Sighing, she looked at her hair. Not one strand could be cleanly pulled from the mass of tangles, no matter how long Bathsheba and her mother tried to brush it out. Her mouth tightening, she picked up a pair of scissors, grabbed a huge tangled mass, and cut it off. In only a few minutes she was surrounded by great hanks of hair, and what was left on her head stood up in bizarre spikes of different lengths.
“I don’t care,” she said defiantly to her sickly reflection. “It feels so much better.” But walking from her bed to her dressing table—all of four steps—and cutting her hair had exhausted her. She rested her forehead on her hand for a few minutes before she made the effort to go back to bed.
The door opened and Bathsheba flew to her side. “Oh, Miss Mary! Look what you done! Oh, Miss Mary, how could you have cut all your pretty hair!”
“It wasn’t pretty. It felt like I was lying on a scratchy wool rug,” she retorted. “I’m glad I cut it. I already feel so much better, and I want it washed right now.”
Bathsheba crossed her arms against her massive breast and said knowingly, “Mm-hmm. You look like getting your hair, or at least your head, washed right now. I better git it done in a hurry ’fore you fall over dead. You just had to get up and come over here and cut all your pretty hair off, didn’t you? Me and your mama tole you ten thousand times not to try to get out of bed by your own self!”
Mary said wearily, “I am sorry now, Bathsheba, I admit. I’m not feeling too well. Would you please help me back to bed? Maybe after I rest awhile I’ll feel more like having a bath.”
Bathsheba almost carried her back to bed, which she could have done easily since Mary probably weighed no more than ninety pounds now. Tucking her in, Bathsheba clucked over her much as she had when Mary was a child. “You rest now, baby girl, and I’ll go have Cook fix you some sweet creamed rice, and then we’ll get you cleaned up, and I’ll give you a nice alcohol rub. You know, Mr. Lee is comin’ in tomorrow, so maybe you’ll get a good night’s rest and feel better when he gets here.”
“I’ll feel better when he’s here anyway,” Mary said. “I’ve missed him terribly.”
“I know dat, and I know Mr. Lee’s missed you something fierce, too,” Bathsheba said soothingly. “So you just stay in this here bed, Miss Prance-About, till I come back to sit with you.”
“I will,” Mary promised.
Bathsheba bustled out, and Mary immediately fell into an exhausted doze.
She only rested for about half an hour, however, and woke up knowing that her temperature was rising, and that in about an hour she would have a debilitating fever. In her melancholy, a sudden thought came to her. She visualized her husband riding up to Arlington—his handsome, clean-cut features, his immaculate uniform, and the gladness and appreciation so plain on his face every time he came home.
And then she remembered that awful reflection in the mirror. She looked twice his age, old and ugly, and now her hair was grotesque. Even a ruffled housecap wouldn’t cover the bald forehead and sides. What expression would she see on Robert E. Lee’s “Marble Model” face then?
Robert E. Lee loved his mare, Grace Darling. She could walk all day long over the roughest terrain and never jolt him. But she wasn’t a racer; she couldn’t travel at a strong canter for long. Nevertheless, he pushed her as soon as he reached the Arlington property and galloped right up to the wide portico.
A servant came rushing out of the house to take his horse, followed by Mr. and Mrs. Custis. They greeted him warmly, but he could tell that they both looked strained, and his heart plummeted.
Mrs. Custis said, “Please, Robert, come into the drawing room before you go up to see Mary. We’d like to talk to you.”
He followed them into the room, and a maid offered him lemonade or a cordial, but he asked for iced water. Molly Custis seated herself on the sofa and patted the seat beside her for Robert to take. Mr. Custis stood in front of the fireplace, fiddling with the ornaments on the mantelpiece.
After Robert had had a few sips of water, Molly Custis said quietly, “Mary is very ill, Robert. She was adamant that when we wrote to you none of us would give you a hint about exactly how grave her condition is.”
In a voice of pure misery George Custis said, “Dr. Waters says that she—that this infection—that—” He choked slightly.
