Alias Dragonfly

by Jane Singer

  When I neared the Greenhow house, I saw Mr. Riley watching from across the way, busily arranging his flowers. When he spotted me, he held up the same bunch of violets, twice. I remembered that meant Mrs. Greenhow’s couriers were not about.

  As I passed three Union soldiers standing guard at the foot of the stairs, I glanced at the front windows. The drapes were pulled shut, and no doll in petticoats sat in front of them. In case Mrs. Greenhow was watching me, I glared at one of the soldiers. He muttered something about a little Rebel and more. Well, let’s just say that he called me a really vulgar name. The others chuckled.

  I climbed the stairs to Mrs. Greenhow’s door. I reached up and rang a large brass bell.

  The door opened, and there Mrs. Rose Greenhow stood, straight-backed, tall and shimmering in teal-green, velvet- trimmed dress. She was full-figured, ivory skinned and beautiful, with deep-set stony black eyes.

  “I’m here to see Mrs. Greenhow, ma’am,” I said, tingeing my voice with a bit of a Southern accent. Of course, I’d recognized her, but I wasn’t going to let on straightaway. She scrutinized me.

  “And who might you be?” Her voice was low and musical. With her wide hoop skirt and narrow waist, she looked like a gilded bell.

  “I’m Lucy Swinton, ma’am. I believe you were expecting me.” I curtsied—at least I did what passed as one—and handed her the letter.

  She stood in the entryway like a queen guarding a castle. When she finished reading, she put her hand out. “I am Rose Greenhow.” Her smile was forced. But why shouldn’t it be? Her house was guarded by Union soldiers and watched by Mr. Pinkerton’s force. At any moment she could be arrested.

  Did that make me feel for her? A little. From what I’d been told, she was zealously committed to the Confederate cause, almost like it had become a religion. I hoped these thoughts had not changed my demeanor, or made her see through me. I couldn’t let my feelings show. But I had not lost my resolve. Not on my first mission. Not with what I’d been entrusted to do.

  She took my hand. Was she ever going to ask me to come inside?

  “I’ve not met Mr. Willard Duvall,” she said, “though I surely knew his wife before she died of that dreadful lung affliction.” She spoke quickly.

  She’s testing me. Don’t let her see I’m struggling to remember.

  “No, Mrs. Duvall passed of yellow fever, ma’am. It took her after only a few days.”

  I’d been told that by Mr. Pinkerton.

  I waited.

  Finally—

  “Of course, she did. So many diseases, with no remedies, one becomes sadly confused.” Mrs. Greenhow sighed. Her face relaxed. I was doing all right—so far. “Does Mr. Duvall have relations here in the city?” Her eyes held mine again.

  Think. If you don’t know, say so. Breathe.

  “I’m sure I don’t know, ma’am, but I am mighty grateful to him, hearing of my plight and all.”

  Will one of the agents pull me out? Now?

  Mrs. Greenhow smiled. The breath I was holding whooshed out of me. I covered it with a cough.

  “Of course, dear, we’ve been waiting for you. My ‘little birds’ told me so.” She looked over my shoulder and sneered at the two soldiers who stood behind me.

  For good measure, so did I. This time they didn’t jeer or laugh. They clasped their rifles and looked daggers at us.

  Mrs. Greenhow whisked me into the entryway. At last, I was inside!

  I noticed a young girl-child crouching behind a tall, wide-leafed fern. She was the spot-on image of her mother, right down to her tiny chignon and wide-hooped dress.

  “Mama!” she cried. “Has she come to take you away?”

  “It’s all right, Little Rose,” Mrs. Greenhow said. “This young lady is a friend.”

  I smiled at the child. She was whimpering. She must have been truly afraid.

  “I’ll take your cloak and bag, my dear,” Mrs. Greenhow said before I could reach for the carpetbag. “Mourning clothes are a somber sight, and heavy,” she said, running her hands over the cloak as if making sure it was not concealing anything. “We’ll take your things to the room you’ll share with my angel here.”

  “Mother!” the child cried out. “Don’t open the door again!”

  Mrs. Greenhow whispered to me, “Little Rose has become so fearful that they’re going to take me to prison, or worse. ‘Mama’s hangmen,’ she calls the dreadful people who skulk about our home day and night.”

