Keeping Secrets by Joan Lowery Nixon Read Free Book Online

stammered, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
    “Of course you didn’t. It’s quite all right.” Miss Hennessey opened her eyes and clasped her hands together under her chin. “Oh, Peg, you can’t imagine how much I long to see my sister! But with Union patrols throughout the countryside—many of them treating loyal members of the Union as rebels, simply because they live in Missouri—I wouldn’t dare to travel even a short distance without an official letter guaranteeing me safe passage. That’s the letter to which Mr. Crandon referred.”
    Peg frowned and held up two fingers pressed together. “Everybody knows that Mr. Crandon and the provost marshal are as thick as that.”
    “That’s why he’s able to obtain the letter for me.”
    A sudden thought struck Peg, and she blurted out, “You haven’t been in St. Joseph long. How did you know to ask Mr. Crandon for help?”
    Miss Hennessey smiled. “I met him when I opened a small account at his bank. As we chatted I made bold to tell him my wish to visit my sister and, to my delight, he informed me of his strong political connections and offered his help.”
    The explanation made perfect sense, yet Peg still felt vaguely uncomfortable. She took a deep breath and spoke in a rush. “You’re so different. You don’t even look like yourself.”
    “I’m not surprised.” Miss Hennessey stood up and turned from side to side. “Do you like my dress? I’m so partial to blue. Blue is your color, too, Peg, with that glorious red curly hair.”
    “Your dress is very pretty,” Peg said, “but it’s not like the dresses you wore when you stayed with us.”
    “Of course not,” Miss Hennessey said. “A dress like this would not be at all suitable for wear in the home. You have party dresses that you save for special occasions, do you not?”
    “I have a dress with a pleated skirt and a lace-trimmed collar that I wear to church,” Peg admitted.
    “There. You see?”
    “I suppose so.” Peg knew that Ma would have a conniption fit if she wore her good dress around the house. Peg tried to brush away her niggling suspicions, but found it getting harder and harder to do. There were so many strange and puzzling things about Miss Hennessey. And yet Miss Hennessey always seemed to offer logical answers.
    “I’m starving,” Miss Hennessey said. “I’m going to ask Mrs. Kling if we might have a cup of tea and perhaps a sweet to enjoy with it. Would you like that?”
    Peg didn’t have to be asked twice. She waited patiently while Miss Hennessey entered the hallway in search of Mrs. Kling.
    “May my guest and I please have some tea and shortbread, if you have some?” Peg heard Miss Hennessey ask.
    She also heard Mrs. Kling say, “No trouble at all, Miss Hennessey. Here … I was just looking for you. A fine-looking young man left this letter for you about an hour ago. He asked me to give it to you the moment you came in. Urgent, he said, and he couldn’t wait.”
    A fine-looking young man? Could he have been James?
Peg doubted that Miss Hennessey had been in St. Joe long enough to meet other fine-looking young men. She wished she could ask Miss Hennessey if James were in St. Joe and if he might finally be payingheed to her pleas to give his loyalty to the Union, instead of to Quantrill. But she couldn’t. As Ma sometimes said, “There’s a big step between natural curiosity and prying.”
    When Miss Hennessey finally returned, Peg searched her face, but she saw neither sorrow nor joy. Instead, her eyes seemed overbright, and her hands trembled as she placed a tray with cups, saucers, a pot of tea, and a plate of shortbread cookies on a low table.
    One look at the tea and cookies caused painful memories that drove all other thoughts from Peg’s mind, and her heart ached. “On the day my brothers and sisters and I arrived in St. Joe, I had tea poured from a fancy pot just like that,” she said. “Mr. and Mrs. Swenson chose Danny and me to live with