Hanging Mary

by Susan Higginbotham

  But I wasn’t thinking of poor Camilla’s faux pas, I was gazing at the carte de visite of the beautiful lady next to him. “Mrs. Douglas,” I said.

  “Yes. Don’t you go to the same church with her? Is she as lovely still as she is there?”

  “Yes.” If I can be of any help, please let me know. “Camilla, I’m begging you. Please do me a favor. It’s the most I’ll ever ask of you, ever.”

  “Goodness, Nora, what?”

  “Lie for me. I have to go back to Washington, and I have to go back tonight.”

  “Nora—”

  “Please! You’re my only hope. I have to see my friend Anna Surratt. And I have to see Mrs. Douglas. She might be able to save Mrs. Surratt. If I leave now for the train station, I can get to Washington by nine.”

  Camilla hesitated. “All right,” she said finally. “But what do I tell Mother? She’ll be expecting you for dinner.”

  “You’ll think of something. You’re smart, and you know it.” It was true, for all her rattle-brained conversation and her even more rattle-brained letters, Camilla had always been one of the best students at Visitation.

  “It’s your time of the month,” Camilla said slowly. “You’re having dreadful cramps—no, Mother will be up with that concoction she makes me when it’s my time of the month. It really works, though, you know. I’ll give you some. Oh, I have it. You’re at church! You’re at church praying for Mrs. Surratt’s reprieve! And you are perfectly prostrated with grief and don’t want to see anyone, not even Mother. And—”

  “I’ll leave the details to you,” I said, kissing Camilla on the cheek. “Now, help me sneak out of here.”

  “And that’s another thing,” Camilla said cheerfully. “Our servants are eminently bribable.”

  45

  MARY

  JULY 6, 1865

  It took General Hartranft’s men very little time to catch up with my daughter, for not an hour after I was told of my impending death, she was at my side. Wordlessly, we wept in each other’s arms until Father Walter entered the room, soon followed by Father Wiget and a young man I dimly recognized as Mr. Brophy. Johnny had brought him home to dinner a couple of times in those quiet days before Mr. Booth entered our lives.

  They gave me wine of valerian, and its effect allowed me to lie back on my bed and watch calmly as the two priests, who had surely never been called upon to assist on such an occasion as this, consulted with each other about their respective duties. Finally, Father Walter turned. “Mrs. Surratt, I will give you communion tomorrow morning at seven, but for now, I suggest that I take your daughter and attempt to see the president and move him to pardon you, or at least to give you more time to prepare for your death.”

  “I want to stay with my mother,” Anna said fiercely.

  “Miss Surratt, your presence may mean the difference between life and death for your mother. It may move the president in a way that my words could not.”

  “Go, child. I wish to speak to these men alone anyway.”

  Anna obeyed instantly, and she and Father Walter departed, leaving me with the other two men. “Shall I leave?” Mr. Brophy asked. “If you wish to make your confession…”

  “No. I first wish to talk to you about my Anna. You have been a friend to her, and I hope you will continue to be. She will need help with the most practical things of life, and I fear she will be taken advantage of.”

  “I will do everything I can for her, Mrs. Surratt. Mr. Holohan has said to me that he and his wife will look after her as well.”

  “Thank you, sir. Now let me speak to Father Wiget privately for a moment.”

  Father Wiget took Mr. Brophy’s place in the chair nearest my bed. “What do you wish to tell me, madam?”

  “That I am innocent of plotting the president’s murder. That I am guilty of aiding Mr. Booth.” It was the first time I said this to anyone, and my breath came more easily when I said it. “I did not know murder was planned, and I had no inkling of it. But I assisted him in what I thought was his plan to kidnap, and for that I must seek forgiveness. I also did nothing to alert the authorities, and for that I must repent as well.

