by Gore Vidal
Annie put down the newspaper, and turned toward David, who was slumped on his spine in a rocking chair; the black cloth of his trousers, he noticed glumly, was so shiny that the dull February light was reflected in its dark folds. David looked without pleasure at his own short legs; he was too thin, he knew, and he had recently stopped growing; just one inch short of a proper height. Even so, girls liked him. But then why shouldn’t they? He had seven sisters. There was nothing on earth that he did not know about the other sex. If only he had had a brother …
“You’ve got to fix those shoes, David.” Annie made a face. Plainly, the broken shoes were smelly to others.
David hid his feet under the rocker; he seldom bathed between Christmas and Easter. In fact, if it hadn’t been for certain young ladies in Marble Alley, he would never bathe; would smell like the rest of the wild boys—a not unpleasant odor of moist earth mixed with tobacco smoke. “I guess I’ll have to take that job at Thompson’s.”
“Prescription clerk?”
David nodded. He was related to the owner of Thompson’s Drug Store, near the corner of Fifteenth and Pennsylvania Avenue, close by the White House. Over the years, David had done odd jobs for Mr. Thompson. Now, at Mrs. Herold’s insistence, he would be prescription clerk and make what she liked to call “a living wage,” which is what she, and those of the sisters who were not married, each did in order to keep up the Navy Yard house. Mrs. Herold herself presided over a furniture shop.
“It’s about time,” said Annie; and smiled at him. He liked her best of the nice girls he knew; he liked to listen to her play piano; he liked the notion of liking her the best of all. “He’s crazy, to come here.” Annie folded the newspaper as if it were indeed sheet music and placed it behind “Listen to the Mocking Bird,” a Song Especially Written for President Buchanan’s Niece.
“Who?”
“Lincoln. They’ll kill him.”
“Who’ll kill him?” asked Mrs. Surratt, coming in from the back parlor; the tray untouched.
“Everybody, Mother. You know how the wild boys around here go on.”
Mrs. Surratt put down the tray on a round table covered with green velvet where, in frames, the family pictures were ranged around a crucifix and a rosary.
“I’ve heard,” she said, “that there was a plot to kill him in Baltimore. I mean I heard it before today. You know how they talk at the bar in Surrattsville.”
“And drink!” Annie was ungracious. “But Maryland’s going to secede any minute now and so will Virginia and then what on earth will Mr. Lincoln want to be in Washington for? I mean, this is a Southern city and with those two states out of the Union, this is a Southern city spang in the middle of the Confederacy.”
“Over in Richmond they’re saying that our president, Mr. Davis, wants Washington for his capital.” Mrs. Surratt picked up the rosary; idly, she fingered beads. “Isaac says that Mr. Lincoln won’t be inaugurated here …”
“What’ll drive him out?” asked David.
“… or anywhere else on this earth,” Mrs. Surratt finished. Then she whispered a prayer to herself and David looked away, embarrassed as always by any outward sign of strange religion.
Raptly, David stared at the Bleeding Heart of Jesus that hung over the fireplace; and thought of dinner. “I saw some Northern soldier-boys at the depot.” David made his contribution. “They had piled up so many saddles, you couldn’t get to the cars, through the mess.”
“I wish they’d just go and leave us in peace.” Mrs. Surratt looked sad and, to David’s eyes, beautiful. He was, he liked to think, something of a connoisseur of feminine beauty. Ever since he was fourteen, he had had the run of Sal Austin’s parlors, where the most attractive girls in the city could be found. Sal, christened Sarah, was an old friend of his mother’s and though Mrs. Herold was horrified at the extent and nature of Sal’s fall in the world, she was most respectful of her old friend’s great wealth, and when Sal offered to give David work as a handyman at her mansion in Marble Alley midway between Pennsylvania and Missouri avenues, Mrs. Herold saw no harm in it. “Because David is too young to be corrupted.” The sisters thought this very funny; so did David. For a year and a half he had known pleasure of a sort unknown to the wild boys—doubly unknown because he was not foolish enough, even at fourteen, to go out of his way to excite envy. He never said where he worked; made no response whenever a wild boy would talk knowingly of Sal or her rival Julia’s establishment across the Alley.
