(A/N) I wrote this story for my final term paper. We were supposed to do a research essay but I convinced my professor that I could write a short story and still use research. Surprisingly, he allowed it. This is the final product (without my list of sources). I hope you enjoy it!

Charlotte at the Theater

The lights flickered. Mr. Albrecht shifted in his seat. One of the actors paused and the play stopped. Then the lights rose and the people rose with them. Mr. Albrecht rose and Dorian rose, but Charlotte stayed seated until she felt a tugging at her sleeve.

“Charlotte . . .” Dorian murmured. He saw Mr. Albrecht’s raised eyebrow and said instead, “Miss Charlotte . . . You must stand for the President’s entrance.”

With her arm on Dorian’s elbow, Charlotte rose just as the orchestra began to play “Hail to the Chief.” She was the last in the theater to do so. Everyone looked toward the President’s box, to the right of the stage, which was prepared for four occupants, and awaited Ford Theater’s most distinguished and honored guest. Within the stars and stripes that festooned the double box, four figures appeared and Charlotte heard Dorian whisper, “God damn,” beneath his breath.

Old Mr. Albrecht, stroking his beard, gave a little huff. “Well that is quite a disappointment, isn’t it? I wouldn’t have volunteered to come tonight if I’d known Grant wouldn’t show.”

“Grant?” Charlotte murmured.

“General Grant was supposed to come tonight- didn’t you know?” asked Dorian. “That’s why so many people were bustling for tickets this afternoon. He’s a true hero, that Grant.”

“Looks like the President brought Major Rathbone instead.”

“And his fiancée.”

“She’s the daughter of the senator, you know.”

“I did. Clara Harris. Do you know her, Miss Charlotte?”

Charlotte didn’t answer. In fact, she hadn’t heard a word either man had said. With the entrance of the President and Mrs. Lincoln, despite the absence of their distinguished guest, every member of the audience stood and politely clapped. Once Charlotte had stood though, all she could think about were the hundreds of heads in the theater below her- the brown heads, the black heads, the fair-haired, the ringlets, the salt-and-peppered, the mustaches, the beards. And with each head went a pair of hands, a pair of hands who features could not be distinguished because they were slapping together as wildly as live fish on dry land. Fish that thrash and thrash until they die. This is what Charlotte thought of when she saw the hands. She thought of dying fish. And they were so loud, she thought! It was ridiculous. Surely Mr. Lincoln must be annoyed by all the racket. Surely that is what he’s thinking as he bows and seats himself, what he’s saying when he leans to whisper in his wife’s ear.

As everyone sat, Dorian asked Charlotte if she was alright.

She managed to smile. “I’ve just got a headache, is all.”

“We haven’t even reached Act II yet.”

“Oh, it’s not the play. The play’s fine. It’s wonderful. It’s just . . . It’s nothing.”

The play was a comedy and although Mr. Albrecht, the young pair’s chaperone, didn’t find it very amusing, Dorian was laughing all throughout. And if Charlotte had been watching, she would have laughed too. Or she would have chuckled. Perhaps giggled. But never, never would Charlotte titter and twitter like the ridiculous coquettes she despised. All the balls her mother forced her to attend, the teatimes, the sewing meetings, the dinners, they were filled with these girls. The pearls of high society. Buds, ripe for the plucking. They seemed to laugh at everything, hoping to show their beaux or suitors that they would make pleasant and good-humored wives, but Charlotte had never been able to mimic them. Her mother said she was a fool, that her stubbornness would leave her alone, a spinster. And yet here she was with Dorian Baumgartner.

Dorian. He wasn’t a fool and he wasn’t crazy and he wasn’t pathetic or shy or unintelligent. He read a fair amount and he talked a fair amount and no one seemed to hate him. He laughed and he told jokes, when appropriate, but if the situation were somber, he listened well and spoke kind words that everyone knew were completely sincere because Dorian Baumgartner just wasn’t the sort to lie. His family was well respected and wealthy and thus, he had had his fair share of hopeful, sweet, tittering wives. But he hadn’t wanted one of them. He had wanted, and still wanted, Charlotte.

