An Acquaintance with Darkness

by Ann Rinaldi

  Horse-drawn trolleys were decorated with bunting. Some horses from a cavalry unit were bedecked with white satin ribbons. Flags dripped from front porches, store canopies, rooftops. Brass band instruments gleamed in the sun. Hundreds of schoolchildren seemed to be running about wearing red-white-and-blue rosettes and carrying small flags.

  We couldn't get out onto Pennsylvania Avenue. All traffic had come to a standstill.

  A group of white-gowned ladies walked right in front of the carriage, carrying a banner that said, WITH MALICE TOWARD NONE.

  "Well? What are we going to do about this, missy? There are gonna be a hundred and fifty thousand soldiers marching here today." The driver had plenty of malice toward me. He acted as if the whole mess were my fault.

  "How far is the train depot?" I asked.

  "Two blocks west."

  "Ill walk." I paid him and got out, pulling the portmanteau out after me.

  The excitement all around me was working to a fevered pitch. I could see them coming way up at the end of Pennsylvania Avenue. Thousands of men in blue. At the same time I heard church bells ringing and the boom of mortars from the ironclads on the river.

  A cheer went up from the crowd. "They're coming, they're coming." The bands all began to play "The Star Spangled Banner" on cue.

  "Look, the flag at the White House is at full staff for the first time since Lincoln's death."

  "Have you got those flowers? Good, I want to throw them. General Meade's men are coming."

  I pushed my way through the crowds. Only two blocks to the train depot. It might as well have been a dozen. My hat was knocked off. I dropped my portmanteau once and had to stop and get a better grip on the basket with Ulysses in it. He had gotten a hint of the excitement and was meowing, afraid. I shushed him and continued on.

  It must have taken me fifteen minutes to go one block. My head reverberated with the sound of marching feet as a swarm of blue men marched on Pennsylvania Avenue. Out of the corner of my eye I saw their regimental colors snapping in the breeze, their musket barrels gleaming. The epaulets on the shoulders of the officers shone in the sun. Their faces were lean and brown, their eyes hard. I wondered what my daddy would have looked like if he'd come home from the war. Sword hilts flashed. Horses high-stepped to sharp commands. Mules, laden with equipment and wearing the blankets of their units, trudged along. The crowd cheered. "On to Richmond!"

  "Don't forget the Wilderness!"

  "Three cheers for the Twentieth Maine!"

  The sun was hot already. I trudged along. My train would leave at ten o'clock. I stopped and asked a dignified mustached man what time it was. He drew out a pocket watch. "Nine-fifteen," he said.

  I had time to rest. But where? Then I saw my place. On the nearby green lawns that sloped down to the Capitol building in the distance. The slope was crowded with schoolchildren and their teachers. But there was also a man there selling lemonade. I was parched.

  I set my portmanteau, basket, and shawl under a tree. I purchased a cup of cold lemonade and took it back under the tree to watch the goings-on. The band music was bright and sassy. They were playing "The Girl I Left Behind Me." A group of schoolgirls dressed in white and wearing red, white, and blue ribbons rushed forward up the slope carrying a long garland made of flowers.

  "There he is. There he is."

  Who? I craned my neck and went up the slope to see. A gallant-looking officer with long yellow curls and a wavy mustache was leading the next contingent on a high-stepping horse.

  "General Custer, General Custer! Hurray for General Custer!" the girls yelled while they ran right to the curb of Pennsylvania Avenue. Then they threw the flower garland at Custer.

  Everything happened at once. Custer's gloved hand went to his hat. Just as he was about to raise it, his beautiful horse got hit in the face with the flowers. It reared and neighed in terror.

  Caught off balance, Custer did his best to reign his mount in. But the frightened girls screamed even more, adding to the horse's fear. At the same time a gigantic snare drum boomed. The horse was out of control. He came charging right at the schoolgirls, down the slope. I saw Custer's hat fly off, his blond curls whipping in the breeze. I saw the girls run. All but one.

  She stood there, paralyzed, and the horse was coming right at her.

