Dear George, Dear Mary

by Mary Calvi

  “Colonel, my cousins Miss Eva Van Cortlandt and Miss Margaret Kemble.”

  “Pleased to make your acquaintances,” he said, after which he politely excused himself and moved toward his officers.

  Eva’s big eyes opened wide. She leaned toward Mary’s ear. “Oh, he is lost in adoration. Unable to surrender the view that is our charming Polly.”

  “He still looks this way?” Mary asked without turning toward him.

  “As if trapped in intoxication.” Eva then took their hands and formed a circle. “It is true, is it not, Polly, that he is a temple sacred by birth?”

  “He is quite delicious, isn’t he?” Mary welled up with excitement.

  Eva peeked past her. “Built by hands divine.”

  Margaret’s head tilted slightly toward him. Her ringlets followed suit. “And it doesn’t appear he thinks of himself as such.”

  “One of the very few men of such caliber.” Eva sighed.

  “Polly, are you aware of how dazzling you look tonight?” Margaret gave her a broad smile.

  “What I am aware of is the desperate need to take a breath. I am ever so tightly squeezed up in this gown.”

  The three burst into laughter as Mary separated from them and walked toward the doorway. In need of detaching her train for dancing and wanting a bit of air, she moved through the banquet room, where the dining coverings were being removed. Exquisite mahogany wood with a heavily shined surface was displayed. Silver trays of fruit were placed upon it.

  Around the table, three little boys, the children of the elite, raced in a competition of sorts. “Good evening, gentlemen,” Mary greeted them.

  They halted, appearing frightened of a scolding, but then grinned wide. “Good evening to you, Miss Philipse,” Robert and Henry Livingston, along with John Jay, announced in something like unison.

  Henry broke from the group and ran over to her. “Tonight is a night to delight and not fight.”

  Mary reached down to hug him. “My poet Henry—that is a handsome rhyme. One day your poetry will be known around the world. I’m certain of it. And yes, boys, no fights tonight.”

  “Yes, Miss Philipse.” They quickly recommenced their races in the parlor.

  As she rounded the corner toward the powder room, she noticed the faint smell of mud. This stopped her. A forceful jerk tugged her backward. A man’s arm grabbed her about the waist like a snake capturing its prey. The other arm wrapped around her neck, pressing her face against his moistened cheek. Each of his fingers, even the crooked one, was covered in metal rings.

  “Your allure shakes me.” The voice sounded sharp as a razor’s edge. “Had you forgotten to send me an invitation, dearest Polly?”

  She caught a glimpse of raven black hair covered in hair powder; the clay dust emitted a foulness that forced her into a motionless state. Her mouth suddenly went dry. She did not scream. She could not say a word.

  “Have you not read the many correspondences I have sent to you? You are the one I desire to possess, merchandise more precious than rubies, finer than gold.”

  She detested every word that came from the man’s loathsome tongue.

  “You leave me always aching for more of you. I will remain here until I hear thy word. Yes will be the only one I will accept.”

  No one would have believed it. James Jay—the physician, a member of polite society, his father, the esteemed Peter Jay. But Mary knew the real James. The signs of his rage. His erratic behavior. The twitch in his eye.

  Her eyes shifted downward to see his boots, which were specked with dried mud. The heels had long gilt spurs attached to them. They made jangling sounds when he took three steps back to force her into the corner of a storage room. She was desperate for release. With his hand upon her chin, he pressed the side of her face onto his lips.

  “Laissez-la partir!” A shout came from the north-side doorway.

  Jay’s hands held on tightly to her. “A threat from a French cook? Go back to your kettle!”

  She could feel the movement of muscles in his wet face.

  A plate shattered across the floor at the doorway. It was Temperance who’d thrown it, and who now appeared with fury upon her face. François grabbed a broken piece of the porcelain up from the floor and leveled it at James Jay.

  “Let her go!” Temperance shrieked.

  “Je vous egorge!” François shook the shard. “I will cut you!”

