Daring Time

Hope fastened her lined forest green plush coat while Mary stood waiting with her muffler and hat. It would be chilly as she made her usual rounds at the Central Station, but the cold Chicago weather had never put off Hope in the past. This afternoon she was more worried about her father, although Dr. Walkerton had proclaimed after his examination last night that Jacob Stillwater would be fine.

"He's just been working too hard, that's all," Dr. Walkerton had explained to Hope last night as she anxiously hovered by her fa-ther's bedside.

"But, Dr. Walkerton—"

"He has an upper respiratory infection, Miss Stillwater. Nothing more. Jacob needs several days of quiet and rest and he'll be as good as new," Dr. Walkerton had interrupted with his calm, authoritative manner. He'd given Hope a sidelong glance, letting her know that he realized she thought of her mother's death thirteen years before.

"How is he?" Hope asked presently when Michael approached. She had asked her father's manservant to go and check on her father and report to her before she left on her almost daily missions to Central Station and later to Hull House. Her father had laughed and rolled his eyes earlier when she told him of her intention to stay home because of his bout of dizziness last night. Nevertheless, Hope had put off her errands in order to see how he fared after his midday meal.

"He is doing very well, miss, and was up reading by the fire when I left him just now."

"Are you sure he should be out of bed?" Hope fretted. "I'm still not convinced it isn't the right thing to do to cancel his birthday celebration next week."

"Come, miss, Dr. Walkerton says there was nothing more to Mr. Stillwater's weakness than a bad head cold and overwork. Surely a party would do him some good if he's mended by then," Mary assured her.

Hope chewed on her lower lip doubtfully. "My mother died of nothing more than a case of the influenza, you know."

Mary's kind face collapsed. "Oh, miss, I didn't mean—"

"I know you didn't, Mary. I'm sorry for being so melodramatic. Forgive me," Hope said gently before she took her hat from the maid, giving the young woman an apologetic smile. She tied the velvet ribbons beneath her chin. "My father is undoubtedly right to recommend my usual activities. It will hopefully alleviate my boorishness. A brisk walk is precisely what I require."

"But, miss . . . you're not taking the carriage?" Mary asked as she opened the front door for her.

"I've asked Evan to follow. It's the exercise I need, Mary, to clear the worries in my head."

She marched down the limestone front steps, determined to see to her daily duties instead of hover over her father—who was clearly doing well following his spell of near fainting last night in his study— or to alternatively stare like an idiot into the mirror searching for Ryan.

What did Ryan think of her struggling to be free of him? Would he never try to reach her again? The thought was so unbearable that it made her pace quicken and her shoes tap more forcefully on the pavement. She gave a polite nod to a waving Mr. John Glessner as he proceeded sedately in his carriage down Prairie Avenue. Although she picked up her step, her anxieties and questions would not be so easily chased away.

She'd slept restlessly last night, haunted by dreams, tossing and turning until her bedclothes grew damp with perspiration and tangled around her legs like a snare. For some strange reason Ryan's warning that she was in danger had melded with the dread associated with her father's illness, creating a profound sense of foreboding that she could not shake.

Once she'd heard Ryan call out to her, clear as a trumpet's call. She'd gasped at the sound and sat bolt upright in the mussed bed.

"Ryan?" she'd answered shakily.

The fading light from the fire in the hearth had told her she was alone in the large bedroom, however. Although she'd left the wardrobe door open, the mirror remained impervious, reflecting everything it should and nothing she most desired to see.

The coachman Evan tipped his hat to her from where he waited on Eighteenth Street. He allowed her a head start down Prairie Avenue before he followed slowly in the shiny black brougham. Hope's breath created a cloud of vapor around her mouth as she progressed down the quiet, tree-lined avenue.

The silence was short-lived, however. She paused and considered crossing the avenue when she saw a young man trying to get into his carriage, staggering and laughing uproariously as he tripped and fell forward. His driver hopped down and drew the man up off the carriage steps. She knew she was too late, however, when she saw Colin Mason, the sole inheritor of the Mason Haberdasher fortune and known Prairie Street reprobate, had noticed Hope as she walked down the sidewalk.

"Well, if it isn't that rose o' purity, that angel o' the mount... or is it that angel every man in Chicago would like to mount? He'p me out, Agnew ..." Colin queried his driver as poor Agnew tried desperately to keep his wavering employer standing. Agnew winced involuntarily when Colin Mason exhaled an alcohol-saturated breath into his face. Colin pointed his walking cane at Hope, his action causing both men to lose balance again.

Agnew barely prevented his employer from causing them to spill headfirst into the carriage. "... Should a woman who looks like her be polishing the neighborhood's virtue or polishing her appreciative neighbor's cock with her tongue?"

"Sir" Agnew exclaimed, turning bright red as he glanced around at Hope.

Hope's chest swelled with angry indignation. It wasn't the first time she'd been insulted by Colin Mason after he'd taken his daily gin bath. She felt nothing but pity for the frail, seventeen-year-old heiress from Schenectady who had married him earlier this year.

Hope was vaguely aware of Evan's concerned eye as he approached in the carriage but she wasn't worried about her safety from a drunkard louse like Colin Mason. She gritted her teeth as she neared him and his gaze rolled over her body, the effect similar to the crawl of a gin-soaked slug on her naked skin. She waited to speak until he finally looked up into her face again, his mouth slanted into a lascivious sneer.

"In your drunken state, Mr. Mason, it might be pointed out that the polishing of either your soul or the other item you mentioned would be an utter, dismal failure and therefore should be considered a waste of time, not only for me but for every individual alive on this planet. I will no longer detain you, sir, from an undoubtedly wasted trip to the Levee District."

Agnew made a loud choking sound and turned his wide grin into his shoulder. Hope spun around and continued her journey down the street.

"Frigid li'l viper," Colin yelled after her, ignoring Agnew's attempts to quiet him. "Take me to the Sweet Lash this instant, Agnew. I'll show every damn whore in that place the only good use for a female's mouth!"

Hope stewed in anger as she progressed down Prairie Avenue and then turned left on Seventeenth Street. Before Colin Mason's marriage had been arranged, Colin and his puffed-up, arrogant father had both approached Jacob Stillwater in an attempt to arrange a marriage between Hope and Colin. Hope's father had proclaimed in no uncertain terms, however, that the choice was his daughter's to make.