The girls enjoyed him nearly as much as he enjoyed them; they also made him wash, an unnatural activity that he accepted as a small price to pay for so many carnal privileges. When Sal, finally, got a full-time man to maintain her gilded premises, she said, “Any time you want to pay a call, Davie, you come right along.” And he still did, from time to time. “I think the world of that mother of yours, Davie, I really do! Eight children! I tell you she is a Christian martyr. Because she could have had the life, too. But didn’t. Such a waste!”
Mrs. Surratt would have been mortified, thought David, if she could have known what wickedness was unfolding in his adolescent mind. But Mrs. Surratt was a good woman; and thought only of murder. “I’m certain they will attempt something between now and next week …”
“Who’s ‘they,’ Mother?”
“The seceshers.”
“Like us?” Annie played a bar of “Dixie.”
“Heaven forbid, not like us! But Isaac tells me that every day there are people coming across the Long Bridge, coming from as far away as Richmond, with guns and ammunition.”
“There’s a bunch of the wild boys who drill every day,” said David. “They call themselves the National Volunteers.”
“You think they’d really try to stop the inaugural?” Annie shut the piano; no more “Dixie.”
Mrs. Surratt nodded. “Yes. I think they will try and I think they will succeed.”
“I think so, too,” said David, who had never before seen the wild boys so fired up with hatred of Yankees in general and of Mr. Lincoln in particular.
The three sat a moment in silence, no sound but the dry regular cough of the dying man in the back parlor. Then Mrs. Surratt said, “Isaac’s gone to Richmond, Annie. And I think he’s gone for good.”
“You mean he won’t ever come back?”
“Not until this is a Southern city, if it ever is.”
“But Virginia’s still in the Union, Mother.”
“By April Isaac says Virginia will have gone, too. Along with Maryland.”
“Then there will be war, won’t there, Mother?”
“That depends on Mr. Lincoln,” said Mrs. Surratt. “Or whoever takes his place as the Yankee president.”
“And all because of those crazy preachers in the North who want to free our darkies, who wouldn’t know what to do with themselves if they were free!” Annie jumped to her feet. “Come on, David. Let’s go to Willard’s. I want to get a good look at the devil—before they shoot him.”
Mrs. Surratt made a warning gesture. “Don’t talk like that in front of strangers.”
“Don’t be silly, Mother. I’m not an idiot.”
“We’re an occupied city, for now,” said Mrs. Surratt, crossing herself as she returned the rosary to its place on the crucifix.
THREE
AT ELEVEN o’clock in the morning, Seward and Lincoln—the latter still unrecognized—crossed from Willard’s to the Executive Mansion, known to those few Americans who were not addicted to the prevailing Latinate English of the nation’s orators as the President’s House or just plain White House. The single guard at the gate did not even look at the two soberly dressed statesmen, who proceeded up the iced-over, deep-rutted driveway to the main portico, from whose columns the paint was peeling; the glass of the front windows was streaked with dust.
“Last time I was here it was 1848.” Lincoln looked about with some curiosity.
“Your friend Mr. Polk was in residence then.”
Lincoln nodded. “But ne
ver friendly to me, particularly after I attacked his Mexican War.”
“Ah, the irrepressible speeches of one’s youth!” Seward made a comical face. “You’ll be hearing a lot about that speech of yours before you’re done.”
Lincoln grimaced. “I know. I know. Words are hostages to fortune, they say. The only problem is we never know in advance just what the fortune is.”
At the front door, a short elderly Irish usher stopped them. “State your business, gentlemen. The President is not available. He’s in Cabinet.”
“Tell the President,” said Seward, “that Mr. Abraham Lincoln has come to pay a call.”
The usher turned very red in the face. “By heaven, if it isn’t old Abe himself! Oh, forgive me, Your Excellency …”
“It’s heaven I can’t forgive, for making me old.”
“Well, sir, they call me old Edward, sir. Edward McManus. I’ve been doorkeeper since President Taylor.”
“Then I shall leave the door just as it is, in your good hands.”
