When We Caught Fire

by Anna Godbersen

  “Ada is in the Turkish drawing room,” said Mrs. Tree, and then she, too, departed, drifting into a private consultation with the butler.

  Emmeline wandered into the drawing room off the foyer, and saw that it had indeed been redone in a Turkish theme. Heavy, patterned carpets hung on the walls, and potted palms filled up the corners. The gaslight caught the brass buttons of the gentlemen drinking from goblets, and the diamonds of the women who lounged in divans. On a low dais, a man dressed as some sort of Anatolian king sat on a golden throne, while a woman in a diaphanous white gown lounged at his feet, and a small boy fanned them. The scene was so elaborate, and richly colored, that Emmeline wished she had brought along her diary.

  “You’ve never seen one before, have you?”

  Emmeline turned toward a tall gentleman in white tie with sleek dark hair. “Seen what?”

  “A tableau vivant.” His small, precise features twitched in amusement. “They’re quite the thing in New York. Isn’t it thrilling to have one in our little backwater?”

  “You mean the . . .” Emmeline indicated the people posing on the dais, and tried to hide her surprise at hearing Chicago, which was all she’d ever known, referred to as a backwater.

  “Yes, I mean the living picture. You’re Miss Carter, aren’t you? Do you drink champagne?”

  A waiter with a tray of sparkling flutes was passing, and the man with the sleek dark hair took one, and put it in Emmeline’s hand.

  “Are you often in New York?” Emmeline asked, sipping from her glass. The champagne fizzed in her mouth, and relaxed her throat. She liked saying the city’s name, and knowing that she’d soon be there with Anders, and thought perhaps she should inquire what hotel the gentleman preferred, and if there were any restaurants that he recommended in particular. With Anders, she would have to be the guide, and know how best to travel in style.

  “Oh, at least twice a year. My preferred tailor is there, and . . .”

  “Emmeline!” Ada burst into their conversation and took firm hold of Emmeline’s elbow. In a calm, forceful tone one might use to admonish a naughty child, she said, “We really must be going, Mr. Fleming.”

  “Adieu, Mrs. Garrison,” the gentleman replied with a flash of teeth.

  As they passed from the Turkish drawing room and into a smaller parlor with flocked vermillion wallpaper, furnished with small sofas upholstered in a burgundy satin, and occupied chiefly by young women, Ada maintained a tight grip on Emmeline. “Do you know him?”

  “Know who?”

  “Jim Fleming, of course.”

  “Was that James Olcott Fleming? No—only from the social column.”

  “Good. Don’t get to know him any better. He is quite a flirt, and will take advantage of every opportunity to exploit the feminine nature. If you are seen talking to him too long, there will be rumors.”

  “Oh.” Emmeline winced, realizing that she had almost told Jim Fleming that she was planning on running away. She really was out of sorts. The red parlor was populated with more people whose names she knew from the social column of the Tribune. She saw Delia Rockingham and Lucy Rawlings, and the Alexander Oleanders, and Mrs. Charring Pine. She saw John Jacob Dawson, tête-à-tête with Marianne Otis, who had once snubbed Emmeline at a private musicale, but who now watched her passage through the room with an almost awestruck expression.

  Emmeline lifted her chin, and allowed Ada to draw her through the warren of halls. She understood that Mr. Fleming’s attentions were rather embarrassing, but she couldn’t help but feel a little bit flattered by his interest at the same time. They came into a long dining room, where guests stood in small groups beneath enormous, ormolu-framed portraits of the Tree family’s ancestors. A table was laden with heaps of grapes, croquettes, frosted cakes, and silver tureens of broth; when Emmeline saw the food, she remembered how little she’d eaten that day. A waiter passed with a platter of fried oysters, and Emmeline grabbed two and put both in her mouth at once. This steadied her, which was a good thing, because a few moments later they arrived at the ballroom and saw, beneath an enormous chandelier, four couples performing the quadrille, and one of them was Freddy—her Freddy—paired with Cora Russell.

  “She has been cornering him all evening,” whispered Ada.

