“Hello, Eli. How kind of you to pay a call. What an…expected surprise.”
At that he turned, reached out his hand to grasp mine, drew me a little too close, bent with a grand flourish, paused, and then deliberately turned my hand palm side up and grazed his lips lightly upon it. He stepped back and breathed in. “Vic, my dear, you must be the only nurse in this infernal war whose hand always smells like crushed lavender. What do you do to get rid of the smell of lye and laudanum?”
I withdrew my hand. “And you, sir, are not the only miscreant who masquerades so poorly as a gentleman.” I gestured at the slope-backed chairs on the porch. “May I invite you to take a seat and state your business with me?”
“My business?” he said. “I would think that old friends simply might get together to reminisce about our childhood days.”
“Eli, most of the things I remember about our childhood involve you getting me into some scrape or another — building a fort and then burning it down, nearly setting fire to my parents’ house in the process. Or, you wanting to ‘practice’ your kissing technique and using me as your practice dummy. Remember how my father caught us and I was sent to my room for a week? And may I add, you had three years on me, and used those to excellent advantage.”
Eli looked upward and smiled. “This is how men and women differ. I have such positive memories of our adventures together. And I would like to remind you that I walked you home from the schoolhouse to keep the rowdy boys away. Remember that? And you and I would make up silly songs all the way to your house.”
As usual, Eli was breaking down my resolve to not get into more mischief. I said, “Here’s the one I remember — you made this one up, so of course, you were the hero of the song:
“‘Vic and Eli went down to the creek, Vic’s little boat sprang a big old leak; Oh no, said Vic, our outlook is bleak; All right, said Eli, I’ll take a peek.…”
“I don’t remember what comes next,” said Eli.
“Oh, yes, you do. The rest of it was variations on all the parts of me you’d take a peek at!”
“I miss those days,” he said, reaching for my hand.
I placed his hand back in his lap. “Very well, Eli, I will repeat my original request — state your business and be off with you!”
“I have a counter-offer, Vic, and it involves a stroll this lovely morning and paying a call on someone I’d like you to meet.” He gestured toward the porch stairs leading down to the packed dirt road. “Shall we?”
We looked at each other, each waiting for the other to blink. “I trust,” said Eli, “that your brother has returned to good health. Nothing like the care of an excellent nurse and good food and drink to speed a convalescent’s progress.”
I shook my head. “Eli, does it ever concern you that every human transaction you carry out, even those that seem so benevolent on first blush, all involve keeping accounts? This has been the case since we were schoolchildren together, and you would barter a peppermint for a kiss.”
Unfazed, Eli said, “Those were the days when you were willing to barter, Vic. Now, we’re both adults, and I hope that you will credit me as a man who is always delighted to do a good turn. You saved your brother’s life, of that I have no doubt. But if you give a man something to look forward to — a good meal, a decent bottle of whiskey — I think that simply fuels the good flame of recovery. It was my honor to be helpful in some small way to your family.”
I lifted my index finger to my mouth, gave it one good lick, and made a tally gesture in the air that could not have been misunderstood. Eli knew I was calling him on the endless, rarely legal, barely ethical rounds of give-and-take he pursued.
“You wound me, Victoria.”
“Indeed. You and I have been keeping score since we were in Miz Lizzie’s one-room schoolhouse in Oxford. But thank you for your inquiries about my brother. Jeremiah is back at work on the farm, and though the loss of a leg is a terrible thing for a man who makes his living with hard, physical labor, he is finding ways to keep the farm running with help from neighbors, and of course from his beloved, Elizabeth.”
“Ah,” said Eli. “So they are sticking together? That takes some grit, to fall in love with a whole man and then marry a…broken one.”
“They are being married this fall, and I assure you that Elizabeth sees Jeremiah as an entirely whole man.” I felt the color rising in my cheeks. “Have you ever been in love, Eli? Or perhaps, I should ask, has anyone ever been in love with you?”
