Frances hoped Elizabeth knew what she was doing.
Robert believed that the Bradwells had ruined Bellevue as a place of healing for his mother, and although Dr. Patterson had asserted in his letter to the Chicago Tribune that he believed her still to be insane, he was willing, even eager, for his patient to depart. Frances suspected that his agreement with Robert’s assessment was for his own comfort rather than Mary’s well-being, but she could not blame him for desiring a respite from the Bradwells, their persistent agitating, and the onslaught of publicity they had brought down upon him.
Even though Dr. Patterson believed Mary ought to depart at once, Robert prudently sought a second opinion. At his request, Dr. Andrew McFarland, the superintendent of the Jacksonville, Illinois, State Hospital for the Insane, traveled to Bellevue to examine his mother. Dr. McFarland insisted that Mary required the serenity, quietude, and expert care of an asylum for at least a few more months if there was to be any reasonable hope of restoring her sanity. He perceived no good that could result from a visit to Springfield other than to gratify her ardent wish to go, the seed of which apparently had been planted in her mind by others. “My fear is that as soon as she is beyond the control of the present guardians of her safety, the desire for further adventure will take possession of her mind,” Dr. McFarland warned. “Desires which, if acted upon, may prove hazardous to the patient.”
Robert had sent a copy of the doctor’s report to Elizabeth and Ninian, and they in turn had shared it with Frances and Ann. Given Dr. McFarland’s emphatic recommendations, Frances assumed that Robert would decide to leave Mary where she was until she was completely recovered, while also banishing the Bradwells so they could no longer influence her. To her astonishment, he instead arranged for his mother to travel to Springfield, and for Elizabeth to receive her. Still cautious, Dr. Patterson imposed two conditions before consenting to her release: Mary would remain under a nurse’s care while traveling and throughout her visit, and she must sever all communications with the Bradwells.
Privately, Frances and Ann agreed that moving Mary from the asylum to the Edwards residence was reckless and potentially dangerous. “Must Mary always have everything she wants, even if it is harmful to her?” said Ann, exasperated. “If Dr. Patterson can no longer help her, then send her to another asylum, but don’t make her poor Elizabeth’s burden.”
“Elizabeth has always believed that Mary would be better off in a private home,” Frances reminded her, “where she can be cared for by someone who loves her.”
“Well, that leaves only Elizabeth, doesn’t it?” Ann retorted.
Frances recoiled, stung. She too loved Mary, and she had to believe that deep down Ann did as well. Frances had not offered to take Mary into her home only because she believed her sister was better off at Bellevue. She was motivated by love as much as Elizabeth was; they simply disagreed about what was best for Mary.
Sometimes Frances wondered if she was the only Todd sister who remembered how Mary had agonized over where to go after Abraham’s tragic death ten years before. His successor, President Andrew Johnson, had allowed the grieving widow to remain at the White House for more than a month after the Executive Mansion passed to him—an act of great courtesy, Frances had thought at the time, and still believed, even though subsequent events had sparked her keen dislike of the man. Estranged from her sisters, Mary had not summoned any of them to comfort her in her distress, so they learned secondhand that when obliged to leave Washington, she had adamantly refused to move back into the house she still owned on Eighth and Jackson in Springfield, where she and Abraham had embarked upon married life. The house was too full of memories of happier years with her husband, she had written to their cousin Betsey, and if she tried to live there, “deprived of his presence, and that of the darling boy we lost in Washington, it would not require a single day for me to lose my reason entirely.” A few years later, Mrs. Keckly had recorded in her memoir—which Frances and Ann had secretly read, against Mary’s wishes and Robert’s—that Mary had vowed never to return to Springfield until she was wrapped in a shroud to be laid to rest in the tomb beside her husband. “May heaven speed that day,” she had added fervently, words that had pained Frances to read. She too had lost her husband and had buried two children—her youngest, dear fifteen-year-old Charles, only a year before—yet she did not yearn for death. How could two sisters face similar heartbreak so differently, one with resigned determination to press on, the other with a melancholic longing for it all to be over?
