The Widow's War (9 page)

The United States, May 1854

 

 

 

T
he journey from Baltimore to Washington has already taken two hours longer than scheduled, and Carrie is impatient for it to end. When she was a child, she loved trains, but now the continual rocking reminds her of
The Frances Scott
, and
The Frances Scott
reminds her of Willa.

Sitting back, she closes her eyes, and surrenders herself to grief.
My life is a train to nowhere
, she thinks. That’s so grim a thought, it’s almost ridiculous. She forces herself to count her blessings: health, youth, wealth, a handsome, considerate husband. As she lists the good things in her life, the pain gradually recedes. After a while, she opens her eyes again, looks out the window, and notices they are approaching a muddy river crowded with barges and ships. She sees white sails, an eddy of currents, a long bridge, and then gets her first glimpse of Washington itself.

But wait. Something’s wrong
. Pulling out her handkerchief, she rubs the coal dust off the windowpane and stares in disbelief. This can’t possibly be the capital of a great nation. Where are the parks, the monuments, the throngs of well-dressed people? Nettie Wiggins swore Washington was the Rio of the United States, but this appears to be no more than an overgrown town.

She leans forward to take a closer look.
Small
, she thinks,
sleepy. Where is everyone?
Most of the streets appear to be paved, but the ground looks swampy. Pulling down the window, she takes a deep breath and inhales something that tastes like warm molasses laced with mud and dust. How can you have dust and mud at the same time? Yet here the two are: the stagnant wet odor of undrained swamps, and dust—clouds of it—swirling down the avenues.

She coughs, claps her handkerchief over her nose, and feels a fine layer of federal grit joining the soot on her face. As soon as she arrives at Deacon’s father’s house, she’ll have to take a bath.

The train rolls on, spewing out cinders as it pants into the city. What is this odd-looking, truncated column? Could it possibly be the Washington Monument? Nettie said that someday it would rise over five hundred feet into the air, a gleaming obelisk of marble and granite that would be the envy of the world, but this is nothing more than a stumpy tower of blocks, several of which bear Temperance Society mottos.

George Washington would not have appreciated that sentiment. As Carrie recalls, the first thing he did after stepping down from the presidency was build a distillery at Mount Vernon.

Wadding up her kerchief, she stuffs it back into her sleeve as the train moves past the National Mall, which is supposed to rival the gardens at Versailles when finished but which at present is swampy and unkempt. Only this morning, Deacon told her that parts of the Mall had been sold off for private development. What’s left reeks.

Near the canal, the stench becomes overwhelming. Shoddily built houses, some no more than shacks, crowd up against tanning yards filled with rotting animal remains, blacksmiths’ sheds, sawmills, and a few dilapidated stores selling chicken feed and wilted vegetables.

The squalor passes by, made worse by coal dust, wood smoke, horse dung, and trash. Carrie has to admit that her first view of the capitol building is impressive, although its small, aging dome is obviously timber-framed and out of proportion to the rest of the structure. Since she cannot see the White House, she hopes there’s more to Washington than first meets the eye, but the prospects are not encouraging. Deacon has not mentioned malaria, but she would be willing to bet it lurks here somewhere along with typhoid and perhaps cholera. So much for leaving Brazil for a healthier climate.

Suddenly she spies an elegant three-story red-brick house surrounded by a wrought-iron fence that encloses a flower garden ringed by blossoming spirea bushes and showy purple and pink hydrangeas. Pulling out her handkerchief again, she rubs the last of the grime off the window, and inspects the house more closely.

“Who lives there?” she asks Deacon, who has finally come back from the club car and is sitting beside her puffing away contentedly on his cigar.

“Elegant ladies.” He flicks an inch or so of ash onto the floor and laughs. “So you like it do you?”

“Very much. Or rather, I like the house but not its location.” Giving him a smile, she goes back to looking out the window.

The train has lurched to a temporary stop in front of the house. She can now see ladies moving in and out, all dressed in clothing more brightly colored and flamboyant than anything she has seen since she left Rio. A plump, dark-haired girl in a green dress and a tall blonde in blue emerge from the gate and begin to stroll down the street arm in arm. All at once, the dark-haired girl puts the tip of her gloved hand to her lips and blows a kiss at the train window. A tiny mole on her upper lip quivers as she purses her lips. Carrie has a sense of having seen the girl with the mole before but that, of course, is impossible.

“Ah, ha!” Deacon exclaims. “What a pretty little miss!”

“Do you know her?”

“Know her? I should say not.”

“Is she a whore?”

Deacon grins and makes a clicking sound with his tongue. “If you must say such words, Carolyn, say them in Portuguese or you will shock our fellow passengers into conniption fits.”

“Is she?” Carrie repeats in a conspiratorial whisper.

“Yes.” Deacon grins again and takes another pull on his cigar. “But it’s a bit unfair to call her that. She’s one of Mrs. Elizabeth Springer’s girls. Mrs. Springer runs the most elegant brothel in Washington. It’s a Congressional favorite. In fact, it’s often said that Mrs. Springer’s darlings are the unacknowledged legislators of the United States of America. Her girls frequently use their considerably well-displayed assets to get laws passed through Congress.”

“Are they paid to do that?”

“Tsh, tsh. What do you think? Of course they are paid, and handsomely too.”

“Paid by whom?”

“Railroads, telegraph companies, merchants who provision the military—in other words, anyone and everyone who hopes to feed at the national trough. Don’t pity them. It’s quite a profitable business. If that little brunette who blew us a kiss saves her pennies, she may make enough to start her own house of ill repute. Some of Mrs. Springer’s girls retire and are rehabilitated as respectable members of society. Some even marry, although few find husbands in Congress. Their past is too much of a liability. Are you shocked?”

“No. It’s the same in Brazil. I just didn’t expect to find that kind of arrangement here in America.”

Deacon claps his hand on her knee and gives her a friendly pat. “You have a lot to learn, my girl.”

Five minutes later they roll into the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad’s Italianate terminal at New Jersey Avenue and C Street. By now their train is over two and a half hours late, but Deacon’s father is waiting for them on the platform.