The Reluctant Bridegroom

by Shannon Farrington

  At precisely noon, Reverend Perry, her minister since infancy, stepped to the pulpit and began the service. Rebekah wished to focus her attention on the hymns and prayers, but she couldn’t seem to concentrate. Even the agonizing details of Christ’s trial and crucifixion failed to pierce her thoughts. Her mind was just too full.

  Just as she feared, the moment the service dismissed, Councilman Nash came to her father. Rebekah dared not look in their direction, but she strained to hear their conversation. She knew they were discussing her. Even at the far end of the pew, she could catch words in snatches.

  “Out on business...my apologies...time to discuss... Saturday morning...”

  Beside her, six-year-old Joseph, fidgety as always, had taken to tapping his fingers on the pew railing in front of him. Rebekah stilled his hands at once, hoping both to save him from a stern parental rebuke and to hear what else she could.

  It was to no avail. Her father had concluded the conversation. Councilman Nash stepped back, allowing her father to lead his family from their pew. Heart pounding, Rebekah chanced a glance in the man’s direction as she moved into the aisle. He nodded to her. The expression on his face was hardly cold or disapproving, but the look was still a far cry from loving.

  Rebekah did her best to maintain her composure, although inside her emotions were swirling. She could tell herself that she’d protect her heart from hurt, that she’d accept her lot, but the pain of imagining a loveless union still stung.

  She followed her family to the foyer, down the steps and then outside. While Teddy and Gilbert mounted their horses, Rebekah climbed into the barouche alongside Austin and Joseph. Her mother and father claimed the seat facing opposite them. The open-air carriage offered a good view of their surroundings. It also allowed them to be seen.

  At her father’s command, their coachman, Brooks, urged the horses forward. The carriage began to roll. The family traveled the length of two blocks in silence. Then her father spoke.

  “Councilman Nash plans to pay a call tomorrow morning at eleven o’clock,” he said, leveling his stern gaze on Rebekah. “I expect you to conduct yourself accordingly.”

  You mean you expect me to accept his formal proposal, she thought, and do so eagerly.

  Her eyes drifted to her mother, silently appealing once more for her intervention. Susan simply looked aside.

  “Is that clear?” her father asked.

  “Y-yes, sir,” she said, giving him the answer he expected. “I will do so.”

  He nodded curtly to her, then commenced smiling and waving at the potential voters passing by on the street.

  Rebekah swallowed back her tears. I must face facts. There is no changing the circumstances. Tomorrow I will become engaged to a man I do not love. I will go from one prison to another, and I must bear it with endurance, strength and fortitude.

  Much to her surprise, however, the encounter with Mr. Nash was delayed, but in a way she never would have imagined. When Rebekah woke the following morning, she learned the man himself had postponed the meeting due to urgent official business with the city council. The nation was in mourning and accordingly, Rebekah’s father immediately ordered his entire household to put on black.

  President Abraham Lincoln was dead.

  Chapter Two

  Henry still could not believe the news.

  The president has been assassinated! How can this be? And shot during a performance at Ford’s Theatre? His wife seated just beside him?

  He didn’t know what sickened him more—the thought of the slain leader or the fact that less than forty-eight hours ago, he had shaken hands with the perpetrator of the crime. The ride to the train station with John Wilkes Booth replayed through his mind over and over again.

  “Rest assured, my name will make all the papers.”

  Indeed it had, for now every press was churning out the details.

  “He leapt from the president’s box...”

  “...from the stage he shouted to the crowd...”

  “Wielding a blood-smeared dagger, he then fled...”

  A Federal manhunt was now underway. Those suspected of aiding Booth were quickly being rounded up. Henry nervously wondered if the provost marshal would soon come calling for him.

  I drove him to the train station... I shook his hand...

  Fellow councilman George Meriwether nudged Henry, jolting him back to the business at hand. “Your vote, Nash,” George whispered.

  Fearing bloody reprisal in the wake of the president’s death, the mayor had suggested that saloons be closed and the entire city police force be put on alert. Henry agreed.

  “Aye,” he cast.

  The measure passed. With business concluded, the council then dismissed. In a daze, Henry slowly made his way home. Is it really true? Is the president really dead, or is this some horrible nightmare from which I will awake?

  But every step he took toward home dripped with reality. Already the church bells were beginning to toll. They would continue to ring until noon. The patriotic bunting that had draped the government buildings all week in celebration of victory was now being replaced by black crepe. Flags were lowered to half-mast. Nearly every person he passed on the street wore a grief-stricken or confused expression.

  Henry didn’t know whether to weep or clench his fists in anger at the enormity of the country’s loss. While he hadn’t voted for Lincoln, or agreed with all of his policies, he had believed the president truly wanted what was best for the nation. In the end, Lincoln had wanted peace, and had died just as it was achieved. What a cruel and senseless conclusion to the man’s life.

  What will this mean for our country now? he wondered.

  Upon reaching home, James, his manservant, met Henry at the door. Already he wore a black mourning band on his upper left arm. Taking Henry’s greatcoat and hat, he said, “You had a visitor earlier. I told him you weren’t here.”

