The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln (23 page)

With an effort, she restrained the urge to argue further. “Yes, Mr. Dennard. Perfectly clear.”

“May I see the note?”

Reluctantly, she handed over the envelope. Dennard did not even open it. Instead, he slipped it into his pocket. “If this was intended for Mr. McShane, then it is the property of the firm.”

“I suppose that you will be sharing it with the police?”

The pouchy eyes darkened. “That is not your judgment to make.”

Abigail struggled for calm. “Yes, sir,” she managed. “Only Inspector Varak seems to think—”

“Inspector Varak seems to be making a rare nuisance of himself. Bothering you, bothering Hilliman—I don’t know what could be driving the man. My understanding is that the case is closed.”

“But possibly in error.”

He pointed to a calendar on the wall. “Trial begins in less than two weeks. Haven’t forgotten, have you?”

“No, sir.”

“You are a clerk in this firm, Miss Canner. I am glad to have you. But try to focus on your responsibilities. You are here to help acquit the President of these outrageous charges, not to hunt for conspiracies or solve murders the police have closed. If this Varak shows up again, do not say a word. You send him straight to me. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I believe you have work to do.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then perhaps you would be so kind as to get about it. And pull the door behind you, please.”

Back in the main room, watched curiously by Jonathan and Rellman, Abigail stood for a moment, hand still gripping the knob. She watched Mr. Little sweeping, and watched the others ignore him. Her
face burned. Rejection, exclusion, condescension—these were the price the nation daily exacted from the colored race, like a special tax on darkness. When one was shoved aside, there was nobody to complain to. In Abigail’s lifetime, there never had been, except at Oberlin, where Dr. Finney had solved the problem of white students’ not wanting negro students to sit at their tables by inviting black students to sit at the faculty tables, where everybody wanted a place. This plan was in keeping with Finney’s preference for inspiration over regulation; and, just like that, the attempted segregation had collapsed. Still, the first time the white students had refused to let her sit down had stung her, and the pain was never far from memory. That had been the first occasion in Abigail’s life when she had been tempted to utter a blasphemy.

This was the second.

Her sole consolation was that she had copied the numerical message into her diary; nevertheless, as she slid into her accustomed place at the table, Abigail promised herself never again to share her secret suspicions with anyone in authority. If she had to solve the mystery herself, then she would.

For Judith’s sake.

She wondered if Rufus Dennard was aware of how large a clue he had given her—even if she was not yet sure how to pursue it.

The sort of wild theories that fascinated McShane
, he had said.

II

In the afternoon, the lawyers went to the White House, but not before Dennard instructed her to deliver a package to the copyists, and afterward to go downstairs to Grafton’s office to return the books she had picked up last week. Abigail was mortified—Grafton’s office was the last place on earth she wanted to go—but she could hardly tell her employer that she wanted to avoid his former law partner because he had made Bessie Hale cry; or because he had offered Abigail herself a position.

To her relief, only nervous Plum was present. He scooped the pile of books from her arms in a surprising show of speed and grace, and had them reshelved, in proper order, by the time she finished thanking him for the loan.

Abigail retreated toward the door, but Mr. Plum stopped her. “I almost forgot,” he said, grinning sheepishly. He opened a drawer, drew out an envelope. “Mr. Grafton said to give this to you if you happened by.”

She did not want to accept anything from David Grafton, but saw no polite way to decline. In the hallway, she considered tossing the envelope into a dustbin, but curiosity got the better of her. The letter was short and to the point. Grafton hoped she would reconsider her decision to reject his offer. And he wanted her to know—just in case it might affect her decision—that Dennard, like McShane, had lost three relatives in the war.

The difference was that Dennard’s family had fought on the rebel side.

III

Back in the common room, a package had arrived. There was nothing unusual about that, and at first she ignored it. The package was addressed to Arthur McShane, who had been dead now nearly two weeks. Following his standing instructions from Dennard, Jonathan was slitting the package open. He had been McShane’s clerk, and in theory was best positioned to know which of the late attorney’s cases the package might pertain to, and what should be done with the contents.

