34 

We can’t go in the front door!” Charlotte gripped her son’s hand as she huddled with Sarah at the bottom of the steps leading to the Banning front door. At the curb, Lillie’s driver clicked his tongue and the horse pulling the carriage heeded the command to continue the journey to the Wagner home.

“I can’t very well take Lucy’s children through the kitchen,” Sarah said. She coughed and moved Stella to the other hip. “Besides, these are not usual circumstances.” The truth was she was not sure she could walk any farther than the front door.

Sarah led the way up the stairs with Ben and Stella, leaving Charlotte no option but to follow with Henry. The door was latched on the inside, as she expected it would be, so she pulled the bell. Stella squirmed in her arms. Every muscle inside Sarah screamed with exhaustion.

“Is my mother going to be all right?” Benny asked.

“Yes, of course,” Sarah said. “She just wants to help the other children because she knows your grandmother will take care of you.”

“I’m worried,” he said.

But you’re safe, alive, she wanted to say, shaking off the image of the two children lying still in the dining hall.

“Pull the bell again,” Sarah suggested.

But the door opened before Benny’s hand reached the bell.

Mr. Penard’s eyes flickered slightly as he considered the scene before him.

Sarah pushed past him. “There’s been a fire.”

“Grandmama!” Benny ran to Flora, who had stepped from the parlor into the foyer, and wrapped his arms around her waist. When he separated, he left a streak of gray down the front of her yellow dress.

Flora took the baby from Sarah just before she squalled. Sarah sank on the bottom marble step, indicating Charlotte and Henry should sit beside her.

“What happened?” Flora demanded.

“A fire,” Sarah answered. Her chest still heaved with the effort to breathe, and speaking provoked coughing. “At St. Andrew’s.”

“Where’s Lucy?” Flora made no effort to mask her anxiety. “Penard, bring some water!”

“She’s fine, ma’am,” Sarah said quickly.

“You know Miss Lucy,” Charlotte added. “She stayed to help.”

“Sarah, I didn’t realize you were going to St. Andrew’s today,” Flora said, smoothing her granddaughter’s grimy dress.

“It’s a long story, ma’am.”

“I suppose it doesn’t matter now,” Flora said. “Was anybody hurt?”

Sarah nodded. “I’m not sure how many, ma’am.”

“Penard, the children will need baths. Send some extra towels to my bathroom. I’ll see to the baths myself.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The butler bowed slightly.

“And ask Mrs. Fletcher to put the kettle on. The girls need tea.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Mrs. Banning,” Charlotte said quietly, “if I might use your telephone to reach my husband at work.”

“Penard can call him for you. He works for Mr. Glessner, does he not?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’ll take the children. The two of you go through to the kitchen,” Flora instructed. “Penard will see you get some nourishment.”

Flora Banning’s answer to everything seemed to be to enlist Penard, which Sarah found vaguely amusing until the room began to spin and she slumped off the step.

Sarah woke, in darkness, in her own room with fragmented recollection of how she arrived there. Smelling salts. Mrs. Fletcher insisting she sip water. She did not remember climbing the narrow stairs to the third floor, but she had a hazy recollection of Elsie and Mary Catherine stripping off the day dress she had been wearing and seeing the ashes in its fibers launched into the room.

She was alone, wearing a white nightdress, and under her own blankets plus one more, a quilt from the guest room on the second floor. Mrs. Banning must have ordered its use. No one else would dare. Though it was the middle of November, the window was open. Fresh air streamed through steadily. Sarah experimented with a deep breath and found it less troublesome than a few hours earlier.

Suddenly she wanted to know what time it was. The sky was black, but darkness came early at this time of year. How long had she been asleep? The thought of getting out of bed to pull the chain on the electric light bulb overhead was too much, but she could manage to light the kerosene lamp at the side of the bed. Sarah pulled herself half upright, fumbled on the table for matches, and struck the second one she tried.

They were Diamond matches.

Sarah lit the wick, then fell back in bed wondering if anywhere in the Banning household she might find a brand of matches that did not remind her of Bradley Townsend and his anticipated fortune. She lay there watching the light grow to brightness, banishing images of apartment 3E. Simon was the man who mattered now, the only one who ever had.

Was Jane right? Was it possible the girl had started the fire? Sarah moaned with the conviction that her own actions somehow had driven Jane to destroy the journal.

“Mr. Tewell came running up the stairs yelling for everyone to get out,” Jane had said.

Something did not add up. Simon had run past Jane and her tin-can fire and into the boys’ wing.

“Jane did not start the fire,” Sarah said aloud. “Something else happened, something worse.”

The door opened and Mary Catherine came in. “I heard you talking,” she said.

Sarah moved her gaze to the kitchen maid, who must have been holding vigil outside her door. “What time is it?”

“About ten o’clock.”

