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Authors: Joan Lowery Nixon

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BOOK: Keeping Secrets
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Peg’s cheeks grew warm as anger flooded her body. “I don’t have to explain,” she insisted. “
You
do!”

Miss Hennessey removed her coat and hat and sat on a small, slat-backed rocker. Calmly, she said, “Are you aware that most people look down their well-bred noses at actresses? It’s a popular conception that we are not as moral as other women.”

Peg nodded, still not quite sure what Miss Hennessey meant.

“I hope you won’t inform your mother or Mrs. Kling about my profession. I hope that for a little while this can be our secret, Peg.”

“Our secret!” Peg exploded. “How many times have you asked me to keep your secrets?”

“I ask only because we’re friends.”

“If we were friends, we’d tell each other the truth.”

“Oh? Do you think we’ve been untruthful with each other?”

“No! Yes! No! I mean,
I
haven’t been the one who has hidden things. But
you
have! You’ve lied to me! And to Ma! Over and over again!”

Peg dropped to the bed again, her outburst of anger draining her energy.

“If that’s what you believe, what can I possibly say that will change the situation?” Miss Hennessey asked. She pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes.

“You can tell me the truth,” Peg said, not for one moment believing that Miss Hennessey’s tears were real. “Are you a Confederate spy?” She shivered as the spoken word,
spy
, soured her mouth and slammed against her ears.

“What reason could you possibly have to suspect me of such treason?”

“There you go again!” Peg cried in frustration. “You answer my questions with other questions. You don’t give me the answers I want.”

“Exactly what is it you want?”

“I told you—I want the truth! I saw you with James in the alley, and I think James is the man who rode home with Mr. Parker after he was injured. Danny thinks Mr. Parker is the one who told Quantrill that the Union general’s wagon train was coming, so Quantrill could attack it.” She took a long breath that ended in a sob, as she said, “Danny wanted to tell the Union authorities, but I begged him not to. I told him you were my friend, and I believed in you. But I don’t anymore. Now I wish I’d told him to go ahead and tell.”

“I’ve hurt you,” Miss Hennessey said. “I truly didn’t mean to hurt you.” She held out a hand, but Peg refused to take it.

Chimes sounded from the foot of the stairs, signaling that supper was about to be served. Peg stood, ready to leave, but Miss Hennessey waved her back. “Please stay,” she said. “Supper isn’t important, Peg.
You’re
important. I’ll answer your questions … truthfully. I promise.”

Slowly Peg sat down, even though she seriously doubted Miss Hennessey’s promises and truthfulness.

“However, I must ask you, in return,” Miss Hennessey said, “not to reveal what I’m about to tell you.”

“I can’t promise that,” Peg said, “when I don’t know what you’re going to say. I’m tired of lies and secrets. And I can’t hide information that would aid the enemy and hurt the Union.”

Miss Hennessey thought for a long moment, then said, “I understand, and you’re right to feel the way
you do. I’ll tell you what I can, and then you’ll know why the information must be kept secret.”

“Fair enough,” Peg answered. She folded her arms tightly across her chest and prepared to listen.

“Give me a moment, please,” Miss Hennessey said. She splashed cold water on her eyes, patted her face dry with the linen towel that hung next to the washbasin and pitcher, and went downstairs to inform Mrs. Kling that she would not be having supper.

When she returned she again sat in the rocker. “My stage name is Elsie Morgan,” she said. “My true name is Violet Morgan Hennessey. Nellie and Louis Parker are my sister and brother-in-law, but James is not my cousin.”

“James is one of Quantrill’s raiders!”

“He rode with Quantrill. For a while.”

“He’s a Confederate.”

“Let’s not talk of James right now. Let me explain something about myself. I
am
a spy, but not a Confederate spy. I work with a respected Union officer in collecting information that will help our Union Army.”

“Is the officer here in St. Joseph?”

“No, but he’s within traveling distance.”

“Why do you have to travel? Why can’t you give the information to one of the officers in St. Joseph?”

