by Dorothy Love
“Robert Edward Lee, what a happy sight!” I couldn’t hide my joy at seeing my favorite cousin. We had been childhood playmates and the closest of confidants before he left for his studies at West Point. Cadets were allowed only a single leave at the end of their second year, and the separation seemed interminable.
“Hello, Molly,” he said, using my old childhood nickname. He came up the steps and clasped my hands tightly. “I cannot tell you how long I have waited for this day.”
We went into the house together. Except for the servants, we were alone.
“I went first to Arlington, and your mother told me you were here,” he said. “I came as soon as I could.”
“I’m glad you did,” I said. “Have you had any breakfast?”
“No, but I don’t want anything.” He set his leather hat on the table in the parlor. “All I could think about these past weeks was how much I wanted to walk with you and read with you and ride with you.”
“So you said in your letters.”
Robert had been an extraordinarily handsome boy, and in his two-year absence he had matured into a strong and handsome man.
“I missed you, Cousin.”
“Splendid. Perhaps I can make you forget those other beaux who danced attendance on you while I was away.”
“I wouldn’t call them beaux, exactly. And anyway, they have all absconded now.”
He smiled, seemingly relieved. “What have you been doing?”
I told him about my book-sorting project and led him into the library to see for himself.
“You’ve grown up since I’ve been gone,” he said. “You seem so much more serious now.”
“Maybe I am.” I was not very good at sharing my innermost thoughts, but there in the Turners’ library with dust motes swirling in the beams of sunlight streaming through the tall windows, I told Robert how very badly I wanted to make a contribution to something that mattered. “After all, what is life worth if you can’t accomplish in it something for the benefit of others? Especially those who are so entirely dependent upon our will and pleasure.”
“Your mother mentioned that you two are still working on behalf of the colonization society.”
“Yes, but progress is difficult when we are obliged to purchase slaves in order to free them. And then there is the cost of their passage to Liberia.”
I nattered on, because suddenly it had become important to me that he understand. I leaned on the corner of Thomas’s desk. “The children have nothing that’s only theirs, and the fact of it is truly shameful. An education, however rudimentary, is something that no one can take away from them, whether they choose to go to Liberia or not. And one day when—”
He smiled then.
“Are you laughing at me?”
“Of course not. I was thinking how pretty you look in that green dress.”
“Oh.” For the first time in my life I felt shy around him.
“And you have changed your hair too. It’s very becoming.”
“Mother says ringlets are all the rage these days. I take her word for it.”
“So you are still not interested in fashion.”
“Not in the least.”
Elizabeth and her girls returned from their visit to the foal then, exclaiming over Robert and asking a thousand questions about his life at West Point. By the time Thomas and the boys returned, it was too late for breakfast, but presently an early dinner was set before us, during which Robert described his studies and his plans to become a member of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Wilhelmina came in with dessert—a strawberry cake with boiled icing. Robert ate two pieces, and after a polite interval in the parlor he caught my eye.
“What do you say, Mary? Shall we go riding?”
We set out across the meadow at a smart canter, giving the horses their lead. We forded a shallow stream and passed through a forest thick with old oaks clothed in summer green.
I was so happy to see Robert I could have ridden with him all day, listening to his tales of life at West Point, but after an hour the sun disappeared and black clouds boiled up in the distance.
“We ought to head back,” Robert said, and we turned our mounts for home.
But the sky suddenly opened and we were caught in a downpour. We sheltered beneath a stand of old oaks. Raindrops glittered in the gusts of warm, humid air that blew against our faces. A low rumble of thunder startled my little mare, and Robert reached for my reins.
Our fingers touched. His eyes met mine and held, and all at once everything changed, and I knew.
The storm slackened and we rode home. Leaving our horses to the stable boy, we went inside, laughing together and shaking off the rain.
Supper that night was a feast to welcome Robert home. Everything was delicious, but I was too jittery, remembering the touch of his hand on mine. I pushed my food around on my plate, listening to the Turner clan chatter on about the new foal, all the while wondering how on earth I could continue to breathe if Robert did not return my tender feelings.
Thomas said something that made everyone laugh. Robert caught my eye across the candlelit table and smiled. And I saw then—to my great delight—that he too understood we were meant for each other.
I knew he couldn’t declare himself for a long while yet. He still had two more years at West Point, and after that the challenge of his first posting as an army engineer. But on that warm May evening at Kinloch, I was as happy as I had ever been. One day Robert Lee would be mine.
THREE YEARS LATER
He proposed marriage over a plate of fruitcake.
It was summer and Arlington was in its full beauty. The broad green lawn sloped gently toward the shimmering Potomac. The gardens brimmed with myrtle and roses and lilac. Children and dogs played among the trees. A family of orange cats lay sunning themselves on the front steps.
Robert was visiting, and we had spent every moment since his arrival walking by the river or talking politics with my father. Following Sunday services, Papa read to us from the new play he was writing. After that we enjoyed an hour of listening to Robert reading aloud a novel by Sir Walter Scott.
When he reached the end of the chapter, Mother caught my eye and said in that sweet, gentle way of hers, “Mary dear, perhaps Cousin Robert could use some refreshments after such a long reading.”
