Lincoln (10 page)

“Why, yes. I’ve tried to learn to crochet. But that’s really man’s work, so I gave it up. I’m happier with chess. And gambling, too.”

“A young lady after my own heart.” Yes, thought Chase, both jealously and delightedly, Jay Cooke was impressed with Kate. Chase dearly
wanted her to make a great marriage; and then never leave him. How this was to be done was a challenge to even his ingenious mind.

Kate motioned at the furniture, set haphazardly about the room. “I’ve only just arrived. There’s been no time to unpack. We’re camping out.”

“Well, I hope that when you come through Philadelphia next, you’ll visit us—my wife and I,” added Jay Cooke. “We have a pleasant house outside the town. It’s called The Cedars …”

“House!” said Henry. “My brother lives like the Czar!”

“No, there’s only one Czar in Pennsylvania and that’s Simon Cameron. I’m just a two-bit baron.”

“I
will
be visiting New York in the next few weeks and I’d very much enjoy seeing Mrs. Cooke and the … baronial Cedars. I’ve a week of shopping to do for this house, where nothing from Ohio seems to fit. Look at that sofa!” They looked; and collectively mourned its enormity. “I’ll also have to get a proper carriage …”

“Enclosed, yes,” said Chase, adding the cost of the carriage onto everything else. Desperately, he began to breathe rather than hum “Bringing in the Sheaves.”

“Poor Father!” Kate kissed him on top of his bald head. “We’ll pay, somehow. I’ll try to find a rich man to marry while I’m in New York …”

“Or Philadelphia. We have a very nice selection,” said Jay Cooke, slightly red in the face. “Mrs. Cooke will send you lists with pedigrees.”

“Then all our problems will be solved.”

“I’d rather live in a hut,” said Chase, entirely leaving the last of the sheaves.

The brothers Cooke rose to go. Hopes were high all round. The appointment to the Treasury seemed inevitable. “When you are at the Treasury, sir, call on me at any time,” said Jay Cooke. “The government will need money from the financial community; and men to help out. I’ll gladly—”

“Give us lists?” asked Kate. “Pedigrees?”

“What else, Miss Chase?”

Chase led the brothers to the front door while Kate remained in the drawing room, rearranging furniture.

“I’ll let you out myself,” said Chase, in a low voice. Since Kate’s finishing school, he had been forbidden ever to show anyone to the door—a servant’s function, she had warned him. Chase opened the door: a cold wind filled the vestibule.

Jay Cooke shook Chase’s hand with every sign of warmth. “You know, if you’re in the market for a carriage, I’ve got one that you might like.”

“Ah, I’m afraid that what you would have and what I could afford would never coincide.”

“Take it, sir. As a gift.”

“Oh, no. No. Thank you, no.” Chase was too experienced a politician not to recognize what was being offered. Without probity, he was nothing. With probity, he was poor, true; but he was also a president-to-be. The brothers departed. Chase returned to the drawing room. Kate was propping a portrait of her mother against a console.

“What a pity that she is not here, to see you grown and to see me …”

But Kate would not let him indulge in any regret, no matter how stylized. “She would only have come between us, Father. You know that.”

Chase was not prepared for Kate’s sharpness, much less candor. “Oh, Kate! She was not like that at all.”

“She was a woman,” said Kate flatly. “And I do not like or trust the sex.”

“There are exceptions, always.” Chase kissed Kate’s hand; was rewarded with a smile.

“I suppose I’m not fair,” she said, making up for her assault. “I don’t really remember her. I do remember how she’d sit with knitting needles in her hand; but would never knit.”

“Her health was bad.” How often, thought Chase, had he been obliged to say that phrase. For twenty years he had lived with ill health and death. He had attended the funerals of three of his wives and four of his children. Now all he wanted was Kate; and all that she wanted was to be with her father as they made their way to the great tree’s top. “The Cookes think that I’ll be appointed. But I don’t.”

“Oh, he has to appoint you!” Kate put down her mother’s portrait with a bang. “Everyone else—all the other rivals—are in. Why not you?”

“The Senate is not the worst of places—”

“But the Treasury is the center. You will have hundreds of appointments to make, more than any other Cabinet minister. There are Treasury men in every city, town and village and every last one of them will be for Chase for President in 1864.”

