Fates and Traitors (7 page)

Within days, Junius's successful American debut reassured her that they had not made a dreadful mistake in immigrating to the young nation.

Junius selected
Richard III
for opening night, enthralling the novelty-hungry citizens of Richmond and earning rapturous praise from the local press. As word of the celebrated English tragedian's arrival spread beyond the city, invitations from theatre managers in New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston, and New Orleans filled the postbox at their hotel, each expressing the most anxious desire to book Junius for lengthy engagements, each offering enticingly generous terms. As he mulled over their proposals, Junius earned more than twelve hundred dollars playing theatres in Richmond and nearby Petersburg.

In early October, Junius and Mary Ann traveled by steamer to New York City, a bold but necessary choice for his next engagement. His longtime rival Edmund Kean had triumphed there only a few months before, packing the stylish new Park Theatre every night and winning rapturous acclaim from the critics. If Junius hoped to establish himself well in America, he would have to surpass Kean in the eyes of the most discerning theatergoers in the most important city in the nation.

“The house will be half empty,” Junius growled, stalking in his dressing room on opening night as an icy downpour raged outside. Broadway was flooded, one of the supernumeraries had reported, and traffic was in a wretched snarl throughout the city. “I'll be lucky if it isn't
more
than half empty.”

“Junius, calm yourself,” Mary Ann cajoled. On tour, Junius could be cheerful and enthusiastic one night and bleakly melancholic the next, swearing that he would not perform, that he despised acting and would never again take the stage. On such occasions it fell to her to quietly reassure panicky managers that the show would go on, and then to soothe and charm Junius until he reluctantly agreed to perform. Sometimes a glass of brandy was necessary to fortify him to face audiences he had inexplicably decided could not possibly comprehend his
interpretation of classical works. Junius was always loving and kind at heart, but he could be mercurial, as she supposed most great artists were. Byron's tempests were legendary.

“I was mad to leave London,” Junius grated, pausing to glare balefully out the single tiny window. “I'm beloved in London.”

“You are also beloved here, by me,” she told him, ignoring the sting of his words, “and you will soon be beloved by the people of New York—but only if you take the stage and give them the performance they expect and have paid for.”

“I'll return every cent if they'll just go away.”

“The management will never agree to that.” Mary Ann approached him from behind, wrapped her arms around his waist, and rested her cheek upon his back between his shoulder blades. “Please, my dearest. You know everything depends upon tonight.”

He knew it, and eventually he agreed to emerge from his dressing room. The murmur of the crowd struck them as soon as they stepped into the hall, and the usual backstage odors of dust and paint were overpowered by those of damp leather and steaming wool. Junius halted, thunderstruck. “Mary Ann, darling—”

She knew what he wanted. Nodding, she hurried away and stole a peek at the house through a spy hole drilled through the wall in the wings at stage right.

Every seat was filled.

The two thousand hearty souls who had ventured out in the tempest for the New York debut of the celebrated tragedian Junius Brutus Booth were rewarded with the most magnificent, sublime performance they had ever beheld. Watching from the wings as the curtain fell and the applause and cheers rang on and on, Mary Ann beamed and smiled through tears of joy as Junius took one solemn, dignified bow after another. The next morning, the newspapers echoed the accolades he had received onstage, praising him in the most rapturous phrases.

The remaining six performances of his engagement were no less gloriously done, no less wonderfully received. On the last night, overwhelmed with gratitude, Junius broke his custom of refusing curtain calls to bow respectfully to the delighted audience. “I cannot properly express my feelings at the unexpected honor you show me,” he called out, his warm, powerful voice thrilling listeners from the footlights to
the back row. “I swear I will never forget the great kindness you have shown me, a humble traveling player in a foreign land.”

At the end of October they left New York, and on the first day of November, Junius opened to packed houses in Baltimore. Next the tour carried them along to Charleston, where Mary Ann delighted in the picturesque streets, the ocean breezes, and the blessedly mild climate. Since she was nearing the time of her confinement, she and Junius decided that she should remain in their comfortable boardinghouse under the care of their solicitous landlady while he completed his tour of the southern United States alone.

