An Acquaintance with Darkness

by Ann Rinaldi

  Thanks to Robert. "Don't say anything," Robert had warned us. "Sometimes when you just act as if you belong, they're so taken by surprise, they don't know what to do. And rather than show their stupidity, they'll go along with you."

  Robert was right. The jailer hadn't known what to do. But seeing Robert's black bag and officious manner, he'd agreed to let us in. Our bluff had worked.

  "Suppose anythin's better than havin' to hear her puke up her guts in there like she's doin'." The jailer took his huge ring of keys out of his pockets as we approached the last cell.

  "Where are the other prisoners?" Robert asked. The cells were all empty.

  "This is the women's ward."

  There were no other women prisoners. Mrs. Mary was alone at the far end of a dark corridor in a cell with straw on the floor and one small window that admitted a single shaft of sunlight.

  She was kneeling on the floor over a bucket, throwing up. The sounds of retching echoed in the emptiness. The place smelled like an outhouse.

  "Mrs. Surratt, you got company," the jailer said.

  She looked up. Her hair hung in dank tendrils around her face, which was white and haggard. Straw clung to her black dress as she struggled to her feet. "Annie." She started to cry, then stopped herself, seeing me and Robert.

  "Emily! Oh, I'm so ashamed that you should see me like this. But I've been so sick with one of my headaches. And cold." Then she saw Robert. "And who is this? Annie, you haven't brought friends."

  "No, Mama, he's a doctor. He's come to attend you."

  Robert submitted himself and his doctor's bag to a search by the jailer, then made all of us wait at the end of the corridor. From down the dank hall I heard him making conversation with Mrs. Mary, heard her plaintive replies, though I could not make out the words. After a short time he came out.

  "I've given her a powder for the migraine," he said to the jailer, "and I'm leaving some with her daughter in case she needs more." He handed a small vial to Annie. "Are you staying now or leaving?" he asked.

  "I usually stay until they make me go home at night," Annie said.

  "Then I want hot water and soap brought immediately so the woman can wash," he told the jailer severely. "I want those buckets emptied, a fresh ticking for the mattress, candles in her sconces on the walls, and two warm blankets."

  "I don't have the authority," the jailer said.

  "Then perhaps you have the authority to tell your superiors that if my instructions are not followed you will be reported to the Sanitation Commission. This place is a disgrace. You're in charge, aren't you?"

  The man nodded.

  "Well, your head will roll if your superiors get a citation from the Sanitation Commission. Don't think for a minute they won't blame it on you. Or perhaps you'd like the conditions here reported to the Intelligencer. Her case is being followed by newspapers all over the country, you know. Do you want to be written up as the jailer of a hellhole?"

  The man was terrified. "No, sir. I don't need no trouble."

  "Good," Robert said, "then we understand each other. Is there a place to make coffee?"

  "My office down the hall."

  "Then let Miss Surratt make her mother fresh coffee. I expect you to supply it." Robert drew some money out of a billfold. "Coffee will help her migraine. I'm going to keep tabs on things here. Remember what I said."

  "Yes, sir."

  When Annie saw us out the door she looked at Robert as if he were God. "Thank you," she said.

  I looked at him with a little less admiration, maybe as an avenging angel. I was so proud of him! But my feelings were warring inside me. The horrors of the prison, the smells, dankness, clanging gates, had shaken me. How terrible to think of Mrs. Mary in a place like that! I shivered in the warm May sun. And then I looked around at the prettiness of the day. How wonderful to be out in the sunshine again, walking with Robert! Was I wrong to feel that way?

  "I feel like I've come out of a tomb," I said to Robert.

  "You have." His face was grim. "And it makes me wonder how the other prisoners are faring. I'm going to ask your uncle if maybe I can get onto the ironclads in the river to see them."

  It was Myra Mott's birthday on the twenty-second. There was to be a big party at school. I did not want to go. But when you live with a doctor you can't very well say you're too sick to go to school. Unless you are sick. So I went. I made fudge to bring, and Uncle Valentine gave me money for a present. I bought Myra a book of poetry, Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman.

