The Velvet Shadow

by Angela Elwell Hunt

  “Then perhaps she can recall what happened in Washington only three years ago.” Flanna shifted her gaze from Roger back to his mother. “Do you remember the momentous Supreme Court decision Dred Scott v. Sandford? President Buchanan claimed that the court would settle the issue of slavery once and for all, and the court ruled that no black man, free or slave, is a U.S. citizen and therefore has no rights under the law.”

  Flanna inclined her head in an exaggerated gesture of respect. “When it comes down to facts, Mrs. Haynes, slavery is a choice the law allows us to make. Is that not one of our precious American liberties, the freedom of choice? Any man may choose whether or not he wants to own slaves. And this same freedom of choice has allowed my countrymen, as you call them, to withdraw from a union that no longer represents their interests. In 1776 thirteen states came together to protect each other; now South Carolina wishes to withdraw and protect itself. Would you forbid my family and statesmen the liberty to choose for themselves?”

  “My very dear Miss O’Connor.” Roger’s hoarse voice held a note halfway between disbelief and pleading. “Will you join me for a walk in the garden? I daresay this waiting has grown tedious for you, and Mother’s garden is the toast of Boston.”

  Flanna hesitated, then caught the gleam of desperation in Roger’s eye. Belatedly remembering her manners, she lowered her head in assent, then gathered her skirts and allowed him to help her to her feet.

  As soon as they passed the parlor doorway, he bent to whisper in Flanna’s ear. “I don’t blame you for feeling edgy after hearing that confounded song three times in a row, but raising an argument at Christmas is a bit much, don’t you think? I thought we agreed we would not discuss politics today.”

  Flanna pasted on a polite smile as a servant stepped out of a hallway, then held her tongue until they had stepped out into the garden. The winter wind nipped at her cheeks, but she scarcely noticed it, so fierce was her rising indignation.

  “Roger!” She whirled on him in an Old Testament mood, unwilling to turn the other cheek just yet. “I will not allow your mother to deposit this entire issue at my feet. I don’t know what she thinks my people are, but we are not barbarians! If the truth be told, the politicians in Washington have done more to stir up this present unpleasantness than any slaveholder I know!”

  “But must you sharpen your tongue on my mother’s ears?”

  He reached out, and she shivered as his hands fell upon her arms. He’d been in such a hurry to escort her from the parlor that he’d neglected to bring her mantle. His eyes softened when he saw her tremble.

  “How thoughtless of me,” he said, releasing her. He began to slip out of his own coat. “You must be freezing.”

  “Roger, don’t be foolish, you can’t let the servants see you half-dressed. Don’t give them something else to gossip about.” Rubbing her hands over her thin sleeves, she nodded toward the door. “I’ll be all right. Just go inside and fetch my mantle. This brisk wind is probably just the thing to cool my temper.”

  His tight expression relaxed into a smile. “Right you are. I’ll be back in a moment.”

  He stepped away, his long stride carrying him back into the house in three steps. Flanna rubbed her hands over her arms again, then moved into a patch of sunlight that stretched between the house and the garden wall. Roger’s suggestion of the garden was an obvious excuse to get her away from his mother, for the spindly rose canes and banked flower beds alongside the house were pitiful and bare. A weathered wooden bench sat in an alcove beneath the parlor window, but Flanna had no desire to sit in the chilly shade. Instead she walked briskly in the sunlight, hugging her arms as she attempted to balance the chilly temperature of her skin with the fiery resentment raging in her heart.

  At the north end of the garden a wrought-iron gate opened to the sidewalk at the front of the house. The clopping sounds of passing carriages enticed Flanna, and she moved toward the gate, wishing she could hail a hansom cab and retreat to the boardinghouse. But a lady did not run away from difficulties, and Flanna would not give any Yankee woman an excuse to criticize her manners.

  Shivering, she rubbed her hands together, then froze as the muffled sound of voices broke the garden’s winter stillness. Even through the closed glass and heavy parlor draperies she could hear Mrs. Haynes’s strident tones.

  “You have no right, Roger, to bring a secessionist woman into this house! Your father would turn in his grave if he knew a Rebel, one who would happily spit upon the Union flag, will sit at his Christmas dinner table!”

