Mrs. Lincoln's Sisters

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  Robert intended to go into exile with her, he wrote to Elizabeth, his dejection evident despite his straightforward tone. He was now the head of the family, and it was his responsibility to look after his mother and younger brother. Elizabeth understood and respected her nephew’s decision all the more knowing how much it must pain him to abandon his promising future in the East. Only a few weeks before, he had been a proud and gallant Union officer, courting the lovely young Miss Mary Eunice Harlan, a senator’s daughter, and intending to study the law. Now, for the sake of his mother and brother, he would leave that life behind.

  Despite their estrangement, Elizabeth was surprised and a little hurt when Robert told her whom Mary had begged to accompany her on the journey to her new home and to stay with her until she settled in—not any of the Todd sisters or a cousin, but Mrs. Keckly, her dressmaker and confidante. Elizabeth told herself that she should be grateful that Mary had chosen her companion wisely and that the estimable Mrs. Keckly had agreed to go. Elizabeth had been impressed with how patiently and faithfully Mrs. Keckly had looked after Mary in her wild and frantic grief after Willie died, and according to Robert, her care for his mother had surpassed even that great kindness after his father’s death. Evidently there was something about Mrs. Keckly’s particular strengths of character that made her uniquely qualified to tolerate Mary’s eccentricities and tempers and to comfort her in her deepest despondency.

  Perhaps, in Mrs. Keckly, Mary had at last found a companion who would never disappoint her.

  25

  June–October 1876

  Frances

  Mary’s vitriolic missive of June 19 so incensed Robert’s lawyer that he immediately fired off a blistering letter to Ninian, as Mary’s host and guardian, to refute her absurd accusations. Her letters were clear evidence of “the utter wreck of Mrs. Lincoln’s mind,” Mr. Swett declared, for they were full of hateful phrases “such as none but an insane mother would write to her son.” His client had done absolutely everything possible to ensure his mother’s health and safety, and if, after all Robert had sacrificed, his mother still insisted upon trying to ruin him by threatening lawsuits and scandalous publicity, Mr. Swett himself would pursue having Mary confined as an insane person, regardless of Robert’s desires or those of anyone else in the family.

  Frances could not fault Mr. Swett for his furious response, especially since she knew Mary had sent other letters to Robert after that provocative one, letters in which she called him a villain and a “monster of mankind” and demanded additional items that she had given to her son and his wife as gifts. Ann agreed wholeheartedly with Mr. Swett, and to Frances’s surprise and no small relief, Ninian and Elizabeth did too. They wrote to both Robert and his lawyer to assure them that Robert had their confidence and sympathy, and that they never once believed he had acted improperly or selfishly, but always to best ensure his mother’s security and comfort.

  Exhausted, and desperate to bring the conflict to an end, Frances, Elizabeth, and Ann approached Mary as a united front to gently but emphatically explain that no good could come of her relentless demands and threats. If, as a member of the bar, Mr. Swett resolved to call for a new insanity hearing, there would be very little the family could do to prevent him. Mary quaked at that, but she insisted that Mr. Swett’s letter was “filled with voluminous falsehoods” and that he was as debased and villainous as his client. “It is unfair and unkind for you three to band together against me,” she lamented, tears in her eyes. “Is that sisterly? Is that just?”

  Without waiting for an answer, she fled the parlor and shut herself away in her room, leaving her sisters frustrated and worried that they had only made matters worse.

  “Why can she not relent?” groused Ann, flinging herself into a chair and folding her arms over her chest. “She knows that all these bits and bobs she gave to Robert and his wife are their rightful property, and she has no use for them anyway. She already has what she really wants—control of her assets and legal proof that she is not mad, though I for one dissent from the court’s opinion. Why can she not just declare victory and walk off with her prizes?”

  “She has always excelled at holding grudges,” said Elizabeth, sighing. “She wants to punish Robert for having her committed, and I don’t think she will stop until she has satisfaction.”