Robert turned to his mother-in-law. She looked straight into his eyes and said, “Dr. Waters has prepared us for the worst.”
Robert’s eyes closed in pain, but in only a few moments he looked back at Molly. “No, I don’t believe that Mary will be taken from us,” he said firmly and clearly. “Deep in my heart I’ve always known that when God gave her to me, we would have a lifetime together.” He stood up and went over to lay his hand on Mr. Custis’s shoulder. “Sir, Mary has the strength of heroes’ blood in her veins, and she has fire, and she has heart. Please don’t mourn. Just pray for God’s assurance and comfort.”
Mr. Custis’s head was down because he was fighting tears, and it embarrassed him. But he nodded.
George Custis had had a complete turnaround about Robert E. Lee in the three years that he had been married to his daughter. Mary’s prophecy had been right. To him Robert had proved to be the best in a son—honorable, loyal, and as dutiful toward him and Molly as any son of blood could be. Robert even helped him tremendously with his complicated business affairs.
Robert asked, “But how is baby Mary? How is she faring?”
Molly smiled. “She is thriving, Robert. She’s just fine. Apparently this infection that Mary is suffering from had nothing to do with her pregnancy or the birth, and it didn’t affect baby Mary. Dr. Waters is of the opinion that Mary would have these abscesses whether she was pregnant or not.”
Overwhelming relief washed over Robert like a dunking in clear, cool water. He felt guilty enough being away when Mary was ill, but if it had been caused by her pregnancy, he thought he would never be able to recover from the remorse. But his face merely showed relief, and he managed a small smile. “Then I’ll go up to see my Mary now.”
Molly said, “There’s just one more thing, Robert, that I think I should tell you before you see her. Yesterday she cut her hair. It was terribly tangled and matted. Bathsheba and I both kept working on it, trying to get it combed out, but Mary didn’t have the strength to let us brush it for long. Apparently it was so uncomfortable that she just cut it herself.”
George Custis had recovered enough to say, “Looks like she whacked it off with a hatchet. Impetuous girl, always has been.”
“And always will be, I suspect,” Robert said. To the Custises’ surprise, he looked amused. “But thank you for telling me first.” He went upstairs to their bedroom, and the door was open.
Mary was sitting up in bed, wearing a pretty white ruffled bedjacket and a morning cap. She held her arms out, and he hurried to sit on the bed and pull her up into his embrace.
“How I’ve missed you, darling Mims,” he whispered, kissing her cheek, her mouth, her forehead. “I try not to be impatient, but it seemed the days were endless, waiting until I could hurry home.”
She pulled back from him and searched his face hungrily. Then she opened her mouth, tried to speak, but couldn’t make the words come out. Swallowing hard, she tried again, and tears filled her eyes and began running down her cheeks in a flood. “I cut my hair!” she said, almost sobbing.
He gently drew her to him again, and she wept against his chest. She felt as fragile as delicate china. She was so thin, and her bones so small, yet her tiny body threw off heat because she had a fever. “I’m glad you did, my dearest, because I’m sure you’re more comfortable.”
“You are?” she asked dully. “But I look—”
“As beautiful as ever to me. Mary, you are the light of my life. How could I see anything but beauty when I look at that light?”
She cried a little more against his breast, but Mary was not a woman that dissolved into tears very often. Finally she pulled away from him and sat back agai
nst her pillows. “All of that salt water is going to tarnish your shiny brass buttons,” she said drily. “I would hate for the impeccable Lieutenant Lee to have dull buttons on his uniform.”
“So would I,” Lee admitted. “But in this case I think you may be forgiven for tarnishing my buttons. Now, where is my daughter? I’m going to take care of you, my dear, from now on, but first I must see little Miss Mary Lee.”
“I’m sure Bathsheba is listening outside the door,” Mary said in a loud tone. “She’ll take you to the next bedroom.”
The door opened slightly, and Bathsheba said in an offended tone, “I was just waiting to make sure you didn’t need anything, Miss Mary. Hello, Lieutenant Lee. We’ve just put the baby in the spare bedroom next door, and Master Custis is waiting to see you, too.”
