“Well, if it isn’t Anders Magnuson,” she said—gaily, as though they were meeting now by chance—“it seems you’ve become quite the boxer.”
Despite everything, a smile flickered at the corners of his mouth. “I suppose you’re an expert, Miss Emmeline,” he replied. “In boxing.”
“Oh, yes,” she answered, walking toward him with a slow, rocking gait. “Any given evening you might find me in the saloons.”
“Then it’s all a fantasy to sell newspapers?” Anders went on, picking up her joking tone. She was relieved to hear the lightness in his voice again, relieved that the spell of seriousness that had hung over them in the greenhouse was broken. “That you’re a lady of fashion now, soon to be married in style.”
“You’ll find the truth is rather more sordid.” Emmeline paused and posed, arching a brow. “I’ve become quite tough, really.”
Anders laughed and sighed and pulled his hand over his mouth, and looked at her again with an expression that was half wonderment and half despair. “Why did you come? Why tonight? I almost forgot you, you know.”
“Did you want to forget me?” Emmeline frowned. “That would be sad. I couldn’t, you know. Forget you. That’s why I went tonight. Because I couldn’t forget.”
“Oh.”
“Would you rather I hadn’t?”
His answer was a long time coming, and his eyes flashed with some unspoken memory. “I’d rather you didn’t act like I never was. I’d rather I didn’t learn you were getting married from a four-days-old newspaper somebody left around when I was in the country training. I wish I hadn’t busted my hand punching a wall that night. I wish you’d visited sooner. I wish . . . I wish you weren’t more beautiful now. I didn’t think that could be. But indeed you are.”
“Oh, Anders.” Emmeline was a little frightened by this speech, but she didn’t want it to end, either. “We were children, you know, when we promised each other.”
He looked away. “That we were.”
A bird hooted, and the leaves of the big trees shimmered and chimed. He took a step toward her, and she was better able to make out his face. The swollen mouth, the bruised cheek; his low forehead and ardent gaze and full mouth. Her fiancé was handsome too, but in such a different way. Frederick had a regal brow and a prominent nose, like he’d inherited his features from a long line of dukes. Anders was younger than Freddy, but didn’t look it. He had never been to Europe, and yet somehow he had traveled farther.
“We aren’t now.”
Suddenly she didn’t care that they were standing on the walk in front of the Dawson family’s block. She didn’t care that the Dawsons’ servants might be up early to begin the chores for the day, catch a glimpse of her, and spread rumors. “Would it have made a difference if I told you myself?” she replied, not bothering to whisper. “You would have been angry then, too, wouldn’t you?”
“At least it would have meant you cared.” He spoke with such force she felt the impact of the words as though they were physical things. Even so she longed for him to close the distance between them, to touch her for real.
“Of course, but I . . .” She furrowed her brow, and tried to think of all the reasons that wasn’t possible. But she couldn’t. A stubbornness in her belly dissolved. “I was wrong. I am sorry. I am sorry I didn’t tell you. I suppose I knew that if I came to see you, I wouldn’t be able to do it.”
“Well, it’s done now. And for the best. Now you’ve seen me; you can get married in good conscience. I’m leaving Chicago on the next train, wherever it goes, and then you can forget I ever was . . .” A moment ago, she was sure they’d be leaving this corner together. But with a simple shake of the head he turned and began walking south.
“Please don’t.” Emmeline hurried to keep up with him. “You can’t leave. Not now. We’ve only barely gotten to know each other again.”
“Should we have tea, then?” he replied without slowing. The broad line of his shoulders was sharp as a rebuke. “We can go to one of those fancy hotels, and I’ll tell you all that has happened over the past two years, and then you’ll be able to speak eloquently at my funeral.”