Eli shook his head, and put his hand to his heart, all melodrama, and if my suspicions were true, there was not a sincere bone in his body. “Again you misjudge me, dear Victoria. And I assure you that many, many young ladies have found me…well, certainly not repugnant. But, sadly, I have only been in love once, and so I must take my pleasure in admiring relationships that people such as your brother and Elizabeth have established. Believe me when I tell you, I wish them every blessing.”
“Thank you,” I said. “And now, perhaps you’d like to tell me what you came to ask.”
“Nothing onerous.”
“Or illegal? Or unethical? Or indefensible?”
“Not at all. Well, not really.”
“Hmmm. Here it comes.”
“I simply want you to accompany me to meet with a friend and her daughter who have fallen on hard times.”
I raised an eyebrow. “And how wonderful to find you helping those less fortunate than yourself. Who are these people who merit your attention and…kindness?”
“Mrs. Rose Greenhow and her daughter, Little Rose. Perhaps you know of her?”
“Rose Greenhow? The notorious Rose Greenhow? When you say she and her daughter have fallen on hard times, what you mean is, she’s going to jail. I heard that the powers-that-be are shutting down Fort Greenhow, and Mrs. Greenhow is going to be in residence at the Old Capitol Prison.”
Rose Greenhow, who was connected to everyone from Dolley Madison to Stephen Douglas, had become ever more outspoken in her Confederate sympathies. And while her many protectors and advocates had shielded her from the harshest consequences of her transgressions by arranging for house arrest at the soi-disant Fort Greenhow, news in the gossipy small town of Washington, DC, was that Rose’s kid-glove treatment was drawing to a close.
“You are well informed,” said Eli. “But I would have expected no less.”
“I am sorry for Mrs. Greenhow and her youngest daughter, but I cannot see how I can be of service to them.”
“Ah, perhaps I was not clear. I believe Mrs. Greenhow can be of service to us. I have taken the liberty of booking seats on the afternoon train from Richmond to Washington. We can visit with Mrs. Greenhow there before.…”
“Before she’s locked up and better supervised than she is now,” I interrupted. “And why would she want to see me?”
“Because she knows that you, in fact, come from a Confederacy family.”
“I have made no secret of that.”
“Just so. I think it would be helpful to Mrs. Greenhow to have a sympathetic listener about her…activities.”
Without speaking, I put on my bonnet, tied the ribbons with a determined yank, and set off down the porch steps and onto the road. Eli watched for a few moments and then strode down the stairs and up the road to catch me. “Don’t be a fool, Vic. This is a rare opportunity. Mrs. Greenhow is chafing at the increasing restrictions on her visitors, and she will be happy to see you.”
“Setting aside why I would want to see her, I’m not sure her jailers, even the more lenient ones at Ft. Greenhow, would be happy to see someone associated with the Confederacy paying a call on Mrs. Greenhow.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Vic. I have already discussed a potential visit with the lieutenant in charge of all the spying ladies at Fort Greenhow. You would be most welcome. You walked away from your Confederate ties, and your reputation for caring for the wounded, blue or gray, makes you above reproach.”
We continued walking, and I loosene
d my bonnet strings. Either Eli was giving me a headache, as he so often did, or I had tied everything too tightly. Perhaps both.
“Lest you forget, Eli, I am still employed at the Chimborazo Hospital, which is, at last glance, a Confederate hospital.”
“Oh, Vic, everyone knows you care for anyone who needs it: Union, Confederate, colored, white.”
“Everyone, Eli? I find it highly unlikely that everyone is aware of the sympathies and values of one nurse among many.”
Eli smiled. “As ever, Vic, you minimize your reputation. The fact that you still have a horse, that you move freely between Chimborazo and the Armory hospitals, makes you something of a unique personage.”
“I visit the Armory to learn new techniques and to visit my friends there,” I protested.
“So you say. Remember you and I have known each other since childhood. And so you cannot bluff and evade with me. I know what a facile story-spinner you are. And that’s precisely why I think you and Mrs. Greenhow will enjoy each other’s company.”
“And my plan in pursuing this visit? Besides the milk of human kindness that flows in my veins? Truly, what is it you think I can gain from this visit?”
“You are such a well-read young woman, Victoria. I am sure you know the play by Mr. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for Scandal?”
