Mount Vernon Love Story: A Novel of George and Martha Washington

by Mary Higgins Clark

  A terrible, terrible fear. Yet little Patsy was indeed a frail child. Could one blame the mother for apprehension?

  Of course that fear would ruin Jacky. George blindly followed whatever direction his feet led him. What could he do? At last he started home. When he and Patsy had their own children her apprehension might well lessen. Busy with new babies she would be able to relax her hold on the two children she had. Until then it was pointless to permit Jacky to become a bone of friction. It certainly wasn’t the lad’s fault that his mother was so shortsighted. George almost smiled. He was very fond of the handsome little boy and, tell the truth, flattered by the way Jacky worshiped him. If he could not use discipline to curb Jacky’s mischief and his indolence—it was a struggle to make him do his lessons—he would still guide the child as well as he could.

  Finally he turned into the driveway of the Custis house. Obviously he was being watched for, because Bishop was there to open the door. The man bowed without speaking.

  Patsy was in the parlor. She had changed her dress to a most becoming pale green afternoon gown that summoned the latent green tone in her eyes. Her eyelids were slightly puffed but other than that there was no sign of her recent outburst. She hurried to him and was waiting to take his hat. “Did you have a nice walk?” Her voice was calm but he could detect her nervousness.

  If he were careful, he might still salvage some vestige of authority in his role as stepfather. Patsy was obviously on the defensive. “A walk gives one an opportunity to think . . .” His tone was noncommittal.

  “Oh, but I have been thinking, too. You are quite right. Jacky was very naughty. I have sent him to bed without supper.” For her it was a great concession.

  He smiled almost wearily. “Then at least Master Custis is not totally escaping the consequences of his escapade. That, I suppose, is reassuring.”

  “No, no . . . and I told him that he must not anger you.”

  George started to say it was not a case of angering him, then didn’t bother. “I shall speak to him myself.”

  “But you won’t—”

  “No, my dear, I won’t put a finger on him.”

  He went upstairs to Jacky’s room. The boy was in bed although wide awake. He sat bolt upright when George lighted the bedside candle. George nodded to Julius to leave the room, then went over to the bed. “You need not worry. I have not come to give you the punishment you so richly deserve.”

  Jacky did not look so relieved. “I am sorry I made you angry, Poppa.”

  “And your mother—”

  “Mamma has already said she knows I didn’t really mean it—”

  “I see.” George spotted a tray on the dresser. “I thought you were sent to bed without your supper.”

  “I was—without a real one. But Mamma said I could have bread and jam and milk in case I got too terribly hungry.”

  Wordlessly George turned to go. But before he reached the door two arms flung themselves around his legs. He felt Jacky’s body shake with sobs as he turned and picked the boy up.

  “Now, what’s this? You’ll have your mother thinking I strapped you inch by inch.” One arm held the child close, the other stroked his hair.

  “I don’t want you to be angry with me, sir. I won’t hide again. I promise, I won’t. Please don’t be angry.”

  George asked, “Do you want to please me now?”

  A vigorous nod.

  “Very well.” He carried Jacky over to the dresser and together they studied the attractively arranged tray. Crisp bread, a pot of jam, and pitcher of cold milk made George realize that he was starving for his own dinner. “Are you very hungry?” Jackie nodded affirmatively “If you would please me, punish yourself. Don’t touch a bite of that food—have absolutely nothing till breakfast. Is that possible?”

  Jacky nodded again. George carried the child back to his bed. For an instant he hugged him tightly before he laid him down and covered him. He had Jacky’s love, and given even a reasonable amount of control over the lad, he could shape him into a youth to be proud of. Well, time would tell.

  He reached over to the table and blew out the candle. “Good-night, my son,” he said quietly.

  April 2, 1759

  Millbank and Ferry Farm

  WHEN THE ASSEMBLY SESSION ENDED they left for Mount Vernon. It was on April 2 that the procession pulled out of Williamsburg with crates and trunks and furniture.

  George found his emotions mixed. On the one hand he was frantic with desire to see Mount Vernon again, to welcome spring on his own property, to ride over his own fields and see to the planting. On the other hand he was well aware that Mount Vernon was a small house—small compared to the White House, small compared to Belvoir, small compared to his sister Betty’s home. Would Patsy be disappointed?

  Then he rejected the thought. Of course Patsy wouldn’t be disappointed in Mount Vernon. He’d already told her of his plans for adding to the house. But how would Mount Vernon look inside? He had trusted George William to see to the repairs, but no one really had charge of the housekeeping. He’d have to write a note and send it ahead.

  They were going to stop at his sister Betty’s home overnight. The children were delighted at the prospect of meeting their new relatives and George knew instinctively that Betty and Patsy would like each other well. Betty had long been twitting him about his unmarried state. The strong bond between them had never wavered and whenever he visited Betty at her beautiful home in Fredericksburg, she would good-naturedly lecture him on his need for a wife. He often thought that Betty sensed his devotion to Sally Fairfax because she would make references to finding a nice sensible girl and not wasting his time ending up a crotchety bachelor.

