Lincoln (11 page)

Mr. Thompson emerged from the back room. He was a cheery man who wore thick glasses with tiny metal frames. He had been related, somehow, to David’s father. But then David was related to half the town: the lower half, Annie liked to say, as she thought of the Surratts of Surrattsville as being gentry, which they were not: just farm folk with a bit of money, in Mrs. Herold’s phrase.

“Well, David, are you prepared to enter man’s estate?” Mr. Thompson’s concern in the past had been with David’s entirely undisguised lack of seriousness about work of any kind.

“Yes, sir. I’m ready to go to work now, and settle down and everything.” Even as David said this with perfect insincerity, he felt as if a prison door was swinging shut on him. He was only eighteen; he had never been anywhere, or done anything exciting; now he was to go to work as prescription clerk for the rest of his life in a shop just across Pennsylvania Avenue from the Treasury building and just around the corner from Willard’s, where the grandees made love to their beautiful women and drank at the long bar and made fortunes at cards and dice and politics, unaware that just up the street David Herold, slave, was at work, filling prescriptions for them, nine hours a day, five-and-a-half days a week, with Sunday off to catch up on all that he had missed during the rest of the week. David felt the tears come to his eyes. Surely, something or someone would save him at the last minute. No young man in any play that he had ever seen had ended up like this.

“All right, Davie. We’ll start you in today. You’re to be here at seven o’clock every morning. I’ll give you a key. Then you let Elvira in at seven-fifteen …” Elvira appeared from the back room. She grunted when she saw David; who grunted back. Elvira was not given to human speech.

“I wondered, sir, if I could start tomorrow? You see, I’m supposed to help out at the Union Ball tonight, as a waiter.” David was a quick and adroit liar. He had learned how to lie partly from the actors whose work he had studied so carefully but mostly from his sisters on the subject of their beaux. Between what they said of the young men behind their backs and to their faces, there was a stunning gap. When David would taunt them, they would laugh at him; and tell him to mind his own business, which he was perfectly glad to do.

“Well, it is a
half
holiday today.” Mr. Thompson was agreeable. “So you can work through the morning and then help me close up at noon, and still get to listen to Mr. Lincoln.”

“I can’t say that I care to all that much.”

“Now, now, Davie. He’s the President, after all.”

“Jefferson Davis is
our
President.”

Mr. Thompson frowned and smiled. “Now let’s have no secesh talk in this shop. It does damage to my digestion—and business.”

“But you ain’t Union, Mr. Thompson. You’re from Virginia, like us.”

“What I may be in my heart of hearts, Davie”—Mr. Thompson was now solemn—“I keep to myself, and I suggest you do the same because of our numerous distinguished customers.”

“Mr. Davis was one of your customers?”

“One of my
best
customers, poor man. I’ve never known anyone to suffer so much from that eye condition of his. He’ll be blind by the summer, I said to Dr. Hardinge, if you don’t change the prescription. But you can’t tell Doctor Hardinge anything. On my own, I gave Mr. Davis belladonna to stop the pain—”

“So then he
is
your President.”

“If I were in business in Montgomery, Alabama, yes, he would be. But I am here—with my loved ones—in a shop at Fifteenth and Pennsylvania Avenue, and I am the official unofficial pharmacist for the presidents of the United States and as I looked after Mr. Buchanan and Miss Lane—she’ll never make old bones, I fear—I intend to look after the Lincoln family, a large one, for a change, and sickly, I should think, wonderfully sickly, from the glimpse I had of them yesterday.” Mr. Thompson was smiling, without knowing it, thought David, who was aware that actors’ tricks were not exclusive to actors, only the knowledge of them was.

“Well, you may not get your chance. There’s talk he’ll be shot today.”

“Oh, the wild boys.” David found disappointing Mr. Thompson’s contemptuous dismissal of the dedicated young men of the National Volunteers. “General Scott will shoot the whole lot full of holes before the day’s over. Which reminds me, fix a draft for his dropsy and take it straight across the road to the War Department, the new one up the street. The prescription’s in the back.”

