by Roy Lewis
I now understood the reasoning behind Marianne’s proposal. The girl probably bore the surname Hilliard, but was in reality illegitimate. The circumstances of her birth could be concealed in France, but questions would be asked were Marianne to return to England. And, I had no doubt, widowhood could be lonely for a woman like Marianne, and a liaison with someone like Colonel Wheatley could be unsatisfactory socially – particularly if he was already married. Wheatley . . . I wondered whether he really was Blanche-Marie’s father. It would account for his possessiveness . . . and perhaps the girl’s surliness.
‘She would come with us if we went to the United States as man and wife,’ Marianne stated bluntly.
I smiled. ‘I don’t see that as a great encumbrance.’ I had already made up my mind: Garibaldi had been right. ‘So, where do we go from here?’
‘A marriage settlement will be drawn up. It will leave me in control of my inheritance, naturally, but I will be generous towards you. There will be conditions, of course: I cannot be responsible for your existing debts – I believe them to be quite staggering – but will support you in your endeavours to obtain a legal position in accordance with your undoubted talents. Am I to assume that you would be agreeable to these arrangements?’
‘I think we can be of good accord,’ I said, rising.
‘Then you may now kiss me and seal the bargain,’ she announced with a smile.
You look somewhat shocked and do I detect a certain disbelief in your eyes? A woman behaving in such a wayward fashion? Well, it is a remarkable story, but you know it wasn’t all just business, if you know what I mean. There was a practicality behind it, of course, but there was more than that: Marianne and I, we had always had a certain . . . regard for each other. It had flickered into life from time to time but circumstances had prevented the achievement of our desires. Anyway, the situation was quickly resolved. During the next few days, a marriage settlement was drawn up. My brother Henry came over from London to act as witness to the marriage. On July 9th, a Tuesday as I recall, Marianne and I were married at the British Embassy in Paris with the Earl of Cowley’s chaplain officiating. When Henry returned to England, Marianne and I went on to Le Havre while Blanche-Marie remained in the custody of Madame Dupuit.
The honeymoon was spent at Frascati’s Hotel.
And you know, my boy, it was quite a honeymoon. The marriage might have been born of a business arrangement, but I was agreeably surprised by Marianne’s attitude once the matter was settled. We had always felt a mutual physical attraction, as I’ve explained, but now she delighted me by demonstrating a voracious enthusiasm for the act of copulation. Our two-day sojourn at Frascati’s was largely spent in amatory activity. Perhaps it had been some time since she had so disported herself but it seemed she could not discard her clothing often enough and quickly enough to grapple with her new husband between hastily taken meals. Her favourite positions, I quickly learned, were a la chienne and even more often au hussard – possibly the result of Crosier Hilliard’s and even Colonel Wheatley’s cavalry careers. But while accommodating her in these desires, I was also able to introduce her to other more interesting alternatives that I had learned from the likes of Sovrina at Stunning Sam’s, the delectable Ying Po at Ah Min’s opium-odoured establishment in Soho, and the sometimes astounding variables I had been taught by a Balinese dancer who practised her venereal arts in a bordello on the Marseilles waterfront. I’ve forgotten her name. . . . What? You’ve had occasion to meet her yourself, at one of your dockings at that port? Then you know I speak the truth! Ah, the benefits of international travel. . . .
Suffice to say that Marianne responded to all my variables with noisy appreciation. I drew the line at the chandelier trick, however: the decoratively-plastered French ceilings at Frascati’s Hotel did not seem to me to be sufficiently robust to support two middle-aged copulating enthusiasts so we never did get around to that athletic delight. However, I must confess to a certain physical relief when we returned to the more constrained atmosphere of Marianne’s home in Boulogne where Blanche-Marie sullenly awaited our bleary-eyed, aching-limbed return.
We did not stay long.
Marianne dismissed Madame Dupuit and the other servants in her household and at the end of July we set sail for the United States aboard the steamship Fulton. Marianne travelled as Mrs E James; Blanche-Marie as Miss Hilliard. We arrived in New York on August 5th 1861.
