An Acquaintance with Darkness - Ann Rinaldi [43]
Myra flushed, then recovered. "All right then, issues. For everybody's information, it's all true about a man named Powell stabbing Secretary of State Seward. He broke into Seward's house the night Lincoln was shot. And tried to stab him in the throat. Only thing that saved Seward was a steel brace he was wearing to hold his broken jaw in place."
"Thank you for that information, Myra," Mrs. McQuade said.
"And, I'm going to the White House to see Mr. Lincoln's remains this afternoon with my father," she said imperiously. "He said it's an historic moment, and I mustn't miss it."
The others oohed and aahed.
"Is she getting out of school early, then?" Lucy Cameron asked.
"You all are," Mrs. McQuade said. "But I advise you not to go near the White House. The crowds will be crushing. The papers say that tomorrow there will be a grand procession along Pennsylvania Avenue. Certainly you can catch a glimpse of the hearse there. We'll be going together as a class."
"People are charging twenty-five cents to sit in a window along Pennsylvania Avenue," little Elizabeth Townsend piped in. "Isn't that exploitation, Mrs. McQuade?"
"It is. But I imagine we'll be seeing a lot of that, human nature being what it is. What other signs of exploitation do we see in all this ceremony, girls?"
"I think dragging poor Mr. Lincoln's body around for fourteen days is exploitation," Elizabeth said. "How can a dead body last fourteen days?"
That's when I spoke and shouldn't have. "My uncle Valentine was called to the White House yesterday," I said.
They all stared at me. And of a sudden, I wanted to get up and run out of the room.
"Emily is living with her uncle, Dr. Bransby, now, girls," Mrs. McQuade said softly. "Since her mother's untimely death. Tell us, Emily, why was your uncle called to the White House?"
Myra was glaring at me. I had no real friends in my class, though I got along with everyone after a fashion. The girls respected me, though outside school we did not mix. But with Myra Mott my relationship was clearly defined.
She considered me something that had been sneaked in the back door. Someone not worthy of my place in the school. And I had the nerve to get better marks than she did, too.
Her marks were respectable; she was prettier and popular. Her mother had social standing. But the enmity had come to a head when I won the midwinter essay contest, hands-down, over her. The prize had been a copy of Uncle Tom's Cabin, signed by the author, Harriet Beecher Stowe. Mrs. McQuade knew her.
I'd written about how it felt to have your father killed in the war. Myra had written a high-minded examination of Sherman's morals in his March to the Sea. It almost killed her that I won. She could not stand to be bested at anything.
"I don't know exactly why my uncle was invited," I replied to Mrs. McQuade's question. "He doesn't discuss his doctor business with me. But he was in Ford's Theater the night the president was shot. He helped attend him."
The girls' eyes were wide. They wore the terrible fascination with the whole business. I saw it sitting there, like a buzzard, on the shoulders of every girl in the room. Then everyone spoke at once, speculating on what it must have been like at the theater. The horror of it went through the room like a brushfire.
Mrs. McQuade rapped her desk again. "Girls, girls, I think we should get back to our regular work now. You all will be dismissed at one instead of four. We have much to do."
Everyone settled down. But Myra kept glancing over at me the whole morning. And her eyes glittered with malice.
When it came time to be dismissed, she lingered in the cloakroom. "I know why your uncle was summoned to the White House," she said.
She never spoke to me voluntarily. She would never lower herself to do so.
"Then you know more than I," I told her.
She came to stand beside me. "It's because he knows about dead bodies."
I met her steady gaze. Inside me I was trembling, but I would not let her see this. "He's a