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

by Mary Higgins Clark

  Sometimes he would lie awake for hours while with terrible clarity he foresaw the problems that would have to be faced. People did not really understand war unless they had been in it. To too many people, it was uniforms and parades. War was dirt and mud and dysentery and wounds; it was stinking supplies and contaminated water; it was broken bodies and separation from loved ones; it was depletion of fortune; setback in life work; agony and discouragement; jealousy and internal strife. And it was coming.

  At this point in his meditations he would start to stretch out his arm, wanting the soft warmth of Patsy against him. Always he withdrew it.

  He left for the Congress in May, wearing again the blue-and-red uniform. When it was time to go, Patsy walked to the door with him and came out on the front steps. She had worn so much black clothing for nearly two years that he’d almost forgotten how pleasant it was to see her in colors. She was dressed in a blue morning dress that sparkled in the warmth of her eyes. The hair that had once been a warm lustrous brown was streaked with soft gray, but the gray strands that slipped out from under her cap only gave an appealing young look as they curled around her forehead and ears.

  Once she would have clung to him and wept at the prospect of a month’s separation. Now, when he took her hand, she stared straight up at him. She seemed to be about to speak, but no words came. She who had wept ten thousand tears for her dead child was dry-eyed now. On the one hand he was grateful for her composure. On the other he wondered if the time had passed when she had tears for him. “I’ll write as soon as I arrive in Philadelphia. Good-bye, my dearest,” he said.

  He kissed her lips and cheek and thought the hand he was still holding trembled, but her “Good-bye, George,” was said calmly enough. Aware of Richard Henry Lee and Jacky near the foot of the stairs, he stepped back and she immediately took her hand from his. The groom came forward quickly with his carriage, and George started down the stairs. This good-bye was unsatisfactory and wrong. He wanted to turn back and hold Patsy tightly against him for just one moment but was afraid he might embarrass her with the others there.

  Grimly, he got into the vehicle. He leaned his head out the window and raised his arm in farewell but his good-bye was lost in the hearty ones that the others called to her. They started down the road, but just before they turned out of sight, he looked back. She was still standing there, such a very small figure. The sun was barely coming up now, and the first beams danced against the windows and through the trees that lined the path. The early morning dew was still on the great house and the white paint glistened in the first strong light. He had a presentiment that he would not see Mount Vernon or Patsy again for a long time. He watched with anguished eyes as she waved her hand in a final farewell.

  At the inn where they stopped for dinner, Lee told him emotionally what Patsy’s admonition to the delegates had been. She confided, “I hope you will all stand firm. I know George will.”

  When he heard the words, George got up and walked away from the table. If Patsy could say that to his friends and to her son, why could she not have spoken in a similar vein to him. Why had a chasm come between them at the very hour when their need for each other was greatest?

  May, 1775

  Philadelphia

  WHEN HE ARRIVED IN PHILADELPHIA, George found that many of the other members of the Congress had spent the winter mulling over the same sobering thoughts that he himself had considered. It was all very well to talk of rights, but the Colonies were poor. They were divided into sections, and there were many who considered George III the rightful ruler. There were many who saw as folly the pitting of a mouse against a tiger with almost certain ruin as the result.

  And yet, after all the negative elements had been considered, most of the delegates shared the hard, inflexible inner conviction that would not permit despotism. They probably would lose all they had in the struggle, but at least it would be lost with honor.

  Pro and con, wearying detail, patriotism and wrangling . . . George listened and observed; he approved the resolution to raise and send companies to Boston for the relief of that beleaguered city. Even as he voiced his approval, he was painfully aware that he was the only delegate in uniform and his military background was the subject of intense discussion.

  On June 14 the debate over the choice of a commander for the American troops began. When George heard John Adams begin his speech, he nodded in agreement. Adams was saying that if relief were not sent to the Colonial forces currently besieging the British outside Boston, and if that army were permitted to dissolve, a new one might never be raised. Adams slammed his hand against a desk to emphasize his point. “The time is now to present a united front to the King,” he thundered.

  Then, in a calmer voice, he began his proposal for the man he believed best suited to be commander in chief of the colonists. With growing dismay George listened as he realized the short and outspoken Adams was talking about him. Heads turned in his direction and finally he stood up and quietly left the room. In God’s name, if they were going to discuss his assets and liabilities as a military leader, his presence would be a bone in the throat.

  He returned to his lodging house and stayed there all that day and most of the next. He knew that in all likelihood his name would be acceptable to the delegates and he would be chosen to command the troops. His honesty made him face that fact; his humility questioned his ability to complete the task. In the day and a half that he stayed in his rooms he went over his affairs mentally, jotting down notes on any tasks that needed completing. If he were chosen to go to the Boston area, he would make out a new will. A man could die as easily in a skirmish as in a battle and his old will was no longer suitable.

  He resigned himself to the fact that if he should be appointed, he would have to go directly to Boston. No matter how much he desired it, a visit to Mount Vernon would be impossible. Maybe the separation would only be for a few months. Possibly, if the King saw the determination of the Colonies to stand together, a speedy and just reconciliation would take place. Then he could be home by Christmas. And possibly the siege of Boston was only the harbinger of months and even years of battles ahead.

