The First Lady and the Rebel, page 29
“Bravo!” Tad clapped. “You play like a princess, Aunt Emily.”
“I told you Mama played well,” Kate said loftily.
“Well, thank you. I used to practice every day until the war began, but now I must confine my playing to whenever I can find an instrument.” Emily started. “Tad, is that a goat?”
“Of course,” Tad said as his hircine companion gazed at her. “It was getting cold outside, so Pa said, ‘Bring ’em in!’ So I did. The other one must be on my bed.”
“Well, of course,” Emily said.
“Can you play some Christmas carols, Aunt Emily?”
“Well…” Emily had tried to pay as little attention to Christmas as possible; the contrast between this year and her last Christmas, spent with Hardin and the children in their little house in muddy Chattanooga, being too painful to dwell on. But she could hardly tell that to Tad, who was being such a good host to Kate, nor really to Kate herself. “All right. But you and Kate have to sing along.”
The children obliged. Soon, Mr. Hay and Mr. Nicolay, who lodged as well as worked at the White House, wandered in on the impromptu concert, and over time they were joined by others. Because Tad utterly refused to go to bed without his father being present, and it was an ironclad rule in the White House that Tad be denied nothing, the singing and playing were still going on when the Lincolns came home from the theater. “Why, I had forgotten what a musician you were, Emily,” Mary said.
“A tired one,” Emily said, and smiled at Tad. “But it was a pleasure.”
“You’ve worn out your aunt Emily,” Mr. Lincoln said almost reproachfully. “But I would have, too, with such sweet singing.”
Emily smiled, and having kissed Mary, took Kate and herself off to bed. She was closing her door when she heard Mary’s voice, “I do wish Emily would make her residence here in Washington. It is so nice having a young person here, and as pretty and accomplished as she is, with time she might re—”
Before her sister’s voice could die out on its own, Emily shut the door firmly. Kate yawned. “Re what, Mama?”
“I have no idea. Go to sleep.”
The next afternoon, Mr. Lincoln, who on doctor’s orders was keeping a less demanding schedule while he convalesced, joined the women and the children in Mary’s room. Kate had brought out her photograph album. Emily had not looked at it recently, and with some embarrassment she saw that save for a few family pictures here and there, it was a veritable Confederate gallery, with Hardin in his dress uniform taking pride of place on the first page and general upon general following him. Tad, commendably, bore this parade of Southern commanders politely. Then he brought out his own album. “Here’s Papa,” he said, pointing to the first page. “The President,” he said slyly.
“No!” Kate sat upright, her curls shaking emphatically. “Mr. Jefferson Davis is the President. I should know… I gave him flowers. Didn’t I, Mama?”
“Yes, you gave him flowers. But—”
“Mr. Davis is not the President. Papa is the President. Who lives here? Not Old Jeff.”
Finding herself unable to argue the point, Kate rose to her feet. “Hurrah for Jeff Davis!”
“Hurrah for Abraham Lincoln!”
“Children!” Emily and Mary said in unison.
“Now, the two of you come up here.” Mr. Lincoln easily brought each child upon his knee. As they glared at each other, he said, “I think we can agree on two things. I am Tad’s President, and I am Kate’s Uncle Lincoln. Can we?”
“Yes,” mumbled Kate.
“Yes,” said Tad. “Want to play with the goats, Kate?”
“Yes!” Kate scrambled off Mr. Lincoln’s knee and followed Tad out of the room.
Mr. Lincoln shook his head. “If only the war could be settled that easily.”
That evening, Mary again had callers, and Emily excused herself. She was sitting in her room, enjoying a novel by Sir Walter Scott from the well-stocked White House library, when one of the mansion’s servants knocked. “Mrs. Lincoln would like to see you for a moment, please.”
With some reluctance, Emily obeyed. In the library with Mary were General Sickles and another man, older than Sickles and with both legs intact. “This is Senator Ira Harris,” Mary said. “You really must meet his daughter sometime—a most accomplished young lady.”
