An Unlikely Friendship (6 page)

"Well, and hello to you, my pretty little Miss Todd. What do we have here?"

"The new pony Pa gave me for my birthday. His name is Peaches."

He came off the portico to help me down and to pat Peaches. "A fine specimen of pony. But you deserve him. Will you come in and dine with us? I have a guest. John Crittenden. You know him."

"Are you talking politics?"

"Always. Are you still supporting me in my presidential aspirations?"

"Always."

I left my pony on the limestone gravel drive with the senator's negro, Sanborn, and went into the gracious house.

They did discuss politics at dinner and I did listen. Senator Clay was about to leave for Washington City, and he asked me if there was anything of importance I wanted him to see to.

I thought for a moment. "All the things I want can't be given by Congress, Mr. Clay," I told him.

"And if I could give them to you, I would."

"You could let me visit with you when you live in the White House."

"Dear girl, I don't know whether that will ever come to be. But as far as I'm concerned you have a room there."

With such a promise intact and my pony waiting outside, I had one of the few happy days that I remember during that time.

B
Y EARLY
1832 there were nine Todd children in the house, to Betsy's dismay. From my sister Elizabeth, who was nineteen, down to one-year-old Samuel, Betsy's third child.

And she was again in a delicate condition, expecting her fourth.

Her patience was tried. She cried most of the time. She took to her room and stayed there and left the doings of the household to the servants.

Then came the announcement from my sister Elizabeth that she was to marry Ninian Edwards and move to Springfield, Illinois. When they had settled she would invite Frances to live with them.

I think it was the only thing that kept Betsy sane. And I think she wished that Elizabeth would also take me. I know I did.

E
LIZABETH'S WEDDING
took place in the house and the whole place was in an uproar for two weeks preceding. Liz and I were invited to be bridesmaids, and here is where I got my say in a matter of grave importance to me.

"If I'm to be a bridesmaid, I should have a hoop," I told Betsy. "Liz, too. How would it look for others to wear hoops and not us?"

"You're still too young," was her reply.

"If I can't have a hoop, I don't want to be a bridesmaid. And I'm too old to scatter rose petals. So that means I can't be in my sister's wedding. And I know Pa wants me to be in the wedding."

"You are a limb of Satan," she said, "to corner me so."

"If I could go to Springfield with Elizabeth, I would."

"You're too young. But you are going somewhere. You and Liz are going to Madame Mentelle's Boarding School when you graduate from Ward's. Your education isn't finished."

"I don't want it to be."

She was doing some embroidery. And never once did she look up at me. "What you don't know is that you will stay there all week, and Nelson will fetch Liz home every evening. That is what you don't know."

I felt the room swirl in front of me. Something fell and crashed on the floor of my soul. She was putting me out. As discreetly as she could.

I had won my hoopskirt, but at what price? Like Mammy Sally had said, the next time I painted flowers on a fence I should stop and think about what I was really doing.

W
E HAD A CRISIS
in our house before my sister Elizabeth's wedding.

Grandma Parker said she would not come.

"I haven't been down there since your father married that woman," she told us. "I can't come now."

To my surprise it was me Pa asked to influence her to come down. He called me into his study one day and I went, sure I had done something wrong, but unable to think what.

Either that or he was going to tell me about my boarding at Mentelle's, a fact we hadn't discussed yet. I had consoled myself by thinking that if Pa hadn't yet mentioned it to me, it wasn't so. And by that same token, I wouldn't mention it to him.

"Mary, dear child," he said as I entered his study. "How are you keeping these days?"

My pa could be charming. And as much as you knew he was using his charm on you, it didn't make any difference. You couldn't resist it.

"I'm fine, Pa," I said.

"And how is that pony of yours?"

"Peaches is very frisky."

"Have you shown him to Grandmother Parker yet?"

"No."

"That's what I wanted to ask you to do for me, Mary. Take a ride up the hill and show him to Grandmother Parker."

He wanted more than that. I knew it, and he knew that I knew it. "Don't make me be the one to ask her to come to the wedding, Pa."

