Fire by Night

by Lynn Austin

  “I’m so glad.” His arms tightened around her. Then he released her and held her away from himself, gazing down at her. “Julia, it took this tragedy to bring me to my senses. I don’t want to lose you. And I still want very much to marry you …if you’re willing.”

  She couldn’t see past him to see if James was still standing in the doorway, but she knew somehow that he wasn’t. She could scarcely believe that it was true—that Nathaniel still loved her, still wanted to marry her.

  “Of course,” she said. “Of course I’m willing.” Julia leaned against him and cried, but not all of her tears were tears of joy.

  “You did what you had to do,” Ted said when Phoebe finished telling him the story. “You warned him, offered him a way out, but he left you no choice.”

  “I seen a lot of dead men these past few years,” she said with a shudder. “But I never stood next to one that I killed myself.”

  “Ike,” he said quietly. “Let it go. Forgive yourself …and let it go.” The words rattled hoarsely in his throat. Phoebe hadn’t wanted to admit the truth before, but she could no longer ignore the fact that Ted’s lungs were filling with fluid. She’d seen it with countless other soldiers. He was coming down with pneumonia. She felt his brow—it was burning hot.

  “I’m going to go get some cold water,” she said, standing. “I need to bring your fever down.”

  He caught her wrist, stopping her. “Let me sleep awhile.”

  “No, you got to fight this, Ted …please!”

  He nodded and tried to grin. “Okay …I’ll fight …after I sleep.”

  Suddenly Phoebe heard running footsteps. They stopped outside. She looked up. Otis Whitney stood in the doorway of the tent—except it couldn’t be Otis. He was dead. She had seen his lifeless body with her own two eyes.

  The man took a step toward her. He held a pistol in his grip. As if in a dream, Phoebe watched him slowly raise it and aim it at her.

  “You killed my brother!”

  She heard Ted cry, “Look out!” and he sprang up from his bed somehow, his arms encircling Phoebe as he dove sideways, knocking her to the ground. At the same instant she heard a gunshot.

  Phoebe lay on the ground, dazed, for a long moment. She was vaguely aware of a scuffle taking place, of someone shouting, “Grab him! Grab that man!”

  Ted’s body felt oddly heavy on top of hers—a dead weight. He was trying to draw a breath in a long, painful gasp. She wrapped her arms around him. His back was wet and slippery with warm blood.

  “No!” she cried. “No, please. … ”

  Slowly, carefully, she sat up, gently rolling Ted sideways to cradle him in her arms. She caressed his face, his curly hair, her hands stained with his blood.

  “Why, Ted? Why’d you have to go and get yourself shot?”

  He looked up at her for the last time and whispered, “You’re my best friend, Ike. … ”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Philadelphia

  October 1864

  Phoebe gazed out of Julia’s bedroom window, watching the carriages roll by in the street below. The trees that lined the boulevard blazed with color, but to Phoebe there was something very sad about them. Their leaves would soon fall to the ground and blow away on the wind, leaving them stark and bare. And deep inside she longed to drift away on the wind along with the leaves.

  “Are you ready to go?” Julia asked, moving to stand beside her.

  “Would you be mad at me if I stayed here instead of going to the tea?”

  “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. It’s just that…” Phoebe sighed. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings, Julia. You been so good to me these past three months, buying me pretty dresses, opening your home to me, taking me places. … But I don’t belong here. This ain’t my life, and I’m never gonna fit in.”

  Julia moved away and sat down at her little dressing table, her back to the mirror. “I don’t think I belong here, either. This feels like such a vain, meaningless life to me.”

  “That ain’t what I meant. You and your family do a lot of good things for people, and you’re very generous with your money. But I didn’t grow up rich, living in a fancy house like this, and I ain’t never gonna fit in. I don’t talk proper, I’m scared to death to move around in these hoop skirts for fear I’ll knock something over and break it. And I just can’t get used to people doing stuff for me that I can do for myself—helping me get dressed, combing my hair, making my bed. Your servants do just about everything but feed me. I ain’t an invalid.”

