American Follies

by Norman Lock

  “Did you get any last night or this morning from Tarrytown?”

  He consulted the book in which the night operator made his entries. “Nope.”

  “Any from White Plains?”

  He ran his finger down the lines of ledger paper. “No, ma’am. Not from there, either.”

  I walked back to the house. As I waited for Lilian or Fred to come home, I asked myself, What is a photograph of Mary Surratt on the gallows and a ticket to her hanging doing buried in the attic? I felt sure that the answer lay where reason and unreason hold hands, logic and illogic kiss—a place in the mind where impossibilities are entertained and sometimes reconciled. There Lilian and Mary Surratt were friends who had met by chance at a tearoom, bookseller’s, lecture hall, or a musical evening when they were both living in Washington. For a time, Lilian had stayed at Surratt’s boardinghouse, where she overheard John Wilkes Booth and Surratt’s son, John, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt plotting to kill the president. There, too, Mary Surratt persuaded Lilian to meet Jefferson Davis in secret at a farmhouse near Falls Church.

  I closed my eyes and was no longer at Dobbs Ferry, but at Barnum’s Hotel, sitting on a maroon sofa, with Madame Singleton’s crystal ball on my lap. In its depths, I saw Jeff Davis disguised as a woman, as Abe Lincoln had been in ’61 to foil an attempt on his life when he arrived in Washington to begin his presidency.

  “I know of your loyalty to Mrs. Stanton,” said Davis, taking off his spoon bonnet. “I also know that she’s a reluctant abolitionist.”

  “Mrs. Stanton abominates slavery!” replied Lilian fiercely.

  “Didn’t she say ‘It is better to be the slave of an educated white man, than of a degraded, ignorant black one’?”

  “If negroes are degraded and ignorant, the land of cotton made them so. What is it you want, Mr. Davis?”

  “I want you to convince your friend that it’s better for her and for all her sex to oppose abolition. If the South prevails, I pledge the immediate enfranchisement of white women by my executive order.”

  “We want more than the vote.”

  His tongue flickered like the Serpent’s. “In the new South, white women will be afforded the same rights as white men in every department.”

  The glass grew cloudy, and I could see no more.

  We know what happened. Lincoln was assassinated. Surratt and her coconspirators were tried and put to death. Jefferson Davis became president of the Carolina Life Insurance Company. But still a question remains: Did Lilian go to the Washington Arsenal that day to stand in silent grief as revenge was taken or in speechless joy as justice was done? Or was she standing in the rain in gratitude to the Almighty for having given her the strength to resist Jeff Davis’s shiny sour apple? My brain, with its wall of bone between what is reasonable and what is absurd, no longer seemed my own. I thought of Mary Shelley’s gothic horror and shuddered.

  At one o’clock that afternoon, I unlocked the front door and opened it to Fred. He looked tired and distressed. His clothes were in need of the iron, his boots of the brush, his face a razor; in his haste, he’d buttoned his coat amiss. He put down his tool bag and handed me a telegram from the Tarrytown magistrate. In several curt sentences, he stated that Lilian had been arrested for disturbing the peace and causing grievous bodily harm to an officer of the law. I couldn’t imagine that kind soul disturbing anybody’s peace even if she had savaged a burdock and cut an earthworm in two. Fred took the slate he wore around his neck on a string and wrote in chalk, “Going to Tarrytown. Will you come?”

  I agreed. He hurried up the stairs to make himself presentable. The stair treads creaked as he came heavily down them, carrying a valise packed with clothes and necessities for Lilian. We left the house and hurried to the ferry slip. I had questions, but there was no time for him to stop and answer them on his slate. The boat to Tarrytown would shortly depart; its steam whistle was urgently sounding the final boarding call. Suddenly, I was overcome by misgivings and a profound weariness.

  “Go without me, Fred,” I said, laying my gloved hand on his sleeve.

  Puzzled by my change of heart, he stood aside to let the other passengers board.

  “I must return to New York. Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony are waiting for me.”

  He nodded that he understood and walked up the gangway and onto the deck.

  “I’m grateful to you both!” I called after him. “I hope everything will be all right.”

  Fred smiled and waved good-bye before taking a seat under a canvas awning.

