Wedded to War (24 page)

“Oh? How so?”

“Make some switchel, I says, and she uses too much vinegar, not
enough ginger. Dust it, I says, and she leaves rims of the fuzzy grey filth on the edge of the mantelpiece.” She threw up her hands in a state of helplessness, and Phineas murmured his sympathies.

“It’s trying to not get the results you’re entitled to, isn’t it?” he said.

Fanny gulped at her lemonade before wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “The girl seems so distracted lately. Don’t know what’s gotten into her. Used to be she was taking to the place and the work real well, usually not real keen on getting out for time off like Bridget and the rest. Started to get some color back into her skin.”

Phineas nodded. He remembered her skin.

“She walks around like a sleepwalker, all dazed and such. Even found her falling asleep with her feather duster still in her hand a couple of times.”

“Hmmm … does she have—how shall I put this—nocturnal … activities? That might prevent her from sleeping?”

Fanny’s chubby hand stopped fanning. Her eyes went wide.

“That little thing? Nah. She’s meek as a mouse. She wouldn’t fancy that sort of a life. She doesn’t have a bit of flash or glamour about her either.” Her fan started waving again as she shook her head. “Can’t imagine that a man would look to the likes of her to warm his bed.”

“Well, just a thought. You wouldn’t want the rumors to spread that you’re providing room and board for a common prostitute, now would you?”

“Oh that’s right Pottsy, always considerate of what other folks think of our own business, aren’t you?” She chuckled. “Learn to relax.” Turning her head to the doorway, she called, “Ruby! Tea for two!”

Shoulders hunched more than usual, hands trembling, face flaming red, Ruby shuffled into the parlor, set the tray on the side table and turned to go.

“Wait a minute Ruby,” called Fanny. “That’s no way to treat comp’ny. You’ll come back here and pour the tea for us.”

Ruby stopped midstride, turned around and poured one cup.

“Two cups, Ruby. I said tea for
two.
”

Her entire body was quivering now. Phineas watched her in fascination. Would she serve him, the man who had raped her? Or would she tell Fanny what happened, which would only succeed in getting herself fired? She would have to make the decision every week, for he wouldn’t stay away.

A smile spread over his face as he watched her frail, bumbling hands tip the scalding amber liquid into his porcelain cup. So he had won. Again. But she had made him wonder if she would make a scene, and the uncertainty had disagreed with him.

Ruby turned to Fanny. “I’ve a headache, missus, something awful I do,” she said. “I’ll collect the teacups in the morning if it’s all right with you. I’d like to put my head to bed straight away.”

“Well Ruby, if it were real comp’ny—no offense, Potts—I would scold you for such impertinence and expect you to carry on with your duties.” She paused. “But you do look right sickly, and frankly, I don’t want to catch anything from you. So go on. And get better so’s you can be a good help around here. It’s not like you’re stayin’ for free, you know.”

In a sudden swish of skirts, Ruby fled the room in a blur of black and white.

“I see what you mean about that one,” said Phineas. “Not at all appealing.”

But later that night, after the moon was high in the sky and Fanny was snoring snugly under her covers, Phineas came back to number 301 and let himself in the rear door. Up the stairs he climbed, two at a time, noiselessly, like a shadow.

He slipped into her bedroom, shut the door behind him, and tripped.

“Ow!” Ruby cried out.

He clapped a hand over her mouth. “What were you doing on the floor?” he whispered. “Trying to hide?”

She shook her head no. The shining whites of her eyes reminded him of a terrified horse that would be much better off with its blinders on.

Straddling her body on the floor, he leaned in so close to her face
she could smell the pomade in his slicked-back hair. “Were you thinking of giving yourself away back there, Ruby? That little stunt you pulled. Not serving me tea. If you upset the applecart, you’re the one who’s going to be hurt, not me. Just remember that.” He held up a key, glinting in the moonlight seeping in through the window. “I can get to you any time I want to, Ruby. I can take you any time I please, and I can make it hurt. When you least expect it, I’ll be the creak on the stairs leading to your bedroom. I’ll be the shadow in the corner. I’ll be the nightmare in your sleep.

“But you’re not going to give me any trouble, are you? My little insurance policy.” He stroked her hair with his hand. She jerked away from his touch like a skittish horse that needed to be broken.

He slapped her across the face, hard, but not so hard the welts wouldn’t recede by morning.

He’d tame her. He would break her, the way all wild horses needed to be broken.

It wouldn’t take long.

The hem of Ruby’s calico dress slogged through the street-wide gutter behind her trudging steps. Filth, manure, and decaying food sloshed over the tops of her boots and soaked into the fibers of her dress, obscuring the color of the fabric, until it was difficult to discern where the ground ended and her dress began. A broad band of filth clinging to her skirt marked her, even from a distance, as a Five Pointer. The roses on her calico dress, Ruby realized, were not nodding in a gentle breeze as she had once thought. They were wilting. Fading. Dying.

But what choice did she have? If she had stayed with Mrs. Hatch, she would have been easy prey for Phineas, never knowing when he would take her again, unable to escape. No, she would take her chances
somewhere else, somehow, rather than staying under his thumb. She never wanted to see his roguish face again.

“Get your nice hot corn, smoking hot, smoking hot, just from the pot!” The mournful cadence of young girls with dirty shawls the color of rusted iron filled Ruby’s ears. Calling out from every street corner, at all hours of the day and night, their voices marked the change of seasons in Five Points, from the peak of summer to its dried out, burned up end.

Autumn was coming. And after that, winter. Ruby shuddered. Stretched out in front of her lay months of never getting warm, of constant runny nose and cough, of wind so cold and sharp as it came through the broken windows it would scrape her face like a razor. Her hands would become stiff and clumsy. She would make mistakes with her uncooperative needle, if she were so lucky as to find more work to do. Yesterday, she had asked the tailor Simon Levitz for some and he had said he didn’t have any for her. That her position had been taken.

