Beloved Scoundrel

by Clarissa Ross

  The big man bit on his cigar. “At any rate he is lost to the company. Have you any suggestions?”

  Fanny nodded. “Yes. A British actor came to see me the other evening. Eric Mason by name, he played in companies with my husband. And he seems to have had excellent experience. I told him to call on you.”

  Barnum said, “Yes. I wasn’t able to see him but he left his card. Do you think he could lead the company with you?”

  “Yes,” she said. “He probably isn’t as talented as either David or John Wilkes Booth, but I think he might build his own following.”

  “We haven’t much choice,” Barnum said. “We can give him a try.”

  “I think we should begin to work out a new repertoire of plays,” she went on. “Then the new man would not find himself being compared with John.”

  Barnum looked a little brighter. “Excellent idea,” he said. “I’ll leave the selection of the plays up to you. You naturally ought to pick out those with good parts for the leading lady.”

  “Of course,” she said.

  “Did you know that Edwin Booth is coming to New York for a season?” he went on. “He has leased the Winter Garden and is going to do all his popular roles.”

  Fanny said, “Then perhaps it is just as well John didn’t remain. There has always been jealousy on his part and he would be bound to be temperamental with his more noted brother playing in a theatre near him.”

  “No doubt,” Barnum said dryly. “He has relieved us of any worry on that score. I shall get in touch with this Mason at once.”

  “I only hope he hasn’t accepted some other engagement,” she said as she saw the imposing Barnum to the door.

  At the door he halted and looking directly at her, asked, “You want me to keep silent about John’s intended mission.”

  “I beg you to do so,” she pleaded. “I told you only to be completely honest with you. I’m sure the plot will go awry.”

  “I agree,” Barnum said with a frown . “ But I regret that you confided in me. The burden of the knowledge will trouble me.”

  She went on, “The President is far too carefully guarded for anything of that sort to be able to happen. John will never be able to carry out his plan.”

  “True,” Barnum said with a sigh, sounding at least half convinced.

  It was a sad night for Fanny. Once the necessity of preserving a brave front was at an end she wished to throw herself on the cot in her dressing room and sob out her concern. Gloria hovered nervously nearby making her minute tasks great ones so she might remain with her. At last Fanny exhausted her sorrow and slowly dressed for the winter night.

  At the hotel the suite of rooms was distinctly empty without the presence of the handsome, dark, young actor. Even though he had spent a lot of time off on his ill-chosen adventures, he had filled the place with life when he was around. She sank into the chair before the fireplace where she had so often sat with him and the drenching melancholy swept over her once more.

  She stared anxiously into the multi-colored flames and thought of the time when she had first arrived in America. She had suddenly been assailed by a feeling of depression then, and not long after David had been killed in the train accident. She now feared that she would never see John Wilkes Booth alive again. She tried to suppress the thought but it was troubling her in a very real fashion.

  That night her dreams were tormented and John played a large part in them. She went over many moments they had shared together and in a painfully real nightmare which finally brought her awake in the morning, she was standing with Booth on stage playing a familiar scene from Richelieu when great darkness descended on the stage and he was lost to her! She sought him vainly and cried out his name, then came awake.

  She ordered breakfast and the morning newspapers. In all of them there were different versions of the story of John’s disappearance and the substitution of his understudy at the last moment. One paper snidely suggested he had vanished because he did not wish to appear on the New York stage at the same time as his more famous brother, Edwin.

  Another story, more malicious in tone, was equally upsetting. In this account the weakness of the understudy was made much of. And the writer pointed out it was known that Mr. Booth and his leading lady were close friends and there had been many rumors of their marriage. He suggested that perhaps it was the quarrel of two lovers which had left the stage of the Lyceum empty of its male star on the previous night!

  She tossed the papers aside with disgust and tried to make herself eat some breakfast. But the truth was she was more lonely and broken by the absence of John Wilkes Booth that she had imagined she ever could be. She remained in her hotel room in seclusion for the morning. At noon she received a message from Barnum, typically terse and informative, “Have hired Mason. Sending him to you.”

  The somewhat austere young Englishman presented himself at her suite early in the afternoon. He looked even more shabby and emaciated in the bright, afternoon sunshine and she could not help but feel sorry for him. Yet he conducted himself with a great deal of dignity and his ascetic nature did not allow him to show any excitement or more than polite gratitude for this great opportunity which had some his way.

  He stood by the fireplace, his hands behind his back, and said, “I appreciate that you brought me to Mr. Barnum’s attention. And Mr. Booth leaving the company has been a lucky event as far as I’m concerned.”

  Fanny smiled ruefully. “Not for the rest of us,” she said. “I’m on my way to the theatre now to join the company for a rehearsal. Are you up in ‘Shylock?’ We are doing the Merchant tonight.”

