Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  Elizabeth had little choice but to do exactly that. The town, New Market, was in a sad, dilapidated condition that spoke plainly of the heartless destruction of war. Climbing down from the stage and collecting her satchel, she found her way into a hotel, really little more than a house, where she was able to buy a cup of coffee and gather her wits. When she inquired about a ride back to Rude’s Hill, the landlord told her that the stage would return that evening.

  “This evening?” Elizabeth’s spirits plummeted. It was only just dawn. “I want to go as soon as possible. I should die if I had to stay all day in this lonely place.”

  She didn’t mean to insult the residents of the tiny hamlet, but fortunately few of them were present to hear. The landlord shrugged and said there was nothing he could do, so she settled down for a long wait, utterly dejected.

  She had not sat there long, sipping her cooling coffee, when the colored man behind the bar came over to her table. “I’m sorry for your troubles, ma’am.”

  She managed a tremulous smile. “That is very kind of you.”

  “I know Gen’ral Meem’s place. I can drive you over in ’bout an hour.”

  Elizabeth seized her chance. “Oh, could you? That would be the most joyful news I’ve heard in days.”

  He assured her it would be his pleasure, and in turn she thanked him and urged him to set out as soon as possible.

  She finished her coffee and waited outside the door of the hotel for her courteous driver to bring his wagon around. While she stood there, fighting to conceal her impatience, a fat old lady spied her from across the street and waddled over to greet her. “Ain’t you Elizabeth?”

  “Yes, I am,” she replied, startled that the stranger should know her name.

  “I thought so.” The woman smiled, revealing several missing teeth. “They been expecting you at Rude’s Hill every day for two weeks, and they do little but talk about you. Mrs. Meem was in town yesterday, and she said that she expected you this week certain. They will be mighty glad to see you.”

  At this news, Elizabeth’s spirits rose slightly. “I will be even gladder to see them.”

  “Well, as to that I couldn’t say,” the woman said, chuckling hoarsely. “They’ve kept a light burning in the front window every night for ten nights, in order that you might not go by the place should you arrive in the night.”

  “Thank you,” Elizabeth said fervently, feeling much restored. “It’s pleasant to know that I’m expected. I fell asleep in the stage, and failed to see the light, so here I am instead of at Rude’s Hill, where I meant to be.”

  As the woman clucked sympathetically, the man from the hotel pulled up in his wagon. Elizabeth climbed aboard, and soon they were on the road to General Meem’s country seat. “That’s Rude’s Hill,” her driver remarked, nodding to a picturesque green rise encircled with tall trees as they approached. Elizabeth shaded her eyes with her hands as they climbed the hill, eager for her first glimpse of her old acquaintances. She spied a young man standing in the front yard, quickly tallied the years and subtracted from his apparent age, and deduced that he must be Spotswood—or Spot, as everyone called him, shortening the old family name. She had not seen him in eight years, but when she beckoned to him, he cried out with joy and came running. His happy shout drew the attention of the rest of the family, who had been waiting by the windows or on the veranda but now came hurrying to the wagon. “It is Elizabeth! It is Elizabeth,” she heard them cry happily, and eager to be among them, she stepped from the wagon to the top of the stile—but when she attempted to leap down, her hoopskirt caught on one of the posts, and she fell sprawling to the ground.

  “Elizabeth,” someone exclaimed. Her palms stung and her right knee throbbed from the impact, and she lay there, dazed, the smell of fresh Virginia soil with a pungent undercurrent of manure filling her senses.

  Spot reached her first and hauled her to her feet, and a moment later she was in the arms of Miss Nannie, Miss Maggie, and Mrs. Garland. She scarcely had time to properly thank her kind driver before they whisked her into the house, tended to her soiled hands and skirts, and settled her into an easy chair by the hearth. All the while, the servants looked on in amazement.

  Beaming with joy, Miss Nannie clung to her hand as if she would never let go. “Elizabeth, you are not changed a bit,” she declared, kissing Elizabeth again on the cheek, her eyes filling with happy tears. “You look as young as when you left us in St. Louis, years ago.”

  “I cannot say the same,” Elizabeth replied, laughing. “You have quite grown up!”

  Miss Nannie smiled proudly and beckoned to a tall, graceful young woman. “Here, Elizabeth, this is Minnie, Minnie Pappan, sister Mary’s child. Hasn’t she grown?”

