An Acquaintance with Darkness

by Ann Rinaldi

  I fetched a tray of tea and poured Mama a cup, then put honey in it. I feared for her. She was using all her strength to best Uncle Valentine. Tomorrow she'd be spent.

  "Don't argue," I pleaded.

  "We must settle this," Mama told me. Then she turned to her brother, and it was as if I were not even in the room. "You may know baseball, Valentine. And sickness. But you do not know people."

  "I know of the Surratts," he said. "They are trouble."

  "Trouble?" Mama even managed a laugh, though she near choked on it and I had to give her water and pat her back. Then she waved me away. "Trouble? And you are not?"

  "I have honest dealings, Mary Louise."

  "Honest, indeed!" Mama smiled. It was a smug smile, as if she knew something. "I am too close to the grave to have you mince words with me, Valentine."

  "I won't mince, then. The Surratt house in Maryland is a stopping place for blockade runners, spies, and no-'counts."

  "We know Johnny has run the blockade. He's Secesh. We are at war, Valentine."

  "Dr. Mudd, a colleague of mine in Maryland, told me of them. John Wilkes Booth made a trip down there with Johnny Surratt. Booth claimed he wanted to buy a farm from Mudd. Mudd thinks Booth just wanted to get to know the lay of the land."

  "What is wrong with wanting to know the lay of the land if you are going to buy a farm in Maryland? I wish my Edward had learned the lay of the land."

  "Why would anyone venture into Maryland now, with such devastation there, to buy a farm? The Surratts are up to no good, the lot of them. Something evil is brewing there."

  "Evil," Mama repeated.

  "Yes. I know evil when I see it."

  "You should," Mama said. "But you are wrong this time. You may object to Booth as an actor and therefore not desirable company for young girls, but with Johnny gone, I doubt if Booth will be coming around anymore. You go out of your way to distress me. If there is nothing else you can say to convince me that Emily should not live there, you should hold your tongue. I know you want her to live with you. But I do not wish it. And it distresses me that you would attempt to tarnish the name of my old friend to secure your own ends."

  "It distresses me that you are so angry because I want to give your daughter a good home. And try to keep her from having me as her protector, even after you are gone."

  I could stand it no longer. "Stop fussing," I said.

  They both looked at me as if they'd forgotten I was there.

  "I love you both." My voice broke. "I really do love you, Uncle Valentine. In spite of what Mama says. I can't bear to see you arguing all the time. I always wanted a brother. Or a sister. And you two have each other and all you do is fight!"

  There was shocked silence. I got up. "I'll fetch your coffee, Uncle Valentine," I said.

  "I can't stay for coffee."

  "You'll stay!" I almost shouted it. "It's dear. Twenty-one cents a pound! I got it at market yesterday and you'll stay. And stop fussing! Both of you!"

  He stayed. I brought out the coffee and some peach cobbler. I'd made it that morning. They didn't argue anymore. Uncle Valentine started telling us how he'd summoned the police, and the sporting men who'd been racing their horses on E Street had been arrested for reckless driving.

  I wasn't listening to him. All I was pondering was what he'd said about the Surratts' house. And how evil was going on there. And Ella May's words about there being a curse on the street we were living on. Then that serpent-in-the-bosom business that Elizabeth Keckley had spoken of.

  Could all these people be wrong? I shivered, then looked up and saw Mama was failing. "You'll have to go, Uncle Valentine," I said.

  He left. I walked him into the hall. He put on his stovepipe hat, his coat and shawl. "You're a good girl, Emily," he said. "A fine girl. You know your mind. I hope you'll sort things out for yourself and not hold against me anything that your mother has said."

  "I won't," I promised.

  "Are you going back to school soon?"

  "Yes. I'd like to go back after everything is over."

  "Your mother could linger for weeks."

  "Well, I must find someone to come stay with Mama during the day. Ella May up and left, and I'm alone now."

  "I'll send over Maude. She can spare the time."

  "Thank you, Uncle Valentine."

