Flora brushed away tears as Edmund closed the front door, and they rejoined Becky in the chaos-filled street. She knew by the dense smoke filling the air and the rain of cinders falling down on them that the fire was getting closer. Flora tasted grit in her mouth and rubbed it from her burning eyes. “At least you tried,” Edmund told her. “Come on, let’s find our servants.”
Unlike Mrs. Worthington’s deserted house, the home where their servants had taken refuge overflowed with people. Many of them were acquaintances of the owners who had fled north from the city center, but just as many were strangers who had spent the long night there. The homeowners had opened their pantry and Maria Elena, Mrs. Griffin, and the others were making sure everyone had something to eat. Rufus tried to comfort a weeping man who had lost his family in all the confusion. Another distraught mother came to the door searching for her children. She had sent them ahead with their nanny after arranging to meet again at a relative’s home—but that home also stood in the fire’s path, and her family had been forced to leave. She didn’t know where her children had gone. A man told Edmund how he had loaded a wagon with all his valuables, but when he went inside his house for the final load, a thief stole the wagon and drove away with his goods.
Flora sat down in the dining room with Becky long enough to eat something and quench her thirst and rest her throbbing feet, while Edmund warned everyone else that they needed to flee father north or west. “The fire is coming this way, and you’re right in the path.”
The homeowner’s father was gravely ill and bedridden. Edmund made room for him in their carriage by removing the satchels and rucksacks with their important papers, deciding that he and Flora and Becky could carry them to safety themselves. After arranging with their own servants to meet back home when this ordeal ended—if indeed they had a home to return to—they said good-bye once again.
“Which way, Edmund?” Flora asked.
“West, I think. The wind is blowing from the south.”
They managed to stay ahead of the fire throughout the day on Monday, resting often and relying on the kindness of strangers. When night fell, Flora slept for a few hours on the front porch of a stranger’s home and was awakened before dawn by the sound of rain on the roof. She sat up, careful not to awaken Edmund who lay curled beside her, and saw her sister standing out in the rain with her smudged face and soot-covered hands lifted to the sky. Becky and her ragged clothing were getting drenched, but she didn’t seem to care. God had rescued them at last.
Chapter 17
Flora stared at the mound of ash and bricks that was once her home. It was unrecognizable, apart from the crumbling chimney in their former drawing room. “I expected our house to be gone,” she said, “but seeing this is still a terrible shock.” She searched the pockets of her scorched skirt in vain for a handkerchief to wipe her tears.
“So much loss,” Edmund said, his arm around her shoulder. “But at least we’re all safe.”
He had flagged down an empty freight wagon late Tuesday afternoon when they were certain the fire was out and paid the driver handsomely to take them home. The devastation they passed along the way was incomprehensible—miles and miles of burned-out homes and businesses and churches. Only one arched wall of the Great Central Depot remained standing. The entire city had been destroyed with only charred remains of walls and chimney stacks rising above the rubble. Even the trees had been reduced to charcoal. Chicago’s bewildered citizens milled around in the still-smoking ruins, searching for even the smallest remnant of their past. Flora didn’t have the heart to drive through the city center where Father’s office had once been; she knew from viewing the gutted buildings in the distance that it was gone, too.
“All Father’s business investments,” she lamented. “All those properties that he owned—that we owned—are gone!”
“Were they insured?” Edmund asked.
“Some were. And we still own the land. I suppose we could rebuild and start all over again. It’s just too overwhelming to think about right now.”
Their neighborhood, all the way to the lakeshore, was a scene of desolation. The piles of furniture that her neighbors had dragged to safety still lined the waterfront, but where would the furniture go? Everyone’s home had been lost.
“Let’s look for the things we buried in the backyard.” Becky said. Flora followed her as she picked her way through the fallen bricks and charred beams that filled the driveway. The kitchen wall had fallen in, and she could see the twisted, melted remains of the cast iron cookstove. Flora knew she needed to rise above her shock and despair and figure out how they would eat, where they would live. Their only clothes were the filthy, raggedy ones they’d been wearing since Sunday night, pocked with burn holes. The soles of her shoes, ruined and threadbare from walking, were about to separate from the uppers. Why hadn’t she at least packed a change of clothing?
