Sharyn Mccrumb_Elizabeth MacPherson_07 (4 page)

The ships endured an hour's wait at one of the drawbridges between Richmond and Drewry's Bluff, while the troops who had set the evening's bonfires were allowed passage across the bridge. The route they had taken was punctuated with patches of leaping flames as the Confederates—literally—burned their bridges behind them. While the sailors were waiting for the span to be raised, the sky began to go from black to gray, and finally first light gave them a glimpse of the devastation.

Whole city blocks were now ablaze, and the Tredegar Iron Works flamed like hell itself, rending the morning air with the shudders of the exploding shells within it. A dense cloud of smoke hung over the city, like a blanket laid over a corpse. There wouldn't be much left for the Yankees to take now, and the people of Richmond knew it. A great throng of them were gathered on the Manchester side of the river, trying to escape the conflagration.

The gunboat docked, and the men of the James River fleet tumbled ashore, weighted down with all their belongings, too stunned
from the rush of disasters to think what to do next.

“I hope they don't expect us to march any considerable distance,” said Bridgeford. “Most of us couldn't do more than a couple of miles at the best of times, not being used to it.”

“I reckon I can walk,” said Gabe Hawks. “I followed Stonewall from one end of Virginia to t'other. But I ain't no damn pack mule.”

“Ah, Hawks, but at the moment you look like one.” Bridgeford laughed and pointed to the jumble of necessities they carried: a mess-kettle, bags of bread, chunks of salted pork, pots and pans, tea, sugar, and tobacco. Which of these precious items could they leave behind in their flight? And what would become of them if they did not?

“Hey, you old salts! How do you like navigating on land?” A line of cavalry was passing by on the road—boys scarcely older than Gabe, looking thin and tired in their tattered gray. But when they saw the grounded sailors, staggering about on dry land with pans around their necks, like a gaggle of stranded geese, they cheered up considerably, and drifted out of sight still laughing and making catcalls at their less fortunate comrades in arms.

Admiral Semmes, without a ship under him, looked just as lost as anyone. He gave orders for the gunboats to be burned and set adrift. Then he called on his captains to muster the
troops. Only now the captains were to be called colonels.

“My orders are to join General Lee in the field with all my forces!” the admiral called out. “And we shall proceed accordingly.”

Bridgeford nudged Gabe and said softly, “But where the devil is Lee, and how do we get there?”

Just then one of the officers shouted, “To the railroad depot! Forward, march!”

And they lurched off into a cloud of smoke and road dust.

Gabriel Hawks had just rejoined the army.

“I'
M NOT GOING
to be here this afternoon,” said A. P. Hill. “Can you manage by yourself?”

“By myself?” Bill MacPherson looked up from his paperwork. “You mean alone? Abandoned? What about Edith?”

“Try to bear up, Bill. It's Edith's day off, remember? Tuesday afternoons and all day Friday.”

The law firm of MacPherson and Hill was now ten days old, still solvent, and boasted a caseload of half a dozen clients. They had also engaged a part-time secretary-receptionist: Edith Creech, a recent graduate of the local business college. Edith's salary was as modest as her grade point average. She was maddeningly slow at office work and her spelling showed a creativity that bordered on genius, but she was a notary public, a useful asset to a law firm, and she was thoroughly in awe of her attorney employers, which went a long way toward offsetting her shortcomings.

“And where are you going this afternoon?” Bill wanted to know.

A. P. Hill reddened. “I've got an appointment,” she said, in a tone calculated to discourage further inquiry. “But you should be all right. Have you heard from Trowbridge yet?”

“Yep. He called this morning with his first question. It's a doozy. Are you ready for this? He wants to know: if a neighbor's tomcat gets the Trowbridge tabby in the family way, can the tomcat's owner be sued for child—er, kitten—support?”

His partner rolled her eyes. “Oh, just say no!” she advised.

“That's easy for
you
to say, Powell,” Bill grumbled. “You're a Republican. But Old Trowbridge wants chapter and verse. I did inform him that the kittens would have to have blood tests to prove paternity.”

“Well, I'm sure you'll come up with something. Did you remember to check the mail before you came in?”

“Yes. That's the other thing I was going to tell you about. You know that newspaper ad we ran? Did we say that we were catering in legal services to the deranged or anything?”

“Why?”

“They seem to be seeking us out. First the Trowbridges and now this.” He held up a flowered envelope. “This letter came today, addressed to us—MacPherson and Hill, Attorneys
at Law.
Dear Sirs: If it is entirely convenient with you, I shall be calling on Friday afternoon at one o'clock to discuss a small legal matter in which I should like to avail myself of your services. Sincerely, Flora Dabney.
And—get this, Powell—Miss Dabney has enclosed a picture of herself in costume.”

