“Are we in time for Daphne?”
“What? Yes, I mean, I hope so. Thank you.” Words, so inadequate, so trifling.
“Good.” His gaze caressed her as it moved from the corn silk tendrils framing her face to her eyes, to her lips. The hollow of her throat. Her hand in his. She squeezed his fingers, just barely, and he met her eyes again. “Missed you at the reunion.” His smile cracked her heart.
“Wished I could go,” she whispered through tightened throat.
His grip on her strengthened as he twirled her around the floor, and she warmed with fond memories. Years ago, his mother had made him dance with all the girls in her class to help them practice their steps.
“I see you haven’t forgotten anything,” she remarked.
“Have you?” Suddenly they weren’t talking about dancing anymore. “Did I hear Russell say you’re Daphne’s mistress? You own her?”
Sophie blinked back the burn in her eyes, her throat. There was so much to explain within the scant measures of the waltz. “My mother bequeathed her to me. I can’t manumit her!” The whisper choked her, and suddenly Harrison’s eyes grew soft again.
“You lost your mother. So did I.”
Grief flooded her then, in this place of safety. They had lost so much in the missing years. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. I missed you. I miss you still. Please don’t let go. But the words were barricaded behind an indestructible dam. Her chin trembled, and Harrison pulled her close, far too close for a couple pretending they’d never met before this evening. But not close enough by half for the couple they could have been.
His shoulder grew taut beneath her hand. “I forget myself,” Harrison muttered into her hair, his chin grazing her temple. “Your captain is going to throw me out for this.”
“He’s not my captain.”
“Isn’t he?” His eyes searched hers, and Sophie’s pulse outpaced the slowing music.
“Things are not always what they seem.”
“Song’s ending. I’m coming back for Bella in three days. She is a free woman, here at great personal risk. Will you keep her safe?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“She wants to see her husband, a prisoner at Libby. Please advise her against it if you think it dangerous.”
Sophie nodded.
“Three days.” He released her, bowed, and returned her to Captain Russell. “Much obliged,” he said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s been a very long day. The arms of Morpheus await.”
Captain Russell took her hand, but her eyes were on Harrison as he left. “Did he make you uncomfortable, darling? Your cheeks are flaming red.”
Bella stooped over Daphne’s sunken form, a dose of quinine quivering in the cup in her hand. Even if Daphne had been healthy, seeing her again on this earth would have been a shock. But seeing her like this, ravaged by disease, Bella could not recognize herself in her twin.
“Wake up, Daph. Wake up and drink this.”
Daphne stirred, eyelids fluttering. “Why?”
“It’ll make you well again, now drink it.”
Silence. Then, “What if I supposed to cross the Jordan River now?”
Dr. O’Leary said this might happen, Bella reminded herself, though dread bloomed in her chest. Malaria often breeds depression. It’s the disease talking. “That’s enough of that. You’re going to take this whether you like it or not.” She held the cup to her sister’s lips and tipped it up.
“You sound like my mother,” Daphne complained.
“You need mothering.” Bella turned on the gas lamp on the nightstand. “Always did.”
Gradually, recognition lit Daphne’s eyes.
“Surprise.” Bella’s smile wobbled as she held her sister’s bony hand. “You’re going to be fine now. I’ll take care of you, if you’ll just let me.”
Not that she had done such a wonderful job taking care of Daphne in the past, though with their mother in the rice fields all day when they were children, Bella had felt some responsibility toward her from a very early age. After all, Bella had been born first, by three minutes. That responsibility dissolved, however, when Daphne moved into the Big House to train as a house servant.
“Shame about your Abraham being in prison.” Daphne shifted on the mattress. “Do you two have children together?”
“No, none with Abraham,” Bella said awkwardly. It was surreal, talking this way. They were twins, but nearly strangers now.
“The child you carried when you were sold to that man in Virginia. Did it live?”
“Yes. She lives in Gettysburg, too.” Which meant that Liberty, too, was free. So Daphne was Bella’s only family member still in bondage, though Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation had set her free already. A fact Miss Kent conveniently ignores.
