The Union Quilters (31 page)

“My father and Miss Bergstrom are trying to get more details by telegraph. My sister sent me to fetch you in case you want to join them.”

“I’ll mind Abigail,” said Anneke, kissing the little girl’s cheek until she squealed in delight. “You go.”

Dorothea nodded, snatched off her apron, and tossed it on the kitchen table in passing on her way upstairs for her wraps. In a few minutes she was bundled up and tucked beneath a pile of quilts in the cutter beside Mary’s brother. Anneke and Abigail waved from the window as they sped off, the horse’s harness bells jingling merrily as the cutterʹs runners swiftly glided over the snow.

Dorothea plied Mary’s brother with questions, but he had already told her all he knew, so she was obliged to wait and wonder and silently urge the horse to hurry. It seemed hours until they pulled up to Schultz’s Printers, where Dorothea breathlessly thanked the young man, scrambled out from beneath the quilts, and hurried inside. There, in the warmth of the print shop, she found Mary, Mr. Schultz, and Gerda poring over a newspaper spread upon the counter. They glanced up as she unwound her scarf and tugged off her mittens. “What news?” she asked breathlessly. “Do you have word of my brother?”

“Nothing that mentions him by name,” said Mr. Schultz. “We’ve heard that of the one hundred nine men who escaped, at least twenty have been recaptured, and several drowned in the James River attempting to leave the city.”

“Jonathan would not be among them,” Gerda hastened to reassure her.

“No, of course not,” said Dorothea. Jonathan must have told Gerda he could not swim, and perhaps he had also confided that he had feared the water since that childhood day he and Dorothea had taken the rowboat upon the floodwaters not long after Elm Creek had shifted its banks and drowned Thrift Farm. Just as they had spied the foundation of their former home through the cloudy waters, the swift current had overturned their boat. Swept downstream, they had clung desperately to the boat until it caught upon a partially submerged log, which they had used to drag themselves to shore. From that day forward, Jonathan had dreaded the water and would wade in the creek only up to his ankles. Dorothea was certain Jonathan would have submitted to recapture before he would have attempted to escape Richmond by swimming across a river.

“The telegraph clerk promised to bring us news if any news comes,” said Mary, and she offered to make them coffee while they waited. They passed the afternoon drinking coffee, discussing newspaper business and the news of the war, and jumping every time the door opened. Only once did a boy from the telegraph clerk’s office burst in and declare that the
Richmond Examiner
reported that nearly fifty escaped prisoners had been recaptured in the countryside between the city and the Union lines. Those retaken included prominent officers Colonel Ely of the 18th Connecticut and Colonel Thomas E. Rose of the 77th Pennsylvania. Impatient, Gerda queried the boy about whether he had any news of any escaped Union surgeons but had forgotten to mention it, but the boy indignantly straightened to his fullest height and assured her that he never forgot a word of a message. Frustrated, Gerda waved him off and settled in a chair, resting her chin in her hands and staring off into space gloomily.

Eventually they ran out of speculation and fell silent except to occasionally note the easing of the snowstorm outside. Mary and Mr. Schultz had resumed their work, and Gerda had picked up a pencil and paper and was writing furiously. Dorothea watched the snow falling outside and thought of her brother. He would not have braved the James River, and the longer Dorothea pondered the escape, the more she wondered whether Jonathan would have run at all, or whether he would have remained behind to care for the ailing prisoners. Had he not stayed at the Lutheran Seminary to protect the wounded rather than evacuating when he had the chance? That decision had led to his capture, so perhaps later, when faced with another opportunity to flee, he would have chosen differently. But if he believed duty compelled him to remain with his patients, he would not have escaped even if the front door to the prison had been left unlocked and unguarded.

The afternoon light began to wane, and still there was no news. Reluctantly, Dorothea asked the Schultzes if Mary’s younger brother could take her home. “It’s just as well Charlotte didn’t join us,” she said, pulling on her wraps as Mary left to summon her brother. Gerda made no reply, and Dorothea knew at once that no one had sent word to Charlotte. “Oh, Gerda, honestly.”

