Fates and Traitors (11 page)

“Am I a Booth, Mother?” he would ask her as she tended his wounds, and she would assure him he was—but with Adelaide and the rest of the Baltimore adamantly insisting that he was not, his uncertainty persisted.

Eventually, although Mary Ann grieved to be parted from her favorite child, she and Junius decided that eleven-year-old John Wilkes must be removed from the neighborhood that had become for him a battlefield. They enrolled him in Milton Academy, a Quaker boarding school in Cockeysville, Maryland, twelve miles from The Farm and yet a world away. It was a very fine place, a three-story stone building with an excellent library and charming views of the countryside. The headmaster, Mr. John Lamb, was a Quaker, so although John Wilkes would receive a rigorous course of study, Mary Ann trusted that he would be treated with kindness, gentleness, and simplicity in all things. They could scarcely afford the tuition—seventy dollars per term, plus an additional ten dollars for Greek and Latin classes—but Mary Ann took comfort in knowing that her darling boy would be safe.

Upon her return from escorting John Wilkes to Cockeysville, Mary Ann managed a tremulous smile as she described for Rosalie, Asia, and Joseph the forested grounds of his new school, the students' plain dress, and the Quakers' quaint custom of addressing one another as “thee” and “thou.” Rosalie nodded thoughtfully, Joseph looked faint with relief that his parents had not forced him to enroll with his brother, and Asia bravely declared that she hoped John Wilkes would enjoy himself and learn a lot, but her bleak expression betrayed her misery. Mary Ann's heart went out to her clever, moody daughter. Rosalie was reliable if silent company, and Asia had a few good friends at school, but with John Wilkes gone, life at 62 North Exeter Street and The Farm was certain to be lonelier than she had ever known it.

On the first day of the autumn term, Mary Ann's heart sank as Asia dressed and packed her satchel, her movements slow and deliberate, as if her limbs were weighed down by woe. In years past, John Wilkes had walked Asia to school every morning, unfailingly cheerful, ready with a joke or a funny tale or an adventure to plan. Even if he ran ahead to greet a friend along the way, he always returned to his sister's side before
they reached the schoolyard gate. Now Asia would walk alone, forced to endure the whispers and stares and taunts of the other children, suffering for her parents' sins. At least Adelaide would not be among the tormentors, for she had ceased her spiteful vigils outside their home, perhaps tiring of them, perhaps saving up her malice for the inevitable lawsuit.

“Would you like me to walk with you?” Mary Ann offered.

“No,” Asia said, too quickly. Mary Ann nodded, understanding that her presence would only make matters worse.

Her expression a study in fierce determination, Asia kissed her mother, bade Rosalie goodbye, and set out for school. As soon as she closed the door behind her, Mary Ann hastened to the front window only to discover that Asia had halted on the porch at the sight of a young man in a thick tweed coat and cap sitting on the bottom step. He turned at the sound of the door closing, and at once Mary Ann recognized the round face, wide brow, and downturned mouth of Edwin's friend John Sleeper.

“Sleepy?” Asia greeted him, bewildered.

He scrambled to his feet. “Hello, Asia.”

“Hello.” She studied him. “Edwin isn't here.”

“I know that.”

“John Wilkes isn't here either.”

“I know. That's why I thought maybe I should walk you to school instead.”

Bristling, Asia glared at him—but suddenly her expression shifted from indignation to pity. Perhaps she detected, as Mary Ann had, something in the set of the young man's jaw that hinted at barely concealed loneliness. With Edwin off on another merry theatrical jaunt with Father, Sleepy too had lost his best friend and closest confidant.

“Thank you,” Asia said. “That would be nice.”

So Sleepy walked her to school that morning, and he met her outside on the sidewalk almost every day after that. “I can't bring myself to turn him away,” Asia admitted to Mary Ann a month later. “I know he's doing it out of friendship for Edwin, but I'm not even sure that I like him.”

Mary Ann was fairly certain Sleepy liked Asia, but she kept her observations to herself.

By wintertime, Asia's relentless, determined escort had asked her not to call him Sleepy anymore but to use his given name. “I objected,” Asia told Mary Ann afterward. “John's name is too dear to me to squander it on just anyone.”

