To Dream Again

by Laura Lee Guhrke

  "Yes, sir," they chorused. They obeyed—for about thirty seconds.

  Nathaniel heard the first punch and the wail that followed. He turned around in time to see sweet-looking little Millie grab her brother Davy by the hair. The other two jumped in, and the four of them began rolling around like cats in a sack.

  Boggs dropped the sheet he was spreading over Nathaniel's train set and strode over to the children to break up the melee.

  "I said no fightin'," he shouted, pulling Davy and Millie apart. "Didn't I say that?"

  "But Father, Davy pulled my hair!" Millie wailed.

  "You pulled mine first!"

  "Did not!"

  "Did too!"

  "I've 'ad enough!" Boggs said. He shoved each child into a different comer of the room and then glanced at Nathaniel. "Sorry, guv'nor. Take my advice, sir. Never 'ave children."

  Nathaniel smothered a laugh. "I shall keep that in mind, Mr. Boggs."

  He returned his attention to the diagram before him, but it wasn't long before the Boggs children started shouting at one another from their corners, and everything seemed to deteriorate from there. Nathaniel gave up on the intricacies of improving the toy steam train and watched in sympathetic amusement as Boggs again stopped working to establish peace.

  "I'm sorry, sir, that I am," Boggs told him, disentangling Cyrus's arms and legs from Jane's. "Would've left 'em at 'ome, but me missus 'ad a cleanin' job, and she couldn't take 'em along."

  "It's all right," Nathaniel assured him. "They're just bored. Perhaps they need something fun to do." They weren't the only ones, he decided, looking down at his diagrams, at the idea that just wasn't working. He crossed the room, pulled down a crate from the top of one stack, and took it to the children. "They might find some things in here to play with."

  "Oh, no, sir," Boggs said. "Not yer toys. They might break 'em."

  Be careful with that toy, Nathaniel. His father's irritated voice came back to him. You might break it.

  "Toys are meant to be played with, Mr. Boggs," he answered and opened the box.

  When Mara went upstairs later that morning, she found Nathaniel on the floor, surrounded by children and toys. Mr. Boggs was perched on a ladder several feet from her, putting a second coat of white paint on the walls and oblivious to the noise and rambunctious play across the room.

  She returned her attention to the group on the floor. Nathaniel had set up a makeshift platform about two feet off the floor and was demonstrating some of his wind-ups for the children, deliberately sending the toys over the edge to crash on the floor below and making the children laugh.

  Mara frowned, disturbed by the sight of children in the factory. She didn't like it. She didn't like it at all.

  "'ullo, ma'am," Boggs said.

  She glanced up at the workman on the ladder. "What have we here?"

  He turned slightly and waved his paintbrush in the direction of the group on the floor, "'e says it's research."

  "Research?" Her frown deepened. "Research for what?"

  "I don't know, ma'am. But that's what 'e said."

  She walked down the length of the room, watching as Nathaniel rose up on his knees to place another toy on the platform. The draft through the open windows ruffled his hair, and he shook his head impatiently to keep the wayward strands out of his eyes, then he released the toy. It raced across the piece of wood, went over the edge, and hit the floor.

  The children clapped their hands, screaming with laughter, and a roar began in Mara's ears. Fear shimmered through her, and she came to an abrupt halt. She couldn't seem to breathe. The room was suddenly hot.

  Nathaniel reached down to retrieve the toy and noticed her standing several feet away. A frown of puzzlement knit his brow. "Mara?"

  She swallowed hard. "What are these children doing in here?"

  He opened his mouth to answer, but suddenly the oldest boy hurled himself at Nathaniel with a war whoop. The other children followed suit, tackling him with joyous enthusiasm.

  "Wait! Wait!" he cried before he went down, laughing, buried beneath the children. "Enough!" he shouted.

  Struggling to a sitting position amid the tangle of arms and legs, he looked up at her again. "These children belong to Mr. Boggs. He brought them along with him today."

  "They have to leave. Children aren't allowed in the factory."

