The Emancipator's Wife
Page 69
By that time she was too shattered to be much aware of what was going on around her, staring before her in exhausted shock, numb with fatigue and the horror of the things she had seen. But she heard a familiar voice cry, “Mary!” and looking up, saw Myra Bradwell standing a few feet away, a lantern and a sack of blankets over her shoulder. By the shock in her eyes it was clear she'd barely recognized her, wet, disheveled, covered with mud and soot and ash. “Good God—Mary!”
And Mary held out her arms to her friend, and burst into tears like a child.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
Bellevue July 1875
MYRA BRADWELL.
Mary didn't think she'd ever been more grateful to see anyone in her life—not even Mr. Lincoln when he'd met her again after eighteen months in Bessie Francis's parlor—as she was to see that tall, sturdy figure stride to her through the smoke-black sodden limbo on Lake Michigan's edge.
Lincoln—though it was years since Mary had admitted this, even to herself—was just as likely to forget he was supposed to fetch the boys from school, or that he'd said he'd get fish from the market on his way home, or that Frances and Dr. Wallace were coming to supper (though, she had noticed, he never forgot appointments with his political cronies—that was just how his mind worked).
Myra, however, was like a rock.
From the window of her bedroom at Bellevue Mary watched the driveway under the sharp summer sunlight, praying that Myra would come.
ROBERT, MYRA HAD TOLD HER, THAT RAINY MONDAY NIGHT AS SHE guided Mary back to the little house on Wabash Avenue, had heard at about daybreak Monday morning that the fire had jumped the river, and was moving south swiftly through downtown. Without waking his mother, he had set out on foot up Wabash Avenue for his office on Lake Street—no horse could be induced to go in the direction of the fire. The roof of the Crosby Opera House, in which he had his office, was already in flames when he reached the place. Opening his office safe, he'd piled his father's papers into a tablecloth, and with this tied up on his back had strode out of the burning building and through the inferno of looting, flames, and dynamited firebreaks for home.
Once out of the region of the fire he had encountered the dapper John Hay, who was also living in Chicago these days. The two men had stopped for breakfast at the Terrace Row house of Charles Scammon, Robert's law partner. Robert had advised Scammon's family against evacuating their home and clearing out its furniture and treasures. It might, he warned, affect later insurance claims, and in any case he thought the fire was slowing down.
After Robert and Hay left, the Scammons cleared out their possessions anyway and by noon the house was smoking rubble.
Robert was, of course, furious with Mary for leaving the house: “You were perfectly safe the whole time!” The fire had been stopped three blocks away by General Sheridan, Mary's erstwhile traveling companion on the Russia, who had ordered his men to blow up every building in its path. Every tree and bush in Robert's garden had been withered by the heat.
Later she learned that her dream had been accurate. Not only Chicago had burned that night. Baked tinder-dry by the same rainless autumn and fanned by the same scorching prairie winds, the town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, across the lake—the depot for the whole of the Chicago timber trade that funneled building-wood from the northwest to the woodless Great Plains—had burned, too. Its destruction, unlike Chicago's, was complete.
LEANING HER ARM ON THE BARRED WINDOWSILL OF HER ASYLUM ROOM, Mary closed her eyes, saw again the red infinities of fire, the black curtains of smoke. Heard the noise it made—good God, that sound! Like the bellowing of an all-devouring monster. Saw a blonde girl run screaming past her with her flaming hair . . . saw the drunkard hurl his glass of liquor . . .
Nightly, for years, those scenes would replay against the lids of her shut eyes, and she would wake crying, thinking, The city is on fire . . . !
The city is on fire, and Bobby is gone, and I am alone. . . .
Mary opened her eyes just as Myra Bradwell and her tall husband climbed from a train-station hack and rang the bell at the iron gates at the end of the drive.
Her heart lurched, then triphammered with wild joy. I knew it! I knew she'd come!
