Henry and Clara

by Thomas Mallon

  “Have you had anything from Will?” asked Mary, who thought Clara’s brother a figure of wonderful rectitude.

  “Nothing since he got back to Loudonville last month.”

  “Then read us one of the letters he sent from West Point, back in June.”

  Clara rummaged among the envelopes in her sewing basket as Sybil made a face. “Here’s the one about the dining hall,” said Clara. “How about that?”

  “Oh, yes, read it,” said Mary.

  “ ‘As an instance of the fare at our mess, the other day a cadet who sits opposite me tied a shoestring to a piece of crust, saying, “Let’s see if that comes in our pudding tomorrow.” Sure enough, the next day a lieutenant found it in his pudding, fished it out, and carried it on the point of his sword about the hall. Pudding is suspicious to me, and I quit eating it before I had been here three months.’ ”

  Mary beamed over this display of healthy spirit. “Is he really the highest officer in his class?” she asked.

  “Yes,” said Clara. “The sergeant major of the corps.”

  Sybil moaned. “I shall spit if we have to sit here forever.”

  “Let’s go up to Boston,” suggested Mary.

  “It’s too hot,” said Clara.

  “No, Mary’s right. Let’s go,” said Sybil. “My mama can get the carriage to take us to Providence, and we can take the train from there. It will be fun. We can look at bridal gloves.”

  “And hear Mr. Seward,” said Mary.

  “What?” cried Sybil.

  “He’s speaking in Boston this evening,” Mary said.

  Clara looked amused. “I’m beginning to think this is a good idea after all.”

  “Absolutely not!” cried Sybil.

  “Then neither of us will go with you. Isn’t that right, Clara?”

  “I’m afraid Mary’s correct, Sybil. If she’s going to be dragged through the shops with you, there’s got to be something in it for her, too.”

  Sybil growled, in a torment of indecision. “You are a sneak, Mary Hall. That abolitionist is the only reason you suggested Boston.” Losing ground, she raised conditions: “You can’t tell my mama we’re going to do anything but look at the gloves.”

  Mary and Clara nodded.

  “And I’m allowed to stuff my ears when he speaks.”

  “Perhaps you should bring your salts,” said Clara.

  It was a hot day, and even in this ocean-drenched little state, nothing could keep down the dust on the roads. By the time the young women reached Providence, Sybil was so parched and cranky that Mary and Clara could get her onto the train only by buying her two different-flavored ices from the Italian man on the platform. The trip to Boston took nearly two hours, but the rush of air through the open windows refreshed the girls before they arrived. Once in the city, they had time for Sybil to visit just three shops in Newbury Street, none of them adequate to her demands. The young ladies were soon swept into the throngs moving toward Revere House, on whose steps Mr. Seward would deliver his remarks. It was a dreadful experience for Sybil, who hated being jostled. Her tortures were increased by Clara’s pointing to a Republican women’s banner — WE LINK ON TO LINCOLN, AS OUR MOTHERS DID TO CLAY — and by Mary’s knowing the words to every campaign ditty being sung. The wait for Mr. Seward seemed endless, but finally Governor Banks led him to the lectern, where he acknowledged the crowd’s cheers, none of them more lusty than those shouted by pale little Mary Hall. Clara divided her attention among Sybil’s theatrical agonies, Mary’s ecstatic partisanship, and the eaglelike face of Mr. Seward, whose thick planes of sharply cut hair hung immobile in the breezeless evening.

  “It behooves you, solid men of Boston, if such are here” — great cheers — “and if the solid men are not here, then the lighter men of Massachusetts” — great laughter followed by an even greater cheer — “to bear onward, and forward, first in the ranks, the flag of freedom.” It was a performance Clara’s father never could have given; it had a gaiety Papa would never allow to scamper out from under the heavy folds of his rhetoric. Late this spring the gossip in Uncle Hamilton’s law office was that Mr. Seward had taken his defeat hard, been too distressed to stir from Auburn; but to Clara’s eyes, and judging from his schedule of campaign speeches, his recovery was admirably complete. Should Mr. Lincoln win, the new President would have a formidable ally in the Senate. If only her papa had had such resiliency after the case of Mrs. Hartung — a far smaller thing to endure than the loss of the White House.

