Jessie Read online

  "I see," Liza said indignantly as we prepared for sleep that night, "that you are much taken with John Frémont."

  "I only talked to him briefly," I protested. "I don't know if I am taken with him or not. Are you?"

  "Of course not," she said indignantly, flouncing away from me.

  Ah, Liza, I thought, you are, and you don't know what to do about it. And I don't know what to tell you.

  It was far easier for me to analyze Liza's reactions to the handsome explorer than my own. I found, after that fateful night, that his face appeared to me at odd hours during the day and, sometimes, during restless and wakeful nights. I was not certain why he intrigued me, except that somehow, deep down, I felt we shared a sense of mission—the mission of westward expansion that Father had given to me before I was old enough to realize it. Destiny, I thought, has brought this man into my life.

  Destiny, of course, did not translate into love, and with the examples of my parents and Harriet Wilson Bodisco before me, I was very much concerned about love, trying to puzzle out for myself—with absolutely no confidants—what it was, how I would recognize it.

  Meantime, I tried to remain calm and collected when the lieutenant was in the midst of our family circle, which he often was after Liza returned to school and I stayed behind. I succeeded in being poised about half the time, or so it seemed to me.

  "Aren't you the calm one?" he said with a laugh one night, again catching me in the hallway outside the parlor. "What would you say if I told you I've determined to marry you?" Those blue eyes were fixed on mine with a penetration so strong as to be mesmerizing.

  "I would say you are being impertinent," I replied, my light tone hiding the rapid beating of my heart. "Come, the others are waiting for us."

  Our hallway conversations grew more frequent—always brief, usually light—except when he made comments about marrying me, which he did occasionally—and always deliberately. I began to anticipate them with pleasure, and I kept seeing his face before me at odd moments. I was glad Liza was away at school.

  Of course, the night came when he kissed me. The party had preceded us upstairs, and as I turned to mount the stairs, he laid a restraining hand on my arm.

  "Jessie? A moment, please."

  "Yes?" That pounding heart again. I was sure the breast of my woolen shirtwaist must be vibrating strongly enough to betray me as I turned toward him.

  "I must tell you," he said seriously, "that I am in love with you. My comment about marrying you... it was not frivolous. I... I knew from the first moment that you would be special in my life. You had... the effect of a rare picture, that quality of sense and feeling and beauty."

  Too taken aback to say anything, I simply stared at him. And he, with no hesitation, moved his mouth toward mine. It was a gentle, sweet kiss, one full of promise but strangely lacking in passion, if I could even have recognized passion at that point in my life. Still, I felt a burning on my lips long after he had taken his away.

  "We... we must join the others," I said, more flustered than I could ever recall being.

  "Yes, of course," was his smooth reply. To my further discomfort he looked greatly amused.

  If John's kiss was inevitable, so was Father's anger. The anti-John campaign, however, began slowly enough.

  "Jessie," Father said one morning when I joined him early, as was once again my habit, "you've been showing partiality to Lieutenant Frémont lately. I... well, girl, I don't think it looks proper."

  "There is nothing improper about it, Father. We are always with your guests."

  "Yes, yes," he said as he fiddled uncomfortably with the inkwell on his desk, "but you are also too often off by yourselves. Even James Buchanan commented on it the other night."

  "Mr. Buchanan," I said archly, "needs a wife to keep him from meddling in other people's affairs."

  In most circumstances Father would have laughed at my boldness, but he was too distressed this time to see any humor. "That," he said, "is not the function of wives."

  "What is?" I countered.

  "Promoting their husbands' careers," he said, with no hesitation.

  I wanted to ask how Mother rated, then, but kept my quiet instead. The conversation had wandered from Father's initial concern, and I was willing to let him lead it where he would. He led it right back to Lieutenant Frémont.

  "I wish you to pay less attention to him. I do not want Lieutenant Frémont courting you."

