“After thanking Heaven for your safe return, I must accuse you of great unkindness in refusing us the pleasure of seeing you this night. I do assure you nothing but our being satisfied that our company would be disagreeable, should prevent us from trying if our Legs would not carry us to Mount Vernon this night, but if you will not come to us, to-morrow morning very early we shall be at Mount Vernon.
“Sally Fairfax
Ann Spearing
Eliz’th Dent”
Yet, in spite of the attractions of Virginia we find him journeying to Boston, on military business, by way of New York.
The hero of Braddock’s stricken field found every door open before him. He was fêted in Philadelphia, and the aristocrats of Manhattan gave dinners in honour of the strapping young soldier from the wilds of Virginia.
At the house of his friend, Beverly Robinson, he met Miss Mary Philipse, and speedily surrendered. She was a beautiful, cultured woman, twenty-five years old, who had travelled widely and had seen much of the world. He promptly proposed to her, and was refused, but with exquisite grace and tact.
Graver affairs however soon claimed his attention, and he did not go back, though a friend wrote to him that Lieutenant-Colonel Morris was besieging the citadel. She married Morris, and their house in Morristown became Washington’s headquarters, in 1776—again, how history might have been changed had Mary Philipse married her Virginia lover!
In the spring of 1758, Washington met his fate. He was riding on horseback from Mount Vernon to Williamsburg with important despatches. In crossing a ford of the Pamunkey he fell in with a Mr. Chamberlayne, who lived in the neighbourhood. With true Virginian hospitality he prevailed upon Washington to take dinner at his house, making the arrangement with much difficulty, however, since the soldier was impatient to get to Williamsburg.
Once inside the colonial house, whose hospitable halls breathed welcome, his impatience, and the errand itself, were almost forgotten. A negro servant led his horse up and down the gravelled walk in front of the house; the servant grew tired, the horse pawed and sniffed with impatience, but Washington lingered.
A petite hazel-eyed woman—she who was once Patsy Dandridge, but then the widow of Daniel Parke Custis—was delaying important affairs. At night-fall the distracted warrior remembered his mission, and made a hasty adieu. Mr. Chamberlayne, meeting him at the door, laid a restraining hand upon his arm. “No guest ever leaves my house after sunset,” he said.
The horse was put up, the servant released from duty, and Washington remained until the next morning, when, with new happiness in his heart, he dashed on to Williamsburg.