  “Does she think she’s going to get him after all?” Emmeline asked, surprised that Cora would challenge her, after the engagement had been made official and with the wedding date approaching fast.

  “Well”—Ada emitted an accusatory little cough—“is she?”

  Emmeline lengthened her neck, and placed her hands patiently together. She was not about to give up her place in the world before her time. The dancers took notice, and when Freddy turned, their eyes met. He grinned, let go of Cora, and reached for his fiancée. Emmeline returned his smile, and allowed herself to be pulled farther onto the floor.

  Earlier in her social career, Emmeline struggled to remember the precise steps, and had an unfortunate habit of looking down at her footwork, with the result that she stumbled often and was sometimes not asked for a second dance. Now she moved easily—the music was brisk and it told her what to do, and she went on smiling and gazing up at Freddy. Daisy Fleming and Ralph Finch were the next couple over, and whenever Daisy caught Emmeline’s eye, it was as though they had a private joke between them. When they had traveled across the room and back again, and the song was coming to a close, she caught a glimpse of Ada, watching her and Freddy with pride. Just behind Ada stood Cora, wearing a gloomy face.

  When the music stopped, the guests who had been sitting along the wall stood and the sound of their applause reached to the ceiling. Emmeline made a low curtsy to Freddy, and he responded with a courtly bow, and then offered his hand to help her up.

  “Shall we catch our breath in the other room?” Freddy asked.

  The other dancers and guests parted for them as they made their way toward the arched doorway. There were so many eyes upon them that she did not immediately notice Father among the crowd.

  “Are you feeling better, my dear?” her father whispered into her ear.

  “Oh yes,” she replied, before remembering that she had claimed not to be feeling well earlier in the evening.

  “I suspected it was only a case of nerves,” he replied so that only she could hear. To Freddy, he said, “Take care of my Emmeline. Perhaps I will claim my fatherly privilege of a dance later on. Meantime, keep her happy.”

  Freddy made a deep and theatrical bow, and said, “Such is my life’s quest.”

  As Father retreated back into the crowd, she briefly considered chasing him, to claim she was still not quite right, that she must be sick after all. But she knew she could not play the invalid with any conviction now. Her spirits were high, and she was excited to taste all of the delicious plates the Trees had prepared, to dance until late, to show off everything she had learned since leaving the old neighborhood.

  Soon this world would be behind her, so she might as well enjoy it tonight.

  Ten

  Pride, envy, avarice are the three sparks/

  that kindle in men’s hearts and set them burning.

  —Dante’s Inferno,

  Translation 1853

  Library of Ochs Carter

  “What do you think they’re doing right now?”

  Fiona focused on the playing cards in her hands. The jack of hearts was winking wolfishly, and waxy to the touch. Anders hadn’t spoken in a while, and the sound of his voice surprised her, and she was unsure how to reply. Not because she didn’t know the answer. By ten o’clock, which it very nearly was, the Trees’ guests would be famished from so much dancing, and the butler would have summoned them onto the lawn where they would be served consommé de boeuf and catch their breath in the fresh air. Afterward, the sexes would separate for a time, so that the ladies could regain their strength and reapply their makeup and repin their hair. They would sit in a private parlor, comparing dance cards, trying to divine some meaning in the repetition of
the gentlemen’s names written there in pencil. Those little pencils, they came in gold and silver and turquoise and scarlet, and they were attached to the corresponding booklet with matching ribbon—Fiona had seen many versions, brought home by Emmeline and left near the bathtub to be picked up and neatly folded and placed in her keepsake chest. Tonight, Emmeline’s dance card would likely be of little interest, for surely Freddy’s name would be scrawled on every line, and perhaps there would have been no point in keeping a record of her other dance partners at all. She would be expected to be at Freddy’s side when they went down for the formal supper, and at his side when the guests gathered once again in the ballroom for the waltz. Fiona had listened so often to the stories of these evenings, it was almost as though she had been there, and memorized their grand sweep, and all their small intrigues, too.

