Mrs. Lincoln's Sisters

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  “Did you honestly believe that you could keep this from me indefinitely?”

  “I hoped to delay the inevitable, to give you a few more hours’ peace. I know you haven’t been well.”

  “Indeed? I thought that you agreed with the doctor that my pain is only in my head—” Abruptly Elizabeth’s words were choked off. The doctor’s words took on an entirely new, foreboding meaning in the shadow of Mary’s confirmed madness.

  Ninian must have seen the frantic worry in her eyes. “You are not your sister,” he said firmly, taking her in his arms and kissing her on the forehead. “You are not mad. You simply need a more qualified doctor and a better diagnosis.”

  “Oh, Ninian.” Relieved, she closed her eyes and clung to him. “I’m glad you believe me, but . . . perhaps we should believe Mary too.”

  “You think the verdict is wrong, that she isn’t insane?” He gestured to the newspapers on his desk. “I assume you read about her delusions of an Indian pulling bones from her face and wires from her eyes? That she hears raps on a table predicting the date and hour of her death? That she was wandering the hotel clad only in her nightdress? That she spied smoke coming from the chimney of a nearby building and became frantic that the city was burning down? That she accused a man of stealing her pocketbook, which turned up in her own bureau drawer?”

  She held up a hand to interrupt him. “Yes, yes, I read the testimony. Every lurid detail is seared into my mind. I’m not disputing that Mary is deeply troubled, but I’m not certain that confining her to an asylum is the best way to help her.”

  “Several esteemed physicians were on that jury,” Ninian reminded her. “We should trust their expertise. From everything I’ve learned—and I spent a good portion of my day investigating this very subject—Bellevue is no grim institution with scowling guards and bars on the windows, but a quiet, healthful resort in the countryside supervised by skilled doctors and devoted nurses. Mary will be well looked after there, and whatever her affliction may be, she will benefit from fresh air and rest. If your sister truly isn’t mad but is merely exhausted, the truth will come out in time.”

  “I suppose—” Elizabeth inhaled shakily. “I suppose that’s true. I hope it is.”

  Ninian looked as if he might say more, but he hesitated and took her hand. “Darling, whatever your sister’s prognosis may be, the days ahead are going to be difficult. The press is certain to exploit Mary’s misfortune for profit, and as her family, we may all find our names paraded before the public soon.”

  “Soon?” She offered a mirthless laugh. “I’m afraid the parade has already begun. While you were at the office, a reporter turned up on our doorstep and asked me for a statement. Thanks to your misguided attempt to protect me, I had no idea why he had come and made no comment at all. I can only imagine how he’ll portray my confusion in his article: ‘Mrs. Lincoln’s Sister Utterly Indifferent to Her Plight.’”

  “He wouldn’t dare,” said Ninian. “Even if you had known what he was after, a dignified silence still would have been the only appropriate response.”

  “Even so,” said Elizabeth, “where news of my family is concerned, I’ll thank you to protect me a little less vigilantly.”

  To her disappointment, he promised no more than to consider her words. She knew that meant he would rely upon his own judgment when deciding what to reveal to her, as he always had. Well, then. No more lying abed for her, regardless of poor sleep or discomfort the night before, if being informed meant racing him to the morning papers.

  She slept no better that night, but nonetheless she woke with the sun, washed and dressed, and descended the stairs only a step or two behind her husband, who had risen later but needed less time to attend to his clothes and hair. The newspapers were folded neatly beside Ninian’s plate, and after they were seated, Elizabeth raised her eyebrows at her husband, who sighed, kept the Illinois State Journal for himself, and passed her the Chicago Tribune.

  She had prepared herself for the worst, and yet the article that immediately caught her eye rendered her stunned and breathless.

  Mrs. Lincoln Attempts Suicide.

