“And I you,” said Lizzie, taking her hands and smiling back.
“My goodness, you’re half-frozen,” Charlotte exclaimed. She linked her arm through Lizzie’s and escorted her to the cottage. “Come warm yourself.”
“Oh, I’m fine. The walk kept me warm. How is my brother?”
“He is well.” Charlotte hesitated. “You’ve come just in time. He hopes to set out tomorrow night.”
“So soon?”
“We told him he’s welcome to stay here as long as he likes, but the rebel patrols pass by too often these days, and he says he can’t endanger us any longer. I think it’s far riskier for him to take to the road. Maybe you can persuade him to delay.”
“I won’t even try, because I agree with him. Every day he spends beneath your roof puts you at risk.” Lizzie paused at the door of the cottage and lifted the towel she had draped over the basket to keep out the snow flurries. “I brought some bread and cheese and apples, and Caroline made some little cakes for the children. It’s not much, but I had to walk since our carriage is well known, and this was all I could fit in the basket.” The dress she planned to wear the next day took up room in her basket too, but she’d had to bring it, since couldn’t wear her disguise home lest she give herself away.
Charlotte’s face lit up as she peered into the basket. “Thank you. What a welcome addition to our supper this will be. You’re too generous.”
“Me? Nonsense. This little basket can’t even begin to repay you and Mr. Hawkins for your bravery and kindness in offering my beloved brother a safe haven.” She decided not to mention that Peter would be bringing the wagon in the morning with more supplies; let it be a delightful surprise. “I don’t know what we would have done without you.”
“We Unionists have to look out for one another,” Charlotte said stoutly as she led Lizzie indoors.
They stepped into a front room that ran the length of the cottage, a cookstove and table at one end, a fireplace with two chairs drawn up to it at the other. A braided rag rug lay on the floor, and on the back wall Lizzie spied a doorway leading to a bedroom. The cottage smelled of woodsmoke, wet wool, and frying lard—a humble, homey smell.
As soon as they crossed the threshold, John bounded out of the back room and swooped Lizzie up in a hug. “John, your shoulder,” Lizzie exclaimed, laughing as she flung her arms around him.
Charlotte immediately set about preparing dinner, and over her protests Lizzie tied on an apron and joined in. While they worked, John queried Lizzie about Annie and little Eliza, his expression sad and full of longing. “You’ll see them again soon,” Lizzie promised cheerfully, although she had no way of knowing whether this was true and did not really believe it herself.
Supper was a simple but nourishing affair, and the children were sweet and charming, their parents kind and sympathetic. When the children finished eating and ran off to do their evening chores, the adults lingered at the table and spoke in hushed voices of the progress of the war and the recent activities of the underground, instinctively glancing at the windows for eavesdroppers from time to time, although the dogs would have barked a furious alarm had any strangers trespassed upon their secluded land.
Night fell. Charlotte tucked the children into bed in an upstairs room, while Jeb and John shared the room beside it, and Charlotte and Lizzie settled into the back room below. The sheets were freshly washed and smelled of the winter air, and someone had arranged a pretty bouquet of dried wildflowers in a glass at Lizzie’s bedside. The Hawkins’ courteous attention touched her deeply, and she felt anew the urgency for John to be on his way. It would go very badly for the family if they were discovered sheltering a deserter.
Lizzie lay down, pulled the pretty patchwork quilt up to her chin, and bade Charlotte good night. She expected Charlotte to climb in beside her, but instead she settled into a rocking chair in the corner. “Do you mind if I read a bit before turning in?” she asked, taking a worn black leather-bound Bible from a little shelf on the wall. “Or will the lamp keep you up?”
“Of course not. Read as long as you like. I’m so tired I won’t even notice the light.”
