The Family Greene (17 page)

For some reason, she decided she must, of a sudden, put a stop to Louisa's thumb-sucking. And she and Miller devised all sorts of terrible-smelling concoctions to put on the child's thumb to discourage her from the habit, especially before bedtime.

George and I took turns sneaking into Louisa's room at night and wiping the noxious stuff off her thumb. We never got caught, and Louisa kept right on sucking until they gave up their efforts.

Poor little Nat took the worst of it, though, in an event I thought bordered on cruel. Nat loved sweet things. We had a silver sugar bowl in the middle of the table, and one evening when we had fresh strawberries for dessert, those three-inch-round strawberries Pa boasted of so, Nat kept begging for more and more sugar to put on them.

Mama slammed down her coffee cup in anger, reached across the table for the sugar bowl, moved away Nat's dish of strawberries, put the bowl of sugar in front of him, and said, "Here is your sugar. Eat it all."

Everyone fell silent. Nat's eyes went large and round.

"You heard me," Mama said. "Eat the sugar. Every grain of it. I will sit here until you do. Start now."

"Mama," George said.

"Don't you say a word," she flung at George. "Leave the table. All the rest of you!"

We left, reluctantly. All except Mr. Miller, who stayed with Mama, to give her moral support. As we left, poor little Nat was starting to spoon the sugar into his mouth.

George told me later that he'd been informed by Emily that yes, Nat had ingested all the sugar, spoonful by spoonful, while Mama and Mr. Miller watched. Alexis, the cook, had observed from the kitchen and told her that Nat had choked and nearly thrown up several times, but Mama made him go on.

He had begged for water several times. But Mama refused.

Mr. Miller never interfered.

Later that night, Emily came to George and woke him and told him that Nat had stomach pains. George went to Nat, to help Emily care for him, to comfort him.

After that incident, I asked George if he would get permission from Mama for us to ride over and visit General Wayne.

"You're going to tell him about Mama?" he asked.

"I just need to see him something fierce," I told my brother. "Please."

Mama said yes, we could go, without Miller for an escort, only because for a year now Pa had been teaching George to use a musket. He was, as was expected of a boy of his age in the South, an excellent marksman. So George and I set off early of a morning. In his saddlebag he had two loaves of fresh-baked gingerbread, General Wayne's favorite since his army days, and a bottle of wine, all sent by Mama. In my saddlebag I had bread and cheese for our trip and two stone jars of water for us.

The trip took an hour and a half.

We found Wayne out in his cornfields, overseeing his Negroes.

He turned and waved when he saw us, signaled that we should wait, then came galloping along the path that ran by the fence, and my heart beat like a rabbit's in my chest. I felt a sense of hope, as if everything would be put back in place in my world again, that all I had to do was see this man and the cruel joke that had lately been played on me would all be apologized for and things made right again.

After all, wasn't this the man who had gone out from Valley Forge and brought back droves of cattle to the starving men?

He rode up to us, grinning. "Ho, kids! Everything all right at home?"

We said it was. In the stable yard, we dismounted our horses and went with him into the house, through the kitchen, where we were greeted by good smells of things simmering.

We gave him the gingerbread and wine.

"Let's have some fresh coffee with the gingerbread," he told Lila, the fat Negro cook. "And some fruit." Then he led us into a parlor with large windows that looked out onto a lawn where peacocks were roaming about and there was a pool with green plants growing out of it.

The whole place had about it a casual and sort of unkempt look. Not neglected, but lived-in.
Even here in the parlor,
I thought, looking around,
Mama would take a fit.
At the pillows on the floor, at the white cat on the settle, three of his favorite hounds who'd sat themselves by the hearth. I immediately felt at home here.

Over the fireplace was his favorite musket. Others were set about all over the room.

"Are they from the war?" George asked reverently. At home Pa had never displayed guns openly.

"Yes," Wayne smiled. "Go. You can look at them."

George did. He wandered about, entranced.

And while he did, Wayne looked at me. "What is it, Cornelia? Is there trouble?"