“Let me see that!” A. P. Hill snatched the picture from her partner's outstretched hand. From the sepia photograph a lovely but earnest-looking young woman gazed back at her with big, intelligent eyes. Flora Dabney looked a proper Edwardian gentlewoman in her coat with wide lapels and a frilled blouse with a jabot of lace at her throat. Her dark hair was brushed away from her forehead and tied with a ribbon at the back, a style that eschewed glamour, but did not hide her wholesome good looks.

“I think I'm in love,” said Bill.

“She looks too intelligent for you,” said A.P., handing back the photograph. “She doesn't say what she wants?”

“No. Women seem determined to be mysterious in my presence. Where are
you
going this afternoon, by the way?”

His partner smiled sweetly. “Just out. Now try not to do anything that will get you disbarred.”

Bill was still laughing merrily as A.P. left the office. She glanced at her watch. Nearly one
o'clock. Just as well that she'd packed her gear this morning. She hated to leave the car parked downtown with the rifle in the trunk, but it couldn't be helped. Now she had to go into the ladies' room and change. It wouldn't do to show up in her present outfit: a pink linen coat and skirt and high heels. Better stow them in a locked briefcase in the trunk, just to be safe, after she changed into her other set of clothes.

Anyone loitering about on the sidewalk in front would have insisted that A. P. Hill did not leave the building that afternoon. However, a teenaged boy in a hat and overcoat might have been observed leaving the second-floor ladies' room with a briefcase.

   An hour later Bill was still attempting to make sense of the vagaries of feline paternity when an elderly woman appeared in the outer office. She wore a black silk dress and pearls and she had posture that a general would envy. She took in her surroundings in one piercing glance. But when she saw Bill peering at her through the open door of his office, her demeanor changed to one of fluffy amiability. She smiled as she came in, motioning for him to sit back down.

“A. P. Hill?” she said eagerly.

“No, ma'am. She's my partner, but she's not here right now. And our secretary's gone, too. I'm Bill MacPherson.”

The woman in black surveyed Bill's shabby surroundings. Her sharp eyes flickered over the framed diploma and the secondhand furniture. They paused momentarily on the gaily appareled rodent leering at her from the corner.

“I think you'll do fine,” she declared, settling happily into the captain's chair Bill had purchased from Goodwill for the comfort of his clients. “I thought I'd drop by today because Lydia had to come downtown anyway to do her incessant courthouse research. I just know she drives them all crazy down there in the records office. Tracing her family tree, you know. She can't quite prove a connection between her people and Robert E. Lee, so now she's trying to find out the maternal grandmother of the man he bought Traveller from!”

Bill blinked, trying to find his way into the conversation.

“That's why we thought it would be such fun to have A. P. Hill as an attorney. She might know something about the general's family connections that the Danville Courthouse doesn't have a record of.” She stopped herself, as if she had just realized that the young man might see this preference as a personal slight. “But of course our legal business has nothing to do with the war at all,” she hastened to explain. “It's just a simple little old transaction. I bet you could do it standing on your head.”

Bill pictured Mr. Trowbridge bursting in and
shouting, “Is it legal for an attorney to plead a case while standing on his head?” He smiled and ventured a question of his own. “Were we expecting you this afternoon, ma'am?”

Her gray eyes widened in surprise. “Why, I hope so, young man! I took the trouble to write you.”

Bill began to shuffle through the papers on his desk when she leaned over and announced, “There! You have my picture right there on top of your desk calendar.” She pointed one white-gloved finger at the sepia portrait of the Edwardian beauty.

Bill stared from one to the other. “You … I mean to say … Is that—”

She nodded with a satisfied little smile. “Oh, yes! It's me all right. A good many years ago, before I married Mr. Dabney, rest his soul. My name is Flora.”

“But why did you send me this picture?”

Flora Dabney took a deep breath. “Well, young man, I'll tell you. I get rather tired of being dismissed as
just
an old lady, so I thought I'd make a proper first impression on you. Just so you'd know who I really am, underneath this sixty years of erosion.”

Bill smiled. “I wish I'd known you then.”

The old lady's eyes twinkled. “I expect I'd have led you a pretty dance, Mr. MacPherson. Now let us get to the matter at hand. My friends and I would like you to sell our house. It's a
lovely old colonial with Corinthian columns, ten bedrooms, fireplaces—”

“Mrs. Dabney! Whoa! Wait! Stop. I'm really sorry, ma'am. You're a little confused. You see, I'm a lawyer, not a real estate agent. But if you'd like me to find you one …” He reached for the telephone book.