The Lincoln Deception (12 page)

A carriage stopped in front of Fraser, blocking his view. He turned away impatiently and craned his neck to peer down Broadway. A hand grabbed his arm from behind and a woman's voice cried out. “Dr. Fraser? What on earth is happening?” A face leaned from the carriage. It was Eliza, Miss Eliza, Clarke's business manager.

“It's a riot,” he said. “They're beating the colored. My friend is hurt.” He pointed toward Cook. “I must get him to safety.” She insisted they enter her carriage and come to her hotel suite. It wasn't far.

With one of them on either side of Cook, they wrestled him into the carriage. When they were moving, Fraser thought of the reception they would face at the hotel.

“Does the Waldorf allow colored?” he asked in a sharp voice.

Cook was slumping onto Eliza, since she was the smaller of his supports. With a grunt, she pushed him upright. “I don't know. Staff, I suppose.”

“Well, even if they do, they won't welcome one who looks like this.”

For an extra dollar, the driver took them into the alley behind the hotel. They found the staff entrance. As several hotel workers watched, Fraser and Miss Eliza helped Cook stagger inside. An older colored man pointed them to the service elevator.

In Miss Eliza's suite, they deposited Cook on the sofa, but when he lay back, his legs overlapped the end. She agreed he should be on the bed.

Fraser asked for water, soap, and a cloth to clean Cook's wounds. When he despaired that his medical bag was back at their hotel, Eliza offered to go to the hotel's drug store, which was open all night. This seemed one more wonder of the metropolis. Fraser wrote a list of items to buy—carbolic, aspirin, laudanum. Cook seemed to have no broken ribs. His bones must be made of granite. But his torso had absorbed powerful blows. Fraser could not gauge the damage. The blood Cook spat came from a cut where his own teeth tore his cheek. Fraser considered trying to close the wound with stitches but decided against it. It was too difficult to get to, and the blood flow was slow.

Cook winced while Fraser handled him, but said nothing. Fraser gave him a strong dose of laudanum, one calibrated for a man of his size and constitution. Eliza turned down the light. Within a few minutes, Cook was asleep, breathing evenly.

Clammy with sweat, Fraser followed Eliza into the dark sitting room. They sat in overstuffed chairs that flanked a row of windows. No shouts came from the street. Either the riot had subsided or the hotel was too far away for its noise to reach them. Fraser thought the air carried a whiff of smoke, but it might have been on his clothes. They sat quietly for several minutes. He was grateful for the silence. Fatigue crept into his arms and legs.

“You're a caring doctor,” Eliza said, “and a good friend.”

“What comes over men?” he said. “Attacking strangers! I don't know what we would've done if you hadn't come along.”

“It was a lucky chance.”

“Lucky for us, yes, ma'am. I will arrange to move him tomorrow.”

“I think not, Dr. Fraser. That's the last thing that poor man needs.”

Fraser was too tired to argue. He was pleased to feel safe in a room that—it had to be acknowledged—was acres more pleasant than any he had occupied since leaving Cadiz.

He sat up with a start. Spending the night here was not a proper arrangement. “I must find somewhere to sleep,” he said. “I'll return in the morning.”

“I won't hear of it,” she said. “If Mr. Cook should need aid in the night, I would have no idea what to do. I would count it a kindness if you would remain here. I can find accommodations with one of the ladies of our company.”

He meant to shrug and express his gratitude, but instead he slid into sleep.

“Y
ou look very nice.” Eliza reached to flatten Fraser's cravat. “Not at all like a theatrical manager from Ohio.”

His cheeks warm with embarrassment, he turned to Cook, who was showing improvement. After two days of soup, Cook had eaten bread for his evening meal. His eyes were clearing. Fraser had stopped the laudanum. “Rest easy this evening,” he told his patient. “We'll just be downstairs.” Cook grunted his understanding. Talking still hurt his mouth.

After moving in with one of the actresses, Eliza had spoken with the hotel maids and bellmen to explain the presence of Cook and Fraser. She probably added gratuities to smooth the business. The Clarke company's rehearsals began early and ran late. From Eliza's offhand remarks, they weren't going especially well, which didn't seem to trouble her. Other than retrieving luggage from their wreck of a hotel, Fraser had done little for two days but watch over Cook and plow into the more obscure tragedies.
Timon of Athens
bored him, while
Corialanus
lacked the magic of Shakespeare's other dramas.

When Eliza invited Fraser to dine with the Clarke family at the hotel restaurant, he worried that they might resent Fraser's visit to the Lake Erie mansion under false pretenses. Eliza smiled.

“You've not dealt much with actors,” she said. “They memorize hundreds of lines but are oblivious to the world around them. You may revive your pretense of managing Chillicothe Theaters”—he winced at the phrase—“or you may affect your true identity. Creston and Adelaide will notice neither, as you are much less interesting than themselves. And because you've not heard Creston's stories before, your presence will be invaluable.”

