Veiled in Smoke

by Jocelyn Green

  “I do see.” Sylvie went to the bookshelf and selected Robinson Crusoe. “This one has a shipwreck and adventure on a deserted island. Do you think they might like that?”

  He said they would. “How much?” He took one last bite of his pastry, stood, then dug in his pocket, bringing out a handful of change.

  Sylvie named an amount he could afford.

  Replacing his cap, Louis dropped the coins in her hand and beamed as he took the book. “You’ll tell Miss Meg I was here, won’t you? Tell her I bought a book. She’ll like that.” He left with a bounce in his step.

  Sylvie was clearing his plate from the table when the bell jingled again.

  Stepping inside, Jasper doffed his hat and smiled, bringing the dimple to his cheek, and all thoughts of Louis and his family fled.

  “Jasper! What a surprise to see you!”

  He cringed, then turned to hang his hat on the peg beside the door. “Then I’ve neglected my friends for too long.”

  Friends. He’d lumped her in with her sister and father. “I’m sorry to say Meg and Father are out at present.” Thank goodness they weren’t due to return for a few hours. “But I can offer you strudel and coffee, since you’re here. I don’t suppose you need to purchase or order any books?”

  “Of course! Isn’t that why most customers come?”

  So now he was just a customer. Sylvie pressed her lips together to trap a growing exasperation. Possessing herself, she smoothed a wrinkle from her skirt. “Why exactly are you here?”

  He grew serious, all jesting fading away. “You all left in such a hurry on Thanksgiving. I wanted to see how things have been for you. Has your father adjusted to being home?”

  “He’s adjusting. We all are.” She folded her hands in front of the belt at her waist. “That’s why you came?” She longed for so much more, and yet she could hear herself pushing him away with her clipped tone and short words.

  He studied her for a moment. “You’re different, Sylvie. Something’s wrong. I’ve been so busy with classes, and perhaps I should have called earlier, but I thought your family needed some time alone during your father’s transition home. I hope that—other than that—I haven’t done anything to offend you.”

  A short laugh escaped her. He hadn’t done anything at all. And yet his presence stirred her in ways she wanted to deny. She ought to be done with it, with him, once and for all. She would stop pining for this wooden man, and her father would stop persuading her she ought to.

  Lifting her chin, she resolved to do just that, for he caused her more angst than joy. “I borrowed this book from Hiram’s library. I’ll send it home with you now.” She scooped up Villette and thought of his image nesting between its pages.

  “Have you finished it yet?”

  “I don’t need to. I know how this story ends, and I actually hate it.”

  When he reached to take it from her, his hands lingered on hers. “Are you sure?”

  She thrilled to his touch, to his question. Oh, the meaning she could assign to those three words. He could mend her heart or break it with so little effort, it scared her.

  “Jasper, please,” she whispered, folding her arms over her starched and pleated shirtwaist. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Don’t you?” The dimple reappeared, and she turned away from it. “I’m sorry. I’m not a tease. I do want to see more of you, and I’d supposed—perhaps wrongly—that our last conversation made my regard for you clear. It’s just that my studies keep me very occupied.”

  “You want to see more of me as a friend?”

  A charming pink stole over his features. “As more than that. If you agree.”

  Dare she believe him? Her heart lurched with a resounding yes, then plummeted. “My father would never allow it.”

  He frowned. “But why? What have I done?”

  “Nothing.” She bit her lip. Everything her father held against Jasper was based on misunderstanding, she was sure of it. She could ask him to clear it all up for her, thus clearing the path for their budding future together.

  But did she really want to be the one to tell Jasper that his grandmother, the woman who raised him, had told Hiram he was dead in order to cut them off from each other? That could only bring him sorrow. And he’d already been through so much.

  And the photograph. That was another question mark. For her, it was of no consequence that he’d had it taken a month before the war’s end rather than when he signed up to serve. She had several good theories, but if she could resolve the matter definitively, perhaps Stephen would be satisfied.

  “What aren’t you telling me, Sylvie?” Jasper stepped closer, filling the space between them with his balsam scent.

