Annapolis, page 41
“Lieutenant Tom Stafford, US Naval Academy. Will you save the Constitution, sir?”
“That’s what I’m here for.”
“Then thank God! The old ship is safe!”
The big ferry was pounding past them now, and Tom was holding tight to a line, so that the paddle wave would not throw him overboard.
“I don’t mean the ship!” shouted Butler, walking toward the stern to keep the Rainbow within earshot. “I mean the document. But I’ll save the ship, too!”
ALEXANDRA PARRISH HAD not lit the lantern when she saw the steamer. Now she watched the little schooner go circling around the steamer like a pup around its master, and she was glad that she had waited.
Her father’s voice echoed up to her from the marble floor far below. “That damn Ethan never said a word about Yankee reinforcements, did he?”
She looked down at the furious figure below. “Maybe he didn’t know.”
“He knew. He’s not to be trusted.”
Then she heard his angry footfalls echoing out.
“Pa!” she cried. “Where are you goin’?”
“To wreck a railroad.”
AT HAMPTON ROADS, a sobering George Stafford stood on the deck of the Cumberland and watched the sky boiling red. But it was not the eastern sky he was watching, nor was it the alcohol in his head that caused the flaring of colors.
The Gosport Navy Yard had been put to the torch.
The ship houses were collapsing onto themselves in great spark-filled clouds of smoke. Ordnance was exploding. Foundries and machine shops were burning. And the Merrimack, her bottom sunk in the mud, her upper works soaked in turpentine, was swallowed by fire.
v
An Occupying Army
The people of Annapolis awakened to a sight that neither Unionist nor secessionist would ever forget.
From the east-facing windows of the Fine Folly, Alexandra Parrish saw it the moment she opened her eyes.
And her grandfather must have seen it, too, because she heard him curse, slam open his door, and go scrambling down the hallway. She found him in the attic, at the window in the gable end, focusing his captain’s glass on the bay.
“What is it, Grandfather?”
“It’s the Constitution… my good Lord, with her gunports open.”
Alexandra grabbed the telescope and looked for herself.
“My own brother was shot through the lungs right on that deck, and now… good Lord!” Walter pointed the glass to the Academy wharf in the Severn.
There were two steamers there, disgorging the Eighth Massachusetts and the Seventh New York, while the guns of the Constitution covered their landing, all as neat and military as if Annapolis were enemy soil.
The old man turned his sagging face to his granddaughter. His eyes were bloodshot and bleary. His hair stuck up in little wisps all around the bald spot on the back of his head. His breath, even from a few feet away, formed a foul morning fog. “Folks always call me easy old Walter… say I smile too much for a Parrish.… Well, it’s just that I never had anything to get me mad, till now.”
• • •
WITH HIS DUFFEL bag on his shoulder, Ethan came out into the yard for the last time. Whatever his father’s dreams for this Academy, they were now in dust.
The area between Stribling Row and the river was covered with white tents. Smoke from the cookfires was already curling into the sky. Bugles were trumpeting, drums beating, and over by the Fort Severn gatehouse, a Massachusetts sergeant with a voice like a howitzer was mustering a company into formation.
Scuttlebutt was that within a few days, the midshipmen would board the Constitution and sail for new quarters at Newport, Rhode Island, or they would head south.
About fifty of them had gathered at the old mulberry tree, the only high ground in the middle of the Federal flood. The class leaders had called their mates together—loyal midshipmen and resignees both—to smoke a ceremonial peace pipe under the tree, a final good-bye among friends.
Ethan watched from a distance. But when one of his mates called for him to join the ceremony, he simply waved and hurried toward the gatehouse.
He had not gone far when he heard Tom’s voice. “Aren’t you smokin’ with the boys?”
“It’s a little late for peace pipes, I’d say.” Ethan put down his duffel bag and offered his hand to his brother.
Tom took it. “You did fine, facin’ down that steamer.”
“I had a good man to count on.”
Over by the gatehouse, the Massachusetts company had formed and the sergeant shouted, “By the twos, quick march!”
