by Ann Rinaldi
"You're Addie Bassett."
She took my measure with eyes so old they made me shiver. "What did they tell you of me, then?"
"That you're sick, and he's taking care of you."
"Hmmph," she said. Then she nodded. "Yes. He's takin' care o' me. Like my old master's son would care for birds with broken wings he catched. Those birds always wanna get away even if just to die free in the woods. I'm gonna die anyways. So I wanna die free." Then she cocked her head and listened. "What are the bells for? What are people yelling in the streets?"
"The president had died."
"Linkum?"
"Yes."
A great cry of dismay escaped her throat. And she raised her arms to heaven. Tears rolled down her face like on the Negroes' in the streets. She wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron. "Linkum, my Lord, Linkum." Then she said something strange. "My fault," she said.
"Your fault?"
She nodded. "He set me free. Gave me my freedom. A gift. Then I went an' lost it. He musta heard 'bout that. Addie Bassett lost the gift he give her. Musta killed him, poor man."
"No," I said, "you didn't kill him. Someone else did. He was shot. They're looking, now, for the person who did it."
"I did it. Me, an' all my kind who take this gift from this man and wander in the streets an' doan work an' earn our keep. But wait fer the white man to lead us. I did it." She sobbed and walked away from me, across the floorboards that creaked under her heavy weight. She stood looking out the window, wiping her eyes and quieting herself. Her great bulk cast a shadow across the room. "What do that mean? My freedom gone now?"
"No, your freedom isn't gone. President Lincoln gave it to you for always."
"I still gots it?"
"Yes."
She turned, unbelieving. She held out her hands to me. "Then it's more 'portant that I get outta here. Help me get outta here, please. I gotta use my freedom right."
I shook my head, no. "I can't do that. You're sick."
"I'se better now. As better as I ever be. Gonna die anyways. I jus' wants a chance to do somethin' wif this freedom Mr. Linkum give me, before I die. Please. I kin do things. I jus' had a spell o' bad luck. I wanna go out there an' help my people."
"How?"
"I was workin' fer the Relief Society. I got sick. They found me in the streets and brought me here."
"But you said you weren't working and that's why you killed President Lincoln."
She bowed her head. "I wuz workin', but I wuz drinkin', too. I doan drink no more. Tha's one good thing that come o' my bein here. Please help me—please."
"I can't," I said again. "I'm sorry."
She walked back across the room to lean over me. "Missy, you know what he does? Do you?"
I backed away. "No."
"Well, you gonna be livin' here, you gonna find out. An' when you do, you'll help old Addie. Yes, you will. Un-hun!" She gave the last words deep emphasis.
"What does he do?" I croaked.
"That ain't fer me to tell, missy. No, sir, no." She shook her head. Her white hair stuck out every which way. "It's fer you to find out yourself."
I thought of all the terrible things Mama had hinted about Uncle Valentine. "Is it bad?" I whispered.
"Ain't fer me to tell, no, sir," she said again. "Old Addie got only so many words left in her. An' she ain't 'bout to waste 'em talkin' 'bout things she cain't do nuthin' 'bout. You'll find out, sure 'nuf. An' when you does, you'll help old Addie leave." Then she waddled out of the room.
"Wait!" I begged. But she was gone. A gust of rain beat against the windows. The candles flickered. The room was silent except for the distant tolling of the death bells for Lincoln. And the rain pattering against the windows. I looked around.
Had I dreamed her? I rubbed my eyes. What was Uncle Valentine doing in this house that she would not tell me? Why had Marietta warned me not to pry? Oh, I wished I were home in the narrow little house on H Street. I wished Mama had not died. I wished Johnny would come knocking at the door. Or Annie. What was happening to Annie and her mother?
I took another powder. My foot was starting to hurt. Then I decided to just get in bed and lie back and rest for a while. I fell asleep. And I never woke until the sun's rays were pouring in my window the next morning.