Mary’s claims about her circumstances, then and now, were full of contradictions. Frances knew for a fact that not all of Mary’s memories of Springfield could be happy—far from it—nor was the house on Eighth and Jackson the first that Mary and Abraham had shared as husband and wife. That abode, which Mary euphemistically called “cozy” and “quaint” in letters to distant friends who would never see it, was the same humble room at the Globe Tavern that Frances and William had rented as newlyweds. At four dollars a week for lodging and board, it was inexpensive and clean, but those were its only redeeming qualities, for it was neither private nor comfortable, nor quiet. Several stagecoach companies rented offices in the building, and whenever a stage arrived, a large bell on the roof would peal loudly just above the startled tenants’ heads. Legislators and lawyers who had come to town for the season gathered in the public rooms downstairs, loud and gregarious from morning until late into the night. Lodgers were required to take their meals together in a common dining room at specific hours, regardless of individual schedules or preferences. Frances and William had tolerated the Globe with good humor and by assuring each other that it was only temporary, but Mary had loathed the place as much as Abraham had enjoyed it, accustomed as he was to hard travel and the communal board of the circuit court.
Although they could not afford a fine home, Mary had resolved to appear in society as if a hilltop mansion like her eldest sister’s was the Lincolns’ natural habitat and destiny. Within days of their wedding, she had commenced polishing her rough diamond of a husband, sending him to the tailor to have new clothes made—better-fitting than any he had purchased before, made of finer fabrics—and endeavoring to rid him of his gauche country manners, such as eating butter with his knife, coming to the dinner table in his shirtsleeves, or putting on his hat “country fashion,” with his hand on the back of the brim. Abe had earnestly tried to go along with her plan to remake his “outward show,” but he had often reverted to his old habits, making the aristocratic Mary’s temper flare. Once, after she had spoiled an afternoon tea with her sisters at Elizabeth’s house with her interminable complaints, Ann had interjected sharply, “If I had a husband with a mind such as his, I would not care what he wore or which fork he chose.”
“You’re right, of course,” Mary had said, contrite. “It is foolish, the way I complain about very small things.”
And yet after a respite of hours or days, her exasperated lamentations would resume.
Frances thought that both of her sisters were correct, up to a point. It seemed petty to complain about Abe’s occasional irksome, homespun turns of phrase when virtually every man in the legislature marveled at his eloquence when he spoke on matters of law, and yet without the attire and manners of a cultivated gentleman, he would not be taken seriously and it would be far more difficult for him to rise. And rise Mary had been determined to do, perhaps as high as Aristocracy Hill, perhaps higher.
Despite her aspirations, it was at the Globe that, in August 1843, Mary had borne their first child—Robert Todd Lincoln, Papa’s namesake. Frances would have helped her with the baby, but she had a young child of her own by then and William had often been ill. If she and Mary had been closer, Frances probably would have found a way to care for Mary too, and in hindsight she wished she had, for it might have brought them closer together. Instead, Mary had relied upon a hired girl and the wife of one of Abe’s friends, who had visited every now and then to tidy up or to watch the baby while Mary rested or caught up on other chores. Their help had been even more essential after Abraham had set out on the court circuit again, leaving Mary almost entirely alone with a newborn for more than six weeks.
She must have been terribly lonely, Frances reflected guiltily. She wished she had not been so absorbed in her own cares and had found time to attend to her sister. It was entirely possible that Mary would have gratefully accepted assistance, or even simple companionship, but had been too proud to ask for them.
As autumn had turned to winter, little Robert’s nighttime cries, though no louder or more frequent than any other baby’s, had begun to annoy the other residents of the boardinghouse, mostly single men unaccustomed to children. In January 1844, aware that they had worn out their welcome and badly needing more space and a kitchen of their own, Abraham and Mary had purchased a modest home from Reverend Dresser, a five-room Greek Revival cottage only a few blocks from Abraham’s law office, with a woodshed, a privy, and space for a carriage. It boasted none of the luxuries of Elizabeth’s home or even Frances’s, but it was sturdily built and a place of their own where Mary at last had room to breathe.
