The Widow's War

The valet balances the tray on the palm of his hand, and stares down at the carpet. “No, madam.” He looks up, still not meeting her eyes. “Mr. Presgrove sent word that he was sleeping at his club.”

His club? She didn’t know Deacon belonged to a club. How many other things has he kept from her? Retreating to the garden with a book, she waits for him to reappear, but he doesn’t come home that night or the night after. Senator Presgrove also disappears, so for the next three days she’s alone except for the servants and William’s mother. She visits Matilda several times, but always finds her sleeping. When she offers to help take care of her, Aideen begs her not to.

Not wishing to get Aideen fired, Carrie goes down to the kitchen to see if she can help run the household, but the servants have everything in hand. For an hour or so she sits at the kitchen table drinking coffee and watching the cook make vol-au-vent pastry shells. Then she gives up and goes back to the garden.

By the morning of the second day, she’s bored beyond endurance. If she were in Rio, she could go down to the market and haggle with the vendors, take a walk on the beach, or call on friends, but she doesn’t know anyone in Washington except Nettie Wiggins, who has temporarily decamped to New York to have her dresses made, and pro-slavers like Mrs. Greenleaf, who she’s not inclined to visit.

She thinks of many things during those days she spends alone. Sometimes she imagines herself working things out with Deacon and discovering that, although he married her for her money, he cares for her. She doesn’t think that’s likely, but perhaps, even if he never felt affection for her, they can come to some kind of understanding. When he proposed, he told her he adored children. Was that the truth or another lie? Can a man be a bad husband and a good father? Can she raise a child with someone who believes in slavery?

Three nights in a row, she dreams of William. He always comes to her unexpectedly, bearing a handful of orchids or some strange, exotic object. One night he gives her a spiraled seashell carved with Brazilian and African symbols. In another dream he brings her an Amazonian tiger that licks her face and caresses her with great, soft paws.

In these dreams William caresses her, too: moves his hands across her shoulders and down her arms, outlines her hips and thighs with his fingers, draws heat across her face and eyes, and breathes into her mouth. They make long, slow love in her bed in Rio or in a boat that rocks each time they move. They laugh and cry and cover one another’s mouths with their hands so no one will hear them.

She sees William, alive and well: his dark eyes, the tiny scar above his right eyebrow, the mole on his left shoulder, the white spot on the sole of his foot left by a nail he stepped on fifteen years and a whole lifetime ago. As she strokes his hair and measures the length of his body with hers, she feels happier than she’s felt in months.

In the past when she dreamed of him, she woke feeling guilty. Now she wakes feeling cherished. It’s as if William has come back to comfort her. Each time she opens her eyes to find herself back in Senator Presgrove’s house, she experiences a mixture of joy and longing and grief; but in the end, the joy outweighs the grief, and gradually she comes to understand that these dreams are a gift from Deacon, although not a gift he ever intended to give. By lying to her, Deacon has freed her from feeling guilty about loving William, and although she’s not inclined to thank him, she’s grateful, although what this means for her marriage in the long-term is something she’s not yet ready to contemplate.

By day, she puts the dreams aside and starts to make plans. She needs to find a way to live the rest of her life, if not happily, at least with dignity. She would like to confront Deacon and have it out with him, but what good will that do when she can’t believe anything he tells her? She’s not sure exactly what steps to take, but she decides she’ll begin by insisting he move into another room. Perhaps he’ll object. Perhaps he won’t care. In any case, she can no longer sleep in the same bed with him. After that, she’ll wait and see what develops. It will be better for the child if they can at least appear to get along.

As for her plan to use some of her inheritance to sponsor a group of abolitionist settlers and endow a glasshouse in memory of Willa, there’s no reason to sit around waiting for Deacon to come home so she can ask his permission to spend her own money. The time to act is now. The newspapers are reporting that a group of slave owners have met in Westport, Missouri, to plan a mass migration to Kansas. Armed, bent on driving out anyone who opposes them at gunpoint, and loudly declaring their right to take their “human property” into the territory, they are filing land claims at the rate of fifty a day. If something isn’t done immediately, Kansas may enter the Union as a slave state.

