MY BROTHER’S WIFE
People teased that I was in love with Libbie but that was nonsense. My beloved fiancée, Lulie, was the ideal of womanhood to me, and if the fates had allowed I believe ours would have been as exemplary a union as Armstrong and Libbie’s.
George Armstrong Custer, Tom Custer, and Libbie Bacon Custer
As it was, they were the envy of all social circles they passed through, whether it be the high society in New York or the most primitive outpost in the Territories. The type of love that turned a blind eye to a companion’s faults. They found enjoyment in even the dullest moment if it was in each other’s company. Although Armstrong found plenty of excuses to be separate, he lived each act through Libbie’s eye, even bragging to her of his female admirers. She told me how it drove a knife in her heart, but she never let on to him. Jealousy was beneath them. Her love was the not so secret source of his confidence. He, lucky man, knew he could rely on her loyalty no matter the ups and downs of the soldier’s profession, or his philanderer’s successes.
* * *
LULIE WAS THE OPPOSITE OF LIBBIE. She reminded me of a summer morning, how the sun heated the flowers to intoxication. Skin pale, eyes the color of the clearest lake, hair like corn silk, it was as if she were an angel unfit for the rough existence on this earth. When I first met her she wore a white dress, and I don’t believe I ever saw her in any other color, but given her housebound, cloistered state, it well suited her otherworldliness. There was never a question that she could leave that house, much less Jersey City, much less the States, to live a frontier life such as Libbie had. She was much too rare.
Even as I held Lulie’s hand I knew that she could never withstand the rigors of motherhood. The idea of a man lying atop her was unthinkable. She seemed so frail and delicate her bones might break under the weight of passion, but still I proposed and still she consented. It was our fairy tale. She knew that I could just as little give up the roaming, adventurous life of the army to become her house companion, but our fanciful engagement fulfilled something in her girlish heart. The dream of a perfect union. Knowing it would be unrealized, it was never in danger of failing.
Comparison with Libbie was as inevitable as it was unfair. Libbie had as much beauty and refinement, but she also had fire in her heart. She was a Custer in her blood. The love between my brother and her was something to either admire, envy, or scorn, depending on your mood. I’ll say no more than if Libbie had been mine, I would never have caused her such pain. When the consumption finally ended Lulie’s too-short life, I mourned, and my beloved sister-in-law was there to dry my tears.