  "If you come and live with me, I'll not be overbearing. I'll not tell you what to do, but I'd be honored to have you. Think on it, Emily."

  I said I would, to please him. But I never intended to live with him. Oh, he had a lovely house on a fancy street.... I'd never been inside. Mama had pointed it out to me once. Who would not want to live in a house like that?

  "Let me know if your mother worsens," he said.

  I promised that, too. He left. I never thanked him for the violet water.

  4. Robert

  MAMA TOOK TO HER BED the day after Uncle Valentine's visit and never got out again.

  It wasn't his fault. He had done what any brother would do, come to visit her. If I had a brother and I were dying, I'd want that.

  Mama coughed and coughed so. And got weaker and weaker. Sometimes she lay so still I thought she'd died on me. But then she would start coughing again. Her forehead was hot, her hands clammy, her breath shallow.

  I got frightened and ran to the Surratts' to get a servant to take a note to Dr. Dent. He came around, but there was little he could do. He wrote an order for more medicine. Again I went to the Surratts', and got a servant to take the order to Thompson's Drug Store.

  Then I waited all afternoon. But Johnny's friend David Herold never delivered the medicine.

  I went to the Surratts' a third time. A servant ushered me in. Mrs. Mary was in the parlor.

  So was John Wilkes Booth. I stopped short, seeing him. He was pacing back and forth. He looked disheveled, angry. Like an alien thing in that dainty parlor. "Damn them, damn them," he was saying. "Damn all the talk of surrender! Couldn't Lee have held on?" He directed the question at me.

  Was he rehearsing for a play? Was I supposed to answer?

  "So many times he had the Federals cornered. Doesn't he understand the importance of the kill?"

  I did not know my lines. I stood, dumbstruck.

  Booth looked right at me, his eyes burning. "The fools! All of them! Don't they know what will happen once Lee surrenders?"

  "What is it, Emily?" Mrs. Mary asked.

  "I need someone to send a note to my uncle's house. Mama's taken a turn for the worse."

  "Of course." Then she turned to Booth. "This girl's mother is dying," she said.

  "We're all dying," Booth said. "Some sooner than others, that's all. Some not soon enough!" Again he looked at me. "Do you study Latin in school?"

  "Yes," I said.

  "Then tell me this, is tyrannis spelled with two n's or two r's?"

  I liked it. It had passion. Not like so many of the milksop plays here in Washington. But I didn't think it would get past the Union people.

  Mrs. Mary didn't like it. "Enough, Wilkes," she said. She called him Wilkes, not John. Annie said it was the name of some famous English ancestor.

  Mrs. Mary called a servant and had my note delivered to Uncle Valentine. Then she saw me out. "Let me know how your mama fares," she said. Then she went back into the parlor, where Booth was still ranting and swearing.

  Uncle Valentine sent medicine—calomel, rhubarb, and opium.

  He also sent Maude. She was a short, heavy woman with hair tied back in a bun, and glasses on the edge of her nose. She looked like somebody's mother.

  Not mine. My mother had never looked or acted like anybody's mother. My mother acted like a Southern belle. It was all she'd ever wanted to be. A Southern belle. It had nothing to do with politics or being for or against the Union. She just wanted to play the part, be taken care of by everybody, have Negroes waiting on her. Then she married my daddy and found out it wasn't to be.

  I'd been taking care of her since Daddy went off to war. Now I kne
w what I'd missed.

  I recognized it instantly in Maude's broad face, calm manner, and busybody ways. She let me give Mama the medicine in the doses written on the bottles in Uncle Valentine's hand. I told Mama the medicine came from Herold. She never would have taken it if she knew her brother had sent it over. I told her Maude was a friend of Mrs. Surratt's.

  Maude never sat down for a second but that she took up her knitting needles. She could knit without looking at what she was doing. All through the war she'd knitted things for the wounded soldiers and taken them to the hospitals.

  "Who will you knit for when the war is over?" I asked. Mama was sleeping. We spoke in whispers.

  "There are plenty of young men in the hospitals who still need attention. Your uncle still tends them at Douglas Hospital. Of course, let's hope they'll all soon be going home."

