An Acquaintance with Darkness

by Ann Rinaldi

  "They're not going to hang your mother." I said the words fervently.

  "People in Washington are thirsty for blood," she said. "They want culprits. They don't care who they are, innocent or not. They want someone to blame for the loss they have suffered. Do you know they're still dragging Lincoln's body around out there? The man's been dead two weeks and they haven't buried him yet. If they'd bury him and get it over with, maybe all this hysteria would stop and we could all get back to normal!"

  She was right. The Lincoln funeral train hadn't reached Illinois yet. But I doubted if things would be back to normal when it did. I felt as if I didn't know what normal was anymore. And I hadn't lost a sweetheart in the war. My brother hadn't run off to Canada with a price on his head. And my mother wasn't in prison.

  But I felt a deep and haunting sense of loss just the same. What loss, I asked myself, besides Mama? And she would have died even if Lincoln hadn't been shot.

  I'd done nothing but gain knowledge since I'd come to Washington.

  Now I knew that a girl could have been one-eighth Negro and still been sold as a slave. Now I knew that people rob graves. Now I knew that our medical hospitals were hopelessly behind the times. I knew that more men could have been saved if we'd had an ambulance corps earlier in the war. I knew that a young man can be shot by a sniper even after a war is over. While another can run off and not come out of hiding, even when his mother's life is threatened.

  Now I knew that a matinee idol can kill a president.

  I knew that my uncle may have been stealing bodies for research. So that maybe the next time a young girl's daddy got wounded in the stomach, they could save him. Or the next time a president got shot they would be able to keep him alive.

  Would that be so wrong?

  Were there degrees of right and wrong?

  It was a loss I felt. The loss of my innocence.

  On May 4 they finally buried Abraham Lincoln in Illinois. On the tenth they arrested Jeff Davis, president of the Confederacy, in Georgia. They said he was wearing a woman's dress.

  On the twelfth a man came up to our door, took off his hat, and asked to rent a room. I was alone after school. He was in uniform. "We don't rent rooms," I told him. "I'm sorry."

  I felt bad. He was thin and sunburnt and somewhat the worse for wear. He wore a loose shirt and held a soft hat. His boots were dusty and his mustache drooped. So did his eyes. "There are places that feed soldiers on their way home," I said. "I can direct you to one."

  "Ain't hungry, miss. Or on my way home. Yet. Come for the review."

  "Review?" I asked.

  He must have thought me a noodleheaded flighty girl. "Hunnerts of soldiers in town. Ain't you seen 'em?"

  I had. I nodded. There had seemed like an unusual amount of soldiers walking the streets these last couple of days.

  "Gonna be a lotta soldiers in Washington the next week or so. 'Bout a hunnert and fifty thousand of 'em."

  "A hundred and fifty thousand soldiers?"

  "Yes, miss. For the review of the Grand Armies of the Republic. On the twenty-third. They say it'll take us two whole days to parade. I was with Sherman."

  "Sherman? Did you know a Captain Alex Bailey?"

  "No, miss, sorry."

  "Well, in any case, doesn't your regiment have a place to stay?"

  "We're bivouacked near the unfinished monument to George Washington. But I had hopes of a clean room and a tub of water. Been a long time since I was in a house."

  I directed him down the block to where Mrs. Waring, whose husband had been killed in the war, was talking about starting a boardinghouse.

  "Much obliged," he said.

  "Would you like something cold to drink?" It was the least I could do.

  "That sounds good, miss."

  I fetched him a glass of lemonade. He drank it quickly.

  "Where are you from?" I asked.

  "Indiana, miss." He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and handed the glass back to me, then put his hat back on his head. "Much obliged," he said again.

  "Can I ask you something before you leave?"

  He nodded briskly.

  "Did you burn people out down South, like they say Sherman's soldiers did? Women and children?"

  He hesitated. "You're Secesh," he said.

  "No. I'm from Maryland, but we're Union. My daddy died fighting for it."

  "I ain't never burned no women or children, miss," he said.

