Now that General Charles Cornwallis had plunged into Virginia after his depredations in the Carolinas, and Colonel Banastre Tarleton was raiding and burning along the James River, Patrick Henry was conveniently elsewhere. Just like a politician, his enemies said.
Molly Payne ignored the insults that were hurled at her firebrand cousin Patrick, whom she loved, and at her Quaker household. She performed the endless chores of farm life and of raising six children despite the threats and insults of neighbors, some of whom would ride into the fields to bait and torment John and her two eldest sons, Walter and Temple, who worked with their father.
Henry had said, “… give me liberty or give me death!” And on this clear, early summer day, death was moving toward the Paynes.
Dolley Payne, at thirteen, was stuck in the house helping her mother air out the bedding. She resented Walter and Temple for being out in the fields with their father. Anything was better than being stuck in the house. Isaac, eleven, adored his older sister, so she put that adoration to work. Coughing, he ended up shaking most of the bedspreads out the window.
Mother Amy, robust and smart as a whip, called from downstairs in her deep African contralto. “How you doin’, chile?”
“Fine,” Dolley replied as she watched Isaac choke on dust.
Dolley heard Mother Amy’s footsteps retreat from the stairs. She also heard the whinings of Lucy, aged three, and Anna, aged two. Children were such a bother, Dolley vowed never to have them. She wasn’t going to get married either and she did not keep this opinion to herself. Mother Amy rolled her eyes when Dolley protested her many views. Molly Payne, like most mothers, couldn’t resist being drawn into battle by her oldest daughter. The more she lectured Dolley on the appropriate goals of a young woman, a member of the Society of Friends, the more Dolley disagreed with her. Her father didn’t even try to argue with his determined offspring.
Mother Amy walked back to the stairs. “It’s awfully quiet up there.”
Dolley appeared at the top of the stairs with pillowcases draped over her arms. “We don’t want to give Mother a headache.”
Mother Amy put her hands on her hips when the black-haired, blue-eyed girl stood before her. Little Anna toddled after Amy, who looked up at Dolley. “Uh-huh. You better be shakin’ your tail as well as those bedclothes, girl, or I’m gonna come on up there and you gonna wish you was somebody else.”
“Yes, Mother Amy.”
Molly Payne walked into the hall. “Art thou sassing Amy?”
“No.”
“Where’s Isaac?”
“Helping.”
“Dolley, thou hast tricked thy brother into doing all the work. Now that’s not fair.”
Dolley held up the pillowcases like trophies. “I am too working, and thou said when I finished I could go outside and pick strawberries. I hate being inside and thou talk about fair. It’s not fair that Walter and Temple get to work outside and I get stuck in here. It’s …”—she searched—“not Christian.”
“What?” Her mother’s eyes grew larger. “I am eager to hear thy disputation, Dolley Payne. So eager that I am about to climb up these stairs, tired as I am, lest I miss a single syllable.”
“Dolley! Dolley! Come here!” Isaac hollered.
“In a minute,” Dolley casually called over her shoulder, ignoring the urgency in her brother’s voice. Isaac could be urgent about a butterfly.
He pounded out of the bedroom, screeching to a halt next to his sister, whom he much resembled. Isaac’s lip trembled. “Redcoats! Coming up the road.”
Dolley turned on her heel and raced into the room. Molly and Mother Amy hurried up the stairs. Two little pairs of feet could be heard trying to master the steps to follow the adults. Anna started to wail.
Dolley, hanging out the window, saw an unending line of soldiers moving smartly with a mounted officer at its head. She didn’t know how to tell rank in the British Army but she knew he was important. If nothing else, the fine-blooded horse he rode bore ample testimony to that.
Molly wedged in next to her daughter as Mother Amy, taller, peered over their heads. Isaac ran to the other window. “Oh, my God.” Molly’s hands flew to her mouth because of what she saw and because she had taken the Lord’s name in vain, an unbearable sin, so strict was her faith.
“Momma, the Redcoats are turning off the road and coming up the hill,” Isaac reported.
