Henry and Clara (15 page)

After an early dinner at his brother’s home, Hamilton Harris enlisted Ira, Henry, old Mr. Osborne, and John Finley Rathbone to accompany him to the Central Club, at 356 Broadway, where the returns would come in by messenger and telegraph. Clara insisted on coming as well, which led to little Lina’s insistence, too — at which point Hamilton Harris said all right, but that’s it, hoping the bustle of the evening would keep anyone down at the Central Club from objecting to the girls’ presence.

As soon as they had secured their seats and cups of cider, Ira Harris withdrew from his pocket a letter that Will had written from West Point just two days ago. The soothing baritone in which he shared it could not conceal the doubtfulness it prompted in him: “ ‘I suppose you are looking forward to the results of next Tuesday’s election as already settled in favor of Lincoln. It seems to be conceded by all parties, as near as I can judge, that his election is certain, and of course you must be glad of it.’ ”

“Well, let’s hope it’s certain,” said Hamilton Harris, looking at the scanty totals on the chalkboards. “Be damned glad if it
is
certain,” he added, making an apologetic nod for his language toward the girls.

Judge Harris continued reciting: “ ‘But I think it would pain you, as it has me, to witness the effect which this struggle has produced in the army and especially in the corps of cadets. Some of my own class who are appointed from South Carolina have received positive orders from home to come there immediately in the case of Lincoln’s being elected. I am glad for you that the Republican Party is coming to power, but I sincerely trust that it will not allow those incessant slavery agitators to be their representatives and spokesmen. Slavery may be a curse but I cannot help thinking that anti-slavery is a greater one.’ ”

What would Mary Hall think of this? wondered Clara, intrigued by the way Will’s unionist sentiments had defeated his abolitionist ones.

“He’s right about the anti-slavers,” said John Finley Rathbone between puffs of his pipe. “That’s why I went for Douglas.”

Hamilton Harris laughed. “You’re riding the wave of the past, Jack. Now, Henry, if you don’t mind my asking, how did you vote?”

“For Mr. Bell.”

“In four years Henry’s gone from being a Know-Nothing to a do-nothing,” explained Clara to the laughter of the men. John Bell, the fourth-party candidate, had campaigned by saying nothing whatsoever about slavery.

“You girls know better than your brother, eh?” asked Hamilton. “Two lasses for Lincoln, isn’t that so, Lina?”

Ten-year-old Lina just blushed. Except for the Wide-Awake parades that passed under her window some nights, the election was a dull thing. She didn’t know how they could talk about it night after night in the dining room on Eagle Street, and down at Kenwood, and out in Loudonville, but they did, even though it only made her papa look left out and unhappy.

For something to do, Clara took her little sister’s hair and began braiding it, a sight that always enchanted Henry.

“Yes,” Clara said, “I’m still for Lincoln, Uncle Hamilton.”

“That’s my girl.”

“Good for you, dear,” said Ira Harris, without much conviction.

“What else does Will say, Papa? Aside from politics.”

“Well,” said Ira Harris, “there’s a bit about Howard: ‘The last time I saw Miss Carroll, she told me she was introduced to Lieutenant Rathbone of the U.S. Marines at Lady Napier’s ball and danced with him.’ ” Everyone laughed at news of the family blade, while Clara, joining the strands of her sister’s brown hair, thought about the letter she had had from Howard last month, one that could only be called a love letter, vaguely warning her against Henry. She had spoken of it to no one — not even Mary Hall, who, the day after her argument with Pauline, had at last become Clara’s confidante. (She had told Sybil Bashford absolutely nothing, despite being beseeched through half the night on the porch at Ocean House.)

“Well,” said Hamilton Harris, teasing his niece, “you won’t have to put up with all this politics for too much longer. Did you see Mr. Weed’s pledge in the
Evening Journal
?” He reached for the newspaper and put on his spectacles. “ ‘We are sure our lady readers are weary of the mass of political matters with which our columns have teemed for months past. But they are no more weary of them than we ourselves —’ ”

“As if Thurlow Weed ever tired of politics!” said John Finley Rathbone.

