The Firebrand

by Susan Wiggs

  She recalled pacing the schoolroom floor in a fury, certain the Colonel hadn’t given her enough information to solve the problem. The Colonel had sat with her and examined the question from all angles, and finally the correct answer came to her.

  She’d savored the look on her father’s face when it dawned on her: Antony and Cleopatra are goldfish, and the dog knocked over their bowl.

  “All the information you needed was there, right before your eyes,” the Colonel had said, stroking his side-whiskers. “You simply had to devise a new way of looking at it.”

  There had been many more puzzles, and many more days like that. Yet only when she grew older did Lucy realize the true meaning of the seemingly frivolous riddles. Her father was more than a good man. He was a wise man who had loved his daughter. And he had taught her to think, to do what was right.

  That thought had troubled her through the night. It had brought her back to the bank this morning to learn more about Randolph Higgins. Because she wasn’t sure she had the right to deprive Maggie of a father.

  Or, for that matter, her natural mother. Perhaps, as Kathleen had suggested, this was meant to be.

  “Can I bring you something to drink, Miss Hathaway?” Mr. Crowe asked. “You look a bit pale.”

  “No,” she said, “I—Yes. I’ve changed my mind. I believe I’d like a cup of tea.” He rose from his desk. “With cream,” she added, “and a barley sugar on the side. And please be sure the tea is quite hot, because I can’t abide lukewarm tea.”

  “Of course.” Mr. Crowe pasted on an accommodating smile and left the outer office.

  Praying the task would keep him occupied for several minutes, Lucy went off in search of Mr. Higgins. Several doors flanked a high-ceilinged hallway. The windows were covered in slatted blinds, and each office was empty, save the last.

  Edging along the wall so she wouldn’t be seen, she peered into the room. A group of men sat around a long, gleaming table. She recognized Randolph Higgins instantly. He was a large man, tall and broad-shouldered, with that head of thick, russet-colored hair. From this angle, he looked exactly the same as he had the night they had met, except for the mustache—aggressively handsome, almost haughty. But she knew from their encounter the day before that the years had changed him more profoundly than she could imagine.

  Pausing in the deserted corridor, she heard strains of their conversation and clenched her fist in apprehension. If she caught him off guard, she would learn his true character. Now she would discover the sort of man he truly was. Perhaps he was evicting poor people from their homes. Foreclosing on the mortgages of widows or ex-slaves from the South. Lending money to a wealthy industrialist so he could tear down schools and hospitals to make way for heavy commerce.

  That was what bankers did. If Mr. Higgins proved to be a heartless beast, she could keep her secret with a clear conscience.

  “…Miss Hathaway’s request,” said a man’s voice. “That is what we are discussing, is it not?”

  Lucy stiffened as if someone had poked her in the backside. She clapped her hand over her mouth just in time to stifle a gasp. They were discussing her! It was too perfect. Now she would hear the real Mr. Higgins, denigrating her on the basis of her gender alone. It would be easy to dismiss such a man.

  “There is nothing more to discuss,” said another man. “I read the assessment of the loan committee. She’s a losing proposition. She’ll default, there’ll be nothing for us to repossess and we’ll lose everything we’ve lent her.”

  “Did you even look at the figures, Mr. Crabtree?” Higgins said, sounding annoyed.

  “She’s losing money each month. The woman’s a bleeding artery. That’s all I need to see.”

  Lucy’s throat ached with the need to defend herself. The Firebrand had only been in operation for three years. Cyrus McCormick had taken longer than that to show a profit but she doubted he had trouble obtaining a loan.

  “We’re wasting time, gentlemen,” someone objected. “This is a matter for the loan committee, anyway. They’ve rendered their decision. No extension. No increase. No one should have lent that woman money in the first place.” A general shuffling of papers followed.

  It was business, Lucy told herself even as her heart plummeted to her shoes. A business decision should not hurt her to the core of her being, and yet it did. Her worth as a person had somehow become all tangled up in her business dealings.

