... Now she felt the faces of people watching as they passed on the street. She blushed in the youthful certainty that they were being talked about, when in truth no one had taken any real notice of them.
"Very well, thank you. I was just heading for the Academy to see if... I could lend a hand."
"More nurses than wounded soldiers there already. Surely you have time to take a stroll down by the water? I haven't seen the river since I was a child," and he gently steered her to their left down the path toward the creek.
"The river?"
He looked down the hill. "I mean to say... creek."
She didn't care for this at all. She was fairly certain this fellow had robbed his own Uncle's grave and retrieved - at the very least - a Bible his wife meant to send to heaven with her Samuel. Annabelle wanted to get away from Norris - and quickly.
She began to pull her arm away and turn about, but he pulled her up short. All show of manners gone, he spit the question, "Just what do you mean by spying on me back there, Miss MacBain?"
His nature had changed so suddenly, she couldn't think how to reply. She swallowed hard. "It - it wasn't intentional, Mr. Norris."
He released his grasp and crossed his arms to continue in controlled anger, "I'd appreciate you leaving things well enough alone, as you promised. No need for you to play the spy."
"Of course. Yes. I mean, no. Mr. Norris I hardly know where to begin! I only came to the tavern to ask Mr. Henry a question." But as she answered, she was wondering why he used the word spy. She hadn't really been spying, had she? Had she?
He replied with a curt laugh. He didn't believe her.
"Mr. Norris, I've stated my business to you plain enough, 'though I hardly expect you could explain your recent rendezvous to me."
At the word "rendezvous," his mood changed once more. His arms dropped and his eyes began to study her with fixed attention. As she stared into his now rigid face, a brilliant thought popped into mind: perhaps he is a spy, that he can accuse me so readily of spying. As father says, "To a hammer, everything is a nail."
The grave, the rendezvous, the Bible - the mystery of it all: yes, his odd behavior might find an explanation in the word spy. And if he truly was a spy, then he wasn't Malachi Norris at all.
Her eyes narrowed. The fellow was suddenly unsure of himself - of his position. The way he stood there, waiting for her to continue. Well, it made her positive she was right. The feeling of power came so quickly to her, she almost burst out laughing. "Yes. Your rendezvous." Her lip curled slightly, and, although she was nervous in the delivery, she reached out her pinky and barely touched the place on his coat where the little leather book lay.
Having no forethought as to what a few words to a real spy could do, she was not ready for his response. He grabbed her arm as if she'd given him a fatal blow, threw his face into hers, and said under his breath, "What do you want, then? What's your part?"
It struck Annabelle that she had gotten herself into something awful and deep, as if she'd stepped into a sand box to play... only to find it filled with quicksand.
She gulped and her eyes flew open wide. Honesty became her only defense, "I hoped Mr. Henry knew where my father... I just want to know where my father is - Dr. Ludwell MacBain, an Assistant Surgeon to the 43rd Battalion." Trying to yank her arm away, she cried out quickly, "He's come from an awful battle up in Pennsylvania, and I have to know where he is."
In his eyes - there - she saw it. The flash of recognition. He knows. The strange mix of anger and raw energy returned. "It is certain I'm owed a better explanation than that. Come down the hill a ways further, please." He walked her firmly to the back corner of the church. "There. You may have your arm back. Now explain yourself if you can."
She looked him straight in the eye and did not blink. "I went into the tavern to try to discover where the troops might be that are coming down from Pennsylvania, but I found rather a different bit of information. Now that I've thought upon the matter, I believe you could answer my question better than Mr. Henry or anyone else in town - with the exception, perhaps, of your friend, Mr. Cummings?"
He surprised her with a quick reply. "Miss MacBain, how in heaven's name would I know where your father is?"
But then his Adam's apple rose and fell with a deep swallow. Just as Michael used to when he'd swear he hadn't been gaming.
And with that, the last of her uncertainty fell away.
To order a copy of Pella's Angel:
Bibliographic References:
Women's Civil War History:
Women in The Civil War, by Mary Elizabeth Massey,University of Nebraska Press
A Woman's Civil War: A diary, with Reminiscences of the War, from March 1862 - Cornelia Peake MacDonald, Ed. Minrose C. Gwin, The University of Wisconsin Press
Loudoun County and the Civil War, Loudoun County Civil War Centenniel Commission (Loudoun Museum Bookstore)
Legends of Loudoun, by Garrett and Massie (Ldn Mus. Bookstore)
Weevels in the Wheat: Interviews with Virginia Ex-slaves, University Press of Virginia
Heroines of Dixie, Katharine M. Jones, Konecky & Konecky Pub.
The Civil War in Loudoun County:
The Diary of Miss Mary E. Lack
The Diary of Miss Virginia J. Miller 1861-1862
Microfiche of Leesburg's Civil War-era newspaper: The Democratic Mirror
Letter from Carrie Taylor (of the Society of Friends)
Ye Meeting Hous Smal, a Short Account of Friends of Loudoun County, Virginia, 1732-1980, by Werner and Asa Moore Janney (available through the Loudoun Museum, Leesburg, VA.)
19th Century Costume History:
Civil War Ladies: Fashions and Needle-Arts of the Early 1860's, published by R.L. Shep
The Everyday Clothing of Rural Women at the Time of the Civil War, by Ary Vansteamburg, published by Mariah Furnace Press.
Who Wore What? Women's Wear 1861-1865, by Juanita Leisch,Thomas Publications.
