Veiled in Smoke Page 4

  All that concerned him right now was preserving the memory of that place in order to honor those who died there. He’d promised his friends they wouldn’t be forgotten. That was a promise he aimed to keep.

  Staring at the dirt, he blinked, and memory stained the soil the livid red of Georgia clay. He blinked again and saw the ground yawn wide, saw himself piling the bodies of his fellow Yankee prisoners into the pit. Stephen rubbed the heels of his hands against his eyes but could not stop seeing them. The bodies were ravaged by hunger and scurvy to the point that their mothers would not have known their sons. But Stephen knew them. He knew his friends. There was Jenkins, Pritchard, and Smith. He had fed them into foreign soil to be swallowed up. Another mass grave, unmarked, a grossly undignified end for any person, let alone a soldier in service to his country.

  Most prisoners had considered burial duty a punishment, but Stephen had volunteered for it. He spoke psalms and prayed through the rag tied over his nose and mouth. “We see you,” he had said to each body as he hauled it from the dead wagon and into the pit. He refused to dump them like cord wood. “We honor you and your sacrifice.” He had spoken their names when he knew them.

  “Boo!” a boy shouted from the other side of the fence, yanking Stephen back to the present. The boy’s ruddy cheeks were as round as his eyes. Raw eggs sailed over the boards, one after another, smashing into the model of Andersonville. As the boy ran away with an accomplice, he launched a final missile with impeccable aim. It cracked on Stephen’s temple. Rotten yolk ran down his face.

  His pulse soared. White-hot anger vibrated through his frame. Why hadn’t these eggs been eaten before they’d fermented? He swiped the slime from his skin and slung it onto the ground.

  “It could have saved them!” he roared. “Just this much could have lengthened their lives! For shame, for shame, you wasteful people! Why don’t you come back here and let me teach you a lesson! Ungrateful scoundrel! I dare you to set foot on my property again, and just you see what happens!” He shouted as loud as his lungs would allow, giving in to rage because that was easier than succumbing to sorrow.

  His fury grew a blade inside him, and he held on to it as long as he could. But to his own shame, tears formed and fell. He felt completely unmanned and lower than a footprint. Could he not withstand a little schoolboy taunting?

  Could he not keep from crying over spilled stew?

  Stephen’s pulse thrummed in his neck. His outburst at Hiram’s house replayed in his mind. He knew his old friend had trouble with his memory, but part of Stephen suspected that Hiram just wasn’t listening. Such questions, over and over! And Sylvie ought to have known better than to waste food like that. But had he struck her? Truly? His brow ached as he tried to recall the details. He could scarcely remember it, only the way she had looked at him, holding her arm, eyes shadowed with fear or accusation or judgment.

  Stephen turned his hands over, inspecting them. Dirt lined his fingernails and the creases in his palms. Raw egg had made them shine. What had these hands done today?

  He tried to calm his fearsome pulse. His breathing was too hard, too fast. It rattled through his chest, a reminder that he had never completely recovered from the debilitating diseases of prison camp. With a grunt, he stood, but too quickly. Feeling dizzy, he leaned against the fence, and flakes of chipped white paint loosened and fell to the ground. Everywhere he turned, things were in disrepair. Most of all, him.

  Chapter Three

  WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1871

  Meg’s grip tightened around the two linen-wrapped canvases she carried. A policeman halted traffic on the corner, and she hustled to cross Clark Street. As she stepped back up onto the sidewalk, a streetcar clattered past her on Randolph, and she half wished she were on it herself, given the burden she carried. But then, her journey was a mere handful of blocks—two east on Randolph, three more south on State—and she ought to save cash whenever possible. After all, she hadn’t sold these paintings yet.

  She would, though. None other than Bertha Honoré Palmer had stepped into Corner Books & More yesterday morning in her fur and diamond earrings, Tribune folded to show the article Mr. Pierce had written about Stephen. She had come to shop from the remarkable veteran featured in Sunday’s paper.