  She swallowed, glancing out the window to make sure no one else was coming. “There’s a photograph in the book. That book.” She nodded toward the novel he’d tucked under his arm. “Of you.”

  The color left his face. Going to the table, he set down the book and opened it, flipping the pages from front to back. Not finding it, he searched the pages again. Held the book upside down by its covers and shook it. Nothing.

  He unwound the muffler from his neck and dropped it on the table, then unfastened the buttons of his cloak. “What photograph?”

  “It must have fallen out in the back room. But it’s a carte de visite of you in your Union army uniform. A studio picture. On the back, Hiram wrote the date it was taken. March 1865. It’s a striking image, and I’m sure you’ll want to hang on to it. Show your children and grandchildren someday.”

  “Perhaps.” He scanned the front room, as though searching for the card. “Who else has seen it?”

  She pinched her locket between her finger and thumb. “Just me and Meg, and Nate and my father. The only thing is, my father wonders why it was taken so late in the war. That is, what made you wait four years before having your picture made?”

  There was only the slightest pause before he replied. “I wouldn’t have had it made at all, but Uncle Hiram said he wanted to have my likeness.” He shrugged. “So finally I gave in to please him. He was very patriotic, as you know. As proud of my service as he was of his own.”

  “Of course,” she breathed. “That makes perfect sense. Give me a moment, and I’ll go find it.”

  Bustling into the back room, she searched for the card, but to no avail. She didn’t see her father’s carte de visite either. Perhaps Stephen had taken them both when he left with Meg, unwilling to be without either one for some reason.

  Irritated, she returned to the front room, the curtain falling closed behind her. “I didn’t see it, but I’m sure as soon as Meg and my father come home, one of them will know where it is. We’ll return it to you soon.”

  The corner of Jasper’s lips curved up. “See that you do.”

  Snow flurries swirled into the room when he opened the door. As he left, he was no longer smiling.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  MONDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1871

  Fog muffling her footsteps, Meg hurried to keep pace alongside Nate as they headed to Mr. Brandon’s new photography studio. His eyes veined with red beneath the brim of his hat, Nate had come to get her before she’d had time to go out and buy a copy of his paper. Judging by the shadow on his jaw, he hadn’t taken the time to shave this morning either.

  She didn’t think she appeared as ragged as he did, but she was undeniably exhausted from all the painting she’d been doing. The art show was a scant six days away. Her mind spun with all she must accomplish between now and then, but she locked that away for now.

  “So?” She looped her hand through Nate’s elbow. “Can you distill eleven hundred pages of notes into a single sentence for me? What’s the verdict?”

  His smile was weary. “Catherine O’Leary was found not guilty.”

  “Who then, or what, do we blame?”

  “I spent hours upon hours carefully crafting the article to answer that very question. It pains me that you didn’t read it.” He pr
essed a hand to his heart in mock injury.

  “I’ll pick up a copy on the way home. But please don’t keep me in suspense! Is the story at least on the front page?”

  He shook his head. “The story is buried. The answer: they don’t know.”

  She stopped and stared at him. “After all that?”

  “After all that. A quote from their conclusion: ‘whether it originated from a spark blown from a chimney on that windy night, or was set on fire by human agency, we are unable to determine.’”

  Meg shook her head. The damp air slid under her collar and seeped through to her bones. “Let’s hope we get more definitive answers from Mr. Brandon. You still have the photograph cards, I assume.”

  “Right here.” He patted his chest. “Anyone miss them these last few days?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes. Jasper came to the shanty on Saturday, and Sylvie tried to return the photograph to him, only to find it was gone. He told her he’d like to have it back.”

  He looked at her. “What did you tell her?”

  “The truth. I told her I noticed something a little odd and brought it to you for your opinion, but you were busy on an important assignment. Honestly, if I’d known it would take you this long, I wouldn’t have left them with you.” She peered ahead, looking for landmarks she recognized along the street. The hovering mist rounded corners and softened edges.

