· · ·
turning to page one
turning to page one
Mary, radiant, her charm turned to its brightest candlepower, is greeting the Blairs, who are part of a long receiving line. The Blairs proceed from Mary to Lincoln.
TITLE: GRAND RECEPTION
JANUARY 15
The enormous room is splendid,
decked with garlands of flowers,
tall candelabra burning, flags from
Army divisions. An orchestra plays.
Lincoln and Tad stand together. Slade is near Lincoln. Mary's a distance away from Lincoln, to his right.
Robert takes his place next to his mother, as conspicuous as he'd feared he'd be in his civilian clothes.
A sea of people surround the President and his family. Nicolay, Hay and several clerks channel the crowd waiting to greet the Lincolns into the line: wealthy people, many more middle-class people, some working people and farmers, and many officers and soldiers.
Tad watches his father shake hands. Lincoln is in his element. He stands close to each person, touches each one gently, stoops to be nearer them; he puts everyone at ease.
He's bothered only by the white kid gloves he's wearing. He tugs at the right-hand glove.
WILLIAM SLADE
(with a glance in Mary's)
She's just ten feet yonder. I'd
like to keep my job.
Lincoln takes off the right-hand glove - his hand-shaking hand - but keeps the other glove on.
Approaching Mary on the line, Stevens, Ashley, Senators Bluff Wade and CHARLES SUMNER, all in formal wear except Stevens.
MARY
Senator Sumner, it has been much
too long.
CHARLES SUMNER
"Oh, who can look on that celestial
face and -"
Cutting him off, she pretends not to recognize Ashley.
MARY
And...?
JAMES ASHLEY
(CONFUSED)
James Ashley, ma'am, we've met
several times -
But she ignores him and greets Stevens.
MARY
(her Southern accent becoming more lustrous:)
Praise Heavens, praise Heavens,
just when I had abandoned hope of
amusement, it's the Chairman of the
House Ways and Means Committee!
Stevens bows to her.
THADDEUS STEVENS
Mrs. Lincoln.
MARY
Madame President if you please!
(LAUGHS)
Oh, don't convene another
subcommittee to investigate me,
sir! I'm teasing! Smile, Senator
Wade.
BLUFF WADE
(NOT SMILING:)
I believe I am smiling, Mrs.
Lincoln.
MARY
I'll take your word for that, sir!
THADDEUS STEVENS
As long as your household accounts
are in order, Madame, we'll have no
need to investigate them.
MARY
You have always taken such a
lively, even prosecutorial interest
in my household accounts.
THADDEUS STEVENS
Your household accounts have always
been so interesting.
MARY
Yes, thank you, it's true, the
miracles I have wrought out of
fertilizer bills and cutlery
invoices. But I had to! Four years
ago, when the President and I
arrived, this was pure pigsty.
Tobacco stains in the turkey
carpets. Mushrooms, green as the
moon, sprouting from ceilings! And
a pauper's pittance allotted for
improvements.
As if your committee joined with
all of Washington awaiting, in what
you anticipated would be our
comfort in squalor, further proof
that my husband and I were prairie
primitives, unsuited to the
position to which an error of the
people, a flaw in the democratic
process, had elevated us.
Lincoln, suddenly without anyone in line to receive, looks to see the backlog forming behind the radicals. He notes the exchange, but says nothing. Robert sees him looking.
MARY (CONT'D)
The past is the past, it's a new
year now and we are all getting
along, or so they tell me. I gather
we are working together! The White
House and the other House? Hatching
little plans together?
Robert leans in to her.
ROBERT
Mother?
MARY
What?
ROBERT
You're creating a bottleneck.
MARY
Oh!
(TO STEVENS:)
Oh, I'm detaining you, and more
important, the people behind you!
How the people love my husband,
they flock to see him, by their
thousands on public days! They will
never love you the way they love
him. How difficult it must be for
you to know that. And yet how
important to remember it.
She gives him a slight, lethal smile. He holds the look; his poker-face yields to a barely perceptible smile, amused and perhaps a little admiring.