Wedded to War (5 page)

“Is it too much to think I might have some value for our country aside from marriage and childbearing?” She knew the question would shock her mother, and almost regretted saying it. Truthfully, she did want to have a family of her own someday, to manage a home, support a husband, and raise God-fearing children. But there was something else inside her she knew couldn’t be fulfilled by that alone.

Charlotte set her work aside and swept a fine layer of lint from the braided tunic and full olive skirt of her at-home dress. Rising, she paced the back parlor and fanned herself with her long, piano-trained fingers. Though the weather outside was only a crisp sixty-four degrees, heat crawled up her neck.

The back parlor she circled was hardly recognizable from its previous days. Formerly used by the Waverlys for checkers and singing around the piano, it now resembled a clearinghouse for hospital supplies. The
smells of ladies at leisure—rosewater, coffee, almond pastries—had given way to the stronger odors of packing supplies for war: crates of cologne, jams, pickles, tobacco, lemons, and cocoa. A bandage roller screwed into the top of a mahogany table was the centerpiece of the room, and the walls were lined with bundles of shirts, drawers, socks, and handkerchiefs. This parlor was now one of the most popular places for members of the Women’s Central Association of Relief to share news while organizing and preparing supplies.

“Charlotte, stop.” Caroline set down her knitting and crossed the distance to reach her daughter. She gripped her hands in her own. “You would exhaust yourself. That training program would make a tiresome schedule for you, and I will not allow you to give up your regular French and voice lessons. You know people call you a songbird.”

Charlotte’s heart squeezed. “I’d rather be a Nightingale. I want to do something useful. I want to make a difference.”

“Yes, Florence Nightingale did amazing things for the British army in the Crimean War,” conceded Caroline. “But she didn’t do it alone. She couldn’t have done anything without help from the home front, in fact. Organizing and distributing supplies for the armies is essential! What do you think would happen to our boys if they had no bandages, no clothing, no clean shirts, or soft places to lay their weary heads at night? Isn’t the work we do here in this parlor making a difference?”

“Of course it is.” Alice stepped in, bearing bolts of flannel. “Who says it isn’t?”

Caroline turned, dropping her daughter’s hands. “Charlotte wants to be a nurse.”

Alice raised her eyebrows. “A nurse.”

Isn’t it about time for you to go back home?
Charlotte clenched her teeth before the unkind thought escaped her lips. Inhaling a deep breath, she tried again. “I really don’t see what all the fuss is about. Elizabeth Blackwell, as you well know, is a doctor. And a prominent, well-respected member of society, I might add. She spearheaded the entire Women’s Central Association of Relief to make up for the men’s lack of
services to our nation’s soldiers. And the New York Infirmary for Women and Children she started has had great success.”

A lopsided smile curved on Alice’s lips. “It’s a charity, Charlotte. It’s busy because it’s free, and poor people are always sick. Especially in the slums near her infirmary.”

Charlotte spun on her heel, turning her back on her sister while she mastered her tongue and the very unrefined expression of anger on her face.

Slowly swiveling back around, she modulated her tone. “All I’m trying to say is this. In the person of Elizabeth Blackwell, we have a prime example of a woman fulfilling a job—no, a calling—that has previously been strictly relegated to the male sphere. She does her work competently. She makes a difference in the world.”

“She is the
only
woman with an American medical degree in the entire country, Charlotte,” Caroline said. “Word has it that she used her profession as a barrier to matrimony.”

“Oh fiddlesticks!” Charlotte was exasperated now. “Pure mean-spirited gossip! Even if it were true, it’s beside the point, anyway.”

“You are mistaken, daughter. It is the
entire
point, precisely. A woman should be married, as Alice is, and have children and manage her household. If your husband agrees it is fitting for you to do charity work as well, so long as it does not interfere with your duties at home, so be it. But charity work, or pursuing men’s work, is not the primary aim of a young woman.”

The silence between the three women reverberated the rumble of marching feet and martial music blocks away.

