The Velvet Shadow (18 page)

As July passed into August, Flanna continued to divide her time between work for the Sanitary Commission and the Boston Women’s Hospital, but she also visited the regimental camp every day to check on Henrietta Fraser. That courageous young woman had made a remarkable recovery from surgery and was scheduled to return to light duty at the end of August. A postoperative fever had been halted with generous doses of water and the regular application of clean bandages, and Flanna was confident that no doctor in Boston could have done better. Best of all, no one in the Twenty-fifth Massachusetts suspected that Private Fraser was anything other than the farm boy she claimed to be.

“How do you escape their notice?” Flanna asked one sweltering Saturday afternoon as she visited the recovering soldier in camp.

Fully dressed in a regulation blue uniform, Henrietta was sitting by the fire eating a mash of potatoes and stewed vegetables. The private hesitated until her last messmate finished and left the campfire, then she gave Flanna a shy smile. “Think about it, Doctor.” She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand, a decidedly unfeminine gesture she may have picked up either at home or in camp. “All the women ’round here are shaped like thimbles and decorated in bonnets and ribbons. These men ain’t never seen a woman in trousers, and most of’em can’t believe that a woman would ever want to stick her limbs in a pair of pants.” She looked down, long lashes hiding her eyes. “I reckon another woman would see me for what I am far quicker than most of the men.”

Flanna smiled, silently agreeing. Now that she knew Henrietta’s secret, it was difficult to see anything
but
a young woman with large eyes and a delicate frame.

“But don’t they—” Flanna hesitated, unsure how to ask about private matters. For all her coarseness, Henrietta Fraser was still a modest young woman. “How do you handle the times…when a woman needs to be alone?”

The tip of Henrietta’s nose went pink, and she smiled, looking somewhat abashed. “Oh, that.” She shrugged. “They just think I’m shy. There’s a couple of other shy boys who don’t like bathing in the open or relieving themselves in the company sinks.”

“But surely Dr. Gulick noticed something when he administered your physical. He can’t have been
that
drunk!”

Henrietta’s grin shone through her freckles. “Dr. O’Connor, don’t you know nothing? Those army doctors got orders not to be too picky. When I steps to the head of the line for my physical, the doctor asks me to hold up my arm, says my trigger finger looks like it works fine, then shakes my hand and tells me, congratulations, I’ll make a fine soldier no matter how skinny I am!”

Flanna frowned and laced her fingers together. “I have no trouble believing that few men think a woman capable of fighting a war. But you would think at least one or two of the brighter fellows here would open their eyes to the truth staring them in the face.”

Henrietta stood and raised her arms, looking for all the world like a scarecrow in a too-big jacket. “I don’t look like much, but I look like a soldier,” she said, her blue eyes dark and serious, “and I must thank you again, Dr. O’Connor. You not only saved my life, but you saved my family too. We needed that bounty money to make it through the winter ’cause my pa can’t farm much since he broke his leg last summer.”

Heat began to steal into Flanna’s face. “Never mind that. How’s your incision?”

“That scar’s just a little red and puffy now, nothing like it was. I promise to keep it clean, just like you said.”

“You’re doing very well.” Flanna gathered her skirts. “I’ll be back to check on you in two weeks.”

“No ma’am, you won’t find me in a couple weeks. The regiment is moving out. We’ll be on our way to Washington by next Saturday.
Major Haynes says we’ve got 930 men now, and as soon as the new ones have a bit of drill training, we’ll be heading south.”

Speechless with surprise, Flanna stared at the girl. Neither Roger nor Alden had said anything to her about leaving soon.

Next Saturday! The thought of the Haynes brothers’ departure made the skin on her arms prickle into gooseflesh. Soon her best friends would be gone, and she would be alone in a city of hostile foreigners. Though no one would be so crass as to openly say so, Flanna knew that only her friendship with the Haynes family had held the secessionist critics at bay. But when Roger and Alden were gone, Mrs. Haynes’s polite invitations to church and Sunday dinner would evaporate, and so would the restrained silence that greeted Flanna and Charity wherever they went. The hate and spite that filled the editorial pages would spill out on her, the secesh doctor from South Carolina, birthplace of traitors.

