The Spymistress (6 page)

“Whatever for?” Lizzie inquired, spreading her skirts and seating herself on the sofa. “Are you taking a political poll?”

Mother smiled, but Mrs. Lodge looked affronted. “Certainly not,” she said crisply. “I do not aspire to dabble in politics like some mannish, giddy bluestocking.”

“Of course not,” said Lizzie brightly, happily revising her original opinion. Perhaps the visit was about to take a more interesting turn. “Why dabble when one can fling oneself into something wholeheartedly? Don’t you agree?”

“Well—I suppose, in proper circumstances, but that’s not quite what I—” Mrs. Lodge frowned quizzically at Lizzie before turning her attention to Mother. “I’ve come in the spirit of patriotism to ask for your help with a very important cause.”

“Certainly,” said Mother. “I confess I’ve allowed my membership in the Bible Society to lapse, but I’m always willing to lend a hand—”

“Oh, no, Mrs. Van Lew, this isn’t for the Bible Society,” Mrs. Lodge interrupted. “Although my cause is equally worthy. With so many young men of Richmond enlisting, several ladies of Church Hill have decided to form a sewing circle to make shirts for our valiant soldiers. We would be glad to have you join us.”

Incredulous, Lizzie said, “You’re asking
us
to make uniforms for Confederate soldiers?”

Mrs. Lodge nodded. “We all must do our part for our noble cause.”

Lizzie imagined herself sewing buttons on a gray wool jacket some neighbor’s son would wear as he aimed his rifle at a Northern boy, and she recoiled. “Indeed we must.”

“Then may I tell my friends that you will join us?”

“Indeed you may not.”

Mrs. Lodge’s smile faltered as she gazed at Lizzie, uncomprehending. “Do you mean you would prefer to meet here? I suppose that could be arranged, and in fact it would be a pleasure. You have such a lovely home.”

“What my daughter means,” Mother broke in before Lizzie could reply, “is that sadly, we cannot join your sewing circle. It’s very kind of you to think of us, but it is quite impossible.” She gestured vaguely around the room, as if her reasons were known to all and yet too delicate to be spoken aloud.

“It’s not impossible for me,” protested Mary. “I’d be delighted to help. It would be my great honor to sew shirts for our brave defenders. If only I were not so busy caring for my daughters...”

“I’m sure between the two of them, Lizzie and Hannah could manage to look after the girls in your absence,” said Mother. Lizzie shot her a look of utter astonishment, which she ignored. Beaming, Mary promised Mrs. Lodge to attend every meeting faithfully, and after exchanging all the details of where and when, they sent Mrs. Lodge on her way, thoroughly satisfied with the result of her visit.

As Mary hurried off to make certain her sewing basket was well supplied with thread and needles, Lizzie whirled upon her mother. “You would have her help the rebel cause?”

“Better her than you or I,” Mother replied serenely, “and one of us must. Don’t you see? We must make an outward show of support, despite how we feel in our hearts.”

“I’m not ashamed of my loyalty to the Union.”

“Of course not, my dear, and neither am I.” Mother held her by the shoulders and fixed her with an imploring gaze. “But you must not let anyone outside this home know it. Let Mary be our decoy. Let her make a hundred rebel uniforms if she must. It will keep her busy, and it will divert suspicion from the rest of us.”

Later that afternoon, John returned home from Van Lew & Taylor to report, ruefully, that secession was proving to be very good for the hardware business. Knives, axes, hatchets, rope, pocket cutlery, and other tools were fairly flying off the shelves, and he was racing to reorder ample stock before all ties with the North were severed. “Be forewarned,” he said. “When next you visit the store, you’ll find Confederate banners and bunting in the window.”

“Of course,” said Lizzie, though she felt a pang of disappointment. “It’s a necessary pretense. Better to don a disguise than sweep up glass after some fool hurls a brick through the window.”

“For some members of our family, such accoutrements are no disguise.” John grimaced as if he hated the news he was obliged to deliver. “Cousin Jack has joined the Richmond Howitzers.”

“What?” Lizzie exclaimed.

Mother blanched. “Good heavens.”

“It was either choose now or be drafted later, Jack told me, and he didn’t want to miss his chance for glory and be stuck peeling potatoes or driving wagons at the rear while other fellows marched off to battle.”

Mother shook her head, her lips pursed in a tight, worried line.

“Jack’s regiment may be assigned to guard the city,” Lizzie said, taking Mother’s hand. “Someone surely will be. Why not the Richmond Howitzers?”

