Sickles had closed his eyes. “Rings a faint bell.”
“But what if he couldn’t bring himself to burn it? What if the letter were from his own wife?” Hearing no response, she pressed on. “A letter Mrs. Lincoln wrote not to the President but to her friend Mrs. Orne. A letter describing certain plans that the President might be considering. Plans, say, to use the military to close down Congress.”
For a moment, Sickles said nothing, and she wondered whether he might have fallen asleep: he had yet to open his eyes. She heard footsteps in the outer room and knew that Jonathan and the others were growing restless. If anyone walked in, she would never get the truth.
“Mr. Sickles—”
“I keep telling you to call me Dan,” he finally said, eyes still shut. Then he sighed. “So I guess you’re as smart as everyone says you are, aren’t you, Miss Canner?”
“In truth, Mr. Sickles, I have been feeling rather dim of late. I should have realized—”
“There is nothing to realize.” He propped himself on his elbows. “What you are suggesting, Miss Canner, is that Mrs. Lincoln—a lovely woman, devoted to her husband—would commit to paper information that could end his presidency and besmirch his good name for all time. Why would such a tale be even remotely plausible to a woman of your undoubted gifts?”
This point had indeed troubled Abigail; and she thought she had found the answer.
“Everyone says that Mrs. Lincoln was not well at the end. I refer not only to her body but to her mind. I have no idea whether the rumors that she was a suicide are true, and I am certain you will not enlighten me, but the fact that the rumors persist is testimony to a widespread impression that she was, as I said, not well. And some of the things Mrs. Orne said do suggest the possibility—well, it doesn’t matter. The point is, if Mrs. Lincoln’s husband had indeed vouchsafed his plans to her, and she found those plans to be frightening, it seems to me entirely plausible that she might, in a state of severe mental agitation, write to a friend. Later, she might regret having done so, but once words are on paper, they are difficult to retrieve.”
Sickles was gazing at the ceiling, where the great lawgivers of history chased each other around in circles.
“I see.” He nodded. “And her friend, recognizing the danger of this paper to the woman’s husband, might then turn it over to him. Although I suppose she might also dispose of it.”
“She, too, might have difficulty with the idea of destroying the letter. Especially once her friend had died.”
“If you’re right, Miss Canner—I’m not saying you’re right, but, if you are—then it is apparent to me that the unfortunate husband would be faced with a difficult decision. If he destroys the correspondence, it is like killing his wife afresh. If he keeps it, it could destroy him.” His pretense of working this through alongside Abigail was quite deft. “And perhaps, unable to destroy it, the husband might nevertheless realize that this letter, written by a woman in a distraught state, even perhaps out of control, would never be properly understood in the cold, hard light of politics. Or of—for example—the Senate Chamber. Nor would he want it said later that his wife had reached out from the grave and brought him down.”
“Of course,” said Abigail, gently, “that would depend a great deal on what the letter actually said.” She hesitated. “And, of course, on whether what was described in the letter was not after all the product of a diseased imagination but the literal truth of her husband’s words.”
“It would indeed.” Sickles was now sitting erect. “And I suppose one might also wonder whether, given all the great things that man had accomplished, this single careless but ambiguous conversation, even if recorded accurately by his wife, should be allowed to bring him down. I imagine Mrs. Orne has wondered exactly that.” He yawned. “A long day, Miss Canner. A longer one tomorrow. We have to plan the presentation of our case. We both need our rest, and you—well, you have decisions to make.”
“As do you, Mr. Sickles.”
“Oh, no, Miss Canner. I made my decisions long ago. Other people fight for great principles, for political power, for the sheer thrill of victory. Me? I have one cause, and one cause only.”
“And what cause is that, Mr. Sickles?”
“Abraham Lincoln.” The pirate’s grin. He actually patted her on the shoulder. “You did excellently well today, Miss Canner. But under no circumstances can you disclose, to anybody, what you and I have just talked about. I’m sure you see why.”