  When Mrs. Palmer spied Meg painting, she announced she wanted not just rare books for her new library, but original art by a female Chicago artist. She selected two of her favorites to start: Margaret Hale of North and South and Helen of Troy from Homer’s Iliad. Since the Margaret Hale required one more day of drying before it could be moved, Meg had offered to deliver both paintings this morning herself. Mrs. Palmer had agreed and purchased two volumes of early Chicago history on the spot. Witnessing this transaction, another new customer purchased portraits of Marianne and Elinor Dashwood, the sisters from Sense and Sensibility, along with a boxed collection of Jane Austen’s work for his wife’s upcoming birthday. At this rate, Sylvie wouldn’t have to worry over the accounting books much longer.

  Turning onto State Street, Meg’s enthusiasm almost made up for her lack of sleep. The fire bell in the courthouse tower had continued to clang every day and night this week, each time sounding an alarm deep inside her father. Other than pacing the roof at night, he refused to leave their apartment. He must be ready, he’d said, for anything.

  To Nathaniel Pierce’s credit, nothing in his article had hinted that Stephen’s state of mind ever faltered, and for this she was profoundly relieved. She knew what it was like to be misrepresented.

  As a child, she’d been called an imbecile and had almost believed it was true. Written language and numbers, which had come so easily to Sylvie as a child, had exasperated Meg. Letters mashed together in jumbles of squirming shapes until she despaired of ever learning to read. She grew to despise both school and the bookshop for holding worlds within pages she could never unlock, worlds enjoyed by everyone in her family but her. She’d consoled herself by painting realms of her own and by eating too many sweets.

  Meg’s teachers had dismissed her as dim-witted, unteachable, and surly. Her father was the only one who saw past her temper to the frustration and heartbreak beneath. If he hadn’t taken on her education at home, she never would have overcome her challenges.

  Even now, numbers traded places in her vision when she was tired or stressed, but she’d long since learned how to manage, how to read. Still, the unflattering brushstrokes with which she had been painted had left their mark. She loathed the idea of Stephen being labeled insane. She would stay by him, in body and spirit, until he found his way again. Just as he had remained by her.

  Shifting the paintings in her hands, Meg tucked her concerns about her father behind the opportunities broadening before her. On State Street, her steps quickly took her into the shadow of the six-story Marble Palace department store at the northeast corner of State and Washington. The smell of roasting chestnuts drifted from a food cart as she passed the First National Bank and Booksellers’ Row, a five-story building full of news companies and publishers.

  At last she stood before the tallest building in Chicago and the only fireproof hotel in America, according to the papers. The Palmer House hotel was eight stories high and had opened to the public just last week. A thrill rushed through Meg as she stepped beneath Roman arches and through the massive double doors.

  She was greeted by a smartly uniformed employee. “Mrs. Palmer is expecting me this morning,” she told him, giving her name.

  “Yes’m, Miss Townsend, she is.” An approving smile flashed in his dark face as he welcomed her inside. His speech held a distinctive and pleasant drawl, hinting at Southern roots. At the sound of heels clicking briskly toward them, he turned. “Ah! There’s Missus Palmer now.”

  “Meg! Thank you for coming.” Rings dazzled on Mrs. Palmer’s fingers. Her alabaster skin was radiant, her hair coiffed to perfection with diamond-studded combs, her corseted waist much smaller than Meg’s. The socialite and philanthropist had been twenty-one when
she married Potter Palmer last year. Which meant that at twenty-two years old now, she was one year Meg’s junior and less than half her esteemed husband’s age.

  “I believe these belong to you now,” Meg said. “That is, if they please you.”

  “Oh!” Mrs. Palmer exclaimed. “Zachary, would you?”

  At her gesture, the man who’d greeted Meg removed the linen sheet from around the canvases and held the portraits while Mrs. Palmer tilted her head to regard them.

  “Perfect.” Mrs. Palmer smiled. “Even better than I remember them. Zachary, these are for my personal library in our private living suite. Would you take them there? I’ll be along later to tell you where to hang them. Thank you.” She waited until he walked away, then handed Meg a small purse. “Your payment, plus a little something extra for the trouble of bringing them here. I assume cash is all right?”

  “Yes, of course. Thank you.” Meg tucked the fee into her reticule. Businessmen eddied around them, their conversation a low drone.

