It was the longest minute he'd ever known; it was long enough to see what was happening and consider what he might do, could do, and to see he had no choice. Time was not so slow in the hallway, where Pinkerton and McBurney were walking, their boots heavy, hammer-strikes on the scarred floorboards and the desk she stood beside was covered with papers, beyond concealment, like the look in her eyes. They were more grey than blue and more intelligent than he might have supposed; she understood that he was not the only one who would come in the room and that there were degrees of disaster. The footsteps grew louder, the men's voices unmodulated, Pinkerton's Scottish vowels more pronounced, McBurney incensed, his default state they had grown unwisely inured to. Henry walked over to her and there was an instant when he thought to ask, to beg pardon, but she lowered her eyes and he couldn't know what that meant, there was no time left.
"Reverend Hopkins! Good Lord! What is the meaning of this?" McBurney exclaimed, louder than Henry could remember him or was it just that everything else around him was dulled, dream-like, Alice's face buried in his shoulder, his arms still tight around her. Her cheek was pressed against his neck where the collar ended and her skin was very soft. She was so very young and he had to save her but he wondered what he had done. Who had he saved? She clung to him and he felt her slender form within her stays, the layers of her dress and petticoat, her curls crushed between them. She smelled of violets and chicory, her breath very quick; the taste of her lips was on his own, sweet and foreign, undesired. He felt sick and resolute and he knew he still had to be very careful because McBurney might be taken in but Pinkerton was another matter.
"What have you to say for yourself? You call yourself a man of God?" McBurney went on and Henry felt an ease grow within him, relief at the captain's willingness to think so little of him and to not consider anything else in the scene.
"Captain McBurney, Mr. Pinkerton, I must apologize for my behavior, but you must know Miss Alice and I," he broke off, feeling Alice shift within his arms so that she faced the witnesses to her compromise, so there could be no confusion and he tightened the arm around her waist, spread his fingers so they would see his hand upon her, claiming her.
"You can only be about to tell me you will marry the girl, Hopkins, though it may ruin you, the Quaker minister married to a Confederate miss- nothing else is acceptable, not for a man of honor!" McBurney would have likely go on with this if Pinkerton had not been beside him, who bridled the officer's tongue more than once.
"I, if I must," Henry stumbled, if it could be said so when he was trying with all his heart to seem the man trapped into matrimony who'd only wanted a kiss from a willing flirt, for so had Miss Alice made herself out to be, these past months at Mansion House, all rosy cheeks and ribbons.
"If! I'll write the special license myself, I'll not have it said our chaplain is a debaucher of young gentlewomen, no matter what side their menfolks are fighting for. I'll escort the lady home myself with Matron and you and I will see her parents in the morning, there's no other way. Pinkerton—you'll find Captain Foster and let him know I'm off the premises."
"Aye, Captain McBurney, that I will and perhaps I'll let him know a little of what's gone on here tonight. It's best if he hears it from a superior," Mr. Pinkerton said, everything about his narrow except his suspicions. Henry could only pray they would be so taken with the idea of the profligate pastor they would not look any further.
He'd been lucky, Henry thought, as he lay in his bed, solitary for such a little time longer, and the next morning, after Mr. Green acceded to his very brief request for Alice's hand and Captain McBurney's longer, though more decorous, explanation; between the two of them, Mr. Green was apprised of the significance of Alice's compromise and agreed without much argument. Henry couldn't help wondering why he did not fight more for his daughter, why he was willing to entrust her to a man who'd seem to be every way a faithless cad, a hypocrite, poor and yet immoderate in his appetites. If only he could have approached the man for Emma's hand, as a man of principles, who valued the riches of virtue over any other! Henry clenched his jaw tightly and decided this would be only the first trial to bear.
McBurney continued to glare at him, even after the immediate disgrace was past, and Henry could not help but feel there was a change in the way the staff treated him, Hale grossly familiar and Nurse Hastings insinuating and arch, Foster gravely formal and courteous and Matron obscurely pitying. He had only seen Alice once, at her home, chaperoned by her mother and a pair of aunts visiting from Savannah; he'd been told their names but couldn't recall them. He remembered Alice, her hands folded in her lap in a pair of white lace mitts, her voice low when she answered his questions briefly, the occasional gleam of her eyes when she lifted her dark lashes, eyes he would need to learn to read if there was to be any chance of contentment. He had given up on joy but what happiness could he had had if Alice had been caught, convicted of treason, if he had to see Emma's eyes turn hard, the only smile left to her bitter. She had not looked at him since the day the engagement was announced and he could not imagine what the years ahead would hold, if saving Alice and her family would mean wresting her from them, an estrangement both geographic and emotional, the few letters passing between stilted and brief. He could never tell Emma what happened; he owed Alice that, as she was to be his wife, he would make sure his honor was unimpeachable since it was now hers as well, and he could not divulge the secrets of their alliance to her sister, the woman he loved with all his heart, the woman who was to be his sister.