“ ‘— so it is our ambition to make the
Journal
more a family than a political newspaper, and we hope to hereafter be able to fully gratify this ambition. We have schemes of improvement in embryo which, when developed, will render the
Journal
more welcome than ever to the family circle.’ ”

Henry burst out laughing. “Oh, I’m sure there will be no political news at all for the next four years. Can’t imagine anything that will be worth noticing!” He took the paper from his uncle. “Let’s have a look at some of the welcome tidings Mr. Weed has managed to bring to the ‘family circle’ even now. Oh, here’s matter fit for home and hearth: ‘About eleven o’clock last
night Patrolman Manning, while going his rounds, discovered smoke issuing from the premises of One Twenty-three Broad Street, occupied by Peter Mullen and his family. He immediately rushed into the house and, upon entering the room, he beheld a horrid spectacle. He found a straw bed on fire and upon it laid a female wholly unconscious of what was going on. With a few pails of water and some assistance, he quenched the flames when he ascertained that the female upon the bed was Mrs. Mullen. She was in a beastly state of intoxication —’ ”

“Enough, Henry,” said Ira Harris, taking the paper from his stepson and nodding in the direction of Lina. Still, Henry had succeeded in making the others laugh. They were growing silly with waiting, and when old Mr. Osborne, who’d been deaf to every word of everyone’s recitation, just smiled over their laughter and said, “Good cider, isn’t it?” there were contagious guffaws.

Ira Harris, as if calling the proceedings to order, drew attention to one last item in Mr. Weed’s paper, a report out of Portsmouth, Virginia: “ ‘The greatest crowd that was ever witnessed in this city, gathered together on Saturday to listen to Honorable Henry A. Wise.’ ” The man who had hanged John Brown eleven months ago “ ‘
DECLARED BEFORE GOD THAT HE WOULD NEVER SUBMIT TO THE ELECTION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
’ ” Mr. Weed’s writer went on to explain, in the
Journal
’s impartial way: “ ‘This was telegraphed all over the Union yesterday, in hopes that Wise’s crazy ravings would scare some timid voter.’ ”

“Some more cider for you,” said Clara to Mr. Osborne, patting his knee and getting up to fetch him another cup. On her way to the punch bowl she was nearly knocked over by three boys racing in with tallies. The returns were at last flooding in, and soon the telegraphs were clattering without letup, the operators pressing headsets to their ears in order to hear over the noise of the clubroom, which was now packed tight with men arriving by the dozen, shaking the rain from their hats and stroking their whiskers as they watched the numbers fill the boxes on the blackboard.

Ira Harris kept his seat beside his brother while the messengers posted totals from Beaver Street in the Fourth Ward and Orange in the Eighth, as the operators of the “divine signaler” prophesied by Dr. Nott so many years ago heard the word from up and down and across the state, from Brooklyn to Allegheny to Erie, and then, as the evening drew on, from Boston to Pittsburgh to Cleveland. There was no single moment of mathematical certainty; it was only the growing confidence of the alcoholic roar which eventually made apparent the truth of all the digits, dots and dashes: Abraham Lincoln was to be the sixteenth President of the United States. At one
A.M
. Hamilton Harris, a careful man, finally allowed himself to rise with an exultant expression. Once on his feet, he seemed at a loss for something to do. He settled for quietly patting the judge’s shoulder. “Well, brother, Mr. Seward will have to endure the Senate; the Executive Mansion will never be his.” This was cold comfort to Ira Harris, who had left the bench months ago and supposed he would teach at the Albany Law School for a few more years before retiring out to Loudonville.

“Come on, Ira. Let’s you and Jack and I go upstairs for a brandy.”

The three gentlemen left for a more private room. Mr. Osborne and Lina had already been brought home, leaving Henry to walk Clara back to Eagle Street. He held the umbrella over her with his left hand, tilting it in from the street, so that his right was free to grasp her waist. She could smell the whiskey he had drunk all night instead of cider. It had left him drowsy — peaceful, she thought.