Mother patted her hand to thank her for the kindness, but her sad smile revealed that she would not be soothed into a false sense of reassurance. “He’s made his choice,” she said. “Now all we can do is pray for his safety.”

Two days later, on a bright, balmy Sunday morning, Lizzie sat in the family pew at Saint John’s and prayed fervently for her cousin, for her misguided neighbors, and for her fractured nation, but eventually her thoughts began to wander and she sank into a brood. The Scripture for the service had come from the second chapter of Joel: “Then will the Lord be jealous for his land, and pity his people. Yea, the Lord will answer, and say unto his people, Behold, I will send you corn, and wine, and oil, and ye shall be satisfied therewith; and I will no more make you a reproach among the heathen. But I will remove far off from you the Northern army, and will drive him into a land barren and desolate...” From the nods and stirrings of the congregation, Lizzie knew that many of her fellow worshipers heard in the verses a prophecy for their own age, and their self-righteousness left a bitter taste in her mouth. The Lord of justice and mercy could not be on the side of the slaveholder. Her bitterness sharpened with outrage when the minister made his own opinions known by omitting the customary prayer for the president of the United States. A faint murmur followed the omission, but Lizzie thought, despairingly, that it indicated surprise rather than protest.

None too soon the service ended, and with a sigh Lizzie put away her missal, rose, and stretched discreetly. She took Annie’s hand as the family joined the other worshipers filing from the church, pausing every now and then so that Mother could exchange greetings with friends and neighbors. They had not yet left the churchyard when Lizzie heard the distant clanging of a bell—two long peals, a pause, and then a third—coming from the direction of the Capitol. With a sudden chill, she recognized the source of the solemn timbre—the old iron bell in the truncated brick tower with the wooden belfry on the southwest corner of the Capitol Square. In peacetime the tocsin struck the hours or warned of fire, but on rare occasions it summoned the militia to arms.

The alarm sounded again, resonating ever louder as church bells near the Capitol joined the iron clamor. Lizzie jumped as, behind her and very near, the bell in the steeple of Saint John’s began to toll.

“What is it?” Annie cried, squeezing Lizzie’s hand tighter as all around them, ladies gasped and men shouted questions. Neighbors hurried from their homes into the street, glancing wildly about and querying one another in various degrees of fright and confusion.

“Lizzie!” Suddenly Eliza was beside her, breathless. “What’s happened? Why are they sounding the alarm?”

“I don’t know.” From what she had overheard, the consensus of the anxious people milling about them was that the city was under attack, but Lizzie would not repeat the rumor with young Annie so close and so frightened.

“Could it be the Union army?” Eliza’s face lit up with hope. “Are we going to be delivered? Praise God!”

“Hush,” cautioned Lizzie, glancing over her shoulder. To her dismay, Mary stood nearby watching them, lips pursed in disapproval, but had she overheard? “Such sentiments are best expressed among friends, not in a crowd.”

Suddenly a young man clad in the uniform of the F Company raced up on horseback. “Union warship coming up the James!” he bellowed, wheeling his horse about in the middle of the street. “All militiamen report for duty!”

A woman shrieked. Several men broke away from the throng and raced into their homes, reappearing moments later pulling on their uniforms and grasping their weapons and kits. Lizzie gathered her family and ushered them swiftly home, but she paused on the front portico to watch in astonishment as civilians of all ages raced after the militiamen, toting weapons that seemed better suited to display nostalgically above the hearth—rusted fowling pieces, long-bored duck guns, antique blunderbusses, swords gone so dull that they had probably last inspired fear in Cornwallis’s men at Yorktown, pistols of every caliber and description.

“Those decrepit weapons won’t leave so much as a mark on a warship,” said John, who had remained with her on the doorstep after seeing the others safely inside. “I bet only half of them are loaded, and the other half look like they’d be more dangerous for the wielder than his target.”

Lizzie laughed shakily, alternately excited and terrified. If a Union gunship fired upon Richmond, it would rain down destruction on loyalists and rebels alike. “I knew the Union would deliver us eventually, but even in my wildest hopes, I didn’t think they would come so soon.” Gathering up her skirts, she turned to go inside. “I’m going up to the roof to watch.”

Lizzie darted up the stairs to the attic and then out a back window to the rooftop, where she found most of the servants already gazing out upon the James low in the distance. At first glance she beheld nothing but the broad curving ribbon of the river sparkling silver beneath a cloudless sky—no warship, no smoky flash of cannon, nothing.

