The Firebrand

by Susan Wiggs

  Lucy struggled to gather her thoughts.

  “He’s all right,” she said. “He was exhausted from fighting the fire.” She propelled Maggie toward the kitchen door. “Ask Mrs. Meeks to get your breakfast.”

  “What a terrible catastrophe to befall your little shop,” Grace said.

  “How could this happen?” Viola asked.

  Lucy swallowed, her throat tight with despair. “The fire marshal has confirmed it’s a case of arson.”

  “Someone set the fire deliberately? But why?” asked Grace.

  Lucy explained about the bank, adding, “A man can be fierce when his livelihood is threatened.” Composing herself, she added, “The arsonist will soon find out that even though The Firebrand is gone, my convictions are not.”

  Twenty-Six

  Over the next few days, life returned to an eerie normal pace in the Higgins household. It was as if The Firebrand had never existed, had never been filled with women’s laughter and spirited conversation, a gathering place where women could feel safe and empowered by their convictions.

  Rand went to the bank each day, and the crisis there continued. After the panic, the depositors hadn’t come back, and Lucy knew he balanced on the knife edge between success and failure. Their tenuous bond felt weaker now, strained by the ordeal. They were both tense and short-tempered, their discussions frequently deteriorating into arguments.

  Lucy mourned for the shop as though she had lost a loved one. There were hours when she was able to forget about The Firebrand and her cause for whole minutes at a time. But sometimes her heart constricted with unbearable grief. She’d built the bookstore from the ground up. She’d put her heart and sweat and soul into it. And in one night it had been taken away.

  She felt impossibly selfish, knowing she had so much—a husband and daughter she adored, friends who cared about her and a new love she’d never thought would be hers.

  And still it hurt. She could not bear to go anywhere near Gantry Street. Seeing the black scar of the ruined shop would be too much for her. She tried to content herself with looking after Maggie, minding the house and writing lengthy letters to the Legislature on behalf of women’s rights.

  But even defeat didn’t stop her from making new plans. Secret plans. Rand’s fury over her last protest had proven he didn’t understand her way of doing things. Business must be attended to. Lucy believed she could do something to recoup the losses suffered at the bank. Its survival depended upon finding depositors, and she was acquainted with the most famous lady banker in America. She wrote more letters, rode out to meetings on her high-wheeled bicycle, and life went on.

  Rand didn’t get home until late one night, long after supper was over and everyone in the house was asleep. Everyone, of course, except Lucy and Silky. With the cat in her lap, she sat fully dressed, too wound up with doubts and worries to relax. Rand entered the room and stared at her for so long that she held her breath.

  When she would have spoken, he held up his hand, the old scars white around the livid, fresh burns he’d suffered the night of the fire. “We have some things to discuss, Lucy,” he said. “I’d prefer to do it without arguing.”

  “Why do you immediately assume I’m sitting here waiting to argue with you?”

  He sent her an ironic look. “Because you’re awake?”

  “I have no intention of—”

  “Do you want to hear who burned your shop or not?” he cut in.

  She shifted to the edge of her seat. Disturbed by the movement, the cat dropped soundlessly to the floor and slipped away.

  “It was Jasper Lamott,” he said. “He paid Guy Smollett to set fire to the place. They’ve both been arrested, and with luck we’ve seen the last of them.”

  It’s a blight on the neighborhood, and no decent Christian will be sorry to see it wiped out. She remembered Lamott’s words, spat at her in a rage when she’d encountered him at the bank. “Are you surprised?” she asked.

  “No. But don’t expect all the lost depositors to come flocking back now. The bank’s shares dropped again today. The Union Trust is still in trouble.”

  “Because of me,” Lucy said.

  “Because of themselves,” he corrected her.

  She caught her breath. Not long ago, he never would have admitted such a thing. Agitated, she got up and walked out to the balcony, letting the breeze off the lake cool her face. A full moon blazed from a clear sky, casting its blue-white glow over everything. The smells of the water and the rose garden filled the air, dizzying as a drug.

