An Acquaintance with Darkness

by Ann Rinaldi

  "You haven't heard, then. Oh, child. The president. The president's been shot." He sank down on a bench, rested his elbows on his knees, put his head in his hands, and wept.

  I did not know what to do. A grown man weeping. The sound of it was unnatural and echoed through the empty rooms. I leaned against the wall. It couldn't be true. Was Uncle Valentine deranged? The president? Shot?

  "How can this be?" I asked weakly.

  "Oh, child, forgive me." He wiped his face. He took out a handkerchief and blew his nose. He spoke. "I saw him at the theater last night. He and Mrs. Lincoln came in a little after eight. The play was started already, but the dialogue stopped, the crowd roared, and the orchestra played 'Hail to the Chief.' The play went on. Then, in the third act, it happened."

  "What happened?"

  "The noise. The shot. A man leaped from the president's box onto the stage. Confusion, screaming, cries for help came from that box. Then calls for physicians. People yelling, 'Catch that man!' It was terrible. And when I got to the box, there he lay, his head on Laura Keane's lap. A head wound. Shot in the head. What could we do? Oh, I must study head wounds. I must do heads."

  "Uncle Valentine."

  "We know nothing about heads. We know nothing at all yet. And people criticize our work. The do-gooders would stop us. If we knew about heads we could have saved him!"

  My voice was hoarse. "Is he dead, then?"

  "Leale, I, and another doctor carried him out of the theater, through the crowds, and into Peterson's. Up the stairs, down a hall, to a room with a bed in it. The bed was too small for him. He was so tall. We had to put him diagonally across it. Mrs. Lincoln said that's how he slept at home in Springfield."

  "Mrs. Lincoln was there?"

  "Yes. And many others. Doctors, all over the place. Members of the cabinet ... The room was small. They sent for Robert, his oldest son. And Mrs. Keckley. No one could do anything. He had one more strike coming to him. I always said it. And now it's happened. He died this morning."

  "Did they catch the man who did it?"

  He looked up at me. "No. And that's why you must come home with me now, Emily. That's what I've been trying to tell you."

  "What have you been trying to tell me?" I felt something coming, something awful. And it seemed, when it came, that I always knew it would.

  "They are saying John Wilkes Booth shot him. And the police are looking for Booth. And for Johnny Surratt. I know one of the detectives. McDevitt, his name is. I saw him this morning. He said they searched the Surratt house in the middle of the night. They are looking for Johnny Surratt. And Booth."

  I ran.

  That's all I remember. I ran through the hall, into the kitchen. In my bare feet and robe I ran out the kitchen door and down the back steps and out into the rain. It was raining hard now, but I didn't care. All I knew was that I must run from Uncle Valentine's words.

  They are looking for Johnny Surratt. And Booth.

  I ran through the next-door yard, through the damp grass and flowers and stones. I felt a sharp pain in my right foot and kept on running. Uncle Valentine was calling after me. "Emily, come back! No, don't go there, please! Come back!"

  I ran into the yard of the Surratts' house. My nightdress and thin robe were wet through already, but I didn't care. I ran up the back steps and then pounded on their door. Behind me Uncle Valentine was following.

  Mrs. Mary answered the door. Annie stood right behind her. They were still in their nightdresses. They did not invite me in.

  "Yes, we know, child," Mrs. Mary said when I told her the president had been shot. "We know. They came here last night, the police, asking entrance, searching, demanding answers. They said I was hiding culprits. My boarders were in a terror. None of us got any sleep." She was more annoyed than upset.

  "Are they looking for Johnny?"

  "Yes. But I was able to tell them he's in Canada. And that I just had a letter from him Friday. I read it to my boarders at the table Friday night."

  "It's Booth," Annie said from behind her mother. "It's Booth, Mama—I told you he's trouble. And yesterday afternoon you went on that errand for him to Surrattsville."

  "Hush, Annie."

  "And he was here last evening." Annie would not hush. "He came about eight o'clock."

  "He stayed only five minutes," Mrs. Mary said. "He didn't bother anyone, Annie."

