Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker (38 page)

Almost as soon as the matter was settled, Mrs. Lincoln asked Elizabeth to come with her.

Startled, Elizabeth could not speak for a moment, so intensely did she not wish to go. “I cannot go west with you, Mrs. Lincoln.”

“But you must go to Chicago with me, Elizabeth,” Mrs. Lincoln implored. “I cannot do without you.”

“You forget my business, Mrs. Lincoln.” Though she knew Mrs. Lincoln’s moods by that time, Elizabeth was still astonished that she would make such a request. “I cannot leave it. Just now I have the spring
trousseau to make for Mrs. Douglas, and I have promised to have it done in less than a week.”

Mrs. Lincoln dismissed her objections with the wave of a hand. “Never mind that. Mrs. Douglas can get someone else to make her trousseau.” Seeing that Elizabeth was unpersuaded, she tried a more practical line of argument. “You may find it to your interest to go. I am very poor now, but if Congress makes an appropriation for my benefit, you shall be well rewarded.”

“It is not the reward, but—”

“Now don’t say another word about it, if you do not wish to distress me.” Already Mrs. Lincoln’s mouth was tightening, her eyes becoming tearful and beseeching. “I have determined that you shall go to Chicago with me, and you must go.”

Elizabeth had been with Mrs. Lincoln so long, and Mrs. Lincoln had become so dependent upon her, that she felt as if she could not refuse. She clung to one thread of hope: that Mrs. Douglas, the lovely young widow of the late senator Stephen A. Douglas from Illinois and one of Elizabeth’s favorite patrons, would insist that she remain in Washington to complete her trousseau as agreed. But when the gracious Mrs. Douglas learned of Mrs. Lincoln’s request, she told Elizabeth, “Never mind me. Do all you can for Mrs. Lincoln. My heart’s sympathy is with her.”

Never before had Elizabeth wished for a patron to be unkind and selfish, just once.

Realizing that no excuse would suffice, Elizabeth prepared to go to Chicago with Mrs. Lincoln and her sons, packing a satchel, explaining her absence to Virginia and Walker and paying a few months’ rent in advance, and distributing her sewing among her assistants.

Although Emma had admired Mr. Lincoln very much and thought his widow deserved the nation’s sympathy and consideration, she thought Elizabeth was making a terrible mistake. “When will you return?”

“I don’t know.” Elizabeth looked around the workroom and let her gaze rest on the young women in her employ, her heart sinking with a distinct sensation of dread. She intended to leave her most important, difficult sewing in Emma’s capable hands, but while her favorite
assistant was honored and had assured Elizabeth she would satisfy their clients’ every request, Elizabeth was nonetheless worried. In her absence, would her loyal patrons place their orders with Emma, trusting that her assistant could attend to the easier tasks until Elizabeth returned to finish the more difficult, or would they choose another dressmaker, one of her competitors? “I’ll come back as soon as Mrs. Lincoln doesn’t need me anymore.”

A corner of Emma’s mouth turned down in a wry grimace. “In other words, you’re never coming back?”

“Now, Emma—”

“What shall I tell your patrons? Some of them insist that you sew every stitch yourself.”

“Show them some of your handiwork. I’m certain you’ll win their confidence.”

“I must tell them something,” Emma insisted. “Will you return in a week? A month? Two?”

“Tell my patrons—” Elizabeth hesitated. “Tell them I will return as soon as I am able.”

Emma nodded, relenting, but Elizabeth knew she was not pleased—and that she was nearly as worried about the future of the business as Elizabeth herself.