Of course he knew there was. "Miller has moved into the house," I told him. "And since then Mama has gotten so severe with us, I don't know what to do."

He betrayed no emotion at the news of Miller moving into the house. He did not seem threatened. I told him of the incidents in which Mama had lost her temper with us, including how she'd made Nat eat all that sugar and how she'd whipped me.

"What did you do?" he asked.

And when I told him his eyes twinkled and he had a difficult time suppressing a smile. But the only advice he could give was that we must learn to abide this, that he would make it his business to soon come and visit, that he would speak to Mama. He promised me that he had an influence on her, that Miller "did not have the chance of a drunken flea with her, though he might think he had."

Lila brought in coffee and fruit and the gingerbread then, and we enjoyed our repast, after which he took us on a walk outside, showing us around. Later we had an early supper and he told us stories of Pa during the war.

Before he saw us off, General Wayne took George's musket and checked it over, pronounced it clean and in good condition, then had George do some target practice. He approved of my brother's shooting skills, handed the gun back, and shook hands with George.

"Thank you for looking after your sister," he said. "I'd be beholden to you if you would continue to do so."

"Yes, sir." George mounted his horse.

Wayne hugged me close and kissed me.

"I'll be by soon," he promised.

He gave George a sealed note for our mother.

As we rode off, I turned once to look back. He saw me and waved his hat, his old tricorn hat that he still wore, from the Revolution.

G
ENERAL WAYNE
did visit again, did talk with Mama as promised, and for the next few weeks, before we left for Newport, she conducted herself lovingly with us.

She must have made promises to him, I concluded. And I knew how that was. When you made promises to General Wayne, you felt obliged to keep them. He took hold of your heart, or whatever part of you it is that keeps promises.

When we left for Newport in the middle of August, it was General Wayne who drove us to Savannah and saw us off at the dock. It was he and he alone who kissed us all goodbye, shook hands with George, and requested that George take his brother and sisters aside while he himself stood tall over Mama and spoke low words to her and held her close.

What words they were I could not imagine, but Mama was taken by them, for it seemed she knew no other life in those moments but the hazel eyes and handsome face of the general, the world he created around her, the promises he gave and required in return.

Then, as our schooner pulled out of the harbor, he stood on the dock, looking like the last man left on earth.

***

F
ROM NEWPORT
, we went to New York and then on to Philadelphia. Mama had friends all over the place. To my surprise, and without a word of explanation, she left my brothers and sisters with friends in Philadelphia and took me on with her, by stage, to Mount Vernon, to visit the Washingtons.

All the way there she schooled me in how to act.

I was to be the perfect little lady. She drilled behavior in me during the whole trip. She instructed me how to meet every probable occasion that arose while there, from my first presentation, when I must tender him my most profound courtesy even while standing at ease and answering all his possible questions, to keeping religiously in the background.

Needless to say, by the time we arrived at Mount Vernon, I was in a state of anxiety so great that I was tongue-tied and unable to function at all.

Mrs. Washington, a darling of a woman, graciously welcomed us, then ushered us into a ladies' parlor, complete with a fluffy white cat, blue and white vases from Holland, and a dainty pianoforte. I hoped against hope that Mama would not ask me to play.

She did not. And soon the door opened and the general himself walked in and kissed Mama's hand, then threw all caution to the winds and hugged her as a father would have done. For old times' sake, I supposed. For all those memories of Valley Forge.

He offered his condolences for the loss of Pa. He called him a great and good man, as General Wayne had done. Then he looked at me.

"And who is this young lady?" he asked. "One of the many your husband used to beg permission to visit when I needed him so?"

"Yes, sir," Mama said, smiling. "This is Cornelia." And with her eyes and head, she gestured that I should go into my act.

Only I had forgotten what my act consisted of. I just stared at him. No one had told me he was so handsome and had such flashing blue eyes!

Why, he had more of a presence than General Wayne!