  "He isn't courting me!" I replied quickly, though I could feel a blush giving away my own suspicion that he was, indeed, courting. "Besides, you think he shows a great deal of promise. You're ready to turn the next major expedition over to him if Monsieur Nicollet is unable to lead it."

  "Giving him an expedition and giving him my daughter are two different things," Father said dryly. "He is an army man, with no family background that we know of, no money to speak of, and very few prospects for the kind of future I expect for you."

  Something inside me stiffened at Father's words. He didn't know it, but mon pere had just strengthened the lieutenant's case.

  Without waiting for me to reply, he said, "I never issue orders to you, Jessie, and I hesitate to do so now. But I wish you to pay less attention to Frémont. He'll still get his expedition."

  "Of course, Father," I said, though my heart was rebellious. What, I wanted to ask, about the order to go to Miss English's? That question, however, was not politic and could well have landed me back at the dreaded seminary. I realized I must tread carefully.

  I couldn't have avoided John Frémont if I had wanted to, although clearly I didn't want to. At Father's gatherings he continued to seek me out, showing a rare talent for finding me away from the crowd—lingering to give the maid a suggestion about brandies, pausing to check my hair in the mirror before following the crowd to the upstairs parlor. My attitude stiffened a little in spite of myself, because I knew Father was watching like a hawk.

  Once when Father saw me talking to John, he beckoned across the room, motioning me toward him.

  "Excuse me. My father apparently needs me," I said, leaving John with a studied look on his face, as though he were puzzling out the situation.

  "Yes, Father?" I asked, my voice indicating, I hoped, that whatever the ostensible cause of the interruption, I knew what lay behind it.

  "Your mother needs you, I think, Jessie. She's had a difficult day."

  "Of course," I said obediently and left for Mother's room, where I found her sitting in a chair knitting, looking stronger than she had for days.

  "Father said you sent for me?"

  A slightly puzzled look crossed her face, but then she quickly said, "Yes, dear, I did. I... well, I wanted some company."

  Mother rarely chose my company. Liza's ways were more soothing to her, and she hated listening to my ideas on politics and government. Such subjects were, in her view, beyond a woman's interests, which should be bound by her family.

  "Mother," I said directly, "you have guessed that Father sent me up here to keep me from conversing with Lieutenant Frémont."

  Her look said plainly that I had hit upon the truth. "We... we don't feel he is an appropriate match for you," she said, her belief in her own conviction giving her strength.

  "I wasn't marrying him, Mother. I was merely talking to him." To myself I added, But I may very well marry him, whether you and Father like it or not.

  John was gone by the time I returned to the parlor.

  The next day a messenger delivered a handwritten note:

  Have I offended you or your family? I would like to talk to you privately.

  If possible, meet me in front of Nicollet's studio at four o'clock this afternoon.

  With utmost respect,

  John Charles Frémont

  The very secrecy of it thrilled me to the core. I felt a woman, no longer a girl. Of course I would meet him, if I had to lie to Father and sneak away from Mother to do it.

  He was pacing the street when I arrived, deliberately a lit
tle late. "I thought you might not come," he said anxiously. "Can we walk a bit?"

  "Of course."

  He tucked my hand into his arm possessively, and I lacked the strength or will to remove it. For some minutes we walked in silence, while I burned impatiently to know what he wanted to say. Occasionally, when I glanced at him, I saw a faraway look in his eyes, as though he were plotting his next expedition. In a way, he was.

  "I have noticed a difference in your father," he said at length. "He still professes interest in our maps and another expedition, but he is... well... less cordial. Have I offended him?"

  As was my way, I took the direct approach. "Yes," I said, "you and I both have. He thinks we are too interested in each other."

  He shook his head sadly. "I suspected as much. If I have offended you, Jessie..."

  I whirled to face him, standing still to stare at him. "Oh, no, John"—it was the first time I had used his given name to his face, though I'd repeated it a thousand times in my mind—"you have... you have made me happy."

  His face split into a grin. "I am so glad," he said. "You see, from the first night—the musicale at that awful women's school—I was captivated by you. I want to marry you, Jessie Benton."

