by Jane Singer
With me in tow, and still holding the knife, he went to the corner of the room. “Stay low,” he said to the woman I knew was there. “It’s all right.”
I could hear her exhale. The child began to whimper again.
“Isaac, go get them out of here, please,” I said.
“You don’t know my name. And don’t you say nothing to my mother.”
“I swear I won’t.”
“You best pray you speak truth,” he said. “I ain’t blind. I know your face.” He pushed me to the floor. “Don’t be moving, and shut your eyes tight.” I could feel his hand on my back.
In a far part of my brain, I knew they were leaving. There were footsteps, whispers and again the whimpering of a child. I heard a low whistle, and horses chuffing and the sound of a wagon stopping just outside the door.
I lay there. There was silence. Were they gone? I let my breath out easy and struggled to my feet. My neck burned where his knife had scraped it.
Without looking back, I lurched over to the narrow staircase that led up from the cellar, and into the kitchen, I heard voices from above. I was gasping for breath. I could feel wetness on my neck.
When I reached the top of the stairs, wobbling and dizzy, I went toward the voices in the dining room. I heard the clinking of glasses and cries of Victory! Down with the Yankees! I fell forward in a swoon, right over a chair, and landed limp as a rag on the floor. I was conscious, but so very weak . . . from hunger, and worry, from everything. Faces swam before my eyes. I smelled roasted meat, and of all things, my head was in a puddle of Aunt Salome’s s prized brandy that had spilled from the decanter, as I must have knocked the table before I fell. I tried to get up, but the brandy fumes made me even dizzier.
Mr. Webster bent over me. “She breathes slightly, and there’s some blood.”
“My Lord, is it Madeline?” my Aunt Salome said. “I thought she’d gone missing for good!”
It was Nellie who lifted me in her arms, crooning and pressing her ear to my heart. I was fully conscious by now, but I decided to stay limp until I could figure some things out.
“She ain’t dead, praise God,” Nellie said. She carried me into the parlor and was about to lower me to the sofa, the special, never-to-be-soiled one my aunt guarded like it was made of diamonds.
“Not there!” my aunt called. “Take her to the cellar and wash her off in the privy.”
No! I thought. Nellie’s son and the slaves might still be there.
I sat straight up, startling them. “No! My room, I need my bed!”
Nellie carried me up the stairs while the rest remained below, muttering to each other.
In my room, spare as it was, the bed was blessedly soft. “Oh, child,” Nellie said, wiping my face with a damp cloth, “What done become of you?”
“My father? Has he come here?”
“No, baby, there’s been soldiers and their wounded in the streets for hours. He ain’t come . . . yet.”
“Were Aunt Salome and Mr. Webster celebrating?” I asked in a voice much stronger than I felt.
“Hush, child.”
“Were they?” I grasped her hands.
“Yes, they was cheering the Yankee defeat, talking about how them soldiers was running back to the city like rats, I’m afeered,” Nellie answered, her face grave.
“Oh, Nellie.” I pressed myself to her bosom, tears running from my eyes.
“There, now, there now,” was all she said. “I’m going to fetch the hip bath and some hot water. I got to see you ain’t broke anywhere under all this here dirt.”
“Wait, Nellie.” I grabbed her hand again. “I know about your son.”
She drew away from me.
“He’s helping slaves escape, isn’t he?”
“You don’t know nothing, Miss Madeline, you hear?”
“I came upon them, or they came upon me, uh, him, I was in the woods, and I saw him, or someone exactly like him guiding a woman and child through the trees.”
Nellie put her hands over her face.
“He’s gone, Nellie. But he was just in the cellar with the same people.”
Nellie’s hands trembled. “Oh, Lord.”
“I’ll never tell anyone, Nellie. I swear it.”
Nellie was shaking all over. “That’s why you wanted your bed, and not the cellar like Mrs. Salome ordered me?”
“Yes,” I answered.
Her voice was ragged with emotion. “My son Isaac, he is my heart. And he tears at it until it has gone to fraying with fear.”
