Washington [112]
A private man who never flaunted his deep emotions, George Washington nonetheless gave way to a tremendous outpouring of grief. One observer remembered him kneeling by Patsy’s bed as he “solemnly recited the prayers for the dying, while tears rolled down his cheeks and his voice was often broken by sobs.”30 In a week of sweltering heat, the heartbroken Washingtons decided it was wise to bury Patsy on the family property the next day. The coffin, draped in black, was buried in the brick vault down the hill from the house on the Potomac side. Martha assumed a black mourning cape for a full year. Her husband knew that, between her daughter’s death and her son’s absence, she was unspeakably bereft, and he canceled a western trip to stay near her.
When Patsy died, Jacky’s fiancée, Nelly Calvert, was staying with the Washingtons, and her presence proved providential, for she stepped into the huge emotional void left by Patsy’s death, becoming like a second daughter. She lingered at Mount Vernon for a week, fostering a lasting intimacy with Martha. Jacky wrote a tender condolence note to his mother, telling her to “remember you are a Christian” and saying of his lost sister that her situation was “more to be envied than pitied, for if we mortals can distinguish between those who are deserving of grace and those who are not, I am confident she enjoys that bliss prepar[e]d only for the good and virtuous.”31
Patsy’s death had a profound impact on the finances of her stepfather, who had been unable to shake his indebtedness to Robert Cary. Through skillful management, Patsy’s estate had appreciated to sixteen thousand pounds, and half this amount went to Jacky and half to Washington by way of his wife. Later in the year Washington instructed Robert Cary to take the inheritance and discharge his large debt. Once again, as with his father and his brother Lawrence, Washington had profited enormously from a death that caused him grievous sorrow.
Beyond their obvious sadness, it is hard to overstate the impact that Patsy’s death would have on George and Martha Washington in the coming years. The sudden financial windfall, by relieving pressure on Washington, allowed him the luxury of participating in the American Revolution without financial worries. In fact, it enabled him to take part on the gentlemanly terms that suited him, as he dispensed with a salary. The effect on Martha was no less consequential. She would spend about half the war in her husband’s company, which would have been impossible if Patsy were alive. The sickly girl could never have managed the long coach journeys, or the continual tensions of a military camp, or being left alone. Patsy Custis’s death, paradoxically, set up George and Martha Washington for their shining moment in history.
The inheritance also allowed Washington to launch the second major transformation of Mount Vernon, and he ordered sixty thousand bricks and nearly fifteen thousand shingles for this ambitious effort. In 1773 the main house was still a plain, nondescript building, small and unadorned and not particularly attractive. Now Washington decided to double the mansion’s size, adding those trademark features—a cupola, the pediment over the west entrance, the spacious piazza on the river side—that we associate with it today. Never a professional architect, Washington admitted that he was “a person who avows his ignorance of architectural principles and who has no other guide but his eye to direct his choice.”32 Because he added rooms and wings as needed, the house lacked the elegance of a preconceived design and was marred by some clumsy touches. The facade wasn’t quite symmetrical, and the pediment sat awkwardly on the window tops—errors the more refined Jefferson would have avoided. Nevertheless the house would gain undeniable grace and beauty, and the large colonnaded porch