The House Is on Fire

by Rachel Beanland

“I think,” says Sally slowly, “that if Margaret lives to lord your failures over your head, you should consider yourself a very lucky man indeed.”

Kemp is useless on a good day, but today, it’s like he’s trying to win a prize for his own fecklessness.

“This new United States would like to pretend it bears no relation to Mother England,” Anderson says, “but test the winds and you’ll find a country growing more puritanical with every passing day.”

Hmmm...the 1800s or 2000s?

he’s still a dandy prat.

They are all the same. Archie, Tom, Elliott Price. These men don’t have a selfless bone in their bodies.

“I pushed and shoved, like everybody else.”

if Kemp knew Cecily was Gilbert’s niece, he’d be watching Gilbert a hell of a lot closer than he already is. “It’s like what you say, about your smithing.” Marcus tilts his head, curious. “What’s that?” “He never asked.”

strikes Sally as tragic that a girl who fought tooth and nail for her own survival, just two nights ago, should fear something as simple as being in the same house as her older brother.

Richmonders know that Cecily Patterson is not dead, or at least that Elliott Price does not believe her to be. The distinction hardly matters,

Elliott tells the men on horseback to get on, that he doesn’t want them wasting all their good daylight. But Cecily knows it’s got more to do with not wanting them to think he doesn’t know how to manage his slaves.

“You been all over her since she was a bitty thing. Your daddy won’t tell it to you straight, but I will. That girl has the same blood you do, and what you done to her these last years is an abomination in the eyes of God.”

“Elliott can be charming, when he wants to be. But more often than not, he’s cruel.”

“She wouldn’t have left me.” Maria sounds almost as delusional as her brother, but Sally lets it go. She is young, and in a family as loveless as hers, Sally thinks that perhaps it is all right for her to go another year or two believing that someone loved her best of all.

“What do I tell Master Price?” “Tell him Elliott fixing to whip your mama. That he’s acting touched in the head, ever since he found out Cecily was dead.”

you got to make him believe Elliott’s only got one oar in the water.”

wouldn’t count on my mother offering you much in the way of protection.”

“That woman is not your property,” yells Mr. Price. “She is mine!”

Mrs. Price rushes from the porch. When she tries to pull the two men apart, Elliott elbows her in the chest and she is thrown backward.

Elliott reels back his head and cracks his skull against his father’s,

Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience. These men have no consciences. Not Elliott, not Mr. Price, not Archie or Tom or any of the other men she encountered in the theater. They pay lip service to the idea of civility, while doing whatever they want at all times.

“Free papers are not so simple to produce as a pass,” says Samuel. “They’re court documents. So, you got to forge the affidavit, but also the certification. Needs to look like it comes from two different hands. Three, really.”

“I wasn’t very good to Cecily,” Maria says as soon as the carriage is out of sight. “The night of the fire?” “And all the days and nights leading up to it.”

It’s not that Jack hasn’t understood that the fire has had devastating consequences. He has. But until now, everything he’s witnessed hasn’t felt real.

If he wants to do right by his professor and the scores of other families like Girardin’s—not to mention the countless Negroes whose lives have been turned upside down by the theater troupe’s lies—then there is only one thing to do.

“I think I want to feel what it’s like to be alive. We are alive, aren’t we?”

“Don’t credit the divine with this, Sally Campbell.” “The divine and I are not on speaking terms, at present.”

she didn’t know a thing about prying open windows or shoving people out of them. She didn’t know that the men she’d surrounded herself with were all cowards.”

weren’t we promised that if we married well, we would be taken care of? That our futures would be secure? Where is the security in a husband who would sooner climb over you than help you to your feet?”

When the crowd surged, we both went down. It was impossible to get up, the people just kept coming. I thought we would die, right there, in each other’s arms, except that the next thing I knew, Archie’s hand was on my head, and his foot was on my shoulder.”

“I was so naive. Even as he was pressing my head into the floor, I was thinking, ‘This must be the only way. He’s got to get himself to his feet, and then he’ll pull me along with him.’ ” “But he didn’t do that?” She shakes her head no.

“But Archie was a good husband, and I suppose I just assumed that I could count on him to take care of me.” “Of course,” says Sally. “Who wouldn’t have assumed it?” “How do I look at him every day, from here on out? Knowing what he did?”

“Something tells me you are not the only woman in this city asking yourself that question.”

“Mrs. Green was letting you off the hook.”

Gilbert sees what’s happening. It’s all well and good for Kemp to go arresting other people’s slaves, but when it’s his slaves, that’s another story.