“If my work is to be effective, only one man must know who I am. I must be able to trust him, and he must be able to trust me. The Union officers in St. Joseph don’t know me, and must not know about me. If my identity were well known, the Confederates would soon learn of it, too, and then my work would be useless.”

Peg was insistent. “James was with Quantrill.”

Miss Hennessey closed her eyes as though she were exhausted. When she opened them she said, “I
learned from James the route Quantrill and his men would take on their ride into Texas. And I later learned about General Blunt’s move from Fort Scott to Fort Gibson. I realized the danger Blunt and his company could be in if they crossed paths with Quantrill.

“It would take time to get the information to General Blunt, and I was frantic. I knew I’d be meeting up with Union Army patrols, and I couldn’t afford to be stopped and questioned. It was chance that I met your sister, Frances. However, when I learned from her where your brother Danny lived, I knew that the area would be ideal for Nellie and Louis. You’d want the opportunity to see Danny, and if I had a child riding with me my trip likely would not be questioned.”

As Miss Hennessey paused, Peg squeezed her eyes shut in agony. “You planned all this before we even met. I thought you invited me to travel with you because you wanted my company.”

“I
did
enjoy your company, Peg.”

Hurting, Peg hugged her shoulders. “I was just somebody to be there to make things easier for you. You didn’t care how you used me.”

“I cared about
you
, Peg! Believe me! But I also cared about saving the lives of hundreds of men. That had to come first.”

Peg tried to gulp down the lump that tightened her throat. “When you went into the Parkers’ house, and I was kept outside, you gave the message to Mr. Parker, didn’t you?”

“Yes. Louis was to carry it to General Blunt. But Louis was shot by a bushwhacker who tried to kill and rob him. He didn’t get to General Blunt.”

“Then that’s why you were so sad, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. It was terrible to think we had failed.”

Peg thought again about that first meeting with the
Parkers. “You only pretended that you hadn’t seen your sister for five years, didn’t you?”

“That’s correct. Nellie and I have worked together for the Union since my husband, Daniel Hennessey, was killed during the first year of the war. Women spies are not shot or hanged when they’re caught, so Nellie and I made the decision to work together to help our Union forces.”

“What about Mr. Parker?”

“Louis is very brave. He had been wounded in battle and sent home. When he recovered he insisted on joining Nellie and me.”

Peg couldn’t resist asking, “What might happen to you if someday you’re caught?”

Miss Hennessey sighed as she said, “I
was
captured once—in Arkansas—and imprisoned by the Confederates, but my jail was a poorly constructed frame building, and I was able to loosen some boards and escape. I made my way to Kansas, and was almost caught again in the Lawrence massacre.”

“Oh!” Peg gasped as the thought struck her. “Frances brought you to our house. Does she know?”

“No,” Miss Hennessey answered. “You’re the only one in whom I’ve confided.”

She stood and walked to the window, holding aside the lace curtain so she could look out at the streets. For a few minutes neither she nor Peg spoke. Finally, Miss Hennessey turned back to Peg, letting the curtain drop behind her. “I’ll leave St. Joseph within a short time. I’ll make contact with my Union officer and give him the extremely important information I was sent here to learn.”

“Did James give you that information?”

“There’s no need for you to know my source,” she answered.

As Peg tried to sort out all that she’d heard, Miss Hennessey said, “You can see that my life—and Nellie’s and Louis’s lives—are in your hands.”

“Don’t say that!” Peg insisted. “It isn’t fair!”

Miss Hennessey’s eyes were deep and dark, her gaze intent on Peg’s face. “Fair? It’s hard to think about being fair. I have answered your questions truthfully, and I promise that I’ll never ask you to travel with me again. As I told you, soon I’ll leave St. Joseph, probably never to return.”

Her mind in a torment, Peg studied Miss Hennessey. Like the little chameleon lizard Marcus had once caught and brought to school—its skin changing from brown to green and brown again—Miss Hennessey now was neither the beautiful, self-assured woman nor the timid, mousy woman Peg had known. She looked tired and frail and so pitiful that, in spite of her quandary, Peg’s heart ached for her.