  “How awful for you,” I whispered back. And part of me meant it. No matter where her loyalties lay, she was a mother who loved her child. While I was getting sentimental about her, I ducked just in time to dodge a wooden whirligig toy Little Rose had thrown straight at my head.

  I walked over and took the monster-tyke firmly by the hand. “Save that weapon for the Yankees,” I said. “Oh, I call them dirty, blue-bellied cowards myself.” I was getting into my character all right.

  Little Rose ran to the window, yanked it open and shouted my improvised slur straight at the soldiers.

  Her mother smiled approvingly at me. With her arm firmly in mine, she led me into a front room filled with dark shining wood cabinets and finely carved marble-topped tables. A grand piano stood in the middle of the room. The child ran to it and began banging on the keys.

  Mrs. Greenhow smiled. “You’ll mind my little girl well, I pray, Miss Swinton. What with all the tensions of late, she is quite in a muddle, as you can see.” The banging grew louder.

  “Oh yes, I’ve been in a terrible muddle myself, ma’am,” I said. “As you know, I lost my dear papa at Manassas.” I sniffled, hoping I looked properly sad. “I’m not sure if you knew that my mother has passed on as well.”

  “I did not,” Mrs. Greenhow said. “Communication is . . . difficult these days.”

  That comment almost knocked me over. It seemed she was communicating, and then some. I kept talking.

  “I’ve no way to move in the world now, orphaned as I am, ma’am, but I am well versed in mathematics, and literature. I will surely teach your lovely child here many, many things.”

  “I’m not a child, and I don’t need a teacher!” Little Rose yelled, running over and pinching me on the leg.

  “I’ll see to her, Mrs. Greenhow,” I said, giving the little mite a sharp nudge with my foot.

  The doll I’d noticed in the window a few days earlier sat by the door. “Oh, ma’am,” I said, “this lovely doll here, why, I had one exactly like that, when I was just her age. Oh, I did love that doll so,” I said, picking it up to see the many layers of colored petticoats.

  “My mother made all my dolly’s clothes,” I said. “My dearest mother.” Tears welled in my eyes, real tears for the first time that day, as my mama’s face flashed in my mind, and the pain of losing her stuck in my heart like a burr.

  “We’re all a bit lost, then,” Mrs. Greenhow said. “But not for long. Victory is at hand. Mark my words.”

  “I pray it will be so,” I said fervently.

  I did mark her words. Oh, I did indeed. And as we walked, I memorized the layout of her house. She led me up an ornate wooden staircase studded with fat grinning cherub heads. She opened the door to a small room with two cots, two chairs, a blackboard and a small writing desk. There were tiny iron soldiers lined up facing each other on the floor. Some were lying on their sides.

  “See how the Yanks have fallen at Manassas!” Little Rose said with glee. She knelt and grabbed up a miniature mounted horseman and pranced around the room. “Dead and gone!” she shrieked, “Dead and gone!” She tugged at my skirts. “Wanna play? You be the dirty Yank, and I’ll plug you one.” She thrust the soldier at me. “I stabbed you!”

  Thankfully, her mother pulled the child to a chair. “None of that, Little Rose, Miss Swinton is here to be a companion, and, of course, she will help you with your lessons.”

  “Why do we have to sleep in my lesson room, Mother?” Little Rose stamped her foot and yelled.

  “So you won’t
have nightmares, darling. You don’t mind do you, Miss Swinton? The bedrooms are downstairs, and Little Rose swears she sees monsters outside the window. In fact, she probably does.”

  “Like this!” Little Rose made a hideous face. She grabbed the corners of her mouth and stretched the skin wide. Her eyes bulged out. Then, she screamed and dove under a cot.

  “She’ll come out eventually, I assure you, Miss Swinton.” She gazed at her daughter wearily. “This is the only room without a true window, you see?”

  Yes, I saw. There was only a small glass porthole window much too high for anyone to look through. And harder to signal from, I thought.

  “I’ll leave you two now. Oh, and if you need anything, ring this bell, and I’ll hear it downstairs. My serving woman has run off and left me.” She whispered, “She claimed the soldiers peering at us day and night gave her a fright so bad that she fainted on the hour. I don’t believe that. It was the abolitionists that spirited her away.”

