Wild Rose (46 page)

As she was putting on her mantle against the cold, finding it by feel rather than bothering to light the lamp on the bed table, she became aware of an odd smell. She went into the kitchen, still sniffing, realizing with a shudder of incipient terror that it was smoke – no wonder she’d been dreaming of fire. But the stove was barely warm, the fire needing stirring to get the coals glowing again so that she could add wood, and perhaps one more lump of her precious coal supply. She did this, still puzzled, and wondering if she had perhaps only imagined the smell. It was while she waited to be sure the wood would catch fire, changing the dampers to allow in more air, that she thought she heard a shout. A quick glance out the window told her only that there was no one outside her door, so, reluctantly, she lifted the bar, slid back the ragged blanket that kept out the draft, the frozen hinges creaking loudly, managed to pull it open far enough to see outside.

Now she heard them, voices, somewhere down the road at the other end of town. The smell was strong and when she went out onto her step she saw a savage orange light in the sky to the north. Something was on fire: the livery barn, someone’s house, a business, perhaps. Freezing in her nightclothes, she stepped hastily back in, closing the door hard, kicking the blanket back into place. She lit the bedroom lamp and set it on the floor in the doorway between the two rooms so she could find her clothing without waking Charles who lay under a mound of blankets, his small form motionless, his face turned to the wall.

She pulled on her warmest clothes, her new warm boots, the leather gauntlets that had been Pierre’s that had been in the bottom of the portmanteau she had carried with her all that long day in August when she had come to this town, penniless and frightened, with the omnipresent land speculator, Campion. The very fact of the gauntlets’ presence was evidence of how confused she had been, that she had not even seen them, not noticed that they took up a good part of the bag, forming a cushion, though, for all the other items she had placed in them, especially the jar of drinking water. Then she thought, her hand on the door latch, the other pulling tight the shawl around her head and over her chin and mouth, but I did remember, I think I might even have put them there for just that purpose, and both amused and aghast at what might have been going through her head when she did that, she stepped outside and pulled the door shut behind her.

She hadn’t paused to try to see the clock, but as she turned her face toward the north and began walking, guessed that it was perhaps three in the morning. She was strangely disoriented by the billowing orange, red and yellow against the blackness at the far end of the street, the entire building in flames and far beyond saving, she could see, but was still not sure which of them it was. She began to run, although she wasn’t sure why she was running, could hear shouts now, saw small black figures low against the violent colour streaming upward, of people standing as if mesmerized, others rushing to throw water onto the side of the livery barn to keep it from going up too.

Then she was standing beside Candace Archibald of all people, who so seldom went out, preferred that others come to her, who found the town and its society beneath her, had even, in some years, been known to go east for the winter months. Next to her stood Mrs. Oswald, the preacher’s wife, tears starting down her face to be scrubbed away before they froze to her cheeks. Beyond them she saw Charlotte Emery, and even Mrs. Tremblay. To her right, knowing her by her height, she saw Mrs. Kaufmann striding down the narrowly shovelled path toward the group of women where Sophie had halted.

She had known for some incalculable minutes that the building on fire was Adelaide Smith’s, but somehow this fact had not reached a conscious level. Now she stepped forward, Mrs. Archibald clutching at the decorative cape over the shoulders of Sophie’s mantle, saying urgently to her, “Go no closer, no closer!”

But Sophie was looking for Adelaide, taking a few steps this way, then that, snow crunching underfoot, the men shouting incomprehensibly, water hissing viciously as it struck the hot wood of the barn, and one man, Ambrose she supposed, led rearing, twisting horses outside, while the other women called her to stay, stay where she was, and finally Mrs. Emery stepping in front of her, her round glasses shining orange in the firelight, her mouth moving frantically, no sound audible over the cacophony.

“Sophie, Sophie, stop, stop right here, now!” She put both hands on Sophie’s upper arms and held her – how strong she was for all her years and her short stature – and Sophie stilled for an instant, her heart pounding so loudly that she could hardly hear over it, knew only the confusion, the shouting, the flames raging skyward, the black smoke billowing around them, choking them.