Work would be nice, but today her most pressing goal was finding a place to sleep. She had spent last night in a flophouse among drunks reeking of whiskey. She had tried a cellar room before that, but left when she was told that “boarders” were to remove their dirty clothes before sleeping in the tiers of canvas stretched between wood poles.
Don’t want yer filthy rags soiling the beds
, the owner had said, preferring instead the soiled naked bodies, and yet providing no bedclothes at all.

Five Points was a nightmare from which she couldn’t wake herself. Living in Seneca Village—that had only been a dream. The slums were her reality. She was so tired. Too tired, anymore, to fight the crushing current that kept sweeping her back to this place.

“Repent of your sin! Turn to Jesus!” The ladies from the American Moral Reform Society still marched about in front of the taverns and saloons on Baxter Street, drawing Ruby like a beggar to bread.

“Is Bertha here today?” she asked.

“No she isn’t. Is there something I can do for you?”

“She placed me as a domestic in a home, and it didn’t work. I was
wondering if she might have another spot for me somewhere.”

“Well that depends, of course. Why didn’t it work?”

“The mistress’s son was treating me ill. Using me something fierce, he was.”

“Who was this? Which family?”

Ruby sighed. Telling her secret couldn’t make life much worse for her at this point. “It was Fanny Hatch’s residence.”

The woman’s eyes sparked. “Fanny Hatch you said? Why, she doesn’t have a son, as far as we know. But she did take the time to get a message to our office yesterday. She said you may come by.”

This can’t be good.
Ruby shifted her weight from one soggy foot to the other, waiting for more.

“Matter of fact, she told us you quit without notice before she even awoke Monday morning, after complaining of a headache the night before. That you’d been distracted lately and didn’t follow directions.”

Ruby listened silently. It was all true.

“She also said she suspected you of being a woman of the town. Not sleeping at night, falling asleep on the job … With a blemish like that against your character, we can’t possibly place you in another home.”

“What about what Bertha read from the Bible—about that lass caught in adultery, and Jesus telling her to go and sin no more? What about forgiveness and grace? Not that I’m an adulterer. I’m a decent woman, I am.”

The woman shook her head. “Jesus forgives all sin, but this society has a responsibility to put only the most upright girls in the homes of our constituents. If we knowingly put a woman of questionable character in someone’s home, we break our moral obligation.” Ruby started walking away, but the woman kept talking after her. “People stop trusting us, and we can no longer give jobs to clean and decent women. Everyone loses. You see? We can’t help you.”

The words thudded in her ears like blocks of wood.

And then she heard a different voice. The voice of the only friend she had ever had this side of the ocean.
The only help we’ll get is the help
we give ourselves
, she had said.
Imagine … You never have to wear those rags again, or lack for a meal…. You could get out of here. Let me buy you a bonnie new dress. Clean you up, fix your hair. You could start a better life. ’Tisn’t so bad if you don’t think about it much.

That wouldn’t be very hard. Ruby was done thinking. All her plans had failed her. She had already been defiled by a man not her husband, and she could never erase that. Was it a sin if it wasn’t her fault? Would it be her fault if the sin was the only way to survive? Everyone else had turned their backs on her. It was time for her to help herself

It was time to find Emma.

C
harlotte,” Alice called down the narrow corridor of Columbian College Hospital. “Charlotte, may I have a moment, please?” She looked immaculate, as ever, her honey-blonde hair smoothly in place under her snood as she glided toward her sister.

Charlotte paused, eager to get back to her patients. She had finished mixing charcoal, quicklime, and sand together, thrown it into the trench to disinfect it, and was now writing letters for the boys. So far, Dr. Murray still insisted he didn’t need her help with any actual nursing.

“You know I’ve been going around to the hospitals in Washington and Alexandria with Maurice to deliver supplies and let Dr. Blackwell know how the nurses are getting on.”

“Did you go to Alexandria today?” Charlotte interrupted. “Did you get a chance to see Jacob while you were there?”

“Yes, thank heavens, and he sends his love. I was so disappointed
he was out drilling last time I went. But back to my point—I’ve noticed something in all of the hospitals. I mean, I
haven’t
noticed something.”

Charlotte arched an eyebrow.

“Clergy. I’ve not seen a chaplain assigned to hospital duty. Wouldn’t it be wise to have someone on hand to read to the patients, write letters, perform funerals, counsel the grieving family members? What do you think?”

Charlotte tapped a finger on her chin. “Well, that would certainly be invaluable at this hospital. Are there no chaplains assigned to any of the hospitals?”

“None.”

“Right.” Charlotte nodded. “Write to Professor Smith straight away. Surely he knows of a graduate of the Union Theological Seminary who would be glad of such an appointment and who has qualifications for such special missionary work. We can work on getting a government commission later, but let’s get it started anyway.”

Dr. Murray walked up to them. “Scheming again,” he declared, more than asked. Caleb’s visit had proven not to be the cure for Dr. Murray’s malignant attitude toward Charlotte, but at least he was allowing her to sleep on a cot inside the building now.

“Chaplains for the hospitals,” said Charlotte. “Surely you must agree we have need of one. He could pray with the men, comfort the dying, read to them from the Bible, perform funeral rites.”

“Prayer won’t save these men. Science will. Religion is a crutch for the weak.”

“You’ll pardon me for saying so,” Charlotte said, “but in case you haven’t noticed, science doesn’t seem to be saving these boys either.” She thought of Caleb, who had sent two dozen roses to her before he left Washington, and a pang of disloyalty shot through her.