  “Not at all.” Mrs. Palmer waved the matter aside with a flick of her elegant wrist. “Oh, what a madhouse this is! This was all supposed to be finished before the grand opening, of course. Mr. Palmer and I haven’t moved into our suite quite yet, as there’s too much to be done. It really is extraordinary, though. Two hundred twenty-five rooms, and each floor connected by an elevator, of course. It’s Mr. Palmer’s favorite ingenuity. I gravitate toward the imported luxuries: handwoven Axminster carpets, French chandeliers and candelabra, and genuine Carrara marble.”

  “Carrara? As in, Michelangelo’s Carrara marble? The same marble from which he carved David and the Pietà?” Meg glanced at a grand marble fireplace in the lobby, longing to touch it, as if she could channel some of Michelangelo’s artistic genius into her hand.

  Truthfully, however, the painter of the Sistine Chapel was far too intimidating to be her role model. That honor went to Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, Queen Marie Antoinette’s favorite portraitist. At a time when female artists faced nearly insurmountable odds, Le Brun not only survived the French Revolution but went on to add a long list of European royalty to her clientele.

  Meg emulated Le Brun’s blend of old master techniques and subjects in natural and inviting poses, even smiling, but she had no illusions of copying the Frenchwoman’s success. She’d toyed with the idea of painting living subjects, but that would require spending large parts of her day too far from her father, who might need her. So Meg contented herself with painting from imagination.

  “There is another matter I wish to discuss with you,” Mrs. Palmer was saying. “I’m enchanted by the literary portraits you’ve done, and I’ll want more. I would love paintings of Agnes Grey and Jane Eyre, but I saw neither of those in your shop yesterday. If I commissioned them, would you paint them for me? How much time do you need, do you suppose?”

  Meg was already sketching the portraits in her mind. “I can get the first done inside of a week, since I have no other orders.”

  “That will be fine.” Clearly distracted, Mrs. Palmer smiled at a lady gliding through the lobby.

  “Then I best return to my studio straightaway,” Meg said. “Would you care to see sketches before I paint?”

  “Splendid idea. Let’s make a luncheon of it. Say, next Monday, right here, at eleven o’clock? I’ll see that Chef puts his famous chocolate pie on the menu.” She walked Meg toward the door, leaning in to be heard above carpenters hammering finishing nails into the wainscoting. “Thanks again for delivering my Margaret and Helen to me. I shall cherish them always! I must write a note of thanks to that reporter for drawing my attention to your shop in the first place. By the way, I hope you aren’t upset about the letter in today’s issue. Pay it no mind. If the writer couldn’t even bring himself to attach his name to it, then it’s rubbish, pure and simple.”

  A loud crash sounded, and Meg startled, turning to see a man in coveralls righting a fallen ladder. Sarcastic applause surrounded him.

  “As I said, a madhouse, yes? Until next time, my dear. Let us hope all our ladders will be put away by then.” With that, Mrs. Palmer bid Meg farewell and sent her gently back onto State Street.

  Looping her reticule over her wrist, Meg set her jaw and headed straight for the nearest newsie.

  “Mr. Pierce!”

  At the door to the Tribune building, Nate turned and blinked at the woman shouting for his attention from the other side of Dearborn Street. She marched across the road, the brim of her hat rippling in the wind. Blond ringlets fluttered over the shoulders of her fitted jacket. Upon reaching him, Meg Townsend held up a newspaper and rattled it.

  He tipped his hat to her. “Miss Townsend. It’s good to see you. Something the matter?”

  “Is there somewhere we can talk?” Her tone clipped, she cast a glance at the four-story marble Tribune building behind him. “Not here.”

  “Shall I escort you home?”

  “No, no, not there either.” She pulled her hat a little lower on her brow. She was agitated. And she had come to him. Why?

  Curiosity beat out his impatience to get on with his work, so he took her to the Wild Onion Café around the corner, where they both ordered coffee. Smells of sage, sausage, bacon, eggs, and onions wafted through the café, but she asked for blackberry pie a la mode. Her father had fed such a pie to a stray dog last week, but instead of mentioning that, Nate ordered a slice for himself as well.

