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.”