Mrs. Lincoln's Rival

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Mrs. Lincoln's Rival Page 44

by Jennifer Chiaverini


  William said nothing.

  Kate steeled herself and kept her voice even. “You weren’t involved in this scheme, were you?”

  “No,” he replied vehemently, and then, calmer but more earnest, “No, I was not, but my cousin Byron Sprague and a friend, William Reynolds, were.”

  Reynolds. Kate thought quickly. Yes, a Colonel Reynolds had been mentioned in the letter Father had shown her, the one William had written recommending Mr. Hoyt for a cotton permit. “Do you think their actions will reflect badly upon you, or is it worse than that?”

  “It could be much worse.” William heaved a sigh. “I fear they may implicate me in their crimes—if they have committed any—even though I had nothing to do with it.”

  Kate fervently hoped he did not. Trading weapons to Confederates for cotton—for anything—without proper authorization was treason. She felt a sudden chill of fear and foreboding. William must not be arrested for treason. Even if he was found not guilty, the charge alone was enough to ruin a man, and his family. Her father would never be chosen chief justice; her child would live out his life in the shadow of shame and disgrace.

  “Shall we tell your father?” William asked tentatively. “Perhaps he could make it all go away.”

  Kate’s thoughts raced. “No,” she decided. “Not yet. As of this moment, there is nothing to tell. You cannot be prosecuted for the crimes of a cousin, a friend, and a passing acquaintance. If they cast blame on others in a vain attempt to save themselves, and your name comes up, then we’ll seek Father’s counsel. Until then, we shall wait and see, and hope they have the decency not to condemn the innocent.”

  But how much decency, really, could they expect from traitors?

  “I knew you would offer me sensible advice,” said William, sounding much relieved, and very tired. “Thank you for standing beside me, dearest birdie.”

  “I would say lying beside you, rather,” Kate remarked. He chuckled and hugged her, but as he sighed and settled down to sleep, she grew pensive. “William?”

  “Yes, my love?”

  “I want to help you, and I will, but I cannot unless you are perfectly frank with me,” she said. “Is there anything else you want to tell me—or rather, is there anything else I would want to know that I don’t? Anything that you have kept from me, perhaps out of a kindhearted wish to protect me?”

  He stiffened. “Why? What have you heard?”

  “Nothing,” said Kate, taken aback. “What is there for me to hear?”

  “Exactly that, nothing,” he replied, quickly and firmly, “but we both know that doesn’t prevent malicious gossips from spreading lies. You mustn’t listen to any scurrilous tales anyone might tell you of me.”

  “I won’t, of course.” He had asked her that once before, she recalled, and she had made him the same promise. “You must not believe slanderous gossip about me either.”

  “I never have,” he said through a deep yawn. “I never will.”

  But he had, Kate recalled. Nearly three years before, someone from Columbus had given him an exaggerated account of the incident with the married Mr. Nevins—an impropriety, but not as terrible as William had been told—and he had believed it, until another acquaintance refuted her accuser. Yet again she found herself puzzled by her husband’s inaccurate memory of his own words and actions. Was he truly that forgetful, or did he think that by deciding to accept a particular version of events as true, he could make it so by sheer force of belief?

  Wondering, full of doubt, she lay awake long after William fell sound asleep beside her.

  • • •

  In the morning Father bade Kate, William, and Nettie farewell and left for the train station, fretful about the ongoing silence from the White House, worried about leaving Kate in her delicate condition, but clearly happy to see her and William reconciled.

  Despite their intimacy of William’s homecoming night, in the days that followed he and Kate were tentative around each other, overly polite and formal, wary of giving offense that might hurl them back into rancorous discord. Nettie, aware only that they were speaking kindly to each other rather than arguing, fairly danced through the house with delight. She had good reason to be cheerful. Where the rest of them harbored doubts, she was absolutely certain that Mr. Lincoln would choose Father for chief justice eventually, and she knew nothing of Mr. Hoyt’s alleged crimes. Kate wished she could be so confident and carefree.