Junius was spellbinding audiences in far-off New Orleans a few days before Christmas when Mary Ann gave birth to a vigorous baby boy, perfect in every way, with ten wonderful little fingers, ten darling little toes, and strong legs that kicked off his swaddling clothes whenever she lay him down in the secondhand cradle she had bought from a neighbor.

Her midwives had been skilled and reassuring, and no doctor had crossed her threshold from the moment her labor pains came upon her until she held her son, Junius Brutus Booth Jr., in her trembling arms. Her milk came quickly and easily, and she was on her feet the next day. On Christmas morning she celebrated her own newborn miracle with her landlady and other residents of the boardinghouse, grateful for the distraction of a celebration, for she missed Junius terribly.

Nor was he the only loved one she longed to see on that holy day.

While the baby slept, Mary Ann took pen in hand, steeled her courage, and wrote to her parents. Tears filled her eyes as she apologized for the way she had left them, for the shock and uncertainty they must have endured. She asked for their forgiveness, assured them she was safe, and described, rather hurriedly, the cities she had visited and the curious American customs she had discovered. She wanted to tell them every detail about Junius's triumphs on the American stage, but she knew any praise for the man they surely considered a villain would be wasted, so she said only that his success was exceeding their expectations.

“I have glad tidings that I hope you will greet with as much joy as I feel in sharing them,” she wrote. “On December 22, we welcomed a beautiful son into the world. He is healthy and strong, and I am well recovered. I hope to bring him home to England to meet his grandparents someday.”

She felt a pang of guilt for the careful phrasing that suggested Junius had been present for his son's birth, but if she told her parents he was on tour, they would worry needlessly that he had abandoned her. Junius would come to meet his son as soon as word reached him, Mary Ann knew, and she had misled her parents so often and so completely over the past eighteen months that one more half-truth mattered very little in the scheme of things.

Junius had not yet met his namesake when a reply to her letter arrived at the end of January.

January 8, 1822

7 Mount Street, Lambeth, England

My Dearest Daughter,

I fall on my knees and thank God for your letter. My precious child is alive! Perhaps guilt and shame for the manner of your leave-taking and the reasons behind it prevented you from writing sooner, but I am grateful that you did at long last. I pray you will not fall silent again.

It grieves me to tell you that your poor father never read your apology. A few weeks after you left us, he died—of a broken heart, the doctor says. You need not fear that he went to his eternal rest without forgiving you. He was ever a compassionate man, the best of Husbands, the most devoted of Fathers. He is with the Lord now, and I know he looks down upon you from Heaven with love and deep concern.

O my Darling Child, please take your son in your arms, flee your seducer, and come home. Do not let shame keep you away. We will leave Lambeth and live with your aunt in Whitechapel. You have a child to think of now. Do not let lust cloud your reason. How can you hope to build your future happiness upon sin and Mrs. Booth's misery?

I list below the address of my cousin in Boston. Go to him. He and his wife will take you in and pay your passage home. Please write soon to tell me you are on your way. Until I see you again I will remain

Your Frantic and Heartbroken

Mother

With shaking hands, Mary Ann carefully folded the letter and buried it at the bottom of her trunk. She could not bear to throw it away in case it was the last her mother sent. She would never have another from her father.

She curled up on the bed and wrapped her arms around herself, wishing Junius held her instead, muffling her sobs so she would not wake the baby.

•   •   •

M
ary Ann's adoration of her newborn son and Junius's affectionate letters brought her much comfort until, at long last, Junius returned to Charleston. He wept with joy when he held his namesake for the first time, kissed him and cuddled him and declared him the most perfect of children.

