Alias Dragonfly (15 page)

A day and one night passed.
Then, I got an assignment!

“You must listen for the signal—sharp, short whistles, in threes, a ninety-count pause, and then three more whistles,” Mr. Webster said as we huddled by the fireside. “Come down the front steps, straight to the southwest corner. I’ll be waiting.”

I waited, too. And waited. I was cleaning my aunt’s cherished old ceramic tureen (we’d mended it after the poor old Colonel fell on it,) and Nellie was waxing the table when I heard the signal, the sharp, piercing whistles over the cries of the ragpicker and the oysterman. I began counting the seconds.

“I’m going for a stroll with Mr. Webster, Aunt Salome,” I called out as she was in the next room. “He promises to show me the Capitol again today.”

I counted twenty-five seconds. “Nellie, is all well?” I whispered to her. “Has Isaac been here?”

“No. Things is steady for now.”

“Thank goodness,” I said.

“And you, Miss Madeline, don’t take no Rebel guff from that cotton man, Webster.” She looked into my eyes. “Or is this about something else?”

“No. Yes. I can’t say, Nellie.”

I counted sixty seconds.

“The Capitol building? What do you want to see that unfinished pile of scaffolding for?” Aunt Salome called out, as I grabbed up my bonnet and cloak. I’d only seen it from a distance. With its missing dome, it looked like an old nobleman who’d got his best top hat squashed under the wheels of a carriage. “Be back by supper, Madeline. Your chores are waiting.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I answered, hoping she wouldn’t come into the room.

I counted ninety seconds. Then there they were, the three whistles!

In my haste, as I swept on my shawl, the fringe caught on the darn old tureen, rolling it on its side like a beached whale until it hit the floor and smashed to pieces.

“What broke? Nellie? Madeline?” As my aunt was coming through the door, I ran past her. “Oh, not my precious tureen!” she cried.

“It slipped out of my hand what has the stiffness, Missus Salome. I’m frightful sorry,” Nellie said.

“No pay for a week, you clumsy thing!” I heard my aunt yell.

“She didn’t do it! I did! Stop blaming her!” I shouted. Before my aunt could catch me, I fled the house.

I found Mr. Webster on the street corner. He glared at me. “Three seconds late. Don’t let that happen again.”

“Yes, sir.” I didn’t tell him I’d yelled at Aunt Salome when she blamed Nellie for what I broke. I hated my aunt for that.

Mr. Webster was out of his usual planter’s whites, back to his clergyman’s guise. His eyes were fixed on the Greenhow house.

“Seconds are crucial, timing is crucial,” he said. “These Rebels are like scorpions, and this city is their battlefield.”

The air was thick and so hot; I had a bit of trouble breathing.

“Can you endure this work?” He studied me.

“Yes,” I answered, and in spite of the sweat running down my face, never so sure of anything in my life.

I followed him past the Greenhow house. He stopped at a flower stand just beyond it. Webster plucked a pink rose from an assortment tucked like bright jewels in a basket. The flower seller was an older man with a round, pink, jowly face. He wore a yellow felt slouch hat. He had a large white gardenia flower in his lapel. He took the pink rose from Mr. Webster and handed him a white one.

Mr. Webster nodded to the flower seller.

“Mrs. Greenhow knows she’s being watched,” he told me. “Sometimes we speak the language of flowers.” He tipped his hat to the flower seller and handed him two double eagle coins.

“All our scrutiny doesn’t seem to matter, that’s the devil of it. She’s been able to get her dispatches out right under our noses. Back before the Secession, Colonel Thomas Jordan ran the Rebel espionage ring here in the city. Now he’s passed the responsibility to her. And she thrives. Jordan gets Greenhow’s reports to the Confederates.”

“Through Betty,” I said.

“Yes, and likely others. Greenhow consorts with men of power to the lowliest butcher to achieve her ends. We need to get someone into that house, someone she won’t suspect. The right person, of course.”

The door of Mrs. Greenhow’s house opened. A small woman in a maroon gown and straw sunbonnet walked down the stairs, fanning herself.

“That’s not Betty,” I said quickly.

“Tell me why it isn’t her.” He spoke rapidly, demanding an answer.

“Betty is taller and is graceful, even when she flounces like a peacock. This other woman, well, she is much stouter and waddles, putting weight on both her feet at once, like she has something heavy in her skirts. She is past middle age, as there is a roundness in her back common to older women.”

“Might she not have suffered an accident?” Mr. Webster said. “How are you sure of her age?”

“One side of her bonnet has been torn. There is a patch of gray hair peeking through.”

“Good,” said Webster.

Before I could soak up Mr. Webster’s praise, someone was right next to me, seeming to materialize out of the air.

“She’s hardly fit, this girl. I could have harmed her and been gone in an instant,” the woman said, her face not visible under a large feathered hat. I stiffened at her rudeness. Something about her was familiar . . . “We don’t need her. He doesn’t need the likes of her,” she said.

Yes, I knew the voice. It was the woman Mr. Pinkerton called Mrs. Warn.

“I’m to tell you we make the Greenhow arrest the morning after next,” she told Webster, pushing in front of me. “Whether we have her courier or not.” With that, she was gone.

“Never let anyone get that close to you again,” Webster said. “Even in a crowd, keep one hand at your side, your revolver close, and learn to spot even a hazy shadow out of the corner of your eye.”

