Lincoln Page #18

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.

56.

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.

57.

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.

INT. THE WHITE HOUSE KITCHEN - EVENING

The kitchen's piled with unwashed cookware, eggshells, flour

bins, muffin and pastry molds, spoons and knives, the

detritus of the preparations for the finger food served at

the reception, which has now transitioned into a dance and is

still underway upstairs. Music, the tramp of dancing feet and

rhythmic clapping is audible.

A BLACK FOOTMAN carrying a huge tray laden with dishes and

cups comes down the stairs. He hastily beats a retreat when

he sees Lincoln and Thaddeus Stevens quietly talking amid the

mess.

58.

LINCOLN:

Since we have the floor next in the

debate, I thought I'd suggest you

might...temper your contributions

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