Dolley leaned farther out the window and shook her fist. The British were too far away to appreciate this youthful gesture of defiance.
Molly pulled Dolley out of the window. “Dost thou want to get killed?”
“Thee’ve got no business here. Thee can just get on thine ships and go back where thee came from!”
“Dolley, hush up!” Her mother held her arm so tightly that it hurt.
“I’ll run get Father,” Isaac offered.
“It’s too late,” Mother Amy replied.
“They’re in the back fields. They can’t get here even if you run fast as Mercury,” Dolley said as she began to understand that their situation was critical. The British had turned off the road and started marching up to the house. This was not a diversion on their part. The Paynes were their goal.
“Amy, take the children with thee to thy quarters. I am confident the British will not harm children.”
“They killed all the livestock, even the foals and calves, down along the James River,” Dolley blurted out, making the association in her mind between foals and children.
Molly quietly said, “They won’t harm children.” She put her hand on Amy’s broad shoulder. “Go on now, Amy.”
“I ain’t leavin’ you.” Amy squared herself and crossed her arms. “They comin’ for you, they got to go through me.”
Lucy and Anna were now squealing their heads off. Isaac’s eyes nearly popped out of his head.
Molly, voice deep with emotion, commanded her servant and friend, “For the love of God, Amy, save my children.”
Tears rolling down her cheeks, Amy snatched up Anna and Lucy like loaves of bread. Isaac moved along with Amy. He was an obedient child.
Dolley seemed frozen next to her mother.
“Thou, too.” Molly stared into those eyes, as cobalt and clear as her own.
“Mother, we can fight them together.” Not a hint of fear showed in Dolley’s lovely features.
“I’ll not fight anyone and neither will thee, but I will for the first time in my life raise my hand to thee if thou do not do as I say this instant.”
“Mother, I can’t leave thee.”
“Thou can and thou will!” Molly shouted, then pushed Dolley toward the back door, through which Amy had just shepherded the children.
Dolley dragged out the door, following Amy. Carried along by Amy, Anna started to sob. Lucy picked up the chorus. Amy put them down and shoved them toward her own door like baby chicks.
Lucy toddled inside. She loved Mother Amy’s cabin. Anna balked. Isaac ran by her, grabbing her left hand as Dolley grabbed her right. Anna’s little fingers squeezed Dolley’s hand.
As Anna lurched through the door, Dolley released her hand and quickly shut the door.
“Dolley!” Amy shouted.
Dolley hesitated for a moment, then ran back toward the big house. She ran to escape the fear in Mother Amy’s voice and the censure.
The door to Mother Amy’s cabin opened. Isaac peeped out and that quickly Amy collared him, shutting the door hard.
Dolley didn’t turn at the sound. She reached the back of the house and moved with stealth around the side. For once she was glad of her drab Quaker clothes. No one would notice her.
Her heart banged against her chest, her breath was ragged. She thought she might explode with excitement. She felt giddy, wild almost.
She could hear the soldiers now, their queer accents filling the air, a swirling dust cloud engulfing them as it drifted toward the house.
A beautiful baritone called out. “Henry! Patrick Henry, show yourself, traitor to
the King. If you don’t come out, I’ll ride in after you and relieve you of the burden of your miserable life!”
The officer, extremely handsome, perhaps thirty or thirty-five, halted his column at the front steps. No answer met his call.
Dolley slid back along the house. Her mother was still inside. Dolley quietly opened the back door and tiptoed in. If her mother heard her, she didn’t turn to see her but instead stood strangely still in the center of the hall. As the front door was open to catch whatever breeze there might be, she could see the officer far better than he could see her. Dolley stayed at the back of the hall. She was partially obscured by the stairwell.
The officer spurred his horse, which leaped up the steps, clattered one stride over the porch, and trotted into the hall. The officer drew his sword over his head. Dolley’s throat tightened. On seeing Molly he reined in his horse, not easy because the animal grew nervous inside the house. His sword arm was ready to strike.
“Where’s Henry?”
