She went into the house.
CHAPTER 20
Expertise
I
OCTAVIUS ADDISON HAD come courting again. They sat together in the parlor as he read aloud from Shakespeare’s sonnets, because he knew that Abigail appreciated them. It was Saturday afternoon, and Nanny Pork was out for once, shopping at Center Market with Old Ellie, another former slave, who lived on the farm across the way. The two young people were not of course alone in the house; that would have been improper. Louisa was in the kitchen, learning from her sister how to be a hostess. As a practical matter, she was hovering in the wings, hoping for a glimpse of something untoward.
But nothing untoward occurred. Abigail, hands folded, perched at one end of the sofa; Octavius sat at the other, the heavy green volume of Shakespeare open on his lap. He wore a suit of the finest wool. He had spent two and a half years being tutored at the College of New Jersey, studying mathematics and biology, but mainly reading theology, in preparation for his work as a Presbyterian minister. The war had changed his mind, and he had left school to begin a mortuary business. The bodies, Octavius had explained to Abigail once, were just lying on the battlefields. Picking them up, identifying them, and writing to their families for shipping instructions had proved lucrative. She had nodded politely, listening to his proudly morbid tale without commenting. Octavius was brilliant and earnest and sweet, as well as painfully shy, and the last thing Abigail wanted was to wound him. She would rather not be spending this time with him, but as he was here, she saw no reason to be rude. Besides, the smallest argument would have infuriated Nanny Pork, who considered Octavius a catch. The young man’s father edited one of the capital’s colored newspapers. His grandfather was supposed to have been one of the slaves Thomas Jefferson freed on his deathbed, but half the colored families in Washington City claimed that their ancestors had been owned by one of the nation’s Founders, and, the way Abigail saw it, at least a few had to be lying. Meanwhile, Octavius was still reading:
“Fair, kind, and true, have often lived alone,
“Which three till now, never kept seat in one.”
“Very lovely indeed, Mr. Addison,” said Abigail, relieved that her suitor had finished yet another sonnet, and hoping earnestly that he would soon stop.
Octavius beamed. “I am not sure I have told you, Miss Abigail, how much I admire the work you are doing.”
“Oh?”
“For Mr. Lincoln,” he explained. “You may not be aware of this, Miss Abigail, but all our people are proud of you.”
Embarrassed by the praise, not sure how to respond, she made to rise. “Let me refresh your lemonade.”
“Let me,” said Louisa, who had been listening in the doorway. She scurried in and removed the tray before Abigail could stop her. “You just sit.”
So sit Abigail did, exchanging pleasantries, even listening to another two sonnets, all the while seething deep inside that Nanny was forcing her through this exercise again. For although Abigail herself kept alive in her heart the hope that her Aaron would return, no one else in the household believed it for an instant; and, at sour moments, even Abigail accepted that she might indeed have to make a different choice, because, with each passing month, the odds of her fiancé’s safe return were declining.
She went still.
The odds—
“Is something wrong, Miss Abigail?” said Octavius softly, squinting behind his glasses. “Have I said something to offend? I apologize if—”
“No, Mr. Addison. Not at all.” She actually smiled, and put a hand on his arm. “You studied mathematics at college, didn’t you?”
A confused nod. “Mathematics is pure and beautiful, God’s creation in pristine unsullied form. I had a mathematics tutor, of course, but I also traveled to England to hear Professor Cayley’s lectures on pure mathematics on the occasion of his ascension to the Sadlerian Chair at Cambridge—”
Abigail was not listening. She was on her feet, suddenly excited, bidding her guest wait while she flew with unladylike haste up the stairs. In the room she shared with Louisa, she opened the cabinet and pulled out one of her notebooks. Ignoring the clear signs that her younger sister’s fingers had been on every page, she flipped past quotations painstakingly copied out from Coke and Blackstone, until she found what she was looking for. She hurried back down to the parlor, where Octavius stood near the window, and Louisa was seated in an armchair, laughing at a joke, leaning forward daringly, even as she hid her face behind an entirely inappropriate fan.
