New York

by Edward Rutherfurd

  “Publicity is good for your business,” Frank replied.

  “I know that. But can’t you see what will happen? People will notice the Tweed pictures just because he’s in the news today, and they’ll fail to pay attention to the important work.”

  “Get a name first,” said his patron. “The rest will follow.”

  “I won’t do it.”

  “Theodore, I am asking you to do this. All the other work you want is there. People will see it, I promise you.” He paused. “It will mean a lot to me.”

  It was said kindly, but Theodore could not miss the threat within it. If he wanted Master’s future support, the money he provided for the exhibition, the customers he could supply, then the three photographs had to go up. He sighed. This was the price. The question was, would he pay it?

  “It’s four o’clock now,” said Master. “I’ll be back at six, before the opening.”

  “I’ll think about it,” said Theodore.

  “Please do.”

  For the next half-hour he considered what to do. He would have liked to go for a walk to mull it over, but he couldn’t leave because he’d promised to be here to meet someone else. He hoped she’d come soon.

  It didn’t take Mary O’Donnell long to walk from Gramercy Park to the gallery. She could have gone that evening with the Masters—indeed, Mrs. Master had suggested it. But even though she knew Gretchen would be there, Mary didn’t really feel comfortable in the middle of a fashionable crowd. She’d much prefer to let Theodore show her round the exhibits in private. She always felt comfortable with Theodore.

  After all, they had been lovers.

  Not for long. Following the Draft Riots that summer of ’63, she’d quite decided that she wouldn’t go to see him. She knew that when he’d seduced her on the beach on Coney Island, he hadn’t meant anything serious by it. She didn’t mind. And once back in the city, her old life in the Master household took over at once, and after a week she even supposed that he was fading from her mind.

  So it was really only on a whim, she told herself, that one Saturday early in August, having a free day and no other engagements, she happened to look in on his studio in the Bowery.

  He was just finishing a portrait of a young man when she came in. Greeting her politely, as though she were his next customer, he asked her if she’d wait in the larger studio. She’d sat down on the sofa there, then got up to look at the books on the table. There were no poems on the table that day, just a newspaper and an old copy of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter. She’d read the book, so she contented herself with reading the newspaper. She heard the young man leave, and Theodore busying himself about the studio.

  Then he entered, and stood there smiling.

  “I didn’t think you’d come.”

  “I happened to be passing,” she said. “I said I’d look in.”

  “That was my last customer for the day. Would you like to eat something?”

  “If you like,” she said, and stood up.

  He came over to her.

  “We can go out to eat in a little while,” he said. Then he began to kiss her.

  Their affair lasted through that month and the next. Of course, there were only certain times when she could meet him, but it was surprising how, with a little ingenuity, they could contrive to get together. And on her free days they went out walking, or he took her to concerts or the theater, or other things he thought she might like. Now and then he’d explain to her how he took his photographs, the way he tried to compose them or arrange the light, and she discovered that she had some natural understanding for such things, so that quite soon she could tell which was the best work and sometimes how it was achieved.

  She knew he would not marry her. She was not sure she’d even wish it. But she knew that she interested him, and that he had affection for her.

  They did not tell Gretchen.

  It was in the middle of September that Sean came to see her. They walked round Gramercy Park together.

  “So what’s going on with Theodore Keller?” he asked.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she said.

  “Yes you do. I know all about it, Mary.”

  “Are you following me, Sean? I’m almost thirty years old. Have you nothing better to do?”

  “Never mind how I know. I’m not having my sister trifled with.”

  “My God, Sean, how many girls have you trifled with in your life?”

  “They weren’t my sister.”

  “Well, it’s my business and not yours.”

  “I can have him taken care of, you know.”

  “Oh my God, Sean, don’t even be thinking such a thing.”

  “Do you love him?”

  “He’s very good to me.”

  “If there’s a child, he must marry you, Mary. I wouldn’t allow anything else.”

  “Sean, I don’t want you interfering in my life. This is my doing as much as his. If you’re going to be this way, I don’t want to see you any more. I mean it.”

