The First Lady and the Rebel Read online

  Also by Susan Higginbotham

  The Traitor’s Wife

  Hugh and Bess

  The Stolen Crown

  The Queen of Last Hopes

  Her Highness, the Traitor

  Hanging Mary

  Thank you for downloading this Sourcebooks eBook!

  You are just one click away from…

  • Being the first to hear about author happenings

  • VIP deals and steals

  • Exclusive giveaways

  • Free bonus content

  • Early access to interactive activities

  • Sneak peeks at our newest titles

  Happy reading!

  CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP

  Books. Change. Lives.

  Copyright © 2019 by Susan Higginbotham

  Cover and internal design © 2019 by Sourcebooks

  Cover design by Laura Klynstra

  Cover images © Lee Avison/Trevillion Images; White House viewed from the Potomac River about 1860. Hand-colored steel engraving/North Wind Picture; CoolVectorStock Archives/Alamy Stock Photo

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Apart from well-known historical figures, any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published by Sourcebooks Landmark, an imprint of Sourcebooks

  P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

  (630) 961-3900

  sourcebooks.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Higginbotham, Susan, author.

  Title: The First Lady and the rebel / Susan Higginbotham.

  Description: Naperville, Illinois : Sourcebooks Landmark, [2019]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019001134 | (trade pbk. : alk. paper)

  Subjects: LCSH: Lincoln, Mary Todd, 1818-1882--Fiction. | Helm, Emilie Todd, 1836-1930--Fiction. | Presidents’ spouses--Fiction. | GSAFD: Biographical fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3608.I364 F57 2019 | DDC 813/.6--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019001134

  Contents

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Reading Group Guide

  A Conversation with the Author

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Back Cover

  1

  Mary

  October 1839 to November 4, 1842

  The man she intended to marry had yet to learn about their future together, but she had already made up her mind.

  It was a pity, though, that she had been so bedraggled when they first saw each other, shortly after Mary arrived at her married sister Elizabeth’s house to pay an extended visit of the sort that was hoped by families to end in matrimony for the unmarried sister and quite often did. The trip from Mary’s home in Lexington, Kentucky, to Elizabeth’s in Springfield, Illinois, had taken over two weeks, and had involved nearly every means of transport known to man—rail, boat, coach, and even a stretch on foot when the coach hit a muddy patch. Mary had arrived at her sister’s house tired and out of sorts, and eager to take a nap and freshen up. Instead, she had found that Elizabeth, whose house drew anyone of any importance in Springfield, had company: their cousin John Todd Stuart and his law partner. So: a roomful of lawyers, who could be either the dullest people in existence or the most fascinating, depending on what they chose to speak about. Hoping for the latter, Mary had repaired her coach-worn appearance as best she could and entered the room.

  “Cousin!” John Stuart kissed her cheek, then shook hands with her father, who had been her escort on the journey. “We were just leaving, and I’m sure you’re glad of it after your long trip. We’ll stop by once you’re settled in. You didn’t meet Mr. Lincoln here on your last visit, did you?”

  “No,” Mary said. She gazed at the stranger in the room, a man of about thirty years of age who somewhat awkwardly extended his hand to her. “I would have remembered Mr. Lincoln.”

  He was certainly not a forgettable person. He was tall, well over six feet, a trait that Mary, at five feet two, usually found off-putting in a man. With this man, however, she scarcely cared that she had to tip her head up to look at him, for his face, sharp-edged and topped by a thatch of ill-tamed black hair, was well worth the effort. It was not a handsome face by any means, but after years of enduring the good-looking and vacuous young men of Lexington, Mary had concluded long ago that handsomeness was overrated. This man had character in his face—character and intelligence. She had never seen the like.

  But she could not simply stand there staring at Mr. Lincoln as if she were a practitioner of physiognomy. “I have heard of you, Mr. Lincoln, many times. Weren’t you the leader of the effort to get the state capital moved here?”

  Ninian Edwards, Mary’s brother-in-law, broke in before Mr. Lincoln, who had appeared at a loss for what to do after releasing Mary’s hand, could reply. “Miss Todd will talk politics like a man if you allow her.”

  “Why, yes I will,” said Mary. “It is unladylike, I grant you, but if we feel the effects of politics as much, if not more so, than you gentlemen, shall we not be allowed to take an interest in such a weighty subject? But you have not allowed Mr. Lincoln to answer my question, Brother Ninian.”

  “It was the work of many, Miss Todd,” Mr. Lincoln said. His voice was not deep, as Mary had expected, but peculiarly high-pitched, though Mary, on reflection, found it not to be displeasing. “But we have to be off, as Mr. Stuart says.”

  “Well,” said Mary. “Those many should be quite pleased with themselves, for Springfield has improved very much since I was here last. I expect it will be a regular metropolis when I next visit.”