“‘A school for scandal!/tell me I beseech you,/Needs there a School this modish art to teach you?’”
Eli shook his head. “Ah, Victoria, you manage to amaze and irk me, all at the same time.”
“First performed,” I continued, “in 1777 at the Drury Lane Theatre, a place I long to visit one day.”
“It will be my pleasure to take you there when we have the leisure to make future plans. But today, I entreat you to visit Mrs. Greenhow. We are pursuing a school of an entirely different kind. And I think you may be precisely the person to help lead this endeavor.”
It is foolish to ask a question when one already knows the answer, but I could not resist. “A school not of scandal, but of spies. Is that it, Eli?”
CHAPTER 13
VICTORIA’S JOURNAL, 1862
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA
In the end, of course, I agreed to Eli’s plan. He is a man of great persuasive powers, and not all of them involve manipulation, blackmail, and horse-trading. Literally, horse-trading, because I know that Eli engaged in elaborate wheeling and dealing to keep my beloved horse, Courage, in my care. After I had agreed to hospital work, rather than my itinerant nurse-on-horseback rides from battlefield to battlefield, there was no compelling reason that I still needed Courage for my own. Horses were dearer than gold, as conscription on both sides gathered and consumed both soldiers and their mounts.
Somehow, Eli managed to negotiate an exception for Courage, and I was deeply grateful. It wasn’t just that I thought of Courage as my partner in my work or that we’d been together since I was a girl; somehow he was also my getaway plan. Since I learned to walk, I have abhorred feeling trapped. My poor parents! They were always calling for me. “Victoria, where are you?” I would wander off the farm and into the woods, and it is likely a miracle I survived to adulthood. But there are so many restrictions on the way we women can live our lives: what we can say, where we can walk, how we should dress, how we do or do not have access to money we earn. I am cursed with an intemperate tongue and a short temper, and knowing that I can saddle Courage, ride as well as any man, and be off, just like that, often kept me from straying more visibly, more spectacularly away from societal norms. Or at least it did for a while.
And now Eli had woven another spider web to entrap me, and knowing full well that I would probably live to regret it, I agreed to meet with Mrs. Greenhow. Was she a spy? Oh, yes. And a highly skilled one. Her tongue was as silver and sophisticated as mine was hasty and sharp. She was a woman of elegance, refinement, and, most of all, a sly sense of fun. Life was a social whirl at Mrs. Greenhow’s. Despite the shortage of food and drink in the shops, good food and wine somehow miraculously appeared out of nowhere at her home, until it was converted to a temporary prison. Conversations danced around her parlor, pirouetting from local news to speculation to whispered contraband subjects. There was much laughter during a visit with Mrs. Greenhow, I had heard, and I believe she was an accomplished flirt and a highly successful extractor of information. The stories declare that by the end of an evening, Mrs. Greenhow went to bed with an ever-growing cache of information, and she was prepared to share it immediately with her most-favored Confederate officers.
Not for Rose Greenhow was the quick temper of Belle Boyd, who famously shot a Union soldier when she thought he insulted her mother. I felt sure that Eli knew that story as well as many others, and annoyed though I was to give up nearly an entire day to call on Mrs. Greenhow and to once again surrender to Eli’s dark arts, I confess that I looked forward to meeting her in person, and perhaps having a glimpse of her extraordinary young daughter. I could not tell if I should feel disgusted by the thought of a young child virtually imprisoned with her mother, or inspired that mother and daughter chose to stay together, no matter what. Really, Victoria, I upbraided myself, you are a fine one to make assumptions about how one should behave.
As I mused, a carriage went by, and its front wheel splashed hard into a ditch. Eli pulled me out of harm’s way as I watched the dark, ill-smelling mud splash nearby. He tucked my arm into his, and I felt a cruel moment of loss, that feeling of being watched over, cared for, truly treasured by someone. I had that once, and now, Eli’s rote gallantry reminded me of what would never be mine.
“Sometimes,” I said to Eli, “I think the two of us are destined to go our wicked ways together. Most mornings I wake up and do not know who is and who is not a traitor. I’m sure I must be.”
