The Spy on the Tennessee Walker (13 page)
Read The Spy on the Tennessee Walker Online
Authors: Linda Lee Peterson
VICTORIA'S JOURNAL, 1863
VICTORIA'S JOURNAL, 1863
“I will,” I lied. The justice of the peace at the Oxford courthouse asked me if I would love, honor, and obey Mr. Eli Mays. I stood facing Eli, and I know he saw a telltale will o' the wisp look of confusion and pain cross my face.
“Courage,” he had whispered to me as we had walked up the stairs to the courthouse. “This is the only way you, and he, can be protected.” He offered his arm, and I gratefully slipped mine through his. Courage, indeed! To me, it felt as if I were behaving in cowardly ways, taking advantage of Eli to cover my tracks. His argument was that a married woman would not excite the same interest or curiosity as a single woman.
I knew he was right. Eli had offered to make me his wife, many times. I had always refused. But a week ago, I had awakened in the middle of the night, sick with dread. It was a cool night, but head to toe I was clammy with sweat. I tore off my wet nightgown and threw it across the room. I plucked a clean shift out of the bureau drawer and with trembling fingers, buttoned up and climbed back into bed. I wrapped a shawl around my shoulders and rolled my
saggy childhood pillow into a kind of bolster.
“Enough of this paralysis!” I exclaimed to the empty room.
“Worry is useless. It is for cowards and dullards. You need a plan.” There was no answer, of course, but I willed myself to simply be silent and listen. What did I want to happen? At first, there was nothing to hear. No voice, no counsel, no warning, not one word, fair or foul. I closed my eyes, I let go my fierce grasp on the shawl, and oddly, I felt the room grow warmer. It was still too far from daybreak to expect the sun to take away the chill. Instead, it felt as if some comforting hand was on my head. My mother's? Gabriel's? My brother's? In the silence, I knew exactly what I wanted, and no matter how impossible it might be, it was warming simply to know with clarity what should happen. I felt the knots in my neck and shoulders soften. I sat up straighter and opened my eyes. Still just me, alone in the bed, alone in the bedroom, with only a waning moon to send light through the window. “But I am not alone,” I said, out loud. “I have books, I have friends, I have a sweetheart, I haveâ¦love.” I reached over to the little two-drawer table my father had made for me, and plucked my writing board, my blue-ink pen, and a few sheets of clean foolscap from the drawer. I drew up my legs, bent at the knees, and settled the writing board and paper on my impromptu desk. I thought for a moment, and entitled the paper “The Declaration of Independence of Victoria Alma Cardworthy.”
Half an hour went by in an instant as I dashed off my four points of independence. It was as if I was “spirit writing,” as the crazy fortune-teller in Eli's favorite tavern does. No disconnect between thought and pen, all flowed together as if some stagnant fountain had come back to life and in its rejuvenation was bubbling only the freshest, the sweetest of water.
“Gabriel,” I whispered. “Shall I read you what I've written?” I took the silence for yes, because I knew he was there with me, in that room, leaning on the window sill and looking out as the clouds drifted by the fading moon.
Declaration 1. I, Victoria Alma Cardworthy, am entitled to all that the masculine sex takes for granted: the right to travel, the right to earn and keep my own money, the right to vote, the right to have opinions and say them out loud.
Declaration 2. I am entitled to love whomever I choose. And if that gentleman loves me back, we are entitled to marry and live together as husband and wife.
Declaration 3. Although I am generally a law-abiding citizen, because the law does not treat me equally in any way (I nearly blotted the paper midnight blue in its entirety when I tried to emphasize “in any way”), I am entitled to circumvent certain restrictions and constrictions if I judge them foolish, cruel, or unreasonable.
Declaration 4. Because as a woman it is so difficult to lead the life I crave, I am entitled to.â¦
I paused for a moment. What was it I was actually
entitled and able to do? I shook my head. The answer to that was “precious little.” Undeterred, I finished the fourth declaration: I am entitled to make such adjustments, in behavior, in clothing, in disguising face and form, and in mission, to lead a life of meaning and consequence.
I folded my declarations carefully, tucked them under the pillow, and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep, the kind reserved for the innocent and the just. It is unlikely many would consider that sleep deserved, but when I awakened, I could see a path ahead through Dante's dark wood.
VICTORIA'S JOURNAL, 1864
VICTORIA'S JOURNAL, 1864
When I was five years old, the mayor's wife had twins, a boy and a girl. It's not that there weren't other twins, even in our small town. It's just that I had never met any before. Everything about twins was mystifying and exciting to me. It seemed like a miracle: two babies, born at the same time. And even though they looked alike when my mother and I went to pay a call, very red in the face, wiggly, and wrinkled like crumpled-up paper, I could see differences right away. The little girl kept moving her head all around as if she were looking for something she'd lost. The little boy threw his hands over his head as if he were waving, two-handed, at friends out in the world.
