Phoebe did the long-suffering-spouse daily double: an eye roll, followed by a sigh. “Let’s take all this mess outside. It’s a beautiful day, and we can shake that dust into the yard.”
Thanks to Victoria’s journal, we knew exactly when she left Chimborazo. With the Union lists, we’d be able to figure out when she began her work at Armory Square Hospital. A great theory, but the reality was a little daunting: pages and pages of names written in an endless variety of faded, spidery handwriting.
“Didn’t anyone ever print?” I whined.
Michael fixed me with a glance. “Let’s remember you’re the jefe of this little project. The rest of us are just unpaid labor.”
“Now, now,” said Phoebe. “This is kinda fun. I love seeing all these beautiful, Spencerian hands.”
We’d divided the Union records into four equal stacks, concentrating on those with dates that overlapped the period after Victoria left Chimborazo for good, and when — we assumed — she’d begun her espionage career, passing information about Confederate troop movements, the condition of the troops, and whatever she could glean about future plans. And on we went, painstakingly going through the lists of names. We found Victorias, all right, plenty of them, and even a few Almas, Victoria’s middle name — but no Victoria Alma Cardworthy or Victoria Alma Mays, assuming that she changed her name when she married Eli Mays in 1863.
By 1 p.m., we’d gone through all the lists and all the names. Nothing. “Well,” said Phoebe, “what about lunch at Lamar Lounge? That’ll perk us all up.”
I think of Lamar Lounge as a bar — with food. Good food, mind you, but bar food. There’s a giant The Good, The Bad and the Ugly movie poster next to the bar, inexplicably in French. And there’s a patio out back, with experts tending what is claimed to be the “only pit-smoked, whole-hog barbecue in Mississippi.”
And so there we were in a twinkling, and Phoebe was correct — we were greatly cheered a half hour into ribs and some sides. The Mississippi caviar was good, but not quite as good as Phoebe’s. I told her so. “Oh, thank you, darlin’. I think so, too, but.…” She looked around and lowered her voice, “I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.” Still, we managed to polish off every last bite of the caviar and everything else. It’s a quixotic operation, Lamar Lounge, because all the profits get distributed to Mississippi nonprofit groups. So the more you eat, the more good karma you generate. At least, that’s the theory.
On the way back home, I asked Phoebe and Beau to drop me off at the Square. “I’ll walk back. I have eaten myself into a stupor again.”
“Want company?” asked Michael. I saw him sneak a look at his watch, and he saw me catch him.
“What’s on?”
“Oh, you know, just a little Sunday football.”
“I’m good. I might wander through Square Books again and find something for the boys.”
The autumn sun was already cooling, but after generating all that heat with all that food, I was glad to take a brisk walk around the square. Mr. Faulkner’s bench called me once again, and I settled in to watch as everyone who’d had a late, post-church lunch came out of restaurants around and off the square. Families, college students with their visiting parents, grandparents holding hands. Is life really this idyllic here? I wondered.
Something about those hours of going through names, looking for the Victoria needle in the haystack, was bothering me. I kept thinking we had missed something — where was Victoria? We knew she’d been at the Armory — she mentioned it several times in her journal. But why wasn’t her name there?
And then, filled with lunch and seduced by the late afternoon sun, I feel asleep on Mr. Faulkner’s bench.
I woke with a start when someone touched my shoulder. Disoriented and embarrassed, I shook the hand off and began spluttering. “Oh, I’m fine, I…I —”
Michael stood there, grinning at me. “And you make fun of me for falling asleep in the third quarter of football?”
“Go away,” I said. “I’m thinking.”
Michael sat down next to me and pulled me to him. “Cara, what’s wrong? I was only teasing you.”
“I just keep thinking about Victoria — about how lonely she must have been. Leading all sorts of hidden lives — married to Eli Mays, but loving Gabriel — and how dangerous that was! And spying? Didn’t people hang for that?”
