Mrs. Lee and Mrs. Gray

by Dorothy Love

  “The Reverend Keith has refused to perform her wedding?”

  “It’s spineless of him, really. Of course the marriage won’t have any legal standing, but it means so much to Selina. It seems petty to deny her merely for the sake of appearances.”

  “I shall write to him myself,” Mother said, smiling at last. “Even he won’t be able to resist the power of two Custis women.”

  She looked out the window, and I followed her gaze. A carriage was winding along the road from the long bridge, the top of it just rising into view.

  “Callers,” Mother said with a weary sigh.

  “I can tell them you are not up to visitors today.”

  “No, I’ll manage. You should write to your aunt Eleanor and start packing. From the tone of her letter, the sooner you can get there, the better.”

  Arrangements were made quickly, and I set off on the sixty-mile journey to Aunt Eleanor’s with the children and Selina. That evening we stayed at the home of friends in Clarke County, reaching our destination the following afternoon just as a spring thunderstorm broke.

  Aunt Eleanor—who preferred to be called Nelly—welcomed us with a buffet supper and comfortable beds and many expressions of gratitude. Looking into her troubled eyes, I was glad I had come.

  While Selina settled the children, I went down the dark hallway to check on Cousin Lorenzo.

  The sickroom was dimly lit, the air close and still. A merciless rain pelted the windowpane and ran in sheets down the glass. Lorenzo’s lips were cracked and dry, his eyes too bright and full of pain. I crossed the room, poured water from the washstand into a basin, and wrung out a linen towel to place on his forehead.

  “Cousin Mary.”

  I took the chair beside the bed and clasped his hand. “Lorenzo. We are so sorry you are not well. Mother was too ill to come, but she sends her love.”

  He nodded.

  “Is there anything you need? Some water, perhaps?”

  “No, nothing.”

  A loud thump sounded overhead, followed by a blood-curdling scream. Lorenzo smiled. “Ah. The Lee children are here.”

  “Half of them, anyway.”

  “What news is there of Cousin Robert?”

  I shared the latest from my husband’s letters. “He’s bringing home a pony for the children, but I haven’t told them yet because we have no idea how much longer he will be away. If I tell them now, I won’t ever have a moment’s peace.”

  “I suppose not.” His eyes fluttered and closed.

  “I ought to let you sleep. But call for me if you need anything.” I removed the wet compress from his forehead and got to my feet.

  “Mary?”

  “Yes?”

  “If I don’t get well, promise you will look after Mother. She has no one else since Father died. And since we moved from Woodlawn she has so few friends to call upon.”

  “I promise. But you mustn’t think like that. You will get well, now that the weather is warming.”

  I left him and went to the room Aunt Nelly had prepared for me. Selina was there and had already shaken out my dresses and placed them in the pine clothes press in the corner. On the washstand sat a pitcher and basin, a fresh towel and soap. The blue coverlet on the tester bed had been folded down, the curtains drawn for the night. I took off my shoes and collapsed into the only chair in the room. “Are the children settled?”

  Selina looked done in too, after the rigors of the trip, but she smiled. “They were too tired to give me much trouble tonight. Once they are rested up, it will be a different story, I expect.”

  “Well, you don’t have to manage them by yourself. Aunt Nelly’s girl Flora will help.”

  Selina took out the leather traveling case containing my combs, hairbrushes, and perfume. She unpinned my hair and dragged the brush through a thick brown tangle. “You got yourself a rat’s nest right there, Miss Mary.”

  “Oh, I know it. Precious Life likes to amuse herself by pulling on my hair every chance she gets.”

  Selina chuckled and kept working the brush through the tangles. The feel of her strong hands on my head was hypnotic. I closed my eyes.

  “I remember the time right after Little Mary was born when you up and cut off all your hair with the sewing shears,” she said after a time. “I couldn’t believe you would do such a thing. Since Mister Robert said your curls was your best feature.”

  “He said that?”