  “Who was it?”

  Before James could answer, Henry’s father stepped from the parlor. “That’ll be all, James.”

  Henry shot his father a disdainful glare as James exited. He didn’t like how Harold ordered his servants about.

  “You could have let him answer,” Henry said.

  “You’d better be grateful that James didn’t ask your visitor to stay.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because Detective J. E. Smith is the one who paid the call.” His father offered the calling card for proof.

  Fear slowly snaked its way up Henry’s neck. He’d had dealings with this particular provost marshal detective before. Last year, a city council member had been investigated on accusations of bribery and extortion. The man was not guilty, and eventually his name was cleared, but not before his entire life had been turned upside down by Smith and his men.

  Does Smith know of my encounter with Booth? Henry wondered. Is that why he came to see me?

  Harold was well aware of the interaction with the detective, and he knew the fear it stoked. He added fuel to the fire. “You’ve another matter with which to be concerned.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He encouraged Henry toward the study. On his desk was a copy of the day’s paper. Picking it up, his father explained, “A man by the name of Lewis Paine is now under arrest for the attempted murder of Secretary of State William Seward. They say he spent time here in Baltimore.”

  “I never shook his hand,” Henry said, more for the easement of his own mind than that of his father.

  “No,” the older man conceded, “but you did grasp the hand of his hostess.”

  “His hostess?”

  “Apparently this man was a boarder at the house on Eutaw Street as recently as last month.”

  “You mean the Branson Boarding House?”

  “I do.”

&n
bsp; Harold tossed him the publication. Henry quickly read. According to the Free American, twenty-two men and women from the Branson Boarding House had been taken into custody by the provost marshal and were presently being questioned for possible involvement in Lincoln’s death and the conspiracy to murder Secretary Seward.

  The paper also noted that this was not the first time the boardinghouse had been under scrutiny. As Henry read the next paragraph aloud, a chill spread through him. “Miss Branson, a former volunteer nurse, was questioned in September 1863 by the provost marshal. She was suspected of helping a rebel prisoner, Lewis Thornton Powell, also known as Lewis Paine, escape from the US General Hospital here in Baltimore. No charges were filed then.”

  “And you visited that same boardinghouse,” his father reminded him, “listening to that same woman complain about Federal soldiers prowling about her door.”

  Henry raked back his hair. His mind was racing. Those soldiers saw me enter. The boarder in the parlor saw me, as well. He probably heard our very conversation.

  He told himself he hadn’t done anything wrong—certainly not anything illegal—but he knew that didn’t matter now. The nation had just endured four years of war. Suspicion still ran high. Henry had entered the home of a Southern sympathizer. That was all the proof some men would need to declare him guilty.

  I’ll be linked to the scoundrels who conspired to kill the president and his men. God help me, he thought. What do I do now?

  “You need to keep your wits,” his father reminded him. “You need to protect yourself.”

  Anxiety pulsing through him, Henry made the mistake of asking how.

  “Van der Geld’s daughter. The man has the army in his pocket, you know. You can use that to your advantage.”

  Henry immediately dismissed the idea. He’d already made the mistakes of listening to the complaints of rebel sympathizer and shaking hands with a murderer. He wouldn’t make another by marrying a woman he did not love, even if her father did hold considerable sway over the authorities of this state.

  “No,” he said flatly. “I told you, I don’t want any part of that.”

  His father scowled. “When are you going to learn that this is the way it is done? Crowns are won or lost this way.”

  Henry had no desire for a crown. He never had. He told his father so. “I only want to do what is right.”

  “Right or wrong has nothing to do with it. It’s about power...about how much of it you have over your enemies.”

  “I don’t have any enemies.”

  At that, his father laughed. “I wouldn’t tell Detective Smith that next time he comes calling. You had better claim a few enemies—namely John Wilkes Booth and the rebel army.”

  Again Henry raked his fingers through his hair. Of course he wanted Booth brought to justice, but Lee and his army had surrendered. The men in gray were no longer his enemies. Some, in fact, like his brother-in-law, John, never had been. Henry grieved the loss of life their war of rebellion had brought, but he didn’t want retribution. He wanted restoration. He wanted to be part of the reconstruction efforts, to see his nation, his state, his city healed.

  His father eyed him shrewdly. “Detective Smith will return. Just what exactly are you planning to tell him?”

  “I will tell him the truth.”

  “The truth will earn you a jail cell.” Harold reached for the paper and quickly flipped to another article. “The actors from Ford’s Theatre are already there.”

  “What? Why? What did they do?”

  “They were there that night, and Booth was there. Son, the president has been assassinated. Mark my words, this nation won’t rest until every last person connected to Lincoln’s death, no matter how trivial the role, is brought to justice.”

  All Henry could offer in response to that was silence. He knew his father was right, and although he believed the truth would eventually prevail, he wondered just how long it would take.

  How long must I sit in a jail cell before Detective Smith believes my encounters with Booth and Maggie Branson were purely coincidental?