  She felt him walk up behind her, felt his arms slip around her waist. Closing her eyes, she leaned back against him, feeling herself relax for the first time in days.

  “I want everything to be all right,” she said, her whisper mingling with the warm summer wind.

  “It is when we’re like this.”

  But even as she turned in his arms and let him lead her into the bedroom, she wondered if it would be enough.

  “Mama, how come you started sleeping in Papa’s bed?” Maggie asked, digging in the dirt of the kitchen garden later that day.

  Lucy froze in the act of picking snap peas. The dreaded question caused her brain and throat to seize up. How long had Maggie known? Why did she have to ask today, of all days? There would never be a good time, she realized. She was bound to have to explain sooner or later.

  “Why do you think?” she managed to ask, racking her brain for the proper response. How on earth had Maggie figured it out? Surely the help knew better than to discuss their employer’s affairs in front of his daughter.

  “Because he is new,” Maggie said simply. “Whenever I get a new toy, I want to play with it all the time. I even want to sleep with it.”

  “I suppose that’s as good an explanation as any.” The hot afternoon sun beat down on her head. She should have put on a sunbonnet, but she’d been too distracted to bother with a hat today, or shoes for that matter.

  Maggie harvested an abundant handful of pole beans and put them in the basket. “Well, I don’t blame you,” she said, her face sober with contemplation, “I just love Papa. Don’t you?”

  Lucy was unprepared for the flood of emotion that engulfed her on hearing her daughter’s simple question. Maggie loved so effortlessly and so honestly. Lucy thought about the world of emotion and sensation she had discovered in the arms of her husband. She wanted to be certain, but true conviction eluded her. In some ways, he still held himself away from her, silent with private thoughts she could not fathom.

  Instead of answering Maggie’s question, she said, “So it’s all right, then, that I…sleep in his bed?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And you like living here?”

  “Uh-huh.” Like the kitchen garden, Maggie was blossoming, growing bright and healthy, drawn upward by the summer sun. We have something precious here, thought Lucy. We are building a home, a family.

  But she had put it all at risk.

  The idea enraged her as she stabbed a trowel down into the dirt to dislodge a stubborn dockweed. Damn the banking clients and their self-righteous ways.

  Lucy put aside her discontent and gave her full attention to Maggie. The little girl had shouted with delight when Lucy had come down to breakfast in dungarees and an old shirt, with kerchiefs for their heads and gloves for their hands, announcing that she and Maggie would spend the day gardening. The truth was, the flower and vegetable gardens were among Lucy’s chief delights in her new home. In the flat over the shop, she’d managed to tend a few potted herbs and African violets. The lushness of the lawn and gardens here were riches beyond compare.

  Pulling off her kerchief to mop her neck, she wished it could be enough.

  “Maggie, do you miss the shop very much?” she asked.

  Sitting back on her heels, Maggie munched idly on a raw bean. “No. You were always busy at the shop. I like it when you’re with me all day long.”

  The blunt reply startled Lucy, but she didn’t say anything. The dockweed
had a long thick taproot that had embedded itself deep in the soil. She dropped to her knees to scoop out the dirt around it. She paused to push a stray lock of hair off her forehead, knowing she’d smudged dirt there, but not really caring. The day was hot; she was sweating, but that only made the long bath she planned for later seem all the more inviting.

  Digging deeper into the earth, she tried to imagine what Rand’s day was like, with the bank shares slipping lower each day. Even after the disgrace of Jasper Lamott, things hadn’t improved. The conservative clients still held her responsible, claiming Lamott would not have had to take such extreme measures if she had given up her shop and her cause. Would the board take action today? Would they censure Rand or—God forbid—terminate him?

  He loved banking and he loved the Union Trust. What if she were responsible for taking that away from him? What would it do to her proud, brooding husband? To their fragile new love? What would it do to their comfortable way of life?

  She looked down Bellevue Avenue, with its tree-lined parkway and endless view of the lake, and marveled at how quickly she’d come to regard this place as home.

  Fitting both hands around the thick root of the dockweed, she gave a tug, loosening it by scant degrees.

