Hanging Mary

by Susan Higginbotham

  As I squinted to read it, I visualized Johnny’s lively face with each word. Johnny had bought a new pea jacket for ten dollars in silver—necessary because the cold was going straight through his Washington clothes—and clad in his new jacket, he had enjoyed wandering around Montreal and was especially taken with the French cathedral. His hotel was fine, but far too expensive, so he would probably be going to a boardinghouse or perhaps to Toronto, if his fancy took him in that direction. It was the most bland and pleasant of missives, but because Johnny had warned me to destroy all of his letters, lest the house ever be searched, I fed it to the fire that burned low on that chilly Good Friday night.

  • • •

  Anna had been sneezing periodically since I got home, and she at last took Mrs. Beeton’s recommended remedy—raisins, stick licorice, sugar candy, rum, and a bit of vinegar—and went to the attic room to retire for the night. In her absence, Olivia grew almost flirtatious with Mr. Weichmann, and soon she and Nora were jesting with him. Mr. Weichmann was emboldened enough to do his imitation of the sodden Mr. Lloyd—a rather good one, I am afraid—and all three of them were giggling so hard, I feared Mr. Holohan, who liked his sleep, would start banging on his floor. And the truth is, I was so keyed up, wondering what was happening with Mr. Booth, that I began to pace about.

  Nora stopped laughing for a moment. “Are you quite well, Mrs. Surratt?”

  “Yes, child. My leg is cramping from the ride to Surrattsville and back.”

  “You should stay with Grandma overnight next time, Aunt Mary, so you won’t have all of that dreary riding back and forth.”

  “Yes, that is a thought.” I paced some more.

  The young people resumed their joking. My head was pounding; it was too much. Finally, I clapped my hands. “Shoo! All of you, to your rooms,” I said in a light voice. “The Holohans are trying to sleep, and so is Anna.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Surratt.”

  “Yes, Aunt Mary.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Surratt.”

  And with that, the three of them dutifully trooped off to their three rooms, but not before Mr. Weichmann waved his hand in imitation of Mr. Lloyd’s sodden farewell.

  It was almost ten. Alone, I said a few prayers before going into my room, where Nora was already in bed. She slept like a little girl, a fist curled under her cheek, and I knew that when I lay down, she would half wake and snuggle closer to me, like she must have done when the mother she hardly remembered was alive. For the first time, it occurred to me how much the child would be grieved if Mr. Booth kidnapped Mr. Lincoln, whose every word she had been hanging on for the past two weeks.

  Much as I loved the South, I did not want this to happen. I wanted Johnny and Isaac back, working at steady jobs and looking for respectable wives, and I wanted Mr. Booth to marry Miss Hale and forget about this scheme of his.

  For a moment, I considered putting on my shawl and hurrying to St. Patrick’s and begging to see a priest—or going to the authorities. But I could not turn in Mr. Booth, who had brought so much light and color into our lives, after he entrusted me with his secrets. And I could not trouble a priest with the heavy burden that lay upon me now.

  No, it had gone too far, and we had to see out this play. I was right when I spoke as I did to Mr. Booth this morning. It was all in God’s hands.

  Stepping quietly so as not to disturb the other boarders, I walked upstairs and knocked on the door of the next best thing this house had to a priest. There was a light shining underneath it; as I had suspected, Mr. Weichmann was likely working or reading. “Come in.”

  Mr. Weichmann was sitting at a desk, a manual of phonography spread out in front of him. He was evidently doing exercises in this art, for a sheet of paper in front of him was covered with the incomprehensible marks of the shorthand reporter. “Mr. Weichmann, may I ask you a favor? Would you pray for my intentions when you say your prayers tonight?”

  “I will, but I do not know what they are, Mrs. Surratt.”

  “It does not matter,” I said, withdrawing. “Please pray for them anyway.”

  26

  NORA

  APRIL 13 TO 15, 1865

  “I don’t want to leave,” Miss Dean wailed. “There’s another illumination planned tonight, and it’s going to be the best one ever!”

  “Darling, you have to leave,” Mrs. Dean said. “It’s Easter, and you have a lovely new outfit for church.”

  “I want to wear it here. Not in Alexandria. Nothing ever happens in Alexandria!”