  “Come,” said Clara, catching Sybil and Mary at the elbows as soon as Mr. Seward showed signs of finishing. “Let’s make our escape. The other speakers will go on all night.” Mary looked wistfully back at the Revere House steps, but deferred to Clara’s authority. The clamor of the rally and the rare victory of her own will over Sybil Bashford’s had left her tired.

  They stayed overnight at a small hotel on Beacon Hill, and the following day, in a mood to make things up to Sybil, Mary and Clara gave over the whole morning and most of the afternoon to bridal shopping. By the time they finished the train ride back to Providence and a steamship run down to Newport, during which Clara knitted and Sybil snored, it was nearly midnight. As the boat docked, Mary realized that the day’s excitement wasn’t over. Marching toward them along the shore were crooked lines of young men in capes and shiny hats, carrying torches in a loud procession. “Clara, look! Some Wide-Awakes!” A lusty party of Lincoln cadres, the sort now found on the streets of Albany and other Northern cities almost every night, were marching to one of their songs, whose lyrics Mary joined in singing:

  This is no time in idle dreams

  A glorious rest to take;

  What man that loves the right and true

  He must be Wide-Awake!

  “Sybil,” called Clara, poking her in the ribs. “Wake up.”

  “Mmnnh,” said Sybil, ostentatiously rubbing her eyes. “What is it?”

  “Men,” said Clara. “Yankee men, but young and good looking nonetheless.”

  This intelligence roused Sybil to life. She sat up in her deck chair and squinted. “Where are we?” she asked.

  “Home,” said Clara.

  “Speak for yourself,” she replied. “And will you,” she added, turning toward Mary and pinching her on the arm, “stop that caterwauling?”

  Back at Ocean House the women were surprised to find Pauline Harris still up, sitting on the porch and staring out toward the sea. She greeted them wearily: “Did you have a good time?”

  “Yes,” said Clara. “Sybil saw some lovely wedding things.” She knew better than to talk of Mr. Seward.

  “There’s a letter for you from Henry,” said Pauline, pointing to it on a nearby table.

  Sybil, who had been thoroughly revived by a long look at the broad shoulders of the Wide-Awakes, said, “Clara, you need a beau. The only letters you get are from brothers.”

  “I have a beau,” said Clara.

  Mary’s eyes widened, and Pauline picked this moment to raise her ample form from the wicker chair and announce her retirement for the night.

  “Who?” insisted Sybil as soon as Mrs. Harris had gone in.

  Clara said nothing, just lightly ran her fingers over Henry’s letter and tenderly grazed it against her cheek. Before Mary could drop her jaw and Sybil begin an interrogation, Clara left the porch to go inside and up to the second floor. She found Pauline in the front room of the suite the two of them were sharing with Louise.

  “Your sister is asleep,” whispered Pauline, indicating the door of the girls’ room as she unpinned her hair.

  “I saw the look on your face,” said Clara. “But you should know that I’m going to marry Henry.”

  “No,” said Pauline. “You are not. Your father will never permit it.”

  “What can he object to? There’s no blood between us.”

  “It isn’t right,” said Pauline, brushing out her hair and pretending casually to consider her looks in the vanity’s mirror. “You have been
brought up too closely for too long. A marriage like this would not bring you happiness.”

  “Why are you now so interested in me?” asked Clara, trying to equal her in nonchalance as she removed a tortoise-shell comb from her own hair.

  “I’ve always been interested in you,” said Pauline.

  “That’s not true!” said Clara, unable to control herself. “Isn’t your real thought that I’m not worthy of Henry? That he’d be another Rathbone wasted on another Harris?”

  “You’re being ridiculous,” said Pauline, whose composure did not desert her as she swept her hairpins into a china dish. “You must wait for someone else.”

  “I’m nearly twenty-six. I’ve done my waiting — for Henry!”

  “Calm down, you’re going to wake Louise. This discussion is concluded. You are not right for Henry, and that is all there is to it.”

  Clara’s whisper was a hiss. “Who would be right for Henry? Someone more like his mother?”

  Pauline ignored whatever suggestion hung in the room. She merely repeated her main point. “You’ve been joined as brother and sister for a dozen years.”

  “We’ve been joined more closely than that for some time. Since an afternoon in Munich last summer.”

  Clara saw Pauline’s silhouette stiffen in the mirror. She ran back downstairs, not because any display of wrath was likely to emanate from her stepmother, but because she feared the secret, the thing itself, that she had let loose, like an animal, into the dark. There was just a single candle burning in the hotel parlor, enough to let her find her way out to the porch.

