She would have traveled to Illinois to see Mary several times by now if she had known that visits were not harmful after all. She and Mary were estranged, but they were still family—and unique among all the Todd sisters, Emilie had distanced herself from Mary rather than the other way around.
How her choices tormented her now! She had always loved Mary, and Abe too, and indeed her quarrel had been with him, not with her sister. But after his assassination, when Mary had not responded to Emilie’s tentative letters of condolence, she had found herself at a loss, uncertain what to do. Should she persist, or should she wait patiently until her elder sister reached out to her? Eventually, preoccupied by her own grief and hardships, Emilie had stopped trying to find the right words to break the chilly silence that stretched between them.
Although she had severed ties with his mother, Emilie had kept in touch with Robert, her adored nephew and dear friend. As he was only seven years younger than herself, he had always felt more like a cousin than a nephew, and even when they had been on opposite sides of the war, their bonds of affection had not shattered. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for other members of their family: some remained irrevocably estranged a decade after the war ended, and others had left this earth, taking all hope of reconciliation with them.
But since she and Robert were close, Emilie trusted him—his judgment in correctly evaluating his mother’s condition, and his honesty in sharing his observations with her. Two weeks after the trial, he had written to assure her that his mother was receiving the best medical care and was as happily situated as possible, and that he was determined that she should have everything for her comfort and pleasure that could be safely provided. His mother resided in a private suite of two rooms with a bath, on the second floor in the same section of the building where the Patterson family’s quarters were located. Mary slept in the larger bedroom, while her personal attendant, a young former schoolteacher selected for her kindness and intelligence, occupied the smaller. Rumors that Mary was restrained by barred windows and locked doors were absolutely untrue: the windows were fitted with light, ornamental wire screens to prevent falls, and her door was locked only at night; during the day, she herself kept the key. As for her angry accusations at the trial, she was no longer furious at Robert for, as she had seen it then, his unfilial betrayal. “The expression of surprise at my action which was telegraphed in all the papers, and which you doubtless saw, was the first and last expression of the kind she has uttered and we are on the best of terms,” he wrote. “Indeed my consolation in this sad affair is knowing that she is happier in every way, in her freedom from worry and excitement, than she has been in ten years.”
Emilie knew that those ten years referred not to the end of the war but to the ill-fated day of his father’s murder. That day marked the crux of Mary’s life; thenceforth, everything belonged either to the hopeful Before or the wretched After.
In letters that followed, Robert informed Emilie that he visited his mother every week, often bringing along his five-year-old daughter Mamie. Without exception, Mary was delighted to see her grandchild, and in every regard she was cordial and welcoming to her son. Or so Robert’s letters reported well into June. Then—and here Emilie detected a pattern of troubling changes she had not noticed before—Mary went out walking less frequently and canceled nearly as many carriage rides as she scheduled, until apparently she was rarely leaving the building. “Today Mother was not quite so friendly in her manner to me as in previous visits,” Robert had written on June 17, and a week later, he had passed on a remark from her personal attendant that Mary had been sleeping restlessly of late.
The signs were subtle, but when Emilie purposefully searched Robert’s letters for them, they leapt off the page. Although Mary had appeared to be settling in well at Bellevue Place when she had first been committed, over the past few weeks she had become restless and aggrieved.
That altered disposition was likely what had informed the account Mrs. Rayne presented to the Post and Mail. The reporter met first with Dr. Patterson, who had been reluctant to discuss his patient’s condition, but either he had overcome his reticence or Mrs. Rayne had later found an orderly more willing to talk. Mrs. Lincoln gave the staff little trouble, but she was capricious in her walking and riding, scheduling a carriage ride for midday, then postponing it until the afternoon, and then until after supper, and then canceling it altogether, only to start over again the next morning. She had brought ten large trunks of clothing with her, but despite that abundance, she had ordered elaborate morning dresses of black French cambric and white striped lawn, which she never wore; soon thereafter, when she requested samples of black alpaca to have a suit made, she “was diverted from this, as it was only a form of her malady to accumulate material.” More distressing yet, Emilie read that often Mary would sit alone in her room and imagine herself at the White House entertaining senators and ambassadors with her beloved husband at her side. On other occasions, she would sit at her table and converse with her deceased sons—a symptom of her illness, Robert assured Emilie, and not to be confused with a sudden escalation in her belief in Spiritualism.
