Wedded to War (17 page)

“So tell me about your new girl.” He certainly had nothing else in mind to discuss.

“Not nearly so fat as Bridget, a real slip of a thing.”

“Starving?”

She shrugged. “Maybe. Didn’t ask. And I don’t eat with the servants, so I couldn’t tell how fast she gobbles her food.”

“What are her tasks?”

“Oh, the usual: dusting, polishing the brass and silver, brushing out the carpets, serving and cleaning up after meals. I still have Rose as cook, so I need no help on that account.”

“Hmmm, splendid.”

“You and your ten-dollar words,” said Fanny. Phineas rolled his eyes.
Why do I even bother coming here?

“I was saying? Oh. The girl is older than most I’ve had but says she
has no family, all’s the better for me. Reddish hair, green eyes, very white skin—but not fancy society white, more like sickly white. But she’ll brighten up after she’s been here a while. Who knows what kind of dark tenement living she’s been used to.”

“Sounds … lovely.”

“Gah! Don’t matter what she looks like—”

“Doesn’t matter,” Phineas corrected under his breath.

“What doesn’t matter? Oh!” She swatted at a fly in front of her. “As long as she can work. Got a real funny name for a poor Irish girl, too; something fancy and rich-like. What was it?” Fanny gazed absently at the white marble fireplace across the room and pinched her chin until a coarse black hair stuck out between her thumb and the second knuckle of her forefinger. Disgusting habit. “Pearl. No, Emerald. No, Opal. No. Was it Emerald? Like ‘the Emerald Isle’? That’s Ireland, right? Ah! Teatime! Good, I’m starved!”

Phineas sighed and rubbed his aching forehead with his meticulously cared for fingers. No wonder his mother’s head hurt. She brought it upon herself with all that jabbering away. He could put her in fine clothes, in a fine house, on a fine street, but it was no use. Fanny Hatch didn’t have a refined bone in her squat little body—and worse, she didn’t care. Not like Phineas did. He had
made
something of himself. And even though he had changed his name—for who had ever heard of a gentleman named Potter Hatch?—he had remained loyal to her. When his father left him the “man” in charge when he rushed after gold in ’49, Phineas had taken the charge seriously. He still did. As much as his mother’s blunt and uncouth ways grated on his nerves, he would take care of her. She was the only family he had, and he was responsible for her. He just didn’t want anyone else to know it.

“There you are, Emerald!” Fanny called out loudly now.

Phineas looked up to see the new girl, hunched over a silver tray laden with teapot, cups and saucers, and a mound of gingerbread cookies. Why was she staring at him that way?

“Come now, Emerald, put the tray down now, we don’t have all day.”
Fanny flapped her arms. “Oh. This is my son, whose name is Potter, but who calls himself Phineas. Phineas Huckleberry. No, Hepzibah. No—”

“That will do, Mother,” Phineas interrupted. “Here, let me help you with that.” He took the tray from the new servant, but her arms remained bent at the elbows even after the weight had been lifted. Phineas studied her hands, still uplifted, the calloused pinpricked fingertips, before raising his eyes to meet hers once again. He knew this woman. He had seen her before on Broadway. That prostitute Emma’s friend. An alarm rang in his mind.
Just how much did she overhear that day? Would she remember it? What was her name again?

“It’s Emerald, isn’t it?” Fanny said again. “For your green eyes or your homeland or something?”

“No, missus,” she said. “’Tis Ruby. For my hair.”

C
harlotte stood by the window in their rooms at the Ebbitt House, watching the endless parade of regiments marching toward Virginia, while Alice paced in circles in their room. Jacob’s regiment was scheduled to join them within days.

“Alice, you’ll wear a track right through that carpet if you don’t stop,” said Charlotte without turning her face from the window. Tanned faces and trim bodies eager for battle kept filing by. She waved a little flag out the window for them, which was met by a manly cheer so loud it made Alice jump. Bright eyes and white teeth shone under their forage caps as they smiled at her from their ordered rows, and she boldly smiled back. These were her boys, and they were fighting for her country. For her.
Who could help but love them?

“Why do you keep doing that?” Alice asked. “You are enjoying all of this far too much.”

“Oh come now.” She waved a hand in the window again, and roused another hurrah from a new set of faces. “Although you must admit, it
is
rather exciting to be part of history this way, isn’t it?”

Alice shook her head. “Being part of history is far less appealing when that history is war, and your husband is leading a charge into battle. Speaking of men, did I see you receive a letter today from a certain man pining away for you from home?”

Charlotte chuckled. “It seems silly, doesn’t it? Shouldn’t it be the other way around—the lovesick sweetheart on the home front writing to her soldier on the battlefield?”

“We’re not all fighters. What did he say?”

“He apologized for being ‘rude’ to me the last time we were together.”
But he was worse than rude. He was frightening.
“And, oh yes, he wants me to marry him.”

“What? Where is it?”