  “Right after he got home that time and saw what an awful shape you were in. You shocked him, the way you looked so peaked. I heard him telling Missus he was afraid you would die.”

  “I nearly did.”

  “The good Lord wasn’t ready for you up there, I guess.” She gave my hair a few more brush strokes before fashioning it into the loose braid I favored for sleeping. “There you are, Missus Lee. Anything else you need before I go?”

  “I can’t think of a single thing.”

  She stood in the doorway with the familiar look of questioning in her eyes. I knew what she wanted to ask and I hated to disappoint her.

  “The Reverend Keith has finally replied to my request to conduct your wedding. He is being unreasonable about it.”

  “You mean he won’t do it.”

  “So he says. But he has not yet heard from Mother.” A picture of her rose in my mind, her sweet expression and gentle manner that masked a spine of granite. “Few mortals there be who can resist the determined will of Mary Fitzhugh Custis.”

  Selina brushed at her skirt. “I’m not surprised the preacher refused. Thornton said he wouldn’t bother with it.”

  “He’s afraid some in the congregation might not like it. They may feel it sets a bad precedent.”

  “How can marrying folks in the sight of God be a bad thing?”

  “Precisely the point. I believe he will agree to it, once he hears from Mother. But if he doesn’t we can find another preacher. Perhaps some young seminary student would be eager for the practice.”

  Selina jammed her fists into her pockets.

  “I know you are disappointed, but—”

  She looked at me in that intense way she had, that made me feel she could see my words forming on my tongue before I uttered them. She laughed softly. “I wondered why you wanted me on this trip. But nothing can make up for being made to wait and wait. Good night, Missus Lee.”

  “Selina, you mustn’t give up on this. I certainly haven’t. We cannot give up on anything we feel is worth fighting for.”

  “If you say so.”

  She left the room, closing the door behind her.

  “Mama? Rooney broke Angelina’s neck.” Agnes stood before me holding her favorite doll. It had indeed sustained a grave injury. Large cracks ran along the doll’s forehead and across her neck. I drew Agnes into my arms. She was the most delicate featured of my daughters, “the pretty one,” some said, and the one with the tenderest heart.

  “Poor dear Angelina has a cracked cranium,” I said. “Go ask Flora for the cement and I will make her good as new.”

  “Can you make a new dress for her too?” Agnes smoothed the wrinkled satin of the doll’s dress. Once a vibrant pink, it had faded now to almost white.

  “Not right away, child. I’m here to take care of Cousin Lorenzo, remember?”

  She nodded. “I heard Flora and Selina talking last night when they thought I was asleep. They say poor Lorenzo is going to die. They say it might happen today. I never saw anyone die before. Is he going to die, Mama?”

  “I hope not. Aunt Nelly and I are doing all we can to make him well. And you mustn’t listen to the servants’ gossip.” I kissed her forehead and sent her off to find the cement.

  I finished the letter I had begun to Robert earlier in the day, but I was worried about Lorenzo. In the two weeks since our arrival he had grown steadily weaker. The doctor visited with some regularity, prescribing cold compresses, warm salves, syrups, drinks, and pills, none of which made any difference.

  I enlisted Selina and Flora in kee
ping the children occupied out of doors where they could expend their energy in endless games of hide-and-seek or cowboys and Indians among the trees, or fish in the stream that ran through the back of the property. They held picnics on the front lawn and made daisy chains for Aunt Nelly’s old dog, Blue, who wore them without complaint.

  Occasionally I heard Selina reading aloud from one of the children’s books I had brought along, and I couldn’t deny the sense of pride I felt that she had learned her lessons so well. Of all my young scholars, she had proven the most capable.

  “Mary dear?” Aunt Nelly, unkempt and bleary-eyed, appeared in the open doorway, a basin of water in her hands. “I’ve just helped Lorenzo to tidy up, and now he is asking for you.” She looked exhausted and so frail and filled with worry that I feared for her health too.

  I took the basin from her hands. “Why don’t you get some rest? I’ll sit with him for as long as he wants me.”

