by Lynn Austin
“What’s wrong?” I asked him as I descended the stairs. “Did something happen to Robert?”
“There’s been a prison break. Your lieutenant friend is among the missing.”
“Was it really necessary to scare me and my servants out of our wits just to tell us that? Couldn’t it have waited until morning?”
“We need to search your house.” Major Turner pushed the door to Daddy’s library open and motioned for one of the two men with him to start searching it.
“Wait a minute. What do you think you’re doing? May I please see your search warrant?”
“We don’t need one. Our country’s at war. We’re under martial law.”
It was useless to argue. When Eli walked into the foyer and stood behind me as if guarding me, I knew I no longer had to stall. “Gilbert, fetch us some lamps, please,” I said. “Major, I will ask you and your men to kindly wipe your shoes.”
They did so, grudgingly. Gilbert returned with the lamps and was sent with one of the men to search the basement. Turner and the other man searched the ground floor as Eli, Tessie, and I watched. The men were very thorough, peering into every corner, crevice, and niche. I saw Eli’s wisdom in not telling us where he had hidden Robert. Like in a game of Hot and Cold, we might easily have given away his hiding place by acting nervous whenever they neared the spot.
Through the drawing room windows, I could see lights in the carriage house and in the kitchen as more soldiers searched outside. Torches bobbed in the garden like clumsy fireflies. Surely if they had found Robert outside, they would have sounded the alarm by now.
“Was my cousin the only one who escaped?” I asked as Turner peered beneath the parlor sofa.
He gave me a long, appraising look, as if trying to read my guilt or innocence. “No,” he finally said. “There are more than a hundred men missing.”
“How did they manage to escape?”
Turner shook one of the drapes as if Robert might flutter out of it like a moth. “I think you already know the answer to that, Miss Fletcher.”
“How dare you accuse me?”
“I dare because the escape tunnel they dug was precisely placed. They obviously had outside help.”
“I have never liked you, Major,” I said coldly. “Tonight you have insulted me and offended me. I’m allowing this search because I have no choice. But you can be sure I’ll be speaking to your superior officer tomorrow morning about the way I was treated. Instead of wasting your time here, perhaps you should find out which one of your guards is accepting bribes.”
Turner closed the piano lid and stared at me darkly. “I know you helped him, Miss Fletcher.”
“Is that so? Well, if you think I’m smart enough to plan a prison escape, then why would I be stupid enough to hide my cousin here?”
He didn’t reply. “Upstairs,” he said, motioning to his aide. The search seemed to take forever. When the guard finished down in the basement, he and Gilbert were sent up to the attic. One of the guards from outside came in to report that they hadn’t found anything in the yard or outbuildings.
Finally, Turner went into my bedroom. I could see that he was growing angrier by the minute as his search proved fruitless. He poked inside my wardrobe and under the bed, then started pulling linens out of my hope chest. But when he pulled back my bed curtains to peer at my rumpled bed, I lost my temper.
“How dare you! You are a pervert, Major, and certainly not a gentleman! Are you going to paw through all my unmentionables, as well? I’ve had quite enough of this! Eli, go fetch Mr. St. John. We’ll see what my fiance é’s father has to say about the way you’re treating me.”
Turner saw that he had pushed me to my limit. He told Eli to wait and quickly searched the rest of my bedroom, then left without a word of apology. But before the front door closed, he made certain that I heard him say to one of his men, “Stay here day and night if you have to, but watch this house.”
I shook with anger and relief. It was after six o’clock by now, but the dawning sun hid behind a gray, overcast sky. Eli and Gilbert went outside to begin their chores.
“Why don’t you crawl back into bed and lie down until we get the fire going,” Tessie told me. “It be a lot warmer under the covers. You shaking like a leaf.” We started up the stairs together.
“Where’s Robert?” I whispered, even though the major and his men were gone.
“I don’t know, honey. Want me to go ask Eli?”
“No, he’s right. It’s probably better if we don’t know. It must be a very good hiding place, though. Turner was very thorough.”