  Sean was silent after that for a moment or two.

  “If you’re ever in trouble, Mary, I want you to come to me,” he said gently. “You’ve always a place in my house.” He paused. “Just one thing you’re to promise me. You’ll never give a child away. Never. I’ll look after any child.”

  “You’re not to touch Theodore—he’s not to blame. You must promise me that.”

  “As you wish.”

  That October, when Theodore had decided he should go down to the battlefields, she had suffered a good deal. But she hadn’t let him see. And she’d realized also that it was better he should go then, before she became so attached that the parting would be too painful to bear.

  He’d been gone a week when she wondered if she might be with child. During the time of her uncertainty, she’d been so frightened that it was all she could do to concentrate on her work in the house. And Sean’s words had come to her often then. But to her relief, that danger had passed.

  Theodore had been gone many months, and after his return, though very tempted, she had been determined to keep him only as a friend. God knows, she thought, he’s sure to take up with other women if he hasn’t already.

  And so they had remained friends. She hadn’t taken another lover, so far, and she hadn’t found a man she wanted to marry. But she’d kept her secret memory, and she was proud of it.

  She’d even been able to be helpful to him. When he had told her he was looking for a patron, it was Mary who’d gone to Frank Master and asked him to look at his work. That had been five years ago, and Master had been a fine patron ever since—commissioning work, providing contacts—everything that an artist could hope for. And when he said he needed to get journalists to come to the opening of the exhibition, she’d even made Sean speak to some of the newspapermen he knew.

  So now, finding Theodore pacing about in a rage, she got him to tell her all about it. And after she had looked round all the work and admired it very much, she remarked to him gently: “If you put Boss Tweed and Nast over there”—she pointed to a wall that had some spare space—“it wouldn’t look so bad.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” he said grumpily.

  “I wish you’d do it for me,” she said.

  There was a good crowd at the opening that evening. Of course, everyone went to see the portraits of Tweed and Nast, but Frank Master proved to be right, for having done that, they were circulating round the rest of the show, and lingering over some of the best work too.

  So after greeting his sister, and making polite conversation with all the people to whom the Masters introduced him, Theodore could almost relax. Almost, but not quite. For there was one person who had still to arrive. One person who was very important indeed. If he showed up.

  The reporter from the New York Times. It was Sean O’Donnell who had promised that the fellow would come, but at seven o’clock there was still no sign of him. Nor at ten minutes past the hour. It wasn’t till nearly seven thirty th
at Master came to his side and murmured, “I think that’s him.”

  Horace Slim was a quiet man in his thirties, with a thin mustache and sad eyes. He greeted Theodore politely, but though he wasn’t giving anything away, something in his manner suggested he was only there because he’d been sent and that, as soon as he had enough material for a short piece, he’d be gone.

  And Theodore needed more than that. He made himself keep calm, though. He knew it was no good pushing too hard; one could only hope for the best. But he’d handled journalists before, and he was not without cunning. So, giving the man a professional nod, he said quietly, “I’ll take you round, Mr. Slim.”

  The exhibition filled several rooms, and was arranged thematically. He’d already decided to start with the portraits, but not to go straight to Boss Tweed. He’d got some famous people, after all. Names that should give the journalist some useful copy.

  “Here’s President Grant,” he pointed out. “And General Sherman. And Fernando Wood.” Slim duly noted them. There were some big city merchants, with imposing architectural details behind them, an opera diva, and Lily de Chantal, of course. Theodore paused by her.

  He’d always had a pretty good idea why Frank Master had suggested he take the picture of Lily de Chantal, though he wasn’t such a damn fool as to ask why. It was a suspicion reinforced when, ten minutes ago, he’d heard Hetty Master drily remark: “She looks a lot older than that in real life.” The picture was excellent, with a theatrical backdrop.

  “I took this after her recital last year. Did you go to it?”

  “Can’t say I did.”

  “It was a notable event—quite a society occasion. Maybe worth a mention.”

