Chapter Ten

With hands that still felt as though they were burning, Meg stood on the front porch of Hiram Sloane’s house and waited while Sylvie gathered her nerve. “It’s time,” she said as gently as she could manage through her pain.

Twenty hours after their father’s arrest, Sylvie had agreed to face Jasper Davenport, if he was still here, and whatever staff remained. Having no place to store their belongings, she and Sylvie had brought their tattered pillowcases. They had combed their hair but had few pins to hold it, and had had no chance to bathe since last Saturday.

Neither had they had much rest at the church last night, despite how much Meg had longed for sleep to dim her pain and carry her away. Damp stone had pressed her hip and ribs, her elbow had been her pillow, and a thin blanket brought little warmth. Babies wailed, children cried out with nightmares forged in flames. Sylvie gasped awake more than once, disoriented and trembling with cold or fear. Who among them, when they closed their eyes, did not see that terrible orange glow or smell the smoke or hear the bells of alarm? This morning Meg rose no less distraught over her father, and stiff and slow from lack of sleep besides.

Exhaling, Sylvie lifted the brass knocker and brought it down three times. Meg shifted her gaze to the movement of blue uniforms in the street. Two entire companies of General Sheridan’s militiamen were stationed here to guard the few square blocks of the Prairie Avenue neighborhood. Compared to the five companies assigned to protect the below-ground safes throughout the business district, this street felt especially thick with soldiers.

A click sounded on the other side of the door. It opened slowly, then flung wide as Helene Dressler gathered Meg and Sylvie into an embrace that smelled of lilac talc.

“Girls!” she cried, releasing them. “You must forgive such an emotional display, but I’ve been so worried. Oh! Your hands, Miss Margaret—will you fully recover?”

It was so different from the reception Meg had expected that her throat stung with relief and gratitude. “I fully intend to.”

With a flutter, Helene pulled them into the vestibule and locked the door behind them before drawing them into the main hall.

“Helene.” Sylvie twisted her fingers together, her complexion a match for the alabaster statues of Greek goddesses flanking the grand staircase. “We’re terribly sorry about Hiram. We cannot tell you how much. We’re still so shocked by the news, it hardly seems possible that it’s true.”

Helene’s eyes misted as she smoothed the black apron over her black skirt. “I never heard him leave. I don’t know what happened.”

Meg swallowed a knot of unshed tears. “We don’t know what happened either. The police arrested our father. . . .” She trailed off. Of course Helene already knew this. All of Chicago knew it, at least those who read the Tribune. “But I don’t believe for a moment he did this. Do you know of anyone else who would have wanted to harm Hiram?”

Helene spread her hands in a gesture of helplessness. “He’s kept to himself for the most part since his mind began failing him. The only person I’ve ever known to wish Master Hiram ill was Otto Schneider, but that was years ago.”

Meg nodded. It did not seem likely that a grievance as old as the war would resurface now without some kind of provocation.

“Will there be a funeral?” Sylvie asked. “Or have we missed it?”

“Mr. Davenport held a private burial service.” Helene’s voice contained her sorrow. “I suppose he hadn’t the means for more. But please come in, you poor souls. You’ve been through hell and back again.”

They followed her into the parlor, where polished woodwork bordered settees and chairs upholstered in ocher and crimson. Thick velvet draperies puddled on the floor. From an alcove between the windows, a bust of Robert Burns, Hiram’s favorite poet, stared out at them.

Helene eyed the bundles Sylvie carried. “This is what remains?”

Meg said it was and eased into an armchair for the first time since before the fire. It would have been easier to leave everything buried in the ground, but looters were digging, searching for valuables and vaults. She wouldn’t risk losing what little they had left.

“What will you do now?” Sylvie asked. Black crepe covered the mirror above the mantelpiece, but it was obvious that Helene was keeping the house clean. Equally obvious was the fact that she, and not the butler, had answered the door.

“Unlike most of the staff, I will stay at my post until things have settled. They’ve all left to find employment elsewhere, everyone except Kirstin, Eli, and me. All three of us plan to take on side jobs for other households for our income, but this remains our home, at least for now.” She lowered her voice and leaned in. “Mr. Davenport is still here too. I expect he’ll stay until the will is found, at the very least. Naturally he wants to finish his semester at the university, so if he does leave the house, he’ll find other lodging in town.”