Once she was fully the mistress of her own home, Mary had set about redecorating the cottage—a more compliant subject for her improvement schemes than her husband had proven to be. Frances remembered being impressed by how Mary had transformed the cottage into a genteel, comfortable home with shrewd purchases of furniture, household goods, and yards of inexpensive calico from which she herself sewed curtains, tablecloths, and the like. Twelve years later, when Abe’s legal practice was thriving, the Lincolns had enlarged and remodeled their home, transforming it into the gracious showplace Mary had long desired. Of all the places she had called home, only the White House was grander.
Frances knew that despite what Mary had said as she reluctantly prepared to leave Washington, the memories she, Abe, and their children had forged in the cottage were not all happy but rather a mix of sunlight and shadow. They had celebrated the glorious news of Abe’s 1846 election to Congress in the parlor, but they had also returned to it, discouraged and facing an uncertain future, when he had lost his bid for reelection after a single, disappointing term. Their second child, a son they named Edward, had been born in 1846 in the cottage, the same place where, three and a half years later, he died of diphtheria. And then, a year later, the home witnessed the return of hope and happiness when Mary birthed another son, named William Wallace after Frances’s husband, who had tended Eddie so tirelessly throughout his fatal illness. A little more than two years after that, they had welcomed their fourth and last son—Thomas, soon to be nicknamed Tad—in the same room where two of his elder brothers had been born. Their happy, rambunctious brood was complete, and the indulgent parents had watched their boys grow, full of hope and worry and anticipation for their future.
Happy memories indeed had been made beneath that roof, but Abe had been gone ten years, and Willie and Tad too had joined their father and elder brother Eddie in death. It was little wonder that Mary, shattered by grief and facing a bleak future, had so adamantly refused to return to the cottage after leaving the White House—and stranger still that she dared to return now to Springfield, with her nerves in as fragile a state as they had been since that terrible April of 1865.
Frances pondered the curious contradiction. Perhaps, despite what Mary had said a decade before, it was only her former home she dreaded, not Springfield itself. The once-cherished house would remind her too painfully of the loved ones she had lost, while the Edwards residence had only happy associations, as it had been the scene of her glorious coming out in Springfield society and of her wedding, where she had pledged her heart forever to her one great love. As for Elizabeth, despite their estrangement, she surely remained a figure of maternal love and consolation for Mary, as she did for all the siblings she had helped raise after their mother’s death.
If regarded from that perspective, Mary’s urgent need to seek refuge at Elizabeth’s house, which she had once been invited to consider her own for as long as she liked, was entirely logical and rational, not the strange, urgent impulse of a deranged mind, but a natural yearning to come home. Elizabeth’s willingness to take in a troubled, fragile sister from whom she had long been estranged was more difficult to understand.
But coming Mary was. Frances and Ann were uncertain how to help Elizabeth manage. When they hesitantly asked if she wanted them to be present to welcome Mary when she arrived, Elizabeth pondered the question before shaking her head. “I believe we should allow her to settle in quietly, with as little excitement as possible,” she said. “Too much fanfare might overexcite her.”
“But Mary always liked to have a fuss made over her,” Ann objected mildly, but Frances agreed with Elizabeth, so it was decided that Frances and Ann would come for tea on the second day after Mary’s arrival. If Mary seemed well enough to attempt a more ambitious gathering, Ann’s husband and the sisters’ adult children could join them for dinner the next week.
On September 10, after four months at Bellevue Place, Mary left the asylum in the watchful care of a female attendant. They traveled by coach to Chicago, where they met Robert at the station and boarded the train for Springfield. Dr. McFarland had arranged for a nurse to come to the Edwards residence the next day; she would sleep in the room next to Mary’s and care for her throughout her visit. For this was a visit, everyone involved emphasized; it was not a relocation, but an experiment to see how Mary fared outside the sheltering walls of the asylum.
