“Maybe she only likes babies,” said Mary glumly, rolling on her side and kicking at her quilt.
She had better like babies, Elizabeth thought, with a sudden wrenching sensation in her chest, for she might have some of her own before long.
Their new stepmother, who instructed the children to call her Ma, had not come to Lexington alone. In addition to several large trunks of fashionable clothes and new linens and housewares, she had brought several of her mother’s slaves, whose attempts to settle into the roles they had filled in Frankfort were met with resistance by the Todd family’s servants. Mammy Sally’s resentment of Judy, the young slave nurse whom Mrs. Humphreys had sent to relieve her daughter of the burden of raising six stepchildren, was so tangible that it seemed to make the very air between the two women seethe and spark. A young maid, Mary Jane, was too timid and eager to please to offend anyone, but Jane Saunders, the imperturbable housekeeper Mrs. Humphreys had personally trained to run a household and serve in the dining room, sparked acrimony with Auntie Chaney and Nelson every time she usurped one of their usual chores rather than deferring to their seniority and asking them for an assignment. Not that any of the slaves openly complained in front of the white family, of course, but their mistrust and animosity simmered just beneath the surface, and Elizabeth was sure they had plenty to say among themselves when they were unobserved.
Papa had warned the children that it might take some time for them and their stepmother to get to know one another before they began to feel like a real family, and that they must be patient and not judge one another on first impressions. Elizabeth dutifully made every effort, but for all the things she liked and admired about her new stepmother, one dismaying truth that soon became evident made all the rest seem unimportant.
Ma did not like Mary.
At first, she had seemed charmed by Papa’s favorite, as most people were, by her beauty, her smile, and her seemingly boundless energy. She was clever and precocious, and though she spoke to adults with respect, something in her manner suggested a lack of deference, as if she believed she was addressing her equals. She could be moody and capricious, as the new stepmother of six soon learned, cheerful and laughing one moment, throwing a bitter tantrum the next. Ma had been given a very proper upbringing, and she seemed at a loss for how to manage a willful girl who could not be controlled and did not know her place. And with Mammy Sally unwilling to trust Judy with anything more important than washing diapers, and Auntie Chaney and Jane Saunders engaged in a constant struggle to prove who was more essential to the household, Elizabeth could understand why their stepmother so often seemed overwhelmed, and why she would so often gather herself up, scold Mary for some wrongdoing, and send her up to her room alone to pray that Jesus would help her become a good little girl.
Months passed with conflicts smoldering and Papa alone seeming content with the new domestic arrangements. Frances and Mary often fled to the refuge of Grandma Parker’s house up the hill, but Elizabeth felt obliged to stay behind and keep Ma company and help with the youngest children. The house had become so crowded, even more so than the addition of four souls could account for, but she did her best to help, tamping down squabbles between the siblings, giving Ann and George an extra cuddle when they needed one, promising her dear Mammy Sally and Auntie Chaney and Nelson that no one could take their places, that they need not fear being sold off, because they were part of the family too. “Thank you for the kind words, Miss Elizabeth,” they usually replied, as if by rote, and she knew she had failed to reassure them.
Then one afternoon Papa, his face radiant with joy, announced that a new baby brother or sister would be joining the family in a few months. Flooded by painful memories scarcely a year old, Elizabeth wondered how he could be so happy, knowing how they had lost Mama.
A new baby was coming, and perhaps more after that. And the house was so crowded already, Elizabeth thought worriedly, even with Mary so often being sent up to her room or fleeing to Grandma Parker’s house.
They must draw closer to one another, or someone would have to give way.