  "What did you do, then?"

  "I foraged. For food."

  I smiled to show I believed him. But I didn't. Likely the food he'd foraged had been plundered from the larder of some Southern woman who had children to feed and no man left on the plantation. Mrs. McQuade said what Sherman's men couldn't take with them they'd slaughtered on the spot—chickens, hogs, cattle. Just to leave destruction in their wake. Was it wrong? They'd brought the war to a quicker end. Did that make it right? We'd had a whole Wednesday Morning Discussion on it.

  The soldier smiled back at me. "Come see the review," he invited, as if he were in charge of the whole thing. "Gonna be cavalry and mules and wagons, infantry, Zouaves in their flashy uniforms, everything."

  I told him I would, watched him walk away, and went back inside. I had some reading to do for class. It was the end of the term and Mrs. McQuade was giving tests. No sooner had I sat down than there was another knock. Another soldier? Again I went to open the front door.

  It was Robert. He had a cat under his arm. A red cat.

  "Was that soldier looking for a room?" he asked. I found my tongue. "Yes."

  "They're all over town. It's swarming with them."

  "There's going to be a review."

  "I heard. It'll bring disease, drunkenness, and fights."

  "My, you're in a cheerful mood. I suppose things went well in Memphis."

  "They did."

  "Why did you knock? You never do."

  "I have a friend who needs a room. I thought I'd ask politelike."

  "Why don't you take your friend to the Young Men's Christian Association, where you live?"

  "Because they don't take cats," he said. And he held out the fluffy red cat. "He needs a home. His name is Sultana. Will you give him one?"

  We were uncomfortable in each other's presence. It was different now. I hadn't been wrong about that morning in the hallway. Something had happened between us and whatever it was, he'd felt it, too.

  We sat in the parlor. I gave him some lemonade. He put the cat in my arms, and I carried on about it like I'd never seen a fool cat before. "Sultana?" I said. "You named him after the riverboat that blew up?"

  "Yes."

  I stroked Sultana. He purred in my lap, looked into my face, and gave me that unblinking stare cats give. "Where did you get him?"

  "Found him abandoned on the docks in Memphis. I'd wired your uncle on a business matter and asked him what I could bring home for you. He wired back. 'A cat,' he said. That you were upset because you'd lost Puss-in-Boots."

  "Annie took her back. Why did you want to bring me something?"

  "To make up for things."

  "What things?"

  "Whatever it was that caused the look on your face the day I left here."

  I stroked the cat's ears. "They'll give you undying loyalty for scratching their ears," I said. "Such a little thing to do to get loyalty."

  "Yes," he said. "And humans require so much."

  "You want me to say I want my ears scratched, Robert? You think that's what I want from you?"

  "No, but I'd like to know what it would take, Emily, for you to trust me. I thought what I did that morning in the hall would do it. When I didn't tell your uncle you were eavesdropping."

  "Is that why you didn't tell him?"

  "Yes. I want you to trust me, Emily. What must I do?" He looked at me square. "Since the day I met you, you've been angry, defiant, bitter toward me, as if I'm to blame for everything in your life. I can't help it about Johnny. Or Annie. You have to stop blaming me. All I wan
t is to be friends with you. I like you, Emily. I liked you the minute I met you."

  "As a girl?"

  "Well, you are a girl, aren't you? Yes."

  I ducked my head. I could feel things bursting inside me. "I'm not blaming you for Johnny or Annie," I said.

  "Well, then, what are you blaming me for? Would you do me the honor of telling me?"

  I gave a great heaving sigh. "You mustn't tell my uncle any of this. Promise?"

  "Trust me."

  "I heard the conversation before you left for Memphis. You were to bring back two riverboat victims. Have you brought them back?"

  "Yes."

  "Are they dead or alive, Robert?"

  He was not stupid. The understanding was there in his eyes. I could not catch him off guard. "They're alive, Emily. Burn cases. I dosed them with laudanum to ease their pain and brought them back. They're in Douglas Hospital. Why would I be bringing back dead people?"