  “She is not a Rebel, Mother, and Flanna doesn’t spit. Now calm down; let’s discuss this. Where are your smelling salts?”

  “She is a slaver, if not in practice, then at heart. You heard her defend the practice! How do you know her people don’t beat their slaves? You will stand before God Almighty and be judged for this, son, but the Lord will know that I sought to turn you from this path.”

  “She is not a slaver, Mother; she is my guest. Would you like me to have Meagan play again? Does she know any other tunes?”

  Mrs. Haynes spoke again, but the words were too low for Flanna to hear. She shuddered, filled with humiliation at the thought that she had brought discord to this house on Christmas. Guilt flooded over her, and she turned toward the gate, ready to forfeit her reputation and walk home, but the sight of a uniformed officer on the sidewalk stopped her in midstep.

  He stood just beyond the gate, his blond hair gleaming in the winter sun, his gloved hand resting formally on the hilt of his sword. He wore a blue uniform of fine wool, with knee-high boots and a matching leather belt at his waist. Bright gold braids adorned his shoulders and complemented the braiding on his collar. A police officer?

  Flanna took it all in: the confident set of his shoulders, his firm features, the neatly clipped moustache, and his compelling blue eyes. She was surprised to see him smile at her. “Is there some trouble in the house?” he asked.

  Her mind whirled at the odd question. “I beg your pardon, sir?”

  His eyes raked over her, and Flanna pulled her thin, decorative shawl tightly about her in response to his gaze. “I am not accustomed to seeing elegantly attired young women loitering outside the house unless there is some trouble within—a fire, perhaps, or a raving lunatic.”

  He lifted a brow at this last comment, and Flanna realized he was teasing. She gave him a relieved smile. “Mrs. Haynes may be raving at the moment, but I wouldn’t call her a lunatic. She does seem opposed to my presence at Christmas dinner, however, so her son felt it advisable for me to step outside.”

  This answer seemed to amuse the handsome officer, for he thrust his hands behind his back and smiled. “I know Mrs. Haynes. And you are quite right, the lady is most opinionated, especially when it comes to the young ladies her son brings home. But I’ve never met a more righteously sane woman in my life.”

  “Oh?” Despite the sunlight’s warmth, Flanna shivered as a gust of wind blew upon her bare neck and shoulders. “Have you encountered her as you patrolled this neighborhood?”

  “Not exactly.” His blue eyes sparkled as they met hers. “Mrs. Haynes is my mother.”

  Flanna felt her cheeks blaze as though they’d been seared by a roaring fire, then the door behind her opened. “Flanna! My goodness, you must be freezing!”

  Too mortified to answer, she cringed in embarrassment as Roger approached and saw the man standing by the gate. “Alden!” Infectious joy rippled in his voice. “Brother, it is good to see you! Have you met Flanna?”

  Flanna nodded in mute greeting as Roger draped her mantle around her shoulders, then she stepped back as he opened the gate.

  “Flanna, I’d like you to meet my older brother, Major Alden Haynes, an instructor at West Point.” The grooves beside Roger’s mouth deepened into a full smile. “Alden, allow me to introduce Miss Flanna O’Connor of Charleston.”

  “We’ve met, though not formally,” Alden answered. He grinned at Flanna again, his eyes gleaming wickedl
y. “And since you have the liberty to use her first name, I assume this is the young woman you mentioned in your letters.”

  “The very same.”

  “Then, brother, you ought to return to school.” The bold look in Alden’s eye made her pulse skitter alarmingly. “Your words did not begin to describe this lady’s loveliness.”

  He bowed and lifted Flanna’s frozen hand to his lips, making the back of her neck tingle as his warm mouth brushed her skin. She knew she ought to say something witty and charming, but her addled brain could think of nothing more clever than, “I am very pleased to meet you, Major Haynes.”

  With a possessive smile, Roger took her hand from Alden, then linked it through his arm. “Come, Alden, and let Mother embrace you. She’s been frantic with worry that you’d be detained in New York.”

