“I do understand it, which is why I suggest more: that we meet secretly. Perhaps here—with Simeon and wife having meddled, how can they complain? And I suggest that by the end of the year, if we are not engaged, we end it. No need to keep polishing a bit of tin in the hope that it’s going to become gold. In the meantime, should you come to prefer anyone else—and I am taking a chance there, because I am well aware that there are many who have more to offer—you are free to drop me, no hard feelings and not a word of reproach on my end.”
When Mary remained silent, he said, “I’m not good at guessing what any woman is thinking, but I believe I can give it a try in your case. You’re thinking that you’ve never heard anything less romantic in your life, that we might be discussing a mere business arrangement.”
“That thought had occurred to me.”
“Molly—if I may call you that again—it’s because I love and respect you that I’m asking this of you. Give us time… Six months is all I ask. Time enough for me to know my mind, and time enough for you to decide whether you’re making a good bargain. There I am with the business terms again, so I think I’ll stop before I dig a deeper hole for myself.”
“I agree to your terms, Mr. Lincoln. You are right; they do not set my heart aflutter, but I know you to be a fair and decent man, and I take them in the right spirit. But what happened to the young lady who refused you?”
“Went back to Kentucky and married quite well. So you could say she got the better of the bargain, Molly.”
* * *
The Francises agreed to make their parlor available for Mary and Mr. Lincoln’s meetings. Once or twice a week or so, Mary went to visit Mrs. Francis, and Mr. Lincoln would stroll over to the newspaper office and then quite casually make his way to the Francis house next door to pay his respects to the editor’s lady. For anywhere from a few minutes to a solid hour, the couple was left undisturbed. Depending upon the time they had and their mood, they talked, kissed, or did both.
If Elizabeth wondered about the new intensity of Mary’s friendship for Mrs. Francis, she said nothing, nor did she comment on the fact that prospective suitors no longer flocked to the Edwards house now that Matilda had gone home. She seemed, in fact, quite reconciled to Mary becoming a permanent fixture in her house, a useful old maid who helped the children with their lessons, shared her duties as hostess, and wielded her needle to good effect.
When not secretly meeting Mr. Lincoln or old-maiding it in the parlor, Mary passed the time with a new friend, Miss Julia Jayne, who unlike most ladies shared her interest in politics. Happy as they were to spend an afternoon studying Godey’s Lady’s Book, it was the Sangamon Journal that was their favored reading, and never more so than that summer, when a letter from a “Rebecca” appeared ridiculing James Shields, the state auditor. He was a frequent visitor at the Edwards house, and was attentive to Mary—as he was to everyone in skirts, even the parlor maid—but labored under the hopeless liability of being a Democrat. After the appearance of the letter, he had fumed at every gathering he attended, giving the women hope that there would be a sequel to the missive. “And here it is!” Julia said, waving the newspaper in the air as she came into the parlor on a fine September day.
They spread out the paper on a table and giggled over it.
They had a sort of a gatherin there one night, among the grandees, they called a fair. All the galls about town was there, and all the handsome widows, and married women, finickin about, trying to look like galls, tied as tight in the middle, and puffed out at both ends like bundles of fodder that hadn’t been stacked yet, but wanted stackin pretty bad. And then they had tables all round the house kivered over with baby caps, and pin-cushions, and ten thousand such little nicknacks, tryin to sell ’em to the fellows that were bowin and scrapin, and kungeerin about ’em.…I looked in at the window, and there was this same fellow Shields floatin about on the air, without heft or earthly substance, just like a lock of cat-fur where cats had been fightin.
He was paying his money to this one and that one, and tother one, and sufferin great loss because it wasn’t silver instead of State paper; and the sweet distress he seemed to be in—his very features, in the exstatic agony of his soul, spoke audibly and distinctly—“Dear girls, it is distressing, but I cannot marry you all. Too well I know how much you suffer; but do, do remember, it is not my fault that I am so handsome and so interesting.”
“It’s Shields to the man,” Julia said. “Did I ever tell how the noxious creature tried to squeeze my hand? It was in this very house.”
“It’s Mr. Lincoln,” Mary said.
“No, it was Shields who tried—”
“I mean Mr. Lincoln wrote this. Maybe not the first—I think that was Simeon Francis himself—but definitely this one. There’s not another man in Springfield so amusing. Have you never heard him spin his yarns?” Belatedly, Mary recalled that most women did not enjoy the privilege of hearing Mr. Lincoln’s tales. “Of course, I could be mistaken.”
“Well, he certainly hit his mark, whoever he was. Mary, why are you grinning so?”
“I think we should join the fun. Let us compose a letter, or a poem—nay, both! I ramble so in letters, and am liable to do the same thing when writing as Rebecca. So you shall write a letter, and I shall write a poem, all to the glory of Mr. Shields.”
“It would serve the coxcomb right.”
Within a few days, they had composed their respective productions and handed them to a delighted Simeon Francis, who promised to run Julia’s story (with which Mary had lent a hand) in the next week’s issue and Mary’s the week after that.
When they met the next Friday, Mr. Lincoln chuckled over Julia’s contribution, which Mary had seized while it was still warm from the press. “Why, who wrote this bit of drollery?”
“Perhaps the person who wrote the piece the week before,” Mary suggested archly.
“No, I did not write this—” He stopped. “I mean—”
“You mean, sir, I caught you out red-handed. You wrote the last Rebecca letter, didn’t you? You cannot deny it; I know you too well.”
“Well, I did, Molly. But I had nothing to do with this one before us.” He studied it, frowning. “I can’t guess who did.”
“Perhaps you are foolishly limiting yourself to the male citizens of Springfield. After all, Rebecca is a woman.”
“You mean that you wrote this?”
“No—though it was at my instigation. Miss Jayne wrote it. But I have acquired a taste for authorship myself, and next week will be my debut.”
“And sadly, I will be on the circuit and won’t see it fresh. You will save me a copy?”