Gods and Generals - Jeff Shaara [6]
All of this was challenging, but Lee had the experience to handle it—he’d managed complicated budgets and administered financial dealings both in the Corps of Engineers and at West Point. The only thing he needed was time.
He studied the mound of papers for most of the afternoon. His eyes and his concentration began to wander, and so he left the study, walked through the large house, became acquainted again with the odd design, the vast clutter of artifacts. He stopped at the main parlor, admired the portraits, Custis and his wife. The old man was fiercely proud of his legacy, considered the home to be of great value to his country, a place where the name of George Washington would forever be preserved in the souvenirs of the first presidency. Lee began to see the artifacts differently now, the pieces of silver, large porcelain plates and tall vases, the small and large portraits cluttering the walls. He turned slowly, looked in detail around the room, the fireplace mantel, the shelves and glass cabinets. How strange to live in a museum, he thought. It took something away, some part of home. He hadn’t noticed that before, and so had never missed it. He looked at the portraits again, saw a smaller painting and looked closer at the small gold frame. It was Mary as a girl, probably done when she was Agnes’s age.
He knew she was never beautiful, not by the standards of the other boys. But he’d loved those things that were there, clearly, in the portrait: the frailty, a girl who needed caring for—his care.
Her father had not been happy with this young Lieutenant Lee, had thought his daughter fit for a husband of considerably higher breeding. Lee’s own father, the great hero of the Revolution, Light-Horse Harry Lee, had died in shame and exile, with huge debts and failed dreams, a great soldier with no talent for business, and it was a disgrace and a reputation that haunted the young soldier. His mother had suffered as well, and when Lee graduated from West Point, he returned home to a dying woman, a woman worn away by the scandals, who had only one pride now, the success of her son. She died soon after, in his arms, and left him with soft words and the deep hurt of a mother’s love, and he had told her, the last words she would hear, that he would make her proud.
Lee had pursued the young Mary despite the old man’s hostility, and it was finally Mary’s mother who had intervened, knew her daughter would do well to be cared for by this serious and soft-spoken young gentleman, and so finally they were allowed to be married.
He smiled at the memories: Mary the spoiled girl, his own easy patience, her mother scolding her for her carelessness, her inability to do anything for herself, and years later, her daughters scolding her again for the same reason. Lee remembered waiting, late for church, and she was never ready, would not come, had more “fixing” to do. So he and the children would go off anyway, and Mary would finally arrive in a flutter of mismatched colors, and the girls would ask her what it was she had “fixed.”
He left the portrait, walked into the huge front hall, the cavernous entranceway that added no comfort to the house. He turned toward the back, went past small sitting rooms, a hallway, and then outside, where he stood on the small rear porch and looked out over the fields. It would be spring soon, the planting season, and there was no one here to handle it. He thought of the will, the debts, the old man’s generous gifts to his grandchildren, gifts that would never be given, unless someone took charge. Lee stepped down to the brown grass, the thick patches of old, dirty snow melting now. He thought of the army. He would have to request