“You see her often?”
Bella nodded. “But it will be less soon enough. She’s engaged to be married.” That he was white, and the son of a slaveholder, did not need to be said. “And your babies?” She knew better than to ask after their freedom. Daphne’s children had not been born out of love.
“Dead.”
The word thudded in Bella’s ears. “Moses? Miriam?” They were only a year old when Bella saw them last.
“My boy tumbled into a fire at eighteen months. Miriam died of fever before her second summer. Then there was Lena, born dead. Two more miscarried after her. All my children are dead.”
The parade of names stalled the air in Bella’s lungs. She could scarcely breathe, let alone offer some appropriate condolences to her sister, the childless mother. Tears streamed down her face.
Daphne closed her eyes. “I’m going to see them again soon. They callin’ for me, Bell. Wonderin’ what’s takin’ me so long to hold ’em. They got their grandma, but babies just need their mama.”
Bella bit her lip at the mention of her mother. So she was dead, too. “That’s fever talk.” Her nostrils flared. “We’ll get you better.”
“I’ll be better when I’m with my family.”
“I’m your family. You could come back to Gettysburg with me.”
“No. Your family is Abraham, and your girl.” Daphne’s lips slanted. “You know where to find me, Bell.” She lifted a shaky finger, pointed to the mirror above the washstand. “I’ll always be with you no matter what.”
Nonsense. Bella wiped her tears fiercely away. “I can make you well again. Don’t tell me I’m too late for you.”
Coughing racked Daphne’s wasted body, lifting her off the pillows until she sank back down, breathless. “You just in time,” she whispered. “For Sophie.”
Bella frowned. “What, Daph?” But her sister had fallen asleep.
Fever talk, Bella decided as she watched the slight rise and fall of Daphne’s chest.
By the time Harrison left the Kent house, the cab he’d paid to tarry was gone. Cursing beneath his breath, he shoved his hat on his head, turned his collar up against the wind, and marched down the front steps to Franklin Street.
Actually, he could use a brisk walk in the cold. Dancing with Sophie Kent had lit a fire under his skin—a fire he’d been trying to tamp down for five years. Three days. That was all he had before he’d be escorting Bella back North. What could he do in three days’ time? And what had Sophie meant when she said Russell wasn’t hers?
Focus, Caldwell. You’re here to work. Chagrined with his weakness for Sophie, he remembered now how hard it was to part with her before—and why he absolutely had to do it. If she was his, he’d never muster the strength required to leave her in pursuit of his stories. Important stories. Surely, it had been the right decision, for both of them. She’d wanted time to write on her own, as well. And now what do you want? He lengthened his strides but could not run from the question.
“Going somewhere?” A wiry man snaked out from behind a lamppost and planted himself in Harrison’s path. A burly man smoking a cigar joined him, leaning so close to Harrison he choked on his smoke.
“Had a mind to, yes
.” Harrison stood his ground, tried not to appear as jarred as he felt.
“Coming from Miss Kent’s house? Never seen you around before.”
“And I suppose you’ve got eyes on the place round the clock, have you?”
“In fact, we do.”
Harrison bristled. If Wiry wasn’t bluffing, Sophie was under suspicion already. In danger, perhaps? Heat crawled up his neck.
“What were you doing here? If you were here for the party, looks like you sure didn’t have a good time. Arriving late, leaving early …” Burly clucked his tongue. “So whadja do?”
“Returned a slave I found on the streets after curfew. Surely that’s no crime. Miss Kent and Captain Russell can verify this.”
Wiry shrugged, then spewed a single word: “Pass.” He held out his hand.
“Look, I arrived tonight, only after the provost marshal’s office closed. Ask the Spotswood. They’ll confirm the hour I arrived was too late to secure a pass.”
“So you have no pass.”
Harrison blinked. “Because the provost marshal was not there to give me one.” His voice was rising.