  Of course Myra simpered and preened and held sway over all of us that day. Lessons were shortened all morning so that we could have the party in the afternoon. It was a tea. Mrs. McQuade insisted we make a formal tea and mind our manners.

  But a tea, presents, and being fawned over weren't enough for Myra. She wanted more. She wanted to be looked up to as the most clever, daring, and exciting girl in the class. And that day, for her fifteenth birthday, she had found a way.

  Satisfied that the tea had gone off properlike, Mrs. McQuade left us to ourselves and went down the hall to her office. The minute she left, Myra looked at each of us in turn. "The presents are beautiful, but this is boring the life out of me. Who's for a bit of fun afterward?"

  "What have you got planned?" Stephanie Wilson asked.

  "You must swear, all of you, that even if you're afraid to be part of it, you won't tell anyone."

  The girls exchanged glances and giggled and promised.

  "That goes for you, too, Emily," Myra said. "Because it involves a story my father is pursuing. You know what story I mean. Now, if you can't promise to keep it secret, you must leave the room before I say what it is."

  "I thought you were finished with all that, Myra. I showed you everything you wanted to see. I thought I'd satisfied you."

  "Something else has come up. My father has a new lead."

  "There are no new leads. You'll be dragging everyone on a fool's errand."

  "Then that should make you happy."

  We locked eyes across the room for a minute.

  "What is all this?" Melanie Hawkes asked. "Let the rest of us in on it."

  I shrugged. What did I have to lose? Robert had convinced me my uncle had nothing to hide. I had put the matter to rest. Let Myra make a fool of herself.

  "Just one thing before you speak," I said. "You're not going to bring everyone into my uncle's yard and poke around that shed again. I can't allow that. It's trespassing." I knew nobody would be home. Uncle Valentine had taken the train to Baltimore this morning to give a speech at the University of Maryland. Maude was off to one of her funerals. But I still couldn't allow it.

  "Who cares about the old shed?" she retorted. "We're going somewhere more interesting." Then to the other girls. "What do you say? Want to see some dead bodies?"

  ***

  I'd never been on the grounds of the National Medical College, where Uncle Valentine taught, and I was surprised to find out how easily anyone could just walk around there. Once in the front gates, no one bothered you. "Most of the guards are away helping the police because of all the soldiers in town for the review," Myra told us.

  A block from school her older cousin Jason had been waiting for us. He was down from Baltimore with his mother, visiting. He was seventeen, had bright red hair and freckles. His father had served on the North's ironclad Monitor, and Jason was soon headed for the Naval Academy at Annapolis.

  Myra was so puffed up with herself I thought she would burst. She clung to Jason's arm as we walked across the campus. It was near the end of the semester. Windows of the buildings were open and we could hear the droning voices of professors inside. With Jason leading us, it looked as if we were a passel of girls on a tour. No one paid us mind.

  Myra had promised everyone dead bodies. Where they expected to find them, I did not know. But I could not have refused to come along, or it would have looked as if I had something to hide.

  If some other professor had "subjects" in his lab, I didn't know.
I would have liked, somehow, to get in touch with Robert. But as luck would have it, this morning he had succeeded, after persistent tries, in getting aboard the ironclad Montauk, which was anchored in the Potomac alongside the Saugus. Both housed the male prisoners in the conspiracy. Robert was to see to the conditions of the ships and the health of the prisoners.

  I followed the others reluctantly along the quiet paths of the college. Up ahead, Jason and Myra seemed to know where they were going. We went through a grove of trees, down some stone steps, through a sort of dingy tunnel, and then came to a courtyard below the street level.

  On the ground lay a ladder. Immediately Jason set it up against the old brick building. The girls gathered around, oohing and aahing and asking silly questions.

  "Where are the bodies? Inside?"

  "Who told you they were here?"

  "You mean, if we climb up that ladder we'll be able to see them?"

  "Will they be cut up?"

  "Will they be men or women?"

  "Will they be naked?"