Of course, he wasn’t perfect. He’d fallen off a horse while visiting his cousins in Maryland at the age of fifteen and his leg had snapped like a twig, though not as cleanly. He was left with a crippled leg that required him to carry a cane on bad days, but more importantly, it prevented him from entering the army at the start of the Civil War, a fact which some considered suspicious. These people were mostly mothers who, in the throes of wartime, grew so desperate for their soldier sons that they felt as though any unarmed young man would be a good replacement for their son on the battlefield. And naturally, there was a girl or two who snickered that he was weak or yellow because he wasn’t alongside her beau at battle, fighting for his beloved country. But Charlotte didn’t care and she told Dorian, who did care, that he shouldn’t either. It helped. It helped a little.

“Did you know that Laura Keene has played the part of Florence in Our American Cousin upward of one thousand nights?”

“That can’t possibly be true.”

“But it is, Mr. Albrecht. I read it in the playbill.”

“But she’s still so young! One thousand nights . . .”

“But it’s true. Honest.” Dorian leaned over the edge of the balcony, examining Miss Keene closer, and then turned to his right. “Do you still have the playbill, miss?” he asked in a whisper, but Charlotte didn’t hear him. Her face was pale and she was staring straight ahead, to where one could see Mr. Lincoln swaying back and forth gently in his rocking chair. “Miss . . . ?” he asked again. “Miss Charlotte . . . ?”

Charlotte looked up, baffled. “I’m sorry. What is it?”

“Do you have the playbill, miss?”

“Yes, it’s right here.” She slipped it out of her reticule and handed it to Dorian, who handed it to Mr. Albrecht, who looked it over and snorted.

“I don’t think I can stay awake for three acts of these shenanigans . . .”

Dorian shook his head and leaned toward Charlotte again. “Are you alright?” he whispered. “I know you said that you were fine, but you look so pale . . . Are you enjoying the play? Have you been watching- or listening, at least?”

“I think I’ve seen it before,” she lied, “so I haven’t been watching it quite so closely.”

“Ah. Are you bored then too, like Mr. Albrecht here? If you’re not enjoying yourself, we could always leave. It’s quite alright.”

But Charlotte shook her head, feigning a smile. “No, no. I’m all dressed for the occasion anyway and it might look odd if we leave the box empty. We might as well stay. And I am enjoying myself. Don’t worry. I feel fine. I promise.”

Dorian touched her hand, discreetly but warmly, and then returned his attention to the play just as Keene’s fellow actor, Harry Hawk, made a wisecrack that left the audience bouncing in laughter. As she let go of Dorian’s hand, Charlotte looked across the theater and saw, through the veiling darkness, that the President had grasped hold of Mary Todd Lincoln’s hand as well. She wondered if she had dropped Dorian’s hand too quickly. She wondered if anyone had seen him touch her, or had seen her face when their palms met.

She wondered if it showed.

* * * * *

The room wants to be black, to hide them, with thick walls and dark furnishings and shadows that crawl up from the carpet to protect them. It wants blue brocade curtains, to block out all the light, and it wants to break the legs of the slender tulips twirling in their vase. If the wind wouldn’t tickle them, it thinks in hate, the silly flowers would only sleep.

Nervous, it grows, feeling naked. The room isn’t dark enough, isn’t hidden at all, and listening carefully, it can hear the Baumgartner family and their dinner guests somewhere down the hall, probably finishing their post-supper coffee, a rare treat, on the terrace. If only it were winter and a star-speckled sky, like a blanket overhead, could tuck them in.

They’ve grown too brave now; confidence is not always a virtue. Their trysts used to be restricted to the most forgotten rooms of the house, where safety seemed assured. But it has been six months and this dalliance, kept from all eyes but their own, grows courageous enough for him to steal her away before the sun has even set. This time he caught her eye at the end of dinner, just as she was finishing her spiced apple dessert. They don’t need to speak with their mouths anymore; their eyes are enough. His blue caught her brown. The blues tipped their brows. The browns curtsied and rose up again. The blues motioned toward the door. The browns nodded their quiet assent.

She used to worry over the excuses and apologies required to slip away from a group, but it is easy now. And he, always a bit of a loner, disappears from the table with ease.

