Mrs. Lincoln's Rival (39 page)

It was little wonder, she thought later, that her introduction to the Sprague family was stilted and uncomfortable. She made a far less dazzling impression than any of them had expected, but in her listlessness, she did not care. William’s mother—Madame Fanny, as she preferred to be addressed—was likable enough, a weathered yet spirited woman of strong opinions and independent thought, but Kate found her future mother-in-law’s constant scrutiny wearying. William’s sisters, Almyra Sprague and Mary Ann Nichols, were so awestruck by the illustrious Chases that they could scarcely stammer out complete sentences, rendering conversation impossible and their company tiresome. Kate was torn in her opinion of Amasa Sprague, William’s elder brother, his ostensible business partner who was too preoccupied with his first love, horses, to involve himself very much in A. & W. Sprague Company. Amasa could be amusing and genial when he made the effort, and he evidently had a great many friends, but Kate found him crude and ill-mannered, with a bad habit of making critical jokes at everyone else’s expense. When Kate grew tired of pretending to find his constant stream of comic invective entertaining, she snapped at him, which startled William and plunged the gathering into an awkward, painful silence.

It came as a great relief a few days later when Father returned to Washington and other young people from William’s extended family joined them, making up a younger, merrier party than the one that had witnessed Kate losing her temper with Amasa. As the days passed, the sunshine and ocean breezes revived Kate’s spirits and restored her fresh bloom of health just as William had promised. They still felt bruised from their terrible row, but they treated each other gently, and before long their old affection and desire returned—strengthened, it seemed, by their relief that they had survived a frightening test of their bond.

It was a glorious summer. Kate loved cruising along the Atlantic coast in the Sprague yacht, her skin warm and blushing from the sun, her auburn locks dancing free of her bonnet in the refreshing breezes. At night the young people would sit out beneath the stars and sing, or call out musicians and dance on the piazza. In their company the war faded away, and Kate could almost forget the dashing young soldiers with whom she had danced and flirted before they met their gruesome deaths on the battlefield. For a time she did not have to think about the stench of death and decay permeating Washington City, or about the thousands of grievously wounded soldiers suffering in makeshift hospitals in private homes and public edifices, or the thousands of poor, desperate contraband who eked out a shabby living in the refugee camps that had sprung up in alleyways in the colored neighborhoods. She could put aside for the moment worries about her father’s conflicts with Mr. Lincoln, and Mr. Seward, and for that matter most of the cabinet with the exception of Mr. Stanton. She allowed herself to be seduced by luxury, comfort, and the ineffable sense of safety that only great wealth could bestow.

But the war, and her father’s work, and her awareness of her responsibilities never entirely left her thoughts, and as summer faded and an autumn chill infused the ocean mists, she knew it was time to go home.

On their last night in Rhode Island, Kate was packing her trunk for the return journey when William came by her room to see if she needed his help, and took advantage of her solitude to steal a quick, discreet kiss. “I think you may need another trunk for all this,” he said, eyeing the garments draped over the bed and folded in neat piles upon the chairs.

“Everything fit on the way here,” she retorted, smiling. “Everything will fit on the way home.”

“How many trunks would we need for your glorious trousseau, I wonder?” he teased. “It’s a very good thing you decided not to break our engagement that day in Providence. I can’t imagine how you would pay for everything you’ve already acquired if you were suddenly no longer the future Mrs. William Sprague.”

Kate’s hands froze in the middle of folding a soft cotton chemise. “My father is responsible for my expenses until we marry,” she said stiffly. “He sold the farm in Cincinnati to pay for the wedding. You know that.”

William laughed. “Of course I do. I also know that your father will defer many of those bills until after we are wed, at which time they will become my responsibility.” He took her hands. “Birdie, don’t be upset. It’s my great pleasure to indulge you. You know that.”

“I do.” She managed a smile. “You are the very soul of generosity.”

And as long as she was his, he would continue to be.

The next day, they departed Rhode Island for New York, where Kate and William left Nettie at school and spent a few days with the Barneys before continuing on to Washington. Father welcomed them gladly, though not without admonishing them for delivering Nettie to Miss Macaulay’s school several days late.