  “Minnie,” Elizabeth exclaimed, extending her hand to the young woman, who smiled, took it, and sat down on the footstool. “I can hardly believe it. You were only a baby when I saw you last. It makes me feel quite old to see how tall you have grown. Miss Minnie, you are bigger than your mother was—your dear mother whom I held in my arms when she died.” Elizabeth had to pause to compose herself, wiping a tear from each eye.

  “Have you had your breakfast, Elizabeth?” asked Mrs. Garland.

  When Elizabeth shook her head, the children let out a chorus of vows that they would take care of that right away. “It is not necessary that all should go,” Mrs. Garland said, laughing, as Nannie, Maggie, and Minnie headed for the kitchen. “The cook is there. She will get breakfast ready.”

  But the three young ladies did not heed her. They rushed to the kitchen, and soon they brought Elizabeth a delicious hot breakfast on a tray. While Elizabeth ate, the cook observed the commotion from the doorway, astonished. “I declare, I never did see people carry on so,” she said, shaking her head. “Wonder if I should go off and stay two or three years, if all of you would hug and kiss me so when I come back?” The Garlands laughed and teased her, saying that they could not spare her so she must not test the theory.

  Soon after Elizabeth finished her breakfast, Miss Nannie’s husband arrived. “Elizabeth, I am very glad to see you,” he greeted her. “I feel that you are an old acquaintance, I have heard so much of you through my wife.”

  “And me,” Miss Maggie interjected.

  General Meem smiled. “Yes, and you, and your mother. Welcome to Rude’s Hill, Elizabeth.”

  In the days that followed, Elizabeth learned that during the war, General Stonewall Jackson had used Rude’s Hill as his headquarters, and he had slept in the very room Elizabeth was given as a sitting room. General Jackson was the Southern ideal of a soldier, and admirers from far and near still came to Rude’s Hill to pay tribute to their fallen hero, to walk in his footsteps. Elizabeth observed that nearly every visitor would tear a splinter from the walls or windows of her sitting room, which they would carry away and treasure as a priceless relic. The Garlands’ plantation was beautiful, but the scars of war were visible everywhere upon the house and the landscape. General Meem had taken up planting, and he employed many laborers to tend the fields and servants to care for the home.

  Elizabeth soon discovered that she evoked great curiosity in the neighborhood. Her association with Mr. Lincoln, and her attachment to the Garlands, her former owners, had garbed her in the disguise of a tragic heroine from a sentimental romance. Elizabeth thought it was nonsense, but she did not complain. She was comfortably quartered at Rude’s Hill, and the Garlands showed her every attention. They passed the days sewing together or talking of old times, and every day they either drove about the countryside or rode on horseback.

  Elizabeth and Mrs. Garland—Miss Anne, as Elizabeth would always think of her—had many long talks alone. For the first time Elizabeth searched her former mistress’s face and discovered features that resembled her own. She wondered if the long, quiet looks Miss Anne often gave her meant she was doing the same. Miss Anne was only eight years older than she, they were children of the same father, and yet their lives could not have been more differen
t.

  Once, while they were out walking through the new flower garden Miss Anne had only recently begun to cultivate, Elizabeth asked her what had become of her aunt Charlotte, her mother’s only sister. She had been maid to the elder Mrs. Burwell, Miss Anne’s mother.

  “She is dead, Lizzie,” Miss Anne said gently. “She has been dead for some years.” She sighed, and her eyes seemed to gaze back through the years. “A maid in the old time meant something different from what we understand by a maid at the present time. Your aunt used to scrub the floor and milk a cow now and then, as well as attend to the orders of my mother.”

  “I remember,” said Elizabeth, clasping her hands behind her back as they walked. She supposed she probably knew better than her former mistress what her aunt’s chores had included.

  “My mother was severe with her slaves in some respects, but then her heart would be full of kindness.”

  Elizabeth mulled that over. “I suppose that’s fair to say.”

  “She had your aunt punished one day—”

  “For what offense?”

  “I don’t recall what she did, or didn’t do,” Miss Anne admitted, “but my mother punished her. Not liking her sorrowful looks, my mother made your aunt two extravagant promises on the condition that she would look cheerful, and be good and friendly with her again.”

  Silently, Elizabeth cheered for her stubborn aunt. “What did she promise?”

  “First, that Charlotte might go to church the following Sunday, and second, that my mother would give her a silk dress to wear on the occasion.”

  “Extravagant indeed,” remarked Elizabeth. “I assume that my aunt accepted?”

  “Oh, certainly. Now, my mother had but one silk dress in the world, silk being not so plentiful in those days as it is now, and yet she gave this dress to her maid so they would be friends again.” Miss Anne laughed merrily.

