“How did you learn his real name?” I asked.
“He turned out to be an industrious fellow. Succeeded very quickly in business and ended up quite a landowner. While I was employed as a surveyor in New Salem, I was called upon to attest to a few of his land purchases, and he signed them under his real name, ‘John McNamar.’ As these records reflect.” Lincoln waved at Early’s notes.
“This is all before I’d ever met Ann. Then one day McNeil rode off to New York to relieve his family of their embarrassments. He was gone a year when I first made Ann’s acquaintance, and gone two—with no word whatsoever sent back to his intended—when she and I first discussed marriage ourselves. All I knew was that she’d had an alliance with a fellow named John McNeil, who had disappeared without a trace. She insisted we wait with our arrangement until she could tell him of her change of heart. But the fever stole upon her before she could.” Lincoln looked down at the floorboards.
“Did you ever see McNamar again?”
“He returned to New Salem with his parents that fall, not long after she succumbed. It was only then I realized her McNeil was one and the same as my McNamar. I wasn’t happy to see him, nor he, when he learned what had transpired in his absence, to see me.”
“What did he do?”
“What could either of us do? She was gone.” His face was pale.
“When was the last time you spoke with Mr. McNamar?” asked Martha quietly.
Lincoln shook his head. “Sometime before I moved here from New Salem. Likely more than two years ago. I haven’t been back to New Salem once since I moved away. Not even for politicking.”
“I didn’t know that,” I said, turning to him with surprise. “Why not?”
There was a faraway look in Lincoln’s eyes. “Sometimes the past,” he said, “is best left in the past.”
CHAPTER 18
As we were dressing the next morning, Lincoln asked if I would accompany him and Miss Margaret Owens on an evening walk to Watson Grove, a stand of white birch that stood just outside of town.
“Surely you need me as much as a cart does a third wheel,” I protested.
Lincoln shook his head. “I know the two of you didn’t get much of a chance to visit at the Edwardses’ party, and I’d like you to know her better. Truly, I think her a substantial woman, but I’d value your honest opinion of the matter.”
“In that case, there’s only one answer. I assent.”
Twilight had begun to nestle in when Lincoln rapped on the window of my store. By the time I had finished closing up and headed outside, Lincoln and Miss Owens were talking with great engagement. I greeted Miss Owens with a bow. Though her emerald evening coat was unadorned, I could tell at once it had been stitched from expensive French cloth.
“Thank you for permitting me to join your stroll,” I said as I fell into step with them.
“We’ve been discussing the opening of the play King Richard the Third,” said Lincoln. “I wonder if you have an opinion, Speed, of how Gloucester should mount the stage.”
Adopting a triumphant tone, I recited, waving my arms with a grand flourish: “‘Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious summer by this sun of York.’”
Lincoln and Miss Owens looked at each other and burst into laughter.
“Have you invited me along only to mock my line readings of Shakespeare?” I asked, not bothering to cover my irritation.
“I assure you it wasn’t our intent,” said Lincoln, “but you’ve demonstrated precisely how those lines shouldn’t be read. Think of it, Speed. Richard appears on stage just after the crowning of Edward. He is burning with repressed hate and jealousy.”
“He’s already plotting the destruction of his brothers to make way for himself,” added Miss Owens.
“Exactly!” said Lincoln. “He can barely contain his impatience at the remaining obstacles to his own ascension. His prologue must be pronounced with the most intense bitterness and satire.”
Lincoln stopped in the middle of the street. He raised his forearm in front of his face, hunched over his back, and assumed the character. He recited the first dozen lines of the famous soliloquy, rendering it with a force and power that made it seem like a new creation to me.
When he finished, Miss Owens smiled broadly—I noticed how beautiful and even her teeth were—and clapped her gloved hands together. “I think you have it perfectly, Mr. Lincoln,” she exclaimed. “It’s precisely that bitterness that leads Richard to imprison his brother in the Tower and then send the two murderers to stab him.”
