Fates and Traitors (24 page)

Lucy thought quickly. “No, not my sister.” Lizzie was dutiful and cautious, and she would insist upon informing their parents, who would
in turn insist that their daughters decline the invitation. “But someone else—yes, that would do.”

“You shall join me tomorrow evening, then?”

She heard the nervous flutter in her laugh and hoped that he did not. “Since you insist that this is the only cure for your unhappiness, I don't see that I have any choice.”

“You could decline, and allow me to suffer.”

“No, I could not.”

They both fell silent, and she basked in the warmth of his gaze—curious, hopeful, happy—and she felt her suspicions melting away. Everyone knew the Hales were abolitionists and firmly for the Union. Surely Mr. Booth would not regard her so fondly if he did not share her beliefs, and his gaze was very fond indeed. . . .

She felt her cheeks growing warm, so quickly she stood, gave him her hand in parting, and hurried off to send a message to the only suitable chaperone whom she could trust to keep her confidence.

Parker readily accepted her invitation to take her to tea at the Willard Hotel, but he eyed her with wary amusement when she ordered a second plate of his favorite cakes. “To what do I owe this exceptional generosity?” he inquired, helping himself to a cherry tart sprinkled with almonds and sugar.

“I would like you to escort me to the theatre tomorrow night.”

“Gladly, and no bribery required.” He sipped his tea and peered at her, curious. “Is the celebrated thespian John Wilkes Booth performing?”

“No, but he shall meet us there.”

Parker set down his cup, wincing uncomfortably. “I take it my aunt and uncle are unaware of this.” When she said nothing, he sighed. “Lucy, I don't like to deceive them. If Mr. Booth is courting you, they should know. If you've accepted him as a suitor—which, I might add, I find both unwise and untenable—you should do so openly, or you make it seem sordid and improper.”

“I don't know if he wishes to be my suitor.”

Parker laughed shortly and sat back in his chair. “Trust me, dear cousin, he does. He wants something from you, at any rate.”

“Parker!”

“I meant political connections, advancement, something of that
kind. We can't discount the other, though.” Parker frowned, thinking. “Do you care for him enough to defy your family?”

“I'm not sure how I feel.”

“The truth, sweet cousin.”

“I'm not certain if I care enough for him to disappoint my parents by choosing someone so . . . unsuitable.” How she wished Mr. Booth were not an actor! “Why distress them when I don't know my own heart yet, or his? I must know him better, and he must know me, before it's reasonable to judge whether we are meant for more than friendship. To that end, I must spend more time in his company.”

“And that's where I come in.”

“Yes.” She reached across the table and laid her hand on his. “I will not see him alone, without a chaperone, but I require someone who understands the need for discretion.”

“You must realize that if you go about the city in his company, people will observe you, and word will make its way back to your parents.”

“People will not observe me in
his
company, but in my cousin's, and my cousin's friend's. You do like Mr. Booth, do you not, and would like to consider him a friend?”

“Yes, I suppose I would.” Parker took up his fork and broke off a bit of crust from his tart, but he did not taste it. “Duplicity can lead to bad ends. Will you promise me that I won't call at your hotel one morning and discover that you've eloped with him in the dead of night?”

“You have my solemn vow that I shall not.”

Parker frowned and set down his fork. “Very well, then, but understand that I consent under protest, and only because I fear you'd see him without a chaperone if I didn't agree.”

She thanked him profusely, promising him platters of cakes in gratitude for his kindness. He smiled wanly and told her that all he asked was for her to be wise, careful, and discreet, and not to make him regret his decision.

The following evening, Lucy dressed with care and waited apprehensively for her mother or father to suggest that Lizzie accompany her and Parker to the theatre, but to her relief, Lizzie had made plans of her own to attend a levee with a longtime friend visiting from New Hampshire.

“You look radiant,” Parker told her as he helped her into a carriage. Too nervous to speak, Lucy thanked him with a tremulous smile that grew steadier, happier, when they arrived at Grover's Theatre and she glimpsed Mr. Booth through the carriage window, chatting with a small crowd of admirers near the entrance. When he saw Parker emerge from the carriage, he hurried over to help Lucy down, and his warm smile and admiring look rendered her dizzy with joy.