The Great Adventure had begun.
PART 3
1
When we arrived in New York the whole country was in a state of turmoil.
The previous April, Confederate forces had opened fire on Fort Sumner and the Civil War had begun. While I was facing my enemies in the Bencher’s Inquiry in London, the battle of Bull Run had just taken place and the ragged, demoralized Union Army was falling back on Washington. So all was chaos and New York was in turmoil with war fever and panic. Union uniforms were everywhere. It was still the case when, a few weeks later, our steamship Fulton edged its way into the narrow channel leading to New York Harbour. From the deck we could make out the spires and steeples of the city beyond the forest of ships’ masts – there were ferryboat sirens, capstans and bells mingling with the hum and buzz of the distant city to welcome us, and we stepped ashore in the sweltering heat of the midday sun. Marianne was as excited as a child; even Blanche managed the occasional smile.
As you can imagine, the next few days passed in a whirl. After taking a suite of rooms at the Albemarle Hotel we made the promenade from the Battery Gardens to Broadway among a swirl of cabs, phaetons, coaches, gigs, and tilburies driven by top-hatted, liveried negro coachmen, and we passed the time of day with ladies sporting silk parasols on the arms of blue-coated Irishmen. The Irish, in fact, seemed to be everywhere – though I was soon to learn that the greater mass of them lived in the slums of the Five Points and Hell’s Kitchen.
I do not flatter myself, Joe, when I declare that my arrival in New York caused no small stir, and the doors of fashionable Fifth Avenue mansions were quickly opened to us. The newspapers had been full of the Sayers-Heenan championship fight the previous year, and my part in the courtroom scenes thereafter and my legal reputation was well known. A leader, laudatory regarding my legal prowess, had appeared in the New York Times within days of our arrival, and polite society welcomed Marianne and me into its arms: invitations to dinner engagements poured in upon us and we were feted everywhere we appeared. Marianne was beside herself with happiness, and showed her enthusiastic gratitude in the privacy of the boudoir while Blanche continued to sulk elsewhere.
A New York lawyer whose acquaintance I had made in London some years earlier presented himself: Charles Spencer offered to introduce me to influential people who might assist in my projected career and took the trouble to explain how I could take advantage of the opportunities America could offer.
I explained it all to Marianne.
‘Spencer observes that practice of the law is the undoubted route to eminence in this country – since the days of George Washington, every president has been a lawyer and almost all the leading politicians of the day, such as Seward, Welles and Stanton, are lawyers! And unlike the system in England I’ll be able to establish a legal partnership immediately. A licence to practise should present no difficulty and Spencer has already sounded out some sponsors – Judge Barnard and Henry Webster – who have agreed to promote my application. I need to study the Constitution, of course, and present my patent as Queen’s Counsel to the Supreme Court, but the whole shooting match seems nothing more than a mere formality.’
‘And what earnings are you likely to achieve?’ Marianne asked, a little too readily for my ease of mind.
‘Spencer reckons I should soon be earning at least $13,000 a year. I will not be forced to rely upon your generosity thereafter, my dear,’ I assured her.
She seemed pleased. I did not of course reveal to her some of the difficulties facing me. Spencer would furnish a certificate regarding my moral chara
cter – of which he really knew very little – but I needed to move quickly. If the Benchers of the Inner Temple were to disbar me soon – and I had no information from England on that score – it could raise problems for me with the New York City Bar Association, though I still held my patent as Queen’s Counsel. Time was short and so I acted with speed.
I learned my enemies were still active in London.