“Yes, sir.” I was flushed from the heat and humiliation. Had I failed already? Mr. Webster offered no comfort. He never did. That was part of his method. He was an amazing teacher without making the lessons obvious. Hard as it was, I learned to mask my feelings. I could not show fear or distress. That would make me vulnerable, and put me, put them all, at risk.

“Do you know who that was, Miss Bradford?” I knew he expected an immediate answer.

“That lady was Mrs. Warn. I recognized her from my meeting with Mr. Pinkerton.”

“Yes!” Mr. Webster said. “Good.” Oh, how I basked in that small praise from him. For just an instant, of course. “Mrs. Warn was the first woman Mr. Pinkerton ever hired on, a remarkable accomplishment in itself. Mr. Pinkerton tasked her over and over until he knew she was ready. It was she who accompanied Mr. Lincoln on the train from Baltimore. Mr. Pinkerton believed she helped to save the President’s life. She has prized that, and him,” Mr. Webster said. “Mrs. Warn is not easy with other women.” As he spoke, he never looked straight at me. He was always watching the street and passersby without seeming obvious.

I watched all about me, too, but I could not help thinking about Mrs. Warn. Was she married, or a widow? Or was she a single woman making her way in a difficult trade? I knew that women had no true rights and were considered their husband’s property. Mostly they roll bandages and pie dough, and bear children. I decided I’d rather be someone independent and forceful like Mrs. Warn, no matter how tough I had to learn to be.

“Are you managing to evade your aunt, Miss Bradford?” Mr. Webster asked.

“Do you suspect my Aunt Salome, Mr. Webster? Is that why you board with her?”

He chuckled. “Would that it could be that easy. Your aunt is a Rebel sympathizer, like over half the people in this city. That is distasteful but hardly dangerous. Her boarding house was convenient, as she is so close to the Greenhow place.”

I wondered if he knew what else went on in Aunt Salome’s house as I thought about brave, furious Isaac, the escaped slaves, and Isaac’s mother’s complicity. My dear Nellie. I’d grown to care for her so.

“You’ll not see me in the morning,” he said. “I cross the lines to Richmond tonight.”

“How will you do that, cross the lines? What route do you take?”

He didn’t answer that. It was impudent of me to ask. It was likely a secret route. Was I growing too brash? Should I tell Mr. Webster that he was important to me, and that I was blooming in his keep? I didn’t say anything. I must have been really red as a tomato, though.

He offered me his arm. “Drink cold tea, often. The air in the swamp that is this city sickens even the strong. And continue to justify your absences,” he said.

He was in silent rumination as we walked. As was I, remembering a song I’d heard once from my mother, and once only:

Silent as daybreakJust as brightShe will not perish this dark night.Light and ready, this bold maid, is dueling danger in the glade—

I stopped short. Betty, the Rebel courier, was stopped near an omnibus. She was smiling broadly, her gloved hands resting on the reins of a man on a huge, dappled stallion.

I decided to call her by name, and if she responded, Mr. Webster could make a positive identification. But I didn’t want her to see my face. I pulled my shawl nearly over my head. “Betty!” I cried, in a high-pitched child’s voice, rushing toward her. She stiffened and then quickly turned away, the smile leaving her face in a flash. The man on the horse was Colonel Jordan. He spurred the animal hard, gripping a sword at his side that was sheathed in an ornate leather covering.

“Best pray they did not see your face. They’ll be followed,” Webster said. “Now you have identified them. Good, very good.”

“What now, sir?” I asked, proud and worried all at once.

“Go back home right now. I don’t want you to be a familiar figure at this location.” In a rare gesture of affection, he patted my hand. “You’re a very special girl indeed.” Before I could answer or thank him, or turn absolutely scarlet, he was off.

That night things got really scary. It was no kid’s dream about monsters like the kind I used to have back in Portsmouth, when I thought witches with puckered faces and arms like tentacles were reaching for me. This one was real.

I stepped out to use the privy. Before I reached it, someone grabbed me from behind, ripped away my shawl and the gun with it. Before I could make a sound, a gag was in my mouth. I kicked and struggled against my captor, but was no match. Strong arms, like bands of metal, held me fast. I was dragged away, my feet flopping like a cloth doll. Sickly sweet scents of gardenias, violets and musky tuberose flooded my nostrils. My stomach heaved.

I was forced into the back of a carriage, blindfolded, and thrown face down on the seat. A gun barrel was pressed to my temple. I could hear the snorting of a horse, and smelled the sharp tang of linseed-oiled leather.

“Stay still, Yankee brat!” A rough, guttural voice was close to my ear. My hands were tied with a rope so they were nearly straight out in front of me. The carriage was moving. I could sense that there were two people in the cab of the conveyance, one on either side of me. There must have been a driver, too, because I heard the snap of reins as the horse went faster.

I forced my breathing to slow as the gag made me gasp for air. It was fear I felt, sure, but more than that. I felt anger, a hot, steady anger at the Rebels who’d captured me. I would not die like this!

I counted seconds, then minutes. Finally the carriage stopped. I was lifted into the strong captor’s arms and carried up some stairs. I kicked hard again. My boot slammed into someone’s leg.

“Damn you!” It was another voice, a female one. I heard a bell sound three times. There was a rush of air as a door opened.

I could hear low murmurings in a hallway that stopped as soon as I was carried past.