  “Ah, but if you hadn’t left them in my care, Jasper’s image would be with him now, and we would have lost our proof.”

  “Proof of what?”

  “We’ll find out shortly. Here we are.”

  Inside the photographer’s studio, Meg wiped her feet on the rug and surveyed the dozens of sepia portraits covering the walls. Some had been tinted, making lips and cheeks artificially pink, their eyes a startling blue. Partitioned off by folding screens from the rest of the room, a portrait area was arranged with a chair and small covered table in front of a velvet curtain held aside with a tasseled cord. A pleated folding-box-style camera perched on a stand.

  Mr. Brandon came out from the back room soon after the bell announced their arrival. His sleeves had been pushed above his elbows, and he quickly rolled them back down and fastened the cuffs at his wrists. A bright green and yellow parakeet chirped inside its cage as he passed it. Extending a hand to Nate, he used his other to smooth his brown hair.

  “Greetings!” Mr. Brandon smiled. “What can I do for you today? I offer a full range of photographic services. We even do color tinting now.”

  “So I see.” Meg stifled the urge to ask about that process. Instead, she introduced herself.

  When Mr. Brandon offered his hand, she shook it with her left. It felt awkward, but this was how she’d decided to navigate this social custom—boldly and without apology.

  “We were hoping you might be able to clear something up for us,” she said. “I understand you were the photographer for Camp Douglas during the war.”

  He hooked his thumbs behind his suspenders. “That I was. Churned out many a portrait of Union enlistees, Union guards, and Confederate prisoners. What can I tell you?”

  Nate produced the two images, then walked to the counter and set them on a green felt surface. “We see your stamp on the edge of this card.” He pointed to Stephen’s. “The other one has been trimmed, but it seems a match as well. Can you confirm this?”

  Mr. Brandon slid Jasper’s card over Stephen’s. “You bet. I took both of those photographs, I’m sure.”

  Meg turned Jasper’s image over. “Now look at the date. March 1865. We were told this young man enlisted in southern Indiana in early 1861. Do you have any idea why he would have his photo taken at Camp Douglas one month before the war’s end?”

  A cuckoo clock on the wall broke into the conversation, chiming nine times to mark the hour. Ignoring it, Mr. Brandon thrust out his lower lip in thought. “The only Union soldiers I was photographing at that time, other than the guards of the Invalid Corps, were Galvanized Yankees.”

  Nate’s eyes flared behind his spectacles. The parakeet chirped and twittered.

  When no explanation followed, Meg said, “I’m not familiar with that term.”

  “As early as 1862,” the photographer began, “the U.S. government tried to alleviate the overcrowding of Union prison camps by offering the Confederate prisoners a way out if they took an oath of allegiance to the United States of America and promised not to fight the North anymore.”

  The fire crackled merrily nearby, rendering the damp air warm and almost suffocating. Meg unfastened the buttons of her cloak. “So prisoners could take the oath and be free? Just like that?”

  “Not exactly just like that,” Nate corrected. “They were sworn in as ‘Galvanized Yankees’—a particular brand of Union soldier—and sent west to fight the Indians along with sorely stretched Union troops. They were released from prison only to be put back into service fighting for and alongside their former enemy. They were sent out west so they wouldn’t have to fight their Southern comrades.”

  “And so they wouldn’t be tempted to desert and put on their butternut greys again,” Mr. Brandon added. “A small percentage of prisoners took the opportunity, but it came with quite a price. I can only imagine what sort of welcome they received from their families in Dixie after the war.”

  Meg searched her mind for a place to fit this information. Mr. Brandon was implying that Jasper had been a Confederate soldier first, a suggestion that didn’t make sense. “Jasper Davenport told us he was a Union soldier from the first day he enlisted.” If he hadn’t said it in so many words, the implication had always been there. “He said his uncle, Hiram Sloane, requested that he have his photograph taken. Hiram was a prison guard at Camp Douglas.”

  Nate turned to her. “How do you know Hiram requested that?”

  “Jasper told Sylvie on Saturday. She asked him about the date.”