I started forward as if walking on eggs. Right about at this point I was supposed to say something, wasn't I? But what? My mind was swirling. I was supposed to curtsy, too. Instead, feeling like a frog on a wavering lily pad, I fell to my knees in front of him and cried.

Mother stepped forward, starting to apologize, but Washington put out a detaining arm.

"Here, here, child." He took out a handkerchief and leaned down to wipe my tears. He spoke in low, soothing tones as he raised me to my feet. He held my hand as he led me to a chair next to his own, kissed my forehead, and sat me down.

"Cornelia, I'm ashamed of you!" Mama scolded. "What would your father say?"

"No scolding, no shame," Washington told her. "Her father has much to be proud of in this daughter. We lost our own daughter, Patsy, you know, some fourteen years ago. Just to have a daughter is God's blessing."

Mama fell silent.

"Now the child is frightened, that is clear," Washington said. "What have you told her of me, Caty? That I put young girls before a firing squad at sunup?"

In the dining room, Washington sat, of course, at the head of the table, and insisted I sit to his right. He saw to it that my plate received everything. He made small jokes and I smiled, forgetting all my troubles. He asked about my brothers and sisters. About General Wayne, of whom he was so fond.

We had the most pleasant of visits. We stayed the night. When I was safely ensconsed in my own bed, who but Mrs. Washington knocked softly and came in.

"Child, are you all right?"

"Oh, yes, ma'am, thank you for asking."

She did not leave then, but sat down on the side of my bed. She was a small, stout woman, with such a pleasant face, you had to love her.

"The general, my husband, has headed up many battles, planned many attacks, worked with many men of all stripes. He told me, in confidence, that he thinks that you and your mother do not see eye to eye on many matters. He asked me to tell you that he never got on with his mother, either. But that attempts can still be made to surmount the difficulties, that you must always remember she is your mother. That love is not necessary for this battle called life, but respect is necessary for every invasion."

I smiled. She did, too. And she kissed my forehead. "He thinks you are a wonderful child. Now have a good night's sleep, dear."

I wished, as she left the room, that she was my mother. And then I fell asleep, obeying her and having a good night.

T
WO TERRIBLE THINGS
happened during the following year.

My brother George was sent away. And Mama carried on a love affair with Jeremiah Wadsworth, a coexecutor of Pa's estate, the man she'd gone to see in Newport.

It seemed that George's education was on everyone's mind, from Mama's to General Washington's, from General Henry Knox's to Mr. Rutledge's, and all the way across the ocean to that of the Marquis de Lafayette, who served under Pa and was a friend of Washington's.

Washington himself wrote to Mama, offering to bear the expense of George's schooling, telling her, "Entrust my namesake to my care and I will give him as good an education as this country can afford."

Mama was embarrassed, but before she could reply to the letter another one came from the Marquis, saying he had promised Pa that he would have George educated in France, at his own expense.

Mama knew nothing of this promise. Now she was not only embarrassed, but confused. And she would not reply to the letter from the Marquis.

So the Marquis wrote to Henry Knox, asking him to persuade Mama to accept his offer. And Henry Knox did so. Mama respected his judgment, though she dreaded sending George across the sea, convinced she would never see him again.

But soon George's things were being packed up for a trip to New York, where he would stay with the Knoxes until he would sail for France.

He was to be accompanied on the ship by Joel Barlow, a diplomat going to France. Mr. Knox had made all the arrangements.

Again General Wayne saw us off at the dock in Savannah on our way to New York. "Give my best to the Marquis," he told George. "Remind him how we celebrated the French alliance on the sixth of May at Valley Forge."

In New York, Henry Knox gave George fifty dollars.

We left for home before George embarked on his trip. And when we left, my brother put his arms around me. "I will miss you, Cornelia."

I buried my face in the front of his new frock coat. "Oh, I don't want you to go. What will I do without you?"

"You will do just fine. You are growing up. You are strong of spirit. And brave. And you must write to me. Tell me everything."

I promised I would. And he returned the promise. And so it was that I had to learn to live without my brother George.