A Call to Arms Read online

  A Call to Arms

  P. G. Nagle

  Evennight Books/Book View Café

  Cedar Crest, New Mexico

  A Call to Arms

  Copyright © 2014 by P. G. Nagle

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portion thereof, in any form.

  ISBN: 978-1-61138-384-3

  Published by Evennight Books, Cedar Crest, New Mexico

  an affiliate of Book View Café

  Publication team: Vonda N. McIntyre, Phyllis Irene Radford, Judith Tarr, Chris Krohn

  Illustrations: P. G. Nagle

  Cover design: Beetiful Book Covers

  20140422PGN

  Book View Café Publishing Cooperative

  P.O. Box 1624, Cedar Crest, NM 87008-1624

  bookviewcafe.com

  This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  for Lynne

  Acknowledgments

  I owe thanks to many people for their help in bringing this book to publication. Ken and Marilyn Dusenberry provided valuable feedback about army life during the Civil War. Vonda N. McIntyre and Phyllis Irene Radford provided thoughtful editorial input, and Chris Krohn and Judith Tarr caught a great many proof errors.

  As ever, I am grateful to my colleagues at Book View Café for their support. I must also acknowledge Emma Edmonds herself, who has been a source of inspiration to me for many years.

  “I would rather have been shot dead, than to have been known as a woman and sent away from the army under guard as a criminal.”

  —S. Emma E. Seelye

  Washington, D.C., 1883

  Mr. Glass looked up as a tall, inelegant woman entered his office. She wore a sober black dress of modest and unfashionable cut, and a trim hat with the veil drawn over her face.

  Soldier’s widow, he decided. God knew Washington was overrun with them still, almost twenty years after the war.

  The eyes of the three men waiting to see his employer followed her as she approached Mr. Glass’s desk with a slightly halting step. Mr. Glass set his pen in the standish and stifled a sigh.

  “May I help you, madam?”

  “I am here to see Congressman Cutcheon,” she said in a voice both quiet and rather firmer than he’d expected.

  Mr. Glass reached for his ledger book. “The Congressman is fully occupied today. You may make an appointment for next week.”

  The woman coughed—whether it was a gesture of discretion he could not tell, for she raised a handkerchief to her lips beneath the veil—then spoke again, quietly.

  “If you would be so kind as to tell him I am here, I believe he will see me at once. It is in regard to a matter of which I have written to him, as have several others—”

  “Madam, the Congressman receives many letters. All are dealt with in due course.”

  She paused for a moment, drawing a breath. “I understand, but I have traveled a great distance at considerable expense to come here. I have not the means to remain indefinitely.”

  “You have my sympathy, madam,” Mr. Glass said politely, if rather insincerely. “However, I am afraid I cannot favor you before others who have already been waiting.”

  He nodded toward the three men, whose expressions had gone from curious to resentful. The lady paid them no heed.

  “If you will just give him my name, I will be content to wait as long as he requires.”

  Seeing that he would not be rid of her until he acceded to her wishes, or at least gave the appearance of doing so, Mr. Glass drew a slip of paper toward him and picked up his pen. “Very well, madam. Your name is?”

  “Seelye. S. Emma E. Seelye.”

  He recorded it in his elegant hand. “And your husband’s name, Mrs. Seelye?”

  “My husband’s name is of no consequence to the Congressman. I am here on my own behalf.”

  “If you are here about a pension—yes?” Mr. Glass paused to judge the effect of his discernment upon her, but her veil prevented him seeing whether she was surprised. “Then your husband’s name is needed.”

  “I am here about a pension,” she said in her quiet voice, “but not for my husband. He did not serve during the war.”

  Mr. Glass looked up at her, frowning. The fact that she was here, instead of at the Pension Office, implied that she was seeking intervention from the Congressman to overcome some obstacle to the normal, tedious process of collecting a soldier’s pension. If she sought to claim the pension of a brother, father, or some other relative, the knot could be tangled indeed. Mr. Glass knew his employer disliked such problems.

  Before he could compose a phrase of courteous discouragement, the door behind him opened and several voices, bidding cheerful farewell, intruded. Four men, all connected with various members of Congress, took their leave of each other as they departed Congressman Cutcheon’s office. The door closed, and the gentlemen strolled toward the outer hall, two of them deep in debate, the others nodding to Mr. Glass. The woman standing before his desk watched them, and as the last of them passed her, she spoke.

  “Jamie.”

  The man addressed—Mr. Reid, who was an aide to Senator Dalton—halted, then slowly turned, a frown on the face that a moment before had been smiling and carefree. He stared at the woman, his nostrils flaring as if, like a hound on the hunt, he could identify her by scent.

  “Do I know you?” he said, the slight trace of a Scottish burr to his voice.

  She raised her hands and put back her veil, revealing a countenance more handsome than lovely, and weathered by not a few years. Yet still she was striking, Mr. Glass observed without reservation. Her hair was dark and neatly pulled back from her face, though a strand had escaped to curl at her temple. Her eyes, dark and commanding, gazed steadily at Mr. Reid.

  “It’s Frank,” she said simply.