  “I know. I don’t like it, either. I wish…” Julia sighed. “I don’t even know what I wish for anymore.”

  Phoebe felt sorry for her friend. Most people would see Julia’s fancy life and envy her. Phoebe might have envied her, too, in the past. But now she understood why Julia felt so unhappy, why she longed to do something useful.

  “Are you girls ready?” Mrs. Hoffman asked, sweeping into the room. “Our carriage is out front.”

  “We’ve decided not to go,” Julia said. “Please give Mrs. Rogers our regrets.”

  “You can’t do that. She’s expecting you—both of you. Now please hurry. We’re already running late.”

  “Neither of us feels up to this ordeal,” Julia said.

  “It isn’t an ‘ordeal,’ it’s a tea, for goodness’ sake. Besides, Mrs. Rogers is a very influential member of our church. You’ll need her good will, for Nathaniel’s sake.”

  “But I don’t feel like going.”

  Mrs. Hoffman waved impatiently. “It doesn’t matter if you feel like it or not. Nathaniel’s career and his best interests always take priority over your own wishes. You’re a reflection of him.”

  “No, I’m not. I’m me!”

  Mrs. Hoffman stared at her daughter as if she’d lost her mind. “You’d better get over that ridiculous notion before he puts his wedding ring on your finger or you’ll ruin his chances for a decent career in the ministry. You’re not allowed to be Julia Hoffman once you become Mrs. Nathaniel Greene. Why do you think you give up your name and take your husband’s? It’s more than a symbol— it’s a fact of life.”

  “I don’t want to have this discussion right now,” Julia said.

  “Good. Then get your coat and let’s go.” She swept from the room again, an army commander leading her troops into battle.

  “The invitation to tea included your name, Phoebe,” Julia said after a moment. “They want you to come.”

  “Yeah, so they can stare. I see the way everybody looks at me, like I’m odd—because I am. Even your folks don’t know what to make of me. Your ma’s been real good to me, but I think she’s a little scared of me, to tell you the truth—like she’s worried I’ll put a bullet between someone else’s eyes if I get riled up.”

  “She’s very grateful to you for saving my life.”

  “I know. She’s told me a hundred times. But none of the other ladies who’ll be at the tea this afternoon ever killed a man. They never even met a killer face-to-face before. They all look at me like they can’t forget the killing part, even if it was to save you.”

  “I understand, believe me. For the rest of my life I’ll always be ‘the girl who was nearly raped.’ Most people secretly believe I deserved it for running off to be a nurse in the first place.”

  “Maybe they think that now, but their tongues will stop wagging sooner or later. Especially after you marry Reverend Greene. You’re one of them, you belong here—I don’t. You know that it’s true, Julia. I think it’s time I moved on.”

  “I know that you’re my friend. And that I’ll miss you terribly if you leave.”

  “I’ll miss you, too. But I have to go. There’s something I got to do. I promised Ted I’d bring all his things to his mother, after…” Grief welled up inside Phoebe, as forcefully as if Ted had died that morning. She sank down on the edge of her bed and picked up his knapsack, which she always kept nearby. She lifted it onto her lap, hugging it, resting her cheek again
st it.

  “I been wanting to hang on to all his things because …because they remind me of him. I look at his frypan or his silly old bottles of tonic, and I remember—” She couldn’t finish. She wiped her tears as they fell. “His shirts still smell like him.”

  “Then you’re not ready yet, Phoebe. It isn’t time to give his things away.”

  She looked up at Julia. “Is it wrong to remember a man who isn’t yours and never was, a man you’ll never see again?”

  An odd look crossed Julia’s face. Her eyes filled with tears. “I’m the wrong person to ask that question. We can’t stop our memories any more than we can stop falling in love with someone. … But Ted did love you, Phoebe. He gave his life for you.”

