by Gore Vidal
“What,” asked Kate, as the overture began in the pit, “does the handsomest man in America see in Bessie Hale?”
“Adoration.”
“Oh, that.” Kate was cool. “I should have thought that he was oversupplied with that commodity.”
“Perhaps it is her intellect.” Hay hastily removed his feet which had been nearly sliced off by Kate’s sudden vigorous rocking of the presidential rocker.
“I must say it is mysterious,” said Kate, looking about the box.
Lord Lyons thought that she had spoken to him. “What is mysterious, Miss Chase?” asked his lordship, the usual small smile at the corners of his lips.
“Masculine beauty and its effect on women—and others,” said Kate, delicately nudging Hay.
But Lord Lyons was never to be caught out. “You allude to my own beauty, of course; and its universal effect. Personally, I find it a burden. But, as a diplomat, it has its uses. In the service of my country, I do dazzle deliberately.”
“ ‘Mine eyes dazzle,’ ” quoted Kate, allowing him the round.
“But,” Lyons finished off the quotation, “he did not die young, despite Washington and its fevers.”
The previous March, when Lord Lyons had appeared in full uniform to announce the marriage of the Prince of Wales to a Danish princess, the President had received the solemn news most solemnly; and then he had said to Lord Lyons, “Go thou and do likewise.”
Grover’s new curtain with its painting of a bust of Shakespeare now rose; the lights dimmed. Attentively, Hay followed the play, which was highly romantic and highflown. During an emotional scene of lovers parting, he heard a gasp beside him. He turned and in the half-light from the stage saw that Kate had a fist to her mouth as she tried, unsuccessfully, to stifle sobs. Tears flowed. She saw him look at her; she shook her head, as if to say that she could not stop and that he must look away, which he did.
Later, at Harvey’s Oyster Saloon, beneath the huge immobile fans, Kate made no allusion to her tears; nor did Hay. They sat at a table in a corner and ate oyster stew. “The first Rappahannock oysters in two years,” said the smiling waiter, ladling from a pewter tureen the steaming contents into thick china bowls. Waiters came and went across the white-and-black tessellated marble floor, heels clicking like those of Mr. Barnum’s Spanish dancers. At the table opposite, General Dan Sickles presided over a group of senior officers and handsome ladies, none his wife but each someone’s respectable wife—highly refined but absolute lines of propriety were drawn in certain rooms at Harvey’s; in others not, as Hay had enjoyed from time to time. Once he had even brought Azadia from Sal’s to the upstairs room. To those whom he happened to know, he introduced her as the daughter of Governor Seymour of New York. If word of this caper had got back to the Ancient, he had said nothing to Hay. But then on the subject of the ladies, the Ancient was always mute if never deaf. He very much enjoyed dancers; and he and Hay would both ogle them as they stood, enticingly, in the wings, waiting to go on. Once, both President and secretary had been entranced by the same pretty dancer, until the Tycoon had noted her enormous feet. “I fear,” he had murmured, “no beetle would have a chance with her.” The unobstructed—and uninhibited—view of backstage was the only advantage of the presidential box.
“Where do you go after … afterwards?” Neither Hay nor Kate alluded directly to the coming wedding.
“We go to Providence to see … Fanny.” Kate pronounced the name comically. “My prospective mother-in-law is a lady of much energy.”
“I know. I used to see her when I was at Brown. She is a dragon.”
Kate did not acknowledge Fanny’s dragonhood. “Then we go to Ohio, where Father wants me to be seen by all. You know, they call me ‘Kate the Shrew’ in the newspapers back home. I can’t think why. Am I shrewish?”
“Hardly. Perhaps,” Hay lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “they envy you.”
“Oh, surely, not that!” Kate put down her spoon with a crash on the marble-topped table, much ringed by a generation of steaming oyster stews. “And I so simple, so unadorned, so self-effacing …”
“Plain, too,” said Hay, thinking of Booth.
“True. My nose is too pug, according to General Garfield.”
“He told you?”
“No, he told his wife, who told everyone else in Ohio.”
“He is a blackguard …”
“Call him out.”
“I shall. A blackguard; and afraid of you.”