  “I’m sorry, that must be hard for you,” I said. I thought, of course it is hard depending on servants to do your work, carry your slops buckets, and the like. Couldn’t these types do anything for themselves?

  “Everything is a trial for me now.” Mrs. Greenhow’s shoulders dropped. All the brightness and poise was gone. “I don’t know what will become of us.” She left the room, closing the door behind her. “You will please remain with Little Rose, at all times, Miss Swinton?” she called from the hallway. “I can’t have my child falling into their hands, now can I?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I answered, locking eyes with Little Rose, who’d crawled out from under the cot and was about to empty her cup of milk on my shoe. “Don’t even try,” I told her after I was sure her mother had gone.

  Little Rose backed away.

  For a solid day, Mrs. Greenhow’s daughter tormented me. She claimed not to know her multiplication tables and repeatedly scratched at her desk with a hatpin. At least she didn’t throw anything more at me.

  The house cat, a gray tabby with a solemn, suffering gaze, became a “Yankee soldier,” and was repeatedly imprisoned in a linen trunk until it yowled for mercy.

  But when Little Rose had fallen asleep after hiding a wad of sticky taffy in my boot, I looked carefully around the sparse room. I opened the trunk that had imprisoned the poor cat. It was completely bare except for a few balls of cat fur. I remembered this was a sort of schoolroom, not a sleeping place.

  My eyes lit on a high shelf. On it stood a candy jar stuffed with colored papers inside. On tiptoe, I was able to grasp it. I rummaged through the peppermint candies until I found a single white wrapper with no sweet inside. Something was scrawled on it in pencil. The outside of the wrapper was marked copied and sent.

  I made out a circle with a dot in the middle. Under it, were these words: “St.” and “Mc,” followed by “BOW,” and finally a sketch of a bull’s head. I grabbed up a pencil and an unwrapped yellow piece of candy paper and copied the letters; I copied the animal head on a piece of lined lesson paper on the child’s desk. I quickly folded it and secreted it under my wig. I noticed that the candy wrappings were in only three colors: yellow, blue and red.

  There was no sound from the hallway. Maybe her mother was still sleeping. I took a quick look out her bedroom window. There was no one about.

  I nudged Little Rose. She rubbed her eyes sleepily and stuck out her tongue at me. I managed to wash her face and mine from a pitcher of water sitting on a dresser by the bed. I heard the sound of footsteps outside the door. It opened a crack, and there stood Mrs. Greenhow. She looked as tired as I felt, with great circles under her eyes. She smiled weakly and handed me a tray with toast, milk and two bowls of porridge on it. As she left, she closed the door. I realized she hadn’t locked us in . . . yet.

  I promised Little Rose a piece of candy if she would play a rhyming game with me, and I wouldn’t make her recite her multiplication table anymore. It worked. The kid was a fiend for sweets.

  I clapped my hands and whispered, “Yankee Doodle is a scamp, find him hiding in a camp. Come on, Little Rose, say it with me, okay?”

  “Why do we have to whisper?”

  “Because we’re pretend soldiers, and we have a secret.”

  “Are we Yanks or Rebs?”

  “Rebs, of course,” I answered.

  “Goody,” she whispered. We recited my impromptu ditty again. “Another one, Miss Swinton!”

  “Okay, here we go! I’ll start. To summon the lady strong and fair, what color should the dolly wear?”

  Little Rose eyed me suspiciously. Out came another piece of candy. “Blue,” she said. “More candy.”

  “Nope, we’re not done with the rhymes.”

  She pouted.

  I was thinking fast now, making up rhymes on the spot. Oh, boy, was I ever. “And when she’s red, what shall we say? Come on Little Rose, you finish it!”

  She grabbed the last piece of candy. “We tell the lady, ‘Go away!’” she said, red peppermint bits all over her face.

  “Wonderful! You are so creative! Isn’t this fun?” I hugged the child. She hugged me back. That felt strange because I was beginning to like the little dickens.

  First I had to be sure, and then I had to figure out how to get the color code to the agents. I had to be right. It was night. The child would soon be asleep. I looked again at the high window. There was a small latch attached to a long bar. The window opened out! I’d wait. The arrest wasn’t coming until tomorrow. I pulled little Rose onto my lap. In case she rhymed before just to play the game and it didn’t mean anything, I decided to probe further.