“Senator Harris was asking about his old friend General Breckinridge,” General Sickles said. “Knowing that you just came from down South, I thought you might have word of him.”
“I have heard nothing from him since he wrote his condolences to me after my husband’s death,” Emily said. General Breckinridge had written of Hardin and his men, He loved them, they loved him, and he died at their head, a patriot and a hero, but the sour-looking senator would have no interest in hearing that. “But I am certain I would have heard if anything were amiss.”
“You keep in contact with the rebels?”
“When I lived in the South, I certainly did.”
Senator Harris grunted. How could Mary countenance a man who was so rude? Was he drunk? There was certainly a smell of spirits in the room.
“Well, we’re whipping them,” Senator Harris said. “We whipped them at Chattanooga, and I hear that they ran like scared rabbits.”
“It was the example, Senator Harris, that the North set them at Manassas,” Emily said coolly.
Mary coughed. “Do you hear anything from your son, Senator?”
“Yes, I believe he is well. And he fought courageously at Bull Run, Mrs. Helm.”
Emily stared straight ahead.
“Well,” said Mary, “I am glad to hear that. Goodness, I find it hard enough to be separated from Bob, and he is only at Harvard.”
“Why is he at Harvard, Mrs. Lincoln? Why isn’t in the army?”
“Sore subject there,” General Sickles said to the room at large.
Mary said with admirable composure, “He would be in the army if he had his way, Senator Harris, be in no doubt about that. It is I who have insisted that he remain at college. An educated man can serve his country with more intelligent purpose than an ignoramus.”
“Balderdash. The army is full of Harvard men.”
“And so are the graveyards.”
“So that’s why you don’t want him to fight? I have but one son, and he is fighting for his country.” He turned to Emily. “And, madam, if I had twenty sons, they would all be fighting the rebels.”
“And if I had twenty sons, Senator Harris, they would all be opposing yours.” Emily stalked out of the room. Head held high, she walked to the Prince of Wales Room. She was about to lock the door when Mary pushed her way in. “Dear child, I am so sorry.”
“How can you associate with such men?”
“Senator Harris is not normally rude. I fear he was a little intoxicated. And perhaps something is worrying him about his son. But his behavior toward you was inexcusable, and I told him so.”
Emily wiped her eyes. “Mary, I will be leaving for Baltimore tomorrow, and then for Lexington. I cannot stay here anymore.”
“Dear, don’t let this one incident bother you. I assure you, he is not usually like that; if he were, I would never allow him here. Why, I would love to see you stay in Washington! You would not have to stay in this place. I could help you find a nice house, and there are fine schools here for the girls. I know, of course, that you do not want society at present, but even living quietly can be agreeable here. Why Mrs. Douglas—the second wife of my almost-beau Senator Douglas, whom you might remember me telling you about—has been his widow for over two years now, and she manages to do quite a bit of good, volunteering for all sorts of worthy causes, in our hospitals and so forth. Or Mr. Lincoln might find a job for you in the Treasury or something—”
For a moment, Emily found herself tempted, albeit not by volunteering in the Union’s hospitals or working for its treasury. Had not she envisioned living in Washington at one time? But Hardin had been alive then. Now she only wanted to retire to Kentucky with her shattered little family and heal her wounds. “It is kind of you, Mary, but I never intended to stay more than a few days. It is not that man’s boorishness; it is simply that Kentucky is my home. This place can never be.”
* * *
The next morning at breakfast, Emily turned to Mr. Lincoln just as he was leaving them for his office. “May I speak to you in private, sir?”
“Please, not so formal. But yes, we may speak.” He led her away. “My office is right through this passageway. I ordered its construction myself; it saves me from being pestered more than I am already. Present company excepted, of course.”
Emily settled into the chair he indicated—a cracked leather one that like the rest of the office chairs was considerably less elegant than the other furnishings in the house. “Before I left, I wanted to explain why I could not take the oath. It was not disrespect to you, but respect for my husband’s memory.”
“Understood. I won’t make you take it, if you agree not to take advantage of my lenience.”
