• • •
Every year brought new improvements to their homestead, and every year Junius’s fame as the greatest tragedian of the age grew—as did their family. Mary Ann knew implicitly that Junius loved her, adored their children, and enjoyed the work of The Farm, but although he professed complete satisfaction with his life, she did not believe he was entirely content. Sometimes she found him brooding over reports of the triumphs of his old rival, Edmund Kean, on the London stage, and she knew it chafed at him that many English critics had never considered him Kean’s equal, and now he was too far away to prove them wrong. Sometimes too a shadow of grief would darken his expression as he watched the children play, and she knew he was thinking of his firstborn son, whom he had last seen as a toddler and who had become, according to Adelaide’s letters, an intelligent, dutiful lad. He longed to see his father, she wrote, a trifle sharply, and both mother and son wondered when Junius might be able to spare time for a visit home to England. Again and again Junius demurred, but Mary Ann worried that eventually he would feel obliged to go.
When Junius was on tour, the burden of separation from his family and the strain of supporting two households weighed heavily upon him—and to her dismay, Mary Ann learned that despite his father’s foreboding example, he had taken to drink to alleviate boredom and to brace himself for onerous tasks. Newspapers mentioned performances canceled at the last minute due to the actor’s “severe indisposition,” midnight walks in the nude, and vehement public declamations in defense of animals. Letters from concerned friends in theatre circles—close enough to know Junius well and to be entrusted with the secret of his second family—urged Mary Ann to join him on his tour, to make sure he stayed sober and showed up for his engagements as she had in their early days in America.
Mary Ann would have gone to him immediately, but with a brood of active young children to mind, she could not simply pack a satchel and set off. Instead she sent Junius tender, affectionate letters urging him to be temperate, and reminding him of the innocent little ones who depended on him. He vowed to heed her wise counsel, but as the months passed, he fell into the familiar pattern of sobriety at home and drunkenness everywhere else.
Mary Ann, ever watchful, ever more distressed, could not mistake the alarming signs of his steady decline. Junius stumbled through one theatre season after another, alarming his fellow players and annoying theatre managers, one of whom complained that Junius had become so unreliable that it was a waste of money to advertise his performances until the curtain rose and he was definitely onstage. His letters home often contained no money, but the shopkeepers of Bel Air willingly extended Mary Ann a generous line of credit, apparently both pleased and proud to assist the family of the world-famous Junius Brutus Booth, Bel Air’s own eccentric genius.
When Junius finally returned home in late spring of 1828, Mary Ann wept to see him so exhausted and dissipated. For the first two weeks he scarcely left his bed, eventually moving to a rocking chair on the porch, and soon thereafter to walking the grounds, examining the crops Joe Hall and his workers had put in, and supervising the care of the livestock to be sure they were treated humanely. Every week he regained some of his alertness and vigor, but summer passed all two swiftly and a new theatre season would soon be upon them.
“The life of a traveling player will put me into an early grave,” Junius told Mary Ann one evening as they sat outside the little cabin, baby Frederick asleep on his shoulder.
“Don’t say such things.”
“Mary Ann, I need you with me. The temptation to drink is too overpowering without you near.” He drew a soft blanket around Frederick to ward off the evening chill. “I’ve been offered the post of manager at the Tremont Theatre in Boston. I’m inclined to take it, if you’ll come with me.”
“What of the children? Surely you don’t expect your father to mind them.”
“We’ll hire the most reliable nurse in Maryland.”
“But Frederick’s so young—”
“Bring him along, if you’d prefer to have him with you.”
Mary Ann would prefer to have all the children with her, but she knew that was impossible. Junius could hardly settle in Boston with a mysterious woman and five young children without causing a scandal.
She demurred, but soon Junius’s assurances and her concern for his health overcame her reluctance to be parted from her elder children. And, although she would not admit it aloud, after so many years in the wilderness, she could not resist the allure of Boston’s museums, theatres, shops, and libraries.
Guided by Ann Hall’s recommendation, Mary Ann hired an excellent nurse to look after the children in her absence, while Junius entrusted the maintenance of The Farm to his father and Joe. In August, Junius and Mary Ann set out for Boston with baby Frederick in her arms and Junius’s trunks full of costumes loaded onto the coach. As soon as they were settled at a boardinghouse, Junius began recruiting talent and arranging a slate of performances.
While Junius worked, sweet, curious Frederick offered Mary Ann delightful companionship as she explored Boston. He admired the offerings of farmers’ markets and bookstalls with as much wide-eyed awe as he did the museums’ art and antiquities, and he offered shy smiles to passersby who paused to admire the handsome mother and son and to compliment her on her child’s good behavior.
All the while, Junius resolutely avoided liquor. “If managing a company of vain, temperamental actors does not drive me to drink, nothing shall,” he sometimes joked, and Mary Ann would force a smile. She was glad to be with him, to see him sober and working, but it was increasingly apparent to her that at heart he was an actor, not a manager or a businessman. He thrived on enthralling audiences, not counting receipts and paying bills. Running his own theatre, whether in Boston or Baltimore or anywhere else, was not the panacea for the ailments of separation, loneliness, and intemperance they had fervently hoped it would be.
