Hanging Mary

by Susan Higginbotham

  • • •

  When I reached the boardinghouse, I found a note from my father. A friend of his who worked at the Capitol could procure him a good spot on the grounds from which to watch the president make his second inaugural speech. Would I like to come with him? Peter would be coming down from Boston to join us.

  Of course I wanted to come. Washington was packed with people hoping to see the inauguration; even the Willard was stowing guests in its hallways and parlors. To witness the event from a fair vantage point, instead of being at the fringes of the crowd, pushed to-and-fro and craning to see past a sea of high hats, was more than I could have ever hoped for.

  Anna, of course, was not impressed at my good fortune. “They’ll be crowning the ape next.” She sniffed.

  Undaunted by her attitude, I set off with my father and my brother early on the morning of Saturday, March 4. It was a thoroughly miserable day, which had announced itself with a hailstorm that had subsided into a steady, cold rain, turning the city’s mostly unpaved streets to muck. But no one seemed to care: except for those who had the privilege of witnessing the ceremonies inside the Capitol, everyone in Washington appeared to be on the streets, either thronging on Pennsylvania Avenue to watch the inaugural parade or massing on the Capitol grounds to await the president’s speech to the public. As we trudged to the Capitol to secure our places, our shoes and the hem of my dress becoming caked with mud, the parade moved as colorfully and as tunefully down Pennsylvania Avenue as it would have had the sun glowed in the sky.

  As we waited for the president to appear on the platform erected above the Capitol steps, I asked Father as offhandedly as possible, “What would you think if I married a man who was poor but who was trying to better himself?”

  Peter and my father both gave me stern looks. Father said, “You have not engaged yourself to someone, have you, Nora?”

  “No, Father. I was asking only theoretically. At the hospital I have met some fine young men who are poor but who want to improve their lives. Some have been injured—missing an arm or a leg, for instance—and they will need the help of a wife.”

  “Well, I was poor when I came here,” Father said. “But I held off marrying until I could support your mother. She helped, of course, by being thrifty, and we lived with others, but I was able to keep her and you children on my own.”

  “But you had both arms, Father. What if a man needed a wife to help run his store or to keep his accounts until he reached the point where he could hire someone to do it?”

  Peter chuckled. “You keep accounts, Nora?”

  “I never overspend my allowance.”

  “I would have to meet the man, child. If I thought he was worthy of such devotion, as opposed to simply exploiting you while he lay about, then I would be willing to give my blessing. But I would want to know more about the man than I could observe in a short period. I would want to know what his neighbors thought of him, what his priest thought about him—”

  “Is this man Catholic, Nora?” Peter asked.

  “He is purely hypothetical,” I said stiffly. “I have not assigned him a religion.”

  “I would want to see him over a period of time before I could believe that he was worthy of you.” Father sighed. “I know the war has set everything topsy-turvy, but I hope it has not changed things so much that young ladies will marry just anyone without consulting their parents.”

  “If I marry anyone, it will be with your blessing, Father.” I glared at Peter. “And he will be Catholic.” I decided a change of topic was in short order. “Remember I told you that Mr. John Wilkes Booth, the actor, would be calling at Mrs. Surratt’s house? He did call, and has called several times since. He’s very pleasant.”

  “He calls on you, Nora?” Father asked.

  “On all of us, mostly. Sometimes on Mr. Surratt, but he’s hardly ever at home. So usually he just sits in the parlor and chats to all of us. Even Mr. Rochester likes him.”

  “Mr. Rochester?”

  “My cat, Peter. Mr. Booth will be here today. The lady he loves gave him a ticket.”

  With the rain starting to come down heavily again, Father held his umbrella over my head while Peter draped his shawl over my shoulders. As the time wore on, I looked around in the sea of high hats surrounding me. Thousands of people were packed onto the Capitol grounds. The papers had warned of pickpockets come to take advantage of the festivities, but we were massed so tightly together I could not see how any of these people could move about to ply their trade. Yet everyone seemed to be in the best of humor, and I wished Anna, who had made a point of sleeping late this morning, was here to see for herself the mood of the people. But probably the sight of the colored people in the crowd, waiting patiently to hear the man who had liberated them from slavery, would have irritated her more than anything.

