Gregory, Lisa (4 page)

"Sometimes
I do. But not when there are Confederate prisoners all over the place."

"Oh,
but Miss Kate, I'd so like to see 'em up close and I'm scared to go by myself!
What harm would it do?"

"Why,
it would be foolhardy, Peg, you must see that."

"Oh,
pooh, mum, they'd probably welcome the sight of a girl, being stuck away in a
prison like that."

"They
would probably welcome it too much."

"Oh,
how exciting."

"Pegeen!"

"Well,
they aren't likely to attack me right there in front of the guards!"

"Really,
Pegeen, the way you talk sometimes just isn't proper."

"I
know, mum." Her pert little face looked downcast for a moment. "But I
would so like to get a look at them."

"When
you come to get me this afternoon, perhaps you can see them getting back in the
wagons. They unloaded this morning right there in front of the office."

"Oh,
that'd be grand, that would. Oh, Miss Kate, life's been ever so much more
exciting since you started working."

"Has
it?"

"Oh,
yes, getting to bring you lunch and coming down to walk back with you in the
afternoon. Why, Jimmy O'Toole—he's the milkman you know . . ." Pegeen
paused and blushed. "At lunch he's taken to walking a couple of blocks
with me and sometimes in the afternoon, if he's through, he'll take me up on
his wagon and drive me nearly all the way here. Oh, he's a fine lad, with a bold
eye and he dances that fine, and the blarney he gives a girl!"

Katherine
smiled at the girl. "It sounds as if his 'blarney' must work."

"
'Deed it does," Pegeen said and smiled, thinking to herself that what Miss
Kate needed was a James O'Toole who would wheedle and sweet-talk her out of
those stiff ways of hers.

Teddy
bounded into the room, his skinny little chest swollen with importance. "I
been talking to the guards. I went down to the Wheatley ship, and they had them
Rebs all lined up getting their lunch, see, from the prison—horrid-looking
beans, miss. And one of the Rebs spoke to me, said as how he'd lay a little bet
with me if I'd put up my sandwiches, and then they all laughed, and another one
said I'd better keep my sandwiches to myself 'cause Jenkins was a riverboat
man."

"One
of those gamblers?" Katherine asked.

"Yes'm.
And one of 'em asked me who the redheaded lass was, and then . . ."
Suddenly he flushed to the roots of his hair and began to stammer.

Pegeen
laughed out loud and said, "Go on; you can leave out what they said about
me."

"Well,
one man, real quiet-like, not loud and laughing like the others, said to me,
'Boy, who's the lady with the gold eyes?'"

Unaccountably
Katherine's heart jerked and she said sharply, "Which one, Teddy?"

"Tall
one, Miss Kate, strong-looking; brown hair, I guess. Anyway," he went on,
impatient at having his tale interrupted, "I said, 'What d'you mean, gold
eyes?' and he smiled and said, 'Perhaps you wouldn't notice. I mean the lady
who arrived in the carriage this morning. Dressed in brown, with a little fur
muff and a silly hat."

"Well!"
Katherine gasped, indignant at his description of her hat, and Pegeen smothered
a laugh.

"So
I said, 'Oh, you must mean Miss Devereaux.' And he said 'Devereaux?' and
pointed to the name above the office door, and I said, 'Yes, sir, she's Mr.
Devereaux's daughter.' And he thanked me and went off to eat."

"Is
that all he said?" Katherine pressed him, a little disappointed.

"Yes'm.
But they sure do talk funny, all kinda slow and soft. Then I talked to their
guards—their names are Jackson and Gunther. And they say that these are a tough
lot and they don't know why they let them out."

"They
were probably just trying to impress you. But are there only two guards?"

"Oh,
no, there's four. Besides the ones that drive the wagons."

"How
many prisoners are there?"

"Twenty-five
or thirty, I guess."

"Oh,
mum," Pegeen broke in, "isn't it exciting that one of them was asking
about you? Why do you suppose he was?"

"I'm
sure I haven't the vaguest idea, Peg. But I think it's time you took the tray
back to the house and regaled everyone with your account of the prisoners. But,
Pegeen, don't tell them about one of them inquiring about me. It would only worry
Aunt Amelia."

Pegeen,
her eyes wide, held a forefinger up to her lips. "I'll be as quiet as a
churchmouse about it."

Katherine
returned to her work, but found that soon the numbers would recede and in her
mind she'd see that man. She was sure it was the same one who had grinned at
her so insolently this morning. Why had he asked Teddy about her? Why on earth
was he interested in her name? Aunt Amelia would be sure it meant he wanted to
"have his way with her," but since Aunt Amelia firmly believed that about
every male who called on them, Katherine doubted that she was right. She simply
was not the sort that bounders tried to force themselves upon, though if she
had ever seen anyone likely to force himself on a woman, it was that man. She
wished she knew what his name was and felt that he had some sort of advantage
over her because he knew hers.

She
was diverted from her reverie by the entrance of Charlie Kesey. He was an old
sailor, blind in one eye, and with a lamentable preference for the bottle. He
had been blinded, he told her, in a fistfight in Portugal when a drunken French
sailor smashed a bottle into his face. A jagged scar still showed above and
below his black patch. His equilibrium had also been impaired, and that,
coupled with his loss of vision, had destroyed his usefulness as a sailor. Her
father had hired him to sweep the office and do odd jobs about it and sometimes
about the house. He had a scraggy, almost piratical look about him, but
Katherine had loved him at first sight and had slipped away from her overseers
at home every chance she could to come down to the docks and talk to Charlie.
She was his adored "Missy" and, if Betsy had given her her domestic
education, Charlie had given her her naval education. He had taught her how to
steer by the stars, how to sail through a gale, how to tell one ship from
another, and what every part of a ship was named. He gave wonder and excitement
to her childhood, whittling intricate little wooden animals for her and telling
highly imaginative tales of his own exploits and those of pirates.