  Mary Hall pretended to be asleep in one of the wicker chairs. From the chaise longue Sybil Bashford reached up and grabbed Clara’s gingham sleeve. “Tell us everything,” she demanded.

  THE POLLS CLOSED AT 4:47 P.M., sunset, on November 6, but the sun had been so little in evidence all day that its departure was hardly noticed. Rain had fallen steadily on the crowds lining up to vote throughout the city, from Franklin Street in the First Ward to Elm and Swan in the Tenth. Mr. Weed’s paper exhorted the citizenry to BEWARE OF SPLIT TICKETS, WATCH FOR FRAUDULENT VOTERS, and do all they could to secure A GLORIOUS VICTORY for the Republican Party in the county, state, and nation. In a further effort to whip up fervor, the City News column reported an assault on a Wide-Awake that had taken place during the previous night’s procession down Pearl Street.

  After an early dinner at his brother’s home, Hamilton Harris enlisted Ira, Henry, old Mr. Osborne, and John Finley Rathbone to accompany him to the Central Club, at 356 Broadway, where the returns would come in by messenger and telegraph. Clara insisted on coming as well, which led to little Lina’s insistence, too — at which point Hamilton Harris said all right, but that’s it, hoping the bustle of the evening would keep anyone down at the Central Club from objecting to the girls’ presence.

  As soon as they had secured their seats and cups of cider, Ira Harris withdrew from his pocket a letter that Will had written from West Point just two days ago. The soothing baritone in which he shared it could not conceal the doubtfulness it prompted in him: “ ‘I suppose you are looking forward to the results of next Tuesday’s election as already settled in favor of Lincoln. It seems to be conceded by all parties, as near as I can judge, that his election is certain, and of course you must be glad of it.’ ”

  “Well, let’s hope it’s certain,” said Hamilton Harris, looking at the scanty totals on the chalkboards. “Be damned glad if it is certain,” he added, making an apologetic nod for his language toward the girls.

  Judge Harris continued reciting: “ ‘But I think it would pain you, as it has me, to witness the effect which this struggle has produced in the army and especially in the corps of cadets. Some of my own class who are appointed from South Carolina have received positive orders from home to come there immediately in the case of Lincoln’s being elected. I am glad for you that the Republican Party is coming to power, but I sincerely trust that it will not allow those incessant slavery agitators to be their representatives and spokesmen. Slavery may be a curse but I cannot help thinking that anti-slavery is a greater one.’ ”

  What would Mary Hall think of this? wondered Clara, intrigued by the way Will’s unionist sentiments had defeated his abolitionist ones.

  “He’s right about the anti-slavers,” said John Finley Rathbone between puffs of his pipe. “That’s why I went for Douglas.”

  Hamilton Harris laughed. “You’re riding the wave of the past, Jack. Now, Henry, if you don’t mind my asking, how did you vote?”

  “For Mr. Bell.”

  “In four years Henry’s gone from being a Know-Nothing to a do-nothing,” explained Clara to the laughter of the men. John Bell, the fourth-party candidate, had campaigned by saying nothing whatsoever about slavery.

  “You girls know better than your brother, eh?” asked Hamilton. “Two lasses for Lincoln, isn’t that so, Lina?”

  Ten-year-old Lina just blushed. Except for the Wide-Awake parades that passed under her window some nights, the election was a dull thing. She didn’t know how they could talk about it night after night in the dining room on Eagle Street, and down at Kenwood, and out in Loudonville, but they did, even though it only made her papa look left out and unhappy.

  For something to do, Clara took her little sister’s hair and began braiding it, a sight that always enchanted Henry.

  “Yes,” Clara said, “I’m still for Lincoln, Uncle Hamilton.”

  “That’s my girl.”

  “Good for you, dear,” said Ira Harris, without much conviction.

  “What else does Will say, Papa? Aside from politics.”

  “Well,” said Ira Harris, “there’s a bit about Howard: ‘The last time I saw Miss Carroll, she told me she was introduced to Lieutenant Rathbone of the U.S. Marines at Lady Napier’s ball and danced with him.’ ” Everyone laughed at news of the family blade, while Clara, joining the strands of her sister’s brown hair, thought about the letter she had had from Howard last month, one that could only be called a love letter, vaguely warning her against Henry. She had spoken of it to no one — not even Mary Hall, who, the day after her argument with Pauline, had at last become Clara’s confidante. (She had told Sybil Bashford absolutely nothing, despite being beseeched through half the night on the porch at Ocean House.)