  "Out of the way!" Custer was yelling. He mouthed the words, but the brass band drowned them out. I saw the wild look in his horse's eyes and, without thinking, rushed forward and dived at the dumbstruck girl who stood there with her mouth open staring into certain death.

  As my body hit hers I felt the wind knocked out of me. Together we rolled over on sweet spring grass, a tangle of dresses, arms, and legs. I felt a pain in my left wrist as I landed on it. Then I rolled over and my head reverberated like a snare drum as the back of it hit the ground, hard.

  For a moment I couldn't think. Everything went black. Then I was looking up into a bright blue sky through the leaves of a tree and all kinds of faces were peering down at me.

  "Is she all right? Who is she? Did you see what she did? If it hadn't been for her, Elvira would have been stomped to death."

  "Where is Custer? Does he even know what he almost caused?"

  "He's gone back to the head of his column. He's a wild one. They say it's typical of him. Did somebody send for a doctor?"

  "Yes. Miss Chauncy went." It was the girl I'd pushed aside. She stood over me. "I'm beholden to you," she said. "You saved my life. My teacher has gone for a doctor."

  "Are you all right?" I asked.

  She nodded. She was white-faced and tear-streaked, but all right.

  I sat up, with difficulty. My head hurt. My wrist hurt. "I don't want a doctor. I've got a train to catch."

  "I've found a doctor! Would you believe it! He was right over there on the edge of the slope. He has a bag and everything!" A woman in a white lawn dress with red, white, and blue streamers that made her look like a sailboat was coming toward us. I felt my face go as white as her dress. She was pulling someone along by the hand.

  "I don't want a doctor," I said again. I started to get up but had to sit back down again.

  "It's all right," he said softly, "it's all right. Get her some water, somebody. In God's name, Emily, I've been looking all over for you all morning. And then someone just came up to me yelling for a doctor and I came to help. I didn't know it was you. My God, what happened?"

  I started to cry then, and they were hard put to stop me. His voice did it. And his eyes. And the way his hands touched the lump on my head and picked up my hurt wrist. I had hoped never to see him again. "Oh," I sobbed, "I've made a mess of everything."

  "You sure have," Robert agreed, "but we won't talk about it now."

  I sat there blubbering while he bound up my wrist. "I want my cat," I sobbed. "Where's my basket with my cat? If I lose Ulysses, I'll die."

  The girl who claimed I saved her life ran and got my basket. Ulysses was crying fretfully. "He needs some water," I told Robert. So Robert gave him some.

  Then Robert made sure Elvira was all right. Her teacher insisted we exchange names. Robert gave her mine. And Uncle Valentine's address. "It's where Emily lives," he said; "it's her home. Come and see her."

  22. How Can I Explain This?

  "IT ISN'T WHERE I live," I told Robert. "It isn't my home. And you had no right to invite them to come and see me there."

  He was guiding the chaise away from the crowds and the traffic. He had all he could do to manage this and was not listening to me.

  I waited until we were away from the push of people and carriages and finally on a side street. "My train, at this very moment, might be coming into the station. My seat is waiting for me. Paid for. I have to get out of this chaise!"

  He did not answer.

  "You have to stop," I said. "I have to get out. Stop the horse now, I say! Robert!"

  We were on a side street now, the crowds were thinning, the horse clip-clopped at a steady pace, its mane streaming out, the cobble
stone street whizzing by under its feet, making me dizzy. I started to stand up. He pushed me back down.

  "Stop, please, I'm going to throw up."

  "Then do it and get it over with."

  "How can you be so mean? Robert, stop now, I say, or I'll jump out."

  "Then do it. I'll not pander to you further."

  "Pander? Pander? What does that mean?"

  "Everyone's pandered to you since you first got to your uncle's house. And look how you repay him."

  "How? How do I repay him?"

  "By setting the police on him."

  "Police?" The breeze was blowing his hair about. And I noticed he was growing a mustache. "What are you talking about?" I felt a sense of dread in my bones. "What happened?"

  We were driving past a park now. He slowed the horse down. "Do you care what happened?"

  Myra, I thought dismally. She went and told her father about the dead bodies in the laboratory. "Yes," I said.