The sturdy three-year-old Custis ran to his father and grabbed him around the knees.
Lee bent to hug him fiercely. “Is this my son? This big sturdy lad? Let me look at you. You are a fine-looking boy, aren’t you? Have you been a good boy?”
“I’m good sometimes,” he said in his little-boy lisp. “But Mother says sometimes I’m not, sir.”
“I see,” Lee said. “Well, now that I’m home, we can talk about all of that, man-to-man.”
Custis brightened. “Yes, sir. Please, sir.”
Lee went over to the crib where the sleeping baby lay. She was four months old now, and already Lee could see the long thin nose and the stubborn chin. She opened her eyes and considered him gravely. He picked her up, and she kept her eyes trained on his face.
“Come along, son,” he said to Custis and went back into Mary’s bedroom and sat on the bed.
Mary managed a smile at her son and patted the other side of the bed. Eagerly he climbed up. “How do you feel, Mummy?” he asked worriedly.
“I am already feeling much, much better since your father is here,” she said, glancing at Robert. “I know I haven’t been able to see you much lately, Custis, but soon I’ll be well and we’ll be able to go out in the sled when we have our first snow, and we can visit your friends, and we’ll have a wonderful Christmas.”
“That’s right,” Robert said. “Baby Mary’s first Christmas is going to be a happy one. She’s just beautiful, Mary. She looks like you.”
Tears welled into her eyes again but didn’t fall. “Thank you, Robert,” she said simply.
“No, thank you, wife,” he answered. “Now, as soon as you feel strong enough, Mims, we’re going to Berkeley Springs, in Bath. I think it will be so good for you. I don’t know much about the medicinal properties of the springs, but I know that a holiday in the mountains will be a treat for all of us.”
“All of us?” Custis repeated quickly. “May I go, too, sir?”
“Of course,” Robert answered. “All four of us, my beloved family, are all going. I’ve been away so long I couldn’t think of being separated from you again anytime soon.”
Mary was very ill indeed, and it was the next year before she was able to travel to the old hot springs resort. The town was named Bath after its English sister city, founded by her father’s grandfather, George Washington.
In all the long months of her illness, Robert E. Lee had cared for her day and night, just as he had cared for his mother for most of his teens and early twenties. These two women, though they were weak and sickly in body, imparted to Robert E. Lee some of the most forceful and virtuous qualities that are found in the best of men. He learned self-sacrifice, the highest form of that virtue in that he was never conscious of it. Putting others before himself became such a natural part of the fiber of his being that it was difficult for him to recognize a lack of it in others.
Though his father, “Lighthorse” Harry Lee, had been a man of audacious courage and fiery élan, Harry was an undisciplined man, flighty and careless in business and in caring for his family. He had died when Robert was eleven, and during Robert’s life he had barely known his father, for Harry Lee was always traveling and had spent more than two of those years in debtor’s prison. Anne Carter Lee had raised her children practically single-handedly. In stark contrast to her husband, she was intelligent, level-headed, dutiful, and loving. She taught Robert frugality without being poor-mouthed; the visceral rewards of always fulfilling any duty, no matter how small, to the utmost; a Christian warmth and care for others; and above all, self-control.
For all his life, when Robert E. Lee’s closest friends were describing him, the two words they most often used were honor and duty. These two excellent virtues were the primary forces of Robert E. Lee’s character.
The years of 1835 and 1836, when Mary was so ill, became a clear turning point in Lee’s life. Always before he had had a lively disposition, much given to teasing and laughing heartily at jokes he found funny, his demeanor generally bright and cheerful. After the Lees returned to Arlington from Bath, a friend wrote, “I never saw a man so changed and saddened.”
But because of his unselfishness and his iron self-control, Lee never showed any hint of distress or upset to Mary or his children. With them he was always happy, buoyant, playful, and merry.
