Surrender the Wind (4 page)

“Hold still!” She jumped from her own command, flushing as he shifted and fisted his hands in the sheets. “I’ll never be able to finish.”

She continued the process determined to finish and leave. The general groaned and she tied off the bandage. With her free hand, she pushed her spectacles back up the bridge of her nose and swiped at loose tendrils of her hair.

The general jerked his head back, looked at her twice. “You tried to bury me alive.”

She flinched. “Union soldiers threw your body from the train that crosses my property. I had gone for a walk…seen what they did…they said you were dead,” she sniffed. “I wished to give you a proper burial.”

“By letting the worms have me before I’m dead?”

“You tried to strangle me.” She grabbed the scissors and discarded bandages. A dangling end caught beneath him and she yanked it out.

“You were picking my pockets. You shoveled dirt over me.”

She pointed the scissors at him. “I was looking for your personal effects to notify your family. To think this is the thanks I get.” She moved to the door, her heels clacking on the floor, her chin raised. “I’ll chalk it up to you being cantankerous and needing your rest.” How dare he direct the full blast of his hostility toward her when she had done everything in her power to do what was right?

“Cantankerous? That is for doddering old men.”

She waved her scissors through the air. “Add complaining and whining.”

“Complaining? Whining? That is novel.” He patted the bed next to him. “I don’t want to be alone, and neither do you. Sit down,” he commanded. “I am a gentleman. Arrogant, but a gentleman and I…apologize.”

Catherine opened her mouth at first to decline and thank him for his offer, then stopped. It seemed a betrayal to thank her enemy, to pretend that there was no war between them and that they were—well—friends. Shawn was missing or dead, and maybe by this man’s bullet.

A lump grew in her throat, and her chest constricted at the thought. Shawn had been so proud to fight for the cause, but she’d wanted to hold him back. Keep him safe. Keep him close. Now she had no one.

One thing was for certain. If this man was who he affirmed he was, then she was in the company of the Confederate Army’s most notorious, if not dangerous, commanders. Over the past four years of war, she had read many newspaper articles of General John Daniel Rourke’s exploits. To the discredit and frustration of northern commanders, he had immobilized, attacked and outmaneuvered them embarrassingly, and he did it over and over again. He was one of General Lee’s favorite fighting sons of the Confederacy, the toast and legend of the South. Clever, cold and defiant. He remained at the forefront, advancing hundreds of his screaming angry Rebs, their blood-cry and lust for battle sending a chill up any Union soldier’s spine. It was hard to believe he was in her bed.

Never would it be proper for a woman to entertain a man without a chaperone, let alone her bedroom, and scandalous in the eyes of New York Society. Yet Pleasant Valley was miles away, her present home far from town, and no one was around to check on proper decorum. The general or whoever he assumed to be was offering her friendship. She could see it in the warmth of his eyes, hear it in the gentleness of his deep baritone voice. How could she turn his friendship aside? And hadn’t he apologized?

Maybe North and South were fighting, but for just this once, Catherine thought with perfect clarity, peace could be bridged through friendship—a friendship that connected the spirit of honor, dignity, and compassion. Both of them were alone, an island unto themselves, absent from hate and struggle and death.

Having made her decision after a prolonged period of silence, she lifted her chin, accepting his offer of friendship. She sat on the chair facing him.

“Tell me everything there is about you, Miss Callahan.”

Her mind fluttered away.
What was she to say? Tell him outright that she was an
heiress to one the largest fortunes in the country? Tell him her family’s wealth was made from
Fitzgerald Rifle Works, rifles manufactured to kill Rebel soldiers?
They had initiated a friendship. If he knew her identity, he would hate her.

“There’s not too much to tell. I am the schoolteacher in Pleasant Valley.”

He interrupted her. “You are not from here, are you?”

He hadn’t gained his reputation by being slow to see and seize—a discrepancy. She flushed. “I’m from New York City. My uncle is the parish priest in this community and offered me the position when the schoolmaster ran off with the wife of the butcher. Since my mother and father died before the war, and with Shawn missing and no real family remaining, I was detached and lonely. So I decided to take my uncle up on his offer. It’s all very simple, really, not much to tell.” She smoothed her skirts, depicting an ease she didn’t feel.

