Mrs. Lee and Mrs. Gray

by Dorothy Love

  “Miss Mary, I don’t know if it will comfort you to know I was with your mother when she breathed her last.”

  I turned around. “I only wish I could have been here for the moment when that precious soul took flight.”

  Selina wiped her eyes. “It was peaceful. It was after midnight and we were all there gathered round her bed. Your papa was on his knees beside her when the girls came in. They were scared, and Missus asked them to come up and lie down beside her and say the Lord’s Prayer with her. I said, ‘Missus, is there any word you want to tell me for Miss Mary?’ And she said, ‘Oh, Selina, I hate that she will be shocked when she hears this.’ And that was the last words she said to me.”

  I turned back to the patch of green I had chosen for her resting place.

  “You got to be strong now, for your girls. ’Specially Miss Agnes. She is taking this loss very hard.” Selina moved to stand beside me and shaded her eyes. “This where you going to put her?”

  “Yes. I think it would please her to be in sight of the garden and the river.”

  I telegraphed Robert, summoned Ephraim to dig the grave, and sent word to the Reverend Dana to come and conduct the service. The next morning I went into the garden alone to pick flowers for the mourners, who had begun arriving the previous evening.

  At noon a handful of our friends joined my cousins and aunts and my daughters for the service. I found my father alone in Mother’s bedroom, staring out the window.

  “Papa. It’s time.”

  “Who—” His voice faltered. “Who is to bear the coffin to the grave?”

  “Austin, Lawrence, Daniel, and Ephraim. They were among her favorites.”

  “Are the servants assembled?”

  “Yes. Annie and Agnes are in the parlor with Uncle William. We are all waiting for you.”

  He shook his head. “I will remain right here.”

  “But—”

  “Leave me now, Mary Anna.”

  I went out to organize the mourners. After the minister’s address and the usual prayers, Annie, Agnes, and I joined hands. Uncle William followed us in the procession to the gravesite. I handed out the flowers from Mother’s garden to those assembled, and when the coffin was lowered into the ground we tossed the flowers upon it.

  Agnes threw her arms around me and sobbed.

  For her sake I staunched the flow of my own tears and swallowed the ache in my throat. “It’s only her body that’s in the grave, precious child.”

  “I know. Maybe her angel spirit is looking down on us right this minute.”

  “I am certain of it.”

  “It is beautiful, isn’t it, Mama, to look through the green trees and at the blue sky above and think she may be there.”

  The servants moved away from the grave. I looked up in time to see Maria Syphax, Charles’s wife, standing apart from the others, a single rose in her hands. Because Charles was in charge of our dining room, I saw him daily when I was home, but I saw Maria only occasionally, as she rarely ventured from the property Papa had given her. Now she crossed the lawn and stood before the open grave for a moment before dropping the rose onto Mother’s coffin. Her eyes met mine, and for a moment I experienced a most peculiar and unsettled feeling. But it quickly passed, and Maria hurried away.

  I found the minister standing among the small knot of family and friends still assembled and thanked him for coming.

  “It was my honor, Mrs. Lee.” His face had grown pink beneath the spring sunshine, and he tugged at his collar. He produced his handkerchief and blotted his face. “Your mother was a fine woman. Everybody who knew her will remember her grace and her efforts on the behalf of others.”

  “I have often thought that she alone of all our household was ripe for heaven. My father always said she was everything that was lovely and excellent.”

  “Indeed. She truly was one in a thousand.” He bowed to me and the girls. “My carriage is here and I must go. But do call upon me if there is anything else I can do for you or your father.”

  Annie and Agnes and Uncle William accompanied me back to the house. George had prepared a meal, but none of us was really hungry. The girls picked at their food until I sent them up to their room to rest. Papa remained behind the closed door of his bedroom.

  Selina came in. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

  “I can’t think of anything.”