  As I waited for a boat, I read the book of Longfellow’s poems I’d forgotten to give Shelby.

  Mrs. Heigold’s Stick

  I WOULD HAVE LOOKED A SIGHT as I took off my hat and fell into a chair. Elizabeth and Susan put down their newspapers and regarded me with a certain wariness. I folded my hands over the “rotundity” and sighed with fatigue and contentment at having come at last to rest in a pleasant sitting room smelling of violets, the delicate must of old books, and a savory cobbler. The two women could not make up their minds whether to scold or offer me tea. In a silence invariably said to be “uncomfortable,” the sounds of the house were overcome by the declamations of the street—the shouts of coachmen, the whicker of their nervous beasts, the high-pitched voices of soap-locked boys hawking the evening editions, a rumbling Third Avenue elevated train, the shrill whistles of policemen, and the mournful longheld note of a steam tug’s horn.

  “You look peaked,” said Elizabeth, frowning.

  “Your telegram worried us,” said Susan reproachfully.

  “We wondered whether we ought to go to Dobbs Ferry.”

  “To fetch you home.”

  “Or a doctor.”

  “We were in a quandary.”

  “Would you like a cup of tea?”

  “Or coffee to stimulate you?”

  “Or barley wine to fortify you?”

  “Have you eaten today?”

  “The food sold at the depots is unpalatable.”

  “And unsanitary.”

  “Didn’t Lilian Heigold serve with the Sanitary Commission during the war?”

  “How is she keeping? We haven’t seen her in years.”

  “And her husband—what was his name?”

  “Fred.”

  “A nice man. What a shame he lost his voice!”

  “He had a fine singing voice.”

  “A baritone.”

  “He was a clever mechanic, as I recall.”

  “He could fix anything.”

  “Except his vocal cords.”

  “A pleasant man—always a smile on his face.”

  “He spoke with a natural eloquence.”

  “Daniel Webster without the affectations.”

  “Daniel Webster without ‘the gigantic intellect, the envious temper, the ravenous ambition, and the rotten heart,’ as John Quincy Adams said of him.”

  “Of Webster, not Fred.”

  “He could have made a powerful impression on the lecture platform!”

  “Fred, not Webster, the windbag.”

  “Pity, Elizabeth, that you fell out with Mrs. Heigold.”

  “I had my principles!”

  “And Lilian had hers.”

  “I would not budge an inch from what was right!”

  “Nor would she.”

  “Did she strike you as pigheaded, Ellen?”

  “You’re an obstinate woman, Mrs. Cady Stanton; there’s no denying it.”

  “I’m a woman of strong opinions.”

  “You are opinionated to a fault!”

  “Well, isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black!”

  Having talked themselves out, they subsided into their chairs.

  My replies were delivered as pell-mell as their questions had been asked: “I’m feeling better. Lilian and Fred appear to be happy. He has not regained the power of speech. Lilian has strong beliefs; some you have in common, some not. She sends her regards.” I said nothing of her residen
ce in the Tarrytown jail. Daniel Webster, alive or dead, was of no interest to me. Of the conundrum in the attic, I was determined to put it out of my mind as a thing impossible to solve.

  “I’d like a glass of barley wine and a cold supper,” I said. “I’m famished.”

  They went into the kitchen and bustled. I heard the noise of platters, plates, and cutlery. I put my feet up on the ottoman with impunity, since a suffragist dare not complain of unladylike behavior. They brought my supper on a tray, which I balanced on my knees and ate greedily.

  “We’re glad to have you back,” said Susan. “The correspondence is piling up.”

  “We won’t bother about that now,” said Elizabeth, her maternal instinct inflamed. “What you need, young woman, is rest. We’ve decided that you will spend the remaining weeks of your term indoors.”

  “An afternoon nap and an early bedtime!” Susan decreed despotically.

  “Before my lying-in, I need to visit my house.”

  “Then you must do so tomorrow. On Thursday, your new regimen begins.”