Her smile was an unspoken apology for the disagreement we’d had earlier that morning after church. I had changed into an old yellow calico dress with a frayed hem instead of the new apricot silk she had recently made for me. To keep the peace I’d donned the silk, but during dinner I treated her with cool detachment to underscore my displeasure.
Then Robert had arrived, impeccably attired as always, and Mother had sent me a look that plainly said, See, I have saved you from embarrassment.
Now I returned her smile, for it was impossible to remain at odds with someone of such refinement and gentleness. Mother was a quiet-spoken woman whom nothing ever defeated, a model of piety and parental love. I despaired of ever becoming her equal.
“I could do with something to eat.” Robert set his book on the empty chair next to mine.
I went into the dining room to see what was available, and he soon followed. As I finished cutting the fruitcake I’d found on the sideboard, I felt his arm slide around my waist. Drawing me close, he said without preamble, “Molly, will you be my wife?”
My hand trembled so terribly I feared I’d drop the knife. I set it down and turned to face him and was struck anew by his beauty. He was nearly six feet tall, broad shouldered, with a military bearing that made him seem important whenever he entered a room. His hair was thick and dark. His eyes were deep brown and shining with the love that had been slowly growing between us nearly all our lives. I had dreamed of this moment since that magical summer at Kinloch, for I was drawn to him as sunflowers turn toward the sun.
But I had been told all too often that I was too unrestrained in my speech and too unconventional in my conduct. Also,
plain and dull. Although I was not completely without male attention, my mother, when she thought I was out of earshot, confided to my aunts and her friends that she was worried about my matrimonial prospects. “Wherever will we find someone suitable for Mary?” was her constant refrain.
Now the perfect suitor was standing in my dining room holding a plate of fruitcake, waiting for an answer.
Yet as deeply as I cared for Robert, I wondered how I could keep faith with the promise I’d made to improve myself while learning to be a wife to an army officer and a mother to the children who were sure to come.
And I worried about my little scholars, particularly Selina Norris. She was only eight years old, whip smart and eager to learn. Each week she came faithfully to my schoolroom, her stubby fingers clutching her book, her eyes blazing with curiosity and excitement. How could I disappoint such a willing pupil?
And then there was Papa. While my relieved mother would be delighted to welcome Robert into our family, I worried that my father might not approve the match. Though Robert was from a fine old Virginia family, his father had been involved in scandalous brawls and shady financial schemes, and had gone to debtors’ prison before abandoning his family for good. Everyone in our vast and far-flung clan of aunts, uncles, and cousins knew all about Lighthorse Harry Lee.
I was the sole heir to Arlington and its treasures from President Washington’s Mount Vernon estate. All of my father’s other holdings—houses, fields, mills, and slaves—would one day pass to my children. Papa would not allow my future and the future of my inheritance to fall into the wrong hands.
“Well, Molly?” Robert was still waiting, an expectant smile on his face. “Will you have me?”
Looking into his warm and hopeful eyes on that balmy June afternoon, I knew—despite my worries—what my answer must be. “Yes, Robert. I will.”
3 | SELINA NORRIS GRAY
1831
It was freezing cold in the barn, and I leaned upside Lottie as I milked her. Seemed like she enjoyed the warmth her own self. She stood still while I squirted milk into the pail. Ever’ so often she’d look back over her shoulder and blink her eyes like she was asking me how much longer did she have to stand there. I just laughed at her. I had loved Lottie since she was a calf. Milking her twice a day was the chore I liked best. It smelled good inside the barn. Like milk and straw and leather mixed together.
I finished the milking and patted Lottie’s sides and let myself out. I was careful not to spill the milk. Mister Custis never paid too much attention to us unless we broke one of his rules. One of them was don’t spill anything. Another one was don’t break anything. Don’t steal. Don’t sass the missus. It was a lot to remember even for grown folks, and I wasn’t even nine years old yet.
I started up the path and there was Ephraim. He helped Missus Custis in her gardens, but now it was winter. Too early for planting flowers, so he was working with Luther in the smokehouse tending to hams and bacon and such. He was tall as a tree and so thin you’d miss him if he was to be walking toward you sideways. When the weather was warm he would go up to the house of an evening and sit on the porch with Mister Custis, and they would smoke their pipes and talk about this and that until ten o’clock. Then Peter would come up to shut the front door for the night and send Ephraim home. If you couldn’t see Ephraim, you still knew he was close by just from the tobacco smell.
He bobbed his head at me, and I went on up the path. The leaves were off the trees, and I could see the house and the smoke coming out the chimneys and Daniel taking the carriage around to the front door. The horses were stamping and shaking their heads, and their breath made white clouds in the cold air.
I hoped Daniel was there to drive Miss Mary into town. Last week at my lessons she promised me a new book, something called a primer that you had to send away for. In the schoolroom there were books with pictures in them. There was chalk and slates and pens and paper for practicing writing my name. There was a Bible and a spelling book with a blue cover on it and a map of Virginia tacked to the wall.
I liked words. The shape of them on the page. Some were long and skinny like grasshopper and strawberry, and some were short and round like pump and bulb and bowl.