He leaned forward on his desk. "She loves you best. She'll do it for you. How do you think it looks with my eldest daughter getting married and her grandmother not being at the wedding? How will it look to the guests?"

"Like she doesn't want to come," I said flippantly.

He scowled. "Don't be sassy, Mary. I'm in a fix here. A real fix. I depend on you to get me out of it. You have the gift of talking anybody into anything."

He was appealing to me. And he was my pa, my dear pa. How could I say no? I said yes, sorry the minute I had said it.

G
RANDMOTHER
P
ARKER
was rolling out pie dough, but she wiped her hands and came right outside to see Peaches. "You ride astride, I see," she commented.

"Yes. No sidesaddle for me, Grandma."

"I don't blame you. I always wanted to ride like that. Good luck with the pony, child. Now come inside and have some fresh-baked cookies and tell me what you really came for. As if I don't know."

In her warm, cheerful kitchen she placed before me fresh-baked sugar cookies, some slices of ham, and cold milk.

"It's the wedding, isn't it? They've chosen you to soften me up."

What could I say? I admired her so, her spunk, her determination, her single-mindedness. How could I ask her to go against her principles?

"Grandma, Pa wants you to come in the worst way. So does Elizabeth. She says it won't be a family wedding without you. She says you are the matriarch and the guests would be disappointed not to see you."

She chewed this over in her mind. "I hate that Betsy," she said.

"I know, Grandma. We all do. But we have to live with her."

"You poor child. I'd have you here in a minute if your father would allow it."

"Just come on this important day, Grandma, and take Ma's place."

Her eyes watered. "What will Betsy be wearing?"

"Something in powder blue with ruffles and lace."

"I have my lavender. I only wear it on very special occasions."

"Oh, Grandma, you look like a queen in it!"

"I don't want to look like a queen. If I come, I just want to look like a grandmother who should be reckoned with."

My heart beat fast. "Will you come then?"

"I said
if
."

I waited. You didn't push with Grandmother, and I'd already pushed far enough. I didn't want to paint any more flowers on fences without knowing what I was inviting in.

"If I come, I speak my mind," she said. "I won't be shackled."

"Everyone loves you, Grandma. We know you'll make us proud."

I left without knowing if she were coming or not. She was not without a sense of drama, my grandmother. If she came, she wanted it to be a surprise. She wanted everyone to wonder.

That's what I told Pa. It was all I could tell him. He only smiled and patted my head. "You make a fine go-between, Mary," he said. "Too bad you aren't a boy. You could be an excellent politician. Someday perhaps you'll make use of your talents."

A boy,
I thought.
Yes, I'd like to be a boy. I'd run for president.

T
HE DAY OF
E
LIZABETH'S
wedding was sky-blue clear, as fine a day as mid-February could offer. Just about spring in Lexington, Kentucky.

Early in the morning Liz and I went into the room Elizabeth shared with Frances. Mammy Sally had brought up coffee and sweet buns, and as if we'd planned it, we girls sprawled around and had a party, paying homage to Elizabeth's last day at home. Liz was to be in the wedding party, too. As were Ann and Frances and little Margaret. Margaret, just four years old, was my half sister.

Elizabeth's wedding dress hung in the corner. It had been Mama's, and we looked at it in silent admiration, each thinking our own thoughts.

"I wish she were here." Elizabeth's voice had a catch in it.

"She is," Frances said.

Elizabeth had tears in her eyes. "Is Grandmother Parker coming?" she asked me.

"Yes," I lied. "She'll be here. She won't let you down. Don't worry."

We all were going to dress for the wedding together in Elizabeth's room. All around, on the bed and chairs and dripping out of the highboy, were her traveling clothes. Mammy climbed the stairs with her lumbering gait and came into the room to start packing.

"You want I should help you into your weddin' dress?" she said.

"Yes, in a minute," Elizabeth said. She was wiping some tears from her eyes.

Mammy stood before it, touched it lightly. "I 'members the day I helped your own mama into it," she said. "My, she was right pretty. An' I 'spect you'll be just as pretty, Miz Elizabeth."