William remained in Washington for less than a week before returning to Rhode Island, his family, and his mills. Kate missed him very much, but she took comfort in knowing that after they were married, and the next session of Congress began, he would surely be obliged to reside in the capital and make only sporadic visits to Rhode Island rather than the other way around.

Embracing any distraction from her worries and loneliness, Kate resumed her role as her father’s hostess with renewed vigor even as her wedding preparations continued. The war had dragged on in Kate’s absence, and political maneuvering had continued to alternately promote and thwart her father’s ambitions. Father was intensely dissatisfied with the ineffective workings of the cabinet, for rather than present war matters to the entire group for discussion, the president consulted only Secretary Stanton and General Henry Halleck. “I look on from the outside,” Father grumbled, “and, as well as I can, furnish the means to enact the strategies they alone decide.” Disgruntled, he had embarked on a speaking tour of the West ostensibly to escape the strife, but also to enlist support for his own presidential run. His audacity had earned him the ire of Mr. Lincoln’s allies, though not, apparently, the president himself, who seemed incapable of hatred.

General Hooker had suffered a crushing defeat at Chancellorsville in late June, and afterward, in a bit of theater Kate found uncomfortably familiar, he had submitted his resignation in protest over a dispute with army headquarters. President Lincoln had accepted it and appointed General George Meade as his successor. The surprising turn of events greatly distressed Father, who had long supported General Hooker and had recently returned from visiting him in the field.

Father was also displeased with rumors from Vicksburg that, perhaps out of sheer boredom from the siege, General Grant had fallen back into his old habits of excessive drinking. The general was, a journalist warned Father in a private letter, “Most of the time more than half drunk, and much of the time idiotically drunk.” Mr. Lincoln had heard similar reports, but when he and Secretary Stanton ordered an investigation, they concluded that General Grant’s habits had been greatly exaggerated and evidently did not interfere with his ability to win battles, and so no action was taken against him. To Father’s disgust, Mr. Lincoln even joked that if he knew what brand of whiskey the general favored, he would immediately distribute bottles of it to his other generals.

But thankfully, not all news of the war was distressing. A few days after General Hooker had been relieved of his post, General Lee’s invasion of the North was halted in a tremendously bloody battle at Gettysburg. Then, on Independence Day, word reached the capital that General Grant had taken Vicksburg after a long and wearying siege, and five days later, Port Hudson, the last remaining Confederate fort on the Mississippi, had surrendered. Most heartening of all, Negro regiments were marching in Washington and on to the battlefield, where they fought as courageously as any of their white comrades. Father, who had argued for putting rifles in the hands of colored men from the outset of the war, and had long supported his friend Frederick Douglass’s efforts to organize colored regiments, regarded the president’s newfound approval with wry amusement. “The President is now thoroughly in earnest in this business,” he wrote to a friend, “and sees it much as I saw it nearly two years ago.”

Thanks in no small part to the fierce determination of the new regiments, at long last the war seemed to be turning in favor of the Union, but at a terrible cost, with the tallies of the wounded and the dead so staggering they defied comprehension.

Then, just as her hopes for a future of peace and contentment were rising, Kate received a letter from William that threw her back into uncertainty, only three weeks before the wedding. “I fear I shall be very cross for a few days as I have stopped the use of the weed which stills but does not satisfy,” he warned her. Tobacco was a dangerous indulgence, he admitted, because after it followed “brandies and whiskies, then dyspepsia and an unhappy life. Look out for this won’t you my love.”

Kate did not know what to think. Had William resumed his old vices after their quarrel, or had he never relinquished them at all? She did not know which possibility was worse—that he had lied to her in Providence or that he had returned to drink and cigars despite the assurances he had given her in the aftermath of their terrible row. Either way, William seemed to have forgotten what he had told her then, or else he believed
she
had.

After brooding over his letter, she told herself resignedly that he intended to abandon his vices before the wedding, and that was what mattered most. She could not ask more of him than that, and in any case it was too late to end their engagement over something anyone else would regard as a small matter.

On the day she received William’s letter, Kate attended the theater with John Hay, where they watched Maggie Mitchell perform in
The Pearl of Savoy
. The story told of Marie, a lovely young peasant girl whose love for a peasant boy was thwarted by a licentious nobleman who desired her for himself. Through his cruel manipulations, Marie’s family would lose their farm unless she consented to be his, and, torn between her innocent love for the peasant boy and her devotion to her virtuous father, the tormented Marie went mad. Thoroughly absorbed, Kate was unaware that she wept until she felt John’s hand upon hers and realized her face was wet with tears.