“Will you keep my secret? What is your answer, Peg?” Miss Hennessey asked.

Peg couldn’t speak. She needed time to think. What
could
she answer?

14
 

W
HEN
P
EG DRAGGED
through the back door, Ma was in what Mr. Murphy called “a real stew.”

“Where have you been so late?” Ma demanded.

Peg’s only answer was to hold her skirts up over her knees.

Ma took a look at Peg’s legs, pushed her into the nearest kitchen chair, and bent to examine her knees more closely. “Merciful heavens!” she said. “Pull off those stockings, missy, and we’ll tend to cleaning the scrapes. How in the world did you do this?”

“I fell,” Peg said.

“Chasing that Marcus Hurd, no doubt. I have a good mind to speak to the boy’s mother, although from what I hear she has plenty of other family problems to contend with.”

As Ma went on, her steam slowly dying down like
the steam from a kettle taken from the fire, Peg held her tongue. For now her mind was filled with what Miss Hennessey had told her and what she had answered.

She had believed Miss Hennessey. She had to believe. “I’ll keep your secret,” Peg had told her, even though the responsibility of the promise had scared her right down to her toes.

“Ouch!” she muttered as Ma pried a tiny pebble from the torn skin.

“Sorry, love,” Ma said. “I’m trying to be as gentle as possible, but I have to get all the dirt out.” She sighed. “You want me to think of you as grown up, and then you come home with a perfectly good pair of stockings torn to shreds, and looking as disheveled as though you’d been in a fight. That Marcus!”

“Don’t blame Marcus,” Peg said. “It wasn’t his fault.”

“So you’re the one who started it this time, are you?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I can’t say that I blame you.”

“Ma, I’m sorry! Let’s not talk about it anymore. Please?”

Silently, Ma sponged and patted, then wrapped Peg’s skinned knees in soft, clean cloths. She had no sooner finished than John arrived home.

He hung his coat on a peg near the back door and turned to his wife, sadly shaking his head. “Even though I’m Federal and loyal to the bone, I’m thinking that putting the state of Missouri under military rule might have been a big mistake.”

“The military had to do something to stop the southern sympathizers,” Ma countered. She washed her hands and began to dish up bowls of what looked
and smelled like a delicious vegetable stew. “They were threatening Federals, burning their barns and houses, and running them off their land.”

“Well, now the sympathizers have been bold enough to slip into St. Joe again. They’ve done a terrible thing. They recognized a man who they claimed was posing as a Confederate, but whom they suspected of being a Union spy. They chased him down, dragged him out of town before the authorities could act, and hanged him from the branch of an old oak tree near the river.”

Peg grew so cold she felt faint, and the spoon she’d been holding dropped from her hand. “Who was the man?” she whispered.

John shrugged. “I don’t know. No one from around here, I was told.”

Ma sank into her chair, her shoulders drooping. “This terrible war has to end soon,” she said, “before we are all destroyed.”

Was the murdered man James?
Peg wondered.
And if he was, and it’s known that he’d brought information to Miss Hennessey, then what will become of her? Will she be arrested and imprisoned, as she said she might?

“Peg? Peg? Where are you off to, love?”

Peg realized that Ma was speaking to her. “I’m sorry, Ma,” she managed to say. “What did you ask me?”

“You’re not eating,” Ma said. “I asked why.”

“I—I don’t feel like eating.” So cold that she shivered, Peg pressed her hands against the pain in her stomach. “I feel sick, Ma. I hurt.”

Noreen pressed a hand against Peg’s forehead. “You haven’t got a fever. That’s a good sign,” she said.

“I—it’s m-my knees,” Peg stammered, desperately searching for an excuse. “I—I just want to go to bed.”

“They hurt that much? Well then, upstairs with you, love, and if you need or want anything—a nice soothing cup of peppermint tea, perhaps—just call me.”

BOOK: Keeping Secrets
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