  Chicago.—Between 2 and 8 o’clock yesterday afternoon Mrs. Lincoln attempted to commit suicide by poisoning. After being removed from the court room where she was adjudged insane earlier that day, her lunatic symptoms became quite violent, and she was put under the strictest surveillance, it being feared that she might do injury to herself. To-day she escaped from her room and hurried to the drug store of Frank Squair, under the Grand Pacific Hotel; she ordered a compound of camphor and laudanum, ostensibly for neuralgia. Knowing her mental condition, Mr. Squair pretended that he had none ready, and that it would take half an hour to put it up. She said she would call in again for it, and then walked out into the street, whereupon she took a carriage and drove to two other drug stores. Mr. Squair, guessing her intentions, had followed her, and in each case was able to warn the druggist not to provide her with the compound. Then, seeing that she intended to return to his own store, he hurried back and prepared a tincture of burnt sugar and water with a few drops of camphor. Supposing this harmless mixture to be what she had ordered, she left the store and immediately drank the entire bottle. She returned to her hotel, but upon discovering soon thereafter that the mixture had no effect, she tried to leave her room again to obtain a stronger dose, but was prevented. She will be removed to the private hospital at Batavia, Illinois, this afternoon, where she will have every attention.

  “Ninian,” Elizabeth gasped, “my sister—”

  “Yes, I know.” He set the Journal aside and reached across the table to clasp her cold and trembling hand. “It’s terrible, but she’s safe, unharmed. No doubt she’s being watched very closely so that she won’t be able to repeat the attempt.”

  “She was being watched very closely before, and yet she evaded her guards.” Elizabeth shook her head, fumbled for her water glass with both hands, raised it to her lips, and carefully drank, wishing it was the herb woman’s elixir. “How could a woman of her age and infirmity slip past her guards in broad daylight? How do we know she won’t manage it again?”

  “We both know how clever she is. Her guards underestimated her yesterday, but surely now they will be more vigilant.” Shaking his head, Ninian took up Elizabeth’s newspaper and scanned its version of events. “Your sister insists that she is sane, but this desperate act proves she is not. Thank God she was stopped before she harmed herself.”

  “Thank God,” Elizabeth echoed. Sick at heart, she fervently hoped that those entrusted with Mary’s safety would take their jobs far more seriously than they apparently had thus far.

  Mary’s suicide attempt confirmed the jury’s verdict, or so Ninian believed. Elizabeth could not dispute the reasonableness of his conclusion, and yet she felt a stirring of doubt.

  Was her sister’s attempt to take her own life truly the impulse of a deranged mind, or was it the desperate act of a sane woman horrified to be confined to an insane asylum against her will?

  How had Mary come to this?

  Once they had been the Todd sisters, the belles of Lexington and Springfield. In the years that had unfolded since those bright seasons full of promise, they had all endured tragedy. Some of the sisters had lost homes, others fortunes, or husbands, or children. None but Mary had tried to take her own life.

  But none of the Todd sisters had risen higher or endured more tragedy than Mary.

  Could she be saved by the bonds of sisterhood, worn thin yet still enduring?

  2

  July 1825

  Frances

  Frances had not expected to spend the Fourth of July in her family’s own garden, disconsolate, watching over her little sister Ann while she dozed on a quilt spread on the soft grass. Nearby, Elizabeth and Mary played Graces, tossing a hoop back and forth from a stick held in one hand, their laughter and playful teasing sounding forced, even from Mary, who reveled in merriment and fun. Like their brother Levi, who had gone off somew
here on his own after their plans were canceled, the sisters had expected to spend the warm, sunny day at the glorious Independence Day celebration now well under way at Fowler’s Garden on the outskirts of Lexington. Nearly everyone planned to turn out for it, including all of Frances’s school friends, wearing their prettiest summer frocks and hats, with their hair neatly brushed and curled or braided and adorned with ribbons of red, white, and blue. Roast pig and great haunches of beef would be sizzling on spits over a fire, and there would be pies bursting with fruit, sweet lemonade for the children, and whiskey by the keg for the grown-ups. There would be speeches and music, games and gossip, flags and bunting and fireworks. Best of all, Frances would have been free to run off with her girlfriends for the entire day, putting as much distance between herself and her little sisters as possible without leaving the fairgrounds.