  That, of course, started a whole other set of conjectures. Who had seen a naked man? Who wanted to? Giggles and whisperings. Then silence as Jason removed his coat and climbed the ladder while Myra held it.

  The girls stood around bug-eyed, watching him make his ascent to the second floor. I stood back, blinking in the warm May sunlight dappled by lacy trees overhead. Birds sang. The sky was as innocent as a newborn's eyes. From above the wall of the courtyard could be heard street sounds, carriages passing by, people talking. Yet we were sealed off here. No one could see us.

  Jason stopped climbing and peered into the window.

  "Well?" Myra called up softly. "Can you see anything?"

  "I sure can."

  "Was my daddy right?"

  "He sure was."

  "What do you see?"

  "Two of them," Jason reported. His voice sounded a little weak. "Lying on tables. Covered with sheets. All I can see are the faces. Men, I think."

  "Don't say another word," Myra ordered coldly. "Come down this instant!"

  Jason climbed back down, then held the ladder for Myra. She got onto the first step, then smirked over her shoulder at me. "Do you know whose classroom that is up there?" she asked.

  "I have no idea," I said. "I've never been here before."

  "It's your uncle Valentine's."

  "You're lying, Myra. You just don't know what to do anymore to make yourself important. I don't know whose laboratory that is, but I do know that if you don't get everybody out of here soon, we can all get into trouble."

  "Trouble?" She was climbing the ladder, unafraid. "We aren't the ones in trouble." Then she stopped and peered in. "Oh, my God." She groaned.

  "What, what?" the girls on the ground called up. "Tell us, what do you see?"

  "Two men, just like Jason said. Dead. Oh, my God, I was right. My daddy was right. I have to tell him." She scrambled down.

  On the ground she was immediately surrounded by the other girls, all asking to be next climbing up the ladder. "Wait, wait," she said. Her face was white. She looked at me. "I'm not lying. I swear to you, Emily, there are dead men up there. And it's your uncle's classroom. My daddy knows it is. I've been here in this courtyard with him before. He's pointed it out to me."

  "If it is," I said, "any specimens they have up there are legal. Donated. Or executed prisoners. And you've got no right poking around here today. Nor did your father."

  She looked dazed and thrilled with herself all at the same time. "Listen, everybody," she said breathlessly. "My father talked to Dr. Bransby two weeks ago. Because he got wind of the fact that Bransby had two dead burn victims shipped in from that riverboat explosion on the Mississippi. There were victims of that tragedy missing. Their relatives were looking for them. And somebody told them about my daddy and how he was investigating grave robbers."

  She paused breathlessly and met my eyes, then continued.

  "My daddy was in this very laboratory talking with Dr. Bransby. The doctor invited him in and showed him around. At that time he said there were no dead burn victims. That he had no more legitimate specimens because the semester was at an end. Well, what I just saw wasn't live people. And their faces had burns."

  "Lies," I hissed. I made my way through the other girls and stood toe-to-toe with Myra. "Lies. How do we know this isn't all a trick? That maybe your daddy told you those relatives of the victims got in touch with him, and you made the rest up to feed your need for excitement? How do we know there really are dead bodies up there?"

  I don't know where I got those words. I was trembling. They just tumbled out of me. But they sounded good. And they fit the occasion.

  Myra tossed her head back, raised her chin haughtily. "Why don't you climb up the ladder and see?" she challenged.

  Silence. I heard street sounds. Birds chirping. They sounded far away.

  Myra's eyes glittered. "Well? Are you afraid? The others are all going to do it. Do you want them telling you? Or do you want to see for yourself?"

  "I'll do it," I said. And slowly, I began to climb the ladder.

  First rung. She's lying. When I get up there, I'll tell her so.

  Second rung. Robert invited me to come and see if there were any bum victims here.

  Third rung. He said there were not only no bum victims here but no dead bodies. That they'd all been disposed of because it was the end of the semester.

  Fourth rung. He promised that he'd brought live bum victims back from the accident.

