Fitzgerald looked at Lorina. “He is not. Pray, what have you heard?”
Lorina said, “Nolan is held out as one of the most ardent and desperate of Burr’s conspirators. It is put about that he shot dead the first marshal sent to arrest him, and that he is the son of a British lord.”
Wendell examined his wineglass carefully as Lorina spoke and quietly cleared his throat. “Philip has yet to be proven guilty of any crime, and I know of no harm he has ever done to an officer of the court. He is not, and has never been, gratuitously violent. That he is a desperate conspirator is all havers and nonsense, I assure you. There is much taking of sides, sure. And Colonel Bell, though not much esteemed when he was alive, has been transformed into a hero, while Nolan is called both Judas and a mercenary.”
Alden said to her cousin, “Those who know Philip know better than to judge him by gossip.”
“But he carried a ciphered letter to Colonel Burr, did he not?” Lorina asked this with a blush of shame. “I read it in the newspaper. Is it not incriminating that the letter was in code?”
“It is not,” Wendell answered. “Officers frequently carry coded messages.”
“Is it really true that he could have carried Burr’s dispatches and not have known what was in them?” Lorina asked.
“It would be the rule rather than the exception,” Wendell said patiently. “As it bears on the case, it is less germane that the letter was encoded than what exactly Burr requested Nolan to do.”
“Burr is a vile, grasping creature.” Alden shuddered. “I remember him from Manhattan. He is perfectly odious.”
“Nolan was unfortunate to trust the man. But that is not a crime.”
Alden’s face took on genuine displeasure when she said, “What is it that Mister Jefferson called Burr? A Cataline. That was it, a new Cataline.”
Lorina felt a strange flutter.
“The government must prove its case, first against Burr and only then against Nolan,” Wendell said. “Philip can hardly be party to an imaginary act.”
SOON AFTER LORINA WROTE A LETTER TO HER PARENTS THAT ALARMED THEM greatly. Before her father had agreed that she might go with the Fitzgeralds to Richmond, Doctor Rutledge extracted from his daughter a promise that she would consider—at least consider—the marriage proposal of Richard Graff, the wealthy and moonstruck son of the chancellor of the University of Pennsylvania. Graff had a thriving medical practice and had recently published a well-regarded book on phrenology. Her father thought Doctor Graff a perfect match—Graff’s future was as bright as Nolan’s was bleak—and although the young surgeon was thought highly suitable, everything that recommended him had begun to make him wearisome to Lorina.
As Nolan returned to health before her eyes, the far-away Doctor Graff was made into a sexless, bloodless shadow. Lorina wrote that she no longer wished to entertain Graff’s proposal. The news was most disappointing to her parents and fell like a thunderbolt on Graff, who had believed that an understanding was imminent. When he received the intelligence of Lorina’s dismissal, Doctor Graff published a melancholy sonnet in the Philadelphia Gazette. Then, after sending several alarming notes to his friends, he retired to his rooms and took a very mild overdose of calomel and laudanum. Both poem and potion fell somewhat short of the mark. Graff’s stomach was pumped, and he did his best to pine away in conspicuous and brooding melancholy.
Lorina’s parents considered having Alden return their daughter but relented, thinking that her cousin (who was after all a respectable married woman) would speak plain sense to Lorina. Doctor Rutledge went so far as to write Alden, urging her to tell Lorina that a prompt marriage to Doctor Graff was preferable to spinsterhood or gossip. Of course, Lorina’s parents knew nothing of Nolan, as his infamy was yet confined to Richmond and the federal charges against him were not yet public. Had they any inkling of their daughter’s attachment to the young officer, they would have coached down by express and returned Lorina bodily home to Philadelphia.
Nolan knew nothing of this. Miss Rutledge had said nothing about it to him, and she wished harm to no one—not even the swooning doctor. Nolan’s own feelings were anything but clear to him. He had never before in his life felt such reciprocal affection, and his own innocence gave him no measure by which to understand the things he felt. Those around him saw it more plainly than he could; Alden certainly did, and Wendell too. Both hoped brightly for the couple.
Although his cheerfulness returned, Nolan had a hundred reasons to doubt himself. His future was clouded and he had a secret in his past, one he felt that put him aside from respectable people. Nolan knew that his illegitimacy and his mother’s mottled reputation posed an impediment to his social connexions. The Fitzgeralds loved him, but they had known him for most of a decade. It pained them very much to think that Nolan might be found out to be unworthy of Lorina’s attentions.
THEN, ON A BRIGHT APRIL MORNING A SQUADRON OF CAVALRY RATTLED ACROSS Mayo’s Bridge. Word spread quickly that Aaron Burr had at last been brought to heel. After a months-long manhunt, he had been captured in the Alabama territory under circumstances as ambiguous as his plot. Townsmen surged down Cary Street to see the most nefarious person in the Republic handed down from a wagon by a file of grim-faced Marines. The short, spare fugitive was wearing an outrageous sombrero and canvas chaps—the same outfit he’d been arrested in six weeks earlier near the Tombigbee River.
Burr was lodged in the state penitentiary, where he was given the entire top floor. Carpets, drapery, and furniture were sent up, and he received visitors like an emperor. Burr’s supporters may have chosen to remain anonymous, but they were generous. When bail was set in the staggering amount of ten thousand dollars, it was put forward in gold. A second subscription raised more than a thousand dollars to buy the former vice president clothing for court. Dressed in silk, Burr went to levees and banquets. Most of the derision formerly directed at Nolan was now aimed at Burr. Beyond a cordon of supporters and sycophants, the crowd howled for Burr’s head. The little man seemed to revel in the frustration of the mob.
Burr made no attempt to speak to or correspond with his former courier. He had used Nolan as he had used everyone else. The federal prosecutors, predictably, had less time to devote to the secondary cases, and Fitzgerald hoped that the gathering storm would pass over his client.
As Nolan continued his recovery, Aaron Burr’s trial went forward. Burr was defended by some of the ablest lawyers in the nation: Luther Martin, Edmund Randolph, and John Wickham. The proceedings were closely monitored in Washington, and the federal prosecutor, Mister Hay, dispatched daily summaries to President Jefferson. On most mornings, Wendell Fitzgerald was in the gallery and paid close attention to a contradictory flood of testimony. The prosecution’s chief witness, General Wilkinson, was so ludicrous as to make Fitzgerald suspect that the charges against Nolan would be quashed.
Questioned by Luther Martin, the sweating general admitted that he had received the coded letter from Aaron Burr. Nolan was identified as the courier. Cross-examination revealed that after deciphering the letter, Wilkinson had rewritten the contents before sending them along to Washington. Under a withering barrage of questions Wilkinson confessed that his editing had removed several sentences regarding his own foreknowledge of Burr’s plot. Each word out of the general’s mouth seemed to implicate him further, and many in the gallery believed that Wilkinson himself would be charged with treason and perjury. The government’s case against Burr was falling apart, but Fitzgerald was slow to admit optimism.
Despite Wilkinson’s buffoonery, the prosecution was relentless and eloquent. Mister Hay, the chief prosecutor, distinguished himself in the government’s closing arguments, calling Burr an arch deceiver