“I didn’t mean to what? I’m sorry if—”
“You came. Even though you’re such a lady now, you came to the old neighborhood to see me fight. . . .” He shook his head, and lowered it back into the cradle of his hands.
“Anders,” Fiona interrupted. She was desperate for him to cease that kind of talk. If he kept on, she felt that not only her heart but her whole body would cease to function. “Who were those men?”
“Gamblers. They bet against me, and they’re angry I won.”
“But aren’t you supposed to try to win?” Emmeline blurted.
“They had a reason to think I’d lose.” Anders raised his head again but he still wouldn’t look precisely at either of them, and he had difficulty getting out what he said next. “They paid me to lose. To throw the fight. I promised a man named Gil Bryce I’d be knocked out, and how, and he bet who knows how much on Kid Curley. Only, when you cheered for me—I hadn’t seen you in so long, and I couldn’t stand the idea of you watching me go down.”
“Oh, Anders.” Emmeline’s eyes had darkened to mysterious pools. “I’m so sorry, I—I didn’t mean to . . .” The cab had slowed, approaching the State Street Bridge. Soon they would be in the North Division again, and Fiona knew she should be glad that they were here, glad that Anders was safe. But she wished that he were not so close to Emmeline when she did that particular trick with her eyes. “You’ll have to come home with us and stay the night. Fiona, you’ll help, won’t you? There must be someplace in that big house where we can hide him.”
A sound like a lament escaped Fiona, and she covered her mouth.
Nobody spoke as they rolled over the river. “Fiona?” Emmeline prompted.
A few moments passed and Fiona murmured in assent, although she couldn’t be sure of the exact words, for Anders met her gaze finally, and she saw his injuries, and she forgot to feel sorry for herself. She loved him still, and only wanted him to be safe. No matter how he spoke of Emmeline, Fiona had to do everything in her power to help him, help him no matter what it cost her.
It was a night of restless sleep and strange noises in the Carter household. No rainfall had been reported that week, and the thermometer at three p.m. had shown 83 degrees. Winds from the southwest were recorded at twenty miles an hour, and it cried under the eaves, waking Georgie, the newest and youngest of Mrs. Pelham the cook’s assistants. She found that she could not fall back asleep, and that her mind kept returning to the remaining third of the yellow cake with lemon icing that had been served at the Wednesday luncheon for Miss Carter and her betrothed, and which she knew was still in the cold pantry, covered with a thin cloth. The cake had been decorated with clementine supremes—Georgie had been the one who supremed all those clementines, so it was only natural the dessert would live in her thoughts. The hour was late, and she could hear Mrs. Pelham snoring through the thin wall, and she figured it was now or never.
Having cut herself a modest slice, Georgie perched on the tiled counter, and paused to savor the cake’s pretty color and elaborate decoration. Her mouth curved in happiness imaging how it would taste on her tongue. Then a less happy thought occurred to her, which was Cook’s wrath if she should be discovered. Georgie set down the plate, figuring she could contemplate matters a moment, but could certainly not un-eat the cake. Cook might tell Miss Lupin, the housekeeper, and Miss Lupin might tell Mr. Carter or his daughter, Miss Carter. In the second case, Georgie thought she would come out all right—for Emmeline was generally kind to the servants, and was liked by them, for she had a flair for the delightful, and always appreciated their attempts to please her. Then Georgie remembered Miss Carter’s lady’s maid, who was unpopular with the rest of the staff, for though she was no better than the rest of them, she sometimes ate fine meals with the young miss in her quarters. She probably had cake all the time. Georgie picked up her plate, thinking how unfair it was that Fiona should be given so much, and set it down, remembering that she was not afforded the same privileges, and had had difficulty securing even this position.
It was strange that Fiona should have entered Georgie’s musings just then, for only a few minutes before, Fiona had passed directly by where she was sitting, carrying a bowl of warm water and a set of clean men’s clothes, feeling on the contrary that she was never given very much at all.
