by Gore Vidal
“This evening?” Seward sat at his desk, where a file labelled “Charles Francis Adams” had been set in front of him. Seward found Mr. Adams difficult; but able. Seward was also very much aware that he was seated at the desk of Mr. Adams’s father, who had been eight years Secretary of State; and then President. Seward was also, glumly, aware that in eight years he himself would be either close to seventy years of age or dead; on the other hand, if President Lincoln did not seek reelection …
Frederick reminded his father that he had accepted an invitation to attend a reception at the Chases, in honor of Governor William Sprague IV. Seward sighed.
WILLIAM SPRAGUE sat on a sofa, explaining the “IV” to the attentive Kate while all about them uniformed men and frock-coated men swirled with behooped and bejewelled women to the music of four violins, led by David’s friend Scipione, who had an evening free. “Then my uncle became William III, after William II died.” Sprague looked Kate directly in the eye; she smiled back at him.
“Then,” said Kate, rising to the conversational challenge, “when your father died you became William IV.”
“No,” said Sprague sharply. “My father didn’t die. He also wasn’t William III. That was my uncle.”
“But if he’s not dead … if they’re not dead, how can you be William IV?” Kate’s brilliant smile never varied; but her spirit was sorely tried. The boy-governor was, conversationally, hard going.
“Oh, my father’s dead all right. But not like other people are dead. He was murdered. Shot one night, in the dark, on his way home. Shot in the arm. Then the assassin clubbed him to death with the gunstock and ran away.”
“Who do you think did it?” Kate was at last intrigued.
“They hanged a man named Gordon. But I don’t think he did it. I think someone else did it. My father died by the assassin’s blow.”
“That must have been such a … such a terrible thing for a child.”
“Yes. Someday I’ll find who did it. Remember when we met in Cleveland?” Sprague removed the pince-nez; and looked, as always, wonderfully handsome and youthful. When word had spread at Sal Austin’s that the boy-governor they had all watched lead the parade down the avenue was in Marble Alley, the girls had flocked about him and he had abandoned his anonymity in order to be fussed over until Sal and Chester had got him to bed, rigid with drink.
It was astonishing, thought Hay, crossing the crowded parlor, how much Sprague could drink and how little of it showed in the face. Hay was still not feeling himself since their nocturnal excursion, to which Sprague had not once alluded, as Hay escorted him to the Patent Office the next morning.
Later that morning, Nico had dealt with the boy-governor when he had appeared at the Mansion with a design for victory that would take no more than an hour of the President’s time. The Ancient had been benign; and before the governor knew it, he was in and out of the office, with no promise of the major-generalship that he had insisted was his by right as the war’s first volunteer, not to mention newspaper hero. But before Sprague left the White House, he had presented Nico with a number of press-cuttings from the Northern newspapers, all in praise of the youthful statesman and commander. “I am ready, no matter what,” he had said, as he put on his plumed hat and strode through the mass of office-seekers in the waiting room.
Hay paid his respects to Mr. Chase, whose manner was, as always, a nice balance of cordiality and aloofness. Chase was stationed before the fireplace in the back parlor, flanked by Senator Hale of New Hampshire and the British minister, Lord Lyons, a small plump subtle bachelor who seemed to be giving an absentminded imitation of a British minister.
Hay was saluted respectfully by his three elders, each aware that, young as he was, he was at power’s center in a way that even the Secretary of the Treasury was not. They spoke of the situation in Maryland, and Hay was able to tell them the latest news. Governor Hicks had called for the legislature to meet the next day not at Annapolis but at Frederick City. “That’s outside General Butler’s military zone.”
Senator Hale scowled. “That means they’ll feel free to pass their damned ordinance of secession.”
“The President thinks the opposite, sir.” Hay was respectful. “He thinks Governor Hicks is with us but that he must appear to mollify the rebel element.”
“Mollify? Hang them!” was Hale’s fierce response. Although he was the blackest of black Republicans, he was chairman of the Senate Committee on Naval Affairs, and of great importance to the Administration.
Hay was exquisitely diplomatic. “But, sir, you who abolished flogging in our navy would not now go in for hanging statesmen?”
“Traitors, yes. Always!”