  A convulsive swallow moved Mr. Reid’s throat.

  The sound of a polite cough distracted Mr. Glass from this interesting scene. One of the waiting visitors had risen from his chair and taken a step toward the desk, raising his eyebrows in inquiry. The other two sat watching Mrs. Seelye and Mr. Reid with unabashed curiosity.

  The door behind him opened again and Mr. Glass was distracted by his counterpart, Mr. Whitfield, who spoke in a discreet murmur.

  “The Congressman will see the gentlemen from Detroit, now.”

  Mr. Glass hastened to usher the three men into the Congressman’s office, hiding his annoyance and curiosity and fear that his chance at learning more was lost, but he need not have worried. When the door was safely closed again and the office now empty of all observers save himself, it did not appear that Mr. Reid or Mrs. Seelye had moved.

  “What are you doing here?” Mr. Reid said in a tight voice.

  “I have come to claim my pension and back pay,” said Mrs. Seelye. “I need the money.”

  A corner of Mr. Reid’s mouth turned up wryly. “And you expect to get it?”

  Her head remained high and her eyes flashed momentarily, but her voice as she answered was cool. “I hope to, with the aid of many of my old friends.”

  “Old friends,” he repeated, and gave a laugh that to Mr. Glass sounded bitter. “I did not know you counted Congressman Cutcheon among them.”

  “I do not, but I hope to prevail upon his sense of justice. I am only asking what is my due.”

  A silence stretched as they stood, gazes locked, the tension between them palpable in the air. Mr. Glass scarcely dared to breathe, wondering what would happen next. At last the woman turned away from Mr. Reid and fa
ced the desk again.

  “The name you want to give the Congressman is Franklin Thompson, Company F, Second Michigan Volunteers,” she said, smiling slightly. “He will recognize it.”

  Mr. Glass hastily sat down and scrawled the name, rather less elegantly, beneath the first. He glanced up at Mrs. Seelye, preparing to ask her relationship to Mr. Thompson.

  “You’ll never get it,” Mr. Reid said.

  Mrs. Seelye’s head came up, though she did not turn. Her lips pressed together in annoyance, and a steely look came into her eyes. Beyond her, Mr. Glass saw Mr. Reid’s sardonic smile.

  “Frank Thompson was a deserter.”

  Emma seethed within, but schooled her face to keep it from showing. She knew well how to do that—she had spent years keeping her true thoughts and feelings hidden. It was most unfortunate to have encountered Jamie here, for she was uncertain what he would do. He might block her; he was one of the few who could do it. He had the power to ruin her if he chose.

  Bitterly she regretted having called his attention to herself. She should have let him pass, but on seeing him she had spoken his name without thinking, and the damage was now done.

  She turned to face him, knowing his remark had been a challenge. He seemed almost unchanged to her—a few strands of silver in his beard, but his hair still sleek and ruddy gold, his frame tall and energetic, eyes biting blue, the creases at their outer corners the very same he had borne in the army, if a little deeper.

  He seemed misplaced here in the hallowed halls of government. She saw him still in uniform, striding purposefully through the camp, calling out orders in his clipped voice.

  She could not allow herself to become lost in such memories. They were gone forever, those times, and she was here for a purpose. She looked at Jamie, who waited like a boxer for the answer to his first blow.

  “Desertion is a harsh word,” she said.

  She saw his slight, sharp intake of breath, and knew that she had struck home. She forbore to smile.

  “There were mitigating circumstances,” she added.

  Jamie’s mouth twisted wryly. “Were there?”

  “Yes. I was ill. I could not risk going into a hospital.”

  “How strange, you being so fond of hospitals.”

  Jamie eased his weight back onto one leg, his hip cocking out to the side. It was a stance he used when enjoying an argument. Emma glanced at the Congressman’s bewildered secretary, then back at Jamie.

  “It is unkind to mock the work I did out of Christian charity,” she said.

  “You being such a virtuous Christian.”

  “In my heart, I have always sought to be faithful to Christ, to work for His glory. My conduct after the war proves this. I have letters from many that say so.”

  Jamie made no answer. The secretary cleared his throat.

  “Mrs. Seelye, if you would, please explain your connection with Private Thompson.”

  Before she could answer, Jamie cut in again, the ironic smile widening on his face. “Oh, it is the most intimate connection possible.”

  The look of shock on the poor secretary’s face must have pleased him. Emma fixed Jamie with a glare. He would have it out, then, here and now. Well, she should not be surprised. This argument had been waiting, unfinished, for twenty years.

  She turned to the secretary, holding herself collected, refusing to rise to Jamie’s cast. “I am Franklin Thompson,” she said. “That is the name I used when I served in the army.”

  The secretary blinked several times, confusion writ upon his face. Behind her, Jamie laughed. The secretary’s glance shifted to him, imploring.

  “Oh, ’tis true,” Jamie said. “That is the one statement she has made that I can verify as truth. She served in the Second Michigan as Frank Thompson.” His gaze shifted to her, eyes narrowing. “And on April 16th of 1863, Frank Thompson deserted.”

  “You cannot have been surprised,” Emma replied coolly.

