Martha Washington (10 page)

Their courtship probably began much more prosaically. George arrived at Williamsburg on March 14 or 15. The morning of the fifteenth he visited John Amson, the respected physician whose advice he sought. He seems to have recovered his health and good spirits almost immediately after the doctor's reassurance that he stood miles from death's door. The legislature was in session, and the town was crammed with the gentry enjoying the spring social season; George would have joined his friends for dinner or a convivial glass of wine, catching up on all the news of the capital. If gossip about Patsy Custis's availability hadn't already reached him at Mount Vernon, he would have heard that day about the very tempting widow who was the talk of the town.

The next day, he rode out to visit the widow Custis on what might be called a reconnaissance mission. For nearly a year, George appears to have been thinking about getting married. By eighteenth-century standards, it was high time for him to settle down. That past April, he had ordered goods from London for an extensive enlargement of his small farmhouse, including 250 windowpanes, a marble mantelpiece, fine wallpapers, and mahogany dining room furniture, followed by further orders for china, a card table, and two dozen packs of cards. All the evidence points to a man planning to give up the bachelor life. With an elegant home suitable for the entertainment of his peers, a genteel wife was needed to complete the picture.

George was always susceptible to women, falling in and out of love since his teens, enthusiastically describing his latest passion in letters to his friends. He had tried to woo sixteen-year-old Betsy Fauntleroy when he was twenty but had been dismissed by the young lady. In New York City, he had spent a few days on the way to and from Boston in the company of the heiress Polly Phillipse, but their romance was more in the minds of mutual friends than in George's.

With his military reputation and the inheritance of Mount Vernon secure, George had just begun to be considered an eligible match two or three years earlier. Unfortunately for his own interests, he had tumbled into love again at about that time with a married woman, Sally Cary Fairfax, the wife of his close friend and neighbor George William Fairfax.

George had long hero-worshipped the Fairfax family of Belvoir, the estate downriver from Mount Vernon. Related to the English aristocracy, they were wealthy, sophisticated, and very influential in Virginia. Lawrence Washington's marriage to one of the Fairfax daughters had given his brother social entrée, and the Fairfaxes remained George's friends and patrons after Lawrence's death. Childless and at loose ends, Sally was a charmer two years George's senior who frustrated and enticed the naive young man with an on again, off again flirtation. There were many good reasons for George to get married, perhaps chief among them the wish to break the spell of a woman who kept him dangling helplessly.

What did George see when he was greeted by Patsy Custis in her parlor? Now twenty-six, she was still the same pretty woman who had fascinated Daniel Custis into defying his terrifying father nearly a decade earlier. Short, slim but buxom, her radiant smile her greatest beauty, she had matured through love and loss, experience and new responsibilities. But she still possessed the ineffable charm that made a man dream of comfort and home and the peace of his own fireside with her at his side.

Besides her children and servants, her seventeen-year-old sister, Nancy Bassett (married just a month before Daniel died), and her brother-in-law Colonel Burwell Bassett, the master of Eltham, a plantation downriver on the York, were probably with her when Colonel Washington came to call. George kept very detailed records of his expenditures; on the sixteenth, he noted munificent tips to the Custis servants, no doubt trying to make a good impression, and a far smaller amount to the Bassett servants. Had they been at Eltham, the ratio would have been reversed.

What did Patsy see when George Washington walked into her parlor? Towering over most men by half a foot, George was exceptionally tall for the time—about six feet two and a half inches, more than a foot taller than Patsy—and well proportioned at 190 pounds. Just turned twenty-six, he was also exceptionally athletic, powerful, and graceful, as much at home on the dance floor as on horseback and equally unafraid in either setting. In a society and time when everyone rode well, George stood out as a truly magnificent horse-man. His powerful physical appeal was not diminished by his appearance. Reddish brown hair, blue gray eyes, a strong nose, and slightly pockmarked fair skin were well within the bounds of contemporary English notions of acceptable but not handsome looks, bespeaking the leader rather than the fop.

