Wedded to War (13 page)

“Why are you here then? If you don’t mind my asking?”

She held up a black leather bag. “I’m a doctor. I have an infirmary in lower Manhattan, where I see my patients for free, but not all of them can make it over there. So I make calls over here and do what I can.” She handed her card to Ruby: DR. ELIZABETH BLACKWELL, M.D. NEW YORK INFIRMARY FOR WOMEN AND CHILDREN, 170 WILLIAM STREET, NEW YORK, NEW YORK. “Should you ever need a doctor, you come see me. We are less than a mile south of here.”

Ruby nodded and tucked the card into the pocket of her dress.

Dr. Blackwell searched Ruby’s face. “Is there something I can do for you now?” she asked again.

“Oh no, I’m not sick, I just—” she faltered. Why had she sought this woman out? “Maybe you can help me. I just lost my tenement in the Fourteenth Ward, and I need to find a place to stay here—it’s all I can afford, you see—but I have been having trouble finding a place that’s—suitable.”

“Not surprising.”

“I guess not. But do you happen to have some idea of a good place around here to live? I’ve seen some signs for basement cellars for just a few pennies a night. Are those any good?”

“They’re cheap for a reason, my dear. Spend many nights there and it will whittle away your health until you have nothing left. I can always spot a basement dweller in a crowd. The skin becomes almost corpselike, and the musty smell pervades not just their clothing but their skin and hair as well. The beds are mere pieces of canvas stretched between poles, and the owners stack them two to three tiers deep. They are so crowded—with people and vermin—I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“What’s left?”

“Well, if you don’t want to prostitute yourself—”

“Of course I don’t.”

“Glad to hear it, and longer life for you then. Have you looked into the House of Industry on Worth Street? Just around the corner, just there, you can’t miss it. It’s a charitable organization that teaches trades to women and houses them, too. Mostly sewing but other skills now, too, I believe. If you could find a place in there, you’d be safe and well cared for, at least until the end of your course. Good luck,” she called after Ruby, who had already seized her hand to shake it and was headed back toward Worth Street.

The Five Points House of Industry cast a long shadow, like a lighthouse above the raging sea. Hoping this place would indeed save her from her personal shipwreck, Ruby took a deep breath, scurried inside, and knocked on the door labeled “MR. LEWIS PEASE, SUPERINTENDENT.”

“Come in,” called a tired voice.

Ruby pushed the door open and stepped inside. The desk was covered with stacks of papers and books with pencils wedged into the spines. Articles clipped from the
New York Tribune
were pinned on the walls, trumpeting headlines like “Five Points Mission and House of Industry Gems of Moral and Physical Regeneration.”

“I heard you take needlewomen here.” Her voice sounded small, even to herself.

Mr. Pease leaned back in his chair and took in the sight of her. “Sort of. We take women and teach them to sew, then we find jobs for them.”

“Would you have any use for a woman who already knows how to sew?”

“Hmmm.” Mr. Pease drummed his fingers on the desk and grabbed a sheet from the top of a stack near him. “Do you have any aptitude for teaching? We have an opening for an instructor.”

“I have been sewing for years. I’m sure I could tell others how to do it.”

“I couldn’t pay you much, Miss—”

“Mrs.,” corrected Ruby. “Ruby O’Flannery. My husband is in the Sixty-Ninth, you see, but they haven’t paid him yet, and I simply ran out of money and choices.”

“Understood.” His face, though weary, held no judgment. Maybe he really did understand. “I must ask you, do you have any references? You’ll be working with women who have just come from lifestyles of vice and immorality. We at the House of Industry believe strongly that they’ll never be able to succeed unless they completely turn their backs on their old habits. We want them to be surrounded only by positive influences so they don’t fall back into whatever means of surviving they had relied upon before. This is why we house our workers here, so they can avoid confronting the degrading lifestyles so rampant outside of these walls when it’s quitting time. As an instructor, you could be housed among them if you like. So you’ll forgive me if I ask for some character references of some kind. Is there someone who would vouch
for you? Surely you understand our need to be quite careful about who we allow to move in among these women.”

