The River Between Us

Delphine refuses to get on another steamboat, so they take the train to Cairo. Delphine navigates the train station and even sends a wire message to Dr. Hutchings to tell him they are coming and ask for his help. Tilly, never having left Grand Tower prior to this trip, is terrified of everything. There is only one seating car on the train, and it is full of soldiers. Two of them give up their seats for Tilly and Delphine. As the train takes off, Tilly finally asks Delphine how old she is. Delphine says that she is 15, and Calinda is 17.

Tilly is shocked, having assumed that Delphine was nearer to 19 years old. Delphine does not consider herself young, however. If she had remained in New Orleans, she says her future would be arranged already. Tilly asks if she means she would be married, and Delphine shrugs, saying that her people do not marry as Tilly understands marriage. Tilly doesn’t ask anything else, and they spend the rest of the ride in silence.

The train arrives in Cairo, and Tilly is overwhelmed by filth and terrible smells. Having received Delphine’s telegram, Dr. Hutchings is there to receive them with a wagon and takes them to his boardinghouse, where they can stay. The streets of Cairo are filthy, littered with rotting food, human waste, drunk soldiers, and—on one occasion—a dead horse lying in its own blood. The girls are allowed to sleep in the summer kitchen of the boardinghouse, which is owned by a rich widower who sympathizes with the South.

Once they drop off their trunks, Dr. Hutchings takes Tilly and Delphine to Camp Defiance, which is set up where the Ohio River meets the Mississippi. He previously procured passes for both girls and escorts them into what Tilly considers a tent city. The first few tents are larger and raised off the wet ground on wood, but the rest of the tents for soldiers are in the mud.

Dr. Hutchings tells the girls to pin up their skirts as they wade through the mud to a tent. He stops and tells them that he will retrieve Noah. Delphine resists, saying that she and Tilly will follow him to wherever Noah is. The doctor tries to stop them, but Delphine argues, saying that the doctor is not an officer to command her, and she is not a soldier. She adds that if she were a soldier, she would not be fighting for this side. Regretfully, Dr. Hutchings takes them into the hospital tent.

The tent was designed for four or five men, but there are 10 men lying on cots or on the ground. Many of them are lying in their own waste because they are too weak to move. Noah is lying in a cot at the end of the tent. He is so thin, and his cheeks are so sunken, that Tilly barely recognizes him. He recognizes her and Delphine and begins to cry. When Delphine asks who nurses the men, Noah says that he does when he has the strength. The men who recover enough to do so are expected to care for the rest, but Noah still struggles to lift a pail of water.

Tilly and Delphine feed him the food they prepared, and he eats it all. He cries more when he sees the quilt Tilly made. However, behind him, Tilly sees a book of war tactics he has been reading. She realizes with a sinking heart that no matter how healthy Noah gets, he will run right back to the war instead of returning home.

Delphine and Tilly go to work in the hospital tent, feeding those who can stomach the food and cleaning the boys, their clothes, and the tent itself. Delphine leaves Noah to Tilly. Though Tilly watches her closely, she cannot tell if Delphine loves Noah or not. Tilly also always lets Delphine sit next to Dr. Hutchings on the rides to and from the boardinghouse because Delphine is able to “put some starch in his spine” (88). When the doctor says he doesn’t have the authority to request blankets for the boys, Delphine tells him to find the authority, or she will. While Delphine’s boldness is necessary and beneficial, Tilly thinks that if the doctor ever marries, he will need someone gentler than Delphine.

After the first day at Camp Defiance, Tilly is exhausted. Delphine spends that night unpacking all her dresses and hanging the portrait of her father, Monsieur Duval, above her cot. The woman who owns their boardinghouse charges them seven dollars per night, enough to buy an entire house in Grand Tower. However, Tilly never before lived with such luxury. There is a water pump right outside, a privy not far away, and even a big stove, something Tilly had never seen before this trip. Along with the girls and Dr. Hutchings, the boardinghouse holds high-ranking officers who are recovering from sickness. Tilly cannot justify that the officers sleep in comfortable beds and smoke cigars from the porch while the regular soldiers lie in the mud.