“No one is afraid of me.” Kate frowned. “I wish they were.”
“I am.”
“Oh, you! When will you marry?”
“I am only a boy.”
“Boys grow up, occasionally.”
“If you had waited for me, I would have married you.” Hay could not believe what he had said.
But Kate could believe it. “There was no time, ever, for us,” she said, reflectively. “There is not much time for anyone, really. We must all move with such haste toward … our goals.”
The Washington correspondent of the Cincinnati Gazette, Whitelaw Reid, stopped at their table. Kate achieved a dazzling smile for the friend and partisan of her father while Hay gave him a quick wink. Reid was only a year or two older than Hay, and though the two young men were in opposing camps, they enjoyed each other’s company. After the usual compliments, Reid asked Hay whether or not Frank Blair, Junior, would be returning to Congress.
The Blair impasse, as it was known at the White House, had, lately, grown more than ever impassive. Frank Blair, Junior, had refused to give up his seat in Congress; he had, also, refused to give up his command in the field. Currently, as a major-general, he was serving with great distinction under Sherman in the west. Since Blair himself would never give up either place, the President or Congress must decide for him.
“I have no idea,” said Hay, who knew that the Tycoon had already made up his mind. Blair would come back to Congress, and help organize it for the Administration. He would be proposed for Speaker. If elected Speaker, he would resign from the army and remain in Congress. If he was not elected, he would re-join Sherman and Grant, who were well pleased with the only politician-general, in Sherman’s phrase, “worth a damn.”
“He’s certainly making a lot of commotion,” said Reid, smiling at Kate. “The speech at St. Louis—”
“—was vile!” Suddenly, Kate was no longer the languorous bride-to-be but an angry politician. “To attack my father for trade permits with the enemy when he does nothing, nothing at all, for Governor Sprague who is desperate for a permit. Oh, how I would like to see Mr. Blair on the nearest gallows!”
Hay looked at Kate; and saw that she was serious. Reid saw the same; and excused himself. Kate turned to Hay. “They are as good as rebels, that family, and why Mr. Lincoln indulges them is beyond me.”
“Well, they are moderates like the President.”
“I thought Mr. Stanton had relieved General Blair and …” Kate suddenly stopped—aware that she was not supposed to know of a curious exchange between President and Secretary of War. After the St. Louis speech, Stanton had relieved Blair of his command. Lincoln had then ordered Stanton to reinstate him. There had been much confusion, not to say embarrassment, all around. Both Hay and Nicolay assumed that Stanton was now working, secretly, in Chase’s interest. Whatever the Tycoon may have thought, he did not say. But he had been angry with Stanton. The Blairs, needless to say, were up in arms. They had vowed to destroy Chase and Stanton and all their other enemies. Should they succeed in this, Hay had told Nico, North America would again be a primeval wilderness.
“There was,” said Hay, mildly, “a misunderstanding. Anyway, General Blair is still a general and he’s still a congressman and he’ll be taking his seat this winter with the others.”
“My father is a saint,” said Kate, refusing more stew from the tureen. “He forgives his enemies.”
“You don’t?”
“I don’t.”
“Bu
t you don’t have any.”
“Oh, but I do.” Kate’s smile was radiant. “I live for my enemies.”
As they were finishing their stewed Rappahannock oysters, David Herold began his humble fried Chesapeake oysters. He could not believe his luck. After the theater, he had gone with Spangler to Scala’s restaurant and bar. While he and Spangler were sitting at the end of a long table, drinking beer and watching the various theatricals at their supper, Wilkes Booth and a slender, pretty, blond girl came into the restaurant. Scala greeted them warmly: and showed them to a table in the back.
“That’s not the girl he was at the theater with.” During the performance, David had spotted Booth in the audience.
“I guess he’s gone changed his tie, you might say,” said Spangler, with a broken-tooth grin. “I never saw such a boy for girls or, I reckon, so many girls for just one boy. Even when he was still growing up, there was always girls hanging about him. He’s always had his pick.”