  “Fiona?”

  When he said her name she remembered herself, her place. She was in the greenhouse, sitting on the ground, keeping Anders company while Emmeline maintained appearances, playing a third game of cards to pass the time, under a blanket that they had hung over their heads so the light of candles would not draw attention to them in the darkness. The white collared shirt she had taken from the laundry was large on Anders, and he had rolled it to the elbows, and his feet were bare.

  “I don’t know,” she lied.

  Anders’s face was serious. His body was very still.

  She continued prattling in a nervous way: “These celebrations always go on and on. She’s surely bored and probably thinking of you.”

  “You really think she is?”

  “That was the last thing she said before she left,” Fiona reported dutifully. “She said to tell you that you were in her heart.”

  Anders nodded and rearranged his cards. Fiona couldn’t remember whose turn it was anymore, and she sensed he wasn’t thinking very much about the game, anyway. They had always talked about everything when they were children, but now, with silences and secrets grown between them, he seemed mysterious and remote. After a while he asked, “Have you ever been to a party like that?”

  “Yes. Well, no. I’ve accompanied Emmeline, to help her with her dress and so forth, but I’ve never . . .”

  “Been a guest?”

  “No. Nor will I ever.” She had intended this in a flat, careless way, but the words were bitter on her tongue. “I wouldn’t want to,” she added. After she said it, she knew it was true.

  Anders put his cards down and lay on his back. “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. I just wouldn’t. Would you?”

  His head rolled in her direction, and for the first time that night he smiled a little. “No, I guess I wouldn’t, either. I can’t see the point.”

  “Do you go to the neighborhood dances?”

  “Sometimes, but I’m not much for dancing.”

  “Why not? In the ring, you—” Fiona cleared her throat, embarrassed to remember the admiring way she’d watched him in the fight. “I mean to say that I think it would be easy for you.”

  “Well, at first I just didn’t have much to do at those dances. The boys were dancing because they wanted the girls to be sweet to them, and there weren’t any girls I cared for.” He propped himself up on an elbow, a faraway look in his eyes, and took the cards and shuffled them. Fiona became conscious of a warmth at her collarbone under her own stiff, white collared shirt, of the heaviness of her black skirt over her folded legs. Wherever he was, it was a place of Emmeline, and Fiona felt it would be too much to know the particulars in his mind. “Then I started boxing,” he went on, glancing up at her, “and there was so much to learn. Boxing was the only place I wanted to be.”

  “Every night?”

  “Every night I could.” Anders had begun separating the face cards, laying them out neatly. “In the summer, Jem had me out on his farm, and we trained all day. The air is sweet out there, and nobody worries about money or girls, and if we play cards, it’s just for fun.”

  The way his voice changed describing it, Fiona could smell the countryside, the clean air after a brisk walk down a dirt road that went all the way to the horizon line. “That sounds like a nice place. Are there wildflowers everywhere?”

  “You like wildflowers, don’t you?”

  Fiona had to think a moment. “Maybe I’ve never seen a wildflower,” she admitted.

  Anders exhaled. “You’re an easy one to talk to. What do you do, Miss Fiona, when Emmeline has gone off to her parties? You must have friends here.”

  “Not many. They don’t like me much. I’m not like them—but I’m not like her, either.”

  His head bobbed in understanding. “Are you bored?”

  “No. Mr. Carter has a library with all the new books, and I try to keep up my learning, so I can help my brothers and sister. And there is always a dress to mend, or sew some new detail on. I’ve made a few on my own. I don’t mind being by myself, I always have plenty to do.”

  “Don’t you get lonely?”

  “No, I . . .” Fiona lowered her eyes and put her hands in her lap. The truth was that she had often filled her mind with memories of Anders, and considered herself in good company. She felt silly, remembering those nights now.

  “There must be some boy around here, pining for you to give him a second glance.”

  Fiona was having a hard time finding a natural place to look that wasn’t Anders. She could only manage to shake her head.

  “Then you haven’t been . . . kissed.”

