by Jane Singer
How? How would I do it? I felt like a fox caught in a snare, ready to chew its own paw off to be free.
But when the mysterious man came to stay at the boarding house, the trap that held me opened. A hole just big enough for me to crawl through appeared until finally, I made my escape.
Five
He bowed, removed a wide-brimmed white hat, and seated himself at the table. He was decked out in a white linen suit with a narrow, dark brown tie.
“I’m Timothy Webster,” he said.
Aunt Salome rose up slowly like she was a queen—and actually curtsied! How phony and dumb did that look?
“I’ve just arrived in the city, madam, from the faraway Carolinas.” Mr. Webster spoke with a pronounced Southern accent, dragging out syllables and dropping the ends of words. He was of middle size and of middling age, maybe in his thirties, it was hard to tell. He was stocky, with large, strong hands, a heavy beard and moustache that twirled up like half moons at its two waxy ends, and a thatch of black hair salted with gray. His left pinky was bent over like a gnarled apple tree branch.
“I saw your notice of rooms to let, Mrs. Hutton, and, well, here I am,” he said. Aunt Salome fanned herself with a napkin and simpered.
Mr. Webster smiled at me. “What is your name, young Miss?” he asked. His iron-gray eyes looked straight into mine, as though he could see into my brain. But his manner was so gentle, and his voice so musical, I was not uncomfortable. I forgot for an instant that he was likely a Rebel.
“I’m Madeline Eve Bradford,” I said softly.
“Her father wears Union blue,” Salome said, as though describing a disease. “She’s here for, well, for the duration of our little conflict,” she added.
Little conflict? It was a darn war! And just wait, I’m going to find a way to be part of it.
“Will you be taking all your meals with us, sir?” My aunt sighed. “Some don’t pay for their board,” she said, with a sideways glance to me, “so your fine greenbacks, sir, are as welcome as the sun.”
My face reddened at this humiliation.
“Nellie!” she shouted. “Go find another chicken for supper, and don’t be making of pet of it this time.”
I winced.
“Yes, missus,” Nellie answered from behind the door.
“Well, then, well, Mr. Webster,” asked Aunt Salome sweetly, “Is cotton your trade?”
“Brilliant as well as handsome you are, madam,” Webster answered, bowing his head. “King Cotton is my master, and I am its humble slave, no matter what the outcome of your ‘little war.’”
By then, Jake Whitestone had seated himself at the table, looking mussed and gray faced, with dark circles under his eyes, tousled and weary like he’d been out all night. Where had he been, and why did I care? I’d be gone.
Before I left the room, I pushed my uneaten breakfast plate under Jake Whitestone’s nose. He reached for my arm.
“Miss Bradford, I have to talk to you. May we be excused, Mrs. Hutton?”
“Well, I never,” Aunt Salome huffed.
I followed Jake Whitestone into the kitchen.
The words rushed out of him in a whisper.
“Your father’s regiment will march to Centreville, Virginia, Miss Bradford. General Burnside has it that the Rebels are on the move, and our troops are to face them front-on. If all this information is right, they’ll meet up with General McDowell and save Washington City from an invasion. It will end it.”
“How do you know this?” I asked.
“I overheard . . . things.”
“Madeline?” My aunt called out. “Did a regiment snatch you up, or are you loitering?”
“Good day, Mr. Whitestone.”
Before he could speak, I was gone.
Almost, almost. As I was getting some things from the alleyway, holding a candle and rummaging through a waste bin, actually, I noticed a rolled-up newspaper just by the door. I scanned it quickly as I waited for the house to be dead dark, for them all to be asleep.
Special from the New York Tribune
Dear Readers,
Our soldiers under General Irvin McDowell are on the move to meet the Rebel General Beauregard’s Confederate Army at a location that must remain unknown. For now.
Both sides are green and untried, boys and men who, like the sunshine patriots of our great Revolution, have heard a bell tolling, summoning them to war. Your reporter is on the move as well. In a great hurry, I might add. I aim to find the battle, and see it for myself.
I telegraph in haste.
PAN
It was beginning! Whoever the writer was, I envied his freedom to move about as no proper woman could. No woman, that is.