He frowned with only a slight smile to warm his expression. No doubt, after commanding men, he had acquired an uncanny gift of discernment and not for one moment did she think he believed anything about her was as “simple” as she stated. “How is it you came to be so well educated, Miss Callahan?”

She shifted under his direct scrutiny, Catherine crafted an answer. “I read quite a bit. My father was a great lover of books, and as he had a business of modest means, had the funds to acquire them.” She didn’t dare tell him they had one of the most comprehensive of residential libraries in New York. Neither did she divulge that prominent invited guests to their home included lively debates on the arts, economics, politics, literature and many other subjects. Among them was Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, William Astor and Admiral David G. Farragut. All and many more had graced the Fitzgerald table on different occasions. “I try to read everything I can get my hands on, General Rourke.” She inclined her head, offering him the same formality in which he had addressed her.

He threw back his head and roared with laughter. “Am I to understand that you now believe I am who I say I am? Believe what you will, but I always speak the truth.” He stared at her with well-intended meaning.

Sound lodged in her throat along with her heart. Had he guessed she was not telling the whole story?
That she lived in danger.
Catherine shrugged, betraying none of her nervousness from his continued scrutiny. “Lord save me from a man with his illusions.”

“Life is a journey down the landscape of illusion.” He probed again, his double entendre.

How dare he patronize her? As if he knew so much more than she. “How philosophical you are, not only claiming to be a general but a Greek scholar too. Was it Socrates?” Did she see a challenge met in his eyes? Catherine smiled. Indeed, he’d find her a worthy foe.

“No Plato.” His grin was taunting.

“But Plato based his ethical theory on the proposition that all people desire happiness. Is that not so?” She tempted him.

“Yes.”

“Of course,” she instructed. “People sometimes act in ways that do not yield happiness. But they do this only because they do not know what actions will produce happiness—like your Cause.” Her gaze locked on his, she waited for some frivolous answer—some goading, some crossing of swords.

Instead he considered her, letting the moment draw out, then raising his brows. “The touch of your sword wounds me. Plato further claimed that happiness is the natural consequence of a healthy state of the soul. Because moral virtue makes up the health of the soul, all people should desire to be virtuous, therefore States rights are paramount—as my Cause—for they are virtuous.”

What a thrill that he thrived on intellectual debate. “Your so-called virtuous States Rights are flawed. For the soul of Plato, the basic problem of ethics is a problem of knowledge. If a person knows that moral virtue leads to happiness, he or she acts with a natural inclination toward virtue. Your Cause fails in this.”

“Our Cause does not fail and will not fail. We view the basic problem of ethics as a problem of the will. The South knows what is morally right and we will prevail.”

“You have switched from Plato to St. Thomas Aquinas, General.” How she savored to point out the flaw in his argument.

He inclined his head in an exaggerated bow. “My shadow is small in the sun of your greater knowledge.”

She ignored his mockery. “The Christian philosophers would argue that owning a man is immoral. Those who allow slavery should not have freedom themselves.” She remained emphatic on the subject and would not bend. “Do you have slaves?”

He was introspective for a moment, and then spoke. “At one time, yes, but my brothers, parents and I decided to free them. Some remain and we pay them wages. I always believed slavery was a rotten whore of an institution. What about the cold hypocrisy of the North? What about the women and children in the factories and sweatshops? Is that not a form of slavery? And the Negroes, you give them low-paying jobs—they live below poverty. Is this the emancipation you want them to flee to?”

He was right. Catherine did not have an answer for him. It was the sad hypocrisy of the North. Would it haunt society in years to come?

“I think you would do well with the women of the South, in fact, they would admire you.”

A blue jay cawed outside and perched on a tree branch, his sharp blue plumage bright in the sun. Hadn’t the general moved the conversation onto safer terrain? “How so?” Her interest was pricked. She really had no prior contact with the culture of Southern women other than what she had read.

The General laughed. “Curious like a woman. They’d respect you for your independence, coming to a small town, away from home, holding a profession…living alone.

