Blessed Assurance (16 page)

The saleslady handed her the ribbon-handle of the box. “Upstairs.”

“Thank you.”

“I'm happy you found such a flattering hat. I hope you'll let me serve you again.”

With quick, light steps she ascended the marble and mahogany staircase. When she topped the steps and scanned the second floor, she located the gentlemen's department easily, but she did not see Lee. She walked among the mannequins, displaying men's suits that fit the description of Gentlemen's Finer Attire. Then she saw Lee just beyond her in the aisle.

Jessie felt herself beaming. She paused behind two mannequins, trying to decide why she'd sought him. She hadn't seen him since she left him the night before in the goat shed. When he hadn't come home by morning, she had worried in spite of herself.

Before Jessie could come out from behind the mannequins, a tall, elegantly dressed woman glided up to him. “Leland, is it really you?”

“Eugenia! Sister!” Lee exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

“Well, I surmised that Chicago might be where you'd gone to start over. So when Mrs. Field invited me here to consult with her about charity work, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to try to discover if I were right and how you were.”

“Charity work?”

Jessie echoed his question. Her mind frantically tried to make sense of this.

Eugenia continued, “If you had been paying any attention to your family in the last six years, you would have known I've made myself one of the foremost women in the nation—”

“Yes, yes, Eugenia, I'm sure you have. Did you really come looking for me?”

“Yes, but I never expected to find you without even trying. I had asked Mrs. Field about doctors here, trying…Good heavens, Leland, you don't
work
here, do you?”

Doctor.
Jessie's temples throbbed.
He couldn't be.

“Yes, sister dear, I am employed here in Gentlemen's Finer Attire.”

“Leland, with all your education. Couldn't you find something more appropriate?”

“I told you in Boston, I will never practice medicine again.”

He is a doctor.
Jessie clutched the hatbox ribbon with both hands.
Dr. Smith?

“Very well. Father and I never understood why you wanted to be a doctor.”

“That is old news, sister.”

Not to me, Jessie wanted to shout.

“How's our esteemed father?”

“I don't know why you never could get along with father—”

“Eugenia, do we have to go over ancient history? How long are you going to be in Chicago?”

“Just another few days. Tonight the Fields are hosting a soiree in my honor at the Hotel Tremont.” A self-satisfied smile lifted Eugenia's long, plain face.

“Indeed?”

“Yes,” Eugenia lowered her voice, “and though I realized Mrs. Field invited me to advance socially, I've found her to be not quite as gauche as I had thought she'd be. And Mr. Field is quite droll.”

“I thought so myself.”

“Do you know him?” Eugenia's eyes widened.

“He interviewed me for this job.”

Eugenia put her hand to her forehead.

Jessie felt like screaming at the patronizing woman.

“Don't worry, sis. I'm using the name, Mr. Lee Smith, not Dr. Leland Granger Smith.”

“Thank goodness!”

Lee chuckled. “And I'm afraid I will be unable to attend tonight's soiree. My evening clothes are still in Boston.”

“Your regrettable sense of humor, Leland.” She shook her head at him.

Alternate flashes of heat and cold coursed through Jessie. How could Lee be Dr. Leland Granger Smith, her Will's best friend? She'd read Dr. Smith's name on the death lists, but there'd been so
many mistakes on those lists. Dr. Smith hadn't died. Giddy, she was afraid to move for fear she'd faint.

“You should give me your address in case I ever need to get in touch with you.”

“Send any letters here to Lee Smith. If I quit, I will leave a forwarding address with the office.”

“Very well. Oh, did you locate your friend Will's widow?”

A silent gasp caught in Jessie's throat.
It was all true.

“Yes, I did. I'm staying at her boardinghouse.”

Looking over her brother's shoulder at a large, free-standing mirror, Eugenia adjusted her hat. “And how about her poor little son?”

Jessie's face flamed.

“He's not a poor little boy. He's great lad.”

