He gave her a comradely pat and went back to his chair and the stack of papers he had put aside. “All right, Mama, you do the peacocking for this office and I’ll try to win the war,” he said, withdrawing into that remoteness that always baffled her.
4
Desperately she wanted to be liked and admired. She did not even know that this desire tormented her like a hidden thorn. It was lost under the surface imperiousness that she had put on defensively, as a child might dress up in a trailing robe and play at being queen. She had no talent for adjustment or reconciliation and her husband’s propensity for seeing the best in people, even his bitterest enemies, puzzled and irritated her. In her mind she put this down as weakness. When she disliked anyone, it was done with vigor and she made no secret of it. When she was displeased she let the whole world know, yet she could not understand why it was that she felt always alone.
The Christmas party at the White House had to be important, if not gay. State Department people, Supreme Court people, senators, generals and their wives, would not expect hilarity. Not with Lee’s menacing army so near, the carnage of Chickamauga so recent, all the factional strife in New York and Missouri and Ohio only temporarily lulled, and definitely, Mary suspected, not defeated.
She had two dresses spread out on her bed, and Elizabeth Heckley, the mulatto seamstress, pinned bits of lace and ribbon bows here and there over the voluminous folds of coral-colored satin and purple velvet. The satin had wide bands of heavy embroidery touched with gold around the skirt and the folds that draped low over the shoulders. Elizabeth fastened a garland of roses at the bosom of that dress and let it trail down the side of the skirt.
“Needs a gold breastpin right there,” she indicated the fastening place of the flowers. “What Mrs. President goin’ to wear on her head?”
“A turban, Lizzie, of this same satin with some pale blue feathers in front and the roses hanging down over my chignon. This dress will have to be for the Christmas party and I know it’s too gay and likely I’ll be criticized for putting off my mourning for poor little Willie. Good gracious, down home where I was raised, I’d wear black for three solid years for a child and for a husband it was forever. But I look awful in black and I know it. It makes me dumpy and sallow and I do owe something to the people. There’s too much crepe already in Washington. It depresses people and hurts the war.”
“This other one would look mighty fine on you, Mrs. President.” The seamstress lovingly stroked the folds of violet velvet. “This dress look like it was made for a queen.” There were bands of embroidery on this gown too, but the embroidery was all gold cord and beads and there was a light overskirt of draped tulle in shades of lilac, lavender, and purple, caught up with little knots of gold leaves.
A queen! Abraham had called her a queen. Mary could see herself trailing a long robe of crimson with a border of gold and ermine. Too bad democracies did not favor such ornate display by their rulers—but the purple velvet did have a regal look. She would wear plumes in her headdress, three of them in the three shades of the overskirt.
“I’ll wear this at the New Years’ reception, though it is a pity to waste anything so handsome on a company of just anybody. See about some feathers and gold trimmings for my headdress, Lizzie, and plenty of white gloves. Last year I ruined four pairs.”