He made a derisive noise in the back of his throat. “Don’t reject it out of hand. If you can limp, it will give you a plausible backstory.”
“Sure I can limp, but I’d probably forget which leg was the bad one.”
“Put pebbles in your boot,” the father said. “You’ll have a fine limp, and you won’t forget.”
Elizabeth set her cup of tea on the table. “If anyone asks why you’re not with your unit, tell them you were recently wounded and sent to a Richmond hospital to recover.”
There seemed to be a consensus among the two men and two women as they chatted and nodded, pleased they had solved the dilemma and thus the argument between the siblings. Elizabeth pushed away from the table and wrapped her cloak around her.
“Thank you for meeting with us under such short notice. It’s late, and we must return home now.”
Charlotte allowed Elizabeth to leave the room first before she turned back to the family and looked at the younger man. “I believe you were infected with consumption while in prison. Cover your mouth with your arm when you cough,” she told him. “You need to isolate your son,” she said to the mother, “or both you and your husband will catch the disease from him. Wash your hands and the dishes in very hot water. When food becomes available, be sure he gets a wholesome diet and fresh air.”
Their eyebrows furrowed with obvious doubt.
“Are you a real doctor?” the young man demanded.
Charlotte nodded. “I’m a surgeon. Unfortunately, there is no medicine for your disease.” Not yet, anyway.
She glanced around the small room, where germs would probably pass from one family member to the other until the disease killed them all. “Rest as much as you can, and everybody wash your hands.” Charlotte left the house, doubting they would listen to her advice and wishing she could do more.
Charlotte and Elizabeth locked arms and moved quickly through Richmond’s dark streets, with Jack trailing a short distance behind, watching them with a protective eye. Once back at the mansion, the threesome relaxed in the library, drinking whisky and reviewing their impressions of the meeting in the farmhouse.
A frown rippled over Jack’s face, like a stone thrown into a puddle of muddy water. “You understand what could happen to you if the guards suspect you aren’t who you claim to be?” His sober voice matched the seriousness of his concern.
Charlotte wasn’t sure what to say to relieve his worry, so she remained silent. If she did speak, her voice would betray her, exposing the fear clogging her throat. If Jack knew how afraid she was, he’d write himself into her role. While it would certainly create tension in the story he was writing, it wouldn’t do much for the one they were living. He had limited tolerance for sickness and injuries.
“They arrest women for posing as men,” Elizabeth said.
Charlotte glanced down at her tightly laced fingers and deliberately untangled them. Placing her hands on her thighs, she straightened her spine and got to her feet. She had no desire to be incarcerated, but she couldn’t stand by and do nothing.
“If I’m discovered, you’ll have two to rescue tomorrow night.”
Jack set his glass on the table with enough force to put a fine-line crack in the crystal. “Don’t be flippant.”
Charlotte got in his face. “Then support me.”
He picked up another glass from the serving tray and splashed whisky into it. His eyes narrowed dangerously. “I can’t.”
She snagged fistfuls of his jacket and held on tight. The keening of the wind outside the windows whooshed into her heart, illuminating the one thing in the world she was most afraid of—losing Jack. If that was her biggest fear, then she now understood the monster crushing him. She relaxed her hands and smoothed the creases she had caused with her tenacious grip.
“I’ll go to the prison late tomorrow afternoon, and if I’m discovered, which is highly unlikely, the longest I could be incarcerated is a couple of hours. But,” she said with her mouth twitching in an attempted smile, “if doing this will cause you to stroke out from worry, I won’t.”
He hugged her, resting his chin on top of her head, his galloping heart thumping against her cheek. Her body tensed, except for her quivering chin, as she waited interminable seconds for the answer she expected him to give.
“I won’t stroke out, but I can’t promise I won’t go barging in after you if you’re not back in a reasonable amount of time.” He held her at arm’s length. His eyes bored into her with the precision of a diamond bit. “And my definition of reasonable is within the hour. Understood?”