Later that day, Frances heard the train whistle, glanced at the mantel clock, and felt her heart thud at the realization that Mary and Robert had arrived. The rest of the day passed in curiosity and apprehension as she tried to imagine what was going on at the Edwards residence at various hours. Would Mary be calm or distraught? Had she and Elizabeth reconciled on sight, or were their conversations strained and redolent of old bitterness? Torn between impatience and dread, Frances was grateful for the message Elizabeth sent over later that evening to assure her that Mary had arrived safely and had settled comfortably into her former room. The next morning her thoughtful eldest sister sent her maid with another note to report that Mary had slept well, had eaten a healthy breakfast, and looked forward to seeing her and Ann the next day.
Frances’s nerves fluttered at the very thought of it.
On the afternoon of September 12, Ann came by for Frances in her carriage; it was out of her way, but a light rain was falling, enough to make Frances’s walk most unpleasant. The sisters said little as they rode through the city and up Aristocracy Hill to the Edwards residence, which they knew almost as well as their own. “Do you think she’ll make a scene?” Frances asked nervously as the carriage halted in the raked gravel drive.
“Mary always makes a scene,” said Ann, adjusting her gloves. “The only question is how dreadful it will be.”
“Or how pleasant,” protested Frances. “Mary can be very charming when she wishes.”
Ann gazed heavenward and stepped down from the carriage. “That was years ago, when it was necessary,” she said, turning around to see if Frances needed a steadying hand as she descended.
So helpful to one sister, so contemptuous of the other. Frances muffled a sigh as they approached the front door. She regretted that she had ever teamed up with Ann in teasing Mary or gossiping meanly about her behind her back. Frances had grown out of it, but apparently Ann never would.
If Ann had hoped to find Mary raving or in a stupor, she must have been sorely disappointed by the calm, quiet scene that unfolded in Elizabeth’s parlor when the four eldest Todd sisters took tea together for the first time in years. Mary’s lustrous chestnut brown hair had gone gray, and her once-sparkling blue eyes seemed tired and puffy. She greeted them kindly, but with reserve, somewhere between the familiarity of a sister and the gracious condescension of a first lady. Ninian had forewarned Frances not to mention the asylum, so instead she asked Mary—carefully, obliquely—how she was feeling.
“A bit tired from travel,” Mary replied, offering a wry smile, “but otherwise, perfectly sane.”
Heartened by the bit of humor, Frances smiled back.
Mary inquired politely about their children and grandchildren, and they asked about hers. When Mary mentioned that Robert had departed on the morning train to Chicago due to an urgent matter at his law office, Frances detected not a trace of resentment or hostility in her sister’s voice. Mary smiled and even laughed when she recounted an amusing anecdote about Robert’s eldest, Mamie, and she listened with keen interest to news of old friends from Springfield with whom she had lost touch. Sometimes she fidgeted or wrung her hands, and twice she started in her chair and looked over her shoulder as if she had heard a door slam or a glass shatter, but otherwise she seemed mostly fine, albeit tired, as she herself had admitted.
They parted with embraces and promises to meet again soon. Since the tea had gone so smoothly, Frances was not surprised when the next day she received an invitation summoning herself, Mary Jane, Will, Fanny, and Ed to a family dinner at the Edwards residence the following Tuesday.
Robert returned to Springfield for the occasion, which, defying expectations, turned out to be a perfectly delightful evening. True, Robert kept a watchful eye on his mother throughout the evening, as if he feared that at any moment she might burst into a frenzy of accusations or weeping, but Mary remained composed throughout, an ideal guest, grateful to be among the company and to receive such kind attention from her hostess.