The visit stretched out, the presence of the Bassetts making it possible for him to stay for dinner and perhaps the night. And whatever polite nothings were exchanged as they talked, possibilities became unspoken probabilities almost overnight. George was strongly encouraged by the lady to return a week later to continue their acquaintance. After completing most of his business in Williamsburg, he came back to White House on March 25, perhaps broaching the subject of marriage on that visit. Then he hurried back to the frontier to rejoin his regiment.

When did Patsy become aware of George's infatuation with Sally? Chances are that he never confessed those feelings to her, but she probably guessed early in their courtship. He would have told her all about his beloved Mount Vernon, where he wished to live, and about his friends in the neighborhood. Things said and left unsaid, an averted glance, a constrained tone of voice, would have given away his secret to a sensitive woman.

George Washington had everything to gain from marrying Patsy Custis. Sally Fairfax was out of reach. After a youth spent under a stern mother's rule, he yearned to share a home with a warm and nurturing woman. And essential to all his dreams, the Custis money would allow him to make the plantation a success. Patsy combined a near genius for creating a happy household with the necessary financial wherewithal.

Patsy's choices were nearly limitless. Charles Carter was madly in love with her, with no lingering romantic dreams to cause problems. There may have been other suitors at this time as well; if none of these men seemed right for her, she could wait for others to come calling in the future. In fact, she didn't need to marry at all unless she truly wanted to.

But it seems clear that Patsy fell passionately in love with George almost immediately and decided to please herself in her second marriage. She didn't lose her head completely: she took the time to get to know him better before making her final decision. She discovered an honorable gentleman who would never embarrass her, a kind man who would love the children, hers and theirs, a man faithful to his word who would safeguard the Custis inheritance. His lack of fortune needn't have concerned her since she had plenty of money for them both. She was also a woman confident of her own allure, unafraid of rivals for his affection. In George Washington, she saw a man with whom she believed she could live lovingly and happily. And she was right.

Pausing briefly at Mount Vernon in April, George started his workmen on the long delayed improvements to the house that he had begun planning a year before. His pride and sense of self-worth made it essential that he ensconce his wealthy bride in a respectable house, preventing gossips from whispering that she had made a great comedown in marrying him. Most of all, he wanted his wife to love Mount Vernon as much as he did.

Rather than starting anew, he decided to add a full second story atop the modest old house, raising the existing half story to the third floor. That decision was crucial for the appearance of the house through all subsequent enlargements and renovations. As it stood, the house had four rooms downstairs, separated by a hall, with small bedrooms and cramped storage space above. The renovations increased its size to eight full rooms, a respectable size for a planter family.

Returning to his troops, he left the rebuilding project under the supervision of his friend George William Fairfax. No doubt he informed both Fairfaxes of his marital hopes at the same time. He and Sally had exchanged letters from time to time while he was at war on the frontier, but now she forbade any further correspondence, perhaps suffering a twinge or two as her devoted admirer wooed another woman.

Of all the letters that Martha and George Washington wrote to each other over the years, the destruction of the correspondence of the spring of 1758 is most distressing. We have no idea of the tone, sentiments, or frequency of those courtship letters as the young couple moved closer to a decision to marry. At the end of April, there was still no formal engagement, but on May 5, George felt hopeful enough to order a ring from Philadelphia.

Conveniently, the governor called the colonel back to the capital soon afterward. On May 28, George was at the palace in Williamsburg, meeting with him. Then, having attended to business, he set out on the now familiar road to White House on June 5 to pursue his courtship in person. Patsy and George's actual engagement probably dates from that visit.

