Wedded to War

by Jocelyn Green

  “But you will not be coming home.”

  “I am home when I am near my husband. You are home when you’re with family.”

  Charlotte leaned her head back against the rocking chair and sighed in resignation.

  “Read this.” She held out Phineas’s letter.

  After a few moments, Alice looked up at her sister again, a soft smile on her face. “It appears, dear sister, that Mr. Hastings and I are on the same page on this matter. But the question remains—where are you?”

  “Mrs. Carlisle.” It was Dr. Ware.

  “Good morning, Dr.—” Alice stopped, and Charlotte watched her fair skin lose all its color. “Not Jacob,” she said.

  The doctor looked down. “I’m afraid so.”

  Alice and Charlotte were on their feet in an instant, their eyes immediately drawn to the gleaming white rows of tents next to the railroad tracks.

  “Wounded?” Fear tinged Alice’s voice.

  “Chickahominy fever. Typhoid-malaria. Utterly broken down with it, I’m afraid.”

  “Did he just arrive?” Charlotte looked around. “I didn’t hear any train.”

  “No, no. He’s been here since yesterday but only now is conscious enough to tell me his name. I’m sorry.”

  Charlotte’s heart caught in her throat. She reached out to lay a hand on her sister’s arm, but Alice was already slipping away toward her husband. She could not imagine what her sister was going through right now—or what she had endured up until this moment. How selfish I’ve been! With every patient, Alice must have imagined that it could be her own Jacob, but for the grace of God. Grueling! And now the moment had finally come. It was Jacob’s turn, at last.

  “Dr. Ware!” Charlotte called after the doctor’s retreating back.

  He turned and looked at her. How old he had grown in a few short weeks, how tired and careworn!

  “Is it really so very serious?” she asked.

  “The Daniel Webster sets sail for New York tonight,” he said. “The Carlisles must be on it. Will you be joining them?”

  Aiden awoke with a start and began crying in Charlotte’s arms, clamoring for his mother’s milk.

  The gentle rocking of the Pamunkey River beneath the Wilson Small failed to put Charlotte to sleep. Somewhere out on the Atlantic Ocean, Alice was no doubt still awake on the Daniel Webster, as well.

  They had not parted on the best of terms.

  “Mother will never forgive me if we come home without you,” Alice had said.

  “Just a little longer,” Charlotte had countered. “Ruby needs to rest a little more before making the journey. Besides, the Commission can’t lose its two best nurses at once.”

  But Alice had just shaken her head and said, “I have enough to deal with as it is. I am not my sister’s keeper.” She boarded the ship, as they had done together hundreds of times, and set sail for home without Charlotte.

  Now in the stillness of the night, Phineas’s letter came back to haunt her, and her mind landed on Marty’s death once again. The weight of her guilt was crushing. Maybe she should have left on the Daniel Webster tonight after all, and sailed away from any possibility of doing more harm.

  In the yellow glow of the lantern light, Charlotte pulled out the small Bible that had once belonged to her father and held it to her chest, wishing she could somehow hear what he would say to her now if he were still alive.

  Hear what your heavenly Father has to say to you, her heart told her. He is still alive.

  She turned to the psalms first, finding comfort in King David’s expressions of anguish followed by words of praise. Hadn’t he sinned greatly by deliberately taking another man’s wife and then having her husband killed? And yet he had been restored to God, and had been called a man after God’s own heart.

  She flipped to the Gospels, where her father’s hand had underlined so many of the words of Christ. When she came to Luke 6, she stopped, and her vision clouded with tears once again. Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. The verse that inspired her to have mercy on the sick and wounded Union soldiers in the same way her father had had mercy on the cholera patients in Five Points. Five Points … Ruby and Aiden. She had promised Ruby she would take care of her. Could she really do that best by keeping her amid the sick and wounded? What if either one of them caught the fever? Maybe showing mercy now meant leaving this place and returning to New York.

  But there were so many here who needed her help, and so few to give it.