Because they didn't have room in the crib for two babies, I remember that a hired man who helped out around the mayor's place hammered together a big, square wooden box, like a dresser drawer. It was dark, beautiful wood. Mahogany, my mama told me. Jeb, the man who made the box, then sanded gently curved rocker boards so they were smooth as the silk on my church dress. Jeb trimmed the outside of the box with long, thin boards with fancy
loop-de-loop carving. Funny, how names stick with you. I'll never forget Jeb's name, because when you would ask how he was, he would always say, “I'm Jeb with a job so every day is a good one.”
When the improvised double cradle was ready, Mama and I brought over lots of soft quilts. Mama was Oxford's reigning queen of the jelly-roll quilt, so that was the baby present we brought when that big rocker box was ready.
The babies, named Cara and Giovanni, because their mama had come to Oxford, Mississippi, all the way from Genoa, Italy, looked a little prettier than the first day I'd seen them. They weren't as red as a watermelon anymore, and their skin wasn't wrinkly at all.
I got to hold Giovanni on my lap for a few minutes. I still remember how important I felt, and how Giovanni tried to wiggle even closer to me. I said, “Mama, I think he likes me!”
My mama bent over the two of us and said, “You're doing a fine job, Victoria. And he already knows you're a girl child. He's nestling in just in case you're old enough to feed him.” The ladies in the room all chuckled, but the twins' daddy blushed, and said, “I'll leave you ladies to your work.”
Cara's mother, Mrs. Mayor (for that is how I thought of her), put her in the box. And then my mama lifted Giovanni and tucked him in right beside his twin. And I watched as the tiny hand she was waving around somehow found its way to Giovanni's arm. And although now I know she was much too young to have control of her movements, something
amazing happened. She turned her face toward her brother, and her wandering little hand simply rested on his arm. Almost in an instant, both babies fell asleep, linked by touch, already deeply connected outside the womb, as they had been within.
Sometimes I dream about those twins, so connected that, as they grew, they would finish each other's sentences. And I think about my virtual twin, Virgil Alexander Cranston, and wonder if I could conjure him up again if I wanted. If I had to.
Virgil Alexander Cranston was my made-up Giovanni, a lookalike version of myself: a man, not a woman, imbued with freedoms no contemporary of my sex could enjoy.
Becoming Virgil was how I could pursue my goals: to melt into the Confederate ranks, to gather information and plans, and then to pass intelligence along to Gabriel, who could telegraph what I uncovered to officers in the Union army. Was I betraying my family? My brother, Jeremiah, was safely out of uniform, no longer useful as a soldier, thank God! I was tired of this war; every day it seemed to grind even those who survived into smaller, weaker versions of themselves.
Eli was right. Spies may be despised, may be considered treasonous and betrayers, but while those lofty principles of patriotism and commitment to the cause are invoked, people are still dying. If knowledge, because that is what spies gather, will help, then it is worth the moral compromise.
Loving Gabriel had changed me. I have no idea how I managed to hear his voice and know, immediately, that this man was for me, and I was for him. How foolish, how impetuous that sounds! I have confided in only two people, my brother, Jeremiah, and my friend Mr. Whitman. Jeremiah was more distressed than I had anticipated. “He will be murdered, Victoria, if people find out. And you may be in great danger as well. Mother and Father could not bear that sorrow. You must end thisâ¦friendship, for their sake, if not for yours.”
“I had hoped you would understand, Jeremiah,” I said. “You know what it is to love so wildly that you cannot imagine a life apart. I have seen you and Elizabeth. You are each individuals, but you are joined in every cause and every challenge.” I paused for a moment. “Except, perhaps, when the Queen of Nosiness, Elizabeth's mother, comes to visit.”
Jeremiah shook his head. “These are not joking matters, Vic. Elizabeth and I have known each other since we were children. Ours is an entirely different situation.” Jeremiah reached for his crutch and pulled himself to a standing position.
“Mother and Father knew each other for seven months when they got married,” I said tartly. “Time is not the arbiter of all successes.”
Jeremiah reached out his arm, beckoning me to come embrace him. I came quickly to his side, and as he held me, it felt as if we were holding each other up.
“I think I understand, Vic. I know what it is to be crazy in love. When I almost died, you badgered me to stay alive for Elizabeth, and my dog, and so I did. I am just frightened for you, and for this man you love. I think you are so impatient to see a different world that you forget what it is to live every day in this one.”
