Assassin (3 page)

I always shot a quick glance at the boy across the aisle. Steven would look down, sorry for his actions, but shortly
he would forget. Head up and full of enthusiasm, he would make some comment to one of the boys.

As soon as I learned Steven was to be my guide, I knew I would not need to speak much. “Just come with me,” he announced when we were outside. “The real name is the Executive Mansion, but everyone calls it the White House. I live there, you know, with my ma up on the third floor where the live-in servants stay.”

I did not know, and I stared at him, amazed. This boy lived in the very same house as the president my grandmother spoke of with such respect. We walked quickly for a few steps, but before we were out of the alley, he stopped. His hand was on his hip. “My ma says you come from Richmond,” he said. “That so?”

I nodded. “Well,” he said, “I’ll not hold that against you.” I suppose my face must have registered some surprise, because he went on to explain. “I mean, I reckon you are one of them Southerners. You have any slaves in your house?”

I nodded again.

“Well, I’d not be telling folks that,” he said. “We don’t see as how that is right.”

I nodded, totally unaware as to why on earth anyone should object to the fact that George and Sally served my father’s house.

Steven began to walk, and I stayed up with him. He bent to pick up a small stone from the road. He examined it
closely, then slipped it into the pocket of his pants. “I collect things,” he said. Then his eyes returned once more to me. “How old are you?” he asked.

“Eight.”

“I’m nine,” he said. We stood still for a moment, looking at each other, taking one another’s measure. I stood considerably taller than Steven. “Ma says I’ll grow. She says my brother Joseph was short like me too till he hit about twelve.” We were at a corner, and he turned to lead me down the edge of a wide road with many carriages. There was no sidewalk, not even a board one. Steven stepped around me to be the one closer to the road. “My ma says a gentleman is supposed to walk nearest the street,” he said, “on account of you might get splattered by mud or run over by a runaway horse.”

I leaned around him, looking for runaway horses. I wondered if they were common sights in Washington City, but I said nothing.

Steven noticed. “You don’t talk much, do you?”

He did not wait for an answer, just smiled and continued. “That’s all right. Mistress Newby says I talk enough for six people.” He paused for just a moment, then went on. “I like you. You’re right pretty. You are the prettiest friend I got. But then it is not so awful hard to be prettier than Jeb Wilson.” He laughed at his own joke.

I smiled at him. I liked being called pretty, and I especially liked being called friend. That’s what we were from
that day on, friends. I look back on many things with a sorrowful heart. Perhaps the most sorrowful of all is how I betrayed Steven.

He led me that day into the White House. It rose high amidst the buildings around it, and we walked across a large area of grass and trees to reach the door. The man outside the door smiled at us. “She’s with me,” Steven said, and the man opened the door.

“It’s mighty big,” he said, “but I know my way around. We could go to the servants’ quarters, but I reckon it’s all right for you to go to Mr. Buchanan’s library with me. That’s where I usually go after school. He allows me to read his books. You’ll have to be quiet.” He laughed. “Reckon that’s no problem for you. Likely you won’t believe it until we’re in there, but I’m quiet in the president’s library.”

I had thought my Richmond home to be large, but I had never been in a place so big as this house where the mighty president lived. It matched how I had pictured the giant’s palace when my mother used to tell me the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. I half expected to see a giant on the great stairs.

I wanted to move slowly, to look all about me at the bright glass chandeliers, the deep dark shine of the wooden furniture, the fresh flowers that rested on almost every table, but Steven was in a hurry, and I did not want to be left behind.

He started up the wide, red-carpeted stairs. “I like the
library most of all.” He stopped for a moment about halfway up and looked me full in the face. “I hope you won’t mind me telling you right out, but the truth is I’m exceptional smart.”

