Fates and Traitors (27 page)

“Lucy, my love.” He smothered his laughter, took her hands, and held her gaze steadily. “I swear to you on my life that I am not a Union spy.”

“Or a Pinkerton?”

“I am also definitely not a Pinkerton.”

A dizzying wave of relief, confusion, and indignation swept through her. “What are you, then?” she demanded, snatching her hands from his grasp. “If I'm to marry you, I must know. What business calls you away from Washington so frequently? Why were you in Canada? Who were those strange men last night?”

“That's unkind,” he protested, smiling. “They weren't strange. They're actually quite ordinary.”

“You know what I mean. Don't make a joke of this.”

“Lucy, dearest.” His voice softened, becoming tender, reassuring. “I am not in the spy business. I'm in the oil business.”

She stared at him, uncomprehending. “What?”

“The oil business. For many months now, I've been speculating in oil.” He smiled, amused and affectionate. “I am one of three founding partners of the Dramatic Oil Company. We own several rather profitable wells in Pennsylvania, and we're looking to expand. I traveled to Canada to consult with coal-oil experts.”

“But one of the men who visited you last night is with the War Department Rifles. I recognized the uniform.”

“Soldiers can speculate in business like any other man. Their pay is so poor, I'm surprised more of them don't.”

“But why would you take your costumes to Canada if you went there
to consult with oil experts, especially since, as you've said, you haven't performed since that night in New York with your brothers?”

He shrugged. “Last summer I exchanged some letters with a theatre manager in Quebec about a possible engagement, so I thought it would be best to be prepared. Unfortunately, nothing could be arranged, and I have only the loss of my wardrobe to show for it.”

She studied him, uncertain. “Why have you said nothing of this? If you're in the oil business, why haven't you told me?”

“You never asked.”

“It wouldn't have been polite,” she protested. “To think that I've been unbearably anxious because of my parents' objections to your occupation and all the while—”

“Ah, but the source of your parents' grievance remains,” he pointed out. “I am not an oilman, wholly and exclusively. I am an actor who has become involved in oil speculation. I do hope to eventually relinquish the first for the second, but until then, your parents will still have reason to withhold their blessing.”

“But now we have hope. We have a plan.”

“We always did, Lucy darling. I never would have pledged myself to you if I had not been certain that someday I would resolve the matter and be able to marry you.”

“You knew this,” she said, a trifle sharply, “but I did not.”

He had the decency to look chagrined. “Indeed, and I see now I behaved very badly in not telling you. I'm truly sorry.”

“Yes, you did behave badly,” she scolded, joy softening the sharpness of her rebuke, “but this is wonderful news. Wonderful!”

“I'm glad you think so,” he said, amused. “I quite agree. I only wish I'd shared it earlier.”

“You should have, and from now on, you mustn't keep such secrets from me. I confess that sometimes I feel as if I hardly know you. Don't you trust me?”

“Of course I trust you.” A pained, searching expression clouded his handsome face. “And you know me better than anyone does.”

She was not sure if she believed him, but pride and gratitude rose as a wave of warmth from her chest into her cheeks. She wanted very much to be the one person in the entire world to whom he entrusted his secrets.

He held out his arms to her, and she gladly fell into his embrace, resting her cheek and her right hand against his chest, inhaling deeply of his scent—tobacco smoke, cedar, and something else uniquely his. But her family was waiting and she could not linger, so they parted with a kiss and promises for a happy reunion on the last day of the year. John checked to make sure the corridor was clear before she slipped from the room and hurried downstairs to join her family at breakfast. She felt all aglow, more hopeful than she had been since she and John first met. This could be her last Christmas as Miss Lucy Hale. By the end of the year soon to come, she could be Mrs. John Wilkes Booth.

It was only later, as she sat beside Lizzie on the train to Dover speeding past the picturesque snow-covered hills and fields and villages of New England that she wondered why John considered his speculation in oil to be a solemn duty to his country, so important that love might interfere. The Union needed fuel to run its factories and light its war rooms, she concluded. John was not wrong to call it service to the cause.