“He’s brave, Nellie.” I leaned my head back, accidentally exposing the knife scratch on my neck.
“He hurt you!” she cried.
“No. Some. It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does.” With that, she handed me a clean, white cloth. “Hold this ’crost your neck, baby. I’ll come back.”
I passed out the minute she left the room.
When I woke, through waves of dizziness, I saw a figure sitting by the bed, watching me. I couldn’t make out just who it was because it was like I was seeing though a glass in blinding sunlight.
“Papa?” I reached toward the figure. A hand clasped mine. It was warm and strong.
For a moment, I was small again, and hugging his shoulders as we waltzed in the meadow, just near the river.
“They say you are all right, Miss Madeline.”
His face was not yet in focus.
I blinked again and again.
“You made it back in one piece,” he said. “I figured you would. You’re a real scrapper.”
I blinked hard. His face was blurred. I blinked again. Papa? No. Kind green eyes and black hair, curling black hair, hands holding mine.
“Miss Madeline, oh, Miss Madeline,” Jake Whitestone said, sighing.
I felt so many things just then. Feelings like pebbles pelted me. Relief, a kind of joy at seeing Jake, worry for my father, and disappointment it wasn’t him.
I tried to get up. I was so weak that when I stood I fell forward. He caught me in his arms. I was frozen for a moment. His face was so close to mine, he held me tightly. His hair brushed my cheek.
I pushed him away, trying to catch my breath. “I have to find my father!”
I tottered past him to the door. Mr. Webster, my aunt and Nellie were blocking the entrance.
“Get out of my way!”
My aunt took my arm. “Get back to bed, Madeline. Right now,” she said.
“No! I have to get out of here!”
They surrounded me. There was no escaping them. Mr. Webster was looking tenderly at me. But who was he, really? I’d seen him in front of the Greenhow house in disguise!
And Jake Whitestone, well, I didn’t know what he was feeling. Did I care? Yes! No, maybe. I didn’t even know what side he was on. Or my aunt, for that matter. And Nellie, with her fierce son, Isaac, putting himself and his mother in great danger? Had he left the house? And my father, where was he?
You might be thinking right now that maybe I started screaming. You’d be wrong.
I sat back down on the bed. I’ll get away from them, somehow, I thought.
“Okay, I’ll rest. Just leave me alone.” I lay back with my eyes closed. I had to make a plan.
I heard shouting from the street. “Yankee cowards!”
My God.
“The Rebs won the day!” My heart nearly stopped.
But how had they won? What had happened? I sure wasn’t going to ask my aunt, or Mr. Webster, or—
Jake Whitestone walked to the bed.
“Stay away!”
I felt like slapping him hard. I reached out to do just that. I figured he was a shifty Rebel. He stopped my hand and held it to his chest. I pried it away.
“After you ran off, I was on the battlefield, Miss Madeline.”
“Darn right you were, glad-handing a bunch of Rebels.”
“Yes I was.”
“Whose side are you on, Jake Whitestone?”
“How can you ask me that
?”
“I saw you!”
“Yes, I was with soldiers and reporters—it’s my job!”
“Your job? Liar! You said you were a tutor.”
“No, I’m not.” He spoke in a monotone. “Sixty men of the Second New Hampshire got captured by the Confederates, Miss Madeline,” he said. “Seven were killed. I wish I could tell you more.” His face was full of pain. “Dead boys lay so thick. My God.” He grasped my hand again, so hard my fingers were going to numbness.
“Word is that Rebel intelligence reached Beauregard,” he said, “reporting our positions, urging reinforcements from Johnston. The Rebels were warned, but how?”
I remembered what I’d seen in the alley. Could it be Betty and Colonel Jordan brought news of the Union position to the Rebels?
Her masses of hair and the message it held. I just knew it, I—
Jake Whitestone gasped. The cloth had slipped from my neck.
“What happened to you?”
“Wire, wire on a fence, that’s all.”
He touched the thin line of red, no longer bleeding, a zigzagging, tiny line.
“I’m okay.” I pulled away. His touch sent shivers through me. “I’m okay. It’s just a scratch.”
