Washington's Lady (26 page)

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government . . .

George had it read aloud to the troops in New York City, to great cheers.

I must admit it made my throat tighten and my heart beat a little faster. Yet in spite of its stirring words, it also elicited a somber reaction: there was no turning back. There would be no end to this conflict but victory or defeat, no taking it back and asking Britain to return to the world we had before.

That world was gone forever.

Yet supposing victory—praying for victory—what kind of country would we have? Who would be our new king? What laws would govern us? Would our new way be a better way? If we were victorious, there would be incredibly much to do . . . .

The future was daunting.

The war was daunting.

The loneliness was daunting.

I wanted to go home.

*****

I missed the birth of our second grandchild.

A granddaughter: Elizabeth Parke Custis—to be called Betsy—was named after Eleanor’s mother, and carried the Parke name to appease that ancient and pesky appendage of a will by the Parke family that insisted on the name in order to receive the inheritance. George and I were named godparents.

Each morning when I awakened in Philadelphia, alone in my bed, so far from my family, I reached for the letter from Jacky, needing to buoy myself with that lovely news:

Mount Airy August 21st 1776

My dearest Mamma,

I have the extreme Happiness at last to inform you, that Eleanor was safely delivered this Morning about five o’Clock of a fine Daughter. I wish you were present You would be much more pleased, if you were to see the strapping Huzze. Her Cloths are already too small for Her. She is in short a fine a Healthy fat Baby as ever was born.

Poor Eleanor had a very indifferent Time, her pains were two Hours long & very severe. She is now thank God as well as can be expected and the Pleasure her Daughter gives Her compensates for the Pain. I wrote to the General the last two Posts.

I cannot pretend to say who the child is like. It is as much like Doctor Rumney as any Body else. She has a double Chinn something like His, in point of Fatness with fine black Hair, & Eyes, upon the whole I think It is as pretty & fine a Baba as ever I saw. This I not my opinion alone, but the Opinion of all who have see Her—I hope she will be preserv’d as a Comfort, and Happiness to us all.

Happiness to us all . . . I took comfort in the obvious fact that Jacky and Eleanor were happy, and indeed made for each other. It was a good thing we allowed them to marry. That our doubts had proved false was a relief.

But then, in my joy, I brought to mind new family pain. My brother William had recently died, drowned in the Pamunkey River. That cursed river of my youth! To have taken two of my brothers, one at seventeen and one at forty-two. Add to that this cursed war which prevented me from attending his funeral.

To add further to my woe I heard Mother was not doing well, and two of my sister Nancy’s three surviving children were ailing . . .

And what of Mount Vernon? Lund was doing his best, and I knew he sent weekly reports to George, but with no master or mistress present, and by the cause of my taking the best servants north, I knew there was little incentive present for anyone to do much of anything. In what state would I find our beloved home when I did manage to return to its beloved halls?

My worries contained issues of a larger scale. Things were not going well for George. A bit at a time he had lost New York: first Long Island and then Manhattan, Harlem Heights, White Plains . . . He had been slowly forced back through New Jersey. Morale was low. Confidence waned. He himself wanted to quit.
I do not know what plan of conduct to pursue
, he had said in one of his letters
. I never was in such an unhappy, divided state since I was born
.

I ached to be with him, to console him, to encourage him.

To do something for someone.

But there I sat. Alone in Philadelphia. Unable to help husband, grandchild, niece, nephew, mother, home—or country.

Helpless and of little worth.

*****

In spite of the danger, I returned to Mount Vernon, the threat that the coming winter could strand me in Philadelphia causing me to brave the journey.

Besides, Philadelphia was no longer considered safe, as the British had pushed George and his troops back across the Delaware River into Pennsylvania. Congress, panicked, moved its meeting place to Baltimore.

They doubted George’s ability to lead.

George doubted himself. The troops he had remaining from the seventeen thousand in Cambridge were a small number—down to a bit beyond five thousand, with a full third of those too sick or needy to be of use. The men were tired and wanted to go home, for they had farms to run and family to see.

As did George. He longed to be home . . .
in peaceable enjoyment of my own vine and fig tree
, as he’d put it.

I longed to have him there. For he had been gone eighteen months, and I a year. Never, in our worst nightmare, did we imagine being absent so long. And when I returned to Mount Vernon—’twas to a different nightmare.

One of my worst fears.

The house was in disrepair. I walked from room to room, my head shaking in disgust. I ran a finger along the furniture, leaving behind a marked trail. On the table of the west parlour, I wrote my condemnation:
Dusty!
The portraits of family—including a young version of myself, peered down at me, accusing me of dire neglect.

The young Martha Custis would not have allowed her home to be in such a state.

I went upstairs and found the bedrooms stale and dismal, the bedding untouched and uninviting. Even the mirrors seemed veiled by the dust.

Lund accompanied me. “Sorry, Martha. I can see now things could have been done here, but with the house empty . . .”

I put a hand on the blue paint of the doorway leading to our bedroom—our new bedroom in the addition we had built two years before. George had only had a few months to enjoy it, as well as enjoy his study directly below before cause and country had taken him north. I looked at the brown-and-white-checkered wing chair by the fire and could remember him sitting there, removing his boots, leaning back with a sigh as he transformed from the public George to the man who was mine alone.

“Martha?”

I blinked the memory away and addressed George’s cousin. “I know things were difficult in our absence, Lund. I do not blame you. You had the farm to run. The house was of least concern.”

“A farm to run with fewer slaves. When Lord Dunmore made the offer of freedom for fighting, we lost enough to matter.”

“Has Dunmore honoured his promise to them?” I asked.

“I doubt it. They will probably be left wandering, away from their families, without means to survive.”