  Shaken, she gazed at the paintings along the walls, focusing on an idyllic scene of a prosperous-looking family strolling through a pastoral landscape. Something was happening to Lucy. Ordinarily a sentimental picture would not make her want to weep, but there were times when she felt so empty and lost. She just wanted, for once, to have someone to turn to, because ever since the fire, everyone had been turning to her. She would never admit to being lonely, but oh, how she ached with it.

  Damn Randolph Higgins for making her feel these maudlin sentiments. She was about to barge into the meeting when he spoke sharply to his associates.

  “I advise that we reconsider Miss Hathaway’s request,” Mr. Higgins said with an excess of patience. “Her revenues are increasing every month. The reason she’s not showing a profit yet is that she’s driving all the monies back into her shop.”

  She froze. Was he justifying her position?

  “She’s probably driving them all into new hats and gowns,” someone grumbled. “It’s what women do.”

  Lucy scowled, resisting the urge to pace in agitation. Did they speak of loans to men in his manner? No, of course not.

  “Don’t judge her by her gender, Mr. Lamott.”

  Jasper Lamott, she realized. Archenemy of the Women’s Suffrage Movement. Her cause was as good as dead.

  “Judge her by her actions in the past,” Mr. Higgins temporized, “and her vision of the future. Did you read her proposal?”

  “It’s entirely preposterous. No bookstore can be a gathering place for people without turning into a mob scene. The sooner we close her down, the better.”

  “Isn’t that the idea for any retailer? To attract a crowd?” Mr. Higgins asked.

  Noncommittal murmurs rippled around the table.

  “I suggest you take these materials and reread them,” he said, shuffling papers. “If we lose Miss Hathaway as a client, she’ll take her business to First National and we’ll regret it.”

  Lucy pressed herself back against the wall, dropped her hand and shut her eyes. Pride and wonder filled the places that had felt so empty only moments ago. Her lips curved into a smile. This must be how Guinevere felt when Lancelot had fought for her honor. It was a magical feeling, to have someone stand up for her, and she pressed her hands to her chest, cherishing a rare, tingling warmth.

  “Are you ill?” asked a familiar voice.

  Her eyes flew open. “Mr. Higgins!”

  “I take it you’ve been eavesdropping long enough to hear that there is no news with regard to your application.” He spoke impersonally, almost brusquely. “We have tabled our discussion until Thursday.”

  Hot color flooded her face, but Lucy was used to being humiliated. She embarrassed herself all the time in the name of the cause she supported. She pursued him down the hallway. “Mr. Higgins, I’d like to thank you for speaking up for me.”

  “I spoke up for a loan I consider an acceptable risk.” He seemed put off by her gratitude, uncomfortable with it.

  She was unexpectedly moved by this gruff, scarred man. The trouble was, he wouldn’t show her enough of himself for her to understand him. “No one has ever believed in me before.”

  He stopped walking and glared down at her from his prodigious height. “I don’t believe in you, Miss Hathaway. Your radical politics are harmful, your shop a blight upon the neighborhood and your morals questionable.”

  Her jaw dropped. For once she was speechless. Why, oh why had she invented that story about the French lovers?

  “However,” he continued, “I believe you are capable of turning your s
hop into a profitable enterprise. Since earning money for the bank is my business, it makes sense to support you.”

  Mr. Crowe returned with a cup of tea. Assuming it was for him, Mr. Higgins helped himself to it and stepped into his office. “Good day, Miss Hathaway.”

  He shut the door with the toe of his expensive shoe. She considered pursuing him, but she had more thinking to do. Perhaps the next step was to inspect his home. Meet his wife.

  Suppressing a nervous shudder, she bade Mr. Crowe good day.

  As she was exiting the bank building, she encountered quite possibly the last person she wanted to see.

  Jasper Lamott was a tidy little man who hardly resembled the bane of anyone’s existence. His assistant, the obsequious Guy Smollett, was as unobtrusive as a shadow as he followed his employer through the door. Lucy knew Lamott all too well. His Brethren of Orderly Righteousness worked tirelessly to derail all the efforts of the Suffrage Movement. With the money and political power of his cartel of businessmen, he advanced candidates and judges who subscribed to his dogma. More than once he and his black-clad cronies had disrupted peaceful rallies and voting registration efforts.