  “This is no way to act, on Holy Thursday of all times! You are getting in this carriage now!” Mrs. Dean looked half apologetically, half accusingly at Mrs. Surratt. “I hope this has not been her normal conduct as of late, ma’am.”

  “No.” I spoke up. “She is normally as good as gold, Mrs. Dean, and Mrs. Surratt is very firm when it is needed. But Washington has been so full of excitement lately…”

  “That’s right.” Miss Dean whimpered.

  “Be that as it may, we must go,” Mrs. Dean said. “Grandmother is coming to see you.”

  “Grandma?” Miss Dean perked up.

  “She brings her candy,” Mrs. Dean said to us sotto voce.

  “Miss Fitzpatrick, will you promise to tell me everything about the illumination when I get back?”

  “Everything,” I promised. “I’ll even save the newspapers.”

  “Then I’ll go,” Miss Dean said. She hiccuped and let the carriage driver help her to a seat, then blew us kisses as her mother settled in beside her. “Good-bye, house!” she called as the carriage began to pull forward. “Good-bye, Washington!”

  “You’ll be back on Monday,” Mrs. Dean said. “For heaven’s sake.”

  • • •

  By now we in Washington were becoming rather jaded with illuminations, but Miss Jenkins and I went to this one anyway, escorted by Mr. Weichmann. Mrs. Surratt stayed home, to no one’s surprise, and Anna also stayed home, although on this occasion she had a good excuse: the sniffles. “I probably caught this wretched cold from standing in all that rabble watching the gorilla the other day,” she said as she settled on the sofa in her wrapper.

  “Or from shopping yesterday,” I suggested.

  Anna sniffed, though whether that was in derision or from her cold I could not tell.

  Miss Jenkins and I needed Mr. Weichmann’s protection, for the streets were teeming with people, many from out of town and many not quite sober. Still, despite the press of the crowds, I enjoyed myself thoroughly, for the city was a splendid sight. General Grant, newly arrived in town, could have leaned out of his hotel room at Willard’s and seen his name in gaslight in any number of places, while one clothing store asked archly in lights, “How are you, Lee?” Some of the visitors were dressed up as garishly as the buildings, and I, used to seeing the sober clothing of the city’s clerks, snickered at one young man in particular, resplendent in plaid pantaloons of purple and green.

  Even some houses that had been dark before were lit this night, at least by a single candle, and it was touching to see how the poorest colored people had decorated their houses. “It is a little mortifying to live in about the only house on H Street not lit,” I admitted to Mr. Weichmann as we turned into our block at last. “I wish I had a front room, so I could have put up a candle. But Miss Surratt would probably prefer to see the place burn.”

  “Well, at least it’s easy to distinguish it from the rest,” Mr. Weichmann said dryly.

  • • •

  On Friday morning, I accompanied Mrs. Surratt, Anna, and Miss Jenkins to St. Patrick’s, where we happened to meet my father, who to my delight joined us and sat next to Mrs. Surratt, although he was more engaged in casting approving looks at Mr. Weichmann, who was assisting at the veneration of the cross and admittedly did strike a dignified and pious figure. Afterward, my father returned to the house to join us for breakfast, and I made a point of praising the cooking.

  I walked with Father to his bank after breakfast. “Father, have y
ou ever thought of remarrying?” I asked the question in what I hoped was the most casual manner possible.

  “Why, what makes you ask that?”

  “I have just always wondered, and now seemed a good time to ask. To think, you could live in a nice house like Mrs. Surratt’s, instead of in lodgings.”

  My father gave me an amused look. “Child, are you trying to marry me off to your landlady?”

  I scowled at being found so transparent. “Well, she is a widow, and you a widower, and you are both Catholic.”

  “Obviously a recipe for future happiness, with so much in common,” Father said dryly.

  “But she is pretty, you have to admit, Father.”

  “Yes, she is an attractive woman, and of good character, which is all the more important. But as for my remarrying anybody, I have little enough saved, but there is enough for you to live on, if you are frugal, without having to marry some rascal. I could not provide for your future adequately if I had a wife.”

  “But that’s so dreary a reason not to marry, Father, especially if I find employment, and I fear you are lonely.”