  She felt a pang of guilt for the disloyal thought. Little Ann wasn’t so bad; it wasn’t her fault she was still toddling around in diapers, a responsibility rather than a playmate. Six-and-a-half-year-old Mary, on the other hand, was insufferable. Pretty and charming, with a dimpled smile, clear, wide-set blue eyes framed by dark lashes, an abundance of cleverness and funny jokes, and an easy grace and daintiness that eluded Frances, she won the admiration of nearly everyone, from Mama and Papa and Grandma Parker to their neighbors and teachers. Even Frances’s own best friends didn’t mind if Mary tagged along after them, though she was two years younger. Mary made them laugh and invented the most amusing games, entertaining her friends until Frances felt quite forgotten.

  It was exactly the same at home. Mary enchanted everyone so completely that they seemed not to mind, or even to notice, her determination to have everything her own way exactly when she wanted it. If Mammy Sally was braiding Frances’s hair, Mary would dart over with her brush and wheedle and beg until Sally hastily finished with Frances so she could devote herself to Mary’s long, silky locks of rich chestnut brown with flecks of gold. If Mama was reading Frances a story, Mary would squeeze in between them on the sofa and ask her to start over from the beginning, and of course Mama would smile and comply. If Auntie Chaney asked the children if they would prefer cornbread or beaten biscuits for breakfast, Mary would quickly call out her own choice and plead for it so sweetly that the temperamental but exceptionally talented cook would nod and get to work as if no one else had spoken. If Frances was confiding quietly in Elizabeth, their much-admired eldest sister, Mary would dart over to shoehorn herself into the conversation, even if Frances was in the middle of sharing a very private secret, which Mary would soon blab all over the neighborhood. Later she would feign surprise when Frances, furious and embarrassed, reproached her. “She didn’t mean to hurt you,” Elizabeth would say, excusing her when Mary grew tearful and begged forgiveness, as if Frances were the one at fault.

  Frances struggled to forgive Mary when her younger sister wronged her, to be as tolerant and patient as Mama and Elizabeth, but Mammy Sally wasn’t fooled. “You best snuff out that jealousy before it make you sour and mean,” she warned Frances once, an amused glint in her eye. “You was the center of attention when you was the baby sister. Now it’s Miss Mary’s turn.”

  All Frances could do was nod and promise to try, but honestly, how was that admonition supposed to make her feel any better? What good did it do her now to know that she had once been the center of attention if she didn’t remember how lovely it had been?

  Anyway, Mary wasn’t the baby sister anymore; Ann was, and newborn brother George Rogers Clark Todd was younger still. Sometimes Frances guiltily hoped that Mary too would soon find herself overlooked and forgotten as attention shifted to her younger siblings. Recently, as if sensing that possibility, Mary had taken to pretending that Ann did not exist—except when the younger girl wailed, impossible to ignore. Then Mary would grimace and stuff her fingers in her ears.

  Frances smiled smugly to herself whenever she observed signs that Mary was becoming anxious about her place in the family, but almost immediately she would feel ashamed of herself. Mary was oblivious to her ugly thoughts, but even so, Frances would try to make up for them by inviting her to play dolls together or offering to read her a favorite story. Mary was unimpressed by Frances’s generosity. “You hate dolls,” she would reply, or, “I can read it myself.” The rebuffs were insulting, but they made Frances feel vindicated for her unsisterly thoughts, so it wasn’t all bad.

  Still, no matter how much Mary provoked her, Frances knew it was a sin to take pleasure in a sibling’s unhappiness. Brothers and sisters were precious. Accidents or illnesses could snatch away any of them at any moment, just as a fever had taken baby brother Robert three years before. Mama had been terribly sad for a very long time, until Frances had almost forgotten the sound of her merry laugh, once as clear and light as a silver bell. Blessedly, Ann had come along about two years later, and their cheerful, smiling Mama had returned to them from wherever she had gone, no longer lost to them. Surely, Frances and Elizabeth privately agreed, the new baby’s arrival would drive any lingering sadness from the household.

  So it had seemed, until that deceptively lovely July Fourth day as Frances sat on the quilt beside slumbering Ann, her gaze fixed on the house, on the window of the bedchamber where her mother burned with fever.