“That,” I said, “is exactly why Victoria Alma Cardworthy is going to disappear for a while.”
VICTORIA'S JOURNAL, 1863
VICTORIA'S JOURNAL, 1863
Turning from Victoria to Virgil was surprisingly easy. The curse of being the tallest girl in school instantly turned into a blessing. My broader-than-most-female's shoulders had gobbled up extra fabric when my mother made me dresses from the time I was a child, but now, it was easy for Eli to divert a Confederate soldier's garb my way. As a young man, I lookedâ¦mercifully unworthy of notice.
Cropping my hair, of course, gave me pause. I had always been vain about the abundance of red curls that defied taming or braiding, but there was something wonderfully light and free about not having to untangle at the end of each day, or to wear out my arms and my patience skewering all those heavy curls into a knot on the top of my head, or using hairpins to shape a more elegant bun at the nape of my neck. I realized the drastic haircut put paid to all Mrs. Greenhow's training on curls as hiding places for vital information, but the opportunities accorded me as Virgil rather than Victoria outweighed all other considerations.
How ironic it was that I never felt more womanly than when I was disguising myself as a man! With each step of
my transformation, somehow I became more and more aware of how loving Gabriel, and being loved by him, made me acutely conscious of my spirit, and my body. I remembered our every encounter, and how both deliberate and wild I felt as we touched each other. Deliberate, because I knew love for the first time, and nothing felt wrong or out of bounds. Wild, because even the smallest touch, from the first moment we shook hands, made my knees nearly buckle. We wereâ¦together for the first time before we were married. I confessed to Gabriel that I was not a virgin; Eli had teased and tempted me into sexual congress when we were both fifteen. I was curious, of course, and Eli knew how to enchant and wear down an independent young woman. In addition, Mother and Father were so accustomed to me disappearing into the woods that although they lectured me, they had grown weary of trying to keep track of where I went and who I saw. And, they were grateful to Eli for escorting me home from school, offering what they saw as protection.
But my dalliance with Eli was simply that, nothing more. Although, of course, as we grew older, I knew that he had feelings for me. And while our experimentation was enjoyable, and while Eli knew a great deal for a very young man, that experience paled next to my feelings for Gabriel.
Oh, feelings! They were everything to me. I was drunk with love, craving Gabriel's hands and lips and those arms that could sweep me off Courage and into a lover's embrace. I began to understand the irresistible draw of a drug. As my
patients grew dependent and frantic about morphia, so I found myself craving Gabriel. In the woods, in his sister's house when she was away, in a hidden bend in the riverâ¦I grew to understand how desperation leads to foolish risks.
One summer day we had gone to our favorite secret swimming hole. We were floating in the river, Gabriel on his back, enfolding me, as we both looked up into the cloudless sky, when we heard the snap of a branch breaking. In an instant, we were out of the water. Gabriel stood in front of me. A man emerged from the thicket, his rifle cradled in his arms.
“Let me see who you're hiding, boy,” he said.
Gabriel stepped forward, “I was taking advantage of this woman. And I am heartily ashamed.”
“She does not look as if she is trying to get away from you.” He gestured to me. “Come here.”
“No,” said Gabriel, detaining me. “This is between you and me, sir. This woman is blameless.”
“Let me go,” I said to Gabriel, as coldly as I could.
I walked directly to the man. “How can I thank you, sir?”
He looked me over, puzzled but intrigued. My undergarments were completely soaked and pasted like sheer wallpaper to my body. I tentatively reached out a hand to him. Behind me I heard Gabriel's breath, quickening.
He took my hand. “I am sorry to be soâ¦in disarray and so wet,” I said. “But I would count it a favor if I could offer a chaste kiss in gratitude for your kindness.”
“Right after I tie up this nigger.”
“Oh,” I protested, as I slipped my arms around his waist. “I am so cold, right to the bone. Will you warm me for a moment first? Then I will help you with the tying up.” I looked over my shoulder. “He's not going anywhere,” I said, with contempt.
His free arm encircled me, my mouth found his, as un-chastely as possible. I could feel his body stirring. And then, in an instant, I snatched the rifle from his loosening grasp. His face flushed red with rage.
“Stand down, sir,” I said. “I will shoot you.”
He looked at me, he looked at Gabriel, and he started toward me. I kept my word.
In a matter of moments, we had dressed and I was astride Courage. We were both weeping; we were both trembling; but we did what we had to do. And we never returned to the swimming hole again.
I am a murderer. But when Gabriel was in danger, I fought with what I had. I do not expect to be forgiven for what I did in this life or the next one. But I am at peace.