“Oh.” The wind off the river roughed Emmeline’s hair, and a chill shuddered down her spine. She could feel Anders’s absence already, and it made her cold in a way she wasn’t sure would ever go away. But he was moving so fast. She kept pace with him another block, until the river was in view, its surface a deep and oily green. They had passed through the section of stately mansions, into a place of warehouses. She could see the towering grain elevator on the lake’s shore and hear men shouting, even over the groan and scream of the swing bridge as it closed. It had made way for a boat that was now moving past the river’s mouth, sails spread to take advantage of a strong wind. When the boat was gone, the chase went out of her. Anders’s strides were long and strong, and she was wearing heeled shoes that were not made for walking. She could not keep up with him all the way to the train station. Anyway, he was determined to leave her behind.
But the sight of the river must have affected him, too, because he paused, a few paces ahead of her, and stood staring south. His neck tensed under the line of close-cropped hair, and the blades of his shoulders moved apart and together. She opened her mouth to implore him to stay, but did not get a chance.
“Shhhh . . .” Without another sound, almost before she knew what had happened, he turned, picked her up around the middle, and carried her into the stone doorway of a shipping concern. “Don’t look,” he whispered.
As if he had just commanded her to do so, Emmeline poked her head out. The bridge was swinging back into place. The only man waiting was tall, and he wore a long leather coat. His back was to them, but he glanced to either side, and the way he twitched and shifted, it was plain he was looking for something. When she last saw this man, through the rear window of the cab, everything had been happening too quickly to be afraid.
She was afraid now.
Gil Bryce, she mouthed.
Anders nodded. Neither moved for a long time after that. They stood pressed together in the darkness of the doorway, trying not to breathe. Her heart was a hammer, and so was Anders’s—she could feel how it pumped through the thin shirt he wore. His grip around her was firm yet light, and she wasn’t sure if it was that, or the man with the gun, that more disturbed her stomach. Finally the bridge clanged back into place. The bridgemaster was shouting that it was safe to cross. “He’s gone,” she whispered.
Very gently, Anders pushed her back. “Then it’s time I was on my way.”
“Wherever you’re going,” she said, removing the claddagh from her ring finger and placing it in his hand, “you’ll want this.”
His posture was reluctant, but his palm still touched her palm.
A sad smile passed over his face. “Do you remember the day we brought her flowers?” he asked.
Emmeline had not thought about that day in a long time, but she remembered it well enough. It was during his mother’s final illness. They had gone to all the flower stalls in the city, playing the same trick—Fiona would distract the proprietor with a lot of questions, and Emmeline would run by and snatch one stem, hiding it until she found Anders down the block, his arms laden with their haul. They had several canning jars full by the time they returned to his mother’s sickbed, and she had laughed, to see the room full of flowers, and said, “Well, aren’t you three the darlingest ever.” Then Anders and Fiona had disappeared to do some household task that needed doing, and Mrs. Magnuson had touched Emmeline’s cheek. “My boy loves you, doesn’t he?” she had said. Emmeline had been too surprised to reply. “Well,” she went on, “you never know who’ll take the coal off your foot, when it’s burning you.” It was one of her homely phrases from the old country. “What does that mean?” Emmeline had demanded. “Ah, don’t take it hard, lovely,” she replied after a fit of coughs. “I only meant life is hard to predict and love is a peculiar thing, and everyone knows your father has other plans for you
.”
Emmeline hoped that Anders didn’t remember that part. She hoped he remembered only the fun they’d had, running through the city with all those flowers, or how quick she had been, plucking a stem.
In the darkness, in the doorway, he seemed neither to want to leave nor to want to stay. He was watching her, but his eyes were shiny with fear. She looked up at him, with an expression she hoped would remind him of a different day, the day he’d gone down on one knee on that roof in the old neighborhood and given her the ring. He had wanted to kiss her more that day, she knew, had wanted to caress her face and neck and the narrow of her waist. She had wanted that too, but neither of them had been brave enough.
Her heart pounded and she lifted onto her toes to kiss him, and heard his heart again, its beat becoming as ragged as her own. His lips were soft, but they did not return the kiss. When she pulled away, she saw eyes moody with emotion, and wondered if she had finally been too reckless. If she had gone too far. The way he searched her face she thought she might disintegrate into a thousand particles and be swept out over the lake.
