Tattletale
Kady barely managed to duck around the corner out of sight before Mary came out of her room. Thankfully, Kady had the presence of mind to hide in the opposite direction of the servants’ stairwell, so she remained unseen. It took Mary a laboriously long time to descend the stairs, and Kady was not able to relax and fully appreciate all she had heard until the last footfall had faded away. The danger had passed, but she remained rooted to the spot, her mind racing. Her father had sent a servant to tell her mother that she would not be required at supper. Still overcome from the earlier scene, Kady had the impulse to see how her mother fared, so Kady sent the servant away so she could deliver the message herself. Kady had been about to open her mother’s bedroom door when she heard the raised voices coming from Mary’s closet. Sneaking over to that door, Kady listened intently. She knew she had to have heard correctly, because she wasn’t half so clever to have come up with anything as exciting as what she had heard. Now the question became what to do with her newfound knowledge?
Her mother was a spy.
She rolled the words around in her head. Her mother was a spy. A spy. Her mother. She had to tell her father. Barely containing a squeal, Kady picked up her skirts and hurried down the stairs. How exciting! Maybe he would let her be a spy, too! They could have secret rendezvous, and it would all be very mysterious. Kady wasn’t exactly sure what being a spy entailed, but it had to be better than sitting around all day. She still had her piano of course, and she could paint, but ever since her father forbade her to take drives out into the country in their new barouche, she had felt stifled. His fear of her being accosted on the road was completely unfounded. Her father was a general for the Confederacy, no one would bother her.
Kady’s feet slowed to a walk as she connected her last thought with her new discovery. If her father was a general for the Confederacy, and it was her father who had beaten Mary for disturbing his search, then Mary likely did that to save Anna from being discovered doing spy business, which meant that she was likely a spy for the Union. Her mother was a spy for the Union, not the Confederacy! But how? Why? As soon as the question popped into Kady’s mind she knew the answer. It didn’t take a genius to realize that her parents did not like each other, and not just in the normal arranged-marriage-we-don’t-like-each-other kind of way. Kady was fairly certain that her mother hated her father. So, of course, she was working against him. Kady felt foolish that she had ever thought otherwise, and surprisingly, she wasn’t mad at her mother. Where she expected to find a feeling of betrayal, she instead found respect.
Realizing that she was still walking, Kady stopped just short of the door to her father’s study. The sound of angry voices coming from within made her take a step back yet lean in so she could still hear. The last thing she wanted was for her skirt to give away her presence. Thankfully the two men—her father and someone else—were talking loudly enough for her to hear everything.
“I have given enough money, and I am not going to give you more until I get a say or some recognition.” That was her father speaking.
“President Davis values your input, you know he does. If you want more involvement than that, I reckon you should take charge of some men.”
“I can’t do that, I have my plantation to run.”
“General Lee has a plantation to run. That hasn’t stopped him.”
“General Lee’s not a businessman, he’s a military man, always has been. It’s not the same thing.”
“General Bell—”
“No. No more sweet talking. If you want more money, I get more involvement.”
The other man took an exasperated breath so loud, Kady could hear it all the way out in the hall.
“Why don’t I suggest to President Davis that your plantation be used as a rendezvous point where officers in the field can take a respite and get your counsel when they’re in the area?”
“That’s a start.”
“Then we’ll look into doing a counsel of the officers here later in the year.”
“Yes, that sounds good. I like that. Perhaps around the holidays—we’ll make it a festive affair.”
“Yes, beautiful idea. I am positive that the president will agree. In fact, why don’t you give me some dates that will work for you, and I’ll bring them back to Richmond with me.”
“That’s more like it!” Kady’s father laughed good naturedly. “I knew we could find an arrangement that suits everyone’s needs. Come, let’s take a scotch on the veranda, and we’ll discuss this little shindig more thoroughly.”
Kady heard footsteps coming toward the door and she lifted her skirts to run away. She just made it into the parlor when she heard the study door open, and she rushed to her piano and sat down, pretending to study the music on the stand. As her father and the gentleman passed the parlor they stopped and her father commented, “And there she is, the apple of my eye, my daughter, Kady.”
Kady turned, smiling for the men and made to get up. Her father waved her back down. “No, child, stay there and study. We have more business to discuss. You plan some pleasant music for after supper.”
“Yes, Daddy.”
He smiled at her indulgently, and Kady turned back to her music until she heard the door to the veranda open and close. She slouched—as much as one can slouch in a corset—and sighed with relief. She no longer wanted to tell her father. No. She wanted to be a spy, and she had just proved to herself that she would be good at it. Straightening up, a thrill of excitement ran through her. She was going to be a spy!