Appropriating a pen, a bottle of ink, and a sheet of the senator’s personal stationery from his study, she writes to Eli Thayer, Vice President of the newly organized Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company, and offers to donate enough money to outfit thirty emigrant families. As she blots the letter, folds it, and seals it, she thinks how furious her father-in-law would be if he knew his letterhead sat above such a message.

Next she unpacks her sketch pad and draws up a plan for the glasshouse. She decides it will have two wings converging on a central domed atrium. There will be palms and other tropical trees, wild figs, lianas, and a small stone-rimmed pool filled with exotic fish. One wing will be filled with orchids. The other will feature brightly colored tropical flowers. Would it be possible to have parrots? They would be able to survive Washington winters, since the glasshouse will be heated by subterranean ovens, but would it be cruel to confine them to such a small place?

Yes, she decides, it would be. Reluctantly, she erases the parrots and replaces them with hummingbirds, then erases the hummingbirds and decides to have no birds at all. There’s too much similarity between her own situation and theirs, and as far as birds are concerned, a cage will be a cage even if it’s warm and filled with orchids.

On the evening of the third day, Senator Presgrove reappears and takes dinner with her. Picking up a silver carving set, he deftly removes a slice of chicken breast and has it sent down to her end of the table on a small china plate.

Carrie is furious, but she masters her temper. She needs to know how extensively Deacon has deceived her. If the senator won’t tell her where Deacon is, perhaps he’ll tell her other things. “Senator, it appears none of the servants in this house are slaves? Is that true?”

“Honey, I own sixty-three slaves, which is pitiful by the standards of South Carolina or Georgia, but those sixty-three make me the fourth largest slave owner in the great Commonwealth of Kentucky, and I’m damn proud of it. You don’t much like that do you?”

“Well then, in the interest of family harmony I think you and I should avoid speakin’ of such topics at the dinner table. You know, Deacon told me you were a wide-eyed abolitionist. If you were a man, I suppose I’d have to call you out and shoot you, but political opinions don’t count in a woman. You can’t vote, honey. You can’t even testify in a court of law now that you’re married to my son.” He finishes cutting off a drumstick and puts it on his own plate. Picking a bit of salt on the tip of his knife, he sprinkles it over his food in a way that is somehow menacing.

“What you can do is keep your mouth shut. I say that with the utmost respect. Take it as a friendly warning. Deacon needs a wife who will go to parties, bat her eyelashes, talk sweet, and charm the gentlemen.”

He points the knife at her. “Now you got a long way to go before you’re gonna be a Southern belle. In fact, it’s my considered opinion that my son made a mistake when he married you, even if you are as rich as the Rani of Jhansi and were raised about as far south as a person can go without strikin’ an iceberg.” He repositions the knife, picks up the carving fork again, and inspects the platter. “Light meat or dark?”

That does it. The next morning, Carrie gets up, puts on one of Nettie’s day dresses, eats a quick breakfast, and calls for the carriage. While she’s waiting for it to roll up in front of the house, she opens her trunk and takes out a package wrapped in brown paper. For a few seconds she bends over it with her eyes closed, inhaling the clean, earthy scent of the jungle. She remembers a flock of toucans fighting over ripe brazil nuts and Papa far above her, perched on the limb of a Cecropia tree reaching out to gather a stem of white orchids.

Cutting the string, she opens the package, selects three orchid roots, and rewraps them in a clean linen hand towel. Half an hour later, she is standing in a somewhat dilapidated greenhouse speaking to Arthur Kroll, assistant to the director of the United States Botanic Garden. Placing the bundle of orchid roots on a potting table, she gets straight to the point.

Kroll examines the bundle from a distance and tugs at his cravat as if it were strangling him. “Mrs. Presgrove, that’s most generous, but I am sorry to say we cannot accept donations from individuals. We’re a scientific organization. We need to know when and where each plant was collected.”

“Each plant I am donating bears a tag that contains all that information as well as the Latin name of the genus and species. If you open this package, you’ll discover that I’m giving you a gift of rare orchids collected by my father, Canan Vinton.”

Her father’s name has an electrifying effect. Turning to the bundle, Mr. Kroll opens it, lifts out the orchid roots, and reads the tags. The roots look more like hanks of muddy rope than plants, but he immediately knows what he has.

