The Velvet Shadow (20 page)

But Charity must have been watching her feet instead of her mistress. Before Flanna could step back from the threshold, Charity bumped into her, upsetting Flanna from her perch at the top of the stairs. She reached for the banister and caught it, but not before her slick shoes slipped down the polished wooden steps, dragging her
body downward amid a tremendous knocking racket. A brilliant pain flashed through her shinbone, and Flanna yelled in dazzled agony.

Miss Owen screamed and stepped back, and the soldier cursed. Obeying an instinctive reaction honed through years of playing rough-and-tumble games with Wesley and her cousins, Flanna righted herself and lowered her head, barreling on down the staircase as she prayed Charity would have the good sense to follow.

“Stop! A burglar!” Miss Owen screamed. “Oh, my heavens, shoot them!”

Flanna hit the back door and yanked it open, then froze as she heard the ominous click of a pistol.

“Stop right there, both of you!” The soldier’s voice quavered.

Right behind her, as close as the shirt on her back, Flanna could hear Charity’s frantic breathing. This was all Flanna’s fault, and Charity should not suffer for it. Flanna lifted her hands and slowly turned her head, looking past Charity’s shoulder to see the soldier. The arm holding the pistol quivered in a wide arc, and his breath came hard though his nose with a faint whistling sound. He was just as scared as she was, but he had a lot less at stake.

She opened her mouth, ripping out a yell designed to shatter the eardrums of a pesky older brother, then dove through the open doorway. She hit the ground hard, rolled over the soft earth where the cook had given up trying to grow vegetables, then scrambled to her feet as a gunshot shattered the stillness and a slice of dirt flew up barely three feet to the right of her feet.

The fool had actually fired that gun!

She looked up to see Charity running toward her like a hen dodging the axe. With a burst of hysterical laughter, Flanna joined Charity, and they sprinted together through the back alley.

This was one dinner Mrs. Davis’s boarders would never forget.

A
fter congratulating themselves on a most spectacular escape, Flanna and Charity walked to the recruiter’s office at Faneuil Hall. A police officer patrolled the steps there, and they took pains to avoid his notice, even though it seemed unlikely that word of Mrs. Davis’s intrusive vagabonds had reached this part of town.

“You sure Mrs. Davis won’t know it was us?” Charity asked for the tenth time, keeping a wary eye on the policeman.

“Hillary Owen was so flustered she won’t know what she saw,” Flanna answered, squatting on the steps. How comfortable it was to sit like a man! She spread her knees apart and rested her arms atop them, just for the sheer pleasure of doing so. “You can bet that Mrs. Davis is still in a faint. By the time she’s roused enough to hear what Hillary has to say, the other girls will be mighty curious about where that soldier came from.” Flanna grinned. “By tonight, no one will even be thinking about us. I imagine Hillary’s father will get a wire informing him that his daughter ought to be married before the regiment ships out to Washington.”

“You don’t think that soldier will remember us?”

“Naw.” Flanna dragged out the word and grinned. How wonderful it was to
talk
like a man! “Do you remember what he looked like?”

Charity hesitated, then shook her head.

“See? It all happened too quick.” Flanna stood up and wiped the
last traces of dirt from her trousers. “Now we need to enlist. Let’s get it over with.”

They walked inside the building and paused before an officer at the desk. “Ah, sure, and I’ll be hating to disturb you, sir,” Flanna aped her father’s broad Irish brogue, reasoning it was the best disguise for her voice, “but the lad and I would like to enlist in this fine army.”

The man scarcely glanced up. “Name?”

“O’Connor. Franklin O’Connor.”

“Age?”

“Twenty-four, sir.”

“State of residence?”

Flanna gave Charity a confident smile. “Well, naturally, ’tis Massachusetts.”

The man scribbled her answers on a pad, then ripped off the top sheet. Looking up, he handed it to her, then frowned. “That colored boy can’t enlist.”

“Why not?”

The man tented his fingers. “Coloreds can’t fight. He can go with you as a servant; I hear some of the Maryland men have even taken their slaves to war. But coloreds can’t serve in a Massachusetts regiment.”

Flanna lifted her chin, not daring to look at Charity. She would never understand Yankees. Why did they want to free the Negroes if they wouldn’t allow them to do anything?

“Charles is my servant; he’ll remain with me.” Flanna gave the officer a polite smile. “He goes wherever I go.”

“Right.” The man jerked his head toward a door behind her. “See the doctor, and get your physical. You’ll be serving in Company M.”

Flanna took the slip of paper and moved toward the doorway the man had indicated. “Just stay quiet and stay with me,” she warned Charity in a low voice.

“Good thing I bought nice clothes,” Charity grumbled, shuffling behind Flanna in her too-large shoes. “Looks like I’m going to be in ’em awhile.”

Flanna paused outside the examination room and pointed to a bench where Charity could wait. “Pray that this part goes well,” she whispered, placing her hand on the cold brass doorknob. “If we’re going to be discovered, this might be the place.”

Charity sat down and crossed her arms, and Flanna hesitated as fear blew down the back of her neck. A memory ruffled through her mind, a history lesson in which she had learned that Columbus’s men had been terrified to the point of mutiny when they reached the point of no return in the midst of the unknown ocean. As they faced the dark knowledge that they no longer had enough food and water to turn back, surely they must have experienced this same feeling of dismay.

This doorway was her point of no return. She could not go back. They’d think she was a spy for certain if she was discovered with her hair bobbed off and an enlistment slip in her pocket. Exposure now would mean certain arrest and prison, shame, and infamy.

