The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln (29 page)

“Excellent,” said Belmont. “Then we have an understanding?”

“I will do my best to convey your views, sir.”

“One can ask no more.”

II

Jonathan assumed that the séance was over. Forgetting protocol, he even made to rise. His mind was foggy from the smoke, and he was starting to worry that, should he stay any longer, he would say the wrong thing. He did not imagine for a moment that Lincoln would accept Belmont’s offer, and not only because it was obvious and stupid. Lincoln was simply not that kind of man.

And yet all of this was so clear that Jonathan could not understand what he was doing here, why Belmont had sent for him. Surely the financier was smarter than he, and could easily work out the unlikelihood that his offer would be accepted. And it was this realization—that Belmont was by no means finished with him—that planted Jonathan firmly back in his seat.

The banker looked amused, as if he had read the struggle on Jonathan’s face. “How is your father?” Belmont said, suddenly.

Jonathan was, for an instant, thrown. “He died, sir. Nine years ago.”

“Did he?” Belmont seemed lost in thought. The cigar smoke drifted around his smoothly shaven chin like a soft gray beard. Jonathan wondered whether he had even heard. “Is it difficult for you? Day after day, sitting in Washington City, watching Mr. Lincoln’s presidency crumble? I should have thought by now you would have resigned your position and returned to Newport to run the family firm. I know that was your father’s wish.” So he had heard after all. “You may not know this, Hilliman, but Belmont & Co. own a certain interest in the Hilliman firm. Were you aware of this?”

“No,” said Jonathan, wondering if here at last was the explanation for his family’s miraculous escape from debt ten years ago.

“A small share. Forty percent. Brighton never told you?”

“No, sir. He did not.”
Forty!

A bob of the small head, as if in confirmation of secret knowledge. “Well, I suppose you would have found out sooner or later. Presumably, when you take the reins, you will in due course inspect the books.”

“Yes,” said Jonathan, faintly.

“Never delegate that responsibility. The head of the firm must know to the penny how much is spent on printer’s ink.”

“Yes, sir.”

Belmont regarded him with something like disappointment. “That is your ambition, is it not? To marry Miss Felix and run the firm?”

“I suppose so.”

“Do not suppose, Hilliman. The man who runs a great company must be decisive and ambitious and daring. Do you have those qualities?”

“I—I hope so, sir.”

“Well, let us find out. I need some advice of a business nature. Perhaps you can be of assistance.” He did not wait for an answer. “You will recall what I said a moment ago, that Belmont & Co. own forty percent of the shares of your family’s firm. This holding is, as you doubtless realize, sufficient to give us, if not practical control, certainly a veto over the firm’s major decisions.” He waited a moment for his message to sink in: neither Brighton Hilliman, who ran the firm, nor Jonathan’s mother, Elise, who in theory owned it, could make a move without this man’s approval. “Now, here is the difficulty. We obtained the shares when we extended credit to Hilliman & Sons a decade ago. In addition to the shares, Belmont & Co. obtained certain warrants that, if exercised by
the end of this calendar year, would allow us to purchase an additional twenty percent.”

Jonathan stared. He could think of, literally, nothing to say. The firm had always been there, vast and untouchable. That the family had suffered in the great Panic of 1857 he accepted. That was the year they had let all but two of the servants go, and the year his father’s health had entered the decline from which it never recovered. But that year of terrible agony was like a brief instant in the family’s storied past. Hilliman & Sons, to outward appearances, was as potent as ever. The factories were fully staffed. The profits, to hear Uncle Brighton tell it, were rolling in. Jonathan had always assumed that at some point, when he had completed his entirely appropriate young-man’s meanderings, he would return to run the company, and thus secure his financial position. It had never entered his imagination that the reason for the firm’s survival might be the existence of a silent partner; or that the silent partner might, with the stroke of a pen, cause the firm to disappear.

“Belmont & Co.,” the financier continued, “have not yet decided whether to exercise the warrants.”

With impeccable timing, the butler knocked and entered, informing Mr. Belmont that the carriage was waiting to depart for the theater.