“You call your brother Wilkes.”

“Not always. But it doesn't matter, because we agreed that I would call him by his middle name, Clarke.” Asia shrugged dismissively. “It's his name, after all, and I hardly care. And yet I don't understand why he insists that
I
call him Clarke, while everyone else still calls him Sleepy.”

“Who knows?” said Mary Ann, though she was quite sure that she did. Asia was only fourteen, but Sleepy, a year older than Edwin, was seventeen, no longer a child. Sleepy often played the clown, but he would have to be a fool indeed not to see that Asia was not only his best friend's sister but also a blossoming young beauty.

•   •   •

M
ilton Academy's curriculum was so rigorous that John Wilkes could visit his family only rarely, and privately Mary Ann lamented that she saw little more of him than of Edwin, whose somber, haunted gaze revealed that his travels with his father had aged him beyond his years. Whenever Junius brought him home for brief visits, Edwin's exhaustion and relief and unmistakable yearning to stay pained Mary Ann deeply, but what choice did the family have? Junius must tour and he must perform or they would all starve, and there was no certainty that he would do either without a guardian—much to Mary Ann's consternation. He was a man grown, and a man ought to be able to control his vices and conduct his own affairs. Sometimes she thought she might burst from the strain of repressing her anger and disappointment and fear, but she dared not rail at him. She would not become a shrew, complaining and criticizing, tearing him down when he needed so desperately for her to build him up, to hold him together. Their home must remain his safe haven, free of judgment and recriminations, or he might grow despondent and decide not to return to it.

Then Edwin wrote from Boston to inform her of his stage debut, when he had been obliged to fill in at the last moment as Tressel to his father's Richard III. A fortnight later he portrayed Cassio in
Othello
at the Providence Museum, and two days later he played the virtuous
secretary Wilford opposite his father's villainous Sir Edward Mortimer in
The Iron Chest
. It seemed impossible that her sensitive, reserved, intelligent son could have taken the stage against his father's wishes, forcing Mary Ann to wonder and worry that perhaps Junius, flinging away his earlier decree that his children would not be actors, had instead bullied Edwin into the company for the sake of his wages.

John Wilkes lacked the empathy to worry as his mother did, and saw only treachery in his elder brother's accomplishments. “None of us were to be actors like Father,” he protested when he returned home in February for a brief holiday between terms. “First June, now Edwin. Why not me? Why do I have to go to school?”

“Education is a privilege,” Mary Ann reminded him. “Edwin longs to attend Milton Academy as you do.”

“I'd gladly change places with him.” John Wilkes's handsome features, usually as sunny as spring, had darkened into a scowl. “Acting is the family trade.”

“It isn't, but even if it were, it's not the trade your father wants for you.”

What John Wilkes could not comprehend was that Edwin's additional obligations as a player had only doubled his toil. In April, tearful and exhausted, he begged his parents to allow him a fortnight at home, and Mary Ann resolved that he should have all the rest he needed. She wished June could take his younger brother's place, but not quite a year before, he had abandoned his wife and child for the allure of the gold fields of California and the company of a pretty young actress. Privately Mary Ann and Junius lamented, but they realized it would be the height of hypocrisy if they condemned June for what they themselves had done, so they did not rebuke him in their letters, but only urged him to be careful, to write to them often, and to remember his financial responsibilities to his young daughter.

With June unavailable, Junius was obliged to set out for Richmond without the steadying presence of a sober companion. He departed cheerfully enough, with fond embraces for Mary Ann and the children and promises to visit as soon and as often as he could. “I swear to you, darling,” he vowed as he departed, holding her by the shoulders and kissing her firmly, “I shall indulge in nothing stronger than coffee and tea while I'm away.”

Mary Ann was glad to hear it, but soon thereafter she received word via a telegram from the outraged manager of the Marshall Theatre that Junius had never arrived. Frantic, Mary Ann sent off a flurry of telegrams to theatre acquaintances, but no one knew where Junius had gone. He had simply disappeared.

“I'm sorry, Edwin, darling,” Mary Ann said, her voice shaking as she packed his suitcase. “Someone must be sent, and there is no one else.”