  “It’s a good thing you’re leaving, Miss Hathaway,” he said in a voice that stung like a lash. “You’ll spare me the trouble of having you thrown out.”

  She glared at him. “Do you treat all the bank’s clients with such courtesy?”

  “This institution doesn’t need your patronage. Come along, Smollett. This is a waste of time.” The assistant glared at her and held the door for Lamott. The older man turned for a parting shot. “You are a disgrace to womanhood, Miss Hathaway, you and the whorish radicals who congregate in your bookstore. It’s a pestilence, spreading sedition, and no decent Christian will be sorry to see it wiped out.”

  “I am leaving,” she stated, trying not to show how rattled she was by his virulent hatred. “But I assure you, The Firebrand is not going anywhere.”

  Nine

  “Maggie,” said Lucy as they sat together at the beach, “remember how you asked what it would be like to have a papa?”

  The little girl was playing in the sand at the shore of Lake Michigan. It was one of those crystal-clear Sundays of late spring, with weather so perfect it created an ache in the heart. The unrelieved blue of the sky met the deep azure of the lake in a sharp, straight seam. Mayflowers and buttercups painted the verges and parkways with sunny color.

  Maggie didn’t look up from digging her roadways and trenches as she answered, “You said Willa Jean could be the papa. I asked her if she would, and she gave me a hug and said she’d be anything I wanted her to be.”

  Lucy grinned. How typical of Willa Jean. And how accepting Maggie was.

  “Suppose you had a father like the man in the stereoscope picture,” Lucy suggested cautiously.

  Maggie shrugged and balanced two sticks to make a bridge. “Everybody’s father looks like that,” she observed. “Those side-whiskers look enormously bristly.”

  Randolph Higgins didn’t have side-whiskers.

  The image of his trim mustache and unsmiling mouth flashed through Lucy’s mind. The first night they’d met, she’d thought him the handsomest man she’d ever seen. She’d been foolish about him, not to mention quite mad, asking him to be her lover. Married or not, a man with looks like that would never be interested in a plain, gawky creature like Lucy Hathaway.

  Now he bore the scars of suffering and loss. His looks had changed, yet, when she was with him, she still felt the unreasoning, sharp-edged attraction that had consumed her that long-ago night. He was married, she kept telling herself. She had no right to feel this way. Besides, he was about to become the enemy, and she could see no way to keep that from happening.

  Idly brushing grains of sand from the blanket she sat on, she looked out across the lake. Catboats and little day sailors plied back and forth between the shore and Government Pier. The white wings of the sails flew along like birds about to take flight.

  Lucy had delayed long enough. Her chest pounded with apprehension at the thought of risking her child. But she’d always been truthful with Maggie. She had to follow her conscience.

  “Time to go,” she said to Maggie.

  “But my village—”

  “We’ll come back to see if it’s still here tomorrow.”

  “It never is. Someone always ruins it.”

  “And you always build it back up.”

  Maggie stood and brushed off her trousers. “Where are we going?”

  Lucy shook out the blanket, lifting it high to hide the anguish in her face. “We are going visiting.”

  After the fire, Bellevue Avenue had been transformed into a fashionable enclave of the comfortably well-off. As Lucy and Maggie passed through the soaring wrought-iron gates of the district and rode their bicycles up the paved lane, they passed formal gardens that looked too verdant, too perfectly groomed, to be real. It was like riding directly into a Watteau painting; they expected at any moment to see people in powdered wigs strolling the grounds.

  Yet as she counted off the house numbers, Lucy felt like a condemned prisoner crossing the final mile to the executioner’s block: 362, 366, 372…her destination. Taking a deep breath, she turned her bicycle into the curved driveway of the Higgins house.

  “Look, Mama, a statue!” Maggie veered off the driveway, wobbling along a footpath flanked by box hedge trimmed as precisely as cut stone.

  Lucy was going to call her back. Trespassing and snooping was not their purpose today. But she shared Maggie’s curiosity. Built after the fire, the homes and estates were even grander than they had been in her father’s day. The home in which she’d been raised now housed a relative of the railroad car magnate, Mr. George Pullman. She hadn’t been back in years.