As he returned for the last time over the mountains, George's thoughts were still torn between the latest campaign against the French and the future at Mount Vernon. Patsy's were taken up with wedding plans, a continuing care for the Custis property, and the preparation of her children for the changes to come. Her annual order to London included clothes (“to be grave but not Extravagant nor to be mourning”), shoes, gloves, a piece of fine lace, a silver chain, perfumed hair powder, and a bureau dressing table and mirror. She also sent a favorite evening gown to be dyed a more fashionable color. That summer, Daniel's tombstone finally arrived from London, and she employed a mason to lay the brickwork for his monument—a farewell to a loving husband as she entered the next phase of her life.

That July, George was elected one of the burgesses from Frederick County, where he owned land, a step up the ladder of colonial leadership. The men of the Fairfax family and his fellow officers were out in force, campaigning for him among area voters. He had failed in a previous attempt to win the seat, but this time the frontiersmen knew him better and his more sophisticated friends treated them, paying for the barrels of booze that voters then expected from political candidates, and he prevailed.

After George William Fairfax returned to Belvoir, Washington continued to correspond with him about the endlessly fascinating details of Mount Vernon's renovation, including a grand new staircase, the uneven wooden floor of the upstairs passageway, and smoky chimneys. With equal parts excitement and anxiety, he urged his friend to make the workmen hurry and finish. On September 11, 1758, he received a letter from Fairfax about construction progress and crops, noting that an enclosed letter from his wife would give further details. But Sally's real purpose was to torment or reproach him about his coming marriage to the lovely widow Custis.

Poor George. His baffled, incoherent response the next day shows just how young and emotionally vulnerable he was. He rushed to assure her “how joyfully I catch at the happy occasion of renewing Corrispondance which I feard was disrelished on your part. . . . In silence I now express my Joy.—Silence which in some cases—I wish the present—speaks more Intelligably than the sweetest Eloquence.” Brushing aside her suggestion that his anxiety for an end to the conflict might be attributed “to the animating prospect of possessing Mrs. Custis,” he went on to a transparent declaration of his lingering love for Sally. “Tis true, I profess myself a Votary to Love—I acknowledge that a Lady is in the Case—and further I confess, that this Lady is known to you.—Yes Madam, as well as she is to one, who is too sensible of her Charms to deny the Power, whose Influence he feels and must ever Submit to. I feel the force of her amiable beauties in the recollection of a thousand tender passages that I could wish to obliterate, till I am bid to revive them.—but experience alas! sadly reminds me how Impossible this is.”

Unable to resist once more pulling the emotional strings that bound George to her, Sally wrote a long response, apparently pretending to be in doubt about the meaning of his letter. George replied, “Do we still misunderstand the true meaning of each others Letters? I think it must appear so, tho I would feign hope the contrary as I cannot speak plainer without—but I'll say no more, and leave you to guess the rest.” Loyalty to his friend, her husband, kept him from a potentially disastrous step. Later in the same letter, he commented on the Fairfaxes' amateur theatricals, a presentation of Joseph Addison's popular tragedy
Cato
. The star-crossed lovers in that play, Juba and Marcia, were popular symbols for unattainable love. Assuring her how happy he would have been to play a part, he declared that he would have found himself “doubly happy in being the Juba to such a Marcia as you must make.”

This exchange, for all its seeming disloyalty to George's fiancée, may have been good for the eventual success of his marriage. It called attention to Sally's willingness to trip frivolously on the edge of infidelity—unwilling to commit herself, equally unwilling to set her infatuated lover free. The two women couldn't have been more different. Patsy was too kind ever to enjoy teasing someone who loved her.

Tempted as he was by Sally, George was committed to a life with Patsy. When he returned to Williamsburg in December 1758, he resigned his commission to become a full-time planter. Patsy Custis and George Washington married at White House on January 6, 1759, and stayed there with her children and a large party of wedding guests. The bride was opulently attired in a deep yellow brocade overdress enhanced by silver lace at the neck and sleeves; the skirt opened in front to show a petticoat of white silk interwoven with silver. Her dark hair was probably entwined with her favorite pearls, and her tiny shoes were purple satin with silver trimmings. Now that he was a civilian, the groom wore a suit rather than a uniform.