She had dressed plainly. Her high-throated white blouse had frills and ruffles, but struck a severe note. Her straight black skirt accentuated her figure. She had pinned up her hair, probably due to the heat, creating a luxurious wave above her brow. Fraser found her such a pleasant sight that he schooled himself to look away at intervals, for fear of being rude.

When he and Eliza joined the Clarkes in the dining room, he was delighted to meet Dr. Joseph Booth, the brother closest in age to the notorious John Wilkes. Dr. Booth, slight and reserved, lived in Baltimore and was addressed by all as Uncle Joseph.

They were six of them, counting Clarke and his wife, Adelaide, Dr. Booth and his wife, and Fraser and Eliza. But they might as well have been one, as Creston Clarke's conversational style involved lengthy proclamations punctuated by longer anecdotes.

“Wilkes,” said Clarke halfway through his second glass of wine, “now there was a man with talent and courage. Eh, Uncle Joseph?”

Dr. Booth nodded.

“Did you know,” Clarke asked Fraser across the table, “that Wilkes performed the most outrageously dangerous swordplay during his performances? No pantomime of conflict for Wilkes. No, sir. If you were Laertes to his Hamlet, you had better brush up on your fencing or you wouldn't survive the rehearsals.”

He drained his glass and held it out for refilling. “One night in Albany, that benighted city, he tripped and fell on a knife he was wielding. He missed ending it all by a whisker—a whisker, I tell you!” After assuring himself that the new wine in his glass was acceptable, Clarke added loudly, “And that wasn't the only time he was stabbed in Albany!”

“Creston,” his wife said.

“What, my dear? Must we conceal the truth about such a banal matter?”

“I'm sure Dr. Fraser would like to hear of something other than your illustrious forebears.” The woman's tone could have scratched glass. It did not deter Creston Clarke.

“So, some young girl, some
Albanian
”—he grinned over the term for residents of that upstate city—“took a knife to Wilkes in a hotel room, eh? No doubt Dr. Fraser has experienced similar conflicts with the fair sex. Who hasn't? More to the point, when has the fair sex ever treated us fairly?” He beamed happily at his thrust, one that seemed familiar to all at the table.

“Creston,” Eliza hazarded. “I've been wondering about Richelieu's final soliloquy. Are you quite comfortable with King Louis's position downstage during it?”

Clarke waved his hand. “No, no, no, you clever girl. I shall finish the story. So this young strumpet, who had doubtless been in Wilkes's room before—she had a key, mind you—she hides in a corner and springs at him with a knife when he enters the room. The wound she delivered was only superficial, isn't that right, Uncle Joseph?”

Dr. Booth nodded.

“And Wilkes sweetly talked to her until she relinquished the knife and fell into his arms. What a moment! The curtain falls. The audience rises with a shout. Magnificent!” Extending his glass for another refill, Clarke added with practiced rhythm, “And that, dear friends, is why the Creston Clarke company will never play Albany.”

Fraser longed for a quiet exchange with Uncle Joseph, one physician to another. He imagined that talking about shared experiences might lay the basis for a further interview about more sensitive matters, about the notorious brother. Alas, it was not to be, though the long-dead assassin remained their constant guest at the meal. For a quarter of an hour, Clarke described how Wilkes joined the pursuers of John Brown when the abolitionist made his doomed attempt to lead a slave rebellion in 1859. Above all objects, according to Clarke, Wilkes cherished the spear carried by one of Brown's insurrectionary legionnaires, which Wilkes retrieved after the old man and his followers were overwhelmed at Harpers Ferry.

When dinner was done, Eliza agreed to join Fraser on a tour of Fifth Avenue. After looking in on Cook and finding him asleep, Fraser met her in the sparkling hotel lobby and walked out into the night. They fell in step to the south.

“You and Mr. Cook are an unusual pair,” she said. “Are you an athlete as well? Is that how you met?”

Fraser smiled. “I'm large, but no athlete. Speed is much more than an athlete, though. He's very smart.”

“Yes, they can be.”

“No, that's not what I mean. Not smart for a colored man. I mean, he's smart. He attended two colleges, you know.”

“Dr. Fraser”—she stopped to turn toward him. Other strollers had to veer around them. “I hope I've given no offense. I'm sure I don't know Mr. Cook. He sounds a remarkable person, as you describe him, and as he works for you, I am sure he is an entirely reliable man.”

“He doesn't work for me. He's my friend.” With a slight bow and a gesture, he suggested they resume their walk.

“You took grave chances on his behalf the other night,” she said. “You have been a good friend to him.”

“I have, I suppose, learned to be.”

“How did you come to know him?”

“By accident, really, but it was a lucky one.” He could no longer suppress the thought. “Does it make you uncomfortable to have a colored man in your suite? We have been a terrible burden.”