  She was more confused than she had ever been.

  Scrounging up a pencil and using the top of the sugar box for paper, Charlotte knelt on the deck and poured out her heart to Caleb as she wrote her letter on top of a cask of water. She held nothing back, using her letter as if it were a personal journal entry. She told him about Dr. Ware’s advice to deny her heart and she confessed her fatal mistake with Marty. She told him about Ruby and Aiden, the letter from Phineas, and Alice’s similar advice. What do I do? she asked him, as if she were sixteen again, and he was the only one who could see clearly the path ahead.

  Her letter finished, she crept back to her cabin and slept only fitfully as the tug Wilson Small bobbed in the water, up and down, back and forth, as if the boat itself could not decide which direction to go.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  New York City

  Tuesday, June 17, 1862

  Phineas Hastings felt as if he had been kicked in the stomach. The shock, the pain, the disorientation. The anger.

  Alice and Jacob had returned home, and Charlotte had stayed behind. What was the girl thinking? How long would this nonsense continue? After all the money he had poured into the Sanitary Commission since October, as if he had money to burn. He was running out, truth be told. He had considered the donations a worthwhile investment if the return on it would mean Charlotte’s hand securely in his, and her wealth securely his, too.

  He had never dreamed her ambition would drag out for so long. Who could have imagined such a thing?

  Phineas reached into his pocket and clamped down on his gold pocket watch until it became slick with his sweat.

  He was done waiting for her to come home. If she refused to come of her own accord, it was time to act like a man and make her obey. His father may not have been able to force his own wife into submission, but Phineas certainly would.

  Tybee Island, South Carolina

  Monday, June 23, 1862

  By the time Caleb Lansing had finished reading the letter from Charlotte, his shoulders sagged. So she knew now what it was like to make a mistake that would cost a human life, when your only mission was to save it. His heart ached for her. That kind of guilt could drive a strong man mad. But she must not be paralyzed by it …

  And this Phineas fellow was still in the picture? Caleb was shocked. How could Charlotte—sweet, smart Charlie—possibly be still entangled with that dolt? Disappointment in her judgment and guilt that he had not tried to win her love himself played tug-of-war with his heart.

  He had to write to her. He had to tell her how he felt about her.

  But he was so tired. He hadn’t shaved in days, neither had he made the effort to bathe. It was too exhausting, and what was the point? He’d be sweating in this southern climate until almost winter, anyway.

  Suddenly, winter itself seemed to settle on his skin. He was so cold. Though the sun shone bright and hot in the Carolina blue sky, Caleb’s body was seized with violent shaking. He curled up on his cot and shivered under a single blanket for the better part of an hour. Then, as quickly as it had come, the chill had vanished into the hot, wet air of his tent.

  He reached for his looking glass, vaguely noting his rapid pulse as he did so. His heart beat as if he had just done a double-time march of five miles, carrying his fifty pounds of gear. A look in the mirror proved what he had suspected. His skin had turned opaque, the color of light red clay.

  And no serpentaria for miles around, was his last thought before succumbing to the overpow
ering pull of sleep.

  Fortress Monroe, Old Point Comfort, Virginia

  Wednesday, June 25, 1862

  Edward Goodrich strolled the circular walkway in front of the Chesapeake Hospital on the banks of Hampton Roads. He tried to imagine what his father would think of him now, in a true military uniform, with a genuine military commission, in the only Union fort in the Upper South. Just last month, a bill had been signed officially authorizing a chaplain for each permanent hospital. Edward had requested Fortress Monroe, the Army of the Potomac’s base for the Peninsula Campaign. Now that he was here, he daily—if not hourly—relished the fact that he was within a single boat ride of Charlotte Waverly at the Sanitary Commission’s headquarters at White House. If he was honest with himself, Charlotte’s approval was even more important to him than his father’s.

