The Firebrand

by Susan Wiggs

  Seeing his mother’s name printed on the title page sent a cold wind through all the empty places Pamela Byrd Higgins had left in her wake. He’d forced himself to turn the page, forced himself to start reading. The contents first startled, then infuriated him. This was no more than a litany of imagined slights from a discontented woman. What right had she, a well-off society matron living in a splendid house, to complain about her lot in life?

  And yet, as he pored over page after page of the writings, he felt a reluctant affinity with the troubled writer. Like the sun warming a cold rock, understanding seeped into him.

  “I starve with a full belly and die of thirst in a deep well. I freeze in an overheated house. I strangle on a rope of Asian pearls…” The haunting words on the page called across the years as Lucy must have known they would. As he finished the anguished essays and prose-poems, his fury died, replaced by a bitter comprehension. Trapped in a marriage of convenience, his mother had begun to suffocate. Lucy wanted him to see that a true marriage was not founded on creature comforts, but on mutual respect, genuine affection. Love.

  He and Lucy had never promised each other that. Was she now saying she needed it? Lucy had said something else, too. She’d told him he had to learn to forgive. It wasn’t enough to simply understand that his mother’s pain had pushed her to do the unthinkable. He had to let go of his bitterness and forgive her. He didn’t know if he was capable of that. But Lucy seemed to think he was, and Lucy’s convictions were powerful.

  “Papa!” Maggie’s voice called from downstairs. “Look who’s come to call.”

  He started to fling aside the book, but some mad impulse seized him. He picked it up, shut his eyes and pressed it against his heart. Then, embarrassed, he set it on the mantel shelf and hurriedly finished dressing.

  By the time he went downstairs, the foyer resembled a disturbed anthill. Tom Silver had arrived with his two little ones, Dylan Kennedy with his twins and the other two. The children were in constant motion, chasing and playing in the fountain, running up and down the stairs.

  “We got your summons,” Tom said.

  “Would’ve come sooner,” Dylan explained, “but rounding up this lot—” he indicated the children “—was like herding cats.”

  Shaking off the overwhelming weight of his mother’s confessions, Rand found it within himself to grin. He invited everyone to the kitchen for something to eat, and Mrs. Meeks obligingly filled the grubby, reaching hands of the children with biscuits and strawberries.

  A consummate gambler, Dylan produced a deck of cards and slapped it on the table. “I don’t suppose they’ll leave us to play a hand,” he said with a weary look at his red-haired son, who had just put a berry in his ear. “But we could cut cards. The loser changes Minnie’s diaper.”

  Tom picked up the squirming toddler and passed her across the table to Dylan. “I don’t like the odds.”

  Rand chuckled, enjoying an easy camaraderie with the others. While Dylan took his daughter to the back stoop, Tom set his elbows on the table. “I assume this is about the march today.”

  Rand’s humor dimmed. “There’s going to be a counterprotest.”

  “We expected that,” Dylan called from the back. He herded the four older children outside to play and took a seat at the table. “What about this counterprotest?”

  Rand told what he knew about the Brethren and their fiery opposition to women’s suffrage. Lamott himself had organized the proceedings. The group intended to confront the marchers at the intersection of State and Madison. “I tried to convince Lucy not to go,” he added.

  “You’d sooner stop the tide,” Tom said. “Men who call women ‘the weaker sex’ have never been married.”

  Rand stood and paced in agitation. “She wanted me to come to the march, and I refused.”

  Dylan and Tom exchanged a glance. “So did we.”

  Three seconds of silence filled the room. Then they all reached the same conclusion at once. “Get the children,” Rand said. “Hurry.”

  The suffrage marchers met at Fairfield Park to organize themselves into lines that resembled battalions. Energy ran high, sailing over the multitude of women—and quite a few men—like the summer clouds over the lake. Ladies with tin drums and brass trumpets waited for the signal to begin the march down State Street. Half a block away, Patience and Willa Jean rehearsed hymns and chants with the participants.