•   •   •

C
hristmas was gloriously merry back home in New Hampshire, with parties and dinners with friends and loved ones, enchanting music and delicious feasts, solemn prayers and delightful stories read aloud by the fireside, sleigh rides and Yule logs, a festive tree with gifts hidden among the branches for the children and fond reunions spiced with amusing gossip for the adults.

Several of Lucy's friends and cousins complimented her on her radiant appearance and lively spirits, and more than a few teased that she must have some secret new beau, or perhaps a former beau in whom she had taken a keen new interest. Robert Lincoln was mentioned in the speculation, of course, and John Hay, and Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., whom she had met while on vacation in Maine in 1858 and with whom she had enjoyed a delightful correspondence and several pleasant outings well into the early years of the war. One particularly cheeky friend suggested that Lucy had heard again from William Chandler, who had become infatuated with her upon their first meeting years before and had written her several love letters and poems before her parents had asked him to desist, since Lucy had been but twelve years old at the time.

“I have not heard from Mr. Chandler, nor will I, as he is married
now,” Lucy protested, laughing. “He wed the former Miss Caroline Gilmore, the governor's daughter.”

Amid the teasing and laughter, no one seemed to notice that she did not deny being in love.

As delightful as it was to enjoy the comforts of home and the company of beloved family and longtime friends, Lucy was eager to return to the capital and to John. A few days after Christmas, the Hales boarded the train for Washington, staying over in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia to celebrate the festive season with friends along the way. They finally returned to the National Hotel late in the evening on December 31, but although Lucy had eagerly anticipated the promised reunion, and hoped to share a discreet kiss with John at the stroke of midnight, he was nowhere to be found.

Since New Year's Day fell on a Sunday that year, the traditional receptions and entertainments would be delayed until January 2, but the mood at the National Hotel remained festive and glad, and it seemed the entire war-weary city welcomed the New Year with reinvigorated hopes. Mr. Lincoln—who had risen in Lucy's esteem year after year, until she had come to revere him almost as much as her father did—had won reelection, alleviating fears that a change in leadership would lead to disastrous consequences for the North and the poor souls held in slavery in the South. On Christmas Day, General William T. Sherman, having reached the end of his march across Georgia at the Atlantic shore, had sent the president a telegram bearing a unique holiday greeting: “I beg to present to you, as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah, with 150 heavy guns and plenty of ammunition, and also about 25,000 bales of cotton.”

Lucy hardly dared hope that at long last the war and all its bloodshed, sorrow, and deprivation was entering its final days, but her father and mother agreed that victory and peace had never seemed nearer. Eighteen sixty-five would be the year the war was won, peace was restored, and the shattered nation reunited, the people predicted, with an optimism they had not known since the early days of the war. It would also be the year Lucy would marry the man she loved, or so she dared secretly to hope.

Her heart leapt with joy when John entered the dining room at breakfast, and if she had not been seated with her parents and
surrounded by dozens of strangers, she might have bounded from her seat and embraced him. He paused by their table to wish them a happy New Year and to inquire about their Christmas, but to Lucy the entire conversation was exquisitely painful, a mere taste of John when she desired so much more.

It was hours later before she saw him in the drawing room alone—or nearly so, for an elderly couple sat in the best chairs by the fireplace, glancing up from their books now and then to complain about the frosty weather. “My New Year is off to a most auspicious start,” John murmured as he offered her his arm and led her to the farthest bookcase, where they pretended to search for a particular elusive title. “All that this glorious day needs to be complete is your kiss.”

“I wish I could kiss you, here and now.” Lucy withdrew a small box from her reticule. “Since I cannot, I give you instead your Christmas gift—belatedly, but no less fondly offered for that, I promise you.”

“Lucy, darling.” He accepted the box and bowed, and when he lifted the lid and saw the small silver ring inside, his surprise gave way to delight. “How exquisite.”