My mind rattled with a list of things to do. “We must up the production of the spinners. The soldiers need shirts and stockings.” I looked to some silk cushion covers that seemed far frivolous at such a time. “If need be, perhaps we could unravel these and rework them with the homespun. Can we do that?”

“We will do our best.”

It was all any of us could do. I put my hand upon the leather key basket that daily accompanied me upon my domestic rounds. “The world is indeed turned upside down, Lund.”

“For all of us,” he said.

I set to work, reclaiming this house as our home.

*****

I shivered myself to wakefulness.

I drew the covers close, but realized my body was not reacting to cold, but to something else.

I shivered not for the good news recently received of American victory in Princeton—news that was eagerly heard—but for the stories of how George had spent his Christmas crossing the Delaware River, in the dead of night, in silence, moving his entire army to the Hessian stronghold at Trenton, New Jersey, for a surprise attack. Although most Americans relayed the story as one of heroic magnitude, I knew that beyond the heroism it was an act of desperation. Our soldiers suffered horribly in Pennsylvania and needed supplies and indoor lodging. George relied on the fact that waging battle in the winter was simply not done. Both sides holed up and waited for better weather.

George could not wait. And so he arranged for his entire army to cross the icy river at night, march the eight miles up the snow-packed road to Trenton, and surprise the Europeans, who were hung over from Christmas merriment. And as the Almighty had saved Mount Vernon and me from Dunmore’s warships by creating a storm in the Potomac, so God once again used nature for our side’s benefit, creating storm enough to send the Hessian guards inside to get warm. Leaving the coast clear for our victory.

I shivered to wakefulness at the thought of our poor men, traipsing through the snow—many shoeless, leaving trails of blood upon the icy white. I shivered at the thought of George crossing a dangerous river . . . with the drowning deaths of two brothers, I would never be at ease at the thought of crossing water.

I turned on my side and put a hand across the pillow that should have cradled my husband’s head. Last I’d heard, he was in Morristown, New Jersey, where there had been an outbreak of smallpox. As the men were not in tents, but were staying in homes and businesses, the townspeople were none too keen on the close proximity of such an illness—or the dysentery that was a constant cloud upon our soldiers.

The outbreak was so severe—with nearly a fourth of the town’s residents dying from these diseases—that George overturned his previous order against inoculation. He intimated that my bravery at getting such a procedure for myself helped spur him toward his reversal. The trick was to inoculate without the British finding out and taking advantage during the period when the men were laid up in recovery.

I could have helped nurse them. I would have been happy to, if only George would have allowed me to join him. Too soon it would be spring and there would be battles aplenty.

And though I suffered my loneliness for him, he suffered even more for being away from me, his family,
and
his beloved Mount Vernon. He wrote to me, grieving that my letters to him arrived in an erratic manner:
No one suffers more by an absence from home than myself.

I believed him.

I heard footfalls in our private back stairs. Probably Lindy come to make a fire in the now cold grate of our room.

I considered lying abed. People would understand. ’Twas no stretch of imagination to know that all at Mount Vernon would have preferred to stay in warm covers upon this crisp February morn.

There was a light tap upon the door.

“Come in, Lindy. I am awake.” To make myself truthful, I turned my legs over the side of the mattress and reached for my dressing gown.

The door opened tentatively and Cully peeked in. “Excuse me? Ma’am?”

“Just a moment.”

He nodded and withdrew to the hall. I wrapped my gown around me and tied its fastening before opening the door. “Yes, Cully. What is it?”

“Sorry to disturb you so early, but a rider came by. He had a letter and said it was most urgent.” He handed it to me and left me alone.

I took a switch and gained a flame from the coals to light a candle to read by. I sat at my dressing table chair and noticed the handwriting did not belong to George.

My stomach turned.

It had no reason to lessen as the letter came from one of my husband’s aides at Morristown:

Dear Lady Washington,

I am sorry to inform you that General Washington is in dire sickness. We had three foot of snow at camp and he himself, being the General he is, oversaw the cleaning of the roads and town. For days he stood in the cold. And so, he now suffers from quinsy. His sore throat is extreme and though I do not wish to alarm you, I must state there are many here who are in an extreme state of worry. Please know everything that can be done to accomplish his complete recovery is being attended to.

I stood. “Not everything is being done, for I am not there!”

I would remedy that. If there was no carriage to take me north, I would walk.

Let the British or the Hessians or even the weather try to stop me.

*****

I did not have to walk to New Jersey, but rode in a carriage arranged by Jacky. He, Eleanor, and baby Elizabeth had moved to Mount Vernon of late, and upon hearing of his dear poppa’s illness rallied all forces to gain me access to care for him.

Jacky gave me a strong embrace before I left. “Make him well, Mamma. Please.”

I looked up into his dark eyes. “I promise I will not allow death to take him. Bullets have spared him. I will not let sickness do worse.”

The trip of two hundred forty miles was more arduous than my trip to Cambridge eighteen months earlier, as the weather was far colder and my inclination for speed intense. Although Jacky sent ahead evidence of my route, as I neared Philadelphia I had received no message as to my husband’s state. No news seemed bad news indeed. One would think on a trip of such a length all sorts of thoughts could tarry upon the mind. It was not so, for I had only one thought, one mind, one heart. I adjusted the rhythm of my prayers with each mile, each crook of the carriage, and each bump in the road.
Make him well, make him well. Make him whole.

I arrived at a friend’s house that would be my lodging for a night. We had just settled in to an evening before the fire when some soldiers came to the door. I did not think anything of it, as soldiers often came to residences, searching for provisions.

But as soon as my host spoke with them, he came into the parlour to get me. “They wish to speak with you, Martha. Alone.” His face showed ample concern.