10. Black Sunday
THE NEXT DAY started out innocently enough. Which should have given me warning. I hadn't had an innocent day in months. I woke feeling refreshed, but when I got up, my foot was throbbing again. I hobbled around the room, dressed, and went down the stairs.
Some people were still yelling in the streets. And the death bells were still tolling. But the sun was shining and the birds were singing and I was starved.
Uncle Valentine was at breakfast, waiting for me.
He looked tired. "Good morning, Emily. Did you sleep well?"
"Yes."
"I see you're limping. How is the foot?"
"It hurts a little."
"I'll change the dressing later. You must eat now. Fix yourself a plate. Everything is there on the sideboard."
Maude had an array of good things set out. Fish and ham and eggs; biscuits, grits, coffee. I looked around. The table was set with four places, good china and sterling. "Who's coming?"
"I never know who. Sometimes a colleague will drop by. Sometimes Marietta. Or one of my students. I'm always grateful for company. But now that you're here, I won't have to worry about eating alone anymore, will I?"
I filled my plate and sat down to eat.
He was reading his newspaper. "For years people called Lincoln a clown and a gorilla, or a Negro-lover. And now they are making him a saint," he said. "His portrait is hanging out front of so many houses. Mobs wanted to burn down Ford's Theater last night. They still might do it."
"Did you go to the White House?"
"Yes." He set down his cup and shuddered. "Poor man. He never had a chance. Oh, there is so much for us yet to learn in the medical profession, Emily. So much. This is a terrible thing, terrible. I hear authorities have raided Booth's room at the National Hotel and seized his papers. The War Department has offered fifty thousand dollars' reward for Booth. And twenty-five thousand for each of his accomplices."
I wondered if that meant Johnny. Was Johnny an accomplice?
It was then that the front-door bell rang and Maude went to answer it. She came into the dining room. "A letter. For Emily."
"Well, give it to her," Uncle Valentine said.
I trembled, taking it. Was it from Johnny? It was from Annie: "Meet me today at the cemetery. Say you're going to visit your mother's grave. Three o'clock." Nothing more. I stuffed it in my pocket and said nothing.
"They are advising homeowners to drape their houses in black bunting," Uncle Valentine was reading. "Mobs are attacking any houses not so decorated. Maude?" He called out.
She came running. "Yes, Dr. Bransby?"
"Do we have any black bunting?"
"Now, why would we have such?"
"Every house should have black bunting, Maude. Every house should be prepared."
"For what? The assassination of a president? There has not been one in my lifetime, Dr. Bransby. And I certainly hope I shall never see one again."
"It says here," and he continued reading, "that if there is no bunting available, old black dresses should be torn up and made into bunting."
"I have no old black dresses, Dr. Bransby. And I'll not give any of my good ones."
"You could dye paper with ink and hang that," I offered.
They looked at me as if I had uncommon powers. "Wonderful idea!" Uncle Valentine said. "Where did you get it?"
"We do it at school sometimes. When we cut silhouettes."
Uncle Valentine asked Maude if we had enough paper, then. "I'll see, Dr. Bransby," she said. And she went to see.
"Would you be so good as to help Maude make the black decorations this afternoon, Emily?" he asked me. "I don't want to be perceived as a Southern sympathizer and have my house at
tacked."
"I'm going out this afternoon."
"Out? Where out?"
"To visit my mother's grave. With my friend Annie." The moment I mentioned her name I knew I shouldn't have.
He scowled. "Not today, please," he said. "I can't permit you to go out today."
Permit? I stared at him.
He shook his head. "First, you must keep off that foot, or the stitches won't hold. It could become infected. Second, the city has gone mad. People still think it's a conspiracy. No one is sure who was involved. Everyone is under suspicion."
"I won't be under suspicion, Uncle Valentine. I'm only going to visit my mother's grave."
