rand saw a distant flash of pure blue-white light followed by a roaring column of pale yellow flame.

“It’s the gasworks,” someone yelled. “The gasworks have blown!”

Rand crossed the reception room in three strides, grabbing his wife by the arm. “Let’s go,” he said.

“Randolph, you mustn’t be rude—”

“We’re leaving,” he said. “We’ve got to get home to Christine.”

The big, blocky coach with the crest of Miss Boylan’s school on the door lumbered through streets jammed with people. Every few feet, the driver was obliged to stop and make way for the firefighters’ steam engines or hose carts.

“It’s spreading so quickly.” Phoebe Palmer pressed her gloved hands to the glass viewing window. “Who could imagine a fire could move so fast?”

She clearly expected no answer and didn’t get one. Both Lucy and Kathleen O’Leary were lost in their own thoughts. Kathleen was particularly worried about her family.

“I knew I shouldn’t have come,” she said, her customary easy confidence shaken by the sight of the fleeing crowds. “I shall burn in hell entirely for pretending to be a great lady.”

“If we don’t start moving any faster,” Phoebe said, “we shall burn right here in Chicago.” She yanked at the end of the speaking tube and yelled at the driver to hurry. “There’s an abandoned horsecar in the middle of the avenue,” she reported, cupping her hands around her eyes to see through the fog of smoke and sparks. “Driver,” she yelled again into the tube, “go around that horsecar. Quickly.” With a neck-snapping jerk, the big coach surged forward. Phoebe scowled. “He’s usually better at the reins,” she commented peevishly. “I shall have to speak to Miss Boylan about him.”

As the coach picked up speed, Lucy patted Kathleen’s hand. “None of this is your fault, and you’re surely not being punished for a silly prank.” To distract her, she added, “And it went well, didn’t it? Everyone at the reception believed you were a famous heiress from Baltimore.”

Just for a moment, excitement flashed in Kathleen’s eyes. How beautiful she was, Lucy thought. What would it be like to be that beautiful?

But then Kathleen sobered. “I lost my reticule. Miss Deborah’s reticule, actually, for haven’t I borrowed every stitch I have on except my bloomers? And I made a fool of myself altogether over Dylan Kennedy.”

“So did half the female population of Chicago,” Phoebe pointed out, sounding unusually conciliatory.

“All those worries seem so small now.” Kathleen turned her face to the window. “Blessed Mary, the whole West Division is in flames. What’s become of my mam and da?”

“I’m sure they’re fine,” Lucy said. “You’ll find them once everything is sorted out.”

“’Tis easy enough for the two of you to relax. Your families, bless them, are safe in the North Division. But mine…” She bit her lip and let her voice trail off.

Lucy’s heart constricted. Inasmuch as she envied Kathleen’s beauty, Kathleen coveted Lucy’s wealth. How terrible it must be to worry and wonder about her parents and brothers and sisters, living in a little wood frame cottage, her mother’s cow barn stuffed with mill shavings and hay.

Lucy thought of her own parents, and Phoebe’s, secure in their mansions surrounded by lush lawns and wrought-iron gates. The fire would surely be stopped before it reached the fashionable north side.

She’d grown up insulated from the everyday concerns of a working family. She knew better now, and in a perverse way, she wanted to repent for her privileges, as if by being wealthy she was somehow responsible for the ills of the world. Phoebe thought her quite mad for staggering around beneath a burden of guilt. Phoebe just didn’t understand. Because women of their station were complacent, ills befell those who had no power, women forced to endure drunken abuse from their husbands, giving birth year in and year out to children they could not afford to raise.

Lucy patted Kathleen’s hand. “I’ll help you find your family if you like.”

Phoebe pointed out the window. “Not tonight you won’t. Honestly, Lucy, I believe you would try to save the entire city if you could. You and your crusades.”

“If we don’t take the lead, then who will?” she asked. “The washerwoman bent over her ironing board? She doesn’t have time to eat a proper meal much less lead a march for equal rights. We’re the ones who have the time, Phoebe. We know the right people, for Lord’s sake, we were just at a gathering with every person of influence in the city. And what did we talk about?” She flushed, thinking of her conversation with Randolph Higgins. “The weather. The opening of Crosby’s Opera House tomorrow night. The contention that women are gates of the devil. It’s absurd, I say. I, for one, intend to make some changes.”

“Ah, Lucy.” Phoebe sighed dramatically. “Why? It’s so…so comfortable to be who we are.”

Lucy felt a stab of envy. Phoebe was content to be a society fribble, to let her father hand her—and a huge dowry—in marriage to some impoverished European nobleman, simply for the status of it all. Phoebe actually seemed to be looking forward to it.

Lucy felt a stronger affinity with Kathleen, an Irish maid who felt certain she’d been born into the wrong sort of life and had other places to go.

As she looked out the window and saw well-dressed families in express wagons and carriages practically running over stragglers clad in rags, outrage took hold of her.

“There is plenty of room in this coach,” she said, a little alarmed at the speed now. “We must stop and take on passengers.”

“Oh, no, you don’t.” Phoebe grabbed the speaking tube. “You’ll start a riot, the horses will balk and then no one will get where they’re going.”

Lucy spied a woman in a shawl, burdened with an infant in one arm and a toddler clinging to her other hand. Rolling up the leather flap covering the side window, she shot Phoebe a defiant look and leaned out the door. A flurry of sparks stung her face, and she blinked hard against a thick fog of smoke. “Driver,” she called. “Driver, stop for a mo—”