Surprise pierced through Meg’s fog of pain. “You have no copy of the will?” The official document would have been filed at the courthouse, a casualty of the fire. But . . . “Surely Hiram stored one here.”

“That’s what we all assumed. It wouldn’t be right for us staff to search, but Mr. Davenport has looked all over, to no avail. It must turn up sometime, though. And if the property goes to him, as I imagine it must, as Hiram’s only living relative, perhaps he’ll keep me on. I have no desire to leave.”

“And I don’t want you to leave, for I cannot manage without you, Miss Dressler.” With a smile that brought a flush to Sylvie’s cheeks, Jasper Davenport strode into the parlor and lowered himself into a chair. “I wasn’t aware we had company. How do you do.”

Helene rose and bowed to him, though he was not her master yet.

“Mr. Davenport,” Meg began, “we are so sorry for your loss.” She stopped short of insisting her father had been framed for the murder. Whoever had killed Hiram, it was obvious his nephew was grieving. It would be crude to make her visit about shifting blame.

“We wish with all our hearts that Hiram was still with us,” Sylvie added.

“I appreciate that, I do. Miss Margaret, it seems you’ve been tended. I’m glad.” He did not comment on the charge brought against their father.

“May I offer the three of you tea and jam tarts?” Helene asked.

Mr. Davenport glanced outside at the lowering sun. “Let’s be respectful of their time, Miss Dressler. They have a walk ahead of them, and the curfew is quite strict.” He turned to Sylvie. “Eli would drive you, but he’s renting his services to others at present. I’ll walk with you.”

Taking his cue, Sylvie and Meg stood to leave.

“Surely that’s not necessary,” Helene said quietly, her tone and posture more submissive than her remark. “We have plenty of space here, do we not? Mr. Sloane would have welcomed them with open arms.”

The suggestion surprised Meg as much as it touched her.

Mr. Davenport jingled some coins in his pocket, his expression thoughtful. “Well, these are special circumstances.”

“We would never wish to impose,” Sylvie said. “Come, Meg.”

“Oh, yes, excellent point, Mr. Davenport,” Helene said, perfectly composed. “These are special circumstances indeed. In light of what is being circulated about their father and your uncle, it is especially Christian of you to open your house to these two orphaned girls. Oh, forgive me, I misspoke. The house doesn’t belong to you, at least not yet. Yet if it did, you’d prove as benevolent as your uncle. Truly, it is an honor and privilege to keep house and cook for you, even as we wait for the will to be found.”

Meg held her breath, marveling at Helene’s outspokenness.

The clock on the mantel ticked away a full minute that felt like ten before Jasper turned and gave a little bow to her and Sylvie. “Miss Dressler will see you settled.”

Meg felt a pang of guilt as Kirstin stoked the fire in the hearth of the bedroom where she and Sylvie would stay. The chamber was draped and carpeted in hues of Prussian blue and mustard, with vases of peacock feathers flanking the fireplace. The mahogany furniture included a canopied four-poster bed big enough for two surrounded by velvet curtains. Adjoining the bedchamber was a white-tiled room with a toilet, sink, and claw-foot tub behind a folding Japanese silk screen. With the water pumps still being repaired, however, there was no water coming through the tap yet. The water they had in the house Eli had hauled from the lake.

“We will pay for the wood,” Meg told the maid, aware that much of Chicago’s cordwood had been consumed in the Great Fire, as the papers were calling it. She stared at the embers and flames Kirstin coaxed to life, then at the glowing tips of the tapers in candlesticks on the nightstands. She would never look at fire the same way again. The same source of warmth and comfort had brought death and destruction beyond description.

“And the food we eat,” Sylvie added, pulling Meg from her dark musings. “Keep a running tab of the expenses we add to the household. In fact, as the cooks have found employment elsewhere, I’d be happy to help in the kitchen. We don’t want to burden you, Kirstin. We intend to pay for any work done on our behalf.”

Kirstin straightened and set the fire poker in the stand with the other tools. “That’s right decent of you, Miss Sylvie, Miss Margaret.”

“I assume Mr. Davenport pays for your services as well, given that your income from Hiram has been cut off?” Meg asked.