Argus opened the gates, stood for a few moments talking to the pair. Myra hadn't changed much since the last time Mary had seen her—good God, it can't be four years! A little stouter, maybe, and she hadn't—thank Heaven!—started wearing “rational costume” of Turkish pantaloons and knee-length tunic as she'd been threatening then to do. Her neat dress of navy-blue chintz was perfectly plain, and being without a bustle—something Myra had steadfastly refused to wear—now put her, almost accidentally, into the very forefront of the mode.
Not, thought Mary, scrambling to her feet and calling for Gretchen, that Myra would care.
Myra's husband followed her up the walk, fair and bespectacled and still very English-looking in spite of half a lifetime spent in the United States. If she had not been married to Abraham Lincoln, Mary had frequently thought, she'd have liked to be married to Judge James Bradwell.
“Gretchen!” she called frantically. “Lace me up again . . . !” That morning General Farnsworth had come, making a lot of vague promises and telling her how much more rested she looked—Of course I'm more rested, you imbecile, I've been locked up for two and a half months! Returning to her room, she'd had Gretchen unlace her and had eaten a little lunch, meaning to remain indoors and rest. Though most of the physical pains of withdrawal from opium had abated, she still had bouts of queasiness, and without warning the darkness of depression would rise over her in smothering clouds.
“Get me dressed,” she panted when her attendant entered, “at once, now. Someone has come to see me....”
YOUNG DR. PATTERSON WAS STANDING AT THE HEAD OF THE STAIRS when Mary, trailed by Gretchen, came hurrying down the hall. She could hear Myra's strong, clear voice below: “Couldn't I see her, Doctor, in the presence of her attendant? My only object in coming here was to see her.”
“Not without a paper from her son.” Patterson senior's voice from the parlor had the air of one who has reiterated the statement several times. “She may be out in a few days, Madame. Then you can see her to your heart's content.”
“Is it likely that she would be,” responded Myra reasonably, “if you don't even consider her well enough to receive visitors?”
Mary attempted to step past Young Doc, who put a hand on her arm. “I'm sorry, Mrs. Lincoln,” he said softly. “No one is permitted to go down into the parlor this afternoon.”
“That's ridiculous!” she gasped. Gretchen came up on her other side, quiet but tense. Ready for trouble. “You have no right to keep me from seeing my friends!”
“As your doctor,” replied Young Doc thinly, “we have every right to keep you from doing things that will only worsen and exacerbate your condition—as you well know, Madam, in your saner moments.”
Mary opened her mouth to lash out in protest, her face hot with anger. But his last sentence stopped her, as if she'd glimpsed Robert looking at her from around a corner—looking at her and waiting for yet another fragment of evidence that she was insane.
“I understood from your letters to the public that she is allowed to see her friends,” Myra went on, in the voice of reasonable inquiry that Mary knew meant she had an unsheathed sword hidden behind her back.
“Well, Madame, she is no better”—Patterson's voice had an edge of impatience to it—“for meddlesome people come here to see her, calling themselves her friends, when in reality they come out of self-interest only, like that dreadful Mrs. Rayne from the Chicago Post.”
“Doctor, please don't attribute such a motive to me!” Myra sounded as if she'd never heard of a newspaper in all her life. “I assure you my visit is only out of pure kindness to Mrs. Lincoln. She is one of my oldest friends. As you are not willing to let me see her, will you allow me to leave a note for her?”
Pressing forward—Mrs. Patterson had joined Gretchen
and Young Doc in the hall and there was now no chance whatsoever of getting past them without a fuss—Mary could see Dr. Patterson's back below. He glanced at his watch, a habit he shared with Robert's lawyer friend Swett, a way of signalling that his time was far more valuable than theirs....
“There is no necessity for that, Madame. It would only disturb her mind. While she is under my care, I shall not permit her to be disturbed either by visitors or letters.”
“If she is only permitted to see such persons as you choose, and is not permitted to receive letters except from such, she is virtually a prisoner, is she not?”