When I applied to practise my profession in New York, a complaint was immediately lodged by one Daniel Lord to the effect that I had been disbarred in England. I could immediately demonstrate that the complainant had got his facts wrong, however; the disbarment had not been publicly announced and no news of the Bencher’s Inquiry had formally reached America, so I called a meeting of the New York City Bar Association at Astor House and put my case in a speech which drew roars of applause every time I mentioned ‘freedom’ or ‘conspiracy’ or ‘aristocratic envy’. My audience loved the attack I made upon ‘vested interests’ and Lord’s complaint was rejected. Accordingly, on 5 November I was formally admitted to the New York City Bar – two days before the Inner Temple Benchers announced that at a ‘parliament’ of members of the Inn, my disbarment was confirmed. The news reached New York the following week, but it came too late.
I was in the clear, albeit by the skin of my teeth. Marianne and I fell into a gay social whirl that continued in spite of the threatening conditions of the war, and the way was prepared for my legal career when I took the rental of an office on Broadway. I was described in the newspapers as an ‘excellent specimen of a hale and hearty Englishman.’ The New York Times observed that I was a fluent and impressive speaker, eminently adroit in my management of criminal cases and without doubt heading for the highest levels of the legal profession. Other newspapers scrambled for my services: the New York Leader won the race, announcing they were to pay me $2,000 for a series of articles for them, to be entitled Leaves from the Notebook of an Eminent QC.
I was invited to call upon Frank Queen, editor of the sporting newspaper the New York Clipper. It was on the Clipper premises that I first met Adah Menken, the sensation of the New York stage. But more of that later.
First, I must tell you of my trip to Washington and my reception there.
We had been but weeks in New York before the invitation arrived from the White House. Marianne was delighted. On our arrival in New York the doors of society immediately opened, and we were quickly lionized by the high and mighty of that city. We were swiftly invited to dinner at Judge Daly’s residence, where we were surprised by the waspish comments of Mrs Daly regarding the president’s spouse: she likened Mary Lincoln to a ‘vulgar, shoddy contractor’s wife’ and described her as a ‘common-looking country body’. It was clear to me that snobbery and prejudice existed in America as well as England, and it was clear that Judge Daly and his wife had no great liking for Abe Lincoln, nor his predilection for ‘indecent’ stories and speeches. But I suspected Mrs Daly was also a little miffed when Marianne let drop the information that we had been invited to the White House, whereas she had not. She was never a lover of the Lincolns, but desired the honour of a presidential invitation.
As for me, I was more than elated to be greeted by the president at his Thursday soirée and as I already mentioned, Marianne was beside herself with happiness. We stayed on in Washington thereafter for a week, meeting people of importance and being welcomed into high society, but the most important invitation as far as I was concerned came from Secretary of State for War, Edwin M. Stanton.
Stanton had been Attorney General under President Buchanan, but it was whispered that while he flattered Buchanan to his face, it was Stanton who had secretly led the attempt to impeach the president. This piece of helpful espionage was followed by his subversion of the position of Secretary of War Cameron by advising him to arm the negroes in the Union Army. Embarrassed, Lincoln had sacked Cameron and appointed Stanton in his place. I was to discover that the new Secretary for War was a brusque, arrogant, insolent, cruel, conniving man and the most unpopular individual in Lincoln’s administration. And he was poisonously unreliable, as I was to learn to my cost.
When I entered the room in the War Department, Stanton made no effort to rise to greet me. He remained seated in a leather armchair, his back to the window, side on to a table on which lay several important-looking documents. Together with the document in his hand, they seemed like stage props to my practised eye.
He was a stocky, balding man, well-bearded, with narrow eyes that glinted suspiciously behind wire-rimmed spectacles. I learned he was always obsequious to those he needed to placate and I felt it was wise to discount his flattery – at which he was a master – for it cloaked a cowardly disposition that could turn to fierce back-stabbing in the furtherance of his designs and political ambitions.
‘Mr James,’ he said, ‘you come to us with an outstanding legal reputation. The president himself speaks highly of you and your accomplishments in England. After meeting you at the White House soirée the other evening, he suggested we might be able to make use of your undoubted talents.’
‘I am flattered, sir.’