  Flipping over their mugs, the waitress filled them both with steaming coffee before whisking off to the pie counter, where several varieties waited beneath glass domes.

  Lips in a tight line, Miss Townsend tucked her chin, obviously gathering her thoughts. She stared at the scallop-edged paper placemat, then at the single flower in the milk bottle vase, then at two college-aged young men scuffing across the black-and-white tiled floor toward a booth. Anywhere but at Nate. Odd, and slightly irritating, since she was the one who had come to him.

  Not very subtly, he checked his pocket watch. “Is it a secret, what’s on your mind?” He unrolled his silverware from the napkin.

  Miss Townsend unpinned her hat from her hair and set it on the bench beside her. “I assumed you’d be able to guess.” Sunlight slipped through the crocheted curtains and stippled her profile.

  The clink of silverware on plates grew louder as other diners were served. Nate stirred cream into his coffee, and the aroma curled around him. “You mistrusted me from the beginning. I can only suspect my article proved your misgiving correct.” Though for the life of him, he couldn’t imagine how.

  She shook her head. “If you only knew what your article meant to us! To me, to my family, to our business. Bertha Palmer read it and has become my most enthusiastic patron overnight. Sylvie is sure to be insufferable now, since it was all her idea.” She poured cream, then sugar into her mug, turning her coffee the very caramel shade of her eyes.

  “So the article brought your store business?” And from Bertha Palmer, no less. Someone might find a story in that—Millionaire’s Wife Prizes Hidden Gem in Local Artist. He smiled.

  So did she. “It did, and we have you to thank for it.”

  The waitress returned with two plates, then hurried away to take another table’s order. Creamy mounds of vanilla ice cream dripped down the sides of their pie.

  Miss Townsend took a bite and closed her eyes. “This is good.”

  Satisfaction filled him. She was much more agreeable now than when they’d first met. If he’d had a role in easing any part of the Townsend family’s lives, he was grateful for that. “But then, what did you shake at me not ten minutes ago?”

  Swallowing, she unfolded the newspaper and shoved it across the table at him. With two fingers, she thumped a column. A letter to the editor from today’s paper. “Did you see this?”

  He hadn’t. Quickly, he parsed the text.

  People of Chicago, do not be fooled. Mr. Stephen Townsend, of the corner of Clark and Randolph Streets, may have fired a musket, he may have s
urvived Southern captivity, but what is that to us today? Today he is no hero. He is a madman, given to violent tempers and abusive threats. Shame on reporter Nathaniel Pierce for associating such a man with honor. More investigation, Mr. Pierce, and less sentimentality would serve everyone far better.

  Heat flashed across his face. He looked up to find Miss Townsend watching him, heartache sketched across her expression.

  “Keep reading.” She took a sip of coffee and pinned her gaze to the paper.

  Judge for yourself from his behavior, of which I am an eye and ear witness. He leaves the running of his store to his two daughters, both of whom are young and unmarried, while he plays in the dirt in his backyard, shouting obscenities to anyone who passes by his rickety fence. Not even children are safe from his abuses. He paces the roof of his building at night, shunning slumber for a chance to hunt ghosts. Who prefers darkness over light, except he who has darkness in his heart?

  Watch yourselves, fellow citizens. The city is not safe when lunatics are named heroes, unaccountable for their crimes. Watch him, fellow neighbors. What will it take before we insist he is locked up for his good and ours?

  Anger coursed through Nate. He folded the paper, hiding the hateful slander.

  “Well?” Miss Townsend asked him. She pushed her plate to the side of the table, the remains of the pie drowned in a vanilla puddle. “You talked to my father. He told you things he never told my mother or my sister or me. Do you think—that is, from what you know, do you believe he ought to be locked up? Be honest.”

  He could see that it cost her even to ask. “No.” He held her gaze. “And you should know that I am honest whether told to be or not.” To his shame, he’d learned at the start of his reporting career how easy it was to deceive the public through “embellished” reporting, and how damaging that could be. He’d devoted himself to the truth ever since.