“It’s still Monday?” The only day that rivaled this one in Sarah’s life was the day she came home from school to find her world destroyed. Only twelve hours ago she had fixed a breakfast plate for Lucy. “Benny and Stella?” she asked suddenly.

“Asleep in Richard’s room. Mrs. Banning has taken them in hand herself,” Mary Catherine said. “She’s quite good with children when she wants to be.”

“Charlotte and Henry?”

“Archie left work and came right over. He took them home hours ago.”

“Miss Lucy?”

Mary Catherine shook her head. “She hasn’t come home yet.”

“Mrs. Banning must be frantic.”

“She says she’ll wait up all night if she has to. I’m supposed to stay up all night with you. Mrs. Banning says you are to stay in bed as long as you like in the morning.”

Sarah shook her head slightly. “Go to bed, Mary Catherine. You’ve done so much for me today already. Put out the light, please. I’m going to sleep.”

But she would not sleep, not right away. Where was Simon?

In the morning, Sarah slept through the hour when Leo and Samuel Banning would have their breakfast, but she was dressed and downstairs when Flora and Benny came in for their morning meal.

“Miss Newcomb is here as well,” Mrs. Fletcher told her as she set a bowl heaped with oatmeal in front of Sarah.

“Still no word from Miss Lucy?”

“Not yet. Mrs. Banning dozed in the parlor all night waiting for her. She never even changed her clothes. It’s strange to see her looking a mess.”

Mary Catherine came in from the dining room. “Sarah, Mrs. Banning is asking for you.”

Sarah pushed back from the table, her own breakfast untouched. “I’d better see what she wants, then.”

Flora Banning had the morning newspaper spread out before her.

“Sarah,” Mrs. Banning said, “it would seem you did not tell us the whole story yesterday.”

“Ma’am?” Sarah looked from Flora Banning to Violet Newcomb.

“You’re in the newspaper! Leo left the page open for me.”

Sarah stared at the headline: “Fire Ravages Orphanage.” She scanned the details reported.

The first fire truck left the station within twenty seconds of the alarm, followed by four more fire apparatus vehicles.

Four hundred children were believed to reside at St. Andrew’s.

It is unknown how many staff were present in the structure at the time.

At the time of going to press, there were two known deaths, and a small number of children and staff were unaccounted for, among them orphanage director Simon Tewell.

Sarah sucked in her breath.

Flora thumped the paper. “There! Read that. They quoted you. It says here that you went into the building and pulled out Henry Shepard. Neither you nor Charlotte said a word about that yesterday.”

“We were just . . . grateful he was safe . . . and worried . . . about . . .”

“Of course that is what is important,” Violet Newcomb said. She held a bottle while Stella’s cheeks flapped with the motion of consuming the formula.

Ben’s fork clattered to his plate. “Where is my mother?” he wanted to know.

“I’m sure she’ll be here as soon as she can,” Mrs. Banning said. She pointed at his plate. “She would want you to eat your breakfast.”

“I don’t have to go to school today, do I?” he asked.

“No, not today, dear.”

“Good. They might have a fire there, and I don’t ever want to be in another fire for the rest of my life.”

“May I?” Sarah picked up the newspaper to read more carefully. “It doesn’t say what caused the fire.”

“They might never know,” Violet said. “I’m sure right now the authorities are concentrating on accounting for everyone.”

The front door opened.

“Mama!” Benny was out of his chair before anyone could stop him.

Lucy knelt between the pocket doors to the dining room and gathered him in her arms.

Flora and Violet were on their feet, rushing toward Lucy. Sarah quietly laid the newspaper down and moved to her familiar post at the sideboard, but Lucy met her eyes.

“Aunt Violet,” Lucy said, “I wonder if you would take the children to the parlor for me. I’ll fill you in later.”

“I want to stay with you, Mama,” Benny insisted.

“I’ll only be a few minutes,” Lucy assured him. Violet gripped Ben’s shoulder and steered him across the foyer.

“Lucy, you’re a mess,” Flora observed. “Did you sleep at all?”

“Only an hour or so,” Lucy said. “I’m so dirty, I hate to sit on your William Morris furniture.”

“Sit!” Flora ordered, pointing at a dining room chair. “I’m tired of this pattern anyway.”

Lucy lowered herself into the chair, and Sarah automatically carried the coffeepot to the table and poured Lucy a cup. Lucy took a long grateful draft.

“Sarah, how are you this morning?”

“I’m well, ma’am.”

“No cough? No burning in your lungs?”

Sarah shook her head.

“You’ll tell somebody if you don’t feel well?”

“Yes, ma’am.” How she felt was inconsequential to Sarah at the moment.

“I’m sure you want to know the news,” Lucy said.

Tell me they found Simon. Tell me he is all right. “Yes, ma’am.”