  She didn’t argue. “It was a long night. He kept going in and out of delirium. I wonder whether I should send for the doctor again.”

  “I can’t see what good it will do. We have done everything he told us to do and it hasn’t helped.”

  Aunt Nelly’s eyes filled. “I suppose you’re right.” She cupped my chin in her hands. “You have been a most tender and efficient nurse, Mary Anna. A source of great comfort to him. And to me.”

  She started up the stairs, and I went into the sickroom. The gentle spring breeze stirred the curtains at the open window. Outside, Rooney and the girls were engaged in a lively game. Their voices carried on the cool morning air.

  I looked down at my cousin. “What can I do for you, Lorenzo?”

  “Just sit with me for a moment.”

  I pulled the chair close to his bed and sat facing the window.

  He smiled. “I hear your children at play.”

  “I’m sorry. I try to keep them quiet. But they are young. Full of high spirits and exuberance.”

  “I was not complaining. I enjoy the sound of them. It reminds me of when I was young and the future seemed bright with hope.” He licked his lips. His hand moved along the coverlet, seeking mine. “I must ask you to do something for me.”

  “Anything.”

  “Send for my son. I want to see him once more before I die.”

  I didn’t bother to deny the hopeless nature of his condition. “All right. I’ll send a letter this afternoon.”

  “And I want you to write out my will. There is paper and pen in the desk.”

  I retrieved the writing materials and returned to his bedside. His voice suddenly weakened, and I leaned close as he dictated his wishes regarding provisions for his mother’s care and the disposition of his property, livestock, and servants.

  When it was done he scrawled his signature on the page and then lay back on his pillows and closed his eyes. I sat beside his bed as the day wore on and his breathing grew faint and irregular. Late in the evening, I stepped into the hallway and called for Aunt Nelly.

  She came downstairs, her Bible clutched to her chest. “Mary, would you read to him? Prepare my boy for life beyond the grave?”

  Her tears fell upon the coverlet as I read. We sat with him perhaps for another hour as his breathing grew even shallower and more ragged before his soul at last departed for heaven.

  Aunt Nelly summoned her servants and began funeral preparations. Alone in my room I penned a letter to Lorenzo’s son.

  Washington Lewis

  Virginia Military Academy

  Dear Washington,

  I am grieved to tell you that your dear father expired at eleven o’clock this evening. He went peacefully after an illness of some weeks, despite the best efforts of everyone here. His last wish was that he might see you again before his time on earth was ended. Your grandmother is bearing up as well as one can expect. Undoubtedly the funeral will have taken place before you can get here, but I do urge you to come home as soon as travel can be arranged.

  Your father requested that I write down his will mere hours before he left us. I am certain you will not be surprised to learn that you are to inherit the bulk of his estate, slaves included. I urge you to treat them with compassion and let no motive of worldly interest induce you to act in an unkind or ungenerous part toward them. We must make allowances for them and endeavor to hasten the day when they are allowed to go free.

  Your cousin,

  MC Lee

  24 | SELINA

  1847

  Fall rolled around again, and Miss Mary hadn’t said a word about me and Thornton getting married. Of course it was a busy time. Mister Custis packed up and went to visit his other plantations, White House and Romancoke. Missus and Miss Mary all the time was having company. Friends from Washington City came to call, along with cousins and aunts and such.

  Miss Mary’s favorite cousin was Miss Martha Williams, nicknamed Markie. Miss Markie usually shared the bedroom of Daughter when she came to visit Arlington. She was very fond of cats and they seemed to like her too, always following her around.

  Missus and Miss Mary still had hopes of freeing slaves and sending them off to Liberia, and they went to Washington every little whipstitch to meet with other people who thought the same.

  One morning at the end of November, while Missus was waiting for Daniel to bring the carriage around, she told me to find Rose and have her help me beat the dust out of the rugs. I said I would tend to it, even though it was cold and I wasn’t in a hurry to work outside.

