June, 1861
His Seership proclaimeth: Each day is a blessing. And yet I reckon days are days.
Two-hundred-and-eighty days since I had murdered Mr. Child I went to have supper at Mr. Five Hundred’s with Mumler—and Hannah—and Bill—and Kate Fox. Though Kate had arrived there some minutes before us.
The servant was that Hinkley man. I went to him to hand my coat which heavens I got stuck inside yet Hinkley was already on me by that point, patiently twisting the coat off my shoulders.
“Mr. Guay,” says our host in his sad elegance. “Bienveue, my humble home. Mr. Charles Livermore is my name. Call me that.”
“Your name isn’t Mr. Five Hundred?” says I.
“Disappointed?” says our host. “It is”—he smiled wryly—“my moonlighting name.”
“Charles Livermore,” the Prophet says. “Of Webster’s Bank on Boylston Street?”
“How ever did you guess?” says he.
“Your name is on the door,” he says. “I’ve travelled past it once or twice.”
“So you have,” says Livermore. “And now, my friend, you have arrived.”
With that we adjourned to the grand dining room with Kate Fox and Hannah already in talks while Bill and I came on behind unsure what to do with our faces and hands.
The banker’s home was not my home. It branched and tended hall by hall. There were paintings all through it—and bevelled glass panes—and girl-painted screens trimmed with round metal studs. Mr. Five Hundred of Webster’s, or Charles depending on what day you asked, he turned to us along the way and reminded us footmen should eat in the kitchen.
But then I saw he meant just Bill.
“That man is my associate,” Mumler says to Livermore and Livermore held up his hand to gaze at Bill with solemn purpose.
“Force of habit, don’t you know. I hope he does not take offence. I suppose I had better start backing in earnest the men that my clients would back to their deaths.”
“The Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts Infantry?” says Mumler.
“First nigger outfit in all of the war. But he can stay. Of course he can. Mr. Hinkley, please, a chair.”
And I will be a pickled dimwit standing in my unlaced shoes if Bill wasn’t smiling at Mr. Five Hundred not with contempt but with shame and exhaustion. It was less of a smile than a dullness with teeth and then Bill says: “I’m grateful, sir.”
The firm hot hand of sympathy had closed itself around my heart.