Work, the boys and their suffering, that was all he had these few days before his wedding to a stranger. Prayer eluded him when he was alone but he could still hold the hand of a dying man and recite a Psalm. Nurse Mary found him in the room he used for the Sunday service, struggling to compose a sermon; he barely heard her enter and only recognized her when he felt her hand lightly laid on his shoulder before she sat in the chair that was across from his own, looking down at him with her same amiable warmth. He roused himself to say something.
"Nurse Mary, how may I help you?"
"I only wanted to speak with you for a few minutes, Reverend Hopkins, but you see, I have been worrying over something and I had decided, it is better not to remain silent," she said evenly.
"One of the boys is doing poorly? Or is it something to do with Mansion House itself perhaps? One of the women you treat, the little one, Miss Arabella?" he asked, choosing her most likely concerns.
"No, it is you, Henry. May I call you so? I do not mean to presume but our common travail and the esteem in which I hold you makes calling you Mr. Hopkins seem so cold," she said. She had a way about her, Mary, she could look into the heart of a man and not flinch, no matter what she saw. If she wished to call him Henry, to consider him a friend despite his behavior, he would not deny her.
"You may call me whatever you wish. For certainly, I deserve to be called whatever anyone might deem fit," he said, unable to keep the spite from his tone. He had known, in that minute before he acted, he'd thought he had known what it would cost him but he had been wrong; yet, he could not have chosen otherwise. Why didn't that knowledge lessen the pang?
"I do not agree—that is, I think the world often judges us precipitously and we ourselves even more harshly, but our friends, they are perhaps the best assessors of our worth," Mary replied firmly. He felt both chastened and cheered and his expression must have shown it, for she smiled. Another woman might have clapped her hands at her success—would his wife?
"I thank you then, for your gentle correction," he said.
"I have thought you are much concerned with your upcoming marriage and that perhaps you trouble yourself over its fate and its consequence," Mary began, gauging his response with her keen glance. He gave the smallest shrug. "There are so many kinds of marriage, so many beginnings and very often, the alliance neighbors cluck over is found the most to the benefit of the partners and the one everyone expected to be an unequivocal success is a failure, secret or otherwise. Yours is one that was not anticipated and I suspect driven by impulses not generally comprehended. But I think, Henry, you may still hope."
Mary spoke carefully, articulate and insightful; he felt he could tell anyone he knew her character as he could have said, with more confidence and less reason, he knew Emma's. But Alice—she was a mystery and he must discover who she was once she was his.
"I admit, hope is not the word, the state I have found most describes my heart and soul these past few days," he said. He felt the urge in his hands to become fists, that old temptation to beat and batter he'd abandoned, except that now, there was no opponent or enemy.
"And yet, though Miss Alice is not the woman you had thought would be your intended, she has many traits that are admirable—determination and idealism, loyalty and the ability to put others' needs above her own, she is high-spirited and charming in company. And you, Henry, you care for her, for her honor and the regard of her fellows, her family," Mary said. It was true; Alice had shown all those traits but he'd never thought of her as anything but a spoiled little miss, taken entirely with all the talk of Dixie and the Rebel's Cause, without any of the nuance and compassion Emma brought to bear on such topics. And he could not admit it to Mary but it was Emma his heart longed for, her cornflower eyes and tender mouth, her slender hands and the dark curls that clustered at the nape of her neck, the scent of rosewater that lingered where she was and the way her eyes had lit up when she looked up at him from a boy's bedside.
"Enough? It is enough to care and not love?" he asked, bare of any artifice.
"I think it may be—and I think, you do love, Henry. You are marrying Miss Alice because you love Emma too much to let her suffer the loss of her sister. They have not hanged a female spy yet, but it has been spoken of. Barring that, I don't think Alice has the constitution to survive a prison camp or exile. That is what you considered, isn't it? That she would be caught and sentenced and Emma destroyed by it, her family as well, but always Emma first," Mary said.
"Why—how do you know?" he said. He would be terrified if it had been anyone but Mary who said such things. No matter her Abolitionist principles, she would not expose a young girl to the risk of the noose, would see Alice as a girl and not an enemy, a spy, a Confederate.