  “I’m going on home now, but I set some cake and fresh coffee in the parlor for you all.” She crossed the room and clasped my hands. “I know this is the worst thing that has ever happened to you, but you got to do the best you can. And look after your papa. He is grieving so.”

  The following days passed in a blur. Mother’s obituary appeared in the local newspapers. Letters arrived from members of the American Colonization Society, urging me to continue her work. Robert’s letter spoke of his own inconsolable grief. I read it alone, sitting in the garden Mother had so loved.

  Dearest Mary,

  This is the most affecting calamity that has ever befallen us. The blow was so sudden and crushing that I yet shudder at the shock and feel as if I had been arrested in the course of life. I suppose the best way to honor her memory is to seek to emulate her in word and in deed. I pray that when I die my last end may be like her.

  “Mary Anna?” Papa came into the garden wearing his favorite straw hat. “I thought I’d find you here.”

  I folded Robert’s letter to read again later and got to my feet, brushing the dirt from the hem of my skirt. “You seem much improved this morning.”

  “We must learn to bear that which cannot be changed.” He gazed up at the house and garden, the sloping lawn. “Everything is just the same. Our home, the park, the lawn, and this beautiful garden she loved so well. Her imprint is all over this place, and yet I feel so utterly alone.”

  “I know it, Papa. You won’t be alone, though.” I linked my arm through his. “I must return to West Point soon, but Annie and Agnes will remain here with Miss Poor. And Markie has offered to stay as long as you want her.”

  “Whatever would we do without Markie?” Papa plucked a blossom from the lilac bush and held it to his nose. “I have always been partial to lilacs. I know of no other flower with such a lavish fragrance.”

  He tucked the flower into his shirt pocket. “Please do write to your sweet cousin and ask her to come. At least until you and the children are home for the summer.”

  “All right.” We started up the path. “Perhaps this is not the best time, but I must ask you for a great favor.”

  “A favor?”

  “I had a letter from William Burke last week. He says that he has asked you for his freedom. He wants to go to Liberia.”

  “So he said.”

  “But you didn’t give him an answer.”

  “I thought the absence of my permission served well enough.”

  “That’s hardly fair, after the years of excellent service he has given you. The least you could do is give him a definitive answer.”

  Papa’s steps slowed. “Manumitting six servants costs a considerable sum of money. And I have made provisions in my will for their emancipation.” He waved a hand. “Five years at the outside, after I am in my grave, they can all go.”

  “God willing, you will be here for many years yet. By then William and Rosabella might be too old for such an undertaking. William is already well past thirty. And his children ought to have their chance now, while they are young.”

  He grunted.

  “If you won’t do it for them, or for me, do it for Mother. You know it’s what she would want.”

  “It’s hardly fair, Mary Anna, to bring your mother into this discussion when she is not even cold in her grave.”

  “I am sorry to bring this up now, but William says there is a ship leaving in the fall, and in order to book passage, he must first prove he is free. Then there are the applications to complete and letters of recommendation to procure, not to mention outfitting them for travel.”

>   He halted and peered down at me. “Refusing you now will not mean the end of this discussion, will it?”

  “I’m afraid I shall have to keep bringing it up until I get the result I want.”

  He sighed. “I am too tired to fight you. Have the papers drawn up and I will sign them.”

  “Thank you, Papa.”

  “But hear me, child. I will not contribute one cent to their expenses.”

  We returned to a house still in mourning. Papa hung up his hat and plodded off to his studio. Annie and Agnes were at their lessons with Miss Poor; the hum of their voices penetrated the thick silence. I could hear Selina moving around upstairs, dusting the furniture and changing the bed linens. Mother’s little bell rested on the sideboard where I’d left it.

  Everything was the same, everything was different. I felt my mother’s presence surrounding me. I remembered the last morning we’d spent together in the garden, surrounded by lilacs and arbutus and the scent of roses. She wore a red sunbonnet faded to pink by many wearings and her old black garden boots. In the summer sunlight her skin was pale, the bones of her hands thin as wire. She bent to pull a handful of weeds, an expression of serene contentment on her face.