  “Then let me put her at ease,” Alden answered, politely standing aside as Roger and Flanna led the way. “I came as quickly as I could, leaving my trunk at the station. I’ll send a servant for it later, but first let me assure Mother that I am alive and well.”

  As they moved toward the house, Flanna kept her gaze lowered, acutely aware of Alden’s crunching footsteps on the frozen ground behind her. She did not dare look back at him. Simple humiliation and embarrassment undoubtedly accounted for her fluttering heart and damp palms. Once she had an opportunity to properly apologize, she might be able to look him in the eye again.

  Three

  December 26, 1860

  Dear papa,

  How dreary this Christmas seemed without you! Mrs. Haynes and her son Roger invited me to dine with them, but the experiences was not quite the Christmas I would have kept with you and Wesley. Boston folks seem intent upon makings the day a perfunctory celebration, not at all like the merrymakings we know from home. Boston public schools held clayey yesterday, and for a few hours the Haynes family feared the oldest son, Alden, would not arrive from West Point in time to join the family at dinner. He finally appeared, though, and brought much rejoicings to his mother’s heart.

  He is a singular fellow, though not much like Roger. In many ways the brothers are opposites. While Roger is witty and talkative, Alden tends to be quiet. He scarcely uttered more than a hundred wordy at dinner, but when he speaks, even the butler stops to listen. Alden seems to think that South Carolina’s secession will lead to-fighting, but deferred to my feelings and declined to discuss the subject when his mother pressed him.

  Flanna paused and tapped her pen against her chin, recalling the scene at the dinner table. Alden Haynes had been seated across from her but next to his mother, and when Mrs. Haynes asked when the army would move south to teach the Rebels a lesson, his eyes momentarily caught Flanna’s. A spark of some indefinable emotion—was it compassion?—filled his gaze, then he smiled and remarked that while there was certain to be a skirmish or two, he hoped matters could be settled without bloodshed. Roger had been quick to add that issues involving government should be settled in the halls of Congress, not on the battlefield. He had been about to launch into his favorite speech on the duty of a politician (a discourse Flanna had heard a dozen times before), but Alden lifted his hand and cut his younger brother off with a single determined gesture.

  “I joined the army in order to defend our country against her enemies.” Alden had spoken with quiet emphasis. “But I find it hard to think of men from South Carolina as my foes.” He gave Flanna a wavering smile. “I do hope you won’t fear my sword or my calling, Miss O’Connor. I would not harm you or your statesmen. My soul is wrapped up in my country, and I will do my duty just as my father did his in the Mexican War. But I have no wish to fight my brethren in South Carolina or any of the slaveholding states.”

  Mrs. Haynes’s face turned as red as a robin’s breast, and Flanna lowered her gaze to her plate, knowing a stream of accusations and challenges lay dammed behind the lady’s pinched lips. But Alden’s presence seemed to be a restraining influence, and for the first time Flanna had begun to relax within the Haynes house. Mrs. Haynes might wish to curse the secessionists and deport them all to Hades, but she’d hold her tongue as long as her beloved Alden remained in the room.

  But Alden Haynes was a soldier, stationed in a distant city. He would not be around to protect Flanna forever.

  Flanna sighed and dipped her pen in the inkwell.

  I fear, Papa, that I have come to a crossroads in my life. I have prayed for the Lord’s guidance and would beg for yours as well, though I know you will tell me that God gave me a brain for a purpose other thaw holding up my hat. But this is a puzzle I cannot reason out.

  I am fond of Roger, and—I must be honest—he has recently spoken to me of a future we might share. His mother cares nothing for me at this time, but I truly believe her dislike springs more from hatred for South Carolina than from any personal antipathy toward me. Indeed, Roger assures me that she supports female doctors and women’s rights, and she is lifted as a patron of the New England Females Medical College.

  Secession alone, then, has caused Mrs. Haynes to look upon me as a pariah. And while the people here are whispering of war (I know they are, though the girls at the boardinghouse are not so bold as to speak of it in my presence), I implore you and Wesley to do what you can to maintain peace in Charleston. I know the situation will never come to war, and in time all things shall pass. Soon slavery shall vanish from the earth, like all evils, and one day women and slaves shall have the same opportunities as free men.