Michael took my hands in his and faced me. “Maggie, whatever happened is done and gone, more than a century ago. There is nothing you can do right now, whatever happened to Victoria. And we know there was a happy ending to this story. Victoria fell in love — again — and married Jules. They’re right there.…” He turned and gestured up the hill at the cemetery. “They’re together, and they had a wonderful life together, even if Jules did die young by today’s standards. From all evidence and family stories, he and Victoria enjoyed very good lives. Without,” he smoothed my hair, “direct interference from that troublesome great-great-great-granddaughter who surely would have wanted to meddle, if only she’d been born a few generations earlier.”
I sat up indignantly. “I am not troublesome.”
“Oh, you are. You’ve raised troublesome to an art form — but most of us enjoy it.”
He stood up and held out his hand. “We’re going to have to head to the airport soon; we have little ruffians waiting for us. I’m sure they’ve already tortured Anya, and we need to rescue her. And if we stay here any longer, I’m going to have throw out all my clothes and start hanging out at the Big and Wide shop.”
With the last of the sun in the western sky, we headed back to Phoebe and Beau’s. “You know,” said Michael, “Phoebe refers to us as her VIP guests. How often do you get called that?”
I laughed, and then I stopped. “That’s it! That’s what is bothering me.”
“Being a VIP?”
“Better,” I said. “Being a VAC — just like Victoria Alma Cardworthy’s maiden initials.”
CHAPTER 28
VICTORIA’S JOURNAL, 1863
“I will,” I lied. The justice of the peace at the Oxford courthouse asked me if I would love, honor, and obey Mr. Eli Mays. I stood facing Eli, and I know he saw a telltale will o’ the wisp look of confusion and pain cross my face.
“Courage,” he had whispered to me as we had walked up the stairs to the courthouse. “This is the only way you, and he, can be protected.” He offered his arm, and I gratefully slipped mine through his. Courage, indeed! To me, it felt as if I were behaving in cowardly ways, taking advantage of Eli to cover my tracks. His argument was that a married woman would not excite the same interest or curiosity as a single woman.
I knew he was right. Eli had offered to make me his wife, many times. I had always refused. But a week ago, I had awakened in the middle of the night, sick with dread. It was a cool night, but head to toe I was clammy with sweat. I tore off my wet nightgown and threw it across the room. I plucked a clean shift out of the bureau drawer and with trembling fingers, buttoned up and climbed back into bed. I wrapped a shawl around my shoulders and rolled my saggy childhood pillow into a kind of bolster.
“Enough of this paralysis!” I exclaimed to the empty room.
“Worry is useless. It is for cowards and dullards. You need a plan.” There was no answer, of course, but I willed myself to simply be silent and listen. What did I want to happen? At first, there was nothing to hear. No voice, no counsel, no warning, not one word, fair or foul. I closed my eyes, I let go my fierce grasp on the shawl, and oddly, I felt the room grow warmer. It was still too far from daybreak to expect the sun to take away the chill. Instead, it felt as if some comforting hand was on my head. My mother’s? Gabriel’s? My brother’s? In the silence, I knew exactly what I wanted, and no matter how impossible it might be, it was warming simply to know with clarity what should happen. I felt the knots in my neck and shoulders soften. I sat up straighter and opened my eyes. Still just me, alone in the bed, alone in the bedroom, with only a waning moon to send light through t
he window. “But I am not alone,” I said, out loud. “I have books, I have friends, I have a sweetheart, I have…love.” I reached over to the little two-drawer table my father had made for me, and plucked my writing board, my blue-ink pen, and a few sheets of clean foolscap from the drawer. I drew up my legs, bent at the knees, and settled the writing board and paper on my impromptu desk. I thought for a moment, and entitled the paper “The Declaration of Independence of Victoria Alma Cardworthy.”
Half an hour went by in an instant as I dashed off my four points of independence. It was as if I was “spirit writing,” as the crazy fortune-teller in Eli’s favorite tavern does. No disconnect between thought and pen, all flowed together as if some stagnant fountain had come back to life and in its rejuvenation was bubbling only the freshest, the sweetest of water.
“Gabriel,” I whispered. “Shall I read you what I’ve written?” I took the silence for yes, because I knew he was there with me, in that room, leaning on the window sill and looking out as the clouds drifted by the fading moon.