  "I wonder what we'll all do when the war is over," I said. "I wonder what we'll blame our misfortune on."

  She smiled at me. "That's an awfully astute thing to say."

  I was thinking of Mama. That would make anybody astute. I shrugged. "People make lots of their own problems. Then they blame them on the war."

  "Most girls your age are so tainted with their own concerns, they scarce notice a thing." The knitting needles clicked. "We had a young man staying at our house for a while who was one of the wounded from Fredericksburg. Your uncle tended him in Douglas Hospital, found out his father was a country doctor and the young man wanted to be a doctor, and brought him home to recover. He's attending the university now, and all your uncle's classes. His name is Robert deGraaf. He's a lovely young man but very much alone in the city. You should come to our house sometime and meet him."

  "I have no time for socializing," I said.

  "Not now, of course. But you will in the future."

  I had no future; didn't she know that? But the way she said it, with a presumed knowledge about me, set my teeth on edge. Still, I was grateful to her. She settled right in. She cooked, she tended Mama, she received the reverend when he came. She sent me on meaningless errands to get me out of the house. To market for food. To post a letter.

  On Sunday the ninth, General Lee surrendered to General Grant and the long war that had worn us all down, turned us against each other, and taken away every bit of graciousness from our lives, ended. Outside our windows Washington City went wild.

  Inside, Mama was dying. She seemed to dip in and out of consciousness. Yet she held on. It was eerie, as if she were holding on for a reason, waiting for something to happen before she would die.

  "What's all the shouting in the streets?" she asked early on Sunday morning.

  "People are saying Lee is likely to surrender today," I told her.

  "Oh, good," she said. "I'll just wait a bit and find out. Then I can tell your father."

  The woman who always wanted to be a Southern belle was waiting to hear that the rebels were whipped, that her husband hadn't died for nothing, before she went to join him.

  Around dusk the shouting got louder. Firecrackers started going off. They lit up the distant sky. People were coming out of their houses and gathering in the street, hugging each other, jumping up and down, screaming.

  "Why don't you go out and see?" Maude suggested. "Maybe buy a paper."

  "The papers won't have it yet."

  "We have telegraphs."

  I went. I didn't want to, because I knew that once Mama found out Lee surrendered, she would up and die. But I couldn't tell Maude that. She would think I was nervous or hysterical. Nervous and hysterical were the worst things a young girl could be. You had to be careful. Once they accused you of such, they watched you like hawks.... Maude would have told Uncle Valentine. She was devoted to him. And even though she was married, I thought she lived for him alone. Then Uncle Valentine would have had a claim on me, and I'd never have gotten to live with the Surratts. He did have a certain amount of power, after all. He was my blood uncle. I had no doubt that he could make me come and live with him if he had sufficient reason.

  It was strange to be out on the street and not worried about attending Mama. It was dusk and mild. The air smelled of spring. Palm Sunday.

  People were screaming, yelling, dancing in the streets now, setting off firecrackers on every corner. They were stringing bunting and colored lights from lamppost to lamppost. Young children ran unattended, rattling sticks on iron fences, throwing stones. One group of boys had a herd of goats they were pushing along. Goats, pigs, even cows were not unusual on Washington's streets, but these goats had red, white, and blue streamers around their necks. I remembered Mama telling me once that President Lincoln's little boys had had goats as pets in the White House. Before Willie died.

  Groups of college boys were jostling each other and blowing paper horns. Some militiamen were shooting off muskets a block away. A man was hawking American flags. In the distance I heard cannon boom. Then church bells started. The college boys had put down their paper horns and were pulling up the plank sidewalks and starting bonfires. A horse-drawn carriage came along; the horse shied at the sight of the fire, then bolted, dragging the carriage. A policeman came along and started shouting.

  At the corner of H Street I found a newsboy. "Read all about the meetings with Grant and Lee!" he was yelling.

  I purchased a paper. "Is it over?" I asked him.

  "Yes, miss. Word came to the White House coupla hours ago. Lee surrendered earlier today. The Intelligencer will have it all tomorrow."