“You do look ahead!” Chase was startled that Kate knew so much about the powers of patronage that went with the Treasury. Of course, he himself could think of nothing else. It would be his privilege to build a national organization for himself while administering with perfect honesty the country’s finances.

“I’ve also looked ahead to
my
job, when you’re at the Treasury …”

“If …”

“When! Since Mrs. Seward’s an invalid, the wife or hostess of the next in line after the Secretary of State, which is you, will be First Lady of the Cabinet, and that’s me!”

“Suppose Mr. Seward unearths an aged sister, and brings her to town?”

“Mr. Seward is like a contented bachelor, living in that old Club House of his. He wants cigars, brandy and cronies.”

“You’ve been in the town one day, and you know more than I.”

“One of us must keep up with all the trivia, and I am the one. Now I’m off to Woodward’s Hardware Store in Pennsylvania Avenue, then to Gautier’s, then to Harper and Mitchell—but I’ll only
look
at clothes as we’re too poor for the moment—and then on to Jardin’s to see about a regular supply of flowers …”

“
You
take the Treasury. It is plain that you can run it. And it’s also plain that you’ll need its entire contents.”

Kate laughed. “I’m not that bad a manager. We’ll scrape by. You’ll be getting eight thousand dollars a year …”

“
If
appointed.”

“I’ve worked out a budget. Don’t worry.” Kate frowned. “You know, you could get Mr. Cooke to
lend
you that carriage.”

“A loan is equal to a gift.”

“No, it is not. The property is not yours.”

“But there would be the
appearance
of impropriety.”

“Only if you do favors for him. And since he is one of the richest men in Philadelphia—”

“How do you know that?”

“In Columbus, I used to talk to Henry Cooke about
non
political matters, too. I also heard about Mr. Cooke when I was at Miss Haines’s. We had quite a few girls from Philadelphia there. Anyway, I shall stop off at The Cedars on my way back from New York City. No matter what, we’ll need him for the next election.”

Chase had dreamed, always, of having a son in whom he might confide, to whom he might transmit what knowledge of the world he had acquired. Now he realized that in this remarkable daughter he also had a son but with none of the problems that two masculine wills are apt to produce.

“Have you seen Mrs. Lincoln yet?” The son was now a daughter again; curious to know about a woman she already regarded as a political and social rival.

Chase shook his head. “She was not visible last night.”

“I’m told she’s brought along one of her Southern half-sisters and a half-dozen cousins, all ladies from Springfield.” Kate went for her coat which was hanging in a wardrobe, marooned in the dining room. “I’ve
also been told that the ladies of Washington have refused to call on her.”

“She is the wife of the President. Or soon to be. How can they not?”

“They are rebels, that’s why.”

Chase frowned. “I sometimes think that this is the most rabidly secessionist city in the country, and why we don’t turn it over to the South, I don’t know.”

“And move the Capitol to Columbus?” Kate smiled at him by way of the dusty mirror as she put on her hat.

“Harrisburg, Philadelphia, Trenton, any place but this wilderness.”

“I quite like what I’ve seen of it. Nothing’s finished but the landscape is beautiful and, most beautiful of all, is that lovely old house where you and I are going to live one day.”

“Do you really think so?” Chase was wistful.

“Yes, I do, Father. That’s why I live.”

“For the President’s House?”

“For President Chase.” Then Kate was gone.

Chase crossed to the study, where case after case of books were strewn across the floor. Now that he was alone, he could attack, full voice, “Rock of Ages,” which was bound, he was now certain as he unpacked Blackstone’s
Commentaries
, to cleave wide for him.

T
HE DAY
of the inaugural, March 4, David Herold was awake at dawn. Since this was not a day to be missed, he had slept in all his clothes, including the disintegrating shoes. As he slept on a bunk in a sort of larder off the kitchen, there were no creaking stairs to worry about. He could hear throughout the house the heavy breathing and restive movements of eight women, all flesh of his flesh. Unlike Chase, who was content to have a daughter who was like a son as well, the nineteen-year-old David still longed for a brother to do things with, like … well, go to the Capitol and watch Old Abe get shot.

The morning was misty; and not cold. The frozen mud had melted, yielding the first crocuses and snowdrops of the season. At the Capitol,
a few streets from David’s house, there was no crowd as yet; nor any sign of one. But there were troops everywhere. Some were in regulation blue; others were in dark green, with sharpshooter’s rifles. They appeared to be searching for … wild boys? wondered David, happy to be a mere onlooker.

