The Firebrand

by Susan Wiggs

  Feeling weary, Lucy sat down on a wrought-iron chair. Tropical plants filled the air with a lush, greenish haze. Grace’s treasured palms, ginger and helliconias filled the glass-walled room with exotic life. Lucy studiedthe blooming orchids, their delicate pink lips parted to reveal the purple tongues at their centers. The long arching branches of delicate color exuded a fragrance that, for some reason, filled her with sadness. The clinging epiphytes could not exist without the trees that supported them.

  Rand startled her, stepping alone into the long, glass room. “I’ve been looking for you,” he said.

  “I’m not hiding. I thought you’d want…some time with her.”

  He sat down next to her. Even with the smell of flowers hanging heavy in the conservatory, Lucy detected the cloying odor of Diana’s perfume, lingering in his hair and on his skin. “I had no idea she would come back.”

  “But she has.” Lucy took a deep breath and forced herself to ask, “Where did you go last night? I waited up, but you never came.” She hated the sound of her own words, so laced with suspicion and uncertainty. Was that what their marriage was to be like, with Diana back?

  “Diana seemed upset by all the upheaval, so I took her to Anspach’s for luncheon and afterward escorted her back to Palmer House.”

  Lucy had always wondered what it would be like to be the helpless sort, needing her hand held over every bump in the road. Now that Diana was back, Lucy suspected there would be many nights like this.

  “Just what is it that she expects?”

  “She wants to turn back time.” The morning sunlight filled the conservatory with a diffuse brightness that played over every detail—his strong physique and glossy dark hair, his bold features; even the scars had a certain nobility to them.

  Lucy took a deep breath, wondering if Diana saw what she saw when she looked at him. “You mean Diana wants to pick up where you left off. She wants to be your wife again. Maggie’s mother.”

  A pause. Then: “Yes.”

  “And what will you do about it?” Lucy braced herself for the answer. This was probably the fantasy Rand had dreamed of for five years—his broken family made whole again. A daughter to love and protect, a beautiful wife who was content to fulfill tradition rather than striking out on her own as Lucy had.

  She saw the situation with searing clarity through Rand’s eyes. History was repeating itself. Just as Pamela Byrd had destroyed his family by following her ambitions, so was Lucy.

  He had forgiven his mother, and he understood Lucy, but that didn’t make it any easier to accept. Diana had arrived, holding out the promise of order and serenity. And tradition, which he’d yearned for since he was a boy.

  Say it, she told herself. Just say it. Tell him you love him. Tell him… But her throat closed, and she couldn’t speak. The fragrance of the exotic flowers nearly choked her. She was terrified that her love wouldn’t matter enough to him.

  “Lucy,” he said, rising from the chair, “it’s very complicated.”

  With those words, she knew. She knew he was preparing her for a blow. With both of Maggie’s natural parents present, Lucy didn’t have a legal leg to stand on. Before long, she’d be regarded as a kind stranger who deserved their gratitude, but not a place in their lives.

  His choice was almost laughably easy. Did he prefer a beautiful wife in her traditional, feminine role, or an awkward, intense woman dedicated to a controversial cause?

  “When you sort out all these complications,” she said stiffly, “then you can let me know.” Hurrying past him, she left the conservatory.

  Thirty

  In the middle of a lonely afternoon, Lucy sat looking at the wire message she had received from Mrs. Victoria Woodhull. Up until now, she had been afraid the response would never come, and had taken to haunting the Western Union Wireless office each morning, pacing up and down and worrying that time was running out. She shouldn’t have worried; Mrs. Woodhull had come through for her. Lucy had received precisely the response she’d hoped for, prayed for.

  But it meant nothing now. In the week since Diana’s return, Rand had returned to the bank and Diana had gone off to her hotel. Today, Viola and Grace had taken Maggie on an outing. It was significant, Lucy thought, that she found herself alone at the darkest moment of her life.

  She tried to talk herself out of her maudlin state, but nothing was working, and she found herself heading for the pantry, where the bottles of liquor were kept. Before she did something entirely foolish, Bull Waxman came to call.

  “I have a buggy waiting out front,” he said simply. “You’re to come with me, ma’am.”

  Lucy had always liked Bull. She liked the gentleness of his courtship of Willa Jean, and at the moment, she liked the fact that he had come to see her. “Where are we going?”

  “Don’t be asking me that. I’m not to tell. You’ll see.”

  She suspected Willa Jean and Patience were going to try to cheer her up. But the moment she realized they were headed for Gantry Street, she protested. Loudly. She didn’t want to see the wreckage of her beloved shop, to be reminded of all the struggle and triumph it had given her. Bull merely stared straight ahead, his big hands firm on the reins until they reached their destination. Only when she saw what was happening in front of the boarded-up shop did Lucy stop talking. She barely felt Bull help her down from the buggy.