The opera was excellently done—that much she remembered, although if she had been obliged to describe any particular scene, she would have been at a loss for words. As sublime as the music was, as impressive the sets, as suspenseful the plot, it was Mr. Booth who held her in thrall, his presence by her side, his ineffable grace, his masculine beauty utterly intoxicating. She wished the evening would never end, and although she applauded the performers as they took their bows, she silently berated them for not improvising a sixth act so that she might enjoy Mr. Booth's company awhile longer.

But eventually the cast disappeared backstage, the audience rose, and Lucy was obliged to depart with them. Parker kindly allowed Mr. Booth to offer her his arm first, and so it was he who escorted her up the aisle and outside, where the crowd milled about on the sidewalk, chatting about the performance as they awaited their carriages.

Suddenly Parker touched Lucy's shoulder. “Look there,” he said, nodding off to her right. “We were in even more distinguished company tonight than we knew.”

She followed his line of sight and immediately recognized the towering, narrow frame of President Lincoln. He stood on the steps with Secretary of State William Seward and one of his personal secretaries, John Nicolay, on his left, his head inclined to better hear their conversation. On his right arm was Mrs. Lincoln, attired in a lovely gown of blue wool trimmed in white ribbon, chatting with none other than Mr. Lincoln's other secretary, Lucy's friend John Hay.

“Oh, dear,” she murmured, turning her head, but not soon enough. Mr. Hay looked her way and smiled in recognition, but then his gaze traveled to Mr. Booth and settled upon her hand resting on his arm. Mr. Hay again fixed his gaze upon Lucy's, his eyebrows raising in wary astonishment.

Suddenly Mr. Booth stepped toward the president and his party,
and Lucy was compelled to go along. Alarmed, she tried to slow their progress. She was very fond of Mr. Lincoln and his wife, but she had no desire to speak with Mr. Hay at that moment, to introduce him to Mr. Booth, to explain their presence together. “Shouldn't we wait for the carriage here, where it's less crowded?” she pleaded.

Mr. Booth seemed not to hear her. His gaze fixed intently on the president, he worked his way through the throng almost as if he had forgotten Lucy was on his arm.

“I say, Booth,” called Parker, struggling to keep up with them. “If you wish to meet Mr. Lincoln, I'm sure my uncle could arrange an introduction another time.”

The crowd had grown so thick that Mr. Booth could not move any closer to the Lincolns and their companions unless he knocked others aside. He halted, staring at the president with inscrutable intensity. Lucy gave his arm a gentle pull. “Shall we find our carriage, Mr. Booth?” she asked. “My parents will expect my cousin to bring me directly home.”

His gaze riveted on Mr. Lincoln, he nodded but otherwise did not move. Lucy threw a beseeching glance to Parker, who shrugged and shook his head, as bewildered as she.

“Come on,” Mr. Booth said suddenly, turning and guiding Lucy back the way they had come. He said nothing as he hailed a carriage and assisted her into it, then waited for Parker to seat himself before closing the door.

“Aren't you riding with us?” asked Lucy, appalled to hear a piteous tremor in her voice.

“I think it would provoke too many questions if we all arrived at the hotel together, don't you?”

Lucy nodded, and she felt Parker's hand close around hers. “Never mind, Booth,” he said easily. “I'll see my cousin safely home. Thank you again for the tickets.”

They bade one another good night through the carriage window as the driver pulled away.

“Well, Lucy?” Parker inquired as the carriage halted in front of the National Hotel. “Was the evening all you had hoped for?”

“Not all,” she admitted, “but I wouldn't have missed it for the world, and I owe you at least one plate of cakes for your trouble.”

In balance, it had been a lovely evening. She and Mr. Booth had parted awkwardly, but even so, she longed to see him again.

The next morning, Mr. Booth appeared at the top of the staircase just as her family was going down to breakfast—or perhaps it was not happenstance at all. He addressed them all cordially, his strange mood of the previous night entirely lifted. Lucy's parents chatted with him so pleasantly that Lucy dared hope that they might grow fond enough of him to set aside their objections to his profession and allow him to court her openly, if that was what he wanted. If she could overcome her own objections. She was reluctant to become an actor's wife—but there she was, putting the cart before the horse, exactly as she had told Parker she must not do. It was utter nonsense to think of marriage when she and Mr. Booth had only just met, and when he had not declared his intentions.