“Are you quite well?” John asked quietly, his sympathy and concern evident in every line of his face. Suddenly she was struck by the unexpected, impossible thought that if she were engaged to him instead, she might never know the intense passion she felt with William, but she would never find herself shaken by uncertainty or doubt either.

But it was too late for such considerations—much too late.

“I was merely swept away by the melodrama,” she murmured, managing a smile and drying her tears on a handkerchief trimmed in elegant lace. It was another lovely trifle she had purchased as part of her trousseau, something William would eventually pay for—and she would too, in a very different sense.

N
OVEMBER
–D
ECEMBER
1863

K
ate’s first thought when she woke on the morning of November 8 was that in exactly a year’s time, her marriage would be approaching its anniversary, and her father would be elected president of the United States. She did not allow herself to consider that either event was anything less than a certainty. She loved William and longed to be his wife, and she had faith that as soon as they were united, all of their petty little squabbles and disagreements and doubts would fall away.

As for her father’s great ambition, there was no reason to believe he would not win the presidency in 1864. No president had won a second term since Andrew Jackson in 1832, so Mr. Lincoln’s status as the incumbent was more likely to work against him than in his favor. Father was also second only to the president as the most prominent Republican in the nation, with the possible exception of Mr. Seward, who had become too good a friend of Mr. Lincoln’s to challenge him for his office.

Not so Father, and despite the demands of his responsibilities in the Treasury, he had not neglected his politicking. Although the most illustrious and ambitious people in Washington eagerly sought invitations to dinners at the Chase residence, Kate always found a place at the table for humbler gentlemen who came to the capital on the business of their modest cities and tiny hamlets, if the slightest possibility existed that they might be delegates to the Republican National Convention the following June. Father spent many a late night alone in his study composing hundreds of letters to provincial officials, influential generals, congressional leaders, and sympathetic newspapermen, reminding them of the regrettable failures of the Lincoln administration and suggesting how his own would differ. Whenever he addressed potential supporters, however, he was careful never to explicitly acknowledge that he intended to run. Instead he denied that he coveted the presidential chair, but said that he would accept it if that was the will of the people.

Earlier that autumn, Father and the other cabinet secretaries had observed Mr. Lincoln’s growing anxiety as crucial October elections in Ohio and Pennsylvania had approached, to be followed by congressional elections in other states in November. The midterm elections the previous year had been disastrous for the Republicans, and if the Peace Democrats gained more high offices that year, it would be an unmistakable sign that Northern support for the war had drastically eroded—a revelation that would surely demoralize the Union army and hearten the enemy. With the Ohio election a week away, Father had spoken to the president and offered to return to his home state to promote Republican candidates there. Mr. Lincoln had agreed, and so Father had traveled throughout Ohio, meeting with eager supporters at every stop, attending rallies, and urging Republicans to the polls. Wherever he spoke he addressed the pressing issues of the war, slavery, and Reconstruction, but even as he championed the local ticket, he denigrated the president. Mr. Lincoln was honestly and earnestly doing his best, he would declare, even if the war was not being prosecuted as swiftly as it ought, and if under a different leader, mistakes might have been avoided and misfortunes averted. Father had invited a journalist from the Associated Press to accompany him, so Mr. Lincoln had been well aware of the content of Father’s speeches, and yet he had offered not even the smallest rebuke, which Kate found astonishing and remarkably shortsighted. Although Father’s tour drove Republicans to the polls in record numbers, giving Mr. Lincoln the decisive victories in Ohio he desperately needed, Father had also taken the opportunity to advance his own presidential ambitions, which Mr. Lincoln could not afford. It was almost as if Mr. Lincoln was not inclined to seek a second term, or he was unaware that the election was only a year away.

Kate knew how swiftly a year could pass, which was why her first thought on the morning of November 8 was of the election, but her second thought, as she threw back the quilt and hurried to wash and dress, was that she had a great deal to do before her wedding in four days’ time, and lolling in bed would accomplish none of it.