  “What is going on here?” she asked Willa Jean, who hurried over to greet her.

  “Isn’t it obvious, girl? We’re saving the shop.”

  It was almost too much for Lucy to take in. Across the boards covering the broken-out window, someone had painted the message Save The Firebrand Bookshop. Tables draped with bunting were laden with various items for sale—berry pies, quilts and afghans, books and pamphlets. Lucy spied Patience, Deborah and Kathleen and all her dearest customers—Sarah Boggs and Mrs. McNelis, Lila Landauer and Dottie Frey, even cranky old Mrs. Mackey and others too numerous to count. They were the women who had found comfort and conviction between the pages of a book. Also present were the husbands of these ladies, men who knew better than to argue with the women they loved.

  At the center of the table, seated before a line of patiently waiting admirers, sat Victoria Claflin Woodhull, autographing back issues of Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly.

  “Mama!” Maggie broke away from a knot of people on the boardwalk. “Mama, we have a present for you. Come look!”

  As if in a dream, Lucy allowed Maggie to lead her to the door. Rand emerged from the shop in a cloud of plaster. He wore old denims and a grin that offered no apology for working in secret without her consent. A leather pocket apron, filled with clanking tools, rode low on his hips.

  “Show her, Papa,” Maggie commanded him.

  He handed Lucy a long, flat parcel. “It’s not quite finished yet. Still needs a coat of shellac.”

  She didn’t remember to breathe as she tore off the paper to find a new tradesman’s shingle, sanded smooth and carefully lettered on both sides with The Firebrand—L. Hathaway, Bookseller. “Oh” was all she could say. “Oh.”

  Then Lucy, who never, ever wept, burst into tears for the second time in her adult life.

  Maggie looked horrified. “Don’t you like it? Papa worked and worked, and I wasn’t allowed to tell you anything.”

  Lucy smiled through her tears. “It’s not that, sweetheart.” She lifted her gaze to Rand. “I love it.”

  “A-men and hallelujah,” Maggie said. “Now can I go play?”

  Lucy nodded. Rand took her hand and led her inside. “Watch that beam there,” he warned. “We’ve just propped it up.” The place smelled of burnt paper and charred timber; the blackened furniture and shelves and ruined books were piled in a heap. A team of workmen with wheelbarrows and crowbars had cleared the wreckage. “Go and get some refreshments,” Rand told them, and they stepped out.

  Lucy’s heart turned to ice. Now she understood. She stepped away from him, clenching her hands, digging her nails into her palms.
The sunlight filtering through the broken windows suddenly blurred, smeared by tears. She clenched her jaw and blinked fast, fighting for control. “I see,” she said. “You’re giving me back my shop as a sop for your conscience because you’re going to choose Diana.”

  His long shadow slipped over her as he stepped close and pulled her around to face him. “Damn it, Lucy, did it ever occur to you to listen before jumping to your own conclusions?”

  The strength in his grip made her flinch, and she pulled away. “I’m listening.”

  “When Diana showed up out of the blue, I suspected her motives were less than purely maternal. During the week, Dylan Kennedy and I sent out some wires, and sure enough, she’s run through everything she gained from the divorce settlement and is in debt. Naturally, I’ll accept the responsibility of taking care of her.”

  Lucy took a step back. “Naturally.”

  “You’re doing it again,” he said, annoyed. “You’re reaching a conclusion without hearing me out.”

  “Forgive me if I don’t care to linger and hear your dreams of the future with Diana.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake.” Annoyance burgeoned to anger. “Of course there’s a future with Diana. She gave birth to Maggie. In that way, she’ll always be a part of our lives. She’ll be paid a stipend—though God knows where that will come from if the bank fails—and we’ll permit her to visit Maggie. I’ll see to it that we have a legal arrangement so her role is clear and limited.”

  “And that’s all she’ll be to you?” Lucy forced herself to ask.

  He took hold of her again, but there was no anger in his grip this time. He kissed her forehead with a tenderness that made her ache. “God, what do you take me for? You are Maggie’s mother in every sense of the word, and you have been since the night of the fire.”

  “But Diana was your first love. Your first wife. The mother of your child.”

  “Two out of three are correct,” he said, and she heard a smile in his voice. “Yes, she was my first wife. Yes, she gave birth to my daughter. But she’s not my first love.”

  “She’s not?”

  “You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you? You’re my first love, Lucy. I had no idea what love was until I found you. You’re my life, my world, my…everything. The reason the sun rises and the moon shines, the reason spring comes and flowers bloom. You know you are. Who the hell else would inspire me to poetry like this?”