  Slim had a look at the other portraits, and took down a couple more names. They’d been carefully chosen to attract more clients. Then they came to Boss Tweed and Thomas Nast, and the courthouse.

  “Good timing,” said Mr. Slim, making a quick note.

  “I suppose so,” said Theodore. “People have been looking at them.”

  “It’ll make a good opening for an article,” said Slim.

  “So long as it’s not the only thing you mention.”

  “Any other sitters you’d like to tell me about?” the journalist asked quietly. “Anyone of interest?”

  Theodore glanced at him. Were those sad eyes better informed than they let on? Did Horace Slim know about Madame Restell?

  “All my sitters are interesting,” said Theodore carefully. But he’d better give the fellow a story. “I’ll tell you whose picture’s missing,” he offered. “Abraham Lincoln—at the Gettysburg address.”

  At the end of that summer of the Draft Riots, when he’d decided to leave New York for a while and follow the war out in the field, there’d been only one sensible way to do it. And that was to work for Mathew Brady. Brady had the government concession. He’d send you out, even provide you with a special carriage, converted into a movable darkroom. And so, in November 1863, along with several other photographers, Theodore had found himself down in Pennsylvania, at Gettysburg, where a new cemetery had just been prepared to receive the fallen heroes of the great battle that had taken place nearby only months before.

  There had been little doubt, by then, about the significance of the Battle of Gettysburg. Before July 1863, after all, both sides might have been getting sick of the war, but the Confederacy was still on the offensive. Down on the Mississippi, General Grant had so far failed to take the Confederates’ mighty fortification at Vicksburg. Bold General Lee and Stonewall Jackson had taken on a Union army twice their size on the Potomac River, and though Jackson had died, Lee and his Confederate army had swept through Maryland and into Pennsylvania, threatening both Baltimore and the capital.

  But then, on the Fourth of July, had come the double victory for the Union. Vicksburg had fallen, at last, to Grant, and Lee’s army, after a display of matchless courage, had been smashed and turned back at Gettysburg.

  The North had the initiative. The South was open to massive attack.

  Not that the war was won. By no means. The riots in New York, after all, had been only the most extreme expression of a widespread Union dislike of the war, by then. The will of the North might crack. The South might yet outlast them. The government in Washington knew it very well.

  The dedication of the new cemetery at Gettysburg had been important, therefore. A ceremony was called for. A big story for the newspapers. A fine speech.

  The speech had been entrusted to the president of Harvard, the greatest orator of the day. Only later, as a courtesy perhaps, did anyone think of asking Lincoln himself to attend. Indeed, Theodore remembered, he and the other photographers hadn’t been too sure that Lincoln was coming at all.

  “But come he did,” he remarked to the journalist now. “There was a big crowd, you know, governors and local people and all the rest. Maybe fifteen thousand altogether. Lincoln rode up with the Secretary of State, I think, and Chase, the Treasury Secretary. Then he took his place with the others, just sat there quietly with his tall hat off, of course, so that we could hardly see him. I’d caught a glimpse of him when he came to make his address at the Cooper Institute, when he was still clean-shaven, but I hadn’t seen him with his beard before. Anyway, there was some music, and a prayer, so far as I remember. And then the president of Harvard rose to speak.

  “Well, that was quite a speech, I can tell you. He gave full measure—two and a half hours—and when he finally came to his grand peroration, the applause was like thunder. Then there was a psalm sung. Then Lincoln rose, and we could see him well enough.

  “Now we knew he wouldn’t be speaking for long—we’d had the big speech—so we got ourselves prepared, myself and the other photographers, pretty quick. But I dare say you know how that is done.”

  It had been no easy business getting a picture in the Civil War. The photographs were always taken in 3-D, which meant that two plates had to be inserted simultaneously into a double camera, one to the left, one to the right. The glass plates had to be quickly cleaned, coated with collodion, then, while still wet, dipped in silver nitrate before being put into the camera. The exposure time might only be a few seconds, but then one had to rush the plates, still wet, into the mobile darkroom. Quite apart from the difficulties of having people in motion during the seconds of exposure, the whole process was so cumbersome that taking pictures of battlefield action was almost impossible.

