At long last, JoBeth’s large trunk, battered, badly handled on its circuitous journey, finally arrived from Hillsboro. That it had come at all Caroline Hobbs declared a minor miracle, considering the “fortunes of war.” It was scuffed, scratched, its leather straps worn, the brass locks rusted. Luckily, it had been well-made, and the contents were all safely intact.
JoBeth spent the day unpacking and putting away the embroidered petticoats, dainty camisoles, handkerchiefs, the peach dressing gown with its lace ruffles. She took a long time going over each dress before hanging it up in the armoire, contemplating where and on what occasion she might wear it. She lingered especially over the hyacinth blue velvet ballgown, fingering the folds. As she held it up to herself in front of the mirror, she remembered the last time she had worn it. It had been last Christmas, and she had danced with Curtis Channing.
Where would she ever wear it again? Perhaps a military ball here in Washington. For sure, if she ever did wear this gown again, she would most certainly dance with a soldier in a uniform of another color.
That possibility seemed dim. Wes worked long hours, came home weary. He often came home dejected from all the gloomy news he heard during the day, and it took all JoBeth’s efforts to cheer him. The idea of any kind of social life for them seemed out of the question. Besides, just now a period of pessimism hung over the capital city. Things looked dark. The war was not going well. The North had lost its easy optimism about winning. Rumors were rife, morale was low. The draft for men was digging deep, dragging the bottom of the barrel for soldiers, taking all comers, including Irish and German immigrants straight off the boat who couldn’t even speak English. The president was criticized at every turn, the generals were fighting among themselves, the Congress was in disarray.
The chance for any social occasion that would call for such a dress seemed remote. JoBeth sighed, putting the gown carefully away.
However, sooner than she could have imagined, an unexpected social opportunity came. To her complete surprise, Wes announced that they had been included in an invitation with Major Meredith’s staff to attend one of Mrs. Lincoln’s receptions. They were also invited to dinner at the Merediths’ home before going to the White House.
JoBeth was beside herself with excitement. To think she would actually meet the president! Until she came to Washington, he had only been a shadowy figure to her, someone whose name she had heard denounced and vilified almost daily. Since then she had seen his name, headlines and articles about him, caricatures or cartoons of him, with regularity in the city’s newspapers.
Mrs. Hobbs revered him greatly. When JoBeth told her of their invitation, she was as excited as JoBeth had ever seen the lady. Hearing his praises sung by Mrs. Hobbs when they worked together on the quilts had given JoBeth a different view of the president. She was curious to see him firsthand and form her own opinion.
JoBeth would have liked writing to her mother about all she was seeing, observing, doing. But since delivery of letters to the South was uncertain at best, she decided to start keeping a journal again. That way after the war, she would have a record of the places she went, the people she met, the things she could not tactfully or safely put in her letters. Certainly, going to the White House would be one such event she would have liked to share with her mother. JoBeth knew that Aunt Josie would faint if she knew to what “special occasion” her niece would wear one of the lovely outfits her own seamstress had made for her.
“Be careful not to outshine Madame President!” Mrs. Hobbs warned JoBeth when told of the invitation. “She don’t like to be outdone in fashion—or anything else, for that matter. Especially by a pretty young woman like yourself.”
Privately JoBeth doubted that the First Lady would give her a second look or a second thought. However, she did choose her dress carefully. A simple dusty rose silk, over which she wore a deeper-rose velvet jacket with a fan-shaped collar.
When Wes and JoBeth stepped into the entry hall at the Merediths’ townhouse that evening, their wraps were taken by a rosy-cheeked Irish maid in a ruffled cap and apron over a black dress, just as Major and Mrs. Meredith came to greet them warmly. The major’s wife, Frances, was equally as gracious as he. Taking JoBeth by the arm, she led her into the drawing room, where several well-coifed, elegantly dressed ladies and an impressive group of officers in dress uniforms shining with medals were already assembled.
She introduced her to a lady in purple taffeta lavishly trimmed with Belgian lace, who was seated on a satin-upholstered sofa. Then the major’s wife called to welcome another group of arriving guests and left JoBeth there.
“What a lovely home,” JoBeth remarked—a safe opening line she had been taught to use when starting a conversation with a fellow guest who was a total stranger.
The woman turned ice blue eyes upon her. “Do I detect a slight Southern accent?”
A little taken aback, JoBeth answered, “Yes, I am from North Carolina.”
The woman moved her skirt an imperceptible inch. “How unfortunate! I’ve heard the city is filled with ‘secesshes.'” With that the woman unfurled her fan and turned away, picking up the thread of the conversation she had been conducting with the woman on the other side of her.