  Mr. Brandon was nodding, his double chin flattening with each bob. “I remember Hiram Sloane. I was so sorry to read of his murder the night of the fire. May I ask what your interest is in him and this young fellow Jasper you’re asking about?”

  “Hiram was a dear friend of our family. His great-nephew, Jasper Davenport, has come back to Chicago and is the sole beneficiary of his estate.” She did not add that her sister had fallen in love with him.

  “Ah! I never knew they were related, Hiram and this young fellow.” Mr. Brandon glanced at Jasper’s image. “What a change in fortune for them both. Yes, Hiram insisted on paying for this photograph. It struck me as most unusual, a Union guard paying for the image of a Confederate prisoner. But if they were related, that changes things, doesn’t it?”

  She tapped his photo with her fingertip, a sliver of paint showing beneath her nail. “Forgive me, but what you’re suggesting is difficult to swallow. I never would have guessed it based on this photograph.”

  Mr. Brandon chuckled, his gaze drifting for a moment to the parakeet dragging his beak across the bars of the birdcage for attention. “Photographs can be deceiving.”

  Exasperation needled her. Far too warm, she shrugged out of her cloak and folded it over her arm. “Explain.”

  “Well, now. You look at that image and see a Union soldier through and through. I see a Confederate prisoner who took the oath of allegiance, traded his rags for a uniform he despised, and sat for a portrait he didn’t want right before he was shipped off to fight alongside soldiers he probably still considered his enemy. Look at his eyes. Does he look patriotic to Uncle Sam to you?”

  A chill swept down her spine. She looked at Jasper’s image again. She couldn’t deny Mr. Brandon was right about his expression. Hadn’t she noticed something off, something especially hard about it, even before she brought it to Nate?

  “So that’s the secret, then,” she whispered. “Hiram’s beloved nephew was fighting on the opposite side of the war. No wonder Jasper never wanted to talk about it.”

  Nate shifted his weight, spun his bowler in his hands. “Mr.
Brandon, I understand you were burned out of your previous location. Did you happen to save any of your records?”

  “Precious few. I don’t have my ledger books from that time, but I do have a few other photographs from Camp Douglas, if you’d be interested. One is of a group of prisoners taking the oath.”

  “Yes, sir, I’d appreciate seeing that.”

  As Mr. Brandon left, Meg turned to Nate, resting one elbow on the counter. “It makes sense now, doesn’t it? Jasper has never been open with us. He didn’t want us to know he’d been to Chicago before because he didn’t want to tell us it was only as an inmate at Camp Douglas.” A pang of sympathy for Jasper broke through her shock at this discovery.

  Nate studied the photo, the double cowlick on the back of his head splaying his hair into a little fin. “Something still doesn’t fit. That letter from Sarah to Hiram . . .”

  “Was a ruse,” Meg finished. “She must have wanted to sever the tie between them once and for all. I imagine their family feud ran along patriotic lines. She must have been for the Confederacy, and Hiram was staunchly for the Union.”

  Nate lifted a hand. “But she said Jasper died in the army camp outside of Petersburg during the siege, the summer of 1864. Outside of Petersburg. It was the Union army camped outside the city during the siege.”

  “True, but Confederate troops built defenses outside the city too. Both armies were technically outside Petersburg.” She summoned the exact words of the letter. “Perhaps more telling than his position was that Sarah also wrote, ‘As our president would say, Jasper gave the last full measure of his devotion to the cause.’ It was Lincoln who used that phrase about the last full measure of devotion in his Gettysburg Address. So if we believe Jasper was included in the pronoun our, he fought for the Union from the first.”

  Thoughts tumbling through her mind, she plucked the pencil from behind Nate’s ear.

  Reading her intention, he pulled paper from his satchel and slapped it on the counter. After stretching her hands, Meg made two columns with a line down the center of the page. At the top, she labeled one Sarah says and the other Brandon says. Into each, she scribbled the facts as they knew them, for once not caring that her left-handed script was inelegant.