Fates and Traitors

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  Flinging aside caution and propriety, Lucy raced down the stairs and seated herself in her favorite chair by the window just as John entered with the three men. So absorbed were they in their conversation that they did not glance her way as they crossed the lobby on their way to the front desk.

  Studying them, Lucy knew she had not seen them at the hotel before, and she was fairly certain they were not registered guests. All three of the strangers were well dressed, if not as handsomely as John. The eldest was a gentleman of about thirty, neatly attired in a dark suit and coat, nearly bald except for a heavy fringe of brown hair half encircling his crown. A thick vandyke hid his mouth, but not his expression of displeasure. The youngest man could not have been more than twenty, with a boy’s smooth, pale skin and fine, light-brown hair. He was tall and quite elegantly dressed, and his deep-set eyes, long nose, and prominent brow gave him a scholarly air. The last of John’s companions seemed only a few years older than the youngest, and he seemed to be the most cheerful, with a round face and rosy cheeks, carefully combed hair, and a small, neatly trimmed mustache. His attire distinguished him from the other men in that his trousers were blue with stripes up the side. Lucy immediately recognized the uniform of the War Department Rifles, signifying that he was a member of the Union regiment composed of the clerks and messengers of the department and its bureaus.

  Mystified, Lucy watched as John spoke with the front desk clerk briefly, then left his companions and strolled down the hall toward the dining room. He soon returned, and from across the lobby his eyes met Lucy’s and he smiled. She raised her eyebrows in a silent question, hoping he would join her, but he gestured surreptitiously to the three strangers and shrugged helplessly to say that he was regrettably engaged. She offered him a small, understanding smile in return, then turned her gaze to the window as if she had come downstairs only to enjoy the view of passersby merrily going about their Christmas shopping. When she looked back, John was leading the three men upstairs to the second floor, and soon thereafter, a waiter hurried along in their wake carrying various bottles of liquor, glasses, and a bucket of ice.

  Lucy lingered by the window for a suitable interval before rising and following after, but as soon as she placed her hand on the banister she remembered A Christmas Carol, and so she went to the drawing room to retrieve it before returning upstairs. At the landing, she hesitated, glanced to her left toward her family’s suite, then looked down the hall in the opposite direction, where John’s room lay around the corner. It was strange that he had not spared the few moments necessary to introduce his guests to her, and not only as a point of etiquette. If the three gentlemen were his friends, would he not want to show her off proudly as his particular friend, as she was, if she did say so herself, a pretty, graceful, and charming young lady? And if the men were business associates, should he not want to impress upon them that he was well acquainted with the daughter of a respected senator?

  Likely John had not meant to slight her, she told herself, and whoever the gentlemen were and whatever had prompted their visit, it surely had nothing to do with her. She ought to return to her family before they began to wonder why she had been detained.

  She considered a moment longer before heading quietly down the hall back toward her family’s suite.

  Lucy lay awake beneath the soft comforter beside her sister long after the rest of the family had fallen asleep, her thoughts wildly tangled and taut. She puzzled over John’s companions, about his trip to Canada, his unsettling involvement with an infamous Confederate smuggler, his frequent travels on vague matters of business, and the strange, undefined duty to his country that he insisted ruled his fate. She weighed everything she knew of him from her own experience against all that she had heard through rumor and gossip, wishing she could ignore the details that troubled her and embrace only those that affirmed that John was indeed the good, noble, loving gentleman with whom she had fallen in love, whom she hoped to marry.

  And then, all at once, the tangled threads unknotted, and the truth—or the closest she could reasonably hope to come to the truth, without verification from John—stretched before her, a single, unbroken ribbon binding all the disparate elements together.

  She knew what John was, and she realized why he had not told her.

  Understanding quieted her restless mind. Eventually fatigue overcame her and she sank into restless sleep.

  It seemed only minutes later that gentle shaking woke her. “Lucy, it’s time to get up,” said Lizzie, her hand on Lucy’s shoulder. “You overslept. You’ll have to hurry if you want breakfast before we leave for the train station.”

  Lucy scrambled out of bed, momentarily disoriented. She had no appetite, but she did have other important business to conduct before she boarded the train to New Hampshire.

  She made a quick toilette, interrupting her preparations once to assure her parents that they should go down without her and she would join them in the dining room soon. After they departed, she counted to one hundred to give them time to descend the grand staircase before she left the suite, hurried down the hallway, and knocked upon John’s door.

  When he answered, he took a step back, astounded to see her. “Miss Hale,” he said, glancing past her into the corridor. He had washed and was freshly shaved, except for his mustache, and was clad only in his trousers and shirt. “To what do I owe this unexpected and rather indiscreet—”

  “We must talk.” She put a hand to his chest, pushed him back into the room, and followed him inside, quickly closing the door behind her.

  “Lucy,” he exclaimed. “Are you mad? You can’t be here. What if you’re seen?”

  She knew the risk to her reputation and felt faintly ill from worry, but she had no choice. “John, I’m going to ask you a question, and I want you to answer with complete honesty, even if you think you should not.”

  He smiled, perplexed. “This all sounds quite serious.”