“Not at all, Dr. Fraser, certainly not as he's a friend of yours.” At an intersection, she proposed that they seek cooler breezes by the river. They turned west.

“Your Mr. Clarke,” Fraser ventured, “seems always to be on stage.”

“I hope you don't find him too appalling. He is appalling, of course, but never mean-spirited. He has been generous with me, and I am fond of him.”

“Heavens, I meant nothing of the sort. He is an object of the frankest amazement. He has the energy of ten! It's exhausting simply to listen to him.”

“It's rather sad, the way he keeps telling those same stories. I cannot calculate how many times I've heard them. But there is no firmer friend when times are difficult.”

“And Uncle Joseph?”

“Dear Uncle Joseph. In his whole life, no one in the family has allowed him to get a word in edgewise.” She gave a short laugh. “I believe he prefers it that way. He must by now.”

“He must have fascinating stories of John Wilkes Booth.”

“That is a peculiar thing,” she said. “I have never heard him speak of his brother. I have always supposed it's too painful. When Uncle Joseph sits quietly through Creston's endless stories about Wilkes this and Wilkes that, I feel as though Uncle Joseph is using Creston's words to salve a wound that will not heal.”

“You know the family well.”

She said nothing, casting a glance at him as they approached the intersection with Broadway. “Look,” she said, pointing up the wide street. “Where is the evidence of the riot?”

She was right. Traffic, both on foot and in carriages, proceeded as though nothing unusual had happened there for decades. Whatever had burned was gone. The people on the street looked no more threatening than those anywhere else in that swelling city. No Negroes walked the street, but Fraser could not judge whether that was a change from the ordinary.

“Tell me,” she said after they crossed the avenue, “about your researches. How do they progress?”

“Haltingly, I fear. Just as I think we're on the verge of resolving some piece of the problem, some new complexity arises.”

“Do you still think Wilkes was the pawn in some larger game?”

“More than ever. Demonstrating that, of course, is where the difficulty arises.”

“And the cotton business that I mentioned in Fairview—has that proved of any help?”

Though he had not intended to, Fraser began to tell her his theories of the conspiracy and the role of cotton smuggling in it. With Cook in no condition to hear about his dinner with Barstow and the outlandish ideas the tycoon had spouted, Fraser described them to Eliza. She listened attentively, interposing a question here and a comment there. When they reached the Hudson, they walked along the trading ships that loomed on the waterfront, slowing their pace to absorb the breeze.

When he came to the end of his speculations, she paused to gaze at an old steamer with rust trailing from its portholes. He had not been so comfortable talking with a woman since Ginny died. He could complain to Ginny about the ignorance of his patients, share with her his hopes for a Harrison County hospital, or at least a clinic, though she didn't always take his side. She knew their neighbors, too, sometimes better than he did. He had missed her so.

Eliza turned her hazel eyes to him. “You will continue with your researches?”

It took him a moment to focus. “As soon as Cook is fit, we'll head south, to Maryland and Washington. I'm never free from the fear that we won't be successful, but we must try. We've come this far.”

“That's fine,” she said. “You should. I believe the Booths would be grateful for it.”

“If it's not too bold, you seem on such intimate terms with the family. How did that come to pass?”

“It's rather an involved story. I have known the Clarkes for much of my life. Creston's mother, who was a wonderful woman, I knew as my Aunt Asia. She provided me a home and a family after my mother died.”

“Very kind, indeed.”

“And when my husband died three years ago—he was a playwright, Edward Scott, though his works never became popular—Creston made room for me in his company. He gave me a life. We grew up together, along with his brother. Both boys, I'm afraid, were always performers. Their father was an actor, too, so they inherited it from both sides of the family. We lived in England some of the time, so Creston's accent is not entirely artificial.”

“How old were you when your mother died?”

“Twelve.”

“And your father?”

“My mother never married.” She said this simply, looking directly at him. Fraser was surprised that he was not shocked. Spoken calmly by this ineffably lovely woman, it seemed not scandalous at all.

On their way back to the hotel, he asked about life in England, feeling keenly his own dull history. She had lived in London, had traveled all over America with the Clarke company. Fraser had barely left Ohio before this year.

As they recrossed Broadway, he felt her hand on the crook of his arm. He placed his hand over hers. Their fingers intertwined. Long-dormant feelings surfaced as she looked into his eyes. Something clenched inside him. Was he being disloyal? Eliza was so different from Ginny, but his longing was the same, the ache for warmth and absolution that only a lover can grant. Could he find that with this poised and worldly woman? Could he give the same back to her?

“Oh, but you are a good friend, Dr. Fraser.”

“Good enough,” he said, “to be Jamie to you?”

A playful look passed over her face. “I suppose we could try that, Jamie.”

His heart performed somersaults like a schoolboy's.