The child, fondly nicknamed June, would be well provided for, as Mary Ann assured her mother when she summoned up enough courage to reply to her letter, which she had kept secret from Junius. Partway through his first season upon the American stage, Junius was earning more than one hundred dollars a night whenever the theatre sold out, and they almost always did. His fortunes would continue to rise, he promised, but only if he kept the public interested and intrigued. Thus not three weeks after his return to Charleston, Junius set out again, appearing in Savannah, Augusta, Boston, Providence, and Washington City to great public acclaim and financial reward.

When the theatre season concluded at the end of spring, Junius returned to Charleston to collect his little family and announce his plans for their housekeeping. “I earned and saved enough to purchase a comfortable estate for you and me and our darling child,” he told her, beaming with pride. “One hundred and fifty sublime forested acres in Harford County, Maryland, about twenty-five miles northeast of Baltimore.”

Mary Ann liked Baltimore, but twenty-five miles sounded worrisomely distant. “Did you?”

“Well, I didn't
purchase
it,” he acknowledged, misunderstanding her concern. “State law forbids me to own land in Maryland since I'm not an American citizen. Instead I gave the owner a down payment and arranged for a thousand-year lease.”

“I suppose that should be long enough,” Mary Ann replied, managing a smile. “Tell me, what is our new house like? There
is
a house?”

“Indeed, a charming log cabin.” Junius took June from her lap and
raised him high above his head, whistling merrily while the baby squealed and laughed. “The soil is fertile and unspoiled, and our property is blessed by natural springs as clear as crystal. We can raise crops, put in an orchard, and create a haven of peace and serenity for ourselves and all living things.”

Mary Ann acknowledged that it sounded lovely, and very healthful for the baby, so when Junius suggested they relocate before the heat of the South Carolina summer became oppressive, she agreed.

She hoped for sublime landscapes like those of England's Lake District, which she had never seen but had long admired in engravings and Wordsworth's poetry, but soon after they left the Baltimore city limits in a cart pulled by the faithful Peacock, quaint villages and picturesque farms gave way to rolling terrain and dense, foreboding forest. The poor piebald pony struggled so diligently to haul them and their belongings over the rough, winding road that Junius, moved to sympathy, handed the reins to Mary Ann and walked alongside to ease the burden.

They rumbled past a scant few other farms carved out of the wilderness and came to a tiny hamlet called Bel Air, which Junius assured her had a post office and a general store where she could purchase sugar, flour, coffee, and other necessities. Mary Ann smiled and nodded to conceal her dismay. It was apparent that Bel Air would offer her few entertainments and little opportunity to make friends.

Three miles beyond the village, they at last reached their new home—a sturdy log cabin plastered white with vivid red shutters, set back from the road in a clearing surrounded by towering oaks, walnuts, and beeches. Junius overflowed with boyish enthusiasm as he helped her down from the cart and took her on a tour of the homestead. The house was small but charming, but her apprehensions rose as Junius led her about the clearing, the baby on her hip, a catch in her throat. As he gestured grandly to indicate the fields where he intended to plant barley and potatoes, an ideal place for her kitchen garden, a suitable location to build a dairy, she felt the forest, massive and dense and dark, closing in around her.

“Junius,” she ventured as they spread a quilt on a grassy spot near the cabin and sat down to a picnic supper, “what do you know about farming?”

“I've been reading up on it for months, and I'll hire an experienced manager to assist us.” He studied her, curious. “You seem worried that we may not be up to the task. Didn't your father grow and sell flowers and seeds?”

“Yes, Junius, but that doesn't make me a farmer's daughter. I don't know anything about running a farmhouse.”

“Isn't one kitchen much like any other?” He touched her shoulder and gave her an encouraging smile. “We'll hire a competent woman to help you.”

“Junius—” She took a deep breath, hating to spoil his obvious delight. “I think you forget I'm a Londoner. This isolation—yes, it's peaceful and quiet here, and beautiful in its way, but I don't think it will suit me. I crave the bustle and activity of the city—the people, the libraries, the theatres, all of it.”

“My darling—” His smile faded. “We can't afford the scrutiny we'd encounter in a city.”