  At last the platform above us began to fill with dignitaries coming from the interior of the Capitol, where Congress, the justices of the Supreme Court, the press, and a few impostors had heard the president and the vice president take their oath of office. Vice President Johnson came out, looking sheepish and not entirely steady on his feet—later, I would learn that, sick and tired, he had gulped some brandy before speaking and had rambled on before Congress about his humble origins before he could finally be induced to stop talking long enough to take his oath. He was followed by the unmistakable figure of the president, looking so much more gaunt and worn than he did in the picture in my album. I might not have known him but for the roar that came from the spectators.

  Then the president stepped to the podium, and at that very same moment, the sun, unseen in Washington for two days, broke through the clouds, making us gasp as its benevolent rays shone over all.

  “A sign from God,” my brother whispered. “What on earth could be more clear?”

  We listened, rapt, until the president spoke the words that, years later, I would listen to my own sons recite for school: “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

  The crowd erupted into applause, and my father, his cheeks wet with tears, squeezed my hand. “Nora, you have witnessed history.”

  And then, as the president left the podium, I saw on the balcony above the platform what Mr. Lincoln’s tall figure had obscured from me: Mr. Booth, standing. Wearing a high hat instead of the slouch hat he usually wore on his visits to us, he was more elegantly dressed than anyone on the platform, including the president. But it was not his fine clothing or his good looks that made him stand out from the other men on the platform.

  He was the only person there not smiling.

  13

  MARY

  MARCH 1865

  Though I cannot say I welcomed President Lincoln’s second inauguration, it proved a profitable occasion for me, as lodgings were at a premium, and I was able to fill my attic rooms for a few nights—though Anna would have had me leave them vacant out of principle. That I could not do, as principle did not pay my bills, but I did stay inside the day of the ceremony when almost everyone else in Washington was venturing out and returning splattered with both mud and Union sentiment. Miss Fitzpatrick, whom I had begun calling by her Christian name, regaled us for so long with her description of Mr. Lincoln’s splendid speech and noble bearing that at dinner, Anna threw a biscuit at her and had to be scolded like a child, after which Nora gathered up her cat and retreated in a huff to my bedroom, where she and Anna had begun sleeping after our recent influx of visitors. Fortunately, Mr. Booth visited us that evening, and as neither of the young ladies would dream of missing an hour of his presence, he soon had them both laughing with his imitation of the drunken Vice President Johnson delivering his speech while Johnny, playing the role of the out
going vice president, tugged at his coattails and begged him to stop. Even Mr. Weichmann and I could not help but chuckle, and when Mr. Booth departed, Anna and Nora embraced and soon were poring over Nora’s album as the best of friends.

  With Mr. Weichmann having gone upstairs to read, and the girls so absorbed, Johnny gestured for me to follow him into the hall. “We may have a visitor in a few days. Your good friend Mrs. Slater. She’ll be staying overnight if she comes.”

  “Johnny, no.”

  “She has to, Ma. Usually she stops at the National, but they’re getting too curious about her, and she’s not happy staying there anyway. The men are too impudent, she says.”

  “I won’t have that hussy corrupting your sister or Miss Fitzpatrick.”

  “She’s not a hussy, Ma. She’s a charming lady. I promise, she’ll be on her best behavior. And how can she corrupt Miss Fitzpatrick? The girl is turning into a flaming Unionist.”

  “You know what I mean. Where is she going after she leaves Washington?”

  “Montreal. I’ll be escorting her as far as New York. Now, don’t look so horrified, Ma! Separate hotel rooms, I promise, once we get there.”

  I could have argued more, and perhaps should have argued more, but it all seemed pointless. “Mrs.” Slater would have to stay somewhere, and if Johnny wanted to find his way to her bed, he was a grown man and would do so no matter where she slept. “She can stay here, but she must pay for her room. And, Johnny, I repeat: she is a married woman and must act like one around the young ladies.”