I nodded, and he went on. “Mr. Buchanan said as much to my ma. He said something else that is a marvel. He said I’m to go to college, said he would pay for it every penny. All I have to do is mind my studies.” He smiled broadly. “See, this is the way of it. My pa used to work for Mr. Buchanan when he lived back in Pennsylvania, before he got elected to run the country. We all came with him here to Washington City, but my pa died. Now Ma works helping to keep things clean. Ma likes things clean, and I like reading books, so it all falls out pretty well. Joseph, my tall brother, he went back to Pennsylvania on account of he is sweet on a girl there. Say, do you know the name of that street out in front?” He pointed. “The one that is paved is Pennsylvania Avenue. Isn’t that grand? Of course, you being from Virginia might not think so.”

“Oh, yes,” I said quickly. “I like Pennsylvania.” I had never before heard of Pennsylvania, but I could tell by Steven’s face that he loved the place. I wondered if he missed his home there as sorely as I missed mine. I longed for the flowers that grew in our garden, for the smells of a lavish dinner spread on the table, for my mother’s kiss. Steven’s father was dead, as was my mother, but there was no time to think about that. Steven had started up the stairs again, and I hurried after him.

We were well down the hall when suddenly Steven put out his arm to move me back against the velvety wallpaper. “The president is coming,” he whispered from his spot beside me. I looked up to see two men approaching.

“Which one?” I whispered, but Steven pressed his finger to his lips to show we should not talk.

“Yes, John,” said the taller man, “I feel certain we must be unruffled. We do not want to anger the South more. Things will settle down if we remain calm.”

“I hope so, Mr. President. I do hope so.”

I stared into the face of the man who was the president. I hoped he would not object to my presence in his home. When they were near us, the taller man looked in our direction and nodded his head in greeting. “Hello, children,” he said.

“Hello, sir,” said Steven. The men walked on, but we did not move until they had disappeared down the stairs. “That was him.” Steven’s voice was soft. “He runs the total, entire country of the United States of America, but he stops to speak to the likes of you and me, who are the children of his servants. He is a true, great man.”

I nodded. “Do you know what they were talking about?” he asked.

I did not, and I shook my head. “Don’t you know that the folks in the South are down on the folks in the North on account of us not wanting them to have slaves?” I shook my head again. “They say they can have slaves if they want to, and they don’t see it to be any business of the rest of us.”

“Is it?” I asked.

Steven stared at me, his face shocked. “Let me tell you, Bella. It is almighty wrong for folks to own other folks, no matter their skin color. You just ask Mistress Newby in school. She will tell you how the cow ate the cabbage.”

I did not see what cows and cabbage had to do with anything, but suddenly I did remember my father’s words about the laws made in Washington. “I don’t think my papa likes the laws that get made in this city,” I said.

Steven made a small sound of disgust. “Your father is a Southerner,” he said. “Southerners are pretty much all bad eggs.”

He had gone too far now. Friend or not, I was offended. I folded my arms across my chest and stood absolutely still. “If my father is a Southerner, then I am too. I don’t think it is very nice for you to say we are bad eggs.”

A look of surprise crossed Steven’s face. “I wasn’t intending to be unkind,” he said. “I just had a notion that I ought to tell the truth. Mistress Newby says being kind is just as needful as being honest.” He frowned. “ I reckon it’s hard to be both. I’m real sorry.”

In my full memory there is no other instance when I felt that Steven Browning was unkind to me. He was sometimes stubborn, sometimes prideful, but never unkind. For two years, we studied together in the small alleyway building that was Mistress Newby’s school.

When Steven was eleven, our teacher told his mother there was nothing more she could teach him. President
Buchanan had left the White House by then, but an educational trust had been set up for the boy. My friend was sent to a boys’ academy, where he learned Latin and studied the classics.

My schooling ended the same year Steven left. From Mistress Newby, I did, indeed, learn to hate the idea of slavery. “Thee has a good mind, Bella,” she told me once when we were discussing the growing unrest over slavery. “I can tell thee what I believe to be the truth, but thee must decide what is the truth for thee and not be swayed by the opinions of others.”

Oh, if only I had learned that lesson from my dear teacher. If only I had truly learned to stand against the influence of others.