No one tried to stop David as he walked right up to the small wooden platform that had been built on the Capitol’s east steps. The platform had a roof to it; presumably in order to keep anyone from shooting Lincoln from high up. Then David wandered over to the Capitol’s north side, where, to his surprise, a pair of long wooden walls had been built between the plaza and the entrance to the Senate chamber. This meant that when Lincoln got out of his carriage, he would be shielded by two walls of planking as he made his way into the Capitol.

David still remembered the last inaugural vividly. He and the wild boys had had a marvelous time, whooping it up, cheering the President, Old Buck, and the beautiful lady got up as the Goddess of Liberty, as she stood on a moving float just in front of Old Buck’s carriage while, back of him, there was a second float on which had been placed an entire warship filled with sailors. But today there were no signs of splendor. There were few flags in evidence and none of the red, white and blue bunting that was traditionally used to decorate the speaker’s stand on Inaugural Day. On the other hand, he had never seen so many soldiers.

As David made his way up Pennsylvania Avenue to Fifteenth Street, the town was coming awake. The usual Negro population was being added to by the thousands of out-of-towners who had filled up the hotels. Early as it was, a crowd had gathered in front of Brown’s Hotel, and as always, Willard’s was the center of much activity. David stared up at the windows of Lincoln’s suite. The presidential parlor was right over the main door, and an American flag had been attached to the window.

“Hello, David!” David turned and saw the round, cherubic face of Scipione Grillo, a professional musician, who had just opened a restaurant next to one of the town’s most popular theaters.

“Hey, Skippy!” This was Mr. Grillo’s universal nickname. “What’re you doing up so early?”

“I go to the Center Market. I go buy food. We have a full house for every meal today.”

“What’s at the theater?”

“I don’t notice. But whatever’s there, we got good audiences.” Skippy maintained that he could always tell what a play was like by what its audience drank at his bar. For instance, they drank wine or champagne before and after a good comedy, while good tragedy required champagne
before and whiskey after. But if it was an opera, there was little or no drinking because Americans know nothing of music, said Skippy; and that was why he was abandoning music for the food-and-drink business.

David knew every theater manager in the town. As a result, he could almost always get a seat in the gallery for nothing. If he brought Annie Surratt or some other girl, he was expected to pay for the one ticket. If he should have no money left after a performance at Ford’s, Skippy would give him a free beer. In payment, David would do odd jobs for Skippy. He also worked for the various theater managements whenever an extra hand was needed to help load or unload scenery. He was besotted with the theater. In fact, had he been taller and his teeth less bucked, he would have been an actor; or, perhaps, a theater manager.

“You going to watch the inaugural parade, Skippy?”

“How can I? I make dinner. Anyway, there’s only the two bands. If there was the three, I’d be there. But I play violin tonight at the Union Ball. Mr. Scala needs me, he said. Marine Band’s weak in the string section, he says.”

“So you’ll get to see the whole lot.”

“All I look at is the sheet music. Oh, these new dances …!”

As Grillo crossed Lafayette Square, David presented himself at Thompson’s Drug Store in Pennsylvania Avenue, close to Fifteenth Street. Although the store was not yet open for business, David knew that “William S. Thompson, Proprietor” was already busy at work, filling prescriptions and supervising the black woman who cleaned up.

David opened the door and took a deep breath. If nothing else, he had always liked the smell of drugstores. In the last three years, he had worked first as a delivery boy and then as a prescription clerk for Mr. Thompson. Now he was about to enter, seriously, Mr. Thompson’s employ. He was wretched at the thought; but he had no choice.

“ ’Morning, Mr. Thompson. It’s me, Davie.” David blinked his eyes in the dim room, where one entire wall was occupied by a sort of wooden wardrobe containing a thousand small drawers while, parallel to the back wall, a highly polished wood counter supported two sets of scales and six huge china vases on whose sides gold Gothic script testified, in Latin, to their contents. David had picked up enough Latin in his last year at school to read a doctor’s prescription; it was about the only thing that he had ever learned that had proved of the slightest use to him. Mrs. Herold had wept bitterly when he left school. But since there was no money in the family, there was no choice. He lived at home; worked when he needed money; enjoyed himself in ways that would have caused his mother distress, but then she was, as Sal always said, a saint; and saints suffer.