  "Your uncle's work was near ruined. If I hadn't gotten rid of the evidence before the police arrived at the college with the reporters, it would have been. And he might now be in jail. Just because you and your silly friends had to go on a lark. Couldn't you have thought of something else to do? Gone to the Soldiers' Home, maybe, where you could have laughed at the veterans who are half blind and can't walk anymore?"

  "Stop it, Robert, it wasn't like that."

  "What was it like, then? I want to know how a bunch of silly schoolgirls can get the notion to ruin the lifetime work of one of the finest doctors we have today in Washington."

  Oh, dear God, I thought, how can I explain this? But I had to try. So I told him. The words sounded so lame, so inept, the reasoning so selfish. But I told my whole sad tale, starting from the party at school for Myra and ending up with how we ran from the courtyard.

  "And you never gave a thought to what this little Myra witch would do when she got home. Because you were busy thinking of yourself. And your own shocked little sensibilities. Am I right?"

  Tears crowded my eyes and my throat. "No," I said. "My feminine scruples."

  He said nothing to that. But he was angry. He had every right to be, yes, but he was missing something here, overlooking something. What was it? Then it came to me. "If you hadn't lied to me, I wouldn't have allowed them to go to the college. I'd have found a way to keep them from it."

  He said nothing.

  "Didn't you tell me the bodies you brought back from Memphis were alive? And when I asked you if I would find dead bodies at the lab if I went there, you said no. That it was the end of the semester and they were all gone. Isn't that right, Robert?"

  "Yes," he said hoarsely.

  "I believed you, Robert. I was convinced Myra would make a fool of herself."

  He'd allowed the horse to slow to a walk. "How long ago did you know Myra's father was doing an investigation?" he asked.

  "I've known it for a while, but I've been able to keep her at bay."

  "Why didn't you tell us?"

  "Because I wasn't supposed to know what was going on."

  "You suspected. You admitted that to me the last time we had this conversation. You should have told us."

  "You should have told me things, too."

  "Could you have been trusted? As soon as you found out, you decided to run away."

  "Because I was betrayed. Not because I found it out."

  We rode in silence for a minute or two. We were a block from Uncle Valentine's house. "Where is Uncle Valentine?" I asked.

  "Home, waiting for you. He arrived at about eight this morning. Traveled on the cars all night. The minute he found out you were missing, he sent me for you. And I haven't slept all night. I was tipped off yesterday afternoon, just as I returned from my trip to the ironclad, about the police raid on the lab. I got there first, with two other students. Just in time to get the bodies out."

  "So the police and reporters have nothing to go on, then."

  "No. Only you have. You know now what we're doing. And you can turn us in anytime you want to."

  "How dare you! Do you think I would do that?" He didn't answer.

  "How did you find me? How did you know where I'd be?"

  "Annie. She came around to see your uncle and told him—the train time and everything—so I knew you'd be in the vicinity of the depot. You can thank Custer for the rest."

  "Annie." I fumed. "A fine friend she is."

  "Yes, she is a fine friend. You're lucky to have her. She was worried about you running off to Godforsaken Richmond. There's hardly any food in Richmond. There's military rule. Annie felt she owed your uncle that much. I wouldn't criticize Annie. She knows what she's about."

  "And I don't, I suppose."

  He drew the chaise up in front of the house. "Did you let Addie go?" The brown eyes pinned me. I could tell he was hoping I would say no.

  "Yes," I answered.

  "Well, you've really repaid your uncle for all his kindness. I don't know why he puts up with you. I think he should put you in a convent school."

  "I'm not Catholic."

  "Well, maybe you'd learn right from wrong."

  I gave a bitter laugh. "Like Johnny Surratt did?"

  He was decent enough not to elaborate on that thought. He fell silent for a moment.

  "The Spoon and the Mole have been working for my uncle all along, haven't they?" I asked. "And that night at the cemetery, when he chased them from my mother's grave, he planned it all so I would be indebted to him, didn't he?"