The wedding of Kate Chase and William Sprague would be, as every newspaper throughout the North concurred, the social event of the season, perhaps of the decade. Fifty of their closest friends and relations would gather in the Chases’ parlor for the ceremony, which would be presided over by Episcopalian bishop Thomas Clark of Rhode Island, and nearly five hundred more would join them for the reception immediately following. President and Mrs. Lincoln would attend, as would the most celebrated members of the Washington elite, including all of the cabinet secretaries and their wives, with the exception of Postmaster General Montgomery Blair, who bore a particularly virulent grudge against Father and had recently made ridiculous, incendiary speeches falsely accusing Father of all manner of outrageous crimes. His absence would be remarked upon in the press, naturally, but he would not be missed.

Kate was never happier than when she was planning and hosting a grand event, and the wedding would surely be her triumph, ushering in what she had resolved would be a glorious period culminating in her father’s inauguration in March of 1865. She only wished that William were there to enjoy those last few days of anticipation and excitement by her side, but business kept him in Rhode Island, as it had for most of their engagement. Kate missed him terribly and longed to see him again, and from his letters, she knew he felt the same. His passion for her seemed to drive him nearly mad sometimes, and when she thought of how they would at last consummate their long-denied yearnings, she grew weak and faint from desire.

Two days before the wedding, while William was en route to Washington City with an entourage of more than fifty Rhode Island friends and relatives, her true and faithful friend John Hay put together an excursion for Kate, her bridesmaids, and several mutual friends. The merry group spent a delightful day at Mount Vernon, which was adorned in the full radiance of its autumn beauty.

As the steamer carried them back to Washington, Kate stood at the railing, savoring the sunshine and bracing river winds while her companions told stories and jokes nearby. The beautiful scenery had made her contemplative, her thoughts circling around her impending transformation from bride to wife. She understood well that she had risen high in her career as her father’s official hostess, but although she enjoyed independence and success, she felt certain that she had not yet reached the pinnacle of all that she could become. She was surrounded by kind friends and many others who were ready to flatter and do her homage. She was accustomed to command and be obeyed, to wish and be anticipated—and yet she was prepared, without a sigh of regret, to lay everything upon the altar of her love in exchange for a more earnest and truer life, one long dream of happiness and devotion. That was what she wanted, and yet she felt a stir of trepidation and impending loss.

It was a relief when John interrupted her reverie. “You look so lost in thought I hate to disturb you,” he said, resting his elbows upon the railing and grinning up at her. “Especially since I come bearing bad news—but also, I hope, some good news.”

She smiled fondly back. “Tell me the bad news first, and then comfort me with the good.”

“As you wish.” He hesitated, grimaced, then plunged ahead. “Mrs. Lincoln is unlikely to attend your wedding.”

“But she and Mr. Lincoln are expected,” Kate protested. “Why would they not come?”

“The Tycoon will be there,” John quickly assured her, “but I overheard the Hellcat tell her dressmaker that she expects to be struck down with a bad headache that day.”

“Does she indeed?” Indignant, Kate folded her arms and turned around to lean back against the railing. “She would snub me on my wedding day?”

“I’m afraid so. Nicolay overheard her sneer that she would not ‘bow in reverence to the twin gods, Chase and daughter.’”

The insult stung. “Quickly, tell me the good news before I say something unbecoming a lady.”

John grinned as if he wished she would. “The good news is the same as the bad. Her Satanic Majesty will not be present to spoil your wedding with her imperious scowls and demands.”

Kate laughed, her anger dispelled. “There is that. Well, her absence won’t ruin the day for me, and in fact is likely to improve it. I know she’s fond of William, but if she wants to deny herself the pleasure of what is sure to be a wonderful party out of the spite she bears me, that’s her prerogative.”

“She would rather gouge out her own eyes, I think, than to behold you in all your bridal glory.” He hesitated. “I confess it will pain me somewhat too, and you know why, but I won’t embarrass either of us by saying any more than that.”

“Thank you, John.” She clasped his hand in both of hers, grateful that he would not again remind her she still had time to change her mind. “You’re a true friend.”

It seemed too much to hope that John and William could become friends someday too, but Kate would hope for it nonetheless.