  “It is.”

  Brow furrowing, he folded his arms over his chest. “Very well. Ask, and I shall answer.”

  “Are you a spy?”

  He stared at her, dumbfounded. “What?”

  “Are you a spy for the War Department, or are you a Pinkerton agent?”

  He blinked, coughed, and then, to her astonishment, he began to laugh. “You believe,” he managed to say, “that I am a spy for the Union?”

  “It makes perfect sense. Your travels, your unexplained business affairs, your strange meeting last night with a soldier from the War Department Rifles, this undefined but enormously important duty of yours—” She studied him, confused, his mirth making her feel ignorant and foolish. “You said your old wound prevented you from enlisting for the war, but this service to your country you could perform without the risk of reopening your wound.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that, darling. Spies risk injury every day.”

  “Don’t laugh at me. I’m in earnest. Tell me the truth. Are you a secret agent?”

  “Lucy, my love.” He smothered his laughter, took her hands, and held her gaze steadily. “I swear to you on my life that I am not a Union spy.”

  “Or a Pinkerton?”

  “I am also definitely not a Pinkerton.”

  A dizzying wave of relief, confusion, and indignation swept through her. “What are you, then?” she demanded, snatching her hands from his grasp. “If I’m to marry you, I must know. What business calls you away from Washington so frequently? Why were you in Canada? Who were those strange men last night?”

  “That’s unkind,” he protested, smiling. “They weren’t strange. They’re actually quite ordinary.”

  “You know what I mean. Don’t make a joke of this.”

  “Lucy, dearest.” His voice softened, becoming tender, reassuring. “I am not in the spy business. I’m in the oil business.”

  She stared at him, uncomprehending. “What?”

&nbs
p; “The oil business. For many months now, I’ve been speculating in oil.” He smiled, amused and affectionate. “I am one of three founding partners of the Dramatic Oil Company. We own several rather profitable wells in Pennsylvania, and we’re looking to expand. I traveled to Canada to consult with coal-oil experts.”

  “But one of the men who visited you last night is with the War Department Rifles. I recognized the uniform.”

  “Soldiers can speculate in business like any other man. Their pay is so poor, I’m surprised more of them don’t.”

  “But why would you take your costumes to Canada if you went there to consult with oil experts, especially since, as you’ve said, you haven’t performed since that night in New York with your brothers?”

  He shrugged. “Last summer I exchanged some letters with a theatre manager in Quebec about a possible engagement, so I thought it would be best to be prepared. Unfortunately, nothing could be arranged, and I have only the loss of my wardrobe to show for it.”

  She studied him, uncertain. “Why have you said nothing of this? If you’re in the oil business, why haven’t you told me?”

  “You never asked.”

  “It wouldn’t have been polite,” she protested. “To think that I’ve been unbearably anxious because of my parents’ objections to your occupation and all the while—”

  “Ah, but the source of your parents’ grievance remains,” he pointed out. “I am not an oilman, wholly and exclusively. I am an actor who has become involved in oil speculation. I do hope to eventually relinquish the first for the second, but until then, your parents will still have reason to withhold their blessing.”

  “But now we have hope. We have a plan.”

  “We always did, Lucy darling. I never would have pledged myself to you if I had not been certain that someday I would resolve the matter and be able to marry you.”

  “You knew this,” she said, a trifle sharply, “but I did not.”

  He had the decency to look chagrined. “Indeed, and I see now I behaved very badly in not telling you. I’m truly sorry.”

  “Yes, you did behave badly,” she scolded, joy softening the sharpness of her rebuke, “but this is wonderful news. Wonderful!”

  “I’m glad you think so,” he said, amused. “I quite agree. I only wish I’d shared it earlier.”

  “You should have, and from now on, you mustn’t keep such secrets from me. I confess that sometimes I feel as if I hardly know you. Don’t you trust me?”

  “Of course I trust you.” A pained, searching expression clouded his handsome face. “And you know me better than anyone does.”

  She was not sure if she believed him, but pride and gratitude rose as a wave of warmth from her chest into her cheeks. She wanted very much to be the one person in the entire world to whom he entrusted his secrets.

  He held out his arms to her, and she gladly fell into his embrace, resting her cheek and her right hand against his chest, inhaling deeply of his scent—tobacco smoke, cedar, and something else uniquely his. But her family was waiting and she could not linger, so they parted with a kiss and promises for a happy reunion on the last day of the year. John checked to make sure the corridor was clear before she slipped from the room and hurried downstairs to join her family at breakfast. She felt all aglow, more hopeful than she had been since she and John first met. This could be her last Christmas as Miss Lucy Hale. By the end of the year soon to come, she could be Mrs. John Wilkes Booth.

  It was only later, as she sat beside Lizzie on the train to Dover speeding past the picturesque snow-covered hills and fields and villages of New England that she wondered why John considered his speculation in oil to be a solemn duty to his country, so important that love might interfere. The Union needed fuel to run its factories and light its war rooms, she concluded. John was not wrong to call it service to the cause.