  By now her blush was catching—it went all the way to her throat—and she was trying with all her might to avoid his gaze. But this was impossible. “Only that once,” she whispered.

  The candlelight cast shadows around his full lips and hooded eyes, his strong shoulders and rough hands. Everything became a little topsy-turvy, and his body seemed treacherously close to hers, especially with the blanket overhead, making the world small and full of only them. The atmosphere was noisy with the earth settling, the creak of the structure slowly sinking, insects, night things, her own pulse. Fiona had made a promise to Emmeline, and she knew she was betraying it by conjuring that time Anders kissed her. She shouldn’t have brought it up at all. If only Emmeline hadn’t gone to the party, Fiona thought, I would not have slipped up. The whole arrangement of the evening struck her, suddenly, as quite unfair.

  “That night?” he asked.

  His acknowledgment frightened her, and she wished this conversation was over already. The threads of her shirt clung, damp and irritating, to the skin of her chest. She was Emmeline’s best friend, so she was bound to help her do what she wished. And she was Anders’s friend, and wanted only for him to be safe.

  Anders shifted. “Whenever I saw you, after that, I wanted to tell you—”

  Fiona stood up abruptly, into the blanket, as though she could escape the memory. For a moment she stood like a ghost with the cloth draped over her head. Then she felt its fibers brush her face, its soft tassels against her cheeks, as he pulled it, pulled it down and away from her body. The disturbance had put out the candles. She heard Anders laugh his low, earthbound chuckle, and she was relieved, and knew that none of it mattered much. He did not think she was a fool; they had done no great wrong. Her vision adjusted by the time he was on his feet, and she could make out his grin. When she saw the grin, she felt she could tell him anything.

  “Anders,” she began.

  But in the next moment she forgot what she had been about to say.

  A light had appeared out there in the darkness and it was moving in their direction. The person carrying the lamp was approaching from the house, and her first thought was that it must be Malcolm or Mr. Carter, and that they were all about to be in a lot of trouble. She took a breath, and moved in front of Anders, as though that might protect him. The swinging lantern approached, and Fiona’s stomach dropped again with the thought that it might be the gamblers, come for Anders—come to take him away.

  Fiona squinted into the murkiness outside, and her sho
ulders relaxed. The person held the lantern high above her head, so that she seemed taller than she was, but it illuminated the pretty, pliant face of Georgie, who the Carters had taken on a month ago to help in the kitchen, and who could be easily bribed with a sweet treat.

  Fiona moved fast, through the door and into the yard so that she could cut Georgie off before the girl noticed Anders. “What are you up to,” she demanded. “Going about so late?”

  Georgie lowered the lantern and glared at Fiona. “Could ask you the same,” came her retort. She was trying to peer around her, through the glass and the wall of half-dead plants.

  “Yes, but . . .” Fiona was a little surprised by Georgie’s impertinent reply, and for a moment couldn’t think what to say. “I take my orders from Miss Carter.”

  “Oh yes? She told you to be out here, this late at night, with—?”

  Before Georgie could acknowledge Anders’s presence, Fiona interrupted her. “Never you mind what I’m doing here.” She was still angry at the girl for the fright she’d caused, and her outrage grew when she saw how stubbornly and stupidly she stood her ground. Once or twice the girl had slipped up, and Fiona had heard the Irish in her voice, and realized she was not who she pretended to be. There was something odd about Georgie, as though she did not quite understand that she was a servant, and was meant to murmur and bow, that she should not appear to hold opinions or want things. This quality had not bothered Fiona until now. “If you would like to speak to Miss Carter about how she chooses to manage her household, by all means, knock on her door. In the meantime, I suggest you return to your bed, or I’ll report you to Cook for being out odd hours, and she’ll finally have an answer as to why you’re so slow peeling potatoes in the morning.”

  Fiona had hoped her harsh tone would send the girl scurrying. But she must not have been forceful enough, for Georgie’s reply was a slight, defiant tilt of the head. Meanwhile Anders kept silent within the greenhouse, but Fiona sensed him there, watching.