  And so was her proximity. The memory of their Christmas dance together was still fresh, and powerful enough to make his heart pound. When Charlotte had told him she would be following the movements of the Peninsula Campaign on the floating hospitals, he all but despaired to think of being in Washington City without her. She understood him so well. She knew just what to say to encourage him. It didn’t hurt that she was so lovely to gaze upon, either. He was a chaplain, not a priest. He was a man, after all.

  Seagulls squawked and the sea breeze misted his face as Edward climbed the front steps to the entrance of the female seminary-turned-hospital. He slowly paced the wards, looking for someone coherent enough to talk to, or write a letter for. When a thin, yellow hand reached out for Edward, he stopped.

  “Well, hello there, Charlie!” Edward pulled a chair next to the cot and sat down, genuinely glad to see this patient looking stronger today.

  “Charlie?” he said, one eyebrow cocked. His voice sounded thin and distant.

  “That’s what you said when I first saw you, soldier. I assumed that was your name—was I mistaken?”

  “I did? Oh. Well. Yes. No, my name is Dr. Caleb Lansing.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Dr. Lansing. Can I do anything for you today?”

  “Yes, actually. I wonder if you would be so kind as to help me write a letter, if I dictate it to you.”

  “My pleasure, Doctor,” Edward said, pulling out his paper. “Ready when you are.”

  Dr. Lansing took a deep breath. “Dear Charlie,” he began.

  Aha, thought Edward as he wrote the words. A friend. Of course.

  “Don’t be alarmed at the unfamiliar handwriting. I am only sick with fever, and am now close to convalescence, and the chaplain—I’m sorry Chaplain, what’s your name?”

  “Edward Goodrich.”

  “Right. Edward Goodrich is writing this on my behalf. I received your letter just before I fell ill. Please don’t think my silence meant judgment or disapproval.” He paused to breathe. “The few conscious moments I have had since I read your letter have been filled with thoughts of you.” He stopped then, clearly searching for the right words, and Edward realized that this friend was a woman.

  When he began again, the thoughts came out only in halting phrases, leaving Edward to fill in the blanks to form complete sentences. I understand how you feel … responsible for Marty’s death … must let that go. Do your best … Pray for guidance …

  Dr. Lansing broke off again and closed his eyes, and for a moment Edward thought he had fallen asleep.

  “I can’t think straight,” Dr. Lansing finally said. “Is any of this making sense?” He was almost out of breath with so much talking already.

  “If I may be so bold, sir, you seem to be beating around the bush,” said Edward. “But war is no time for hedging. Come right out with it and say plainly what you feel. Take your time.”

  Nodding, he slowly dictated:

  It is no wonder that this surgeon, Dr. Ware, advised you to deny your heart, for it is the only way we can survive what is required of us. I’ve been so busy and focused on saving other people’s lives, that I have denied my own heart in many ways. I am not boasting here, but confessing. For I have denied you.

  The effort cost him, and he fell asleep. Edward tucked the letter away and came back for three more sessions of dictation before Dr. Lansing had finally poured his heart into the letter and confessed his love to this woman.

  “How was that?” he whispered, and Edward assured him the message was convincing. He pitied the poor man, so thin and jaundiced-looking, blisters still on his skin from the relentless fever. He looked to be a poor candidate to win anything more than a woman’s sympathy and motherly ministrations.

  Love could be so painful. Dr. Lansing seemed like a good man, though, and Edward truly hoped it would work out for them. Caleb signed the letter with his own weak hand, then fell back on his pillow from the exhaustion of such an effort.

  “Where shall I address it, Doctor?”

  Dr. Lansing’s breath came rapidly, his beating heart could be seen pumping beneath the thin wall of his chest. He closed his eyes and whispered, “Charlotte Waverly, Sanitary Commission Floating Hospitals, White House Landing, Virginia.”

  Edward may as well have been struck from behind, so shocked was he as he watched his hand obediently address the envelope. Dr. Lansing now asleep, Edward rose in a daze, and his feet carried him across the ward, out the hospital, and down to the walkway by the water.

