Abraham Lincoln_ Vampire Hunter - Seth Grahame-Smith [69]
“Speed,” he said, rushing to his friend’s side. “My God…”
“Well,” said Speed, “I believe that’s enough atonement for one day.”
Abe found Springfield “lonesome and lifeless” upon his return. His time at Farmington had done wonders for his melancholy, “but with no friend to share my lonely hours, what difference if I be in the happiest or worst of moods?”
I care not that [Mary’s father] is a scoundrel, only that I love his daughter unconditionally. Speed is right—what is there in the world but our own small happiness? I have given the matter my serious consideration. Let Henry protest. Let the consequences come. I have resolved to pledge myself anew if she will have me.
“And why should I marry the man who left me to suffer alone?” asked Mary as Abe stood in the doorway of her cousin’s house. “The man who left me without so much as an explanation!”
Abe looked down at the hat in his hands. “I do not—”
“Who made a mockery of my name in this city!”
“My dearest Mary, I have only my humble—”
“Pray, what sort of husband would such a man make? A man who, at any moment, might suffer a change of heart and leave me to suffer anew? Tell me, Mr. Lincoln, what enticement have I to pledge myself to such a man?”
Abe looked up from his hat. “Mary,” he said, “if it is my faults you wish to address, then we shall find ourselves standing here a week’s time. I do not come to torment you further. I come to merely lay myself at your feet; to beg your forgiveness. I come with a pledge to spend my life reconciling whatever grief I have caused you these long months. If my offer is insufficient—if the sight of me brings you anything other than happiness—then you may close that door knowing that my face shall never trouble you again.”
Mary stood in silence. Abe took a small step back, expecting the door to be slammed in his face at any moment.
“Oh, Abraham, I love you still!” she cried, and leapt into his arms.
Their engagement resumed, Abe wasted no time. He bought two gold wedding rings (on credit, of course) at Chatteron’s in Springfield. He and Mary settled on a simple engraving to grace the inside of both.
Love is Eternal
Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd were married on a rainy Friday evening on November 4th, 1842, in the home of Elizabeth Edwards, Mary’s cousin. In all, there were fewer than thirty guests looking on as they exchanged vows.
After the ceremony, Mary and I stole away to the parlor while dinner was served, so that we might spend our first moments as husband and wife in quiet solitude. We shared a tender kiss or two, and looked at each other with a certain perplexity—for it was a strange thing to be married. A strange and wonderful thing.
“My darling Abraham,” said Mary at last. “Do not ever leave me again.”
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
IV
On May 11th, 1843, Abe wrote to Joshua Speed.
What a wonder these months have been, Speed! What bliss! Mary is as devoted and loving a wife as one could want, and I am pleased, Speed—so very pleased to share the happy news that she is with child! We are both overjoyed, and Mary has already begun the task of preparing our home for the arrival. What a fine mother she will make! Please write me immediately, for I wish to know how your recovery is progressing.
The evening of August 1st, 1843, was an unusually hot one, and the open window did little to relieve the heat in Abe and Mary’s tiny second-floor room at the Globe Tavern. Passersby looked up at that open window with intense curiosity as sounds bled into the night air—first of a woman’s pain, and then of a shrill cry.
A son! Mother and child in the best of health!
Mary has done perfectly. It is not six hours since the child’s birth, and already she holds little Robert in her arms, singing to him sweetly. “Abe,” she said to me as he fed, “look what we have done.” I admit that tears filled my eyes. Oh, if only this moment could stretch on for all eternity.
Robert Todd Lincoln (Mary insisted;