The Spymistress Read Online Free PDF

secede from Virginia.”
    “If only Richmond could go with you,” said Lizzie, impassioned. But she knew that was not possible, nor was it what she truly wanted. The breaking apart of her beloved Virginia was almost as terrible as leaving the Union, and it was all too clear that most of her fellow citizens were clamoring to join the Confederacy. Already rumors were circulating that the Confederate capital might move from Montgomery, Alabama, to Richmond, although some newspapers had brazenly proposed Washington instead, as if it were dangling unprotected from a low bough, ripe for the picking.
    Lizzie knew the Union would not relinquish its capital city without a fight.
    “What should we do now?” she asked her brother after Mr. Lewis left. Even as she spoke, she realized that circumstances had stampeded furiously past her, uncontrolled and uncontrollable, while she had stood by watching in disbelief. Now she wanted desperately, irrationally, to shut the corral gate even though she knew it would not bring the wild herd back.
    John thought for a moment. “I’m going to open the hardware store.” He placed a hand on her shoulder and kissed her forehead. “And you, dear sister, should keep to the house unless you can better conceal your feelings. Loyal Unionists like us are outnumbered and surrounded, and until we know who our friends are, you cannot afford to antagonize the rebels—including my wife.”
    “In that case, it might be more prudent for me to go out,” Lizzie retorted, but his words unsettled her. Until that fateful vote, she had believed herself a part of the political majority, but everything had shifted around her. The Van Lews—except for her sister-in-law—now resided in enemy territory.
    Lizzie followed her younger brother’s advice for the rest of that day, but the next, impatient and determined to see this strange new Richmond for herself, she decided to call on her friend Eliza Carrington and propose a stroll downtown. Eliza lived on “Carrington Row,” across the street from the Van Lew mansion, and although she was nine years younger than Lizzie, she was her most intimate friend. With Eliza, a proud Virginian and loyal Unionist like herself, Lizzie could speak her mind freely, if only in whispers.
    Eliza greeted her at the door, her soft, wide brown eyes shining with unshed tears. “Oh, Lizzie, it’s too terrible to be believed,” she lamented, flinging herself into her friend’s embrace. Lizzie had to stand on tiptoe and Eliza had to stoop to meet her.
    For a moment, Lizzie clung to her friend, as slender and gentle as a doe, but then she remembered herself. “We mustn’t look too unhappy,” she warned, glancing over her shoulder to see if they had been observed. “Too many of our neighbors are rejoicing.”
    Quickly Eliza released her, straightened, and wiped tears from the corners of her eyes. “Yes, of course you’re right. We must be cautious. But surely we aren’t the only citizens of Richmond who are mourning today?”
    “Surely not the only,” Lizzie conceded, “but I suspect our numbers are few. Why don’t we see for ourselves?”
    Eliza darted back inside to inform her family and returned moments later in her dove-gray shawl and a new bonnet trimmed in dark purple—the colors of half mourning, although the choice was probably unintentional. They linked arms and strolled off toward the heart of the city, stifling gasps at the sight of Confederate banners hanging from windows of people they liked and had thought they knew well. Instinctively, they drew closer together whenever they passed a cockerel of a politician standing on a soapbox on a street corner, denouncing the “criminal abolition president,” urging the young men of Richmond to take up arms in defense of their state, and calling for swift measures to join the Confederacy. “We shall have war now,” Lizzie heard a young woman call from her window joyfully, waving her handkerchief at passersby. “We