  He would have to write to Patsy if he were not coming home. How could he tell her? Why had they not somehow resolved the sadness between them before he left? Pacing the room, George thought of the fourteen happy years that had ended when little Patsy died. In these past months he’d been so concerned about the affairs of the Colonies, was it possible that he failed his wife? Would Patsy have turned to him as she came out of that first terrible grief if he had not been so very involved with the meetings and the drills and the problems of government? Perhaps, even if he had been little Patsy’s natural father, Patsy would have had the same exclusive attitude about her grief. Mothers always did consider their feelings were deepest where children were concerned. Fathers were rather always pushed aside.

  But then there was the whole business of Jacky and college and marriage. His opinion and advice were simply ignored there. It would be so much easier if he didn’t care, so much easier if he felt the part of the stepfather and second husband. But long ago he had managed to stamp out his romantic love for Sally because it was the very need of his nature to be first in the life of his beloved. The need to be first had helped him to redeem the disaster of Monongahela. It had sustained him in his unending effort to transform Mount Vernon from a small house on limited acreage to a mansion on a plantation.

  Then why could he not be first with his wife, the very soul and center of his being?

  A knock came at the door and George slowly walked to open it. Several of the delegates were waiting to address him. Their greeting was the one he had expected and dreaded to hear. With an air of bringing great tidings they said, “Good evening, General.”

  After they had left, George went for a long walk. He would be leaving immediately for Cambridge. Would Patsy miss him? Of course she would. He’d write to Jacky and Nellie and tell them to go to Mount Vernon to stay with h
er. Thank heaven for Lund, who was a good overseer. Between him and Patsy they could run Mount Vernon.

  It was a warm and muggy evening. He walked up the streets and down quiet lanes. He passed a dry-goods shop with brightly colored material displayed in the window. One pattern with blue flowers scattered on a white background caught his eye. George hesitated a moment, then peered inside the window. The shopkeeper was still there. He went to the door, opened it, and stepped inside. A few minutes later he emerged with enough of the goods for a dress for Patsy. The proprietor had assured him that this was, by far, the prettiest pattern he’d ever laid his eyes on in the Colonies, and George agreed. Patsy would wear the gown this summer at Mount Vernon.

  But he would not be there to see her.

  June–November, 1775

  Cambridge, Massachusetts

  HE LEFT IN THE MORNING OF JUNE 23 on his trip toward Boston. He had bought a new phaeton and had sent the carriage back to Mount Vernon, but as usual he began the trip on horseback. It was easier to think, to plan, when he was outside, when he held reins in his hands, when he had the immediate choice of hastening or slowing. His company included his new aides Thomas Mifflin and Joseph Reed, and two of his generals, Charles Lee and Philip Schuyler.

  The journey to Cambridge took one week. In Newark and New York, in New Rochelle and New Haven—all along the way he was cheered to see the enthusiastic response the local inhabitants gave him. The news that companies of militia were springing up all through the Colonies was reassuring.

  But when they finally arrived at Cambridge, it was raining and no one knew quite when to expect them. It seemed to him symbolic of the end of fanfare and the beginning of war to arrive at his final destination, mud-spattered, unheralded, and unwelcomed.

  The irritations began immediately. The very first order of business came when he found that he and his officers were to stay in the house of Samuel Langdon, the president of Harvard College, while the owner was confined to one room. Washington listened to the arrangements and quietly decided to find another house immediately.

  Long ago he had chafed because a royal commission could outweigh his own similar rank as a Continental. He wasn’t surprised to learn at once that there was widespread grumbling about appointments in the American Army now. The New England generals had cause for grievance. Some of the best men had been made the juniors of the officers whom they had commanded in the Massachusetts forces—and the reversal was the result of stupidity on the part of the Congress.

  The first days at Cambridge spread daylight on the enormous task that lay before him. The English were securely in charge of Boston, but the geography of the area gave the Continentals protection against a surprise attack. He found more gunpowder than he’d been led to expect, and fewer guns. The fortifications were pitifully inadequate. If the British had any idea how poor they really were, they’d settle the whole affair immediately with an all-out attack.

  He found more men in the army than he’d counted on. He knew from the Bunker Hill battle that they were brave. He also found them ill-kempt, undisciplined, and untrained.

  George realized there would be no immediate confrontation. His task would be to maintain the siege on Boston but without direct attack. In the meantime he would try to make an army out of the Continentals.

  He moved to a new headquarters, the confiscated house of a loyalist. There, surrounded by his official family, he undertook the job of creating an army. Daily he expected a surprise attack from the British. The fact that the “lobsters,” as his men called the redcoats, made absolutely no overt attack led to a new and even grimmer worry. Were the British simply planning to wait them out, letting them feed and drill nearly twenty thousand men until winter drove them into scattering? Would this be a war won in the accounting house and the granary?

  He fed and drilled nineteen thousand men each week and the only action most of them saw was an occasional skirmish.