  "Didn't bother anyone!" Annie was aghast. "He came here, Mama. Right before he killed the president. What does that say about him? He implicated us."

  "I am not implicated," Mrs. Mary told her daughter sadly. "Nor are you, nor anyone in this house. Even though my boarders are fleeing as if this house is a sinking ship."

  "Emily!" Uncle Valentine was calling to me in a hoarse whisper from the far edges of the Surratts' garden. "Emily, come away, now."

  "Who is that?" Mrs. Mary asked.

  "My uncle. Don't pay mind to him."

  "Your uncle, the doctor? Is that Mary Louise's brother, Valentine? What does he want? Why is he here? Has he come to gawk at us?"

  "No, Mrs. Mary. He wants me to come and live with him."

  "Well, you should go with him, then, child."

  "No!" I said sharply. "I'm coming to live with you. And Annie. As we planned."

  "But you can't do that now, child. Don't you see? Everything's changed. This house is a sad place. Terrible suspicion has fallen on us. The detectives are even now watching us. I strongly advise against your coming here."

  "Emily!" Uncle Valentine called again.

  I felt ready to cry. I felt a great heaving in my chest. "Annie?" I said. "Is that true? I can't come here now?"

  Annie pushed past her mother then and came out onto the steps. She held my arm and guided me down the steps. I limped. "Your foot is bleeding," she said.

  "It doesn't matter."

  She walked me down the path into the garden. Uncle Valentine was still waiting. He had his arms out in a gesture of appeal. I felt torn, confused, destroyed. I didn't know what was happening. I still didn't believe that President Lincoln was dead. It was all some kind of a bad dream and I would wake up soon in my little bed in my room and get up and dress and come here to have breakfast.

  "Go with your uncle for now," Annie said.

  "Annie, no. We had plans. You promised."

  "Well, I can't keep my promise. Go with your uncle. Until we see how all this turns out." She was begging me, in the rain.

  "You mean the president isn't dead?"

  "No, he's dead, Emily. We know that. They showed us his bloody shirt—those detectives, when they came here last night."

  "Oh, how awful."

  "Yes. It's a nightmare. Nightmares don't only happen when you sleep, Emily. Most of them happen when you're awake. I know that now. And I know we've been living in one, only I was too stupid to recognize it. And now we've got to pay."

  "I'll stay here and help you."

  "No, you must go. Please, Emily. I need to handle things. And I can't with you around. Please, I need time. Go with your uncle and we'll straighten this all out in a few days. Then you can come with us. Here or wherever we go."

  I felt hope. I believed her. "Truly, Annie?"

  "Yes. I need you for a friend, Emily. I need a friend now. I'll be in touch. I promise."

  So I went limping to Uncle Valentine, who was right once again about things. And who stood there, his coat open, his cravat askew, his shirt and hair dripping, and held his arms out to me, looking as if he wished he had never been right about anything at all in his life.

  He hurried me inside, through our house, and toward the front door.

  "I'm not dressed," I said.

  "Not important," he answered.

  "My foot is cut and bleeding. It hurts."

  "I'll carry you." And he did. He picked me up, opened the door, and carried me down our front steps in the rain. He put me in the carriage.

  "My things! I'm not going without my things!"

  "I'll send back for them."

>   "No!" I started to get out of the carriage.

  "All right," he said, "all right. Where are they?"

  I told him and he was like a man crazed, running in and out of the house for my portmanteaus and boxes. I sat there telling him where they were and what to get. My foot was bleeding. He just kept running, back and forth from the carriage to the house, mumbling something about doing heads. His last trip in the house I begged him to go into my room and reach under my pillow to where I kept a small velvet sack. And bring it.

  He brought it. He never asked what was in it, even though it jingled. It held Johnny's twenty gold pieces. Soon all my things were loaded in the carriage. We drove off, and I left the house, forever. And the night-blooming cereus, which had likely already drooped its head because it could not stand the light of day.

  We drove off down Washington's maddened streets. The rain was steady and cold. But people were gathering on corners like the sun was out. They were standing there staring at nothing in disbelief. Negroes stood in the middle of the avenues weeping. Soldiers had turned out with drawn bayonets.