Afterward, Jonathan of course wanted to know everything, and her polite refusals only wounded him further.
CHAPTER 46
Lantern
I
“NANNY SAYS YOU want to see me.”
Abigail looked at her brother as the carriage rolled sedately along Pennsylvania Avenue. “Yes,” she said. “Thank you for meeting me.”
“Oh, well, I’m just glad you were able to find some time for us colored folk.” Michael’s laugh was hard and sharp, like the ricochet of a bullet. “What happened, Abby? All the young rich white gentlemen in town busy tonight? Although, from what I hear, you’re always happy to meet them later in the evening.”
She refused to be drawn. A lazy early-spring sun scudded toward the horizon. She shivered, and drew her wrap more tightly around her shoulders. It was a chilly Saturday, and the coterie had worked through the morning. She and Jonathan had been cordial to each other but no more. Abigail supposed that by now Fielding had told him that he had taken her to Brown’s Hotel yesterday to meet Sally Orne, but he had absented himself for most of the conversation and had promised not to tell those snippets he happened to overhear. Abigail believed that he would keep his word: he was, as Jonathan said, a gentleman. The notion that Abigail and Fielding had shared an experience with each other that they would not share with him could hardly have improved Jonathan’s mood.
Their labors stretched on into the midafternoon, at which point the men left for the Mansion to meet the President, and Abigail was dismissed. To her fury; but she soothed herself by reading Blackstone until well past full dark, when her brother finally knocked.
“That is an unspeakably vulgar suggestion,” she said to Michael now. “And not worthy of response.”
“Don’t pretend to be one of the Washington ladies, Abby. They will tolerate you as long as you provide entertainment for them, but as soon as they grow bored, they will toss you back into the cage with the rest of us monkeys.” He spoke over her sharp retort. “And, believe me, they bore easily.”
Abigail felt the welling of panic. Michael had spoken to the most secret and most powerful of her fears—not of the police, or imprisonment, or even of death. No. The fear that drove her to accomplish what no one believed she could, but always lurked, ready to recapture and weaken her, was the desperate fear of being found out—the fear that, despite her best efforts, despite her uncommon intellect and her remarkable achievements, she would wind up as just another negro, utterly irrelevant to the course of history and, certainly, to the white people whose respect and even admiration, much as she hated to, she craved.
But she fought down her fears. She had requested this meeting. She knew what her brother was like; and how deeply his resentments ran. Everything he said was cruel, but none of it was unexpected.
“I wanted to know,” she said, “whether you have heard from Judith.”
“You mean, since your white friends ran her off?”
“If you wish to put it that way.”
“I do.” After a moment he added, “I haven’t heard a word.”
Abigail shut her eyes and drew the blanket up to her neck. They had reached George Town, the unincorporated village inhabited by freed slaves and poor whites, few people of either color possessing many prospects. No sensible person went into George Town at night. Michael was no sensible person.
“I suspected you hadn’t,” Abigail said. “Judith is very skillful at disappearing when she wants to, isn’t she?”
“I suppose.”
/> “Funny, isn’t it? The whole of the federal Secret Service is looking for her, and she vanishes into thin air.”
“I wouldn’t call that funny. I’d call that lucky.”
They passed small houses, some with lanterns hanging within, some with empty-eyed people sitting on the stoops, watching the night as though expecting the Second Coming. Here and there she spotted hard-faced men who looked as if they would steal a carriage for a nickel; but they took one glance at Michael and left the strangers alone.
“You’re not worried,” said Abigail. “She’s disappeared, people are looking for her, you haven’t heard a word, and yet you’re not worried.”
“Are you saying I should be?” But his voice was perfectly calm.
“No. I’m just thinking—all those years when we didn’t hear from her. And then we’d get a letter. Somebody saw her at the South. In Richmond. In New Orleans. In Vicksburg. A cousin would come up from Georgia, and it turned out Judith had been staying with them for a week.”
Michael turned the wagon around, heading back down the avenue. Tiny flakes of snow stung her face. “So Judith has a lot of friends,” said Michael. “So what?”
