Fates and Traitors by Jennifer Chiaverini Page A

work, in a provider’s duty, and in the bottle.
    Autumn’s first frost covered the fields and orchards of The Farm before Mary Ann could bring herself to inform her mother that a grandson she had never met had perished. “I cannot bear to think of the sweetest of my children buried in the cold ground so far from home,” she wrote. “I cannot even tend his grave, and I weep to think that it is neglected. Oh, my poor lost babe!”
    Mary Ann had not poured out her heart so freely to her mother since girlhood, since the time before she met Junius and deception hadirrevocably divided her from her parents. Weeks later, when the post brought her mother’s reply, Mary Ann hesitated before reading it, suddenly terrified that her mother would condemn her, that she would blame Mary Ann for Frederick’s death, that she would declare it a just punishment for his parents’ terrible sin of adultery.
    Instead, kindness, compassion, and love filled the pages. “I share your sorrow, my dear daughter,” her mother had written. “No one but another parent who has lost a child can truly understand your suffering. Take comfort in knowing that your precious, innocent babe rests peacefully in the arms of our Lord.”
    Mary Ann wept then, but not only from grief, for in that moment she understood what it was to be forgiven completely, to be loved unconditionally.
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    H er mother’s letter became a well-worn touchstone Mary Ann turned to often throughout the difficult years that followed.
    In the aftermath of his son’s death, Junius’s behavior became increasingly erratic and strange, even frightening. On tour, furious theatre managers had to drag him out of bars where he was entertaining drunken crowds with songs and recitations, and shove him onto stages where it was discovered he was too inebriated to perform. He arrived late for engagements, having missed trains or stagecoaches sleeping off drinking binges. Newspaper reviews praising his sublime genius and declaring him the greatest tragedian of the age were often followed by others denouncing him for canceling performances at the last moment. During a performance of
Richard III
at the Bowery Theatre, Junius’s king refused to die as Shakespeare intended but instead fought an astonished Richmond with such fury that he forced him off the stage, up the aisle, and out the front door, swords clashing and gleaming in the gaslights in front of the theatre. A few months later in a performance of
Evadne
in Boston, Junius broke down onstage, forgetting his lines, bursting into laughter and then into tears, and begging to be taken to the lunatic hospital. One winter night, in a state of distraction and derangement, he walked forty miles from Providence to Boston, arriving without his shoes and coat at a boardinghouse for sailors. After word of his arrival spread, a friend, Colonel Josiah Jones, raced over to take charge of him. As the colonel reported to Mary Ann later, Junius hadalternated between fits of disorientation and calm lucidity until he was well enough to be escorted to New York, where his most trusted friend, Edwin Forrest, had cared for him until the madness subsided.
    â€œWhen will Junius be done with these mad freaks?” Richard lamented whenever a new shocking tale appeared in the press or arrived by post.
    â€œHe isn’t mad,” protested Mary Ann. “Among the truly great, genius is often indistinguishable from madness. He’s the victim of his art. He assumes his roles so completely that he forgets who he is and where he is for a time, but he always returns to himself. He never suffers these ‘mad freaks,’ as you call them, when he’s at home.”
    Richard was obliged to concede that point. Junius lived for the stage, but The Farm was the only place he was truly himself. And that was where Mary Ann knew him best. She loved him fiercely—madness,