  Just two days before, the reassuringly calm midwife—Mrs. Leuba, the watchmaker’s wife from down the street—had arrived with her bag of instruments and poultices. She had smiled at the children and climbed the stairs to Mama’s room, alone. Behind the closed door, Elizabeth whispered to Frances, their mother lay in bed with the windows shut and the curtains drawn, the air still and stifling. The precautions kept out harmful drafts but did little to muffle their mother’s moans, which sent a shiver down the back of Frances’s neck and made her faintly ill from worry.

  She did not overhear her mother’s ordeal for long, for soon after the midwife’s arrival Papa told Mammy Sally to take the children up the hill to Grandmother Parker’s house, where they were to remain until Mama had been safely delivered of her child. There Elizabeth dutifully helped their grandmother look after Mary and Ann, and Levi helped the servants with the outside chores, but Frances spent the hours pacing on the front porch and gazing intently down at her own home, built on the lower half of Grandmother Parker’s lot. She tried in vain to glimpse signs of movement through the drawn curtains of her house, cringing whenever the wind carried a particularly sharp cry of pain to her ears. Grandmother Parker eventually called her inside for supper, but Frances returned to her post as soon as the table was cleared.

  At dusk, she begged, “May I please run down to the house and find out what’s taking so long?”

  “Sometimes a woman’s travail can last a day or more,” Grandmother Parker replied, but she agreed to send her maid to inquire, since Papa had expressly asked her to keep the children away. The maid returned with the welcome news that everything was going as expected. Papa sent his love and told them not to worry, but how could Frances not?

  The next morning she picked at her breakfast and halfheartedly agreed to mind Ann so her grandmother could finish sewing some garments for the baby’s layette. It seemed ages until Papa finally strode up the hill—light brown hair tousled, cheeks ruddy, blue eyes shining with pride, tall and strong and handsome—to announce that the children had a new baby brother.

  Levi, who had fervently prayed for another boy, cheered and punched his fist in the air, while Elizabeth, Frances, and Mary laughed with delight and hugged one another. Ann looked on, confused, thumb in her mouth, until Papa laughed and swept her up in his arms. “If you promise to be quiet and not tire your mother,” he said, looking around at the older children, eyebrows raised for emphasis, “you may come see her now and meet your new brother.”

  They promised to be good, so Papa led them home and upstairs to Mama’s bedchamber. They found her sitting up in bed supported by thick down pillows, her face pale but eyes shining, a tiny swaddled bundle in her arms. One by one she c
alled the children forward and introduced them to little George, wrinkled and red-faced, his eyes squeezed shut. When it was Frances’s turn to meet him, he gave a start and a tiny fist burst free from the swaddling blanket. “He’s waving hello to you,” Mama said, soft laughter in her voice.

  Frances smiled, thrilled. Little George had not shown such favor to anyone else.

  After Frances ceded her place beside Mama to Elizabeth, she watched Papa quietly confer with Mrs. Leuba as she packed her black bag. They smiled and nodded as they spoke, so although Frances couldn’t make out their words, she knew all was well. Mrs. Leuba left soon thereafter, promising to return in the morning to check on mother and baby.

  Eventually Mammy Sally shooed the children out of the room while Grandmother Parker settled down in the chair at Mama’s bedside. Papa, who had stayed up all night, dragged himself off to Levi’s bedroom, flung himself down on the bed, and quickly sank into a deep sleep. Frances and her sisters tiptoed off to the parlor, but although they thought they were playing quietly, Mammy Sally soon ordered them outside. Joyful and relieved, they ran and played on the shady hill between their house and their grandmother’s, Ann alternately balanced on Elizabeth’s hip or Frances’s. Whenever they asked Mary to take a turn carrying her, she would recoil, shaking her head and protesting that Ann was too heavy for her.

  “Just hold her by the hand then,” said Frances irritably. “You should take a turn minding her.”

  “I minded you when I was your age,” Elizabeth said, offering Mary an encouraging smile, as if it was worry rather than disinterest that kept Mary from eagerly volunteering. “You and Levi both.”