Tilly and Delphine spend all their days at the camp nursing the boys. They lose only one of them; he was already too sick to recover by the time they arrived, and he dies in Delphine’s arms. She is popular among the boys because of her looks, but she is not gentle with them. She tells them to get well because they will need their strength to face the Confederates, “a real army” (90). Tilly is also popular because she is Noah’s sister, and Noah has told many of the boys about his home. The boys love to tell Tilly and Delphine about their homes, families, and sweethearts, as they are less ashamed to cry in front of the girls than in front of their fellow soldiers.

Tilly and Delphine nurse the boys to the point of becoming well enough to shovel under the bottom of the tent until they find dry ground. They burn the straw the boys slept on and find new bedding. Tilly launders their underwear, and Delphine assigns jobs to anyone who is well enough to work. They freely administer the medicine Calinda made, and the boys improve drastically.

Soon, talk of fighting on the river begins to circulate. A commanding officer takes Noah from the hospital tent and gives him new boots, a rusty musket, and, eventually, a full uniform. The uniform is several sizes too large and of poor quality, but Noah is proud of it. Tilly begins bracing herself for something to go wrong, but this doesn’t come from Noah or the war; instead, it happens in the summer kitchen of their boardinghouse.

Tilly and Delphine have been staying in the boardinghouse for a week before the landlady, Mrs. Hanrahan, visits. After a long day at the camp, Tilly and Delphine are sitting in the summer kitchen mending clothes for the soldiers when Dr. Hutchings knocks on the door and introduces the landlady. The woman looks around the room with a sharp eye, noting Delphine’s dresses and the portrait of her father, and says, “Ah declare, Doctor, just see what you have brought me. A colored gal” (93).

Tilly gasps, but Delphine sighs, not at all surprised by Mrs. Hanrahan’s comment. Without rising, she tells her that she is of the gens de couleur, the free people of color. Mrs. Hanrahan says she once lived in New Orleans and recognizes Delphine’s father as a planter who has another family that is white. She knows Delphine’s mother sent her up north because if the South loses the war, Delphine will be considered an emancipated person. Delphine asks if Mrs. Hanrahan wants her out of the boardinghouse. Mrs. Hanrahan says she wants their rent money, and they can stay because Delphine is in an outbuilding in the back of the house, where she belongs.

Mrs. Hanrahan then leaves, asking Dr. Hutchings to escort her back to the house. He refuses, and she slams the door behind her. Once she is out of earshot, Tilly takes the doctor’s hand and Delphine’s hand, asking her to tell them who she really is. Delphine says her grandmother was a beautiful woman who fled an uprising in Saint-Domingue, her home. As a child, she traveled to Cuba and then to New Orleans. When she got older, she was sought after by many white men because of her beauty. Eventually, she chose one of them and gave birth to Delphine’s mother. In time, Delphine’s mother chose a white man, Delphine’s father, Jules Duval, and gave birth to her.

Tilly is confused, remembering Delphine’s comment that her people do not marry. Delphine patiently explains that women of color cannot legally marry white men. However, in New Orleans there is an arrangement called plaçage, wherein white men agree to protect and provide for a woman of color, often buying her a house and land. If a daughter is born to the couple, she will choose a white man for herself. Delphine tells them that if the war had not happened, she would most likely be in a relationship with a white man and have her own home, protection, and, perhaps, even a child.

She explains that there are balls, called “quadroons,” that white men attend to court free women of color. Delphine explains that she has French blood and Spanish blood, but it is the African blood within her that people hate. Tilly compares her own skin to Delphine’s, seeing that Delphine is almost as white as she. She marvels at Delphine’s bravery. If the North wins the war, Delphine will have to create a new identity and life for herself.

Delphine admits that she was never headed to her aunt in St. Louis. Rather, she was sent away to create a new life somewhere in the North, where no one will recognize her ancestry. She was originally going to stop in Cairo, but after the steamboat was searched, she became afraid. She says it was fate that the next stop was Grand Tower. Tilly asks if Delphine’s people enslave others, and Delphine nods. Tilly then asks if Delphine enslaves Calinda. Delphine laughs, saying that Calinda is her sister.