But Miss Mary was busy from morning till night getting ready to marry Mister Lee, and the house was all aflutter. Ladies mostly, coming and going for parties and such. They had to be careful where they stepped, because Mister Custis had hired some men to help fix up old Arlington. Making it shine for the big day. Paint buckets and ladders and wheelbarrows were scattered everywhere.
All the other young ladies were jealous of Miss Mary because of how handsome Mister Lee was. My daddy saw him riding up to the house one day and said they wasn’t another man in all of Virginia who looked as good in the saddle as Mister Lee. He was always bringing little presents for Miss Mary and making her laugh. He was helpful to Missus. Last fall he helped her with the planting, digging with a shovel and a pick just like Ephraim.
My milk pail was getting heavy, so I switched it to my other arm and hurried on past the chicken coops and into the cabin where Althea and Thursday were busy making our breakfast. George, the head cook, was fixing breakfast for the Custises in the winter kitchen down in the basement. I smelled the bacon and woodsmoke and cinnamon from clear across the yard. I set down the milk bucket and scooped up a handful of Althea’s biscuits. She popped my hand right smart and told me to get busy with the churn, and then she took a sip of the rusty-nail water that was supposed to cure her warts.
Althea picked up her broom. I hoped she would tell me a story. She knew stories about the tortoise and the spider, and the woman with two skins, and why the sun and moon lived in the sky. One time she told me she was a princess because her grandmother was a queen back in Africa, snatched off her throne and fetched up on the shores of Virginia. Althea could read the future in coffee grounds, and one time she told me I would be famous someday. I asked her how, and she said the coffee didn’t say.
Althea was old as dirt, and her back pained her some. She took ahold of the broom and her face folded up into a frown, and I knew better than to ask for a story. She grunted a little ever’ time she moved the broom. I started to laugh, and she straightened up and frowned at me.
“What you laughing at, girl?”
“Nothing.”
“You ’bout finished churning the butter?”
I lifted the paddle and checked. “Not yet.”
She pointed a bony finger at me. “More churnin’, then, and less foolishness.”
The door opened and my own mauma came inside.
“Mornin’, Sally.” Althea spoke to Mauma without even looking up from her sweeping.
Mauma nodded her head at Althea and grabbed my arm. “Leave that churn and come on home.”
She never fetched me home before the chores got done, so I knew something had happened. First I thought my daddy was sick. Or maybe they was a new colt in the stables. Something like that. But when we got outside Mauma said, “The missus has sent for you.”
Never in my whole life had I received such a fearful summons. “I done nothing wrong, Mauma. I swear it.”
“Not supposed to swear.” Mauma was hurrying toward our cabin so fast I had to run to keep up with her. We got home and went inside.
We lived in one room with a mattress for her and my daddy. A ladder led up to a loft where my mattress was. There was a window where I could look out at the moon and stars at night before I went off to sleep. We had a table and some chairs and a fireplace to keep us warm in the wintertime.
Mauma had set the tub we used for washing in the middle of the room, and it was full of water so hot I could see the steam rising up off it. My best dress, a pink calico with little white flowers on it, was spread out on her chair.
She pulled my dress over my head and handed me a sliver of soap. “Get in.”
“Who died?” Anytime a slave passed at Arlington, it was my mauma who helped lay them out, and we Norrises dressed u
p for the burying. Otherwise nobody took a bath unless it was truly necessary.
“Nobody died. Now hold still.” Mauma picked up a rag and scrubbed me so hard, head to foot, till my skin was just about rubbed all the way off. I let out a sigh and squeezed my eyes shut to keep the soap from stinging. I was burning with curiosity, but wasn’t no use in asking more questions. Mauma wouldn’t tell you a thing till she got good and ready.
She lifted me out of the water, dried me off, and helped me into my pink dress. Finally she said, “Miss Mary gettin’ married come summer. Missus Custis need some girls to help with sewing Miss Mary some new clothes.”
“But I don’t know how to sew.”
“She figures on teaching you how. She’s gone teach Kitty and Liza too.”
It was just about the worst news I’d ever had in my life so far. I belonged outside, taking care of the chickens and milking Lottie and helping pick vegetables in the summer garden and churning butter while Althea told me a story. The thought of sitting inside all day, stitching new drawers and whatnot for Miss Mary, knocked the breath right out of me.
“I don’t want to.”
“Girl? Since when do slaves get a say in what we want?” Mauma stepped back to look me over, then swatted my bottom and told me to get on up to the house. Missus was waiting for me. “And pick up your hem so’s you don’t go tracking dirt into the house.”
“But, Mauma, what if I can’t learn it? What if—”
She put her hands on my shoulders. “Now listen to me. This your chance to learn something useful that might can help you make a way in the world someday.”
Someday meant when slavery times were over. Freedom was the thing all the Custis slaves talked about, sitting around the cook fires in the evening, the sweet hope of liberation lighting up their faces.
In the Bible it tells of all the ones God delivered. Moses, for instance, and Samson, and Jonah who got swallowed by a whale. Daddy said one day God would deliver us too. Didn’t any of us know when that day was going to come, though.
