Wedded to War (8 page)

“Aye, Emma.” Ruby managed a rueful smile for her friend. “My work didn’t pass today.” She gestured to the dress in her arms.

Emma nodded in understanding. “And still no money from the lads, eh?” She lifted her own Sunday dress to show Ruby. “Tell the truth now, Ruby. Times are tight, but aren’t things a little more peaceful around the tenement with them gone?” She winked.

Warmth radiated from Ruby’s cheeks. A nervous chuckle escaped her lips sounding more like a croak, so out of practice was she with laughter. “’Tis true. I don’t hear nearly so much fighting through the walls as I did, and haven’t seen a black eye on a lass in weeks.”

They moved up in line, and it was Emma’s turn to haggle a price for her dress with the pawnbroker. Closer to the cradle now, Ruby took another look at it.

In a flash of recognition, her mouth went dry.

It couldn’t be. She shook her head as though to argue with her own eyes. The roughly hewn slats, the humble, simple etching at the head and foot of it. With a trembling hand she reached out and turned it to get a view of the rockers. She released it as if it were burning coal and closed her eyes.

It was no use. The engraving of a four-leafed clover was seared into her mind. The mark had been etched by her father in Ireland in place of his signature, for he, along with most Irish she knew, could neither read nor write. The cradle had held her baby girl Meghan.

Waves of grief crashed over Ruby, the crushing weight nearly bringing her to her knees. Nothing had changed in the rest of the shop—Emma still bargained, a few customers picked over other people’s castoffs now for sale or barter. But Ruby felt as if invisible undercurrents swirled around her legs, threatening to pull her down into oblivion.

Meghan. Oh, the joy and pain contained in a single word. Memories of her and Matthew as teenagers rushed at her.

Matthew had been a
cottier
on her family’s farm on several acres of Ireland’s most beautiful countryside. In return for his help with the daily chores and with the annual potato harvest, Ruby’s father allowed him to build a small cabin on the land and keep his own potato garden for himself. Potatoes were virtually all they ate, but they were satisfied.

Then 1845 had come, and the entire nation’s harvest of healthy-looking potatoes turned black with rot within a few days of picking them, right before their eyes. It happened again the next year, and countless people starved to death, despite the few inadequate attempts at
relief from the English government. Matthew’s and Ruby’s siblings worked on a public relief project, breaking apart with hammers large stones that were then used to build a road from nowhere to nowhere. The meager earnings were useless, for there was no food to be found for purchase.

One January day in 1847, sixteen-year-old Ruby paid a visit to Matthew in his cabin just before a blizzard hit. It would have been impossible for her to find her way home in the white-out conditions, and getting lost in the countryside would have meant freezing to death.

“Come, let’s stay warm together,” Matthew had said, enveloping her in a blanket with himself and huddling on the straw-covered floor together.

Ruby had convinced herself that what had happened next was the result of them falling in love. But Matthew, far less of a romantic, had attributed the act to the combination of a normal eighteen-year-old lad’s physical urges and an opportunity.

When Ruby felt the signs of new life in her body, however, Matthew did the honorable thing and married her. After all, Ruby had little in this life except for her Catholic faith, and she already agonized over her lapse in self-control as it was. To have a baby without being married would have destroyed her.

The pregnancy had taken almost more strength than Ruby had in her famished state, but Meghan was born in October, adding one more mouth to feed. Ruby’s father doted on the baby more than anyone else, and lovingly fashioned a cradle for her. Truthfully, there was little to distinguish it from the feeding troughs of the animals that shared their cabin. It looked like a nativity-style manger, save for the cloverleaf etching.

“If it was good enough for our Lord and Savior, ’tis good enough for our wee babe,” he had said.

Building the cradle was the last thing he did before his skin turned as black as the blighted potatoes. He died of black fever within days.

Meghan’s tiny body succumbed to the same pattern when she was just four months old, and she followed her grandfather to heaven.

