Mrs. Lincoln's Rival

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  Though she had begun to follow the men, Kate was inclined to agree with her sister. Surely the second- or even third-best table would more than suffice, but before she could speak, she heard a woman say, “William?”

  William halted and slowly turned, his face ashen. Quickly Kate glanced over her shoulder and discovered a woman frozen in place in the doorway of the dining room, staring at William with wide brown eyes. She seemed closer to William’s age than her own, slender and brown-haired, and she clutched the hand of a young boy who looked to be no more than five years of age. The child had fine, silky dark-brown hair, and brown eyes that turned down at the corners. He stared up at William with shy recognition and put his fingers in his mouth.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Anderson,” said William in a strangled voice.

  She blinked at him, as bewildered as if he had addressed her in an ancient foreign tongue. “William?” she repeated, and then her gaze fell upon Kate. “Oh. I see.”

  “This is my wife, Mrs. Sprague.” William scarcely looked at the mother and child. “This is her sister, Miss Chase.”

  “How do you do,” said Mrs. Anderson flatly.

  Kate scarcely heard her over the strange roaring in her ears. She could not tear her gaze away from the boy. That silky dark hair, those eyes . . .

  She had addressed William by his given name. He had not introduced his sister, which meant that Mrs. Anderson knew her too.

  “How do you do?” asked Nettie, a trifle sharply.

  “William,” said Almyra quickly, “I find that I’m feeling indisposed. Will you take me home?”

  “Yes, I too am feeling quite unwell,” said Kate faintly, instinctively resting her hand upon her abdomen.

  With a nod for Mrs. Anderson but not another word, William offered his arms to his wife and sister and quickly led them from the hotel, with Nettie following close behind. He summoned a carriage and helped the ladies into it, and soon they were speeding off to Young Orchard. No one spoke. William glared furiously, Almyra wrung her hands and glanced furtively from her brother to Kate and back, and sweet Nettie frowned, looking as suspicious and confused and worried as Kate felt.

  When Kate could bear the brittle silence no longer, she asked, “Who was that woman?”

  “She is no one you need concern yourself about,” William snapped.

  “Brother,” exclaimed Almyra, but one sharp look silenced her again.

  Suddenly Kate knew—not who Mrs. Anderson was, or the exact circumstances of her acquaintance with William, but she knew very well what Mrs. Anderson was to him, or had been, around five years before.

  She was too shocked and distressed to weep. As soon as they reached Young Orchard, Kate climbed awkwardly down from the carriage without waiting for assistance and fled inside and upstairs to the room she and William shared when they visited his mother’s house. She did not know that Nettie had followed until she turned to shut the door and discovered her sister there. Unable to speak, she gestured for Nettie to enter and quickly locked the door behind them.

  She flung herself on the bed, silently weeping. Nettie sat down beside her, took her head on her lap, and stroked her hair. Wordlessly, Kate clutched her other hand, tears streaming down her face, trembling and heartsick.

  Kate lost track of time, so it could have been minutes or perhaps hours before a knock sounded on the door.

  “Who’s there?” Nettie called.

  “It is I,” said Madame Fanny, her voice muffled by the door. “May I come in?”

  When Kate stiffened, Nettie squeezed her hand reassuringly. “Are you alone?”

  “I am.”

  Nettie raised her eyebrows in a question, and Kate took a deep breath and nodded. As Nettie went to unlock the door, Kate sat up, head spinning, and quickly dried her eyes with her handkerchief.

  Madame Fanny entered; she regarded Kate sympathetically before seating herself in a chair by the window. “So, you have met Mrs. Anderson.”

  Neither of the sisters replied.

  Madame Fanny sighed. “I urged my son to tell you before you wed to avoid this unfortunate situation.”

  “What situation,” asked Nettie clearly, “is this, precisely?”

  Kate braced herself, praying that the truth would be no worse than what she imagined.

  “Mrs. Anderson was born Mary Viall,” said Madame Fanny after a preamble of a long, weary sigh. “Her family is one of the most prominent in Richmond, but as a younger woman, Mary’s ideas of—what do they call it—‘free love’ put her at odds with the Vialls’ conservative ways. She fell in love with my son and, well, she was quite enticing, and he succumbed to her wiles. Eventually she was discovered to be in a delicate condition.”

  At last Kate understood why the Spragues were not received in Providence society.

  “Why did he not marry her?”

  “As to that”—Madame Fanny shrugged—“he never had any intention of marrying her, as he had made clear to her from the very beginning, but she insisted she did not mind. Love without wedlock was perfectly in keeping with her philosophy. Her kind believes that ‘instincts of love’ are what legitimize acts of intimacy, not the law or the church.”

  “Her kind?” Nettie echoed skeptically.

  “Believers in free love,” Madame Fanny clarified. “I did not mean to suggest she was a fallen woman. She was a good girl from a respectable family.”

  Perhaps she had been, Kate thought, until William came into her life. “He ruined her and then abandoned her.”

  “He did not abandon her. He did not marry her, but he provides for her and the child.” Madame Fanny paused before adding, “Of course, we are not certain the boy is even his.”

