An Acquaintance with Darkness - Ann Rinaldi [6]
Half an hour later, when she left, she kissed me. "You will always have me for a friend," she said. I watched her get into the barouche and drive off. Another friend, I thought. Suddenly I have friends all over the place.
Standing on the front steps, I looked over at the Surratt house. Annie was just going up the walk. She'd been shopping. Her arms were full of bundles. She smiled and waved. I waved back. Serpents in the breast, I thought. And I laughed.
3. Uncle Valentine
TWO DAYS LATER Mama was having one of her rallying days, so she said it was all right if Uncle Valentine came to call. He'd sent a note around. There were matters he needed to discuss, he said.
I got her out of bed, dressed her in a good morning gown, fluffed up her hair, and gave her a goodly supply of clean handkerchiefs. She was spitting up blood. I knew she would want to conceal this from Uncle Valentine, what with him being a doctor.
"A noted surgeon," Mama called him. She said it with mockery. I did not understand why. Uncle Valentine had gone to school at the University of Edinburgh, in Scotland. For most of the war he worked long hours in Washington military hospitals. He now taught at the National Medical College. And did experiments in his laboratory there.
For as long as I could remember he had been looking for a cure for the Wasting Disease. I did not know what this disease was. But he was obsessed with finding a cure for it. Mama said he sometimes took in people off the street when he thought they had it.
"He studies them," she said. There was contempt in her voice. Mama also said there was no Wasting Disease. Even while she coughed up blood and wasted away in front of me.
"He claims his wife died from it," Mama said. "What she died from was drinking rum distilled through lead pipes."
The day Uncle Valentine came to call there was a parade outside our windows. Washington paraded if President Lincoln got over a cold. Still, I couldn't very well keep the fall of Richmond from Mama. The day was clear and bright for the first time in weeks. From outside came the sounds of cannon firing, people celebrating, bells ringing, soldiers marching.
When I told Mama about Richmond, she sighed. "So the war will soon be over, then. I am glad I lived long enough to see it. Have there been any letters from my sister?"
"No. But I'm sure it's just that she's too busy, Mama," I said.
"You can't go to Richmond to live now. She'll have all she can do keeping her own body and soul together." She seemed resigned. "Where will you go?"
"Mrs. Keckley has offered to find me a place." I didn't tell her the Surratts had offered, too.
She nodded. "Elizabeth is a good woman. I'm lucky to have her as a friend ... Emily, you must promise me something. When I die, don't let my brother have anything to do with my body or the funeral."
I almost dropped the fresh daffodils I was arranging in a vase. "Mama, please don't speak of dying."
"I am dying, Emily. We all know it. So you must promise me."
"I promise, Mama."
"He'll want to arrange things. Run things. And do things. He has no rights. I want that understood. When I die, send for the reverend. He is to see to it that I am buried in a lead coffin."
"Yes, Mama." I did not like this talk about lead coffins and dying. But she was set on being morbid this first sunny morning in weeks.
"Now take me downstairs. I will receive Valentine in my parlor. Not in my bedroom, like an invalid."
Somehow I managed to get her downstairs without letting her fall and kill herself. I had just about propped her in a chair in the parlor and lit a fire in the grate, to ward off the chilliness of the room from so many days of rain, when Uncle Valentine arrived.
He was a half hour late. And agitated. In the hall I took his stovepipe hat. It