  “One of my better roles,” Eric Mason said at once. “I’m not too good at the more romantic parts but I can manage character leads well. I played ‘Shylock’ to Henry Broadbibb’s ‘Bassanio.’ And you know he is now a star in London under the name of Henry Irving.”

  “Of course,” she said. “I have a friend in his company. A veteran character actress.”

  “I shall need a costume fitting and a run through and I’ll be ready,” Eric Mason assured her.

  She rose. “We will set about that now. And we shall have all the advertisements and heralds changed to your name. I plan to introduce some new plays. To give you a chance to create favorite roles for your New Year introduction as a leading man.”

  This pleased him. “You are most kind, Mrs. Cornish. Until we have the new plays ready we can safely stay with the usual classics. I’m familiar with most of them.”

  So began her association with Eric Mason. In the midst of all the confusion the young man remained quite calm and self-assured. She could only conclude that a kindly fate had sent him to her.

  Though he was too reserved to ever be as fine an emotional actor as John Wilkes Booth he gave excellent performances within a more narrow range.

  Phineas T. Barnum made a judgment on him after seeing him in several roles, saying, “He will not set the world on fire with his talent. Yet talent he has in plenty! And I vow that for the next twenty or thirty years he’ll be a sought after leading man by every female star in the business. He supports you in excellent fashion, Fanny, without taking any honors from you!”

  She felt the great showman had truly summed up Eric Mason. And it pleased her that as soon as the young man received his first money he at once bought new clothes and shoes. He had been literally on his uppers when he’d been rescued by the unexpected disappearance of John Wilkes Booth.

  Several weeks passed before she heard from him. In a letter postmarked Washington, he wrote her, “Our plans have had a setback. But this is only temporary. I see many of the theatre people here and sometimes drop in at Ford’s or some other playhouse and talk with old friends. Most of all I miss you, my darling! And when this business has been taken care of I shall return to you for all time, your loving, John.”

  Fanny was both relieved and troubled by the letter. She was relieved to know that the handsome actor whom she cared for so much was alive and well and troubled to le
arn that he still had intentions of carrying through with his mad plot against the President. Barnum was also worried about this and had mentioned it to her several times. Each time she had been able to placate him by insisting the scheme was mostly a figment of the imagination of the fanatical Booth!

  She had picked out Dot, an adaptation of Charles Dickens’ Cricket On The Hearth, as one of the new plays, The Country Wife by Wycherly as another, both giving her the main star roles. Then unexpectedly she received the script of another play which turned out to be her greatest success, it was a farce comedy called, The Maid and The Miser. The story of a clever girl who marries a miser and changes his nature. It was the first play of the blind actor, Tom Miller.

  Nancy mailed it to her from Washington with an enclosed letter in which she said, “Tom hopes you will like the play. It has been read by a local manager who wanted to do it but we felt you should have first choice. Tom is now working on a second play and life in the city is much the same as when you left it. The war news, is better, of course. We hope the end may soon come. I’m sorry you and John are parted. I saw him on the street one day and I’m sure he saw me. But he behaved most strangely, instead of coming to greet me, he turned and almost ran off in the opposite direction.”

  This news did not surprise Fanny. If John were involved in some sort of underground work it was natural he did not wish to be seen by close friends. He had mentioned dropping by the various theatres but she presumed this was in the most casual way and maybe not even true.

  The important thing at this moment was Tom Miller’s play. The moment she read it she was delighted with it. And she at once informed the brave young playwright that she would open the play in New York and pay him a royalty per performance in line with the terms paid the most popular dramatists. Tom and Nancy accepted her offer at once and were thrilled at the idea of the play being produced by her.

  Fanny intended to have the two come to New York for opening night. But before this she received an urgent letter from Edwin Booth who was still playing a season at the nearby Winter Garden Theatre.

  He wrote, “My dear Fanny, I have a matter I would discuss with you. Can you join me at Delmonico’s for a private supper after the performance tomorrow night, Yours sincerely, Edwin B.”

  She replied that she would meet him. The weather had taken a change and the snow and slush was gone. Now a doleful period of spring rain had come to New York. After the performance she had the stage manager get her a carriage and she went directly to Delmonico’s. She was greeted by the owner and informed her Edwin Booth was waiting for her in one of the upstairs private dining rooms.

  This made her think that whatever he had to discuss was of some serious nature. She thought it might be because some of the yellow press had linked John and herself as lovers and he wanted to spare her any embarrassment. When she entered the private dining room the slender, smaller brother of John greeted her with a handshake and a melancholy smile.

  His eyes seemed more sunken than she remembered them and his complexion to have a nasty pallor. His dark curly hair fell to his collar framing the sensitive, handsome face which reminded her of John.

  He said, “It was good of you to come, Fanny.”

