Hanging Mary: A Novel Page 13

  “I don’t know what to think. You and the others are taking an enormous risk. But I cannot condemn you for your part in a scheme that could be the South’s last hope.” I fingered the rosary in my skirt pocket. “If you do pursue this plan further—and I do not give my approval, only my caution—you must be more careful. The boarders here are no fools. Neither is your sister.”

  Johnny grimaced. “Tell me about it. Miss Fitzpatrick already recognized Mr. Payne as Mr. Wood; he told me. Fortunately, she took it in stride, it appears.”

  “So that is why he looked familiar to me. Why did he change his name?”

  “Neither Wood nor Payne is his real name. He gave the government a false name when he was taken prisoner once, and the habit stuck. I suppose he felt more at home visiting us the second time as Mr. Payne, the preacher, than as Mr. Wood, the china store clerk. His father’s a preacher, I think.”

  “Son, you must treat Mr. Weichmann more kindly. He is genuinely fond of you, and he is hurt and jealous, as well as suspicious. That is when a man can be his most dangerous.”

  “I’ll sweeten him up.” Johnny stretched. “I’m going to bed, Ma. I need to go to the country tomorrow to tie up some loose ends, but I’ll be back by evening. Booth is acting tomorrow, and he’s given me tickets. I’ll take Weichmann.”

  Johnny kissed me on the forehead and went upstairs to his room. I wondered what he would say to Mr. Weichmann.

  Anna was waiting for me in the parlor. “Did Johnny explain what was happening?”

  “Yes. A quarrel the men got into with some strangers when they were out the other night. There was talk of a duel, but cooler heads prevailed. It is all mended now, it seems.”

  I was shocked and more than a little ashamed at how easily the lie came to my lips, but these were dangerous secrets, and I wanted my girl to know nothing of them.

  “Oh.” Anna yawned. “Men.”

  • • •

  The next afternoon, Mr. Booth paid a call. This time, he looked his normal immaculate self, and the house was empty: Miss Dean and the Holohan girl were at school, Mrs. Holohan was visiting her mother, Anna was giving a lesson, and Mr. Holohan and Mr. Weichmann were at work. “My dear lady, please forgive my hasty behavior last night. I was very much agitated.”

  “Sir—”

  “I know what you wish to say. Johnny was with me early this morning—unconscionably early, I must say, for I am a late riser—and told me that he had talked with you.”

  “Mr. Booth, you must not blame Johnny. He would not have told me, but I threatened to turn him in to the government.”

  “I do not blame you at all, madam. Indeed, I wish I could make a clean breast of it to my own mother. But she is completely out of sympathy with me on that score, and my dear sister will not allow me to make a confidante of her as to any matter connected with the South—not that I blame her, poor girl, for she is expecting, and married to a fool who does not care for her comfort and happiness in her delicate condition as he should. But I do run on, don’t I? If it had been anyone else’s mother, I might have been vexed indeed, but I know I can trust you. Johnny speaks so highly of you.”

  “Does he, sir?”

  “He does indeed. And I can speak highly of him. Of the men I have collected, he and Mr. Payne are the ones I value most: Johnny, because he is so committed to the cause, and Mr. Payne, because once one obtains his loyalty, he will never swerve. But we talked last night, and we think it best that we go our separate ways for now, lest we arouse suspicion. I am to act tonight, but after that, I will spend some time in New York. Mr. Payne will remain in Baltimore until he is needed in Washington, at which time Johnny will find a suitable place for him to stay. I would like to ask, though, if you would be willing to aid me in small ways—very small ways—from time to time. No more than what you have been doing all along by letting Johnny’s friends come and go freely here and allowing those running the blockade to use your tavern. But if you say no, I will understand.”

  “I do not wish to bring any harm upon anybody.”

  “Yet this war of Mr. Lincoln’s has harmed many! It did not have to come to this. But I will tell you, our plan is not to harm the man. One cannot negotiate over a corpse.”

  “But what if something goes wrong?”