  “Did your mother’s plan work?” Elizabeth asked. “Were they friendly again?”

  “Oh, her plan worked all right, and it was fortunate for Mother that it did. Two weeks afterward, she was invited to spend the day at a neighbor’s house, but when she inspected her wardrobe, she discovered that she had nothing fit to wear in company.”

  Elizabeth felt a slow smile grow on her lips. “Is that so?”

  Miss Anne nodded, amused. “She had but one alternative, and that was to appeal to the generosity of your aunt Charlotte. So, she was summoned, and the problem was explained to her, and the maid offered to loan her silk dress to the mistress for the occasion, and the mistress was only too glad to accept. She made her appearance arrayed in the silk that her maid had worn to church on the preceding Sunday.”

  They laughed together over the incident, although perhaps not for the same reasons.

  “Elizabeth—” Miss Anne broke off, and they walked in silence for a long moment before she spoke again. “During the entire war I used to think of you every day, and have longed to see you so much. When we heard you were with Mrs. Lincoln, the people used to tell me that I was foolish to think of ever seeing you again—that your head must be completely turned.”

  “And of course you believed their wise counsel,” said Elizabeth lightly, “because people who have never met me are always the best judge of my character.”

  “Of course not,” Miss Anne protested. “I knew your heart, and I could not believe that you would forget us. I always insisted that you would come to see us someday.”

  “How could I forget the people I grew up with from the time I was a baby?” asked Elizabeth. “My Northern friends used to tell me that you would forget me, but I told them I knew better, and I didn’t lose hope.”

  “Love is too strong to be blown away like gossamer threads,” Miss Anne said. “The chain is strong enough to bind life even to the world beyond the grave.” Abruptly she halted and placed a hand on Elizabeth’s forearm to bring her to a stop too. “Elizabeth,” she said, suddenly anxious. “Do you always feel kindly toward me?”

  Elizabeth chose her words carefully. “To tell you candidly, Miss Anne, I have but one unkind thought, and that is that you didn’t give me the advantages of a good education, which was my heart’s desire. All I have learned has been the study of later years.”

  Miss Anne pressed her lips together and nodded. “You’re right,” she said unhappily. “I didn’t look on things then as I do now. I’ve always regretted that you weren’t educated when you were a girl.” She paused and managed a wan smile. “But you haven’t suffered much on this score, since you get along in the world better than we who enjoyed every educational advantage.”

  Elizabeth did not contradict her. Miss Anne was a widow dependent upon the generosity of her brother-in-law, whereas while Elizabeth was also a widow, she was independent and self-sufficient, a prosperous businesswoman. She had been an intimate of the Lincoln White House, and except for the death of her son, she had not suffered from the war as the Garlands, Meems, and Pappans had.

  She would not trade places with her former mistress, Elizabeth realized, despite Miss Anne’s privileges and advantages. She was proud of all she had done for herself without them, and she was proud of the woman she had become.

  Elizabeth remained at Rude’s Hill for five weeks, and parted from Miss Anne and her children with heartfelt wishes on all sides that they would meet again someday.

  Chapter Fifteen

  OCTOBER 1866–FEBRUARY 1868

  When Elizabeth returned to Washington, she had much business to attend to and mail to sort. Most of the letters were from Mrs. Lincoln, who struggled on as lonely and miserable as ever. In the summer she had become so weary of boarding that she spent nearly all of her husband’s remaining 1865 salary granted to her by Congress on a fine stone home on West Washington Street in Chicago. She and Tad had settled there, in a popular neighborhood near Union Park, while Robert had moved into a bachelor apartment, where he was no doubt much happier.

  After much consideration, Mrs. Lincoln had also warily consented to speak with Mr. Herndon, but when they met in Springfield in September, Mrs. Lincoln had tried to flatter and charm her husband’s would-be biographer into leaving her out of his book altogether. “I told him that it was not unusual to mention the existence of the wife, in the biography of her husband, with nothing more than to note that the two were married on this particular date in such and such a place,” she wrote to Elizabeth. “I wish he would say nothing at all of me, but I hope he will say no more of me than that. I do not know if my pleas will convince him. He has disliked me since we met at a dance at the home of Colonel Robert Allen, shortly after I first came to Springfield. Mr. Herndon engaged me for a waltz, and afterward, he told me that I had glided through the dance with the grace of a serpent. A serpent, Elizabeth! Hotly I replied, ‘Mr. Herndon, comparison to a serpent is rather severe irony, especially to a newcomer,’ and I promptly left him. I believe he has harbored a grudge against me ever since, but as he was my husband’s law partner, we were often thrown together, and our relations were civil, if not friendly. I can only trust that his fond memory of my husband will prevent him from taking out any lingering resentment upon me. I do believe he means to exalt my husband in his book, in which case it is my duty as his widow to share my memories of him, which are more intimate than anyone else’s.”