The coordinated exits would have been thought odd, naturally, if it weren’t for the restless attitude of the Baumgartner family has a whole. For before the coffee was even served, Aunt May and Grandma Hattie had gone for a walk, Sara and her cousin Adelaide had taken the children to play hoops and sticks in the yard, David and the neighbor boy Freddy were romping about with the dog, and Charlotte’s younger sisters were eavesdropping on Peter Baumgartner’s piano lessons. Dorian, of course, knew nothing. He was busy talking with all the men left at the table and besides, he never would have expected anything like this to happen. To happen to him, because of Charlotte. No one would have. She may have quite a tongue on her, they’d say, and she may enjoy reading ridiculous gothic novels too much for her own good. But she isn’t the sort to cause a scandal. Everyone expects that she and Dorian will soon marry and she wouldn’t dare risk that fact for a fling with a mysterious stranger. She hasn’t the guts or the beauty for it.

Someone once told her that she had an innocent face and perhaps that’s why she feels so safe now. Because here she is with a stranger, someone she only met eight months before, who she wouldn’t have met at all if it weren’t for her almost-husband Dorian. The man’s name is Wesley and unlike his cousin Dorian, he served in the Union Army for almost all of the war. His hair is a bright reddish-brown, his face unshaven, and his eyes, though often mistaken as apathetic or cold, are really just very soft and sad. Slender and long-legged, he sometimes looks like a spider, a daddy-long-leg, because when he sits, his knees seem to perch over his head.

Charlotte knows that most everyone dislikes him. He says things when he oughtn’t to and he’s honest even when it hurts. In fact, the only reason he’s invited to social occasions at all is because he recently returned to Washington and he knows no one else but his family and their friends. No one ever seems to invite him because they truly wish for his company. He simply doesn’t do well with casual meetings. He likes the solitude too much for it. And before he met Charlotte, he often would come to parties or balls or dinners and speak to no one at all unless he were forced to do so. Everyone in their circle of society thought he was strange, including Charlotte. At one point, she’d even hated him. She swore that he was a scoundrel and a liar and she was right. He was.

All in jest, he had told her, “Oh yes, miss, I was a captain in the army. It was stressful, to be sure, but all worth it when, in the end, I knew that I had done right in my men. I saved one man from being left behind and slaughtered. Did Dorian tell you that?”

“No, sir,” said Charlotte, believing every word. “I don’t know why he wouldn’t have told me. I’m sure it’s a wonderfully exciting story.”

“Oh it is, it is. I suppose Dorian just . . . I mean, I’m sure it’s embarrassing for him . . . what with his leg, you know . . .”

Despite herself, Charlotte’s cheeks had burned. “Yes,” she murmured. “I think so.”

“We should probably stop talking of the war anyway,” Wesley said. “It’s over and we won so there really isn’t much more to say. And I wouldn’t want you to think me conceited. I swear I did no more than the average soldier. I only did the best that I could.”

And Charlotte’s heart had begun to burn. That was the beginning of it- that burning. She could feel it boiling in her veins, sending rushes of heat through her body from her core to her limbs to all her fingers and toes and toenails. It traveled to her head, where it pulsed, and she felt slightly woozy. And when she said she wasn’t feeling well, she let Wesley take her hand in his arm and lead her to an empty room where she could sit away from the crowd. She wondered if he could feel the warmth that emanated from her fingertips.

He’d lied, of course. He wasn’t a hero at all. In fact, he’d been punished several times for trying to make money off the war by betting with other wealthy soldiers and while he always did what was asked of him on the battlefield, he often weaseled out of orders and talked back to superior officers (he wasn’t a captain either) during training and rest times. Dorian learned of this and mentioned it casually to his beloved, not the slightest bit aware of how it would affect her.

For a time then, she hated him. He had become a sort of friend and she, until then, had trusted him. She swore she wouldn’t talk to him anymore and if she did have to talk to him, she did so tersely. She nodded along when the other girls called him too proud or too rude, too stubborn, too serious, too mysterious in nature, too dark in humor.