“The engraving is nearly identical to the scrollwork on my locket,” she pointed out as he slipped the ring onto the pinky of his right hand. “They complement each other so well, one can imagine that they were created by the same silversmith as part of a set.”

“They were made for each other, though that was not revealed until they were brought together in this place. How like the two of us they are.” He closed his eyes and kissed the ring, then smiled at her with such warmth and intensity that she felt faint with desire. “I will cherish this gift always. Thank you, my darling Lucy.”

Before she could reply, she heard the soft clearing of a throat. “Lucy, dear.”

Lucy whirled around to discover her mother standing just inside the doorway, her expression stony. “Yes, Mama?”

“Have you found the book you wanted?”

“No, no, not yet. Mr. Booth—he kindly offered to help me.”

“How kind indeed. Your book will have to wait. Your father must pay a condolence call on Chief Justice Chase, and he would like us to accompany him.”

“Dear me.” Shocked, Lucy thought at once of her friend Kate
Sprague, his lovely daughter, who was expecting her first child. “Who has died?”

“Mrs. Helen Chase Walbridge, Mr. Chase's youngest sister, of a sudden illness. She was buried today in Ohio.” Her mother fixed John with a steady look. “You will excuse us, please, Mr. Booth.”

“Of course. My condolences,” he replied, bowing.

“Poor Kate,” said Lucy as her mother linked her arm through hers and led her away. “To lose a beloved aunt at the start of a fresh, bright new year seems especially heartbreaking.”

“The heart always breaks a little with every love lost,” her mother said. “Please don't break mine sooner than you must, dearest Lucy.”

Aghast, Lucy quickly assured her that she hoped never to do so, but her mother offered only a wistful smile in return.

•   •   •

T
he Hales' visit to the home of their grieving friends left them contemplative, almost melancholy, but later, when they retired for the night, Papa told his family that they must not let sympathy for their friends depress their own spirits, or kindle superstitious fears that the year ahead would bring more and worse losses because the first day had been blighted by mourning. “We must put our faith in God and our trust in one another, and all will be well, whatever comes,” he said, kissing first Lizzie and then Lucy on the brow.

Upon waking before dawn the next morning, Lucy felt solemn and still, forgetting why until her father's words returned to her. “Whatever comes,” she murmured, falling silent when Lizzie stirred beside her. She felt a pang of worry recalling her mother's expression as she had stood in the doorway of the drawing room, regarding John coolly before beckoning Lucy away. Something in her manner had signified aversion, and Lucy feared that it had nothing to do with John's profession. She hoped she was mistaken. Her parents had conversed with John in perfect cordiality earlier that same day. Perhaps sympathy for her friend Kate had made Lucy superstitious despite her father's admonitions.

She could not entirely banish her sense of unease as she chatted pleasantly with her family over breakfast, but her trepidation diminished later as she, Lizzie, and their mother dressed in their finest gowns and had their tresses beautifully arranged for the traditional New Year's Day reception at the White House. The annual reception was the
highlight of every Washington social season, and was by custom a three-hour affair in which Mr. Lincoln stood in one of the beautifully appointed public rooms of the Executive Mansion shaking hands and welcoming visitors—his cabinet secretaries first, then the foreign ministers, followed by the justices of the Supreme Court, distinguished officers of the army and navy, and certain eminent government officials. At one o'clock, the doors to the White House would be opened again to admit the public, two or three hundred at a time—anyone who wished to meet the president and his wife badly enough to endure the long wait and the crush of the throng.

Papa's high office entitled the Hale family to enter early with the honored guests when the gates of the Executive Mansion were ceremoniously thrown open at noon. Swept along by the crowd, they made their way to the Red Room, which soon was filled with a glad and glittering coterie of ladies in elegant gowns and sparkling jewels and gentlemen in handsome suits or dashing military uniforms, with most of the foreign delegation attired in the splendid costumes of their native lands. As she and Lizzie followed their parents through the chamber to join the receiving line in the Blue Room, Lucy overheard the brilliant cacophony of many tongues—Russian, German, French, Spanish, and English in a variety of charming accents.