The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln Read Online Free Page A

the matter with Mr. Dennard when he returns. You seem a fairly intelligent young woman. I am sure you know how to bargain. Perhaps you and Dennard can reach some arrangement.”
    The lasciviousness in his voice was impossible to miss; and impossible to prove.
    Abigail swallowed. Her brother always said that even the most liberal of white folks gave only when the giving benefitted them. She had lived her young life in the teeth of that dictum, but now, in this roomthick with coal smoke, she stood face-to-face with the evidence of its truth. “When will Mr. Dennard be returning?”
    “A week from now,” said McShane, with satisfaction. Baker looked on in amusement. “He is in California. Until that time, you will work for me. You may start by helping Little with his chores.” Nodding toward the old man. “Is that clear?”
    “But, sir! I am a graduate of Oberlin!”
    “I have told you the way things are. If you wish to work for the firm of Dennard & McShane, you will be a clerk and a copyist. You will not train as a lawyer.”
    Abigail calculated fast. “Perhaps I can do both—”
    “We will keep you busy, I assure you.”
    “I am willing to work as late as necessary.”
    McShane was exasperated. “Fine. You want to read law? There are books everywhere.” His hand swept the room. “Read as many as you like, as long as you do your chores. You can start with Blackstone. Over there—the brown one, see?
Commentaries on the Laws of England
. Four volumes. Start at page one of volume one, and read all four. When you are through, we can discuss your further ambitions.”
    Jonathan had found his voice. “Sir, that is nearly three thousand pages.”
    “So what? The young lady is a graduate of Oberlin. Presumably, she can read. Little, show her where to sit.”
    Abigail made one final try, even though her voice wavered in a way that she hated. “Sir, if I am to work as a—a secretary—well, then, perhaps I should come to the White House with you. To—to take notes.”
    McShane was aghast. “Under no circumstances. You are Dennard’s clerk, not mine. You will not be working on the impeachment at all.” He nodded toward her hand, where she still clutched her commonplace book. “I see you have a diary. So have I. So has Mr. Hilliman. Every lawyer keeps one. But I doubt you shall be needing yours. Little, I told you to show her where to sit. Hilliman, come.”
    “What about Mr. Baker?” the young man asked.
    “He can talk to Miss Canner.”
    They were out the door.
    As they descended the stair, McShane shook his head. “Unbelievable,” he muttered. “The man is unbelievable. Hiring that woman without telling me. I am going to strangle him.”
    Jonathan said nothing, and was annoyed with himself for this failure;but a part of him was also amused, because Dennard, although on in years, was a heavy, powerful man, and McShane’s tiny hands could not possibly have reached around his neck.
    They exited onto Fourteenth Street, and the lawyer let out a purr of pleasure at the sight of his waiting horses. McShane could have had a driver but preferred to hold the reins of his own carriage, a very beautiful rig of dark polished wood with gleaming brass highlights. They climbed up for the short ride to the Executive Mansion, and a porter borrowed from the Willard handed the lawyer the reins.
    Jonathan said, suddenly, “Why did we leave Mr. Baker behind?”
    McShane called to the horses and gently rippled the reins. They moved off. “In case she is a spy,” he said.
    “I beg your pardon.”
    “The letter from Dennard might be a forgery. A colored woman. We would never suspect her. Mr. Lincoln’s opponents will stop at nothing.”
    Jonathan could not quite get his mind around such nonsense. The pending impeachment trial, as he had recently written to his fiancée, Meg, seemed to have driven every man in Washington City mad.
    And McShane was not done. “We have received information that a partial record of our