But then somehow, he started to grow on her. He seemed exotic amongst the usual crowd of polite and respectable Washingtonians. Even Dorian, who she did care for, just seemed so exhausting and quotidian when compared to Wesley. Whenever she talked with him in public, she felt a little thrill run through her. Although they tried to hide their discomfort, she would see the people around her staring, wondering why she let him talk to her and, more importantly, why she seemed to enjoy it. For while she wasn’t usually smiling or laughing with him, the pink of her cheek and the tilt of her head, the way her whole body seemed to sway toward him, pulled by an invisible magnet, the brightness in her eyes, the nervous fidgeting of her hands- all these little details conveyed to the rest of the crowd, she knew, that she took pleasure in his company. Sometimes Charlotte didn’t know whether she more enjoyed being with Wesley or feeling like an unusual girl when she was in Wesley’s shadow. The former, of course, was true. If it weren’t, then she wouldn’t be here.

Like vampires afraid of the sunlight, they hide behind the door in the corner. His mouth on hers. Her hands on his shoulders. His hands tight about her waist. There is nothing, it seems, but this.

* * * * *

“Oh Charlotte! How lovely you look tonight! That green is most becoming.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Rowley.”

“How do you like the play? I think it’s just marvelous. That Laura Keene is really something and I swear I haven’t laughed this much since . . . Oh! Since I don’t know when. But what do you think of it, dear?”

“I like it.”

“Do you? Oh but you’re showing no enthusiasm for it, darling. What is it that you like so much? The acting? The writing? The costumes? You know, I just got so wrapped up in it- I always do- that when they announced intermission, I could barely believe it. I thought they were lying to me. Can you believe that, Charlotte? I thought there much be some mistake.”

“Really?”

“Maybe you just like it because of that Harry Hawk. Is that it, dear? He’s doing splendidly, I think. Next to Miss Keene, I’m sure it’s difficult and certainly intimidating, but I think he’s doing wonderfully, just wonderfully, and I . . .”

“Miss Charlotte, come over here and say hello to Johnny!”

The crowd shifted and adjusted as Mrs. Rowley said goodbye and moved away and Dorian came forward to fetch Charlotte, placing his hand on the small of her back and leading her to the corner. There stood Johnny, handsome as ever, with his hair as dark as slate and his frame as lean as an athlete.

“How good it is to see you again so soon, Miss Charlotte,” he said.

She nodded. “And you, Mr. Booth.”

“Johnny was just about to tell me what it is he’s doing at the theater tonight,” Dorian said, smiling. “Weren’t you, Johnny?”

“You didn’t come for the play then?”

Johnny shook his head. “No, miss.”

Dorian’s smile turned into a bright laugh. “Were you picking up some letters?” He turned to Charlotte. “Did you know that John has his mail sent here? It’s like his personal post office.”

“I picked up my mail earlier actually,” Johnny said. “I just came by to leave something in back, but when I saw what was playing I had to peek in for a bit. And it’s good seeing you two, of course. How are you enjoying My American Cousin?”

Dorian answered and while he did, Charlotte’s gaze fell downward. She felt like she was breathing very heavily and when Johnny glanced at her, to see if she was laughing with a joke of Dorian’s too, she suddenly held her breath because she was afraid that he was really only noticing her insufferably loud breathing. Her cheeks began to pale. She clasped her hands in front of her skirt, which was velvet and soft, but she rubbed them the wrong way and the fabric seemed to grate against her skin. When she twitched, Dorian’s eyes shot toward her.

“Are you alright?”

“Yes, I’m fine, I . . . I’m just a bit tired, I think.”

“Why don’t you go up to the booth a bit early and sit down? Intermission’s almost over anyway and I’ll be up soon.”

Mr. Albrecht was still sitting upstairs, but he’d fallen asleep half an hour before. When Charlotte joined him, he was snoring softly. Without disturbing him, she went back to her seat and plopped down ungracefully. Her chin went to her hands and her elbows went on the railing. Although she knew her hands were shaking, she tried to hide it from herself by pressing them more firmly to the bottoms of her cheeks, and while she waited for it all to be over, she began counting the heads of people in the theater. Across from her booth, she could see President Lincoln and his wife welcoming visitors. One, two, three, four, it began.

Soon enough, Dorian was back. Charlotte sat up quickly and straightened the green velvet of her dress. She looked at him. He wasn’t himself. He was staring straight ahead, his face dead, his eyes dim, his cheeks white. Charlotte’s bottom lip fell and she tried to say something, but no words would come. Her mouth was too dry for them to crawl up and she could feel them bubbling in her stomach. She thought she would be sick.