  “Well, dammit, I’d heard the first words of his speech—‘Fourscore and seven years ago’—and I was on it, preparing my wet plates. And I’d finished ahead of the other fellows, and slipped them into the camera, and was ready to go, when I heard him say, ‘… that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.’ Then just as I was getting him in my sights, he stopped. And there was silence. Then he looked down at one of the organizers and said something. Seemed as if he was apologizing—he looked kind of discouraged. And then he sat down. Everyone was so surprised that they hardly even got round to clapping. ‘Was that it?’ said the fellow next to me, who was still trying to get the plates into his camera. ‘Guess so,’ I said. ‘Jeezus,’ he said, ‘that was fast.’ Of course, that speech is pretty famous now, but the audience didn’t think anything of it at the time, I can tell you.”

  “So you got no picture of the Gettysburg address?” said Horace Slim.

  “Not a damn thing. Nor did anyone, so far as I know. Did you ever see a photograph of that famous day?”

  “That’s a good story,” said the journalist.

  “Let me show you the West,” said Theodore.

  It had been an excellent opportunity. A government commission, to go into the western wilderness with the surveyors and bring back photographs that would attract settlers to take up land there. He’d done a good job. Big, rich-looking landscapes; pictures of friendly Indians. The government men had been delighted. One charming picture of a little Indian girl had caught Frank Master’s attention, and he’d
paid Theodore a good price for a print of it.

  But the journalist was bored. Theodore could tell. Swiftly he took him into the biggest room.

  “So,” he said cheerfully, “these are the pictures I’ve been told not to show.”

  For they were of the Civil War.

  Nobody wanted to know about the Civil War now. While it was still being fought, everyone did. When the dour Scotsman, Alexander Gardner, had taken his picture, Home of the Rebel Sharpshooter, it had made him famous. Yet when his collection, a world classic, was published the year after war’s end, it didn’t sell.

  Then there was Brady himself. People often imagined he took every picture of the Civil War. After all, his name was on so many of the pictures taken by the photographers he’d hired—a fact they sometimes resented. Yet to be fair, it was Brady who’d been the first in the field. At the start of the war, when the Confederates smashed the Union men at Bull Run, Brady had been there on the battlefield, lucky not to be a casualty.

  It wasn’t Brady’s fault that his failing eyesight made it difficult for him to take the pictures himself. But he’d sent out those keen young men, set them up, provided them with movable darkrooms, all out of his own pocket. And what had he got from it all, when the war was over? Financial ruin.

  “People don’t want to be reminded of those horrors,” said Theodore. “They wanted to forget them the moment the war was done.” In the South, he’d heard, the agony of defeat was so terrible that quite a few photographers had even destroyed their own work.

  “So why do you show this work?” asked Horace Slim.

  “Same reason you write, I dare say,” answered Theodore. “A photographer and a journalist both have a duty to record: to tell the truth, and not let people forget.”

  “The horrors of war, you mean—the killing?”

  “Not really. That was important of course, Mr. Slim, but others had already covered it.”

  “Like Brady.”

  “Exactly. In ’62, when the most terrible battles began, Brady had photographers with General Grant when he went into Tennessee. They recorded the carnage at Shiloh. Brady’s boys were in Virginia that summer, when Stonewall Jackson and General Lee saved Richmond from destruction. They were there when the Confederates struck back at us in Kentucky, and they were up in Maryland that fall, when Lee was turned back at Antietam. Do you remember the great exhibition Brady organized after Antietam, when he showed the world what the battlefield looked like after that terrible slaughter? It was a wonder to me, sir, that those photographs did not stop war altogether.” He shook his head. “Brady had photographers at the Battle of Gettysburg the next summer also, but I wasn’t one of them, you see—I didn’t become a Brady photographer until a couple of months after that. So maybe my task was different. Anyway,” he gestured to the photographs on the walls, “this is what I did.”