Charlie
never seemed to change. As seedy-looking as ever, as inclined to reek of rum,
he was also possessed of the same salty humor and admiration for his
"Missy." "You've got spunk right enough," he had told her,
"spitting in those old biddies' eyes like this."

"Well,"
he said today, pausing inside the doorway with his broom, "scruffy lot of
workers you got out there. Think you'll be taking a shine to one of them,
Missy?"

This
struck Teddy as so amusing he almost fell off his high stool laughing.
Katherine just said tartly, "I hardly think so, Charlie."

"Well,
I thought they might be in your line. I've never seen yet any other type of man
you fancied."

"The
whole lot are worthless," Katherine smiled.

"Don't
laugh so, boy; you'll split a gut. I'll tell you truly, I never seen finer
dressers than some of them Reb gentlemen. Why, I remember once I sailed under a
captain from Charleston—" and Charlie was off on one of his reminiscences.

Katherine,
only half-listening, wondered if
he
had been a splendid dresser. How
different he would look in a snowy white shirt and well-cut coat and trousers
instead of the faded, dirty remnants of the gray uniform he now wore. And,
somehow, not so very different—the animal strength, the gathered and waiting
power would still be there. Angrily she shook off her thoughts. What nonsense
she was indulging in! Determinedly she bent over the books.

So
absorbed did she become that she hardly noticed when Pegeen came in. Pegeen,
not wanting to leave until she had seen the prisoners closer, took up a quiet
post by the window. For a long time the girl was unrewarded but at last she
cried, "Oh, they're leaving now!"

Teddy
tripped all over himself in his frantic haste to get to the window. Charlie
abandoned his efforts at oiling the door hinges to join him. Katherine, with a
deliberate air of unconcern, cleaned off her desk and locked it up before she
strolled over to stand beside Pegeen. She found him instantly, waiting near the
end of the line to get on the wagons. As if feeling her gaze upon him, he
suddenly raised his head and looked at their window. He smiled and boldly
winked at her. She retreated from the window.

"Did
you see that, Miss Kate!" Pegeen exclaimed. "That pirate winked at
us! Bold as brass, he was. Is that the one that was asking after you?"

"I
think so. Is that he, Teddy, third one from the end?"

"Yes'm,
that's the one."

"You
mean one of them scum was asking you about the Missy here?" Charlie
demanded.

"Sure
was, Charlie."

The
old man looked concerned. "I don't like that, miss."

"Oh,
stuff and nonsense, you're all making a great to-do about nothing,"
Katherine said stoutly, but she found to her surprise that her fingers trembled
slightly as she tied on her bonnet.

"Well,"
said Pegeen as they briskly walked home, "I must say, that rascal had a
way with him."

"Whatever
can you mean?" Katherine said dryly.

Not
in the least deterred by her tone, the girl went on, "I mean he was a
handsome brute, that one. And it fair sent shivers up my spine when he winked
at us like that."

Katherine
almost retorted that he had winked at
her,
not the two of them, but bit
back the words, realizing what a foolish thing it was to say. Whatever was the
matter with her today?

When
they reached home, she found a worthy Boston matron and her daughter there,
obviously lingering on with their afternoon call in the hopes of her coming in.
Sighing, she resigned herself to a tedious time satisfying their curiosity
about the excitingly dangerous Rebel prisoners. As if that weren't bad enough,
she then had to endure a dinner at her Aunt Amanda's home, where she was
plagued by her aunt's alternate scolding and eager questions as well as by her
cousin's cloying attentions.

By
the time she reached home, she was so tired she could have screamed. She found,
however, that she couldn't sleep. At first she fumed about the way the ladies
lectured her on her impropriety and then gobbled up the information about the
prisoners she could give them. Then her mind turned to the unwelcome attentions
of her cousin Jamie—when would he give up? She had refused him twice and still
he kept after her, plying her with syrupy compliments. Of course, he was urged
on by her aunt, who would have liked to see Katherine's wealth flowing into her
own coffers. "As if," Katherine sniffed to herself, "I'd ever
marry someone who was too much of a coward to fight, who buys replacements for
himself in the draft!"

Then,
unbidden, the prisoner came into her mind and, no matter how she struggled,
wouldn't leave it. She couldn't understand why he plagued her so—his impudence
was unforgivable, and she disliked him heartily. Why should that mean she
couldn't stop thinking about him?

She
arose the next morning tired, but filled with a quiet determination that today
she would remain unruffled. And so she did, never once looking out the window
at the prisoners as they worked. Nor did she watch them unload, and she left
before they returned to the wagons that afternoon. She even managed to repress
Teddy's and Pegeen's chatter about them. That night she went to bed feeling
triumphant and fell asleep instantly.

One
afternoon a few days later, the door opened and a dark, quiet young man dressed
in the blue of the Navy stepped into the office. Katherine looked up and smiled
pleasantly.

"Lieutenant
Perkins," she said, "how nice to see you again."

"Miss
Devereaux. Teddy. Charlie."

"Please
sit down. How is the Navy?" Katherine asked.