Arriving at number 28, where Pauline and Jared and the girls had gone to bed, Henry spread the
Evening Journal
on the steps for Clara to sit upon. The rain was slackening, and he closed the umbrella. He sat down beside her and unpinned her hair. She shut her eyes and let her head fall back as he separated her long damp tresses, the way she had Lina’s. He didn’t know how to make braids, but he stroked the different strands, folding and unfolding them, one over another, in a way that made his breath fall faster on the back of her neck. And then he gently let go,
letting her hair fall to its full length, down to the wet pages of the newspaper.

She was thrilled by this tenderness; she’d never had it before.

“So,” she said, “has our hour come round with Mr. Lincoln’s?”

She saw him smile before he nestled his head, childishly, into her bosom.

“Soon,” he said. After another moment he brought his lips to her ear and whispered, “Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes,” he said. “I do love you, Clara.” And then he replaced his head upon her breast. As she looked down Eagle Street — determined that she would manage her father, and that he would manage Pauline — Henry fell asleep in her arms.

S
HORTLY AFTER TEN P.M
. on February 2, 1861, Hamilton Harris and John Finley Rathbone were finishing supper at the Delavan.

“Do you think he really wants it?” Rathbone asked.

Hamilton Harris laughed. “Don’t let the Olympian demeanor fool you. He wants it as heaven ‘wanted one immortal song.’ ” Then Hamilton’s face turned grave, and he looked around the dining room for a clock. “I just hope he doesn’t come up dry. A month ago he wouldn’t dream of the possibility. But for the past three weeks he’s thought of nothing else. I can’t stand the idea of his hopes being crushed.”

“Not to mention Pauline’s.”

“Damn it all,” said Hamilton, bringing his hand down hard enough to rattle the silverware. “He deserves it after all these years in the wilderness.”

What Ira Harris deserved, according to his younger brother, and what he just might get tonight, was the Senate seat occupied for the last twelve years by William Henry Seward. To the surprise of nearly everyone, Mr. Lincoln had asked the eagle-nosed wizard of Auburn to serve as secretary of state in the unity Cabinet he was trying to assemble, leaving New York’s legislators with the task of sending someone to the U.S. Senate in Seward’s place. Thurlow Weed was determined it wouldn’t be his enemy Horace Greeley, the
New York Tribune
’s editor, about whom the Dictator grumbled, “The man never met a reform he couldn’t chant for.” A few weeks ago he’d given the machine’s blessing to William M. Evarts, a New York lawyer.

But the Greeley forces, scenting blood from the wounds Weed
suffered last May in Chicago, had proved formidable throughout a bruising series of ballots, the eighth of which had given 47 to Greeley, 39 to Evarts — and 19 to Ira Harris, the sentimental favorite of a third faction that saw the chance to keep both Greeley and Weed from having their ways. But earlier tonight the Dictator, fearing Greeley was about to go over the top, put out the word that his Evarts men were to shift to Harris — anything to keep his rival editor from getting the seat he’d plumped Seward onto a dozen years ago.

“Do you think he’ll be able to swing enough of them over?” asked John Finley Rathbone for the third time tonight.

“It will be close,” replied Hamilton Harris, as he had twice before. What he would not tell him was that even before Evarts ran into trouble, the Dictator had privately asked Ira to serve as backup man. There was life yet in the wily old boss, and the original Harris backers would be surprised to know they hadn’t been as independent a faction as they’d believed. Hamilton felt there was something unseemly to the alacrity with which Ira, after being passed over and ignored for a dozen years, had agreed to cooperate with his tormentor, but whatever shame was in the bargain would make victory only a little less sweet: the Dictator would still be humbled by the loss of Evarts, and Ira would see his youthful promise blaze up after such a long time sputtering. If, that is, the Greeley forces didn’t yet carry the day. The wait was maddening. Hamilton Harris refilled his pipe and tried to change the subject.

“Have you seen any more of the letters Will’s been sending from West Point?” he asked. “Enough to break one’s heart. Clara showed me one she’d got right after New Year’s. Tells how one of his best friends in the class, boy from Alabama, was summoned home after three and a half years at the academy. A wonderful fellow apparently, wanted to be a cavalry officer, no sort of secessionist at all. Will says he and his mates treated this boy and another one from the South to a bottle of wine before carrying them to the dock on their shoulders. They’re all keeping up their spirits, he says, but it’s a terrible thing. Best young men in the world being sundered from one another.”