As David entered the familiar back room, he felt as if he had left all life behind. But what else could he do? As he mixed General Scott’s prescription, he toyed with the idea of going south, to Montgomery, to join the army that Mr. Davis was supposed to be raising. But wasn’t the army just another form of imprisonment? David wanted a world to conquer, any world, no matter how small. Idly, he wondered if he could seduce Annie; he decided that he could, but if he did, the greatest of all prison doors would then swing shut upon him: marriage, children and years of making up prescriptions for the likes of General Scott. It was too late to be General Scott when he grew up; you had to go to West Point for that, or serve a long time in the ranks. Were he better-looking, he might be an actor. After all, he could learn lines; and was a lot better at making believe
than most of the touring-company players who came to town. But how was he ever to begin? A single warm tear was inadvertently added to General Scott’s prescription.

While David Herold was enjoying a bearable amount of self-pity, John Hay was already at work in Parlor Suite One with Nicolay. Two large crates lay open on the floor and Hay was transferring folders filled with applications, affidavits, supplications, yellowed newspaper cuttings and fervent prayers from the room’s wardrobe to the cases. “We have received, personally, nine hundred and twelve applications for jobs,” said Hay, studying the last of the folders.

“It seems more like nine thousand,” Nicolay still retained a slight German accent which Hay enjoyed imitating. Nicolay sat at a table, making a report to the President on which applications seemed promising.

“How much longer does this go on?”

“Until we leave office.”

“I had no idea,” said Hay, who had indeed had none. “I thought a few people might show up and he’d give them a postmaster’s job and that was that. But we’re going to have to deal with all thirty million Americans before we’re through.”

“Less the twelve million or so Mr. Davis has to find jobs for.” In the distance, there was a premonitory roll of drums.

“Did you know Mr. Seward was thick as thieves with Mr. Davis, right up to a few weeks ago, when he left town and the Union?”

Nicolay nodded. “The Tycoon wanted the two of them to talk as much as possible.”

Hay frowned. “Do you think Mr. Seward’s really serious about taking himself out of the Cabinet?” Hay had been present in Lincoln’s parlor when the Albany Plan had been revealed. The New York delegation, echoing Seward, had insisted that Lincoln exclude Chase from the Cabinet, which should be made up entirely of Whigs, instead of the four Democrats and three Whigs that Lincoln had in mind. When Lincoln had reminded the New Yorkers that he, too, was a Whig, which evened things, they had still been intransigent. They warned the Tycoon that Seward would not serve with Chase, to which Lincoln replied that he would be sorry to give up his first Cabinet slate in favor of a second list which he had prepared; but if that was the case, then he would appoint that good Whig Mr. Dayton as Secretary of State, while Mr. Seward could go as minister to London, a city that he had so recently taken by storm.

Alarmed, the New Yorkers withdrew; their Albany Plan a temporary failure.

Seward’s rage when Lincoln’s words were repeated to him resulted in
a letter of withdrawal from the Cabinet. Lincoln had chosen not to accept Seward’s defection; and had responded with a polite note, asking Seward to remain where he was. As Lincoln signed the letter, he said, half to himself, half to Hay, “I can’t afford to let Seward take the first trick.”

“Personally,” said Nicolay, “I’d rather Seward stayed out. But …”

The door to the parlor opened, and the vast Lamon filled the doorway. “He wants to see you boys.” Lamon lumbered out of view.

“What’s Lamon going to be in the government?” asked Hay.

“Marshal of the District of Columbia, which means he can go on being a bodyguard.”

“One of many, let’s hope.”

The city was filled with alarming reports. The President would be shot on his way to the Capitol. The President would be shot at the Capitol. The President would be kidnapped at the Inaugural Ball and taken across the Long Bridge to Virginia and held hostage. Of all the rumors this one struck Hay as a possibility. It had also enlivened General Scott, who had placed two sharpshooters in every window that looked upon the eastern portico of the Capitol, as well as sharpshooters all up and down Pennsylvania Avenue, not to mention plainclothesmen everywhere.

Lincoln himself seemed indifferent. For the last few days he had been preoccupied with the Virginians, who were holding a convention at Richmond to determine whether or not to secede. More than once, Hay had heard Lincoln pleading with one Virginian after another. Currently, the remaining Southerners in the Congress were particularly exercised by something called the Force Bill, which would give the President the right to call out the militia and accept volunteers into the armed forces. Lincoln had agreed, privately—and, Hay thought, cravenly—to reject the bill if that would satisfy Virginia. On Friday, acting on Lincoln’s instructions, just before the Force Bill was to be voted on, Washburne had asked for an adjournment of the House. With this adjournment, the Thirty-sixth Congress expired. But not before, as a further gesture to the Southerners, Lincoln’s party supported a measure, never, ever, to interfere with the institution of slavery in those states where slavery was legal. On that note of conciliation, the House of Representatives shut up shop on Monday, March 4, the day of Lincoln’s inauguration. The Senate remained in session.