Flora surveyed the remains of the carriage house and Rufus’ apartment. Where would he live? Where would they board their horses? So many questions and no answers.
Becky found the mound of dirt where their only remaining possessions lay buried, but their shovel no longer had a wooden handle, and the melted, misshapen blade was useless for digging. “So much for that,” Becky said, tossing the blade on the ground again. “I suppose there’s no place to store our belongings even if we could dig them up. We may as well leave them buried for now. Besides, I doubt if there will be much interest in my new book.”
“Oh, Becky—I forgot about your brand-new book. I hate that this has overshadowed all the joy in your accomplishment.”
“We’ve lost so much, Flora, my book is the very least of it.” Flora could always rely on her sister to be tough and matter-of-fact, but tears rolled down Becky’s cheeks, making trails in the layer of soot that covered her face. Flora went to her and held her tightly.
“We’ll survive this,” she murmured. “God has a plan. . . . He always has a plan.” She released her again when she heard Edmund calling to her from the driveway.
“Flora! Come see who’s here.”
She and Becky walked around to the front—and there was Rufus standing beside their carriage with his hat in his hand. “Just tell me where you thinking to go,” he said, “and I’ll take you there.” Flora couldn’t resist hugging him.
“You dear, sweet man. You’ve lost everything in the world, too.”
“Don’t matter much. My real treasure is waiting for me up in heaven.”
“It’s too demoralizing to stand around here looking at this mess,” Edmund said. “There’s nothing we can do about it anyway, for the time being. Rufus says that Maria Elena, Andrew, and the Griffins are staying with friends and relatives. I say we drive there to see them and give them some cash for their immediate needs, then head to Evanston. I’m sure one of my colleagues will be willing to take us in until we can find a place to rent.” Those friends had toasted Edmund and Becky at their book party—was it only two days ago? It felt like a lifetime to Flora.
The chaotic days that followed were no less wearisome for Flora as she and the others tried to piece their lives back together. Soldiers arrived in the city to prevent further looting. Help poured in from all across the United States and Canada. Flora’s immediate concern was learning the whereabouts of friends and colleagues in all the chaos, and after posting notices in the reborn Chicago Tribune, as hundreds of other people were doing, she found Mrs. Worthington. Her home and all her possessions had burned, but her nephew had returned in time to rescue her. Some three hundred people had lost their lives. Flora, Becky, and Edmund were among the more than 100,000 who were homeless. The fire had destroyed a path four miles long and nearly a mile wide. More than one million dollars in cash had gone up in flames inside banks and the Federal Reserve building that had burned downtown.
After staying with friends for more than a week, Edmund found a house for them to rent in Evanston, near his work. On a brisk day in late October, Rufus and Andrew drove Flora and Be
cky back to where their home once stood to sift through the ruins and dig up the buried items in the backyard. The steamer trunk with Father’s books, their family silver, and the crate with Becky’s new books were damp and heat-scorched, but salvageable. Becky laughed as Andrew lifted the sheet filled with their parents’ silver from the hole in the yard. “What in the world do we need a silver teapot for?”
“Only the Good Lord knows,” Flora replied with a smile. When Andrew and Rufus finished unearthing them, Flora stared at the depressing mound of rubble from her former home. “Is it worth trying to pick through this mess to see if anything survived?” she asked.
Becky shook her head. “No. I don’t think it’s safe to dig around in there.”
“Well, this serves as a lesson, doesn’t it? I guess we didn’t need all those things to begin with. I’m grateful we didn’t base our lives and identity on them.”
“If we had, we would be overwhelmed with despair, like so many others are.”