It was with others that his demeanor, while not cold, became more dignified and decorous. Always gallant with the ladies and unfailingly delighting in the company of children, he nevertheless had an air about him that set him apart from other men. And because of the noble qualities that had been so firmly set in him by his mother, and the genuine deep love and caring that he had learned from his life with Mary, he did indeed become a man above other men.
CHAPTER FOUR
Mary Lee wrote in her journal:
July 1, 1848. Although Robert only returned two days ago, he has been ceaselessly playing with the children. Tonight, again, he is allowing them to stay up very late, telling them stories.
She looked up from her writing to watch her family. Mary had borne Robert seven children in fourteen years. Now Custis, the eldest, was fifteen years old, while baby Mildred was only two. Blissfully “Milly” sat on her father’s lap, resting her head against his broad shoulder. It was the first time she had met her father.
As Mary’s gaze rested on her daughter, Mary Custis, she sighed. At thirteen Mary was blooming, and she was turning into a lovely young girl. She was hearty, too, the healthiest one of the four girls. It was odd that she had been born so strong, since her birth had been a nightmare for Mary. It had been after Mary Custis’s birth that Mary had cut her hair. A small smile touched her lips as she recalled that even then Robert had insisted that his wife was beautiful.
Custis and Mary sat on side chairs next to Robert’s armchair. The other children, except for Milly, sat on the floor around their father’s footstool.
Rooney was eleven, a fine strapping boy who from the time he was first able to talk had insisted he was going to be in the army like his father. When he had been eight years old, they were stationed at Fort Monroe, and Rooney had decided he was going to go to the stables, where they were bringing in a load of hay for the horses. He proceeded to grab a straw cutter to help trim the stalks and managed to cut off the tops of his left forefinger and middle finger. It was an hour and a half before a doctor arrived. He had sewn the tips of Rooney’s fingers back on, and they had mended with no muscle damage or nerve damage. The officers present had marveled at the young boy, who sat stoically on a hay bale waiting for the doctor, bleeding profusely, without a word of complaint or any sign of pain. He was very much like his father, and he was as handsome as Robert E. Lee, too.
Next in ages had come “The Girls” as the family called them, for they were only eighteen months apart in age, and Robert and Mary had purposely named them as one might name twins: Annie and Agnes. Annie had been born with a reddish-pink birthmark on her face, and Mary reflected that that might have made a girl very shy. But her father affectionately called her “Little Raspberry” and told her all the time how pretty she was, so she had grown to be outgoing, vivacious, and mischievous unfortunately. At five years old she had be
en playing with a pair of scissors and had sliced part of her left eye and eyelid. Her vision was not much damaged, only the peripheral vision in that eye, but the accident had left a ropelike scar on her eyelid and socket. Still, it seemed that her father had made her feel so secure that she didn’t seem to let her disfigurement affect her. She had been delighted when her sister Agnes was born. In fact, Annie had left off playing with any of her dolls, for Agnes had been her “baby doll” until she was a year old. The two girls were as close as twins.
Robert E. Lee Jr. was now five years old, and of all her children, Mary knew he was going to be the most trouble for her. In fact, he already had been the rowdiest child, ever since he started to walk at ten months old. From that day he was into something, anything, hiding from servants and his mother and grandparents, running in the house, yelling at the top of his lungs, balking at food he didn’t like, often attempting to hide green peas under his plate. However, on the rare times his father had been present, Rob behaved perfectly.
Now Rob was taking his turn tickling his father’s feet. Robert loved taking off his slippers and socks and having the children tickle his feet as he told stories. They liked for him to read to them, too, but they enjoyed it most when he dramatized the stories. On this warm July evening he was telling them the grand story of “The Lady of the Lake,” basically paraphrasing the poem by Sir Walter Scott, for the language was too difficult for the younger children. However, he often quoted memorable simple passages.
Mary thought that this poem, above all, represented all things that Robert loved. It was a story of chivalry, of true nobility, of familial love and loyalty, of self-sacrifice, and of course, of bravery and courage in war.
Just then Robert lifted his head and quoted in deep ringing tones:
“And the stern joy which warriors feel
In foemen worthy of their steel!”
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