He held some sheets of paper full of writing in his hand. “This dispatch is in today’s paper,” he said. “I figured you should see it. As soon as I go back, I’ll telegraph another one. I have to find out what happened, and why we got so badly defeated.”
He touched my face, gently, so gently.
“I’m a reporter, not a tutor, Miss Madeline. Mr. Horace Greely gave me a chance to write for him, even though they’d never hired anyone so young. I begged him,” he said, handed me the sheet of paper. “You asked what I was doing here? Well, I have a war to fight too.”
Without saying another word, he left my room.
When I read this, I was stunned, angry, and, well, with all that had happened, just plain mixed up. Jake was Pan, and he’d written about me. The fierce little creature he spoke of had to be me. I wasn’t dreaming! We were together from the time he pulled me down from the tree. He used me! Or did he? What do you think?
New York Tribune
Special from Washington City
I was heading for the battle, and along the way, I found her, or should I say rescued her. Or maybe she rescued me. Of what stuff was she made, this fierce little creature that raged at me? My bruises from the encounter notwithstanding, the being had a mighty strength, not to mention the hard right hook of a prized pugilist.
But oh, she is brave.
Is this yet another face of this just war? The civilian little she-scrappers who wanted in on the fight?
Does this hellion speak, or should I say, shout for us all?
What is their duty? What is mine?
No time to tarry, reader. I’m going back.
PAN
I threw the paper across the room, fuming, and fascinated, and to be honest, really, really sorry to see Jake go.
Nellie came into the room carrying a bucket of steaming water. She closed the bedroom door. “The cellar is clean now. I saw to it myself,” she said, her eyes piercing into mine. I breathed a heavy sigh of relief.
Nellie was mute as she soaped me with the blessedly warm water. Finally, she spoke. “My boy ain’t no threat to you now. You understand?”
“I understand that Isaac is brave,” I said.
“Them folks he gets to freedom? If the slave catchers find him, they’ll kill him and send the others back to be punished bad.” She knelt by the bath and prayed. Then, she wrapped me in a blanket and helped me to my bed.
The last thing I imagined I saw before sleep overtook me—you know that dozy, dreamy state where you are conscious but not really—I thought I saw my father. He was surrounded by a bunch of cheering, Rebel soldiers. My father was kneeling on the ground, his head down, his rifle smashed to pieces. I was gasping. My head was whirling. I got straight out of bed and paced the floor the rest of the night.
The next morning, before I dragged myself down to breakfast, I found this paper slipped under my door. It was folded to the page you’ll read now.
Special Dispatch from the New York Tribune
At first the Union retreat was orderly, a withdrawal, they called it. Those who cried victory to Mr. Lincoln’s soldiers, the overzealous, frothing reporters, were dead wrong. By some means or Rebel miracle, word was gotten to Generals Johnston and Beauregard. They crested Henry Hill just near the stone bridge over Bull Run after learning that Rebel reinforcements were desperately needed—the right place at just the right moment.
But how were they summoned? There was no time, unless someone had gotten a dispatch through Confederate lines.
And yet, they came, a steady, ready stream of Rebel fighting men. Like lions they devoured the Union troops, sending them flooding the roads and farms, routing them in a wild skedaddle all the way back to Washington City.
Earlier dispatches, some from the great pen of the mighty, much-celebrated English reporter Russell, got it dead wrong.
This reporter was no fortune-teller, readers, he just waited atop a perch overlooking the fighting as the last of the partygoers, politicos, pie hawkers, and war watchers trickled away. And he saw the flight, saw the jumble of untried soldiers, some leaving their dead where they lay, scrambling back to their camps.
The roads were clogged with these same revelers who’d heard of an early victory, now stunned at the sight of the bodies of the dead and wounded strewn amid the remains of blackberry pies and liquor bottles, nearly trampled by young warriors screaming for their mothers, damning their generals, and tumbling down hillsides making masses of dust that clogged the eyes and ears.