  This is how I would remember her—happy and at peace. I smiled to myself. We did it, Mother. William Burke is going free.

  I went to Mother’s writing desk to get paper and ink for writing to Markie. At the back of the drawer lay a single letter, creased from many readings. The ink had faded, but there was no mistaking my father’s sprawling hand. Wondering why she had chosen to save only this letter, I pulled it out. Addressed to my mother while she was visiting at Kinloch, it was full of news about the servants at Arlington House, prospects for the corn crop, and sorrow at the loss of so many of our family.

  Death indeed, my Dear Wife, has used his scythe with an unsparing hand of late in my unfortunate family. He has cut off the young, the gay, the innocent, and the good and the happy. I need not expect to be exempt.

  “Mama?” Annie poked her head into the room. “What are you doing?”

  “Writing to Cousin Markie. Your grandpa wants her here while your papa and I are away.”

  “Oh.” She perched on the arm of my chair. “What’s that?”

  “A letter from your grandpa to your grandmama.” I glanced at the date and was surprised to see that more than thirty years had passed since he had written it.

  “May I see it?”

  “It’s nothing to interest a girl of your age. Besides, if I know Miss Poor, she will set you to your mathematics lessons soon.”

  “Mathematics. Ugh.” Annie wrinkled her nose. “Boring as dirt.”

  I sent her off to join her sister and returned to Papa’s letter.

  One duty I have yet to [here the page was smudged and I could not make out his handwriting] the duty of affection and gratitude to you, Dear Wife, to leave you all my possessions and hope they may make you some amends for the unhappy moments I have caused you . . .

  An image of my mother’s face, her expression full of some private grief, rose in my mind. The letter confirmed that which I had always suspected, but which no one would admit: that my father had hurt her in some profound way. So profound that she had kept this letter for three decades.

  I returned the letter to the drawer. I hoped that whatever had passed between them had been acknowledged, forgiven, forgotten. I wrote to Markie, urging her to come to Arlington for a long visit. Shortly thereafter I returned to West Point. But the questions regarding my parents lingered long after time had softened the sharp edges of my grief and the scent of my mother’s garden had faded into memory.

  28 | SELINA

  On that sorrowful day when we put Missus under the ground, I saw Maria Syphax coming across the yard dressed in black and holding a pink rose in her hand, and my heart like to have stopped beating.

  I was barely out of my baby time when Mister Custis gave Maria Carter seventeen acres of land and her freedom, but from time to time I overheard Mauma and Judah whispering about “that high yellow woman.” Maria Carter was a few years older than Miss Mary, and she had married Charles from the dining room the year Miss Mary turned eighteen, but I was too young to recollect it.

  Her cabin in the woods was packed to the ceiling with children, or so Judah said. Maria didn’t spend too much time in the quarters, but I had seen her enough to recognize her the minute she walked right past us to drop her flower onto Missus’s coffin. She did not speak a word. She just turned and looked at Miss Mary for the longest time and then went back the way she had come.

  I could of told Miss Mary why Maria had come. What she was looking for. What she knew. But my lips were sealed.

  Some words are best left unspoken. Some secrets are best left buried with the dead.

  29 | MARY

  Mrs. Pinckney lived in a plain-looking house in Georgetown, its unremarkable façade offering no clue to the opulence within. I handed my calling card to the servant who opened the door and stood in the entry hall in my mourning clothes, admiring the tall gilt-framed mirrors and French tapestries lining the walls and trying to calm my nerves. I had not seen Mrs. Pinckney since my wedding celebration. From time to time I had written to her on behalf of the Colonization Society, and she had responded with modest donations. But I wasn’t certain she would receive me. Or that she would be amenable to my plan.

  “Mrs. Lee?” The girl who had admitted me to the house returned. “Please come with me.”