  "Why not?"

  "We have equipment and machines." Her voice shook. "It's too dangerous."

  "There isn't any machinery up here, Mara," he pointed out. "They're perfectly safe."

  She looked down at her trembling hands. Children weren't safe anywhere. "I want them out of here. Now!"

  There was an urgent edge to her voice, and she knew he heard it. He pushed the children gently aside and stood up. "Mara, what's wrong?"

  "Now!" she repeated.

  "All right." He turned away.

  She fixed her gaze on a seam in the wood floor, listening as Nathaniel and Mr. Boggs led the children out of the room and down the stairs. She let out her breath in a rush of relief at the sudden silence, but it didn't last.

  The screams of a child ripped through her memory. Not screams of laughter, but of pain. The fire roared in her ears and she clamped her trembling hands over her ears to stop the sounds. She closed her eyes, fighting until the screams died away.

  Chapter Eleven

  When Nathaniel returned upstairs, he didn't know what he expected to find. He'd seen the flash of panic in her eyes at the sight of the children, and it bothered him. There was so much fear in her.

  He found her standing by one of the windows, lost in thought. He walked over to her, the sound of his footsteps echoing in the empty room.

  "They're gone," he said quietly. "Boggs took them home."

  She gave a brief nod and turned away from the window. "I hope it's clear I don't want children in here again. It's not safe."

  "Boggs and I wouldn't have allowed them to remain if we thought there was any danger. They're just as safe here as they would be at home or at school or anywhere else."

  "At home or at school, they are not my concern," she answered. "But here, in this building, they are. I don't want them here."

  "It’ll be hard to keep them away. This is a toy factory."

  "Not yet."

  Her determined tone made him want to smile. "Don't you ever give up?"

  She didn't answer that, and he went on, "I think it's a good idea to let children play with the toys we plan to make. It's a good way to test how well they'll hold up. And it's a good way to see if our toys will be popular."

  "We have all sorts of hazardous equipment. They might get hurt."

  "Yes, they might. The odds are lousy, since the equipment is downstairs and we're up here, but they might. I might fall down those stairs and break my neck. You might step in front of a runaway carriage. The building might even be struck by lightning, split in half, and fall on Mrs. O'Brien."

  "Don't make fun of me!"

  He looked down into her pain-twisted face and wished he could make the pain go away. "I'm not," he said gently. "It's just my way of dealing with you when I don't know what else to say. Exactly what is it you think might happen to them?"

  She pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket and handed it to him. It was a clipping from The Times. "I thought you might want to see this. I've had it for a few days, but I keep forgetting to give it to you."

  With that, she left the room, closing the door behind her.

  He glanced down at the torn sheet from a two-week-old newspaper. It was a small item, only a few lines, but Nathaniel found it very interesting. It reported that an explosion had occurred at Chase Toy Company, killing one man and injuring several others. Fire had broken out, but the flames had been extinguished before any further damage had been done. A faulty boiler was presumed to be the cause of the accident.

  Nathaniel read the item a second time. Adrian had always been too cheap to buy new equipment. They were probably still using the same boilers Fathe
r had purchased when he'd converted everything to steam, and that had been at least thirty years ago.

  How many times had he and his brother argued about those damned boilers? Two? Three? A dozen? It hadn't made any difference. Buying new equipment might mean the footmen could no longer wear gold trim on their livery. Cheap tin and bright paint for his trains, but real silk for his cravat. Old equipment that should have been scrapped years ago, but a luxurious new mansion in Mayfair. With Adrian, it was all show, no substance.

  He shoved the scrap of paper into his pocket and dismissed the other man from his mind. He stared at the toys on the floor and thought about Mara instead.

  She was afraid to have children around. The sight of a small, scar-covered hand holding out a buttonhook came before his eyes. Her daughter had died in a fire, and explosions caused fires. He wanted to ask Mara about it, but he had the feeling she would never tell him any more than she already had.