  “But what will satisfy her?” Ann persisted. Elizabeth only shook her head and shrugged.

  Later that night, at home in her empty bed, Frances wished with all her heart that William were there to advise her, to speak to Mary on her sisters’ behalf. Mary had trusted him implicitly as the physician who had so valiantly tried to save the life of her precious Eddie, and often, when her sisters’ words had failed, he had been able to speak in a particular reasonable tone that had calmed her tempers. What would William say now? Frances wondered. What would he do to reach his distressed sister-in-law?

  Sleep eluded her as she pondered the question, but eventually she drifted off, and in the morning when she woke she realized her sisters’ mistake: they never should have taken Mary by surprise in Elizabeth’s parlor, three against one, when she had assumed they were gathering to knit and sew together as always. Mary almost never admitted wrongdoing in front of Ann, and she certainly would not have done so with Elizabeth and Frances looking on.

  Then, too, they all should have been mindful of the sorrowful date inexorably approaching—the fifth anniversary of young Tad’s death.

  In the autumn of 1868, soon after Robert married Miss Mary Eunice Harlan, Mary had taken Tad to tour the celebrated capitals and landmarks of Europe that she and Abe had once planned to visit together after his second term. She had gone because she had believed she could live more economically abroad, because she could not bear the familiar places that evoked so many memories of her late husband, and because she craved the peace and solitude that anonymity in a foreign land would bring. For two and a half years, Mary and Tad had lived in Europe, meeting old friends, exploring wondrous sites, partaking of luxury on a budget in Germany, Austria, Scotland, England, France, and Italy. While Tad had attended school in an excellent German academy, Mary had visited health spas seeking relief from various pains and discomforts, enjoying the royal treatment she received as the widow of the great President Abraham Lincoln.

  While she was abroad, Mary had become a grandmother, and eventually her longing to see her granddaughter, as well as eighteen-year-old Tad’s ever-increasing homesickness, had compelled her to return to her homeland. Mary had been anxious about the ocean crossing and its effects upon their health, worries that had proved prescient when Tad’s weak lungs suffered in the storms and damp. Upon his arrival in Manhattan, he had been diagnosed with a serious chest ailment and put on bed rest at a hotel. When his doctors had pronounced him fit enough to travel, Mary and Tad had continued on by train to Chicago, where they had stayed with Robert and his family until accommodations could be found for them at the Clifton House, a nearby hotel. But rather than improving, Tad’s symptoms had only worsened. Increasingly desperate, Mary had nursed him tirelessly and consulted the best doctors, but small improvements in Tad’s condition had invariably been followed by serious declines. Despite all her efforts, on July 15, Tad had died from a dropsy of the chest.

  Another death, another precious son lost, another devastating blow. Frances had sent condolences on behalf of herself and her children, but she had neither expected nor received a reply. Robert had once confided to her that he had heard his mother declare, in despondent moments after his father’s death, that if not for Tad, she would have gladly joined her husband in the grave. By her own admission, only Tad and her responsibility for him had kept her from taking her own life.

  In a sense, Mary had warned her sisters what she would do when she believed she no longer had anyone or anything to live for. Why had they not listened?

  Before confronting Mary about her threats to ruin Robert, Frances should have remembered that her sister had always struggled with the bitt
er annual reminders of her greatest losses. On the anniversaries of those tragic events, she could become distraught, melancholy, quick to anger, or inconsolably tearful. Frances could not believe it was happenstance that Mary’s most intense episode of derangement, the one that led to her institutionalization, had coincided with the tenth anniversary of Abe’s assassination. In a matter of days, it would have been five years since Tad had perished. Was it any wonder Mary was overwrought and irrational?

  Despite their sister’s fragile state, the ongoing conflict had to be resolved before any more damage was done. Elizabeth hated confrontation, Ann enjoyed it a little too much, and Emilie was too far away. It was up to Frances to reason with Mary, to convince her either to forgive Robert or at least to stop tormenting him—and if Frances earned her sister’s eternal enmity for her trouble, so be it. She had to try.