Then she felt his lips, and knew she was still in one piece.
His kiss was stronger the second time, but after a moment he drew back from it, as though frightened by what he had done. They heard a foghorn across the water, but it sounded like the echo of another world. To show him it was all right, she put her nose close to his, and he brought his mouth to hers again and again, so that the kiss went on, like a dance.
“Don’t go,” she whispered when it was over.
“Haven’t you heard?” He exhaled and she felt his breath on the tip of her nose. “I have to.”
“Then go tomorrow.” She laid her head on his chest, and he put his fingers through her hair, cradling her head. “You can’t go now—Gil Bryce is across the river hunting you. You’ll be safe at our house through the night, and tomorrow we’ll figure out how to get you to the station.”
This was a lie, Emmeline knew—a sweet lie, but a lie nonetheless. Tomorrow she would try to make him stay again. She couldn’t have him, of course. But neither could she stand to let him go.
Eight
Strike it before it gets the start of you.
That is the only secret to putting out fires.
—Chicago Fire Marshal Williams, interviewed in the Chicago Crier, October 6, 1871
“Fiona, what do you think?”
The traffic was noisy five floors down on State Street. The morning light streaming through the high arched windows of Field & Leiter bestowed a special grace upon everything and everyone it touched. Mostly it touched Emmeline, encased in ivory silk and reflected three ways in the full-length, ormolu-framed trifold mirror. Mr. Polk, slender and of a nervous disposition, stood motionless at her side, briefly overcome with appreciation for his work. Miss Fay, the head seamstress, tugged at the corset and smiled encouragingly. In the far mahogany reaches of the dressing room, two attendants waited, one with the veil of Belgian lace spread across her outstretched arms, the other with a cushioned case of jewels. And Fiona, kneeling on the floor to examine one of the hundreds of little silk bows that adorned the great cascade of skirt, glanced upward to the sound of her name.
“Fiona, did you hear what I said?”
She had not heard. “I’m sorry.” She blinked. “What was it?”
Emmeline’s face was troubled as she studied her reflection. “I said: Do you think it’s all right?”
If Fiona were to reply honestly—which she had no intention of doing—she would have said that her mind was elsewhere, that she was exhausted after a restless night, having been ordered away by Emmeline for a second time in one day and saying goodbye to Anders forever. That she did not care about the dress at all. That her heart was broken beyond repair. Or she might have answered that such an extravagant dress, and such an enormous to-do at the very last moment, seemed curious to her when the bride was so obviously determined to upend her own wedding.
Instead, she gazed at the mirror, as though seeing her friend for the first time. The bodice was cinched around Emmeline’s slender waist and the skirt was fitted over the hips and bustle, fanning outward into a train that overflowed the Persian carpet. The sleeves were lace and the neck was high enough to graze Emmeline’s delicate earlobes. Fiona tilted her head, considering.
Fiona rose to her feet. The dress was beautiful, but she hated it. If she had so many yards of exquisite fabric to work with, she would not have spoiled it with all those ridiculous bows. Somehow the effect was utterly serious and totally absurd at the same time. Posing in it, Emmeline looked haughty and remote as a queen. They had been friends since childhood, but this was the first time Fiona knew what it would be like to despise Emmeline. Despise her face and her voice and everything she said and everything she thought. “I—”
“Oh dear.” Emmeline’s nose twitched, as it did when she was trying not to cry. “You don’t think it’s right.”
“A thousand pardons.” Mr. Polk stepped back, and drew a hand over his lacquered hair. “Who is this . . . person?”
“My lady’s maid, Fiona Byrne.” He seemed unappeased by this explanation, so she went on. “My maid knows me, as you do not.”
“I am the best dressmaker in Chicago. The most fashionable women in this town come to me to find out how they should look. I have never heard of such a thing.”
“But you’ve heard of my father.” Emmeline’s eyes flashed. “Haven’t you?”