  “Your kind, I detest.” James’s obsession with the wine cup was evident from his breath. “Nothing more can you take from me and my family.”

  “You talk of nonsense,” François said, moving closer to him.

  Temperance yelled, “Let her go!”

  “You, the French, you stole everything. You think we don’t remember your kind’s Edict of Fontainebleau, confiscating my family’s land, forcing them to run from your evil country. Now you wish to take my love from me. I will not have it.” James’s hands wrapped around Mary’s neck.

  François lunged, drawing blood from James’s arm.

  He writhed in pain, long enough to allow Mary to wrangle from his tight grip.

  With blood dripping onto his sleeve, James looked up in a rage. “I will have my revenge!”

  Frederick raced in. “What have you done?”

  James raised a fist in the air, red trailing down his arm. “Your cook cut me!”

  Frederick placed his body in between Mary and James. “Leave at once!” he shouted at James.

  “Leave? Lord Philipse, that will never happen,” countered James. “I am family, your cousin. Did you not know?”

  “You will never be part of this family. You will never, never be one of us.”

  “Your dear little sister agreed to be mine long ago.”

  ’Twas true, she was only a child then. Mary remembered feeling pain. He wouldn’t let go. She couldn’t scream. “You will be my queen, and I your king” were his words to her. She finally agreed to marry him so he would release her.

  “I proposed myself a partner for life to her. And, my love, my Polly, you agreed.”

  “Never will you have her, James.” Frederick moved Mary farther away, using his body to block her. “You have been rejected many times.”

  “Address me with the proper title. I am Doctor James Jay, a student of medicine.”

  “You shame the name of your family, you insolent drunkard, mutton-headed schemer. Poison spills from your being.”

  “Your family stole from mine what rightfully belongs to the family of Jay. This house, your land, the whole of your belongings—they are mine!”

  “Your words excite a hateful passion. I tell you, leave now or I will bring in the guards.”

  James staggered toward the door. As he moved past Mary, he leaned into her. “I want all of it, including you, Polly.”

  She felt unsteady as the door closed behind James. A sensation took hold of her; it felt as if the room were moving, spinning about her head. She could barely hear Frederick’s words. Her sight blurred.

  “We will be sure to assign guards at the door,” her brother’s words echoed. “He will never get near her again. He will never get any of our attention ever again.”

  Blackness overcame her.

  * * *

  “LIKE SILENT POETRY,” announced the dancing master to the assembled in the ballroom. “Let your dance be a captivating sight as the musicians play to your ears’ delight. Strong charms, each gentleman will soon impart as he makes a passage straight to each belle’s heart.”

  “My hope is that you enjoy the evening,” Beverley said to George. “I wouldn’t have suggested a ball to welcome you to Philipse Manor, Colonel, if I was not aware of your prowess with the minuet.”

  “I shall let others lead the way.” George did feel at ease on the dance floor. The minuet was one he knew well. He had experience with high society in Virginia, it was true, and he patterned his models and refined his sentiments among that colony’s elite men and women. While not one of them, he spent enough time
with them to understand what was needed to elevate one’s position. His late half brother, Lawrence, had married Anne Fairfax. She welcomed George into her family, which was of the superior class.

  Many a night she would take to the piano and encourage him to learn to dance. Anne’s brother, George William Fairfax, became a dear friend, and Fairfax’s wife, Sally, would serve as partner to the new dancer. On a night like tonight, George was glad of the many dances he shared with her. “A man who cannot dance is a man who cannot desire a place in polite society,” she would say to him. Tonight, unlike the simple piano that played in the Fairfax house, there were a dozen instrumentalists and a dancing master.

  Tonight nearly fifty couples would fill the dance floor. Moving through the crowd proved difficult, especially past the belles who seemed to be vying for his attention. George felt a woman’s hand brush along his back as he stood with his officers. “A touch of him. I got a touch of him!” that woman exclaimed to her female companions. He recognized her. He noticed her hair before, off the side of the cobblestone street as he entered the town. It climbed higher now. Prodigiously powdered, the pile was white and spotted with pearls. There was even a white feather sticking out.

