An Acquaintance with Darkness - Ann Rinaldi [86]
"Isn't there anything I can do to help, Uncle Valentine?"
"Yes. Come directly home after delivering the note, and stay in the house. From the meeting with the president, I'm going to see Dr. Mudd before they take him away. Washington is in an uproar over the prospect of hanging a woman. I don't want you out on the streets. Go along now."
I went, glad to be out of the house. I wouldn't be here when Annie arrived. It was cowardly, I knew, but she didn't want me. She wanted only Uncle Valentine. There was nothing I could do for her now, anyway.
I found Marietta in bed, upstairs in her small neat room. She was sick. And her landlady was concerned. "She's been coughing all week," she said.
She was not only coughing but feverish. "I'm all right," she told me. "I've got my cough syrup with Balm of Gilead."
"Why didn't you tell Uncle Valentine?" I asked innocently.
"He's got enough worries now. I read where Dr. Mudd and Mrs. Surratt were convicted. I know he's in a state."
I sat down on a chair. Maybe her "knowing" was a special power. But I'd found out something. Every time you knew something about another that they didn't know you knew, you had power. I gave her the note. She read it and had a spell of coughing, took a drink of water, and looked at me. "I don't think I can go. The medicine makes me sleepy. And nights, my head hurts. I must apply feverfew to my temples. You must tell him to make other arrangements."
"Is it a fresh body at the Almshouse?"
She looked at me in surprise.
"I know all about everything," I told her. "Uncle Valentine told me. And he trusts me."
"When?"
"He decided I can be trusted," I said simply. I must appear strong to her, like she did to me. "What do they want you to do?"
"The usual." She shrugged. "The Board of Guardians at the Almshouse has been charging too much for bodies. They're not supposed to sell them in the first place. But they do and they've been constantly raising their prices. Which is why Robert and your uncle started calling them the Board of Buzzards. Uncle Valentine has a man inside there. He is called the Ferryman and attends to the burials at Potter's Field behind the Almshouse. He informed your uncle of the death of a young man who lived there. I am supposed to claim him tonight, as a long-lost female relative."
"Like you did in Memphis," I said.
"Yes. When I appear for the burial, the Ferryman has to release the body to me. That way your uncle outwits the Board of Buzzards and the Ferryman is protected. No one can help it if a relative appears at the last moment."
"Don't they recognize you by now?"
"I have many different disguises. Sometimes I'm a sister, sometimes a wife. I can even look like an old lady."
"What would you be tonight if you could go?"
"Likely a sister," she said, "who just found out about the death of a long-lost wastrel brother."
I felt the blood pounding in my temples. "I could go in your place," I said.
"You?" She had an immediate fit of coughing. I poured her fresh water from the pitcher. "You?" she said again when she recovered herself.
"Yes. Uncle Valentine said I can do it if you're sick. He said I should let him know and he'll come around with some medicine." I looked at her innocently. "Of course, I don't have to tell him you're sick. I could just go in your place. What with all the worries he's got, going to see the president."
She met my eyes. I don't know if she believed me about Uncle Valentine saying I could go. But she saw me as someone strong, someone in charge. And someone who could tell Uncle Valentine she was sick. I was someone to be reckoned with. That was all I wanted from her. All I wanted from anybody, when it got right down to it.
"All right," she agreed. "Over there in that closet. I have several outfits. Let's see which one is best for you."
We went through the clothes. They were all black, of course, and smelled worse than Uncle Valentine's Purple Mass medicine. I tried on a few things and settled