Six
When the faint light of dawn shimmered at the edge of blackness, I grabbed up my things and ran through the alley. In an oversized, brown topcoat trimmed in straggled beaver fur, and dirty yellow striped pants, I figured I’d pass for a boy or a raging lunatic. It didn’t matter, then. Out, I was out. My hair was tucked up under a fawn-colored top hat and pulled low over my face. In my mouth was a cigar, thin, small, and unlit. Jammed down in my oversized boot was the old Colonel’s loaded revolver my father had given me.
Before I left, I stamped down hard on the miserable hoop that held out my skirt, crushed it to pieces and dumped it in the refuse bin. The rest of the clothes, well, I’d pilfered them. The boots were left in the alley, along with the Colonel’s clothes. Aunt Salome had pitched the poor old man’s things into a barrel of torn, dirty kitchen rags. There they’d sat, a mournful heap meant for the rubbish man and his wheezy old horse, until I had pulled them out.
Smelling like old mutton and moldy rags, I moved along, hips forward in imitation of a man’s long stride, and a mighty aching in my feet, as I’d stuffed the oversized boots with bits of old newspaper.
Like Nellie and my aunt said, no young girl could ever go about unescorted in a city like this with all manner of hucksters, bawdy women, soldiers, and bummers of every ilk and stripe. Bosh! I focused hard on the map in my head.
I made my way from my aunt’s house up along Sixteenth Street to Pennsylvania Avenue. In the distance, I saw the white porticos and rolling green lawn that surrounded the President’s House. A phalanx of armed soldiers walked back and forth in front of the wrought iron fence. I vowed to have a closer look when I could, but the image of my father’s face made me move faster.
I crossed over the avenue, barely avoiding a rush of gilded carriages and one-horse carts. I turned right on New York Avenue. I’d have to walk along this road for a good mile or so as it passed straight up to North Capitol Street, not far from my father’s camp. Packed cheek to jowl were tumbledown wooden houses with child-crowded doorways and mangy dogs darting every which way, snarling and snapping as they tore at bones.
“Oysters! Pearly as dawn, fresh as a maiden’s kiss!” cried a vendor in a filthy apron with scratches over his hands. The white sea-flesh peeked from the shells, a sure sign the oysters were not in any way fresh; this I well knew. When a dog approached the oyster cart, the man heaved a broken shell at its head.
I slipped in a puddle of oyster water and heaven knows what else, my cigar falling smack into the mess, my hair nearly tumbling from under my hat. Just then, a heavy booted soldier who reeked of alcohol jostled me hard.
“Watch your way, son,” he said, and swore an oath under his breath I dare not repeat. He kicked aside a pair of pigs snuffling in the dirt. Son! He called me son. Praise be, I’d fooled him, even if he was dead drunk, just then pitching forward on his face.
I walked faster, dodging an omnibus pulled by two heaving dray horses, and a closed carriage with high-stepping, glistening bays, finally crossing over toward the middle of New York Avenue, near to K Street, a sedate block lined with brass- railed fences and hitching posts, an occasional Negro servant emptying a pail of slops in the side yards—three, to be exact.
The sun was out and blazing. A moist, suffocating heat pressed in on me. My c
lothing itched, my boots blistered my feet, and my face dripped perspiration clear down my collar. I had to pause to rest.
Moments before, I’d passed an alleyway that ran behind the street. I walked back to it, and yes, there was shade, and some small coolness. I stepped into the alley past a refuse bin full of fruit peels, bottles, and a pile of stinking manure-covered hay. I paused there, wiping my face with my sleeve.
I’d just removed my jacket when a tall, blonde slender young woman passed, her bright hair caught up in a chignon that sat low on her neck. She wore a creamy satin gown with a lace collar fastened with a cameo brooch. She walked slowly into the alley, stopping just a few feet away from me. I pressed myself to the wall so I’d be hidden from her view.
She pulled a small pistol from a pearl-studded purse that hung on her waist. I crouched down low in a space just between the woodpile and the wall and watched her as she paced this way and that, looking, watching, waiting.
