Henry and Clara
Authors: Thomas Mallon
Henry and Clara
“Riveting.… Mallon’s most polished gem to date.”
—
Chicago Tribune
“A pitch-perfect rendering.… Mesmerizing and assiduously researched.”
—
The Philadelphia Inquirer
“A powerful reconstruction of actual events.”
—
The Times-Picayune
“From the footnotes of American history, Mallon has pulled authentic figures and embroidered a compelling novel.”
—
Booklist
“A masterly blend of fact and fiction.”
—
Times Union
(Albany)
“Mallon … outdoes himself in this re-creation, which raises the private consequences of history to what seems their deserved status—legend.”
—
Publishers Weekly
“All written history is a work of imagination, but seldom is it rendered as skillfully as in
Henry and Clara
.”
—The News & Observer
“Beautifully written,
Henry and Clara
is marked by tender passion, and its characters are, for all their faults, endearing.”
—
National Review
“A stately and elegant historical novel of classic proportions.… Mallon’s book is smart and engaging, and he manages to bring his characters fully alive while never allowing us to forget that they are truly creatures of another era.”
—
Los Angeles Times
“An imaginative alteration of events, a provocative might-have-been.… Some of Mallon’s finest writing goes into Henry’s letters home.… Triumphantly successful as a suspenseful and satisfying work of art.”
—
The New Criterion
Thomas MallonHenry and Clara
Thomas Mallon is the author of eight novels, including
Dewey Defeats Truman
,
Fellow Travelers
, and
Watergate
. He is a frequent contributor to
The New Yorker
,
The New York Times Book Review
, and other publications.
Fiction
Arts and Sciences
Aurora 7
Dewey Defeats Truman
Two Moons
Bandbox
Fellow Travelers
Watergate
Nonfiction
Edmund Blunden
A Book of One’s Own
Stolen Words
Rockets and Rodeos
In Fact
Mrs. Paine’s Garage
Yours Ever
FIRST VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, APRIL 2013
Copyright © 1994 by Thomas Mallon
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover by Ticknor & Fields, a division of Houghton Mifflin Company, New York, in 1994.
Vintage and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Clara Harris’s letter on
this page
is quoted courtesy of the New-York Historical Society. Extracts from the correspondence of Ira Harris and William Hamilton Harris are quoted courtesy of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lennox, and Tilden Foundations.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mallon, Thomas.
Henry and Clara : a novel / Thomas Mallon. — First Vintage Books edition.
pages; cm.
eISBN: 978-0-345-80475-4
1. Lincoln, Abraham, 1809–1865—Assassination—Fiction.
2. Presidents—Assassination—Fiction.
3. Rathbone, Henry Reed, 1837–1911—Fiction.
4. Rathbone, Clara—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3563.A43157H46 2013
813′.54—dc23
2013003151
Author photograph © William Bodenschatz
Cover design: Evan Gaffney Design
Cover images: Derringer gun/Carol M. Highsmith’s America, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division; Henry Rathbone courtesy of the New York State Library, Manuscripts and Special Collections
v3.1
To my sister
“ ‘A
ND FALL
upon the ground,’ ” he pants, spurring the horse with his good leg. “ ‘Taking the measure of an unmade grave.’ ” He tries to remember the lines as tears of pain and self-pity and sheer excitement stream down his face. The horse races into Judiciary Square.
At the beginning of his flight, two minutes ago, he had been calm, even precise, noting each turn — from the Public Alley into F Street, through the gate he’d arranged to be open, then across Ninth, past the Patent Building — amazed that he’d not been pursued or shot in the back. The noise of the theatre was far behind him. But as soon as he thought that no one would catch him, it seemed too good to be true, and the tears came, along with this wave of fear. The moon and the gas lamps are too bright; the city, a week after Appomattox, too nervous. Someone is bound to wonder why, at this hour, this horse is galloping through Washington. Someone is bound to thwart his path.
He’d felt no pain until a moment ago, but he knew he’d shattered the leg as soon as he hit the stage. The exact same spot on the boards! Just where he’d nicked himself with his dagger a year and a half ago, throwing himself down with too much feeling in Friar Laurence’s cell. When he’d leapt from the box — three minutes ago? had he covered a mile yet? one of the three between Ford’s and the Navy Yard Bridge? — he’d forgotten the slope of the stage. If he’d remembered, he could have landed clean, he was sure, even after the flag caught his spur. But no one will ever forget
him
. Tomorrow morning he will be the most famous man in America.