two weeks to decipher the message about corn, cotton, blockades, and her own surname, Logan. She worked on it in secret, not wanting even Anne to know.
Fortunately, Anne was often at the hospital with Henry. Occasionally, so as to not arouse suspicions, Hattie went with her, though she still worried over how Henry brightened whenever she came in the room. Naturally, Julia Trent took a keen interest in his progress as well, and Hattie kept hoping he’d pivot his attentions toward her.
Julia had become a regular volunteer with the Sanitary Commission, requesting placement at the Patent Office hospital, where the harried doctors and nurses were happy for the help. Julia had wanted to be taken on as a nurse, but the woman in charge of the Sanitary Commission, Miss Dorothea Dix, wanted no nurses under thirty years of age. Of those, Miss Dix preferred plain-looking women who wouldn’t distract the soldiers as they healed. Julia’s brother, Charles, was of a similar mind, so Julia had to content herself with lesser tasks like reading to the patients, writing letters for them, and—for those whose religion allowed it—playing cards to pass the time. She visited Henry every day, lessening Hattie’s guilt over her own short, infrequent visits.
While Anne was at the hospital, Hattie had filled page after page in her notebook with attempts to decode the route-ciphered message. She reasoned that the first word, DAISY, was significant only because it had five letters, a clue that the remaining words should be arranged in five columns, with five words per column.
Next, she had to determine how the words in the rectangle were meant to be read. Clockwise going inward yielded only nonsense, as did counterclockwise. She tried reading up each column, then down each, then alternating up and down. Again, she got only nonsense. Finally, by trial and error, she landed on a reading that made some sense. The first and fourth columns she read from top to bottom, and the others she read from bottom to top.
She sifted out the nulls—words like kissing and hairbrush—and arrived at something that approximated sense:
BARNES MISSOURI HAS MEAT LOGAN INDIANA HAS CORN WATSON WILL BROKER FOR COTTON ADVISE DELIVERY LOCATIONS AND RUNNERS
RUNNERS were most likely blockade runners, she thought. Who Barnes and Watson were, she had no idea. But LOGAN INDIANA HAS CORN—that had to be her father, involved in some sort of illegal arrangement to line his pockets while prolonging the war. There would not be another New Orleans, where a Rebel city fell for lack of food and supplies, as long as men like him were aiding the Rebels.
Next, she’d had to decide what to do with the message. She assumed the deals it mentioned, involving meat, corn, and cotton, had already been made. Her father was generally smart enough to cover his tracks, and she suspected his associates were too. Still, they should be watched going forward, so future deals could be stopped.
But if anyone at Pinkerton’s learned of her father’s traitorous activities, Miss Warne wouldn’t trust Hattie with so much as cleaning the teapot, much less opening and reading Secesh mail. She surely wouldn’t consider Hattie for any future assignments, a prospect that seemed even more appealing since her dinner with Thom.
Following their dinner at Willard’s, Hattie had found she trusted Thom. If he felt the same about her, he wouldn’t hold her father’s actions against her, especially since he’d hinted that his own family circumstances had spurred his leaving England.
With this in mind, she’d devised a plan. At the first opportunity, she’d hand the message over to Thom. She’d explain her decoding and ask him to deliver it to the right people without compromising her position with Pinkerton’s. In the meantime, she’d borrowed a needle and thread from Mrs. Sullivan, then folded the deciphered message and stitched it into the hem of her petticoat. This was how Thom carried his most important messages, she’d been told—not stitched into a petticoat, of course, but into the lining of his jacket.
Then she’d waited for an opportunity to pass the message to Thom. Frosts came at night, and chill winds blew from the north, signaling winter’s approach. The mailroom girls now coveted their turns at the stove and iron, for their closet-like room, with an exterior wall to the north, was cold, especially when the wind blew.
But Thom didn’t come. Instead, other couriers brought the mail. Constance said she’d heard he’d gotten stuck in Virginia. Then one cold November morning, with breathless excitement that would have made Lucy proud, Constance updated her report, saying she had it on good authority that Mr. Welton had been arrested.
Hattie’s heart sank. “In Virginia?” she asked.
“In Baltimore,” Constance said.
“That can’t be right,” Hattie said. “The Rebels aren’t in charge there.”
