The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose

Charlie strode down the street, swinging his arms, feeling good. It wasn’t every day that he could help a sweet little lady librarian get acquainted with her grandmother or get his hands on a cipher that had been squirreled away, likely, since the first year or two of the Civil War. His interest in this matter wasn’t entirely philanthropic, however. It was nice to be able to help Miss Rogers, yes. It was even nicer to discover the key to a cipher that had apparently eluded Civil War espionage buffs for decades—and embroidered on a pillow, no less. So like a woman, he thought ironically. Put it on a pillow, right out in plain sight—although this pillow, he gathered, had been hiding under a knitted cover for some seven decades.

He reached Robert E. Lee, crossed the street, and headed north toward the courthouse square, patting the bulk of the papers in his jacket pocket. He would telephone his friend, Professor Litton, first thing in the morning. It would really be swell if Litton could help him find out more about the Confederate Rose. It would make a great story for the newspaper. He composed the first sentence in his head. Miss Dorothy Rogers, Darling’s beloved librarian, recently learned that she is the granddaughter of Rose Greenhow, the notorious Confederate spy.

Beloved? Probably not, but it sounded good. And definitely not notorious, even though that was accurate. Celebrated was better. Rose Greenhow, the celebrated Confederate spy, who saved the day at First Manassas and got the Boys in Gray off to a triumphant start.

Charlie made a sour face. Got them off to a triumphant start on the long road to inevitable defeat was more like it, but he wouldn’t write that, either. Write that, even though it was true, and half his subscribers would cancel. The other half would organize a tar-and-feathers party.

But there was something else he could do. He could telephone his friend Horton Lomax, who was an expert in old ciphers and the editor of the Codes and Ciphers Journal. In fact, it would be a good idea to stake his claim to the Rose Greenhow cipher key right away—offer to write a paper for Horton’s journal, for instance. And if the pages he had discovered hidden in that pillow yielded what he guessed they would—well, they just might translate into a treasure that would bring in some serious moola. Museums didn’t have much dough these days, but lots of rich people still had money. Some wealthy collector of Confederate memorabilia might want this stuff—including the embroidered pillow—for his collection.

But it wasn’t his treasure, Charlie reminded himself. It was Miss Rogers’ treasure, and if it helped her weather the storm that was likely to blow her over when the library closed (because he was sure it would), well, that would be a good thing. As he strolled along, he whistled quietly, feeling unusually pleased with himself. For Charlie Dickens did not make a general habit of doing good for other people. In fact, he rather cultivated the guise of a hard-nosed, cynical newspaperman whose main concern was looking out for Number One. But he had been moved by Miss Rogers’ delight tonight, and the thought of having helped her discover her relationship to the Confederate Rose, who was brave and loyal, if a bit overly dramatic about it—well, it made him feel good, that was all.

And feeling good by doing good translated, surprisingly, into a bouncy step and a jaunty swing to his shoulders as he walked along the quiet street of this small town where he had grown up, in a nice house on the best street. Darling definitely wasn’t Paris or London or Berlin, where Charlie had enjoyed a riotous good living, lavishly laced with good wine, beautiful women, and boisterous song. But then he’d got the boot in Baltimore and he was still trying to figure out what the hell he was going to do when his dad took sick and died, which had hit him harder than he’d expected. He hadn’t been home for years—you’d’ve thought losing the old man would have been easier to deal with.

So he’d been pretty much at a low point when his dad died and he had to take over the Dispatch—not just the newspaper, but the print shop as well. And now here he was stuck with the damn thing. There wasn’t a ghost of a chance of selling out, not in this economic climate, and he was too stubborn to walk away from something he’d put his time and effort into, even if it had been a mistake.

So Darling was home now, like it or not. And since that was how it was, well, it wasn’t a bad thing to lend a hand where he could now and then, especially if there might be a little something in it for him.