“Of course.” Eugenia glanced at the gold pendant watch that was pinned to her gray bodice. “I'm sure they are grateful for your help.”

Lee spoke stiffly, “So far Mrs. Wagstaff won't accept any money from me.”

“A charity case with foolish pride. Ah, there is Mrs. Field.” Eugenia wagged one finger to another well-dressed lady and turned away from Lee. “Goodbye, brother.”

“Miss Smith,” Jessie overheard the other lady say. The rest of her sentence was lost to Jessie in her welter of emotions.

Now she knew this man was Will's unlikely best friend, Dr. Smith, son of a wealthy Boston banking family. Dr. Granger had defied his family by taking up medicine, then by enlisting as an army surgeon. And this man's sister thought of her and Linc as just another “charity case.”
Foolish pride?
Her face flaming with outrage and shame, Jessie whirled away down the steps.

 

The nearby church bell tolled six times. Though the sunlight was deepening into dusk, the heat of the long day was undiminished. Jessie, alone on her front porch, paced.

“Jessie, what is it?” Her mother finally returned from Field & Leiter's.

Jessie halted, wringing her hands. “How did your interview go?”

“I'm glad you didn't wait for me. I started in Infant's Wear immediately. I love it.” Then Esther came up the porch steps. “What is the matter, Jessie?”

“Nothing—”

“Look at your hands!”

Jessie glanced downward and immediately let her hands drop to her sides. “Please go in. Tell Susan to go ahead and serve dinner without me.”

“Jessie?”

“Please, Mother.”

Esther paused at the front door to cast a worried glance at her daughter. With a shake of her head, she left her.

Back and forth, Jessie paced, her hands knotted together and pressed to her mouth. She waited for Lee.

“Mama, why won't you come to supper?” Linc appeared beside her.

“Lincoln, it's nothing you need to be concerned about—”

Lee sauntered around the corner of the block, headed right for them. Jessie panicked. “Lincoln, you must go in
now
.” She pushed him toward the door, but, seeing Lee approaching, Linc struggled against her.

Lee walked up the steps. “Lincoln, if your mother wants you to go in, do so immediately.”

The boy ceased struggling and the door closed behind him. “What is it, Jess? You're upset with me, but—”

“Upset?” She forced her voice to stay low. “I'm incensed. Why didn't you tell me you were Will's friend, Dr. Smith?”

Lee's mouth opened in shock.

“You're a doctor and you knew how I needed one! How could you keep still?”

“How…how—”

“Today at Field & Leiter's I saw your sister—and heard her. Foolish pride.” Her face burned again. “Yes, I suppose I am only a charity case to you, but, at least, I know how to tell the truth.”

“Jessie, listen—”

“Your valise is here and inside is the money you paid for next week. Don't come back.” She spun away from him through the front door, shutting it firmly behind her.

“Mama, no!” Linc's voice called through the door.

Hearing Linc's frantic pleas, Lee stood, petrified, his mind blank. Slowly, slowly, he became aware again of Jess's door shut to him. From his memory, a deep voice spoke weakly, “Take care of them, Lee. They'll need you.”

Lee whispered, “I've failed you again, Will.”

Returning from Sunday evening service, Jessie and Esther mounted the front steps. Strong currents of hot wind swirled around them, catching and flaring the hems of their skirts. “Where did this hot wind come from?”

A sudden gust kicked Esther's bonnet forward, so that it fell over her eyes. “Oh, Mother!” Jessie pressed her hand over her mouth, suppressing a chuckle.

“Go ahead laugh at your poor mother.” Esther giggled as she righted her bonnet. “I'd forgotten how wonderful it felt to really laugh.”

“Mother, I…” Jessie paused and stared as though looking far away. When she spoke, her voice held a quality of wonder. “Cherries all around me on the floor. Cherries in my mouth and we're all laughing. What does it mean?” She looked to her mother.