  You can solve this, she told herself, tugging harder.

  She could give up her crusading and stay home with Maggie. She tugged the weed harder. Was it so terrible, staying home to raise her child like a conventional mother? Maggie liked it. Lucy liked it. The bank directors and Rand were sure to like it.

  With so much in her life, she didn’t need the added burden of social reform, did she? Could she stay home and be a banker’s wife? How long would she be content with that?

  Forever. But even as her heart spoke the word, her mind recognized the lie. There was room in her for other passions.

  Frustrated by her efforts to extract the weed, she planted her bare feet in the sun-warmed soil and pulled with all her might. Grunting with the effort, she threw her weight into the task. The weed resisted stoutly, and she tugged again and again. It was suddenly a personal battle, her against the weed. She was not about to be defeated by a mere weed, for heaven’s sake.

  “Mama, who is that lady?” Maggie asked, standing up and pointing at the main driveway.

  A woman in a peach-colored dress and matching bonnet alighted from a hansom cab.

  “Hello!” Maggie called, waving. “Hello, over here!”

  Lucy recognized the woman at the same moment the weed gave way. She ripped it from the earth, and the momentum sent her reeling. She landed on her backside, crushing a cucumber frame and several cucumbers beneath her.

  For a moment she was too stunned to move. Then, picking up each arm like a marionette on a string, she climbed to her feet. She didn’t bother brushing herself off as she hurried across the yard. She was far too sweaty and filthy for any brushing-off to help.

  She hardly felt the gravel driveway beneath her bare feet, hardly heard the crunch and grind of the departing cab. Her entire being was riveted on the silk-clad caller.

  Somehow, Lucy managed to arrange her sunburned, dirt-smudged face into a smile.

  “Hello,” she said in a voice she scarcely recognized. “We met once before, but you probably won’t remember. I’m Lucy. Lucy Hathaway.” Then she forced herself to do the impossible. She took off her filthy gloves, dropped them on the ground and extended her hand in greeting to Diana Layton Higgins.

  Twenty-Seven

  Maggie had seen the lady’s face before. It was smooth and white, with sharply outlined red lips, like the face of the china doll Grammy Grace had given her. But there was something special about this face. Something familiar.

  Then she remembered.

  This was the lady in the old brown photographs. This was the lady in the fancy painting that used to hang in the parlor. Papa had taken that picture down and moved it to an upstairs room where nobody went.

  There were bees in Maggie’s stomach again, buzzing around like they did when she felt scared and shy. She clutched at her mother and hid behind her, peeking up at the doll-lady.

  Her hat was enormously fancy, with feathers and flowers piled high as the sky. Long, glossy yellow ringlets hung down one side. Her stiff petticoats swished when she moved, and a gigantic bustle adorned her behind. Sally Saltonstall said bustles were fashionable, but to Maggie, they looked like a big bunch of bows and nonsense.

  “I’m terribly sorry,” the lady said in a soft, polite voice. “But you’re right. I’m afraid I don’t recall meeting you.” She leaned to the side to get a better look at Maggie. “Is this your little boy?”

  Maggie scowled. That again. Just because she didn’t wear a dress, people were always calling her a boy. Worse than that, they always called her little.

  “Miss—Mrs. Higgins,” said Mama, “please come inside. We’ll just get cleaned up, and then we’ll join you in the parlor.”

  The lady puckered her forehead, but she went up the front steps with them and stepped into the foyer with its checkerboard floor and the staircase with the railing that was perfect for sliding down. She took off her skinny lace gloves and turned around slowly, looking at the naughty fountain of the boy peeing and the shiny woodwork of the staircase. “So this is Randolph’s house,” she said in a quiet voice.

  Maggie didn’t like it when people called her papa Randolph like he was a street or something.

  “Please have a seat in the parlor.” Mama’s voice sounded tight, and her hand, which Maggie still clung to, felt all sweaty. “I’ll send for some refreshments, and when we get cleaned up, we’ll join you.”

  The white forehead puckered again. “I am here to see my—to see Randolph. And our daughter, Christine.”

