The Velvet Shadow

by Angela Elwell Hunt

  “I will.” Lost in the dark power of his gaze, Charity whispered the words. “But I can’t just yet, Beau. I’ve got to know—”

  “What?” His silky voice held a challenge.

  “I’ve got to know if you really mean it.”

  His hand tightened upon her waist, and for one dizzying minute Charity thought he could snap her in half if he wanted to. Beau was stronger than any man she’d ever known, snake-muscled from long hours on the plantation from which he’d escaped. He worked now for Colonel Farnham, but he’d assured Charity that he’d leave everything and take her away from the army if she’d just agree to go.

  “I don’t lie, woman. I said I’d marry you, and I will, as soon as you want. But you gots to come away from this place first. Don’t neither of us belong in the middle of a war.”

  “Oh, Beau.” Charity threw her arms around those massive shoulders and clung tightly for a moment, closing her eyes against her fears. She’d been meeting Beau for weeks now, amazed at his persistence and his gentle courtship, but even the most patient men had a limit to their endurance.

  “Beau, it’s not that I don’t love you—I do. It’s just that I can’t leave Miss Flanna now. She’s still far from home, and she’s not as strong as she thinks she is.”

  “Charity.” Beau’s wide hand cradled her head against his chest. “Girl, when are you gonna break free? I’s ready to go—you just say the word.”

  Charity lifted her head and met his gaze. “I’ve got to give her a little more time, Beau. Mister Alden knows her secret, so it won’t be long now. If I can just get her closer to home, I’ll feel better about leavin’.”

  Beau sighed in frustration, but his arms drew her closer. “You say the word, honey, and we’re gonna go. You just let me know when.”

  Secure in the strength of his embrace, Charity nodded.

  The next afternoon, after Sunday services, Flanna thanked the drummer boy who’d been sent to fetch her, then stepped inside Alden’s tent.

  His eyes snapped at the sight of her, but then he turned and abruptly gestured toward a soldier sitting with his back to Flanna.

  “Private O’Connor.” Alden’s voice sounded stilted and unnatural. “There is someone here to see you.”

  She closed her eyes, knowing without being told that Roger sat in the chair before her. She heard a creaking sound as he turned, then the sharp intake of his breath: “By all that’s holy, Flanna! What have you done?”

  “Hello, Roger.” She opened her eyes and forced a smile. “It is good to see you.”

  “Flanna!” She felt a small, fierce surge of satisfaction under her annoyance as his eyes bulged and his face went white. Apparently the diplomatic politician was not completely unflappable.

  She looked at Alden. “I thought you’d tell him.

  “Alden gave her a bland smile. “I did.”

  Roger leaned forward, his hands moving in wide, meaningless circles. “Of course he told me, but I never dreamed—I mean I couldn’t imagine—” He peered at her, his eyes narrowing. “Sakes alive! You’ve cut off all your hair!”

  “It was necessary,” Flanna said, running her hand over her bare neck. Recoiling from Roger’s hot eyes, she looked at Alden and tried on a smile that felt a size too small. “I’m glad you sent for me. I have something to tell you.”

  “And we have something for you.” Gesturing broadly with his right arm, Alden indicated two large boxes on his desk.

  “Those are for me?” she asked, perplexed.

  “Yes.” Roger rose from his chair and scooped the first box into his arms, then bowed and offered it to Flanna. “My dear, I know you must have a very good reason for this charade, but I am happy to tell you that it is finished. Please.” He waited until she took the box, then thrust his hands behind his back and grinned in pleasure. “Open it. I picked out the fabric just for you.”

  “Oh dear.” Suspecting what lay uppermost in both brothers’ minds, Flanna returned the box to the desk and lifted the lid. Beneath a layer of delicate tissue paper she found a showy velvet gown, complete with silk flowers at the bodice and lace at the hem. She took it from the box, straining to lift the yards and yards of heavy fabric, and discovered a corset, pantalets, chemise, and steel-banded hoop skirt at the bottom of the box.

  She looked at Alden and arched her brow. “Has Mrs. Lincoln invited me for tea?”