  Father’s trip to Ohio was rewarding, but in a letter home he confessed his anxiety about being away with Mr. Lincoln’s decision still pending, and so he decided to cut his travels short. Shortly after breakfast on the day they expected him home, William returned unexpectedly from the Senate, which had convened a new session the day before. Ashen-faced, he told Kate he had learned that Captain Prescott had confessed his illicit activities in great detail, and that Harris Hoyt, Byron Sprague, and William Reynolds, implicated as partners in his schemes, had been arrested in Providence. “What should I do?” he asked, frantic.

  “Has your name come up in the investigation?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, there’s no reason that it should,” she reassured him as he paced. “Why should the accused men mention you at all, if you were not involved?”

  “Because of my cousin,” he said, agitated, as if she should have known. “The Sprague name will naturally turn the investigators’ thoughts to me, the most prominent Sprague in the nation.”

  Kate did not think that was necessarily so. “All the same, let’s refrain from acting hastily. Keep silent and watchful rather than do anything to draw their attention.”

  “No.” William shook his head, scowling in worry. “No. I must write to the officer in charge and explain that I had absolutely nothing to do with their scheme. I’ll explain that I have no connection to Hoyt, and that this whole affair is nothing more than a partisan attack on me through my cousin and friend.”

  “Do nothing yet,” Kate said emphatically, laying a hand on his arm. “If you adamantly deny that you were involved when they have no reason to believe you were, placing yourself before the investigators will only raise their suspicions.”

  He threw her a mutinous look and set his jaw, but she persisted, and eventually she persuaded him to defer writing his letter of self-defense. He had no time at present anyway, she reminded him. The Senate was in recess only until one o’clock, at which time John Nicolay would deliver the president’s annual message to Congress. William ought to be there, and Kate certainly intended to be, and avoiding his duties in order to compose an unnecessary refutation to charges that did not exist only made him look guilty.

  Reluctantly, William agreed to wait. Together they went to the Capitol, where Kate assumed her favorite seat in the gallery and William took his place at the table beside Henry B. Anthony, the senior senator from Rhode Island.

  Soon thereafter, Mr. Nicolay arrived with President Lincoln’s address. Kate thought it lacked his usual eloquence and poetry, especially in the beginning, perhaps because he had composed it on his sickbed. It was certainly more optimistic than any of his previous State of the Union addresses. The Union army was steadily advancing, the president had noted, and the results of the November elections proved that the people of the North were resolved to see the war through to victory. Despite their significant losses, the North still overmatched the South in men and resources. “The financial affairs of the government have been successfully administered during the last year,” the president also asserted, which Kate took as a compliment to Father, for he was responsible for that success even though he was no longer secretary of the treasury.

  As if Mr. Lincoln anticipated that his address would be read in the Confederate capital—and indeed it likely would be printed in the Richmond papers within days—he emphasized that the overmatched South could have peace the moment they decided to lay down their arms and submit to fede
ral authority. His administration would not, however, acquiesce in any way to any demands to perpetuate slavery; in fact, the president called on the House to approve the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery that the Senate had already passed. “In stating a single condition of peace,” he concluded, “I mean simply to say that the war will cease on the part of the government whenever it shall have ceased on the part of those who began it.”

  If only it were that simple, Kate thought. If only it were a matter of deciding to stop fighting, laying down one’s arms, and going home.

  She mulled over the president’s words as other business was introduced—a motion by Senator Anthony that thousands of copies of the message be printed, a reading of Secretary Fessenden’s report on the state of the nation’s finances, a resolution from Senator Sumner that the Department of State furnish to the Senate any information they possessed regarding British subjects supporting the rebellion—and then executive business was considered.

