Innocent Deceptions

by Gwyneth Atlee

o0o

  Though Ben hated the idea of keeping watch over Major General Branard, he knew that if he ever vacated the position, junior officers would line up from here to Kansas for the job. In the two weeks he’d had this post, Ben’s greatest responsibilities had been to double-check the old man’s orders and serve as attentive audience for his endless stream of stories.

  Listening to Hank Branard talk war was like listening to his uncle talk cattle or Sam Houston wax poetic on his life among the Cherokees. Ben figured about half of the tales were woven out of decades’ worth of lies, but they were entertaining all the same. Unlike some of the other officers Ben had served with, Branard didn’t clam up around Ben either, or make thinly veiled comments questioning the Texan’s loyalty.

  “The way I figure it,” the old man had told him, “any man who’d go against his neighbors, who’d give up a piece of himself to keep this country whole, has nothing left to prove.”

  The more time Ben spent in Hank Branard’s company, the more he liked the man. And the more he grew to hate the job that he’d been sent to do.

  As the white-haired general inspected the Randolph house, he regaled Ben with an account of his adventures as a young lieutenant fighting the British in the 1812 conflict. Barely pausing for a breath, the old man next launched into a tale from the Mexican War of ’46 to ’48. This one featured two rival generales who had trapped Branard’s unit in a canyon, then fired on each other instead of the Americans. Turned out both men had been wooing the same fickle señorita.

  So many stories had circulated regarding Branard’s exploits that President Lincoln himself had lured the general out of retirement with a promotion and asked him to help oversee the invasion of the Mississippi River Valley, a key element in the Union’s so-called Anaconda Plan. Though Ben managed to laugh in the appropriate spots, his mind wandered from Branard’s yarn, which the old man had told him only yesterday. Instead, he imagined how much hellfire would erupt in the newspapers if the legendary general was removed.

  Throughout the last difficult months, public support for the war had steadily eroded. Bull Run, a humiliating Union defeat witnessed by hundreds of spectators, had ended the naïve predictions of a ninety-day war with an easy Union victory. Patriotic speeches and parades withered into unrest as losses mounted and men who’d marched away to heroes’ fanfares began coming home in wooden boxes or minus body parts.

  But if the newspapers were any indication, the public’s hope had been rekindled when Hank Branard entered the fray. Almost certainly, he would receive much of the credit for Friday’s victory here in Memphis, despite the fact that he’d had next to nothing to do with the naval attack that had reopened this part of the Mississippi River to Union vessels.

  “General Branard, Captain Chandler,” a light brown-haired lieutenant interrupted with a crisp salute. A tall, serious fellow with a thick mustache, Lieutenant Snyder struck Ben as a young man hell-bent on advancement.

  A frown flashed across the general’s features. The old man appeared none too pleased to have his story interrupted. But in a moment, his gaze focused, and he looked like the sharp-eyed man whose photograph appeared so often in the papers.

  “What is it, Lieutenant?” General Branard asked. “Has my cook finished making lunch?”

  “No, sir. It’s a young woman, I believe the same one Captain Chandler saw fleeing the house earlier. Only something’s happened to her, sir. You’d best come see.”

  The look that Snyder shot Ben was decidedly unfriendly. In the three weeks since he’d joined Branard’s staff, Ben had overheard the younger man wondering aloud what the hell a Texan was doing in the Union army, but to Ben’s face, the lieutenant always seemed at least superficially respectful. What had gotten the fellow’s dander up about this woman?

  Curious, Ben limped behind the two men into the library, a room decorated with paintings featuring paddle wheelers and instruments used in navigation. He understood that before the war, Colonel Randolph had built some of the most elaborate steamboats on the Mississippi.

  The young woman who must be his daughter was sitting in an overstuffed chair whose massiveness overwhelmed her slender build. She held one arm curled protectively around a small boy with hair so fair it looked almost silvery. The two sets of light green eyes matched perfectly, but beneath the girl’s left one, a bruised swelling had risen, underscored by traces of dried blood.