“Her good behavior cannot last,” Ann predicted as Clark helped first her and then Frances into their carriage for the ride home. And yet one day passed and then another without any sign that it would not. With her grandnephew Lewis as her escort, Mary took walks and went for carriage rides; she delighted in visits from extended family and a few trusted, longtime friends; she came to tea at Frances’s house and was invited to dine with Clark and Ann at their home. All the while, it seemed to Frances, she, her sisters, and their husbands held their breath and hoped that everything would continue to go well. To their surprise and relief, everything did. In fact, Mary seemed to improve day by day.
“You could not have known this visit would go so well,” Frances said to Elizabeth one afternoon. She had arrived early for tea on purpose, so that she might speak to her elder sister alone. “After everything we had read in the papers about her condition, as well as the doctors’ recommendations that she remain in the asylum, why did you allow her to come?”
Elizabeth spread her hands, brow furrowing. “Habit, I suppose? I’m the eldest. I’ve looked after her since I was little more than a child myself. Why not now, when she most needs me?”
“You had every reason to decline,” Frances countered. “Two expert doctors advised against allowing her to travel. There must have been more to your decision than mere habit.”
Suddenly, tears sprang into her elder sister’s eyes. “Perhaps I am more inclined to sympathize with Mary because I believe that insanity, while new to our family line, is not restricted to her.”
“What do you mean?”
“No one ever speaks of it, but our grandfather, Levi Owen Todd, died in an asylum.”
Frances studied her, uncomprehending. “No, he died in a hospital, of consumption.”
Elizabeth shook her head, her expression bleak. “That is the most widely known story. Papa and Grandma Parker shared a different version with me. I thought perhaps they had told you as well.”
“They never breathed a word, not to me.” Frances pressed a hand to her brow, shaken. She would have gone to her grave believing a lie.
Elizabeth clasped her hands together at her waist, bracing herself. “I have also observed signs of madness in my own dear Julia.”
Frances gasped and reached for her hand. “No, not Julia?”
Elizabeth squeezed her hand tightly and nodded, a tear trickling down her cheek. “I suspected it first when she was only thirteen,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Melancholia and mania that came and swiftly passed, only to return as if with the seasons. Her symptoms worsened with the birth of each child, and they were severely felt by all those around her, particularly by her husband and myself.”
“But—but she must be doing well, if she has been allowed to accompany Edward to his posting abroad, so far from home—”
“Yes, truly, she has been quite well in recent years.” Elizabeth took a deep, shaky breath. “But one never knows. I live in dread that her dark moods will come upon her again and this time linger forever. How can I abandon Mary when one day I might need a sister or a cousin to do for my own beloved child what Mary requires of me now?”
Wordlessly, Frances embraced her, stroking her back soothingly so that Elizabeth could compose herself before their other sisters arrived. She had never imagined that such unhappy secrets afflicted Elizabeth. Now her decision to take Mary in made perfect sense—and yet it did not make it seem any wiser. Had Elizabeth put emotion before safety in disregarding the explicit warnings of Dr. Patterson and Dr. McFarland?
Throughout Mary’s visit, Elizabeth kept Robert apprised of his mother’s condition through daily letters describing her habits and moods. “I can truly say that she has not appeared to better advantage in years than she does now,” she wrote to him at the end of the first week. The experiment appeared to be succeeding, and Frances knew that Robert had begun to wonder whether perhaps his mother would be more likely to recover her reason at the Edwards residence than at Bellevue Place.
On September 20, he asked Dr. Patterson to reexamine his mother and advise him.
“I am not able to report much change in the mental condition of Mrs. Lincoln since you last saw her,” Dr. Patterson wrote in a letter Robert later shared with his aunts. “I do not hesitate to say that as a result of her communication with Judge and Mrs. Bradwell, she became worse; and since they have ceased their visits and letters, she is again better and improving.” With regard to her permanent transfer from Bellevue Place to her sister’s home, since Mary had complied with all of the conditions imposed upon her for the visit, Dr. Patterson acknowledged that an extended stay ought to be attempted.
With that, Mary’s return to the asylum was postponed indefinitely—even though, as Frances noted apprehensively, not once had Dr. Patterson claimed that she was cured.