  With the feeling that events were moving too fast and that I was being carried along on a tide, I was speechless. But I was also thrilled. He was everything I wanted in a husband, and the thought that he had chosen me seemed so good that I was afraid I might wake from a dream any minute.

  For a long minute we stood thus on a Washington street, staring at each other while passersby detoured around us with tolerant smiles, and then John put his arms around me and kissed me soundly, not the soft and gentle kiss he had earlier stolen in the house on C Street, but a strong, possessive kiss that sent a flutter coursing through my belly.

  It was, of course, a shameful public display, and I pulled quickly away—well, almost.

  "I am sorry," he said at once. "I had no right."

  "It is all right," I said, taking his arm again, "but we best continue to walk."

  Before my very eyes his elation turned to gloom. "There is the matter of your father," he said. "He does not think I am worthy."

  "No," I protested, "that's not it. I... I am not certain what the problem is, though Father might never approve of any man I wanted to marry." It was only a small lie, I told myself, since in a way Father really did not think him worthy, and yet I could not bear to say that to this man whom I now loved with all my heart.

  "You will continue to be welcome at our home," I told him. "I know Father that well. We shall simply have to pay less attention to each other."

  "That," he said, grinning again, "is exactly the opposite of my intentions."

  "Perhaps," I said boldly, "we could meet like this from time to time."

  "Perhaps we could," he said.

  And we did. We began a clandestine romance that was conducted all spring on the streets of the capital city. My arm securely clutched in John's, I wandered up one muddy street and down another. Of course, we met people who knew us—mostly who knew me—and, of course, the word got back to Father. But not until after the funeral for President Harrison, which was an amazing and wonderful day for me.

  Poor Mr. Harrison, whose wife never wanted him in the White House anyway, died less than a month after his inauguration in March of 1841. The funeral procession was scheduled for April 4, and since it would not be easily visible from our house, John arranged to have the Benton family observe it from Mr. Nicollet's studio, which overlooked Pennsylvania Avenue and the approach to the Capitol. It was, he explained to Father, a courtesy to Mother, so that she could see the procession without exerting herself. Father had no graceful choice but to accept the invitation with pleasure, although he himself was an official mourner and would not join us. However, my Grandmother McDowell, who was visiting from Cherry Grove, would be with us.

  April 4 was a cold, gray day, but John had built a fire in the fireplace and filled the studio with pots of geraniums—in honor of my mother and grandmother, he told everyone. A serving table was laden with cakes and delicacies, and comfortable chairs were drawn up to the windows for the ladies to view. John himself wore his dress uniform, "in reverence to Mr. Harrison," he explained. The workroom—and the worker—had been truly transformed.

  Dimly, from the outside, we could hear the dirge and the tramp of horses, but inside all was cheerful. When the fire was roaring and his guests were settled with cakes and ices and their attention riveted on the parade in front of them, John drew me around the drape that sectioned off a portion of the workroom.

  "Jessie," he said urgently, "I can wait no longer. Will you promise to marry me?"

  "Yes, John, I will." There was no hesitation in my answer, and it was followed by another of those kisses that left me breathless and stumbling for words. I know that when we returned to the group, my face shone as red as the cherry ice John served, but all eyes were out the window and no one noticed.

  Thus a funeral turned out to be the happiest day of my life to date. It was followed by disaster.

  Father had always been somewhat suspicious of the funeral party, as I called it in my mind, but his suspicion turned to certainty when someone—or maybe several people—told of seeing John and me together on the street, more than once. Father, however, was a clever politician. He said nothing to me, and I had no inkling of disaster until John sent me another note.

  Dearest Jessie,

  I have been ordered on an immediate expedition. I must see you at once.

  Would Mrs. Crittendon lend us her parlor?

  With adoration;

  John

  Maria Crittendon, the wife of a lawyer with whom Father was associated, had intuitively known of the romance John and I shared, and she, instead of frowning, had given her blessing—secretly, of course. Once she had caught me in a private moment and whispered, "I believe in romance. If I can help, let me know."