In the greenhouse, which had seemed the only logical place on the property to hide a fugitive, the atmosphere was tense and warm and melancholy. Overgrown plants crawled the walls, their tendrils spreading against the glass roof, while others had gone brown and dusty for lack of water. Emmeline stood by the entrance, her hand resting on a wilted potted palm.
“Anders.” Fiona’s voice quavered over the name, even though she had meant to sound so steady. They both appeared slightly startled, as though they’d forgotten she had gone to fetch clothes for Anders and a cloth to clean his cuts. “Does it hurt?”
In the dimness, motionless and washed by shadow, his bruises did not show so much. He appeared peaceful, like the Anders she remembered, resting until some mischief occurred to him, something fun that they must all do together, right away, before any more time got wasted. But he shifted forward, and she saw how puffy and purple his eye was, how his strong torso hunched over his knees in moody contemplation, how wrecked he was by everything.
“I’m fine.”
“You look awful,” she said.
“Don’t you go sparing my feelings, now, Fiona,” he replied, and she couldn’t help but laugh at that. He, too, made a sound like a laugh and said, “Anyway, I’ve been hit worse. Is everything quiet inside? I suppose it’d be big trouble if Mr. Carter found out his daughter went to a prizefight, wouldn’t it?”
Fiona stepped away from the entrance, and put the bowl of warm water down on the worktable, trying not to feel wounded by his worrying over Emmeline instead of her. She focused on arranging the clothes—she had found them in the laundry, and guessed they were Malcolm’s—in a neat pile. “They didn’t notice we were gone—they must not have, or Mr. Carter would’ve raised the hue and cry.” And I’d be out of a job, Fiona wanted to say. I’d be on the street, and letting my whole family down. But she didn’t say that. She took the clean cloth she’d brought from the house and dipped it in the bowl. “There are so many strangers here this week, I don’t think you’ll be noticed” was what she said instead. Nobody had been in the greenhouse since Mr. Carter put in a standing daily order with Harold’s, the fashionable downtown florist. “So many builders and cooks and waiters, I mean. For the wedding.” She hated herself for saying it that way—harsh, as though trying to make a point—and her eyes swung to Emmeline and then back in Anders’s direction.
“Oh.” His blue gaze rose to meet hers. In the moonlight, he had the aspect of a statue in a garden coming to life. He smiled in the old way, off to one side, and his stomach contracted with a mirthless chuckle. She liked looking at his face, even as it was now, and she wanted to go on looking at it until she’d memorized how all his features fit together. “Yes, the wedding.”
“It’s this Sunday . . .” she began.
“But who can think about that now,” Emmeline cut in, and came to the worktable, and took the cloth out of Fiona’s hands. “After tonight. Everything that happened tonight. Anders . . . what did happen tonight?”
In the silence that followed they could hear the wind rattling the panes of the walls. “You saved my life tonight.”
For a moment, Fiona thought he meant her, but then she realized that “you” was probably both her and Emmeline. Or maybe just Emmeline. After all, it was Emmeline who had been brave, Emmeline’s quick thinking that got him out of the neighborhood. She felt embarrassed for caring—when all that really mattered was that he was safe—and wiped her damp palms on her skirt.
“I don’t know how you go out there, knowing someone could hit you and hit you and hit you until . . .” Emmeline was saying as she squeezed the water from the rag, crossed the room to where he sat, and pressed it ag
ainst his temple. “How can you stand the pain?”
“Oh, it doesn’t hurt the way you’d think it would. There’s so much fury. You feel it, all right. But every time you get hit, you want to hit back. You feel what you’ll do to the other man, almost more than what he’s done to you.”
“Does it hurt now?” Fiona asked.
He gave a rueful smile. “Yes,” he allowed. “But don’t be wise, you’ll make me smile, and it hurts worse when I smile.”
Emmeline glanced over her shoulder at Fiona—a warning look. “Are they rough men?” she asked, her attention fixing itself once again on Anders. “The gamblers, I mean.”
“Yeah.” Anders shifted. “Pretty rough. They’ll keep searching for me. When they find me, they’ll . . .”
None of them wanted to hear how that sentence ended. “Do you need money so bad?” Emmeline prodded.
“The money was so I could leave.”