"To meet Annie Surratt," he said, "brother of Johnny. Daughter of the woman whose house the detectives visited the other night, waving Lincoln's bloody shirt. No, Emily, you are not going."
"I must go. Annie needs me."
"No," he said again. "I'm sorry, but I must forbid it."
Forbid? "You have no right to forbid it."
He looked at me for a long moment. His eyes were very brown and sad. Then he sighed and got up without saying a word, went out of the room and across the hall to his office.
I sat waiting. I may have been only fourteen, but I knew by then that whenever someone says they are sorry about having to do something, they are not a bit sorry. And they have just been waiting for the right opportunity to do it.
He was back in a few minutes. Without saying a word he put a paper down gently on the table beside me.
Apparently he had gone to court—or wherever one goes to get such a paper—and had it drawn up. He had friends in high places. He knew how to get such things done.
The paper said I was underage. It had a lot of heretofores and whereases that I didn't understand. But what it said that I did understand was that I was under his jurisdiction.
Oh, it couched the message in fancy feathers. It said things about my happiness, well-being, and security. It said I needed a protector. There was even a phrase bringing Southern honor into it.
"What does this mean?" I asked him.
"That I am responsible for you." He was stirring his coffee.
"I don't need anybody to be responsible for me."
"You're only fourteen. A minor child. You need a protector."
"I can take care of myself."
"If I didn't do this, Emily, you would be in the Washington Orphan Asylum. Or St. Vincent's. Or St. Ann's Home for Foundlings. The Guardian Society in this town is very dedicated. Orphanages enlist more interest than any other charity. Do you want that? Do you want to go to an orphanage?"
I was trapped. "No," I said weakly. I sank back in my chair. I was an orphan. And it was something you weren't allowed to be. I supposed I should be grateful to him, but I wasn't. I reached into the wellspring of strength that had carried me through the last six weeks. I found it dry. I had no more strength. I felt like the miller's daughter—no, I decided, I was like Addie now.
"Come now, Emily," he was saying. "I'm not that bad, am I?"
I scowled across the table at him. "We have to have some understanding," I said to him. He nodded. "I agree."
"I can't have you ordering me around like I'm a child. I took care of Mama all that time. Since Daddy was killed."
"You did a wonderful job," he said. "And you are more mature than most girls your age. But you still need a protector, Emily. And I intend to act in that role until you are of age. I do not intend to order you around like a child. I haven't the time for it. I respect your ability to make intelligent decisions and I expect you to respect mine."
"Then why can't I go out and meet Annie today?"
"Because it is not an intelligent decision. Mobs are attacking people in the streets out there. People are running around with knives and guns. They are calling it Black Sunday, for heaven's sakes! People are frightened and angry. To say nothing of your injured foot."
I fell silent. I could see how he had always bested Mama. Why she was always angry with him. Because he was probably always right.
"So I'm like Addie, then," I said dismally. I knew I was being petulant, but I didn't care.
"Addie?"
"Yes. I met her last night."
"She can be a nusiance. Don't listen to her."
"She says she's a prisoner."
"She is not a prisoner, she is a patient. I keep her door locked, days, because she is on special medicine, and it makes her addled. She must rest. And you are not a prisoner. It is my duty to care for you. If you are angry over that, then you do not have the intelligence I have credited you with."
There was anger in his voice. It brought tears to my eyes. "What's wrong with Addie?" I asked.
"She has the Wasting Disease. Same as your mama and my wife. I'm giving Addie treatments."
"Why isn't she in a hospital?"
"Negroes don't have a very good time of it in our hospitals."
"She says you do bad things here, Uncle Valentine. And that if I live here, I'll find out."
"I do experiments, Emily. In my shed out back. And I see some patients here. In my office in front. I'm writing a paper on the diaphragm, a protector of the heart and cardiac vessels, and its influence on the organs of circulation. All this is frightening to Addie. Progress in medicine is frightening to many. They cling to the old ways. Marietta, for instance, is as bright a girl as you'll ever meet. She helps me in my lab. But when she takes sick, she won't have my medicines. Has her own supply of herbs that she grows in her own garden."
