Candle in the Darkness - Lynn N. Austin [140]
“Did you save all of my letters, too?”
I hated to hurt Robert, but he needed to face the truth. I shook my head. “I’m engaged to Charles. It didn’t seem right to keep letters from another man. . . . Here, I found the travel permit.”
Robert took it from me and paced across the room, studying it. “This would be much too hard to forge—unless you have talents I don’t know about. If we altered it, we would have to change the date and erase all the names . . . it’s made out for three people.”
“Three of us could use it.”
“Out of the question. I won’t involve you.”
“You keep saying that, Robert . . . and then you keep involving me. You asked me to help you deliver the Bible, to help you escape, to try to gather information from people in my social circles. You hid in my stable and in my bed. I’m already involved.” I yanked the travel permit away from him.
“I’m sorry—”
“Listen, I think I know a way we can use this with less risk. It’s written for two women and their slave. If you dressed as a woman, the only thing we’d have to change is the date.” I saw Robert recoil at the idea, and I lost my patience. “I suppose playing a woman is worse than wearing Rebel gray? You’re running out of options, Robert. If you go waltzing out of Richmond in civilian clothes they’ll assume you’re a Yankee or a deserter. Either way, they’ll shoot you dead. Make up your mind.”
I stalked out of the room, giving him time to consider his narrowing options. In the meantime, Tessie, Ruby and I hunted down every piece of black material we could find in the house and started sewing a mourning dress big enough to fit Robert. Ruby sewed a black veil to one of Mother’s old hats so his face and hair would be covered. I gave Gilbert the travel permit and he carefully sanded off the date without ripping the paper so I could write in a new one. The hardest part would be borrowing another horse to help the mare pull all three of us in the carriage. “You leave that to me,” Eli said. By the time we finished, Robert had little choice but to submit to our plan.
Winter had lasted a long time that year, leaving many of the roads muddy and impassable. “All we need now is for the roads to finish drying,” I told Robert on a sunny morning midway through March. “Everything else is in place.”
“A diversion would help, too,” Robert said. “Something to distract the Home Guards’ attention for a couple of days.”
A very unfortunate distraction was provided for us a day later. Robert and I were reading the morning newspaper in my room when a low, rumbling sound like a powerful explosion shook the house. It came from the direction of the river.
“What was that?” he asked, looking up in alarm. “Gun ships?”
“I don’t know . . . it didn’t sound like cannon. But it was very close. Too close.” I ran down the hallway to Daddy’s room and went out onto his balcony, which overlooked the river. A column of thick, dark smoke plumed into the sky to the west, near Shockoe Slip.
“Stay here,” I told Robert. “I’ll try to find out what’s going on.” I put on my coat and hat and headed out to the carriage house to find Eli. Gilbert stopped me along the way.
“Eli ain’t home, Missy. The fish is running in the James River and he go on down to catch us some perch for dinner.”
“Did you hear that explosion, Gilbert?”
“Sure did, Missy. Don’t know what it’s all about, though.”
“Get the buggy ready, please. I think we’d better find out what’s happening.”
But before Gilbert had time to get the mare harnessed and ready to go, Eli came running up the hill from the river, out of breath. “Don’t go down there, Missy Caroline. It’s a terrible, terrible sight. That factory on Brown’s Island where they make all them ammunitions just blowed up. I saw it from where I sitting along the river. The roof went straight up in the air with a boom, then all the walls fell in . . . smoke and flames . . . Oh, Lord, have mercy!”
Esther, who had hurried outside when she spotted her husband, wrapped her arms around his waist to console him as he struggled with his emotions. “They mostly