We were a few blocks away from the town square by now, and the darkening streets were alive with other groups of walkers conversing in quiet tones. Some were other sets of three, like ours, but most consisted of one man and one woman. Evening strolls were the principal way in which the young men and women of Springfield visited. And, not incidentally, courted.
Here and there we passed houses with a single candle alight in a first-floor window. The burning candle signified the presence of a young woman available to be escorted around town. In fact, the frontier town on the edge of the prairie was characterized by a sharp overbalance of unmarried men as compared to the number of unmarried women. Especially on fine summer evenings such as tonight, the women of Springfield did their best to address this disproportion by hurrying home at the conclusion of one walk and relighting their candles in order to accommodate an additional male walker. For their part, as-yet-unaccompanied men tended to hover around homes of eligible women, trying not to appear overeager while waiting to pounce upon the first flicker of a newly lit flame.
As it happened, we were approaching Miss Butler’s home. As we rounded the corner I looked expectantly. But the front window was dark.
“Speaking of King Richard,” Lincoln was saying, “makes me recollect the situation in my prior home of New Salem. This is back in ’31 or perhaps ’32, shortly after I left my father’s house and moved there to begin my own life in earnest. There were not many books in the region at the time. I had a copy of Shakespeare that I kept locked in a trunk along with my other prized possessions, including several packs of cards.
“One night, I came back to my room and realized my trunk had been broken into. Frantically, I took inventory. To my relief, Shakespeare was not disturbed, and I have him to this day. But the cards”—Lincoln paused for dramatic effect—“the cards had been stolen.” He grinned at us and added, “You can infer which was the more popular.”
Both Miss Owens and I laughed out loud. Turning to the woman, I said, “Where did you take your education, Miss Owens? I recall you are Kentucky born and bred, as am I.”
“In Beardstown, at—”
“Don’t tell me you studied with the Sisters of Nazareth?” I interjected. She nodded. “I learned at Bishop Reynolds’s hand at St. Joe’s, or through his rod, more precisely.”
“You did not!” she exclaimed, her eyes flashing. “What a funny coincidence.” To Lincoln, she explained, “They’re twinned academies, Nazareth and St. Joseph’s College, where Mr. Speed did his studies. Buildings at either end of the same grounds. All the girls I knew growing up went to Nazareth, and all the boys to St. Joseph’s.”
“I knew plenty of girls and boys who went to neither,” said Lincoln, unable to keep an edge out of his voice. “Nor to any organized schoolhouse at all, for that matter.”
The three of us were silent, and the hard dirt under my boots crunched with a sound hollow and desiccated.
“Of course you did,” I said, trying to prevent Miss Owens from feeling any embarrassment. “As did each of us, in truth. I believe Miss Owens only meant to observe that, from a certain element of Kentucky society, those parents seeking a true English education sent their offspring to the Beardstown academies.”
Lincoln looked only somewhat mollified. Despite his substantial accomplishments in recent years, his impoverished childhood still niggled at him. The old resentments had reared themselves with the arrival in town of his father and ste
pbrother.
“You yourself are proof positive, Mr. Lincoln,” said Miss Owens, “that graduates of the academies don’t have a monopoly on Shakespeare or the other arts.” She made no further apology. Turning back to me, she added, “What year did you matriculate? I doubt our periods of residence coincided. I venture I had a substantial head start on you.”
“Perhaps a year or two,” I said with a casual wave of my hand. Having observed her up close during the walk, I had realized Miss Owens was much older than I’d previously thought, a few years on the far side of thirty, even. “But as it happens, I didn’t graduate. I attended from ’28 to ’30, then left, never to return.”
“Why not?”
I found myself liking Miss Owens’s boldness. “Grave illness, at first. I was brought home to Louisville to die in my own bedroom.” She gave a little gasp and covered her mouth. “And then, when I cheated death, I felt—you’ll pardon me for being so direct, I hope—I felt there were greater things out there for me than St. Joseph’s Academy.”