  That hair, those eyes. “Of course the child is his. I can see that. Anyone can see that. Everyone must have known.” Everyone but Kate.

  “Not necessarily. When William departed for Europe soon after Miss Viall discovered her condition, her parents quickly arranged for her to marry a military officer by the name of Anderson.” A flicker of embarrassment appeared on her face before she added, defensively, “Mr. Anderson left her soon afterward, but she is properly married, and as far as the world knows, Mr. Anderson is the child’s father.”

  “Why did William never tell me?” Kate fought back a sob, and Nettie held her shoulders, lending her strength. “Why did no one tell me?”

  “This all happened long before my son met you. It belongs to the past.”

  “And yet I still had a right to know.”

  “This does not change William’s love for you.”

  “Perhaps not, but it changes everything about the man I thought I married.” How could he have kept such a secret from her? Why had no kindhearted person told her?

  And then memory flooded her—the spindly, white-haired woman at the reception in City Hall, leaning on her cane and studying her with sympathetic curiosity.

  “What is the child’s name?” Kate asked.

  Madame Fanny frowned. “What could that possibly matter?”

  “I want to know.”

  “He is not called William Sprague, Junior, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

  Insistent, Kate said, “Tell me his name.”

  “Hamlet,” Madame Fanny snapped. “His name is Hamlet Anderson. A foolish, fanciful, poetical name, bestowed upon him by a flighty, poetical mother.”

  “Hamlet,” Kate echoed numbly, lying back down on the bed and wrapping her arms protectively around the child in her womb.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  * * *

  MARCH–APRIL 1865

  I

  n the inevitable row that followed, William was by turns imploring and hostile, begging Kate’s forgiveness in one breath and in the next insisting that the affair was irrelevant, for it had begun and ended long before they met. “You do not command me,” he growled, seizing her by
the upper arm and shaking her so roughly that she knew he would leave bruises.

  “It has nothing to do with command,” she cried, tearing herself free of his grasp. “It’s bad enough that you sired a child out of wedlock and abandoned his mother—that is your crime against them. Your crime against me is that you concealed it. It is a lie by omission, and it was wrong, and you know it.”

  “Who are you to judge me?” he snapped. “You’ve had your own indiscretions and your own lies. I know you were no virgin when you married me. You were but a seductive and licentious girl when you gave to Richard Nevins what you should have saved for me.”

  “How could you even think such a thing?”

  “How could you have hoped to fool me?” he countered. “You knew too much when we took to our bridal chamber, and you’ve enjoyed it more than is proper for a lady ever since. That, coupled with the liberties you allowed me before we wed, is evidence enough of your impurity.”

  “I knew the little I did on our wedding night because of what you had shown me during our courtship,” she protested, deliberately omitting Mrs. Douglas’s role in her education for her friend’s sake. “I’ve enjoyed it, but with you, and only with you. Would you have me shrink from your embrace?”

  He did not bother to respond. “The boy is none of your concern,” he snarled instead, and stormed from the room.

  As soon as he left, Nettie darted back in and held her until she stopped shaking. Kate had no idea how an argument sparked by William’s sin and deception had turned into an inquisition into her sexual purity, but it was clear that there was apparently no limit to the ways her husband was able to wound her.

  She wanted to go home to Washington, but William forbade it. When several days passed with no lessening of her resolve, William adopted a more conciliatory tone, encouraging her to come with him to Narragansett as they had planned, to enjoy the spring sea air and to tour the mansion, which he assured her was coming along magnificently. “We are husband and wife,” he reminded her. “That is irrevocable, so let us forget the past and think instead of our future. We could still be very happy, Kate, in our beautiful home with our precious child.”

  She knew he meant to entice her with beauty and comfort, but she was too heartsick to be tempted. When he still refused to pay the train fare, she resignedly told him that she would telegraph Father and have him make travel arrangements for her and Nettie instead. At that, such a look of shock came over William’s face that Kate knew he had only just realized that Father, whom he greatly admired, would soon know of his lies and indiscretions. He attempted to bargain with her, offering to pay the sisters’ travel expenses in exchange for her promise not to tell Father about young Hamlet. “I will not conspire to conceal your secret from my father,” said Kate, astonished. “The truth will come out. You must know that.”

  William looked so stricken that in any other circumstances Kate would have felt sorry for him.

  Later that afternoon, he relented, and the next day when he saw Kate and Nettie off at the train station, he seemed genuinely remorseful. “I’m truly very sorry I didn’t tell you the truth from the beginning,” he said, seizing her hand as she was about to board. “My family has kept this secret so long that it didn’t occur to me to reveal it, not even to you—nor, I admit, did I see the necessity.”

  Kate knew that in this he was being utterly truthful—but it was an uncomfortable truth, revealing how little honesty and frankness he thought he owed her.

  Nettie had written to tell Father they were coming home early, but not why, and so soon after their arrival, they sat down together in his study and Kate revealed the whole unhappy tale. Father was greatly distressed and angry, and he was grievously sorry that he had not inquired into William’s past more thoroughly before giving his consent to the marriage. “But what is done is done,” he said resignedly. “You must find a way to reconcile with him. Your Christian forgiveness and uncomplaining submission will compel him to be a better man. I am sure of it.”