In moments, a mustachioed man walked toward her. He was slim and elegantly dressed in a tan-colored linen suit and spotless brown boots. He strode up to the girl. He, too, had a weapon, a bright silver long-barreled gun. I crouched lower, folding myself further into the space.
“The way is clear, Colonel Jordan,” said the girl, her voice was like a purr, soft and Southern-accented. He turned in a full circle, his hand on the gun.
“I said we’re alone, didn’t I?” Then slowly, carefully, she unpinned her chignon. Coils of hair, a shower of bright gold fell to her waist. The man pocketed his gun and moved closer to her. Before I looked away, thinking I might see something no young girl should be privy to, he ran his hands through her tresses, caressing each strand, finally, closing his fingers around something, flat and tiny—a flat packet. He unrolled a paper inside and smiled.
“Miss Duvall, we thank you,” he said, kissing her hand. “Our brave Betty Duvall.” They stood very close together. He touched her face.
The girl took his hand. “It is the least I can do, sir.”
“Mrs. Greenhow will have another dispatch for you presently,” he said. “The Yankees are ready to move. At her command, ride east at sunset. I’ll meet you at Centreville. I’m on my way now.”
She nodded. “God save the South.”
“God save the South,” he answered, like he was saying a prayer. He slipped the packet into his left pocket, pulled his gun from the right one, and walked quickly through the alley in the opposite direction from where I was hidden. I had no choice but to stay put as the girl he called Betty Duvall quickly pinned up her hair, patting the whole of it smooth. With a blazing smile on her face, she flounced back to the street.
When Colonel Jordan was far enough away, his back still to me, I crawled from the woodpile, out of the alley and into the street, nearly colliding with a man in a long black coat and a white collar—clerical garb. A squat black hat was pulled down low on his head.
“Beg pardon, my dear,” he said, in a heavily accented foreign voice. A group of ragged Negroes, struggling with huge wooden timbers low on their backs, blocked my way as I tried to cross to the other side. The clergyman stood at the street corner. He waved a Bible at soldiers as they passed.
“Save your souls before battle! Read your holy book! It doesn’t take sides,” he yelled. There was something odd, something familiar about him that held my eye, but I was so intent on following the girl called Betty I kept moving.
Finally I got to the other side of the street. As I craned my neck to see if I could catch another glimpse of her, a butcher with lamb and pig carcasses slung over his shoulders elbowed me aside.
Then I saw Betty Duvall approaching one of the houses I’d just passed, a three-story brick townhouse at 1625 K Street, to be exact. She sashayed through a line of soldiers standing guard outside, climbed the stairs, and rapped on the door. It opened quickly. In the entryway stood another woman, regal of stance. Her upswept hair was copper-bright. I moved closer to hear what they were saying.
I noticed that nearly hidden by the volume of the woman’s full skirts was a small girl-child twirling a doll. As the child lifted the doll, I saw it had on a blue petticoat with lace trim.
“My dear Amanda,” I heard the woman speak loudly to the girl I’d just heard called Betty, “My little Rose and I have waited a long while for you. My darling daughter adores the new doll clothes you sent!”
After the door closed, I watched the little girl part the curtains and prop the doll in the window. It looked to be the same one I’d seen, but in place of the blue checked petticoat was one of yellow.
“Who lives in that house?” I blurted my question to one of the soldiers standing close by. I was testing my lowest man-like voice.
“Say what?” he said. “Speak up!”
I lowered my voice even more. “Who lives there?”
“Ain’t you a curious hayfoot! That’s that infernal Rebel Rose Greenhow’s place.” He nudged me in the ribs. “She’s the worst kind of traitor. She gives her favors to both sides, and manages to get out Rebel messages right under the noses of the detectives tasked to keep her under watch.” He gave me another nudge with his elbow, laughing lewdly. “Maybe she’ll take a shine to you.”
I quickly nudged him back and gave a knowing chuckle that sounded more like a gargle.
“She’ll pay for her ways, surely, I’ll warrant,” the other soldier said. “All those traitors will pay.” He spit a stream of tobacco into the street. “See, that Bible toter there might be one of her watchers,” he said, motioning to the clergyman I’d just seen.