Tom said, “You better not be plannin’ to go anywhere in the cars. Those Massachusetts boys are headin’ up to seize the railhead right now. The Baltimore bully boys burned all the bridges between there and Washington. That’s why this unit came here by boat.”
And with the pounding of a hundred pairs of boots, on grass that a day before was worth three demerits to anyone who stepped on it, the Massachusetts men went through the gate.
Ethan patted a pocket of the tan suit he had bought in the haberdashery. “I have money. I’ll buy a horse. I should make Stafford Hall tonight.”
“Warn Cecil. This’ll be a long war. He might make more money plantin’ in beans and corn than tobacco.”
“I will.”
“And, Ethan… next time you write with your left hand, don’t add that extra curl on the end of the capital L. You’ve done it since you were a boy.”
Ethan gave his half brother a little grin and kept going, right out the gate and up the street behind the Massachusetts men.
IN A FAR corner of the Annapolis and Elkridge railroad yard, Robby Parrish swung a nine-pound hammer as hard as he could and split the coupling on a boxcar. “There you go, Pa.”
Dan’l Parrish was prying the hub from every wheel. “They’ll never say we didn’t do our part, son.”
All around them, their friends were swinging hammers and working crowbars. They had decided not to burn the rolling stock because columns of smoke would draw too much attention. But the damage would be just as permanent.
Dan’l Parrish, a director of the Annapolis and Elkridge Railroad, had seen to the destruction of his own line. Behind him were two miles of torn-up track and ruined cars. No Federal troops would reach Washington for days. By then, Virginians would have taken the city, and Lincoln would be in jail.
Now Dunstable Ripley came running into the yard. “Those Yankees, they’re swarmin’ ’round the Academy like flies on shit. They’ll be here any minute.”
“Brush off your clothes, then,” said Dan’l to the others, “and we’ll march down West Street like we own it.”
“Because we do,” said Robby.
ALEXANDRA COULD HEAR the blue-coated troops pounding past.
She was sitting on her bed, struggling to pull on her riding boots, while down in the barn, one of the house slaves was saddling her horse. If she rode up King George Street, past the old Liberty Tree, and across the Saint John’s campus, she might reach the yards before the Federal troops and warn her father and brother. Her second boot was half on when she heard her grandfather shouting, “Hey! Hey! Look up here! Up here, you Yankee sons of bitches!”
She went flopping down the hallway and found the old man at the window above the front door, waving a small flag—three bars of red and white on a field of blue with seven stars. “Go back to where you come from!”
Alexandra grabbed the old man and pulled him back inside.
Federal officers were already coming up the steps, but she could hear her father calling to the Yankees in a voice he normally used only in the presence of women he was trying to charm. At least he was back from the rail yard, thank the Lord.
Alexandra slammed the window and snatched the flag from her grandfather. “You can’t fly that in front of Federal troops.”
“Then I’ll go someplace where I can.” He stalked into his bedroom. “Get me my good suit. I’m goin’ sellin’.”
“Sellin’ what?”
“This house. I won’t stay a day in an occupied city, by damn. I’ll turn the money into Confederate bonds and hunker down at Parrish Manor.”
“Get the money in gold, Grandpa,” cried Robby Parrish, coming up the stairs, “and hold on to it.”
“Did you wreck the railroad?” Alexandra asked.
Robby pushed aside the drapery and looked down into the street. “Those Boston boys are hurryin’ for nothin’.”
“Good,” said Alexandra.
“Bad,” said Walter. “It means they’ll be in Annapolis longer.”
“Wave that flag again, Pa, and they’ll be in the house.” Dan’l pounded up the stairs, sweating heavily after his labors in the rail yard and his fast talk with the Yankees.
“That’s why I’m sellin’,” said the old man. “Today.”
“Sellin’? What kind of foolishness is this?”
“If Maryland stays in Federal hands, it’s no foolishness at all,” said Robby. “We’ll need all the money we can get, just to keep Parrish Manor goin’.”