An impatient exclamation, at once a laugh and a yelp, escaped Mr. Polk’s lips. He crossed his arms and showed Emmeline his back. Miss Fay murmured and began fidgeting with her belt. The two attendants became even more still. Fiona’s eyes darted around the room. She wanted to run away, but her feet were stuck to the ground. With a sudden instinct, she knew how to fix the situation, and did.
“It’s perfect,” she said. “The dress is just perfect.”
Emmeline’s worried eyes found Fiona’s in the mirror. “You don’t think it’s all wrong?”
Fiona shook her head. “No. It’s lovely.”
“All right.” Emmeline sighed. “If you think so, I think so too.”
No one spoke much after that, which seemed to suit Emmeline, and certainly suited Fiona. She withdrew to the margins, while Mr. Polk finished fitting Emmeline, and wished she could magically leave this place and go back to yesterday.
The others had gone and taken the enormous wedding gown with them before Emmeline addressed her again. “What is wrong with you?”
Fiona had been helping Emmeline into her day dress, a ruffled, fawn-colored silk with a hundred tiny pearl buttons up the spine. She glanced at the mirror. “Nothing,” she replied, startled from her task.
“Liar. You have been strange all day.”
Fiona put the last button through its hole and dropped her hands to her sides. “Me?”
“Yes. You.” Emmeline stared at her in the reflection. “You’ve been strange since yesterday.”
“I’m just tired. I couldn’t sleep last night for worrying.” Fiona had only meant to explain herself, but as soon as she said the phrase “last night,” she was furious again.
“But what do you have to worry about? I am the one whose life has been turned upside down!”
Fiona couldn’t quite believe what Emmeline had just said, and before she could hold back she was shouting. “What do you know about worry? I was worried that we’d be caught leaving, worried that we’d be spotted in the wrong part of town, worried that you’d be seen with a man not your fiancé, worried that I’d lose my job. My family would be out of their home, you know. Not that you ever think of such things. Mostly, I couldn’t sleep for worrying about Anders. Wondering where he is, if he’s alone and frightened, wishing there were a way to know that he’s all right, to tell him I am thinking of him. He could be killed, because of us. Because of us, he may never see his home again.”
The words came in such a furious rush that she was sure Emmeline would reply in kind. But Emmel
ine simply twirled toward Fiona, eyes wide and shining. “I think I love him.”
Fiona couldn’t breathe. She had to put her hand on her belly for steadiness. “You think?” was all she could manage.
“Yes. No. I don’t know. Isn’t he just so—”
“Emmeline!” There could be no hiding her anger now, and no going back. Fiona didn’t care if Mr. Polk was listening in the next room, didn’t care if she were dismissed and forced to live on the streets. She didn’t care if the whole world came to a sudden end. “You’ve always been selfish, but this is something else. You think you are in love with Anders? He left his city forever because you had to have one last little bite of him before you became Mrs. Frederick Tree, and now he’s gone, and you can’t even say for certain whether you love him. Do you ever think beyond your petty desires? Do the consequences of your actions matter at all? Perhaps a hundred people are working already for your wedding, but for you there is only Emmeline.”
Emmeline flinched and stepped back. Her bottom lip quivered and her little upturned nose twitched and she appeared more slight than usual. “I see,” she said, wiping some wetness off her face. “So that’s how you think of me. Well, you’re right, I suppose. I am selfish, and I do want a great many contradictory things. I ought to be able to say plainly that I love Anders. It frightens me to! But I do. Oh, Fiona, you’re right, you’re always right. I do.” Tears were rolling from the corners of her eyes now. Although Fiona was too shocked to feel anything, she could see that Emmeline had reached for and gotten hold of her own wrist. “And, Fiona, he hasn’t gone. He’s still here.”
“Here?” Fiona wanted to feel happy over this news, but after last night hope seemed like a very foolish thing to give in to. “He’s still in Chicago?”
When We Caught Fire Page 7