“Oh, that is rich, isn’t it?” David stared at the dark actor and blond girl; and he wondered what it would have been like had he, not Wilkes, been Junius Brutus’s son. Certainly, he would not have had to work as a stagehand or a prescription clerk. He would have been an actor, too. As he stared at the young actor, he was suddenly aware that there was a physical resemblance between Wilkes Booth and himself. Each had coal-black curling hair and pale eyes. They could have been twins, he thought, were it not for his own slightly bucked two front teeth and ruddy coloring, so unlike the alabaster pallor of the youngest star. They were hardly twins; but they could have been brothers.
“He’s secesh,” said Spangler, himself devoted to the Confederacy though not one to do anything about it.
“So why don’t he go home and fight for us?”
Booth himself answered David’s question at Sullivan’s later that night. As Booth and the blond girl left Skippy’s, Booth had greeted Spangler warmly; and introduced the young woman, Miss Turner, to “Old Ed Spangler, who practically brought me up back in Maryland.” The girl had smiled sweetly; and said nothing. When Spangler invited them for a drink, Booth had said that he must accompany Miss Turner home but he might join them later. When David mentioned Sullivan’s Saloon, Booth had looked knowing.
They sat in the back of the long barroom, only half filled at this late hour. Sullivan had recognized Booth. “A great honor, sir. You’ll be wanting privacy, I know,” he said. Sullivan indicated a group of Yankees at the bar. Sullivan’s smile was merry; but the look he gave David was one of warning.
Spangler and Booth and David sat at a table with pinewood walls on three sides. Booth ordered a bottle of French brandy, and three glasses. David had never seen anyone drink as much as the actor; and hold it so well. He himself drank sparingly, while Spangler got drunk.
“I promised my mother I wouldn’t go fight,” said Booth, fixing slightly bloodshot eyes on David. “Why haven’t you gone?”
“They want me here. At Thompson’s Drug Store. You see, I get to run errands. I get to go to the White House and the War Department and Mr. Seward’s house and General McClellan’s house when he was here. I find out things for the Colonel.”
“You know the Colonel?” Booth had now lowered his voice from stage whisper to real whisper.
“No, sir. But he gets word to me and I to him, if it’s important.”
“I don’t know him,” said Booth. “I’d like to. I think sometimes I know who he is. Canada.”
“Canada?”
Booth nodded. “That’s where we have some of our best men. They gather information. They deal with England and France and our friends in New York.”
Spangler had been running his black thumbnail up and down a deep crack in the table. “Davie’s a night-rider, too. You tell Wilkes here about your rides.”
David blushed. He had boasted, from time to time, of dangerous rides to Richmond through the Yankee lines. Actually, he had never been sent farther than Fredericksburg. But he was not about to admit to Booth that he had been lying to Spangler. So he half shut his eyes in order to look mysterious; and said, “Oh, we’re not supposed to talk about the rides. Anyway, I don’t go that often.”
“What route do you take?”
Booth’s question was unexpectedly to the point.
“It varies, sir. But I generally cross through Maryland at … Surrattsville.”
Booth nodded. “I’ve heard of the Surratt family there. I know a lot of people in the area, and I know some of the roads. But not all of them.”
“I was in Surrattsville last Easter.” This was true. Annie had invited David to spend the holiday with her family. The Surratt house contained not only rooms for rent and a bar, but also the post office where John was postmaster—and would be postmaster until next month when, on November 15, he was to be replaced. Currently he was in Washington looking for a job. Several members of the Marine Band had also spent Easter with the Surratts. They were all ardent secessionists.
David proceeded to repeat to Booth one of John’s most hazardous rides to Richmond, adding details freely. As he talked, Booth grew more and more interested; and drank more and more brandy. David could not believe that he, David E. Herold of the Navy Yard and Thompson’s Drug Store, was holding enthralled the handsomest actor in America. There was not a girl in Washington who would not have given her most precious possession—very nearly, anyway—to be where he was, facing the pale beautiful Wilkes Booth, so like a somewhat flattering if older mirror image of himself.
When David had finished, Booth poured himself more brandy and said, “If I were not so known, that is what I would be doing. But we all do what we can where we are. The Colonel’s right. You’re in the best place possible at Thompson’s.”