  Lucy had been busy for an hour, going over the route with the guest of honor and leader of the march, Victoria Claflin Woodhull. Her notoriety as the first woman to trade stocks and run a bank on Wall Street, the first woman to run for president and the first to address Congress on the suffrage issue made her an intimidating figure. Yet she was thinner than Lucy had pictured her, with skin as pale as an invalid’s. But under thick, straight eyebrows, her gaze was as challenging as her radical ideas. Newly divorced from her second husband, she traveled alone with her young daughter, Zulu Maud, a quiet girl of fourteen who looked ill at ease amid all the activity.

  “We’re so honored that you came,” Lucy said to Mrs. Woodhull, bringing her to the front of the crowd.

  “I was honored to be asked. I’ve always enjoyed our correspondence, Lucy, and I wanted to meet the person who named her bookstore after me.”

  “It was you who inspired me to strike out on my own. Hearing you called The Firebrand of Wall Street gave me the idea for the name.”

  “I’m pleased you picked that moniker, for some of the others are not so flattering.” She grinned. “Mrs. Satan or Queen of the Prostitutes would not have suited at all.”

  Lucy admired her for making light of something that must have stung deeply. Standing beside the most famous and outspoken woman in America, she felt a surge of pride. But it was a hollow, empty feeling, robbed of its sweetness by her quarrel with Rand. She couldn’t escape the thought that her cause alienated her from Maggie’s father. Lucy’s husband. Was it possible to reach the pinnacle of triumph even as her heart was breaking?

  “Why the long face?” Mrs. Woodhull asked. “It’s a grand day for the cause.”

  “I wish I could be impervious to our critics,” Lucy confessed. “Is it terribly weak of me to let their opinions matter?”

  “Certainly not. Just because your cause is just doesn’t mean you’re not human. What happened, Lucy?”

  She flushed. “My husband’s clients are threatening to pull their deposits from his bank,” she said, slanting a sash lettered with the slogan I Will Vote across her chest.

  “They probably will,” Victoria said matter-of-factly. “Money is the most powerful weapon they have.”

  Lucy’s stomach churned. “I could fix it,” she said. “I could leave the cause to others, give up my shop—”

  “You must love him very much, to be so concerned.”

  Lucy nearly choked. “I don’t—it’s not like that at all. In fact, ours is a difficult marriage.”

  “Trust me,” Victoria said, “I’ve been married twice, and I can tell you firsthand that even a good marriage is never easy.”

  “There you are!” Kathleen Kennedy called, pushing through the crowd. She had Deborah Silver in tow, the two of them looking fresh and excited as they lifted their placards. Relieved to see her friends, Lucy introduced them to Mrs. Woodhull. The guest of honor stepped up to a horse cart draped in red, white and blue bunting.

  “Your husbands didn’t come, either,” Lucy observed.

  “They’re sulking,” Deborah conceded.

  “And minding the children,” Kathleen added. “But they know better than to stop us today.”

  A drumroll sounded, and the lead cart rolled. Flag bearers lifted their banners high, and the marchers surged forward. Linking arms with her friends, Lucy found herself at the head of a column. Accompanied by drums and whistles, they chanted verses of freedom and independence. Spectators lined the street and waved from open windows in the tall buildings. The summer sun blazed from a blue sky, warming Lucy’s face as she lifted her v
oice in song.

  The noise crescendoed to a fever pitch. As the parade progressed, the crowd of onlookers thickened. Among them, she saw a few faces pulled hard and taut with aversion and felt the occasional thrown fruit whiz past.

  “Watch out ahead,” Kathleen said, gesturing at the upcoming intersection. “That lot doesn’t look too friendly.”

  Dressed in somber, Puritanical black, a horde of men advanced in a straight, unbroken line toward the suffragists. In ringing tones, they sang some hymn or other, but Lucy couldn’t make out the words.

  She felt a sick apprehension. It was a game of nerves, then. Who would move out of the way first?

  Patience whirled to face the others and lifted her arms like a choral director. “Louder, ladies and gentlemen!” she shouted. “Sing louder!”