  “Rose has been sick lately,” I told Missus, who frowned as she tied the ribbons on her bonnet.

  “She hasn’t said anything to me. What’s the matter with her?”

  “I don’t know, Missus. Maybe some kind of a cough. Yesterday I went looking for her and she was in her cabin sitting over a bucket of hot water. Reckon the steam made her breathe better.”

  Just then Miss Mary came into the hallway. She had been at her desk since breakfast, reading the passel of newspapers Daniel brought from town every day or two. She put on her coat and hat. From upstairs came the voices of the children and the thump of footsteps on the floor.

  “Selina has just told me Rose is not well,” Missus told her. “Apparently a congestion in her chest.”

  “How odd. I saw her and Randall last evening and she seemed fine. The two of them spoke with great animation, in fact.” Miss Mary smiled at me. “The happiness of newlyweds, I expect. It doesn’t seem possible they have been married more than a year already.”

  But time had crawled by for me, waiting for some preacher to marry Thornton and me.

  Just then Miss Mary said, “I’ve received a note from the Reverend Keith. He has had a change of heart, thanks to my mother.”

  I thought I might just rise up and start floating above the floor like a spirit. “He will marry us?”

  “Yes.” Miss Mary’s smile took up most of her face. “Mother and I want to host your wedding, just as we did for Rose. The minister can’t come until December, and in cold weather we think the parlor might be more suitable than out of doors.”

  I was nearly at a loss for words, thinking that I would be married in the same place where Miss Mary had married Mister Robert.

  Miss Mary said, “Will that suit you, Selina?”

  My heart flopped around in my chest like a fish on a line. “Oh, yes, ma’am. That suits me just fine.”

  They left for the city. I was dying to find Thornton and tell him the news, but I had to scrub the floors and clean the lamps and find Rose for help with the rugs.

  I let myself out the back door and went down to Rose’s cabin. It was some ways from the main house, down the path and close to the farm at the bottom of the hill. She didn’t answer when I knocked, so I went on in.

  Rose was lying on the pallet beside the fire, and I could tell even before I touched her that she was burning up with fever. I got down on my knees and said, “Rose? You ought to have sent Randall to ask Missus for the doctor.”

  “No doctor.” She
pushed me away.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Judah made me a potion and I drank too much of it, I reckon.”

  “What kind of a potion?”

  Rose stared at me like I had mud on my face. “If you been paying attention you would know.”

  Then it hit me. Rose had a baby on the way and she was trying to stop it from coming. “Judah made you up some squaw mint tea.”

  “She calls it pennyroyal, but it’s the same by any name.” A tear rolled down her cheek and onto her pillow. “It didn’t work. Steam bath didn’t work either.”

  I had seen the pennyroyal growing in Judah’s garden. It was a pretty plant with a spiny stem and blue flowers shaped like a fan. But it was dangerous. “Mauma says pennyroyal is liable to kill you if you take too much.”

  “I just as soon be dead as have a slave baby for old Mister Custis to claim.”

  Her eyes went hard with defiance, and as much as I loved Miss Mary, I couldn’t help feeling a kind of admiration for Rose. There was something daring in her determination to defy the Custises, even if they had given her the wedding of the century.

  “Missus will help you when the time comes.”

  “You always take their side.” Rose wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “Sometimes I think you like bein’ a slave.”

  “One day we will go free.”

  Rose laughed, but it was not the joyous kind of laugh. “Wishful thinking is what that is, Selina Norris.”

  “Miss Mary says it will happen.”

  “And you believe her?”

  “She keeps her promises. She told me just this morning, her own preacher is coming to marry Thornton and me. In the parlor up at the house.”

  “In the house? What a surprise. You always been her favorite. You and the rest of the Norrises.” Rose sat up. “You got to help me, Selina.”

  A long time ago I heard Missus Bingham telling Mauma about a girl who tried to burn her baby out with a candle and burned herself up instead. I wasn’t about to light Rose on fire. “I don’t see there is anything I can do. That baby is going to come and that’s that.”