  Squads of infantrymen were mustering; people were ripping down the red, white, and blue buntings and putting up black crepe. Others were running by, screaming. Some galloped past us on horses. Newsboys were crying as they yelled the news.

  Uncle Valentine used his whip on his horse and we raced through the streets to his house. He didn't stop out front but drove in through the wrought-iron gates.

  Merry Andrews stood at the gates. And closed them behind us. They made a clinking, solid sound. Uncle Valentine wiped his brow. "Thank God, we're home," he said.

  Maude came to meet us. "They say Secretary of State Seward had his throat cut by an assassin as he lay in his sickbed. And Grant is dead, too."

  "Don't believe rumors," Uncle Valentine said. He jumped down from the carriage seat, came around, and helped me out. "Come inside and I'll bind up your foot," he said. "Merry, get her things."

  "What's the matter?" Maude said, gaping at the blood on my foot. "Did you get attacked in the street?"

  "No, we're all right," Uncle Valentine assured her. "But Washington has gone mad. We are launched upon the maddest hour of our history."

  And with that he scooped me up and carried me into the house, yelling for Merry and Maude to lock all the doors and windows.

  I looked up. There she was, in the tower room of the second story. My room. Marietta. I saw her clear as day, standing there looking down on us, pushing the draperies aside and watching.

  9. Old Addie

  UNCLE VALENTINE took me into his office and attended to my foot. But first he did a strange thing. He washed his hands with warm water and soap that Maude brought in.

  "I've been in correspondence with a man named Lister, who is a professor of surgery in Glasgow," he said. "He believes that the air and dirt on the hands causes putrefaction. I've fought with officials in this city to clean the offal off the streets."

  I looked around. I saw instruments, terrible things; vials, jars, books. One was Observations on the Gastric Juice and Physiology of Digestion. Another, The Injuries of Nerves and Their Consequences.

  Uncle Valentine washed and cleansed my wound. I had never seen him do doctor things before, and I decided he was very good at it. Marietta held my hand. She had come downstairs. Why was she here, I wondered? And not teaching? She handed him things. "Are you a nurse?" I asked her.

  We'd all heard about Florence Nightingale, nurse during the Crimean War. And our own Clara Barton, who'd followed the army in our war.

  "No," Marietta answered. "But if I could, I'd be a doctor."

  "Women can't be doctors," I said.

  "Yes, they can," Uncle Valentine told me. "And they are. Dr. Mary Walker was an assistant surgeon during the war. She was taken prisoner by the Rebels, exchanged for a soldier, and given a medal. She visits and lectures here in Washington frequently."

  What with all the talk, my foot was soon finished, stitched up and all. But it hurt. Uncle Valentine gave me a powder and told Marietta to take me to my room.

  My room. I hobbled upstairs. Marietta brought along my things. When she wasn't looking I fished the velvet sack with the twenty gold pieces out of my pocket and hid it under the pillows on the bed. I'd find a better place for it later.

  "You'd best get in that bed," she advised. "That powder is going to start to work soon." She was unpacking my clothing and putting it into the chiffonier.

  "Why are you here?" I asked.

  "Lincoln," she said. "It's so terrible. They closed the schools. Nobody knows what's really happened yet. They're saying it's a Confederate plot. There are thirty thousand Confederate soldiers in town on parole after Lee's surrender. I came in case any of them were attacked. Your uncle might need me."

  "Is it true about women being doctors?"

  "Yes." She was hanging my dresses.

  "Then why don't you become one if you want to? Uncle Valentine could help you."

  "I'm part Negro. It's difficult enough for white women who want to become doctors."

  "You look white."

  "There is always someone who would find out. I don't wish to put myself through that. So I teach. And I help your uncle in his laboratory, though it's not supposed to be known."

  "Why?"

  "Dr. Walker is the exception, not the rule. Women don't help in laboratories in this country. We're very behind Europe. Oh yes, your uncle has been summoned to the White House."