  Alden’s mouth twitched with amusement as Roger leapt to the extravagant gown’s defense. “Flanna, darling, it will suit you so well! You are a beautiful woman, and you should dress like one. When you walk through the camp in this, every man will smile at you. Even the general will be impressed.”

  “Impressed by you.” Flanna dropped the gown back into the box. “Roger, dear, I have no intention of wearing such a gaudy gown, not here, and not anytime soon.”

  “Flanna.” Roger stepped forward and pressed his hands to her shoulders. “Darling, you’ve been through a very difficult experience. I wish you had confided in me, but we’ll talk about those regrets another day. Right now it is in my power to help you. You will be my wife as soon as we’re finished here, and it’s time you began to act like the lady you are. Take the dress, and let Alden escort you to the tent he’s prepared. As soon as he can arrange for your transfer to Port Royal, he will. But until then let me behold the lovely Flanna I adore!”

  Flanna stared past Roger to Alden, but he wasn’t watching her. He was staring instead at the second box, the customary expression of good humor missing from the curve of his mouth.

  “Alden,” Flanna pleaded, “help me!”

  He shot her a half-embarrassed look as he tapped on the lid of the other box. “This might be better,” he said, his voice sounding tired.

  Sighing in exasperation, she opened the second box. It contained another dress, but a far more suitable one of sturdy cotton fabric. The full pleated skirt could be worn without a stiffening hoop, and the material was green plaid. Her favorite color.

  “It is better,” she said softly, not wanting to hurt either man’s feelings. What did men know of women’s things? “When the time comes to leave, I’ll wear the green dress and take the red gown with me. And I thank you both for your concern.”

  “What do you mean, when the time comes?” Roger wore a prim and forbidding expression. “Flanna, we had these dresses prepared so you can wear them now. Alden has a tent set up—”

  “So you’ve said.” Flanna threw up her hands, not knowing how to explain. “Gentlemen, I appreciate all you’ve done for me, I really do. But I am quite comfortable with my messmates, and they are at ease with me.”

  “What are you saying?” Roger asked, each word a splinter of ice.

  Flanna squared her shoulders. “I want to stay with my company until I’m allowed to go south. Then I’ll go quietly, but I don’t want to walk around this camp as a woman. My messmates will be embarrassed to think they’ve spoken their thoughts so freely.”

  “They’ll be embarrassed?” Roger’s face went pale, with a deep red patch over his angular cheekbones, as though she had slapped him hard on both cheeks. “Flanna, who cares about those men? I care about you and the reputation you are so thoughtlessly trashing!”

  Flanna swallowed hard and tried not to reveal her rising anger. “I care about those men,” she said, nearly choking on her own words. “And I assure you that Flanna O’Connor’s reputation is quite safe. But what does one girl’s reputation matter now? When men are dying, Roger, when drunken doctors are cutting off the legs of young boys, and hundreds are dying of typhoid, who cares anything about a reputation?”

  “I care.” Roger spoke in a low voice, taut with anger. “And when this war is over, things will return to the way they were. I’ll still be running for office, and you’ll still be my fiancée. And then you will care very much, Flanna. And you’ll be sorry that you did not heed my words.”

  “But the war is not over.” Her heart hammered; her breathing came in ragged gulps. “And until I can leave this cam
p, until the day I can climb into a buggy and know that I am on my way home, I will remain with my men. They trust me—and I trust them.”

  Roger did not answer. He stood there, tall and angry, as defiance poured hotly from his dark eyes. “Till the war is over then,” he said, his voice inflamed and belligerent. “I’ll come for you in Charleston. But do not expect me to see you, talk with you, or provide for you as long as you insist upon this ridiculous denial of everything you ought to be.”

  Flanna drew a long, quivering breath, mastering the passion that shook her. “I expect nothing from you.”

  Roger chuckled with a dry and cynical sound, then turned to his brother. “So, Alden,”—he took his hat from the stand where he had tossed it—“I leave her in your hands. Please arrange that transport as quickly as possible.”

  “I’ll try.”

  With one last reproachful look, Roger fitted his cap to his head, saluted his brother, and stomped out of the tent.