  ***

  During the next two weeks, Mara spent every free hour she had gathering information. She spoke with subcontractors and negotiated bids. She became an expert with the abacus, totaling costs with lightning speed and entering the sums in a ledger. She pored over the engineering specifications, until she knew as much about the trains as Michael did. She'd given her word she would be fair, and she intended to honor it. Besides, there was no reason to cheat. The numbers would speak for themselves, proving her case once and for all.

  Although she was very busy, Mara found time twice each day to feed the kitten with milk she bought from Mrs. O'Brien. The little cat wouldn't let anyone pet him, including her, but he became a nuisance, following her, playing with her skirt, curling around her feet while she worked. She nearly stepped on the little fellow a few times, but she didn't have the heart to scold him.

  Nathaniel was also very busy. He came in every morning long enough to check on Boggs's progress with the remodeling of the office and for Michael to tell him everything was running smoothly, then he disappeared for most of the day, taking his train set with him in a special case built for that purpose. He came to her office every night to walk her home, waiting for her if she still had work to do, but he never asked about her reaction to the children in the factory, and she was relieved. She had no intention of explaining her reasons to him.

  Mara knew that he spent his days calling on merchants, and she wondered if he were having any success. She doubted it would matter. Her figures were confirming what she'd suspected all along. The cost to manufacture each train was very high, and she doubted he'd find merchants willing to pay such a price.

  Two weeks after they'd made their bet, she copied all her notes and figures into a final report. When Nathaniel walked her home that night, she told him she was prepared to go over figures with him whenever he was ready. He didn't set a time, but merely said that he would let her know when he was ready.

  The following afternoon, she returned from an errand

  to find a note from him on her desk. She unfolded the paper, and a puzzled frown knit her brows as she scanned the scrawling lines.

  Seven o'clock is the hour of our fate

  When numbers tell the truth, so don't be late.

  Seek out the toys and you will find

  The way to have a meeting of minds.

  It was a riddle. Mara read the note again, and an unwilling smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. Didn't the man ever do anything in the ordinary way? He wanted to meet at seven o'clock. That much was obvious. Seeking out the toys must mean that the meeting was to be upstairs, since he kept all his toys up there.

  She folded the note and set it aside, then checked her watch. It was just past six. She fed the kitten, went over her arithmetic one last time, gathered all her information, and at precisely seven o'clock went upstairs to meet with Nathaniel, her little friend tagging behind her.

  But when she arrived, her partner was nowhere to be seen. She hadn't been up here in over two weeks, and she was astonished at the changes that had taken place. The painting had been done, and gaslight wall sconces had been installed. The partitions he'd ordered from Mr. Boggs were finished and blocked off most of the huge room from her view. Although she couldn't see beyond the makeshift walls, the part of the room in which she stood had been transformed into an office.

  To her left stood Nathaniel's huge desk, piled with papers. In the center of the office, a table and chairs had been set up, and behind them, a doorway between two partitions led into the other part of the room. The wooden Indian stood beside the doorway like a sentry.

  To her right, there was only empty space, with a placard on a stand that read in carefully printed letters, "Mara's Office." Behind the sign was a door, and she wondered why on earth Nathaniel would have a door put in that would lead into empty space. Confused and curious, she walked past the sign and opened the door.

  A steel platform jutted out at her feet, surrounded by a rail. Steel stairs led down, zigzagging back and forth to the alley below. A fire escape.

  Mara dropped her portfolio and let out a choked sound. She pressed her hands to her cheeks, and the sting of tears pricked her eyes as she sank down, the steel solid and cool beneath her knees. She had no idea how long she remained there, holding back tears and trying to accept the fact that Nathaniel had done something like this. He'd done it for her.

  "Not the usual gift a man gives a lady," said a low voice behind her, "so I'm hoping it doesn't cast aspersions on my character."

  She turned her head to find Nathaniel standing in the doorway. The light behind him kept his face in shadows, making his expression unreadable. Mara opened her mouth to thank him, but the only sound that came from her throat was a choked sob.