“By midnight, we accounted for nearly all the children,” Lucy said. Her voice caught as she looked at Sarah. “I realize now what you meant when you spoke of Melissa and Alonzo. Alfred is inconsolable about losing his brother. Mrs. Davis has taken him under her wing. We’re looking for his mother, but we haven’t heard from her in over a year.”

“Did these children succumb?” Flora’s face paled.

“Smoke inhalation,” Lucy said. “Something about the construction of the building. The fire was on the fourth floor, but the smoke spread rapidly through the ventilation system. A few of the children were taken to nearby hospitals with damage to their lungs, but most of them remembered the instruction to cover nose and mouth while they got out of the building. We’re hoping the ones still missing will turn up in the hospitals as well. The firemen are sure no one is inside.”

“Where are most of the children now?” Flora asked.

“Schools. Churches. It was heartwarming to see how quickly organizations opened their doors to us. Mats and blankets came from everywhere.”

Lucy had not yet mentioned Simon, and Sarah could not intrude with her question.

“The paper said the damage is still being assessed,” Flora said.

Lucy nodded. “The preliminary report suggests the real damage is limited to the fourth floor. It seems the fire started when one of the staff turned on a gas lamp affixed to the hall. There was an explosion. I don’t know all the details.”

A gas lamp? Not Jane burning her journal.

Lucy continued. “It’s really a matter of how much damage there is from smoke and water. We won’t know for a few days.” She held up her coffee cup for Sarah to refill. “Simon always dreamed of electrifying, but it’s so expensive to bring electricity to a building of that size when we need so many other things.”

“Electrical fires happen, too,” Flora pointed out. “Crossed wires. You hear about it all the time.”

Lucy drummed three fingers on the table. “We have a lot of decisions to make, but first we have to find Simon.”

“Mr. Tewell is still missing?” Flora sounded alarmed.

The coffeepot shook in Sarah’s hand.

“We all heard the explosion even though we were downstairs, and he took off immediately,” Lucy said. “Enough of the children have said they saw him that we know he was upstairs moving around, getting children out. The firefighters assure us he is not inside the building, but ambulances were everywhere, so he might have been taken away. We’re still looking for him.”

Simon.

Jane.

“Miss Lucy,” Sarah said. “If I may?”

“Yes, Sarah?”

“Do you know where Jane is?”

“Why, yes. She’s at one of the churches—though she seems to be in shock and won’t speak to anyone.”

Sarah swallowed. “She believes she started the fire. She told me she struck a match to burn . . . a personal item.”

Lucy shook her head. “No. The fire department is sure it was a gas line fire. It started in the boys’ wing. Jane shouldn’t have been anywhere near there.”

“No, ma’am. She wasn’t. She said she was in the stairwell on the other side of the building.”

“I’ll have a word with her,” Lucy said. “I was able to telephone Will. He’s on his way home on the late train today. I’d better spend a few minutes with Ben, but I’ll have to go back, at least until we find Simon.”

Sarah backed away to the kitchen. She needed to sit down.

Despite suggestions from both Mrs. Banning and the other staff that it might be wise to rest, Sarah stayed awake and on her feet all day. Occasionally, a fit of coughing consumed her, and Mrs. Fletcher kept the tea pot filled and steaming.

All Sarah wanted was to know if Simon was all right. She forced herself to eat lunch. Though Mr. Penard excused her from duties, she wandered the downstairs rooms to dust and wax. Resting seemed an impossibility.

Lucy returned to the house in the middle of the afternoon and rang for Sarah immediately. Sarah scuttled across the dining room and the foyer to present herself in the parlor.

“They found Simon!” Lucy’s face beamed. “I was certain you would want to know.”

Sarah exhaled. “Thank you, ma’am. I’m very glad.”

“I thought you might be.”

Sarah considered Lucy’s green eyes and wondered what she knew. What had Simon said?

“Is he all right?” Sarah hoped her effort to restrain her eagerness for news was more convincing than it felt.

Lucy’s face turned somber. “He turned up in one of the hospitals. He has suffered burns. I don’t have any information on how extensive they are. No one is allowed to see him. The hospital only confirmed he had been admitted for care.”

“But surely—”

“Don’t worry. I’m not giving up. A lot of people are worried about Simon Tewell. I will wring information out of those doctors personally. I will make sure you know. Simon would want you to.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” Sarah blushed.

Lucy rubbed one eye with three fingers. Sarah saw the exhaustion in the gesture.

“Can you find my children for me?” Lucy asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” Sarah answered. “And I’ll bring you something to eat.”

“Thank you, Sarah. We’ll get through this.”

Sarah started to leave the room, then turned back. “Miss Lucy, it’s a small offering, but I have a few dresses ready for girls. A friend and I have been sewing. It’s only ten dresses, but it’s a start.”

Lucy nodded. “Every contribution matters, big or small.”