  Flanna sagged in relief. She had expected him to be displeased, but she had not imagined he would be so angry. She had never seen anything but a smiling, carefree Roger. He was a charmer and persuader, not really the type to lose his temper…

  Aware that Alden watched her, she dropped her lashes to hide the hurt in her eyes.

  “He sets a great store by you,” Alden said, his own voice thick and unsteady. “He’s only concerned for your well-being.”

  She bit back tears of disappointment. “He doesn’t even know me. Not anymore.”

  Alden cleared his throat, probably about to make some other attempt at casual conversation, but Flanna held up her hand. “I’ll be going now,” she said, rigidly holding her tears in check. “I’ll come for the dresses when you tell me it’s time to go. Until then, you know where to find me.”

  “That I do,” Alden said. She didn’t wait for a formal leave-taking, but hurried out the door, hoping to find a place where she could shed her tears in private.

  Twenty-One

  Wednesday, January 1, 1862

  Happy New Year’s to you, Father, and you, Wesley, wherever yow are! I am sad to think that I will not spend this day with you, but with every day that pastes, I console myself with the thought that I am one day closer to seeing yow again.

  There have been bright spots in this dreary winter. First was the news, gleaned from an old newspaper, that there were no South Carolina regiments upon the ridge at Ball’s Bluff. We shot at men of several Mississippi regiments, along with men of the Virginia cavalry. The Confederate losses were 33 killed, 115 wounded, and one missing. Our losses were 49 killed, 158 wounded, and 714 captured.

  We were delighted to hear that the Rebs captured our messmates Philip Hart and Freddie Smith. We may soon welcome them again if the Confederates agree to an exchange of prisoners! (I wonder if Freddie has grown accustomed to dirt—I hear the prison camps are uncommonly harsh and cruel.)

  I find that I am starving for reports of the outside world. From England comes the news that Prince Albert is dead. His wife, Queen Victoria, claimed to have been the happiest wife in England. (will I ever make a happy wife? The likelihood seems dimmer with each passing day.)

  The newspaper reports that a fire burned Charleston before Christmas. The city has burned at least twice before, and I can only hope and pray that my family was spared great loss. At the conclusion of the report in the New York Tribune, Horace Greeley wrote, “South Carolina is the meanest and the vainest state in the Union and nobody will feel any compunction at laying it waste.” Interesting that he does not acknowledge that my state has already counted itself out of the Union.

  The news about Charleston would have put me in the lowest of spirits, except for one surprise—Major Alden Haynes appeared outside our tent last night. In a brief bit of ceremony he presented me with a medical bag completely furnished with scalpels, sutures, bandages, and an assortment of common dosing powdery. I was moved beyond words, but my messmates made up for my silence, pounding the major on the back and assuring him that he was a capital fellow. I think poor Alden was embarrassed, but he could not Speak freely, of course. When the commotion died down, he told me that he had arranged for me to visit the Alexandria Hospital several afternoons a week. He said nothing more, but from his apologetic manner I intuited his meaning. I believe he feels sorry that it has taken so long to arrange a way for me to go to Port Royal, and so he intends to occupy my time with medical matters until I am able to go.

  I was pleased. And so the new year begins the way last year ended—with a dark cloud, Sprinkling of hope, and an earnest prayer.

  Weeks passed. Flanna knew Alden was trying his best to arrange her transport to Port Royal, but the wheels of war and Washington turned slowly. In mid-January he told her that General McClellan insisted that the area around the Sea Islands was yet too unsettled for civilians. Over ten thousand slaves had been abandoned when their owners fled during the Port Royal bombardment, and these “contrabands,” not legally free and yet not enslaved, were in dire need of management. Alden had heard talk of a ship intended to aid these South Carolina blacks, but the ship would not sail until late March or early April.

  Flanna swallowed her disappointment as well as she could. In the interim, she was delighted when Alden arranged for Franklin O’Connor to serve as an escort for soldiers traveling to and from the Alexandria Hospital. Many of the wounded from Bull Run and Ball’s Bluff still convalesced there, along with soldiers who fell sick in camp. After riding in the wagon with the sick, Flanna wandered through the hospital wards, watching, listening, and learning. She dared not speak her mind at the hospital for fear of revealing too much about herself, but she enjoyed indulging her medical curiosity far away from Dr. Gluick’s gimlet glance.