“He lets me stay in the house, and that’s no small thing. He’s a decent enough gentleman and lets me take in laundry and sewing from other houses. He’s not a bad fellow to look at either.” She covered her mouth. “Oh, for heaven above. I shouldn’t have said that.”

Sylvie ducked her chin and smiled, an uncharacteristic flash of girlishness. “What can you tell us about him?”

Kirstin screwed her mouth to one side and straightened the cap on her hair. “He came to attend university. Or did he decide to attend after he’d already arrived? As I recall, there was a bit of a rush to get him admitted, since it was so close to when classes began this fall.”

“Anything else?” Sylvie prompted.

“I know he’s five and twenty, with no other family, but little else. Even in his conversations with Mr. Sloane, God rest him, he never said much about himself.”

Meg frowned. “But you had no notice of his arrival? He came unannounced?”

Her sister crossed to the window and drew the drapes. “You know Hiram could have received word and then forgotten.”

“True enough. But you must admit, it’s all rather mysterious. And then Hiram’s death, and the missing will . . .”

“For shame, Meg!” Sylvie flew to the door and locked it, then marched back to Meg, eyes ablaze. “He opens the house to us, after our own father was arrested for Hiram’s murder—” She sputtered and went silent.

Truly, Meg wasn’t ungrateful. “I’m as thankful as you are for the hospitality. But he was prompted by Helene. Could you believe she was so bold on our behalf?”

Sylvie couldn’t.

Kirstin could, after Meg told her what had happened. “That sounds like the way she guided Mr. Sloane—God rest him—for quite some time. Poor Mr. Sloane needed it, but she’s mistaken if she thinks the young sir will appreciate her ‘help’ the way his uncle did.”

Meg agreed. She tilted her head to one side, then the other to stretch out the tension that had been gathering there since Sunday. It was no use. Until her father was acquitted for Hiram’s murder and released from the asylum, she couldn’t relax.

Stephen hadn’t killed Hiram. So who had?

What motive could there be? Who would be better off with Hiram dead? Who was with him that night?

By degrees, a possibility emerged from her exhausted, overtaxed mind. She didn’t like it. It was far-fetched, likely the result of too little sleep and too much stress. Yet if she didn’t at least acknowledge the idea, it would hound her.

“Kirstin.” Meg sat at the writing desk and scraped the inside of her wrist on its edge to relieve an itch. “Does Mr. Davenport believe that once the will is found, it will name him as the primary beneficiary? Do you?”

“I believe so, miss.”

Helene had already said as much, so this was no surprise. The question remained, was this a motive for murder? But the question Meg asked instead was simply, “Where was he the night of the fire?”

The maid looked over her shoulder at the closed door. “Mr. Davenport was studying with classmates Sunday evening at the university, and by the time he arrived home, Mr. Sloane had gone to bed. Mr. Davenport retired shortly after that. When I went to tend the fire in Mr. Sloane’s room, I saw he was gone and went directly to wake his nephew. After that, Mr. Davenport was always with at least one of the servants, trying to find Mr. Sloane.”

Squinting, Meg imagined the course of events. “But was there a stretch of time when no one saw him? Between the time he was studying elsewhere and the time he showed himself here to the staff?”

“Meg!” Sylvie put a fist to her hip and looked down at her. “Listen to yourself. Are you so desperate to shift the blame from our father that you’d place it on our benefactor instead?”

Meg’s temper flared, as it always did when she faced a problem she didn’t know how to solve. “Are you so convinced of our father’s guilt that you refuse to entertain the possibility of his innocence?”

Fire popped in the grate. Light and shadow danced over Sylvie’s face. “You’ve been blind to the truth about Father ever since he came home. If you hadn’t refused to take him to a doctor, he might have been helped, or at least placed where he could do no harm. Hiram might still be alive right now.”

The words were a blow to Meg’s gut, for they echoed the self-condemnation she’d already been wrestling. “That’s not fair.” But her rebuttal sounded weak and childish even to herself.

Kirstin rolled her lips between her teeth and let herself out of the room.

“The will,” Meg said. “Can we agree to suspend judgment until we find the will?”

“Mr. Davenport has an alibi.” Sylvie’s voice trembled. “He cannot have done this, even if the will does favor him. Besides, who else would Hiram leave his fortune to other than his great-nephew if no other kin is left? It would be logical, not an indictment.”