Thus when Junius decided to resign from the Tremont Theatre at the end of October and resume acting, Mary Ann did not object. When he was invited to perform at the Bowery Theatre in New York in early November, Mary Ann encouraged him to accept. “Come with me, you and the boy,” Junius urged, but she was suffering from a painful sore throat and fever, so she decided to remain in Boston with Frederick until she recovered enough to return to The Farm.
Not long after Junius departed, Mary Ann’s affliction worsened, and within a day, Frederick too fell ill. A week passed in a haze of burning fever and cold sweats, of pain and exhaustion and delirium. She was vaguely aware of her landlady’s presence, of gentle hands holding cold compresses to her brow, of a firm voice commanding her to swallow the powders held to her mouth. She heard herself calling out for Junius, begging for Frederick to be brought to her.
Eventually her fever subsided and the fog of illness lifted enough for her to realize that Junius was there, sitting in a chair by the side of her bed, trembling, weeping, his hands clenched around his head as if he wished he could wring misery from the brain within.
It was then that she knew her precious child was dead.
Grief threatened to finish what the disease had begun. By the time Mary Ann had recovered from the relapse enough to beg that her child’s remains be prepared for transport to The Farm so that he might slumber peacefully in the beautiful wilderness that had been his first home, his tiny coffin had already been beneath Boston soil a week.
When she was strong enough to travel, Mary Ann returned to The Farm, seeking solace for her unspeakable grief in the hugs and kisses of her four living children. Junius—despairing, grieving, bewildered and shaken to find himself suffering a second time the worst anguish a parent could know—quickly embarked on another tour, hoping to lose himself in work, in a provider’s duty, and in the bottle.
Autumn’s first frost covered the fields and orchards of The Farm before Mary Ann could bring herself to inform her mother that a grandson s
he had never met had perished. “I cannot bear to think of the sweetest of my children buried in the cold ground so far from home,” she wrote. “I cannot even tend his grave, and I weep to think that it is neglected. Oh, my poor lost babe!”
Mary Ann had not poured out her heart so freely to her mother since girlhood, since the time before she met Junius and deception had irrevocably divided her from her parents. Weeks later, when the post brought her mother’s reply, Mary Ann hesitated before reading it, suddenly terrified that her mother would condemn her, that she would blame Mary Ann for Frederick’s death, that she would declare it a just punishment for his parents’ terrible sin of adultery.
Instead, kindness, compassion, and love filled the pages. “I share your sorrow, my dear daughter,” her mother had written. “No one but another parent who has lost a child can truly understand your suffering. Take comfort in knowing that your precious, innocent babe rests peacefully in the arms of our Lord.”
Mary Ann wept then, but not only from grief, for in that moment she understood what it was to be forgiven completely, to be loved unconditionally.
• • •
Her mother’s letter became a well-worn touchstone Mary Ann turned to often throughout the difficult years that followed.
In the aftermath of his son’s death, Junius’s behavior became increasingly erratic and strange, even frightening. On tour, furious theatre managers had to drag him out of bars where he was entertaining drunken crowds with songs and recitations, and shove him onto stages where it was discovered he was too inebriated to perform. He arrived late for engagements, having missed trains or stagecoaches sleeping off drinking binges. Newspaper reviews praising his sublime genius and declaring him the greatest tragedian of the age were often followed by others denouncing him for canceling performances at the last moment. During a performance of Richard III at the Bowery Theatre, Junius’s king refused to die as Shakespeare intended but instead fought an astonished Richmond with such fury that he forced him off the stage, up the aisle, and out the front door, swords clashing and gleaming in the gaslights in front of the theatre. A few months later in a performance of Evadne in Boston, Junius broke down onstage, forgetting his lines, bursting into laughter and then into tears, and begging to be taken to the lunatic hospital. One winter night, in a state of distraction and derangement, he walked forty miles from Providence to Boston, arriving without his shoes and coat at a boardinghouse for sailors. After word of his arrival spread, a friend, Colonel Josiah Jones, raced over to take charge of him. As the colonel reported to Mary Ann later, Junius had alternated between fits of disorientation and calm lucidity until he was well enough to be escorted to New York, where his most trusted friend, Edwin Forrest, had cared for him until the madness subsided.
“When will Junius be done with these mad freaks?” Richard lamented whenever a new shocking tale appeared in the press or arrived by post.
“He isn’t mad,” protested Mary Ann. “Among the truly great, genius is often indistinguishable from madness. He’s the victim of his art. He assumes his roles so completely that he forgets who he is and where he is for a time, but he always returns to himself. He never suffers these ‘mad freaks,’ as you call them, when he’s at home.”
Richard was obliged to concede that point. Junius lived for the stage, but The Farm was the only place he was truly himself. And that was where Mary Ann knew him best. She loved him fiercely—madness, genius, industry, intemperance, everything he was, everything that made him what he was. He was her Byron, and she his devoted muse. Come what may, nothing would ever change that.
