Crusty silences stretched long between them, caused at first by her ill humor and then by her waning strength. An accumulation of stress, shock, and a downturn in the weather left her with little energy to waste on disparaging remarks. Four days lengthened into five, and every hour seemed an eternity. Jeremiah took on the entire responsibility of making camp and preparing food while she looked on in an exhausted stupor. By the time they reached the boardinghouse, staying upright required every ounce of her strength.
Jeremiah eased her from the saddle and helped her inside, draping her arm over his shoulder. Mrs. Calkins took one look at her and pointed upstairs. “You are going straight to bed, Miss Preston.”
“I can’t,” she protested and attempted to propel herself weakly up the steps. “I have several days of classes to make up and a new wardrobe to procure.”
She stumbled and landed hard on her hands and knees. Jeremiah scooped her up and carried her the rest of the way. Mrs. Calkins climbed behind them. “Relax, dear, and get yourself well. You won’t be going anywhere for a few days.”
Jeremiah set her gently on the bed. “I’ll send word when I find a place to stay, miss.”
She nodded stiffly, fully aware of how ungrateful she appeared and, quite frankly, not caring.
He paused at the door. “I’m real sorry about Mister Jack,” he said and slipped from the room.
Mrs. Calkins’ eyes filled with pity. “Your brother passed?”
Emily nodded.
“I’m so sorry.” She squeezed her hand. “You sleep. I’ll bring up your dinner when it’s ready.”
Emily’s eye fell on the portrait of Thad watching her from the corner of the writing desk. How she wished his visit wasn’t still a month away. She needed him now. She picked up the image and fell asleep with it hugged to her chest, awakening only when the bedroom door was thrown open three hours later.
“It smells like a barn in here.”
Emily raised groggily to one elbow. “Hello, Missouri.”
The woman paused her loud sniffing to rake an eye over Emily. “You look terrible.”
“Nine days of travel and a death will do that.” She sat up and dragged both hands over her face. The nap had helped, but she still felt she could sleep for a week.
“I’m sorry.” Missouri sank beside her. “I didn’t think.”
“No, it’s all right. I was able to see my brother. We talked and…worked out a lot of differences.” She swallowed hard. “I’m very glad I went.”
Missouri hugged her. “It’s wonderful that you have those last memories. I didn’t get that chance.” She set Emily aside briskly. “You’re going to need mourning clothes.”
Emily moaned and flopped back on the bed. “Where do I begin? Missouri, I don’t have the energy or the money.”
“Black dye.”
“What?”
“You can afford black dye, can’t you?” Missouri flung open the wardrobe door and pawed through Emily’s dresses. “Pick a few you’re willing to wear into rags and replace them when your period of mourning is over.”
A smile of wonder eased over Emily’s face. “Missouri, you’re brilliant.”
“Of course I am.” She grinned. “I’ll run down to the mercantile. After dinner, we’ll draw you a bath. Then we’ll add the dye and soak your clothes overnight. You’ll have them for school Monday morning.”
***
“Miss Preston, your landscape conceptualization shows an innate understanding of spatial relationships as well as texture,” Mr. McCarthy complimented when she stayed after class to work on a past-due assignment. “Try to finish it over the weekend and you will have caught up with the rest of your classmates.”
“Thank you, sir.” By the time Emily had actually regained enough strength to return to class, two full weeks had passed. Now it was nearly November. She’d made up most of the work she had missed, thanks in no small part to the leniency of her instructors. And she’d had absolutely no time to visit the Exhibition. In truth, she’d lost most of her interest.
Jeremiah stopped by twice to see how she was faring. She refused to see him. Eventually he gave up and left word that he was working at the Screw Docks down on Thames Street. Emily felt no obligation to get in touch with him. She had enough on her mind, troubles that were in no way eased by her housemates.