  “Emma?” the general asked. Then, shaking his head, he muttered. “No, of course it couldn’t be . . .”

  Looking visibly frightened, the young woman began to rise as the three men entered what had been, until the hours before dawn, another handsomely furnished room in her home. With their hair disordered and their clothes mud-stained and torn, she and the boy now looked as if they were the intruders. Though none of the soldiers had known the house was occupied, Ben was not proud of his part in her ordeal.

  “Please don’t get up,” General Branard told her.

  “Let me get you a damp cloth to wash that cut,” Lieutenant Snyder offered. “Then you can tell us how you came by it.”

  He glanced once more, meaningfully, toward Ben. But this time, Ben understood the man suspected that he had struck the girl as she’d been fleeing. If Snyder had been a witness, the damned fool would know the reverse was closer to the truth.

  General Branard introduced all three men, finishing just as Lieutenant Snyder reentered the room and closed the door. “Don’t worry, miss,” he told her, his gravelly voice gentler than normal. “You and the lad haven’t a thing to fear from us.”

  As she nodded, Ben saw her trembling, saw tears glimmering near her lower lids. Once again, he felt a powerful urge to offer comfort, for never had he seen such appealing vulnerability. Why, the effect could not have been more perfect had it been arranged.

  The thought pulled him up short, convincing him to take the chair located farthest from the young woman and the child. Neither the general nor the lieutenant appeared to notice. Instead, both sat, leaning toward her with such clear interest that a passerby, watching through the window, might imagine their lives dependent on whatever the injured girl would say.

  Ben focused his attention on the aching of his bruised hip, then folded his arms across his chest. She’d fooled him once before, when he had acted upon impulse.

  This time he meant to watch and listen before deciding whether she was as harmless as she looked.

  o0o

  Michael need not have wasted his breath suggesting that Charlotte feign nervousness. She had never been so frightened in her life. Lying to these officers was a far cry from telling fibs to Mama Ruth in hopes of nabbing something tasty. Surely, these intense-looking men in their blue uniforms would see right through her story!

  The dark brown-haired man she’d knocked down the staircase already appeared suspicious. He gazed at her through slate-gray eyes, looking as though he might at any moment pick up the cane lying across his thighs to strike her. She looked away, but not before she’d noticed the grim set to his well-formed features, the strength apparent in his crossed arms.

  After taking a breath, she spoke past the thick lump that had formed deep in her throat. “I am Charlotte Randolph, and this is my brother, Alexander. We were frightened half out of our minds when your soldiers burst into our home.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” said the general, “and for that I must beg your forgiveness. We’d been given to believe all occupants were off fighting for the Southern cause. I’m exceedingly sorry, but I’m afraid that my staff and I require the use of your home for the time being. I’m certain you have other family who will see to you --”

  “No! I can’t go back to them!” At her cry, she felt Alexander flinch against her. She and Michael had explained to him that they meant to play a trick on the Yankees to get them to leave. Yet Charlotte couldn’t help but wonder how he might react when she began to lie. One thing was certain: She was setting a terrible example, especially considering all the lectures she had given him on th
e merits of honesty.

  “Whyever not?” the general asked.

  Charlotte winced as she used the damp cloth to wipe at her cut cheekbone. “Don’t you see what my uncle did when I went to him for help?”

  The youngest of the officers, a tall, sandy-haired lieutenant with a thick mustache, leapt to his feet. “The coward! Tell me the man’s name and I’ll thrash the devil out of him --”

  “Lieutenant Snyder, please allow Miss Randolph to finish speaking,” the general interrupted, looking irritated at his officer’s display.

  Slowly, the lieutenant sank to his seat, but tension broadcast his fury, apparently on Charlotte’s behalf. Charlotte could barely believe her good fortune. This might be as easy as Michael had promised after all.

  “It’s my own fault, truly,” she continued. “My uncle said I was a traitor, and after a fashion he is right. I should have stopped seeing Timothy the moment he announced he would go north to join the Union army. My family was quick to cut him from our lives, as if he were no more than a bad spot in an apple. Father called off the wedding, and my brother threatened to beat him into pulp if he ever showed his face again in Memphis.”