  “Duly noted. So a little romance with Weichmann is out of order, then?” Johnny saw my freezing glare. “Duly noted.”

  • • •

  Naturally, our expected visitor had not escaped the attention of Mr. Weichmann. “I have agreed with Johnny to give up my room to this lady,” he informed me a day or so later. “He said that you would probably be willing to reduce my rent per diem for my stay in the attic, but I told him that I was quite willing to do it gratis.”

  “That is very kind of you, Mr. Weichmann. Fortunately, it is only for one night.”

  “I wonder what brings her north.”

  What had Johnny told—or not told—Mr. Weichmann? As I had no idea, I could only say, “Family business, I suppose.”

  Mrs. Slater arrived a day or so after this conversation, wearing her familiar veil. Johnny was not home, so Mr. Weichmann went downstairs to fetch her trunk. “It’s a pity we’ve already eaten,” Anna said as we waited for them. “She would have to take off the veil, then.”

  “We can offer her some refreshments,” Nora suggested. “She’ll be hungry after her journey, I imagine. At least a cup of tea.”

  “Let’s get the girl to fix something, then.”

  They were about to hurry downstairs when Mr. Weichmann and Mrs. Slater came upstairs. Mrs. Slater’s trunk, like Mrs. Slater herself, was small and neat. She held out her hand and said, in a peculiar accent that was half Northern and half North Carolinian, “Thank you, Mrs. Surratt, for allowing me to stay here. I very much appreciate your hospitality.”

  “You are quite welcome.”

  “You will take some refreshment, Mrs. Slater?” Anna asked.

  “We had a delicious dinner tonight,” Miss Fitzpatrick added. “There’s plenty left over.”

  Mrs. Slater shook her head. “It is a peculiarity of mine that I have no appetite after I travel.”

  It was maddening, not only for the young ladies and perhaps even Mr. Weichmann, but for me as well. The veil was just thin enough to suggest that Mrs. Slater was more handsome than otherwise, but one could only guess.

  I could, however, see Mrs. Slater’s wedding ring, as thin a band of gold as one could buy. “Is your husband fighting, Mrs. Slater?”

  “Yes, for the Confederacy,” Mrs. Slater said coolly. She gave what I supposed was the North Carolinian equivalent of a French shrug. “It is no secret.”

  “Then he is fighting for an honorable cause,” Anna said. She gave Mrs. Slater a brilliant smile, which unfortunately no one could see if Mrs. Slater returned. “But what are you doing here, then?”

  “My mother lives in New York, and I am going to stay with her. I don’t care for my in-laws in North Carolina, nor them for me.” Mrs. Slater’s veil shook vigorously. “They don’t care for my husband either. You see, he is—was—a dancing master, and they consider that beneath him.”

  “Can you make a living from that?” Anna asked.

  “Oh, he made a very good living indeed before the war. But after that there was no time for dancing, and my husband had to take a dreary government job. And then he joined the Army.” Mrs. Slater rose. She was a very short lady, which I thought with satisfaction would make her look comical next to my tall Johnny. “There is nothing so wearying as travel. Would you mind terribly if I retired?”

  “My room is at your service,” Mr. Weichmann said.

  “That is very kind of you, sir. I hope it isn’t putting you to any great inconvenience. I will disturb nothing.”

  “Miss Fitzpatrick and I will show you to your room,” said Anna.

  If Mrs. Slater wondered at the need for this double escort, she hid it and nodded graciously. In a short time, Anna and Nora returned, their faces studies in disappointment. “She never took it off,” Nora said. “We were hoping, with no man present, she might.”

  “I am glad to hear that I was not the obstruction,” Mr. Weichmann said.

  “What could she be hiding? A dreadful scar?”

  “Smallpox,” Nora suggested.

  “Or maybe just a bad complexion.”

  “Or a large wen or wart.”

  “Perhaps she is exceptionally modest,” mused Mr. Weichmann.