5
July 1875
Emilie
After her last piano student of the afternoon departed, Emilie went to the kitchen to pour herself a cool glass of water. She drank deeply, yet found no refreshment. Brooding, she wandered outside to the garden, seeking solace in the fragrance of verbena and pink dianthus, the warm colors of calla lily and zinnia, and the song of wood thrush and chickadee. The excessive heat and humidity of the day had stirred wistful memories of bygone summers at her mother’s country estate about twenty miles west of Lexington on the Frankfort Pike. In her memory, Buena Vista had been bathed in gentle sunshine and refreshing breezes from April through September, year after idyllic year. She knew, of course, that it must have rained sometimes, and that occasionally the weather must have been as sweltering and humid as the weather in Louisville that week, but such oppressive days never came to mind when she reflected upon the Buena Vista of her early childhood. After Papa had passed in the cholera epidemic of 1849 and their reduced circumstances had obliged her mother to sell their house in town and move Emilie and her siblings out to their erstwhile summer retreat to economize—well, those were different times, evoking memories of an altered, more complex hue.
How heartbroken Emilie had been, at the tender and complicated age of thirteen, to have lost her childhood home so soon after suffering the devastating loss of her beloved Papa! She had been born in that elegant brick residence on Main Street, and unlike her elder half-siblings, she had never lived in the house on Short Street, the one her mother had tried to make her own as a young bride and new stepmother. Her parents’ first child together, a son, had been born there a year after they were wed, but he had passed away in Ma’s arms a few days later. Soon thereafter, Ma began urging Papa to move the family to another home, one not shadowed by sad memories of lost loved ones.
Some acquaintances and gossipy neighbors murmured that Ma had really wanted to put some distance between herself and Grandma Parker, who glared down judgment upon her daughter’s successor from her hilltop home on their shared lot. Emilie had never heard her mother admit as much aloud, but if indeed it were true, who could blame her? It was difficult enough to embark on married life, raise six grieving stepchildren, and endure the loss of her firstborn without a jealous matron hovering nearby, watching her every move and assuring her she was doing everything wrong.
Papa must not have been willing to let go of the Short Street house, for he kept the family there even as it grew, with baby Margaret arriving in 1828, Samuel in 1830, and David in 1832. It was when Ma was expecting David that she began to suggest more emphatically that they find a larger home. Perhaps eager to escape his former mother-in-law’s scrutiny himself, Papa had bought the house on Main Street in 1832, and it was there that Ma brought five more Todd offspring into the world: Martha in 1833, Emilie in 1836, Alexander in 1839, Elodie in 1840, and Katherine in 1841. Though the new house was full of children, every so often Ma planted her hands on her hips, looked around, and remarked with great satisfaction that the house was spacious enough for them all, a claim impossible to make about their former home. As if to prove it, she had invited her niece and namesake, Betsey Humphreys, to live with them. Betsey and her half-sister Mary were the same age and quickly became inseparable playmates, with Mary as the instigator of merriment and mischief and Betsey her admiring companion. At first Ma had looked askance at their friendship, but she had eventually resigned herself to it, perhaps hoping that Betsey would be a good influence on her most willful stepdaughter.
Although Emilie had not come along until years later, she knew about Mary’s success at school and many other aspects of her childhood because amusing stories and cautionary tales featuring her escapades had become part of family folklore. Emilie recalled almost as vividly as if she had witnessed the events herself when ten-year-old Mary, tired of her girlish pinafores and longing for the more fashionable attir
e of a young lady, decided to improve her muslin skirt with the addition of a homemade bustle. Knowing Ma would never allow it, Mary enlisted Betsey to help her secretly gather willow branches from a neighbor’s yard. Mary then wove and tied the branches, contriving a makeshift bustle for each of them. They stealthily discarded the scraps and hid the bustles in their room until Sunday morning, when they rose early, donned their refurbished dresses, and slipped from the house to walk to church before anyone in the family saw them. Mary, the swifter of the pair, would have escaped, but Ma caught Betsey in the foyer, called Mary back into the house, looked them over from head to toe, and burst into laughter. “What frights you are,” she exclaimed. “Take those awful things off, dress yourselves properly, and go to Sunday school.” The girls obediently went upstairs to change, mortified and chagrined, with Mary weeping in anger over their ill treatment and ruined plans.