  "You're welcome," he said and knelt beside her. "You know, crying women always make me feel like an idiot. If you'd rather have a handkerchief or a bottle of cologne—"

  "I don't wear cologne." She sniffed. "And I'm not crying. I never cry."

  "Of course not. Maybe you have something in your eye."

  "Why did you do this?"

  He shifted, leaning back against the brick wall and stretching out his long legs on the steel platform. "It's a bribe. I'm trying to butter you up in case your numbers are better than mine."

  She smothered her laugh, but not before he heard it. "It won't work," she told him.

  "I didn't think so, but it was worth a try."

  "Don't be flippant." She turned on her knees to face him but immediately ducked her head. "It was a very nice thing to do," she said shyly.

  He looked at her bent head. It always seemed to catch her by surprise when he did something for her, and he found himself wondering why. He wanted to ask her more about her life before they met, he wanted to know about her daughter and fires, but if he asked, she'd probably freeze up and go all starchy and their tentative truce would be lost. He didn't want to lose it.

  He cleared his throat. "Yes, well, it's not quite finished. Boggs still has to install a door on the first floor. We won't have access to it from the mezzanine, so I've also asked him to put a ladder on the opposite side from the stairs. That way, if there's a fire, everyone, no matter where they are, can escape. Why haven't you put a fire escape in before now?"

  "We weren't using this part of the building. Given that, I couldn't justify the expense."

  Putting in a fire escape hadn't cost that much, but he'd seen enough information about the company to know the cost would have come dear. There had been almost no cash in the bank account. Nathaniel might not know a lot about balance sheets and income statements, but he knew when a company was barely surviving. They'd probably had to scrounge just to make the weekly payroll. She'd carried a difficult burden for a long time.

  He thought about James and tried to understand why he'd left his wife and daughter here on their own. No man worth his salt would do such a thing. But then, Nathaniel was beginning to think James hadn't been much of a man.

  "Penny."

  He glanced up at her. "What?"

&nb
sp; "Penny. For your thoughts."

  He leaned his head back against the wall and stared between the rails at the flickering lights being lit across the city. "They aren't worth a brass farthing. I was thinking about James."

  "Oh." Silence fell between them again, and it was a long time before she spoke. "Mr. Chase, I know that you agreed to go into partnership with my husband, but how much did you really know about him?"

  "Not much."

  "Did you know that he was..." She hesitated a moment, then she asked, "Did you know that he was not always honest in his business dealings?"

  "I didn't know for certain, but I suspected it, yes. At the time, it didn't matter to me. What did matter to me was that he was excited about my ideas, he believed in them. He said he owned a company we could modify to make my inventions. I verified that information, of course, and insisted on having the controlling interest. I deemed those precautions to be enough, knowing that as long as I held the controlling interest and kept an eye on him, everything would be all right. And, despite my suspicions, I liked him."

  She changed her position to sit beside him. "Yes, everybody liked James. He had charm, and you couldn't help responding to it. There was a time when I adored him." She sighed. "There was a time when I loved him."

  "But love wears thin, I imagine, when the money runs out."

  She shook her head. "It wasn't the money."

  He saw her lower lip quiver. She caught it between her teeth and fell silent. He waited, sensing she wanted to say more.

  "Mr. Chase, I know you think I'm cheeseparing and hard—" She stopped and raised a hand to halt his protest. "My father was a miner in South Africa, working the diamond mines for pitiful wages. I was the oldest child in a family of eight, and we were very poor. I married James when I was sixteen, and it wasn't only because I loved him. I wanted to escape. Can you understand that?"

  Nathaniel knew all about wanting to escape. "Yes."

  "James gave me dreams. Hopes. But his biggest dream was to become rich. I didn't care. Whether you believe it or not, money was never that important to me. I didn't care if we ever became rich. I just wanted us to be a family. I wanted a home and a husband who stayed around longer than a few months at a time. But James had wanderlust. Whenever we moved to join him, things were wonderfully fine for a while. He would talk about how, this time, things would work out. This time, he'd found his true calling. But..."