  Kate was far less certain, and when her eyes met Nettie’s, she knew her sister felt the same. And yet she knew she had little choice but to make the best peace she could, for her child’s sake.

  Soon after his daughters returned to Washington, Father left for Baltimore to attend to his duties on the circuit court. Baltimore was close enough that he would be able to return home from time to time, and yet Kate felt bereft, even with Nettie for company.

  In the last week of March, John Hay invited her to go driving, and she gladly agreed. Even though he had confided his intentions at the Inaugural Ball, she was surprised and saddened when he told her that he had submitted his resignation to the president. “I’ve been appointed secretary of legation of the United States in Paris,” he announced proudly. “I’ll sail for France as soon as the president can spare me.”

  “I hope that won’t be soon,” said Kate as the carriage rolled slowly along the riverbank. They sat on the same side, so close that John could have taken her hand if he wanted.

  “June, I think,” said John. “Of course, I won’t go as long as my services here seem essential.”

  Kate managed a laugh. “I suspect Mr. Lincoln would argue that your services are essential in perpetuity. Indeed, I have no doubt that they are.”

  “I’m sure the Tycoon will replace me easily enough.”

  “I think you underestimate how much he relies upon you. Don’t you feel even the smallest twinge of conscience for abandoning him to gad about Paris?”

  “Abandoning him? Gad about?” John echoed, astonished. “I think you accuse me unfairly. Paris is indeed a pleasant place, but I go for study and observation. I shall no doubt enjoy it for a year or so—but not very long, as I don’t wish to exile myself in these important and interesting times.”

  “They are certainly interesting,” agreed Kate, unable to keep the regret from her voice.

  “I go away only to fit myself for more serious work when I return.” His brow furrowed; he had not missed the subtle shift in her tone. “I will come back, and when I do, I’ll call on you, and you can introduce me to your little bundle of joy, and I’ll marvel at what a wonderful, doting mother you have become.”

  Tears filled her eyes, and she turned her head away. “My parlor will seem very dull to you after Paris, I think.”

  “Anyplace in your company, dull?” A note of amusement in his voice compelled her to turn back to him, and the fondness and admiration in his eyes brought her both comfort and ineffable grief. “Never, Kate. Never that.”

  • • •

  As the Senate had adjourned sine die before the Spragues’ ill-fated excursion to Rhode Island, William had no compelling reason to return to Washington City except to see Kate, and to her relief, he seemed eager to establish a truce through the mail first. His letters were tentative but kind, free of the recriminations that had marked their arguments. Gradually they became warmer, more wistful and loving. Kate responded to his letters dutifully, but she wrote to him less often than he wrote to her. Her shock and anger had subsided, but a dull melancholy replaced them as she grappled with the disappointing truth that the child within her womb was her first, but not her husband’s. They would not share the joy and wonder of new parenthood in the way she had fondly imagined, and she could not help feeling that William and his paramour had stolen something precious from her. From time to time, William strongly hinted that he remained in Rhode Island only because she had not asked him to come home. She was not ready to do so quite yet, but she hoped that in time she could be.

  While Father and William were away from the capital, so too was Mr. Lincoln. At the end of March, the president, Mrs. Lincoln, and Tad had traveled by steamer to City Point to visit General Grant and his wife, Julia. According to John Hay, the president wanted to review the troops and confer with his general in chief before what was expected to be a climactic battle. “I fancy he will do very little e
xcept satisfy his own curiosity and gratify in some measure that of the public, by sending telegrams to Stanton,” Father told Kate, with some disdain. “What little he may do besides that will be, I fear, not well done.”

  Based upon the newspaper reports printed upon their departure, Kate had expected the Lincolns to remain in Virginia for a week or more, but to her surprise, Mrs. Lincoln returned a few days later without her husband and son—and rumors swirled about of an embarrassing altercation between her and another lady in the party.

  Intrigued, Kate was delighted when John called on her and told her the story of “The Hellcat’s Escapade,” as he titled it, a tale he had pieced together from conversations between Mrs. Lincoln and her dressmaker and gossip shared by trusted eyewitnesses. Escorted by General Grant, Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln had gone out to review the troops with a small party of companions. The president had ridden ahead on horseback with General Grant and two officers’ wives, but Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Grant had been obliged to follow in an ambulance slowed to a crawl by a rough corduroyed road and shin-deep mud. After much delay and hassle, the carriage caught up to the horseback riders—and Mrs. Lincoln discovered that the review had begun without her and that the attractive wife of Major General Edward Ord was riding alongside Mr. Lincoln in her place. Seized by jealousy, the Hellcat gave Mrs. Ord a terrible tongue lashing, turned her fury upon the astonished Mrs. Grant when she tried to intervene, and demanded that her husband immediately relieve Major General Ord of his duties.

  “How terrible,” exclaimed Kate, delighted. “Did Mr. Lincoln banish her from City Point, or did she return home out of shame on her own?”

  “I’m not sure. You’d have to ask her.”

  Kate laughed. “Oh, I dare not.”