“Indeed,” remarked Clark noncommittally. “Nothing like you at all.”
She gave him a sharp look, but as the cook and maid entered at that moment with their breakfast, she did not rebuke him. “You couldn’t come anyway. You’re needed at the store.”
“Edgar can manage quite well without me. He’s proven time and again that he’ll be a fine steward of my establishments when I entrust them to him for good—which I eventually shall do, sooner rather than later.”
“You should still ask Allen if he wants any part of the stores,” Ann reminded him. It was a familiar argument. “Edgar would not begrudge his younger brother a stake in the business.”
“Allen seems inclined to choose another trade. Why he would want to work for a stranger when he could manage an entire dry goods store with his own name above the door—” Her husband shook his head and picked up his fork. “He’s young. I’ll ask him again when the time comes, if it would please you.”
“It would,” Ann replied. How much more fortunate than Mary, Frances, and Emilie was she, to be mulling over simple domestic matters with a husband who contemplated retirement with every reasonable expectation of achieving it. She could afford to be generous of spirit, she chided herself. She must give Mary the benefit of the doubt and approach Elizabeth’s conference with an open mind.
A few hours later, when the carriage left her in the raked gravel drive before Elizabeth’s elegant home, she felt a faint echo of the awe and expectation she had felt thirty-three years ago to the month when, shortly after her eighteenth birthday, she had come to Springfield to live with Frances and William to seek a husband, although her stepmother and elder sisters would never have put it so indelicately. Mary had been living with Elizabeth and Ninian at the time, carrying the burden of the same unspoken but clearly understood mission. It was not considered ideal for younger sisters to marry before their elder sisters, but Mary was almost twenty-two, she had declined several proposals, and her understanding with Mr. Lincoln had fallen apart in January, much to the Edwardses’ relief, for they had never approved of the match. It had been decided that Ann should not have to wait for Mary to be comfortably settled before securing her own happiness, not with Mary’s prospects in decline and the family home in Lexington becoming uncomfortably overcrowded.
Then as now, the Edwards residence had been regarded as one of the finest in Springfield, well suited to the son of the former governor of Illinois, a successful lawyer who enjoyed great political expectations of his own, and his lovely bride. There the best society gathered for dinners, dances, and teas, politicians mingled with prosperous businessmen, and lovely young ladies and charming gentlemen discussed poetry, debated politics, and flirted with aplomb. Her elder sisters’ own particular circle of close friends called themselves “the Coterie,” and how thrilled and fortunate Ann had felt to find herself in the midst of such exalted company.
In the decades since, Elizabeth’s home had become as familiar and as dear to her as any she had ever called her own, so it was with a wistful pang that she knocked upon the front door and waited to be admitted. How much nicer life would be if this were her home, hers and Clark’s, and if her sisters were obliged to ride up the hill to visit her.
A maid showed her in and led her to Elizabeth’s graciously appointed parlor, the same room in which Clark had courted Ann under her eldest sister’s watchful gaze, the same room where Mary had wed Abraham after their fraught, intermittent romance had culminated in vows to love and honor until death parted them. Although the road Mary and Abe had traveled to matrimony had been rocky and winding, Ann had no doubt that they had truly loved each other. She had seen it in their eyes and had heard it in their voices. Anyone who made scurrilous claims to the contrary had not known Abe and did not know Mary.
She found Elizabeth seated with Frances on the sofa, the two of them clasping hands and murmuring earnestly to each other as if they were surrounded by eavesdroppers rather than alone in the house with only Elizabeth’s staunchly loyal servants to overhear them. They looked up when Ann entered and fell silent so abruptly that for a moment Ann feared they had been discussing her fate rather than Mary’s.
Frances rose to embrace her. “How are you, Ann?” she asked, taking her hand and leading her to an armchair by the window, the one she knew Ann favored.
“I’m well.” Ann looked from one sister to the other and amended, “As well as any of us can be, given the circumstances.”
Elizabeth sighed mournfully, while Frances nodded and regarded Ann knowingly through her spectacles, which lent her narrow face with its sharp features and distinctive nose the aspect of a wizened bird. “As heartbroken and anxious as we sisters feel, Robert is suffering far worse,” she said, reclaiming her place on the sofa beside Elizabeth. “He did not come to this decision easily, and he expects the public to condemn him for it.”
“From what I’ve read in the papers, public opinion seems to be in his favor,” Ann replied, surprised. Robert should not be blamed for responding to the problem Mary had created the only way any reasonable person could. That Mary disliked the outcome was not his fault. “Every editorial I’ve read portrays him as a dutiful son who bravely confronted an impossible situation. I haven’t read a single word of condemnation.”
“In his last letter, Robert told me that he expects condemnation to follow once word spreads that the judge appointed him conservator of his mother’s estate,” said Frances. “He is steeling himself for accusations that he had her committed under false pretenses so that he could gain control of her fortune.”
“He shared the same worries with me,” said Elizabeth. “As I told him, he had no choice. Mary’s irrational fear of poverty was so profound that she carried tens of thousands of dollars in bonds about her person. What if she had lost them? What if she had been robbed? She would have been rendered as destitute as she always wrongly feared she was.”
“Her attempt to take her own life proves that Robert was right to consult the doctors and that they were right to declare her insane,” Frances added. “He had to have her committed for her own safety.”
Ann felt heat rise in her cheeks as she observed the back-and-forth conversation, and she fervently hoped her sisters would mistake her hurt and disappointment for some other emotion. Robert had not bothered to write to her. Why not? She was no less Mary’s sister and Robert’s aunt than Elizabeth and Frances were.
“What’s done is done,” she said, keeping her voice steady, betraying none of her hurt feelings. “The question remains, what do we do now?”
“To help Mary?” asked Elizabeth.
“Yes, of course,” Ann quickly replied, although that was not what she had meant. “But also, how do we keep this quiet?”
Frances shook her head bleakly. “Any hope of keeping this quiet was lost the moment the press was allowed into the courtroom.”
“How do we manage the scandal, then, before it ruins the rest of us?”
“I don’t care about scandal,” said Elizabeth, brow furrowing. “We’ve weathered scandals before. I care about Mary.”
“We all care about Mary,” said Frances, glancing at Ann, “but Ann makes a fair point. Mary is safe and is being well looked after. Now that we know she’s receiving the care she needs, perhaps we should turn our thoughts to Robert and his family and consider how we can best console and hearten them.”