  Mr. Lincoln nodded, then all but fled from the Edwardses’ parlor.

  * * *

  “You quite overwhelmed the man,” her sister Elizabeth said as she showed Mary to her room a little while later. “He scarcely says boo to us women in Springfield who have known him for some time, much less a complete stranger.”

  “I find him fascinating.” Mary began to unpack her trunk. In Lexington, a slave would already have accomplished that task, but it was clear that in Springfield she would have to fend for herself.

  “Five, six words, and you find him fascinating?”

  “He has mind, Elizabeth. I can tell that.”

  “Oh, mind.” Elizabeth snorted. “Well, he needs that, because he certainly does not have breeding. Did you not see how he was dressed? He must throw his clothes on in the pitch-darkness.”

  “I was not looking at his dress. I hope he comes back here soon so I can.”

  “He will; he’s here quite often, but if you want to hold a conversation with him, you’ll need to be prepared to do the talking yourself—if you’re a woman, at least. With the men, he can tell stories and idle time away for hours. But tell me, how is everyone at home?”

  “Oh, the same. Our stepmother sends us her kindest regards, not to mention her vast relief at having one less stepdaughter to plague her. Ann is as trying as ever, although she cheered up marvelously when I left upon finally getting to claim our room as hers. The little ones are driving Mammy Sally to distraction, and the baby is squalling as loud as he ever was. Levi’s habits do not improve.” Somewhat awkwardly, Mary shook out the gown she had just removed from her trunk. “Oh, and Emily was nearly kidnapped. The mite wandered off—probably as tired of the baby squalling as the rest of us—and a passing couple was so taken with her beauty, they took her home and kept her there until their minister happened to come by and impressed upon them that they were doing wrong! She is a lovely little thing.” Settling her chemises into a drawer, Mary asked in her most casual tone, “When do you think Mr. Lincoln will call?”

  “Soon,” said Elizabeth firmly. “Now, go lie down. You must be exhausted. Probably Mr. Lincoln won’t appear nearly as fascinating to you when you’ve had some rest.”

  Mary sighed but did not argue. She looked around the room, which had been occupied by her second oldest sister, Frances, until her marriage just a few months before, and saw that her bed had been turned down, but not with much care. White servants, wh
o she had learned from Elizabeth tended to do exactly as they pleased, would take some getting used to, just like the mud that filled the mostly unpaved streets of Springfield and that had slightly contaminated her dress despite her best efforts.

  The mattress she sank into was of excellent quality, as was everything in her sister’s household—no surprise, since Ninian Edwards was a former governor’s son, and his house, perched upon a hill at a slight distance from the heart of the town, was one of the best in Springfield. From her father, however, who told her everything, Mary had learned that all was not well with her brother-in-law, who was finding it hard to pay some of his bills. But the entire country had been in the doldrums due to the bank panic of two years before. Now that Springfield was the new capital—thanks in large part to this Mr. Lincoln—perhaps things would turn around for her brother-in-law.

  Her last visit to Springfield had been a short one, and had served its purpose well of allowing Mary to get a respite from a house full of half siblings, all of whom had inherited the Todd temper in varying degrees, and her stepmother. (Not that Mary was completely unsympathetic to Mrs. Todd, saddled with the task of raising the children from her husband’s first marriage while bearing her own children at almost mechanical intervals.) This visit was different: with Frances married, it was time for Mary, the next sister in line, to do the same, especially as she was nearly twenty-one—by no means at the age where society would declare her doomed to spinsterhood, but still at a point of life where she had to be thinking of her prospects.

  She had utter confidence that she would find a husband. Although it was true that suitors had not exactly been lining up by her father’s study in Lexington, Mary had never given any of the men there a thought, much less any encouragement. She considered them shallow; no doubt they believed her to be peculiar, with her habit of saying what she thought and her unladylike interest in politics. But what did it matter? Springfield, small but pushing, was where her future lay. In Lexington, men lounged; in Springfield, they strove. Those were the sort of men that caught her fancy.

  And none of them, she suspected, strove as much as Mr. Lincoln.

  It was foolish for her to think, on such short acquaintance, that he was the husband for her. But while she didn’t know him, she did know of him. She knew that her cousin, a fine lawyer, had taken him on as a junior partner, which he would hardly do if the man didn’t have promise. She knew that Mr. Lincoln had led the group of legislators who had battled to move the Illinois capital to Springfield—no mean undertaking considering how unpromising the city had looked just a couple of years ago. (Even today, as Mary’s stagecoach had pulled up alongside the new American House Hotel, a contingent of hogs had been near the door to greet the passengers.) And while he might not have breeding, the fact that he was received in her brother-in-law’s parlor showed that he had other qualities, for Ninian Edwards would not let just anyone into his fine house. And it had taken something to get in the legislature in the first place.