Later that evening, William and his traveling companions arrived in Washington, and after settling into their rooms at the Willard, they gathered at the Chase residence for a late reception. The moment William saw her, his face lit up with love and joy and yearning, and when he embraced her and murmured affectionate words in her ear, her spirits soared. He bore not a trace of whiskey or tobacco on his breath or in his clothing; his eyes were bright, his voice clear. Her heart welled up with love and gratitude to know that he had kept his promise to abandon his vices. She would marry a good and sober man, a man who adored her, and whom she adored in return.

The next day passed in a swift, dizzying blur of welcomes, reunions, and last-minute preparations, but the bride and groom spent it mostly apart. The Chase residence was so full of family from Ohio and New Hampshire that throughout the morning and afternoon Kate never had a moment to herself. That was an unexpected blessing, for she did not want to be alone with her thoughts. As thrilled as she was by the fuss and celebration, the irrevocability of the solemn vows she and William would soon exchange filled her with nervous excitement and apprehension, and if she dwelled upon it too long, her chest constricted until she almost could not take a breath.

As twilight approached and the house quieted, Kate found herself restless and brooding, her mind racing with the details of the ceremony and reception. Earlier that day, John, anticipating her need for distraction, had invited her to accompany him and a few friends to the theater to see Mr. John Wilkes Booth perform the starring role in
Romeo and Juliet
. “Thank you, but no,” Kate had replied dryly. “I intend to retire early, and a tragic romance that ends in death is unlikely to induce sweet dreams on the eve of my wedding.” But as she climbed the stairs to her chamber on her last night as a maiden, with Mrs. Douglas’s startling revelations about the marriage bed crowding into the forefront of her thoughts, she almost wished she had accepted.

Just as she was beginning to undress, she heard outside on the street below the faint but mellow sound of men’s voices raised in song. William’s smiling face appeared in her mind’s eye, and her heart leapt with delight as she hurried to the window to find a crowd of men gathered around the front stairs offering up a beautifully harmonized rendition of “Aura Lee.” Searching the faces of the singers, she did not see William, but she quickly recognized the men as soldiers from the Seventeenth Infantry, with John Hay in the middle of the throng, singing with tender gusto.

Warmth and happiness flooded her as she enjoyed the serenade, smiling down upon the singers, exchanging smiles with Nettie and Alice and others as they appeared at the windows, beckoned by the song. Her gaze often lingered upon John, and when he grinned mischievously up at her, she knew that he wished her well.

The singers next performed “When the Corn is Waving, Annie Dear,” and concluded their concert with “I Will Be True to Thee.” Then they all doffed their hats, bowed, and strolled on. John lingered to hold her gaze for a long moment, and to offer her an encouraging smile. Then he too replaced his hat and walked away.

Kate watched until he caught up with his friends and they rounded the corner and disappeared, and then she drew the curtains and finished preparing for bed. Nettie, who had been displaced from her own chamber by visiting cousins, soon joined her, as bright and happy and as unready for sleep as the first robin of spring. “It’s all so lovely and romantic,” she gushed as she climbed into bed and drew the quilt up to her chin. “If Mr. Hay were not so very old, I should like to marry him.”

Kate felt an inexplicable sting of jealousy. “He’s not ‘so very old.’ He’s only a year older than I. Goodness, you must think William is practically ancient.”

Nettie’s guilty look told her that was not far from the truth. Kate laughed and turned out the light.

She put her arm around her sister when Nettie snugged up close, but although she closed her eyes, sleep was slow in coming. Her thoughts swirled with all that the next day would bring, and her heart was alive with reverence. For an hour, perhaps two, she lay awake praying that she would completely fulfill her new role as wife, and that to William, her dearest beloved, she might become companion, friend, and advocate, so that he would be a husband entirely satisfied. All that existed of love and beauty, nobleness and gentleness, were woven into her fair dream, and she believed with all her heart that no future could be brighter than that of their two lives united as one.

And when she thought of their wedding night, when she would be folded at last in her husband’s loving arms—oh, the sense of ineffable rest, joy, and completeness that would fill her then, a glimpse of heaven for purity and peace. All strife ended, all regret silenced, in William’s strong arms she would find a lover, a protector, a husband to be cherished. Every thought, every desire, every feeling merged with her one longing to make him happy—William, the first and only man who had found lodging in her heart.