Old Edward smiled, revealing few teeth, dark gums. He led them across the musty entrance hall and into the Red Room, just off the foot of the great staircase. “If you’ll wait here, sir, I’ll go fetch the President.”
As the usher hurried upstairs, Lincoln and Seward looked about the Red Room, which was true to its name but shabby withal. Lincoln touched a red damask curtain from which pieces had been hacked.
“Visitors like their souvenirs,” said Seward. “When I was governor of New York, at every reception, I’d have a guard with a gun next to every curtain.”
“Did you get reelected?”
Seward laughed. “I did. In fact—”
But at that moment, President James Buchanan hurried—or flurried, thought Seward—into the room. He was a tall man, with white hair and a twisted neck, which meant that his left cheek seemed always about to rest on his left shoulder. One eye had a squint, which made the old man look as if he were winking slyly at you, as if his words were not be taken seriously.
“Mr. Lincoln! I didn’t expect you until tomorrow! Mr. Seward, too. What an honor for us. Where is my niece?” This was addressed directly to Lincoln, who said, very gravely, “On my honor, I have not misplaced your niece, Mr. President.”
“Of course not. You’ve never met her. Nor have I. That is, nor do I know where she is at the moment. She is looking forward so much to showing Mrs. Lincoln around the Mansion.” A lifelong bachelor, Buchanan was sustained by his niece Harriet Lane, of whom a Washington wit had been heard to say, “There is no power behind the throne, either.”
“We just wanted to pay our respects, sir …” Lincoln began to move toward the door. But Buchanan took his arm, firmly.
“You must meet the Cabinet. We’re having a special meeting. Texas left the Union this morning. We just got the official word …”
They were now in the main hall. Servants—black and white—had begun to appear, to get a glimpse of the new President.
“What answer do you make to the … seceders?” Although Lincoln’s usual word was “rebels,” he used the softer word, because the Democrat Buchanan was close to the Southern wing of his party, as represented by his own Vice-President, John C. Breckinridge.
“You will give us inspiration, let’s hope.” Buchanan bowed to Seward, who could not help but think that this run-of-the-mill Pennsylvanian politician had found his true niche not as President but during the time that he was America’s minister to England.
As the three men moved up the main staircase, Buchanan said, “The house is a good deal smaller than it looks. Actually, we’re quite crowded up here. Our private rooms are at this end while the offices are at the other end and this corridor that connects the two is for me like the river Styx. Each day I pass like a doomed soul through crowds of people, all waiting to be given something for nothing.”
They were now at the top of the stairs, the ominous dark corridor before them. “I was never up here before,” said Lincoln.
“You had no private business with Mr. Polk?” Seward lit a cigar; then, to the President, “Have I your leave?”
“By all means, sir.” Buchanan indicated four large doors to the left and two doors to the right. “Those are the bedrooms. And there is the bathroom. The taps do not work, of course. Nothing really does here.” Buchanan led them down the dusty hall, whose only illumination came from a single large window at the living-quarters end. Midway to the offices, the President showed them a sitting room, which followed the shape of the oval Blue Room below. The room was bleakly furnished, with horsehair sofas and empty bookcases. A number of paintings hung on the walls; but they were so darkened by time and dirt that it was hard to tell who or what they were of. “This is our only private parlor. Even so, the people barge in on you.”
The President then led them down the corridor to a wooden railing with a gate. “This is where Hades begins,” he said, unlatching the gate. Back of the railing was an empty desk and behind the desk, there was a waiting room lined with benches that always put Seward in mind of a small-town railway depot. “This is where the other Edward sits, only he’s not here. I can’t think why. He’s a colored man; and most respectable. He decides who goes into the waiting room. Then here on the left is the secretary’s office, which is quite as large as mine, with a small room just off it, which is where Harriet, my niece, keeps the linen. Would you like to see these offices?”
“No, sir.” Seward could tell that Lincoln was prepared for flight. But Old Buck, as the President was popularly and unpopularly known, was inexorable. “Then the Cabinet meets right here, just off the clerk’s office, as you can see, and inside it connects with the President’s office, which is in the corner there, and slightly larger, thank Heaven.”