“I truly didn’t think of her,” said Gerda. “You said yourself it’s just as well.”

“That she didn’t come into town only to wait and learn so little,” Dorothea replied sharply. “She has the right to know.”

“She wouldn’t want to hear it from me,” Gerda pointed out. “I see her face when I read Miss Van Lew’s letters. Besides, as you’ve said, there’s little to tell.”

Dorothea studied her friend and decided that Gerda was telling the truth: She had indeed not thought of Charlotte. It was impulse and thoughtlessness, not spite, that had compelled her to send Mary’s brother to Jonathan’s sister rather than his wife. That distinction would matter very little to Charlotte.

Mary returned then and said that her brother was waiting outside in the cutter. Dorothea asked if it would be all right if they stopped at the Granger farm first so she could give
The New York Times
article to Charlotte. Mary assured her that would be fine, and so they set out.

February passed with no word from or about Jonathan. As time went by, Dorothea concluded that if Jonathan had been among the escapees or the deceased, they would have heard something. March brought melting snows and gusty winds, longer days and the return of songbirds, thoughts of spring planting, and at long last, a letter from Miss Van Lew, battered and creased as if it had been smuggled out of Richmond.

Silence greeted the end of the letter, broken only by Gerda’s sigh as she folded it and passed it to Dorothea, knowing her friend would want to study it thoroughly. “It’s a relief to know Jonathan is well,” said Dorothea, setting the letter aside for later. “I don’t believe he attempted to escape.”

“Nor do I,” said Gerda. “He always does put duty first, thinking of others’ needs before his own.”

“That is how you see him. That is how you’ve always seen him,” said Charlotte scathingly. “There is so much that you don’t know about what he needs, about what makes him truly happy.”

Dorothea watched in dismay as Charlotte began gathering up her sewing. “Charlotte, dear—”

“No. Please.” Charlotte shook her head and continued packing her sewing basket. “I can’t bear another word.”

Charlotte swept from the gallery, the sound of her footfalls fading as she descended the stairs to the front foyer. Within moments, Mrs. Claverton murmured an apology, collected her things, and hurried after her daughter. Watching them go, Dorothea’s heart sank and she could not help wondering whether their circle had been irreparably broken. It had endured hardship and loss, scandal and betrayal, but it could not withstand the theft of a husband’s affection.

Charlotte and her mother skipped the next meeting, but Mrs. Claverton returned the next week, and Charlotte too rejoined their circle the week after that, although she resolutely ignored Gerda and snubbed her awkward attempts to make peace. Dorothea understood that Charlotte’s need for news and companionship transcended her dislike of Gerda, and privately she asked Gerda to be more mindful of Charlotte’s feelings.

“What shall I do?” asked Gerda. “Stop reading Miss Van Lew’s letters? Stop reading Jonathan’s?”

Jonathan was permitted only one letter a week, and of these perhaps one out of ten went to Gerda. The pain and humiliation inflicted upon Charlotte when Gerda read aloud Jonathan’s letters overwhelmed any reassuring benefit his words might have offered. “Don’t read Jonathan’s letters to the circle anymore,” Dorothea said. “Each one sent to you is one not sent to Charlotte. Don’t you understand how that makes her feel?”

The set of Gerda’s jaw told Dorothea that she wished everyone would give more thought to how
she
felt, but she agreed to do as Dorothea asked.

As spring warmed the Elm Creek Valley, a fragile harmony settled over the circle, but Dorothea knew one discordant note could spoil it again. Fair weather heralded the resumption of heavy fighting even as it called laborers to the fields and women to their kitchen gardens. Before the hard work of summer began in earnest, Dorothea was determined to finish a quilt for Thomas, to replace the one he had given away. At first she had thought to make another Dove in the Window quilt identical to the first, but then one of the Loyal Union Sampler blocks caught her fancy. It was Farm in the Valley, a simple but lovely pattern, and it had seemed an inspired choice for Thomas’s new quilt after she reread one of his letters, her favorite of the many he had sent her.