  “And there is Johnny. I told him through my lawyers not to come here. But there is a bitterness in my heart now that he has obeyed and that he has not come back to be by my side, even though I know that he would probably hang if he returned. I cannot stop thinking that in his place, Anna would have returned. You must help me, sir. I do not want to die with this bitterness. I do not want him to come back and hang.”

  “Could he save you by coming back?”

  “I doubt it, and even if he could, I do not want him to die in my place.” I closed my eyes. “I am so muddled with all this happening, and the stuff they have given me.”

  “Your son will have a very heavy burden to bear when he learns of your death, Mrs. Surratt,” Father Wiget said gently. “Remember, it was he who brought Mr. Booth into your house, bringing all of your present troubles upon you. He will carry the weight of that for as long as he lives—and he is barely into his majority, is he not? Let me tell him, if he ever stands face-to-face with me, that you died in charity with him. I know him, and I believe he will need that comfort in days to come.”

  “I will try, Father.”

  Father Wiget smiled, as if relishing the challenge. “I will help you, madam.”

  • • •

  That afternoon, about the same time the Washington sun grew hottest in the sky, I began to hear a commotion in the prison yard—objects being dragged, hammering, men barking orders. Father Wiget heard it too, of course, and I saw him exchange sad looks with Mr. Brophy, who had returned. Only then did it dawn on me what was being built, and the courage I had been striving so hard to attain failed me utterly. I broke down weeping again.

  It was at that time that General Hartranft came into the room. “Mrs. Surratt, I am sorry, but I must move you downstairs in preparation for tomorrow. Please take what things you will need for tonight.”

  I took a carpetbag Anna had brought me from our house and stuffed a few items in it: a prayer book, my rosary, a brush and comb, a toothbrush and tooth powder, my goose-down pillow.

  A person needed very little for the last night of her life, I found.

  • • •

  The cell I was taken to on the first floor was small and gloomy, without the creature comforts of the room I had been occupying upstairs—only a mattress on the floor and a couple of stools. Its one merit was that the sound of the scaffold being built was not as distinct. The three men who were to die with me had also been moved to nearby cells, for I could hear the comings and goings of their own visitors.

  Soon after I was moved, Anna returned, her face wet with tears. “The president wouldn’t see us. Judge Holt did, but he told us that there was nothing he could do, that only the president could commute your sentence.” The tears splashed from her eyes. “I can’t do anything to help you, Ma.”

  “Anna, you tried.” I stroked her hair, damp from the sweltering Washington heat. “My good girl, let that be a comfort to you in the years to come.”

  My daughter looked around her. “This is a horrid cell. Why did they move you here? Why are they treating you so? How can they be so cruel?”

  “Anna! They have moved us all down here. Come sit beside me. There are some practical matters I must talk to you about.”

  Anna hesitated but obeyed. For a short while, I talked to her about the things that had to be talked about: the money I owed, the few debts that were owed me, the lease on the tavern, my lawyer’s fees. “It is a great deal to put on you, but you are stronger than you realize. These last few weeks have shown that. And you will have help. Mr. Brophy has proven to be a good friend to you.”

  Speaking of these ordinary affairs seemed to steady Anna’s nerves, but not for long. As the evening fell, she became more unstrung, so much so that I began to fear for her reason. This death watch was no place for this child. “Mr. Brophy, please take Anna home to spen
d the night.”

  “Mother!”

  “Anna, it is best. I need to compose myself for tomorrow, and we are only upsetting each other here. I want you to get some rest and get out of this place.”

  “It is best,” Father Wiget joined in. “Your mother needs some time for prayer and reflection, with which your presence, however welcome, can only interfere.”

  “Your mother is right,” Mr. Brophy said. “Besides, if you wish to visit the White House again tomorrow, you will be better placed to do so if you stay at H Street. Here, you will have a long walk, and half a dozen things could prevent you from going.”

  Anna listened drearily to my counsel and Father Wiget’s, but Mr. Brophy’s words made her nod and accept his proffered hand. She hugged me fiercely and followed Mr. Brophy down the corridor, her shoulders sagging.