  “We have invited fine beauties on your account, gentlemen.” Beverley addressed Stewart and Mercer, who were standing by George.

  “I believe one looked my way.” Stewart sighed. “Which one to choose?”

  “I’ll take them all.” Mercer winked at the females. “Oh, ladies of easy virtue, be mine. I’d like to tip the velvet of that one.” He pointed to the woman with the highest pile of hair. Mercer and Stewart walked away from George and Beverley.

  “Encouraging looks given for no other purpose than to draw men to make overtures that the women may then reject,” remarked Beverley. “They are pretty pictures, best kept suspended in frames.”

  George looked around the room, not at the coquettes, but for the heiress. She was nowhere in sight.

  * * *

  MARY FELT COOL dampness on her forehead. She opened her eyes slowly to Temperance’s face, which was upside down from hers and looking at her with concern. Mary lay on the floor with a rag on her head, which was nestled into Temperance’s lap.

  “Cancel the pleasure ball.” Frederick was speaking with urgency to the estate steward, Leonard Angevine. “Alert the dancing master and have him make the announcement.”

  “What shall we have him announce, Lord Philipse?” asked Angevine.

  “Due to an unforeseen family matter, we must cancel—no, no, we must delay the ball due to an emergency of unexpected nature.”

  “Please, Frederick,” Mary pleaded.

  “Polly!” Frederick rushed over to her.

  She took his hand in hers. “I beg you, do not. Not tonight. Not again will I be the cause of embarrassment for our family.” Mary wiped her own tears. She inhaled deeply to calm herself. She stood up, straighter than she ever had before, and looked directly at her brother. “Tonight, Frederick, we dance.”

  * * *

  “DANCING THE MINUET will commence.” The dancing master in his fanciful cap struck up the orchestra. “We welcome to the dance floor our hero of the South, our man of honor, Colonel George Washington.”

  George, knowing correct manners, bowed to him. The positioning of first of the ball was a heavy responsibility. Customarily, the best dancer was granted this position in order to lead dances throughout the evening. He knew he was certainly not the best of this group, but confident he could get by. As he awaited the announcement of his dance partner, he kept in mind another rule: The gestures of the body must be suited to the discourse you are upon. He knew those well, having studied not only the rules of motion but also the rules of standing: The weight of each foot resting equally to the other and substantially separated; straight must the knees be; there must be a moderate bend at the wrist as the hands fall freely; the head must be slightly turned to the right to complete a gallant deportment.

  “And Miss Mary Eliza Philipse,” announced the dancing master.

  The grand doors of the ballroom opened. Mary’s brother escorted the belle into the room, and she moved delicately beside him.

  * * *

  APPEAR DELICATE IN your walk, she reminded herself as she moved through the throng of guests. This was a mocking age she lived in, and ne’er did a day pass that the other ladies did not take advantage of it.

  “They’ve placed Polly as the first to dance with him?” She heard the angry whispers from bigheaded Bernadette Clara Belle.

  Be poised, Mary reminded herself.

  “One step and he will skip to his next dancer,” Bernadette sneered.

  Pay no mind to all the eyes watching, she kept telling herself.

  “An heiress who dances with the grave digger.”

  Their insults on this night did not linger. She brushed past them, standing regal, refined. She wanted to be brave, strong, fearless, just like the hero in the pages of the Journal of Major George Washington.

  “Sir Tenoe.” She curtsied in a show of respect to him. He reciprocated with a bend at the waist. She knew the rules of walking: Carry a genteel attitude. The hands shall hold the petticoat with the fingers slightly apart; there shall be no stiffness about the body, while the motion shall have a minor swing to it to avoid the appearance of stiffness, and the foot shall always move ahead of the body, the whole of your being carried with ease.