  On the morning of July 15, Frances borrowed Ann’s carriage and rode to the Edwards residence. After a private chat with Elizabeth, she went outside to the garden, where she found Mary sitting on a bench in the shade of a plum tree. Lewis, sprawled out on the grass nearby, was reading to her from a volume of poetry by John Greenleaf Whittier. Lewis’s voice was clear and warm, and the poem lovely and heartfelt, but Mary’s expression was sorrowful, her gaze distant.

  Frances inhaled deeply to brace herself as she approached. Lewis was the first to notice her; he sat up, smiled, and wished her a good morning. Mary nodded but said nothing.

  “Elizabeth said we may cut some of her flowers, and Ann has lent her carriage,” said Frances. “I thought we could ride out to Oak Ridge Cemetery and place flowers upon Tad’s grave.”

  Mary shot her a wild look. “No. No. I couldn’t bear it.”

  “Perhaps you should, Great-Aunt Mary,” said Lewis. “I shall escort you, if you like.”

  Mary managed a small, tender smile. “You’re very kind to offer, my dear, but even with your strong arm to lean upon, I dare not.”

  Frances’s heart sank. “I’m sorry,” she said, pressing a hand to her waist. Her corset suddenly felt much too tight. “I know what an unhappy day this is for you, and I thought paying our respects might help.”

  “Nothing can help this, this fathomless despair.” Mary paused and then amended her response: “Knowing that you remembered, and that you care, that does help a bit.”

  “Lewis,” Frances asked, “would you please fetch Great-Aunt Mary a glass of water?”

  “Of course.” He bounded to his feet and loped off toward the house.

  After he disappeared inside, Frances seated herself on the bench beside her sister. “Mary, I understand how brokenhearted you are, but—” She hesitated. “You have one son remaining to you. I know you’ve had your differences—immeasurable and great in number. And yet he is your only living child. Could you not try to reconcile?”

  Mary shook her head. “Absolutely not. If one of your children had done to you what he has done to me, perhaps you could understand.”

  Frances chose her words carefully. “It’s true that you have been through an ordeal that I cannot fully comprehend. And yet I must believe that love endures between you and Robert. If you cannot reconcile today, would you please consider a cessation of hostilities before all hope of reconciliation is quashed?”

  “All hope is already—”

  “No. Don’t tell me that because I won’t believe you.” Frances steeled herself. “Very well. There are other reasons to stop threatening lawsuits and scandalous publicity. First, it is unkind and beneath you to ruin your son. Second, you will harm yourself worse than you will ever harm Robert.”

  Mary eyed her, frowning. “I fail to see how.”

  “Then I must remind you of a very unpleasant subject that your sisters have never dared to bring up in your presence—your attempt to sell your wardrobe in New York nine years ago.” Nearly everyone in the country referred to the incident as “the Old Clothes Scandal,” but Frances would spare Mary that.

  “I needed money,” said Mary tightly. “Surely, of all my sisters, you understand what it is like not to be able to make ends meet.”

  “I do indeed,” Frances replied evenly. “I can even admire your frugality. Why shouldn’t you sell off your finery, your exquisite gowns and sumptuous lace shawls, if you no longer need them? Those dresses and other lovely clothes were too beautiful to be locked away in trunks forever, and you needed money more than you needed a fancy White House wardrobe.”

  Mary’s eyes narrowed slightly in suspicion. “Exactly.”

  “But that wasn’t your only purpose, was it?” Frances persisted. “Certainly, you would have gladly accepted profits from the sale of your clothes, but you also hoped that reports that you were obliged to sell your wardrobe because of your impoverished circumstances would shame the Republican establishment into providing for you.”

  Mary frowned and tore her gaze away. “I see you’ve read that dreadful book.”