“I know,” said David, sadly. He had been thinking, most seriously, of giving up his job. He was sick of the work and although he enjoyed exaggerating the importance of the information he was able to collect, he knew that he was really of no use to the Confederacy, not like John Surratt, who still rode nights to Richmond.
“Does Thompson know you’re a stagehand, too?”
David shook his head, which had begun, slightly, to ache from brandy. “He thinks I’ve got a light case of the smallpox. He thinks I’m home in bed.”
“Good. Then you can work for me at Ford’s. I start rehearsing tomorrow. I’m booked for two weeks.”
“I’d like nothing better, sir.”
“Call me Wilkes.”
“Yes, sir. Wilkes.”
“I taught that boy to shoot,” said Spangler, pointing an unsteady finger at Booth; then his chin dropped on his chest and he slept.
“I’m a good shot, too, thanks to old Ed. My father thought the world of Ed Spangler. So you really know the roads well in that part of Maryland?” Booth then asked about the various back roads to Richmond. David told him what he knew, adding honestly, “John Surratt’s the one who can help you most. He lives there, and he rides most nights; or did till recently. He’s in the city now.”
“I’d like to meet him.” Booth pulled out his watch. “I have a lady waiting for me.”
“Is that the lady from the theater?” David was made bold by brandy.
Booth laughed. “Mine is the most ravished body since the Trojan War—or Byron’s anyway. But I’ve not yet been out-and-out raped. No, Davie, the lady at the theater is Miss Hale, daughter of the senator from New Hampshire, and a source of many sweet nothings and a few hard facts about Yankee naval affairs, as her father is chairman of that committee. I learn from her things we need to know, while she learns from me—what it is to love!”
“So it is the other, Miss Ella.”
“It is Miss Ella who waits for me in room Twenty-nine of the National Hotel. You come there, too. No, not now, Davie. Tomorrow, at eight in the morning. We’ll have breakfast in the dining room.” Booth finished the last of the brandy. The ivory of his face was now coral pink, and the eyes were slightly glassy. But the voice had not become in any way loud or slurred;
rather, it had become very low and precise, as he whispered to David, “You must poison Old Abe, and soon.”
“That’s what John said.” David was startled; did Booth know John? And if he did, why did he not say so?
“I know the arguments against.” Booth’s voice was that of Iago now; or, rather, of his brother Edwin playing Iago. “That he is good for us because he is so poor a President. This is true, of course. But the Yankees are starting to win victories in the West.”
“Nothing like ours …” David began.
“Nothing like ours. But we are short of men. Listen, David, the reason why we must kill him now is very simple. If he lives, he is bound to be reelected next November; and the war will go on and on, and we will run out of men long before the Yankees do.”
“But whoever they elect, the war will go on.”
Booth shook his head. “If Lincoln is not the candidate, the Democrats will win, and the new president, McClellan, will make peace on our terms.”
“Is he really one of us?” David had heard for years that McClellan was a Knight of the Golden Circle, a secret society of Northerners in sympathy with the South.
“I cannot say.” Wilkes Booth rose. “But I know that if he is president, he will give us what we want. So …” Booth raised an eyebrow. “Good-night, Davie. Say good-night to Old Ed, when he wakes up. Or good morning, it that’s more suitable.”
“Good-night, sir. Wilkes.” Booth was gone. David was surprised at how calm he himself was. He had been taken into the confidence of the famous star, who had asked him, in the most agreeable way, to murder the President. In theory, David was perfectly willing to remove Old Abe from the vale of tears in which all were at present dwelling. But how? You did not put arsenic into a laxative. The President would taste it, and spit it out. Even if Lincoln did happen to take it and die, everyone would know that someone at Thompson’s Drug Store had poisoned his blue mass. Of course, David could just disappear as soon as the delivery was made to the Mansion. But where would he go? He did not fancy serving in the Confederate Army. Half the haggard ragged young men in Washington—not to mention at Sullivan’s—were deserters from the Confederate Army or captives who had been let go after taking the oath of allegiance to the Union. On the other hand, if he did succeed in poisoning Lincoln, he would be a hero at Richmond. So perhaps he really would take a night ride through the lines, and report to President Davis that his rival was dead; at David’s hands.