  A clatter drew her attention, and she saw that the cane had slid off the silent man’s lap and onto the polished mahogany floor.

  “I beg your pardon. Lately, it seems that grace is not one of my virtues,” Captain Chandler said as he retrieved the fallen item.

  In his words, Charlotte heard what she’d been too frightened to notice when he’d tried to speak to her last night. His accent was undeniably Southern – not Tennessean to be certain, but he did not hail from Yankee country, no matter which uniform he wore. With a start, she realized that the story of her nonexistent fiancé, who had supposedly chosen a cause unpopular among his neighbors, must resemble this captain’s life. But instead of the sympathy she might have felt had her tale been true, Charlotte was nearly overcome with anger toward this traitor to the South.

  She turned her gaze from the man she mentally renamed the Judas Officer.

  “This Timothy,” the general prompted with a delicacy that surprised her, “you loved him?”

  Charlotte closed her eyes and leaned her head against the back of Alexander’s. “More than I could ever hope to tell. I don’t care one whit about politics, no matter how the other Randolphs feel. I cared only about being with Timothy every possible moment. So I disobeyed my family and slipped away to visit him every chance I could until he left.”

  She hated this, hated casting herself in the role of a simpering child too lovesick to think of family or loyalty. Still, she forced herself to finish, to get this over with. “My uncle caught sight of us the night we met in the churchyard, when we kissed goodbye for the last time. Uncle Charles drew his pistol and fired at Timothy. He was fortunate to escape with his life. Then my uncle marched me home and joined my father in bellowing at me for the remainder of the evening. It was terrible, but I’m not a bit sorry for what I did – because I – I never saw Timothy again.

  “He didn’t live six months,” she continued. “I received word that he took sick in some army camp, and then he --”

  The words stuck in her throat, where they congealed like cooling honey.

  The old general apparently believed her too distraught to say another word. He offered her a clean square of white linen, and she heard him whisper soothing, indistinct words. She thought they might be, “There, there, Emma.”

  But that made little sense, so she merely took the handkerchief and wiped her eyes. The things she’d said felt nothing like innocent deceptions; they felt instead like wicked lies.

  Through lashes thickened by her tears, she glanced up and noticed the captain with the cane, the Judas Officer, was watching her with fathomless gray eyes. Looking back into the general’s kinder face, she forced herself to the next phase of Michael’s plan.

  “I’ve come – I’ve come to beg of you a great favor, General. My brother and I have no other place to stay, so I thought -- I wondered if perhaps you might allow us to sleep in the little cottage out in back, where our slaves lived.”

  Her voice dwindled to a whisper, and the two men sitting closest leaned even nearer. “I promise, we wouldn’t make much noise, and we’ll keep out of your men’s way. If only you could find it in your heart to --”

  The general rose to his feet in one swift motion. “I won’t hear of it, Miss Randolph.”

  Though the man rather resembled Saint Nicholas, with his white hair and beard, his voice boomed like a cannon. Apparently startled, Alexander shrank into her embrace, but Charlotte felt relieved. She could tell her older brother she had tried her best and failed. Clearly, the general was not the dunce Michael had suggested. After all she’d read of the man’s brilliant strategies, she should have turned tail the moment he introduced himself.

  But General Branard had not finished speaking. “First of all, I’ve already given those quarters to my cook so she can have a private place to sleep. But even if that were not so, I would never for a moment permit a brave and loyal girl like yourself to sleep in the same shack where your family’s Negroes lived. Not when this house is so much larger than needed by my command staff. You’ll stay in the nursery on the third floor. I only hope the lad won’t mind sharing with you. What was your name, little fellow?”

  Alexander turned his head to Charlotte’s shoulder and said nothing, so she responded for him.

  “We’ll be just fine sharing; thank you,” Charlotte answered, though she still half-hoped the general would change his mind and banish them. She repeated her brother’s introduction, saying, “This is Alexander, sir.”