Buchanan had now thrown open the door to the Cabinet Room. The half-dozen men who were seated at the green-baize-covered table got to their feet as the President ushered Lincoln and Seward into the room. “Gentlemen, the President-elect.”
Briskly, Lincoln shook hands with each man. Seward noticed that he paused for a moment as he shook the hand of the Attorney-General, Edwin M. Stanton, a large, bald-headed asthmatic man with steel-rimmed spectacles and an unpleasant sneer, aimed now at Lincoln, who said, somewhat quizzically, “Well, Mr. Stanton, we meet again.”
“Yes, we do … sir.”
Lincoln turned to the others. “Five years ago we were a pair of lawyers trying to determine whether Mr. McCormick’s reaper was his reaper or someone else’s.”
“I remember … sir.” Stanton stood very straight, his large paunch quivering slightly.
“Yes, Mr. Stanton. So do I.”
Buchanan had now drawn Lincoln over to the window with its view of the southern part of the President’s estate, bounded at the far end by the old canal, now an open sewer, and the Potomac River beyond. “In the summer, sir, the smell from that canal is absolutely unbearable,” said Buchanan. “Drain the canal, I tell them. Or fill it in. Naturally, Congress does nothing. But they do let me use a little stone cottage out at the Soldiers’ Home. I spend the summers there and I suggest that you use it, too, if you don’t want the fever.”
Lincoln was staring at a pile of white marble blocks, at whose center the base of an obelisk rose. “They’ve still not finished that monument to Washington?”
“No, sir. In fact, nothing is ever finished here! No dome on the Capitol. No street pavings. No street lamps. Nothing’s ever done to completion here except, sir, one thing.” The old man’s head now rested on his shoulder and the bad eye was entirely shut as, with a quiet joy, he pointed out the window. “There,” he said. “Look!”
Lincoln stared at a huge red-brick wall. “The one thing that the Executive Mansion has dearly needed since Mr. Jefferson’s time was a proper barn. But not a wooden barn, sir. No, sir. Not a barn that will catch fire or get the rot. No, sir. But a brick barn, sir. A barn built to outlast time itself. You don’t know the pleasure it has given me these last four years to see this be
autiful barn slowly rise from that swamp they call the President’s Park.”
“And watch the Union fall apart,” said Lincoln to Seward as the two men crossed the President’s Park on the way to the War Department.
“He’s well-meaning, Old Buck,” said Seward, pronouncing the ultimate political epitaph. “What was that between you and Stanton?”
Lincoln chuckled. “Well, Mr. Stanton was this big important lawyer on a patent case … sort of your territory, come to think of it. And I was the backwoods lawyer that was called in to help him out because I had political connections in Chicago, where the trial was supposed to be. Anyway, when the trial got moved to Cincinnati, I wasn’t really needed, as he made absolutely clear. Fact, he cut me dead.”
“He’s a disagreeable man,” said Seward. “But he’s the best lawyer in the country. And he’s one of us.”
Lincoln gave Seward a sidelong glance. “In what sense? He’s a Democrat. He was for Douglas, or so people say. He never says, I’m told.”
“Last week he told the President that if he lets Fort Sumter go without a fight, he would deserve impeachment.”
“Well, well,” said Lincoln; and no more. The small brick War Department was surrounded by thirty loud geese which a farmer was doing his best to make move on, to the delight of the two soldiers more or less on guard.
“I shall make no references to Rome and the Capitoline geese.” Seward was fond of classical allusions. He knew his Tacitus; loved his Cicero.
“Please don’t.” Lincoln stared with some distaste at the unexpectedly rustic scene.
“Actually, General Scott has got himself a brand-new War Department across the way there, on Seventeenth Street. This building will only be for the army, just as that one over there”—Seward pointed to a second small brick building—“is for the navy. But the whole thing will be run from Seventeenth Street.” Together the two men crossed the frozen mud field that was Seventeenth Street, where stood a large building with no guards at all, not even geese. This was the War Department. As they approached the main door, Seward asked Lincoln who ought to be Secretary of War.