Esther said with hushed awe in her voice, “I can't believe you
remembered that. You were only a toddler. I'd picked a pan of sour cherries for pie.” She took Jessie's hand. “Your father called me outside. When we came back, there you sat, the pan upside down and cherries all over you. Your cheeks bulged like a greedy chipmunk's. Your father and I laughed until we couldn't laugh any more.” Esther wiped tears from her eyes. “Fancy you remembering that tonight.”

“Mother, I love you.”

Esther hugged Jessie to her. “Daughter, I love you, too. These past few days have been difficult, but they've given me the chance to be close to you again and to Linc for the first time.”

“Oh, Miss Jessie, Miss Esther, what we gone do?” At the door, Ruby was twisting her apron with nervous hands.

“What is it?” Jessie asked.

“Your boy finally come back after you been gone. I give him a good scold for missing church and sent him to his bed like you told me.”

“What has happened?” Esther asked.

Ruby twisted her apron more. “A while and I goes to check on him. He gone, left this paper on his pillow. What it say?” Ruby pulled a scrap of paper from her apron pocket.

Jessie read the scribbled message aloud, “Mother, I'm going to find Mr. Smith. Linc.”

Though Jessie stood, she felt as though she were falling down, down.

“Now, Jessie, boys do this,” Esther spoke up. “We'll find him. Ruby, is Susan home yet?”

“No, ma'am.”

“Then you stay here to tell her what has happened. Jessie, you go through the neighborhood. What was the name of that saloon where Mr. Smith worked?”

“Linc wouldn't go there,” Jessie objected.

“He might,” Esther said. “Maybe Linc thinks someone there would know where Mr. Smith is.”

“The Workman's Rest,” Ruby supplied. “I heard that redhead yell it all the way in the kitchen.”

“I'll be back as soon as I can!” Esther hurried down the front steps.

“Mother!” Jessie called after her. “Be careful!”

The increasing wind carried her mother's response back to her. “Of course, dear!”

Jessie dashed down the steps. Calling Linc's name, Jessie ran through the neighborhood, stopping at every house. Near desperate tears, she ran down every alley and every street within a square mile around Wagstaff House. The wind blowing harder, harder, Jessie finally returned, bursting into the kitchen. “Is Linc here?”

“No, he isn't.” Miss Wright stood, her hands resting together on the head of her cane.

Jessie panted, tried to come up with a plan.
Linc, where are you
? Susan stood beside the cold stove. Ruby shuffled forward. “Boys run away. Then they come home hungry.”

“I know I shouldn't be so upset.” Jessie ran her hands over her disheveled hair. “But this wind.”

Gusts of wind brought the jangling distant fire bells in a ominous ebb and flow. “Another fire,” Miss Wright grumbled. “Those bells kept me up last night.”

Jessie approached Miss Wright. “I'll help you get settled for the night.”

Outside the wind tore a shutter loose on the side of the house and it banged wildly. “I'll go pound that back into place.” Susan hurried out the back door.

Letting the older woman lean against her, Jessie helped Miss Wright prepare for bed. “I don't know why we're bothering. With Lincoln running off and the fire bells, I won't sleep a wink.”

With Susan pounding the shutter, Jessie tried to think of something soothing to say to this, but couldn't. “Good night.” She returned to the kitchen and sat down at the table with Ruby. Susan rejoined them. A look of helplessness passed between the three women as they glanced at each other.

“I think it be time to pray,” Ruby announced. She raised her hands. “Oh, Lord, the wind is blowing. Fires is burning and Jessie's
child done run away. Nobody know more'n I do how bad it hurt to have your child took from you. Oh, Lord, the heartbreak. You 'member how it was. More'n ten years I mourned and searched. Finally you bring me here, to my onliest child. Now bring Jessie's boy home safe like you bring me to Susan. I thank You, Lord. Amen. Miss Jessie, God won' let you down.”