“Charlotte,” her mother began again. “You are swimming upstream with this new-fangled idea of women nurses. You are going the wrong direction.”

“I can help,” she whispered. “I know I can.”

“Child.” The quaver in Caroline’s voice betrayed her. “That’s what your father said when he went to visit that cholera hospital on Orange Street. That’s what you said when you stayed behind to nurse him. You
were both wrong! Don’t you see? You’re wrong!”

Charlotte’s deep breath was constricted by the corseted bodice of her dress. “I feel like I’m suffocating in here. I’m going to get some air.” With a fistful of skirts in her hand, she swept toward the door, leaving a wake of swirling lint behind her.

Before she reached the door, however, Jane stepped into the fray, her starched white apron a flag of forced truce between mother and daughter, at least for the moment. Pale blonde hair crowned her head in a thick braid under her cap, and the roses in her cheeks bloomed bright whenever she sensed tension in a room.

Right now, they were flaming red.

“Telegram, mum,” she said, her Nottingham, England, accent flavoring her words. Jane had only arrived in New York two years ago, at the age of seventeen, and had been at the Waverly home ever since. “It’s from Albany.”

The women looked at each other in confusion before understanding registered on Alice’s face. “It must be Jacob. He’s there on business, but I don’t know what could be so important …” She snatched the envelope from its silver tray and ripped it open. No sooner had her eyes scanned the telegram than the paper fluttered to the floor. Her hands shook as she covered her trembling lips. Wide-eyed, Jane quietly left the room.

“He joined the Sixteenth New York Regiment,” Alice said, disbelief twisting the words. All color had drained from her face. “Signed up while he was in Albany. Can you believe that? He didn’t even ask me. He just did it.”

Caroline’s lips flattened into a thin, hard line. “Women ask permission from their husbands, dear, not the other way around.”

Hot moisture sprang to Charlotte’s eyes in sympathy as Alice choked on a sob.

Suddenly, the Civil War was not just a headline in the newspaper, a story from a distant land, neatly constrained to narrow columns of black-and-white typeface. With a single telegram, the war invaded their
parlor and their lives. Now it was not just news. It was personal, in living color. And it was terrifying.

“When does he go?” Charlotte gently probed.

Blonde ringlets quivered as Alice shook her head. “I don’t know. He just said he’s coming home as planned but will be leaving again for training ‘soon.’ And what about me? I’ll be all alone in that big house with just the servants!”

“You know you can stay here as long as you like,” Caroline crooned.

“No,” said Alice resolutely, looking suddenly years older. “My place is at home.”

Not this time
, thought Charlotte as she soothed her little sister.
You’re coming with me.
She knew better than to say it aloud just yet.

Once Alice was resting comfortably with a cup of tea, Charlotte made her way to the garden behind the house to clear her head. Dappled sunlight filtered through the trees and fell in a lacework pattern on the terraced garden. All the aromas of spring were sharpened in the rain-scrubbed air, lilac blossoms even more pungent than usual. Charlotte carefully perched on the cool stone bench and watched golden daffodils nod their heads in the breeze. Her hoop skirt formed a wide perimeter around her, as if to create a safe distance between her and the world.

When her gaze fell upon weeds crowding the tender shoots of Siberian irises, she felt an irresistible pull to pluck them out herself rather than wait for the gardener to do it. Kneeling on the ground, however, brought her no closer to her goal—yards of fabric and steel hoops were unavoidably in the way.

Bother this contraption!
The only way to weed in a hoopskirt, Charlotte surmised, was to lie flat on her stomach and let the hoops flip the skirts straight up at a ridiculous ninety-degree angle to the ground. No, that wouldn’t do at all. With a quick glance around the stone wall–enclosed garden to confirm her privacy, she unfastened her skirt
from her waist and bodice, stepped out of it and left it in a dejected pile next to the bench.

Unhindered at last, Charlotte knelt in her petticoats and buried her fingers in the soft, damp soil, relishing the musty smell and digging down deep to uproot the weeds that had taunted her a moment ago. She was so absorbed in her tiny patch of earth that she didn’t hear the French doors to the garden unlatch.