“So it’s Winder’s fault then, is it?” Burly threw his fist against Harrison’s jaw, and the metallic taste of blood filled his mouth. Wiry yanked his wrists behind him, and bound them with a length of rope so tightly his hands went numb.
Libby Prison, Richmond, Virginia
Monday, November 30, 1863
With a kick to his backside, Harrison stumbled into the second floor room of Libby Prison feeling considerably lighter than when he’d arrived in Richmond. The welcome committee searched him and robbed him of both his cloak and the greenbacks that were to get him and Bella home. Harrison’s lip was numb and swollen, and his eye now black, courtesy of Warden Dick Turner.
Beware of what you wish for. Less than three hours after landing in Richmond, Harrison Caldwell had managed to get into Libby Prison. But being admitted as a prisoner was not what he had in mind. Still, he would commit his experience to memory and record it at his next opportunity. What he would give for a pencil and foolscap now! Tomorrow he would see if there was a bartering or exchange program among the prisoners. There certainly was at Fort Delaware.
“Fresh fish!” a prisoner shouted. Then another, and another, until the room reverberated with the chant. “Fresh fish! Fresh fish!” Spoons beat on tin cups, punctuating the prisoners’ cries as they came rushing to surround him, like a teeming school of fish themselves.
“I did have a reservation at the Spotswood for tonight, gentlemen, but when I saw there was a vacancy at the Libby Hotel, I simply couldn’t resist.”
They roared with laughter before prodding him with questions. “Where’d you come from? What’s the news? What’s happening on the outside?”
Harrison smiled. There was nothing he liked more than sharing the news, especially with those hungry to know it. “Well, men, I’ve been traveling for the last ten days, but here’s the news from Philadelphia as I left it.” He told them everything he could remember, especially of military movements, predictions, and reports.
But then, “Can you tell us what you ate? Before you came down South?” Murmurs of approval rippled around the room, which suddenly fell silent again. “Yes,” came another voice. “Tell us.”
Their eyes gleamed in the scant starlight filtering through the windows. He knew how brave these men were. He’d seen them fight in almost every major battle up until Gettysburg. And now they were reduced to this.
Nevertheless, he cleared his throat and described the food at the Union Volunteer Refreshment Saloon to what seemed like a spellbound audience. By the end, tears glistened on strong men’s gaunt faces, and Harrison again saw firsthand the horrors of war.
“Do they remember us up North?” one man asked. “Do they remember that we fought for them, and that we’d do it again if we could just get free?”
“That, my good fellow, is what I intend to tell them. And I’ll do it in such a way they’ll never forget.” Maybe it was a rare case of bravado that kept his tongue wagging, or perhaps a sincere desire to inspire courage and hope in these officers who had sacrificed so much. “Did anyone read that story of the Weeping Time in the New York Tribune four years ago? It was reprinted as a pamphlet and distributed all over the country. I wrote that. Under a pseudonym, but I wrote it. Some say it had more impact on public opinion than Uncle Tom’s Cabin. I’ll shine the light on your plight next, soldiers, mark my words.”
Their eyes gleamed, but they did not seem remarkably impressed. “Except for, how do you plan to get published in anything but the Libby Chronicle from here?”
“I’m a civilian, they can’t keep me long. But I’m keen to stay as long as it takes to fully understand the depth and breadth of your misery here.”
The prisoners laughed again, as though he had made another joke, before receding to their personal patches of spittle-flecked floor. Suddenly without an audience, Harrison hunted for his own space, careful not to step on the tightly packed men. Some, he noticed, used books for pillows, others preferred knapsacks. Having none of those, Harrison simply stretched his limbs out on the bare floor—and kicked a man in the head.
“Beg pardon!” He would need to sleep with knees bent all night long. Sleep, however, was more of a dream than a reality for Harrison Caldwell. Whether he was flat on his back or lay on his side, his bones seemed to poke into the filthy wood floor. That his hips and shoulders ached with the mere effort to rest did not bode well.