Superficially, peace between the Mallory siblings was restored, but for the next forty-eight hours the embers of uneasiness would continue to flare.
52
Richmond, Virginia, April 1, 1865
Charlotte threw back the covers and got up slowly. After a night of fitful sleep, she was stiff and achy. She needed an easy walk and a long stretch. Dressing quickly, she slipped out onto the back portico where a mélange of heady scents, flower fragrances, and freshly turned earth wafted around her.
Hoping to enjoy a few minutes of peace before the household began to stir, she strolled barefoot around the terraces and breathed in the delicious scents of spring. Wisteria was blooming in big blue and lavender clumps on the side of the house, and beyond the garden full of dogwood blooms and fruit blossoms, a soft mist lifted over the James River. A brilliant sun inched its way up through the golden hues of a still and lovely dawn. The same smells, the same flowers, the same exquisite sunrise had not changed in a hundred and fifty years.
The first Sunday in April was Communion Sunday in Richmond. That hadn’t changed either. Charlotte, Jack, and Elizabeth planned to attend worship service at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. The siblings, unashamedly, had an ulterior motive. They wanted premium seating to observe one of the last memorable days of the Confederacy unfold.
When Charlotte reentered the house, with her bare feet making soft pats on the hardwood floor, she found Elizabeth preparing to go out. “Do you still plan to attend church services? If you’ll give me a minute to find my shoes, I’ll go with you.”
Elizabeth tied her bonnet strings. “I’m going to Capitol Square for news first.”
Charlotte laced up her shoes and jotted a note for Jack to meet them in front of the church at eleven. A few minutes later the women headed down the sidewalk to find out what was happening in the city.
Warm breezes and the morning’s exquisite beauty belied the anxiety rippling through the crowd milling around the War Department and post office. Everyone in Richmond was desperate for news from Petersburg. Charlotte knew the Union Army had breached the Confederate trenches in front of the city and the end of the war was at hand, but she couldn’t tell the crowd what they desperately wanted to know. Instead, she scanned the panicked faces and for some odd reason remembered a line from The Tempest. Hell is empty. And all the Devils are here.
At eleven o’clock the peal of church bells signaled the start of services. Charlotte and Elizabeth met Jack at the corner of Grace and Ninth Streets.
“Did you hear any news?” Elizabeth asked.
Jack edged the women away from a group of men who had gathered in front of a park bench to discuss what would happen to Richmond if Petersburg fell.
“The Union breached the line in front of Petersburg. It’s only a matter of time now,” he said.
Elizabeth’s pensive smile was shadowed at the corners. “If Petersburg is lost, Richmond will be evacuated, exactly as you predicted yesterday.”
Charlotte took Elizabeth’s arm. “Come on, let’s go inside. More news should be available by the time the service is over.” Together they climbed the stone steps, past the columns, and strolled into the building. Charlotte had attended services here as a child, but on this Sunday she wasn’t remembering her past. She was reflecting on what would happen by the end of the day, and how it would impact the citizens of Richmond.
Jack escorted them to a seat on t
he back row of the elegantly simple church, where they could observe everyone entering and leaving. Charlotte was only interested in the comings and goings of one person—President Jefferson Davis. Within minutes of taking her seat, she saw him, dressed in an immaculate gray uniform and carrying his hat. His pale face showed no sign of emotion, leaving her to wonder what he must be thinking. He stopped at pew number sixty-three, halfway down on the right, and took a seat.
Charlotte couldn’t take her eyes off him. She’d had a bad case of idol worship in the presence of Abraham Lincoln, a man who would obtain mythic status. Jeff Davis, however, was an enigma, a man few in the future would want to acknowledge, much less celebrate.
Jack whispered into her ear. “Do you notice anything peculiar about the gathering?”
Charlotte perused the congregation, mentally making bullet points. “Most are women dressed in mourning clothes. Gaunt faces full of grief. A few men hobbling on crutches. The rest of the men look ill.”
“Anything else?”