  Fall came to New England. During the rare breaks George permitted himself in his long days he would lay down his pen and walk to the window to observe the glorious yellows, oranges, greens, and browns of the New England landscape. He often longed to go out and take a walk in the chill bracing air, just as at Mount Vernon he often walked from the house down the steep bank through the woods to the low sandy shore of the Potomac.

  The vivid beauty of New England filled him with pride. To him no place on earth would ever have the beauty of his own acres, but in the first weeks he lived in Cambridge he came to appreciate the pretty town, the handsome farms, and the relentless unabating struggle the farmers had to wrest crops from the hard soil.

  New Englanders had a strength, a hard core of resistance that probably was the result of this bracing climate.

  North to south, New England farms to southern plantations, it was a land worth fighting for, a land that even without oppression would have eventually outgrown the role of son in the father’s house.

  During the moments when he stood, his palms pressed against the windowsills, staring out into the fall afternoons, George could feel the burdens and worry easing. It was as though he could look into the future: a future when the thirteen Colonies would push their boundaries westward, when yet unborn surveyors would stake off new land from virgin forests. The British Empire was ruled by a tiny island. How much more promise of mightiness these Colonies had, when eventually they could hope to expand on their own continent.

  Then he would go back to his desk, heartened and even more conscious of his role. He was not simply commander in chief of the revolutionary Colonies. He was one of the planters Providence had chosen to see that the mustard seed of a great nation was sown safely.

  It was this thought that helped him maintain an air of quiet confidence around his staff and before the troops. No one was permitted to see the total picture as he saw it: the hopelessly dark overall weakness of the Colonial forces.

  He heard from Lund and Patsy frequently. They both wrote as though they understood what he wanted to hear. Patsy told him about the doings at home. She gave a feminine viewpoint on the progress of the additions to the house. She kept him informed about which mares had foaled and wrote gossipy news about the slaves.

  She wrote with enthusiasm about their new bedroom. She had had their furniture moved into it and was already occupying it. “It is very handsome,” she wrote, “and I am sure you will be very pleased. The view is fine no matter what the weather. The furniture fits very well and the greater dimension of this room does it far more justice. The carpet has been laid with care. The dressing rooms are well-situated. You will enjoy the convenience of yours, I know. In truth, the whole feeling of these new quarters is so right for you that at night, when I lay in bed, I find myself waiting for your footstep.”

  In his first letter telling her he would not be returning he had begged her not to voice unhappiness because it would be too distressing to him. He had never received a single complaining letter. She did not really say that she missed him. But “at night she lay waiting for his footstep.” He wondered about those many nights that he had gone to their room and assumed she was asleep. Perhaps after all she had been awake. Was it possible that he might somehow have appeared to be showing pique at her continued mourning?

  He had felt that she did not consider him enough. Yet all her letters read, “You will be pleased to know”; “I think you will like”; “I smiled when I thought of your probable reaction to . . .”

  It was as though she was seeing life through his eyes. Wasn’t that proof of love? He wanted to see Patsy. His need for her permeated his very being.

  Lund kept him closely informed of overall developments at home. Lord Dunmore, the British governor of Virginia, had retreated with his family onto a British man-of-war and was threatening to shell the houses along the Potomac.

  Lund thought he should put off further work on the additions. If the house were burned, it would mean lost labor and a frightful waste of money. His papers were being packed away and taken to a safe p
lace. The overseer added that Mrs. Washington had undertaken that task herself.

  And then the message came that sent icy dread through George. Lund was worried about Patsy. He notified George that many Virginians believed Dunmore was planning to raze Mount Vernon and capture the wife of the commander in chief as a prisoner of war.

  George’s first reaction to the letter was disbelief. Lord Dunmore was an aristocrat. Every instinct assured George that he was too much the gentleman to wage war against a helpless woman. No. He would not deliberately attempt to harm Patsy. But Mount Vernon was something else. His own inordinate pride in the plantation was a source of respect and amusement to his friends. Certainly it was well-known to Dunmore.

  Why wouldn’t he in his rage shatter what it had taken General Washington years to build? After all he, Washington, was trying to tear down the system to which Dunmore was dedicated. And if Dunmore shelled Mount Vernon, Patsy might be in it.

  Oh, granted, Lund assured him that they had plans to spirit her away, that within ten minutes of sighting a ship she could be on her way to a prepared hiding place with friends. George knew that sometimes these ten-minute warnings simply did not exist. A vessel could slip up in a heavy fog and begin shelling before an alarm could be sounded.

  The thought made the lines across his forehead deepen and his air of reserve become more pronounced. Soon he was receiving tactful hints from his aide, Reed, that the commander in chief was felt to be haughty and aloof. Perhaps he could unbend a little.

  George found that if he relaxed at all, it was at the dinners or gatherings when some of the wives of his staff officers would lend a touch of gaiety and pleasure to the atmosphere. He especially enjoyed pretty Kitty Greene, the wife of one of his most trusted officers, Nathanael Greene. Kitty was the niece of a prominent Rhode Island legislator. She was desperately in love with grave Nat Greene but still just a bit of a natural flirt. She would start an evening by being very deferential to George, and then her natural humor would bubble up and he’d find himself laughing at her quips.