  He had seen what prison could do to a man. He’d visited returning veterans who had been held captive in rebel prisons. Many were starved, sick, withered.

  Would a Federal prison have the same effect on me? Could I endure it?

  And more important, what would happen to Kathleen and Grace if he were imprisoned?

  They’ll end up in the care of the man standing before me. The man my sister rejected as a guardian. And he will not offer them any affection or comfort. Henry was certain his father would ship Kathleen and Grace off to a home for foundlings at the first opportunity.

  James came to the door. “’Scuse me, sir, but Delegate Van der Geld and his daughter are here to see you.”

  Henry sighed heavily and once more raked his fingers through his hair. Not this...not now...

  “An opportunity presents itself, son,” his father said. “If I were you, I’d make the most of it.”

  I’m not you, Henry thought. I’ll never be you.

  Despite his anxiety, he was determined to stand on the truth. As his father exited the room, Henry looked at James. He was still waiting for an answer. The delicate business of rejecting Miss Van der Geld was now the least of his concerns, but the matter had to be settled.

  “Tell Delegate Van der Geld that I’ll see him.”

  James nodded.

  “And please tell Sadie to serve Miss Van der Geld some refreshments in the parlor.”

  James nodded again. He turned, only to have Henry call after him. “And James...”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “I wish to see Delegate Van der Geld alone. Please see to it that my father is occupied elsewhere.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  James had barely left the room before the elder statesman made his entrance. The man’s very stance commanded authority. His hawkish look and confident voice could wither a weaker, inexperienced man, especially a man with something to hide.

  But I’ve done nothing wrong, Henry reminded himself. Lifting his chin, he stared Van der Geld square in the face.

  The men exchanged formal pleasantries before Van der Geld said, “Sir, I would presume you are as distressed by today’s developments as I.”

  “Indeed,” Henry said. He noted the small framed portrait of Lincoln pinned to the man’s frock coat. “It is a black day for our nation.”

  Van der Geld nodded. “One that makes your proposal all the more pertinent.”

  My proposal? Henry stopped him there. “Sir, I must tell you here and now, whatever my father may have said to you—”

  Accustomed to keeping the floor, Van der Geld did not allow him to finish. “Unity is necessary to maintain the peace. With such perilous times upon us, surely you see as well as I the necessity of proceeding with the wedding in haste. Our city needs uplifting news. It is no secret that your father and I take different views. The joining of our families, a uniting of opposite parties for the good of the land, will show the people of Maryland our willingness to work together...compromise...goodwill...”

  Henry would have been tempted to roll his eyes at the obvious stump speech had Van der Geld’s tone not suddenly changed. All evidence of goodwill vanished when he then spoke of John Wilkes Booth.

  “And that traitorous rebel scum! As for him and his coconspirators, I agree with what Vice President Johnson said concerning rebels—‘arrest them as traitors, try them as traitors, hang them as traitors.’ Rest assured, Councilman Nash, I will do everything in my power to bring such men and women to justice. The provost marshal is already dragging them in. I daresay the jails of this city will soon be bursting at the seams.”

  A rock lodged in the back of Henry’s throat so tightly he could not breathe. Van der Geld had never proceeded cautiously when it
came to suspicions of disloyalty, and it was obvious he would not tread lightly now. In the past, the man had been in full support of citizens being dragged from their beds simply because they had spoken against such tactics or knew someone who had served in the rebel army.

  And what would he advocate for the man who not only had a brother-in-law who served the Confederacy but also had shaken hands with the president’s murderer? “Arrest them as traitors, try them as traitors, hang them as traitors”?

  Henry felt sick to his stomach. Van der Geld continued on, now promising that he personally would not rest until Booth and all those connected with him got what they deserved.

  “They will suffer for their actions! Indeed they shall!” Suddenly he stopped. His hawk-like expression softened. “But I digress,” he said. “We are here to discuss matters of life...”

  Henry swallowed. Life... My life is now devoted to raising those two little girls. They are dependent on me. Marianne depended on me. I can’t let her down.

  “This marriage will serve as a positive example,” Van der Geld insisted. “The future of our state depends upon such goodwill...”

  Future... What future will Grace and Kathleen have if their uncle is convicted as an accomplice to the murder of the president?

  Henry couldn’t stand the thought of them being shunned or scorned, unable to be placed in a proper home. He might not be the father they deserved, and he might not know how to care for them as wisely as he should, but Henry was determined those little girls would be protected.

  “We’ve had our disagreements, for certain,” Van der Geld said, “but I know you to be a man of your word. I know you will take good care of my daughter.”

  His daughter... Surely this man is as concerned for her security and happiness as I am for Grace’s and Kathleen’s. He wouldn’t wish to see her husband carted off to jail.

  “I have it on good authority that the president’s funeral train will pass through our city in a few days. Thousands will attend. I think that would be the perfect opportunity for you and Rebekah to be seen together in public. Then, when our beloved president is finally laid to rest, we will conduct the marriage ceremony.” The man stuck out his hand. “What say you?”