“I’m simply passing along what I’ve been told,” Constance snapped. The wind and cold seemed to be making all the women testy.
“Who arrested him?” Hattie asked. “For what?”
Constance threw up her hands. “How should I know?”
“Maybe some Rebs sneaked in during the night and carried him off,” Agatha said.
“Maybe he’s in jail,” Charlotte said. “That would be simply horrid.”
Hattie refused to speculate. But that night, she’d lain awake for hours, wondering and worrying and praying no harm came to him.
The next morning, Constance had come to the mailroom with the cat-and-canary look that meant she had information. “It was a Federal provost marshal,” she said, looking pointedly at Hattie.
Hattie kept her focus on the envelope she was opening, not wanting to seem overly interested. “You mean that’s who arrested Mr. Welton?”
“Who else?” In Lucy’s absence, Constance had gotten cheekier.
Hattie had relaxed in places she hadn’t realized she’d been holding tight. “So he’s been released,” she said as the envelope’s flap gave way.
“Of course not,” Constance had said with an air of superiority that made Hattie think she’d made the same assumption and been corrected. “If the Federals let him go, it would raise suspicions among his Secesh friends.”
Hattie was embarrassed not to have realized this on her own. “But Mr. Pinkerton can’t just let him rot in prison.”
“Oh, he won’t.” As far as Constance was concerned, Mr. Pinkerton could do no wrong. “I’m sure he has a plan for securing his release.”
Hattie didn’t share her confidence in their employer. Why hadn’t he alerted Baltimore’s provost marshal that Thom was only pretending to aid the Rebel cause?
Finally, Constance had brought news of Mr. Welton’s escape. To hear her tell it, the plan and its execution had all been Mr. Pinkerton’s doing, his men intercepting a carriage that was transporting Mr. Welton from the local jail to Baltimore’s Fort McHenry.
Anne found an item from a Baltimore paper confirming that Secesh sympathizer Thomas Welton had indeed escaped Federal custody. Hattie smiled to read it. Not only had Thom escaped, he’d also managed to cement his reputation as a valued and daring Rebel ally, breaking free of Federal clutches.
Day after day Hattie waited for Thom to saunter through the mailroom door. Flashing his charming smile and carrying a satchel bulging with letters, she imagined him regaling the mailroom girls with tales of his adventures. Still he didn’t come.
The next report from Constance was that he was back in the South, gathering up information on artillery batteries in Norfolk, defenses at Roanoke Island, and the Rebels’ ironclad, the CSS Virginia.
“The naval war is heating up,” Anne remarked
Constance eyed Anne sharply, as if they were dueling to see who was the more knowledgeable. “Along with the submersibles.”
“That’s right,” Anne said. “The Rebs are testing them.”
“Which we know because of Miss Baker,” Constance said smugly. Elizabeth Baker was a Pinkerton operative who, like Miss Warne, had been entrusted with fieldwork. “She worked her Richmond connections and got into the ironworks there. She observed a big ship under construction, and officials told her it and another vessel would be in the water within months, defending Richmond.”
Hattie shook her head, smiling. Some men could be so gullible, never suspecting women of having minds of their own, much less of spying on the construction of warships.
“And that was the submersible?” Anne asked.
“Yes. One of Miss Baker’s Richmond acquaintances told her he was going to witness a test of a submarine battery. She feigned ignorance of the project, and he invited her along to see it with her own eyes. After the demonstration, Miss Baker returned to her room and made a sketch showing all the details. Then tucked the sketch in her bonnet and went north to deliver it to Mr. Pinkerton.”
For the rest of that day, Hattie thought of all that Elizabeth Baker had accomplished, charming men into giving away their secrets. If she could do it, why not Hattie? Richmond would be a more exciting assignment—and a more meaningful one, she suspected—than Lucy’s was, keeping house in Baltimore. And in Richmond, Hattie could see Thom now and then. Perhaps they’d even share an assignment.
Lucy was a well-dressed conversationalist who could insert herself into the right Baltimore circles, and she had a British accent to match Thom’s. But Hattie had learned Southern graces, like it or not, and while she’d suppressed the accent she’d picked up from her mother when she was young, she could easily dredge it up again. Thankfully, she’d had the good sense to make her Quaker parents’ origins in North Carolina, giving her a ready explanation for these aptitudes. And she knew she had the pluck to gain access to Rebel secrets as Miss Baker had.
