The Firebrand

“It’s spreading so quickly.” Phoebe Palmer pressed her gloved hands to the glass viewing window. “Who could imagine a fire could move so fast?”

She clearly expected no answer and didn’t get one. Both Lucy and Kathleen O’Leary were lost in their own thoughts. Kathleen was particularly worried about her family.

“I knew I shouldn’t have come,” she said, her customary easy confidence shaken by the sight of the fleeing crowds. “I shall burn in hell entirely for pretending to be a great lady.”

“If we don’t start moving any faster,” Phoebe said, “we shall burn right here in Chicago.” She yanked at the end of the speaking tube and yelled at the driver to hurry. “There’s an abandoned horsecar in the middle of the avenue,” she reported, cupping her hands around her eyes to see through the fog of smoke and sparks. “Driver,” she yelled again into the tube, “go around that horsecar. Quickly.” With a neck-snapping jerk, the big coach surged forward. Phoebe scowled. “He’s usually better at the reins,” she commented peevishly. “I shall have to speak to Miss Boylan about him.”

As the coach picked up speed, Lucy patted Kathleen’s hand. “None of this is your fault, and you’re surely not being punished for a silly prank.” To distract her, she added, “And it went well, didn’t it? Everyone at the reception believed you were a famous heiress from Baltimore.”

Just for a moment, excitement flashed in Kathleen’s eyes. How beautiful she was, Lucy thought. What would it be like to be that beautiful?

But then Kathleen sobered. “I lost my reticule. Miss Deborah’s reticule, actually, for haven’t I borrowed every stitch I have on except my bloomers? And I made a fool of myself altogether over Dylan Kennedy.”

“So did half the female population of Chicago,” Phoebe pointed out, sounding unusually conciliatory.

“All those worries seem so small now.” Kathleen turned her face to the window. “Blessed Mary, the whole West Division is in flames. What’s become of my mam and da?”

“I’m sure they’re fine,” Lucy said. “You’ll find them once everything is sorted out.”

“’Tis easy enough for the two of you to relax. Your families, bless them, are safe in the North Division. But mine…” She bit her lip and let her voice trail off.

Lucy’s heart constricted. Inasmuch as she envied Kathleen’s beauty, Kathleen coveted Lucy’s wealth. How terrible it must be to worry and wonder about her parents and brothers and sisters, living in a little wood frame cottage, her mother’s cow barn stuffed with mill shavings and hay.

Lucy thought of her own parents, and Phoebe’s, secure in their mansions surrounded by lush lawns and wrought-iron gates. The fire would surely be stopped before it reached the fashionable north side.

She’d grown up insulated from the everyday concerns of a working family. She knew better now, and in a perverse way, she wanted to repent for her privileges, as if by being wealthy she was somehow responsible for the ills of the world. Phoebe thought her quite mad for staggering around beneath a burden of guilt. Phoebe just didn’t understand. Because women of their station were complacent, ills befell those who had no power, women forced to endure drunken abuse from their husbands, giving birth year in and year out to children they could not afford to raise.

Lucy patted Kathleen’s hand. “I’ll help you find your family if you like.”

Phoebe pointed out the window. “Not tonight you won’t. Honestly, Lucy, I believe you would try to save the entire city if you could. You and your crusades.”

“If we don’t take the lead, then who will?” she asked. “The washerwoman bent over her ironing board? She doesn’t have time to eat a proper meal much less lead a march for equal rights. We’re the ones who have the time, Phoebe. We know the right people, for Lord’s sake, we were just at a gathering with every person of influence in the city. And what did we talk about?” She flushed, thinking of her conversation with Randolph Higgins. “The weather. The opening of Crosby’s Opera House tomorrow night. The contention that women are gates of the devil. It’s absurd, I say. I, for one, intend to make some changes.”

“Ah, Lucy.” Phoebe sighed dramatically. “Why? It’s so…so comfortable to be who we are.”

Lucy felt a stab of envy. Phoebe was content to be a society fribble, to let her father hand her—and a huge dowry—in marriage to some impoverished European nobleman, simply for the status of it all. Phoebe actually seemed to be looking forward to it.

Lucy felt a stronger affinity with Kathleen, an Irish maid who felt certain she’d been born into the wrong sort of life and had other places to go.

As she looked out the window and saw well-dressed families in express wagons and carriages practically running over stragglers clad in rags, outrage took hold of her.

“There is plenty of room in this coach,” she said, a little alarmed at the speed now. “We must stop and take on passengers.”