“References,” Ruby repeated. The cogs of her mind turned slowly, but she couldn’t get any traction. Who on earth would vouch for her?

“What about your pastor?”

“I’m Catholic.”

“Your priest then?”

“I—no, that wouldn’t work. I’ve been sewing around the clock for so long, I haven’t had time to go to mass.” She looked at him to see if he bought her story. “Believe me. This is why I want to be here, instead. I just can’t keep working that way. I’d like to go back to church, really I would.”

“That may be, Mrs. O’Flannery, but the fact remains that I must have references before I can accept you. Family member?”

“My husband is off fighting. The rest of our family’s in Ireland.”

“Can you think of anyone else?”

The only person who knew her very well besides Matthew was Emma. “Would a friend count?”

“Well, it’s better than nothing. Name?”

“Emma Connors.”

“And where can I reach her?”

“She moved. I haven’t got the address.”

“Does she happen to work somewhere?”

Ruby looked at her hands. How could she tell him that her only character reference was a prostitute? She told him just a piece of the truth, then. “I don’t know where she works.”

Mr. Pease put his pencil down. “My dear Mrs. O’Flannery, you realize you are not making this very easy for me. I’m afraid I cannot accept you until I have at least one character reference, preferably two or three.”

A knock sounded on the door, and a small woman with mousy brown hair drawn tightly into a bun motioned to Mr. Pease to join her in the hall.

“If you’ll excuse me one moment,” he said, and left the room. Ruby
peered out the window just in time to see a glimpse of a camel suit disappearing around the corner.

By the time Mr. Pease came back in, his face had gone from warm to cold.

“Mrs. O’Flannery,” he said, standing over her now. “We have just received a visitor who has informed us that you and your ‘character reference,’ Emma Connors, are both prostitutes.”

“What?” she gasped.

“Then you deny it?”

Ruby sighed. “’Tis true, Emma has gone that way, but only out of desperation. And I have done no such thing. I’ve been true to my husband every day of my life, I have.”

He crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes at her. She tried not to hate him for distrusting her.

“It’s your word against this gentleman’s word, you realize.”

Her mouth went dry.

“Listen Ruby, I understand that most prostitutes sell themselves because they think it’s the only way out. It isn’t, but that’s how they feel. I don’t condemn you for doing that. What bothers me is that you weren’t honest about it. You lied about Emma’s occupation, and I strongly suspect you are lying about your own. If you had told me the truth, and that you wanted to repent of that lifestyle, I could have accepted that. But if you aren’t honest with me, how can I trust you among vulnerable women who have just left that world to try to make an honest living?”

“But I’m not—a—prostitute!” She squeezed the quavering words around the lump in her throat. “I am the vulnerable woman trying to make an honest living, I am!”

Mr. Pease hesitated, then shook his head. “As I said, miss. It’s your word against that gentleman’s.” He motioned to the door.

Ruby stood, hurt and fear and anger burning like fire in her veins. “Aye, and the word of a gentleman is always worth more than the word of a poor Irish immigrant woman. Isn’t that so?” She paused, relishing
the embarrassed look on his face. Was he uncomfortable? Good. “Is he paying you?”

Mr. Pease turned a shade almost as red as her hair, his eyes wide.

“He is!” she cried. “Well, no wonder you won’t believe me!”

“No, no.” He took a step toward her. She took a step back. “He didn’t give me money to turn you away, if that’s what you think. Really.”

She crossed her arms. “The whole truth, please.”

His shoulders sagged. “He’s a donor.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “Not a major one, but he has given on occasion, and every little bit—”

“I see.” Ruby had heard enough. She was no match for money, and she knew it. She left the building, mechanically, putting one foot in front of the other, dragging herself through the muck. She didn’t bother holding her skirt up anymore.