  The next day, I took a Metropolitan Elevated car to Park Row and walked the few blocks to Maiden Lane. When I opened the door, I was greeted by the smell of neglect—heavy, dank air and a faint sweetness that might have been a dead rat in the wall. The dust stung my nose, and in my fancy, my lungs turned gray with silt. Below the unwashed windowpanes, a legion of flies armored in bronze lay on the windowsills; mouse dirt peppered the pantry shelves; advertising circulars and pious tracts choked the letter box. I consigned the circulars to the rubbish and kept the tracts to make Elizabeth and Susan bristle. As I was packing a few odds and ends to take with me, an emphatic rap was heard at the front door. A man who could be no other than Mr. Dode, the tallest in the world, was standing on the step.

  “Mr. Dode,” I said, opening the door to him.

  “Are you Mrs. Finch, wife of Franklin Finch?”

  “You know very well I am. What’s this all about?”

  He replied to my question with one of his own: “Is your husband expected?”

  “He’s traveling.”

  “Where is he now in his travels?”

  “Is this a prank? Did Mr. Barnum send you?”

  “I’ve come on official business. I must speak to your husband.”

  Having become suspicious, I tried to close the door, but he put his foot—a large one—between it and the jamb. “Leave at once, or I’ll shout for a policeman!” I blustered, hoping to conceal my fright. “What’re you playing at, Mr. Dode?” I elbowed him aside and called out for Mr. Ashton, for the two men were, to my mind, inseparable.

  The tall man smiled and opened his coat to show me a badge. “My name is Fischer. I work for the United States Secret Service. I’ve come about Franklin.” Fischer took off his hat and lowered his head in order to pass beneath the lintel. Once inside, he went into the front room and chose the armchair in the shadow, leaving me to sit where the strong morning light would be in my eyes.

  “Suppose you tell me where he is.”

  “San Francisco. He’s looking for work as a typesetter.”

  “You’re lying. He’s somewhere in New York City.”

  Fischer waved away my objection. I could have played the Hungarian Rhapsody on my Sholes & Glidden with such long, slender fingers.

  “Your husband is an anarchist. He and his fellow conspirators—Polacks mostly, and Jews—are planning to dynamite the Brooklyn Bridge.”

  If words were knives, mine would have cut Fischer to ribbons: “My husband is the most peaceable of men! He would never do such a thing! He admires the bridge and has nothing but respect for Mr. Roebling! Franklin and I stood on a Park Row rooftop for an entire day and night to celebrate its opening. We waved small flags and bought souvenirs. You are mistaken, sir, and I insist that you leave my house at once!” The heat of the sun and of my indignation had caused my pores to open. I mopped my damp face with an antimacassar.

  Fischer smirked. “Comrade Finch became a Marxist while typesetting Samuel Moore’s translation of The Communist Manifesto for a pamphlet ordered by the New York Workingmen’s Party. I bet he can recite it verbatim, having handled every word of that pernicious garbage. Didn’t you notice the stink? Frankly, Mrs. Finch, I would like to see your husband’s neck in a noose, hemp or manila. No one makes a better rope for rough or legal justice than an American. Mark my words: We’ll take the Philippines and Cuba. The Spaniards are finished. It’s time now for the American Empire.”

  His jingoism was just so much hot air, of which men have plenty. “My husband has been setting type exclusively for the New-York Tribune since before the war.”

  “Horace Greeley’s red rag! Marx and Engels were on his payroll for years. Your husband’s association with the Tribune is hardly a recommendation for leniency.”

  I was reeling; my head hurt; the sun stung my eyes; my mind, like a carousel, spun from light into darkness, darkness into light, to the mad skirling of a steam calliope. But Fischer was relentless.

  “I see you read Harper’s, that Republican pile of horseshit! Thomas Nast should be made to drink his own ink.” Fischer picked an issue of the weekly from the table and read a couple of column inches in a voice inflected with the sneer of the philistine:

  WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN MASSACHUSETTS

  KEEN INTEREST IN A BILL BEFORE THE LEGISLATURE—DEBATE BEGUN.

  [BY TELEGRAM TO HARPER’S WEEKLY]

  BOSTON, SEPTEMBER 12—The House began today to debate the question of empowering women to vote in town and municipal affairs. On this a majority of the Committee on Woman’s Suffrage has reported adversely, but a minority favor the bill.