Declaration 1. I, Victoria Alma Cardworthy, am entitled to all that the masculine sex takes for granted: the right to travel, the right to earn and keep my own money, the right to vote, the right to have opinions and say them out loud.
Declaration 2. I am entitled to love whomever I choose. And if that gentleman loves me back, we are entitled to marry and live together as husband and wife.
Declaration 3. Although I am generally a law-abiding citizen, because the law does not treat me equally in any way (I nearly blotted the paper midnight blue in its entirety when I tried to emphasize “in any way”), I am entitled to circumvent certain restrictions and constrictions if I judge them foolish, cruel, or unreasonable.
Declaration 4. Because as a woman it is so difficult to lead the life I crave, I am entitled to.…
I paused for a moment. What was it I was actually entitled and able to do? I shook my head. The answer to that was “precious little.” Undeterred, I finished the fourth declaration: I am entitled to make such adjustments, in behavior, in clothing, in disguising face and form, and in mission, to lead a life of meaning and consequence.
I folded my declarations carefully, tucked them under the pillow, and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep, the kind reserved for the innocent and the just. It is unlikely many would consider that sleep deserved, but when I awakened, I could see a path ahead through Dante’s dark wood.
CHAPTER 29
VICTORIA’S JOURNAL, 1864
When I was five years old, the mayor’s wife had twins, a boy and a girl. It’s not that there weren’t other twins, even in our small town. It’s just that I had never met any before. Everything about twins was mystifying and exciting to me. It seemed like a miracle: two babies, born at the same time. And even though they looked alike when my mother and I went to pay a call, very red in the face, wiggly, and wrinkled like crumpled-up paper, I could see differences right away. The little girl kept moving her head all around as if she were looking for something she’d lost. The little boy threw his hands over his head as if he were waving, two-handed, at friends out in the world.
Because they didn’t have room in the crib for two babies, I remember that a hired man who helped out around the mayor’s place hammered together a big, square wooden box, like a dresser drawer. It was dark, beautiful wood. Mahogany, my mama told me. Jeb, the man who made the box, then sanded gently curved rocker boards so they were smooth as the silk on my church dress. Jeb trimmed the outside of the box with long, thin boards with fancy loop-de-loop carving. Funny, how names stick with you. I’ll never forget Jeb’s name, because when you would ask how he was, he would always say, “I’m Jeb with a job so every day is a good one.”
When the improvised double cradle was ready, Mama and I brought over lots of soft quilts. Mama was Oxford’s reigning queen of the jelly-roll quilt, so that was the baby present we brought when that big rocker box was ready.
The babies, named Cara and Giovanni, because their mama had come to Oxford, Mississippi, all the way from Genoa, Italy, looked a little prettier than the first day I’d seen them. They weren’t as red as a watermelon anymore, and their skin wasn’t wrinkly at all.
I got to hold Giovanni on my lap for a few minutes. I still remember how important I felt, and how Giovanni tried to wiggle even closer to me. I said, “Mama, I think he likes me!”
My mama bent over the two of us and said, “You’re doing a fine job, Victoria. And he already knows you’re a girl child. He’s nestling in just in case you’re old enough to feed him.” The ladies in the room all chuckled, but the twins’ daddy blushed, and said, “I’ll leave you ladies to your work.”
Cara’s mother, Mrs. Mayor (for that is how I thought of her), put her in the box. And then my mama lifted Giovanni and tucked him in right beside his twin. And I watched as the tiny hand she was waving around somehow found its way to Giovanni’s arm. And although now I know she was much too young to have control of her movements, something amazing happened. She turned her face toward her brother, and her wandering little hand simply rested on his arm. Almost in an instant, both babies fell asleep, linked by touch, already deeply connected outside the womb, as they had been within.
Sometimes I dream about those twins, so connected that, as they grew, they would finish each other’s sentences. And I think about my virtual twin, Virgil Alexander Cranston, and wonder if I could conjure him up again if I wanted. If I had to.
Virgil Alexander Cranston was my made-up Giovanni, a lookalike version of myself: a man, not a woman, imbued with freedoms no contemporary of my sex could enjoy.