  The fact was, the people of the affluent enclaves shunned her. They were shocked by her radical politics and considered her a bohemian. She’d trained herself not to feel stung by their disregard, but her mother cared deeply. Sometimes Lucy felt guilty for being an embarrassment to the woman who had once dreamed of her daughter making her debut at a White Ball in New York City. The once-proud Colonel’s wife had been one of Chicago’s leading hostesses. Viola had lost more than her husband in the fire, she had lost a way of life.

  Maggie dismounted in her usual spring-loaded fashion, leaping from the seat and landing on the grass while the cycle toppled behind her.

  She scampered over to the small statue, an alabaster angel with a cherubic face and blank eyes turned to heaven. A small fountain burbled at her feet, the stream spilling into a little lily pond. “See how pretty it is, Mama.” Skirting the pond, Maggie dropped to her knees at the edge, parted the reeds with both hands and leaned over to peer into the water. “I wonder if there are fish in here.”

  She didn’t wonder long—Maggie didn’t do anything for long—but jumped up and went to inspect the statue.

  “She’s all bare-naked,” Maggie announced loudly, using one of her favorite words. “Naked as a jaybird. Naked! Naked!” She ran in circles, startling a few robins from a nearby tree.

  “That will do,” Lucy said, biting her lip to stifle a laugh. “We had better go to the door before we’re arrested for trespassing.”

  “Like you got arrested for voting that time,” Maggie declared. She traced a grubby finger around the base of the statue. “There are words carved in the stone.” She brushed away some old leaves. “Ch-Chris— Does it say Christmas, Mama?”

  Lucy peered over her shoulder and nearly choked on her own breath.

  “Does it, Mama? Does it say Christmas?”

  “It says ‘In loving memory of Christine Grace Higgins. June 24, 1870 to October 8, 1871.’ And there’s a phrase. ‘All hopes and dreams lie buried here.’”

  “Your voice sounds funny, Mama. Why does your voice sound funny?”

  Lucy kept staring at the date. That’s your birthday, Maggie. I know your real birthday now. She knew the true date Maggie had been born, and the na
me she’d been given.

  “Come on, sweetheart,” she said, holding out her hand. “We really should—”

  A deep, malevolent growl bit the air.

  Lucy whirled around to see a massive creature bounding toward them, jaws opened wide to reveal rows of sharp, dripping teeth.

  “Look, Mama.” Maggie clapped her hands. “A doggie.”

  She rushed forward before Lucy could snatch her up. Child and hellhound met and clashed on the lawn. Lucy dived for her daughter but stumbled and missed, falling to the ground. The dog tackled the child. Lucy dragged herself up, horrified to see Maggie pinned to the ground by the marauding beast.

  But instead of screaming, Maggie giggled. The huge dog licked her, then lay belly up in the grass as she scratched its chest.

  “Maggie, be careful,” Lucy said.

  “He’s harmless,” said a deep voice. “Though I can’t vouch for the child.”

  Lucy picked herself up, plucking bits of grass off her cycling dress. Randolph Higgins strode across the lawn toward her. In the verdant setting, he looked even more imposing than he had at the bank. The perfection of the spring day highlighted his rugged appeal. He wore dungarees and a loose blue shirt, the morning breeze lightly toying with his rich brown hair. The informal garb suited him, somehow.

  Her heart skipped a beat. It didn’t seem to matter that years had passed since she’d first felt this wild attraction to him. It didn’t seem to matter that he was married and that extraordinary circumstances had brought her here today. He simply made her light-headed with a feeling only he could inspire.

  “I apologize for Ivan,” he said, indicating the dog. “His appearance is startling, but I assure you, he is as gentle as a spring lamb.”

  “Look, Mama,” Maggie crowed. “He likes me.” The dog stretched and quivered in ecstasy when she petted it. Maggie had always wanted a dog. She’d begged for a puppy for years, but in their tiny quarters over the shop, they had no room for one. Silky the cat was a beloved pet, yet Maggie still longed for a dog.

  “He gave me quite a scare,” Lucy said. “He’s a great brute of a thing.”