"Thank you," Elizabeth said. She brushed some crumbs from her morning robe. There was a moment's silence, and then someone stood in the doorway.

Betsy. She stood staring at Elizabeth for a long moment. "You'd best dress," she said. "The guests are starting to arrive."

"Yes," Elizabeth said.

"That grandmother of yours has not yet shown her face. You'd think, if she was coming, she'd be here by now," she said.

"She'll be here," I said firmly.

Betsy looked at me. "We'll see how good your powers of persuasion are. Your father thinks you are so wonderful. Well let me tell you," and she switched her attention to Elizabeth again. "This isn't your day. It's mine. It's mine because I kept this family together after your mother died. I did my duty by you all."

Grandmother, please come,
I prayed.
Please come. We need you.

E
LIZABETH WOULD PASS
under an arch made of forsythia blossoms in the parlor to stand before Reverend Davidson from McChord's Presbyterian.

I dressed in the pink organdy especially made by Betsy's dressmaker. Pa had brought back yards and yards of it for me and Frances, Liz, Ann, and Margaret.

Actually it had been a present for me. Every time I had a fight with Betsy, I knew Pa wasn't going to take my side. I didn't expect him to. He might even scold me, but he would always give me presents. Kid gloves or yards and yards of yellow muslin or the latest in bonnets.

In the kitchen Mammy was now presiding over the food. In the back parlor Ninian Edwards stood with his friends from Transylvania, talking of plays and what horses they wanted to bet on and drinking strong black coffee topped with whipped cream and shaved chocolate. Ninian looked as if he came from the most socially and politically prominent family in Illinois. His father, who was governor of that state, could not come today.

I peeked into the dining room. The table was open as long as it could go and covered with the whitest of damask cloths. A dozen or more candles in silver candelabra waited to be lighted. Silverware gleamed. Soon the table would be laden with preserved meats from France, turkey and cured ham, mounds of mashed potatoes, green vegetables, iced melon, chocolate-covered strawberries, the softest of Mammy Sally's biscuits, and later the lightest of wedding cakes, covered with filmy whipped icing from Giron's Confectioners.

At the front door Nelson stood with Betsy and Pa, greeting guests. Soon most everyone was seated in chairs in the front parlor, talking in whispers and waiting to see the bride.

Everyone but Grandmother Parker.

"Go upstairs and get your sisters," Betsy rushed by me and whispered.

But I couldn't move. My eyes were glued to Nelson and Pa, still waiting at the front door. And past him to the front drive where any minute, I knew, Grandmother's carriage would pull up.

I heard it before I saw it. Heard the wheels on the limestone drive, the snorting of the horses, the rattling of the harnesses. She was here!

Everyone else sensed it, too. In the front parlor people craned their necks to look out the windows. Some got up and went to the windows.

"Look at that," one elderly man said. "She looks as imperious as the day she rode into town from Pennsylvania as the bride of Major Robert Parker."

Everyone agreed. I went out the front door to greet her. She was wearing her lavender with the high neck and long sleeves, and she was as straight and as lovely as a bride herself. I was afraid to hug her, afraid to muss her dress, but she enveloped me in her arms.

"Grandmother, you came."

"Of course I did. Did you expect me not to? Where are my girls?"

She came in the hall asking the question, "Where are my girls?"

"Grandmother Parker, we're ready to start," Betsy said, standing in front of her.

"Not until I see my girls in private."

Ninian and his friends came out of the back parlor then at the sound of her voice. They each, in turn, took her hand and kissed it. Then I led her up the stairs to Elizabeth's room. Looking down from the top of the stairs, I could see Betsy standing there, hands on her hips, looking angry as a fox in a leg trap.

E
LIZABETH AND
N
INIAN LEFT
. It was an eight- or nine-day trip to Springfield, depending on the weather. Ninian was to be a member of the Illinois legislature. His father was the richest man in Springfield, and he and Elizabeth were to occupy the largest house. Oh how I envied Frances, going to live with them in a couple of months.

Springfield is still the frontier. Yet, Elizabeth told me, they have a society all their own. They adhere to all the social rules. And it is a town that attracts politicians. I would so dearly love to go.