“No more so than other patients I have under my care.” He glanced at his watch again, as if to say, When will you take yourself out of here and stop wasting my precious instants, each more valuable than gold . . . ?
“I quite understand,” said Myra, in a cheerful voice that, Mary knew, presaged a serious skewering at some time in the future. “Doctor, it is some time until our train leaves—might my husband and I remain for a little time in your parlor, rather than sitting in the public depot?”
“Mrs. Lincoln,” said Mrs. Patterson firmly, “Dr. Patterson has asked that no one be admitted to the parlor this afternoon. Now, you had one visitor this morning already, and I think we all agree that all he did was stir you up and make you uncomfortable. If your son thinks it's appropriate, you will be able to receive a visit from your friends on another occasion.”
Mary made her face impassive, fighting not to burst into either tears or a tirade of abuse. You smug hag, if you had a single friend in the entire world you would know what it means to be separated from them, when you have no one else!
But as she had with Robert, she lowered her shoulders and her eyes and said, “Yes, of course. I quite understand.”
And immediately Mrs. Patterson relaxed.
Down in the parlor, Myra was chatting with Dr. Patterson, inquiring about the difficulties of running a “rest home,” as she called it, and pretending deepest fascination with the methods of “coaxing troubled minds back to sanity.” All of which information, Mary was certain, was being mentally jotted down by the silent and self-effacing James. She heard Dr. Patterson say, “Mrs. Lincoln is quite a difficult case, very much troubled in her mind. As you know, she was sent here after an attempt to take her own life....”
That isn't true!
Heart pounding, Mary walked back along the hall to her room. Did Myra actually believe her to be insane? Had she come only to learn how serious her aberration actually was?
No. No, she believes me. . . .
Does she?
Panic filled her, at the recollection of that expression of specious understanding in General Farnsworth's eyes that morning. What had that one-time abolitionist politician said to Patterson, after she had returned to her room? That she was insane but seemed sane most of the time, as Robert always said of her? That she “looked rested” as a result of her incarceration, so therefore her imprisonment ought to continue?
As Mrs. Patterson, young Doc, and Gretchen stood waiting for Mary to enter her room again, she saw John Wilamet turn the corner.
“Oh, Mr. Wilamet,” purred Mary. “Perhaps before I lie down I could speak to you for a moment about . . .” About what? Her mind groped frantically for a convincing lie, “. . . about that poem your dear mother recommended that I read. Mr. Tennyson's ‘Lady of Shalott,' was it not?”
John faltered slightly at the mere thought of his mother reading or recommending any sort of poem whatsoever, but Mary locked eyes with him, mutely pleading with him to understand. He nodded amiably, and replied, “It was indeed,” and paused. In the face of a discussion of poetry, both Pattersons and Gretchen went on their ways.
“You must go after Judge and Mrs. Bradwell when they leave the house—they're down in the parlor now—and tell them that I am not insane!” Mary whispered desperately. “That I attempted to commit suicide after I was tried and condemned to perpetual imprisonment as a madwoman, not before! Please, please, John, let them know the truth as you have seen it! Mrs. Bradwell is a lawyer—her husband is a judge! They will know how to undo the law that has made me a prisoner here!”
John looked down at her gravely for a moment. If he tells me that I'm too excitable or shouldn't be “stirred up,” I shall kill myself indeed. . . .
But he said, “And what will you do with your freedom, if they should undo the law?”
She almost cried, I'd live! But instead she said quietly, “That's no more your business, John, than it would have been my business to ask that of you, before my husband signed the Proclamation which set you free.”
“Touché, Mrs. Lincoln. A palpable hit.”
And turning with a smile, he hurried down the stairs.
JOHN WAS LOITERING WHEN DR. PATTERSON FINISHED HIS TEA—AND his lecture on Moral Treatment—and called for Zeus to harness the carriage, to take Judge and Mrs. Bradwell to the station. “I can drive them,” he said, stepping into the parlor at precisely the right moment, as Mrs. Bradwell was shaking cake-crumbs from her skirts. “I need to stop in at Beck's Pharmacy. We're low on ipecac and salts.”
