Mary Todd Lincoln’s bosom was not as large as it appeared in photographs.
Previously in the novel: President and Mrs. Lincoln and a janitor named Gabby Zook are held captive in a room in the White House under guard by Private Adam Christy. All this is part of a plan by War Secretary Edwin Stanton to end the Civil War quickly.
Gabby heard the door shut and then a hand slap a shoulder.
“Mr. Lincoln, you big baboon. I’m ashamed I’m your wife.”
His stomach tightening, Gabby hoped Mrs. Lincoln was not planning to fuss at her husband during every meal. It would not be good for his digestion. He may be confused on a great many things, but Gabby was sure arguments made the stomach tied up in knots and unable to process the food being chewed and swallowed.
“Why on earth have you allowed this to happen?”
“This is very fundamental, Molly,” Lincoln said. “He who holds the gun can tell you what to do.”
His gray head cocked, Gabby could hear slurping. Good, he told himself. Lincoln slurped his soup too. Did he dribble any on his clothes? It would be hard not to, sitting at a billiards table. Gabby was too afraid to peek around the crates to find out.
“What we have to do now is not overreact, to get along, just to live through this,” Lincoln continued. “Try to act as normal as possible, Molly. Be yourself. Be cheerful and act courteously and grateful.”
“Who could be themselves around a glum monstrosity?”
Am I a glum monstrosity? Gabby asked about himself. He knew he was confused and scared most of the time, but he did not think he was particularly glum.
“You long-legged awkward scarecrow!”
Oh, Gabby realized, she was talking about Lincoln being a glum monstrosity. This was getting hard for him to comprehend. All this emotion, talk, and activity swirled in his head, making it hard for him to keep it in straight, proper lines, like West Point would do it. But a hot feeling from the pit of his gut told him he did not want to do things the West Point way, even when it came to organizing thoughts in his brain.
“I wish I’d never laid eyes on you, you homely, uncouth brute!” Mrs. Lincoln said. “I wish I’d married in my circle! I wish I’d married Stephen Douglas!”
“I wish you had too,” Lincoln replied. “But I said until death do we part. Maybe this is death. It’s worse.”
Gabby stared at his empty soup bowl. It was good, but now it was all gone, and he wanted more to eat. He wanted the pork chop on the other plate, but he was afraid to walk over to the billiards table to pick it up because that couple was in the middle of a big argument, and arguments always made him nervous. His mother and father never allowed anyone to raise his voice while in the apartment. If he and Cordie argued, they had to write notes. Gabby liked silence. Silence meant serenity.
“You hate me,” Mrs. Lincoln said, choking back the tears. “You really hate me.”
“No, I don’t.” Lincoln’s voice sounded congenial and conciliatory. “Sometimes you make me wish I were dead, but I still love you.”
As Mrs. Lincoln laughed and sniffed away her tears, Gabby decided this was a good time to come from around the stacks of crates and barrels to retrieve his pork chop. As he turned the corner, he saw Lincoln with his long, gangly arms around his wife, who was wiping her eyes. Her chin almost sat on the rim of the billiards table.
“Excuse me,” he said. “May I get my pork chop now?”
“Of course, Mr. Gabby.” Lincoln smiled. “In fact,” he added as he leaned across the billiards table to spear his chop and place it on Gabby’s plate, “you may have mine.”
“Thank you, sir.” Gabby grinned and hastened his step.
“You won’t give away your portion.” Mrs. Lincoln’s voice cut through like a bullet.
Gabby stopped abruptly, the smile gone from his grizzled face.
“You know I don’t eat that much of an evening,” Lincoln said. He pushed the plate with the two chops on it toward Gabby. “Go ahead, Mr. Gabby.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t.” He took a step back and bowed his head.
“Very well.” Mrs. Lincoln sighed in resignation. “Take it.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” Gabby hesitantly walked to the table and lifted the plate. “You’re very kind, ma’am.”