“These are priceless! Collected by Canan Vinton himself—good heavens, Mrs. Presgrove, why didn’t you say so at once! I would never have dreamed of refusing such a generous gift. I apologize if I sounded ungrateful, but we have so many ladies dropping by with daffodil bulbs and cuttings from their tea roses. These orchids are a treasure indeed! If we tried to buy them, they would cost the garden hundreds—perhaps thousands—of dollars each; but, as you know, no one can buy such orchids. The only other specimens I am aware of are presently being cultivated at Kew. They were also collected by your late father. The head gardener at Kew told us Mr. Vinton saved them from being destroyed when their portion of the jungle was logged for tropical hardwoods and . . .”

Carrie smiles. It’s been a long time since she has seen an orchid lover in ecstasy. “No, thank you, Mr. Kroll. I must leave in a few moments, but I’d like to return at a later date to meet with Mr. Howard, the director of the garden. I have something else to donate in memory of my late daughter.”

“Mrs. Presgrove, that would be wonderful! Unfortunately, Mr. Howard is not here at present, but I know he will embrace the idea with enthusiasm. It is generous beyond—Well, ma’am, words fail me. The Presgrove House will be the first great glasshouse of the United States Botanic Garden.”

“The Willa Saylor House,” Carrie reminds him. She points out the window. “I would like to build it over there, Mr. Kroll, where it will catch the morning light. It will shine like a soap bubble. We’ll have a domed atrium with marble benches where members of Congress can sit and discuss the affairs of the nation, and a small courtyard where ladies can take tea. I’ll heat it with ovens in winter and fill it with tropical plants so that even in January the people of Washington will have a warm, green place to take shelter from the cold.”

Agreeing that this is an excellent idea, Carrie thanks Mr. Kroll, shakes his hand, and promises to return later to discuss the details with the director and show him her sketches for the Willa Saylor House, but she’s never able to fulfill that promise, because that afternoon when she goes to her trunk to get her stock certificates, she discovers they’re missing.

“I imagine Deacon sold them about an hour after you two cleared U.S. Customs,” Senator Presgrove tells her at dinner. “And I imagine he’s got the proceeds tucked away somewhere you can’t get your hands on them.”

“Maybe in Brazil they were yours, but if you’ll look around, you’ll see you’re now living in the United States of America. I understand that where Portuguese law is the law of the land, a woman continues to own her own property after marriage, but under U.S. law, what’s yours became Deacon’s the second you said ‘I do.’”

Carrie rises to her feet, grabs her water glass, and hurls it to the floor. “Puxa saco!” she cries. “First Deacon lies to me about being against slavery! Then he steals my money! Your son is a thief and a fortune hunter and so are you! What other lies have the two of you told me! Tell me, or I swear, I’ll raise such a scandal, you’ll be run out of Congress.”

Senator Presgrove studies her thoughtfully. “You know,” he says softly, “until now I didn’t think you had it in you to cause real trouble, but I am in the process of changin’ my mind. I’m gonna have to tell my son to quit tomcattin’ around and keep a better eye on you.”

He leans forward. “You want the whole truth, do you? Well then I suggest you ask Deacon the name of that ‘club’ of his. But you know . . .” His voice becomes a low, threatening purr. “You know, I wouldn’t do that. No, ma’am, I wouldn’t. Because you sure as hell aren’t gonna like the answer. Now sit down and finish your dinner and try to impersonate a lady, or I’ll order the servants to drag you upstairs and lock you in your room until that son of mine comes home. In other words, it’s manners or incarceration. How does that sit?”

“Is that so?” The senator rises to his feet. “Listen and listen well: Deacon has your money and you can’t do a damn thing about it. You want a penny from him? You’ll have to beg for it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll retreat to my study and smoke a cigar. In the future, I think I’ll follow my son’s example and dine out. Eating at the same table with you is a surefire recipe for dyspepsia.

“By the way, if you try to cause trouble, you’re the one who’s gonna get run out of town on a rail. Around here gentlemen can do whatever they like provided they don’t do it in the middle of the street, but ladies who curse in foreign tongues and throw tumblers end up with no calling cards on their front hall tables. If you repeat the things you’ve said tonight, every lady in town is going to pity Deacon for having burdened himself with an insane wife.

“Against all odds, I myself already have garnered quite a reputation for being a merciful saint when it comes to women. There’s more than one room in this house with a door that bolts from the outside. Think it over.”