“He sure was. I holding my breath till I almost forget to breathe.”
I walked into my bedroom and yanked the bed curtains open, angry all over again when I recalled how the major had dared to leer inside my private sleeping place. I pulled back the covers to lie down, then let out a startled shriek.
A pair of frightened eyes looked up at me. The lump beneath the quilt at the foot of my bed was Robert. I had to grab onto the headboard to keep from falling over.
“How on earth did you get in here?”
“It was Eli’s idea. He said a true Southern gentleman would never look in a lady’s bed—and he said if the major turned out not to be a gentleman, you would have his hide before you would ever let him touch your bed. It turned out Eli was right.”
I remembered how close Turner had come to finding Robert and I began to tremble all over again. “No, stay there,” I said when Robert started to climb out. “It’s the safest place.”
“I’ll give you fleas.”
“It’s a little late to worry about that now. If the fleas are smart, they’ve already escaped.”
Giddy laughter suddenly bubbled up inside me at the absurdity of it all, a laughter born of exhaustion and fear and weary relief. Robert began laughing, too, as he lay back down on the bed again.
“Oh, Caroline . . . Oh, you have no idea how good this feels!”
“To lie in a bed?”
“No, to laugh! Turner came so close to finding me, but you were so wonderfully indignant. You called him a pervert! I wish I could have seen your face . . . and his face.”
I wiped tears of joy as Robert and I laughed together. Then something in his laughter changed, and I realized that he was weeping.
“Oh, God . . .” he said, covering his face. “Oh, God, I’ve been locked in that place for eighteen months . . . and now . . . I can’t believe it! Caroline, I’m free!”
Chapter Twenty
March 1863
Tessie had just served breakfast in my room later that morning when Mr. St. John arrived at my front door. At the sound of the knock, Robert dove beneath the covers again, and I quickly composed myself and tried to walk calmly down the stairs to greet him. Mr. St. John’s disheveled appearance told me that he had also been robbed of a full night’s sleep. His angry face told me that he hadn’t come as my protector and friend.
“Won’t you come in?” I asked. “Esther just made breakfast if you would like some.”
“No, thank you.” He stepped inside the door so that Gilbert could close it against the March chill, but he would come no farther than the foyer. Nor would he allow Gilbert to take his coat and hat.
“I’ll come right to the point,” he said. “It pains me to have to ask you this, Caroline, but I must.Were you involved in last night’s prison break?”
I chose my words cautiously, careful not to lie. “I was home asleep in my bed at the time. I had no idea they planned to escape last night. I admit that I continued to visit my cousin after you asked me not to, and I admit that he sometimes talked of escaping— but doesn’t every prisoner?”
“Did you show him where to dig the tunnel?”
I recalled how Eli had pushed me aside so he could draw the diagram for Robert, and I thanked God for his wisdom in doing so. “No,” I answered honestly. “I didn’t show Robert where to dig.”
“They’ve recaptured some twenty men—”
“No. But the major says one of those he recaptured confessed that a woman was involved.”
“Major Turner is lying. If he has evidence against me, why doesn’t he arrest me?”
“Because I won’t allow it. Turner is convinced you were involved. Some of the sentries reported that you were snooping around the Towing Company last winter.”
“I inquired about having my furniture shipped to safety. Is that against the law?”
Mr. St. John bristled at my sharp tongue and I immediately regretted my outspokenness. He raised his finger and shook it at me. “I’d be careful how I spoke if I were you, Caroline. You are in a very dangerous position right now.”
“I’m sorry. Look, they searched my house thoroughly and didn’t find any trace of Robert. Don’t you think I’ve been harassed enough? If Charles knew how I was being treated, he would—”
“You wouldn’t be a suspect if you had heeded my warnings and stayed away from the prison.”
“I’m starting to think you believe Major Turner. You have your doubts about me and my loyalties, don’t you? Would you like to search my house, too?”