  “We’re aware of your sympathy for the militant faction of the woman’s movement. And how are Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony?” asked Fischer. Stretching his gooselike neck, he brought his face close enough to mine to bite my nose.

  Did the Secret Service consider me dangerous? Did they know I was typing not only the movement’s history on my Sholes & Glidden, a criticism of American progress and morality, but also the correspondence of two of its founders? What kind of woman could be persuaded by two notorious harridans to work for the overthrow of Christian principles? Were my politics and living arrangements considered as dangerous as those of the immigrant families pullulating inside their tenements or those of the Indians cultivating lice on squalid reservations? Should I repent of the errors of my ways and pray that Franklin will do the same when he reads of my arrest in The Anarchist? I mused. I pictured him wearing his dirty boots, on a vermin-ridden bed, above a chamber pot where sticks of dynamite had been hidden. In my agitation, I heard the cables of the bridge snap and its towers splash into the river, as if Moby Dick were threshing the water with his tail—to the consternation of the gulls.

  Fischer cleaned his own dirty boots on a sheet ripped from the Tribune. A headline in barbed Baskerville caught my eye; it announced a special engagement at Madison Square Garden of Barnum’s circus, when “A Human Being Will Be Shot from a Monster Cannon.” I hoped Miss Etta, the contortionist, would be the projectile and not la petite Margaret, and then I remembered that the news was old. Taking strength in the example of that indomitable woman, I clenched my fists. “I’ve nothing more to say, Mr. Fischer or Mr. Dode, except to tell you to skedaddle.”

  “You’ll regret it!”

  Seeing him there—so thin and tall that he could have caught ducks with a rake—I began to laugh. He glared, and I laughed all the harder. They can hear you in the street, Ellen, I said to myself; they can hear you in Hoboken and Brooklyn. In their jail cells, Lilian and Shelby will hear you and take heart. In San Francisco, Franklin’s ears will prick up, and he will know that, in far-off New York City, his wife remains undaunted. “Mr. Fischer, you are a noodle!” I said splendidly.

  Speechless with fury, the tall man spluttered a wordless threat, which I inferred from a finger shaken at me in admonition. Putting on his hat with an emphatic thump on the lid, he strode out the door. Cau
ght by the lintel, the hat fell back into the room. With a kick such as Miss Mattie would have approved, I sent it flying into Maiden Lane. A west wind summoned, perhaps, by the ghost of a Cherokee shaman fallen on the Trail of Tears carried the hat aloft. The last thing I saw of Fischer, he was running down the lane in pursuit of his beaver.

  I locked the door behind me and, pleased with myself, strolled to the elevated station.

  “Well, I declare! You look like a changed woman!” said Susan after I had settled on a sitting room chair and laid my hat in my lap with an expression—I could see it reflected in her face—of triumph.

  “I’m feeling astonishingly well!”

  “Excellent, my dear! That is the frame of mind you should cultivate from now till your parturition.”

  “And afterward, if you possibly can,” interjected Elizabeth, wiping her floury hands on her apron. “Childbearing is nothing compared to child rearing.”

  “Something smells good in the kitchen!” I said happily.

  “I’m making Washington Squares.”

  “Hooray!”

  “They’re her specialty,” observed Susan, glancing at her corpulent friend’s figure. Susan is lean and tough as jerked meat.

  “I’m as renowned in the kitchen as I am on the lecture circuit.”

  “Yes, dear, we know of your many accomplishments.”

  “Speaking of accomplishments, we have news of Lilian Heigold.”

  “What news?” I asked, pretending to be only mildly curious.

  “Susan, where is the morning paper?”

  “You were lining the pantry shelves with it.”

  “Gracious me! Whatever was I thinking?” She hurried to the pantry.

  “God packed Elizabeth’s head with brains, but her mind is becoming as ragtag as my aunt Fanny’s sewing basket.”

  “God had nothing to do with it!” said Elizabeth, returning with a copy of the Herald. “My superior brain is the result of the coitus of two intelligent people. And you have no Aunt Fanny.” She spread the paper on the table and turned the pages. “Here it is! Shall I read it?”

  “Yes, only spare us a dramatic recitative.”

  “How else am I to convey Mr. Bennett’s sensationalist copy?” She made a start.