Of our “mess,” Congressman and Mrs. Curry were least frequently to be met with in social gatherings. Mrs. Curry, who was a Miss Bowie, devoted her time wholly to her children, apparently feeling no interest in the gay world about her, being as gentle and retiring as her doughty relative (the inventor of the Bowie knife) was warlike. Mr. Curry was an uncommonly handsome man, who, in the fifties and early sixties, was an ambitious and strenuous politician. He died early in 1903, full of years and honours, while still acting as the General Agent of the Peabody fund.
Nor should I fail to recall the lovely Mrs. Clopton, wife of one of Senator Clay’s most trusted friends, Congressman David Clopton. She joined our “mess” late in the fifties, and at once added to its fame by her charm and beauty. She was a sister of Governor Ligon of Alabama. One of her daughters married the poet, Clifford Lanier, and another became the wife of Judge William L. Chambers, who for several exciting years represented our Government at Samoa.
But my oldest and dearest mess-mate during nearly a decade in the capital was, as I have said elsewhere, Mrs. Fitzpatrick, whose husband, Senator Benjamin Fitzpatrick, was President of the Senate for four consecutive sessions. Senator Fitzpatrick was very many years older than his wife, having, indeed, held office in 1818, when Alabama was a territory, and when few of his Alabamian associates in Congress had been ushered upon the stage of life. Between Mrs. Fitzpatrick and me there was an undeviating attachment which was a source of wonder, as it doubtless was rare, among women in fashionable life. As confrères in the Senate, our husbands, despite the disparity in their years, were fully in accord; and a more congenial quartette it would have been hard to find.
I think of all the harmonious couples I have known, Senator and Mrs. Fitzpatrick easily led, though near to them I must place General and Mrs. McQueen. It was a standing topic in Brown’s Hotel, the devotion of the two middle-aged gentlemen—Messrs. Fitzpatrick and McQueen—to their young wives and to their boys, enfants terribles, both of them of a most emphatic type. “The Heavenly Twins” as a title had not yet been evolved, or these two young autocrats of the hostelry would surely have won it from the sarcastic.
Benny Fitzpatrick was at once the idol of his parents and the terror of the hotel; and, as Mrs. Fitzpatrick and I were cordially united in other interests of life, so we shared the maternal duties as became two devoted sisters, “Our boy Benny” receiving the motherly oversight of whichsoever of us happened to be near him when occasion arose for aid or admonition. “Mrs. Fitz” delivered her rebukes with “Oh, Benny dear! How could you!” but I, his foster-mother, was constrained to resort betimes to a certain old-fashioned punishment usually administered with the broadside of a slipper, or, what shortly became as efficacious, a threat to do so.
Benny, like George Washington, was the possessor of a little hatchet, with which he worked a dreadful havoc. He chopped at the rosewood furniture of his mother’s drawing-room, while his proud parents, amazed at his precocity, not to say prowess, stood by awestruck, and—paid the bill! The child was plump and healthy, and boys will be boys! Thus were we all become his subjects; thus he overran Hannah, his coloured nurse, until one day Pat came—, Pat Dolan.
Pat had been a page at the Senate, and in some forgotten way he and little Benny had become inseparable friends. Thereafter, Benny was taken by his fond guardian, into whose hands his three anxious parents consented to consign him, to see the varying sights and the various quarters of the city. As his experiences multiplied, so his reputation for precocity increased in exact ratio.
One day Hannah’s excitement ran high. “Lor! Miss ’Relia,” she burst out impetuously to Mrs. Fitzpatrick, “Pat Dolan done carried Benny to the Cath’lic church an’ got him sprinkled, ’n den he brung him to communion, an’ first thing Pat knowed, Benny he drunk up all the holy water an’ eat up the whole wafer!”
CHAPTER IV
The Cabinet Circles of the Pierce and Buchanan Administrations
Writing to my father-in-law, ex-Governor Clay, on Christmas night, 1856, of the deep inward excitement of the times, I said: “We feel a little as Fanny Fern says Eugénie felt when she espoused Louis Napoleon, as if we are ‘dancing over a powder magazine!’ Everything is excitement and confusion. I tell you Fusion reigns in truth, and Southern blood is at boiling temperature all over the city, and with good cause, too. Old Giddings, Thurlow Weed, Sumner, Seward, Chase (who is here for a few days prior to his inauguration[[3]]) are daily taunting and insulting all whom they dare. There is no more prospect of a Speaker now than there was at first; indeed, less, and our men have despaired of Christmas holidays at home. Desertion of their post would mean death to their party and themselves, and they know and appreciate it, and, so far, stand firm as a Roman phalanx. Should there prove one deserter, the ‘game is up,’ for there is a Black Republican at every corner of our political fence, and if ever the gap is down we are gone. I wish you could be here to witness the scenes daily enacted in the halls of Congress, to hear the hot taunts of defiance hurled into the very teeth of the Northerners by our goaded but spirited patriots. I expect any day to hear of bloodshed and death, and would not be surprised at any time to witness (repeated here) the Civil War of Kansas! We still hope for Orr, though he is not sanguine. The President still holds his message, fearing to give it to the press, and it is thought it will go to Congress in manuscript. He, poor fellow, is worn and weary, and his wife in extremely delicate health.”