“Charles has a right to know if you were involved. As his father, so do I. If you loved him and respected his family’s name, you would have stayed well away from Libby.”
“My love for Charles has nothing to do with this. I would be happy to let you read the letter he wrote me. He said he admired me for doing what I felt was right and visiting the prison. I mean no disrespect, Mr. St. John, but it’s up to Charles, not you, to decide if I’ve acted appropriately. It’s his place to question me and to decide my guilt or innocence when he gets home. Now, I’ve answered your questions, and you obviously don’t believe me. I don’t know what more I can do.”
He studied me for a long moment, and I feared that I had made him angry again. But the expression on his face was one of confusion and bewilderment, not anger. I saw Mr. St. John for what he was—an aging, unwell man, not my enemy. He was as sick of this war and the hard choices it forced him to make as I was.
“I don’t know what to believe anymore,” he said. He turned and walked out the door, limping down the path to his carriage.
Robert may have been freed from Libby Prison but he was still a virtual prisoner in my house. With an intense search for the escapees going on in Richmond and the surrounding countryside, it was much too dangerous for him to risk leaving. Fearing another surprise search by Major Turner, Tessie and I decided to sleep in Mother’s room for the next few days so we could continue to hide Robert in my bedroom.
After Mr. St. John left that morning, we hauled buckets of hot water upstairs, filling the copper bathtub so Robert could bathe. Luella doused his shaggy hair with turpentine and wrapped it in rags to kill the lice, then Gilbert trimmed it short after it had been scrubbed clean. Robert’s long beard and mustache also had to go because of the vermin. Gilbert, who had barbered Daddy countless times, was given the job of shaving him, too.
Meanwhile, Tessie and Ruby worked to let out all the seams and hems in one of Daddy’s old suits and altered one of his shirts so they would fit Robert. I burned his Federal uniform in the library’s fireplace. The only things we couldn’t replace were Robert’s shoes—the worn-out pair the Confederate soldier had left behind when he’d stolen Robert’s army boots. Daddy’s shoes were too small, Eli’s too large. Gilbert’s shoes fit him the best, but then Gilbert would need a new pair, and shoes in Richmond cost a small fortune these days. Robert would have to go without shoes until his leg healed.
When the transformation was complete, I hardly recognized Robert. He was much thinner and lankier than he’d ever been when we lived up north, and he was very pale from the lack of sunlight for the past year and a half. But his bearing and demeanor were what had changed the most since our days in Philadelphia.
There was an austere strength in his face from all that he’d endured, a rugged tilt to his jaw that made him look fierce for the first time in his life. The sadness in his gray poet’s eyes was gone, replaced by a hard glint like bayonet steel. Clean-shaven and dressed in Daddy’s clothes, Robert looked surprisingly handsome.
Within two weeks his leg was healing nicely—and forty-eight of the escaped prisoners had been recaptured. Two had drowned in the canal, but fifty-nine, including Robert, remained at large. “It’s time for me to go,” he repeated as he paced my bedroom floor to exercise his leg. I sat in a chair beside the fireplace, watching him.
“You can’t just walk out the door,” I told him. “For one thing, I think my house is still being watched. For another, every healthy young man your age is in the army. You’d stick out like a sore thumb. Besides, as soon as you open your mouth they’ll be able to tell you’re a Yankee. You need a plan.”
“I’ll leave at night.”
I shook my head. “That’s when they recaptured forty-eight of your fellow escapees. Listen, we still have Jonathan’s army jacket from when he was wounded. Esther has been using it for a rag and it’s in terrible shape, but we could try to patch it—”
“A Confederate uniform? I wouldn’t be caught dead in one, even to escape.”
I thought of how proud Charles was to wear his Confederate uniform and I lost my temper. “Don’t be an idiot, Robert. You might be both—caught and dead.”
He lifted his chin stubbornly. “Think of something else.”