  “He told me to make each day count. And I ain’t living like that.” She swiped impatiently at her tears. “I have to stop remembering and move on, but I don’t think I’ll ever be able to as long as I keep hanging on to his stuff. I need to give it all back, Julia. And I need to go see where he’s buried. Otherwise I’ll just be stuck in the same rut in the road all my life. It’s time I went to see Ted’s mother to give her these things—like I promised.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “Thanks for offering, but I don’t think you should run away again.”

  “I’m not running away, I just want to keep you company so you won’t have to travel alone.”

  “No …you’re unhappy here, and this would be a good excuse for you to run off again. I been traveling alone most of my life. Ain’t nothing new for me. But this is your home. You don’t feel like you fit in yet because you haven’t been home long enough to get used to this life again. But you will—if you don’t keep running away from it. You were born into this.”

  “I wish I hadn’t been.”

  “Don’t you want to marry Reverend Greene and settle down here with him?”

  A look of panic crossed Julia’s face. She shivered like a cornered rabbit. “I don’t know, Phoebe. I don’t know if I want to marry him or not. It scares me to think of him swallowing up my life the way Mother just described. Nathaniel knows exactly how he wants his wife to act and what she should say and do every moment, and I don’t know if I can live up to his standards. Or if I even want to anymore. I don’t know if I love him or not.”

  Phoebe felt another wave of pity for her friend. “You’ll figure it out, in time. Just like it took me a while to figure out what I got to do next.”

  Julia’s maid suddenly appeared in the bedroom doorway. “Mrs. Hoffman says to see what’s taking you so long. She’s about to lose her temper, she says.”

  “Tell her we’ll be there in a minute.” Julia sat very still for a moment as if composing herself, then turned to Phoebe again. “What will you do after you see Ted’s mother? Where will you go?”

  “I don’t know. I ain’t thought that far ahead.”

  “Promise me that you’ll write to me and tell me where you are and what you’re doing. Even if it’s just a short note.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the war isn’t over yet—the one inside of us, I mean. You’re the only person I can talk to about what it was like to be on those battlefields, to see all those wounded men. And until we get over it, neither one of us is going to be able to figure out who we are or what we want. Am I making any sense?”

  “Yeah. I reckon we’re as different from each other as a porcupine is from a polecat. But we been to the same place, and it made us the same inside, in our hearts.”

  “Which one am I?” Julia said, smiling through her tears, “the porcupine or the polecat?”

  Phoebe grinned. “I’ll be hanged if I know. Let’s flip a coin.”

  Western Pennsylvania

  October 1864

  Ted’s hometown was very much as Phoebe remembered it, even after three years of war. Three years. The number startled her. On that warm October day in 1861, she and Ted had both signed up to fight for three years. Their enlistment would have expired this very month. Ted should be the one returning home alive and well, not her.

  As the train pulled into the station, Phoebe felt like she was walking backward through time. She remembered sitting alone on the train the last time, too, watching the tearful farewells outside on the platform. Ted’s mother had clung to him, weeping, begging him not to go. She’d been so afraid she would lose him, and she had. Ted had returned to her in a coffin. Phoebe felt bad for coming back and poking at a wound that probably hadn’t healed yet. But she didn’t suppose a mother would ever get over the loss of her only son.

  Phoebe stepped off the train and looked around. The hotel where she and all the other soldiers had stayed was down the street a little ways. She had already decided to take a room there for the night after she went to see Ted’s mother. Phoebe was still unsure where she would go tomorrow. Or the next day.

  She walked slowly into town and turned down the main street. She realized that she was doing it again—searching all the faces she passed, looking for Ted’s. She’d done it back in Philadelphia and in Washington and on all the battlefields she’d been to. She’d done it all the way here, too. How long would it take to break the habit, to accept the fact that Ted was dead?

  Phoebe paused in front of the store that had been used for a recruiting office. It was where she had met him for the first time, where he’d been given the knapsack she was now carrying. She remembered how funny he’d looked wearing his enormous uniform coat, grinning up at her and saying, “Hey there …want to trade?”

  Cut it out, she told herself. You can’t walk around town bawling or they’ll put you in an asylum.