Dazed and sick at heart, Mary Ann returned to the parlor and sank down upon the sofa. For more than twenty-five years, a vast ocean and a thick tangle of lies had separated her from her husband’s wife, but now Adelaide had come to Baltimore. Lightheaded, Mary Ann felt heat rising in her cheeks even as her hands grew icy cold. She clasped them together in her lap, but that did not cease their trembling.
She was unaware Junius had followed her until he sat beside her on the sofa. “My son Richard has come to America too, and has been here more than a year,” he said.
“Why did he come?”
“Perhaps because he hadn’t seen his father in ten years, not since my last visit to England.”
“Of course. Forgive me—a foolish question.” How old would Richard be now—twenty-seven? Twenty-eight? A man grown, surely curious about his long-absent, famous father, and determined to forge the neglected bond that should have been his birthright.
“He may have come because—” Junius hesitated. “The truth is, I haven’t sent Adelaide any money in quite some time. I suspect she sent Richard here to confirm that I’m still working, still earning.”
“Oh, Junius—” Mary Ann left it there. It would accomplish nothing to scold him for neglecting Adelaide’s payments. The damage was done.
When Richard arrived in America, Junius told her, he had been stunned by a new acquaintance’s accusation that he could not possibly be the legitimate son of the great tragedian Junius Brutus Booth, for everyone knew that the celebrated tragedian had a beautiful wife and a thriving brood of children in Maryland. Aghast, Richard had settled in Baltimore, where he had quickly discovered his father’s secret and had written to his mother urging her to come to America and prove his legitimacy. Adelaide had been in the city five months, watching the house on Exeter Street, gathering evidence, doing nothing to distract Junius from earning money until she could confront him.
“With the manager looking on and the entire cast and crew listening at the keyhole, I could not deny her charges,” Junius said. “Nevertheless, I ordered her to return to London. She refused, and she declared that she would not leave America until it was proven in court that she is my true wife and Richard my legitimate son, entitled to all the rights thereof. I could not suffer her another moment, and as I stormed off, she shrilled after me that I should expect to hear from her attorney.”
“We’ll have to tell the children.” Mary Ann rose, wringing her hands, dreading what must come next. “They must hear it from us, not on the streets.”
June was away on tour, but Rosalie was in her bedchamber and the four youngest were playing outside. Mary Ann knew she would never forget the children’s stunned, pained, bewildered expressions when she and Junius gathered them together and told them, as gently as they could, that their parents were not married, that another woman was their father’s wife, and that she had come to demand what she felt he owed her.
Asia’s eyes narrowed as she absorbed the news, and Mary Ann could see her shrewd mind at work. “You married that other lady and had a son,” she queried her father, “and then five years later you eloped with Mother?”
“It was closer to six years,” said Junius, as if each word were an effort, “but yes, daughter, that is so.”
Asia frowned. “So her six years mean everything, and Mother’s twenty-six years with you mean nothing?”
“According to the law, yes.”
Asia tossed her head to show exactly what she thought of the law.
Soon thereafter, Adelaide’s lawyer presented her terms. In exchange for the enormous sum of two thousand dollars and assurances of the continued payment of her annual stipend, she would forego a lawsuit.
Junius had no choice but to submit. A lawsuit would ruin the family, which was already strained by the shocking revelations. With the decision made and the need to earn money greater than ever, Junius packed his costume trunks and resumed his tour, apologizing profusely for leaving Mary Ann and the children alone in the center of the storm. “We’ll pay her off, and that will be the end of it,” he said, kissing Mary Ann on his way out the door. “Once she’s satisfied, she and Richard will return to Brussels.”
“I’m sure they will,” Mary Ann said, because she knew he needed to hear it, but a new chill pervading the neighborhood told her that the damage had already been don
e, and it was irreparable. The previous day, Asia had returned from dance lessons fuming about snide remarks from other students who had overheard their mothers gossiping. Joseph had fled home in tears after his longtime friends said they were not allowed to play with him anymore. Every day Edwin shrank from the bullies who jeered and called him a bastard, but John Wilkes made them pay with his fists, often coming home with a bloodied nose, fresh bruises, and torn clothing.
Hiding her distress, Mary Ann told the children to ignore the taunts and say nothing if anyone asked about their parentage. “Least said, soonest mended,” she reminded them, fighting to keep her voice steady, her features smooth. They nodded, Edwin in resignation, Asia mutinously as if to say she would not be cowed into holding her tongue, and John Wilkes with a stubborn frown and fists balled at his sides. Eventually, Mary Ann hoped, Adelaide would take her ransom and go away, and perhaps eventually the unpleasantness would be forgotten.
One afternoon, she was in the parlor sewing a summer pinafore for Asia when she was startled by a harsh shout in front of the house. Suddenly apprehensive, she rested her hands in her lap and listened, expecting to hear one of the children cry out for her to come tend some injury.
“This is the house of Junius Brutus Booth, whoremaster, his slut Mary Ann Holmes, and their bastard children!”
For a moment it seemed to Mary Ann that her heart stopped.
“This is where the whore lives,” the voice shrilled again. “Mary Ann Booth, prostitute and mother of bastards!”
Fates and Traitors Page 8