Was Sylvie right? Was Meg truly grasping for anything to clear Stephen’s name? “But no harm can come from us helping Jasper search for the will.”

She wished they could talk to Stephen. The trial for Hiram’s murder would be weeks or months away, but the judge had already declared him insane and committed him indefinitely to the Cook County Insane Asylum, where no personal visitors were allowed. They’d been cut off from one another, an amputation of the family.

Sylvie sank onto the edge of the bed and leaned against the curtain gathered at the carved post. “We need to begin planning for our future. No one else will do it for us. We’re on our own, more now than ever before.”

Meg left the desk to sit beside her. While her thoughts realigned themselves, her gaze traced the budding vines in the mosaic tiles surrounding the fireplace. If her hands were free, she would unpin her sister’s hair and take the silver brush from the vanity to untangle Sylvie’s long brown tresses and soothe her nerves.

She tried to flex and curl her hands inside her bandages, but her palms and fingers resisted movement, unyielding in their shrouds. Meg frowned and tried again, until the pain of stretching her ravaged skin begged her to stop.

What a mercy that God was not limited by that which limited her. What grace that His power and presence remained, regardless of whether she felt close to them. She must trust Him for what she could not see. Wasn’t that the essence of faith? Her hands were bound. His were not.

Tomorrow would be better than this.

“All right.” It was determination, more than confidence, that lifted Meg’s voice. She wondered if Sylvie could tell the difference. “Here’s what we’ll do. First thing, we write the insurance company and file a claim for our losses. I still have the money from Bertha Palmer for the two portraits she purchased last week. We have the deed and title to our property. Once the ruins have been cleared away, we will hire a contractor to rebuild.” Meg had enough money to get them started, and by the time more was needed, they’d have it. Somehow.

Sylvie took a deep breath. “Tomorrow we will properly sort through what we have in the way of inventory and make a list of who may want to buy what.” Leaving the bed, she unwrapped the rescued novel from Nate’s jacket and set it on the tea table.

“Most of it is still readable,” Meg told her, rising to stand beside her. The middle of the book still held the photograph of Stephen in his uniform. “We saved what matters most.”

Sylvie ran her thumb over her broken fingernails. “I don’t know if we did.”

A lump wedged in Meg’s throat at the difference between the family they’d once been and the remnant that remained. “We have to keep trying,” she whispered. “I have to try.”

“I know you do. It’s who you are, to hope and pray and love and try. You will call me dreadfully pessimistic, but our futures have never been more fragile than they are right now. I would say that our best chance for security is to marry, but who would marry the daughter of . . . Even if he didn’t murder Hiram, any potential prospects have been killed. Our family name is ruined. No one will have us now.”

Rarely did Meg dwell on the fact that all her peers had married and begun filling their nurseries with children. At seventeen and fifteen when the war ended, she and Sylvie had barely come of age. But as the depth of their father’s wounds became apparent, would-be callers stayed away. So absorbed was Meg in the health of her own family that she did not mourn their absence. What good was a Sunday stroll or a stiff visit in the parlor when her father teetered between life and death, and when her mother wasted away with the stress of it?

Besides, Jane Austen and her sister, Cassandra, had never married. Louisa May Alcott remained unwed. Charlotte Brontë, who hadn’t married until she was thirty-eight, wrote that “there is no more respectable character on this earth than an unmarried woman, who makes her own way through life quietly, perseveringly.”

But Sylvie’s statement could not be ignored. Tentatively, Meg approached it. “Is there, or has there been, a certain young man you pined for?”

Guilt weighted her, that she’d been blind to her sister’s longing for love or security or both. If Meg had noticed, could she have done anything to promote a match? Or would she have selfishly swept the idea away in order to keep her sister as a companion for herself?

Dropping her gaze, Sylvie pushed a greasy strand of hair from her face. “It would not matter if there were.”

A denial formed on Meg’s tongue, but she couldn’t truthfully say otherwise. Instead, she pulled her sister into an embrace, the responsibility she felt toward her younger sibling pouring steel into her spine. “I’ll take care of you,” she told her.

“My dear sister.” Sylvie pulled back and cradled Meg’s bandaged hands, a bruised look on her face. “You cannot take care of yourself.”