Mary’s girlhood passion for politics was also legendary among the Todds, Parkers, and Humphreyses, as well as most of their neighbors. Her ambition to live in the White House one day had seemed preposterous at the time but in hindsight had proved remarkably prescient. Her pony ride to Ashland to secure an invitation to the White House should Mr. Clay be elected still evoked chuckles from some of her siblings and exasperated sighs from others, but Mary’s spat with a friend during the election season of 1832 was less amusing, as it foreshadowed estrangements yet to come.
President Andrew Jackson had come to Lexington to campaign for reelection, and a grand procession through the city planned for the occasion would culminate in an enormous rally and barbecue at Fowler’s Garden. The entire city turned out for the parade. Democratic supporters lined the streets, cheering, shouting, unfurling banners plastered with political slogans, waving handkerchiefs, and holding up hickory twigs in honor of “Old Hickory” as he passed in an open carriage. Even staunch Whigs like the Todds and Parkers came out for the spectacle, for it was not every day that a president came to Lexington. Mary, observing through narrowed eyes the man whom her friend Mr. Clay hoped to unseat, remarked to a young Democratic friend clapping wildly beside her that she would never vote for General Jackson, but at least he was not as ugly as she had heard. When her friend protested that President Jackson was not any uglier than Mr. Clay, Mary coolly replied, “Mr. Henry Clay is the handsomest man in town and has the best manners of anybody—except my father. We’re going to snow General Jackson under and freeze his long face so that he will never smile again.”
“How dare you?” protested her companion. “Andrew Jackson with his long face is better-looking than Henry Clay and your father both rolled into one!”
That was too much for Mary. She and her erstwhile friend did not speak to each other again for several years.
Frances and Ann used this incident as evidence of Mary’s temperamental and obdurate nature, but Emilie sympathized, not only because the insult to their father offended her, but because she had suffered a humiliating incident of her own on Mr. Clay’s behalf. Twelve years after Mary’s altercation, when Mr. Clay was again attempting to unseat an incumbent president, Emilie was playing dolls with a friend when they overheard their parents in the other room discussing politics. Emilie mentioned how much she liked Mr. Clay, her friend spoke up for President Polk, and both insisted that her own favorite would win. Then Emilie’s friend said, “I bet you your doll that Mr. Polk will be reelected.”
This was a very special doll, the most beautiful doll either girl had ever seen, a gift Emilie’s father had purchased for her in New Orleans. Yet so certain was Emilie that the better man would triumph that she agreed to the bet. A few weeks later, after Mr. Polk won and her friend showed up to claim her prize, Emilie refused to give it to her. The ensuing argument brought Papa into the room to investigate, and when the girls tearfully explained the conflict, Papa solemnly said, “Emilie, you must give her the doll. It is highly dishonorable not to pay your debts.” Beaming jubilantly, her friend carried off the precious doll, while Emilie flung herself into her father’s arms, sobbing inconsolably. “This will teach you the dangers of gambling,” he told her, and although some might look at the choices she had made later in life and disagree, Emilie believed that she had taken those words to heart.
Mary would have sympathized with Emilie that day, no doubt, but she was eighteen years older and had already left home. Emilie had not yet turned three years old when Mary went to Springfield to live with Elizabeth and Ninian, where she would enjoy the lively social and political milieu and, everyone hoped, she would find a husband. In those days, traveling was arduous, and Mary had little reason to return to Lexington to visit, since, as even the youngest children knew, she and Ma did not get along. Thus, Emilie’s earliest memories of Mary were vague, built on stories shared by her elders and excerpts from her four married half-sisters’ letters home—Mary’s own words as well as passages written by Elizabeth, Frances, and Ann about her in tones that could be loving, exasperated, amused, or annoyed, depending upon the circumstances.
