I never regretted the loss of this beautiful opportunity in my life. My mother had been nursed back to bless me and mine a few years longer. Moreover, I found myself enriched. I had pictures, ravishing pictures, Raphael's "Belle Jardiniere," a priceless Raffaello Morghen's proof impression of the "Madonna della Seggiola," Guido's "Aurora" with its glorious women—the most glorious being (if she would only turn around) the one with her back to the world. I had many others, Titian, Domenichino, Murillo, Leonardo da Vinci. I had amber from Constantinople, curios and antiques from Egypt, corals and cameos from Naples and Florence, silks from Broussa (afterward swallowed up by an earthquake), silks and velvets from Lyons, laces from Brussels, perfumes from the land of Araby the blest,—things mightily consoling to a woman in her early twenties.
We found a large house on New York Avenue and filled it with good Virginia servants. Admonished by experience, we secured horses and a careful coachman.
We had come to stay! My husband represented the old district of his kinsman, John Randolph of Roanoke, and his constituents were devoted to him. They would never supplant him with another. Of that we might be sure. God granting life and health, we were going to be happy young people.
The market in Washington was abundantly supplied with the finest game and fish from the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Virginia, and the waters of the Potomac. Brant, ruddy duck, canvasback duck, sora, oysters, and terrapin were within the reach of any housekeeper. Oysters, to be opened at a moment's notice, were planted on the cellar floors, and fed with salt water, and the cellars, as far as the mistress was concerned, were protected from invasion by the large terrapins kept there—a most efficient police force, crawling about with their outstretched necks and wicked eyes.
Such dainties demanded expert cooking. We found in our house a portly family servant, "Aunt Susan," who had been left as caretaker with permission to remain or not as the new tenant should please, or as she herself should please. I fell in love with her on sight and found her willing to engage with me.
"Can you cook, Aunt Susan?" I imprudently inquired.
"No'm, I don't call myself a cook, but I know a hogfish from a yellow-bellied perch, and a canvasback duck from a redhead. I could cook oysters to suit my own white folks."
We had brought with us a number of servants who had lived with us in Virginia. They were free. We never owned slaves; this one free family had served us always.
A serious difficulty immediately arose in the kitchen. Susan felt her dignity insulted. She had supposed I would bring "gentlefolks' servants from the Eastern Sho'." She had not "counted on free niggers to put on airs an' boss her in her own kitchen."
My Virginia servants protested absolute humility and innocence. But that was not all. A French woman, Adele Rivière, was sewing in the nursery, and an Englishman, George Boyd, was coachman. Susan wanted "only one mistress," she had "not counted on working for furriners. By the time she had pleased that Frenchwoman and Englishman and them free niggers" she "wouldn't have enough sperrit left to wipe her foot on the door-mat."