  Though the sun hid her face behind a veil of steel-grey clouds, a wet blanket of heat pressed down oppressively on Fortress Monroe. Thick, sticky wind whipped up Hampton Roads just over the bank. A layer of sea mist combined with the beads of sweat on Edward’s face until it all ran down together in salty rivulets, soaking the collar of his wool uniform. Suffocating.

  The letter felt like it was burning a hole in Edward’s pocket as he walked laps around the circular sidewalk in front of Chesapeake Hospital, but he would not take it out to mail it. He would not touch it at all until he decided what to do. At the outer rim of the walkway, he was within just a few yards of the water, lapping hungrily at the bank, and Edward had to fight the temptation to feed it with Dr. Lansing’s letter.

  Just mail it, Goodrich! He had always sought to do the right thing before. If he was nothing else, he was an honest man. He was even honest with God about the holes this war had poked in his faith. Why is it so hard to be honest now, and just mail the blasted letter? Do I trust God for the affairs of my life without trying to manipulate what happens?

  She is not engaged yet, his heart cried out. It is not manipulative to simply make your own case. There is still a chance. Seize the day and write your own letter! Do it now, just do it, just write her a letter and pour out your heart!

  The Union flag snapped in the wind above him, and seagulls screamed overhead, like sirens. But all Edward Goodrich could hear were the words now forming in his head. Dear Charlotte, you may think me very bold, but I cannot deny my heart …

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  White House Landing, Pamunkey River, Virginia

  Wednesday, June 25, 1862

  Charlotte should have known it would come to this, eventually. But it was still a shock to see Phineas Hastings stride down the rickety gangway of the Daniel Webster at White House Landing, looking wholly out of place. Smooth fair skin, perfectly groomed hair, mustache, and goatee, immaculately trimmed fingernails—it was as if Prince Charming had been plucked out of his fairy-tale world and dropped into the swamps. The contrast was jarring.

  Mosquitoes droned in Charlotte’s ears, echoing the alarm sounding in her head as he made his way to her.

  “Charlotte.” His tone held accusation rather than a greeting.

  “You’re here,” said Charlotte, but her voice did not hold much surprise.

  “So are you.” The charge, leveled. There was no denying the statement.

  She looked down at her dress, acutely aware that if he had ever considered her his princess, the spell must surely be broken now. From chin to belt, she was sticky with sugar, yellow with lemon juice, greasy with beef tea, and pasted with milk porrid
ge. Her apron and skirts were stiff with blood and human filth. And I am a member of the Sanitary Commission? Oh, that I could whitewash myself!

  Phineas flicked a finger under the hem of the shirt she wore over her dress. “What do you call this?”

  “Dr. Agnew left some flannel shirts behind when he returned to New York. He didn’t need them anymore, and our shirtwaists were positively filthy—we were only allowed to bring two uniforms, and getting any laundry done is quite an ordeal.” She bit her lip. She sounded nervous, even to her own ears.

  “You mean to tell me, you are wearing men’s clothing now over your hoopless skirt? What’s next, Charlotte, trousers? Like the female soldier I told you about?”

  Charlotte stiffened.

  “We’re going home.”

  Had Charlotte been found guilty in court, she would feel no less condemned and sentenced than she did right now. Phineas’s gaze held hers firmly, almost daring her to contest the decision as she had done a thousand times before, with passion, confidence, and self-righteousness.

  But this time was different. She made no appeal. She had killed a soldier—maybe more, who really knew? Caleb had never written her back with the reassurances she so desperately craved from him. And Ruby—well, this was no place to raise a baby. If Aiden caught swamp fever, his death would be upon Charlotte’s stubborn head, too. If Ruby’s turn for fever came, Aiden would surely follow. Charlotte could not take that risk.

  Lowering her chin, Charlotte whispered, “I am not indispensable.” It felt like confession.

  Phineas’s shoulders relaxed. “When can we leave?”