Abigail’s face reddened. There was a hard tone she could assume when she wanted to, inherited in equal measures from her mother and Nanny Pork—a tone even the mischievous Louisa dared not disobey.
She put it on now. “Go upstairs, young lady. Now.” Her sister shot to her feet and, inclining her head toward their guest, drifted from the room. “Stay up there until I call you,” Abigail snapped.
Louisa’s answering mumble was inaudible.
“I apologize for my sister, Mr. Addison.”
Octavius smiled nervously. “I am not offended, Miss Abigail.”
Abigail crossed to the sofa. “Please. Sit with me. I should like to show you something.”
He sat, round face expectant and alive. She opened the notebook. “Can you tell me what this might be?”
13163222232121244
“It is simply a number, Miss Abigail,” said Octavius, puzzled. “Surely you know that. Thirteen quadrillion, one hundred and sixty-three trillion—”
He stopped. She had intended to explain, but knew at once she would not have to.
“Ah. I see. I see.” Nodding, muttering to himself. “The highest digit is six. Did you notice that? And no other numbers above four.”
“I noticed,” she said, but Octavius was in his own world.
“No numbers above four. That’s not very clever of them.” He glanced up at her. “A cipher. It’s a cipher, isn’t it?”
II
“I believe so,” said Abigail.
“A cipher,” Octavius repeated. He frowned. “Yes. Yes. One would have to know where the groups begin and end. Either the recipient already knows where to break the lines, or part of the message tells him. Seventeen figures. Well, that could mean anything, or nothing at all. The numbers are low, so the method does not involve either displacement or substitution.” His face seemed mesmerized, eyes flicking back and forth as he studied the page. “Do you know what it says?”
“I am afraid not, Mr. Addison. I was hoping you might be able to help.”
“Possibly. Possibly. My tutor showed us some of the ciphers used over the years to protect military and diplomatic secrets.” His fingers ran lightly along the figures. “That’s what this is. Not a code. A cipher. Not a very sophisticated one. There is pagination in here. That much must be obvious to you. Pagination, lines, and so forth. Still, you cannot break it without the code book.”
Abigail could not help herself. “Can you explain that, please?”
And so he did. The key was that the digits were so low, other than the six. His tutor had explained that low numbers were generally a sign that the cipher was based on a book. Books rarely had more than two or three hundred pages, so a high proportion of low numbers—especially ones and twos—was evidence that pages were meant.
“Generally, the cipher is keyed to the words on a page. One number gives the page, another the line, another the word. Put the words together, and you will have the message.” He frowned. “It is unusual, however, to have only a single six, and nothing higher. I suppose that whoever enciphered the message needed to use only the first few lines on each page to find the words he needed. That likely means either a very simple message or a very sophisticated book. Usually, the book is one that is readily available. The Bible, for example. Or a volume of Shakespeare. It would not appear that the message contains more than five or six words. Seven, perhaps. I wonder if—”
He was on his feet again. Abigail stood with him. “With your
permission, Miss Abigail, I would like to look this over for a few days. There is something odd about the cipher. I believe that it is designed to deceive. It may not be a book code at all, even if intended to look like one. I should like to see whether I can work out where the deceit occurs.”
“By all means, Mr. Addison. Let me copy it out for you—”
“No need,” he said, and without looking at the page, recited: “One-three-one-six-three-two-two-two-two-three-two-one-two-one-two-four-four.” He inclined his head. “May I have your leave?”
She had to smile. And not only because he was so gallantly determined to help. His archaic formality, no doubt gleaned from his lonely readings of Shakespeare, she had always found off-putting, but now it was somehow endearing. And what charmed Abigail most about the episode was also what she had secretly counted on: that Octavius Addison was too much the gentleman to ask why she need to know what the cipher represented, or how it had come into her possession. Best of all, she would soon know what great secret Rebecca Deveaux had died to protect.
