Honor's Fury

by Fiona Harrowe

  . . . Damon has gone all soft and mushy over it, of course. He swears it looks like him . . .

  Damon and Babette had a son. It was wrong, all wrong! Oh, why had the war come between them? Why had she loved him? Why did she keep remembering the way his dark hair tumbled over his forehead in the throes of passion, the way his mouth played sensuously over her aching, eager body, the tenderness lingering in his eyes after he had spent himself in loving her?

  Instead she ought to think of a cold winter’s dawn, a gold watch she had held in her hand, a loudly ticking timepiece with scripted letters picked out in gold: To Thaddeus . . .

  That was the memory she should hold as a shield against envy and lost love. Yes, she must cling to that. But it was hard, so hard. Her mind continued to trap her and images of Damon would slip into her thoughts at odd, unguarded moments. If only I could forget, she told herself, if only fate would put Damon forever out of my life and not keep bringing him back again and again. Why hadn’t he been killed at Shiloh or Gettysburg so I wouldn’t have to be reminded? And now he had made a baby with Babette; she had given him a son. Damn both of them.

  In her agitation Amélie again was faced with the uncomfortable task of having to write a congratulatory letter, one that would require a warmth and enthusiasm she did not feel. The fact that her sister had neglected to include her whereabouts in her own missive was only a temporary reprieve and Amélie knew it. She must write. She could send the letter on to General Grant’s headquarters with the hope that it would eventually reach Babette. It was the decent and sisterly thing to do. And yet she procrastinated.

  Amélie’s air of distraction did not go unnoticed. Kate remarked upon it, and so did Mrs. Shelby.

  “My dear,” Mrs. Shelby said one morning at the breakfast table, “you seem unduly worried. Family matters, I presume. I don’t mean to pry. But perhaps in your present state you ought to refrain from running errands.”

  Errands was the euphemism used for secret missions.

  “I’m sorry if I seem preoccupied,” Amélie said, “but it’s not in the least serious. My sister wrote that she has had a baby. I should have liked to have been there with her. That is all.” The last thing Amélie wanted was to sit around the house. With time on her hands she would go mad.

  “Very well,” Mrs. Shelby said. “But I must warn you again, it’s important to have your wits about you every minute.”

  Two weeks after she had received Babette’s letter, Amélie, still preoccupied, made a serious error.

  She was on foot, delivering a cache of drugs she had picked up from a couple who had just arrived from Chicago. She was carrying the contraband in a wicker basket under two loaves of freshly baked bread. Her destination was the home of a sympathizer on Jefferson Street, as guns and drugs were never brought to the Shelbys. It was a precautionary measure against possible Federalist raids, several of which the Shelbys had already suffered.

  If Amélie had been alert, she would have noticed she was being followed and would have managed to lose her pursuer in a crowd and dispose of the incriminating drugs as she had done before. But she was too engrossed in her own thoughts to be aware of the people around and behind her. When she paused at a corner and felt a light tap on her shoulder she sensed before she turned that she had been caught.

  He was a Union agent, a middle-aged man with pouches under his eyes and a gray, bristly mustache.

  “You are under arrest, Mrs. Warner. Will you come quietly?” he asked.

  “Under arrest?” She drew herself up indignantly. “Would you mind telling me why?”

  “I am not at liberty to say.”

  “Then I shan’t go anywhere.” She started to walk away but he took hold of her arm.

  “Please, don’t make a scene. We are going to the provost marshal’s office.”

  Several passersby had stopped and were gaping at them. A gaunt woman in a poke bonnet said, “What’s she been doin’, eh?”

  The agent ignored her. “I have a whistle,” he said to Amélie in a low voice. “And I can fetch a policeman in a hurry if you make trouble.”

  “Very well, I’ll go, but under protest, you understand.”

  “Don’t try to escape,” he warned, still holding her arm, propelling her across the street.

  They did not speak as they walked. If only she could get rid of the basket. Drop it, throw it away. But he would notice. She’d have to bluff her way out.

  She would think of something.