  I watched her go, and it was all I could do to keep from calling her back.

  46

  NORA

  JULY 6 TO 7, 1865

  I made it to Washington undetected, with the help of a little veil I’d borrowed from Camilla. Mrs. Slater would have been proud of me, I thought as I boarded the F Street car heading toward the boardinghouse. There was no point in seeing Mrs. Douglas until I got news of Mrs. Surratt, and the Holohans, assuming they were there, would be the best placed to tell me.

  The news wouldn’t be good, I surmised as I approached my old lodgings. There was a crowd surrounding the boardinghouse. “John Wilkes Booth stood on those very stairs,” a man told his family, “and plotted the killing with Mrs. Surratt. In that very parlor.”

  “Where did Payne sleep?” his son asked him.

  “Up there,” the father said confidently. “Or maybe in back.”

  “Well, that narrows it down, darling,” said his wife.

  A lady said to her companion, “You heard that her daughter came here tonight.”

  “No. My word, she’s in there now?”

  “Yes, the poor child got out of a carriage not two hours before, almost prostrate with grief. Whatever you can say about that fiend, she has a lov—”

  I shoved my way through the crowd and to the policeman guarding the place. “You can’t have a souvenir, miss,” he said wearily. “People are living here, and they’d like to be left alone.”

  “I know, sir. I live here. See?” I opened my purse and took out my key. “It fits, you’ll find. Tell them that Miss Nora Fitzpatrick is here.”

  The detective sighed but obliged. After a brief conference with someone inside, he returned. “Go ahead in.”

  I scurried through the door, supplying the crowd with enough fodder to fill a good half hour of conversation.

  Inside, I found Mr. and Mrs. Holohan. “Where is Anna?”

  “Trying to get some sleep.”

  I rushed into the back room where Anna was sprawled on the bed. “Nora?” She began crying. “I heard the knock and thought it might be a reprieve.”

  “No,” I said. “I’m so very sorry.”

  Anna sat up. “I went to Mama, then Father Walter and I went to the White House to beg the president for a pardon,” she said in a flat voice. “He wouldn’t see us. Someone sent us to Judge Holt instead, and he couldn’t do anything either. He said that he pitied me, but it was all in the president’s hands. So I’m going back tomorrow. I should be with Ma, but we only make each other grieve, and it’s such a long way from there to the White House…” She trembled. “I can’t bear to think of her dying, Nora. She’s so good, so kind…”

  “Me neither. Anna, I have one idea. Mrs. Douglas—Senator Douglas’s wife. She’s beautiful, and she’s society. The president can’t exactly throw her out on her ear. If she begs for your mother’s life, he’s bound to listen.”

  “But what makes you think she will?”

  “She asked about your mother when Mrs. Surratt was still at the Old Capitol, and told me to tell her if she could do anything to help. And she’s a devout Catholic. She’ll want to help another Catholic.”

  Anna sniffled. “But is she even in town?”

  I hadn’t thought of that. “There’s only one way to find out,” I said. “I’m going to her house.”

  “Now?”

  “Now.” I kissed her on the cheek, grateful she was too weary and sad to talk some sense into me. “I’ll be back later tonight.”

  • • •

  Although a police officer was still stationed outside the house, the curious gazers had dispersed, a sure sign that it was too late for me to be out. “I’ll be back,” I called.

  “Miss—”

  I ignored him and hurried on my way.

  The path I trod was a familiar one, for this was the way I walked to St. Aloysius Church, only two blocks from Mrs. Douglas’s mansion. It was not a terribly long walk—from H Street between Sixth and Seventh Streets to New Jersey Avenue and I Street—but at this late hour, it began to get lonely very quickly. First I prayed that my father would not somehow spot me and haul me off to Baltimore—and then, when I saw two men ambling down West Fourth Street from the direction of Pennsylvania Avenue, right into my path, I began to pray that he would.