Rufus and Andrew asked for time to sift through the ruins of the carriage house when they finished loading the rescued possessions. “Of course. But please be careful,” Flora begged. She and Becky sat on the stone stoop where their rear door had once stood and watched from a distance. Their exercise bars in the middle of the yard were bent and twisted from the heat. “What do you suppose the city will do with all the debris from the fire?” Flora asked.
“I read in the newspaper that they’re going to plow it all into the lake and create a park along the lakeshore on top of the new land they’ll create.”
“That will be nice . . . Edmund thinks we should sell this property and build a new home in Evanston, but I told him you and I needed time to think about it.”
“I don’t need time, Flora. I think it’s a good idea. But it’s going to take a while to build a new house since there’s such a huge demand for lumber and supplies and workers right now. In the meantime, we need to decide what’s next for us.”
“I’m hoping you’ll help me with my relief work. All three of our Sunday school churches were destroyed and will have to be rebuilt. People need food and housing and—”
“I know, I know. And I’m happy to help you. But there’s something else I think we should consider. I know you’ll probably disagree, but please hear me out.” Becky paused, and the somberness in her tone made Flora turn from watching Rufus and Andrew and meet her sister’s gaze. “I think we need to travel abroad.”
“Oh, Becky! How can you even think of traveling at a time like this?”
“No, listen, Flora. Now that everything we once had is gone, it’s as if we don’t know where we belong. Yet every trip we’ve taken and each escapade we’ve had in the past has helped us find another piece of the puzzle of our lives. That first trip we took to France helped me discover my gift for learning new languages, and it’s also where we came across Mr. Darwin’s book. Both of those things became important keys to the work God has given me. We also met Mrs. Worthington on that journey and embarked on the quest of learning how to behave in society. Knowing how to get around in her elite circles has been very helpful in your charity work.”
“That’s true, but—”
“You found your passion for helping others after we worked in the uniform factory—another of our adventures. And we never would have met Edmund if we hadn’t done the illogical thing and traveled to the Holy Land after Father died. Now the fire has taken everything away from us, and we have to start all over again. Before we build a new house and try to replace a lifetime of possessions, we need to get away from the devastation and all its distractions and ask God for direction. Otherwise we’ll simply keep meeting needs and doing whatever work lies directly in front of us, and we’ll rebuild our lives without ever seeing the bigger picture. What if God wants to show us a much larger world filled with needs beyond the city of Chicago?”
“But our Sunday schools . . . I need to stay and work—”
“God is very capable of getting the work done without you, Flora. We both need to get away. We’re emotionally and physically exhausted. Why not step away for a few weeks and listen for God’s voice before we do anything else? I need to hear from God. I need to know if He has another book in mind for me to write.”
“But Edmund has his work at the university. He wouldn’t be able to travel with us.”
“We’re perfectly capable of traveling abroad without him. Besides, have you forgotten the letter he received from Cambridge right before the fire?”
Indeed, Flora had forgotten. It said that the codex Becky and Edmund purchased in Cairo was a rare, tenth-century copy of the Gospel of Matthew. The University begged them to return to Egypt and search for others like it.
“I think Edmund would want us to pursue such important work,” Becky continued. “Rescuing manuscripts was his passion long before he met us, remember? We have the time and the knowledge and the financial means to pursue it now.”
“I would feel cowardly, running away from all this.”
“You’re not running away. And even if you are, no one would blame you. It’s going to take a long time to get this city back on its feet. And we’re homeless ourselves. What we need is time away to figure out what’s next. God never would have taken everything away from us if He didn’t have something wonderful to give back to us in return.”
“I’ll need to discuss it with Edmund—”
“Well . . . please don’t be angry, but he’s the one who came to me with the idea to travel. He thinks you need a rest, and I agree.”
“Ha! Since when have your adventures ever been restful?”
Becky grinned. “We’ll have a long, leisurely voyage across the ocean to rest.”
“Ha!” Flora said again. “With our luck, our ship will sail into a storm!”