“Mrs. Smith, where is she? Where is Mrs. Smith? The girl – Lily – where is she?” Sophie wailed, struggling to pull away from Mrs. Emery.

“Calm yourself!” Mrs. Emery shouted, and Mrs. Oswald, in her role as preacher’s wife, came and put her arms around Sophie too, from one side and Sophie caught the awful scent of soured cologne and old face powder, even through the choking smoke, and wrenched herself away from both women, screaming, “Adelaide, Adelaide!” The flames roared skyward behind her and burning rafters showered in perfect silence, orange and red, through the blackened remains.

Then Mr. Oswald came, stinking of smoke, and stronger than the women. He held her tightly while the women watched, their cloaks, scarves and faces black in the darkness as the flames, having consumed the house to its last lace curtain, began to die.

Calmed then, when there was barely a bonfire left, the livery barn wall smouldering, and people were drifting away to their houses and their warm beds, Sophie allowed herself to be turned toward home too, and said, in reply to Mrs. Oswald’s cooing into her ear, “I am fine now, thank you, thank you,” and kept moving, not looking back, even though she knew that the women would be following her with their eyes until she disappeared through the outer rim of the red glow into the darkness.

She had made no attempt to lock Harry’s house when she left in such a hurry, but apparently she had shut the door tightly because she had to shove hard to get it, frozen as it was, to creak open. Not too disoriented now not to be puzzled, she hesitated to take that first step inside, wondering, but then the cold forced her and in the end she rushed, shutting the door hard behind her, kicking the blanket into place and then turning.

“Shshsh,” a voice hissed at her. Her heart leaped again into her throat, her hand reached back for the latch, but then she thought of Charles and froze, waiting for her eyes to adjust so that she could see who crouched in the blackness beyond the gold glowing through the cracks in the iron heater. The sound of fabric: a woman then. A figure came into the faintly red-gold light, tall, her skirt too full for a homesteader. “It’s me,” she said, her voice so low that over the crackling in the stove, Sophie could barely make out the words. She shuddered, her back straightening of its own volition. Adelaide.

It was as if a wind raced through the room, creating a din, chilling her despite the newly-built up fire. Relief was her strongest response, a thing that surprised even Sophie.

“You are all right,” she said, a statement, not a question. There was a rustling in the bedroom, the curtain separating the rooms that at night she always left hooked on a high nail so that every bit of warmth from the stove would go into the unheated room, had been dropped and now it lifted and a slimmer, shorter figure took a soft step into the front room where Sophie stood, still wearing her shawl and heavy coat, looking into the hazy darkness. She saw at once that it was Lily, but said nothing, nor did the girl speak. Adelaide moved suddenly, purposefully, as if she had just thought of something to be done at once. Before Sophie had a chance to react Adelaide had pushed her aside and was slamming the bar down on the door so that nobody could enter.

“Don’t light the lamp,” she said, in a normal voice. “Pretend you’re in bed.” Lily gave a nervous snicker, then went silent again.

Her shock diminishing, Sophie moved to take charge. Was she not in her own house? She began to take off her shawl and coat, hanging them on the hook that she found by feel that was by the door for her customers’ outer garments, although it was seldom used, the winter being so harsh that most people preferred to keep their warmest garments near them. Turning, her eyes now adjusted to the shadowed light, she saw that Lily had stretched out on the one sofa on which she often stretched herself once Charles was in bed and she was alone. Adelaide had returned to the stove and was warming her hands in the radiant heat. It must have been she who had further built up the fire that Sophie had stoked before she had so abruptly left.

“I am glad to provide you with warmth,” she said, then was embarrassed because this wasn’t quite what she meant to say, though she’d no idea what she had meant to say.

“I guessed you would,” Adelaide said, not turning to Sophie. “Ain’t nobody else would.”

“Oh, I’m sure…” Sophie began, then halted, thinking, surely – surely no one would send these women out to freeze to death. And yet…

“We wuz burned out,” Adelaide remarked, as if it were not of much interest. In that brief sentence Sophie had heard a tone that reminded her of something else, although she couldn’t quite find what it was, some voice in her memory?