  “How modest can a dancing master’s wife be?” Anna put her chin on her hand, a pose I had observed that Mr. Weichmann seemed to find rather fetching. “There must be some way to see her without it. She has to take it off to sleep, doesn’t she? Ma, can’t you find some excuse to go to her room in the middle of the night?”

  “Hardly. I cannot and will not disturb my boarders’ privacy like that. And neither will you.”

  Anna heaved a sigh. “There’s always hope for breakfast,” she said.

  But, alas, there was not. Mrs. Slater preferred to take her little breakfast—coffee and toast—in her room. She was a bear, she explained, before she had properly awakened, and would not inflict her grumpy self upon us.

  Mr. Weichmann, somewhat bearish himself after a stay in the attic (which did not have the most comfortable of beds, I must admit) said little at breakfast but lingered at the table longer than was his wont. When it became apparent Mrs. Slater was not going to join us, he consulted his pocket watch, muttered something, and hurried away to work after bidding us a hasty good-bye.

  “I am just going to ask her why she wears that veil,” Anna hissed to Nora as we walked upstairs to the parlor.

  Nora nodded. “It is becoming unbearable, not knowing.”

  I was getting ready to reprove them when we heard Mrs. Slater’s light footstep coming downstairs. “Can I bring you anything else to eat?” I asked her.

  “No, indeed, Mrs. Surratt. I am perfectly fine now. I think now that everyone has gone to their offices, I will go for a morning walk. It is such a crisp, clear—”

  A key turned in the front door, and Johnny loped into the parlor. “Why, Mrs. Slater! Are you ready for our trip?”

  With a flick of her tiny hand, Mrs. Slater swept her veil back. The face revealed was exemplary, without a single mark or scar, except for a tiny, perfectly placed beauty mole. “Mr. Surratt,” she cooed in a voice that was suddenly far more Southern than Northern, and with a hint of French, “how lovely to see you!”

  14

  NORA

  MARCH 1865

  At first, I did not trouble myself too much about the comings and goings at Mrs. Surratt’s. It was a boardinghouse, after all, and—as my father took care to remind me every time I saw him—Washington was teeming wi
th odd sorts of people brought here by the war. One would have to be shut in a nunnery to avoid them. Instead, I rather enjoyed the parade of people so far removed from anyone I’d seen at Georgetown Visitation, or at the Misses Donovan’s house.

  Then came the lady in the veil, a Mrs. Slater. A lady who could not have been much older than myself, as I learned once I finally saw her features. She stayed for one night, keeping her veil down more determinedly than Esther Summerson after the smallpox. Only when Mr. Surratt ambled in from one of his unexplained absences did she lift the veil, to reveal not the ravages of disease but a very pretty visage. Why had she kept her face hidden all that time?

  I was not the only one wondering, I suspected. Almost as soon as Mr. Surratt had come home, he and Mrs. Slater had departed in a buggy—in itself a little odd, I thought, for surely there were more suitable escorts for a pretty young married woman than a young bachelor. But Mrs. Slater must have packed hastily, for soon after Mr. Weichmann came home from work, he appeared in the parlor with a dainty pair of women’s slippers in his hand. “I think Cinderella left two slippers behind, Mrs. Surratt.”

  Perhaps it was because she was tired from cooking that afternoon, but Mrs. Surratt had just scowled, and kept on scowling even after Mr. Weichmann made all of us ladies in the boardinghouse try on Mrs. Slater’s slippers. Only Miss Dean could fit into them, and even she would probably not be able to once she became a year or two older.

  Where had Mrs. Slater and Mr. Surratt gone? And where did Mr. Surratt go on all of these trips of his? As I sat at church that afternoon with a number of other young ladies, painting china for the upcoming fair, I pondered these questions. Without having any business to attend to that I could tell, he was always coming and going. Furthermore, despite his lack of employment, he dressed well and never seemed short of cash, yet I had gathered Mrs. Surratt did not have much of that to spare. She had once commented, when Father paid my board a little ahead of time, how nice it was to have it; since then, my father had always brought it by early. Anna certainly did not have much spending money; were it not for the piano lessons she gave a couple of little girls from church, I doubted she would have had any at all.