Charlotte thanked her and dimmed the lamp slightly. Lizzie rolled over onto her other side to put her back to the light and closed her eyes, wishing she could close her ears too. She was used to the noise of the city—horses’ hooves and church bells and carriage wheels on cobblestones—but on the farm the silence was somehow deafening. In any other season, insects would have been raising a terrible racket, but all Lizzie heard as she drifted off to sleep was the wind buffeting the walls, the rattle of a loose shutter, the runners of Charlotte’s chair softly creaking on the floorboards, and something else, a strange puffing, and there was an odd odor too, something familiar yet acrid—
Blinking, Lizzie propped herself up on her elbows and glanced about, only to find Charlotte rocking gently, studying a page in her Bible, and puffing on a long-stemmed pipe. “Charlotte,” Lizzie blurted. “Are you smoking?”
Charlotte looked abashed. “Oh, I know. Tobacco’s a terrible extravagance if you don’t grow it yourself, but in my defense I didn’t buy it. A neighbor traded it to me for some eggs.”
“Oh,” said Lizzie for lack of anything else to say. Her astonishment had nothing to do with the expense.
Charlotte held out the pipe. “Would you like a puff?”
“Absolutely not,” Lizzie declared, but then she hesitated. “Are you truly fond of it? It smells so—so dreadful, I beg your pardon but it’s true.”
Charlotte smiled and settled back into her chair. “You get used to it.” She studied her pipe, rueful, before putting the stem between her teeth again. “It’s better that you don’t try it. You might decide that you like it very much, and tobacco’s too hard to come by these days.”
“Then I shall endeavor to resist temptation,” Lizzie said, lying down again and closing her eyes.
She tried to sleep, but her astonishment as well as the lingering smell of tobacco smoke and the peculiarities of the unfamiliar room kept her awake long after Charlotte finally put away her pipe, doused the lamp, and came to bed. Although Lizzie eventually did drift off, she was startled awake several times by anxious dreams and a strange presentiment of danger. When dawn finally broke, she felt tired and drawn, and her head ached, although at breakfast she smiled and assured her hosts that she had passed the night in peaceful slumber.
Not long after she and Charlotte had tidied the kitchen and she was preparing herself for a sorrowful parting from her brother, she heard a wagon rumbling up the slope to the cottage. “Peter has come,” she said, brightening somewhat as she rose from her chair, threw on her shawl, and went to meet him. The Hawkins’s enjoyment of their gifts would fend off her sadness for a little while.
She called for the children to follow her outside to help bring in the food and other supplies they had obtained for John’s hosts—a peck of rice and another of cornmeal, dried apples, a ham, and a few other delicacies, including silver dollars and good Union greenbacks, which were becoming more valuable day by day as the overprinting of Confederate bills weakened the local currency. In all the bustle of the children jumping up and down and racing into the house with the packages and Charlotte’s tearful joy and Jeb’s astonished, stammered thanks, Lizzie did not at first notice that Peter had said very little since his arrival, but as the Hawkins family returned inside, the clamor died down and she became aware of his strange reserve.
“Why don’t you come inside and warm yourself?” she suggested. “I have to say good-bye to my brother, and then we can depart.” She studied his face. “Something’s wrong, I can see it. Is Mother ill, or the girls?”
“No, Miss Lizzie.” Peter lowered his voice, glanced over his shoulder, and drew nearer. She was struck suddenly by the familiarity of his movements, a wary dance they all performed before confiding secrets. “The mass esca
pe from Libby Prison you and Missus been expecting—it was last night.”
Lizzie’s heart thumped, and for a moment she couldn’t breathe. “Last night?” she echoed. “What—how many? What’s happening now?” She took a deep breath and pressed a hand to her heart to steady it, dismayed to think that when she could have been most useful to the prisoners, she had been miles away. “I imagine search parties are scouring every corner of the city.”
“Yes, miss, they are.” Peter hesitated. “I don’t know how many men made it out all told, but it was a lot.”
“No, I don’t suppose you would know precisely. They were instructed to disperse among numerous safe houses, so they wouldn’t all have come to us.” Light-headed, she groped for the wagon and leaned back against its sturdy side. “How many are there at home? Did we have cots enough? Food?”