When Matthew and Ruby decided to emigrate, the cradle came with them, along with the hope it would not stay empty. Fiona had been born while they lived in Seneca Village in New York City, but when they moved into the tenement after their eviction, the cold and the putrid air eventually proved too much for her. Fiona died of consumption when she was three.

The cradle, suddenly the last thing Ruby wanted to see, had been the first thing to be pawned during the next crisis. She had taken care to use a pawnshop well outside their neighborhood so she wouldn’t have to see any of her neighbors come home with it one day. The cradle must have changed hands who knew how many times, and found its way back to her. The ghosts of her past, it seemed, were not through with her yet.

O
ne by one, women of every form and fashion had been called into the hearing room of the W.C.A.R. Ladies Committee to be accepted or rejected as nurses for the Union army. Charlotte had been told by the waiting room attendant that two hundred women had been examined already today, but only twenty-three had passed. Charlotte sat on the edge of her chair at the association’s Cooper Union headquarters, spine straight and feet flat on the floor, as if perfect posture even now might have a favorable bearing on her fate.

“Next!” A voice echoed in the hall, and Charlotte was finally ushered into the presence of two members of the W.C.A.R. Ladies’ Committee—Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, her sister Miss Emily Blackwell, and Mrs. Christine Kean Griffin.

“Name, please.”

“Charlotte Anne Waverly.”

Charlotte stood as poised as possible, heels together and hands
clasped in front. She couldn’t help feeling self-conscious as the pair behind the table looked her over, passing judgment already.

There was nothing conspicuous about her hoopless, navy blue grenadine dress, but compared to Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell’s very plain black wrapper with white point lace collar, she felt positively ornamental. Charlotte reached up and deftly plucked the artificial flowers from the brim of her bonnet, crushing and concealing them in her balled fist with an apologetic smile.

“Are you a church member, Miss Waverly?” The first question came from Dr. Blackwell, the principal interrogator.

“Yes, Market Street Church. You may inquire of the Reverend Dr. Ferris there of my regular attendance and involvement.” Charlotte willed her voice to remain steady.

“Fine,” Dr. Blackwell said. “And do you work, Miss Waverly?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“It is common knowledge that the Waverly family is well off. You have servants, correct?”

Charlotte nodded.

“Well, you will have no servants as a nurse. Are you prepared to take care of yourself and to be without the many comforts to which you are accustomed? To work hard and sleep little, as the circumstance requires?”

“I am not only prepared, but eager.”

The committee members looked mildly amused. Miss Emily Blackwell, apparently the chief note taker, scribbled something down with a smile.

“You look to be a very stylish young woman, Miss Waverly,” Dr. Blackwell continued. “You have many admirers, I assume?”

“Just one, but—excuse me, I don’t see how this relates to my potential as a nurse.”

“More to the point, then. I need to know if you are looking for romance among our nation’s young men in their moments of weakness and vulnerability.”

“Of course not.” Charlotte gasped, feeling her face grow hot. “I would do no such thing.”

“So you are satisfied with your beau, then, and do not desire another? You see we really prefer married or widowed women for this position.”

“I will say it again.” Charlotte strove to regain her composure. “I am not looking for romance, I assure you.”

Dr. Blackwell cleared her throat and glanced at the papers in front of her, Charlotte’s written testimony most likely among them, before looking up again. “Now then, Miss Waverly, let us be perfectly clear. We are looking for women strong in morals and in body. Nurses will be subject to many disagreeable tasks. Would you help move a wounded man on a litter, if required?”

“Of course.”

“Scrub a floor?”

“Indeed.”

“Launder blood- and pus-encrusted uniforms?”

Charlotte paused for a half a beat before replying, “Yes.” She hoped it was not a lie, even as she tasted bile in her mouth.

“Would you gently comb lice out of matted hair, wash faces disfigured by shot and shell? Would you pick maggots off of an open sore?” Dr. Blackwell crossed her arms.

Convinced that Dr. Blackwell was trying to scare her away, Charlotte grew hot under her collar, but kept her voice cool. “I would.”

“Good. Now as for your discipline. Do you respond well to male authority?”

