Mary has caught Lincoln’s happiness. She rests her hand on his knee, moves closer to him. She smells of bergamot and lemon. “What will Miss Harris think,” she whispers, “of me hanging on you so?” and Lincoln assures her Miss Harris will not mind it at all.

—

The third and final act begins.

Scene 2:

Harry Hawk as Asa Trenchard is alone on the stage. “I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal—you sockdologizing old man-trap,” Harry says. He hits hard on the sock in sockdologizing, turning towards the wings where Helen Muzzy, playing Mrs. Montchessington, has just exited. His back is to Lincoln.

This is the evening’s most reliable laugh line and Mary’s pealing laughter can be heard above everyone’s. How wonderful to hear Mary laugh like this! It’s that pleasure, more than the line, that starts Lincoln laughing himself. Then he hears something else, but there is no time to understand what it is.

BOOK SIX

What’s past is prologue.

—W. Shakespeare, The Tempest

April 15th, 1865

i

Edwin is in Boston, where he and Sleeper have been talking of purchasing a third theater. The previous evening, he’d played Sir Edward Mortimer in The Iron Chest. “Where is my honor now?” he’d asked the sold-out house. The city is exuberant, the men in the streets ecstatic to learn they aren’t going to die on some battlefield, after all. Edwin is in love and General Grant’s great task is ended. Edwin feels as happy as he’s ever been since Mary’s death.

When he makes his way home, word is already spreading, the mood turning from joy to disbelief to anguish. But Edwin is tired and will hear nothing until a servant wakes him the following morning.

Edwin’s first thought is not a thought, more like a blow to the head, a sense of falling, the crashing of the sea in his ears. His second thought is that he believes it. He wishes he didn’t. He wishes he could say that this is utterly impossible.

He weeps for his president, bleeding in the lap of Laura Keene. His own life going forward is suddenly unimaginable. He moves from room to room, chair to chair, but there is no escape from this.

Before the morning is over, a message arrives from Henry Jarrett, the manager of the Boston Theatre, to say that he prays what everyone is saying about Wilkes will yet prove untrue. Still, he thinks it best and right to cancel all further performances. Of course it’s best and right. What’s best and right is that Edwin never set foot on a stage again. The rest is silence.

—