Jessie swallowed tears. “Thank you, Ruby.”

Ruby hugged her, then lowered herself ponderously to the kitchen chair. While Ruby sat stolidly keeping vigil, Jessie and Susan paced, looking out the front and then back door.

Hours passed. Jessie and Susan sat at the table with Ruby. The alarms and rushing wind combination was wearing them down.

“I'll make us more coffee.” Ruby struggled to her feet. “Look out the window! It look red like Judgment Day.”

Jessie and Susan crowded around Ruby, puffing with her customary shortness of breath. “It must be the fire,” Jessie said, heading out the back door with Susan at her heels. When Jessie, followed by Susan, ventured away from the shelter of the porch, the wind slapped her in the face like an angry hand. And then it tossed Susan's skirts high and plucked out Jessie's hairpins. Fire bells to the south pealed incessantly.

Jessie joined hands with Susan and ran to the fence.

With the southern skyline lit by an eerie red light, they moved closer together. A sudden explosion, frightening even muffled by distance, halted them.

Holding her hand by her mouth to funnel her words into Susan's ear, Jessie asked, “What was it?”

“It sound like the war all over again,” Susan called to her over the wind even though they were inches apart. “The cannons start fires and they burn all night.”

“Susan, Mother should have been back hours ago. I'm frightened for her.”

Susan put her arm around Jessie's shoulder. “She be all right. We put her and Linc in God's hands—”

A burst of wind flew around the side of the small shed on the
alley. It picked up Jessie and Susan like cotton fluff and threw them against the fence. “It can't be a tornado!” Jessie struggled to pull herself upright. “There isn't any rain!”

“I never feel a wind like that.” Against the wind, Susan fought her way back to Ruby. “Grandma, you get inside.”

“There's more-a me to knock down than you two. Get up here on the porch.”

Jessie, Susan, and Ruby huddled near the back door, each holding on to the railing. But they didn't go back inside. The scarlet southern sky was too dangerous, too compelling to ignore. Other neighbors, some clutching shawls around flapping nightgowns endured the violent currents of air to stand and stare at hellish red sky. Soon the ringing of the fire alarms echoed louder—closer.

A man, running up the alley, startled them all. Jessie followed by Susan raced to catch up with him. “What's happening?” she called, cupping her hands. “Where are you coming from?”

Gasping, the man stopped and bent over, pressing his hands to his knees. “The whole downtown is on fire,” he said hoarsely. “The fires are out of control. The wind fans the flames and they jump from roof to roof.”

As the man took off once more, Susan shouted, “Where you running?”

“The fire's headed this way! I'm packing my stuff and heading west! You should, too!”

Everyone in the alley offered an opinion, but the wind snatched them away. A savage gust slammed against Susan and Jessie. With heads bent into the gale, Jessie holding Susan's hand trudged back up the path. When they reached Ruby on the porch, Susan said, “It don't sound very good.”

“You think the fire gone get this far?” Susan asked Jessie.

“It never has before.” Jessie bit her lip and looked to the fiery sky.

“Has the sky ever looked like that before?” Ruby worried aloud.

“Never.”

“Then it could happen.” Ruby folded her hands over her large abdomen.

Jessie began pacing again. “I should have gone after my mother hours ago.”

“If you gone out, you would just miss her coming home. It's always that way,” Ruby added. “Your mama is a clever woman an' she know this town better-n you. 'Sides, we already prayed her into God's hand along with your boy.”

Jessie's fear threatened to fly out of her control. But she couldn't let it. Both Ruby and Susan were looking to her to take the lead. She took a deep breath. “We better take action.”

“Just tell me what to do,” Susan replied.

Jessie surveyed her property. Having a fireman in the family had one advantage—she'd known to take precautions against the spread of fire. Her pile of cooking wood sat at the back of the lot away from any structure and she'd had the winter coal stowed in the coal cellar.