  Kate was studying her husband from above and considering what she might do to encourage him to speak more often in the chamber when the clerk commenced reading other messages Mr. Nicolay had brought from the White House. “To the Senate of the United States,” he began the first, “I nominate Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio, to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, vice Roger B. Taney, deceased. Signed, Abraham Lincoln.”

  Kate smothered a gasp. She had lived all this before, she thought faintly, nodding with practiced grace as others in the gallery congratulated her in hushed voices. Her eyes met William’s, wide with shock, and as she watched, a slow grin spread over his face. A fellow senator clapped him heartily on the back and shook his hand, but elsewhere in the chamber, Kate spotted others scowling and shaking their heads. In the meantime, Governor Dennison’s nomination as postmaster general and Mr. Speed’s as attorney general were also announced, but in the motion that followed, only Father’s appointment was immediately and unanimously approved, even though Kate knew that more than a few men in that room would have preferred another in his place.

  Father surely did not know yet, Kate realized. He was traveling home, and it was unlikely that a telegram could reach him along the way.

  The moment the Senate adjourned, before any eager petitioners could detain her, Kate hurried off to meet William in the rotunda. “At last,” he declared, exultant. “Finally your father has received his just reward for his years of loyalty to the Republican Party and his thankless efforts on Mr. Lincoln’s behalf. This honor is long overdue.”

  “I cannot wait to tell him,” Kate said, smiling as she took his arm. “I do hope I shall be the one to give him the good news.”

  “He’ll probably hear it from some railroad porter first,” William said airily as he escorted her outside. “Kate, darling, this changes everything. No one will prosecute the son-in-law of the chief justice of the Supreme Court. They wouldn’t dare attempt it, not even if they had caught me with my pockets stuffed with rebel cotton.”

  Kate regarded him askance. “It is your innocence that shields you, not Father’s new position, is it not?”

  “Oh, yes,” he hastened to agree. “Yes, of course. However, I’m not sorry to have this extra measure of protection too.”

  Kate fell silent, suddenly wary—and worried that in his jubilation he might say more than he should within earshot of men who would not hesitate to use that information against him.

  Later that evening, when Father returned home, Kate met him at the door. “Good evening, Honorable Chief Justice,” she greeted him, beaming.

  A weary but joyful smile lit up his face. “It’s official, then?”

  “It is,” she said, and threw herself into his arms, relieved and proud and happy.

  After accepting congratulations from the entire household, Father promptly retired to his study to write to Mr. Lincoln. “Do you think this will suit the occasion?” he asked Kate, as he handed her the letter almost shyly.

  Washington, Decr. 6, 1864

  My dear Sir,

  On reaching home tonight I was saluted with the intelligence that you this day nominated me to the Senate for the office of Chief Justice. I cannot sleep before I thank you for this mark of your confidence, & especially for the manner in which the nomination was made. I shall never forget either and trust that you will never regret either. Be assured that I prize your confidence & good will more than nomination or office.

  Faithfully yours

  S. P. Chase

  “As for myself, I would not have thanked him so profusely for the manner in which he nominated you,” Kate admitted with a little laugh, “but otherwise I think it suits perfectly.”

  So Father summoned a messenger and sent it off straight away.

  Nine days later, William, Nettie, and Kate—elegantly coiffed and exquisitely attired for the momentous occasion in a beautiful gown by Parisian couturier Charles Frederick Worth, adjusted to fit her enceinte figure—accompanied Father to the Supreme Court for his swearing-in ceremony. While Father was escorted to an anteroom where the justices awaited him, his family took their places of honor in the chamber. Already it was crowded with dignitaries, Father’s friends, allies, and political enemies alike, all determined to witness history, the first installment of a chief justice since 1836.