“Even during the war, she kept going south. I know people said she was just following the troops—”
“That was a vicious lie.”
“I agree. I just didn’t realize it until now. She moved too easily, Michael. Far too easily.” She twisted the blanket more tightly around her shoulders. “She moved too easily and she knew so much. She had so many friends. So many people willing to … to tell her things. To trust her with their secrets.” She shivered. “Remember Rebecca Deveaux?”
A tight nod. “They killed her when they killed McShane.”
“Exactly. Judith knew her. Rebecca was helping us. She was delivering certain … information … to Mr. McShane. Judith said she sent Rebecca to Mr. McShane because I worked there.” Michael said nothing but Abigail sensed the rising glow of his attention. “But that could not possibly be true. Rebecca was meeting Mr. McShane long before I began working at the firm. I fear that Judith lied to me.”
“From which you conclude what?” her brother asked.
“I think you know.”
“I would rather hear it from you.”
But Abigail was not prepared to say the words. Not aloud. Not yet. Not until she had the rest of the story.
Michael snapped the reins. The horse broke into a fast trot. The snow began to fall in earnest. He said nothing until they reached the White House. A pair of Bucktail sentries dozed at the gate. A light burned in the President’s office: the rest of the coterie was planning trial strategy for the week to come.
“You should be up there with them,” said Michael, following her gaze. His voice was surprisingly warm. “You’re smarter than any two of them together, Abby, and they know it. But you know what? White folks don’t like negroes who are smarter than they are. And the ones who claim to love equality the most seem to like it the least.”
Now it was Abigail’s turn to lapse into silence. She conceded the fundamental truth behind his incautious rhetoric. He had been right in his teasing since the first day of her employment. They would never accept her as an equal. A helper perhaps, a curiosity certainly, but never an equal. I see you have a diary, the late Arthur McShane had taunted her on that first day. Every lawyer keeps one. But I doubt you shall be needing yours.
Wait.
Her diary—
She turned to her brother. “I have changed my mind. I would like, please, to return to the office.”
“Why?”
“That is not your affair.”
Michael considered. “The cabs will not take you home,” he finally said, “and it is not safe to walk.”
“I am sure Mr. Hilliman will see me safely home.”
“I am sure it would be his pleasure.”
She wanted to slap him, but Michael was no gentleman, and one never knew where a confrontation might lead. “If you are so concerned for my welfare,” she said, “you may wait for me.”
II
At Fourteenth and G, the faint yellow flicker of a lantern just visible through the corner window made her wonder whether Jonathan might have returned from the Mansion. Abigail alighted, unassisted by her furious brother, who had announced that he would wait, but not too long. He had added that he did not want that white man seeing her home again, so she would best hurry. She ignored him.
At this hour there was no policeman. She let herself into the lobby with her key and climbed the stairs rather faster than a lady should. She was remembering how Professor Finney always used to say that the fireman is blameworthy who sleeps while the city burns. She had no intention of doing the same.
On the second floor, Abigail used her other key to open the door of the offices, and her unexpected arrival was what surprised the men inside, one of whom shouted a warning, the other of whom grabbed her by the wrists and tugged her further into the room. For a mad instant she relived that first meeting with Dan Sickles, and so guessed that the invaders’ purpose must be innocuous. But they were masked, and when she slapped at the one holding her, his face was hard as granite. The blow as he hit her back was more painful than anything she had ever felt. She cried out, and the second punch made her thoughts turn to slush. She heard them arguing, but her wavery mind could make no sense of the words. Their hands, she saw, were white. She tried to rise and took another blow to the head. One of the intruders shoved her facedown on the conference table, scattering whatever papers they had not already tossed to the winds. The other protested, but the first man ignored him, and began to fumble with Abigail’s skirts, and in her terror she was certain she had met the dreaded night riders of the Ku Klux Klan at last. She heard her frantic voice begging and weeping and moaning, doing all the things she had schooled herself never to. She felt what the man behind her was doing and she shrieked in horror. The other man, the one she had thought for a mad moment might be on her side, clapped his hand over her mouth and told her to shut up or they would really hurt her, and now the tears rolled helplessly as the man behind her delved in her skirts, poking and tugging and laughing, and then both intruders were standing very still, because that was what Michael had commanded, and a man pointing a gun at you, even a colored man, is, as a rule, to be obeyed.