She wanted the challenge of real spy work, and there was no better place to do it than Richmond. Thom would recommend her, she was sure, and with Henry here, she wouldn’t feel so guilty about leaving Anne. She resolved to broach the idea with Miss Warne at the first opportunity.
But for now, Hattie’s idea would have to wait. Miss Warne was in Chicago, not due to return until after the holidays. An upheaval was underway within the Pinkerton operation. Earlier in the month, President Lincoln had relieved General McClellan of his command, hoping that his replacement, General Burnside, would act more decisively than McClellan had. Mr. Pinkerton had reported directly to McClellan, and if the rumors were true, he had no intention of shifting his allegiance to a new general.
Before departing for Chicago, Miss Warne had alerted her ladies that the Pinkerton Agency would continue contract spy work for the federal government, but whether that would include the mail operations remained to be seen. Their work would continue through the end of the year, she said, but beyond that, she could make no guarantees. The uncertainty had only made Hattie more eager to do actual spy work.
~ ~ ~
As Hattie waited for Miss Warne’s return—and, less patiently, for Thom Welton’s—Julia provided a distraction. Having procured five tickets to Ford’s Theatre from family friends who rarely used their seats, she’d invited Anne and Hattie to attend a theatrical.
“It’s the last night of The Marble Heart,” Julia told them. “A tragedy, but I hear the actors are dreamy.”
To Julia’s delight, Henry planned to go with them too. It would be his first real outing since his injuries. Last week, he’d been discharged from the hospital, and he was now recuperating with the Trents. He walked with a limp, relying on a crutch or a cane, and he had only partial use of his mangled arm, but he was otherwise whole and reasonably well. All he could talk about was getting home to Indiana.
If the outing had been elsewhere, Hattie would have begged off, preferring—in part, for selfish reasons—that Julia and Henry spend time together without her in the mix. But she loved the theatre. When she and George were young, they’d loved staging performances, borrowing sheets from the linen closet for curtains and setting up chairs for an imaginary audience. Then her mother had caught wind of their antics and shut down the shows.
When Hattie had told Miss Warne about her imagined Quaker parents, the part about her having read every one of Shakespeare’s plays had been true. The highlight of her stint at Ladygrace had been acting the part of Hamlet—only girls attended finishing school, and so all the male roles were played by girls. But since coming to Washington, Hattie hadn’t been to the theatre, mostly because she couldn’t afford it.
The night of the show, Hattie and Anne dressed in their best clothes. They’d be no match for Washington society girls, Hattie knew. But as she studied herself in the mirror, she noted how her gown’s emerald hue drew the green from her eyes, and she saw how Anne’s dark hair, offset by her white satin frock, gleamed in the lamplight. They took turns fixing each other’s hair, Hattie pulling Anne’s into a French twist, leaving wisps in the front that she curled into ringlets, and Anne gathering Hattie’s curls up and away from her face.
“You’re beautiful, you know,” Anne said. “When you put your mind to it.”
Hattie laughed, dismissing the compliment. “So that’s the secret to looking pretty? Applying one’s mental capacities?”
Anne playfully swatted her shoulder with the hairbrush. “I only mean that you never bother with your looks, and sometimes you should.”
“It would be easier if you’d agree to be my maidservant. I can’t pay much, but you’d have my neverending gratitude.”
Anne paused in her brushing, catching Hattie’s eye in the mirror. “I’ve been meaning to tell you—I’ve decided to go back with Henry, right after Christmas. To Indiana”
A knot formed in Hattie’s stomach. “But you can’t…I mean, how will I get on without you here?”
Anne resumed her work, causing Hattie to wince as she tugged the brush through a tangle of curls. “The same as you always do, with your quick wits and charm.” The larger question, they both knew, was whether either of them could remain in Washington if Mr. Pinkerton’s mailroom operations ceased.
“I intend to return,” Anne continued. “But I don’t want Henry to travel home alone, and I feel as if I should be there to help ease him back into things. I’ve gotten used to seeing him as he is now, but it will be a shock to Mother and Father.”