“I would never do so.”
“No, I didn’t think you would. But it had to be said.” He gestured toward a desk piled with paper. “I’ve been reading some accounts of Chickamauga, and your husband’s engagement in particular. Hardin gave us a good fight, for far longer than most in his position could have managed, myself included. I hope you don’t bear any anger against me for his death.”
“No!” Emily looked up at him earnestly. “I regard his death—and those of my brothers—as the fortune of war and the providence of God. I don’t claim to understand it, but that is how I regard it.”
“Yes, that is how I feel about poor Willie. But back to Hardin. You do know that I offered him a position.”
“Yes.”
“I was being begged for positions from all and sundry, but I was glad to oblige in his case because I knew him to have ability, and I wanted to please him—and you and Mary. It was the best I could have offered at that time, without making any more enemies than I had already. He’d seemed eager enough for one. But he refused. Was it his friends who changed his mind? His father?”
“You wrong him, sir. It was his own conscience. He did take counsel from others, but in the end, he did what he believed was right, and he died believing that he had made the right decision, even though it cost him everything.”
“Well, I did all I could to keep him on our side. I was fond of him. Very fond of him.” He wiped his eye. Then he smiled, his eyes crinkling as they had so often in Springfield. “By the way, I had it from General Sickles—the man is a gossip—about the goings-on last night. I heard that you were a match for Senator Harris.”
“I should not have lost my temper, but—”
“A Todd not lose her temper? As I told him, you’ve got a tongue like the rest of the Todds, and frankly, Harris deserved it.” He chuckled, then rummaged around his desk. “Before you leave, I’ll write out a paper giving you the protections of a loyal citizen. If anyone in Lexington gives you a hard time, you just show it to them.”
“Thank you. You have been so kind that I hate to ask you for more, but I must. If I could get a permit to sell my cotton—”
Mr. Lincoln sighed. “I’ll do my best, but you have to understand that half of the North wants a permit to sell Southern cotton, and the other half disapproves of the practice—at least until they find some cotton they want to sell. It’s a delicate matter already and even more delicate if I favor a relation, especially with an election coming up. But get Hardin’s will probated, as must be your first step in any case, and I’ll see what I can do. I can promise nothing, but I don’t intend for you to be in want. I can at least write out an order stating that when the place where your cotton is stored—Jackson, Mississippi, and Georgia, right?—comes within our lines, you shall be allowed to prove your ownership of it, and claim it.”
Emily had hoped for more, but with her return to Kentucky so tantalizingly close, she was not disposed to complain.
She fetched Kate, who had spent the morning sketching their room and a couple of the state rooms. Together with the Lincolns they walked to the front portico, where a carriage stood waiting to take Emily and Kate to the depot. Mary pressed a purse into her hand—“Just a pretty little bauble, dear”—and Emily took it, guessing the intent, which would be confirmed when she opened it in the carriage and found it full of greenbacks. Beside her, Tad and Kate shook hands in farewell. “Here’s President Davis for your album,” Kate said.
“And here’s President Lincoln for yours.”
“Give my regards to our mother and the rest,” Mary said with the slight hesitation she always had used in giving her stepmother that maternal epithet. She lowered her voice. “And my deepest sympathies for her losses of Sam and Alec.”
“Come back and visit when you can, Little Sister.” Mr. Lincoln kissed Emily on the cheek and smiled at Kate, who was frowning at his photograph as if uncertain whether she had made a fair trade. “And, Miss Kate, don’t toss that photo away. I do grow on people.”
Mary said, “I know you said you cannot stay in Washington, but I hope you will at least pay us a visit at the Soldiers’ Home this summer.”
“I am sorry, Mary. After the last couple of years, I am inclined to remain at home for a while. And the children need to settle down as well.”
“True,” said Mary. She sighed. “Well, promise me that you will wear that lovely bonnet I gave you. The flowers are so perfectly black, and while we are called upon to mourn our dead, we are not called upon to be dowdy. Remember that.”
