Mrs. Lincoln's Rival by Jennifer Chiaverini Page B

arsonist is on the loose.”
    “It just seems so . . . strange, that this should happen tonight, of all nights.”
    “Pure coincidence,” Father said firmly. “If it were meant as an act of intimidation to keep voters from the polls, your mad arsonist would have struck earlier in the day, and the statehouse itself would be burning.”
    “And the polling places too,” added Kate dubiously, not entirely believing it.
    Her throat tightened and she coughed to clear it, just a small, barely audible cough, but enough to convince her father that she had spent quite enough time gazing, stunned and horror-stricken, at the fiery death throes of the celebrated city landmark, the stately edifice that represented, perhaps second only to the statehouse itself, the bringing together of divergent voices in the marvelous experiment of democracy.
    “It’s difficult not to see a foreboding portent in this,” Kate said as they walked along State Street to home, weaving their way past the men and boys hurrying in the opposite direction toward the fire.
    “Do you mean as a fearsome warning that Mr. Lincoln will lose the election?” Father shook his head, frowning impatiently. He abhorred superstition and fortune-telling, the sort of popular spiritualism that seized hold of the weak-minded and unfaithful, tempting them away from Christian truth.
    “No, not that,” said Kate, quickly adding, “and I don’t mean that I believe it to be an omen, but rather a symbol, a dreadful sign of what might become of the country after Mr. Lincoln takes the White House.”
    “It is just a fire,” said her father. “A terrible fire, but no more than that. There is no divine message, no demonic cause in it.”
    “I know.” She held tighter to his arm, wishing she could shut her ears to the roar and snap of the inferno, that she could close her nostrils to the terrible scorched odor of smoke and ember. “I pray no one was hurt.”
    When they reached home, she washed her face and hands and brushed her hair and changed clothes, but the smell of smoke lingered as if she had taken it into herself. Soon thereafter, the messenger returned with the news that the Odeon Theater had caught fire, and that Mr. Lincoln had won the Northwest and Indiana. Kate quickly calculated that he still needed New York to claim a majority of the electoral votes, and the realization set her heart pounding with trepidation. New York City’s substantial Irish population, strongly Democrat, was likely to go for Mr. Douglas.
    By ten o’clock, Father had begun intermittent pacing in his office, and Kate had recited all the prayers she knew and had begun, reluctantly, to compose a congratulatory letter to Mrs. Douglas in her head. And then, just before eleven o’clock, the weary young messenger brought word from New York that Mr. Lincoln had made steady and promising gains throughout the state, but the results from New York City had not been tallied in sufficient percentages for the Republicans to claim victory.
    “But the returns from the city will decide it,” Kate said, her father’s vigorous nods indicating that he shared the same thought. “Without that, the state returns are meaningless. If Mr. Douglas builds up a sufficient majority in the city, he could easily overcome Mr. Lincoln’s lead elsewhere in the state.”
    And without New York’s precious thirty-five electoral votes, Mr. Lincoln would fall seven short of a majority.
    Father urged her to bed, but Kate demurred, noting that she was too anxious to sleep anyway. She fixed them a pot of tea, and prepared a tray of cream and sugar and sweet buns, and when she returned to the library she found that her father had set up the chessboard. “I thought we could have a game to distract ourselves,” he said, his exhaustion and worry etched in lines and shadows on his strong, handsome face.
    They had finished one game and started another when, shortly after midnight, church bells began to peal—first one, and then