  “My mama used to tell me ditties about two little Irish leprechauns who had a secret. They were in charge of a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. One of them wrote down all the colors of the rainbow, ending with one, so when he hid his pot of gold, only another leprechaun would know where to find it. In case something happened to one of them, of course.”

  I rocked her in my arms. It felt nice. I have to admit.

  “Okay,” she said sleepily, “I have one. But I can’t tell anybody else.”

  “Of course not. I will never say anything.”

  She hesitated.

  “I promise you, Little Rose.”

  “It’s my special secret. Mama told me to keep the paper in case they took her away and left me. Will you take care of me if that happens, Miss Swinton?”

  “Yes, I will. I promise.” Her whole little body relaxed. She put her hand in mine. I hated to lie to the child, really hated it. “Tell me, sweetheart.”

  She spoke so softly I had to strain to hear her.

  “Green. Stay away. Blue. Take message. Yellow. Watch our door. Red. Danger,” she said.

  I hugged her. “Thank you for trusting me. We’re friends now, right?”

  “Yes,” she said, nestling close to me. I stroked her hair and wrestled with my conscience over the lies I’d told her.

  Now I knew that each color of the doll’s petticoat was a signal. It was a perfect communication. Even I had to admire the sheer cheek of it.

  When I was sure the child was fast asleep, I copied the color codes on a sheet of paper along with the odd letter patterns I’d written on the candy wrapping. I ripped a corner off my shawl, put a few of Little Rose’s marbles into the ball I’d made, and climbed on a chair to reach the window. I opened it a crack. There was a soldier patrolling the back of the house. I threw out the ball. It hit the ground at his feet. He looked around, his rifle raised. I saw someone dressed in rags scurry over and take the balled-up material before he noticed.

  Thank goodness. Now I knew Pinkerton’s people, at least one of them, was there. I took a chance, then, and tiptoed out the bedroom door to the parlor. The room was still, and sure enough, the doll was in the window. Its legs were splayed open with a petticoat showing clearly. It was blue, meaning a messenger was being summoned. A lit candle sat beside it. I stuffed the doll back in the window.

  I heard her voice befo
re she appeared. Mrs. Greenhow came in wearing a nightdress. She had a long hatpin in her hand.

  “Is something wrong, Miss Swinton?” she asked, her eyes glowing like stoked embers. “And where is my daughter?”

  “She’s fallen asleep, ma’am,” I said, gathering my thoughts. “I thought I heard someone at the door.”

  “Was someone at the door?” She neared me. Oh, did I have to think fast.

  “Mrs. Greenhow, those soldiers out there. I hate them. Maybe one of them killed my father. If only I could find a way to get back at them!”

  She studied me carefully, then lowered the hatpin and withdrew a tiny packet from her bodice.

  “All right. Take this packet outside. If a soldier stops you, tell them you are ill and must go to the privy right away. Turn right at the first dogwood tree. They will not follow a young lady there. The privy is just by the tree. Go inside and put this under the seat. Come right back. I’ll be waiting for you, Miss Swinton.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said.

  “Of course, if you don’t return, I’ll have to figure something happened to you.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I took the packet and ran down the stairs, my hand clutching my stomach as though I was really ill. The soldiers were sitting on the ground smoking. As I ran by them, I made a gurgling sound, and, for good measure, added a couple of groans.

  “Don’t puke on me now, Miss,” one said.

  The other man laughed loudly.

  I found the privy and put the packet under the seat. As I came out, someone grasped my arm. I pushed my attacker to the ground. When I bent down, to keep him or her still, in spite of the tattered clothing and torn straw hat I saw it was Mrs. Warn.

  “Go away!” I whispered.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes. Inside under the seat. There is a message for her courier. And the ball with the marble is her summoning code.”

  “I’ve got it. Greenhow sent you out here?”

  “She sent me because I asked to go.”

  Mrs. Warn got up, rubbing her arm. Turn about is fair play, I thought as I remembered the bindings on my wrists. “Maybe we’ve got her this time,” she said. “You’ve done well. Remember, we are all around you.”