And so, George was going without me.
The very thought issued fresh pain.
That morning, he did not arise at four as he had done on every morning of our thirty years of marriage. And I did not rise soon after.
But we were awake—if we had ever slept.
He lay upon his back and I cradled myself beneath his arm, my head intent upon the beating of his heart.
We said nothing to each other, our embrace speaking for us, until the sun came through the windows and we heard the house come to life as children and servants started the day.
Finally, I felt his muscles tense and I knew our time was over. “We will come back here, Martha.”
I nodded against his chest. The tears I had been so successful in saving cut through my armor. “I will miss us here. I will miss you.”
He sat up, taking me with him. “You will have me. We will be in New York City together.”
I shook my head. “Together or not, I will miss you, George. I will miss us. Just us.”
His forehead furrowed, but then he grasped my meaning and nodded.
With that, everything changed.
Was forever changed.
Eighteen
Ten years later
December 1799
I sat at the bedside and watched as the blood seeped from my husband’s arm into the bowl set beneath it.
This was the third time George had been bled. His face was ashen, and his breathing was much laboured, as the infection in his throat worsened.
“Will this help?” I asked Dr. Craik.
Before answering, he looked to the other two doctors who had been called: Dr. Elisha Dick and Dr. Robert Brown. Their faces were pulled in panic. I saw no hope in their eyes. Finally, Dr. Craik said, “I do not know.”
“’Tis quinsy,” Dr. Brown said, with a thick Scottish accent.
I started to nod, then remembered how my first husband had died of such a thing. And now George?
No. I would not let such a thought . . . George had had quinsy during the war, and though he had come close to death, he had recovered. George had always been susceptible to sore throats. That he had succumbed simply because he had arrived home later for supper . . .
The weather two days ago, December 12, had been disagreeable: snow, hail, and cold rain. But that had not kept George from riding out on his rounds. Though it had contributed to his arriving home late for three o’clock supper.
“My apologies,” he had said to our guests as he entered when we were already at table.
“You are soaked,” I said. “Go get into some warm clothes.”
“No, no,” he said, brushing the damp from his breeches. He winked at Bryan Fairfax, George William’s brother, back visiting from England. “You have come such a long way. I have already missed too much news of George William, Sally, and your family.”
And so he had sat in his damp clothes until bedtime. “You will catch your death,” I had told him.
The words haunted me . . .
The next day George had suffered a sore throat but had returned to his work, wanting to oversee the extraction of some trees. Suppertime had found him without much voice. His secretary, Tobias Lear, had seconded my insistence that he take something for it—I had many fine remedies at my disposal—but George had refused, parlaying his usual “Let it go as it came” philosophy. We had a nice evening by the fire with Tobias, with me checking regularly on Nelly—who had given birth to dear Frances Parke Lewis two weeks previous, and who was not well and confined to bed.
I had gone to bed first, with George working late in his office . . .
He awakened me in the dark of the night, saying, “I cannot breathe well.”
I threw off the covers, going to get help, but he pulled me back toward him. “Not yet. The fires have all gone out, and with you so recently ill . . . wait until morning.”
I hesitated, but he patted my spot beside him, holding the covers aloft. I climbed back to bed, and we huddled in the dark cold of the night.
I dozed but awoke when I heard his breathing turn raspy. I felt his head. It was burning with fever. “You are worse!”
George barely opened his eyes but managed a nod. When the servant came in to start the morning fire in our room, I sent her away. “Go fetch Mr. Lear! Quickly!”
That first moment of panic seemed like a lifetime ago, and yet it had been but a day. Since then the doctors had tried their best, to no avail. I had even prepared a tonic of molasses, vinegar, and butter, but George choked on it, unable to swallow. Purges were tried—calomel—but it only added to my husband’s suffering.
Dr. Brown stroked his chin. “I so dislike making it up as we go along.”
His words brought me back to the eight years George had spent as president . . . we had perfected the act of making it up as we went along. Kings were a known commodity, but presidents? I closed my eyes, remembering the intense pressure to get the image of the office right. Some thought us too down-home and plain, and others accused us of trying to be royalty. The constant pressure to please had worn on us. I lived a very dull life as the wife of the president and knew nothing that passed in the town. I never went to any public place; indeed, I was more like a state prisoner than anything else. There were certain boundaries set for me which I could not depart from, yet when I could do as I liked, I was obstinate, and stayed at home a great deal.
Beyond it all I was determined to be cheerful and happy in whatever situation I found myself because I had long found the greater part of our happiness or misery depended upon our dispositions and not upon our circumstances.
I now looked upon George and those hovering around him. I did not like these circumstances. Not at all. No determination of a positive disposition had any power against what was playing out before me.
“Mr. President,” Dr. Brown said in a whisper close to George’s ear. “Please try to be strong.”