“Wet down the wooden sidewalk in the front. Ruby, you go in and close all the downstairs windows. I'll do the upstairs ones. That will prevent sparks from igniting the curtains.”

Gripping the railing against the wild wind, Susan hurried to the side of the house to the outdoor faucet while Ruby and Jessie went inside.

As Jessie latched the attic windows, she gained a chilling view of the furious fires to the south. As she scurried down the staircase, Miss Wright called to her, “Jessie, is your mother back?”

Jessie halted in the doorway. “No, she isn't.”

“Why are you closing all the windows?”

“A man from downtown said the fire's headed this way.”

“Do you believe him?”

Jessie considered not worrying the woman, but decided against it. “From the attic, it looks threatening, but I can't believe it will advance this far.”

“I'm getting up.”

“All right, but don't come outside. A wind gust actually knocked Susan and me off our feet.”

“I'll come to the kitchen.”

“Fine.” Jessie hurried out the front door.

For the next hour or more Jessie and Susan worked frantically, taking turns filling buckets and saturating the wood sidewalk, front, and back steps. The fevered radiance in the south flared and flared until the moon was eclipsed in brilliance.

As Jessie and Susan toiled, a trickle of refugees from the south started, increased to a steady stream, then finally a river at flood stage. The refugees carried a peculiar assortment of items: lamps, portraits, skillets, blankets, hatboxes, and valises stuffed so full they couldn't be latched. All of them were fleeing north, away from danger.

“That won't work!” a stranger yelled at them as Jessie helped Susan douse the house.

“The fire's too hot!” another shouted.

“Pack your things while you have time!”

“The fire's out of control!”

“Get out while you can!” The warnings called to Jessie and Susan became a litany of rising terror even as they tried to ignore the ever-expanding crimson glow to the south.

“What are you women doing?” A man dashed toward them. “Are you mad? Do you think you can fight a fiery, rampaging monster with a garden pail!” Soot had blackened the man's face. He'd lost his hat; his hair blew in all directions with the continuous tumult of air.

“We have to save our house,” Jessie shouted.

“Don't you think we felt that way?” he demanded, pointing to the last of the refugees hurrying up the street.

“I'm a widow. This boardinghouse supports us!” Watching a shower of sparks dancing over the church steeple two blocks away distracted Jessie.

“You're in danger, don't you understand? People are dying!”

A jolt of terror shot through Jessie.

As the man retreated to the street, he yelled back, “For God's sake, woman, get out while you can!”

Susan turned to Jessie. “We gotta make sure Linc and your ma have a home to come back to, you hear?”

Jessie nodded, fighting the blasts of wind. Then another explosion rocked them. Screams shocked Jessie and she turned to see Mrs. O'Toole from her attic window. “It's only two blocks away! Dear God, save us!”

“Pack your things!” Mrs. Crawford from the front walk shouted to them. “The fire is nearly here!”

Jessie hurried to her. “Did Mr. Smith return to board with you? Do you know where he is?”

“I haven't seen him in the last few days. Mrs. Wagstaff, you must come with me. You are in real danger.”

“But we'll lose everything!”

“Better to lose everything and save your lives. Don't delay!” Mrs. Crawford began to run to catch up with her son and daughter. “The fire is burning along the wooden sidewalks and streets and jumping from roof to—”

Her final words were blown away. The gust brought a shower of flaming sparks into Jessie's face. Susan screamed. Jessie raced back to her. “What!”

Susan pointed to the faucet. “The water stopped!”

Linc running away. Her mother not returning. The fire advancing, advancing…She wanted to run inside and hide under her bed like a little girl.

“Look!” Susan screamed.

A line of flames flashed up in the alley behind them. The leaping, orange flames began gnawing at her small barn and her fence.
It can't have reached us! My God, forgive my stubbornness! Help us! We've waited too long!

“Susan, get Ruby to the front,” Jessie shouted. “I'll get Miss Wright!”