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.