Washington [348]
This letter is remarkable in two ways. Washington states that the happiest moments of his life were spent not with his wife but with George William and Sally Fairfax, although one suspects he really had Sally in mind. Does the letter suggest that George William knew of the romantic liaison between his wife and Washington? Or does it tell us that their relationship was more an affectionate friendship than an adulterous affair, enabling Washington to refer to it with complete safety? Perhaps it confirms that Washington’s fondness for Sally Fairfax had been a youthful dalliance that everyone now recognized as such. We will never know the full truth of this tantalizing but finally murky story. The letter is also notable in showing us how incurably sentimental Washington was beneath the surface—he could experience an eruption of memories so overpowering that he had to flee the scene.
In reply, George William Fairfax talked of the picturesque valley of dairy farms in which he and Sally lived and asserted they were too old to contemplate a return to America. Sally had pored over Washington’s letter with great care, and his description of the ride to Belvoir had provoked an equally strong response in her. “Your pathetic description of the ruin of Belvoir House produced many tears and sighs from the former mistress of it,” wrote George William—doubtless what Washington yearned to hear.31 Sally volunteered to send Washington seeds for trees and shrubs for Mount Vernon, and he reacted with typical gallantry, reassuring George William that “while my attentions are bestowed on the nurture of [the seeds], it would, if anything was necessary to do it, remind me of the happy moments I have spent in conversations on this and other subjects with that lady at Belvoir.”32 So Washington again openly alluded to his special relationship with Sally Fairfax without fearing repercussions. After years of precarious health, George William Fairfax died on April 3, 1787. By that point the Constitutional Convention was looming, and Washington, sidetracked by political business, declined to act as American executor of his friend’s estate.
The themes of love and marriage were often on Washington’s mind after the war. Before it ended, Lund Washington had sounded him out on the prospective marriage of Jacky Custis’s widow, Eleanor Calvert Custis, to Dr. David Stuart. Washington customarily refrained from giving advice in such situations because if he supported it, he might push a couple into an unwanted marriage, but if he opposed it, the young couple would blithely ignore him anyway. Nevertheless he went on to say that if Eleanor asked him, he would counsel her thus: “I wish you would make a prudent choice, to do which many considerations are necessary: such as the family and connections of the man, his fortune (which is not the most essential in my eye), the line of conduct he has observed, and disposition and frame of his mind. You should consider what prospect there is of his proving kind and affectionate to you; just, generous, and attentive to your children; and how far his connections will be agreeable to you.”33 Rather glaringly absent from this eminently reasonable list is romance—perhaps the sole ingredient lacking in Washington’s otherwise happy, satisfying match with Martha. At the same time, he knew that genuine friendship formed the foundation of a marriage, and this, at the very least, he had found in abundance with his wife.
Martha viewed marriage in a similarly pragmatic light. When her niece Fanny contemplated marriage to George Augustine Washington, Martha tried to coach her in sizing up marital prospects. She recommended that Fanny look at a man’s character and worldly prospects—whether he was honest, upright, hardworking, and likely to be a good provider. She didn’t mention looks or charm or compatibility or any of the other romantic prerequisites that might preoccupy a modern woman.
When Fanny and George Augustine decided to get married, the Washingtons were jubilant