The lady had opened her mouth to reply when the sound of a loud crack made all of us jump.
“What was that?” I exclaimed. Miss Owens wrapped her hands around Lincoln’s arm.
The noise seemed to have come from behind a row of bushes that paralleled our path. I took several steps toward the bushes and peered into the dark, but I couldn’t see anything.
“Probably just the wind,” said Lincoln, shooting a quick glance at me before giving Miss Owens a reassuring pat on the arm. For another minute we stood there, in silence, waiting and listening. A cool breeze blew through. But there were no other sounds.
“Probably just the wind,” I repeated. We started walking again. Gradually, my heart stopped racing. The quarter moon made its appearance, providing some light.
We came upon a flowering bottlebrush buckeye plant, and Miss Owens stopped to admire it. I thought the cones of small white blossoms set into the towering dark bush looked like clusters of steeples on a mountaintop, and I remarked on the similarity to my companions.
“The path to heaven,” murmured Miss Owens.
“What?”
“It’s something Preacher Crews often says at the camp meeting. The path to heaven leads equally up the side of the mountain and down into the depths of the valley. Whether you’re going up or down, you can be on the road to salvation as long as you proceed with purpose.” She turned to Lincoln and added, “I wish you’d come with me sometime.”
Lincoln straightened his shoulders stiffly. “I’ve told you before,” he said, a little harshly, “I doubt my views on the subject and this preacher of yours would mix easily. It seems to me more likely that all men and women will be saved than that there’s an omniscient God somewhere—omniscient and extremely busy—making judgments one by one.”
“He’s not my preacher; he’s there for all of us. Many have been saved by him already this season.” The lady turned to me. “What about you, Mr. Speed? Have you had occasion to attend the camp meeting?”
“I was present last weekend, with my sister. In candor, I’m not sure I’ll return. I fear my views regarding salvation are closer to Lincoln’s than to yours.” I put my arm around Lincoln’s shoulders and added, “Perhaps the two of us will have the opportunity to discuss our error together someday in Hell.”
Lincoln laughed heartily. Miss Owens frowned and looked as if she had more to say on the topic, but with a quick shake of her head she kept her tongue.
We resumed our stroll and I searched for a neutral topic. “What brought you to Springfield, Miss Owens?” I asked.
“My brother suggested it. He thought the change of scenery might benefit my health, and it has. I believe you know Henry?”
“Your brother’s a fine man,” I said. “I saw him talking to Mr. Early at the Edwardses’ party, as a matter of fact.” Lincoln shot me a warning glance, which I ignored. “Did your brother know the registrar well?”
“He was an occasional customer at the apothecary, and of course Henry had business at the land office. Mr. Early had been over for supper at our house once or twice. Both Henry and I were devastated by what happened.”
“Were there any disputes in the business dealings between your brother and Early?”
“I certainly don’t know of any,” replied Miss Owens, a small frown forming on her lips.
“Did you—”
“Now, Speed, you must give Miss Owens a rest,” broke in Lincoln. “She signed up for a stroll, not an interrogation. Leave the interrogating to me.” He added a pointed glance to underscore his seriousness.
“Yes, of course. I didn’t mean to cause offense. Like everyone else in town, I merely hope we get to the bottom of who committed the murder. But I’m sure you will, Lincoln.” I patted his shoulder and left it at that.
Ten minutes later we reached our destination. The grove of birch trees stood in a vale through which a small stream, a tributary of the Sangamon River, cut. Stray moonbeams filtered through the trees and provided a dim light. There were a few sizable boulders bordering the stream, and I leaned against one of these while Lincoln helped Miss Owens settle herself beside its neighbor. We watched the stream gurgle past, making eddies around squat stones that stuck up from the streambed. The shadows cast by the tree canopy danced back and forth in the evening breeze.