But the orchestra struck up a tune and Charlotte’s head turned like a swivel so that she would face the stage. They looked like two dolls, sitting there so pale and still. As the actors took their positions on stage and the lights came on and jokes were said and the audience laughed, Dorian and Charlotte still sat quietly. She had no idea what he was thinking, but only one thought was racing through her head and her mind, so consumed with it, didn’t know where else to go but to focus on it, this terrible thing, this one thing that could ruin her, could shame her family, her name.

He knows, he knows, he knows . . .

* * * * *

The party extends far into the evening, when hors d’oeuvres and more desserts are served. A few of the younger children give a performance in the parlor, but most of the men have disbanded by then, wanting to discuss political matters on their own, and knowing Dorian is safely tucked away upstairs, Charlotte follows Wesley’s eye outside. It is like a game to capture his trail; she has to catch a glimpse of his black frock coat to know where to walk next and using it, she follows him from the parlor to the veranda to the lawn to the garden to the woods beyond, where a little shed sits with gardening tools. Ivy clambers up the white stones and Wesley pushes Charlotte against it. The floral muslin of her dress catches on a rock and she gasps to catch it, making Wesley chuckle. He kneels down to move it and when he does, his knees knock against her hoopskirt. Grabbing it, he chuckles again.

“Damn the fool who decided women must wear hoops in the their skirts. What an absurd idea!”

“Why are you annoyed by it? You’re not the one who has to bother with it all, and I’m not just referring to the hoopskirt. The stockings, the chemise, the drawers, the ridiculous corset, for Christ’s sake, and the corset cover too . . . It’s such a bother, Wesley, you haven’t any idea.”

Wesley bursts into laughter and Charlotte finally lets herself smile as well.

“I haven’t seen you laugh this much in ages,” she says.

Wesley tugs at her skirt once more and then stands up, letting his hands graze over her hips and waist as he does so. He leans forward and kisses her forehead, their eyes locked. “What would your mother say,” he asks, “if she heard you speaking the name of the Lord in vain and listing off your undergarments to a gentleman in the same sentence?”

“She’d think she was dreaming.”

“I feel like we’re in a dream right now.”

“We’re not,” Charlotte murmurs, smiling. “I’m quite sure.”

“And it’s not a nightmare?”

“Couldn’t be.”

“Don’t go back to him,” he says. He always says that.

They kiss then, slowly, savoring the taste and the touch of it, like chocolate in a time of ration. Knowing the children’s performance won’t last too long, Charlotte is worried, but her body stays pegged in place. She feels the ivy beneath her slippers and thinks it must be twining about her ankles to hold her here. Because time is passing. The stars overhead are twinkling through the ceiling of leaves. Wesley is growing more urgent, pressing at her with his lips and his hands. Around her lips, she is certain, there is a ring of red from his whiskers and when she goes back, she will have to blame it on wild strawberries.

And then there is a noise. A crackling. Wesley’s mouth grows slack and he lets the black night air prowl between their lips. But he stays near, half of his body still pressed close against hers, and they stare at each other, waiting, praying that it’s only the Baumgartner’s dog or a squirrel. But then-

“Charlotte,” says a voice.

Dorian’s lips nestle into Charlotte’s hair. She doesn’t know if he is upset or scared or anxious. She doesn’t even know what she feels like. She only feels blank. Slowly, she turns her head to look toward the voice. A shadow comes forward and she holds her breath. Johnny Wilkes Booth is staring back at her.

* * * * *

Time was moving fast now. Time was moving but nothing was happening.

Mr. Albrecht snored. Dorian stared. Charlotte’s heart jumped through her throat.

He knows, he knows, he knows, she silence tormented her. If their chaperone were awake, he’d have an excuse, but he wasn’t, so there was none. At that moment, more than anything, she hated Johnny for being so odd and so confident and for walking around at nine o’clock at night by the woods for no apparent reason. If only he hadn’t seen them, everything would be okay. If Dorian had decided to propose marriage to her then, she could have simply said no. Even if her parents despised it, she could have let Wesley court her instead. She could have married him, belonged to him, instead of simply letting him steal her when they had a moment to get away.