  Located in an old seminary, the Alexandria Hospital was an irregular structure badly adapted to hospital purposes. Its abrupt halls and cramped stairways were damp and drafty, its wards too small for comfort. An unhealthy odor pervaded the building even on brisk, breezy days.

  Though she enjoyed her visits, Flanna shuddered every time she crossed the hospital threshold. One afternoon she discovered the cause of the vile odors—a heap of filthy trash had been allowed to accumulate in the cellar. Because there were no indoor water closets or baths, nurses had to carry chamber pots to a dumping place. At some time in the recent past, someone had decided it was far easier to dump chamber pots in the cellar than to properly dispose of the waste.

  Fortunately, Flanna had been in the army long enough to know how the system worked. On her next visit, she tacked a stern sign to the cellar door. The next nurse to come by with a chamber pot paused at the top of the stairs to read it. “No dumping by order of Colonel Sacks?” She frowned and looked at Flanna, who loitered in the hallway. “Who is Colonel Sacks?”

  “A very terrible, awful man.” Flanna pretended to shudder. “All chamber pots must be dumped in the ditch outside, or he’ll have even the nurses out digging trenches. The colonel is awfully fond of trenches.”

  The woman took one look at Flanna’s callused palms, then moved to the door that led out into the yard. “I’ll not dig, not even for Old Abe himself,” she muttered, her voice echoing off the damp stone walls. “No sir, I’ll walk to Richmond and dump these blasted pots on Jeff Davis’s head before I’ll pick up a shovel.”

  And so Colonel Sacks was born. Flanna left his threats on dirty equipment trays, next to untidy bandages, and tacked to the walls above unwashed floors. She left other notes hinting that the colonel might drop in for a surprise inspection, and gradually conditions at the Alexandria Hospital began to improve.

  Unfortunately, Colonel Sacks could not intimidate the hospital visitors. Though there were several dedicated lay-nurses whom Flanna admired, the majority of visitors to the hospital made her writhe in shame. There were two types: the pious and the flashy. The pious folk walked slowly and solemnly up and down the wards, casting horrified glances at the patients. After intense whispered consultations with the surgeons, these men
and women offered to pray for the soldiers’ souls. After doing so, they swiftly retired without smiling upon a single soldier or bestowing a word of comfort or cheer. The pious women were far worse than the men, for they went gawking through the wards as if they’d never seen a man before, peeping into every curtained couch and venting their pent-up feelings in outbursts of “Oh, Lord have mercy!” and “Look, dear, how terrible war is!” One such pair of women—they always seemed to hunt in pairs—paused near the doorway of one ward and clasped their dainty hankies to their noses, exclaiming, “Heavens, what a smell! Worse than fried onions!”

  The flashy visitors—young men who ought to be in the army—were no less annoying. These young dandies, usually accompanied by wasp-waisted, almond-eyed, cherry-lipped damsels, behaved as tourists. They moved throughout the hospital like summer shadows, leaving no trace of their goodwill behind but a lingering scent of perfume and a slightly sickened expression on the patients’ faces.

  When Rufus Crydenwise was sent to the hospital for an infected toe, Flanna sat by his bedside for two days, watching in horror as doctors in blood-stained coats prodded his foot and debated whether or not he’d find it difficult to march with a toe missing. One surgeon moistened his finger with saliva, then dabbed the toe with spit, declaring that it merely needed a tobacco poultice.

  Flanna waited until after the “experts” moved away, then she fetched a bottle of alcohol and a basin of clean water. “I’m not going to let them take your toe off,” she assured Rufus as she washed the swollen digit with alcohol and water. “They’ll have to get through me to take it, and though I’m not the biggest fellow in the company, I may be the most stubborn.”

  Rufus grinned at her, wincing as she dabbed at the swollen area.

  Flanna offered a weak smile as she shrugged. “Sorry.”