Ordinarily Mrs. Lincoln refused to see any visitors, “even declining to leave her room when they are in the house or on the grounds,” so Mrs. Rayne had been pleasantly surprised when her request to meet was accepted. A doctor escorted her up to Mrs. Lincoln’s suite, where the former first lady welcomed her cordially, shook her hand, and invited her to sit. She was dressed in an ordinary black dress, half worn; her glossy chestnut brown hair had gone mostly gray and was carelessly arranged in a coronet braid coiled into a knot in back. “She looked worn and ill,” Mrs. Rayne wrote, “and her hands, ringless and uncared for, were never at rest. I could plainly see in her lusterless eyes and in the forced composure of her manner evidences of a shattered mind. She was perfectly ladylike in manner, but rambling and diffuse in her conversation.” Even so, she spoke tenderly of her late husband, and upon learning that her visitor was from Chicago, she inquired politely about several friends residing in the city.
In parting, Mrs. Lincoln took a lovely bouquet from a crystal vase on her table and asked the reporter to accept it. “I thought I could perceive in the diplomatic bow and smile a return of the old society manner,” Mrs. Rayne wrote, “and my heart was full for the woman who sat down silent and alone in her solitary room to keep imaginary company with Senators and Ambassadors in the light of that gracious, kindly smile long since hidden beneath the coffin lid.” No encouragement was held out that Mrs. Lincoln would ever become permanently well, the sympathetic reporter concluded, but there was no better asylum than Bellevue Place for the attempt to restore her reason to be undertaken.
Emilie had been shaken by the article, which left her bewildered and worried. The distracted, pathetic, delusional woman portrayed in its columns bore no resemblance to the confident, clever, gracious elder sister she had admired since childhood. Nor did that unhappy woman resemble the unwell but cooperative and steadily improving mother Robert had described with tender frankness in his letters.
Had this Mrs. Rayne observed the real Mary Lincoln? Had Mary allowed a stranger a glimpse behind the brave mask she maintained for those who loved her most faithfully? But no, that wasn’t Mary either. Her sisters and closest friends had seen her at her best and at her worst, when she had shone radiantly as the first lady of the land and when she had lain prostrate in bed, keening with grief. She would not conceal her true self from them now. Even her suicide attempt—Emilie’s heart thudded at the thought of it—had been made in plain view of dozens of witnesses.
Who was this reporter who had either observed a Mary none of her sisters knew or fabricated a pitiful tale for unfathomable reasons of her own? What was true, and what was falsehood? Were greedy opportunists manipulating Mary for their own gain, or was Mary somehow orchestrating it all, whether to secure her release or win public sympathy or something else entirely?
One matter was certain:
Mary needed her loved ones to put past grievances aside, to help her make her way through this dreadful chapter of her life and find the path to a more hopeful future. The Todd sisters all had survived tragedy. They all had endured loss—parents, husbands, children, whole nations and noble causes, all had fallen away, lost to time. If they could not rise above their old resentments to help a sister in need, would it not be said that they had learned nothing from their own suffering?
Emilie was neither a philosopher nor a physician, just a music teacher, a widow, a sister, a mother. She could not claim any particular knowledge of the diseases of the human mind, but she did know how the accumulation of sorrows could burden the spirit.
She also knew that she could not help Mary from the other side of an unbroken silence.
6
February 1832
Frances
A light flurry of snow danced past the windows of the front parlor, but the fire on the hearth warmed the room and enhanced the lamplight, banishing the false twilight. The noises of the younger siblings playing in the nursery were pleasantly distant, so Frances was able to work in peace, enjoying the quiet industry of the winter afternoon. If only Elizabeth were there, with her pleasant conversation and generous encouragement, Frances would have been perfectly content. But Elizabeth had already gone to Aunt Eliza and Uncle Charles’s country house to prepare for the upcoming festivities, and although the rest of the family would soon join her there, her absence was keenly felt. They had better get used to it, Frances thought hollowly, certain that she never would.