  “I have been waiting to talk with you,” she said.

  He led her to the candle-lit table which was set for their midnight supper. From a bucket he lifted a champagne bottle and poured out drinks for them. They sat at the table and faced each other in the soft glow of the candles.

  Booth said, “Have you heard from Johnny?”

  “One letter.”

  “When?”

  “Several weeks ago.”

  Edwin Booth nodded. “Did he tell you anything of import?”

  “Only that he was well. That he was involved in some kind of business for the Confederacy.” She looked down. “And that he loved me.”

  “I’m certain that he does,” Edwin said in his sympathetic way. “My poor, foolish brother would have done well to remain in New York and marry you.”

  “It is this obsession he has about the South,” she said.

  “I know all too well,” the great actor said wearily.

  He rose and began to pace by the table. “Yesterday morning I received a letter from my mother and I determined at once to get in touch with you. Johnny wrote her that his plan to kidnap Lincoln had gone awry.”

  “He mentioned something of the sort in my letter.”

  Edwin glanced at her, “My mother claims his mood is now one of despair. Indeed, she thinks he is on the verge of madness. He still refuses to accept that the South must be defeated.”

  Fanny said, “Surely events must make it clear!”

  “For anyone in a normal state of mind,” Edwin said. “A besieged Petersburg cannot hold out much longer. The Confederate Army is being beaten to its knees. There is hope in the air, and most feel that the war will end before summer.”

  “I pray that it does,” she said.

  “And I,” Booth agreed. “I’m leaving New York in another week to Boston to appear in the Boston Theatre. My little girl, Edwina, will not be able to go with me, she is not at all well. I do not dare to take any risks after losing her mother to a chest condition.”

  “I understand,” she said.

  “The child will remain here in New York,” the great actor went on. “I find it depressing to return to Boston. My dear wife is buried in Dorchester, you know. I cannot bring myself to visit her grave as yet. Perhaps one day, but not yet.”

  Fanny said, “I had heard rumors you are to marry again.”

  “It is true,” Edwin said. “A young lady native to the city of Philadelphia. I feel she may make an ideal mother for my poor Edwina.”

  “I’m sure it is a wise move,” Fanny said.

  Booth sat down again and eyed her worriedly. “I suppose we are not doing enough. One of us should go to Washington and try and reason with him.”

  “He would not listen.”

  “True,” the great dramatic star sighed . “He never has in the past.”

  Fanny suggested, “We can only hope that with the war ending we can breathe a little easier. Once peace has come he cannot carry on with his absurd plans.”

  Edwin eyed her with a dubious glance. “You do not know my brother as I do,” he told her.

  They said little more about the absent John through the rest of the excellent dinner. But she could tell that Edwin was badly worried about his brother. He had a carriage come for them and saw her to the entrance of her hotel.

  Removing his wide-brimmed black hat, he took her hand and kissed it, as he told her, “It is my great hope that Johnny comes to his senses and returns to you.”

  “I hope so as well,” she said gently.

  It was not a week later that she was summoned to the office of Phineas T. Barnum to find him closeted with a tall, dignified man with long dark sideburns and a mustache. She sensed something official in his manner and she was right.

  Barnum rose and introduced her, saying, “Mrs. Cornish, I’d like you to meet Colonel Seton of the Secret Service Division of the Union Army.”

  She bowed and the tall, imperious man returned her bow, and said, “Most kind of you to come here, Mrs. Cornish.”

  Seating herself, she forced an outward calm which she did not feel. Glancing from Barnum to the other man, she said, “I’m at your service. But I don’t imagine how I can be of any help.”

  Colonel Seton glanced at Barnum and then cleared his throat. He said, “I will be blunt, Mrs. Cornish. I have considered arresting you. But I consulted Mr. Barnum first and he assures me, that despite of your close relationship with John Wilkes Booth, you are a true patriot of the Union.”

  Somewhat taken back by his words, she said carefully, “That is so. I have appeared only in the Northern United States. As a visitor from England I have tried to avoid politics, but my feelings must be on the side of those who are my friends.”

  Colonel Seton’s face was stony. “It was not so
with Mr. Booth.”

  “We did not try to influence each other politically,” she said tautly. “Ours was an artistic and personal association.”

  “Have you heard from him lately?” the Colonel asked.

  “No,” she said.

  The Colonel’s glance was not friendly and his tone was harsh. “So you do not know that his plan to take Lincoln as a hostage has failed miserably?”

  “I heard nothing of it,” she said.

  “Surely he boasted to you of his scheme before he left New York,” the secret service man said bitterly.

  She felt there was no further point in evasion. So she said, “Yes. He did speak of it. I considered it too fantastic to be credible.”

  Barnum now spoke up, “That is so, Seton. Fanny also told me and I dismissed it as nonsense by the same token.”