25

STITCHED IN SECRETS

October 23, 1862

Richmond, Virginia

Turns out the Confederate White House was fairly easy to get into. All Adelaide had to do was walk through the back door. She carried a fresh bouquet of hydrangeas and a secret, stitched into the waistband of her dress. The garment was not her own, but the pale grey-blue of the one Elizabeth had been darning when Adelaide and Teo walked into the drawing room.

At this point in the war, Elizabeth’s ring had gotten into a rhythm. Each member knew their part and played it to perfection, but even so, things didn’t always go according to plan. Instead of words, Elizabeth’s ring spoke in symbols stitched in quilts, ciphers scrawled on paper and pinpricks struck through book pages, so when she saw a red shirt hanging from the clothesline outside the White House on her walk that morning, she knew a covert message was waiting for her at the seamstress.

One of Elizabeth’s former slaves, Mary Jane Bowser, was stationed right in the heart of the Confederate White House. When Elizabeth freed her, the bond they shared as girls became a partnership in espionage as women. Now, Mary Jane was on the inside as the personal slave to the Southern states’ First Lady. Mary Jane was perhaps one of the Union’s greatest assets. Not only did she have access to the man who ran the war against them, she had access to his study and the correspondence that passed through his fingertips, along with an eidetic memory to recall exactly what they said from only a glance.

According to Elizabeth, all Adelaide had to do was bring the flowers to Mary Jane and retrieve the message she had for Elizabeth. She was already expecting the flowers as Jefferson Davis had placed an order for his wife. The brooch at her neck with a clover attached to it would tell Mary Jane she could pass along the message. Adelaide should be in and out in no time. Or so she hoped.

She thrust her shoulders back and held her head high, trying to convince herself and those she passed that she belonged there. At the end of the main corridor, the hall split off in three directions. Adelaide hesitated, trying to remember what Elizabeth had said about navigating the interior of the White House, but she couldn’t recall anything about the three offshoots. Had she missed a turn? She doubled back and found the right path, marked as Elizabeth said it would be by a grand piano in the center hall. Passing the piano, she took the corridor behind it.

As she followed the path, Adelaide could hear the strong baritone of a man’s voice in the hall she had just come from. It edged closer, working its way toward her. Her heart raced as she slipped into a room. She eased the door slowly shut behind her and rested her back against the cool wood. The room was empty and recently polished with a light hint of fresh lemon perfuming the air. Dark wood glistened in the afternoon light, falling on the large desk in front of the window—a desk that could only belong to Jefferson Davis. She’d found his office.

Adelaide only intended to wait for the footsteps to pass, but as she took in the room a new idea began to form. When Elizabeth stopped her at the door, she’d told Adelaide this was a onetime thing, but the fact that she’d even asked for Adelaide’s help had to mean something. If she provided some information of her own, maybe it would be enough to get her into Elizabeth’s good graces.

As she approached the desk, a pain sparked at her brow. Wincing, she came to stand behind it. As tidy as the room was, so was Jefferson Davis’ desk. Books were stacked in neat piles, a series of pens aligned just so and a carving of a bird sat atop a bundle of opened letters like a paperweight. She flipped through them, the flicker of images passing through her mind as the paper grazed her skin, but Adelaide knew she didn’t have time to sift through them and discern their meaning.

She had to act fast. Teo had been less than thrilled about the idea of her walking into the Confederate White House alone, but Elizabeth had convinced him it was safer that way. Still, she figured she had about twenty more minutes before Teo came looking for her. The last thing she needed was for him to barge into the White House and get them arrested for espionage.

Most of the letters were in code—from the interior message down to who had sent them. Adelaide wished she could bring them with her, but she had no place to hide them, and besides, if she took them, Jefferson Davis would know he had a mole. Finally, she found a message that was partially decoded. Someone, probably Jefferson, had underlined every fifth word and transcribed the letters beneath so that the message read: The target is a nurse. The message in and of itself was alarming, not in the least because Adelaide had come back to Richmond this time as a Civil War nurse, but the name decoded beneath it shocked her even more: Rathbone. Adelaide slipped the letter out, trying to read more of the message that had yet to be decoded, but as her eyes set on the paper, the door to the office opened.

A woman walked in, her dark skin gleaming like the polished desktop. She froze when she spotted Adelaide. Her eyes shifted from the letters to the flowers and back to Adelaide’s face. “Who are you? What are you doing in here?”

“I’m Lucy,” Adelaide said, placing the letters back and picking up the hydrangeas. “I have a flower delivery for Mrs. Davis. I, ah, got a little turned around. I’m supposed to give them to Mary Jane.” Adelaide knew she was rambling, but the letter had sparked something in her mind—a memory of the day her Red Rose Society letter arrived and the book on the Civil War she had been reading before it came. She could have sworn the words changed on the page, revealing a foreign history in which Rathbone had been a Confederate spy and not just a Union officer.

“Let’s go,” the woman said, coming up beside Adelaide. “You shouldn’t be in here—” Her eyes found the clover, carved in the soft white flesh of a peach pit and understanding lit on her features as her voice dropped to a whisper. “I’m Mary Jane. Why did Elizabeth send you?”

Footsteps echoed in the hall, their quickened pace bringing with them the voices of two men arguing. Adelaide’s pulse raced as they stopped outside the office.

“Grab the flowers,” Mary Jane said, straightening the bird carving. “Quick.”

Adelaide didn’t need to be told twice. She swiped the bouquet from the desk and followed Mary Jane, who tapped a panel on the wall and pushed Adelaide inside. She followed behind her and shut the passage just as the main door opened with a bang on the other side. Darkness swallowed them whole, but Adelaide could just make out Mary Jane, a finger to her lips as she pressed her ear against the wall. Adelaide did the same.

“I need more men, Jefferson. It’s as simple as that. You know as well as I do that war is a numbers game and right now, we’re at least sixty-thousand short. We’ve got more men deserting every day than we do taking on the fight. If things keep up at the rate they’re going, our army will completely melt away by Christmas and we’ll be ringing in the New Year under Lincoln again.”

“What do you want me to do, Robert? I can’t summon men from thin air. Maybe if you started winning more battles it would be Yankee blood soaking the ground and their men losing morale.”

“I want you to do whatever it takes to convince those deserting to stay and those not fighting to join. My men and I are fighting the war from out there. We need you to do your part in here.”

The conversation went on like that for several more minutes before Mary Jane stopped listening and motioned for Adelaide to follow her. When they were a ways from the office, Mary Jane stopped and turned to her. “Why did Elizabeth send you?”

“The seamstress, she had to meet the train to receive her brother’s remains.”

Mary Jane shook her head. “This war has robbed far too many men of a life they have barely even begun to live. I knew Peter. He was just a boy. I suppose Louisa will be the one making the arrangements. They were all each other had left.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’ll have to find a way to get that dress with the message back so I can burn it before Louisa’s replacement finds it. I already dropped it off for her to give to Elizabeth.” She continued down the passage. “Come on, I’ll code a new letter for you and swap it out with the one you’re carrying. Elizabeth needs this information. Now.”