“And even if Maryland don’t go out,” added old Walter, “I’m helpin’ this new Confederacy. If I can’t fight, I’ll put up the money to let someone else fight.”
Robby took out a cigar and struck a match on the window frame, as though losing respect for the house already. “If Ethan’s tellin’ the truth about a Federal blockade—”
“He didn’t lie,” Alexandra said, angrily.
“—we can put the money to work backin’ a blockade-runner or a commerce-raider. Help the cause and bring in a few prizes, too.”
“Prizes?” Dan’l’s eyes shifted from his son to his father.
“The men who built this house funded commerce raiders.” Robby drew in the cigar smoke. “Some fine fortunes were made back then, and the men who made ’em were considered heroes.”
“How much do you reckon we could get for the house?” Dan’l asked Robby.
“Premium price,” answered Walter, “if we sell to the Staffords.”
“This house means a lot to us,” said Alexandra.
“This house doesn’t mean near as much as Parrish Manor,” said Robby.
“It sure don’t.” Walter went down the hall. “I’m goin’ sellin’, to the Staffords.”
But one of the Staffords was standing at the front door when they all followed old Walter down the stairs.
“Mornin’, Ethan,” said Walter pleasantly, as though bad temper should never interfere with good manners.
“What do you want?” demanded Dan’l.
“To know if you have any messages for the overseer at Parrish Manor. I’m leavin’ this mornin’, and I’d be glad to pass them.”
“There’s no message I’d trust you with, son.” Dan’l stepped in front of Alexandra. “And no daughter, either.”
“But if your pa wants to buy this house,” said Walter, “I trust his gold.”
“I’ll tell him, sir, if he ever speaks to me again.” Then Ethan said, “I’d like to buy that horse you were offerin’ for sale last week.”
“Brandy?” Walter smiled. “She was my wife, Hattie’s, second favorite. Black Jude was first. I give Black Jude to Lexie, but Brandy’s a sweet mare and—”
“We’ll sell you the horse,” said Dan’l coldly, “if you’re usin’ it to ride away.”
“How much?”
“A hundred dollars,” said Dan’l.
“She’s worth fifty,” said Robby.
“If you’re goin’ off to fight for the Confederacy,” said Walter, “I’ll sell her to you for twenty-five.”
“I’ll show her to you.” Alexandra stepped around her father and took Ethan by the hand, to lead him down the hallway.
But her father stuck his big belly in front of them.
“Excuse me, Pa,” she said brightly, “but this rebel needs a horse.”
“I been up all night, girl, wreckin’ a railroad I built with my own money. Don’t be testin’ me now.”
“Aw, Dan’l,” said Walter, “step aside. There’s rebellion in the air. We can all smell it. And rebellin’s all she’s doin’.”
“Thank you, Grandpa. We’re all rebels now, aren’t we?” Alexandra kept the tone of her voice carefully bright. “Now, make up the bill of sale, Daddy, while I get Ethan his horse.”
For a moment, Dan’l and his daughter stood, staring hard at each other, her face frozen in a smile, his in a frown.
Then Robby mimicked his sister’s tone, like a perfect big brother. “Yes, Daddy. Do that.”
And Dan’l stalked into the library.
ETHAN AND ALEXANDRA both knew what would happen when they got to the barn and smelled the hay.
Alexandra, pretending to be all business in riding boots and jacket, led Ethan over to a beautiful chestnut. “Do you like her?”
“Her coat’s the color of your hair.”
Alexandra snapped her riding crop against her boot, a sound that brought the stable slave from one of the stalls. “Take Brandy out and saddle her.”
“Yes’m.”
Now she turned back to Ethan, raised both hands to the back of her head, and unpinned her hair. Then she looked at him, as if daring him to swim a fast river.
With a furtive glance back toward the house, Ethan slipped an arm around her waist. She wore no hoops in her skirt, had no corset cinching her waist. “What about your father?”