  “It shouldn’t. I have chosen well. Mr. Payne served with Mosby’s Rangers. There is very little he can’t deal with. Two of our number, Maryland boys you do not know, have seen combat as well. Your son has a cool head, and Mr. Atzerodt—well, Mr. Atzerodt has his faults, but put him in a boat crossing the Potomac late at night, and he has no equal.” He rose. “I must be going. I would not force a sudden decision upon you for the world. You can let me know of your decision through Johnny.”

  I considered. Mr. Booth had a point: What would I be doing for him that I had not already been doing? Although it was my husband who had made it known that the tavern would welcome those who ran the blockade, it was I who had greeted the travelers, I more often than not who had taken their suspicious packages and stowed them, I who had separated the clandestine mail from the rest and given it to Johnny or one of his fellow couriers. “I need no more time, sir. I will help. With one son fighting for the Confederacy and another carrying messages for it, what else can I do?”

  Mr. Booth smiled and pecked me on the cheek. “God bless you, my dear lady. If there were twenty like you in this city! But trust me, I shall not ask you to do the work of twenty. Only a small matter now and then, such as any friend might do for a friend.”

  • • •

  Unlike yesterday’s dismal dinner, everyone, save for the still absent Nora, was at the table today, and even she was represented by Mr. Rochester. Normally, I would have shooed the cat out of the kitchen, but in my present good humor, I slipped a couple of scraps to him when Anna, who tolerated him only because he was Nora’s, was not looking. “What play are you gentlemen seeing tonight?”

  “The Apostate, about the Duke of Alva. A very unpleasant character. One hopes it doesn’t cost Mr. Booth the love of the ladies of Washington.” Johnny took a slice of ham. “Sometimes I think of taking to the stage myself, you know. Mr. Booth says I wouldn’t be half bad at it.”

  “Meaning you wouldn’t be half good,” Anna said.

  “All a matter of how you look at it, m’dear.”

  They bickered cheerfully until it was time for Johnny and Mr. Weichmann to leave for the play. The entire male population of my boardinghouse would be represented at Ford’s tonight, because Mr. Holohan had been given a ticket too. I waited up for the men, partly because it was my habit, partly because I was not quite able to shake off a feeling that every time I saw Johnny would be the last. But he was with Mr. Holohan and Mr. Weichmann as the three of them returned home, sober but reeking of cigars. Johnny and Mr. Holohan bade me good night and headed upstairs, but Mr. Weichmann sat down.

  “How was the play?” I asked him.

  “It was very well acted. We went for oysters afterward at Kloman’s.” Mr. Weichmann rubbed his mustache. “It was too well acted, really. When Booth as Pescara dragged in a lady to torture her on the rack, he was terrifying. I was so unnerved, I doubt I will sleep tonight.”

  “It is only a play,” I reassured him gently. “Nothing to lose sleep over at all.”

  16

  NORA

  MARCH 1865

  I had a wonderful time in Baltimore, where I stayed with Miss Camilla James, an old friend from school. I had taken several copies of my photograph to exchange with her and my other friends, and when I did so, I naturally had to show Mr. Booth’s photograph as well, and to mention ever so casually that I was personally acquainted with him. This impressed my friends and acquaintances mightily, except for one young lady who had the nerve to doubt me. If I had been younger, I would have boxed her ears, but instead I settled for smugly pulling out my album, which Mr. Booth had once graciou
sly autographed.

  On the subject of Private Flanagan, however, I said nothing. If our correspondence came to nothing, I would feel mighty foolish had I mentioned it to Camilla, Anna, and my other friends. Besides, it was rather nice to have my own little secret.

  I also visited my sister, who was known as Sister Michael but whom I still called Hannah from the days when she had mothered me after Mama and her baby died. Father often said Hannah had wanted to be a nun since she was three or four, and she had certainly wanted to enter the church as long as I had known her, but I always thought it was a sad waste, as she had the face of an angel and would have had any number of suitors had she not taken the veil.

  I showed her Mr. Booth’s picture, and she told me in her best nun’s manner that I should not be led astray by the vanities of the world. Then she looked at it again and asked, “Is he this handsome in person?”

