Free The Spymistress by Jennifer Chiaverini

with God’s mercy, the war would be over by then. “What about arms?” Lizzie queried, mindful of the approach of a group of smiling, gracious young ladies who might find her questions strange. “Have you brought rifles from home, and have you been trained to use them?”
    “Oh, no, Ma’am, we don’t got any rifles yet,” the freckled soldier said. “You’re givin’ ’em to us.”
    “We are?” said Mother, startled into participating in the conversation.
    “Not you in particular, Ma’am,” the first soldier said, grinning shyly. “The state of Virginia’s gonna furnish our arms. That’s what the sergeant told us.”
    “If that is what Virginia has promised, then that is what you should expect.” Mother linked her arm through Lizzie’s. “Come, dear, we’ve monopolized these soldiers’ time long enough. Let’s allow other ladies a chance to meet them.” She nodded graciously to them both, and their eyes lit up with admiration as they tugged their caps and bowed. Mother was the very ideal of the Southern lady—kind, gracious, polite, well spoken, pious, and charitable. She strolled through the muddy fairgrounds with as much grace and ease as if she were welcoming the soldiers into her own parlor.
    “That was an afternoon well spent,” said Mother as they walked home. “We provided only the most innocent aid and comfort, but I believe it will add much to our own comfort to have our neighbors believe us sympathetic to their cause.”
    “I hope so,” said Lizzie fervently. “Anything to spare me Mary’s sewing circle.”
    A few blocks from home, they passed the Lodge residence on Twenty-Third Street, where they spotted Mrs. Lodge and her two eldest girls on the front porch knitting gray wool socks. Mary had mentioned a son too, who had enlisted in the first heady days of secession. Lizzie smiled brightly and waved, but Mrs. Lodge merely regarded her through narrowed eyes before nodding politely to Mother. Evidently, Lizzie would have to deliver a thousand books and blossoms before she redeemed herself in Mrs. Lodge’s esteem.
    When she and her mother arrived home, the man with the tobacco-stained beard was gone.
    On April 27, the Virginia convention formally invited the Confederate States of America to make Richmond its capital. Nearly seven hundred miles to the southwest in Montgomery, Alabama, the Confederate Congress debated the proposal for nearly a month, and on May 20, they voted in favor of the move. The next day the government adjourned with plans to reconvene in Richmond two months hence.
    As soon as Richmond was officially named the new capital of the Confederacy, politicians, public servants, and opportunists joined the flood of newcomers, arriving in astonishing numbers to seek patronage from the fledgling government. The city buzzed with anticipation for the arrival of President Jefferson Davis, his wife Varina, and their brood of three young children. With nary a vacant hotel room or boardinghouse to be found, government officials scrambled to find a suitable residence.
    On May 23, Mr. Davis’s impending arrival was the popular subject of conversation at the polls as eligible voters turned out for Virginia’s secession referendum. Virginia’s course was so rigidly fixed that the referendum seemed almost an afterthought, and since the vote was by viva voce rather than secret ballot, Lizzie never doubted that intimidation would rule the day. Faced with death threats, Mr. Lewis had not returned to Richmond to cast his ballot against ratification, but instead remained in Rockingham County, where he presumably continued rallying the western counties to break away from the rebellious portion of the state. Mr. Botts, who did not dare show up at the polls, nevertheless continued to protest from Elba Park, calling the entire process a contemptible farce and arguing that although the vote might ratify secession, it did not validate the measure to join the Confederacy, a move he adamantly