  The song of freedom swelled from their ranks, but the deep spiritual dirges of the opposition rolled forth like black thunder. Deborah faltered, and Lucy squeezed her hand. “We must not flinch,” she said. “We must not— Oh, no.”

  “What?” Deborah asked.

  “That’s Jasper Lamott from the bank.” He stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the angry men, his face a mask of wrath as he boomed out his protest. Maybe it was her imagination, but she sensed his furious gaze focusing on her. He marched beside Guy Smollett, who sang with the fervor of a fanatic choirboy.

  “And the Boors,” Kathleen said. “We should have known they’d come to make trouble.”

  Suffragists and bystanders jostled each other at the edge of the crowd. Lucy couldn’t tell who made the first move, but a fight broke out. For a moment it was a shoving match between two men only, but it quickly escalated like a flame being touched to incendiary oil. Mrs. Woodhull’s cart horse bolted. Someone screamed, and the marching columns dissolved into confusion. Flags and placards were knocked askew like broken weapons in a mêlée. Lucy was caught in the middle, and though no one actually hit her, the mob of sweating, angry protesters and counterprotesters squeezed the air from her lungs. At one point her feet actually left the ground as she was buffeted between the warring factions.

  “A riot,” yelled Kathleen. “Saints and crooked angels, an honest-to-goodness riot.” Her shout crescendoed to a scream as a powerful gush of water cut through the throng.

  At first Lucy didn’t understand what was happening. She took a faceful of water and choked, her hand torn from Deborah’s. Then she realized that the police had turned the stream on the crowd. Using Chicago’s new high-pressure water system, they separated the suffragists and righteous Brotherhood as if the two factions were fighting dogs. The stream hit fast and hard, parting the crowd, knocking some to the ground. The cowards of the Brotherhood rushed away, seeking shelter down a side street.

  Drenched from head to toe, Lucy sat dazed upon the wet pavement. Over the crowd of thousands, a stunned hush hung like a pall. No one seemed capable of moving. Then the police took action, hauling away the most obvious of the brawlers—men with bloodied noses, women shrieking obscenities, crying children separated from their parents.

  Groping for her ruined hat, Lucy felt a disquieting premonition. Dear God, were the police coming for her?

  A long shadow dropped over her huddled form. She braced herself for the arrest and looked defiantly up at her captor.

  “Rand?”

  He held out his hand to her and drew her to her feet. She stood staring up at him, while all around, the marchers slowly reformed their ranks. Mrs. Woodhull’s driver brought the cart back in line, and she proceeded down the street.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “Seeing history in the making.” He handed her a dry handkerchief. “Wipe your face. You’ve got another block or two to go.”

  As he spoke, Deborah’s giant woodsman of a husband appeared, carrying their towheaded children. Dylan Kennedy held a baby on one hip while the twins and their sister followed him like ducklings in a row. Lastly, Lucy’s mother emerged, holding Maggie by the hand. Seeing her parents, Maggie gave a whoop and sped forward, grabbing Lucy’s hand and then Rand’s, joyously swinging between them.

  Patience started singing with loud clarity. By the end of the first phrase, a thousand voices joined in as the song buoyed them to the end of the march.

  Twenty-Four

  That night, a huge crowd watched fireworks from the beach by the lake. Many of the suffragists still sang softly, the hymns riding the summer breeze. Sitting upon thick blankets spread over the sand, Lucy stroked Maggie’s hair. “The last of the children to succumb,” she said. “They were all so exhausted.”

  Next to her, Rand pushed a stick into the campfire the men had built. “How do they sleep through all this noise?”

  Across from him, Dylan Kennedy stretched out, laid his head in his wife’s lap and crossed his legs at the ankles. “Don’t ever question why a child sleeps,” he said. His own brood lay scattered nearby on a blanket, snuggled together like a litter of kittens. “Just be thankful for it.”

  “A child can sleep through anything if she’s not afraid,” Deborah said with quiet assurance. She leaned back against her husband’s massive shoulder and tilted her face up to the night sky, where rockets and starbursts exploded in streams of color.

