The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose

Charlie nodded at the paper. “Then you got a story for me, I reckon. From the garden club, maybe?”


His eyebrow was quirked and his tone was mildly sarcastic, in that way of his that irritated some and intimidated others. Charlie made it no secret that he didn’t think highly of women who spent their time going to meetings of garden clubs, bridge clubs, needlework clubs, or other ladies’ groups. Bessie wasn’t clear whether he disapproved of women who held a job or ran a boardinghouse, but she thought he probably did.

“No, it’s not a garden club story,” she replied briskly. “Sorry to disappoint you.” She smiled at him as if to say, There, was that ironic enough for you? She unfolded the paper, cleared her throat, and began.

“A friend of mine”—she and Miss Rogers had agreed that she wouldn’t use any names—“discovered some odd symbols and numbers cross-stitched on a very old pillow that once belonged to her grandmother. They seemed very curious to us, and we thought . . . that is, we wondered . . .”

She took a breath, fumbling for words. Under Charlie’s half-amused, skeptical gaze, this suddenly seemed like a very foolish errand, and she wished she hadn’t volunteered. But now that she had started, there was nothing to do but stumble on.

“It . . . it occurred to us . . . that is, to me, that it might be . . .”

“Yes?” Charlie drawled, half teasing. “Might be what? Come on, out with it.”

She took another breath. “Well, a cipher or something like that. You know, a secret code. I remembered that wonderful talk you gave at the Literary Society last year. I thought you might be interested in having a look.”

She bit her tongue. Emphasizing wonderful might have been a little bit too much, but she thought she should compliment him. His paper had been genuinely interesting.

Charlie all but rolled his eyes. “What in the world gave you the idea that somebody’s grandmother’s old needlework might be a secret code?” he asked with a disparaging chuckle. “Seems far-fetched to me. Why would a grandmother want to stitch out a cipher?”

When the question was put that way, Bessie didn’t have a good answer. In fact, she had no answer at all. She couldn’t very well tell Charlie that the idea had come into her mind when she was trying to distract Miss Rogers from being angry and upset about the destruction of her pillow’s knitted cover. So she said the only thing she could think of.

“Well, I once heard that certain quilt patterns were used as secret codes to tell slaves where to go on the Underground Railway.” This was true. She had read a magazine article about an old Negro woman who claimed that blocks like Wagon Wheel and Log Cabin and Crossroads, together with fabric colors and certain embroideries, held clues that helped escaped slaves find their way to freedom in the North. Some folks didn’t believe her, but the story had sounded plausible to Bessie.

“Never heard that tale,” Charlie said skeptically, but he looked halfway interested. “You actually think it might be true?”

“I don’t know,” Bessie admitted. “But I suppose it could be, the same way that ships used to use flags for signals before the wireless was invented. Different colored flags meant different things, and flags aren’t anything but pieces of fabric sewn together, like quilts.” She looked at him. “Isn’t that so?”

“Well, yes,” Charlie said, grudgingly. “Hadn’t thought of it that way, but I suppose that’s what they are. There are flags that represent each letter of the alphabet. In the Battle of Jutland, during the Great War, the Royal Navy sent over two hundred fifty flag signals. And flags are still used at sea, because some ships aren’t yet equipped with a wireless.”

Bessie remembered that he had included this information in his talk and was a little encouraged. She nodded and plowed on.

“And I read once that Mary, Queen of Scots, had a secret language that she used to send messages to her friends. That was after Queen Elizabeth shut the poor thing up in prison and wouldn’t let her talk to anybody for fear they’d be hatching up a plot. I don’t know that she embroidered her messages on hankies, but I’m sure she could have. Her jailors might suspect if they saw pieces of paper going back and forth, but they probably wouldn’t look twice at a lady’s silk hanky or an embroidered scarf. Don’t you think?”

Bessie stopped. She was afraid that she was babbling, but Charlie’s eyes were narrowed and he looked thoughtful. “Never heard that story, either,” he said, “but I suppose it’s possible.”