* * *
—
It turns out that the women’s fears were not exaggerated. His escape was a narrow one. He’d walked for hours, the wind blowing into his face, snow coating his sleeves, encasing his gloves and boots, his hat and the scarf over his face until he must have looked like a snowman walking. The drifts were high. He must wade sometimes and force his way forward, never certain he hadn’t lost the road. Suddenly, chilled to the heart, he was overwhelmed with the need to sleep. It seemed like such a reasonable thing to do—rest for a bit, close his stinging eyes—that he had to deliver stern lectures to himself, saying that to sit down for even a moment would be his death. The argument in his head only stopped when, through the blur of snow, he thought he saw a light.
Fairyland, he thought, because he was just that far out of his mind, but the light turned out to be real, the Parker farm at long last. He was taken inside, so frozen he was unable at first to speak or think. Mr. Parker poured brandy down his throat and whipped him about the chest and shoulders with the flat of his hands until John came back into himself.
His plan to take the cow and leave for home immediately was forcibly overridden. While the women had been mad with fear, John had been tucked safely into a warm bed and sound asleep.
The cow is the most beautiful Asia has ever seen. They name her Lady Parker and crowd about her in the barn, drinking glass after glass of warm, foamy milk. Then Rosalie, Asia, and John take turns at the churn. How long since they had butter? Cheese? A cow. A cow. My kingdom for a cow, Asia thinks. And yet, joyous as Asia is, contented and full for the first time in days, she cannot forget that the kingdom they nearly paid for this cow was John’s life. A world without John! She can’t even bear to think of it.
* * *
—
They live through the winter. Spring feels like a season of plenty, summer the same. John goes about his grim farm work, the harvests as bad as ever. Each year they fall further behind.
The leaves turn color. Another terrible winter looms.
xvi
But Edwin gets there first.
* * *
—
Word has gotten out. Edwin Booth is returned from the gold country. A rich man has come to town. Neighbors are already gathered, waiting on the front lawn, when his carriage arrives, chased down the lane by young men, some of whom were only babies when he left. He swings lightly from the carriage to the ground, and into the cheering crowd. The boys quarrel for the privilege of wrestling his heavy trunks into the parlor.
It’s been four years since Asia saw Edwin and though still boyish, he’s also completely transformed. He’s wearing a velvet cape pinned shut at the top with a brooch of diamonds and nuggets—a parting gift, he will tell them later, from the ladies of San Francisco. His boots are red with swirling designs stitched over the vamp and the uppers. With his dark skin, black curls, and exotic clothes, he looks like a prince from The Arabian Nights. Asia can see how shabby and tattered poor John looks beside him. She knows she looks the same. She’s suddenly shy, too awed by his magnificence to throw herself into his arms when he comes to hug her.
She sees the effort he makes to adjust his face as he greets Rosalie. Is Rosalie so altered? Asia can’t remember when Mother stopped telling Rosalie to stand up straight, but it was quite some time ago. One shoulder is now permanently higher than the other.
The crowd in the yard, half of them black and half of them white, show no sign of leaving. Edwin moves among them, clapping the ones he knows on their backs, shaking hands with those he doesn’t. He pays particular court to the little Hall girls, who dance about his legs and stand on his red toes. Laughter and babble and through it all, Edwin looking pleased but abashed, and running his hand through his hair. When he laughs, he throws his head back, a mannerism Asia doesn’t remember from before.
Ann Hall appears with a buttermilk cake she’s whipped up for the impromptu party. She tells Asia to pass around cups of mint tea, which Asia does with a smiling face, all the while wishing she could make them all go away and leave Edwin to his family. Luckily their stores of hard cider are insufficient to the day or the men would never have gone home.
As it is, the party doesn’t end until dusk. Only then does Edwin make it the last few steps, up the porch and into the parlor. It’s the first time he’s been inside Tudor Hall. Mother takes him through so that he can admire the size of the rooms, the number of windows. The house looks to its best advantage at just this time of day when the fireflies blink in the grass outside and the time has come to light the lamps in the parlor.
Edwin disappears to wash up, and he’s gone so long, Asia worries suddenly that he won’t return, that she dreamt the whole thing. But then he’s back, his hair and face still damp. She feels so tight with excitement and expectation she can hardly breathe. Edwin was always her favorite! How had she forgotten that?
Finally, he opens his trunks. He shows them first a resolution, printed on parchment, passed by the California legislature, declaring him to be one of the state’s great treasures. The state of California, this resolution says, is now generously sharing him with the rest of the country.
He’s brought sugar and a large spiraled shell from Hawaii, puzzle boxes from San Francisco’s Chinatown and Mexican chaps for John and Joe. A necklace for Rosalie with a green stone shaped like the crescent moon. A silver bracelet for Asia, which she immediately snaps onto her wrist, shaking her arms to see it glitter in the lamplight. Embroidered scarves for all the women, including Ann Hall.
To Mother, he gives the proceeds of his final San Francisco performances, a series of benefits and farewells including his first performance ever of King Lear （the Tate adaptation in which Cordelia survives and triumphs）。 He’s earned the nearly unbelievable sum of twenty thousand dollars, much of it in gold. He gives Mother his purse and it’s so heavy it falls through her hands. Mother begins to sob.
She’s worn herself out, worn herself to the bone, waiting for him to rescue them. Asia hears her long, jagged exhale, as if, ever since Father died, she’s been holding her breath and only now can she breathe again.
When Mother cries, Rosalie does the same. Asia feels that the sun has stepped out of the sky and into the Booth parlor. Edwin’s shining so brightly, her eyes water when she looks at him. It takes her a moment to understand that she, too, is crying.
* * *
—
At twenty-two （nearly twenty-three） Edwin is now in charge. He moves the family back to Baltimore, where he begins almost immediately to perform at the Front Street Theatre. He takes on many of his father’s old roles, appearing before the audiences that knew his father best. Perhaps he hasn’t yet attained his father’s genius. No one cares, they love him so. He plays to packed houses.
* * *
—
In July 1857, the following ad will appear in the Bel Air Southern Aegis.
FOR RENT—the splendid and well-known residence of the late J. B. Booth, in Harford County, about three miles from Bel Air, on the road leading to Churchville. This place will be rented to a good tenant if immediate application be made. There is 180 acres of land, 80 of which is arable. John Booth, Baltimore, Md.
No Booth will ever live on Father’s farm again.
BOOK FOUR
The senator from South Carolina has read many books of chivalry, and believes himself a chivalrous knight, with sentiments of honor and courage. Of course he has chosen a mistress to whom he has made his vows, and who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight;—I mean the harlot Slavery.