She mumbled begrudgingly as Lincoln gave her a hug.
Gabby dared to look up and eye Mrs. Lincoln, her dark hair, plump cheeks, fair skin, and ample bosom—no, Gabby corrected himself as he stared at her bodice.
“You know, what they say about you, it’s not true.”
“What?” Mrs. Lincoln asked.
“What folks say about you.”
“What do people say about me?”
“Mostly it’s in the newspapers.”
“The Washington newspapers are notorious in their vindictiveness towards me.” Mrs. Lincoln arched her eyebrow. “They print nothing but lies.”
“It’s not what they say.” Gabby stared at the two pork chops on his plate and wished he had kept his mouth shut, and maybe he could have been eating them by now.
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“It’s the pictures.”
“The pictures?” Mrs. Lincoln looked up at her husband. “I can’t take this, Father. Do you know what he’s talking about?”
“He’s trying to tell us, Molly.”
Gabby cleared his throat. “You’re not as hefty a woman as the pictures in the newspapers make you look like.”
“Oh.” A smile flickered across her lips, and her eyes softened.
“It’s your round cheeks,” Gabby continued, encouraged by her response. “They make you look fat when you’re really not.”
“Why, thank you. That’s very kind of you to say…”
“Yeah, you don’t have any breasts at all,” Gabby interrupted, nodding his head. “Now, Cordie, she’s got a big bosom.”
“What!” Mrs. Lincoln’s hands instinctively went to her chest.
“I always liked putting my head on her bosom for a nap,” Gabby said. “But I bet you’re kind of bony.”
Mrs. Lincoln looked around at her husband, her mouth agape. “Father?”
“Now you enjoy those pork chops, Mr. Gabby.” Standing and walking around the billiards table, the president put his arm around Gabby’s shoulders and guided him back to the curtain across his little cubbyhole of crates and barrels.
“Thank you, sir. That’s nice of you, sir.” Gabby sat on the floor and picked up one of the chops and began to gnaw on it, trying not to listen to the conversation going on between the Lincolns.
“Father, I can’t endure this,” Mrs. Lincoln said, her voice shaking. “That man is not right in the head.”
“I don’t know many of us who are, Molly.” Lincoln paused. “These taters look good.”
“Please don’t dismiss me, Mr. Lincoln,” she said. “If I have to live in the same room with that man for any considerable period of time, I’m afraid I’ll go mad.”
“Now, Molly…”
“No, Mr. Lincoln,” she interrupted. “Listen to me. I stared insanity in its frightening face when Willie died. It took all my strength to return. I don’t think I have the power to do that again.”
“Molly, I promise you that we’ll be out of here within a week. I know how scared you are, and I’m terribly sorry. But it’ll be over soon.”
“You really think Mr. Stanton can end the war that soon?”
“No, I think Mr. Stanton will realize he doesn’t know how to end this war any better than me, and that he’ll be better off if he lets me out of here to take the blame.”
“I should have let that strange little man have my chop as well. It’s too tough for a reasonable stomach to digest.”
Gabby shook his head and began chewing on the second chop. It did not seem that tough to him, but he had a strong jaw and things like that did not bother him much. He jumped a bit when he heard a key jangle in the lock, then he remembered the private was coming back.
“Excuse me, Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln,” Adam said. “Are you finished?”
“Yes, we are,” she replied airily.
“Yes, young man,” Lincoln said. “And thank you for bringing dinner.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Gabby heard Adam’s steps coming to his corner, and he began to chew faster.
“I need your plate,” Adam said.
“But I haven’t finished my pork chops.” Gabby held the plate close to him.
“Very well.” Adam sighed. “Don’t get upset. I’ll get it when I return for the chamber pots.”
“Thank you.”
“It’ll be about an hour. I’ll take your chamber pot, too.”
“There won’t be anything in it.” Gabby lowered his head as he bit into the chop. “I’m too scared now to do anything.”