“Inside this building there’s a pretense of peace and calm. Outside there’s chaos and death. Why?”
Jack wiped the corner of his eye with a knuckle. “They’re all Christians who went to war for the cause of slavery.”
She would always be a daughter of the South, a Virginian, but she would never have fought for the South’s cause. Why, then, had participating in reenactments been so important to her? Jack had asked her dozens of times, and she’d always shrugged and replied it was fun.
She had never opened up about the real reason: her grandfather. Reenacting had been his passion, and when she had been with him, she was embraced by his extended family of reenactors. It was all about belonging, about not being alone. Maybe it was why she had gravitated toward medicine—she was embraced and respected as part of the healing community.
The church sexton, a tall, portly man wearing a faded blue suit, marched down the center aisle. He stopped next to President Davis’s pew, tapped him on the shoulder, handed him a piece of paper, and left.
Davis glanced at the note, folded it, and tucked it into his pocket. A few seconds later, while everyone watched, he rose from his seat and, with his posture straight and stiff, his demeanor calm, Davis walked down the aisle and left the building.
Elizabeth cupped her mouth and whispered, “What do you suppose the note said?”
“Evacuate tonight,” Charlotte said.
“He’s known for months this day would come. He’ll probably send a message to Lee begging for more time,” Elizabeth said behind her open fan.
Charlotte’s mouth curled wryly. “You know him well.”
Elizabeth sat back and folded her fan. A small, wistful smile drifted across her face.
In the middle of the sermon, the sexton once again strutted down the aisle and whispered, this time to General Joseph Anderson, who immediately rose and strode out.
Elizabeth opened her fan and whispered again, “I suppose the general has been tasked with carrying Davis’s message to Lee.”
After the service they found Capitol Square swarming with people. In front of the government buildings, civil servants were throwing mounds of paper on a bonfire.
“They’re burning all the incriminating papers,” Elizabeth said.
Charlotte considered how she could douse the flames. Some of the papers might incriminate Davis in Booth’s plot to kidnap Lincoln. What a coup it would be to save those messages for posterity. She hunched her shoulders and pulled her shawl tighter to ward off the sudden chill in the air and her even colder thoughts. History would have changed drastically if Lincoln had been kidnapped instead of murdered. If he had been kidnapped, she and Jack never would have followed Braham back in time.
She could make excuses, of course, but she had not asked for what had happened to her since she came into contact with the brooch. Nor had she fought against it. She had searched for Ramseur, convinced her twenty-first century medical knowledge could save him. It didn’t. The repercussions of her single, selfish choice were spreading like a giant tsunami. How many lives would be swallowed? If she had returned home immediately, the story would have ended, but the story would continue now until she could convince Braham to leave history alone.
She might as well try to part the James River.
For now, she would stick to an achievable goal: by midnight she intended to have a recalcitrant patient firmly under her medical supervision.
She’d deal with tomorrow’s problems tomorrow.
53
Richmond, Virginia, April 1, 1865
A few hours later, Charlotte was in the guest room at the Van Lew mansion, dressing in her Confederate surgeon’s disguise. She hadn’t worn the gray wool garment since rescuing Braham last October, and now here she was, planning to rescue him once more.
She’d never be able to wear it again without thinking of him. What would she recall when she reminisced? The first time she saw him at Chimborazo? No. How about the bulge of his muscles in a tight-fitting T-shirt? That was a good one. But a better sensory jolt was the morning she caught him fresh out of the shower with drops from his shoulder-length hair glistening on his chest, and his long legs sheathed in a pair of faded denims. And she couldn’t forget the bare feet. She didn’t know what made naked toes sexy, but he had beautiful feet. She should know; she’d seen more than her share, checking for weak or absent ankle pulses in her patients. She had first noticed his feet in the emergency room. Matter of fact, she had noticed everything about him then. Every naked inch. Even with flaccid man-parts, it was obvious he was.
A knock snapped her out of her reverie. “Come in.”