“Well, Miss Lizzie...” Peter grimaced, took a deep breath, and quickly plunged ahead. “There aren’t any prisoners staying with us.”
Lizzie stared at him, uncomprehending. “Why on earth not?”
“You see, Miss Lizzie, there were some who came to the house, and knocked on the door, but William—well, all of us, not just him—we’d heard about the escape, and we feared that your enemies might see this as a good chance to catch you in the act of helping Yankees, and so they might send their own people to you pretending to be runaway prisoners....”
“Do you mean to say,” Lizzie said distinctly, disbelieving, “that last night, desperate prisoners came to our house, and knocked upon our front door, and were turned away?”
Bleakly, Peter nodded, but then he quickly shook his head. “They didn’t knock upon the front door. They knocked on the door to the servants’ quarters and asked for Colonel Streight.”
“I know of him,” said Lizzie. Colonel Abel Streight and nearly one hundred of his officers had been captured in May of 1863 during an extended raid through Georgia and Alabama. The rebels feared and reviled him more than any other inmate, for he had been accused of intimidating Confederate civilians and destroying their property. The guards at Libby hated him for his impudence and frank defiance of their threats, but those same qualities had earned him the admiration of every other officer in the prison.
“Colonel Streight escaped through the tunnel too, and I guess they thought he would come to you. They begged us to let them in, but William spotted other men across the street by Saint John’s Church watching us from the shadows. It was too suspicious, Miss Lizzie. We had to send them away.”
Distressed, Lizzie pressed the back of her hand to her forehead. “I should have been there.” Of all the nights for her to go away, of all the nights for the prisoners to make a mass escape— “I should have been there to help.” But she had not been, and lamenting and moaning would not change that. She pushed herself away from the wagon, straightened, and looked steadily up at Peter. “You and your brother made the prudent choice. I’m grateful that you thought first of protecting the family. Those men very well could have been rebel agents sent to entrap us. They’ve tried before.”
“Yes, Miss Lizzie. My brother and I were mindful of that.”
“Now we must get back to see what assistance we can yet offer. I’ll say good-bye to John, and then we’ll go.” She spun around to hurry back into the cottage, but suddenly she stopped short, her heart plummeting. In the wake of the escape, pickets would be doubled at every bridge and crossroads. Patrols would be out in full force, searching the city and countryside for miles around for the escaped prisoners—or anyone else trying to elude the Confederacy.
Lizzie steeled herself and went inside to tell John.
His expression turned grave as she explained what had transpired in Richmond the night before. “Vigilance will be heightened a hundredfold,” he said, dropping heavily into a chair. “They’ll double or triple the patrols. I cannot hope to cross to Union lines now.”
“No,” said Lizzie. “No. It would be far too dangerous. It would be impossible.”
Charlotte clutched her husband’s arm and they exchanged a look of anxious resolve. “We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again,” said Jeb stoutly. “You can stay here as long as you need. Till the end of the war if need be.”
“I think you would grow weary of my company long before that.” John stroked his beard absently, and for the first time Lizzie noticed that the black hairs were finely threaded with silver. “Perhaps I should report for duty after all, and resolve to be a very poor soldier.”
“No,” said Lizzie firmly. “I commend you for your refusal to fire upon Union soldiers, but I assure you, they won’t repay the compliment. They’ll see only the color of your uniform and turn their guns upon you. And if you don’t first get shot by a Yankee, sooner or later your comrades will notice your reluctance to attack. They’ll accuse you of cowardice or worse, and you’ll end up being executed for treason or desertion.”
“I’d prefer to avoid that if I can,” said John, sighing.
“We’ll think of something else. I will not have you marching off to war against the Union.” Lizzie turned to Jeb and Charlotte. “Please accept my apologies, but my brother will need to impose upon your hospitality a little while longer.”