In that theater full of people, she felt so alone then. Dorian would leave her, she realized. She would be scandalized from society. Wesley wouldn’t be invited anywhere anymore. He would grow lonely and restless and flee from Washington, leaving her alone with their burden. She was ruined, she thought.

When everyone in the audience laughed, she knew that they were laughing at her. This was her torture. Sitting high above the rest of society, wearing a dress few others could afford, her hair having been curled and pinned by her maid, her kind and respectable beau at her side. But everyone below could see her anxious face, the color that swarmed her cheeks and the sudden vibrancy in her eyes. And they could also see Dorian’s numbness- his face still as a sculpture, eyes drifting downward, mouth placidly calm. Every so often, Charlotte would let her eyes glance toward him quickly and he always looked like that, always the same, even as the time continued to pass. The sight unnerved her.

Blood pumped through her veins. Her fingers, itching, twisted themselves up into her skirt. Like a ballerina, she pinned her toes to the floor. Then the blood surged through her ears, singing, and her mouth grew dry. She couldn’t have spoken if she’d wanted to. She couldn’t have even stood up, she felt sure, for her legs felt so weak, her head so faint, her stomach woozy . . . Fearing for a terrible scene, she wished she could loosen her corset laces because she felt sure that she would exhaust herself soon. She would end up as a puddle on the floor and if Mr. Albrecht continued to sleep and Dorian never shook himself out of stone, she would just be left there. A puddle on the floor for people to step over in disgust.

Then a noise like a huff startled Charlotte from her daze. She looked at Dorian and saw that he was breathing heavily, the air coming in labored gasps. It was coming soon, she knew. He was going to confront her here, in whispers, in this box, above a crowd of people, across from the President and his wife. He had to do it, to put her out of her misery. Nothing, she felt, could be worse than this waiting. Every moment he said nothing, she grew more nervous. She bit her lip, waiting for the end to come.

And then the actor Harry Hawk spoke, his voice booming. "Don't know the manners of good society, eh?” he cried. “Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal - you sockdologizing old mantrap!”

And then there was a gunshot.

Dorian stood. Charlotte jumped. Mr. Albrecht woke up, finally.

In the box across from them, President Lincoln’s head had dropped to his chest and there was a figure, a shadow, a man fighting with Major Rathbone and then stabbing him with a knife. When he came to the railing, Charlotte could see that it was Johnny. She watched as he leapt to the stage, the spur of his riding boot ripping the stars and stripes, crying “Sic semper tyrannis!” like a madman and then running with a limp out of sight. And then the moaning began, the shouting, the screaming.

“Oh my dear husband!” cried Mrs. Lincoln. “My dear husband!”

“We need a doctor!” called Clara Harris.

A doctor must have been found very quickly, for suddenly the shouts became, “Oh doctor! Will you take charge of him? Do what you can for him! Is he dead? Oh my dear, dear husband!”

Below, the people panicked. Everyone was talking or scrambling or crying. No one seemed to know quite what had happened. Some didn’t recognize John Wilkes Booth. Others didn’t know what he had said- was it “Sic semper tyrannis” or “Avenge the South?” And more importantly, no one knew if the shot had been fatal.

“My God,” Dorian kept murmuring. “My God, my God.”

And behind him, Mr. Albrecht was in a rant. “Lunatics! Lunatics, I say! President Lincoln is the best thing that ever happened to this country! It’ll be chaos without him! What a fool! That boy should be shot! Shot and killed, I say! I’d do it myself if they’d bring him to me and I . . .”

And then there was Charlotte, leaned against the side of the box now, not wanting to watch Mrs. Lincoln weep over her husband any longer. Her skirt curved out like a bell. Her head was dipped. Her heart and blood had calmed, her fear morphing into sobriety.

Dorian, seeing her, crossed the box and touched her hand. To get any closer, he feared, would be improper. But not fearing the rules of propriety in a time such as this, Charlotte pulled him close and reached her hands up to his shoulders. Her head dropped onto his chest. They were quiet a long time and Mr. Albrecht soon left without even looking at them, probably wanting someone new to yell at or question.

“Did he tell you?” Charlotte whispered finally and Dorian nodded.

And she felt like a fool then. He’d never known at all. He still didn’t know. And now that Johnny was destined to be jailed or killed, her secret was destined to be jailed or killed as well. For now at least, she realized in guilty relief, she was safe.