“Thank you for your time, sir,” said Jonathan, rising.

“I shall look forward to your prompt response,” said Belmont. “And to your advice.”

“My advice, sir?”

“About the warrants.”

The butler showed Jonathan out. The message was clear. If the President would agree to dump the tariff and strengthen the currency, he would have Belmont’s support. Otherwise, Lincoln would be convicted, and Hilliman & Sons would cease to exist.

I

ON TUESDAY MORNING
, Abigail rode into town in Patsy Quillen’s wagon. She enjoyed the Quillen sisters, despite the unspoken rule around the neighborhood that younger colored girls were not to speak to them. Patsy had an appointment with her banker. On the way, she gossiped about their mutual neighbors for a bit, then talked airily of electrical power: that was the future, Patsy insisted; that was where Abigail should be putting her money.

“I don’t have any money.”

“When you get some, dear.”

The office was alive with excitement. The Radicals, it seemed, wanted to reopen negotiations. Dennard and Speed were on their way over to Congressman Garfield’s house, which had been chosen as a neutral ground: Garfield, who hoped to be President one day, had to keep both camps happy. So he had voted against the impeachment motion, but had criticized in the harshest terms Lincoln’s defiance of Congress.

Jonathan was not yet back from the North; Sickles was still off visiting Grant, or whatever other errands Lincoln had sent him on.

Before departing, Dennard instructed Abigail and Rellman to go into McShane’s office and pack up “all that Chanticleer silliness” for delivery to the widow.

“I want it in her hands today,” he said.

The “silliness” turned out to comprise not only the newly arrived
package but four thick folders besides. Abigail wanted to look inside, but Rellman said that to do so would constitute a serious breach of confidentiality. His tone of voice suggested to her that he had invented this principle on the spot, but already in her short apprenticeship she had learned to admire the lawyerly skill of stating utter nonsense while displaying so sober a mien that everybody assumed you were right.

Wrapping all of this into a single parcel took no more than fifteen minutes.

“I wonder why Mr. Dennard wanted us both to do it,” mused Rellman, obviously miffed to have been handed so menial an assignment.

Abigail shrugged. But she thought she knew. Dennard wanted each to keep an eye on the other. Whatever was in the Chanticleer materials, he wanted the firm to have no part of it.

“Little is supposed to take it,” said Rellman, looking around. They were back in the anteroom, with the parcel on the table. “He should be back any minute.”

“One of us should go with him.”

“Why?”

“As a sign of respect.” She smiled. “Don’t worry. I’ll do it.”

Although Rellman gave her a suspicious look—wondering, perhaps, whether she might peek inside after all—he raised no objection. She had not expected him to. Deliveries were beneath his station, but he would not for a moment consider them beneath Abigail’s.

And, for once, the prejudice attaching to her color and sex suited her just fine.

II

She asked Mr. Little to wait in the wagon. Carrying the parcel herself was awkward, but she considered the symbol important. She went to the front door, not the back, because she was a clerk from the firm, here on official business. Though she was haunted still by the experience of waiting in Senator Fessenden’s kitchen for hours, her mother had taught her that, if you once allow your nightmares to hold you back, you will never get moving again. She was determined, therefore, not to let a maid dismiss her. But the dark-haired and elegant woman who answered the door was nobody’s maid, and wore the pearls to prove it. “Mrs. McShane? I’m Abigail Canner. From the firm.”

The woman looked fifty, and pinched, and skeptical. “I am not Mrs. McShane,” she announced to the air above Abigail’s head. Her accent had its origin well up in New England. “I am her sister, Mrs. Huntley.”

“I apologize for the intrusion. But I have a package from the firm. Items of her husband’s.” Mrs. Huntley only stared. Her dark eyes were small and close together, the eyes of a rodent. “And I wanted to … to pay my respects.”

“My sister is not receiving.”

“I understand. Might I leave a note?”

The tiny eyes narrowed, and the tiny mouth made a moue of disapproval, as if a note were an unwanted modern invention. “You are the clerk,” she finally said.