He managed an oily smile and laid aside the document in his hand. He waved me to a seat facing him; I perched on the edge of the seat, not knowing what to expect but with the rising hope of preference in my breast.
‘You spoke bravely in your defence of Dr Simon Bernard some years ago with regard to his involvement in the attempted assassination of Napoleon III. And your defence of the runaway negro Anderson was noted here.’ He cocked an eye at me, thoughtfully. ‘You are in favour of the emancipation of the black man, Mr James?’
‘Your Constitution speaks firmly of the equality of man, and I am in accord with that principle,’ I answered evasively
He smiled thinly. ‘The president also speaks of the Constitution – but is averse to the abolition of slavery in the South. As he is, against my advice, to the use of blacks in the army. It will come, of course: the Union Army will inevitably emerge victorious in view of our greater numbers, unlimited resources, and the blockading which will eventually bring the Confederacy to its knees. . . . But such discussions can wait for another day. I am a busy man . . . Mr James, what thoughts do you have for your future here in the States?’
I took a deep breath. Stoutly, I declared, ‘First of all I intend to become an American citizen, now I am free of the shackles of aristocratic prejudice in England. I have taken an office on Broadway in New York and intend entering into a legal partnership. I have considerable experience in bankruptcy and criminal law and I am assured that a glittering future could be open to me.’
‘Quite,’ Stanton observed drily. ‘There are many opportunities for criminal lawyers in the slums of New York’s Five Points.’
I was somewhat stung by his derogatory tone but remained silent. He watched me for a little while, the fingers of his left hand toying with his greying beard. At last he said, ‘A successful lawyer can of course look forward to a judicial position in due course. Would your own aspirations lead in that direction?’
‘It is something I would hope to achieve, having had ten years’ experience in such capacity in England.’
He shrugged diffidently. ‘Things are ordered differently here in America. Judicial appointments are obtained by election, and that can only be achieved by political support. And as for New York politics . . . the city is strongly Democratic in its views while we are a Republican administration.’
I waited.
Stanton reached for a snuffbox, took a pinch and sniffed. I assumed it was snuff: I had heard rumours that he was addicted to cocaine. He stretched his eyes, blinked, and fixed me with a sharp gaze. ‘The president has asked me to talk with you with a view to government service of some kind. I have thought about the matter, and I believe we can obtain advantage in offering you an appointment . . . but perhaps not in the field you envisage. I have looked into your background, Mr James, your support for political assassins, your radical opinions,
your championing of the common man . . . all admirable traits and well regarded in certain quarters.’
I was beginning to become angry. There was a sneering tone in his voice, a contemptuous curl to his lip as he misdescribed the nature of my legal activities in England. But I was curious also: I could not understand his strategy in speaking to me in this manner. So I kept my temper in check, and made no reply.
I thought I detected a sudden doubt in his eyes, an anxiety that he had perhaps gone too far. As I said earlier, Stanton was always a coward. Now, he placed his hand on the table beside him and drummed his fingers thoughtfully on the documents that lay there.
‘The war does not go well with us at the moment, sir, and the president – I speak freely to you – seems indecisive, and does not trust in the ability of his generals. In the prosecution of the war, I must be his backbone, I must push him in the right direction, and I must drive General McClellan into forceful action against Richmond. But as if this were not enough, I have other problems to deal with. Notably, there’s the matter of foreign relations. I need hardly inform you that we understand there is considerable sympathy for the Confederacy in England. And the last thing we would want is for England to enter into an alliance with the Confederacy against the Union.’
I frowned; I still could not see where this was heading, but I deemed it expedient to nod sagely.
He was silent for a little while, stroking his beard. He sighed. ‘I believe you were a confidant of Lord Palmerston. You will no doubt know his views. I also have no doubt loyalty will prevent you from disclosing those views to me.’
I ignored the sarcasm in his tone.
‘But I know you will be aware that relationships between the best of friends can be strained by unexpected events. The president has no wish to offend England. But there is one issue on which I am certain that relationship can be severely damaged.’