Wedded to War (33 page)

Strange. Charlotte had had three working dresses made for Ruby after the fire, which had all fit fine, but this one, cut to the same measurements, was clearly too small. Then again, she had been eating more lately. And why shouldn’t she? Only God knew how deprived she had been in Five Points. If her natural, healthy shape didn’t fit the fifteen-inch waist standard, so be it. The size of her heart mattered far more than her figure.

“You look radiant.” Charlotte turned Ruby by the shoulders so she could see herself in the mirror. She brushed Ruby’s dark red hair until it shone in the kerosene-lamp light, braided it in sections and pinned them in coils behind her head. Sprigs of red-berried holly added the finishing touch.

Alice handed Ruby an unwaisted cape edged with red fox fur, along with a matching muff and hat. “The rest of your Christmas present.”

With a timid smile, Ruby said, “Thank you, fairy godmothers.”

Nodding, Charlotte pulled on her own fitted wine velvet cape bordered with white fur and ermine tails, grabbed the matching hat and muff, and held the door open. “After you, Cinderella.”

Ruby was sure the spell would be broken at any moment.

With their hands warm in their muffs, and a fur blanket on their laps, the ride to Alexandria reminded her of the Courier & Ives lithograph she had seen hanging in the Ebbitt House. Fine white flakes fell from a black suede sky, the horses’ bells jangled in rhythm with their snow-muffled hoofbeats. Though the brittle wind nipped at their noses,
everyone in the carriage was smiling in the lantern light—especially Edward Goodrich, whom they had picked up at the Mansion House Hospital on their way to Cameron Run, Jacob’s camp west of the city.

Edward’s eyes had lit up when he had seen Charlotte, and Ruby couldn’t blame him. Charlotte was beautiful in a hoopless nursing uniform. Tonight, she was stunning. Maybe Charlotte didn’t notice the way Edward took in the sight of her, as if he was taking a long cool drink of water after spending days in the desert. But Ruby did.

Once they were at Cameron Run, a pretty hillside dotted with tents like miniature glowing pyramids, Captain and Mrs. Carlisle behaved toward each other like no other married couple Ruby had ever known. He looked at her with such adoration, almost like the stained-glass disciples gazing up at the Virgin Mary in St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Mott Street. They spoke softly, lightly, to each other. He guided her with his hand on the small of her back and stood until she sat—even if the seat was nothing better than an overturned barrel. A gentle word from her made his battle-hardened face soften into a smile. A wink from him brought pink into her cheeks.
Was there ever a time when Matthew and I acted that way with each other?
Ruby reached back into the sleeping depths of her memory.
When did our relationship go from love to simply a way to survive?

The smell of fresh coffee filled Jacob’s tent, competing with the heady aroma of a sticky, homemade pine needle wreath Alice had brought.

“Mrs. O’Flannery,” Captain Carlisle said. “We have one more Christmas surprise for you.” Ruby’s gaze skittered between him and the rest of the group. All of them were beaming.
What on earth?

“No, please no. I don’t have gifts for anyone.”

“I’m afraid we can’t take this one back. At least, not until later tonight.” Captain Carlisle pulled back the flap of his tent. A soldier ducked inside, brass buttons gleaming in the lantern’s glow, sword gently swinging from its hilt at his side. He was almost too tall for his light blue trousers, but the dark blue jacket looked almost loose on his frame. A red cloverleaf topped the blue kepi he now held in his hands as his bright blue eyes scanned the little group.

“Matthew!” Ruby cried. The fairy-tale Christmas was complete.

He stared at her, as if unseeing. He had never seen her like this before, in an English hoop skirt, her hair braided and coiled on her head. Even her posture was much straighter, now that she wasn’t hunched over her sewing fifteen hours every day. She took a step forward then, holding out trembling hands.

“It’s me,” she said. “’Tis Ruby!”

“Bedad!” he said, and studied every inch of her. “You’re so bonnie, lass! What happened?”

Nervous laughter rippled through the group.

“Come, let’s leave these two alone for a while,” said Alice, and the foursome quietly filed out of the tent toward the music of the regimental band. Suddenly, Ruby and Matthew were alone for the first time since before the war began.

Matthew reached out, tentatively, and took Ruby’s hands in his. “Is it really you?”

“Aye,” Ruby whispered, and tears pooled in her eyes. “You’re looking better. How do feel? After that fever?”

Matthew shrugged. “I’m not the same as I was before it, but I’m not so bad as I was with it, either.”

“You’ve lost some weight in this war, haven’t you?” she said.

“Seems to me you’ve found the missing pounds.”

Ruby jerked her hands out of his and stepped back, folding her arms across her waist. A shudder of fear rippled through her.

“You look—healthy,” Matthew finally said. Ruby was stunned. “I never wanted you to go hungry, Ruby.” It was as close to an apology as she would ever hear from him. For her, it was enough.

“I know you didn’t.”

“Was it very bad for you this year? When I went away, and they didn’t pay us for months, and then I didn’t know how to reach you when they did start. How did you survive?”

Ruby fixed her gaze downward, landing on the brass button above his leather belt.
Not that question. Please don’t ask me. Please.

He lifted her chin with his finger so she could not avoid his probing gaze. “You thought I left you. For good. Didn’t you?”

“I didn’t know. I didn’t even know if you were dead or alive.”

Silence.

“How did you get here, with these rich friends of yours?”

Ruby explained it to him, again. She had told him this in the hospital, but she was not surprised he needed to hear it again.