  “Yes, I confess that I have read Mrs. Keckly’s memoir, but at the time I needed only to glimpse the scathing newspaper headlines to see how badly your scheme failed. Instead of shaming the Republicans, you embarrassed yourself—and it pained me to see how you suffered for it.” Frances placed a hand on her sister’s shoulder, but Mary kept her face resolutely turned away. “Mary, you must see the similarities between then and now. You must see, as I do, that this misguided effort to shame Robert will result in an equally unhappy ending—for you.”

  A long moment passed in silence.

  “Given the malice of the press toward me and the perfidy of men,” said Mary grudgingly, “you may be right.”

  Frances seized her advantage. “You brought up Mrs. Keckly’s memoir—the private letters she printed, the intimate conversations she repeated. Consider how much that hurt you. And although we all loathe to remember him, let us recall just for a moment the dreadful Mr. Herndon, his vile lectures, his vicious biography—”

  “So-called biography,” Mary interjected sharply. “Those wretched volumes were so full of slanderous falsehoods that they are more aptly considered works of fiction.”

  “Lies and truths alike wounded you,” Frances reminded her. “Now consider what you have been threatening to do to Robert. Would you truly be willing to inflict such pain upon your only surviving son? Because if, after all you have suffered yourself, you would be capable of—” Frances’s throat constricted. She withdrew her hand from her sister’s shoulder and clasped her hands together in her lap. “I must believe you are better than that, Mary. It would break my heart if you proved me wrong.”

  Mary sat in silence for a moment, her back turned, her shoulders shaking as if from suppressed sobs. “I will think about what you’ve said,” she said hoarsely, rising. “In the meantime, if you would be so kind as to lay flowers on my dear Tad’s grave today, I would be grateful.”

  “Of course,” said Frances. “Are you sure you won’t come with—”

  But Mary was already hurrying to the house and did not look back.

  When her sister had disappeared through the back door, Frances rose, retrieved the garden shears from the basket beneath the kitchen window, and began cutting flowers for the gravesite. She had not been working long when she heard footsteps on the stone path and turned to find Lewis striding toward her. “I was on my way with the glass of water when I saw from the doorway how urgently you were speaking to Great-Aunt Mary,” he said sheepishly. “That’s when I realized you didn’t really want the water; you just wanted to be alone. Is everything all right?”

  Frances assured him it was, or at least, she thought it would be. She apologized for the ruse and invited him to accompany her to the cemetery. He nodded, sympathetic, and did not ask why his great-aunt Mary wished to remain behind.

  Two days later, Elizabeth told Frances and Ann that Mary suddenly and without a word of explanation had informed Ninian that she no longer intended to file a lawsuit against Robert or to denounce him in the press. She would be satisfied with the repayment of certa
in debts Robert owed her for the purchase of her former residence on West Washington Avenue in Chicago.

  “When I pressed her for a reason, all she would say was that she was exhausted,” said Elizabeth, eyebrows drawn together in worry. “What do you suppose she meant by that?”

  “Perhaps that she’ll resume her attack after a good night’s sleep,” said Ann scornfully.

  But Ann was mistaken. Weeks passed, summer faded into fall, and although as far as her sisters knew, Mary made no effort to reconcile with Robert, she no longer threatened to ruin him.

  Frances hoped the burgeoning peace would bring Mary some tranquility of heart, but she seemed restless and discontented, except when Lewis took her for carriage rides, went out walking with her, or read aloud to her from her favorite poets. When her sisters gently asked her what troubled her, Mary confessed that she could no longer bear living in Springfield, where every familiar scene and favorite place evoked painful memories of happier bygone years and everyone regarded her as a madwoman who ought to be locked away in an asylum and forgotten. “I feel it in their soothing manner,” she told her sisters when they protested that it was not so. “If I should say the moon is made of green cheese, they would heartily and smilingly agree with me. I love you all, but I cannot stay.”

  “Would you be happy in the midst of strangers?” asked Elizabeth.

  Mary put her head to one side, considering. “Not likely, but I would be much less unhappy.”

  Despite this fair warning, Frances was stunned when Mary announced that she intended to return to Europe. Would she not then be tormented by memories of her travels with Tad?