"The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire." Ferdinand Foch
----
VII.
Callan was panicking. Nobody would probably be able to tell that he was panicking, but he was. Callan knew that he was usually a well composed man who managed his stresses well.
And one day he hoped that lying to himself would result in it coming true.
Callan knew that he did not manage his stress well. His office was representative of his brain under pressure. There were thousands of thoughts happening simultaneously at once, and most of them were reminding him that he could not fail.
Receiving the offer of four pence per pound of cotton that morning from Greensborough Mills had about given Callan a heart episode. At first, he had convinced himself that his eyesight had gone, and he was in need of spectacles. But upon staring at the page long enough, he could see that his original offer had been reneged upon and his one and only offer for his cotton would cause him to suffer a huge financial loss, and one that he could not afford.
Accepting this price would ruin him. He would not be able to repurchase from his supplier in the Caribbean. He would have no profits to run his ship, to pay his crew, or even to pay himself. He would be forced to forfeit his ship, and he knew that Sir Richard Frogmore would only be too happy to take the Emerald Eyes off of his hands and to continue on trade relations with Callan's suppliers.
Callan had known that this line of work would be challenging, and it was his stubborn pride that had given him the confidence and the determination to persist. The minute that people like Sir Richard Frogmore, merchants in the industry who had the contacts to really expand one's business, heard Callan's accent, he was laughed out the door and told to return to his potatoes.
The same could be said for whenever he signed his name. His name was not John Smith. His name was as Irish as anything, and he could not be taken seriously. He supposed they were lucky that it was not Fionn Maguire's name on the letterhead, or else they would probably fare worse.
It had taken Callan a lot of time and effort, and a lot of swallowing his pride, for him to form a relationship with Greensborough Mills. They could call him a potato peasant all they wanted if it meant they would buy his cotton at a fair price.
Callan had needed to find their original offer to prove to himself that he had not hallucinated their original offer. And when he had found it, or rather, Lily Bennett, had found it, Callan had the clear evidence that he was still just a joke to them, and those people, the rich, elitist, lazy gombeens, could do whatever it was that they wanted, and he was powerless to stop them.
"What are we going to do, Callan?" Fionn asked quietly, all jokes gone when he saw the state of his cousin.
"I don't know, Fionn," Callan replied in a raspy, frightened voice.
"If you don't get that money ..."
"I know what'll happen if I don't get that money," snapped Callan. "Don't you think I don't. I was the one who thought I could do this. I was the one who made the promises and signed the deal. I'm the one who'll have to face judgement if I don't."
Callan felt physically ill at the thought of what he faced back in Ireland if he failed. If he was forced to sell everything and abandon his ambition, he would be forced to return home, and Callan knew that he would rather die than return like that. He would die for the shame, and his father would turn over in his grave.
Fionn signed as he placed a comforting hand on Callan's shoulder. "It could be worse."
"How?" spat Callan.
At that moment, a strong scent began to permeate the air, and both Callan and Fionn became aware of it at the same time.
"Do you smell ...?" Fionn trailed off as he looked around the office for a source.
Callan sniffed, and then he sniffed again, and he got to his feet. That smelled and awful lot like –
"HELP!"
Callan froze at the sound of Lily Bennett's scream from upstairs. He could hear the panicked terror in her voice just as the grey smoke began to bleed through the cracks in the ceiling above them.
Fire.
"Fionn!" Callan cried, as both mean bounded towards the narrow, rickety staircase. As he climbed them, taking the stairs three at a time, Callan heard Lily scream again.
It took Callan a second to properly comprehend what he saw in front of him as he and Fionn stumbled into the flat that they kept upstairs. It had quickly filled with smoke thick enough to choke, and his lungs inadvertently filled with it. He coughed violently as he covered his mouth with his sleeve and tried to spot Lily through the smoke.
The source of the flames became clear immediately as he could see that his armchair was full alight. Flames had ripped through it and were now licking at the wooden floors below. His office probably had minutes before it would be too late.
The heat that emanated from the chair was incredibly intense, though Callan and Fionn approached it without fear. They had no other choice. They had to get this fire out. Coughing and spluttering, Callan made it through the smoke to see that Lily had grabbed a blanket from one of the beds to try and smother the fire, but she had only added to the blaze.
"Lily! Call out to me!" Callan shouted, but her coughs suddenly alerted him as to where she was.
The chair suddenly collapsed and broke down into several burning pieces of wood and fabric that blazed at what felt like ten thousand degrees. The violence at which the chair broke caused burning pieces to quickly capture the neighbouring armchair, and it, too, quickly took on the flames.
Their office has less than minutes.
"You get her, I'll get the fire," Fionn instructed, coughing as he went for the basin of water that sat in between their two beds.
"Don't be a bleedin' eejit, Fionn!" Callan cursed, but he knew there was no stopping his cousin, and he knew that Fionn was aware of exactly what Callan knew. If they didn't get this fire out, they had no hope.
Lily was crouched down by the hearth, coughing, crying, and all too overwhelmed. Callan did not even think before he grabbed her, pulling her up into his arms and throwing her over his shoulders like he had done dozens of potato sacks in his youth.
As he did, he saw Fionn throw a blanket in the basin, soaking it wet, before he went at the flames with it. Callan would get Lily out, and then he would return for Fionn.