“Was it really you,” asked Lord Lyons, with some curiosity, “who did away with flogging in the American navy?”
“Yes, sir. In 1847, sir.”
“And you people wonder why you don’t have a proper navy!” Lord Lyons laughed, a barking sound. “Flogging is the backbone of the British navy …”
“Backside,” said Hale, who was known to dislike the British.
Chase intervened. “Each nation has its curious customs and crotchets.” He was soothing. “You have flogging, Lord Lyons …”
“And you have slavery, Mr. Chase.” Lord Lyons was known for the bricks that he artfully dropped, and Hay found the man’s self-confidence irresistible.
“We don’t have slavery, sir,” said Chase. “Others do. But we are willing to go to war to free those slaves, something that no other nation has ever done.”
Before Lord Lyons could drop another fragment of masonry, the only representative of the presidential family, Mrs. Grimsley, swept into view, arm in arm with a huge young woman, who proved to be Bessie Hale, the daughter of the senator, who beamed happily at this remarkable issue, in size at least, of his New England loins.
“I’ve so wanted to meet Mr. Hay, who’s as handsome as I’ve heard tell!” Bessie was not shy, thought Hay, blushing girlishly himself, as he bowed low over her thick, damp hand.
“Mr. Hay is the only eligible bachelor at the Mansion now that Mr. Nicolay is engaged.” Mrs. Grimsley match-made with practised skill. Although Chase looked benignant he did not feel particularly benignant. The Lincolns should have attended Kate’s first reception since Sixth and E had been made presentable. Of course Mrs. Lincoln was jealous of Kate’s youth, beauty, charm (it would be unnatural if she were not); even so, the President and his wife ought to have been able to transcend personal feelings in order to create harmony within a notoriously divided Administration.
Chase looked across the room at one of the divisions—Simon Cameron, the Secretary of War. Cameron was tall; white-haired; slender. The face was noble; the character was not. Worse, Cameron was proving to be hopeless when it came to administering the crucial War Department. He left all military management to General Scott, who was senile; and to Gideon Welles, a newspaper publisher who knew little of naval affairs. Meanwhile, Cameron’s promiscuous letting of contracts was a cause of much concern to Chase, who did his best to control the War Department’s spending; but Chase’s best could never be good enough without the President’s help and that help was not forthcoming, even though Lincoln had no illusions about his Minister of War. In fact, before the appointment, Lincoln had appealed, somewhat plaintively, to the dour Thaddeus Stevens, a Pennsylvania congressman and sometime ally of Cameron. “You don’t mean to say,” asked Lincoln, “you think Cameron would steal?”
Stevens’s answer had been much quoted in the town: “No, I don’t think he would steal a red-hot stove.” When Cameron had heard what his fellow-Pennsylvanian had said, he demanded an apology, which Stevens promptly gave: “All right, then. I do not think that you would not steal a red-hot stove.” For political reasons, Lincoln was forced to make this dubious appointment.
Kate approached Chase, with the boy-governor in tow. They made a handsome couple, Chase thought; and he could not help but ponder for a moment the Sprague fortune, which the Eve
ning Star had put at a hundred million dollars. Although a younger brother and a cousin shared with Sprague in the management of A. & W. Sprague & Company, Sprague, as the oldest and most experienced of the three, dominated the company. In fact, according to the ever-informative if not always accurate Evening Star, Sprague was a financial genius, entirely lacking in any of those colorful hobbies that make American magnates so interesting to read about if not to meet. Before his metamorphosis as a warrior, he had often been mistaken at social gatherings for an accountant or divinity student. Now he had captured the imagination of every American who could read newspapers. He was a governor, a hero—above all, he was a bachelor. In every story that Chase had read, this one sentence blazed before his eyes, dazzling them to the point of genuine tears. Chase could not lose Kate, ever; and yet this weedy—there was no other word, thought Chase, smiling sweetly down at Sprague—young man was all that he had ever dreamed of for Kate, rolled into a single most dashing, if nearsighted, package.
“Cotton,” Chase heard, as from afar, “was ten cents a pound a week ago.”
“I beg your pardon.” Chase continued to smile.