Emily smiled, wondering if Mary knew how much she sounded like Mrs. Todd. She embraced Mary and pecked her cheek. “I will.”
* * *
“I miss Aunt Emily and Kate,” Tad announced a couple of hours after their departure.
“I know you do, dear,” Mary said. As the months passed and Willie’s death receded into the distance, she had regretted banishing the Taft boys from the White House, but there was no going back. The boys were now attending school up north, and she could hardly ask that they return to Washington for Tad’s convenience—or to assuage her own guilt. Julia Taft was still in Washington, but she was far too grown up to romp with Tad, and in any case was now “out” and had several admirers to keep her occupied.
But although his cousin’s return to Kentucky had deprived Tad of a playmate, Mary had not been entirely sad to see her sister leave. It had been so awkward, not wanting to say or do anything that would cause Emily to give way to her grief, and it was clear that the poor girl was grieving terribly. The best thing she could do, both for her happiness and for her security, was to remarry—after a respectable interval, of course. Underneath her mourning garb, Emily was still a very pretty woman, and surely Kentucky’s blue bloods, the sensible ones who hadn’t rushed out like poor Mr. Helm and joined the rebels, would notice that in due time.
It was a relief, too, that Emily had departed before the press noticed her—something it surely would have done despite Mr. Lincoln’s best efforts to keep the matter quiet. A Confederate widow in the Executive Mansion—nay, a Confederate general’s widow in the Executive Mansion! Mary could imagine the snide remarks, the suggestions that having invited a brigadier general’s widow to sojourn there, the Lincolns might as well go up in rank and invite Mrs. Stonewall Jackson in the spring. And with the election coming up—one that Mr. Lincoln had to win, for Mary could not bear returning defeated to Springfield—the President’s opponents, such as that puffed-up, do-nothing McClellan and those who wanted to end the war at any cost, would be looking for any little tidbit to use against him.
Yes, it was just as well that Emily had left.
That evening, though, Mary found herself missing the tinkle of the piano in the Red Room, where Emily had so often sneaked off during her visit. A typical little-sisterish thing to do, where anyone else would have simply asked, but a rather endearing one. And in her private sitting room, she felt the absence of her sister even more keenly. Emily, unlike a number of Todd women, was a capital listener.
Perhaps she might still manage to persuade Emily to spend some time at the Soldiers’ Home that summer; in its secluded confines, the press was unlikely to notice her. By then, her grief might be less raw—and perhaps the war would be less of a painful subject once her sister had spent more time back in the Union. At the very least, she could visit after the election.
If, of course, they were still in the White House by then.
24
Emily
January to June 1864
After the New Year began, Emily took Kitty with her as company and went to Louisville to probate Hardin’s will and to see some old friends, having first brought the girls and Ben to Elizabethtown to visit Hardin’s parents. The pain of their meeting was alleviated a great deal by the presence of the children, whom Emily left in virtual command of Helm Place, being waited on like potentates, romping around the grounds from daybreak to dusk, and being thoroughly fussed over by grandparents, uncles, and aunts to such a degree that Emily could only hope that they would not balk when required to return to Lexington, where the family had lodgings at the Broadway Hotel until Mrs. Todd could find a house to rent. There had been a surprise waiting for Emily at Helm Place: Phil, who had somehow made his way to Kentucky minus the aid of either the Confederate or Union government. Remembering Hardin’s desire to set him free, Emily had promised him his freedom once Hardin’s estate was settled. It was the least she could do, and she regretted not having done it for Maggie.
Upon reaching Kentucky, Emily had forwarded Mac’s letter to his mother and his brother, who lived at the family estate on the outskirts of Louisville. A few days after her arrival in the city, Mac’s younger brother, Dr. Frank McCawley, paid her a visit at her hotel to thank her. After they had chatted awhile and Emily had told him what she knew of Mac’s whereabouts and his state of health, he said, “The last time I saw you, Mrs. Helm, was at a hop at the Galt House. Sixty? Early sixty-one? Anyway, you were in a yellow gown, and every man there was jealous of Hardin. God rest his soul.”