Hattie’s knotted stomach relaxed a bit, hearing Anne say she planned to return. But she also knew that if Mr. Pinkerton closed the mailroom, Anne would likely never come back.
“You must promise not to fall in love with some gallant Indiana gent and stay there forever,” Hattie said.
Anne fastened the curls in place, then wove in a hairpin. “There are gallant Indiana gentlemen? I had no idea.”
They laughed together, breaking the tension of Anne’s announcement. A fine carriage arrived a few minutes later, sent by Mr. Trent and drawing much astonishment from Mrs. Sullivan, who rarely saw her boarders travel in such style.
The evening was crisp and clear, the moon low and nearly full. Julia and Henry welcomed them into the carriage, and the four of them exchanged banter as it rattled along the road to Ford’s Theatre. Hattie said nothing about Henry and Anne’s upcoming departure, unsure whether anyone had broken the news to Julia.
The coachman delivered them to the front of the theatre. Following Julia and Anne, Hattie took his hand as she stepped from the carriage. Standing in the night air, she gazed up at the brick building. Compared to the Crawford House, where her mother had taken her and her brother for occasional doses of culture, Ford’s was a modest theatre.
She slipped her arm through Anne’s, leaving Henry to offer his to Julia.
“I’m told this used to be a church,” he said.
“That’s right.” Smiling, Julia hooked her arm around Henry’s. “Folks said God would punish Mr. Ford for turning a Baptist church into a theatre. But look at all the people streaming in. If that’s punishment, I suspect he’s all for it.”
Anne laughed. “He’s got the right idea. Heaven knows we need a distraction, with our men off fighting in God knows what muddy swamp.”
Even with Julia’s steady arm and his cane, Henry moved slowly. They entered the theater through a door tucked beneath rows of concrete arches, then passed through the lobby into the auditorium. Hattie had nearly forgotten how magical a theatre could feel, especially in the moments before the show began. Row after row of red-upholstered seats, nearly all of them filled with well-dressed ladies and gentlemen, rose from the floor near the stage. Scones lit the walls, lending a fairy-like glow.
With Julia and Henry leading the way, they ascended the stairs to the dress circle. Some people leaned against the back wall, others filling the seats. Hattie had forgotten, too, the smells that an audience carried with them—tobacco, perfume, and in the case of Ford’s, whisky from the men who’d stopped for a drink at the saloon next door.
Their seats were in the dress circle’s lowest row, with a commanding view of the stage.
“How can your parents’ friends neglect such fine seats?” she asked Julia as they settled in. “I can’t imagine anywhere I’d rather be.”
“Magical, isn’t it?” Julia said.
“Hattie has something of a theatrical background, you know,” Anne said.
“Do tell,” Henry said.
“It’s nothing really. Just a few childhood plays.”
“And the starring role in Hamlet at Ladygrace,” Anne said, her blue eyes sparkling.
“Playing Ophelia?” Henry asked.
“Playing Hamlet,” Hattie said. “The cast was all female.”
“The opposite of how it was in Shakespeare’s day when men played the women’s parts,” Anne said. “But heaven forbid a boy pass through the doors of Ladygrace. Miss Whitcomb would have fainted dead away. So that left Hattie as Hamlet.”
They laughed. The orchestra began tuning up, a pleasant cacophony of percussion and strings.
“Look over there,” Hattie whispered to Anne. She nodded to the right of the stage, where insets in the wall provided private seating, the arched openings festooned with gold curtains above and American flags beneath. “The Lincolns are here.”
Anne leaned forward, and her smile broadened. “Oh my stars! It’s really them.”
“Mr. Lincoln loves the theatre,” Julia said. “A respite from the trials of his office. Sometimes they attend here, and other times at Leonard Grover’s theatre.”
“Which do they prefer?” Hattie asked. She’d passed by Grover’s countless times, situated right on Pennsylvania Avenue, but she’d never been inside.
Julia shrugged. “I’ve never heard them say, but my guess is Mr. Grover’s. He’s a friendly fellow—Papa knows him well—and he allows Tad, the Lincolns’ youngest boy, to play backstage with his son. The two of them get into all sorts of mischief, as you might imagine. Once, Mr. Grover arranged for Tad to have a walk-on part. No speaking lines—Tad has a cleft lip and doesn’t speak clearly—but the president was in attendance that night, and I heard he got a big smile on his face when he recognized the spritely creature as his very own son.”