  Soon after the family seated themselves, an usher announced, “The Honorable Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States.” Nettie seized Kate’s hand and let out a little gasp of excitement as Father entered the room through an entrance behind the bench. The senior associate justice—James M. Wayne, a frail septuagenarian in poor health—accompanied him, and the other eight justices followed close behind. Bowing formally to one another, they took their seats according to tenure, and then Father and Justice Wayne approached. Steadily and distinctly, Father read the oath aloud from a paper Justice Wayne provided him, and when he had finished, Father set the document aside, gazed up at the rotunda, and in a voice thick with emotion but as strong as his faith, declared, “So help me God.”

  Overwhelmed with pride and love—and only the most fleeting sting of disappointment that her father’s presidential dreams were almost certainly over—Kate squeezed her sister’s hand and echoed his fervent prayer in the silence of her own heart.

  Chapter Twenty

  * * *

  DECEMBER 1864–MARCH 1865

  F

  ather’s proud achievement lifted the spirits of the entire household and boded well for the merriest Christmas the family had known in years, despite William’s ongoing worries about the arrests of Mr. Hoyt and his cohorts. Against Kate’s advice, soon after Father’s installment as chief justice, William wrote to General John A. Dix, the officer in charge of the investigation, presumably to clear his name, but the content of his letter remained a frustrating mystery to Kate, for he refused to let her read it. “I have been assisting Father with his professional correspondence since I was sixteen years old,” she reminded him, to no avail. Full of misgivings, every afternoon she awaited the mail with breathless dread, expecting each delivery to bring a summons commanding William to appear before a court of inquiry. When no ominous document appeared, her fears lessened with the passage of time, leaving behind a residue of anxiety and unhappiness. It saddened her terribly that William delegated innumerable little tasks to her, but excluded her from the more significant aspects of his business and political life. What she wanted most was to help him in everything, as she had always helped her father. She would have thought that she had proven herself in her long career as Father’s hostess and domestic secretary, but William either thought she was not quite capable enough, or he did not trust her enough to confide his secrets, or some insulting combination of the two.

  Kate was pleased and relieved when William decided to spend Christmas with her, Father, and Nettie in Washington, but she was—childishly, she knew—rather disappointed with his gift. For weeks she had hi
nted very strongly that either of two gifts would please her immensely—a comfortable settee for her sitting room, if he preferred to give her something practical, or a stunning diamond brooch from Tiffany, if he was feeling more extravagant and romantic. Instead, on Christmas morning, she discovered a thick envelope containing money and a note. “I place in your stocking tonight this token,” he had written. “Let it stand in place of a reminder of power for happiness and of usefulness, yet not powerful enough or rich enough in resources to purchase from you the smallest particle of my affection or to represent, with all its power a millionth part of the strength of my love to my wife.”

  It was a pleasant enough note, if rambling in a troubling way that suggested he had been drinking when he wrote it, but his ardent phrases could not disguise the hasty, impersonal nature of the gift. Even so, Kate knew it was selfish and spoiled of her to resent him for the imperfect present—which indeed was quite generous—so she said nothing. She did not want to seem petty, and she did not want to diminish the family’s Christmas joy, which had been multiplied by the good news that General Sherman’s march across Georgia had concluded at the Atlantic. All of Washington City exulted in reports that the general had sent the president a telegram that day declaring, “I beg to present to you, as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah, with 150 heavy guns and plenty of ammunition, and also about 25,000 bales of cotton.”

  But good news from the war did little to console Kate when William left Washington to welcome the New Year with his family at Young Orchard. Then grief and sorrow compounded her loneliness, for Father’s younger sister, Helen Chase Walbridge, died in Ohio, leaving Father and Uncle Edward the only survivors of their ten siblings. Aunt Helen was buried on New Year’s Day, and with the household in mourning, they canceled their usual celebration and did not attend Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln’s traditional reception. Grief-stricken, Father wrote to send his regrets and to explain that the death of his beloved sister precluded them from attending. Later, Kate was moved when she read the gracious, sympathetic letter of condolence Mr. Lincoln sent in reply. For her part, Mrs. Lincoln remained silent. Not even tragedy would inspire her to show compassion for a rival.

 

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