“Of course,” Abigail said. She considered asking him to keep the project to himself, but decided that cloaking the cipher in mystery might draw unwanted attention. Besides, Octavius was a gentleman, and would keep a lady’s secrets. “I shall look forward to hearing from you soon.”
At the door, Octavius took her hand shyly and, with a sudden surge of excitement, said, “I know that the trial begins in nine days. If you are not too busy preparing, I wonder whether you might do me the honor of going riding with me next weekend.”
“It would be my pleasure,” she murmured.
“Shall we say Sunday?”
“Sunday would be lovely.”
When the young man had gone, Abigail said, not turning, “Come out, Louisa, dear.” After a moment, her sister emerged grudgingly from her hiding place behind the stairs. “Did you enjoy your eavesdropping?”
“What’s a cipher?”
“Nothing!”
“Is it a love note?”
“Forget what you heard, Louisa.”
Her sister giggled. “He is a very sweet man.”
“Indeed.”
“Still. You know what Nanny always says.”
Abigail drew herself up. “No. What does Nanny say?”
“If you ask a man for a favor, he’s going to want one, too.” A giggle. “And I don’t mean riding.”
III
That night was her second reception at the Eameses’. Nanny considered it unladylike to attend any social event unescorted. When Abigail explained that the young ladies of Washington City often did, Nanny laughed. Unpleasantly. “Child, all that proves is that they ain’t no ladies.” She chomped on her pipe while Abigail fought the urge to roll her eyes. “You should get that nice white gentleman to escort you.”
“He is in Philadelphia.”
“Then find another white gentleman. I knows you don’t like the colored ones to take you to your talkin parties.”
“That is untrue!”
“Then get that nice Octavius.”
“Nanny, I am a professional of this city. I am employed by the firm that is defending the President of the United States. I believe that I can manage a single reception.”
But this objection led only to a further peroration from Nanny on the subject of the corrupting aspects of employment, and why a true lady avoided it like the plague. In the end, they compromised. Abigail refused to be escorted, but she agreed to allow her brother, who was back in town, to carry her to the party and back in his wagon. Along the way, Michael told her he had been down in Virginia, helping some of the farmers organize groups to protect their property from the night riders.
“Armed groups?” she asked.
“There wouldn’t be much point to any other kind, now, would there?”
“Are you in danger?”
“Every negro in this country is in danger, every minute.”
“Thank you for the ride,” she said as the wagon drew up at the Eameses’. “I shall be ready to depart at ten.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, and touched his forehead, as some of the other negro drivers did. Michael had told her once that this common salute was actually a secret signal of mocking disrespect, but the white folks were too dumb to realize it.
She went in.
IV
Ash Wednesday had fallen in the middle of the week just past, and with the start of Lent, the Season had ended in Washington City; but Fanny Eames was not bound by convention. In deference to Christian sensibilities, she teased her guests by withholding alcohol. But there was food enough to feed an army; given rumors that a legion of destitute veterans was marching south from New York, provender on this order might prove necessary.
There was no Sumner this time, and no Grafton either, and little talk of politics, but shortly after Abigail stepped through the door the same clutch of Washington ladies who last time had demanded to know when she was writing her book descended upon her. “Miss Canner!” burbled Crete Garfield, grabbing Abigail’s hand, looking her up and down. “You simply must tell us where you get those marvelous clothes, dear.”
“Oh, yes,” burbled Bessie Hale. “Why, they look right out of the pages of Peterson’s Magazine.”
Abigail smiled. It was difficult to believe that just a week ago she had found these women intimidating. She knew that they were putting her down, because Peterson’s was aimed at women of the working classes who wanted to look and behave as though they were members of the upper class. “Indeed they are,” she gushed. “And yours!” she exclaimed, happily. “So beautiful and expensive! Why, they are right out of the Peterson’s story on fashions of the eighteenth century.”