“He is not here, sir. I am his cousin.” Molly betrayed no fear. Her very calmness affected him. If she’d been terrified, he would have known what to do.
“Coward. He ran away!” The officer blustered.
“And thou canst do the same. Look what thou hast done to the floor!” A note of rage vibrated in Molly’s pleasant alto voice.
His arm wavered, then he dropped it. He stared hard at this good-looking woman who defied him. Defied him and didn’t even take a backward step when his horse twitched in front of her. She reached up and grabbed the horse’s bridle. He could have ridden her into a pulp; yet in that moment she was stronger than he. She released the bridle, released it as though she were giving him the gift of freedom. Crimson-faced, he turned and rode back out the door, again clearing the steps with a leap. The column swung around to follow its handsome Mars, who never looked back at Molly Payne standing in the doorway.
Dolley watched her mother watching the enemy depart. She felt lifted up as a bolt of energy shot through her adolescent frame. Her mother was invincible. She felt invincible.
Molly’s gaze dropped to the floor. She got down on her hands and knees to see how badly those iron-shod hooves had cut into the heartpine.
Wordlessly, Dolley moved up the hall to join her mother on her hands and knees.
“Dolley …” Molly didn’t finish her thought. She studied her daughter, who was rapidly transforming into a woman. She knew Dolley had disobeyed her and risked her young life. She wondered if Dolley realized how lucky they were. Even if the officer had spared them, he could easily have put the house, the outbuildings, the crops, to the torch.
As the glossy black curls bent over the indentations in the floor, Molly knew how alike they were. For all the surface differences of this mother and daughter, underneath they shared a drive, a tremendous will, not just to survive but to triumph.
Molly thought of her other children. She knew in her heart that some of them lacked that will and she didn’t know why. How is it that one child is born with the fire and another glides along or is smashed on the rocks of life? She loved them all, fiercely. She prayed silently for her brood but when she looked at this one, she knew Dolley needed few prayers. She was the strongest of the litter.
She stood up. “Go tell Amy that we are safe.”
“Yes, Mother.” Dolley hurried to the door. She felt her mother’s eyes on her and turned. For a moment she looked at her mother not as her mother but as another woman.
Molly smiled. “Go on, Dolley.”
Dolley ran back and nearly tore the door off its hinges. “We’re safe. Mother has run off the British!”
Mother Amy shouted, “Praise Jesus!” Then she cuffed Dolley on the ear. “Don’t you no never give me a scare like that!”
As they walked back to the house, Isaac asked, “What’d thee see?”
“This big, handsome man rode right into the hall and drew his sword on Mother …” She paused for her words to have their full effect and so that Isaac could contemplate his misery at not having been there. “And Momma didn’t budge an inch. She told him to get on out of her house. And he did.” She drew a deep breath. “He just wheeled his horse around and jumped the stairs. Isaac”—she pulled him next to her—“I believe she would have killed him if he hadn’t done what she said.”
PART ONE
31 December 1813, Friday
What a liar and a hypocrite I’ve become. Tomorrow Jemmy and I host our New Year’s gathering, to which all of Washington is invited, and I must pretend that all is well and getting better.
All is most certainly not well and indeed getting worse.
Little sister Anna says that thirteen is an unlucky number, and in 1814 all will be right. I laughed when she told me that because our dear, departed mother would have scolded her severely for holding on to superstitions.
Mother would have scolded me, too. The Society of Friends, whose strictures she followed with such conviction, abhors war and will do nothing to help in its prosecution. Perhaps it is better that she is not here to see her daughter as wife of a wartime President. Then again, she endured my being cast out of the Society of Friends when I married James, so perhaps she could endure my current situation.
Curious, how whenever I think of Mother, I also think of Mother Amy. She found ways to soften Mother’s rules as well as ways to infuriate her. Mother Amy carefully selected her head rags. The more brilliant the color, the more she liked them, and oh, how Mother would complain of the luxury of the world that had extended even to the dress of Negro servants. Mother Amy would hum and go about her business. She’d tell me that God enjoyed many things that Quakers did not.