“It is fitting that she’s the one wearing black,” she’d overheard Lucy say to Anna, none too quietly. “After all, Antietam was a Southern offensive. They invaded us.” Missouri had grabbed Emily’s arm and steered her in the opposite direction, but she couldn’t dislodge the hot, prickly hatred that had taken up residence just behind her breastbone.
Slowly, Emily’s body healed. Her spirit, however, remained cold, bruised, and dark. Jack’s death left a void she never imagined he had filled—a hole as round and crimson as a blood moon. She closed her eyes and brought forward the memory of that night on Sophia’s front porch. She couldn’t help but link it to her loss. What else would it claim, she wondered. She had already given up so much.
At odd moments, she found memories of Jack returning. A word. An expression. A response. When they originally occurred, she had interpreted them one way. Now, she sifted them through a new filter. The truth left her doubly desolate, as joyless as the color she wore. Here in Baltimore, she felt cut off from everything familiar. She wanted to go home. She needed to share her grief with Aunt Margaret. She longed for another conversation with Jovie. She ached for the comfort of Thad’s arms.
Letters were terribly insufficient. In fact, she’d been unable to compose one since Jack’s death. How could she set thoughts and feelings to paper when she couldn’t make sense of them in her own mind? Even so, Emily resumed her daily walk to the post office after class let out. She was so completely, undeniably homesick, and written words were better than no words at all. When she received not one but two letters, she didn’t wait, but tore them open outside the post office door.
The first was from Uncle Timothy, who extended a cordial invitation to spend the holidays with him in Philadelphia. She read through it quickly, far more eager to get to the letter addressed in Abigail’s hand. She scanned the short note:
Dear Emily,
This letter arrived for you while you were ill. When you had recovered enough to receive it, I’m afraid it was overlooked in the flurry of packing as you prepared for your departure. I know how eager you’ve been to hear from Lizzie. I took the liberty of discarding the envelope and including her letter with mine to more easily pass the border. I apologize for the delay.
Your friend,
Abigail
Emily flipped to the second page. Lizzie’s letter was nearly as brief:
Dear Emily,
It troubled me to hear you lost my note. And I be sorrier still that I must tell you at all, but you got to know who Larkin’s father is. He come across me in the woods outside Mr. Turnbull’s house. Afterward, he threatened to kill me if I told you, so I dared not name him sooner. Even now I tremble to remember. But you deserve to know his character before you marry him. The man who forced himself on me was Thaddeus Black.
I so very sorry.
Lizzie
19
The page fluttered from Emily’s hand. She stared, unseeing, at the dull point of light around which her vision was closing.
“Miss?” someone asked. “Miss, are you all right?”
She stared straight ahead, seeing nothing. Flashes of heat and ice flickered over her body in rapid succession.
“Darling, she’s going to fall,” came a woman’s voice. “Help her.”
Strange hands guided her across the sidewalk. “There, miss. We’re at the post office steps. Will you sit down?”
Emily felt cool concrete beneath her hands. Gradually, she became aware of the kindly face of an old man peering down at her.
“Can we help you home?” he asked. “Or fetch someone to get you?”
“No—I—” She felt numb.
“You
dropped this, dear,” the woman said, closing Emily’s fingers around Lizzie’s note.
Emily squeezed it, willing away its contents.
“Will you be all right, miss?” the man asked again. “Are you certain we can’t assist you?”
“I have to go.” Emily abruptly rose to her feet. One person in the city might be able to help her. Leaving the couple staring after her in confusion, her steps carried her briskly away.
She covered the blocks to the waterfront as quickly as she could, with one single question assaulting her the entire way. How could it possibly be Thad? Thad—the kind, sensitive, thoughtful, protective man with whom she had spent hour upon hour. She could not believe it of him. Lizzie must be in error.
Perhaps the trauma of the attack had altered Lizzie’s memory. She’d suffered fits of anxiety and depression for days. It was possible that in her distress her memory had distorted and she had projected the identity of her attacker onto someone innocent. Emily had heard of such things happening.