“Thank you, Mr. Wilamet.” Patterson smiled benignly. “Judge Bradwell—Madame—you have no objection to Mr. Wilamet driving you? Excellent . . . Mr. Wilamet is my assistant here. John, if you'd be so good as to ask at the receiving-office, we're also expecting a shipment of chloral hydrate—a very much more effective and modern inducer of sleep than laudanum,” he added, addressing Myra. “We believe in a minimum of drugs here, only those that are necessary to restore the balance of the patient's mind. We have been working a great deal with sleep therapy, sleep being the greatest natural restorer that there is....”
Even if you have to induce it with enough chloral hydrate to knock out a bear, thought John, as he led the way down the front steps to the carriage in the gravel drive. The previous September one of Dr. Patterson's patients, a Mrs. Harcourt, had died of “exhaustion” after an episode of mania, during which she'd been force-fed 110 grains of chloral hydrate over the course of a few hours. Patterson still sincerely believed it was the mania rather than the drug which had ended her life.
As they got in the carriage Mrs. Bradwell—whom John had met briefly during the War, though he doubted she remembered a mere member of General Ord's medical staff—said to her husband, “Well, what do you think, Judge?”
“Other than that the fellow's a self-important bore?”
Only when he'd driven through the gates and Argus had shut them behind the carriage did John draw rein, turn on the box, and say, “Please excuse me for interrupting, Judge, Mrs. Bradwell....”
The older man regarded him with sharply raised brows—no Englishman of the upper classes ever quite got used to being addressed by a servant. It was as if, just for that first moment, one of the carriage-horses had spoken.
“Mrs. Lincoln begged me to speak to you—begged me to let you know that that suicide attempt of hers was after that . . . that farce of a trial. And she asked me to tell you anything you might wish to know about her condition.” And, seeing—to his surprise—that Mrs. Bradwell was regarding him closely, he added, “We've met before, ma'am, briefly, during the War....”
“You were with Ord, weren't you? At Crown Point?”
“I was, ma'am.”
“And you've been caring for Mrs. Lincoln while she's been here?”
“Yes, I have, ma'am.” He flapped the reins, guided the team over to the shade of an elm at the side of Union Street, and drew rein again. Far off the Illinois Central whistled, but none of them paid any attention. There would be, he knew, another train in two hours.
“And do you consider Mrs. Lincoln is insane?” Mrs. Bradwell's shrewd gaze remained on his face. He had never in his life heard of a woman lawyer, although he'd encountered a couple of women doctors in his time. But he could easily believe this stout, motherly-looking woman was one. There was something in her gaze that he wouldn't have wanted to try lying to.
“In the newspaper accounts of her trial the doctors say she was delusional.” Judge Bradwell spoke for the first time. He had a big man's deep, mellow voice, with a trace of English accent in his vowels and r's.
“I suspect they were hallucinations rather than delusions, sir,” answered John. “I believe that was the fault of some of the medicines she was taking, medicines that she has been weaned off of now. . . . She has certainly not had delusions of any kind since she's been at Bellevue. Dr. Patterson doesn't agree with my diagnosis. He says she needs rest . . . which I think she does. I think she's needed rest for a long time.”
“Do you think she would be able to deal with life in the world?” asked Mrs. Bradwell quietly. “I'm very fond of Mary—Mrs. Lincoln—but I'm not blind to her faults. And I don't think anyone would argue that she was not doing a particularly good job of dealing with life in the world in the years between her son's death, and that last disastrous trip to Florida. I don't think there was one of her friends who did not fear for her sanity and her health.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
FOUR YEARS.
Mary stood by her window, looking out at the iron palings, the elm-shaded fragment of Union Avenue, where the carriage had passed. Just the sight of Myra's sturdy blue-clad form—of James's reassuring bulk—brought back to her how long it had been since she'd seen them.