It was on Elizabeth’s behalf that Frances, Mary, and cousin Betsey labored on a Sunday afternoon when they might have been out sleigh-riding or reading a delightful novel. In two days, Elizabeth would marry Ninian Edwards, the handsome, dashing Transylvania University law student who had won her heart. Like his bride-to-be, the groom came from a prominent political family, and he brought to their union an impressive lineage, substantial wealth, and important connections. His father was the former governor of Illinois, and Ninian had great expectations of enjoying an equally brilliant political career. Since he was still in his third year of law school, the newlyweds planned to remain in Lexington while he completed his degree. After that, they would move to Belleville, Illinois, to be near his family.
Frances felt a lump in her throat imagining the four hundred miles that would all too soon separate her from her dearest sister. They had never been so far apart for more than a few days at a time. Who would comfort Frances when she was melancholy, or encourage her when she felt dispirited, or advise her when Mary got on her last nerve? Elizabeth promised to write often, but a fond smile and a warm embrace between sisters conveyed so much more than could ever be put down on paper. It would be bad enough when Elizabeth left home to live with Ninian in his boardinghouse near the university. How would Frances bear it when she moved to another state?
She rested her hand, holding the needle, on her lap, closed her eyes, and inhaled deeply, quietly. It would not do to become so upset that she pricked a fingertip and ruined the lovely lace and silk illusion headpiece and veil she was making for her sister. Frances had less than forty-eight hours to finish it; there was no time to spare for picking out stitches and replacing bloodstained fabric. None of her sisters would be able to assist her if she fell behind, for they too were hurrying to finish essentials for Elizabeth’s trousseau. Mary, the most gifted seamstress of the Todd sisters despite her young age, was finishing a fine wool suit Elizabeth would wear when she traveled to Belleville to meet more of Ninian’s relations and their expansive circle of family friends. Cousin Betsey was putting the last stitches into the binding of a wedding quilt, a collaborative project the women and girls of the Todd, Parker, and Humphreys families had begun soon after the couple announced their engagement. Every member of the household except for the boys and the younger children had some wedding work to complete and very little time left in which to do it.
Aunt Eliza had the most demanding role of all, for she was hosting the wedding and the reception at her spacious home in Walnut Hill, seven miles southeast of Lexington. Through the years, the elder Todd children had spent many joyful weeks in the countryside with Aunt Eliza, Uncle Charles, and their children. Their aunt Hannah Todd Stuart, her husband, and their children also lived nearby. All of the cousins had played happily together, enjoying merry games of tag and hide-and-go-seek in the adjacent woods; going on picnics in sun-splashed meadows and shady groves; picking berries, walnuts, and chestnuts as they came into season; going on hay rides in fair weather and sleigh rides in winter; roasting apples and telling stories around the fireside. Frances cherished her memories of those visits, which had lasted weeks or even months at a stretch, but she knew now—and had sensed even then—that the real purpose had been to get the stepchildren out of Ma’s way so she could attend to her own.
Ma’s only regret about their lovely home on Main Street—the only regret she had ever mentioned in Frances’s hearing anyway—was that it was simply too crowded for a family of eight children with another on the way—ten including cousin Betsey. Those very lamentations, in fact, were what had prompted Aunt Eliza to offer to host Elizabeth’s wedding at her home instead. Frances was pleased for Elizabeth that such an agreeable solution had been found for her special day, but that did not resolve the ongoing problem of Ma’s dissatisfaction with the increasingly crowded conditions at home. Frances was nagged by a troubling suspicion that, rather than find a way to make more efficient use of space, Ma preferred to scatter her stepchildren among the extended family.
Perhaps Elizabeth’s departure would make enough room in the house to soothe Ma’s discontent, a very good thing considering her delicate condition. A new brother or sister would be joining the family in about six weeks, and the fewer cares burdening Ma until then, the better it would be for everyone.