Once Mrs. Lincoln resigned herself to leaving Washington, she threw herself into the tedious work of packing—but first she gave away nearly everything intimately connected with her late husband, just as she had done with Willie’s belongings after his death. She could not bear to be reminded of the past, and so, with Elizabeth acting as her agent, she gave away articles to those whom she regarded as the warmest and most sincere of Mr. Lincoln’s admirers. Mr. Lincoln’s faithful messenger, William Slade, received one of Mr. Lincoln’s many canes and his heavy gray shawl, while his wife received the black-and-white striped silk dress Mrs. Lincoln had worn to the theater on the night of the assassination. Mrs. Lincoln sent other canes from his collection to colored abolitionists Frederick Douglass and the Reverend Henry Highland Garnet, the minister of the exclusive Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church, where Virginia and
Walker worshipped and Elizabeth hoped to someday, if her application and interview met with approval. Another cane went to Senator Sumner, with a note explaining that the gift of “this simple relic” paid tribute to his “unwavering kindness to my idolized Husband, and the great regard
he
entertained for you.” She gave the suit Mr. Lincoln was wearing when he was shot to a favorite White House guard, and the last hat he wore to Reverend Dr. Gurley, who had officiated at both Mr. Lincoln’s and Willie’s funerals. The lively goats whose antics had given the president so much enjoyment went to Mrs. Elizabeth Blair Lee, one of the few friends who had looked after Mrs. Lincoln in the days of her most intense, anguished grieving. To Elizabeth Mrs. Lincoln presented the bonnet and cloak she had worn that terrible night, stained with the president’s blood, as well as Mr. Lincoln’s overshoes and the comb and brush that Elizabeth had often used to dress his hair. They were precious mementoes of the great man, and Elizabeth accepted them with deepest gratitude. Her vow to cherish them always brought a rare smile to Mrs. Lincoln’s face.

What were not distributed as relics and mementoes were loosely packed into fifty or sixty boxes and a score of trunks. Privately Elizabeth believed that many of the things Mrs. Lincoln insisted upon taking with her were not worth carrying away, but she went along with it when she observed that the work of sorting and folding and packing occupied Mrs. Lincoln so completely that she had far less time for lamentation.

Into the boxes and trunks went all the bonnets Mrs. Lincoln had brought with her four years before from Springfield, along with every one she had purchased since coming to Washington. “I may find use for the material someday,” she replied when Elizabeth carefully asked if she meant to take even those that were no longer in fashion and had not been worn in years. “It is prudent to look to the future.”

Elizabeth, still unhappy with her reluctant decision to accompany Mrs. Lincoln, pressed her lips together rather than declare that she wished Mrs. Lincoln’s foresight with regard to the future had not been confined to the present moment, and to worn-out clothing. Patience, she counseled herself. She knew she was tired and disgruntled, and grieving too in her own way. Mrs. Lincoln needed her to be steadfast
and sensible. First Ladies—and queens too, she supposed—could fall apart from grief, but women like Elizabeth could not.

During their time in the White House, Mrs. Lincoln and her children had received many gifts from admirers and dignitaries, and those too were packed up for Chicago. Mrs. Lincoln took no furniture with her save a dressing stand her husband had particularly liked and that the commissioner had given her permission to keep for Tad. Mrs. Lincoln replaced it with another, equally fine piece, but Elizabeth observed that other furnishings had disappeared from the executive mansion, carried off by servants and visitors after the steward was dismissed and no one was superintending affairs. Elizabeth was dismayed to see so much of Mrs. Lincoln’s lovely and expensive refurbishment of the White House being stealthily undone, day by day, but Mrs. Lincoln seemed too distracted to notice.

Robert was often in the room where his mother and Elizabeth were packing boxes, and he argued in vain that she should set fire to her vast stores of old goods, or at the very least leave them behind. “What are you going to do with that old dress, Mother?” he asked, scowling and nudging a box with the toe of his boot as she folded yet another garment and tucked it away.

“Never mind, Robert,” she replied. “I will find use for it. You do not understand this business.”

“And what is more, I hope I never may understand it,” retorted Robert, gesturing impatiently to the piles. “I wish to heaven the car in which you place these boxes for transportation to Chicago would take fire, and burn all of your old plunder up.” He turned on his heel and strode from the room.

Elizabeth had watched his tirade from the corner of her eye, saying nothing. She agreed with him that Mrs. Lincoln would probably never put any of the old clothes to good use, but she disapproved utterly of his arrogant, disrespectful tone.

“Robert is so impetuous,” Mrs. Lincoln said, making excuse for her son, as if she could read Elizabeth’s thoughts. “He never thinks of the future. Well, I hope that he will get over his boyish notions in time.”