  "Because he wanted you to live with him. He knew your mother had turned you against him. She knew about the body snatching. He wanted to make you think he was opposed to it, yes. But you wanted to live with people who were planning on assassinating the president."

  "That is unfair, Robert!"

  He sighed. "I'm weary of this. My head is spinning. I need to go home and sleep....Go into the house and face the music. He's waiting for you. I wish you luck."

  I clambered down from the chaise. He handed down my portmanteau and the basket with Ulysses in it. "For your information," I told him, "I wanted to get in touch with you yesterday afternoon, when Myra sprang her plans on us. But I couldn't."

  He nodded briefly. "A lot of good it does us now," he said.

  I picked up my things and moved away. "I hate your mustache," I said.

  23. Nothing and No One, He Said

  I WAS TREMBLING when I went into the house. I set my things down in the hall. Ulysses meowed again, poor dear, and I opened the basket and let him out. He ran scampering off, right up the stairs. I wished I could follow him and jump into my bed and pull the blankets over my head.

  Where was everybody? Except for the ticking of the tall clock, the house was as silent as the inside of a marble vault. Was Maude out? I hoped so. I didn't need her around, chiding me. It was enough I had to face Uncle Valentine.

  What would he say? I knew how he could cut you with his words, like he was doing surgery. Like he was cutting the bad parts out and throwing them away. Would he cut parts out of me now? I'd seen people he'd done it to. They walked away limping. Or all white in the face, like they were bleeding and didn't know it.

  "I'm in here, Emily." The voice came from the parlor, muffled and sad.

  I went down the hall. He was seated in a large wingback chair, reading. He looked up. I was a sight, all right, with grass stains on the skirt of my dress. It was torn at the hem, too. My arm was in a makeshift sling, my face dirty.

  He stood up at the sight of me. The book dropped to the floor. "Are you all right? What happened? You look as if you were run down by a carriage."

  "No. A horse, almost. It's a sprain, Robert said. And there's a bump on the back of my head."

  He came over to me and felt my head with expert hands, knowing hands. "That's quite a bump. You've got to get some ice on it. But you don't have a skull fracture." He went to the kitchen next and I heard him fussing around out there. He came back with some ice tied in a rag. "Sit down and put this
behind your head." He gestured to the wingback chair. I sat. He did, too, across from me.

  "Emily," he said, "we have to talk." He looked so sad.

  I said, "Yes."

  "Why did you run away from me, Emily?"

  "Because of what I saw yesterday." I wished his voice wasn't so kind. I wished he would scold. But he didn't.

  "The bodies in my lab?"

  "Yes."

  He leaned forward. "You have suspected the true nature of my work all along, haven't you?"

  I told him yes again.

  "Then why didn't you ask me outright? Don't you think I deserved at least that?"

  "I wanted to. But every time I set my mind to it something happened. You did something good for Annie. Or me. I was thrown off the track and thought I was being silly."

  "I meant to throw you off the track. I couldn't have my work compromised. And it was, yesterday. It was more than compromised. It was almost ruined. I was almost ruined. If Robert hadn't been tipped off about the police raid and gotten the bodies out, I would have been arrested."

  "Uncle Valentine, I didn't lead those girls there. They forced their way. The only reason I went along with it was because Robert told me there were no bodies at your lab. I never meant to hurt you."

  "You discussed all this with Robert?"

  "Yes, but he wasn't honest with me, either. Any more than you were."

  "Don't call me to account, Emily." He turned sharp.

  "I'm not calling you to account, sir."

  "This has nothing to do with honesty. It has to do with research. With treating shattered bones and torn muscles. With head injuries and ghastly injuries of the face, the spine, the chest. The war taught us all we do not know about the human body. But we must now apply what we have learned in the war. Only, there are not enough available legal cadavers. We need Anatomy Acts to provide us with legal cadavers. New York has one now. Pennsylvania is working on one. I am authoring a pamphlet telling of the need here for such an act. When it is passed, the traffic in bodies will end. Until that time, I shall continue my practices. It is not a pleasant business. I do not profit from it, and I will not purchase a cadaver from anyone who profits from it. But it is my work, the most important thing in the world to me. Do you understand?"