Kate interrupted, “Governor Sprague is concerned with the blockade.”
“So are we,” said Chase, missing the point. “We have not the ships to seal off the rebel ports. They do constant business with the Europeans. But we are increasing the navy, aren’t we, Senator Hale?”
“Oh, yes. We’ll starve them out in six months. But until then, there won’t be any rebel cotton for those mills of yours, Governor.” Hale looked delighted.
Sprague was sharp. “Twenty thousand people out of work in Rhode Island won’t look so good for us at election time.”
“Oh, it will never come to that.” Chase was soothing. All in all, Sprague was not a bad-looking little fellow. Certainly, his brown hair and mud-colored eyes set off Kate’s blond-gold beauty as a dark foil does a clear rare gem, thought Chase, poetically. “By the time your current supplies of raw cotton are used up,” he said prosaically, “our army will be at Richmond with you, sir, I hope in the vanguard.” This worked nicely, as Chase knew it would.
“I’ve applied to Mr. Lincoln. I said I have to be a major-general. Rhode Island won’t like it if I’m offered less than Ben Butler. You see, we don’t think all that much of lawyers from Massachusetts.”
“What about lawyers from New Hampshire?” asked Senator Hale.
Sprague’s answer was to turn his back on the senator, just as Hay and Bessie approached.
“Here’s a daughter of New Hampshire,” said Hay, “Miss Bessie Hale.”
“Oh, I am trembling like a leaf!” Bessie was indeed flushed, Hay noticed, as she stared down at Sprague, who stared up at her great poitrine, like New Hampshire’s own White Mountains.
“How do you do?” Sprague started to step backward but Bessie, who still held his hand, drew him toward her. Since Bessie had much to say about heroes and heroism, Hay took the occasion to slip away with Kate to the dining room, where creamed oysters were the centerpiece of the buffet.
“Well, Miss Chase, what do you think of Governor Sprague?” Hay was mischievous.
“Oh, I think! And then I think some more.” Kate smiled at him. Even her teeth were perfect, Hay noticed, aware that he must not allow himself to daydream of her. “Did you know his father was murdered?”
“I haven’t been able to read every single newspaper story about him.” Hay realized that he sounded as if he were envious; and he was not. It is hard to be envious of a man you have been obliged to dress, with the help of Sal Austin.
“He told me just now. It happened when he was a child. It made a tremendous impression on him.”
“So have you.” Hay was bold; why not?
Kate looked him directly—and disconcertingly—in the eye. “Have you been studying us?” This was blunt; and was meant to be.
“It is hard not to notice such a … fabulous couple in these rooms.”
“Fabulous? So we resemble characters in a fable, do we? But which characters? And what fable?”
Hay thought rapidly—classical pairs from Pyramus and Thisbe to Zeus and Ganymede (most inappropriate, the last) filled his brain. He settled, lamely, for: “Venus and Mars. Who else?”
Before Kate could counter, Congressman Washburne paid his respects; then he greeted Hay with: “I’m just back from Illinois. We raised twenty thousand dollars in Chicago, contributions for the war.”
“In Cincinnati,” said Kate, “they have raised more than two hundred thousand dollars.”
“But that’s to be expected in your father’s state.” Washburne was polite. “It’s a personal tribute to him.” Washburne addressed Hay. “I hope the President will have a moment for me tomorrow.”
“Whenever you like, sir.” Washburne bowed to Kate; then he laid siege to a massive silver chafing dish in which simmered terrapin.
“As of last week, Father’s raised close to twenty million dollars, in contributions alone.” Kate was proud.
Hay was teasing. “You must admit that it was uncommonly wise of the President to make Mr. Chase Secretary of the Treasury.”
“Oh, I’ve never denied that! Who is the large man over there, by the fireplace, against the wall? I see him everywhere, including my own house. But he never speaks to anyone. He just stands, as if he were furniture.”
Hay recognized the powerfully built young man who, indeed, looked to be a piece of furniture placed next to the fireplace. “If he has a name, Mr. Sumner is the only one who knows it. He’s Mr. Sumner’s bodyguard. He goes with him everywhere. He’s paid for by one of the senator’s Boston admirers, who doesn’t like the idea of anyone as vague as Mr. Sumner wandering alone around a city filled with secessionists.”