  She was ushered into a stuffy room thick with cigar smoke and heated by an iron stove that gave off a suffocating odor of coal fumes.

  “This is the woman we found coming from the hotel on Twelfth Street,” the agent announced. “The couple, a Mr. and Mrs. Harvey, have been arrested, too.”

  They were the man and woman who had given her the drugs. Amélie’s heart sank and she took a firmer grip on the basket.

  “I suppose the stuff is in the basket,” the provost said with a bored air.

  “I can explain,” Amélie said quickly. No use to deny it now. “My—my sister is a consumptive and needs morphine for her cough. I—I couldn’t get it elsewhere— there’s such a shortage—”

  “Mrs. Warner, whatever their use, drugs are contraband. Illegal. We happen to know this is not the first time you’ve smuggled goods.”

  How did they know? Who told them? Or was it a trick?

  “I’m not smuggling,” she said stoutly. Yes, of course it was a trick. She remembered now tales of others who had been questioned in just such a manner.

  “There’s no use denying it. The Shelbys have already confessed and implicated you.”

  “It’s a lie,” she said evenly. That was also part of their method, telling you your friends have been arrested and informed on you. “The Shelbys have never smuggled as much as a sack of apples. Nor have I.”

  The provost marshal picked up a lead pencil and pointed it at Amélie. “Who is this sick sister of yours and where can we find her?”

  “She’s Miss London at Fourteen Goudge Street.” A fictitious name, a fictitious address. Amélie was perspiring now. She could feel the dampness gathering under her arms and between her shoulder blades.

  The provost grinned. He had buck teeth and the grin wasn’t pleasant. “There’s no such person. You’ve made her up, as well as your story.’’

  “She’s real, sir, I assure you.”

  “Rubbish! I’ve interviewed too many of you Secceshes not to know a lie when I hear one. But whether this Miss What’s-Her-Name is real or not doesn’t matter. You’ve done worse than smuggle a few vials of morphine. You’ve been passing military secrets to the enemy.”

  Amélie managed to look astonished. She had never been told the messages she carried contained military information but it did not surprise her to learn this now. “Your allegations, sir, are entirely false.”

  It seemed to Amélie like a repeat of a recurring bad dream in which she stood (or sat, depending on her interrogator’s manners) in an overheated room facing an obdurate Yankee officer, parrying question after question. But this was not a matter of taking the oath; it was far more serious. And she would not get off. The Union was getting meaner, clamping down on spies and smugglers. The South, in desperate straits, retreating step by step, was forced to resort to guerrilla warfare, espionage, sabotage, even attempts to stir up armed insurrection. And the North was retaliating by putting the troublemakers away.

  The examination went on. The provost marshal reeled off a list of names that were familiar to Amélie, names of friends and acquaintances who were involved in the Confederate underground. How had he come by such information? Obviously someone had tattled either for money or to save his or her own skin. Or perhaps a mother had talked to rescue a beloved son or husband from being shot or jailed. Amélie wondered as she stood there if she could turn informer under such circumstances. Perhaps. Yet to betray the schoolteacher who lived near New Melle, the shopkeeper on Grace Street, the old Mexican War veteran on Jeffe
rson would be the worst kind of perfidy, a dishonor she would find hard to live with.

  “Did you know that Colonel Howard has been carrying small arms to General Pike?” The provost marshal asked, his eyes narrowing, watching her face intently.

  “I do not know a Colonel Howard,” Amélie replied in a cool, firm voice. “And nothing at all about small arms.”

  He went on in the same vein, ticking off names and accusations. To each one Amélie gave standard replies: “I do not know,” or "I'm sure I have no idea.”

  Finally, in exasperation, he gave orders to have her taken to Gratiot Street Prison. He would not let her go home to get her things, nor would he allow her to write a note to the Shelbys explaining her absence.

  “Cool your heels in the lockup,” he said. “Maybe a few nights in jail will loosen your tongue.”