  I saw a crowd of revelers coming from around a corner and ran home.

  Upstairs I gave the paper to Maude and told her the news. Mama was sleeping. But with the rattling of the newspaper, her eyes flew open.

  "Tell me," she said.

  "The surrender happened earlier today," I said. "At Appomattox."

  "Good," Mama said.

  Then she closed her eyes and slept.

  In a little while, she died.

  She just stopped breathing in her sleep. It was very peaceful. And I was taken with the fact that she didn't have to do anything to die. It took no effort. That was the shock of it for me. Seeing someone die for the first time, it came to me: You don't have to do anything to die. You just have to stop doing all the things you've been doing all along. In Mama's case, this was not coughing anymore. Not breathing.

  I saw it at the same time as Maude. "Mama!" I yelled.

  But Maude took hold of my wrist. "It's all right, she's gone."

  "All right? All right? How can it be all right? I never wanted to go and get that stupid newspaper. I knew the minute she found the war was over, she would die on me. But you had to have it, didn't you? You had to let her know!"

  Maude went over to the bed and closed Mama's eyes. Then she came back and put her arms around me. I pushed her off. I flailed at her with my arms. I had to hit somebody, didn't I? Still, she held me. "Go ahead," she said, "hit me if you want to. It's all right."

  I told her I didn't want to hit her. I wanted her to send for the reverend. She made me a cup of tea. I drank it, and then I collapsed.

  I slept for fourteen hours. I think Maude had dosed the tea with laudanum. I opened my eyes at eight the next morning and couldn't figure where I was. I thought I was back in my bedroom in our house in Surrattsville. I smelled coffee. Mama was making breakfast. Today I would go to the store, because Johnny was coming home.

  And then I remembered. I was in Washington. Mama had died. Johnny was gone and would likely never come home again.

  I got up and sat on the edge of the bed.

  If I were home in Surratsville now, I wouldn't have to move from the edge of this bed, I thought. Our one remaining servant would come to my room and help me dress, take me out onto the front porch, where I would receive neighbors. They would bring food and let me sit there so I could mull my fate properly, the way it is supposed to be mulled.

  Here I had no such luxury. I had to do for myself.

  I heard voices downstairs. One was Uncle Valentine's. I stumble
d about my room. Uncle Valentine must not see me sloppy. He must not think I was an orphan, needing him. I put on a fresh cotton frock. I didn't have a black one. It was dark blue, with some white on the collar and cuffs.

  I went downstairs. When I got to the bottom, some men came in the front door with a lead coffin, the one Mama had so insisted upon. Why lead? I wondered. What was Mama afraid of? It looked like one of the ironclads the North had on the Potomac River.

  The reverend had come, was directing the men into the parlor, where Mama had been taken. "Everything is going according to plan," he said. He seemed immensely pleased with himself.

  What plan? I wondered. Mama and I hadn't had a plan since we came here to Washington. Did we have one now?

  "The undertakers are here," he explained. "Everything will be all right now."

  I supposed that in the mind of reverends, everything got to be all right when the undertakers came. Well, that was their business.

  "Doctors Brown and Alexander. They are the same ones who worked such miracles on Mr. Lincoln's little boy, Willie, when he died three years ago. They'll take your mama away for just a while and bring her back this afternoon. Don't worry. All her wishes are being honored."

  I nodded my thanks. "What about clothing for Mama?"

  "Maude selected it. I hope you don't mind. The brown silk with the lace collar."

  Dimly, in back of my aching head, I wondered what the men would do about the hoops. They wouldn't fit in a coffin. But I was sure Doctors Brown and Alexander, who had worked such miracles on Willie Lincoln, would know what to do about a little thing like hoops.

  "Fine." Tears dimmed my eyes. From outside on the street I heard noise, shouts, gunshots, cheering. "Are they still taking on about the surrender?" I asked.

  "Isn't it wonderful?" He smiled as if he had arranged that, too. "General Grant never asked Lee to hand over his sword."