  • • •

  Christmas was gloriously merry back home in New Hampshire, with parties and dinners with friends and loved ones, enchanting music and delicious feasts, solemn prayers and delightful stories read aloud by the fireside, sleigh rides and Yule logs, a festive tree with gifts hidden among the branches for the children and fond reunions spiced with amusing gossip for the adults.

  Several of Lucy’s friends and cousins complimented her on her radiant appearance and lively spirits, and more than a few teased that she must have some secret new beau, or perhaps a former beau in whom she had taken a keen new interest. Robert Lincoln was mentioned in the speculation, of course, and John Hay, and Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., whom she had met while on vacation in Maine in 1858 and with whom she had enjoyed a delightful correspondence and several pleasant outings well into the early years of the war. One particularly cheeky friend suggested that Lucy had heard again from William Chandler, who had become infatuated with her upon their first meeting years before and had written her several love letters and poems before her parents had asked him to desist, since Lucy had been but twelve years old at the time.

  “I have not heard from Mr. Chandler, nor will I, as he is married now,” Lucy protested, laughing. “He wed the former Miss Caroline Gilmore, the governor’s daughter.”

  Amid the teasing and laughter, no one seemed to notice that she did not deny being in love.

  As delightful as it was to enjoy the comforts of home and the company of beloved family and longtime friends, Lucy was eager to return to the capital and to John. A few days after Christmas, the Hales boarded the train for Washington, staying over in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia to celebrate the festive season with friends along the way. They finally returned to the National Hotel late in the evening on December 31, but although Lucy had eagerly anticipated the promised reunion, and hoped to share a discreet kiss with John at the stroke of midnight, he was nowhere to be found.

  Since New Year’s Day fell on a Sunday that year, the traditional receptions and entertainments would be delayed until January 2, but the mood at the National Hotel remained festive and glad, and it seemed the entire war-weary city welcomed the New Year with reinvigorated hopes. Mr. Lincoln—who had risen in Lucy’s esteem year after year, until she had come to revere him almost as much as her father did—had won reelection, alleviating fears that a change in leadership would lead to disastrous consequences for the North and the poor souls held in slavery in the South. On Christmas Day, General William T. Sherman, having reached the end of his march across Georgia at the Atlantic shore, had sent the president a telegram bearing a unique holiday greeting: “I beg to present to you, as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah, with 150 heavy guns and plenty of ammunition, and also about 25,000 bales of cotton.”

  Lucy hardly dared hope that at long last the war and all its bloodshed, sorrow, and deprivation was entering its final days, but her father and mother agreed that victory and peace had never seemed nearer. Eighteen sixty-five would be the year the war was won, peace was restored, and the shattered nation reunited, the people predicted, with an optimism they had not known since the early days of the war. It would also be the year Lucy would marry the man she loved, or so she dared secretly to hope.

  Her heart leapt with joy when John entered the dining room at breakfast, and if she had not been seated with her parents and surrounded by dozens of strangers, she might have bounded from her seat and embraced him. He paused by their table to wish them a happy New Year and to inquire about their Christmas, but to Lucy the entire conversation was exquisitely painful, a mere taste of John when she desired so much more.

  It was hours later before she saw him in the drawing room alone—or nearly so, for an elderly couple sat in the best chairs by the fireplace, glancing up from their books now and then to complain about the frosty weather. “My New Year is off to a most auspicious start,” John murmured as he offered her his arm and led her to the farthest bookcase, where they pretended to search for a particular elusive title. “All that this glorious day needs to
be complete is your kiss.”

  “I wish I could kiss you, here and now.” Lucy withdrew a small box from her reticule. “Since I cannot, I give you instead your Christmas gift—belatedly, but no less fondly offered for that, I promise you.”

  “Lucy, darling.” He accepted the box and bowed, and when he lifted the lid and saw the small silver ring inside, his surprise gave way to delight. “How exquisite.”

  “The engraving is nearly identical to the scrollwork on my locket,” she pointed out as he slipped the ring onto the pinky of his right hand. “They complement each other so well, one can imagine that they were created by the same silversmith as part of a set.”

  “They were made for each other, though that was not revealed until they were brought together in this place. How like the two of us they are.” He closed his eyes and kissed the ring, then smiled at her with such warmth and intensity that she felt faint with desire. “I will cherish this gift always. Thank you, my darling Lucy.”

  Before she could reply, she heard the soft clearing of a throat. “Lucy, dear.”

  Lucy whirled around to discover her mother standing just inside the doorway, her expression stony. “Yes, Mama?”

  “Have you found the book you wanted?”

  “No, no, not yet. Mr. Booth—he kindly offered to help me.”

  “How kind indeed. Your book will have to wait. Your father must pay a condolence call on Chief Justice Chase, and he would like us to accompany him.”

  “Dear me.” Shocked, Lucy thought at once of her friend Kate Sprague, his lovely daughter, who was expecting her first child. “Who has died?”

  “Mrs. Helen Chase Walbridge, Mr. Chase’s youngest sister, of a sudden illness. She was buried today in Ohio.” Her mother fixed John with a steady look. “You will excuse us, please, Mr. Booth.”

  “Of course. My condolences,” he replied, bowing.