  “I have friends, child, and I live in congenial lodgings. And I have you children. If it makes you feel better, I am going to the theater tonight with the Misses Donovan.”

  “Father! Two ladies! And on Good Friday, yet.”

  “Well, as there is so much rejoicing in the city this week, it seems more permissible than it usually would,” my father said a little shamefacedly. “Anyway, the friend who planned to take them discovered that he couldn’t go, and they would not go without a man to escort them.”

  “So it’s an act of chivalry, really.”

  “If it were my party, I would invite you along, my dear. But it is not, of course, and besides, it is only Our American Cousin.”

  I nodded. This play was an old drawing-room comedy, always a crowd-pleaser, but one I had seen before. Besides, I rather liked the idea of my father having the undivided attention of the two old maids. “Some other time.” I kissed my father on the cheek as we parted at his bank. “Enjoy your evening with your ladies, Father.”

  • • •

  I spent the afternoon at the hospital and returned home to find that Mrs. Surratt had gone into the country with Mr. Weichmann. Anna was in a foul mood because she had been abed when Mr. Booth called, because she was not in a fit state to see him if he called again, and because he had not called again by the time the clock struck five. “Perhaps he is proposing to Miss Hale,” I suggested.

  “You’re tedious,” Anna said.

  I started to say, “And you’re deluded,” but thought better of it. Instead, I said mildly, “Well, I’m sure he has other engagements to attend to,” and went out for a walk.

  Anna’s bad mood continued throughout the evening, until she at last did herself, and us, a favor and took her sneezing self to bed, leaving Mrs. Surratt, Miss Jenkins, Mr. Weichmann, and myself in possession of the parlor. With her gloomy presence gone, the spirits of the rest of us rose, and soon Miss Jenkins and I were teasing Mr. Weichmann mercilessly about his not knowing his carriage needed repairing. He took it in good humor, though, and we went on in this fashion very well until around ten when Mrs. Surratt decided we were making rather too much noise and shooed us, good-naturedly, to our respective rooms.

  It was time to retire anyway. I said my prayers and climbed into bed, wondering as I did how my father was getting on with the Misses Donovan. I didn’t think my campaign to have him marry Mrs. Surratt was over yet; he had admitted she was attractive, and wasn’t that half the battle? Perhaps once I got a job and he realized I could support myself, he would not feel obliged to remain single for my sake.

  Mrs. Surratt came in when I was half-asleep. “Good night,” I murmured as she got in bed beside me.

  “Nora—”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” My landlady stroked my hair as I curled closer to her. “Go to sleep.”

  And so I did, only to be awoken briefly by some shouts. But I thought nothing of them. Since Richmond’s fall, Washington’s streets had echoed at night with the sounds of drunken revelers; as the boardinghouse backed up to a stable, we got to hear the sounds of the comings and goings of their horses and carriages as well. I drifted off again, this time into a deep slumber.

  Then the doorbell rang.

  PART II

  “I was sound asleep when the fatal shot was fired. Thousands of times have I recalled it, for I was as contented as I could be… My sleep was peaceful; it was the sleep of innocence and of a clear conscience. I had done no wrong and meditated none. I owed no one a dollar, and as far as I know, in all the world, I had not an enemy.”

  —Louis J. Weichmann, A True History of the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln and of the Conspiracy of 1865

  “Here endeth the story of this tragedy upon a tragedy. All are glad that it is done. I am glad particularly. It has cost me how many journeyings to Washington, how many hot midnights at the telegraph office, how many gallops into wild places, and how much revolting familiarity with blood.”

  —George Alfred Townsend, The Life, Crime, and Capture of John Wilkes Booth

  27

  MARY

  APRIL 15, 1865

  I was wide-awake when the doorbell shattered the silence of the house. A couple of times since we had moved here, someone had rung our doorbell in the middle of the night—the first time by someone playing a boyish prank, the other time by an inebriate for whom one door on H Street was as good as another—and it had become the unspoken understanding that in such cases, one of the male boarders, in the absence of Johnny, would answer the summons. Sure enough, I heard footsteps come down the stairs and to the door.

  Nora emerged from the covers. “What on earth…?”

