"Not coerced, Mr. Dills. Once he was convinced that Elkanah was his child, he helped him gladly, as any father would."
"Who was Bent's father, madam?"
The yellow eyes, moist and mad, reflected the candles around the tower.
"Why, Mr. Dills" — she giggled, a hideous coquetry — "surely you know. I said he used physical force."
"Sweet Christ! Elkanah's father was —"
"Mine, Mr. Dills. Mine."
The straw-littered stones of the floor seemed to tilt and shiver beneath Jasper Dills. The rational underpinning of his world threatened to collapse. "Goodbye," he said, snatching his carpetbag and rushing toward the door. "Goodbye, Miss Todd."
In the cul-de-sac, shivering, he waited and waited for the hackney to return. Now he understood the cause, and the extent, of Elkanah Bent's insanity. He no longer cared about the stipend. He wanted no more of it, or the woman he'd deceived, or Bent. Especially Bent, wherever he might be.
Dills finally understood much that he'd never understood before. Bent's unreasonable grudge against the Mains and the Hazards, a preoccupation since his cadet days; the brutality of the Lehigh Station slaying — Bent had inherited a capacity for evil.
Chilly sweat broke out on Dills's face as he recalled the times he'd criticized Bent, reproved him, ordered him out of his office. If he'd known the sort of man Bent really was, and if he'd known why, he'd never have done such things. He'd probably have cowered instead.
The hackney never came. Dills picked up his carpetbag and stumbled downhill, all the way to the lodging house he'd previously telegraphed for a room. There, at a late hour, he paid exorbitantly for a zinc tub of heated water.
Feeling filthy down to his bones, he sat in the tub with a cake of homemade soap as yellow as her eyes, scrubbing and scrubbing at his wrinkled, mottled skin and thinking of Elkanah Bent, his brain, his blood, his very being poisoned before his birth.
Dills slumped back in the tub, inexplicably sorrowful. God pity poor Bent, whom he surely would never see again. God pity even more the next person to incur Bent's wrath.
42
North of Washington on the Seventh Street Road, Maryland farmers once a week set up stalls and wagons for an open-air market. On the last Saturday in March, two days before the President's trial was to begin in the Senate, Virgilia and Scipio Brown went to the market to buy food for the orphanage. Brown drove the buggy and carried the money, amusing Virgilia by this insistence on handling all the male duties. He didn't seem upset by the looks they drew because she was white and he was not.
They moved through the crowded lanes of the market, among hens squawking in crates and piglets squealing in improvised pens. They argued about the subject most of Washington was arguing about these days.
"He's usurped power, Virgilia. To make it worse, he's the elect of an assassin, not the people."
"You have to be more specific than that to convict him." "Good Lord, they've drawn up eleven charges." "The first nine are all related to the Tenure of Office issue. Ben Butler's tenth article condemns Johnson for speeches criticizing Congress. Is free speech now a high crime or misdemeanor? The eleventh article is just a grab bag." "Authored by your good friend Mr. Stevens." "Even so —" They reached a cross lane. A cart approached, piled with crates of rabbits. "I stand by my opinion on it."
He saw the cartwheel lurch into a rut, tilting the vehicle sideways. Cordage snapped, freeing the crates. The huge stack toppled toward Virgilia and Scipio. He seized her waist and swung her away from the spot where the crates crashed down. Several broke; rabbits escaped in every direction. The driver ran off in pursuit.
Virgilia was abruptly aware of the mulatto's strong hands on her waist. And of a curious intensity in his dark eyes. She'd noticed similar looks several times lately. "Perhaps we'd better search for eggs and forget politics, Scipio. I wouldn't want it to ruin our friendship."
"Nor I." He smiled and released her. She tingled from the touch of his hands, and was more than a little startled by that reaction.
With arms grown strong from hard work, Virgilia pushed the wood paddle around the steaming kettle of thick pea soup. It was noon the next day. Across the kitchen, Thad Stevens sat with a tawny little boy dozing in his lap, thumb in his mouth. Virgilia's friend looked pale and weary.
"You will be there tomorrow for the opening of the trial?" he asked.
"Yes, and for as much thereafter as I can manage without falling behind here."
"You want him convicted, I assume."
Reluctantly, she said, "I don't think so. He denies any crime."
"His denial is estopped by his previous behavior. He sent Thomas to remove Stanton."
"Thomas failed, so it was only an attempt, not a removal."
"You're becoming legalistic, my dear." He didn't sound happy about it, although the whole Stanton mess was nothing if not a lawyer's delight.
Even Grant had been caught in the tangle. Grant's withdrawal as interim Secretary of War had precipitated a series of bitter exchanges with Andrew Johnson; a final letter from Grant charged the President with trying to "destroy my character before the country." That letter completely alienated Johnson, and persuaded many people that Grant was at heart a Radical. No one had been quite sure before. Grant's detractors immediately called him an opportunist, a political chameleon, and — the old canard — a drunkard. Never mind. Grant had purified himself in the eyes of the Radical leadership. In late May the Republicans would convene in Chicago to nominate a presidential candidate. Cynics said the general would there be "confirmed as a new member of the Radical church," and be chosen to run.
"Legalistic, Thad?" she said. "No. I'm only trying to look at matters fairly."
"The devil with fair. I want Johnson out. I will hound him till he's gone."
She let the paddle rest against the rim of the kettle. In the yard, where a mild March sun fell through the bare branches of two unbudded cherry trees, Scipio laughed and romped with several of the children. "Whether he's guilty or not?"
In his glare, she saw the answer before he gave it. "We are purging the man, but we are also purging what he represents, Virgilia. Leniency toward an entire class of people. Unrepentant people who still conspire to return this nation to what it was thirty years ago, when an entire black population was in chains and Mr. Calhoun arrogantly threatened secession if anyone dared object. There are seven impeachment managers. Do you have any idea of the enormous pressure already being brought against us? Letters. Cowardly threats —"
Disturbing the boy nestled in his lap, he pulled a wrinkled yellow flimsy from his pocket. "This came from Louisiana, that's all I know for certain."
She unfolded it and read, STEVENS, PREPARE TO MEET YOUR GOD. THE AVENGER IS UPON YOUR TRACK. HELL IS YOUR PORTION. K.K.K.
Shaking her head, she handed it back. For a moment Stevens's waxy cheeks showed some color. "The avenger is upon Mr. Johnson's track, too. His portion is a guilty verdict."
Scipio ran in the sunshine, whooping. The joyful sound seemed chillingly at odds with the congressman's angry eyes. His dogma had carried him down a road Virgilia had abandoned. There was no longer much hatred in her, but in him the war raged on.
On Monday, March 30, she arrived an hour before the doors to the Senate gallery opened. When they did, she fought her way upward among people hurrying and pushing. By the time Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase took the chair and opened the trial, there wasn't an empty seat or vacant stair step in the gallery.
Days ago, Chase had organized and sworn the Senate as a court. Today, all fifty-four legislators representing the twenty-seven states were present on the floor. Among them Virgilia saw Sam Stout, calm and smiling. He'd been quoted widely about his confidence in the outcome. He believed there would be no problem in obtaining the thirty-six votes necessary to convict Johnson on one or more of the articles.