And where was the little scrapper, a girl who’d been a strange comfort to this lumbering reporter? I thought long and hard of her as I watched her leave the chaos.
“My father is down there,” she cried. “My father.”
May she find safety. May he as well.
This is official, no matter what you’ve read. Mr. Lincoln’s army has suffered a great defeat. Humiliation is in the air, reader, as is fear of a Rebel invasion. What will become of Washington City now?
I am going to get a sense of what is to come, reader, to mingle, as they say, with both sides. Might reporters from Mr. Greeley’s paper be endangered because we are so firm in our stand for Mr. Lincoln, unlike Mr. Bennett’s Herald, which seems to appease and flatter? Perhaps. It matters not to this faithful scribe. Onward.
PAN
If Jake Whitestone could get information, so could I. You might think that was foolish. What could I do, a girl alone in the city? Well, I vowed to find a way. After all, I remembered so many details, heard so many things. I knew what I’d seen in that alleyway, and saw the girl called Betty riding away. And Mr. Webster’s disguise had to mean something. I decided to find him, if he was still at the boardinghouse.
In all the long, sad, months of Mama’s sickness, I feared the passing of time. Not anymore.
Eleven
Just after breakfast, Mr. Webster came into the parlor. I cornered him as he was heading up the stairs.
“Sir, Mr. Webster, I must speak with you in private.”
“You’re looking in the pink, Miss, and glad we all are of it,” he said. “Or should I say, in the red. Are you fevered?”
I spoke softly. “Are you a Pinkerton man?”
He paused; his expression hardened, and then replied calmly. “I am as I appear to be.”
“A Rebel and a slaver?” I asked. I studied his face, waiting for him to say more.
“Oh, now Miss,” he said, “don’t tell me you worry over the poor cotton pickers whose labors fill the coffers of both sides of this . . . struggle,” he said, patting my hand, a condescending smile on his face. He tried to pass me to go upstairs.
I blocked his way again. “No, sir. That is not it at all. Hear me, please, sir.” I took a deep breath. “I saw you at Mrs. Greenhow’s house.”
He blinked twice, but did not speak.
“You were dressed as a clergyman.”
His eyes bored into mine.
“I am not mistaken, sir,” I said slowly.
“I have no idea what you are talking about, Miss Bradford.” He brushed past me. “A clergyman, indeed.”
“Mr. Webster. I know I am very young, but I have certain . . . abilities. I know what I saw.”
He exhaled, all the while studying my face. Finally, Mr. Webster took my hand. “The day promises to be not so stifling, warm and bright,” he said, his tone measured. “I’ll show you a bit of the city. We’ll speak further. Yes?”
I hesitated. Should I go anywhere with this man? Would you have gone anywhere with this man?
But the chance to get away from the boardinghouse, and my aunt, was very, very tempting. I felt like a prisoner there, especially since I’d run away to find my father’s camp, and Aunt Salome was watching me like a hawk.
“Yes, sir, I think I would like to go.”
“Be ready in two hours.” Mr. Webster turned on his heel, and left the room.
“Madeline! Where have you gotten to?” Aunt Salome called.
I was right near her. She didn’t have to yell out. Even when she spoke softly, and she rarely did, it was impossible not to hear her, as her voice was like metal scraping against metal. I could hardly wait for Mr. Webster to summon me. I was excited, and nervous, but mostly excited.
“I’ll be right there, Aunt.”
I followed her up the stairs, glancing at the carved ebony grandfather clock that chimed hourly: a deep pealing, like a mourning bell, or an announcement of something important.
Two hours, Mr. Webster said.
I felt a bit uneasy going off with a man who surely was not what he seemed. But I sensed I’d called his bluff. If he was on the right side, and Aunt Salome was clearly not, what was I doing here, and how could I help? If he wasn’t, and I’m not being dramatic, he could kill me. But deep inside, I really sensed he was not my enemy. I decided to trust that feeling.
As I sorted the boarders’ clean laundry that poor Nellie had hauled to their rooms, and as Aunt Salome arranged them in a basket, I sat straight down on a pile of newly washed shirts. On purpose.