  “The doorbell. Someone has gone to answer it.”

  Nora sighed. “I am thoroughly tired of drunkards,” she announced.

  A knock sounded on the bedroom door, and Mr. Weichmann called, “Mrs. Surratt? Are you awake?”

  “Yes.”

  “There are detectives at the door who want to search the house—and your room.”

  Nora gasped. I put a hand on her shoulder. “Ask them to wait a few moments, and I will open the door for them. Nora, help me get dressed.”

  Her hands shaking, Nora obeyed. “What on earth are they searching this house for?”

  “We shall find out.”

  The parlor was already awash with gaslight when I opened the folding doors. Four men were standing there. The one closest to me said, “Ma’am? My name is Detective John Clarvoe. Metropolitan Police Force. Are you Mrs. Mary Surratt?”

  “I am.”

  “Answer me one question, for all the world depends on it. When is the last time you saw John Wilkes Booth?”

  So something had happened. Mr. Booth had kidnapped the president—or he had failed and was fleeing. “I saw him at around two this afternoon. I mean, yesterday afternoon.”

  “And when did you see your son John Surratt?”

  “I saw him about two weeks ago, on the day Richmond fell.”

  “Where is he?”

  “I believe he is in Canada. I received a letter from him on Friday dated from Montreal.”

  “But you do not know for certain where he is?”

  “I told you, the last I heard he was in Canada. This is wartime. There are many mothers who do not know where their sons are. What is the meaning of all this?”

  Detective Clarvoe ignored my question and turned to confer with his companions.

  Mr. Weichmann, dressed in a half-open nightshirt and pantaloons, pushed his way forward. “They have not told you?”

  “No. They have not told me anything, only peppered me with questions about Johnny. What has happened?”

  “President Lincoln has been murdered by John Wilkes Booth, and Secretary of State Seward has been attacked in his bed.”

  Murdered. Not kidnapped. “My God, Mr. Weichmann! You do not tell me so.”
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  Beside me, Nora swayed, and Mr. Weichmann quickly helped her to the sofa. “It can’t be true,” she whispered.

  “It is true, except that I should not have used the word murdered just yet. He has been shot, but he still lives. There is no hope of recovery.”

  A second detective pushed his way past Mr. Weichmann. “Detective James McDevitt. Is this your room, ma’am?”

  I nodded.

  “I am going to search it.”

  I stood in my doorway as Detective McDevitt rifled through the wardrobe and Nora’s trunk, pulled out the trundle bed, shone his lantern under the big bed, and stepped out onto the sleeping porch. Nora had roused herself enough to stand beside me and watch, tears streaming down her face. There was no Mr. Booth in our room, no Johnny, and his search was soon finished. Detective McDevitt turned to me. “You said your son wrote you a letter from Canada. Where is the letter?”

  I would be foolish to say I burned it. “I do not know. I tossed it aside.”

  “You tossed aside your son’s letter?”

  “It was a short letter with nothing of consequence. He complained about his lodgings being too expensive and said that he would be moving to a boardinghouse, or even to Toronto.” I nodded to Nora. “Child, can you look for the letter?”

  Nora started aimlessly searching through the secretary. “I can’t find it!” she wailed.

  “It is all right, Nora. You did your best.”

  Mrs. Holohan and Miss Holohan came into the parlor. Miss Holohan was barely awake, but Mrs. Holohan asked, “What in the world is going on here? I heard the doorbell ring and looked out the window and saw all of these men standing on the stairs. What is this I hear about the president being shot? Surely it is a wild rumor?”

  Mr. Weichmann shook his head. “Detective Clarvoe showed me the cravat he was wearing when he was shot. It is covered with blood.”

  Nora shakily made the sign of the cross and began to weep anew. Mr. Weichmann put his arm around her shoulder and stared into space, his face thoughtful.

  We heard footsteps coming down the stairs, and Mr. Holohan, Anna, and Olivia, followed by Detective Clarvoe, entered the parlor. If Nora looked ghastly, Anna looked like the face of death itself. She was leaning heavily on Mr. Holohan, but she broke free and ran into my arms. “Is it true what Mr. Holohan said? These men are saying that Mr. Booth shot the president!”