The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose

When Charlie finished, he leaned back and glanced around the table, satisfied that he had told the story well. The Dahlias, who had been listening to him with rapt attention, let out their collective breath in one long, tremulous sigh of mingled amazement, regret, and bone-deep satisfaction. Bessie Bloodworth was blinking as if someone had just turned on the lights after a movie show. Fannie Champaign was gazing at Charlie with an unreadable expression on her face. Miss Rogers was weeping into her white lace-edged hanky, and Beulah Trivette was leaning toward her, patting her arm gently and murmuring, “There, there. You just have a good cry, Miss Rogers. We feel for you, we purely do.”

All four women, as Charlie could see, were deeply affected by the story of the Confederate Rose. He, on the other hand, was much more interested in investigating the puzzle of the cipher than in the emotional theater of Rose Greenhow’s melodramatic life, which read like a Hollywood movie script. In fact, he had to suppress a sardonic smile when he considered the Sentinel’s praise of Rose Greenhow as a martyr who had been devoted to liberty. The woman had done all she could on behalf of slavery, and the “liberty” the Sentinel praised was the freedom to own slaves. But Charlie wasn’t going to call attention to this significant irony, and if the Dahlias noticed, they didn’t speak of it. They had been utterly captivated by the story.

“I . . . I don’t know how to thank you, Mr. Dickens,” Miss Rogers finally managed through her tears. She gulped back a sob. “It’s . . . it’s just so overwhelming. I have spent my whole life not knowing who my family was, and now I discover that my grandmother was a legendary Confederate heroine and my mother was educated in France and—”

“Your mother?” Fannie asked in a wondering voice.

“Your mother was Little Rose, wasn’t she?” Bessie said, remembering that Miss Rogers had told her that her mother’s name was the same as her grandmother’s.

“Yes,” Miss Rogers said. “Yes! My mother told me that my grandmother was a very brave woman, and that she died by drowning. And now I know that it happened when she was in the service of our dear Confederacy!” She looked up at Charlie Dickens. “It’s so hard to believe, but that . . . that book you borrowed this afternoon—My Imprisonment.” Her tone was tremulous. “It was written by my grandmother, wasn’t it?”

“It was,” Charlie replied, thinking that it had been quite a remarkable coincidence to discover Rose Greenhow’s book in the little Darling library. He would have to find out how it got there. “I’ll return it to the library tomorrow, Miss Rogers, so you can read it for yourself. You’ll probably want to try to do more work on your family tree to confirm the little I’ve been able to dig up so far, and of course to learn more. Rose Greenhow was apparently survived by several children and—”

“So I may have cousins!” Miss Rogers exclaimed, clapping her hands excitedly. “I may have whole families of cousins, all over the country, and perhaps even living aunts and uncles! Oh, Mr. Dickens, how can I thank you? How can I ever thank you for all your wonderful investigative work!”

Charlie grinned at Bessie. “You should thank Miss Bloodworth,” he said, “for bringing me the cipher and suggesting that it was a secret code.” He paused. “I wonder—would you mind if I borrow the documents that I took out of the pillow? I’d like to send copies to a friend who teaches at the University of North Carolina. He might be able to shed more light on them. And perhaps he knows of other materials that are available. Of course I’ll be very careful with them.”

“Please take them,” Miss Rogers said, and blew her nose. “I’ll appreciate anything else you can find out about my . . . my grandmother.” She gave a dainty little hiccup. “My grandmother, the Confederate Rose.”

“The Confederate Rose, our heroine,” Fannie murmured, her eyes on Charlie.

A ripple of laughter ran around the table and everyone seemed to relax.

“I’ve never known anybody whose grandmother was a spy,” Beulah said enviously, shaking her head. “Just think of all the good she did for our boys at Bull Run! Oh, Miss Rogers, you must be very proud.”

“I’d love to know more about her,” Fannie said. “And to think that she and your mother were sent to prison together!” She lifted her eyes, sighing. “Such a romantic story. The Confederate Rose.”

Her glance shifted to Charlie, and he thought, with some surprise, that it was an appreciative glance. He wondered whether he had inadvertently stumbled across the key to Fannie Champaign’s heart—and having done so, whether he truly wanted to open it.