  The beaux and belles who crowded the floor parted to allow her to the center. Her charming was before her with a gallant deportment. George faced her from the middle of the floor. She had to look down for a moment. Her nerves were getting the best of her. His polished shoes. No mud. She raised her eyes to his face. Then she saw them: faded scars on George’s cheeks—from sickness, she surmised. She hadn’t noticed them earlier.

  He was wounded, she thought. Just like me.

  The two turned toward Frederick to show the outward sign of respect to the host. George bowed. Mary curtsied. She turned to George and curtsied to him; his lips curved as he bowed to her. The music commenced. His eyes fixed a stare on her. A tingle reached from the top of her head to the tips of her toes, for she knew what was coming next: her left hand was upon his right hand and his touch made her quiver as the music took them into its alluring wave, with eyes on each other, hands touching, hands releasing, stepping in close, stepping back in three-quarters time, right foot, left foot, right again, left toe points, three taps, lefts hands touch. The rhythm took her to a place far from the crowds; she even had to glance at her feet, for she sensed she could be floating.

  Joyous applause followed as the instrumentalists finished the song. Broad and proud smiles emerged on the faces of her siblings.

  “In honor of our Virginia officers,” the dancing master trumpeted. “Strike up the Sir Roger de Coverley!”

  The excitement was palpable as the crowd rushed to form two lines, gentlemen in one, ladies in the other.

  As they waited for the beats to begin, Mary grabbed hold of Eva’s hand, and Eva grabbed hold of Margaret’s.

  “Is that a quill in that woman’s head?” asked Margaret as she leaned over to look at Mary.

  “The ink must have landed on her face,” added Eva.

  Bernadette couldn’t have added any more paint to her eyes, nor any more white powder to her face. Red rouge applied in large round circles covered her entire cheeks. Her eyebrows were daubed in a black color.

  “It’s just a feather,” said Mary. “I think.”

  Mary stood opposite George as they formed the beginning of the lines. They would not come together for this dance. Instead, she met the gentleman from the back of the line, Sheriff Delancey, who danced his way to her. As the sheriff moved to meet her at the center of the two lines, she directed her sights to George, desiring another look into his eyes of blue with a touch of gray.

  George, at the head of the gentlemen’s line, met the heap of hair above a painted face at the center. The dance continued, with couples swin
ging at the center and adding a dos-à-dos.

  Bernadette was so giddy around George, it made Mary cross.

  The last couple formed an arch and the dancing couples moved through it. A roar continued in the ballroom as Tenoe carried to the center of the dance floor a chapeau bras. The dancing master presented it to Mary. She knew just what to do. The dance was called “the Magic Hat.” She asked the female dancers to remove a personal article to deposit into it. Susannah added a glove; Eva, a handkerchief. Bernadette pulled that feather item from her hair and placed it into the hat. Mary noticed a bit of ink at the tip. It was a quill! Then Mary walked over to a woman who was standing by herself near the wall, Elizabeth Rutgers, a handsome woman who tragically became a widow a year prior, this being her first outing since her husband’s passing. Dressed in a plain blue gown, she kindly looked at Mary and dropped in her fan. By the time each of the ladies had provided an item, the hat was filled to the top. Mary now asked the beaux to remove one article from the hat and dance with the lady to whom it belonged. Captain Stewart chose the handkerchief. He smiled as he met Eva, who reciprocated with a grin.

  Mary stepped over to Frederick, who stood guard at the door, flanked by half a dozen footmen to his left and right, and offered the hat to him. His expression showed that he was not pleased to be asked to take to the dance floor. “You know the rules, brother. The dance’s leader is to be obeyed, with no refusal permitted.” She watched as he began to lift the fan from the hat. “Elizabeth Rutgers!” Mary was elated he did not pick the quill.

  As he traipsed over to the woman, Mary noticed a bit of nature with its stem caught in the ribbon of his peruke. A dried maple leaf. Had it been on his head all night? she wondered. Since he went to see her in the cellar and said to her, “I want to see the you that used to be”? He tried for so long with her. She plucked the leaf and, not knowing where to put it, quickly tucked it below the items in the hat.