  Lucy observed her friends covertly, and a stab of yearning pierced her. How wonderful, she thought, to be so relaxed and comfortable with one’s husband, so secure in his love.

  “Well,” said Kathleen, stroking her husband’s hair. “We’re glad entirely that all of you showed up when you did.”

  Dylan winked. “I can usually count on finding you in the middle of trouble.”

  Lucy pulled her knees up to her chest, deciding the undignified pose was forgivable at this late hour. “We planned a peaceful demonstration. It’s not our fault a group of ignorant philistines chose to pick a fight with us.”

  “They uphold their beliefs with the same passion as you uphold yours,” Rand pointed out.

  “They’re probably ordinary men who play golf and go fishing,” Tom Silver added.

  “They can still be wrong,” said Kathleen. “They can have obedient wives who enjoy looking after hearth and home, and they can still be wrong.”

  “We’re lucky the police were right there with the fire hoses,” Deborah said. “I wonder how they knew the precise location of the altercation.”

  From the corner of her eye, Lucy saw Rand shift and look away, out across the endless black lake.

  “You knew, didn’t you?” she said. “You knew they were planning a counterdemonstration, and you alerted the police.”

  “Jasper Lamott organized the demonstration,” Rand said. “A bank is a gossip mill, you know that.”

  She understood then, and wonder welled up inside her. He had known he’d never succeed in talking her out of going. In his own way, he’d protected her as best he could. Protected her without taking away her freedom.

  Until this moment, Lucy had never believed such a thing could be. As a rainbow fireburst blossomed overhead, she reached over and put her hand on top of his.

  Lucy didn’t feel a bit tired as she readied herself for bed. The usual rituals of bedtime still felt peculiar to her in this vast room where bedclothes were turned down by phantom hands and hot water appeared as if by magic in the ewer and hip bath.

  A secret delight filled her. She adored the luxury of fresh bedding and hot baths and delicately scented soap, of water and coal she didn’t have to fetch, of gaslight anytime she wanted it, fresh rolls for breakfast and daily newspapers delivered to her door.

  But she would die before she’d admit these things to anyone but herself.

  After indulging in a bath, loving it as though it were a private vice, she donned the white organdy nightgown her mother insisted on calling part of her trousseau. It was far too sheer to be practical, but she hadn’t had the heart to tell her mother so. Besides, the night was balmy with the ripe warmth of summer.

  Brushing her hair with absentminded motions, she went to the win
dow and peered out. From this vantage point there was little to see in the soft dark of the summer night. A fine spray of stars lit the sky, and the sparse lights of the neighborhood spread out along the avenue below.

  Her husband’s room had a far better view. He could probably see the fireworks still going off over the lake. She pictured him standing at the French doors, looking out at the brilliant night. Despite the heated eddies of wind wafting in through the window, she shivered.

  Swirling, tantalizing thoughts brought Lucy right back to a point where she’d been before, to a feeling she’d had before. Five years ago, she’d been so powerfully attracted to Randolph Higgins that she’d brazenly asked him to be her lover. Five years later, she still wanted that.

  Five years ago, he’d been married to Diana.

  Five years later, he was married to her.

  How did one communicate these blazing needs to a man? She supposed she could simply ask him…but she wasn’t sure what she was asking. She wanted—desired—an intimacy that had eluded her for years, mocking her efforts to subsist without it.

  Lucy pressed her fingertips to the windowpane and then removed them, watching the foggy impression evaporate. Then, very slowly, she let herself make a decision at last, because she’d run out of reasons not to.

  Before her conviction faltered, she hurried to the door dividing her room from Rand’s.

  She slowly turned the brass knob, encountered resistance. The knob seemed frozen in place. Her heart sank; the message was clear. Her husband had barred her from his room.

  On the other side of the door, Rand turned the knob a little harder. It didn’t budge. Fine, he thought. She’d locked it.

  Obviously he’d misread her manner toward him tonight. In the amber glow of the beach fire, he’d dared to believe that she wanted his kisses, his touch…perhaps more. He’d felt a small measure of his old confidence, when he used to be certain of his appeal to women.