III
Jonathan Hilliman was sweating and shivering, deep in a dream of war, when a firm hand on his shoulder shook him awake. Jonathan flailed, cried out, then sat up and slowly calmed. The familiar pilastered wall was in front of him. Ellenborough stood beside the bed—dressed impeccably, as always. Jonathan glanced out the window. The city was dark. Fielding, he recalled, had gone north for a few days, to the lake house.
“It is the middle of the night,” he said, groggily.
“You have a caller,” said the butler. “A young woman.”
Jonathan sat up, damp blankets falling away. “Miss Felix?”
Once more he had offended Ellenborough’s dignity. “I am sure that a lady as well raised as Miss Felix would never come calling on a gentleman at this time of night. Indeed, I do not believe that Miss Felix would come calling at all.” He had thrown open the cupboard and was pulling out not a robe but a full suit of clothes. “The caller is a negress.”
“What?”
“A negress,” said Ellenborough, laying out the suit. “I warned her that the hour is late and you are not to be disturbed, but she insists that the matter is urgent. I have asked her to wait in the foyer.”
Jonathan was on his feet, shucking off his pajamas. “Please, show her to the parlor.”
“I beg your pardon.” Waiting for him to correct his faux pas.
“I believe you heard me.”
“I am sure Mrs. Bannerman would never—”
“The parlor, Ellenborough. The war is over.”
IV
For Jonathan Hilliman, the rest of the night and the early hours of the morning passed in a not unpleasant blur. Rushing about the ci
ty in Abigail’s company, he felt the way he sometimes did around Margaret, when he would take every action but follow entirely her direction, an experience that produced a not unpleasant hypnotic buzzing in his mind. The first thing Abigail told him as she led him from the house was that her brother had been arrested, and the second was that two men had broken into the offices of Dennard & McShane—having already read bits of Coke on the criminal law, she threw in the correct term of burglar for “he that by night breaketh and entereth”—and it took Jonathan some few minutes to understand that the two events were connected, and that the priority in her mind was arranging the release of her brother from custody. He argued briefly, then yielded. On the way to the police jail on Capitol Hill, Abigail explained that she had surprised the burglars on the premises, that they had attacked her—the details she kept determinedly vague—and that some bystander, passing in the night, had heard the tumult, and summoned the city policeman on duty at Willard’s. The burglars, who were white, had easily persuaded the policeman that they were the wronged parties, especially because Michael had been holding a pistol—“Why does your brother require a gun?”
“That is not the point of the story.” But the pedant in her could not leave the query unanswered. “Many of the white men of this city go armed, especially at night. The ordinance forbidding black men to do the same was repealed before the war.”
The horses’ hooves were loud as they hurried along the frozen streets. They passed no one. The city was asleep. “I must inform Mr. Dennard of the burglary,” Jonathan said, even as they continued toward the prison. “I should have sent Ellenborough. We need to know what is missing.”
“We must see to my brother first,” said Abigail grimly.
“Let’s be quick.”
“That will be up to you.”
At the jail, Abigail waited outside, closely watched by a couple of policemen who evidently feared she might turn out to be a rebel saboteur, while Jonathan went inside to arrange matters. Which proved impossible. He was told that nothing could be done until morning, and no combination of entreaties and threats moved the guards an inch. But Abigail had no intention of leaving her brother in that horrid place until morning. She had heard the stories about the city’s dank, lightless cells, ridden with rats and spiders and disease. Rumor had it that the prisoners murdered each other in the night, to pass the time; the guards laid bets on who would be alive in the morning.
The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln Page 47