  Elizabeth received Mrs. Lincoln’s letter too late to write back and advise her against the interview, but she consoled herself with the realization that it might not have mattered in any case. Mrs. Lincoln could have disregarded Elizabeth’s misgivings, or Mr. Herndon might have written whatever he pleased even without speaking with Mrs. Lincoln. Elizabeth hoped that whatever Mr. Herndon chose to do, it would be of so little consequence that no one would ever hear of it, but in this matter she was disappointed. In November, Mr. Herndon delivered another lecture, which he arranged to distribute widely on broadsides in advance and which was reprinted in newspapers throughout the nation. In his lecture, the perfidious Mr. Herndon claimed that Mr. Lincoln had neve
r loved his wife, but instead pined for Miss Ann Rutledge, to whom he had been engaged until her untimely death in 1835. After that, he had never addressed another woman with love and affection. He had even signed his letters to Miss Mary Todd “Your Friend Abraham Lincoln” rather than “Yours affectionately,” and he had eventually married her only out of obligation to honor. Thus Mary Lincoln was not to blame for the well-known difficulties in the marriage, because Mr. Lincoln had never loved her.

  When Elizabeth read the shocking assertions, her heart went out to Mrs. Lincoln. If Mr. Herndon’s intention had been to wound the grieving widow, he could not have chosen a more devastating tactic. On the first anniversary of her husband’s death, Mrs. Lincoln had written to Elizabeth, “It was always music in my ears, both before and after our marriage, when my husband told me that I was the only one he had ever thought of, or cared for. That will solace me to my grave.” Now Mr. Herndon had stolen that comfort from her. And on what shaky grounds? Was Mr. Herndon constantly at Mr. Lincoln’s side, day and night, year after year, so that he could with all certainty confirm that Mr. Lincoln had never addressed any other woman but Miss Ann Rutledge with love and affection? Had he read every letter Mr. Lincoln had written to his wife, heard every word uttered? Elizabeth could not count how many kind, affectionate phrases she had heard Mr. Lincoln speak to his wife through the years. Admittedly, they had quarreled from time to time, but so did every husband and wife of Elizabeth’s acquaintance, and however hotly their tempers flared, Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln had always been anxious to make up soon afterward.

  It comforted Elizabeth very little—and as she would learn in letters yet to come, Mrs. Lincoln not at all—that Mr. Herndon was roundly disparaged for his lectures. The people were shocked and appalled that he would violate all standards of decorum by addressing such intimate details of the martyred president’s life, and many were sure that Miss Rutledge was a figment of his imagination. A furious Robert Lincoln took measures to discredit and silence the aspiring biographer, warning that the subject of the Lincoln family was strictly off-limits for his manuscript in progress. The Lincolns’ pastor from their Springfield days, Dr. James Smith, wrote a scathing rebuke, addressed to Mr. Herndon but widely published in the newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune, which was where Mrs. Lincoln discovered it. The pastor had read Mr. Herndon’s lecture “with feelings of mingled indignation and Sorrow, because coming as it did from his intimate friend and law partner, it was calculated to do the character of that great and good man an incalculable injury, deeply to wound the feelings of his heart broken widow and her orphan boys, and to place that whole family both the dead and living, in their family relations, in a most unenviable light before the public.” He emphatically asserted that no man was better placed to know Mr. Lincoln’s heart than his pastor, esteemed and respected by the family, entrusted with their spiritual care, intimate with all the joys and sorrows of their lives, relied upon for his advice and counsel. “During the seven years when he and myself were at home,” he wrote, “scarcely two weeks ever passed during which I did not spend a pleasant evening in the midst of that family Circle.” Dr. Smith’s intimacy with the Lincoln family had convinced him that Mr. Lincoln was “utterly incapable of withholding from the Bride he led to the Altar that which was her due, by giving her a heart dead and buried in the grave of Another; but that in the deep and honest sincerity of his Soul, he gave her a heart overflowing with love and affection.” He was certain that Mr. Lincoln “was to the Wife of his bosom a most faithful, loving and Affectionate husband.”