  Fifth rung. I believe Robert. He wouldn't lie to me. Johnny lied to me. Not Robert.

  I was level with the window now. I stopped and looked in.

  "Well?" Myra was calling up from below. "Well?"

  "Tell us," the other girls were saying, "tell us what you see."

  The faces were horribly burned. You could scarcely make out the features. The hair was singed. One man had an ear missing. Their cheeks were sunken in, like Abraham Lincoln's must have been when he got to New York City after having been dragged around for a week. Their bodies were wound in sheets. And they lay there as if they were sleeping.

  I felt sick. It seemed as if the ladder swayed. But Jason was holding it steady.

  "Why would I bring back dead people, Emily?" I heard Robert asking.

  Oh, Robert! A sob formed inside me, a great heaving sob.

  I wanted to die. I wanted to be lying on that table instead of those men. "No!" I screamed. "No, Robert, no!"

  "Get down, Emily." Myra's voice. Then Jason's urging me down.

  Then another sound. A whistle and a cry. "You there! What are you kids doing down there in that courtyard?"

  "God's teeth," Jason mumbled. "A guard. You told me they were all elsewhere. My God, if I get caught ... I can't get caught. I can't get in trouble. Or it'll be the end of Annapolis for me."

  "Let's get out of here!" Myra cried. "Come on, everybody, he's on the hill above the steps. There's a door over there. And steps to the street. I went that way with my daddy. Come on!" Her voice was hoarse, yelling it.

  They ran. "Come on, Emily!" Melanie yelled.

  The ladder was unsteady. Nobody was holding it. It jiggled and I nearly fell. But somehow I made it to the second bottom rung and jumped.

  The ladder fell crashing to the ground. I ran. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the guard running through the tunnel toward me. I followed the others across the courtyard, through the door in the wall, and up the steps to the street.

  20. Along Came a Spider

  THERE IS NO FEELING in the world worse than betrayal. I felt cheated, laughed at, shut out of the lives of all around me.

  I went home. Maude was there, puttering in the kitchen.

  "Well, where were you? Your uncle won't be home this night. I thought I'd just serve leftovers."

  "All right," I said, "but I have to go out a little later, on an errand. I'll be home about six." I went to my room. There was so much to do and not enough time.

  First I had
to decide what I was taking with me and what I was leaving behind. I stood in the center of my blue-and-white room. I wanted to take everything and I wanted to take nothing.

  I would take nothing that Uncle Valentine had given me, I decided. Not clothes, books, or even food. I would buy food before I got on the train. I would take nothing from anybody in this house. I would go to Aunt Susie's in Richmond as poor as I'd been when I'd come here.

  Except the cat. I'd take Sultana. Because it was as plain as the nose on your face that he couldn't live without me, poor thing. And already he'd been kicked around from pillar to post, worse than a freedman.

  Only, first I'd change his name. Sultana was a girl's name and he was a boy. What would I call him then, Sultan? No, it had to be far removed from the name Robert had given him.

  No, don't think of Robert.

  I threw some things into a portmanteau. Oh, Lordy, I thought, if I go to Richmond I won't be able to finish at Miss Winefred Martin's. And there would go my daddy's money. What would my daddy have said? Miss Muffet had been frightened away. I felt a great sadness cut through me at the thought of Daddy. And another for Mrs. McQuade. "There was one I thought had so much promise," she'd say. "You never can tell." I'd disappoint her. Well. How many people had disappointed me?

  I ran around my room throwing things into that portmanteau. All the while I tried out names on Sultana, who was sitting in the middle of my bed watching.

  "Arnold," I said. "How would you like to be called Arnold?"

  He blinked at me.

  "Look, it's not after Benedict Arnold or anything. I just thought it had a nice solid ring to it. Well then, what about Sad Stock? It's a new plant Marietta got for her garden."

  He licked his paw, feigning disinterest.

  "No, you don't look sad enough. Maybe I'll call you Custer. You know, he's the boy general and he has long blond curls. Don't like that? Too dandified for you? Well then, what about Ulysses? Nothing dandified about him."