A fresh round of tittering; but this time, if only for a lovely instant, the great ladies of Washington were on Abigail’s side; and if she did indeed in private hours read Peterson’s and Godey’s and the other magazines for social pretenders, well, that was nobody’s business but her own.
Then Lucy Lambert Hale linked a plump arm through hers and led her away from the group. The last time Abigail had laid eyes on Bessie, the young woman had been in tears following her argument with David Grafton. Tonight she was bright and alert.
“It’s such a tragedy, isn’t it?” she gushed. “That Mr. Hilliman has gone north? Really, I wonder what the young ladies of this city are going to do without him. Do you have any idea when he will be returning? Or where he has gone?”
“I believe he is visiting Miss Felix.”
“With the start of Mr. Lincoln’s trial a week away? I don’t believe that silly story, and neither do you. Where has he gone, Abigail? He wouldn’t tell me, the lamb. I begged him and flattered and teased and he simply wouldn’t say a word. Do tell me if you know. For my own private ear. What is that silly boy up to that he refuses to talk about?” Bessie leaned close. “Crete Garfield says Mr. Hilliman is on a secret mission for the President. Now, that would be a feather in his cap, wouldn’t it? If he’s the man who saves Mr. Lincoln, why, he would have his pick of the young ladies of this city, wouldn’t he? Only where would that leave you and me?” She squeezed Abigail’s upper arm. “He hasn’t told you, dear? He hasn’t let anything slip?”
“No,” said Abigail, head spinning. “Not at all.”
“Pity,” said Bessie, and was gone.
A few minutes later, as Abigail stood recovering near the piano, listening while an amiable British journalist expostulated on America’s many flaws, a cultured male voice cried, “Oh, say! There you are! You’re the one Hills is on about, aren’t you?”
Which was her introduction to Fielding Bannerman.
V
He was beautiful, in that peculiar way that only the very rich and very careless ever quite attained. Dinah Berryhill possessed the same graceful certainty that the world cared greatly for her opinions on all subjects but dared offer none of its own; Fielding Bannerman managed it better, and less disdainfully. He was about her height, with the fleshy, pampered softness of a
man too busy to be bothered, a little wild about the hair, a little sloppy in his absurdly expensive dinner jacket. The dark, moist eyes were frank and appraising, the eyes of a man who neither asked permission nor offered apologies. Jonathan said that the Bannermans owned banks—“lots of banks”—as well as bits of railroads, bits of shipping, bits of everything.
Fielding steered her away from the crowd, never questioning that she would go with him. He admired a piece of sculpture, dismissed an oil as fourth-rate, and asked her opinion. When she sounded knowledgeable, he offered to show her his father’s collection of Renaissance art.
“That would be very kind of you,” she said.
“I am at your service,” he said, with a little bow. “Let’s set a date, shall we? We live mostly in Philadelphia, but the main part of the collection is in New York. We have a place in the city and a place up on one of the lakes. We could take the cars. What do you say?” Abigail had trouble suppressing a giggle.
“I suppose you’re busy right now. This silly trial and so forth. Perhaps in the summer. Nobody stays in Washington City in the summer. Didn’t Hills tell me that you summer in Ohio?”
“No, no, I went to school in Ohio.”
“I have a cousin in Ohio. Wants to be governor, imagine. Or Senator. I don’t recall.” Fielding studied her. “Hills is right for once.”
“About what?”
“You are an absolutely fascinating creature.”
“Why do you call him Hills?” she asked by way of diversion as she tried not to blush. She could not remember when she had met a man so charming; or one, at least, who focused all of that charm on her.
“Goes back to when we were in rompers. He was Hills, I was Fields.” He flapped a hand dismissively. “Never mind. Private thing. Between friends and all that.” He looked her up and down, not bothering to hide his scrutiny. “I can see why he’s taken with you.”
The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln Page 20