And yet she could not help herself.

She was despondent when he left for New York at the end of that lovely week, and she thought she might burst from the effort of concealing her unhappiness from her family. If they noticed her downcast spirits, they probably blamed the same dispiriting news that troubled them all. On December 8, the day of Mr. Booth's departure, the Senate had removed Papa as chairman of the Naval Affairs Committee, adding insult to injury by appointing a longtime rival as his replacement. Greatly desiring to keep the post through the end of his term, Lucy's father appealed to a trusted colleague and friend, Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, to help reinstate him. Although Senator Sumner advocated on his behalf, when the Republicans caucused, only seven senators voted to retain Papa as chairman. Instead he was offered leadership of the Committee on the District of Columbia, a far lesser post he promptly declined.

“Never mind,” Lucy told him, kissing his cheek. “We shall soon be en route to France in any case.”

Her father smiled, though his eyes were sad, and he told her no man could ever wish for a kinder or more loyal daughter. She felt a stab of guilt as she smiled her thanks, for a truly kind and loyal daughter would not hide the secrets of her heart from so devoted a father.

After an interminable four days, her spirits soared to see Mr. Booth picking up his key from the front desk once more. The smile he gave
her across the foyer was so joyful and admiring that Lucy was certain that absence had made his heart grow fonder, as it had hers.

Ever bolder, they found reasons to cross paths at the hotel as often as they could and conversed as long as they dared, discussing poetry, Shakespeare, the news of the war. Lucy listened, spellbound, as Mr. Booth told her about his family, who lived in New York City and Philadelphia. He tried to visit them at least every two months if he could manage it, and he exchanged letters with them almost weekly, more often with his mother and sisters than with his brothers. Wistfully, he told her about the tragic loss of his revered father, and about his childhood in Maryland. “Did your family own slaves?” Lucy asked him tentatively, afraid for the answer.

To her relief, he shook his head. “My father, like his father before him, abhorred slavery. They were true Englishmen and could never reconcile themselves to our peculiar institution.”

“Oh, I'm so glad,” Lucy exclaimed. Mr. Booth hesitated a moment before going on to describe how, when he was first establishing his rural Maryland homestead, his father had purchased a slave from a neighboring farmer, had immediately freed him, and then had hired him back as his foreman. Lucy listened, entranced, her heart warming to every word, immeasurably pleased to know that Mr. Booth too came from a staunchly abolitionist family. Somehow that singular, important similarity diminished the vast differences between their backgrounds, at least a little.

Mr. Booth also told her of his conflicted feelings for his brother Edwin, envy intermingled with admiration so intense it was almost worship. His elder brother was the more gifted actor, he admitted, but the friendly rivalry that had emerged years before while they were both performing at the Marshall Theatre in Richmond—he as a lowly supernumerary and Edwin as a visiting star—had inspired him to commit himself wholeheartedly to mastering his craft. “I would not be half the actor I am today if not for my brother,” he said. “He pushed me to strive for greatness, as I had never pushed myself.”

Lucy's heart ached when Mr. Booth confided to her how a recent tragic loss had made him bitterly regret every jealous moment of their youth: In February of the previous year, Edwin's beloved wife had died of pneumonia.

“Mary was at their home in Boston with their young daughter, Edwina,” Mr. Booth told her, his voice low and sad, but steady. “Edwin was performing in New York, but he was held in the tight grip of the old family curse—a relentless craving for drink—and he was in no fit state to read the telegrams sent to him at the theatre, urging him to come home at once. Finally Mary's doctor thought to telegraph the theatre manager, who urged my brother to read his telegrams. He did so, and he immediately raced for home, but he arrived too late. His beloved wife had already passed.” Lucy had never thought Mr. Booth more beautiful than when he gazed off into the distance then, lost in memory, his exquisite features shadowed with sorrow and regret. “Edwin was utterly devastated, and he cursed himself for being too drunk to understand that his wife was dying. He has not touched a drop of liquor since that dreadful night, and he has been a perfect father to my poor motherless niece.”