Muffling a sigh, Frances took up her needle again and resumed working on a particularly complicated section of the bride’s headpiece. She had just tied a knot and snipped the trailing threads when she heard a quiet rapping sound from elsewhere in the house: three knocks, a pause, two knocks, a pause, and one.
She turned her ear toward the sound and listened, but when only silence followed and none of her companions glanced up from their work, she threaded her needle again and resumed sewing. Barely two minutes later, the knocking came again, this time slightly louder, and yet restrained.
This time Mary looked up. “Did anyone else hear that?”
Frances nodded, but Betsey said, “Hear what?”
“A rapping sound, like knuckles on glass.” Mary repeated the pattern on the arm of her chair. “I’ve heard it twice, repeated in the same pattern.”
“It’s probably just the little ones playing jacks,” said Betsey, her gaze focused intently on the quilt.
“They’re upstairs in the nursery,” said Frances. “This sounded like it came from the kitchen.”
“Then it’s probably Aunt Chaney cooking.”
Mary shook her head. “No, Ma gave Aunt Chaney permission to visit her husband this afternoon. That’s why we’re having a cold supper.”
Just then the knocks sounded again—three, two, one.
Betsey’s eyebrows rose, and her hands, still clasping the edge of the quilt and the needle, fell to her lap. “Perhaps it’s a deliveryman, or Levi playing a prank.”
“A deliveryman would go to the back door,” said Mary. “This sounded like a knock on a window.”
Frances carefully set the headpiece aside and rose from her chair. “There’s only one way to find out.”
She meant to go alone, but Mary and Betsey promptly abandoned their work and followed her across the hall, through the empty kitchen, and to the rear entry. When Frances opened the door, a gust of wind blew icy crystals into the air around her, but no one stood on the back stoop.
“Look,” said Mary, ducking past Frances to bend for a close look at scuff marks in the thin trace of snow. “Footprints. Someo
ne was here.”
“It would be just like Levi to distract us with a fright when he knows we’re busy,” said Betsey.
Frowning, shaking her head, Mary drew back into the kitchen. Closing the door firmly against the cold, Frances turned in time to see her younger sister striding toward the pantry. Frances and Betsey hastened after her, only to round the corner and halt abruptly, as Mary had, in front of Sally. Slowly their mammy turned toward them, her expression wary, a piece of cheesecloth and a coil of smoked sausages in one hand and a thick piece of cornbread in the other.
“We thought we heard rapping on the kitchen window,” said Mary, her gaze traveling from Sally’s face to the food she carried, “but no one was at the back door.”
“Only footprints in the snow,” Betsey added.
Sally’s guarded expression drew Frances’s sympathy. “Obviously someone came on an errand and Mammy Sally took care of it and sent him on his way,” she said, dismissing the mystery with a shrug.
Sally’s mouth pressed into a grim line. Silently, Frances willed her to play along, but she said nothing.
“Is that what happened, Mammy Sally?” Mary prompted. “If not, I suppose we’ll have to tell Ma that there are prowlers about. She’ll tell Papa, and he’ll have to—”
“No prowlers around here, Miss Mary,” Sally broke in. “No need to tell nobody.”
Mary cocked her head to one side and planted a hand on her hip. “What is it then? Levi playing pranks?”
Sally held each of them in her gaze for a long moment. “Can you keep a secret?”
“If necessary,” said Mary, while Frances and Betsey nodded.
“Then you best promise to keep this one.” Sally gestured, quick and defiant, toward the cloakroom. “Go fetch your wraps and hurry back. Quiet, now.”
Quickly the girls dashed off to pull on their boots and coats and mittens, then hurried back to Sally, who waited resignedly at the door, the cloth-wrapped bundle of sausages and cornbread tucked under one arm. Stepping outside, Sally drew her shawl closer around herself and jerked her head to the west to indicate that they were to follow. The girls trailed after her through the back garden to a stand of evergreens some distance from the house, where a few weatherworn oak posts, the remnants of an old fence, stood sentinel in the snow.
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