  “Little lady, where are you going? Would you like some company?”

  I shook my head.

  “Little lady, don’t be cruel! Let us walk with you.”

  “Damn it, Jack. Leave her alone.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t want to be left alone.” The man seized my arm. “Want some company tonight, missy?”

  My scream could have awakened the dead, but their assistance proved entirely unnecessary, for in a matter of seconds, Jack lay in a heap at my feet, dispatched by a single punch from his companion, Mr. Alexander Whelan. “Miss Fitzpatrick? What in the name of God are you doing out at this hour, and alone?”

  “Is he dead?”

  Mr. Whelan snorted, then waved at a couple of householders who had poked their heads out the window. “All’s well,” he called. “Just a fellow getting fresh with this lady here.” As the onlookers disappeared from view, Mr. Whelan said, “No, Miss Fitzpatrick, he’s not dead, although I hope his head will make him wish he was next morning.”

  “Thank you, sir.” I began to walk on.

  Mr. Whelan stayed beside me. “To get back to my question, miss, what are you doing out this late at night?”

  I sniffed. Mr. Whelan, though not obviously drunk, was decidedly redolent of spirits. “I could ask what you are doing out drinking with a wife and children at home.”

  “It’s a man’s constitutional right to drink, I’ll have you know, Miss Fitzpatrick.”

  I mentally reviewed the various provisions of the Constitution and found none that quite fit Mr. Whelan’s claim. But standing here arguing fine points of constitutional law with Mr. Whelan wouldn’t help Mrs. Surratt. “Sir, I must be going.”

  “And I have to ask you again, where are you going this time of night alone?”

  “It’s none of your concern, sir.”

  “It is my concern, miss.” There was an odd catch in his voice when he said that, and I wonder to this day how much of my future was decided with those five short words. He cleared his throat. “It’s my concern because if you wander around the city at night by yourself, you’re going to be robbed or ravished, as you should have figured out from what just happened, and I’m not going to let either happen to you. You can go where you like—but I’m going with you to keep you from harm. Agreed?”

  “Agreed. It’s not far from here.”

  “Then will you tell me where we’re going, miss?”

  “You heard that Mrs. Surratt is going to die tomorrow.”

  “Yes.” Mr. Whelan looked rather sheepish. “We were toasting her over at the Marble Saloon.”

  “For shame, sir!”

  “Well, it’s a hot night, miss. We toasted the other three first.”

  I sighed. “In any case, sir, I want to enlist the aid of Mrs. Douglas in begging for Mrs. Surratt’s life. So I am going to her house.”

  Mr. Whelan n
odded. “Go straight to the top, that’s my motto. Now, does your father know about this, miss?”

  “No. You won’t take me back to him, will you, sir?”

  “Take you back? Have you run away from him?”

  “No, but I’m supposed to be in Baltimore.”

  Mr. Whelan considered this. “I ran away from my old man, miss. Nothing to be ashamed of. Sometimes I think that everyone should run away from their old man.”

  “For heaven’s sake, Mr. Whelan! I have not run away. I just disobeyed him.”

  “Well, that’s how it starts, you know. First you disobey your old man, then you run away from him.”

  “Why did you run away, sir?”

  “Because he was a right proper bastard—excuse the language. Beat me and took my wages. One payday, I grabbed up my money and left him, and Canada, behind. Haven’t seen either of them since.”

  “That’s sad, sir.”

  “Yes,” Mr. Whelan said reflectively. “Sometimes I miss Canada. Not the old man, though.”

  As we made our way down the street, Mr. Whelan taking my arm to guide me, it occurred to me that I was traipsing around close to midnight arm-in-arm with a married man I barely knew, who was perhaps not entirely sober, in a city where I wasn’t supposed to be. It was an impressive list of accomplishments in one evening for a girl who had spent most of her life in convent schools. I cleared my throat. “Mr. Whelan, I hope your wife won’t be worried about you.”