In spite of myself, I smiled. At the title, not the instruction. Our position had been so new no one had known what to call us. His Serene Highness, His Excellency, His High Mightiness. We had finally grown weary of the debate and had decreed George was Mr. President, and I was Mrs. Washington. So there.
We had also had to make up our duties as we went along. People were insistent upon seeing us, so I had Friday drawing room gatherings, and George had Tuesday levees, and Thursday we had official dinners. In order to shoo people away from our table, I had to be stern and rise promptly at nine, saying, “The general retires at ten and I always precede him.” I truly believe without such a statement people would have kept us occupied indefinitely.
Then there were the soldiers who came to our door, first in New York and later in Philadelphia, when the capital was moved. I had such a heart for these men who had served so well. They meant no harm, but asked after the health of “His Excellency” and wanted to thank me for some kindness they remembered during the times I was at winter camp. I often answered the door and allowed them to speak of those times past, then sent them to the steward’s room for refreshments. If possible I gave them a small gift, along with my greatest wishes for health and happiness.
Although many said I should not have allowed them access, I could not turn them away, for I remembered our times at winter camp with an odd fondness. Although the times had been overflowing with stress and deprivation, compared to the superficiality of the presidency, my days in the latter were lost days. In camp I had been allowed to do some good; as the president’s wife . . . I counted the days until we could be home.
It seemed like only yesterday we had returned to Mount Vernon. I did the sum in my head and realized it would be three years come April. How had the eight years in office dragged with excruciating slowness, while the three years spent at home seemed only a day?
At home George had his fruit
trees, his plans to rotate crops and expand the plantation. As during the war, Mount Vernon had not prospered in our absence. Our niece Fanny tried, along with her husband, George Augustine, but it was too much for her abilities, and her husband was too ill.
I thought of the deaths and births that had occurred without us at home. My mother-in-law had died, never appreciating the status her son had attained. And George Augustine had died seven years ago, leaving Fanny to remarry with our own Tobias Lear—who had also lost a wife to the yellow fever epidemic that scourged Philadelphia during our first years as president. But alas, Fanny had never been strong, having contracted the consumption from her husband, and she too passed on. Then Fanny’s father, Burwell Basset died, and George’s sister, Betty . . .
But there had been happy occasions too, though not achieved without stress. We had taken Wash and Nelly with us when George became president, leaving Betsy and Patty behind with their mother and her husband—where they stewed with jealousy over their younger siblings. I truly believe this jealousy was the reason both married young—Betsy to a much older man. Plus, ’twas hard for them to witness their mother’s constant string of progeny, and odd to have their own babies born while step-siblings were being born alongside. I became a great-grandmother times three . . .
We tried to give these two granddaughters special times, but it was never enough. Or equal. To my great pleasure, Nelly thrived at our side, and often helped me with the socials. She continued her studies and became a charming, accomplished young woman. Through her I saw the girl Patsy might have become . . .
I cherished the daily devotions we took together—as I cherished her devotion to George and me. Yet she was almost too devoted. I feared she would never marry. When Lafayette sent his son to us—George Washington Lafayette—to get him away from the chaos in France, it was said to be the perfect match. But Nelly would have none of it, alas, looking for a young man more like her grandfather.
We were relieved to find him in George’s nephew, the son of Betty and Fielding Lewis. Lawrence was a good man, and we were pleased when they were married at Mount Vernon. This home was made for weddings . . .
I let my gaze turn toward the doorway, remembering last February 22, George’s sixty-seventh birthday and their wedding day. George had worn his old Continental Army uniform and given the bride away by coming down the staircase. The couple were married in the front hall just after the candles were lighted. Nelly wore a veil covering her face because Lawrence had once seen her behind a lace curtain and had commented on her loveliness. Ah, the romance of youth . . .
My thoughts turned to Wash. Ah, the fickleness of youth . . .
Wash was his father’s son, more interested in girls and pleasure than schooling and responsibility. He had been kicked out of Princeton. I sighed, as I always did, when thinking of my grandson. It was my fault. I had done Wash no favours. Even at the age of sixty-eight I did not understand why I could be so effective with the girls in my charge yet be incapable of raising boys to worthy adulthood. Though Jacky had made strides to be responsible. At the end . . .
I looked to the wall, to the stitching my dear Patsy had done for me so many years ago, before her untimely death. Such a delicate girl, so often ill, so often suffering. And yet—though it was difficult to say so—I had come to realize that if Patsy had lived, I would have been obligated to stay with her at Mount Vernon. I would not have been able to join George at winter camp. I would not have been able to help him and help the soldiers. Nor perhaps, would I have been free enough to help the other young women who had come into my life.
I would never know, but I took peculiar comfort that her death had provided others with my help. O’er the years I sought many such answers for life’s blows, some satisfactory and others not . . .