  Relief and joy swelled inside her, and she could have sworn her feet left the ground. “I was so afraid,” she said, pressing her cheek against the solid warmth of his chest. “I was so afraid you’d take her back.”

  “You’re supposed to be fearless,” he said gently. “Remember?”

  She trusted the look shining in his eyes, trusted it despite the fact that her shop had burned, that he might lose his job at the bank. None of that mattered, not when she could look into her husband’s face and see the whole world there. Trusting him was as simple as going where her heart led her. It all seemed so simple now.

  “I know what it’s like to be afraid,” she said, pressing her lips to his big, scarred hand. “I know it all too well.”

  “Let’s go outside,” he said, “and let the workmen get busy. When the bank finds out The Firebrand is back, I might have to become your partner in business.”

  “Ah, there you are, Mr. Higgins.” Mrs. Woodhull approached them as they went out to the street. “Your wife sent me a wire,” she said. “She claims you are a man who can be trusted. A man who understands both money and women. Is that true?”

  “I doubt Lucy would put up with me if it weren’t.” He eyed Lucy with suspicion. “I didn’t know you sent a wire.”

  “Of course she did,” Mrs. Woodhull declared, “and I daresay you won’t be hurting for clients much longer. The only thing more powerful than my convictions are my purse strings. I was once a banker myself, you know.” She showed him a cardboard case of papers, stuffed with drafts and certificates. “I am going overseas to carry on a little adventure in England,” she explained. “While I’m gone, I shall need a place to lodge my deposits.”

  “The Union Trust is an excellent choice, ma’am,” Rand told her, looking amazed.

  She swept her gaze along the line of admirers. “I imagine there are many ladies in Chicago who would like to find a banker who understands the needs of women.” With the skill of a professional orator, she summoned them around and launched into a lecture on banking and finance.

  “Mama! Papa!” Maggie came running over. “Look what I found. Just look.” She opened her grubby little hand to reveal three dusty pennies. “I found them on the ground, Papa. Can I put them in your bank, Papa? Can I?”

  Lucy and Rand exchanged a private glance. “It’ll help,” said Rand.

  “I’m going to go look for more pennies!” Maggie ran off again.

  “I love you,” Lucy whispered, touching Rand’s dear, scarred cheek. “Oh, how I love you. I love you for what you were willing to sacrifice for my sake.”

  “You would have given up the shop for me,” he pointed out.

  “But that’s different.”

  “Is it?” He lifted one eyebrow. “I thought you believed in equal rights.”

  Thirty-One

  Chicago

  Spring, 1877

  “Mama,” Maggie said thoughtfully, “where do babies come from? Really.” Like a sprouting dandelion, she popped her tousled head up from between her parents in the big bed.

  The reflected April sunshine off the lake created a watery pattern of shifting light on the ceiling. Lucy knew Rand was awake, though he lay very still with the covers pulled up, pretending he was asleep.

  Coward, she thought.

  She smiled and ruffled Maggie’s hair. She loved Sunday mornings when they lay abed an extra hour before getting up for church. More often than not, Maggie joined them, letting the dog and cat follow her as well.

  “Well,” Lucy said, smoothing her hand over her belly, “this one is growing very slowly inside my womb.”

  She sensed Rand going rigid with mortification. He tried hard to endure her modern ways, but hearing her refer to body parts with matter-of-fact frankness always pushed his old-fashioned sensibilities to their limit. She loved him for gritting his teeth and letting her have her way, even if he didn’t always agree with her.

  Maggie put her small hand on the mound. “It feels hard as a rock.”

  “That’s because the infant is growing strong and healthy. In a few weeks, the baby will come out, and we’ll get to hold him and love him and care for him.”

  “Sally Saltonstall says the doctor brings the baby in his black leather bag.”

  “Sally Saltonstall is full of duck fluff,” Lucy said. “The fact is, the baby’s going to get out by—”

  “I’ll tell you who’s full of duck fluff,” roared Rand, springing awake, clearly unable to tolerate any more of the candid talk. “You’re full of it.” He grabbed Maggie and tickled her, and she loosed a loud stream of giggles. Grabbing a pillow, she held it up as a shield to protect herself. Ivan aimed his muzzle at the ceiling and howled.

  Before Lucy could subdue her husband and child, she heard an ominous ripping sound. A fountain of feathers exploded into the air, and the breeze from the windows scooped them up and swirled them, a blizzard of softness settling over their three laughing faces.

  Afterword

  Section 1. The right of the citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

  —Text of the Nineteenth Amendment of the Constitution, adopted by Congress in 1920

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-6537-4

  THE FIREBRAND

  Copyright © 2001 by Susan Wiggs.

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