"Oh, Henry! She is not such a very accomplished spy, your Alice. When Captain McBurney went to escort her home, Dr. Foster and I decided it was an opportune time to examine the study, what Mr. Pinkerton said sounded so odd and incomplete," she said, pausing a bit. "She'd left her cipher and the papers were strewn about, it could hardly have looked more incriminating unless she'd had Jefferson Davis taking dictation at her knee!"
"Pinkerton said nothing when we returned, he's said nothing since. Does he suspect?" Was it all for naught?
"No. Not above his ordinary suspicion of all and sundry. We straightened the papers and burned the cipher and Dr. Foster made sure to embroil Captain McBurney in an administrative quandary right away. She mustn't redouble her efforts though; I'm not sure a second such incident could be disguised and she would implicate you and her entire family. You must make her see that and understand, in some way, the sacrifice you've made for her," Mary explained.
"My sacrifice," he repeated, taken aback that it had all been so obvious, even if only to Nurse Mary and Dr. Foster.
"Henry, I have been able to see how much you love Emma for weeks, months, how this impetuous marriage to her sister must be the destruction of all your hopes. How you could only do something like this for Emma, not despite her. How only the greatest disaster looming could push you to such an action," Mary said.
"Does Jed, does Dr. Foster know?"
"Yes. He knows what you have done and why, though he cannot understand how anyone can construe you as a libertine. He and I, we understand about sacrifice and what it means, how it is not only the once, but over and over…" she trailed off. Her eyes were clouded for a moment and Henry was relieved, ashamedly but incontrovertibly, that others understood him and also that they suffered as he did, to not take the hand, the lips, the vow of the beloved.
"Thank you, Nurse Mary. For what you have done for me and for my…wife-to-be," he said. He would have to accept it or there would be no chance of anything between them, only years of prison; he would have to try to love her, for her sake, for his and for Emma's, as perverse and tormenting as the thought was.
"I had not thought I could love again, after my husband died, Henry. I thought my heart—I was bereft and I couldn't imagine anyone could ever make me want…anything, could ever be the companion of my soul, my dearest…I was wrong. Henry, there are so many avenues, God has such affection for us, gives us so many opportunities… I would only say, if she, your Alice, if she is tempted again to intervene in the course of the War, you must take her away, leave Virginia, go home at once to New York or I would gladly give you a letter of introduction in Manchester, somewhere she cannot endanger any of you," Mary said.
How good she was, Nurse Mary! Not perfect, not flawless, but striving always for justice and kindness, so willing to expose her delicacy, the most human frailty, if she might help another. She offered him a way to imagine the future that was not bleak, where happiness was not perpetually elusive, where he and Alice, God help them, must make a family and always seek the other's betterment. Emma, his darling, he must find a way to hold within his heart but give his wife the larger portion—of everything, if they were to have something, however small, that was true and precious. Mary gave him a gift and he would try to give her one in return, even if his was the smaller.
"Dr. Foster, he agrees with this? He always has so much to say," he remarked.
"I think he does but he won't speak of it. He's made that clear to me. You know how exasperating he can be… and how committed to his point-of-view. He only said, if I spoke to you, I ought to suggest you find what compliments, what gifts you might give Miss Alice, for he is sure the ladies prefer that. He was quite expansive on that matter," she said with a sigh and Henry smiled sincerely at the picture she painted, as Jed intended him to. He could not have better friends. As to his wife, there would be no answer, but he consoled himself, perhaps there was none for anyone, even for those most convinced they knew their right conclusion.
"I will try and keep that in mind. You may tell him as much," he replied.
If he could not be said to be hopeful, at least he no longer despaired. He would return to making the necessary arrangements for the marriage and consider how to befriend Alice; about Emma, he could only pray, but that had evaded him until now and he hadn't known just how impoverished he would feel without some holy communion. Emma would probably never understand him but he had valued keeping her safe over anything and he still did; it would be enough, he thought, to help counter-balance the pain at losing her. A minute's choice was a life's work, but so had he chosen the ministry and War and he had not rued either decision.
"I will be sure to if you don't wish to yourself. You may be surprised to find what a good listener he can be, if he makes an effort. And for you, Henry, I would not doubt that he shall," Mary said.
"It would make a change and it seems to be the season for that. I trust he has listened to you, for you speak with such conviction about his ability," he remarked. Mary laughed then and he wondered if he could make Alice laugh, what she would sound like. He would have to try.
"Oh, he does and he doesn't—listen to me, that is. It seems it's always as he pleases," she said and Henry thought she was finally wrong, that Jed Foster listened intently to everything Mary said and how she said it, cleverly enough that she did not believe it; if only one in the family was suited to espionage, Henry would be glad to be the one, to see what was to be concealed, to court subterfuge, to be alert for opportunity and to never close his eyes to the vagaries of luck and the importance of a cipher.