  What might such a man accomplish with her as a wife? Mary settled to sleep, smiling at the possibilities.

  * * *

  But Mr. Lincoln did not come to the Edwards house the next day, nor the day afterward. Mary asked her sister and brother-in-law about him, only once or twice, so not as to seem overly interested, but they could say little except that he was a busy man who did not socialize much in the evenings.

  She had plenty of time, anyway, Mary thought. No point of rushing into these things.

  In the meantime, she visited her sister Frances, now Mrs. Wallace, who was boarding with her husband in the Globe Tavern. Four dollars a week bought the newlyweds a room, with meals included and the cacophony of coaches coming and going. “Granted, it’s not what I was accustomed to,” Frances said, waving Mary to a seat in the corner that served as the couple’s sitting room. “But it’s better than I expected. I was in tears when Dr. Wallace told me we would be living in a boardinghouse.”

  “I can see why,” Mary admitted. The room was clean, with all the requisite furnishings, and Frances had been in it long enough to add some of her own touches, but the comforts that Mary and her sisters were accustomed to from their home in Lexington and their sister Elizabeth’s home—a floor gleaming with polish, silver on the sideboards, servants within call—were missing. “Still, at least you don’t have to cook or clean.”

  Frances leaned forward. “Actually,” she said in a low voice, “I do help out occasionally. There are so few women here at the moment, and I would be frightfully bored when Dr. Wallace is gone if I do not.”

  “Goodness,” Mary said. She was an expert seamstress, having decided some years ago to acquire the art of fine sewing rather than to trust others to emulate the fashion plates she so admired, but cooking and cleaning were tasks that she was quite happy to leave to the servants, white or black. She repressed a shudder.

  She had evidently not repressed it well enough, though, for Frances said, “Sister, if you marry a man like that Mr. Lincoln, you may find yourself doing such tasks.”

  “Who said that I planned to marry him?”

  “Well, Elizabeth said you were interested, and you do have a way of getting what you set your mind on.”

  “Fair enough. But I’ve only seen him once, and for all I know, he may not improve upon acquaintance.”

  “He’s agreeable enough,” Frances said, almost coquettishly.

  “Why, do you know him?” Mary’s eyes widened. “He did not court you, did he?”

  “No. Mr. Edwards spoke of him so much, I asked him to invite him over, and we walked out together once or twice. He appeared to enjoy my company, but he put forth no effort into putting our acquaintance on a higher level, and when Dr. Wallace took an interest in me, that was that.”

  Mary nodded, concealing her inward sigh of relief.

  It would not have done to be the second Todd sister of choice.

  * * *

  In December, the legislature met in Springfield for the first time, its members traveling by coach because the railway had not yet come to town and meeting wherever a body of men could squeeze in because the capitol building had yet to be completed. The pigs were no less intrusive, but they had to share the muddy streets now with the state’s politicians. The legislators filled the American House, spilling over to the parlors of the Globe Tavern, where Frances found her slumbers sometimes being interrupted by the sound of brawling politicians.

  With the legislature had come the rain, which for days upon end alternated between downpours and drizzles, occasionally mixing with a few bedraggled snowflakes. Because venturing upon the streets would have been the ruination of their gowns and slippers, those ladies who could afford to stay inside did so, sending their servants to do their marketing.

  Mary could not have endured this had she not found a new friend: Mercy Levering, who had come from Baltimore to stay with her brother, Lawrason Levering, who lived next door to the Edwardses. Mary took to Mercy instantly: the young women were of an age, both were from more established cities than Springfield (although Mary had to cede Baltimore’s superiority to Lexington in that respect), and both were from aristocratic families. Even better, Mercy had quickly acquired a suitor, a lawyer named James Conkling, and could safely appreciate Mr. Lincoln’s virtues without aspiring to him herself.

  But even Mercy’s company had begun to pale after a week of rain, and Mary was itching to get back to town. That was when Mary, having dashed from her house to Mercy’s, spied a pile of shingles on the porch, left there, she supposed, by some workman. “Mercy! I’ve an idea. Remember how Sir Walter Raleigh spread his cloak for the queen to cross over? Well, we haven’t a knight, more’s the pity, but we do have our own frontier way of managing.”

  “Whatever do you mean?”

  Mary held up a shingle. She tossed it in front of her, then stepped primly onto it. “See? We’ll throw the shingles down before us, and our feet will never touch the muck.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “I most assuredly am. Can you seriously bear one more day cooped up inside?” Mary nodded in the direction of the pianoforte. “You can buy some more music,” she said coaxingly.

  Mercy sighed, but she had been bemoaning the lack of new music just the day before. “Oh, I suppose. But if we catch a chill and die, I’ll never forgive you.”