Emilie was almost eleven years old when Mary returned home for her first visit since her marriage, which none of the Lexington clan had attended, so swiftly had it been arranged. By then, Mary was a wife and mother of two young sons, and her husband was the newly elected representative of the Illinois Seventh District to the United States Congress. The Lincolns planned to spend three weeks with the Todds before continuing on to Washington, DC, so Abraham could assume his office, and the entire household had been bustling and bursting with excitement as they prepared to welcome them. Even seventeen-year-old Sam came home from college in Danville to meet his brother-in-law and young nephews.
The day of their arrival was cold and blustery, so when the train whistle sounded in the distance, they lined up inside the wide front hall rather than outside on the front porch—family in front and servants in the back, except for Nelson, who waited at the front door, ready to open it at the sound of the travelers’ approach.
When he opened it at last, bowing formally, a gust of wind seemed to sweep the Lincolns inside. Mary entered first, with eighteen-month-old Eddie in her arms. One glance at her elder half-sister and Emilie was awestruck by her loveliness. Mary’s clear, sparkling blue eyes took in the scene, and when she smiled, a fresh, faint wild rose color appeared in her smooth, fair cheeks. Her glossy chestnut brown hair was swept back from her lovely, smiling face, except where it fell in soft, short curls behind each ear.
A taller—much taller—dark-haired man with prominent cheekbones and depthless eyes followed Mary into the foyer carrying four-year-old Robert. The man crouched low to set the boy gently down, and when he rose and straightened and seemed to continue to stretch to ever greater heights, Emilie’s heart pounded and she almost could not breathe. All she could think of was the ravenous giant from the story of Jack and the Beanstalk—surely this stranger was that same giant, so tall was he and so big, with a long, full, black cloak over his shoulders and a fur cap with ear straps drawn around his head so that little of his face could be seen. Expecting any moment that he would bellow that he smelled the blood of a little Kentucky girl, Emilie shrank close to her mother, hiding behind her voluminous skirts and squeezing her eyes shut. But instead of a fearsome roar, she heard the voices of her family raised in warm greetings and merry laughter. Trembling, she slowly opened her eyes and peered around her mother’s skirts only to discover her loved ones exchanging handshakes and embraces not only with sister Mary and the children but with the fearsome giant as well.
When he had greeted everyone else, the man turned, crouched on one knee before Emilie, and smiled, looking at her with eyes so warm, kind, and gentle that in an instant she forgot that she had ever feared him. When he held out his arms, she obligingly let him lift her high, high in the air as he stood, so that if she had not been clutching him tightly, she might have reached up and brushed the crown molding with her fingertips.
“So this is Little Sister,” he said, amusement adding an undercurrent of laughter to his
mellow tenor voice.
After that, he always called her Little Sister, and soon Mary too adopted the nickname. Emilie had never feared him again, not even when he rose to become the most powerful man in the land and held the power of life and death over those she loved most. He called her Little Sister even after her husband refused his offer of a commission in the Union Army and joined the Confederates instead. And she would never forget how he and Mary both had welcomed their Little Sister to the White House in those terrible weeks of anguish after Ben died.
Would Mary fondly call her Little Sister still, if Emilie reached out to her? Was Mary in any state to speak to her or read a heartfelt letter and respond in kind?
At thirty-eight years old, the last twelve lived as a widow, Emilie would have thought herself capable of bearing the news of Mary’s misfortune with more womanly stoicism and grace, but the latest revelations in the press had unsettled her deeply. Earlier that morning, after seeing her own three children well started on the day but before her first pupil arrived, Emilie had pored over Robert’s recent letters, searching for euphemisms and deflections, anything that would explain the discrepancy between what she had believed about Mary’s condition, and about Bellevue Place, and what her circumstances actually were, according to a certain Mrs. M. L. Rayne, correspondent for the Chicago Post and Mail. How a reporter, a stranger, had been allowed to see Mary when Dr. Patterson strongly advised friends and family not to visit out of concern that seeing them might agitate the patient and delay her recovery, Emilie could only wonder.
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