“Leave?” Emmeline’s voice rose in shock, but Fiona was surprised she could say anything at all. She herself could not have managed any sound. She felt as though she’d been hit, hit like Anders hit his opponent at Jem’s, and for several seconds it was impossible to get air into her lungs. “Leave and go where?”
“Anywhere, as long as it isn’t here. I can’t stand it here anymore.”
“You can’t go!” Emmeline exclaimed with sudden passion.
“No? How could I stay? Everyone is gone, now. My mother, and then Father walked off one day, and my brother is drunk so often he might as well not be here. I’d rather be anywhere . . . New York, San Francisco, New Orleans, anywhere with fights. Once I heard about the wedding, there was no reason for me to be here anymore. Even Fiona began to act as though I were already gone, as though I were nothing.”
“But—” The pain in Fiona’s throat was such that it was hard to form words. Was that all he had wanted to tell her? That he was leaving, and it was all because he couldn’t stand to be in the same city where Emmeline was marrying someone else? “But I didn’t want you to leave.”
“Now, after what I’ve done—now I have to. It’s dangerous for you, too, if I stay here. Both of you.”
Fiona wasn’t entirely sure what Anders had just said, because after he spoke he flung off his coat and the short pants he’d worn in the ring, and stepped into the trousers Fiona had brought for him. The thought that for a moment he had been almost naked made her mind fuzzy, her body light. She concentrated on keeping herself steady, while he plucked the shirt from the table, and, with nimble fingers, buttoned it from the collar down, and tucked it into the trousers. When he was dressed, he folded up his coat and put it on the table.
“Will you get rid of that? I can’t take it with me—I’ve worn it all over the neighborhood, someone might recognize me.”
Fiona’s mind was a jumble—Anders, so close, yet threatening to leave; the way he’d spoken of Emmeline, the sorrowful way he hung his head. It was too much to make sense of.
“Go on,” Emmeline, on the other side of Anders, said.
“What?” Fiona replied stupidly.
“Didn’t you hear Anders? Please take the coat away.”
The imperious tone snapped Fiona to attention. “If your father should wake now—” she began.
“Fiona Byrne, you are not here to serve Father,” Emmeline interrupted, stepping between Fiona and Anders. “If you are my true friend, you will let me have a moment with Anders. He says he is going away forever, and if he is going away forever, I must be able to talk to him, just a little while, alone.”
Fiona nodded mechanically, and stepped past Emmeline and wrapped her arms around Anders’s middle. Her body heaved with the effort not to cry, although he felt solid as a mountain. Her head was noisy with a thousand contradictory thoughts, but a clear voice in her ear whispered, Tell him, you will not get another chance. His arms and torso were so strong and real, she couldn’t believe he would go. That he would not always be here. But soon he would be gone, and there was no stopping him. He was right about there being no other way. Nothing good would come of his staying here.
Here his life was in danger.
Here he’d always belong to Emmeline.
The circle of his arms tightened, pulling her against his chest. “Goodbye, Fiona,” he said, and released his hold.
“Good night,” Emmeline said pointedly.
Fiona felt awkward, thick of tongue and dense of body. She knew she was supposed to leave now but seemed to have forgotten how to go about it. Inside Fiona was a chaos that frightened her. She feared that if she didn’t get control of this riot of emotion, it would be plain on her face how she really felt, and the last little shards of her dignity, the few things she had left to be proud of, would all be taken from her, too.
Emmeline blinked.
Anders put his hand on his hip.
Fiona dug her fingernail into the soft flesh of her palm to distract from the painful tightness in her throat. Finally, she realized that if she hesitated another moment, she would begin to sob, and it would be obvious why. With that thought, and a forceful directive to her feet to move fast, she withdrew.
In the kitchen, Georgie had finished her cake, and it was just as cool and sweet and lemony as she had hoped. She was licking her fork when she heard the door slam, and her heart leapt with the fear that she had been discovered. But her fear became relief when she recognized Fiona, and then changed again into a kind of cruel satisfaction, for Fiona was crying. Or at least trying very hard not to. Georgie did not wonder over the reason for the silent, gulping sobs, but assumed they were likely well-deserved. Then she had another notion—that she had been given a gift of sorts, if only she could discover how to use it. For the information that Fiona was going around at night acting strange was surely worth something, to somebody.