“Oh, no, you don’t.” Phoebe grabbed the speaking tube. “You’ll start a riot, the horses will balk and then no one will get where they’re going.”

Lucy spied a woman in a shawl, burdened with an infant in one arm and a toddler clinging to her other hand. Rolling up the leather flap covering the side window, she shot Phoebe a defiant look and leaned out the door. A flurry of sparks stung her face, and she blinked hard against a thick fog of smoke. “Driver,” she called. “Driver, stop for a mo—”

Then she stopped cold. She was speaking to nothing but smoky air. The driver had fled. There was no one controlling the team of horses.

She drew herself back into the coach. “I don’t suppose,” she said as calmly as she could, “either of you know of a way to get the team under control.”

Phoebe gave a little squeak and groped for her smelling salts.

Kathleen stuck her head outside the window. The coach swayed dangerously, and she clutched at the side. “Saints and crooked angels,” she said. “There’s no driver.”

She said something else, but Lucy couldn’t hear her because an explosion shook the night. Fueled by some forgotten store of kerosene or gas, a fireball roared down the street toward them. The coach jerked forward, narrowly evading the incendiary.

Lucy grabbed Kathleen’s skirt and pulled her in. Kathleen’s face was pale but firm. Phoebe moaned, looking dizzy and sick as buildings and people passed in a blur of speed. Then she pressed herself back against the tufted seat and shut her eyes, lips moving in desperate prayer.

Kathleen detached the stiff leather windshield of the coach, letting in a hot storm of sparks and smoke. Phoebe coughed and screamed, but Lucy made herself useful, helping Kathleen up to the driver’s seat. Kathleen, who had learned to drive on her mother’s milk wagon, tried to get hold of the reins, yelling “Ho!” at the top of her lungs.

The panicked team plunged down the street. The tallest structures in Chicago were burning, their high windows disgorging flames that lit the night sky. People were trapped in the upper stories, calling out the windows for help. Some of them dropped bundles of blankets containing valuables and breakables. Lucy was shocked to see that one of the bundles contained a live dog, which fought itself free of the bedding and ran off in a panic.

The horses churned along in confusion, knocking aside pedestrians and other vehicles as they headed straight for the heart of the fire. Phoebe screamed until Lucy grabbed her shoulders and shook her.

“That’s not helping, you goose,” she shouted, then prepared to climb up next to Kathleen, who had managed to catch hold of a flailing leather ribbon. Digging in her heels, she hauled back with all her might. Lucy grabbed the rein and added her strength to the tugging. The horses plunged and fought, but finally slowed.

Lucy let out a giddy laugh of relief. “Oh, thank—”

A second explosion crashed through the smoky night. The conflagration drew so much air that, for a moment, the flames around them died. The hot void left no air to breathe, then returned with a roaring vengeance. From the corner of her eye, Lucy saw Kathleen blown from her seat.

Lucy called to her, but the horses bolted again. Now she could do nothing but cling to the reins and pray.

Up ahead, the road veered sharply. The runaway team made the turn, but the coach teetered on two wheels, then went over. Lucy launched herself at Phoebe and they clung together. The coach landed on its side with teeth-jarring impact. The horses strained and whistled, trying to flee, but with the rockaway on its side, they could hardly move. The lead horse went up on its hind legs, raking the air with its hooves.

“Phoebe?” Lucy said, still holding her.

“Remind me to report the driver for negligence,” Phoebe said shakily.

Good, thought Lucy. If she was well enough to complain, then she was well enough to climb out.

“I’m going to try to get the door open,” she said. The door was now above her, and the latch had been torn away. She pounded with her fists, then put the strength of her back into it. Finally the small half door opened like a hatchway on the deck of a ship.

To her relief, Kathleen stood at the roadside, singed and disheveled, peering in.

“Are you all right?” the Irish girl asked.

“We are.” Lucy took her proffered hand and pulled herself out of the fallen coach. The panicked horses created a menace with their rearing and shrill whinnies.

“Help me,” Phoebe cried, her glass-beaded gown tearing.

Lucy and Kathleen pulled her out, and she began exhorting passersby for help. But the pedestrians had their own concerns and ignored her.

“It’s every man—every woman—for herself,” Lucy declared, feeling oddly liberated by the notion. “Let’s try to get the horses loose.”

“Loose?” Phoebe blew a lock of brown hair out of her face. “If we do that, they’ll run off and we’ll be stranded. We should try to get the coach upright again.” She studied the ominous blazing sky in the west. “We can’t outrun this fire on foot.”

“Everyone else is.” Lucy gestured at the bobbing heads of the crowd, borne along as if by a river current.