“I understand,” he said dully, but he could barely meet her gaze when she saw him off at the train station.

Several anxious days passed before Edwin sent word that he had found his father wandering drunk and disoriented in the countryside north of Richmond. Junius's pocketbook was empty, forcing Edwin to borrow fifty dollars from local theatre friends to pay for their fare to Baltimore. When at last the weary travelers reached home, Mary Ann's heart broke to see the resignation and misery in Edwin's eyes. He knew he could never again expect to be granted leave from his duties as his father's keeper.

•   •   •

A
t long last summer approached, promising freedom from schoolwork for the children and a welcome escape to The Farm for Mary Ann. Since Junius and Edwin were away fulfilling his last obligations of the theatre season, when Mary Ann was asked to attend a picnic at Milton Academy to celebrate the end of John Wilkes's school year, she invited Asia to accompany her.

They set out early in the morning, Mary Ann attired in a lovely pale gray gown and a hat adorned with lilacs, Asia wearing her best white dress and a bonnet adorned with daisies. The train carried them to Cockeysville, where they and several other parents and visitors continued on by wagon to Milton Academy. The wagon rumbled along over rocks and tree roots through a dense woodland of tall trees and thick underbrush until they reached a broad, uneven clearing. Several neat, sturdy buildings of stone and oak stood on the far edge, and as they approached the largest, Mary Ann saw that long tables were arranged in rows before it, and three hundred or so students and guests mingled nearby.

As two young Quaker men helped the ladies down from the wagon, Mary Ann glimpsed her son among the crowd of boys who had
sauntered over to welcome the newcomers. “Wilkes,” Asia cried, laughing from joy at the sight of his warm, familiar smile. He looked well, so happy and strong that Mary Ann's heart nearly burst from gladness.

Soon thereafter, faculty, students, and guests seated themselves at the long tables, making no distinction of rank or place, and enjoyed generous portions of delicious, wholesome, simple fare. After the meal, the headmaster led them to a sunny clearing around the north end of the main building, where a stage had been erected for student recitations. The audience was nearly put to sleep by a young boy stammering out a Wordsworth poem, only to be spellbound moments later by a lad of about twelve years of age who delivered a remarkably stirring soliloquy from
Othello
.

“He's quite good,” Mary Ann whispered to John Wilkes, seated beside her, her gaze fixed on the performer. “He has an excellent voice and a commanding stage presence, don't you agree?”

When John Wilkes did not reply, Mary Ann glanced his way to find him nodding nervously, his face pale. Before she could ask him if he was ill, he bolted to his feet and strode to the foot of the stairs leading up to the stage, awaiting his cue.

Asia muffled a gasp and seized her mother's hand. John Wilkes had not told them he intended to perform. They both forgot to applaud as the young Othello bowed deeply several times before ceding the stage to John Wilkes.

He flew up the stairs and burst upon the stage in a fury. “I say my daughter is my flesh and blood,” he declared, trembling with Shylock's anger and despondency. Nearby, a tutor read out the lines of Salarino, Tubal, and the servant, but John Wilkes alone commanded the stage, bringing to life the old Jewish merchant's storm of passion, his ebb of despair, his wild rejoicing.

Mary Ann watched him, enthralled. A stunned, awestruck silence followed his exit, but a thunderous crash of applause quickly shattered it. John Wilkes was called back upon the stage, smiling and blushing, to bow again and again.

“Who is this young player?” queried an elderly Quakeress seated on Asia's other side as John Wilkes took one last bow and quit the stage. “Does thee know his name? He is a comely youth.”

“He's my brother,” Asia replied proudly as the applause faded and
another pupil took the stage, his expression frightened and wary. He would be a difficult act to follow, as Junius might have said had he been there. He would not have objected to his son's taking the stage for a simple school recitation, Mary Ann told herself, hoping it was true. He had lifted the prohibition for June and Edwin, after all, and John Wilkes had acquitted himself well.

Suddenly a motion in the corner of her eye drew her attention, and she glanced over to discover John Wilkes crouched low behind his sister, tugging on her sleeve. “Slip away from ‘thee' and ‘thou' and meet me over there in the hollow,” he murmured, grinning mischievously. “I've something to tell.”