Nicolay and Hay proceeded down the police-lined corridor to Parlor Suite Six. Lincoln sat in his usual place beside the window, the light behind him, his glasses on his nose. Mrs. Lincoln, the three sons, the half-dozen female relations of Mrs. Lincoln quite filled the room.

Hay had never seen Mr. Lincoln so well turned out. He wore a new
black suit that still fit him. But Hay knew that by the time that restless, angular body had finished pushing and prodding with knees and elbows, the suit would resemble all his others. For the present, the white of the shirtfront shone like snow, while beside his chair, next to the all-important grip-sack, was a new cane with a large gold knob. Hay could see that Mrs. Lincoln’s expensive taste had prevailed.

“Gentlemen,” Lincoln greeted his secretaries formally. “We are about to be joined by the Marshal-in-chief, who will put us in our carriages, show us our seats, give us our orders …” There was a sound of cheering outside the window. Then a fanfare of trumpets. Lincoln got to his feet; and peered out. “Well, if it’s not the President himself, I’d say it’s a very good likeness.”

Mary had rushed to the window. “It’s Mr. Buchanan! He’s come to fetch you.”

“In a sense.” Lincoln smiled. “Now I shall want a lot of Illinois and”—he nodded to certain of Mrs. Todd’s relatives—“Kentucky dignity.”

With that, the Marshal-in-chief appeared in the doorway. For a moment, Hay feared that Lamon would not let him through. “Mr. Lincoln, the President,” proclaimed the Marshal.

The aged Buchanan, as white of face as of hair, came forward to the center of the room. Lincoln crossed to him. They shook hands warmly. “I am here, sir,” said the President, “to escort you to the Capitol.”

“I am grateful, Mr. President, for your courtesy.”

The two men left the room together. At the door Buchanan gestured for Lincoln to go first; but Lincoln stepped to one side, and the still-reigning President went through the door.

The Marshal-in-chief explained who was to go in what carriage. There would be individual marshals—each with a blue scarf and white rosette—assigned to Mrs. Lincoln, to the sons and to the ladies. Fortunately, Hay and Nicolay were allowed to follow Buchanan and Lincoln down the stairs to the lobby, where the police were holding back a considerable crowd. There was cheering at the sight of Lincoln. “Our applicants!” said Hay to Nicolay.

“Wait till we get outside,” said Nicolay ominously.

Buchanan and Lincoln, now arm-in-arm, stood in Willard’s doorway. A sudden storm of cheering—and of booing—was promptly drowned out by Major Scala’s Marine Band, which struck up “Hail to the Chief” as President and President-elect proceeded to get into their open carriage. A nervous marshal then hustled Hay and Nicolay into a barouche, already filled with Washburne and Lamon.

Hay found Washburne edgy; and Lamon uncharacteristically relaxed.
But then Lamon had turned his friend and charge over to the United States Army and if they could not protect him today, no one could. Washburne stared out of the window at the thin crowd along the brick sidewalk on the north side of Pennsylvania Avenue. There was no sidewalk or much of anything else on the south side, which, after a few blocks of houses and the Gothic red-brick Smithsonian Institution, turned into a marshland, the result of overflow from the canal that ended in the muddy waters of the Potomac River on whose banks poison ivy and oak grew in wreaths like sinister laurel.

“That is a dangerous crowd.” Washburne stared out the window. They were now abreast the Kirkwood House. Thus far, there had been neither cheers nor boos for the two presidents up ahead.

“They’re all secesh in this town,” said Lamon, whose pronounced Virginia accent sounded somewhat incongruous to Hay.

“And spoiling for a fight,” said Washburne.

“Watch the cavalry up ahead.” Lamon pointed to the two rows of horsemen that flanked the presidential carriage. The men rode in such close order that anyone standing on the sidewalk would be unable to get more than a glimpse of the occupants of the carriage.

“Notice how the horses are sort of skittish?” Lamon gave a satisfied smile. “That was my idea. When you get horses pulling this way and that, it’s going to be mighty hard for anyone with a gun to get himself a proper sight.”