In repose, my thoughts turned to my departed little sister Ann. The stream in front of us reminded me of the one cutting through Farmington, along which Ann and I had played on many afternoons. I could almost smell the aromatic mint and pungent cress that grew on the steep banks of our stream back home. I thought about the time I’d dreamed of Ann after her funeral, and I reached over and ran my fingertips along my mourning band.
“Lincoln…” I began.
“Hmm?” The man had his eyes closed and was reclining in peace.
“In King Richard the Third, when the shades of dead men appear to Gloucester on the night before the final battle, do you suppose we’re to think they are actual ghosts, or merely figments of his dreams?”
“They must be actual, tangible ghosts, mustn’t they?” said Miss Owens. Both Lincoln and I turned to her. “Think of it,” she continued. “They are seen that same night by the Earl of Richmond, Gloucester’s opponent in the battle to come, and foretell Richmond’s victory. ‘Live and flourish’ and all that. They can hardly appear to Richmond if they exist only in Gloucester’s dreams.”
“That’s an excellent—”
Crack! This time the sound was much closer and much louder. There was a thud close behind, and a section of a tree trunk along the riverbank opposite us exploded into splinters. Someone’s shooting at the tree, I thought, but I immediately corrected myself. Someone’s shooting at us.
Without thinking, I raced in the direction of the shot, scrambling up the edge of the shallow ravine and into the dark forest. Inside the thicket, away from the river, there was near total darkness. I stopped and listened: for the sound of footsteps, a man breathing, anything. But it was silent and the only breathing I heard was my own. I struck a match from my pocket and held it up. There was nothing to see—and then a sudden breeze blew out the flame. I swore and lit another one, cupping it with my hand this time.
I advanced slowly through the forest, weaving around the graceful, slender trunks of the birch trees. I stopped and listened. Again, nothing. I headed in the direction I thought the shot might have come from, treading silently over the springy grass carpeting the floor of the grove. But I heard no new sounds and saw nothing. I lit a new match and walked in one last arc, peering intently through the dark woods. Suddenly, I tripped and was sent sprawling to the ground.
“Hello?” I called out.
No one answered back.
Lighting a new match and looking around, I saw a rotting stump behind me—evidently the culprit in bringing me to my knees. I was rising to my feet again when I spotted something lying on top of the stump. I went over and picked up the object and saw, in the shifting ligh
t of my flame, a single, right-handed woman’s kidskin glove: ready-made, medium size, with a lace ribbon threaded around the wrist. On the back of the hand there was an ink drawing of a man and woman courting. I had a number of models of ready-made gloves in my own inventory, but none so fine or elaborately decorated. The glove was worn but in good condition; it couldn’t have been lying in the woods for long.
I made my way back toward the boulders by the stream. Before long, I could hear the voices of Lincoln and Miss Owens. On impulse, I slid the glove into my pocket as I approached them.
“Is that you, Mr. Speed?” came Miss Owens’s voice as I walked through the final layer of trees.
“It is. I didn’t catch them.”
As I came out into the clearing beside them, I saw Miss Owens had a small muff pistol in her hand, her index finger resting not far from the trigger. I nodded toward the firearm approvingly.
“My brother taught me how to fire the first month I moved to Springfield,” she said. “Told me any woman living on the frontier needed to be able to handle a gun to protect herself.”
“I’m glad he did,” I said, curling my hand around the glove in my pocket. “I couldn’t find anyone. I must have chased them away.” I turned to Lincoln. “Who do you think it could have been?”
Lincoln looked back warily. I could see his hands trembling faintly. “I wish I knew,” he said in a voice that lacked his usual confidence.
CHAPTER 19
The next morning, I was behind the counter of my store when Lincoln’s office boy Milton Hay burst in. Hay, fifteen, slight, and pimple-faced, was even more disheveled than usual.
“Where’s Lincoln?” he shouted before the door had closed behind him.
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