Becoming Virgil was how I could pursue my goals: to melt into the Confederate ranks, to gather information and plans, and then to pass intelligence along to Gabriel, who could telegraph what I uncovered to officers in the Union army. Was I betraying my family? My brother, Jeremiah, was safely out of uniform, no longer useful as a soldier, thank God! I was tired of this war; every day it seemed to grind even those who survived into smaller, weaker versions of themselves.
Eli was right. Spies may be despised, may be considered treasonous and betrayers, but while those lofty principles of patriotism and commitment to the cause are invoked, people are still dying. If knowledge, because that is what spies gather, will help, then it is worth the moral compromise.
Loving Gabriel had changed me. I have no idea how I managed to hear his voice and know, immediately, that this man was for me, and I was for him. How foolish, how impetuous that sounds! I have confided in only two people, my brother, Jeremiah, and my friend Mr. Whitman. Jeremiah was more distressed than I had anticipated. “He will be murdered, Victoria, if people find out. And you may be in great danger as well. Mother and Father could not bear that sorrow. You must end this…friendship, for their sake, if not for yours.”
“I had hoped you would understand, Jeremiah,” I said. “You know what it is to love so wildly that you cannot imagine a life apart. I have seen you and Elizabeth. You are each individuals, but you are joined in every cause and every challenge.” I paused for a moment. “Except, perhaps, when the Queen of Nosiness, Elizabeth’s mother, comes to visit.”
Jeremiah shook his head. “These are not joking matters, Vic. Elizabeth and I have known each other since we were children. Ours is an entirely different situation.” Jeremiah reached for his crutch and pulled himself to a standing position.
“Mother and Father knew each other for seven months when they got married,” I said tartly. “Time is not the arbiter of all successes.”
Jeremiah reached out his arm, beckoning me to come embrace him. I came quickly to his side, and as he held me, it felt as if we were holding each other up.
“I think I understand, Vic. I know what it is to be crazy in love. When I almost died, you badgered me to stay alive for Elizabeth, and my dog, and so I did. I am just frightened for you, and for this man you love. I think you are so impatient to see a different world that you forget what it is to live every day in this one.”<
br />
“That,” I said, “is exactly why Victoria Alma Cardworthy is going to disappear for a while.”
CHAPTER 30
VICTORIA’S JOURNAL, 1863
Turning from Victoria to Virgil was surprisingly easy. The curse of being the tallest girl in school instantly turned into a blessing. My broader-than-most-female’s shoulders had gobbled up extra fabric when my mother made me dresses from the time I was a child, but now, it was easy for Eli to divert a Confederate soldier’s garb my way. As a young man, I looked…mercifully unworthy of notice.
Cropping my hair, of course, gave me pause. I had always been vain about the abundance of red curls that defied taming or braiding, but there was something wonderfully light and free about not having to untangle at the end of each day, or to wear out my arms and my patience skewering all those heavy curls into a knot on the top of my head, or using hairpins to shape a more elegant bun at the nape of my neck. I realized the drastic haircut put paid to all Mrs. Greenhow’s training on curls as hiding places for vital information, but the opportunities accorded me as Virgil rather than Victoria outweighed all other considerations.
How ironic it was that I never felt more womanly than when I was disguising myself as a man! With each step of my transformation, somehow I became more and more aware of how loving Gabriel, and being loved by him, made me acutely conscious of my spirit, and my body. I remembered our every encounter, and how both deliberate and wild I felt as we touched each other. Deliberate, because I knew love for the first time, and nothing felt wrong or out of bounds. Wild, because even the smallest touch, from the first moment we shook hands, made my knees nearly buckle. We were…together for the first time before we were married. I confessed to Gabriel that I was not a virgin; Eli had teased and tempted me into sexual congress when we were both fifteen. I was curious, of course, and Eli knew how to enchant and wear down an independent young woman. In addition, Mother and Father were so accustomed to me disappearing into the woods that although they lectured me, they had grown weary of trying to keep track of where I went and who I saw. And, they were grateful to Eli for escorting me home from school, offering what they saw as protection.
The Spy on the Tennessee Walker Page 11