“To be a traitor,” said Eli, “you have to have a fixed side to be on. I do not, and you should not.”
“You’re right. Fixed sides are what got us into this predicament. I curse this war, I curse the blue and the gray. We are wasting time and money, and worst of all, we are spilling blood.”
Eli patted the top of my hand with a familiar touch. “Don’t waste your time cursing, dear Vic. There is so much more to do, and we shall do it. When we get back from Mrs. Greenhow’s, we will devise a new strategy.”
I squeezed Eli’s hand, but in all aspects I saw very little advantage of planning some new scheme. As it happened, I would come to know far more about Eli’s scheme than anyone could wish. And despite my reservations, I, too, would find myself a serious student of the art of wartime deception. A spy? A turncoat? A traitor? These were all terms that suggested there was a side that was right and a side that was wrong, but that’s the unquestioning way men see things. Who can blame them? Their commanders think only of progress: taking this hill, destroying this regiment, marching ever forward into filth and blood and death. And at the end, what?
We women are all Ariadne, looking for the thread that can guide us through the labyrinth and spin us home. As the train pulled into Richmond, I thought of that labyrinth and the mythological Minotaur who lurked there. It would take all I had not to make a misstep in that maze, and disappear forever.
CHAPTER 14
GABRIEL’S JOURNAL, 1862
“Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letter, U.S., let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pocket, there is no power on earth that can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship.”
— Frederick Douglass
I have two pleasures in life: women and my bugle. My employer, Mr. Allan Pinkerton, heard me pass this remark one day and asked, “And your work with us, keeping this great Union safe and secure, is that not a pleasure as well?”
“Do you want a fancy answer?” I asked. “Or do you want the truth?”
Mr. Pinkerton preferred a fancy answer, it seemed clear to me, and therefore I found something to commend. “Your employment has provided me with a unique experience, sir. And
although going one thousand feet into the air initially filled my soul with fear, I will confess that my journeys in Professor Lowe’s balloon are ones I shall never forget.”
Pinkerton raised an eyebrow. I believe he could not discern if I was making a jest or telling the truth. I was, in fact, speaking plain. Professor Thaddeus Lowe is a genius, I believe. His great care in designing balloons that would stand up to the rigors of military use was notable. The finest, sturdiest silk and cotton were used, and then swabbed all over with some magic elixir of varnish that Professor Lowe had invented. No problem was insoluble to Professor Lowe, appointed our Chief Aeronaut by the President of these United States, Abraham Lincoln. Last year, I first was recruited to visit the sky aboard the Intrepid. I do not have the skills of the brave aeronauts, but I have a skill nearly as crucial: I am a telegrapher, a man of speed with the key, a man who is ready to watch, record, and send information about the number, condition, and movement of Confederate troops.
On my first adventure, as I clambered into the small, swaying basket, I had two conflicting thoughts. First, that if I should survive, I would have a fine tale to tell Victoria. And the second was that I would be so paralyzed by fear that I would be unable to perform my duties as key operator.
Now that I have undertaken five journeys, the fear has abated, and it was the truth I spoke to Mr. Pinkerton. It is thrilling to be one thousand feet in the air. We are safe from the enemy if they spot us, because no shot can reach that high. And unlike some balloon craft, we are tethered, which gives at least the illusion of control. And although I have been sympathetic to Mr. Douglass’s calls to serve in the Union army, I prefer the odds of survival serving in my current post. In fact, I am becoming a balloon enthusiast.
The Confederates were using balloon craft for surveillance as well, but they did not have Professor Lowe leading the way, and the Rebs had fewer craft and fewer successful reconnaissance adventures. The ingenious Lowe had even devised a way to inflate the balloons in the field. Working from his design and instructions, the Navy Yard built movable hydrogen-gas-generation wagons. And though Professor Lowe has a rival in the construction and use of his reconnaissance balloons in the very excitable Mr. John LaMountain, when I am putting my life in someone’s hands, I prefer the more scientifically inclined professor.
The Spy on the Tennessee Walker Page 6