“Yes. Yes, I am. Abigail Canner.”

“My sister says that Mr. McShane made quite a fuss over you.” The lips twisted. “And of course the ladies of Washington can speak of nothing else.”

Abigail dropped her eyes. She was learning when silence and discretion were called for.

“I believe my sister might wish to speak to you after all,” said Mrs. Huntley.

III

It was evident that Mrs. McShane had never entertained a colored woman, but she was making a brave show, for her husband’s sake. She had the maid serve tea in the solarium, because she liked to feel the sun on her skin. She was as tiny and birdlike as Jonathan had described her, and wearing widow’s black. She seemed to have nothing to say, so it was left to Abigail to offer condolences, to apologize for having missed the funeral, and to explain that she had brought a package from the office at the instruction of Mr. Dennard.

“I see,” said Mrs. McShane, and sipped.

Abigail sipped, too, wondering at the air of expectancy in the room. There were slices of toast and jars of marmalade and jam.

“Your husband was very kind to me,” she said, and saw Mrs. Huntley, sitting beside her sister, close her eyes briefly. Abigail hastened to correct her error. “I arrived at the office unexpectedly—Mr. Dennard was still in California. But Mr. McShane was kind enough to supervise my work until …”

She trailed off. The atmosphere confused her. Mrs. Huntley did not want her here, but Mrs. McShane seemed almost to have expected her to call.

“Until he died,” said Mrs. McShane.

Abigail swallowed. Despite the season, the room was warm. Pallid sunlight spilled through the wide southern windows. “Yes, ma’am.”

“And you are here to thank me.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And to bring me this parcel.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Mrs. Huntley was on her feet. “Thank you, Miss Canner. Now, I am afraid we have a good deal to do, preparing for our return to New Hampshire—”

Abigail made to rise, too, but something in Mrs. McShane’s face …

“Ma’am, I wanted to tell you … I have been looking into the circumstances of … of your husband’s death.”

“That will be enough, Miss Canner,” said the sister.

“Wait,” said the widow. She sipped. “And?”

“And I … I do not think that what the police believe is accurate.” Knowing that she was only minutes or seconds from being thrown out of the house, Abigail rushed on, words tumbling over each other. “Ma’am, I do not believe that Miss Deveaux was a prostitute, and I also—”

“Leave now,” hissed Mrs. Huntley, “or I shall summon the servants.”

Mrs. McShane ignored her. “And?”

“And I … I think his death was related to … to the work he was doing.…”

Mrs. Huntley had the door open. “Beth. Please ask Marvin to come at once. We have a bit of a problem.”

“Leave us,” said Mrs. McShane.

“She obviously won’t. I’ll have Marvin—”

“You, Susan,” said Mrs. McShane, eyes still on Abigail. “Leave us. I wish to speak to this child alone.”

IV

“Now, tell me,” said Virginia McShane when her sister had gone. “Tell me, please, what you think happened to my husband.”

Abigail took a breath. This was what she had rehearsed. This was the point toward which she had been working ever since the day Dennard
told her to stop her investigation. “I believe that your husband suspected the existence of a conspiracy against Mr. Lincoln. Miss Deveaux was relaying information to him.”

“I see.” Mrs. McShane sipped, made a face: the tea had gone cold. She reached for the little gold bell to summon the maid, then let her hand fall. “Mr. Lincoln was here to pay his respects. Did you know that?”

“No, ma’am. But I am not surprised. I understand that he is a most gracious gentleman—”

“He is not a gentleman at all. He is an unlettered Westerner.” Her voice was perfectly composed, but a single tear trailed along her pale cheek. “I never cared for him. But Arthur believed in Mr. Lincoln. He believed in the great cause. He always said that the constitutional amendment to abolish slavery was the single greatest act of state in his lifetime. Possibly so. But I lost two nephews to Mr. Lincoln’s war, Miss Canner. Now you are here telling me that I lost my husband to the peace. Isn’t that what you are saying? You believe my Arthur died because of the work he was doing on Mr. Lincoln’s behalf. If that is true, then my tragedy is complete.”