I drummed my fingers on the table. “They’ll have all the roads blocked. And the last time I traveled outside of Richmond I needed a permit. I don’t know if that’s still true or not. I’d draw too much attention to myself if I started inquiring about it. Jonathan kept the permit from when we went to his brother’s funeral. But I think I still have the travel permit Aunt Anne and I used when we went out to Hilltop. Maybe we could alter it or forge a new one.”
“Let me see it.”
I kept it in a hatbox in the bottom of my wardrobe with all of Charles’ letters. Robert crossed the room to stand behind me, peering over my shoulder as I searched among the envelopes.
“Are all those letters from him?” he asked.
“He has a name,” I said quietly. “It’s Charles. And yes, these letters are from Charles.”
“Did you save all of my letters, too?”
I hated to hurt Robert, but he needed to face the truth. I shook my head. “I’m engaged to Charles. It didn’t seem right to keep letters from another man. . . . Here, I found the travel permit.”
Robert took it from me and paced across the room, studying it. “This would be much too hard to forge—unless you have talents I don’t know about. If we altered it, we would have to change the date and erase all the names . . . it’s made out for three people.”
“Three of us could use it.”
“Out of the question. I won’t involve you.”
“You keep saying that, Robert . . . and then you keep involving me. You asked me to help you deliver the Bible, to help you escape, to try to gather information from people in my social circles. You hid in my stable and in my bed. I’m already involved.” I yanked the travel permit away from him.
“I’m sorry—”
“Listen, I think I know a way we can use this with less risk. It’s written for two women and their slave. If you dressed as a woman, the only thing we’d have to change is the date.” I saw Robert recoil at the idea, and I lost my patience. “I suppose playing a woman is worse than wearing Rebel gray? You’re running out of options, Robert. If you go waltzing out of Richmond in civilian clothes they’ll assume you’re a Yankee or a deserter. Either way, they’ll shoot you dead. Make up your mind.”
I stalked out of the room, giving him time to consider his narrowing options. In the meantime, Tessie, Ruby and I hunted down every piece of black material we could find in the house and started sewing a mourning dress big enough to fit Robert. Ruby sewed a black veil to one of Mother’s old hats so his face and hair would be covered. I gave Gilbert the travel permit a
nd he carefully sanded off the date without ripping the paper so I could write in a new one. The hardest part would be borrowing another horse to help the mare pull all three of us in the carriage. “You leave that to me,” Eli said. By the time we finished, Robert had little choice but to submit to our plan.
Winter had lasted a long time that year, leaving many of the roads muddy and impassable. “All we need now is for the roads to finish drying,” I told Robert on a sunny morning midway through March. “Everything else is in place.”
“A diversion would help, too,” Robert said. “Something to distract the Home Guards’ attention for a couple of days.”
A very unfortunate distraction was provided for us a day later. Robert and I were reading the morning newspaper in my room when a low, rumbling sound like a powerful explosion shook the house. It came from the direction of the river.
“What was that?” he asked, looking up in alarm. “Gun ships?”
“I don’t know . . . it didn’t sound like cannon. But it was very close. Too close.” I ran down the hallway to Daddy’s room and went out onto his balcony, which overlooked the river. A column of thick, dark smoke plumed into the sky to the west, near Shockoe Slip.
“Stay here,” I told Robert. “I’ll try to find out what’s going on.” I put on my coat and hat and headed out to the carriage house to find Eli. Gilbert stopped me along the way.
“Eli ain’t home, Missy. The fish is running in the James River and he go on down to catch us some perch for dinner.”
“Did you hear that explosion, Gilbert?”
“Sure did, Missy. Don’t know what it’s all about, though.”
“Get the buggy ready, please. I think we’d better find out what’s happening.”
But before Gilbert had time to get the mare harnessed and ready to go, Eli came running up the hill from the river, out of breath. “Don’t go down there, Missy Caroline. It’s a terrible, terrible sight. That factory on Brown’s Island where they make all them ammunitions just blowed up. I saw it from where I sitting along the river. The roof went straight up in the air with a boom, then all the walls fell in . . . smoke and flames . . . Oh, Lord, have mercy!”