Charlotte held up the letter and Alice snatched it from her at once, scanning the slanted lines. “Why, he’s quite romantic, isn’t he? You know, Jacob never quite warmed to him—but it’s
not Jacob
Phineas wants to marry. What will you tell him?” Her eyes were round, and although Charlotte was glad Alice’s mind was diverted from Jacob going into battle, she wished her attention was not fixed so firmly on her love life.

“I haven’t decided.”

“Do you forgive him for his rudeness?”

“I suppose I ought to. He had never done anything like that before, and he seems apologetic enough. But he has never really liked the idea of my being here, and that bothers me a great deal.”

“But now he says he can understand it, and he’ll wait for you to be together by—” she glanced at the letter again. “By Christmas. Yes, everyone says the war will be over by then, and there will be no more nursing to do anyway. So will you agree to his proposal then?”

Charlotte looked at her sister and tilted her head to one side, debating in her mind. She could think of no good reason not to marry
him as long as she could nurse first. But then, she had trouble coming up with a compelling reason to marry him, as well. She had always thought when the right man found her, she would know beyond a shadow of a doubt. Maybe that’s why Dr. Blackwell never married. Maybe that’s why Dorothea Dix was still single. Neither had husbands, and both of them had accomplished so much. Did she really have to choose between love and duty?

“Charlotte,” Alice said again. “Will you marry him? Women don’t get marriage proposals every day, you know. Especially not at your age. You ought to think twice before letting it pass you by.”

Charlotte gazed out the window at the soldiers marching by until the last one had vanished from sight. Not one of them had looked back.

Frederick Law Olmsted could feel a headache coming on. He was a naturalist at heart, a lover of green spaces and fresh air. Sitting at a desk all day behind towers of papers, in a city that smelled and felt like the swamp it was built upon, did not naturally appeal to him. But it was necessary.

In the last ten days, he had inspected twenty of the volunteer camps around Washington, and he needed to make a report to the rest of the Sanitary Commission. The camps varied on several points, but he could make some generalities, at least.

At the forefront of his mind was the most disagreeable: the sinks. His nose wrinkled at the unwelcome memory of the stench of human waste. Grasping the pen firmly in his hand, he began to write:

Mr. Olmsted paused to press his fingers against his temple. How those men could endure to live like that was beyond him. But, he realized, most of them had been plowing fields only a few months ago, and relieving themselves wherever they needed to had become a habit that until now, had hurt no one. Others were city dwellers, but didn’t have indoor plumbing or properly functioning sewage systems there, either.

He kept writing.

The Commission Secretary laid down his pen and gazed at the cufflinks at his wrists. How would he feel, both physically and psychologically, if he wore nothing but rags, and was still expected to march and drill and prepare for battle?

“Mr. Olmsted?”

He jerked his head up to see Charlotte Waverly smiling in front of him. “Miss Waverly, forgive me.” He rose and remained standing until she sat on a hard wooden chair opposite him.

“I’m sorry, did I wake you?”

“No, no. I was just thinking about the uniforms of our volunteer regiments. Most are of fine quality, but some of our New York regiments’ uniforms are falling apart, even though they were sewn for them expressly for military use not three months ago.”

“Homemade ventilation?” Charlotte fanned herself.

“Shoddy workmanship. Shameful. The men I talked to had to pay $19.50 of their own money for their uniforms, and they were the worst fitting garments I’d ever seen. Poorly cut, poorly sewn. I counted several different shades of blue and grey among them. Some of them didn’t have buttons, and some didn’t have buttonholes!”

“How is that possible? Weren’t they ever inspected before they were delivered?”

“They were, all the more shame. It’s a filthy rotten business deal, as rank as any camp latrine I’ve seen, you’ll pardon me for saying so. A trial is going on right now in New York City—apparently Brooks Brothers is to blame.”

Charlotte’s eyes widened. “Brooks Brothers?”

“Indeed. According to the testimony of a lieutenant colonel in the Twenty-Sixth, the garments were made of this.” He plucked a small scrap of material from the corner of the table, dropped it into his glass, and
watched as it crumbled to pieces, turning the water a murky blue. “Shoddy. A phony fabric of glued-together sweepings, scraps of cloth, and lint. Looks like the real thing, and then it gets wet—either sweat or rain would do it—and it drops away in clumps. One fellow I met told me his uniform lasted all of a single week. Another said it ripped open upon putting it on for the first time. Scandalous!”

Charlotte gasped and fairly leapt off her chair. “I tried to get that uniform contract for the House of Industry in Five Points, but the State Treasurer refused. Twelve thousand uniforms in three weeks, he demanded, and thought Brooks Brothers could do it! I knew it was impossible!”

“Quite right.” Olmsted nodded.

“Now here we are in this cramped little box of a room, trying to do good for our men and our country, without a dime of funding from the government.” Her voice grew louder. “And then there are people who are taking in money hand over fist by doing a disservice to those who are already sacrificing their lives for us?” She was fuming now.