I had no answer for that. I was embarrassed. He was so forthright.
"Now, promise me you'll stay in today. And rest that foot. You can make the black paper for the front of the house. And tomorrow I'll have Robert take you to see Annie.... It's Black Sunday out there. Please, child, we're in the throes of one of the worst times we've ever had in this country."
I promised him I'd stay in. I have always known when I am bested—there's one good thing about me. I ought to know. I've been bested often enough in my life. Black Sunday....Well, they'd named it right, anyway.
11. The Man From the Marble Vault
OH, JOHNNY, Johnny, where are you? Why did you run away? How could you leave me here like this? And what about your mother and Annie? Oh, Johnny, you don't know what's going on here. You wouldn't have run away if you'd known what was going to happen. You're not a coward.
Robert was asking me something. I had to pull myself out of my reverie. "I beg your pardon?"
"I think we ought not to drive up directly in front of the house. I think we ought to park a little away down the street. Don't you?"
"Are you afraid?"
His handsome face that still sometimes reminded me of Johnny stiffened. His voice grew sad. "Why do you taunt me, Miss Pigbush?"
"Call me Emily."
"All right, then, Emily. Why do you taunt me? I've been nice to you. I like you. And I think, deep down, you have esteem for me. If I've done something to offend you, please tell me. But since I came to your uncle's house this day you've been taunting me."
"I'm sorry," I said. "But I suppose that's why. You're begging me to tell you what you did wrong. Johnny never would have begged."
"Johnny, is it?"
"Yes."
He drew the horse to a stop a little down the street from the Surratt house. "Well, your precious Johnny may be begging for more than the understanding of a fourteen-year-old girl before this whole thing is through." He was angry now, but he did a good job of controlling that anger.
There was one other thing that made him different from Johnny: He still had that old military bearing about him. The way he walked, despite the limp; the way he never gave away what he was thinking; the guarded yet polite way he spoke to people; even the way he held his head.
"I apologize for not being Johnny," he said.
"And I apologize for being only fourteen."
We sat looking at each other on the front seat of the carriage. There was a challenge in the brown eyes. The momen
t held, with each of us staring the other down. Then, of a sudden, I smiled. And he did, too. Then we both laughed. And the tension broke.
"To answer your question, yes. I am afraid of pulling right up in front of the Surratt house this morning," he said. "I've been through a few battles, Emily. I know when to be afraid and when not to be. And I'm not ashamed of it. And I tell you now that I'd rather face a charge by Stuart's cavalry than go into that house right now."
"You don't have to go in with me. I'll go alone." I started to get down from the carriage.
He held my arm. "Discretion is the better part of valor," he said.
"What?"
"Shakespeare. Henry IV. I had a lieutenant who quoted that to us all the time. He saved lots of lives. You see those four men at the end of the street?"
I looked in the direction he indicated. "Yes."
"They're detectives."
"How do you know?"
"I just do. Wait. Watch them a moment"
It only took a moment of watching before the four men walked across the street to the Surratt house.
"If that isn't an advance at the double," Robert said, "nothing is."
The detectives went up the front steps of the Surratt house and knocked on the door.
"Oh, what do they want?" I whispered to Robert.
"Just what your uncle hoped to have you avoid. I'm beginning to think you should have met Annie in the cemetery, as you originally planned. If you had to meet with her at all."
"She's my friend, Robert. A person doesn't desert a friend in time of need."
"All right. All right. Just be quiet. And as calm as possible. No matter what happens. Those detectives aren't here to take Annie for a stroll in the park," he mumbled.
We could see the Surratt door open. The men went in. We waited. Robert unfolded his newspaper and started to read it. The front page was full of a proclamation by Secretary of War Stanton:
ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS' REWARD!