  Before the war Gratiot Street Prison had been the McDowell Medical College. An octagonal building of gray stone surmounted by a cupola, it had two wings, one of which abutted on the Christian Brothers’ College. Even in McDowell’s day it had the grim appearance of a fortress. Now it was overcrowded with Confederate prisoners; captured soldiers and spies. It had an evil reputation. Damp and unsanitary, its inmates were brutally treated, many shot while trying to escape. Very few women were sent to Gratiot, a fact from which Amélie took little comfort.

  No one seeing her as she was escorted into the presence of the jailer would guess, however, that her mouth was dry and that her heart was knocking crazily against her ribs. Head high, her back poker straight, she moved with a dignity that rankled the bullish, bald-headed man who held the keys to her confinement.

  “Ha! Another Southern aristocrat is it?” He liked to have his charges cringe. “Kid gloves and hoops? Well, we’ll see how our fine lady fares.”

  He took her up a flight of wooden stairs and down a dank corridor. From behind frosted glass doors she heard the murmur of voices, a hollow cough, the scraping of a chair. Suddenly from the depths of the building a scream rose, a shrill cry of pain rebounding from wall to wall. An icy fear ran through Amélie’s blood, sprouting goosebumps. The jailer chuckled.

  “Damned Reb got his comeuppance.”

  He stopped before a door and rattling his keys unlocked it. “Here we are!” He took her by the upper arm, his hot, moist fingers closing around it.

  “Well, little lady, if you're good we can make things easier, you know.” In the dimness his eyes glittered.

  Revolted, frightened, she said nothing but stared back at him with a defiance born of loathing.

  He opened the door and pushed her inside.

  The room was lit by a single candle. It had a series of glass-fronted cupboards along one side, a window on the other, two straw pallets on the floor, and a deal table in the center. A woman seated at the table stared speechlessly at Amélie.

  “Here's company, Miss Hill,” the jailer announced.

  It was the schoolmistress who lived near New Melle. Amélie had trouble recognizing her. A thirty-year-old spinster, she nevertheless had had smooth skin, clear gray eyes, and shiny, light brown hair drawn back into a neat bun. Her drawn face was now tinged with an unhealthy ivory pallor, her haunted eyes underlined with bruised smudges. Miss Hill did not speak or acknowledge with so much as a facial tic that she knew Amélie.

  “You’ve plenty of time to get acquainted,” the jailer said maliciously, his gaze going from one to the other. Then to Amélie’s relief he went out, closing and locking the door behind him.

  For a few minutes neither woman spoke. Miss Hill got up and moved noiselessly to the door, putting her head against the panel, listening. Then turning she said to Amélie, “I never thought to see you here.”

  “Nor I you. How long . . .?”

  “Too long. I’ve lost track of time. It might be a week, a month.” She shrugged. “Perhaps two months.”

  She came back to the table and moved the candle. Its yellow light fell on an open bible.

  “This is all they give me to read. And one chair.” Her lips twisted into a bitter smile.

  “Please, Miss Hill,” Amélie said, “do sit down. I'm not the least bit tired.” The schoolmistress looked so ill.

  “We'll share.”

  “No. I can perch on the table. Like this.” Amélie, drawing her skirts around her, settled herself on the edge.

  For a few moments Miss Hill was silent, staring into the candle flame. Then in a dull, lifeless voice, she said, “They caught a Confederate soldier in my house. He had been taken prisoner near Corinth and they were transferring him to Gratiot when he managed to elude the guard. I don't know what they’ve done with him. Shot him perhaps, that's how they deal with some of the men who try to get away. Some they hang. He was such a nice young man.” She lifted bruised eyes to Amélie. “From Virginia, he told me. A Captain Royce Woodson.” She sighed heavily and bowed her head. “Such a nice young man.”

  “We mustn’t give up,” Amélie said.

  “No, 'I suppose not,” she answered in a weary voice. She laced thin, white fingers together. “Forgive me— but what have they charged you with, Mrs Warner?”

  “They found morphine in my shopping basket.”

  “Ah.”

  The sound of the key rasping in the lock stiffened Amélie's back. The jailer thrust his bullet head in, leering at the women. Then he stood aside to let two nuns enter. They were Sisters of Charity who came each night with a hot meal for Catholic prisoners. They did not seem surprised to see Amélie. Certainly the supper they brought was ample for two; fried chicken, potatoes, greens, cornbread, and pudding.