Fiona, for her part, did not notice the girl sitting in the kitchen, too consumed was she with her own sorrow. She had lost so much, so quickly, that she hardly knew herself, and only hoped that she could manage to keep her sobs quiet enough that none of the other staff would hear her. That no one would guess what had passed in the night, and thus cause her to lose her job, her dignity, along with her best friend and her love—to lose everything at once.
Seven
Emmeline Magnuson. Emmeline Carter Magnuson. Mrs. Anders Magnuson.
—Diary of Emmeline Carter, May 16, 1869
Through the smudged glass, Emmeline watched Fiona close the back door that led into the kitchen of the big house. She felt relieved that her friend was gone, although she wasn’t entirely sure why. The night had been wonderful and terrible, but she couldn’t figure why Fiona should be taking it so hard. She wasn’t the one who’d caught a glimpse of her first love, on the day before being married to one of the most eligible men in the city. It wasn’t she who was driven witless with memories, she who was suddenly presented with impossible choices.
“You shouldn’t talk to her that way,” Anders said.
Emmeline turned around. The coat, which Emmeline had told Fiona to take away, was still lying on the table. His face was half his own, and half botched with the punches he had taken. Although the swelling and bruising was almost monstrous, the overall effect made him appear somehow more handsome.
Before she could think what to say, Anders had bowed his head, picked up her hand, and brushed his lips across her skin. “Goodbye, my Emmeline,” he said, and went through the corridor of browning plants, through the door, and away without once looking back.
Emmeline felt that her breath had been taken from her. How could he go, like that, after all these years, with so few words? Didn’t he want to know who she was now, and what she had been through? Didn’t he want to tell her the same? She knew that she had caused the trouble he was in, and hated herself for it. But he had said all manner of contradictory things, seemed to adore her and be glad of her visit at one moment, and angry about it the next, and why had he said that about Fiona? He of all people should know that they were true friends, no
matter the protocols of mistress and maid that they now observed.
Let him go, she instructed herself, with a stern inner finger wag. He is the past and Freddy is the future.
But Anders had only been gone a few moments, and she already felt stifled to find herself once again alone, richly dressed, waiting around to be married. She wanted the exhilaration of watching him in the ring, the mad longing she’d felt when she saw him across the alley in the old neighborhood, the rush of his eyes steady upon her. She wanted the thrill of realizing that his boyish crush had become something far more significant, all those years ago.
Stay, she admonished. But no thoughts about what she should do could match the wild, helpless feeling that rose whenever she realized that every second carried Anders farther away from her. Her hand still tingled where his lips had brushed the skin, and the sensation ferried her into the past, straight to the era when his every glance told her she was the most beautiful girl in the world. She grabbed his coat, pulling it over her shoulders to cover the bright blouse she had chosen earlier, and hurried out past the garden shed, the stables, the backhouses where the male servants lived, and onto Clark Street.
Murky darkness spread between the mansions, wherever the flickering gas streetlamps did not reach. Those circles of light she tried to avoid. Although the windows she passed were dark, she knew one sleepless neighbor lighting a candle might glance out their window and see the most talked-about bride of the season on the streets, wearing a strange man’s coat. She tried to move in a casual, inconspicuous way, but when she saw no sign of Anders she began to panic.
She ran four more blocks before she saw his silhouette, and opened her mouth to shout his name.
As it happened, she didn’t have to. Perhaps he heard her, or otherwise he knew all along that she would follow. At the corner he stopped, turned, lifted his chin—as though gauging an adversary—and fixed her under his gaze. After that she slowed her pace, pulled the coat tight around her body. By the time she reached him she had managed to summon a little of the ladylike dignity she had tried so hard to acquire. If she could only find a way for them to begin again somehow, she thought he would remember all the sweetness that had once been between them, and stay still with her a little while. Stay with her long enough to know what was, what ought to be, between them now.
When We Caught Fire Page 6