The Screw Docks were easy to identify. Side by side, they were the only wharves on the Patapsco River that twisted in the middle, cradling the water between them like a pair of parentheses. She walked straight up to the first dockhand she encountered, a rough-looking fellow who smelled like stale smoke and sweat. “I’m looking for a Negro man who goes by the name of Jeremiah. He’s about twenty-three years old. Do you know where I can find him?”
He flicked his head toward a warehouse. “He might be inside.”
“Jeremiah!” she called as she approached. She passed two men carrying a long timber between them, their heads turning to mark her progress. Other curious faces looked up from their work. She paid no one any heed.
Her half-brother appeared, framed in the warehouse door. “Miss Emily!” he exclaimed, leaping forward to meet her. “What’s wrong? Is your mother ill?”
She shook her head.
“Your father? Mister Jovie?”
“They’re fine.” She glared at the watching faces, and they vanished one by one.
“Miss Emily, tell me what’s wrong.”
In answer, she thrust Lizzie’s note at him.
He handed it back, embarrassed. “I’m sorry, miss, you’ll have to read it to me.”
“Never mind.” She snatched it away. “It’s information about my fiancé, Thaddeus Black. I—” She swallowed and started again, lifting her chin to look him directly in the eyes. “Jack mentioned his name. In the hospital. He said there was something he had to tell me, but he died before he got the chance.” Tears began to well. She whisked them sharply away. “Do you know what he was going to say?”
Understanding settled over his face. Understanding and regret. He stared at her soberly. “Jack never told you why we were in Savannah last spring?”
“In Savannah?” she said in surprise. “No.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Emily, but Thaddeus Black isn’t who you think he is.”
The words took a moment to hit bottom. When they did, they filled her stomach with stone. “What do you mean?”
Jeremiah paced a few steps away and then came back, rubbing a hand across his forehead. “I don’t know how to say this. I thought you already knew.”
“Tell me.” Her lips had gone numb.
He stopped in front of her and sighed. “Last winter during a card game, Jack ran into a fellow he knew from Charleston, some no-account who used to play poker with him near the docks. After a few drinks, this fellow made a vulgar comment about you. And not just in general; he knew your name. When Jack pressed him—none too gently, I’ll add—he got quite a story. It seems this fellow’s brother had been hired to kidnap you during a party. Not to hurt you. Just to create an opportunity. Mister Jack owed him money anyway, so it wouldn’t look suspicious. The man who paid him wanted to appear to be a hero, so you wouldn’t refuse his suit.”
Emily’s face blanched. She remembered the day well, the terror she felt when two men tried to drag her from the yard on her sixteenth birthday. Jeremiah couldn’t possibly be making this up; he’d been living in the Charleston house at the time. She didn’t need to ask who’d done the hiring. Thad had appeared out of nowhere and fended off their attack. He’d rescued her single-handedly.
“Thad set that up?” she whispered in disbelief.
“Jack said it sounded exactly like something Mr. Black would do to turn a girl’s head, but the whole thing had been planned before Jack ever introduced the two of you. He was immediately suspicious. And he felt responsible, since he was the one who invited Mr. Black home.
“When the card player couldn’t tell him anything more, Jack pestered his superior officer until he was granted leave. We went straight to a place called Mulligan’s Tavern where he began asking questions.”
“Wait, you went back to Charleston?”
“Jack was with me.” He said it as if it had posed no risk. “A day or two later, we started getting answers. We found a man who worked with Mr. Black at the Charleston Theater before it burned. He sent us to Savannah.” Jeremiah cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Miss Emily, Thaddeus Black’s real name is Jonathan Stanley. He was born to an actress and grew up in a traveling company that often contracted with the Savannah Theater. He was quite well-known there. We spoke to a number of individuals who confirmed what we had learned.”
Nausea filled the pit of her stomach. It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t. She covered her mouth with one hand and felt the cold bite of metal against her lip. Thad’s ring. The symbol of his love and commitment. Had she been a fool to believe it?