Flanna bade a thoughtful farewell to Private Fraser, then pulled Charity from a group of servants and began the long walk back to the boardinghouse. Apparently sensing her mistress’s mood, Charity walked beside Flanna with her head down and her dark eyes fixed on the stone walkway.

Thoughts Flanna had not dared formulate came welling up as they walked, an ugly swarm of doubts, suspicions, and fears. The newspapers overflowed with tales of Southern sympathizers arrested as suspected Confederate spies. Boston readers had been particularly enraged by the story of Mrs. Rose Greenhow, a forty-four-year-old Washington widow who had apparently sent information across the Virginia border and enabled the Confederates to smash the Union at Bull Run. In retaliation, Federal officials were holding Mrs. Greenhow under guard in her home. Forbidden to read newspapers or receive uncensored mail, the dignified widow could only visit with “approved” relatives. According to newspaper reports, Union officials forced Mrs. Greenhow to live in “the full sight” of Union soldiers, “with her rooms open as sleepless sentinels watched and looked at her by way of amusement, all the mysteries of her toilette laid bare to the public eye.”

Though Boston had not yet discovered a spy among its own ranks, Flanna feared that once the brothers Haynes left the city, she might be the first target of speculation. Why, she may have already committed worse sins than Mrs. Greenhow without knowing it! In the vain hope that a letter might reach her home, she had written her father about Private Fraser, innocently describing the condition and strength of the army regiment. What if that letter ended up in the wrong hands?

Even if she was not openly accused of a crime, the polite disdain she had thus far experienced would certainly turn to open distrust and suspicion once Alden and Roger moved south. It could take days or weeks, but Flanna knew she would eventually be discharged from her employment. What hospital would allow a potential spy to care for its patients?

And at the end of this month, her father’s prepayment of her room at the boardinghouse would run out. With no income, Flanna would have no means to pay her rent. Mrs. Davis would certainly evict her.

Those dire thoughts brought an indisputable realization in their wake, and a chill that struck Flanna deep in the pit of her stomach. She had no place in Boston, she would have to leave.

Before Boston cast her out.

“Miss Flanna?” Charity’s voice floated through the darkness like the whimper of a disembodied spirit. “Miss Flanna, what are you doing there?”

Flanna sat in the rectangle of moonlight that poured from the tall window in her room. The sultry nighttime breeze blew in across her face, lifting the lace curtains and ruffling her hair—what remained of it.

“Miss Flanna, you’d better answer me!”

“We’re leaving, Charity.” With mathematical precision, Flanna ran her fingernail over her scalp, sectioning off another hank of hair. The scissors bit through the locks with a clean snip, and Flanna let the hair fall to the floor.

“Leaving?” The bedclothes rustled as Charity’s voice drew nearer. “What do you mean, we’re leaving? The train won’t take us home, and the army said they didn’t want any lady doctors.”

“I’ve got it all planned.” Flanna snipped another lock. “And I’ll need your help, so now that you’re awake, you might as well come here. I’m having a little trouble with the back of my head. Could you cut it for me in a straight line?”

“You’re cutting all your hair off?” Charity stumbled into the moonlight and gazed at Flanna with wide, luminous eyes. “Miss Flanna, are you feeling all right? If you’re sick, I could go downstairs and fetch you some tea.”

“Charity.” Flanna lowered the scissors to the floor and looked up at her maid. “We have to leave Boston, and we’ll have to slip away so no one knows where we’re going.”

“Ain’t we going home?”

“Yes. We’re going home the hard way, but it’s the only way I know. Remember Private Fraser? We’re going to do what Henrietta did. We’re going to get ourselves some trousers and shirts and pretend to be soldiers.” She took a deep breath and smiled up at Charity. “The Twenty-fifth Massachusetts is moving out next week, and when they go south, you and I will be among them.”