“Do I know you?” she asked slowly. Adelaide laughed, a harsh sound, not bothering to look in Sophie’s direction. Sophie came forward then, stood on the opposite side of the heater from Adelaide, tried to peer into her face. The woman’s face powder had come off in patches, her lipstick was either missing or smeared, and the fierce red hair was, in this light, dulled, but with yellow highlights from the firelight. “Ahh,” she said, and Adelaide gave a wry, unpleasant snort.

“That’s right. We met on that train.”

“You were with your sister,” Sophie said, causing Adelaide to snort again. “Where is she?” Sophie asked more out of confusion than curiosity about a woman whose face she couldn’t even remember. Before Adelaide could speak, she knew: The woman, Mary Ann – if that was even her name – was not a sister to Adelaide.

“She weren’t my sister, as you guessed,” Adelaide said, a peculiar dignity entering her tone. “She wuz just my – friend. We decided to team up for the trip. Help each other, doncha know.”

Lily rose from the sofa and wearing the blanket she’d found on it as a shawl moved slowly across the room to join the other two women at the stove.

“It’s cold,” she said, in a high, thin voice, as if to complain of other, bigger things, but not knowing the words for them.

“What happened, I mean, tonight?” Sophie asked finally.

“I said,” Adelaide pointed out. “Somebody burned us out.” Sophie was silent for a long second, thinking. Hadn’t the women all said this would happen? Did one of them set the fire?

“How do you know it wasn’t your own heater or your cook stove or somebody knocking over a lamp?”

“Don’t you think I keep a good eye on things?” Adelaide demanded. “Somebody did it on purpose. It ain’t the first time one of us got burned out. Won’t be the last.” Again, Sophie was silent, but beside her Lily’s frail body shuddered, both hands went up to her face, and then down again.

“All my dresses,” she said, in that same thin voice.

“Never mind them dresses,” Adelaide told her. “I’ll get you more. Go lie down. Go to sleep. We’ll be gone tomorrow.” Lily did as she was told without so much as a whisper, surprising Sophie. The two women watched the girl move like a ghost across the room, stretch out on the threadbare sofa, throw the blanket around her body, turn her face away from the light, dim as it was, to the sofa’s back. “That’s right,” Adelaide said so softly that Lily couldn’t have heard.

“How did you get out?” Sophie whispered. “Didn’t anybody see you? Did you see anybody?”

“I seen a shadow, nobody seen me and Lily though. We went round to the east, creeping, you know, and then we come in here. Harry, he would have taken us if he’d been here. But I knew you would. I could tell.”

“But…” She tried to think. “Who was it? Where did the fire start? Why didn’t you try to put it out?” She remembered the roar now, how sometimes it had been too loud,
overwhelming, and sometimes she couldn’t hear it at all. She started to raise her hands to her face, but put them down before they had done more than appear to jerk involuntarily.

“Started at the back, o’course,” Adelaide said. “I keep out a good eye, you can bet on that.” She paused. “No water. Can’t save a fire without water, right? So,” she shrugged, “me and Lily got out. That’s all.”

“So,” Sophie began trying to think, “Nobody knows you’re here, and you don’t want them to know?” Adelaide didn’t answer, just cast a sneering glance in Sophie’s direction. It was so laden with bitterness, that Sophie almost took a step backward. “But, tomorrow…” thinking of her customers.

“Somebody’ll come for us. We’ll be outta here by afternoon. If you don’t tell no one we’re here.”

Surely she could claim illness, or Charles’s illness, or some problem and tell anybody who came – if anybody did – that she would be open for supper.

“Yes, all right,” she said. Then, “But who will come? Who will even know?” Adelaide laughed again, a snort of derision.

“You wait,” she said. “He’ll come.” Sophie wanted to ask who ‘he’ was, but refrained. It was all too much for her, she felt as exhausted as if she had been throwing pails of water on the fire, or leading around half-mad horses.