The older I get, and I am getting older, the more I realize that Mother Amy may have been the most sensible person I’ve ever known. What a sin it is, what an abomination, that one human being should own another.
The Southern legislators are using slavery to keep the war fever running high. The latest rumor is that the British may foment a slave rebellion.
Such a froth of speculation! Anna says, why bother to discover the truth of the situation? The rumors provide such constant entertainment.
I do have Payne’s education to look forward to in the coming new year. He promises he will attend the College of New Jersey as soon as he returns from accompanying Albert Gallatin on the peace commission in Russia. It now costs three hundred dollars a year to attend the college. I fear the enticements of the town of Princeton, New Jersey, will surely surpass the cost of enrollment. Who can afford such an education these days?
These cheap tallow candles smoke something fierce. My eyes are smarting and my head is, too. I can’t seem to put my thoughts down in sequence tonight; they’re flying in and out of my head like bats.
A good night’s sleep will clear my head and I will continue this on the morrow, God willing.
D.P.M.
The road in front of the White House looked like chocolate pudding, its peaks and valleys frozen in the January cold. A huge gouge in front of the President’s mansion resembled a bomb crater.
Curly-haired Daniel Webster, a first-term representative from the state of New Hampshire, had proclaimed Washington The Great Dismal, but then Northern congressmen had never liked the city, while Southern and Western congressmen seemed to enjoy themselves thoroughly.
The Madisons shared New Year’s Day with everyone. Even the critical Northern senators and representatives trudged through the frozen muck to celebrate the coming year and to share fervent hopes that the cursed war would end.
Those wishing to make a dashing impression might rent a carriage or arrive on horseback, but most walked. The city, exorbitantly expensive, soon taught all but the most profligate that they would have to budget while living in the nation’s capital.
The simple, elegant door to the sandstone building, painted white, remained open as throngs of people jammed inside; no one seemed in the least hurry to leave. The food, the wine, and the company were enticements to all save t
he most misanthropic. Besides, what better place for gossip and intrigue than at a party hosted by the President and his wife?
The Marine Band boomed in the anteroom, causing the elderly Vice President, Elbridge Gerry from Massachusetts, to remark that he hoped they could fight better than they played.
Dolley Madison glided from guest to guest. She adored being surrounded by people. Whether they were friends or foes of the Administration, her humor and tact never seemed to be affected.
Most of the guests, including the Cabinet members, who should have known better, assumed that Dolley was the warm heart of the Administration while James provided the cool brain. Only James Madison and Edward Coles, who was Dolley’s cousin and the President’s private secretary, knew that when Edward became seriously ill the year before, Dolley had assumed his duties. She was better informed than anyone in the room save the President. Her genius lay in disguising the fact.
Anna Cutts sensed her older sister’s political acuteness, but she never probed. Eleven years younger, she felt as much Dolley’s child as her sister, since Dolley had helped raise her.
Anna watched the shiny black curls shake with laughter as Dolley said something to Henry Clay, who at thirty-seven was a dynamic Speaker of the House. She then moved on to the dainty wife of Dr. William Thornton, the man who had designed the Capitol and had been appointed superintendent of the Patent Office by President Thomas Jefferson, a post he still held.
Mrs. Thornton thought herself an expert on fashion, believing that her French heritage dictated an innate sense of style. Although Mrs. James Monroe, having recently visited Paris, considered herself the repository of current style, Anna Maria Thornton somehow stayed one jump ahead of Elizabeth Monroe. Now Anna observed Mrs. Thornton silently appraising Dolley’s pink satin gown enhanced by thick ermine. The great, white velvet turban with its ostrich plumes wiggled before Mrs. Thornton’s envious eyes as she and Dolley chatted. Yes, a few ladies wore elaborate headdresses on the Continent, but Dolley had given the turban her own personal stamp. Mrs. Thornton, believing herself to be the understudy for the job of President’s wife, as did most women in the room, was quietly determined to eclipse the First Lady in attire. To date, not only had she not succeeded, but Dolley, with her uncanny sense of fabric and color, outshone her.
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