Hattie started to say how she’d spoken with Mr. Lincoln that day back in September, but then Anne leaned forward, arms poised on the balcony’s railing, and said, “Nearly a full house. Half of Washington must be here.”
Hattie scanned the auditorium. In the center section, a man turned his head, and she saw what looked to be a familiar face. She tugged Anne’s sleeve. “There, in the center.” She paused, counting rows. “Nine rows up from the stage, three seats in from the aisle. It’s Mr. Pinkerton.”
Anne squinted that direction. “I can’t tell for sure, but isn’t that Miss Warne beside him?” she said, her voice low.
“Maybe there’s truth to the rumors,” Hattie said, matching Anne’s low voice. “But isn’t Mr. Pinkerton married?”
Anne nodded. “His wife came over with him from Scotland when he supposedly had only a few coins to his name. I met her once, in Chicago. Rather plain-looking and short of stature, like him. A dour sort of woman. Nothing like our elegant Miss Warne.”
The lights came down for a moment, warning that the show was about to begin. Hattie leaned back. It was only an evening at the theatre, a diversion for Mr. Pinkerton and Miss Warne. It meant nothing. And yet she couldn’t help thinking that Miss Warne of all people must be fully aware that the best way to hide certain secrets was to flaunt them.
The lights came down for good, and the actors took the stage. For the next hour and a half, Hattie found herself swept up in the tale of Raphael, a sculptor who wooed a woman as cold and unresponsive as one of his creations. In a dream, he found himself among the ancient Greeks. His beautiful statue came to life, but even as a living, breathing woman, she spurned the sculptor’s affections, setting her sights on a wealthier man.
When the curtain closed on the final act, the sculptor had smashed his statue and now lay dead. Coming out of her reverie, Hattie stood and applauded the performance.
“You were right about the actors,” Anne told Julia as the applause died down. “Dreamy. Especially the one playing Raphael.”
“Mr. Booth,” Julia said. “He is handsome.”
“He struck me as rather angry,” Henry said as he helped Julia on with her cloak.
“He was only playing the part,” Anne said.
“It seemed like more than that,” Henry said. “Did you notice where he was looking when he delivered his sharpest lines? Directly at Mr. Lincoln’s box.”
They started for the exit. “Papa did mention a slight of some sort involving the president and Mr. Booth,” Julia said. “As I recall, it involved Mr. Booth’s performance in Fanchon the Cricket last month. Mr. Lincoln was in attendance, and he sent Mr. Booth a note afterward indicating he’d much enjoyed the show and inviting him to the White House. Papa said Mr. Booth crumpled the paper, saying he’d rather a Negro praise him than Mr. Lincoln.”
Anne’s eyes flashed. “In that case, I’d happily side with any number of Negroes before I’d waste another breath on a man like that, dreamy or not,”
They exited into the night. In the brisk air outside the theatre, Hattie turned up her cloak’s collar as they waited for their carriage. “Do you think Mr. Lincoln will truly free the slaves?” she asked Anne.
“He’s said he will. Of course, it will inflame some Northerners who care only about the Union and have no interest in putting an end to slavery. I don’t see how anyone can abide the practice. No person should be sold like chattel and forced to do another’s labor.”
“Have you ever heard Frederick Douglass speak?” Henry asked, speaking past Julia to Hattie. “He’s brilliant.”
Hattie shook her head. Her parents had always gone to great lengths to degrade the man. “I’d like to. My brother George admires him greatly.”
And then, because Julia was looking slighted, she added, “Thanks ever so much for including me tonight, Julia. It’s the cheeriest I’ve felt in a long while.”
“And from a tragedy, no less,” Julia said.
“That speaks volumes about the war,” Anne said. “I wish it would hurry up and be over.”
“Provided the Federals prevail and the slaves are set free,” Henry said.
This was what Hattie wanted, too, of course. A life after the war. She couldn’t imagine exactly what it might entail, but if she were honest with herself, part of her hoped that in addition to George, it somehow involved Thom Welton.
She shook off the thought. It was nothing more than illusion, the sort of vision that came with the uncertainties of war.