Callan all but ran down the stairs, gripping hold of Lily with his right arm, before he practically charged out of his office and onto the street. The minute they were greeted by the cold, crisp morning air, he inhaled a deep breath. He pulled Lily down, and placed her down on the ground before him, keeping hold her waist just in case she fainted for the shock.
Callan could see the panic in Lily's azure eyes, and the stress was etched all over her face. Her usual porcelain skin was covered with soot and she looked like a right little chimney sweep.
"I'm sorry!" Lily choked out. Her voice was hoarse and raspy.
Confusion swept over Callan at her apology, but he could not focus on it for one moment longer. As soon as he could see that Lily was not about to crack her head open on the street after fainting, he left her standing there, and he charged back into the building, fully fearing that he was about to find his cousin passed out from the smoke on the second floor.
"Please God, let me not have to write my Auntie Aoife and tell her that I've let her son kill himself being a hero," he prayed.
When Callan once again reached the landing, the thickness of the smoke was still incredibly overwhelming, but the flames were extinguished. Fionn was in the process of opening the windows as Callan could see the wet blanket covering the second armchair. It was smoking like anything still, but the flames were out.
"Get out of here, you eejit! Look at the bleedin' state of you!"
Fionn's clothes were as black and sooty as Callan's probably were, by the fear made him curse his cousin, and Fionn obeyed with a relieved smile on his face.
Callan forced Fionn in front of him and nearly pushed him down the stairs in an effort for him to move faster. He wanted Fionn out safe this minute. Fionn made the same deep inhale as he escaped out onto the street, and by this time, the smoking second floor of the office building had drawn a curious and concerned crowd.
Lily remained front and centre, worry and concern riddling her features.
Callan caught himself, then, thinking of her as Lily. He supposed it was not professional but pulling the lass out of a burning building gave way for some informalities, he hoped.
"Thank God you are both alright," Lily gushed the moment that they reached her. Her brows knitted together as she looked over them both for signs of harm. "I am so sorry. You cannot comprehend how sorry I am."
There was the apology again.
"A lick of paint and she'll be grand, Miss Bennet. Not to worry," Fionn mused with a grin.
But Fionn's humour did nothing to assuage Lily's anguish.
"What happened?" Callan demanded to know. He did not mean for his voice to sound so forceful, and he certainly had not meant to make Lily jump as he asked her the question.
She looked like a deer. A blue-eyed doe at the mercy of a hunter. The imbalance of power between them too great as Callan had the final say over whether she lived or died.
"I don't ... know how ... to make tea!" Lily stammered and stuttered through her confession, and her words utterly confused Callan.
Fionn, too, furrowed his brows as he tried to make sense of Lily's words.
And then it occurred to Callan. He looked back at the office building. The windows, which were now opened owing to Fionn, had smoke still spilling out of them. Everything that he had, everything, could have been lost in mere minutes because ... because Lily Bennett did not know how to make tea?
"So, you started a fire to get out of having to make Callan a pot. Excellent idea." Fionn sniggered.
Callan was glad that Fionn could find the humour in this. Callan was already in a right state, and whatever energy that had been coursing through him to that point was starting to dissipate. The panic that he had already been feeling had worn through him, and Lily Bennett had just about put him into an early grave with her incompetence.
"What sort of eejit doesn't know how to make tea?" Callan snapped angrily.
"This one!" Lily retorted emotionally. "I am sorry! I am so sorry, Mr McCarthy. I didn't mean to do it. I was trying to follow your instructions, but I have never made tea before. I tried to put the fire out, but I have never handled one of those either!"
Callan swore, and this time in Gaelic so that Lily would not understand, and he would not feel guilt for using such language in front of a woman. He knew that he would have received a whack around the ears from his mother had she been there to hear him. He turned away from Lily and looked back to his smoking office, before his knees gave out underneath him.
Callan was rapidly heading towards being the failure that he had promised his father that he would never be. The weight of that realisation was crippling and it about tore Callan's guts out.
"Just go!" he groaned. "Go home. I don't need your trouble!"
"Callan," protested Fionn.
"She's more trouble than she's worth," retorted Callan without looking back at Lily.
"He's not thinking straight," Fionn explained. "We Irishmen are a very hot-tempered folk. Couple that with no sleep and the crippling weight of duty and you'd make a personal mistake or two when it comes to your staffing choices."
"I don't want to go home, Mr McCarthy," Lily said softly from behind him. "I understand if you want me to go, but I want to be here and I am desperate to learn. Please."
Callan had already gone through five secretaries in the past year. He needed someone to organise his life, but he was not certain that Lily Bennett had the competence to do that work. Perhaps she really was made of porcelain. Whatever she was made of, it was precious, and she had certainly never seen a potato sack in her life.
Or a kettle.
"You learn how to boil a bleedin' kettle or you don't bother coming back."
----
Fionn's mother's name is pronounced "EE-FUH"
I hope you enjoyed it!
My boy Callan's got a lot on his mind and I'm just scratching the surface :) I wonder if there's someone who'll be able to help him out of this hole, and help him to open up? I don't know....... ;)
Alright, I managed to get this chapter done without falling asleep. I'm very proud. Night night everyone xx
Vote and comment!!