“Why, miss!” Jane gasped, quickly closing the door behind her. “What can you be thinking, down in the dirt, exposed like that for God and everybody!” She scurried to retrieve the discarded skirt.

Charlotte laughed. “It isn’t like you haven’t seen all of us in our petticoats before.”

“No, miss, true enough, but I’ll bet your gentleman caller hasn’t.”

Charlotte gasped. Thoughtlessly, she brushed a strand of hair off her cheek, smudging the porcelain complexion that was the envy of her peers. “Mr. Hastings! I completely forgot.” Charlotte stood, shook the dirt off her undergarments and allowed Jane to help her back into her skirt.

Rushing in from the garden, she ducked into the kitchen and scrubbed the evidence of her unladylike behavior from beneath her fingernails before approaching the tall, handsome visitor waiting in the front hall. One look at his tartan plaid trousers, dark green cravat, frock coat, and top hat told her he had a promenade in mind.

“Aha, so you’ve taken to painting, I see,” he teased.

Charlotte’s hands flew to her cheeks, still flushed from the cool May breeze. Indignation creased her face. She did not appreciate his innuendo that she used rouge—only women “on the town” painted their faces.

Mr. Hastings tilted his head and smiled down at her. “Oh, come now. No need to be cross. I think you look beautiful. So beautiful, in fact, that I’d like to show you off on the Broadway Promenade today. What do you say?” His dark chocolate eyes captured hers, soft and inviting.

“Oh, my hair is a mess, I’ve been out in the garden,” she hedged.

“I thought of that.” Of course he had. His own jet-black hair was smoothly in place, smelling faintly of pomade, his mustache and goatee neatly groomed, as ever. “Would you do me the honor of wearing this?” He picked up a box she hadn’t noticed from the hall table.

“Why, Mr. Hastings—”

“Isn’t it time you called me Phineas?”

She cleared her throat. “Phineas. I can’t imagine what the occasion is.” Hesitantly, she accepted the box from him.

“As the petals are the glory of the rose, the right attire is the glory of a woman,” he said with a flourish.

Parting the tissue paper, Charlotte gently lifted out a pert straw hat trimmed with peacock plumes and a band of satin ribbon in a shocking shade of bright green.

“Well?” His voice was eager, expectant.

Charlotte skimmed a finger over the feathers. “It’s quite … bright, isn’t it?”

His low-pitched laughter rippled over her until she couldn’t help but join in. “Yes, indeed. These new aniline dyes are the latest rage. No one will miss us.”

That much was true. Charlotte managed a nod that she hoped appeared grateful, and excused herself to her dressing room to change into a deep indigo promenade gown with pagoda sleeves and a three-tiered skirt. She hoped it would tame down the peacock feathers in her hat.

Once on Broadway, Charlotte’s unlikely ensemble blended into an eclectic crowd. Coats and dresses of all patterns swarmed around Phineas and Charlotte, the crowd a blur of bright eyes, whiskers, spectacles, hats, bonnets, and caps. Dandies passed by with their hornlike mustaches, kid gloves, thin trouser legs, and patent leather shoes. Smartly dressed ladies in ribbons and silks stepped spritely out of shops, having done their part toward depleting their husbands’ bank accounts with the finest Parisian fashions.

The daily afternoon “promenade” on Broadway had the sound of a leisurely stroll about it, but it was impossible to maintain anything less
than a brisk pace to keep from getting run over. The booming city’s major thoroughfare was a profusion of color and a stimulus of excitement. It was hustle, bustle, and squeeze, like a dance of faltering steps to the offbeat tune of thundering omnibuses and the din of a crowd in a hurry. Charlotte would have preferred a stroll in Central Park, if not for the quieter atmosphere, for the fresher air. The musky scent of Phineas’s cologne was soon overpowered, and she was sure her mother and sister would smell on her clothing the horse manure of Broadway when she arrived home.