  “Maggie,” Maggie yelled before she could stop herself. She stomped her foot. “Maggie, Maggie, Maggie.”

  Mama held her shoulders to calm her down.

  “You see,” Mama said, “this is Maggie. I believe her father sent you a photograph of the two of them. Didn’t you receive it?”

  “Yes, but—” The fancy lady got very quiet. Her eyes grew as large as two blue marbles, two very wet blue marbles. “Dear Lord, you’re Christine,” she said, and she sank down low. Her skirts swished on the shiny floor as she put her face very close to Maggie’s. “I didn’t recognize you at first,” she said. “But I do now. My daughter.” To Maggie’s horror, the lady started to cry. “My beautiful daughter.”

  Mama kept hold of Maggie’s shoulders as though she knew Maggie wanted to run away and hide. Leaning down, Mama whispered very fast, “Everything will be fine. I promise.”

  Forcing herself to be brave, Maggie stepped forward.

  The lady hugged Maggie, covering her in a flowery smell that stirred up the bees in her stomach. She didn’t know what to do about this crying lady, so she stood quite still and pressed her lips together until they hurt.

  “You’ll understand if she’s a bit bashful,” Mama said. “Please, if I could just get her cleaned up—”

  “Of course.” Sniffing into an embroidered handkerchief, the lady went into the parlor.

  Mama told Nichol about the refreshments and hurried upstairs with Maggie. “We must be quick,” she said. “We have a lot to talk about with Mrs.— Oh, I haven’t the slightest idea what to call her.” Mama was talking fast, more to herself than to Maggie. And the whole time, she was peeling off their clothes and scrubbing away with a damp towel. “Of all the times for her to show up unannounced.”

  Maggie brightened, tugging on her blue frock. “Let’s tell her to go away.”

  “No.” Mama brushed Maggie’s hair and stuck a big bow in it. Then she did her own hair, twisting it into a braid. After that, with the shoe-button hook clenched between her teeth, she bent down to fasten Maggie’s dress. Maggie had never seen Mama get them dressed so quickly.

  “She’s a very important person in our lives, Maggie, and we must be polite and gracious to her.” Mama spoke around the button hook in her mouth.
“Do you understand?”

  Maggie stuck out her foot so Mama could put a shoe on and hook the buttons. They were the shiny black shoes she wore to church, and they pinched.

  Mama pulled on a petticoat and plain blue dress. She checked herself in the mirror and scowled, taking up the towel to scrub her face some more. “All right,” Mama said, grabbing her hand. “Let’s go.”

  The lady was in the parlor where Maggie wasn’t allowed to touch anything. When she saw Maggie, she smiled, but she cried again, too.

  “My darling,” she said, holding out both hands.

  Mama gave Maggie a gentle shove and she went forward and put her hands into the lady’s. “Sit here by me,” the lady said, and Maggie obeyed, hoisting herself up to the cold, glossy silk of the best settee.

  “So,” the lady said to Mama, taking a glass of lemonade from a tray, “you must be the governess.”

  Mama sat down in another chair. “Actually, quite a bit has happened since I first discovered Maggie’s father,” she said.

  “You’re the one, then. That Miss Hathaway. The one who rescued my baby. How can I ever thank you?”

  “You needn’t, Mrs.—” Mama stopped as if she had forgotten the lady’s name. “Well.” Mama smoothed her hands over her dark blue skirt. “We didn’t know you were coming. You must have left San Francisco before getting Rand’s latest wire.”

  The visitor’s forehead wrinkled when Mama said Rand. “He sent another wire?”

  “He had some news for you. The fact is, we were married about a month ago,” Mama explained. “Rand and I, that is.”

  The lady made a little hissing sound through her teeth. “Married?”

  “With a flower and music and a kiss,” Maggie said, unable to stay silent. She didn’t like this visitor. She didn’t like her at all. “She’s my mother,” Maggie yelled, jumping down from the settee and running to Mama. “Not you!”

  The lady put her lemonade back on the tray. “Have you any sherry?” she asked.