A servant came in and collected the bloodied cloths that littered the room. So much blood. I knew nothing of anatomy, but certainly such loss would weaken a man, even a man as strong as my husband.
If he would die . . .
Such a blow I could not bear. I bowed my head, repeating the prayers that nailed me to the bedside. Please, almighty God, please spare this man. I love him—
I opened my eyes when I heard George’s voice, raspy and strained. I stood by his head, stroking it. I took his hand. “Yes, George?”
He smiled at me but turned his head to the doctors. “I feel myself going. I thank you for your attentions, but . . .” He paused in an attempt to take a breath, to swallow. “I pray you to take no more trouble about me. Let me go off quietly; I cannot last long.”
Then he turned to me. Our eyes met. I swallowed my tears. I would not let him see them. I would not say words in the company of so many, but I spoke them with my eyes: I love you, George.
He nodded ever so slightly, then said, “’Tis well.”
He closed his eyes.
And was no more.
*****
I, too, was no more.
My husband was dead. George was dead. My partner for forty years was no more.
I was alone.
I did not cry.
People swarmed about me, their shock and devastation evident. Nelly even got out of bed to comfort me. “If only Wash were here.”
Wash was off with Nelly’s husband, checking on the Custis estates in New Kent.
I heard little Parke fussing in the bedroom, seeking her mamma, who had left her in the late of the night. Although I appreciated Nelly’s effort, I quickly returned her to her room. I needed her well. I could not endure more loss.
I could not endure this one.
I let others do what had to be done that night. I sat in the family dining room and . . . I do not know what I did besides sit. My mind could not comprehend and so left me, as though it had business elsewhere.
People came.
People went.
People spoke to me.
People were silent.
And people whispered. And worried. She does not cry.
I would not allow myself the privilege. Or the comfort. For once surrendered, I feared I would plunge too deep to ever recover. Two of my brothers had drowned. I felt as though I was on the edge of knowing the feeling, their final feeling . . . I could not begin the descent lest it envelop me.
People told me, “You should rest. Go to bed.”
I put them off the best I could, needing the house to be quiet more than I needed rest. That I had been forced to share my husband in death as I had constantly shared him in life angered me. Why could they not have left me alone with him for but a minute? For an hour, so we could have said our good-byes? Why had I been but one of many at his bedside when death arrived?
I lingered downstairs while others ascended to bed. I coasted from room to room, straightening this figurine on a mantel, squaring a chair just so. Meaningless motions meant to distract me until the house was mine.
Just mine.
I stopped my nothingness and listened. Silence.
I took a deep breath, drinking it in. Then, with a nod of confirmation, I ascended the private back staircase that led to our bedchamber. It was my turn to retire—not sleep, for I knew sleep would allude me as it had always done during so many other times of grief.
I stood at the door, my hand upon the knob. The room we had shared lay on the other side. The chamber that just hours ago had held my husband on his deathbed.
I started to turn the knob, but then . . .
I stopped myself.
I shook my head.
No.
I could not enter this room that was meant for two, that was our one private sanctuary amid a public life.
I would not enter.
Ever.
Ever again.
Then where would I go? The bedrooms were full: Nelly, Tobias, the doctors . . .
I turn
ed round, my eyes spotting the tiny steps that led to the attic. At the moment no one was up there.
It beckoned me.
I held my candle aloft, lifted my skirt with the other hand, and went up, up to the attic. Up to the top of the house. I walked through the first empty bedroom toward the hall. I had my choice of four rooms. The bedroom looking out back on the opposite end was often Wash’s room. I would not intrude there. I looked toward the room above Nelly’s. There was comfort in that, being close to my dear granddaughter, yet separate.
I opened the door. The moon came through the garret window that overlooked the front drive. It invited me to enter.
I complied.
It was a spare room, with white walls, a sloped ceiling, a small bed, and a few chairs. “What more could I need?” I said aloud.
There was no fireplace, but a stove in the corner. A cold stove.
Good enough.
I pulled my shawl tighter about my shoulders and stood at the tiny window.
Mount Vernon lay before me: the circular drive, the bowling green, the rows of trees so lovingly planted. The outbuildings, kitchen, servants’ hall, the north lane leading to the spinning room, the salt house, the gardener’s house. And the south lane leading to the wash house, the smoke house, the stables and—
And the family crypt below . . .
The crypt where George would be laid.
The crypt that held Patsy, and George’s brother Lawrence, and George Augustine, and . . . the crypt that held so many who had gone before.
And now George, the only relative I had ever chosen.
Suddenly, the image of a grand dining room came to mind. In it were Patsy and Jacky, Fanny, George Augustine . . . They were all dressed in fine garments of white, edged in gold and silver. And they were smiling, coming forward to greet the newest arrival.
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