  "For specimens. What we talked about the night you showed me inside the shed."

  More understanding in those eyes. "You suspect us of stealing bodies. That's why you were listening on the stairs."

  "I can't help it, Robert. There's the Spoon and the Mole, for one thing. They were trying to rob my mother's grave the very night she was buried! Uncle Valentine chased them."

  "He told me about that." He sighed. "He found out they were running a little grave-robbing business on the side. He's called them to account for it and made them promise to stop. They never stole bodies for him."

  "Then what were they doing here that morning you left?"

  "They work for your uncle. They do numerous odd jobs. They get around, as dwarves do. They scout around the city and tell your uncle of cases he might be interested in. They found him Marietta. And Addie. And their contacts got the news to us about the riverboat accident."

  "Why did you have to lie and say you were a relative of the burn victims? Why not say you worked for a doctor?"

  "Relatives get there first. Officials release victims only to relatives. I know it was a little dishonest, but we're concerned with helping the victims. Your uncle is doing research on burns. He's made progress."

  "You have an answer for everything," I said. "It's so provoking."

  "I'm sorry, Emily, if the answers I give you don't fit in with what you want to think of us. You're of an age where you have a lively imagination. We're not doing anything dramatic or exciting here. Our work consists of long, tedious hours, a lot of failures, and a few slow gains. I'm sorry to disappoint you."

  "I'm a lot older than fourteen. Don't treat me like a child."

  "I'm sorry," he said.

  "And what about Marietta? Why did she have to go? Oh yes, I forgot. She's sharp and smart. She has a level head. And she's not given to silly feminine hysteria or scruples."

  "You're jealous of Marietta," he teased. "That means you like me." Then he got serious. "Her not having silly feminine scruples makes it a lot easier, I admit. But I much prefer you, if you must know."

  Something was stuck in my throat. My heart. Oh, it wasn't fair, him doing this now. I closed my eyes and clung for dear life onto the cat. But there was one more thing I had to know.

  "What about Maude? And the way she's always going to the funerals of people who are impoverished or without family?"

  "I can see where that might bother you, given what you've been thinking of us. But what can I say? Maude is just Maude. Have you ever known another like her?"

  I had to agree that I hadn't.

  He reached out and touched the side of my face. "You've got yourself tied all in knots. I know you haven't had an easy time of it in life. And all this business with the Surratts has likely made you mistrust everybody. And then from what your uncle tells me, your mother made you suspicious of him even before you came here. Isn't that right?"

  "Yes."

  "She was jealous of him, Emily. Your mama was an unhappy woman. Look at the things she said about your father. Do you believe them?"

  I lowered my eyes. "Would you march into hell for Uncle Valentine?"

  "Yes."

  "Why?"

  "Because I'm honored to be able to work for him. It's the chance of a lifetime."

  He had the answers. All of them. I had nowhere else to go.

  "I can't make you trust me, Emily," he said finally. "But I'm glad I'm the one you took your anger out on and not your uncle. He's a good man. He loves you. I don't want to see him hurt. If you have any more questions or doubts, come to me, will you?"

  "I have one more question. If I were to ask you to take me to my uncle's lab at the college now, right now, are you telling me I'd find no burn victims there?"

  "That's what I'm telling you," he said.

  We faced each other. He smiled. "You want to go to the lab right now? There are not only no dead burn victims there, there are no dead bodies. We're winding up the spring semester and they've all been properly buried. You'd be disappointed. Well? Do you want to go?"

  I felt so tawdry, so small. So full of silly feminine scruples. He'd just come home from a long trip with a cat under his arms for me. He was doing important work with Uncle Valentine. And I was acting like a spoiled child. "I don't want to go," I said. "I believe you."

  "Good. Because there's someplace else I'd like to take you."

  "Where?"

  "To Gautier's. For some ice cream. What do you say?" I said yes.

  19. Walls Do a Prison Make

  I WENT EVERYWHERE with Robert. When he had the time to take me.