  Now she could indeed help, but would she? Was it too bold a deed to ask of her?

  Not at all, the lady assured me, and it was arranged that John and I would meet there at four o'clock the next afternoon.

  "Papa Joe Nicollet is frantic," John told me, clutching my hand in his as we sat on the horsehair sofa in the Crittendon parlor. "He says he cannot complete the maps without me, and it is folly to send me off on a trumped-up expedition."

  "Trumped up?" I echoed.

  "He and I both believe that your father prevailed upon the secretary of war to organize this expedition, not for the national good, but to get me away from you."

  "Mr. Poinsett would do that?" I asked incredulously.

  "He is your father's good friend," John said. "The expedition is an opportunity for me—the chance to lead an expedition myself—but it still rankles."

  "I shall miss you," I began tentatively.

  "You best." He laughed. "And I hope you will wait for me. The expedition is neither dangerous nor long. I shall be back in Washington in six months."

  Six months! I felt faint, but John grabbed my arm strongly. "If we love each other..."

  "Yes," I whispered, "I will wait with happiness. Le bon temps viendra."

  "Yes, my darling," he whispered into my hair, "the good times are coming."

  A tactful cough from Maria Crittendon signaled that we had enjoyed all the privacy we should. Knowing I would not see him for six months, I kissed him once more, boldly, my passion learning to meet his demanding strength.

  I did not see John again before he left, but within days I had been given another set of circumstances to think about.

  "You and Liza will go to Lexington for Sally McDowell's wedding," Mother announced. "I will stay here, and so will the younger children." The truth was, of course, that Mother did not feel up to the trip. Still, she had not lost her authority.

  "You must go to the Alum Springs before the wedding to remove the tan from your skins," she said. "You look like savages."

  Liza and I were th
us both disconcerted about our appearance and filled with dread about the hot water of the springs. It did not bode well for the summer. Mother's other caution to me cut far deeper.

  "Be sure to be nice to your cousin Preston," she said. "He is a fine young man, who will make some lucky young woman a reliable husband."

  The translation, of course, was that I should aspire to be that lucky young woman. But was reliability all I sought in a mate? I hardly thought so.

  "Yes, Mother," I murmured. "I have always been fond of Preston, and I shall be on the watch for suitable lucky young girls."

  She closed her eyes and reached for the cold rag kept near her for easing her headaches.

  John was off in the West, where the future had no boundaries. I was being sent to the South, where tradition held us all to the past. But I could neither protest nor resist. I went to Virginia.

  Chapter 3

  Liza and I, appropriately chaperoned, took trains part of the way to Lexington and then bumped along in private carriages until at last we arrived at that city surrounded by the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was the home of the Virginia Military Institute, and Anne Smith's Academy for ladies of wealth, and Washington and Lee University. To me, however, it was simply not Washington.

  Other carriages arrived simultaneously, full of our various aunts and their children and nurses and maids. We were a house party of over thirty by the time we had all gathered, but none of the aunts seemed the least bothered by the confusion nor the massive preparations required. Life in the McDowell household went smoothly on, as though Aunt Susanna had long been used to feeding and organizing an army of hungry relatives.

  My aunt and Sally's mother, Susanna McDowell, was one of my favorite people and one of the reasons I was glad to be in Lexington. She, in turn, was openly glad to have Liza and me part of the wedding group. "I have so enjoyed your letters, Jessie," she said—I wrote to her regularly as a schoolgirl—"but I only wish your dear mother could have made the trip."

  "Mother was just not strong enough," I told her, only repeating what she already knew.

  "I do hope," she said, peering at me, "that her... ah... weakness has not been inherited. You look perfectly healthy, but there is... about the eyes..." Aunt Susanna was Mother's sister, and she understood Mother's illness better than I was able. But I resented her suggestion that I might have inherited Mother's "condition."