I must have looked really puzzled. “Watcher?” I asked.
“A detective—a Pinkerton man, dunderhead. They keep an eye on her in plain sight so they can catch her at her treason. Didn’t I already say that? Or are you some Rebel snitch?” He pushed me. “Move on now, vagrant, or we’ll ship you off to the calaboose.”
“Yes, sir,” I said. Before I left, I took another look at the clergyman. There was something about him. What was it? Sure, he wore a cleric’s collar and was gripping the Bible, with . . . Yes! That was it. One crooked pinky finger rested on an open page. I squinted hard to see his face. I couldn’t, but I saw a gray-streaked beard, and then it came to me. I knew just who he was! It was our boarder Timothy Webster, I was sure of it!
Could he be a Pinkerton detective, like the soldier said? Mr. Webster told us he was a Rebel cotton trader when he came to the boardinghouse.
But I’d dallied too long. No time to ponder all I’d seen, though I knew I’d remember every detail. I had to get to my father—in one piece.
I ran fast along New York Avenue until it met North Capitol Street. Remember, I told myself; there was a shortcut, a pathway. Yes! There it was. I stumbled through a clump of willow trees toward a vine-covered footbridge leading to a towpath along the Potomac River. The water was brackish, a black sheen smeared like petroleum oil atop it. The river smelled of decay, and no wonder, as a horse’s corpse floated by, its belly bloated and the ears half eaten off by many a passing fish.
I trekked farther, so tired now I was almost fainting. I’d walked at least three miles. I kept going along to a narrow walkway overhung with moss-covered trees. I knew this would lead straight to the grounds of the Eckington Hospital and my father’s camp.
I’d been walking a good while longer when at last I spied rows of whitewashed wooden buildings nested on a sprawling lawn of bright, green grass. Just beyond them were brown tents, cook fires, and crowds of soldiers as far as I could see. Like water beetles they scurried about, piling mules with packs, dragging cannons, their voices muted. I knew my father’s fine regiment would be armed with breech loading Sharps rifles, stick-like, but holding a mighty power.
“Halt! Not another step.” Three armed soldiers flanked me, moving me forward in a ragged two-step, finally stopping at a new, wooden gate.
“Pass?” One of the soldiers demanded, his voice hard.
“What?” I winced.
“Pass! Or you can�
��t go any further.”
“State your name and business, uh . . .”—one of them scanned me from head to toe—“sir.”
I had to think fast. Who was I?
“Looks like he’s got up in something passing strange,” another soldier said. “Smells like the dickens, too.”
“I have a message for—”
“What? Speak up, son.”
My voice was cracking. “Yes, sirs, I need to see Private Summoner Bradford of the Second New Hampshire. Urgently.”
“You don’t say?”
“I don’t say what?” I whispered.
They moved closer. The largest loomed over me. “What is your business with him? I won’t need to ask again, will I?”
“His daughter is dying!” I blurted out. I tried to push past them. I was shoved hard, and nearly toppled to the ground.
“Do you have a damn pass, or what?”
My mind went blank at this. How could I not have known what I’d need? Foolish! I was foolish!
“You just can’t cross into a camp, see,” the soldier said, brushing his hand along my cheek. I drew back. “We got a war on, in case you didn’t notice . . . sir.” He leered and winked. “Cub of a boy here, I’ll bet, or, better than that . . .” He jostled my hat, and a rush of damp curls fell straight down my shoulders and back.
I faced him straight on, my hands on my hips. “I said it’s an emergency. Please help me find my father.” I stood my ground. My heart was racing, but I’d come too far to give up now.
“I’ll see what I can do . . . Miss.” He strode away, chuckling some. “And if you are dying, I’m a straw-footed Rebel.”
I slammed my hat back on my head. “Which way to the Second New Hampshire?” I yelled after him.
“Keep here,” he answered, laughing hard. “Don’t die on us, now.”
A boil of anger rose up hard in me. I’m not waiting for anyone, I swore to myself, and ran headlong toward the first pitched tent I saw.