Jonathan said to the others, “Come look at this.”

The contents were bizarre.

First there was a handwritten letter, undated, brief and to the point. The paper was an expensive vellum, the style dramatically curlicued and decorated:

That was the entire text. The three clerks puzzled together over possible meanings.

“I suspect that ‘Sept’ is September,” said Rellman, importantly.

Abigail hid a smile, and put in her own contribution. “The ‘Also’ implies the existence of an earlier letter.”

Jonathan spread his hands. “So Mr. McShane is advised that he will soon hear about Burgess’s, whatever that is, for September. That is not terribly illuminating. And I know of no case or correspondent called Chanticleer.”

They laid the letter aside and dug into the box. A sheaf of notes appeared to be the proceedings of an investigation into a battle between
two railroads in South Carolina. The handwriting was different—cramped and quick—and the paper was of a much cheaper variety, well lined. They found a couple of newspaper articles about the city-council election in Columbia, the state capital: evidently, the city had chosen the first colored councilman in its history.

“This isn’t about the impeachment,” Rellman announced.

“Wait,” said Abigail.

They had reached the bottom of the package. More handwritten notes, this time a list of shareholders in one of the two railroads that were at war.

“It’s one of Mr. McShane’s cases,” said Rellman, losing interest. “Has to be.”

Jonathan was leafing through the pages. “I don’t believe we have any clients in South Carolina. Had.”
Sliced up
. He kept the thought at bay, pointed to the original note. “And, again, I don’t believe that we have a client called Chanticleer.”

Rellman was defiant. “You can’t possibly have every client committed to memory.”

“I believe that I would recall that name.”

“Well, then, what’s it all about?”

“Nothing,” said Dennard, who, despite his bulk, had managed somehow to creep up on them. “Another one of McShane’s crazy ideas.” He nodded. “Hilliman. Put everything back in the box. We’ll send it on to the widow.”

“But if it involves a client—”

“It doesn’t.”

“How can we be sure?”

The lawyer glowered at him; but answered. “See the letter? Chanticleer? Some friend of his from one of those clubs he was in, most likely. I never had time for all of that foolishness, but McShane loved every bit of it, bless him. Fancy names. Funny hats. All that Latin nonsense. It’s nothing. Pack it up and send it on.”

“Yes, sir,” Jonathan said.

Dennard glanced around. “Where’s Rellman? Ah, good. Speed is over at the Mansion. You and I will join him. Hilliman, Miss Canner, you have your assignments.”

IV

“Why do you call her Nanny Pork?”

Abigail had her nose in the volume about the trial and beheading of Charles I. She had made copious notes. Without lifting her head from the book, she said, “Because that is her name.”

Jonathan was at the other end of the table, paging through volumes of speeches of some of the leaders of the anti-Lincoln cabal, searching for language that might be turned against them. “Surely Nanny Pork isn’t her real name.”

“Her
real
name?” said Abigail, glancing up, and the mischief in those eyes told him that one of her games was afoot. “What on earth does that mean?”

“What name would she use in signing a legal document?”

“Nanny would sign with an ‘X.’ She is illiterate.”

“What name appears on her birth certificate?”

“I have never seen her birth certificate, Mr. Hilliman. I am not sure whether the laws of South Carolina provided for birth certificates for slaves.”

“So she was a slave,” said Jonathan, relieved to have at least one fact.

“She was. Until recently, as you may recall, a few of my people were.” She laid the book aside. “And she is not my grandmother. My mother said Nanny Pork is my great-aunt, and she calls us her nieces, but I suspect that the actual family relation is somewhat more distant. One branch of our family—on my mother’s side—purchased its freedom before the Revolution. Nanny Pork is from another branch.”

Jonathan found himself fascinated by this glimpse, however small, into the life of the free negroes, an insular and even secretive society about which almost nothing was known.

By white people, anyway.

“How did she come to live with you?”

Abigail placed a leather marker at her page and closed the book. “Why are you so interested in my aunt? We have a great deal of work to do.”