  These lectures were always delivered in the presence of her husband. Fielding Lewis and George were great friends. Fielding had won Betty by promising her a beautiful home. He’d kept that promise and their home was one of the showplaces of Virginia. But he’d won her love quite completely on his own merits. They already had two boys and their home was a very happy one. On George’s visits, if Betty kept after him too much about his single state, Fielding would say mildly, “My dear, your resemblance to your mother is quite remarkable this evening.” Betty would immediately look stricken. “George knows I’m only teasing, now don’t you? Very well, not another word.”

  George thoroughly admired Fielding’s deft handling of his younger sister and was anxious to show his own new family off to him.

  And, of course, there was his mother.

  Ferry Farm was not far from Betty and Fielding’s home and he would take Patsy over to the cold, cheerless house where he had spent his boyhood. He wanted to see his mother, wanted her to see Patsy. It was simply that in her presence his achievements seemed to fall from him. After a comment or two from her he would not be the soldier commander who had helped rescue his colony from terrible danger; he would be the witless fool who had let his plantation run down while he wasted his time running off to war.

  Then George’s thoughts were pulled back to the present. Little Patsy was crying for a favorite toy which undoubtedly could be found at the bottom of a packing crate. But which one? Utterly impossible to take them all apart. He ordered the procession halted. Patsy and the children were in the carriage. George pulled his horse beside it. She looked up at him, perplexed. Her arm was around the little girl and she was patting her side. “There now, darling,” she was saying, “Poppa will get your toy.”

  Jacky, who had been sulking over not having been allowed to ride his pony next to George, suddenly decided to take a man’s stand. “Mamma, don’t tell her you’ll get her toy. Poppa can’t have the crates searched. She will just have to do without it until we get to Mount Vernon in a few days.”

  The statement made little Patsy’s wail become louder. Jacky flashed a man-to-man look at his stepfather. “Young Custis, you have little talent for strategy,” George murmured. He realized that it was quite ridiculous to try to solve a family crisis from atop his mount with onl
y his head leaning into the carriage. Swiftly he dismounted and, reaching into the carriage, took little Patsy out. “All right, now, no more tears.” He reached for his own immaculate handkerchief and dried her eyes. “Now show me,” he commanded, “which crate shall we investigate first?”

  Little Patsy looked wide-eyed. “Will you really look for my doll?” Not yet three, she seemed to George a great deal quicker to grasp a situation than her brother. “Most certainly,” George promised. “Of course it may take a great part of the day and we won’t make Fredericksburg this evening to let you meet your new cousins and see the gift their mother has for you, but of course we shall look for your doll.” Little Patsy considered this situation. He was holding the little girl in the crook of his arm. As he waited for her reply he was struck by the almost absolute weightlessness of her body. He fervently hoped that the Potomac country would do her more good than the Rappahannock seemed to have done.

  Little Patsy made up her mind. “It’ll be all right, Poppa. We don’t have to unpack everything. I’d like to go see my new cousins soon instead.”

  “Good girl,” George said approvingly. He walked over to the carriage and lifted her into it. Patsy looked apprehensive. “We really can’t unpack, can we?” Her voice tested the situation.

  George smiled at his wife. “No need at all. This very reasonable young lady has decided that her doll is perfectly comfortable and safe in with the luggage and we are going on at once.”

  He closed the door of the carriage, ignoring Jacky’s silent plea to be allowed to ride his pony. Once they got nearer to Fredericksburg he’d let Jacky have his way. But he had no intention of worrying about Jacky set loose on his pony all day.

  George made a mental note to be sure to ask Betty to give some small gift to little Patsy. He wryly decided that in the past few months since his marriage he’d had more experience in getting his own way through strategy than ever he’d had at the conference table with Braddock!

  It was nearly evening when they arrived at the Lewises’ home but there were fires glowing in every hearth. The beautiful house was lighted up in welcome and the pleasure on the faces of Betty, Fielding, and their children was reflected in the radiance on Patsy’s face, in the pride with which she introduced her children.

  George realized that till now they’d been in Patsy’s part of Virginia, among her friends and relatives. He was suddenly aware that she must have been quite apprehensive about meeting, really meeting, his family and friends. At that thought he frowned unconsciously. In the morning he would be taking her over to Ferry Farm to meet his mother.

  Fittingly enough the next day was bleak and chill. The sun hovered behind sooty gray clouds, and a cold spring wind whined against the carriage. George sat beside Patsy, peering out the window morosely. The landscape looked bleak and forbidding, the familiar fields seemed barren. Strange how he, who loved land, could feel diminished by simply being present here. But, of course, that had to do with the frustrations of life with his mother, the restlessness of his adolescence before Lawrence rescued him by inviting him to Mount Vernon.

  He was so deep in thought that he didn’t feel Patsy’s tentative slipping of her hand into his, nor was he aware when she withdrew it. Her anxious glances were lost on him, nor did he realize that she suddenly straightened up in the seat and pulled slightly away from him. He was taking her to meet his mother for the first time and suddenly he had become a stranger himself to her. It never occurred to him that Patsy might be wondering if he was less than proud to introduce his bride to his parent.