  Did you know, Papa, that several Boston women have been discovered masquerading as men while working in the factories? Boston is a manufacturing city, and the newspapers frequently delight in exposing damsels who dress as men in order to earn men’s pay. It is beyond my comprehension to understand how a company can pay a man a dollar a day for operating a press whilst paying a woman only thirty five cents for the same duty. They say, of course, that men are responsible for the feeding and care of a family, while women are not. I suppose they speak truly, but what wages would they pay a widow who is the sole support of five children? One such woman, dressed as a man, was recently exposed and dismissed from employment.

  On the other hand, it is also beyond my comprehension to understand how a woman could willingly lay aside the particular graces of her sex, her gowns and hairnets and all the particular feminine distinctives to which we are accustomed. Such an act must be born of a desperation I have never known. God has been good to me, Papa.

  I suppose that when I am a doctor, I shall have to accustom myself to the notion of receiving half wages. I shall therefore have to find an able-bodied husband to support the absent half of my livelihoods I wonder if my patients would think it fair if I treated them only half as well, or completed only half a surgery…

  I am rambling too much, papa. How I miss the discussion we used to have about these things! Give my love to Wesley, and remember to wrap a strip of flannel around your throat if you develop a cough. Write when you have the time, and know that I am studying most devotedly. Charily is fine, and ready my textbooks nearly as well as I do. Pray for me during my exams, during which I shall endeavor to do you honor.

  I am, most ardently, your loving daughter.

  Flanna

  Flanna folded the letter, slid it into an envelope, and sealed it. She searched among her papers for a sheaf of stamps, then wondered if the letter would even reach her father. Now that South Carolina had declared itself independent from the United States, would the postal service deliver mail to Charleston?

  “I pray you will find your way home,” she whispered, pressing her lips to the heavy vellum. Then, turning around, she called Charity from her mending and asked her to post the envelope.

  Three days later, Flanna stood with Alden, Roger, and Mrs. Haynes outside the majestic brick house. Alden’s four-day pass was about to expire, and Roger had invited Flanna to his brother’s farewell luncheon. Flanna enjoyed the meal very much, for Mrs. Haynes’s attention was focused almost entirely upon her soldier son. She had lit
tle time or energy, it seemed, to fret about Flanna.

  Now Flanna shivered inside her elegant blue velvet mantle and leaned closer to the curving brick wall at the front of the house. She tapped her toes beneath the hem of her gown, hoping this public good-bye would not take long.

  Roger stood next to his mother on the front steps, his arm supporting her while she wept into a lace-trimmed handkerchief. Standing stiffly and rather awkwardly in front of the house, Alden Haynes nodded one final time at his brother.

  “Take care of her, Roger.” He turned the catch in his voice into a cough, then lifted his hand. “I may be back soon. Until then, farewell.”

  Mrs. Haynes burst into fresh weeping and burrowed her head into Roger’s chest. Patting her shoulder, Roger glanced helplessly at Alden, then mouthed a silent apology to Flanna.

  “Miss O’Connor.” Alden turned to her with a snap of his heels. “My brother has asked me to see you home. Since the train station is near your residence…”

  “Thank you very much,” Flanna answered, understanding Roger’s reasoning. He was doubtless eager to have Flanna away from his distraught mother, who might say anything once Alden had departed.

  Flanna stepped forward and corked her hands firmly into her muff, more than ready to leave the sorrowful scene. Alden saluted his brother, then picked up his bag, a gesture that evoked even louder weeping from Mrs. Haynes.

  “Shall we go?” Alden led Flanna away at a brisk pace, not slowing until they had left Louisburg Square. “I’m sorry you had to witness that,” he said, pausing at a street corner. He waited until a passing carriage had moved through the intersection, then looked down at Flanna. “Mother is not usually this emotional. But with all this talk of war—”

  “Major Haynes,” Flanna interrupted, giving him an understanding smile, “you do not need to explain. If our situations were reversed and my brother were going off to a military post, I think it highly unlikely that my father would be able to restrain his feelings.” She softened her tone. “He would not cry, I don’t think…but his heart would break, just the same.”