  “Oh, even more so,” I said.

  • • •

  Anna and I had nothing but our photographs of Mr. Booth to look at when I returned home, for Mr. Booth was in New York, Anna told me as I unpacked.

  “Did anything interesting happen while I was gone? Did Mr. Weichmann propose?”

  Anna swatted me with a fan she picked up just for that purpose. “No. Johnny took some fancy into his head that he had to leave town indefinitely, and scared poor Ma, but it’s fine now. He’s been practically underfoot for the last few days, in fact. Mr. Payne is gone, in case you were hoping that he would escort you to the theater again.”

  “No, thank you. Father would never forgive me if I brought a Baptist home.”

  My unpacking completed, we adjourned to the parlor, where we were soon joined by Mrs. Surratt. “Mr. Weichmann is past his time today,” she said, looking at the mantel clock.

  “I hope you won’t make the rest of us wait for that man, Ma.”

  “It is so unlike him to be late. I hope he has not taken ill.”

  Anna was about to speak again, no doubt in the same vein, when we heard the front door open and Mr. Weichmann, looking his most clerkly self in his high hat, hurried into the parlor. He carried a small parcel in one hand. “I beg your pardon, Mrs. Surratt, for my being late, but I hope you will excuse me. I saw this in a shop window, and I instantly thought of Miss Surratt.”

  “You have a gift for me, Mr. Weichmann?”

  “More for the house as a whole, but I had you in mind.”

  “Well then, I shall open it.” Anna gingerly unwrapped the gift, covered in brown paper, revealing a framed picture. “Why, it’s Morning, Noon, and Night!”

  “I heard you mention it the other day,” Mr. Weichmann said smugly.

  Anna held the picture up as Mrs. Surratt leaned in closer to examine it. It was quite a popular one in those days, and showed a white-haired old gentleman, a pretty young lady who must have been his daughter, and her two children, along with the family dog. All looked rather solemn, except for the little girl, occupied happily with the dog.

  Or perhaps the pretty young lady was the old man’s wife? If so, I couldn’t imagine why he looked so solemn. In any case, she was wearing a beautiful dress, light-colored with flounces. Perhaps if I begged Father hard enough, he would let me have a similar one made for the summer, as it looked deliciously light and airy.

  Mr. Weichmann cleared his throat. “Do you like it, Miss Surratt? I distinctly remember you saying you wanted one for your mantel.”

  I too remembered her saying this, but for a moment I thought she was going to deny it. But Anna said mildly, “Yes, I did indeed. Thank you, Mr. Weichmann. It was very considerate of you.”

  Mr. Weichmann beamed and kept on beaming all during supper.

  • • •

  The next day, I went to the post office to call for my mail. There was a letter from a friend of mine, a letter from my brother in Boston—and a letter from New York, thicker than the last one I had received. I casually separated it from the rest and frowned. I knew no one else in New York besides Private Flanagan, yet the envelope was not addressed in his inimitable handwriting.

  There were two letters inside. One was from Private Flanagan and said he hadn’t been feeling so well but would no doubt be on his feet “SOON!” The second, in the same handwriting as the envelope, was from a priest. Private Flanagan had taken ill about a week or so before, he wrote, and had been too weak from his recent hospitalization to fight off the illness. He had spoken of me fondly to the very end and had asked that I be informed of his death and given a remembrance of him. Wrapped inside a threadbare handkerchief with the initials H. F. was a lock of hair, along with the picture I had given to him.

  I have no idea how I made it home from the post office alive that day. I walked through crossings without bothering to look around me. Someone yanked a horse to a stop just inches from me, with curses that would have made the Union and Confederate armies combined blush; I stared straight ahead and walked on. Someone greeted me; I said not a word in return. By the time I reached the boardinghouse, my tears were blinding me.

  In my eagerness to get to the post office, I had forgotten my house key. I banged on the door, then rang the bell. “Let me in! Let me in, damn it!”

  “What on earth is the meaning of this?” Mrs. Surratt opened the door. “Has the devil gotten into you, Nora?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “Who?” Getting no intelligible reply, she said, “Come into the bedroom, child, and tell me about this.”