  “A shy one, is he? I was just the same when I was his age,” the general noted with an approving nod.

  The family cat, Polly, sauntered into the room and meowed loudly at Charlotte in a tone that demanded delivery of her overdue breakfast. Apparently, the gray and white mistress of the house had forgiven them for leaving her. She seemed to have recovered from last night’s upset.

  But Charlotte felt certain she and Alexander never would.

  o0o

  Before voicing his opinion, Ben waited until Lieutenant Snyder left the room to escort the two Randolphs upstairs.

  Ben spoke deliberately, keeping his tone as respectful as possible. “That young woman has every reason to try and make us trouble, sir. I don’t believe it prudent to allow her access to --”

  General Branard, who’d been heading toward the door, paused to glance over his shoulder. His expression darkened. “I should think that you, of all people, would be sympathetic to her plight. Surely, you must have had similar difficulties to her young man’s when you left Texas. But let’s finish this discussion over lunch, Ben. I find it easier to listen to your infernal doubts when I can do it on a full stomach.”

  Branard’s girth already strained the brass buttons of his jacket, but Ben wasn’t fool enough to note it. Instead, he wondered at the general’s comment and expression, so different from his earlier, affable behavior. Had the old man somehow divined Ben’s mission, or was he merely feeling hungry and impatient?

  Branard’s personal cook, a mulatto woman with graying hair, came into the dining room balancing two plates and a pair of teacups. Tillie’s blue eyes, so unusual for one of African descent, disturbed some of the officers, but it was her manner that continually amazed Ben. The energetic free woman, who had been with the general for years, set a cup of hot black coffee and a plate before each man. As always, she neither asked nor appeared to care what foods or quantities they favored. This afternoon’s fare consisted of a boiled dinner featuring corned beef and vegetables, along with fresh brown bread.

  As he took his first bite, Ben wondered how she’d managed in the few hours she had occupied the kitchen. The food’s taste lived up to its delicious smell.

  Tillie stood before the general, one hand fisted on her boy-slim hip. “You gonna need plenty more help to keep up a house this size.”

  “I’ve a
lready made arrangements to hire some contrabands to help. They’re eager for the work.”

  “Slaves . . .” She shook her head.

  “Runaways,” the general acknowledged. “They’re gathering behind Union troops all over the South because they’ve heard we won’t return them to our enemies.”

  “Why send ‘em back to do the rebels good when you can hire ‘em for pennies?” Tillie asked scornfully. “Well, don’ look to me to teach them poor devils how to think. I just come along to cook.”

  “We have additional guests,” the general told her. “A young woman and her brother, the children of the owners of the house. Treat them kindly, will you?”

  Tillie’s eyes narrowed into shrewdness. “Slave owners, I ‘magine. And you know me, Genr’l. I always give good as I get.”

  “Perhaps they’ll require a bit more patience than the rest of us,” he suggested. “They’ve suffered a great loss.”

  As Tillie walked through the door leading to the kitchen, she grumbled, “A woman sleeping out back in slaves’ quarters might not have a full measure of patience for white folks’ troubles.”

  The old man, however, seemed unruffled, or perhaps he didn’t hear.

  As Ben ate, he noticed the fine quality of the china, the ornate pattern of the heavy silver fork. He could imagine how painful it would be for Charlotte to watch intruders use her family’s intimate possessions, to look away as valuables began to disappear. As they would, inevitably.

  “Again,” he ventured, “I must play the devil’s advocate. Why would Miss Randolph possibly trust us, the very soldiers she ran in fear from just last night?”

  Branard swallowed a bite of bread. “You heard the girl. Where else can she go? You saw what her uncle did to her.”

  “I heard what she told us, and I saw some sort of wound.”

  The general peered at him intently before bursting into laughter. “Why, Ben Chandler, I took you for a bigger man than this! You’re angry and embarrassed that she knocked you off your pins. Lieutenant McMahon told me all about it.”