  Amélie addressed the younger looking nun, who wore gold-rimmed spectacles. “I wonder if you could carry a message to my friends,” she said in a low voice. She was worried about the Shelbys who by now must be looking for her.

  The nun flushed. “We are not allowed—”

  “I only want them to know I’m here. The Shelbys on Grace Street.”

  The jailer shouted, “No whispering, damn you! I’ll have you blasted papists thrown out!”

  After the nuns left Amélie asked for water to wash. A small dirty pan of tepid water was offered. No soap, no towel. She dipped her hands in the water and sprinkled some on her face, wiping both on the hem of her gown.

  By this time the candle was guttering low. “They won’t bring us another,” Miss Hill said. “So we’d best go to bed.”

  Amélie looked at the straw pallet. It was then she noticed the dark stains on the floor.

  “Blood,” Miss Hill explained. “Dr. McDowell did his dissecting here. I hope the idea won’t keep you from sleeping.”

  “I don’t think so. It’s not ghosts I mind but our jailer.”

  “Oh, him.” She turned the corners of her thin mouth down. “Mr. Corckle is all bluster, a cowardly lecher. He’s been warned not to touch us on pain of being sent to the battlefield.”

  Miss Hill knelt over her pallet and began thumping the course ticking that covered it. “Mice,” she said. “I don’t like sharing my bed with them.”

  Amélie shuddered but said nothing.

  It was a long, bitterly cold night. Amélie dozing off was twice wakened by Miss Hill’s coughing. She lay in the darkness listening to the painful hacking, the scampering of mice behind the wainscoting. Her thoughts roamed, depressing, troubling thoughts. To be imprisoned in Gratiot. How had she become so careless? Even in the most trying circumstances she had always managed to use caution. Why had she made such a slip? It was the letter, of course, Babette’s letter about the baby. I ought to have more sense, Amélie chastised herself, than to brood about it. Babette has every right to have a child. There’s nothing I can do about it. I must accept what’s happened and not blame the innocent little boy even if his father ordered my husband's execution. But I will never forgive that murdering Yankee.

  Yet when Amélie finally fell asleep she dreamt that Damon held her, gently stroking her hair, and in her sleep she cried.

  The next morning as s
he and Miss Hill stood at the window watching a group of Confederate prisoners take their exercise, the schoolmistress suddenly exclaimed, “Captain Woodson! There!” She pointed to a man in a soiled Confederate uniform, his greatcoat ripped up the back, its brass buttons all but gone. He was hatless, his feet encased in what looked like improvised shoes made of carpeting.

  “Someone’s stolen his boots,” Miss Hill said.

  Despite his tattered appearance he held himself with dignity, a tall, broad-shouldered man walking to and fro in measured steps. Amélie could not see his face clearly, only the top of his head, the tawny hair ruffled by the breeze.

  “He’s alive!” Miss Hill cried, a flush coming to her pale cheeks. “They haven’t killed him yet.”

  That night the nuns came again. It was the same supper with a slight difference. Amélie, biting into the cornbread, found a small scrap of paper. Unfolding it, she read it under candlelight, “demand a trial.”

  It was not signed but she knew it was from Mrs. Shelby. It was her style to advise concrete action in terse terms rather than offering platitudes like, “Be of good heart” or “Trust in God.”

  Amélie showed the note to Miss Hill. “The nuns did contact my friends after all.”

  “Courageous women. They took a great risk. But don’t get your hopes up. I’ve demanded a trial at least a half dozen times. And still haven’t had one.”

  “I shall ask, nevertheless.” Miss Hill’s pessimism fortified, rather than depressed, Amélie.

  That afternoon she started on her campaign. Shouting for the jailer she pounded on the door with her hands, then a shoe, and finally the back of the chair. The racket brought him running.

  “Shut up, you damned reb!’’ he roared, confronting her, his face blotched with rage. “If you don’t, I’ll take a whip to you!’’