“Well, at last I know who my guests are.” Kate turned to Hay; she smelled of lilac. “Is it true that Mrs. Lincoln’s half-sister and her husband are staying at the Mansion?”
“Where did you hear that?”
“My spies can resemble wallpaper, if need be.”
“Well, it is true. Your wallpaper is presently looking down upon Mr. and Mrs. Ben Hardin Helm of Lexington, Kentucky.
“Two secessionists.”
“Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Helm has seceded as yet; and Kentucky remains loyal to the Union.”
“Barely loyal. I hear—not from my wallpaper but from the newspapers—that Mrs. Lincoln’s full brother, her three half-brothers and her three half-brothers-in-law are all secessionists, and that they have all enlisted—the men, that is—in the Confederate army.”
“If Mr. Helm has turned rebel, it will be news to Mr. Lincoln. Actually,” said Hay, realizing that he was saying far too much but he wanted, most sincerely, to impress Kate—because … of Sprague? “Mr. Helm is a West Point graduate, who is about to be appointed U.S. Army Paymaster, with the rank of major.”
“Oh?” Then Kate took Hay’s arm and together they made a triumphal tour of the dining room and back parlor. As they greeted the French minister Mercier and the Prussian minister Gerold, Kate was able, between the compliments and flurries of French and German, to ask, with sweet malice, “What are Mrs. Lincoln’s true politics?”
Hay responded with what he took to be near truth. “She is the true abolitionist of the family, and embarrassed by her family.”
“A Southerner?” Kate put on a thick Southern accent: “Embarrassed by kin? Oh, never!”
“Oh, yes!” said Hay.
“OH, YES!” said Emilie Helm, eighteen years her half-sister Mary’s junior. They stood facing each other across a row of gardenia plants in the White House conservatory.
Mary had not expected such vehemence. “You would even go with him to Richmond?” Mary asked.
“I’m his wife, Sister Mary.”
“Oh, Little Sister, and I had thought that of all of you … that of all of us, you would stay loyal.”
Emilie took the scissors that she held in one hand and began to harvest the gardenias which were in full-for
ced, white-fleshed bloom. Mary found the scent both ravishing and overpowering. Neatly, Emilie arranged the gardenias in the straw basket that the head groundsman had given her. “I must go where my husband goes,” said Emilie, eyes on the flowers. “After all, that’s what you have done, and no one in Lexington criticizes you for it.”
“Then that must be the only thing that they do not criticize me for.” Mary still resented the response of the Todds to her marriage to a scrub, as they called a man not of their class. “Mr. Lincoln is going to offer Ben a commission in the army. Will he take it?”
“You will have to ask Ben.” Emilie turned from Mary, who had always looked upon the girl less as a half-sister than as the daughter that she had never borne. “The Hardins are so political. Ben’s father, the governor …”
“Oh, Emilie, we are all political! But Kentucky isn’t South Carolina. We are people of the border.”
“We are really Southern, Sister Mary. You know that.”
“Well, your mother was a Virginian, that’s true.” Any mention of Mary’s stepmother was apt as not to bring on if not the dreaded Headache an ordinary headache that was quite bad enough. “Let’s get out of here, Little Sister, I’m sweltering.”
Together they made their way through the heated, sweet-smelling air of the long, glassed-in conservatory where row after row of exotic flowers grew in earth-filled stone troughs. This was Mary’s refuge when life grew too hectic in the Mansion or when the wind was southerly and the foul air from the canal filled every room while mosquitoes and gnats and flies were wafted into the Mansion through the tall screenless windows. Because of the crisis, the President had decided not to move out to the relative coolness of the stone cottage at the Soldiers’ Home. Because of the crisis, Mary had refused to go North. But now that the city was secure from attack, she had decided that a visit to New York City might soon be in order, to shop for the Mansion.
At the door of the conservatory, Mr. Watt, the head groundsman, respectfully bowed to the ladies. He was a courtly man; and Mary liked him. He had worked at the White House for years; he understood the ins-and-outs of hiring and firing the army of servants, gardeners and just plain hangers-on that had attached themselves over the years to the Mansion.