Perhaps her blindness had been willful. She twisted off the ring she’d been reluctant to examine. There on the inside of the band she found what she was looking for. A date—1800—was engraved into the gold.
Tom Fink hadn’t been lying. It was the heirloom he’d lost in a poker game.
“I’m so very sorry, Miss Emily.”
The most important person in her life, the man she was supposed to marry, was a fraud. “Why?” she whispered. “Why would he do it?”
“Jack thought he’d had his eye on Ella Wood all along. He came to Charleston looking for opportunities and fell into a promising one when he met Jack.”
It all fit. And the war played right into his hands. “If Jack was killed and we married, he’d own Ella Wood.” He had nearly succeeded.
She wanted to doubt Jeremiah’s word. To disbelieve Tom Fink. To explain away Lizzie’s accusation. To imagine Jack would have told her something far different had she given him the opportunity to speak that night in the hospital. But she couldn’t. Not anymore. Too many details aligned.
“How could I be so stupid?”
“It wasn’t your fault, miss. Mr. Black is a swindler. He meant to deceive you. He knew exactly what to say and how to win your affections.”
Emily sank onto a nearby crate and dropped her face into her hands. She’d chosen Thad. She’d given him her heart. The plans they had made, the hopes she had invested, gone. Torn. Shattered. Loss upon loss upon loss.
She had nothing left inside her.
Not even tears.
Emily looked up through layers of misery. Whatever spirit remained to her after Antietam had just been squeezed from her body. “He’s coming here next week, Jeremiah. How am I going to face him?”
“I reckon the way you face everything else,” he said, handing her a handkerchief. “On your feet, with grit and determination. Leave an impression, Miss Emily. Make him remember you.”
She drifted from the waterfront and wandered in circles, paying little heed to her own feet. Now she knew why Thad wanted her to reconcile with her father so badly. If she was disinherited, he could never claim Ella Wood. But she hadn’t made his game an easy one, she thought with grim satisfaction. She’d played by her terms, forcing Thad to walk a balancing act between her stubbornness and her affection. And it was her refusal to give up her dream that had saved her from a false marriage.
Her brain told her she was strong. That
she’d recover. And that learning the truth was ultimately for the best. Her heart, however, lagged several miles behind.
The tears came as she passed the meetinghouse. She sought refuge inside and wept until her soul felt as dry and brittle as the pew on which she hunched. And she stayed long after all color had leached from the evening, leaving the room as black as her dress. When she went home, she wanted no one left awake to ask questions.
***
“Missouri, how did you get your name?” Emily looked up from her most recent edition of Harper’s Weekly. She’d wanted to scan for more works by Homer, but the past few issues had been filled with the aftermath of Antietam. Her stomach revolted at an image of bodies strewn in every kind of agony and the dead tossed carelessly into a ditch. It was a mere shadow of the torment Jack had endured. Even so, she quickly turned the page.
“My name is a representation of an unattainable dream.”
“How so?”
“My Pa was the sixth of twelve children born to pioneers of the Ohio Territory. It became a state just before his birth, and by the time Pa grew up, it was downright civilized. He always wanted to head west and stake his own claim. In fact, he watched brother after brother do just that. But he was the reliable one who always got stuck with family obligations. By the time he married and us kids came along, he knew it would never happen. So he named each of us for a place he’d never see.”
Emily looked up with interest. “What were your brother’s names?”
“Texas, California, and Nebraska.”
“Truly?”
“Upon my father’s grave.”
“That’s so sad. Do you ever hear from your brothers?”
“I get a letter once or twice a year. Texas is in Oregon. Nebraska’s in Kansas. And California moved to New York City.”
Emily laughed and flipped to a page discussing the South’s response to Lincoln’s emancipation law. She could already guess what that would be. She closed the cover. The most striking image had been the battlefield scene, but she didn’t have the heart to study that one further. Instead, she rifled through back issues, searching for the first volume of the year.
Blood Moon (Ella Wood, 2) Page 20