Desperate situations sometimes required despicable remedies, so after bidding her brother and the Hawkins family good-bye, Lizzie had Peter drive her straight to General Winder’s office without pausing at home to tell her mother how John’s escape plans had been thwarted. She wrapped the heavy shawl around herself to ward off the cold as they raced back to Richmond, the wagon bouncing and jostling until her head ached. Along the way they passed Confederate soldiers on horseback and on foot, determinedly searching for the fugitives in even greater numbers than she had feared. When they reached the pickets, Lizzie queried them about the prison break, but the soldiers knew only that more than one hundred Yankees had escaped and about a dozen had already been recaptured. As they continued on their way, Lizzie could not help but wonder whether that count would be lower had she been home to receive the fugitives who had sought refuge there.
When she arrived at General Winder’s office, she found his clerks bustling frantically as they dealt with the bureaucratic nightmare of the aftermath of a massive security failure. Although the outer office was full of officers, civilians, and newspapermen demanding an audience with the general, Lizzie was waved right through, perhaps because his secretary realized that of all his visitors, she was the least likely to rail at him.
General Winder received her kindly, but his face was haggard, and he looked as if he had not slept in days. “Well, Miss Van Lew,” he said wearily, dropping heavily into his chair after courteously rising when she entered and waiting for her to sit. “Have you come to confess your role in this great humiliation?”
“No, General, certainly not,” said Lizzie with genuine shock. “Surely you don’t think I had any hand in this. You sound like my dreadful neighbors.”
“No, no, of course not.” He rested his elbows on the desk, closed his eyes, and rubbed his temples.
“General Winder—” She paused, steeled herself, and continued. “The truth is I was not even in Richmond last night.”
“No?” he replied vaguely, his eyes still closed.
“No, but I have returned to throw myself upon the mercy of your office.”
For a heartbeat he froze, and then he lowered his hands and peered at her, bemused. “What have you done, Miss Van Lew?”
“It is not I but my brother who has made a mistake.” She inhaled shakily. “A few years ago, he suffered a broken collarbone, which failed to heal properly because of all the lifting of boxes and equipment he is obliged to do every day at our hardware store. He cannot raise his left arm above his shoulder without pain, and for this reason he was entitled to a medical deferment from the draft.”
“I see,” said the general, expressionless.
&nb
sp; “Not long ago, although his condition is in no way improved, his deferment was revoked. He was drafted and ordered to report to duty, but since he knew that to march to battle in his condition, unable to defend himself, would amount to suicide—” Lizzie dropped her gaze and waved a hand helplessly. “He deserted. I know that was wrong of him—”
“Yes, very wrong.”
“And he realized that the moment he ran off, but he didn’t know what to do. If he turned up at Camp Lee with no explanation for his delay, he could be thrown into Castle Thunder or shot or worse.”
“And so your brother sends you, his emissary, to plead his case.”
“Yes—well, no. This was entirely my idea.” Lizzie clasped her hands in her lap, her fingers like ice. “He doesn’t know that I’m here.”
“He’s fortunate to have such a devoted sister.”
Lizzie managed a wan smile. “He didn’t think so when we were very young, but through the years I think he has come to appreciate me better.”
General Winder sat back in his chair, studying her. “Tell me one thing, Miss Van Lew,” he said. “When your brother told you he intended to run off, did you discourage him?”
For a moment Lizzie wavered, but she was too exhausted and worried to invent a plausible lie. “I did not,” she admitted. “I was frightened and thought only of his safety.”
A grim, satisfied smile appeared on the general’s face. “I suspected as much, but since you were brave enough to tell me the truth, I will help you.”
Lizzie gasped and clasped her hands to her heart. “Oh, sir, would you?”
“Your brother should not have deserted,” General Winder reminded her, tapping his desk with a forefinger for emphasis, “but bring him to me tomorrow morning, and I will do what I can for him.”
Lizzie thanked him profusely and hastily departed before he could entertain second thoughts. From there she went immediately to McNiven’s Bakery, where she arranged for Mr. McNiven to smuggle John back into the city in the delivery wagon. When John arrived home after nightfall, his daughters greeted him with great delight, smothering him in hugs and kisses while his mother and sister looked on, smiling but apprehensive for what the next day might bring.
The Spymistress Page 29