“It still doesn’t make sense to me.”

“I think I make them feel guilty about the rich and easy lives they’ve had,” Ruby said. “They are trying to make themselves feel better by being kind to me.”

“So you’re their pet project?”

“Aye. Like the House of Industry in Five Points.”

“If it means you have a place to sleep, and food, and clothes, take it. You’ve got to get by, any way you can. Right?”

Ruby blinked. “Any way I can?”

Matthew narrowed his eyes at her. “Well, almost.” He pierced her with a gaze as sharp as shards of glass. “What have you done, lass?”

“Survived.”

He answered her with a slap.

“You’re keeping something from me. You belong to me. Don’t think I won’t figure out your little secret.”

Ruby covered her burning cheek with her hand as her stomach dropped to the floor.

The fairy-tale spell dissolved. Her dress might as well have been the threadbare calico she had worn in the slums, her hair stringy and greasy, her skin pin-pricked, her muscles cramped. Matthew knew who she really was. And soon enough, he would know what she had done. A squalling baby would tell him.

Outside Jacob’s tent, it was impossible to forget the war, even on Christmas, surrounded as they were by uniformed soldiers warming themselves by smoky fires.

“We never thought we’d still be here at Christmas,” said Jacob, looking out over the encampment.

“Well, I for one, am very glad you are!” Alice squeezed him around the waist just for a moment—a display only permitted in times of war, surely.

“Yes, darling. Of course I’m glad to be near you, too. But at some point, we’re going to have to break camp and make a move. March somewhere, fight some Rebs. Drilling to perfection does not win a war.”

“But isn’t McClellan ill?” asked Charlotte.

“Terribly so, I’m afraid.” Jacob sighed. “Fever. It’s enough to make every soldier here take notice when the major general succumbs to it in the dead of winter. None of us are safe.”

“Oh, don’t say that.” Alice linked her arm through his.

“It’s true,” said Charlotte. “You remember just two weeks ago, Prince Albert died of it, making poor Queen Victoria a widow! They say she is in such deep mourning she had all the finials in London painted black.”

“Now that was an interesting marriage,” said Alice, a hint of humor in her tone. “Can you imagine, Jacob, if I were queen, and you just a prince, and you had to obey me instead of the other way around?”

“No thank you.” Jacob laughed. “I like things just the way they are.”

“And yet their story is one of the most celebrated romances in history!” said Charlotte. “The hierarchy of power certainly seemed to work for them. Maybe Florence Nightingale isn’t the only British woman from whom we could take a lesson.”

“Charlotte!” Alice jabbed an elbow at her sister.

“I’m joking.” Charlotte laughed.

“Only half. I know you.”

Another chuckle escaped Charlotte, and she wondered what Mr. Goodrich must think of her now. By the look in his eyes, he was more amused than offended.

In the lull of conversation, the lively music of the regimental band curled around Charlotte and drew her toward it. “Come!” she said.
“We’re already stomping our feet to keep warm, we might as well stomp in time!”

Jacob and Alice gladly obliged, and Charlotte looked expectantly at Edward. She hoped he wasn’t lonely. She certainly would be, if she didn’t have Alice and Jacob here.

Smiling, Edward drew her to himself with a feather-light touch. His hand, holding hers, grew warm almost immediately.

“Are you thinking of a sweetheart back home tonight, Mr. Goodrich?”

“No,” he said quickly. “No sweetheart at home. Home seems like such a faraway dream now doesn’t it?”

Charlotte nodded. “And one day, so will this.”

One-two-three and one-two-three and one-two-three
—

“You look lovely tonight, Miss Waverly.”

“Thank you,” she replied. “So do you.”

He cocked his head and frowned. “Not exactly what I was eager to hear, I must say.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Goodrich. There must be a little brandy in that punch.”

“Wouldn’t doubt it.”

“I meant you look handsome. You really do.” The baby fat had melted off his face in the last few months since he had come to be a hospital chaplain. The flicker of eagerness in his eyes had mellowed into subdued thoughtfulness. “You look wiser,” she went on. “You’ve walked alongside suffering. You were already an intelligent and devout man, Mr. Goodrich, but now you have been tried in a baptism of fire, haven’t you? It shows in your eyes.”
Like Caleb’s
, she thought.

“Please. Call me Edward.”

She smiled. “And you must call me Charlotte.”

One-two-three and one-two-three and one-two-three
—“It’s been difficult, I’ll be honest. It’s a relief that you understand, without my having to explain anything to you, of the sights and sounds that accompany our work in the hospitals. Some days I have to remind myself I won’t be
here forever. The war, no matter how it seems right now, will not last forever. This is just a season.”

“‘To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.’”

He gripped her hand a little tighter and smiled. “‘A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up.’”

“‘A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance!’” Charlotte smiled brightly. She had resolved that tonight, in celebration of her Savior’s birth, was a time to be happy. “I understand how you feel,” she went on. “But please, know you are making a difference, bringing hope and light where there is so little these days. Alice and I are so grateful you answered our call for a chaplain, and I often hope you don’t regret the decision. I’d blame myself if the work didn’t suit you.”

The corner of his mouth tipped up. “It suits me. No regrets.” His voice was husky.

“Good. We need you.”

“And I—” Edward broke off and slowed his steps ever so slightly before picking back up again in time with the music. Bright pink blotches bloomed above Edward’s collar on his neck, and his small frosty clouds of breath came quicker. His hand was sweating now.