The senator grins, exposing a row of yellow teeth. “My, my, you are a feisty one. I’m tremblin’ in my boots. Now if you don’t have any more Brazilian obscenities to hurl at me, I have work to do, and I reckon you need to get back to your knittin’.”

Carrie retreats upstairs to her bedroom, slams the door, and locks it. Splashing cold water on her face, she forces herself to calm down. What a useless conversation! She’s been insulted and threatened and condescended to and all for nothing. She still doesn’t know where Deacon is.

For the better part of an hour, she paces back and forth trying to decide what to do next, but no coherent plan emerges. Around nine, she walks to the window, throws open the shutters, and looks toward Washington. In the distance, she hears the sound of a bottle breaking, the low whistle of the night train, the clatter of running footsteps.

For a long time she stands there trying to put her thoughts in order, and as she does so, a story gradually begins to unfold in her mind. It’s Deacon’s story of his sister’s friend who died of consumption leaving him desolate, but it’s not the same tragic story of grief and loss he told Carrie when he was courting her. Carrie breaks that story apart, lays out the pieces, and puts them back together into another story, one glued together with lies.

Obviously Deacon stole the dead girl’s illness from his stepmother. The sister was a fabrication. Deacon has no sister. There are other bits and pieces stolen from other lives. She can’t recognize all of them, but it’s likely he stole the story of his quarrel with his father from the quarrel William had with his own father. Deacon’s claim that he was nearly cut out of his father’s will because of his support of abolition—that’s William’s story, too.

But back to the girl. She obviously never existed, which means Deacon must have made up everything about her from other sources. What were those sources? Was she a friend of the family? An acquaintance? Someone Deacon had only seen in passing and admired? What had he said about her? That she was “full-figured.” Yes. That was it. Full-figured, with dark hair, and a mole on her upper lip.

Carrie walks over to the mirror and touches her upper lip. She remembers Deacon’s finger drawing back just before it made contact, the heat of it, how at the time she had believed he respected her too much to touch her. A mole right there. But who is she?

Suddenly, she remembers the train: the clattering of the wheels, Deacon beside her, the smell of his cigar, and then the hiss of steam as they halted for a few moments beside an elegant red-brick house. A girl in a green dress puts the tip of her gloved hand to her lips and blows Deacon a kiss. Know her? Deacon protested. I should say not! But he did know her. He had even taken something from her.

Carrie smiles and leans forward. She has anticipated that she will not be admitted to Mrs. Springer’s—no decent woman would be—so she’s taken Nettie’s most flamboyant dress, a yellow silk ball gown, and made it even more flamboyant by ripping out the panel of lace that covers the wearer’s bosom. Burning a bit of cork in a candle, she’s darkened her eyebrows and outlined her eyes. The red that glows on her lips and cheeks comes from the box of paints she uses to make botanical drawings.

Pulling off her gold earrings, she presses them into the maid’s hand. “Please let me in,” she says. “I won’t be a moment.” The maid inspects the earrings, lifts one to her lips, bites down on it, and nods.

Later, Carrie cannot recall much about the interior of Mrs. Springer’s establishment except that it is tastefully decorated. There are no garish chandeliers or purple velvet drapes, only a well-appointed entryway with a brass umbrella stand, and beyond it a room that is like the parlor of any respectable home except that it features a gaming table covered in green felt. Five people sit around the table engrossed in cards. Carrie recognizes two as pro-slavery senators, two are complete strangers, and the one with his back to the door is her husband.

The men sitting around the table look startled. Throwing down their cards, the two senators beat a hasty retreat, no doubt hoping Carrie has not recognized them. Deacon ignores them. Walking into the front hall, he takes Carrie by the hand and leads her into the gaming room.

“A pleasure, ma’am,” they mutter. Behind the gaming table is a long sofa covered in yellow silk the exact shade of the dress Carrie is wearing. On it, sit three women dressed as elegantly as senator’s wives. Two are blondes. The third is the dark-haired girl with the mole on her upper lip. Carrie notices she has twined artificial violets in her hair.

Deacon follows Carrie’s gaze. “Lily,” he says, “come here. I want you to meet my wife.” He turns back to Carrie. “I suppose you are wondering who she is, yes? Well, since you’ve arrived unannounced, let me save you the trouble of asking: I own her.”