Silverware clinked on china plates as the Waverlys and Carlisles sat around Caroline’s polished walnut dining table. It was wonderful having Alice and Jacob visit for the week, but the announcement that Jacob’s regiment would be moving to Washington at the end of it gave them more than just steak to chew on.

At long last, Alice had surrendered her desire to be home to her desire to be near her husband. On the condition that she take her French manservant, Maurice Fontaine, Jacob allowed Alice to go with Charlotte to Washington. While Charlotte nursed, Alice would offer her help to the Sanitary Commission during the day. Whenever possible, Jacob would visit her in the evenings.

With Alice as Charlotte’s chaperone, Caroline finally conceded that Charlotte could go. But her sour expression showed the bitterness of sending a son-in-law and two daughters to war.

“Please try not to worry about us, Mother,” Charlotte said as Jane
poured coffee for everyone. “We’re officially a branch of the government now that Mr. Lincoln signed the bill establishing the Sanitary Commission. And with Reverend Bellows himself as the president of the Commission, I’m sure we’ll be in good hands.”

Jacob looked at his wife, concern written on his face. “I should hope so, yes.” He glanced back at Charlotte. “But didn’t Lincoln call the Sanitary Commission ‘the fifth wheel to the coach’? I’m afraid that makes it sound quite useless. What is it, exactly?”

“A godsend to the Union army, whether Mr. Lincoln realizes it yet or not.” Charlotte sipped her coffee. “More specifically, though, it’s an all-volunteer organization meant to support and supplement the army’s Medical Department.”

“From what I’ve heard, it sounds more like a bunch of women trying to take
over
the Medical Department,” Jacob countered, a twinkle in his brown eyes.

“Not at all. All of the leadership is male. It’s true that the members are mostly women, but we’re not trying to take anything away from the army. We’re trying to add to it. Chapters of patriotic women are springing up all over the country. They look to the Sanitary Commission to know what the soldiers need—socks, bed ticking, blankets, bandages, the list goes on—and where to send them. Without it, can you imagine the waste and confusion? Well-meaning people would send the wrong things to the wrong places and the soldiers would be no better off.”

Jacob gave a slight nod. “So where does the ‘sanitary’ part of the name come in?”

“The Commission will also try to make sure the mistakes of the Crimean War are not repeated here,” Charlotte said. “Overcrowding, poor ventilation, bad hygiene all lead to disease in camp before troops ever get to battle.”

“So what can the Commission do about it?” asked Caroline, stirring another lump of sugar into her coffee. “Make them follow Florence Nightingale’s models?”

Charlotte shook her head. “Not exactly. We can’t make the army
do anything. We only make recommendations.”

“It only makes sense.” Jacob leaned back in his chair. “No outside group should have authority over the army.”

“But we can at least educate them,” said Charlotte.

“And what did you say you’ll be doing while Charlotte’s nursing in the hospitals?” Caroline looked at her younger daughter.

Alice twirled one of her blonde ringlets on her finger before responding. “I suppose Maurice and I may also bring supplies wherever they’re needed, or write letters for some soldiers. I’m not entirely sure, but the important thing is that I’ll be near Jacob, and that Charlotte won’t be all alone.”

“Oh Alice, Dr. Blackwell told me she’d love for you to visit the other New York nurses and tell her how they’re getting along,” added Charlotte.

Caroline set her cup down and motioned for Jane to bring more. “That reminds me, girls, I just found out my friend Josephine’s daughter will be nursing in Washington, too. Louisa Lightfoot is her name. If you see her, I’d love to hear how she’s doing so I can tell Josephine. I’m afraid I don’t know which hospital she’s in, though.”

Alice nodded as Jane made her way around the table, refilling everyone’s cup with coffee.

“If I had my way you’d all stay right here in New York.” Caroline sighed. She suddenly looked much older than her forty-eight years. “Clearly I have no more authority over you than the Sanitary Commission has over the Medical Department. It’s going to be awfully quiet around here once they’re gone, isn’t it Jane?”