  Two old men sat on the narrow porch in front of the general store, spitting tobacco. She asked them for directions to Cherry Street, the return address on the letters from Ted’s mother. They told her it wasn’t far, but Phoebe walked there slowly, as if she had miles and miles to go, clutching the pack in front of her with one hand, the valise Julia had given her for her own belongings in the other.

  Number fifteen Cherry Street was a small, plain-looking house, worlds away from Julia’s enormous mansion in Philadelphia—and worlds away from Phoebe’s own rustic cabin back in West Virginia. It was the sort of place she always pictured when she heard the word home—a snug, one-story clapboard house surrounded by a fence that needed paint. She was about to go up the front walk and knock on the door when she noticed a string of laundry flapping in the breeze on a clothesline behind the house. She walked around to the backyard and saw Ted’s mother, reaching, bending, reaching again as she unpinned the linens and piled them in a wicker basket. Phoebe watched her for several minutes.

  She looked so much like Ted with her small stature, tawny skin, and curly brown hair that Phoebe wondered what Ted’s father had contributed to his son’s appearance. Mrs. Wilson didn’t see Phoebe at first. But when she suddenly looked up, she gasped and dropped the sheet she was holding.

  “I’m sorry,” Phoebe said, hurrying forward to pick it up. “I wasn’t trying to sneak up on you, Mrs. Wilson. My name’s Phoebe Bigelow, and I came—”

  “Phoebe…” she repeated, studying her. “Oh, yes. You’re Ted’s friend …Ike.”

  “H-how did you know?”

  She pointed to his knapsack, her eyes filling with tears. “You brought his things home. Ted told me you would come.”

  “He did?”

  “I still have the letter that one of the nurses wrote for him. It was his last one.”

  Phoebe swallowed the lump of grief that stuck in her throat. Julia must have written it for him. That was why he’d asked Julia to come that last day—that terrible last day.

  “You must come inside,” Mrs. Wilson said, reaching to take Phoebe’s arm. “I’ll make tea. We have so much to talk about.”

  Phoebe stayed the night. She slept in Ted’s old bed, even though it was so short her feet hung off the bottom edge. His mother hadn’t changed anything in his room since the day he left it three years ago. The next day Mrs. Wilson took P
hoebe to the cemetery and showed her Ted’s grave beside his father’s.

  “Please stay, just a little longer,” she begged every time Phoebe mentioned that it was time for her to go. And so she stayed, allowing her grief to heal as she shared her sorrow with Ted’s mother.

  One week turned into two, then three. The presidential election was held in November, and the two women celebrated when they learned that President Lincoln had defeated the other candidate, General George McClellan. “Ted thought the world of General McClellan at first,” Phoebe said, remembering. “But he got pretty disgusted with him after he hightailed it off of the Peninsula without a decent fight. Ted would have voted for Mr. Lincoln for sure because he promised to free all the slaves.”

  Phoebe was still living with Ted’s mother when the news came that General Sherman had burned the city of Atlanta. She was there at the end of November when President Lincoln proclaimed a National Day of Thanksgiving. Mrs. Wilson prepared a chicken dinner for the two of them, teaching Phoebe how to make cornbread stuffing and apple pie. Together they read in the newspapers how Union cooks had served more than one hundred thousand Thanksgiving dinners to Grant’s army in the trenches at Petersburg. And together the women followed the progress of Sherman’s march to the sea and read how he’d presented the city of Savannah, Georgia, to President Lincoln as a Christmas present.

  On January 31, 1865, Congress passed the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery. Phoebe and Ma Wilson wept and hugged and wept some more. “Ted told me your story, Ma,” Phoebe said. “It was his dream to find that plantation where you used to live and bring his grandmother home to you after the war.”

  Ma passed the long winter nights teaching Phoebe how to sew and knit, and telling stories of everything she remembered about her childhood as a slave. She had become the mother Phoebe had never known. As the two women read about the path of destruction General Sherman left across Georgia and South Carolina, Phoebe wondered what would become of the thousands and thousands of former slaves who’d been left homeless and hungry.