Elizabeth swept in, carrying a small basket. “I brought you some pebbles.” She gasped and came to a sudden halt, almost tipping over. “Doctor Mallory? Gracious goodness. I never would have recognized you.” She slowly walked a full circle around Charlotte, assessing the view from all angles. “What have you done with your breasts? And what happened to your slim waist? The coat makes you look thick in the middle.”
“My breasts are bound, and the jacket is padded to give me extra bulk.” Charlotte twirled the beard’s long hairs at her chin. “The disguise fooled both Sheridan and Lincoln a few months ago, too, or at least I thought it did. I’m not so sure now.”
With lips pursed, Elizabeth gently stroked strands of hair from the light brown wig Charlotte wore, finger-combing some of the hair back off Charlotte’s face. “Is this real hair? Feels real.”
“Yes, I wanted the disguise to be as realistic as possible.”
Elizabeth heaved a sigh and folded her arms across her middle, the basket dangling from her elbow. “Your eyes are the only thing giving you away. Keep them averted, but in a distracted sort of way.”
Charlotte averted her eyes, practicing, and spotted the four pills, two antibiotics and two painkillers, she had left sitting on the corner of the dresser. If Elizabeth spotted them, it could lead to awkward questions. Charlotte surreptitiously scooped them up and slipped them inside her jacket. The guards were unlikely to allow her to visit the prisoners in the solitary confinement cells, but in the event, she could cajole her way in there, she’d find a way to press the pills into Braham’s hand. Having relief from pain might enable him to walk out of the prison on his own. If he couldn’t walk, she wasn’t sure what might happen to him.
Her hands were steady as usual, but they were also stark white and cold, her tell in times of stress, and they were about as icy as they had ever been, even during cold January training runs. “Any other advice?” she asked Elizabeth.
“Be careful.” Elizabeth reached into her pocket and handed Charlotte a piece of paper. “Here are your orders. I’ve reviewed the document carefully, and it specifically says you are to inspect all the sick, injured, and wounded to determine how many prisoners are unable to walk. I’m sure the Confederacy would prefer to leave all the prisoners behind. The army doesn’t have food to feed them or medicine to treat them. However, they can’t afford to
abandon healthy prisoners who could then rejoin their units and swell the ranks of the Union Army in the field.”
Charlotte studied the order, reading each line carefully and analyzing every word to be certain the document couldn’t be misinterpreted. She didn’t doubt Elizabeth, but thoroughly checking patient records and orders was a career habit she didn’t intend to break. Satisfied, she slipped the document inside her jacket, alongside the pills. She then gently touched Elizabeth’s forearm. “One day your contribution to the war effort will be fully understood and appreciated.”
Elizabeth raised a dark, wing-shaped eyebrow. “I’d prefer to remain anonymous, if it’s all the same to you. If the extent of my involvement were known, living here would be impossible. And this is my home.”
History would show Elizabeth had been despised, seen as a lonely spinster, and called Crazy Bet. Yet she had the most giving heart of any woman Charlotte had ever met, and she was saner, not less sane, than her accusers. If Charlotte could do anything for Elizabeth when she returned to the future, it would be to put the myth of Crazy Bet in proper perspective. She may have acted crazy at times to throw off suspicion, but she was a pillar of reason in a world gone mad. Jack could write her story—the real story. Maybe they couldn’t save her house, but they could resurrect her good name.
Elizabeth seemed lost in her own troubled thoughts, if her furrowed brow was any indication. Charlotte tugged lightly on a fold of Elizabeth’s sleeve, pulling her toward the settee, where they both sat, with Elizabeth fidgeting and glancing around.
“It’s going to be an endlessly long night, Elizabeth, but tomorrow the Union forces will be here. All you’ve worked for is about to come to fruition.”
Elizabeth lifted her eyes upward, as if looking toward Heaven to pour out her thanks. “I can survive one more bad night, because I know when the sun rises, Yankees will be marching up Main Street.”
The Sapphire Brooch Page 33