  She hustled me into the bedroom and forced me into a chair—her favorite chair, in which not even Anna was allowed to sit. Leaving me weeping there, she returned a little while later with a cup of tea. “Drink this. May I see the letter?

  I nodded and handed over the packet I had received.

  “Was this your sweetheart, Nora?”

  “No.” I took a shuddering breath. “He was a young man I met while reading here. We were friends.”

  “Your father knew you were writing to him? And that you sent him your picture?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “But you weren’t sweethearts?”

  “What does it matter now?” I gulped the tea. “We weren’t. But we might have been in time.”

  “Were you in love with him?”

  “I don’t know.” I brushed my hand across my eyes. “I liked him very much. He was kind and amusing. He was poor and not well educated, but he wanted to better himself. I think I could have been happy with him.” My tears began to flow anew. “And now I shall never know.”

  Mrs. Surratt let me have my cry, then poured me some more tea. “Drink this up, and we will go to church and pray for your young man.”

  I obeyed, and we walked toward St. Patrick’s. It was the closest Catholic church to us, although usually Mrs. Surratt favored St. Aloysius. I had been christened at St. Patrick’s, though, and it seemed fitting I say my prayers for Private Flanagan there.

  Mrs. Surratt served me supper in her room that night, though I barely touched it. When it came time to go to bed, she sent Anna and Miss Dean up to the attic to sleep. “You don’t have to do that,” I protested. The attic bed was by no means a comfortable one.

  “I want to, child. You need a mother tonight.”

  And I did. I would fall into a sleep and wake up crying, and Mrs. Surratt would hold me tight and stroke my hair until I fell back asleep. When I woke up around midnight, desperately wanting to talk, she made me some tea and sat patiently beside me in her nightgown as I told her about our romance, if it could be called that. She never upbraided me for writing to Private Flanagan, and when I begged her not to tell Father, she promised she never would.

  “You must think me very silly, grieving so over a young man I barely knew, when so many women have lost so much more—fathers, husbands, children.”

  “No, I don’t think you silly at all. This war has caused so much misery to everyo
ne. Your poor Private Flanagan is just one more casualty of it.”

  I was young enough, despite all my sorrow, to cherish those words “your Private Flanagan.” I settled down to sleep again, curling close to Mrs. Surratt. This time, I slept soundly through the night.

  17

  MARY

  MARCH 1865

  There was sorrow in the house: a young man to whom Nora had been writing (and to whom she seemed to have all but engaged herself, without a word to her father) died, leaving the poor child bereft. I should have been keeping a closer eye on her, as her father was trusting me to fill the role of a mother to her, but in the face of her tears, I did not have the heart to scold her for her impropriety, especially since the man’s death had put an end to this little romance.

  Besides, I had my own secrets.

  The day before, while Nora was at the post office fetching her mail, a telegram for Mr. Weichmann—with his name misspelled—arrived from New York. As Mrs. Holohan had to venture out anyway, she offered to take it to Mr. Weichmann at his office. In the wake of Nora’s dreadful news, it slipped my mind altogether, but the next morning at breakfast, as Nora picked at her food, I asked Mr. Weichmann. “I believe you received a telegram yesterday. I hope it did not contain bad news.”

  “No, Mrs. Surratt. It was from Mr. Booth. I actually have no idea why he sent it to me. It merely asked me to tell John to telegraph a number and street at once. It seems he could have sent it directly to John.”

  I kept my face still, for I knew exactly what Mr. Booth was referring to: Mr. Payne’s new lodgings. After some correspondence between Mr. Booth and Johnny—sent, Johnny informed me, to Johnny under an assumed name—the men had deemed it safe that Mr. Payne, known in their correspondence as their invalid friend, return to Washington and board quietly here until needed. Johnny decided the Herndon House, a large boardinghouse on F Street where people came and went constantly, would be the ideal residence for him. “It does seem rather odd,” I said lightly, “but theater people are rather impractical, I imagine.”