She could only go forward.

Heavenly Father, help me now.

Gathering her courage, Flanna walked into the room. A tall man in a white coat stood with his back to her, and she thrust her recruitment form toward his stout figure. “Franklin O’Connor, reporting for me physical, sir.”

She thought she would faint when the doctor turned around. Dr. John Gulick stood before her, his eyes alert and bright. Apparently he hadn’t visited the taverns yet today.

He took the paper, glancing at her for only a moment. “Franklin O’Connor,” he said, peering at the page through his spectacles. He squinted back at her. “Irish?”

“Well, naturally.” Flanna tried to smile. “’Tis a great thing to be Irish.”

“So half this city thinks,” Gulick muttered. He pulled out a tablet. “Do you suffer from piles or fits, O’Connor?”

“No sir.”

“Are you healthy?”

“Yes sir.”

“Lift your arms out to your sides.”

A cold sweat prickled under Flanna’s arms, and she felt her heart begin to pound like a triphammer.

“Don’t be scared, boy.” Gulick’s broad hands moved toward her. “Just stand up straight.”

Flanna swallowed hard and obeyed. Gulick pressed his fingertips to her collarbones and shoulders, then told her to turn around. As she waited, paralyzed with fear, he thumped her once on the back.

“You look like a right healthy one,” he said, scratching something on his tablet. He marked her recruitment slip and returned it to her. “Congratulations, son. You’ll make a fine soldier.”

Flanna stepped out into the hall, dazed and a little shaken that she’d actually pulled it off.

The long shadows of late afternoon had begun to stretch across the ground as Flanna and Charity walked into the camp at Boston Common. Little had changed since Flanna had last visited Private Fraser, but she saw the place with new eyes, watching every man who approached, wondering how she would fit into this community of men.

From the color line at the front of the camp a dozen or so standards fluttered in the breeze, along with the regimental colors and Old Glory. The various companies were housed on straight streets branching off the color line. The quarters of noncommissioned officers, company officers, and the regimental commander and his staff stood at the rear of the camp, on three separate streets running parallel to the color line. The baggage trains, partially loaded with supplies, lay behind the commander’s quarters.

Forlorn paperboard signs pointed the way to the various companies’ quarters, and Flanna finally spied a bedraggled sign that pointed north to a line of tents.

“Company M,” she read, following the arrow.

Beside her, Charity shook her head. “I don’t know about this, Miss Flanna.”

“Franklin. You can’t forget. I’m Franklin, and you’re Charles.”

“Charles! My ma would have a fit if she heard you calling me that!”

“Your ma doesn’t have to know.”

“What if none of the others has servants? What are they gonna think about you?”

“They’ll think I’m a pampered rich boy, I suppose.” Flanna gave Charity a lopsided smile. “It’s only for a little while. As soon as we get south, we’re going home. Just remember that.”

Charity nodded without speaking, then Flanna turned onto the street marked for Company M. She peered into the first tent, a bell-shaped structure supported by a center pole. She felt a stirring of confidence, for this was not entirely unfamiliar territory. She had visited Private Fraser in a tent like this one many times.

One young man, a dark-haired youth who appeared to be yet in his teens, crouched inside. He looked up from his haversack and caught Flanna’s eye.

“You a new recruit?”

Flanna nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

The boy jerked his thumb toward the street. “You’ll need to find the sergeant before you can get your gear. He’s a tall, thin fellow, name of Enoch Marvin. Just ask for him anywhere on this road, and you can’t miss him.”

“Thanks,” Flanna answered, muffling her voice as much as she could. She straightened and squinted in the bright sunlight. A tall man with thinning brown hair and a drooping moustache was walking her way, his hands tucked into his belt, his eyes fixed upon the ground.

“Sergeant Marvin?”

The man’s eyes lifted to meet Flanna’s, then narrowed speculatively. “You new?” he asked, a piece of straw dangling from his lips.

“Ah, sure, naturally.” Flanna’s voice faded away. The Irish bluster didn’t seem to register with this fellow.

“Come on,” he said, lazily waving her forward. Flanna fell into step behind him, and when Charity followed, Sergeant Marvin halted.

“You brought a colored boy with you?”

“Yes.” She spoke in a firm voice. “He’s my body servant…and my friend.”

A wry but indulgent glint appeared in the sergeant’s eye. “You’ll be sorry. You ought to send him home.”

Flanna squared her shoulders. “I won’t. Others have servants, and I’ll not leave mine behind. He’s—he’s quite useful to me.”

Marvin’s jaw moved, lazily pushing the straw from one corner of his mouth to the other. “You’ll have to share your rations with him ’cause we don’t feed servants. And we don’t provide goods either. He’ll have no blanket, no uniform, no gun.” The dark eyes snapped as his gaze shifted to Charity. “Definitely no gun.”

Lifting her chin, Flanna met the sergeant’s dark gaze head on. “I’ll be responsible for him. Just let him stay with me, and you’ll have no trouble from either of us.”

Sergeant Marvin grinned, then turned away. “It wasn’t you two I was worried about,” he called, his voice trailing behind him as he walked on.

Flanna and Charity hurried to keep up.

Sergeant Marvin stopped outside one tent where Charity waited outside while another officer handed Flanna a knapsack so heavy she nearly let it slip from her arms. “Hold it tight, boy,” the officer in charge called, grinning at her. “That bag’s gonna be dearer than your mama and papa real soon.”