1
May 1875
Elizabeth
A whimsical breeze rustled the paper beneath Elizabeth’s pen as she wrote in the garden, but she held the sheet firmly against the table with her left hand and it was not carried aloft. She lifted her pen and waited for the gust to subside rather than risk smearing the ink, and in that momentary pause a light shower of blossoms from the plum tree fell upon her, the table, and the head of her sixteen-year-old grandson Lewis, sprawled in a chaise lounge nearby, so thoroughly engrossed in Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days that he did not notice the petals newly adorning his light brown hair. She smiled, tempted to rise and brush the blossoms softly to the ground with her fingertips, but he looked so charming that she decided to leave them be.
It was to Lewis’s mother she was writing—Julia, her eldest child and only daughter. Julia’s husband, Edward Lewis Baker Sr., had been appointed United States consul to Argentina the previous year, and when the couple moved to Buenos Aires, Lewis came to stay with his grandparents. Ninian and Elizabeth’s gracious home on Aristocracy Hill in Springfield had more than enough room for one much adored grandson, and they were delighted to take him while he finished his education, or indeed for as long as he wished.
The breeze subsided, leaving the delicate fragrance of hyacinth and narcissus in its wake, but before Elizabeth could again put pen to paper, the dull, chronic ache in her abdomen suddenly sharpened. She must have gasped aloud, for Lewis glanced up from his book. “Are you all right?” he asked, brow furrowing.
She managed a smile. “Perfectly fine, dear. I’m merely . . .” She inhaled deeply, ignoring the stab of pain, and forced a sigh of contentment. “Enjoying the lovely spring air.”
He peered at her inquisitively, unconvinced. “Are you sure? Would you like me to have Mrs. Henderson or Carrie fix you a cup of tea?”
“I have one,” she replied, gesturing to the cup on the table. A pale lavender petal floated upon the surface of the amber liquid, which was not proper tea but a tincture of ginger, willow bark, and raspberry leaf prepared for her by an elderly woman of color respected throughout the city for her knowledge of herb lore. No one but Elizabeth and her loyal housekeeper knew that she partook of the remedy almost every day, sometimes twice, morning and night. Although the brew temporarily relieved her symptoms and evidently did her no harm, she knew that Ninian and her sister Frances would chide her for wasting money on flavored water when her doctor had assured her that the aches and pains were all in her head.
At the time, knowing that a sharp rebuke would merely confirm for the doctor the accuracy of his diagnosis, Elizabeth had managed, with great effort, to nod politely and thank him. Although she had agreed to avoid strenuous activity, she had declined the laudanum he recommended. Only later, when she and Frances were alone, had she said what she truly thought. “And the droplets of blood on my undergarments, are they all in my head too?” she had demanded indignantly, albeit in an undertone, lest anyone overhear and be shocked by her impolite language.
Frances herself had looked somewhat shocked, but her late husband had been a doctor as well as a storekeeper, and she had probably heard far worse. She had assured Elizabeth that her pains and aches and blood were merely symptoms of the change of life, something all women must endure, and in time they would subside. Elizabeth hoped her sister was right, but feared she was not. At sixty-two, Elizabeth had passed through the change several years before, or so she had thought. This felt like something else, but if her doctor, her husband, and her closest sister said it was nothing, who was she to question them?
The pain faded back to a faint, dull ache. Setting down the pen and taking up her spoon, Elizabeth fished the plum petal from her teacup, set it on the saucer, and sipped the herb woman’s brew. Even if unusually flavored, it was rather tasty, and made all the better with a spoonful of honey stirred in. The concoction did her no harm, she reminded herself, so no one else need know of it. If ever the time came when it failed to ease her pains, she would insist upon seeing another doctor.
As she set down her cup, the back door opened and Carrie emerged, small and fair in her gray dress and white apron and cap. “Mrs. Edwards, ma’am,” she said, bobbing a curtsy, “there’s a gentleman at the door who says he must speak with you most urgently.”
Elizabeth was not expecting any callers. “Did he give you his card?”
“No card, but his name is Mr. Smith. Not your Mr. Smith,” the maid added quickly, referring to another of Elizabeth’s brothers-in-law, her sister Ann’s husband. “I would have shown him in.”
“Of course.” Puzzled, Elizabeth rose. “I can’t think of any urgent business I have with any Mr. Smith, or with any gentleman, for that matter.”
“Do you want me to see to it?” Lewis swung his coltishly long legs over the edge of the chaise lounge and prepared to stand. “I can direct him to Grandfather’s office or send him on his way, whatever seems best.”
Elizabeth smiled indulgently, gestured for him to stay seated, and gave in to the impulse to brush the flower petals from his hair. “Thank you, dear, but I believe I can manage.”
She accompanied Carrie back inside and through the house to the front entrance, where she found a slim fellow perhaps a decade older than her grandson standing on the doorstep, clutching his hat, and surreptitiously trying to peer through the front windows. Dismissing Carrie, she smoothed her skirts and opened the door. He brightened at the sight of her, and in the customary exchange of pleasantries that followed, he identified himself as Mr. Philip Smith of Elkhart. The unfamiliar name revealed absolutely nothing about his purpose in wanting to speak to her—and that, coupled with his keen gaze and palpable eagerness, made her instinctively wary.
“I regret that I cannot invite you in,” she said. “Mr. Edwards is not at home presently, and I assume your business is with him. Perhaps if you leave your card—”
“Oh, no, I’m here to see you,” the man interrupted, nodding for emphasis. “I must say, madam, I’m pleased to see you looking so well under the circumstances.”
Her heart thudded. “Circumstances?” Her thoughts flew to Julia and Edward in far-off South America, to her beloved Ninian a few blocks away. “I don’t understand.”
“Surely you do.” His gaze turned disbelieving, impudent. “You are Mrs. Lincoln’s sister, aren’t you?”
Of course. Why else would a stranger turn up uninvited at her door if not for Mary? Morbid curiosity-seekers did not plague the family as frequently as they once had, ten years after her brother-in-law’s horrific assassination, but every so often a snake slithered out from beneath a rock. “I am one of her sisters,” Elizabeth acknowledged, bristling. “I beg your pardon, but I was not expecting callers, and I must—”
“I won’t need more than a moment of your time.” He stepped forward as if he meant to block the door with his foot before she could close it. “Would you care to make a statement about Mrs. Lincoln’s sad misfortune?”
“A statement?” Which misfortune? There were so many from which to choose, not that Elizabeth would know of any recent mishaps, not that she would ever confide in a random stranger who appeared on her doorstep without so much as a—