  The carriage stopped at the farmhouse and he got out quickly. Still acting mechanically, he lifted Patsy down and putting one large hand under her elbow steered her up the stairs. For a moment she glanced up at him beseechingly, but at his brusque, “Come along,” she looked straight ahead.

  In the years since he had lived at Mount Vernon, he’d been home only for brief visits. Now he really looked at the house as an unfamiliar servant opened the door. The man’s face was sullen, a typical expression for his mother’s help, and George nodded to him briefly. The center hall had changed little. The family ate every meal there yet no single effort had ever been made to give the chamber a feeling of warmth or coziness or soothing atmosphere so essential to a dining room. It was still bleak, still cluttered with miscellaneous furniture that seemed to have been merely dropped in place rather than grouped with any eye to comfort or beauty.

  So like his mother not to be waiting to meet them. “Where is Mrs. Washington?” George asked the servant.

  “She be right down, sir. She say go into the parlor. She just finishing dressing.”

  Just like her. She hated dressing up and undoubtedly had started her toilette just as the carriage came into sight. He remembered the warm welcome he received from Patsy’s mother, the courteous and friendly atmosphere of her home.

  Patsy was still standing quietly but now her glance was thoughtful and questioning. He could not know that she was realizing that she was being introduced to another part of the complex man whom she’d married. Sometimes she had wondered why he spoke so seldom about Ferry Farm. Really all he had said was that this land was his inheritance from his father, but since he would a thousand times rather live on Mount Vernon, it suited him well for his mother to continue to occupy the house which was now his.

  Small wonder that he had no desire to live in this bleak, forbidding home. Then he said, “Since our hostess is not prepared to receive us, shall we sit in here, my dear?”

  Obediently she let him guide her into the small parlor off the hall. She spotted the book on the table, and trying to fill the uncomfortable silence, she walked over to it. It was the copy of Contemplations, which had been a fixture in this room for more than forty years.

  Patsy opened to the first page and saw the two signatures there. George explained them. “My father, as you know, was a widower when he married my mother. The housekeeper resented the second marriage, and when my mother was carried into this room as a bride, the book was open to this page—with her predecessor’s signature. As you can see, she lost no time in signing her own name with something of a large hand.”

  They both stared at the widely spaced letters that spelled out “Mary Ball Washington.” And they both jumped when a penetrating voice from behind them said, “And I would advise any person beginning a marriage in which he is the second partner of the spouse to establish her—or his—presence with equal vigor.”

  George felt a deep flush come over his face as he drank in the unbelievable statement. This—his mother’s greeting to him and his bride.

  He turned around. His mother had dressed for them. He recognized the best lace cap, somewhat in need of pressing, the black silk dress she considered her finest.

  He struggled with the familiar overwhelming anger at his mother’s tactless statement, as pity fought the stronger emotion. His mother looked smaller, frailer. “Madame,” he said lamely. Mechanically he reached down and kissed her cheek. He drew Patsy forward. “This is Mrs. Washington.” He could have bitten his tongue at the formal introduction. “I mean, Mother, this is Patsy—Martha, that is.”

  Was it possible for a man to make such a fool of himself? he wondered miserably. Was he not to be spared a single one of the old emotions or would he run the entire gamut? So far in the last half hour he’d felt depressed, frustrated, annoyed, angry, and now downright stupid.

  But, as usual, Patsy was equal to any situation. She seemed not to have heard his mother’s opening statement as she extended both hands to the older woman and kissed her cheek warmly. Her greeting certainly conveyed more genuine pleasure at the meeting than his own had, George reflected, but at least the atmosphere in the room thawed out a little.

  They sat down—oh, the remembered discomfort of these horsehair chairs—and his mother sent for tea. He knew that she was glad to see them. Her hand was even trembling just a bit. But his mother would tolerate no weakness or emotion in herself. He watched as she firmly cla
sped her hands in her lap and studied Patsy carefully.

  Obviously she could find no fault with her. She gave a grudging nod of her head and turned to her son. “May I hope that you’re finished with the army foolishness?”

  “I believe you know I have resigned from the militia, Mother,” George replied quietly. Furiously he reminded himself that this visit would last a very short time and he must not display anger here, not here of all places.

  “Resigned.” The word was a snort. “Far better you’d never enlisted. Ill all that time—dysentery has been the death of many a stronger and better man than you—wasting your time, letting your land run down. It’s a miracle you came out of it all. Poor Lawrence didn’t know what he’d brought back inside him, and it killed him well after his fancy battles.”

  Had she really always been like this? George wondered.

  “I am quite well, I assure you.”

  Patsy leaned forward in her chair. “I believe the tea is being served.” For an instant her hand rested on his, then she withdrew it. Comforted, he resolved not to let his mother upset him.

  The tea had not been brewed long enough. It was weak, and the cakes were soggy. Miserably George sipped while his mother complained about the incapable help she had to put up with.

  Patsy tried to divert her. “The children and I are looking forward to Mount Vernon so much.”

  “Not much to look forward to from what I hear the way it’s been neglected.”