Even if he had a pillow, he likely would have used it over his face rather than beneath his head, both to dull the smell of the latrine along the wall, and to dim the sounds that peppered the night. Six hundred men in this room, plus another six hundred on the floor above produced enough coughing, snoring, and groaning to drown out a military band. One clown apparently thought it was funny to imitate a crying baby. And they made that guy an officer?
If he ever did fall asleep that night—for he really couldn’t tell—he was jolted awake every half hour with guards hollering out their reports:
“Post number 1, all’s well!”
“Post number 2, all’s well!”
“Post number 3, all’s well!”
Harrison groaned. All’s well, indeed.
After what felt like hours of restless turning, Sophie abandoned her warm bed. Tying a flannel wrapper snugly about her waist, she fed wood to her dying fire, then crossed to her bureau and turned the knob on her lamp. She opened the top drawer, felt beneath the lining, and extracted a thin stack of papers. The words blurred together as she dipped it into the shallow pool of light. Sophie’s flowing script tangled with Harrison’s terse block letters on the page. Her early journalistic efforts. His frank edits pushing her toward excellence.
“I’m a writer, too,” she’d told Harrison the first time they met. They were dancing at a boarding school function and he’d just made it clear he was only there to please his mother, the instructor. He was a serious journalist with more important things to do. He’d been unimpressed with her penchant for fiction.
“Why make it up, when there are stories all around you just begging to be told?”
She’d thought him cross and argumentative. If Mrs. Caldwell hadn’t been watching the two of them dancing, she’d have broken free of him then and there. But he held her fast.
“Why do you want to write? What drives you?”
“I like writing,” she’d answered, when what she meant to say was that she liked having a voice. Wanted to be heard.
“Not good enough,” he’d said, and her face flamed with indignation. “Writing is important, and your interest in it does you credit. But there is danger in writing when you have nothing to say.”
Sophie dropped her lashes to her cheeks, concentrated on her steps. Harrison was twenty-four years old to her seventeen. The fact that their mothers had gone to school together here, and been fast friends, made him only somewhat less intimidating. Susan knew how to talk to men, e
specially older men. Sophie didn’t.
“So tell me, Miss Kent, what is it that you want to say?”
She looked up, locked her gaze upon him. “That slavery is wrong.” Her Southern drawl was smooth as silk.
“But you—you’re—”
“In a position to see it every day. When I’m home, that is.”
“And you believe fiction is the right vehicle for your message?”
She bristled. “Didn’t Mrs. Stowe?”
“Yes, and many discount her work as mere exaggeration, abolitionist propaganda. Why not simply report the truth instead, without cheapening it with artificial varnish?” The intensity in his eyes sparked something inside her. “Listen, I’m going to hear Frederick Douglass speak tomorrow night. Come with me.”
She did. From that point on, she accompanied Harrison to the abolitionist rallies her father abhorred. But that wasn’t all he’d led her to.
The boarding school taught literature and composition, but not journalism. Harrison did, though—just for Sophie. He taught her how to write like a newsman. The first stories she’d attempted were almost illegible by the time Harrison finished editing them, so covered was the page with his marks.
“It’s the only way to get better,” he’d told her, and she knew it was true.
After two years of tutoring, he’d dubbed her a “writer,” and she had nearly floated away on the compliment. Were it not for Harrison, she would never have published her first article as John Thornton in the Richmond Examiner. Far more than her own father had ever been, Harrison was her inspiration and mentor.
He was almost—almost—more.
Sophie’s face grew warm now as she slid her old stories, peppered with Harrison’s edits, back beneath the lining of her drawer with as much tenderness as another woman might hide away her love letters. The fire danced and swayed behind its grate, and she felt the burn of Harrison’s hand at her waist once more.
Grabbing a blanket from her bed, she padded out upon her second-story porch and tucked herself snugly into her rocking chair. Stars studded the sky like saber points, and she craned her neck to find the constellations. When a star fell from the sky, Sophie realized that one wish had already come true. She had seen Harrison again. Not at all, however, the way we’d planned.
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