  "The White House?"

  "Yes. The authorities want his advice. Likely about what to inject in Lincoln's body so it holds up for the funeral. He knows about that. And he wants to see the head wound. He's very interested in head wounds."

  "He says he knows nothing about them."

  "Not enough yet, no. But he will learn. He is doing some very important work in medicine. If you are going to live here, don't pry."

  "I didn't say I was going to live here."

  She gave my pillow a final pat. "You will."

  The powder was starting to work. Rain was pouring down outside. Even through the closed windows we could hear the shouts of the people in the streets. "Kill the damn Rebels! Kill the traitors!"

  "I fear for Annie and Mrs. Mary," I allowed.

  "And what of this Johnny of yours?" She arched her brows at me.

  "He isn't mine," I said sadly. "He never was mine. And he's in Canada."

  "Change your clothing. I'll bring some hot tea."

  I took off my wet clothing, toweled myself dry, and put on the dressing gown. It felt soft and comforting. My head was spinning from the powder.

  Marietta brought up the tea. It was darkening now, so she lighted the gaslight. Then the bells started to ring, what seemed like dozens of them, from all over; deep and solemn, they rang, some from distances far across the city.

  "The death bells for Lincoln," she said, "and it's about time, too. Your uncle said Secretary Stanton ordered them hours ago. Oh, that reminds me, if you hear anything, don't be frightened."

  "Like what?"

  "Sometimes Addie Bassett gets out of her room at night. She's locked in days, because the medicine makes her woozy. Nights she's allowed to walk around, though the rest of the house is locked. She's harmless, so don't worry."

  "She's locked in days?"

  "It's for her own good."

  Of course, I thought. Like my being here is for my own good.

  Marietta's smile deepened. "It is for your own good," she said. And before I could reply she was gone.

  I drank my tea. I read a bit. I heard some noise outside and went to look out. Uncle Valentine's carriage was just going out the gate. Merry Andrews secured the gate behind it, then leaped back up inside and they drove off. Would Uncle Valentine take Merry into the White House with him? A dwarf? Why not? Tom Thumb and his wife had been received by the Lincolns. Oh, the world had gone mad.

  It was raining in gusts. I was glad for the warm fire in the grate, for the rain had chilled the room. I lean
ed back in the chair and listened to the steady tolling of the death bells. I must have closed my eyes and dozed.

  Images flashed through my mind. Uncle Valentine telling me they were looking for Surratt and Booth. Johnny handing me that handkerchief with SUNDAY written on it. Uncle Valentine carrying me out of the house. Mrs. Mary saying how the police were asking entrance, searching, demanding answers. Me running through the backyards in my bare feet in the rain. The Negroes weeping in the street. Annie promising she'd stay in touch. Marietta saying "Don't pry." Inside me my feelings were all crossed, like cavalry sabers clashing. I struggled to wake from this sleep, which was more disturbed than restful. But I could not rouse myself.

  Then something else roused me. "Little missy." It was a whisper. "Little missy."

  I opened my eyes. An old hag of a nigra woman was bending over me. Her hair hung about her, gray and disheveled. She had two teeth missing in front. Her breath smelled like that of a hedgehog. I screamed.

  She touched my arm lightly. "Hush, little missy. Please."

  I froze more than I hushed.

  "My, you're a pretty one. Did they just bring you in?"

  "I just came, yes."

  "What ails you? The Wasting Disease? Like me? Oh no, I see the bandage on your foot. Do it hurt?"

  "Yes, but I've taken a powder. It dulls the pain."

  "You cain't be a prisoner. They doan keep prisoners here but on the third floor."

  "I'm visiting." This must be Addie, then. I looked at her. Her clothing was clean, though her breathing seemed to be a difficult business. She took great breaths between sentences. Of course, that could be from her weight. She was very fat. And she smelled of some kind of medicine. "My uncle Valentine doesn't keep prisoners," I told her.

  "Your uncle, is he? He be a good man. But I needs to get away. They keep me prisoner here. Locks me in my room days. And locks the house up nights. Would you help me get away?"