  “Surprised? No. Disappointed, certainly.”

  “You expected me to remain?”

  Jamie’s face hardened. “After all your protestations of patriotism and desire to support the Union? Yes, I expected you would suit your actions to your word.”

  “I served for two years. I would have served out the war had I not fallen ill.”

  “You seemed well enough to me, that day.”

  As she drew breath to answer, a fit of coughing took her. She cursed silently as she struggled to control it, covering her mouth with her handkerchief, tasting the bitter tang that had plagued her ever since she had contracted malaria. No doubt Jamie took it for dissimulation on her part.

  The truth was that she was still unwell. The fits of illness had cost much of her strength, and in recent years the old injury to her leg had begun to trouble her. She had come to claim the money owed her by the government, money she had forgone until now, because she was uncertain whether her health would hold until the day when she might sorely need it.

  “Mrs. Seelye—” began the secretary in a plaintive voice, but he was not allowed to continue. Jamie came to the desk in two quick strides.

  “Mrs. Seelye, is it? And when did you assume that name?”

  “I assumed it upon my marriage,” Emma said sharply.

  “Oho! I pity the unfortunate gentleman. That is, unless he is conveniently deceased?”

  She had no wish to bring Linus into this discussion. She was very glad, considering how the visit was going, that he had taken their sons to see the sights of Washington that day. Linus was a gentle soul, too yielding for this kind of confrontation.

  “He is quite well, thank you,” she said, watching Jamie sidelong. “Better than I.”

  Jamie looked disconcerted, as if he had truly believed her marriage was a lie. The mirthless smile returned. “But still unable to support you without the aid of a pension.”

  Emma turned to face Jamie squarely. “What business is it of yours? What does it matter to you that I make this claim? You washed your hands of me the day you left the army!”

  Jamie’s brows drew down into a frown, not of anger, but of distress. She knew the expression well, and it almost undid her. She had expected him to have forgotten it all, put the memories away from him, after so many years, but apparently he had not.

  Into the silence of his reaction the secretary dropped a discreet cough. “As I was about to say, Mrs. Seelye, I wish to be sure that I understand your request quite perfectly. You say that you served as a private soldier in the Second Michigan Volunteers?”

  Emma turned to him, ignoring Jamie once more. “From 1861 to 1863, yes.”

  “And you are here to request help of Congressman Cutcheon in claiming your pension?”

  “I need his assistance to have the charge of desertion struck from my record.”

  “I see.” The secretary picked up the page upon which he had written her two names, peered at it, then set it down again and looked up at Emma. “I must say, madam, I find it hard to credit that a woman such as yourself could have enlisted in the army without detection.”

  “Oh, it was easy.” Emma couldn’t help smiling. “It was early in the war, and the medical inspectors were none too choosy. But I doubt I would have had difficulty in any case. You see, I had already been living as a man for two years.”

  The War: Flint, Michigan, 1861

  Mr. Thompson, you arrange your entertainments most delightfully,” said the elder Miss Little over a dessert of apple crumble. “I have never enjoyed a concert more!”

  Emma bowed in her seat. “Thank you, Miss Little. I endeavor to please. Did you like the Mozart concerto best, or the Beethoven?”

  “The Beethoven was a little ambitious for the abilities of the orchestra,” Mrs. Little remarked, raising her glass to sip at her Madeira.

  The dining room at the Casino Hotel, the best establishment in Flint, was filled with warmth and the quiet murmur of contented patrons. Dark wood paneling and rich velvet hangings gave the room a cozy feeling, and lampl
ight glinting on the several crystal goblets and wine glasses at each place attested to the lavishness of the fare. Emma had brought her guests there for supper after the concert, and was pleased to have won their approval.

  “I liked the patriotic songs best,” said Miss Little, her dark eyes glittering with enthusiasm. “You will think my tastes too simple, but I found them thrilling.”

  Emma smiled politely. Patriotic fever was high, just now, with the uncertainty caused by the recent secession of several Southern states. Miss Little’s preference did not surprise her.

  “The supper was also quite elegant, and tastefully chosen,” said Mrs. Little, whose frail, blonde looks she had passed to her younger daughter, but not to the elder. “You must prosper well in your business, Mr. Thompson.”

  Emma fixed her with an interested gaze. Mrs. Little, if she guessed aright, was looking to settle one of her daughters.

  “I am happy to say that I do, ma’am,” said Emma, smiling with private amusement. “There is a great appetite for books in this part of the country. I have sold more in the last year than I did in the previous, when I was first the top salesman for my employer.”

  The ladies made polite noises appreciative of this accomplishment. Emma turned her attention to the youngest, who was but fifteen and prettily shy.

  Miss Daphne Little had spent much of the evening in a state of tongue-tied awe. Emma had included her in the invitation out of kindness, thinking she was just of an age to wish to take part in adult entertainments, without knowing quite what she should do in such a situation. Her presence also made the invitation to her elder sister seem less particular.

  “Do you like to read, Miss Daphne?”

  Miss Daphne cringed a little at being addressed directly, then nodded. “Mother lets me look at her magazines.”