Charlotte mused that she hadn’t lived under male authority for twelve years, but she knew the correct answer. “Of course.”

“You realize you would be working directly under and answerable to a military doctor in charge. He may or may not be in favor of your presence, and may decide to make life difficult for you.” Dr. Blackwell paused. “In an effort to get you to leave, that is.”

“I understand.” Charlotte straightened her spine. “And I would not be moved.”

An indiscernible expression passed between Dr. Blackwell and Mrs. Griffin. Charlotte prayed her insolent tongue had not just disqualified her.

After a moment of quiet conference between the three committee members, Dr. Blackwell spoke. “You may move on to the Examining Board of the Hospital Committee. Drs. Delafield, Wood, and Harris will see you in there.” She pointed to an imposing paneled oak doorway.

Charlotte’s heels clicked along the hardwood floor, every step echoing between the walls and high ceiling, but all she heard was her pounding pulse in her ears.

She entered the cavernous room and squeezed the flowers in her fist, now damp from nervous perspiration. After a pleasant round of introductions, the committee had just two main questions for her. Being satisfied by her answer to the first—“Who is your grandfather?”—Dr. Harris asked, “Have you had the measles?”

“Yes.” Charlotte’s voice sounded small in the nearly empty room.

“And are you generally in good health? No fainting spells or anything?”

“Perfectly healthy.”

“Well done.” He smiled, scribbled her name on a chart, left blank the space for recording her age, and reached across his table to hand her a blue slip of paper. She took it and studied the treasure now in her possession. It was signed by Mrs. Christine Griffin and Dr. Elisha Harris below the number 24.

“It’s your ticket to the training program, my dear,” he explained. “Present it at New York Hospital beginning 6:30 Monday morning. Don’t be late.”

C
harlotte had never felt so awake at six thirty in the morning. The hum of two dozen chattering women buzzed through her veins as she stood among them in a meeting room of New York Hospital.

Alice should be here, too
, Charlotte thought for the hundredth time.
It only makes sense that she should prepare herself as a nurse if she has any desire to follow Jacob when his regiment goes south.
So far, however, Charlotte’s letters had failed to convince Alice. Her place, she maintained, was at her home.

“Ladies!” Dr. Blackwell called the women to attention. “You sound like clucking chickens, but you look like one great big bruise!” The women looked at each other and laughingly agreed. Regulation nursing uniforms not only kept them from wearing hoops, but prohibited them from wearing any color but dark blue, black, grey, or brown.

“I will not be the one to train you during your course, but I wanted to say a few words to you before you begin.”

All eyes were on her now.

“Many of you know that since we founded the Women’s Central Association of Relief several weeks ago, letters have been pouring in from women all over the country, sharing stories with us of how poorly their soldiers are faring. The flood of correspondence became so overwhelming that we realized our small association, as it currently is, can’t meet the needs. But we also realize the needs must absolutely be met.”

Nodding heads agreed.

“Dr. Bellows and Dr. Harris left for Washington on May 17 to petition the government to make W.C.A.R. the official United States Sanitary Commission, to ‘prevent the evils that England and France could only investigate and deplore,’” she continued. “They are still there. The news has not been good. Dr. Bellows has written to us: ‘The War Department regarded us as weak enthusiasts, representing well-meaning but silly women.’” She looked up from the letter and scanned the fresh faces in front of her. “That’s you, you know. ‘Well-meaning but silly women.’” More than one of them turned a rosy shade of indignation.

Folding the letter and tucking it into the pocket of her apron, Dr. Blackwell sighed. “This nursing corps we have created is what the W.C.A.R. is most known for right now. And like it or not, people are going to be watching us like vultures, ready to swoop in and finish us off if we fail at what we have set out to do. If we fail, I am afraid that women’s associations will be discredited and will not be put to use in the war effort. I am afraid that the door will slam shut behind you, and any woman who wants to become a professional nurse after you will have to work twice as hard, or harder, to kick it in again. But most of all, I am convinced beyond any doubt that hundreds of thousands of lives will be lost.”