“What have you seen?” she queried, glancing down the row from Peter and William to Caroline, Judy, and old Uncle Nelson.

“Nothing,” said William. “Nothing except the great multitude of Richmond, who apparently got the same idea we did.”

When he gestured, Lizzie turned her gaze closer to home and discovered figures crowding other rooftops, peering out from church steeples, climbing Church Hill on foot, all for a better view. After nearly an hour had passed with no change in the lovely, familiar landscape, she spied John on horseback, making his way up Grace Street.

Quickly Lizzie went back inside and downstairs to meet him, but by the time she reached the foyer, Mary had already led her husband off to the parlor. There Lizzie found her sister-in-law reclining on the sofa, pale and silent, while John paced and Mother knitted, unperturbed.

“What’s the news?” she demanded, taking John’s hands in hers.

“Governor Letcher received official intelligence that a Union sloop of war called the
Pawnee
has passed City Point and is steaming hard to Richmond.” John’s face was a tight mask of agitation. “Its mission is to shell the city and burn it to the ground.”

Mary let out a low moan. “That coward,” she shrilled. “That cowardly baboon Lincoln! Sneaking down the James to attack an undefended city on a Sunday. On a Sunday!”

“I’m sure President Lincoln is not on board,” snapped Lizzie. “It’s unfair to accuse him of sneaking.”

“If we’re setting the facts straight, I don’t believe he’s a baboon either.” Mother set her knitting aside. “John, dear, tell us what we should do. Evacuate to the farm?”

“I’m not leaving,” Lizzie promptly declared.

“No, nor do I think that’s necessary at this point.” John frowned and went to the window, though there was nothing to see but the throng milling outside. “The militia have taken up positions at Rocketts Wharf, but they’re armed only with rifles and bayonets. Some fellows hauled the cannons out of the armory—”

“Not those magnificent bronze cannons France gave to the state of Virginia,” Lizzie broke in.

“The very same.”

“But those were ceremonial gifts from one government to another. They were never meant to be used in war.”

“And they likely won’t be. The mob managed to hoist the cannons onto a wagon and hitch it up to a team of horses and mules, but as they were hauling the heavy load through the city, one of the cannons broke free, rolled down the hill toward the Custom House, and tumbled into the gutter, where as far as I know it remains.”

Lizzie laughed, and Mary glared at her. “You would enjoy this,” she said brittlely. “You’re Union to the core. Mrs. Lodge says—”

They all watched her, waiting for her to continue, but she fell abruptly silent.

“Mary,” said John levelly, “I will not have you carrying tales about Lizzie through the neighborhood.”

Balling her hands in her lap, Mary glared up at him. “I have nothing to say to my friends about
her
that they haven’t already heard elsewhere or observed for themselves.”

“Nevertheless”—John’s voice carried an edge—“I will not have my wife gossiping about my sister. Do not embarrass me.”

“That’s all that matters, isn’t it? That your sister is thought well of.” Mary bolted to her feet, tears in her eyes. “My parents warned me that I was marrying down when I agreed to be your wife, but they couldn’t have known how very low I would fall, that I would always come second to your precious spinster sister.”

“I’ll be in the garden,” Lizzie said, cutting short the painful exchange, and hurried out back for a better view of the James. Shading her eyes from the sun, she walked to the foot of the garden, where she had watched the torchlight parade march past a few nights before, but the only boats she observed on the winding, silvery river were those docked at Rocketts Wharf and a rowboat carrying several especially foolhardy sightseers.

“That Yankee gunboat ain’t comin’, Miss Lizzie.”

Startled, Lizzie whirled about to find Nelson sitting on his heels tending the oleander, and despite everything, it occurred to her that she ought to chide him for working on his day off. “How can you be so sure?”

“I got a nephew works on one of them pole barges.” Stiffly, Nelson straightened with a grunt, brushed soil from his palms, and joined Lizzie at the edge of the terrace. “Spoke with him after worship, soon as we all heard the warning. I’ll tell you what he told me and you make up your own mind. City Point’s about twenty miles away, where the Appomattox meets the James. The river’s narrow and twisting, and some places the channel’s so narrow all you got to do is fell a single tree to block any ship that might want to come further. Set a few fieldpieces up on them high ridges, and hide a few marksmen on those steep bluffs, and that gunboat wouldn’t stand a chance.”