  “Well,” said Hamilton Harris, teasing his niece, “you won’t have to put up with all this politics for too much longer. Did you see Mr. Weed’s pledge in the Evening Journal?” He reached for the newspaper and put on his spectacles. “ ‘We are sure our lady readers are weary of the mass of political matters with which our columns have teemed for months past. But they are no more weary of them than we ourselves —’ ”

  “As if Thurlow Weed ever tired of politics!” said John Finley Rathbone.

  “ ‘— so it is our ambition to make the Journal more a family than a political newspaper, and we hope to hereafter be able to fully gratify this ambition. We have schemes of improvement in embryo which, when developed, will render the Journal more welcome than ever to the family circle.’ ”

  Henry burst out laughing. “Oh, I’m sure there will be no political news at all for the next four years. Can’t imagine anything that will be worth noticing!” He took the paper from his uncle. “Let’s have a look at some of the welcome tidings Mr. Weed has managed to bring to the ‘family circle’ even now. Oh, here’s matter fit for home and hearth: ‘About eleven o’clock last night Patrolman Manning, while going his rounds, discovered smoke issuing from the premises of One Twenty-three Broad Street, occupied by Peter Mullen and his family. He immediately rushed into the house and, upon entering the room, he beheld a horrid spectacle. He found a straw bed on fire and upon it laid a female wholly unconscious of what was going on. With a few pails of water and some assistance, he quenched the flames when he ascertained that the female upon the bed was Mrs. Mullen. She was in a beastly state of intoxication —’ ”

  “Enough, Henry,” said Ira Harris, taki
ng the paper from his stepson and nodding in the direction of Lina. Still, Henry had succeeded in making the others laugh. They were growing silly with waiting, and when old Mr. Osborne, who’d been deaf to every word of everyone’s recitation, just smiled over their laughter and said, “Good cider, isn’t it?” there were contagious guffaws.

  Ira Harris, as if calling the proceedings to order, drew attention to one last item in Mr. Weed’s paper, a report out of Portsmouth, Virginia: “ ‘The greatest crowd that was ever witnessed in this city, gathered together on Saturday to listen to Honorable Henry A. Wise.’ ” The man who had hanged John Brown eleven months ago “ ‘DECLARED BEFORE GOD THAT HE WOULD NEVER SUBMIT TO THE ELECTION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.’ ” Mr. Weed’s writer went on to explain, in the Journal’s impartial way: “ ‘This was telegraphed all over the Union yesterday, in hopes that Wise’s crazy ravings would scare some timid voter.’ ”

  “Some more cider for you,” said Clara to Mr. Osborne, patting his knee and getting up to fetch him another cup. On her way to the punch bowl she was nearly knocked over by three boys racing in with tallies. The returns were at last flooding in, and soon the telegraphs were clattering without letup, the operators pressing headsets to their ears in order to hear over the noise of the clubroom, which was now packed tight with men arriving by the dozen, shaking the rain from their hats and stroking their whiskers as they watched the numbers fill the boxes on the blackboard.

  Ira Harris kept his seat beside his brother while the messengers posted totals from Beaver Street in the Fourth Ward and Orange in the Eighth, as the operators of the “divine signaler” prophesied by Dr. Nott so many years ago heard the word from up and down and across the state, from Brooklyn to Allegheny to Erie, and then, as the evening drew on, from Boston to Pittsburgh to Cleveland. There was no single moment of mathematical certainty; it was only the growing confidence of the alcoholic roar which eventually made apparent the truth of all the digits, dots and dashes: Abraham Lincoln was to be the sixteenth President of the United States. At one A.M. Hamilton Harris, a careful man, finally allowed himself to rise with an exultant expression. Once on his feet, he seemed at a loss for something to do. He settled for quietly patting the judge’s shoulder. “Well, brother, Mr. Seward will have to endure the Senate; the Executive Mansion will never be his.” This was cold comfort to Ira Harris, who had left the bench months ago and supposed he would teach at the Albany Law School for a few more years before retiring out to Loudonville.