JoBeth did not know whether to be insulted, amused, or grateful. Had the comment meant she was unfortunate to be from the South and far from home? Or unfortunate to be from the South when her husband was a Union officer? Or simply unfortunate on general terms? She certainly had not expected such blatant rudeness in such elegant company. She did not have a chance to either think of an appropriate retort or get up and move, because just then a splendid-looking officer bowed before her, saying, “I must be addressing Lieutenant Rutherford’s charming bride?”
His flattering manner and the frank admiration in his eyes as he bent over her extended hand made JoBeth forget the enigmatic remark of the lady beside her. “May I introduce myself?” the officer said. “I’m one of your husband’s fellow officers, Lieutenant Marsden Carlyle. May I have the honor of escorting you in to dinner?” He added with a smile, “I have your husband’s permission.”
At the table, JoBeth was seated between Lieutenant Carlyle and another officer. Wes was seated across from her, far down the other side of the table. Every so often he glanced approvingly over at her. It had been such a long time since she had been out socially, but JoBeth soon got the knack of it again. She recalled the advice Aunt Josie had given her before her very first dancing party: “If you can’t think of anything to say, just tilt your head to one side, gaze intently at whomever happens to be speaking, look interested. It never fails. It is flattering to people to think you actually care about their opinions. Whatever they are.”
As it turned out, JoBeth needn’t have worried. Both men proved to be amusing conversationalists and flatteringly attentive.
After dinner, carriages rolled up to the front of the house, and the party divided into groups of four and left for the White House. Wes’s approving look and smile as they left their hosts assured JoBeth that she had “passed muster” at her first Washington dinner party.
JoBeth felt as if she had swallowed a bunch of butterflies when they drove up to the imposing white mansion. Alighting from the carriage in front of the porticoed entrance, Wes held out his arm, and together they went up the steps, into the foyer, then on into the grand drawing room.
Late that night, JoBeth could not go to bed until she had written about her evening in her journal. She did not want to forget a single detail.
I feel like the cat who went to visit the queen in the old nursery rhyme. Although we are a republic and not supposed to be in awe of royalty, I suppose going to the White House is as close as I’ll ever come to such magnificence.
The White House has been newly refurbished, I was told, and there has been much malicious gossip about “Madame President’s” extravagant expenditures for new velvet drapes and Italian carpeting. But the Green Room, where the reception was held tonight, is truly splendid.
Mrs. Lincoln, in comparison to her tall, rangy husband, appears very small indeed. Her gown was quite lavish—grenadine over silk, the bodice trimmed with point lace—and her hair was dressed with artificial roses. She may have been considered attractive as a young woman—her coloring is very vivid: bright blue eyes, rich mahogany-brown hair—but I found her animation forced, her manner of speech affected. What once might have been a “pleasing plumpness,” at age forty-three has grown to fat. I thought her flushed face and rather petulant expression most unattractive.
Here JoBeth paused and reread what she had just written. She hadn’t meant to be unkind, just truthful. There was something about Mrs. Lincoln that she couldn’t quite define. An artificiality, a buried hostility she could not quite conceal, as though she viewed everyone—mainly young, attractive women—with slight suspicion. JoBeth had felt quite chilled as those blue diamond eyes fixed themselves upon her for a few seconds, and then the president’s wife had given a prim little smile and held out her gloved fingers to JoBeth, who pressed them lightly, murmuring, “Good evening, Mrs. Lincoln,” then moved down the line.
Although JoBeth knew that Mrs. Hobbs’s unfavorable opinion was drawn largely from journalists who did not like the First Lady, she remembered Mrs. Hobbs’s comment. After observing Mrs. Lincoln in person, JoBeth could not help but agree that there might be some truth in the rumor.
Her impression of the president was quite different. She looked into a face that was gaunt, deeply etched with lines, the eyes deep-set and dark, the expression of wisdom, sorrow, giving him the appearance of both determination and vulnerability. In the midst of all the music, the merriment, that flowed around him, he seemed to be troubled, brooding. She was too much in awe to do more than touch his hand briefly and move on. For some reason, she had felt drawn to turn and look back at him and was moved to instant sympathy. What burdens must be his to carry, what responsibility—the lives of so many to be lost or spared at his command.
JoBeth continued to write.
It was the person of Kate Chase Sprague (our landlady’s “ideal”), the daughter of the secretary of the treasury, who quite outshone Madame President, in my opinion. A truly beautiful young woman with a slender, graceful figure, magnolia white skin, hair glinting with bronze lights, she was dressed in a lovely apricot satin dress and seemed always to be surrounded by admiring gentlemen.