“Please,” said Jonathan, spreading his hands. He could not tell whether she was teasing. Nevertheless, he felt, suddenly, an urgent need to hear the story. And Abigail put the volume aside and told him.

“Nanny was freed eight or nine years ago. She was old even then,
and she was sick, and her master had no use for her any more. Had she remained his property, he would have had to provide a roof over her head and food for her to eat, to say nothing of a burial plot, and he was not about to do all of that for a slave who couldn’t work. So, in his Christian magnanimity, he set her free instead. She was taken into a mission home outside of Charleston, and the missionaries wrote to all the living relatives she could think of, trying to find somewhere for her to go; and die. I don’t know how many of my relatives wrote back, but I imagine that they made excuses: Not enough money. Too busy to care for her. The house too small. What-have-you. But my mother was not like that. My mother would never leave a stranger out on the street: we always had people with nowhere to go living in the barn or the stable behind the house. Naturally, she could not abandon a relative to the fates. So she wrote back and even sent the train fare. Nanny Pork arrived a month later. My mother was never secretive with us. She told us that Nanny had come to the house to die. She was given a bed in my older sister, Judith’s room. I already shared with Louisa. My mother said it would probably be only a few months.”

Abigail had turned away now, face toward the dying fire. One of her hands was in her lap, the other lay carelessly on the table. Both fists were clenched.

“But the Lord had other plans, Mr. Hilliman. He often does. By a miracle, Nanny was healed of whatever disease was killing her. Instead, my mother died of the varioloid a few months after Nanny moved in. The varioloid is not supposed to kill people who have already had smallpox, but it killed my mother. After that, my father just wasted away. He was dead in a year. And Nanny Pork—well, she had come to the house to die but wound up more or less running it.” She laughed. “She even put Judith out. Not just out of the room. Out of the house, because she did not like her behavior with men.” A shadow crossed Abigail’s face. When she spoke again, there was a tremor in a voice. “And here is the irony, Mr. Hilliman. Here is the irony. It is not Nanny’s house. My father left it in equal shares to the children. So the four of us own it, but we do what Nanny tells us.”

“You respect her.”

“We are scared of her.” A rough laugh, painful to hear. “Jonathan, I must ask you directly. Do you believe this business about the Department of the Atlantic? The plot to overthrow the Congress?”

Jonathan hesitated. Among men of his class, direct questions were simply not asked. He had been taught to prevaricate and hedge, to use words only as a means of gaining your ends. “The Managers do not have a shred of evidence to support their claim,” he said. He waved toward the boxes of files. “We have here all of Mr. Lincoln’s correspondence with the War Department. You and I have been through every page. There is nothing.”

Abigail digested this. He sensed that his evasion had disappointed her. “Very well,” she finally said. “And this business about a conspiracy behind the impeachment. Finishing what Booth began, but by legal means. What Mr. Dennard forbids us to pursue. Do you believe a word? Or is it all a bizarre fantasy, created by Stanton or perhaps Seward to distract the public from the issues at stake?”

“Remember when Stanton was here in this office?” he asked. “Railing about the missing list of conspirators, and how he would hang everyone on the list should it come into his possession? I do not believe that his fury was an invention.”

“That tells me only that you believe that Stanton believes in the conspiracy. I asked what you believe, Jonathan.”

He tried to make a joke of it. “Well, if a conspiracy exists, I am sure that the Hillimans are at the center of it. We may not have much money any more, but just about everyone in the family hates Mr. Lincoln.”

V

Two hours later, Dennard and Speed clomped in, shaking snow from their coats. Dennard was furious about something, and Speed was trying to placate him. Rellman came smirking behind them like a bad conscience.

“The President does have other duties,” Speed was saying.

“Not as important as winning at trial and staying in office, et cetera.”

“We can resume tomorrow.”

“We have a schedule.”

The lawyers shucked off their coats. In Little’s absence, Abigail knew her role; hated it, but duty was duty. She leaped to her feet, but Jonathan was faster. He had both men’s coats over his arm and was halfway to the closet before she could get halfway around the table. She fought down a rising gratitude that nearly made her smile.