“Slavery is legal in Washington, Carolyn. By law Lily is only three-fifths human, so perhaps I’m only three-fifths despicable.” He shrugs. “In any event, the question is not how could I own her, but how I could have refused her. She was given to me by my father when I was—” He turns to the girl. “How old was I when the senator gave you to me, Lily?”

“That’s right, I was twenty-eight and Lily was twelve when I became her master. Don’t let her looks fool you. She’s a mustee. You don’t know what that is, do you? Well then, we must educate you. A mustee is one-eighth black. That’s all it takes. One drop of black blood and a female can legally be bought and sold like a horse; only a fine, fifteen-year-old mustee like Lily brings in considerably more income than a racehorse. I rent her out, you see. Or at least I did until I married you. Now I have enough money to keep her to myself. Lily, thank Mrs. Presgrove.”

Carrie looks at Lily and feels such a mix of anger and despair she cannot speak. The girl, who is little more than a child, is obviously a Presgrove. The family features are evident in her face, her hands, the way she holds her head. Even her eyes are the same clear green as Deacon’s.

She turns away and stares at the grease-smeared cards on the table, the poker chips stacked in toppling piles, the half-emptied glasses of whiskey, the cigar butts stubbed out in brass ashtrays. She came here this evening to let Deacon know she was carrying his child and give him an opportunity to tell her the truth so perhaps, for the sake of that child, they could go on being married. She expected him to lie, grow angry, even tell her to leave; but she never expected him to introduce her to his sister.

“Set her free? She’s worth over two thousand dollars, and on a good night she brings in thirty more. Someday I may lose her at cards like a gentleman, but I’ll be damned if I’ll give her away just to make my wife feel virtuous. Go home, Carolyn, and stop meddling in things you don’t understand.”

Carrie takes a cab back to Georgetown, lets herself in the back door of the house, walks upstairs to her bedroom, takes off the yellow silk dress, and scrubs the red paint and burned cork off her face. She still has no idea what to do, but one thing is certain: She cannot let her child grow up with Deacon Presgrove as a father.

She spends the rest of the night weighing her options. By the time the smell of coffee drifts up from the kitchen, she has come up with a plan for her life that does not include Deacon. To make it work, she will have to start by getting some ready cash. That part at least is easy. Deacon has a gold cigar case that he has left out on the dresser in plain sight. Perhaps he bought it or won it at poker. In any event, it’s quite valuable. As soon as the shops open, she’ll drive into Washington and pawn it. Then she’ll buy a train ticket to Boston where she’ll sell the rest of the orchids to Mordecai de Gelder. De Gelder was one of her father’s best customers. He made a fortune supplying boots to the military during the Mexican War, and his enthusiasm for orchids knows no bounds. He even has a glasshouse attached to his mansion. If she offers him half a dozen rare orchids in one lot, he’ll pay her perhaps as much as five thousand dollars.

Once she’s settled in Boston, she’ll look for some way to support herself and her child. Perhaps she’ll be able to teach botany in a female seminary or work in the herbarium at Harvard. Herbariums don’t usually hire women, but she is Canan Vinton’s daughter, and perhaps that will be enough to convince them to bend the rules. In order to explain the fact that she’s with child, she’ll do what she should have done when she was carrying Willa: pose as a widow. She’ll even wear black. And if Deacon comes after her and tries to take the child from her? Well, she’ll deal with that if and when it happens.

Dashing cold water on her face, she puts on Nettie’s soberest day dress, and goes down to breakfast hoping Senator Presgrove will keep his promise not to dine with her. He doesn’t put in an appearance, and she eats in peace, fortifying herself with coffee, pancakes, and bacon, and then running upstairs to be sick. By the time she has finished and is rinsing out her mouth, any lingering doubts she has about being with child have disappeared.

Slipping the gold cigar case into her reticule, she goes back downstairs and calls for the carriage. It’s just rolling up when a man appears with a message from the director of the Botanic Garden requesting she drop by his office at her earliest convenience.

“Mr. Howard also said to let you know this concerns a Mr. William . . . Bless me if I can remember his last name. A ‘Mr. William’ and a last name that has something to do with the ocean.” He frowns. “Please don’t tell Mr. Howard about me forgetting the man’s last name. Say, are you all right? Because, ma’am, forgive me for remar kin’ on it, but you’re lookin’ kinda pale.”