She had never lived alone, surrounded by a legion of domestics, nannies and Brigid, her ladies maid. Her stepmother, Agatha lived in the house, taking advantage of all the Fitzgerald assets. Her father had left the estate to his two children. The dilemma was a legal intricacy that her father never had imagined. Since Shawn was missing, Agatha gained control of all Fitzgerald assets until Catherine’s twenty-fourth birthday. “They would not venture to do so themselves?”

“Hardly. Women of the South depend on their men folk, their husbands to care for them.”

“There is no need for a woman to depend on a man. A ridiculous notion.” Her hands froze in her lap. She had asked, high-placed friends of the Fitzgerald’s to intervene but one by one they withdrew fearful of Francis Mallory’s powerful political machine. She had gone to her family’s lawyers, and they challenged Mallory. Two of them had been found dead in their front yards, the rest backed away. No more could she risk anyone else’s life. In a letter, she poured out her heart to her uncle and both decided that for the time being, disappearing was her only option. The blue jay lifted off the branch and took flight.

“You’ve never had an attachment?”

“I didn’t say that.” A smile curved her lips and her thoughts pulled back to Jimmy O’Hara, a scrappy thirteen-year old, orphan who never ceased to amaze her. Found in the alley outside the orphanage her family had built, and shot in the leg, he had begged her not to tell anyone. The boy touched her heart and sympathetic to his cause, Catherine ordered her driver to convey them to her home. She had Jimmy placed in the room next to hers and summoned, Dr. Parks, the family physician and assisted him in removing the bullet. He congratulated Catherine, admired her mettle and disdained the condescension bred in her peers. He encouraged her to assist him in his surgeries at MacDougall Hospital where they were short of hands due to the high influx of wounded soldiers.

Despite Agatha’s objection to having Jimmy in the house, Catherine fed, changed bandages, played checkers, bought him new clothes and taught him how to read. He was a quick learner, so she engaged a tutor for him. The orphan grew stronger, more filled out, his eyes a sparkle. Jimmy taught Catherine tricks in the scandalous game of poker, regaled her with tales of his years as a street-rat, and educated her about real-life beyond the protected walls of her world. They had forged a special bond, Jimmy like a little brother. She was saddened when the restless Jimmy chose to return to the freedom of the streets. She made him promise to keep up with his lessons. Jimmy told her he’d look out for her, although she doubted he would have any wherewithal since he was so young.

“Of course not. Was it lacking in your appeal?” John asked.

Lacking in her appeal?
That jerked her out of her woolgathering. Her hands balled into fists. “I was the toast of New—”

“Go on,” the Reb waited.

Stupid.
He was far too clever in drawing her out. She veered to a more cerebral discussion. “I believe the great experiment of democracy our forefathers began must be preserved. Less than a century later, we are fighting against each other. Is all to be lost? The experiment, this idea, must work and must be steeped in form and tradition. The Union cannot be allowed to divide—to diminish the greatness of what it will be—to understand that our United States is part of a larger idea and to be preserved at all costs. The South has never left England with its inherent aristocracy.” She would not yield on her opinion of the war. It was more than about war and the cause of morals and humanity than just politics. Those beliefs had become unshakable and ingrained in her heart as well.

“You Northerners with your large cities full of rabble and decay espouses one notion of liberty, yet ignores our plea for freedom to choose the life we wish.”

To hear the censure in his tone was music, how stimulating to turn the tables on him, and as stirring as her escape had been from New York. Two days before, Catherine had informed her stepmother, she was shopping for the orphans and climbed into the Brougham Coach. Mallory’s thugs followed her. In the city’s traffic, a horrendous shouting and screaming pierced the air. Catherine looked behind her. A runaway cart overturned, sprawling fruits and vegetables over the street and blocking the traffic from behind, including Mallory’s men. Jimmy O’Hara knew his trade well.

She had entered a store, made purchases of readymade dresses, clear glass spectacles, and items she would need in the next six months. Minutes later, Catherine Fitzgerald, New York’s wealthiest heiress, her hair pulled back in a bun, bespectacled, and newly cloaked in nondescript homespun attire, assumed the appearance of a spinsterish schoolteacher. Departing from the back door of the store, she hailed a cab and vanished.