True to his prediction, Steven did grow, but it happened before he was twelve. Sometime during that last year that we studied together I began to notice that he was taller than I as we walked side by side to the White House. I don’t remember when exactly it was, but at some point I noticed too that his face had grown to match his eyes. They were still large eyes, but their size no longer seemed to dominate his entire being.

During those happy school days, I came to think less and less of Virginia. I began to feel Washington City to be my home. My father, it seems, was able to pull himself together and go back into business. He even remarried. He wrote to me occasionally, always with a promise to visit soon.

For a few days after each letter, I would miss my father, and I would try to believe he would truly come to see me. Believing, though, became harder and harder.

During that first year my grandmother began to teach me to sew. “You have a gift, Bella,” she said. I sat beside her, and I remember how I grew warm with the pleasure of her praise. “I declare I’ve never seen another body learn as you are doing. Why, I believe you might become a great dressmaker, far surpass your old grandmother and be a mantua maker.”

I bit at my lip and did not lift my eyes to my grandmother’s face. I had no desire to learn to make the dresses called mantuas. The bodice of the dresses fit tightly with pleats in the back that ran all the way into the waist. They had great full skirts that draped over large hoops. A room could be filled quickly by fashionable ladies wearing mantuas. I had no desire to spend my life making dresses for rich women who would fuss constantly about the fit of their dresses and believe they should not be seen twice in the same garment.

I dreamed only of the theater, but I had learned early on that my grandmother would allow no discussion of such an ambition. “That’s nonsense,” she said. I had been with my grandmother several months before I confided my ambition to her as we ate our supper of cheese and bread. “It’s a sinful place. I never encouraged your mother in such foolish thoughts, and I won’t encourage you.” She cut a slice of cheese and handed it to me. “Besides, you’re
shy, child. Do you imagine you would enjoy standing on a stage talking to a crowd of people?”

I shrugged my shoulders and put the food into my mouth. I did imagine that I would enjoy it. I would not be speaking as Bella Getchel, a timid, tongue-tied girl. I would speak as a queen or a princess. On the stage I would be able to step out of myself and lead many interesting lives.

Looking back, I find it ironic indeed that it was my grandmother’s instruction in sewing that allowed me access to the theater. Can I be sorry that ever I set foot in Ford’s Theatre? Perhaps I should, but alas I cannot.

HIS STORY

It is true! I cannot believe it, but Abraham Lincoln has been elected president of the United States! There is no recourse now for the South. We cannot stay in the Union, cannot be led by such a man.

What will be my part in helping to build the new nation that must be formed in the South? War will surely come now. I have promised my mother I will not fight in a war, and she worries about the war dividing the family.

I let people believe that I was in on the capture of John Brown, have described the events so well that at times I myself believe that I was there. Well, I was there in spirit. I was there when they hanged the man. What harm can come by adding to the story? My soul is too large to have limitation set upon it.

I want fame, but do I want to be known only as a famous actor? My father was famous, but he was also a great man, loved by many. He died when I was fifteen.

My father died during the winter, so we were at our Baltimore home instead of in the country when the news came. He died while touring, and my mother traveled to Cincinnati to claim his body. When she returned, she had the walls draped with white fabric to cover pictures and mirrors.

The only decoration in the room where my father’s body rested was a bust of Shakespeare, which seemed to look down upon him. I am certain Shakespeare would look favorably on the man who brought so many of his characters to life on the stage.

Great numbers of people came to pay their respects. Some of them were rich and important. Some were not. “Your father had a good heart,” one shabbily dressed man told me. He leaned against my father’s casket. “You see how it is, me a deliveryman, your father a great stage star, but we was friends. He always had an apple for my horse, carried apples on him to give to horses on the street, and he always told us drivers to be kind to the horses.” He wiped his eyes.

Are sons not supposed to move beyond what their fathers have achieved? I cannot stop feeling that I must be greater than my father.

After Father’s death, we had little money. He had made no provision for us in case of his death. I suppose
Junius Brutus Booth thought he would live forever. I think perhaps I believed he would also. I remember the strangeness of looking down at his dead form, trying to believe he would never speak again.