  We went to ball games on the old Potomac grounds, to hear the Marine band play on the White House lawn, to a hop at Willard's. For the first time in my life, I felt young and pretty.

  Uncle Valentine insisted I have some new dresses made. I laughed. "I could make them myself," I told him. But he insisted I go to a dressmaker. I did, a woman recommended by Mrs. McQuade. It turned out the woman knew Elizabeth Keckley.

  "What happened to Mrs. Keckley?" I asked.

  "Happened?" She was kneeling, pinning a hem on a blue dimity. "She's still in the White House with Mrs. Lincoln."

  "Mrs. Lincoln is still in the White House?"

  "President Johnson has let her stay until she can gather herself together. Word is, she is half-crazy packing. But she never finishes. Her son Robert is yelling at her that they can't stay forever, they have to get out. Elizabeth won't leave her side."

  How terrible, I thought, walking home. Mrs. Lincoln was sure working hard at her grief. But she wasn't getting on with her life, as she'd told Maude we have to do. I was glad I'd stayed in school and didn't take the job with Mrs. Keckley. I was even glad I'd come to live with Uncle Valentine.

  I was happy for the first time in my life. It was a beautiful spring in Washington, the war was over, the city was in a fever pitch of excitement about the upcoming Grand Review. I had a new cat, who'd taken immediately to me. I was at peace with myself. And with Uncle Valentine and Robert. I had the attentions of Robert, a handsome young medical student. So why then did I have this nagging little feeling that something might go wrong?

  Because I did not trust happiness. You had to be a fool to do that. I'd never been a fool, and I was not about to start now.

  ***

  On May 15 Robert and I met Annie outside the Arsenal Building at the foot of Four and a Half Street. The eight accused in the Lincoln assassination were to plead this day. Lawyers were taking testimony.

  It was a day of bright blue, green, and gold, shot through with the white and pink of tree blossoms. We waited outside the gates for Annie.

  When she came out the side door, her feet dragged. Her dress was gray with black trim, her hair bound back in a severe twist. There were dark circles under her eyes. She smiled wanly and came through the gate.

  "How did it go?" I asked her.

  "Mama pled not-guilty. They all did, even your uncle's friend Dr. Mudd."

  She showed us a paper with the charges. It said her mother had received, entertain
ed, harbored, and concealed John Wilkes Booth, David E. Herold, Lewis Payne, who also called himself Powell, John H. Surratt, Michael O'Laughlin, George A. Atzerodt, and Samuel Arnold, with intent to aid, abet, and assist them in the execution of the president of the United States.

  The paper looked awful, with all of it written out there in legal language. And the names of people I knew connected with it. Annie's hand shook as she held it.

  "Worse, my mother has one of her migraines." She looked at Robert. Then the black bag he held in his hand. "Why have you brought that with you?"

  "For you. In case you are in need of anything," he told her.

  "You're not a doctor yet."

  "I will be, soon. And I've accompanied Dr. Bransby on house calls enough to be able to administer if someone is in need."

  "Do you have anything in there for migraines?" Annie asked. "And have you ever made a prison call?"

  It took Robert only a heartbeat to say yes, he'd do it.

  What surprised me most as we went through the underground corridor of Carroll Prison was the sound of water running. It ran down the stone walls in a constant trickle. Underfoot, everything was wet. I could have sworn I felt something scurrying on the floor beside me. I lifted my skirts.

  Within ten minutes I'd forgotten the blue, green, and gold day outside. Here it was winter-cold, dim, and bleak, even with candles in sconces on the walls. Ahead of us the jailer shuffled, his shadow thrown against the wall. So this was a prison, then, not the tower of my fairy tales.

  "Suppose it's all right to let you see her. But I should check with my boss," he said.

  "Has a doctor been in yet to see her?" Robert asked.

  "Prison doctor sees 'em all, regularlike."

  "He hasn't helped my mother," Annie told the jailer.

  "Don't know as anything could." The man's rough clothing and manner made him seem surly. But he could have turned us away at the door and hadn't.