  She led me into the parlor, where Mrs. Pinckney waited behind a gleaming silver tea service. Mrs. Pinckney dismissed her girl with a wave of her hand and rose to greet me.

  “Mrs. Lee. This is a pleasure I never anticipated, after more than twenty years. I must say you have hardly changed at all since your wedding day.” She peered into my face. “Though of course you look tired now, my dear, but who can blame you after such a crushing loss? I was so sad to learn of your dear mother’s death. She was certainly a bright example to everyone who knew her.”

  “Thank you. Of course I thought so.”

  Mrs. Pinckney motioned me to a chair and took her time pouring the tea into paper-thin china cups, setting out the sugar tongs and the crystal milk pitcher. I looked around at the room, which seemed to have been arranged for a Beaux Arts exhibition. Every shelf and surface was crowded with Chinese porcelains, bronze sculptures, and a collection of French ormolu clocks. A set of miniature paintings of hollow-cheeked saints and fat, smiling cherubs adorned the fireplace mantel.

  “What brings you here?” Mrs. Pinckney asked. “It must be important, since you are in mourning.”

  I took the cup she offered, using the moment to compose myself. I hated asking a favor of anyone, especially someone I barely knew, and I felt guilty for what I was about to do. The plan, which had seemed so easy in theory, now filled me with sadness, but I had no other option, and now I steeled myself to follow through.

  I sipped the tea, set down the cup, and opened the small cloth bag I had brought with me from Arlington. I took out the carved ivory box my father had given me on my wedding day.

  “Do you remember this?”

  Her eyes lit up. “Of course I remember. May I see it?”

  I handed it over, quashing my distaste at having her touch something so precious and so personal. She opened and closed the gold-hinged lid.

  “It is still one of the loveliest things I have ever seen,” she said.

  “You once said that if I ever wanted to sell it—”

  “Oh, my dear. Is it that bad? I have heard rumors that Arlington is in dire straits. One does hear these things, you know. But I never dreamed the situation would come to this.” She made a tsk-tsk sound. “Your father is the most generous host in Virginia, but one does wish he had exercised more financial prudence rather than forcing his only child to give up her own personal treasures.”

  “You misunderstand my purpose, Mrs. Pinckney. This has nothing to do with my father or with his management of the estate. I’
m selling the box to help a friend with some expenses.”

  “I see. Anyone I know?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  She ran her fingers over the box lid. “I would like to think about it.”

  I couldn’t bear the thought of having to subject myself to further conversations on the subject. And time was of the essence. “I’m afraid I need a decision today.”

  “Oh, I see. You have other buyers interested, I expect.”

  I didn’t correct her. I waited while the many clocks ticked loudly in the silence. Finally she said, “I can offer you eight hundred for it.”

  I had hoped for a thousand, but I decided not to push my luck. Nor to prolong the agony of parting with something I so dearly loved, even if in doing so I was contributing to something far more important than my own sentimental feelings. “All right.”

  Mrs. Pinckney rose. “Please enjoy your tea while I write a check. I’ll be back in a moment.”

  The deed was done. The ivory box sat on the side table, the jewels catching the light. I was overwhelmed with guilt when I thought of Papa and of how happy he had been to give me such a beautiful keepsake on the most momentous night of my life. I hoped he would never know I hadn’t kept it.

  Mrs. Pinckney returned and handed me the check. “I hope your friend appreciates your sacrifice.”

  I tucked it away and got to my feet. “I must go. Thank you for receiving me.”

  She smiled. “I cannot think of a single person in this town who would not receive the daughter of Mary Fitzhugh Custis. She was one of a kind.”

  I left the house, and Daniel drove me home. Papa was in the garden talking with Ephraim, his ratty straw hat pulled low over his eyes. It was high summer, and the vegetable crop was coming in faster than we could harvest it. He looked up and waved as I went up the steps and into the house. I put away Mrs. Pinckney’s check, removed my hat, and started down the stairs.