“I’m sure he would not speak to you this way if he were not grieving.”

“He has spoken to me this way for years,” Mrs. Lincoln reminded her, and then she sighed. “Elizabeth, I may see the day when I shall be obliged to sell a portion of my wardrobe.”

“What do you mean?”

“If Congress does not do something for me, then my dresses someday may have to go to bring food into my mouth, and the mouths of my children.”

“Surely it will never come to that,” Elizabeth hastened to assure her. She did not like to imagine the dresses she had so painstakingly fashioned being haggled over like apples in a market, sold off for as much as they could fetch before they spoiled.

Later, upon reflection, Elizabeth realized that perhaps Robert thought quite a bit about the future. His had certainly undergone enormous change in the weeks since his father’s murder. On April 14, he was a proud Union officer, courting the lovely young Miss Mary Harlan and intending to study the law. Now he was the head of a household, planning to leave Washington for Chicago—and like herself, he knew not for how long. In the midst of his own grief, he surely also felt terribly disappointed for himself, responsible for his only surviving brother, and worried about his unstable mother. That did not excuse his impertinence, but it did make his behavior more understandable, and more forgivable.

At last everything, worthless and invaluable alike, was packed, and the day of their departure arrived. As she accompanied Mrs. Lincoln from the White House, Elizabeth was stunned almost breathless by the stark contrast with Mr. Lincoln’s final leave-taking, when his casket was carried from the hall in a grand and solemn state. Thousands had gathered to bow their heads reverently as the plumed hearse bore him off to the Capitol rotunda surrounded by the mournful pomp of military display—battalions with reversed arms, the riderless horse with boots turned about in the stirrups, the flags at half-staff, the melancholy strains of funeral dirges. Mrs. Lincoln left to complete indifference, the only music the chirping of birds, with scarcely anyone to bid her farewell. The silence was almost painful.

On the threshold, Mrs. Lincoln paused for a moment, drew a deep, shaky breath, and took Tad’s hand in hers. “Come along,” she said, eyes fixed straight ahead. She left the White House without looking back, boarded her carriage, settled herself as the rest of her party climbed in after her, and said nothing more as they drove to the depot to board the private green railcar that had so often carried Mrs. Lincoln to and from the capital and New York City.

Before long the train puffed and chugged away from the station. Until they left the city limits, every exhalation of steam from the engine seemed to Elizabeth a great sigh of relief—Washington City, glad to see the last of Mrs. Lincoln, who had never been good enough for their great, martyred president and now could be forgotten.

They were a small party—Mrs. Lincoln, Robert, and Tad; Elizabeth; Dr. Anson Henry, a longtime friend of the family and Mr. Lincoln’s former personal physician; and Thomas Cross and William Crook, two White House guards who had been assigned to escort the Lincoln family back to Illinois. Not long after the train headed westward, Mrs. Lincoln began to complain of one of her terrible, head-splitting migraines, so Dr. Henry dosed her with laudanum, and Elizabeth bathed her temples with cool water. “Lizzie, you are my best and kindest friend,” Mrs. Lincoln told her drowsily, reclining with her eyes shut, her face pale. “I love you as my best friend. I wish it were in my power to make you comfortable for the balance of your days.”

“That’s very kind of you, Mrs. Lincoln,” said Elizabeth, touched. “For now, let’s think about how to make
you
comfortable.”

Mrs. Lincoln grasped her arm. “If Congress provides for me, depend upon it, I will provide for you.”

Gently Elizabeth patted her hand, thanked her, and urged her to rest quietly.

Mrs. Lincoln slept soundly that night, and the next morning she felt well enough to sit up and gaze out the window. For hours she seemed distracted, dazed, while Elizabeth sat sewing quietly nearby, keeping an eye on her.

“What’s that you’re making?” Mrs. Lincoln suddenly asked. “A quilt?”

“That’s right.” Elizabeth set her needle and fabric pieces on her lap and handed her one of the completed sections, seven small pieces joined together, a light center hexagon encircled by six dark. “I’ve just begun. You know I’m not accustomed to idleness, and dressmaking is too difficult to do well with the motion of the train.”