“He hates the stable.” And she kissed him. “He hates it almost as much as he’s beginnin’ to hate you. But he’s not goin’ off to fight for the Confederacy. He don’t deserve a send-off.” And with a deft little movement, she pivoted him into an unused stall where the hay was piled high.…
WHEN DAN’L PARRISH saw Ethan’s bare butt and his daughter’s riding boots, he did what any father would have done: he grabbed the pitchfork hanging on the wall and gave Ethan a nasty surprise in the ass.
Ethan did what any suitor would. He jumped to his feet, pulled up his pants, and said, “I would like to ask for your daughter’s hand in marriage.”
And Alexandra popped out of the hay. “Yes!”
“Get out,” growled Dan’l. “You betrayed us.”
“I did not, sir,” Ethan lied.
“And you stole my daughter’s virtue.”
“I’m sorry,” he lied. From all he had heard, one of the Ripley brothers had taken her virtue when they were both thirteen. But he would uphold a lady’s honor.
“I won’t let you betray her again,” said Dan’l.
“I’ll make the choice, Pa!” she cried.
“Shut up, you little trollop.”
As Ethan moved to her defense, Dan’l pressed the pitchfork against his chest. “Prove that you’re loyal to the cause and I may change my mind. Now get on that horse and go, before Robby blasts a hole in you.”
Robby had appeared in the door of the barn, behind the barrels of a shotgun. He gave Ethan one of those little winks, as if to say that he wouldn’t really shoot.
ETHAN WAS A few miles outside of town in the cornfields that stretched beyond West Street. The warm sun and greening earth did little to assuage the pain he felt in his ass or his heart or his head. He was not going to Stafford Hall. There was no prospect of winning Alexandra by spending the war on a tobacco plantation. And the prospect of joining a nonexistent Confederate navy did not appeal to him, either.
But he had to do something to prove that he was worthy of Lexie Parrish.
And there were better ways than war to get what he wanted. That was becoming clear to him.
With a few subtly written letters, he had stopped a bloodletting in Annapolis. Using one’s intelligence was the thing to do. Finding ways to get the right intelligence to the right people mattered, too.
So he wheeled the horse toward Washington.
vi
A New Family for Alexandra
Maryland did not secede. She had too many Unionists, too much border to the north, and within a few weeks, too many Federal troops sent by Lincoln to ensure her loyalty.
And most of the troops, it seemed to Dan’l Parrish, were in Annapolis. So he did not stand in the way of his father’s sale to the Staffords.
For the second time, the Parrishes left a house they loved, in a capital they had grown to hate, and went home to the Patuxent. But they knew little of the bitterness that Rebecca Parrish had carried with her, perhaps because they also carried $2,000 in Stafford gold.
In addition to the gold, Tom Stafford had agreed to pay an eight-thousand-dollar mortgage to Walter Parrish at an exorbitant rate of eight percent, the figure pegged to the interest rate on the Confederate bond. But that did not matter to Tom, because he wanted the house, and in those uncertain times, no bank was going to write a mortgage for any man going into battle.
What Tom did not know was that his gold would help Robby Parrish to fund a Confederate blockade-runner, while the monthly payments would keep Parrish Manor afloat. The Fine Folly became the Parrishes’ hedge against disaster and gave them capital to venture on the opportunities that disaster sometimes brought.
THE FIRST DISASTER BEFELL THE North.
In July, some thirty miles southwest of Washington, Confederate forces overwhelmed Federal troops at Manassas, driving them back across a stream called Bull Run and sending them stumbling in panic toward Washington. A gentle shove and the capital would have fallen. Fortunately for the North, the Confederates did not know this.
Jason Stafford did, however, and he decided it was time to move his wife, George’s wife, Eve, and his little grandson, Jacob, to the relative safety of Annapolis. So it was that a few weeks later, the Staffords stood again before the Fine Folly.
The sun was high and blindingly hot; horses keeled over; dogs snapped at their tails and even the fence posts seemed to sweat in the humidity: summer on the Chesapeake. But Jason knew that there were places in that old house that kept their coolness on the hottest day, and he meant to find them again, and lose himself in memories that might make the present more palatable.