Chapter 18
THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA
Flora sat on the floor of the stateroom with her sister, clinging to their luggage and their bunks. It was the only way they could keep their trunks and themselves from sliding back and forth across the floor as their steamship battled the ferocious waves of a winter storm on the Mediterranean Sea. The room pitched upward as the ship climbed a mountainous wave and Flora braced herself as she waited for it to shudder down into a trough again. “I don’t know, Becky,” she said, “but I think this journey might be the end of us.”
“I know. We’ve gone from fire to flood. Do you think God is trying to get our attention?”
“Well, He certainly has mine! This was supposed to be a relaxing trip, as I recall, not one in which we’re forced to face our own mortality.” Flora wondered if she looked as pale and ill as Becky did. They had shared the same bucket for the past two hours, overwhelmed with nausea and seasickness for the first time in all of their travels. She couldn’t imagine ever eating again.
Becky let go of her bunk for a moment and pulled the bucket closer, as if she might need it again, bracing it between her knees. “When I consider all that we’ve been through these past few months,” she said, “it might seem like God has turned against us. But you know what? He has never felt closer to me than through all these trials.”
“I know. I’ve prayed more than ever before, too.”
“I think He’s trying to teach us something, Flora. To trust Him, for one thing.”
“Yes. But it’s easier to trust Him when life goes the way we want it to than when it doesn’t. Maybe—” She cried out as the ship suddenly leaned so far to one side she feared it would tip over. Flora’s body was crushed against the wall as her bulky steamer trunk pinned her there. When the ship righted itself a moment later, Becky shoved the trunk away, freeing her.
“Are you all right, Flora?”
“Yes, I think so.” They both took a moment to steady their nerves and secure their luggage again.
Becky exhaled. “God knows when the hour of our end will be,” she said in a shaky voice. “But I sincerely hope it isn’t tonight.”
“Me too.” Flora waited until her h
eart was no longer beating in her throat and said, “I have a new appreciation for what Paul and Luke experienced in the book of Acts when they were shipwrecked. Didn’t their storm last a long time?”
“Fourteen days, I believe.” Becky crawled on her hands and knees to retrieve the bucket that had slid away during the upheaval and braced it between her knees again. “And I also have a new appreciation for what our poor father suffered before the widow gave him her magical medicine.”
“I wish we had some of it now,” Flora said with a groan.
They remained awake throughout the long night, hanging on and praying. Eventually the sky grew light, and the sea calmed enough to allow them to crawl onto their beds and sleep. Thankfully the storm lasted only one day. But it took Flora and Becky two days to recover once they reached Cairo and checked into their room at Shepheard’s Hotel. They were bruised and battered from the rough seas and weak from not eating, but very happy to be alive. The concierge told them that another steamship following the same route had sunk in the storm that night.
Becky rebounded faster than Flora did, claiming that the experience hadn’t dampened her enthusiasm for traveling in the least. “But you should rest some more,” Becky told her. “I’ll go hire a private sailboat for our journey down the Nile.”
“Wait. I thought Murray’s tour book said they have regular steamship excursions to all the sites along the Nile.”
“They do. But if we take a tourist ship, we’ll have to adhere to their timetable instead of following our own.”
They hired a two-masted sailing vessel called a dahabeeah, complete with a captain, crew, and cook. The vessel was a sailing barge with four cabins, a dining room, and a sitting room clustered on the main deck. The crew slept in the hold belowdecks, where the luggage and supplies were stored. The ship was much larger than they needed, but it would be their home for several weeks as they traveled up the Nile to Saqqara, Abydos, and Thebes. Flora liked to sit with Becky on the roof of the cabins where the best views were, beneath the shade of a canopy. They watched the flat, green fields and waving palm trees slip past, marveling at the distinct dividing line between the green swath of fertile land along the Nile and the desolate wilderness just beyond the Nile’s reach. They enjoyed views of abundant wildlife—cranes and herons and pelicans. And crocodiles! Egyptian women in robes that might have been in fashion during biblical times did their wash along the riverbank while their naked children swam nearby, seemingly oblivious to the danger.