“That’s right, you won’t.” Dust itched over Meg’s skin with each gust of wind. “Now, let’s go home.”
He pulled at his beard, considering.
“Please, Father?” Sylvie whispered. She rubbed her arms.
Before he could form a response, the fire bell sounded from the cupola of the courthouse, jerking his attention that direction.
“It’s all right,” Meg said. “Look around, there’s no blaze within sight. It’s just a small fire somewhere else. You know the watchman in the tower is required to ring the bell whenever the firemen are called to action anywhere in the city.”
She’d grown up hearing that bell and ignoring it, though lately it clanged more often than ever, thanks to the dry summer and strong winds sweeping in off the prairie. But the number of strokes indicated where in the city the fire was located, so she knew they were well out of harm’s way.
Even so, each strike of the enormous bell heaped another layer of dismay upon Stephen’s countenance. “Get inside, girls,” he said at length. “There is devilment afoot. I know it. I won’t be taken unawares.”
Sylvie stomped down the stairs, Stephen marched back to the roof, and Meg stood in between, reaching out to both with empty hands.
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1871
Meg could barely admit to herself, let alone to Sylvie, that aside from keeping her father from being locked away, she was at a loss as to how to soothe his mind and spirit. That uncomfortable fact was far easier to ignore during business hours, when she could lose herself in what she did know how to do.
So in the southeast corner of her family’s bookshop, framed by the display window, Meg squeezed paint from metal tubes onto her palette, then added a portion of medium to the center. She felt the tension in her shoulders slowly release as she began to mix the colors.
“Ten o’clock. Let’s hope we’re busier today than we’ve been so far this week.” Sylvie unlocked the front door and flipped the sign to announce that Corner Books & More was open.
Meg glanced at the bustle outside. From their vantage point on the corner of Randolph and Clark Streets, she had a full view of Court House Square diagonally across from the store. Horse-drawn carriages, wagons, and drays clattered over the pine-block street. Ladies in smart jackets and skirts and men in sack suits streamed out of a streetcar and onto raised wooden sidewalks. Chicago held more than three hundred thousand souls. It did not seem too vain a hope that a small fraction of one percent might be persuaded to buy a book.
“We still have the rent coming in from our tenants,” Meg reminded her sister. “And if Beth and Rosemary don’t visit today, you’ll have more time to devote to customers.” Sylvie’s two best friends from their school days were nice enough, but they ought to know better than to distract Sylvie from work. It should be enough that the trio saw each other at church, at Hoffman’s Bakery down the block, and at Beth’s and Rosemary’s homes.
Sylvie stiffened. “If your friends stopped by to see you, I wouldn’t turn them away.”
But that was unlikely to happen, and they both knew it. The few friends Meg had were married now, tied by their apron strings to their households. They had husbands and babies to tend. Meg had the store and her father, and no girlish dreams of more. She’d accepted that the war had claimed many young men and that, regardless, her lot was to take care of Stephen. Not a husband, not a babe of her own.
Resolved, Meg turned back to her painting of Margaret Hale, the heroine of the novel North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. Once completed, the portrait would join the dozen other beloved characters hanging on the shop’s walls. Patrons came not just to purchase books, but to see which character Meg was painting next, which was why she so often painted here instead of in her art studio upstairs. A few paintings had even sold, but not nearly as many as she wished.
After mixing a little medium in with her paint, she scrubbed in the background on the canvas. She was so focused that she didn’t notice anyone had entered the shop until she sensed someone at her elbow.
“Good morning, my dear!” Leaning on his walking stick, Hiram Sloane stood even with her height, his accumulated years stooping the shoulders beneath his brown herringbone frock coat. For years he’d played the part of benevolent uncle to her and Sylvie, and guardian of their family while her father was at war.
“Father will be so pleased to see you,” Meg told him. The two men first met at an abolition rally a decade before the war began. They’d bonded quickly, meeting time and again to discuss shared convictions, the news, and literature. He was the only friend Stephen still had. “He’s in the backyard, I believe.”
“Fine day to be out in the sunshine. I would have walked if my carriage driver had let me.”
“Then Eli has more sense than you.” Meg laughed to take the sting out of her words. Hiram’s home was two and a half miles south of the store. Not only was it too far for a man of Hiram’s years to walk, but three times last summer he had set off and completely lost his way. Thank goodness he hadn’t wandered into any of the vice-ridden patches along the river. Each time, a policeman had brought him home before he’d been in any danger.
“Yes. Eli.” The way Hiram repeated the name, Meg could tell he was attempting to commit it to memory once more. “Well, then. I will visit with your father after I pay my respects to your sister.” He moved toward the interior of the shop.
A few passersby paused outside the window, watching Meg blend the background with a large, flat bristle brush. Her thoughts, however, remained with her father, who ought to be bent over his worktable in the rear of the shop, repairing broken bindings on rare first edition books. Before the war, he had taken great pride and satisfaction in mending what was torn, restoring and renewing old treasures. These days he could not always muster the concentration required. She breathed in the smells of linseed oil and turpentine, then exhaled slowly. Her cares had finally faded to the corners of her mind when the door opened again.
Dried leaves somersaulted inside, crunching beneath a pair of shoes creased with use but polished to a shine. Their owner consulted his timepiece, then slipped it back into his vest pocket before removing his derby hat. Chestnut hair brushed the collar of his sable-colored suit.
Stepping away from Hiram, Sylvie approached the customer, her plaid pleated skirt rustling. “Mr. Pierce, what a pleasure to see you.”
He gave a slight bow, then pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose. “Thank you again for the invitation to come.”
“Yes, of course. This is my sister, Meg. Meg, this is Mr. Nathaniel Pierce with the Chicago Tribune. We met at the Soldiers’ Home last Sunday.”
Mr. Pierce looked at Meg. “How do you do?”
Meg sent him a smile while appraising him from an artist’s perspective, noting the exact shade of blue in his eyes, the proportions of his lean frame, the sun’s glints in his hair, and his tapered fingers, one stained with ink. “My sister can help you find whatever you want. Or whomever, as the case may be. David Copperfield, perhaps? Or the elusive Moby Dick?”
A corner of his mouth turned up. He smoothed a hand over the two cowlicks at the back of his head. “Stephen Townsend, if you please. If Miss Sylvie didn’t mention it, I’m doing an article on Chicago’s war heroes, and I’d love to record your father’s experiences.”