Mrs. Lee and Mrs. Gray Read Free

day. Maybe sooner than we think. Mother and I want the children of Arlington to be prepared for it.”
    He nodded, tight-lipped. “I’ll leave you to it then.”
    I rolled up my sleeves and poked through the crates. Most of the books were boring tomes: instruction on agricultural practices, collections of sermons, political treatises. Some were so moldered they fell apart in my hands. Some were missing pages. I was about to give up on finding anything useful when I opened a thick book bound in red leather and found beautiful illustrations of flowers and wildlife. Another book contained poems for children, and a third was a book about sailing ships. These three I set aside for my schoolroom.
    I was looking through another crate in search of more treasures when I heard the sound of a horse approaching. I looked out the window, then quickly brushed the dust from my skirt and ran out to the porch just as the rider dismounted and handed his reins to the stable boy.
    “Robert Edward Lee, what a happy sight!” I couldn’t hide my joy at seeing my favorite cousin. We had been childhood playmates and the closest of confidants before he left for his studies at West Point. Cadets were allowed only a single leave at the end of their second year, and the separation seemed interminable.
    “Hello, Molly,” he said, using my old childhood nickname. He came up the steps and clasped my hands tightly. “I cannot tell you how long I have waited for this day.”
    We went into the house together. Except for the servants, we were alone.
    “I went first to Arlington, and your mother told me you were here,” he said. “I came as soon as I could.”
    “I’m glad you did,” I said. “Have you had any breakfast?”
    “No, but I don’t want anything.” He set his leather hat on the table in the parlor. “All I could think about these past weeks was how much I wanted to walk with you and read with you and ride with you.”
    “So you said in your letters.”
    Robert had been an extraordinarily handsome boy, and in his two-year absence he had matured into a strong and handsome man.
    “I missed you, Cousin.”
    “Splendid. Perhaps I can make you forget those other beaux who danced attendance on you while I was away.”
    “I wouldn’t call them beaux, exactly. And anyway, they have all absconded now.”
    He smiled, seemingly relieved. “What have you been doing?”
    I told him about my book-sorting project and led him into the library to see for himself.
    “You’ve grown up since I’ve been gone,” he said. “You seem so much more serious now.”
    “Maybe I am.” I was not very good at sharing my innermost thoughts, but there in the Turners’ library with dust motes swirling in the beams of sunlight streaming through the tall windows, I told Robert how very badly I wanted to make a contribution to something that mattered. “After all, what is life worth if you can’t accomplish in it something for the benefit of others? Especially those who are so entirely dependent upon our will and pleasure.”
    “Your mother mentioned that you two are still working on behalf of the colonization society.”
    “Yes, but progress is difficult when we are obliged to purchase slaves in order to free them. And then there is the cost of their passage to Liberia.”
    I nattered on, because suddenly it had become important to me that he understand. I leaned on the corner of Thomas’s desk. “The children have nothing that’s only theirs, and the fact of it is truly shameful. An education, however rudimentary, is something that no one can take away from them, whether they choose to go to Liberia or not. And one day when—”
    He smiled then.
    “Are you laughing at me?”
    “Of course not. I was thinking how pretty you look in that green dress.”
    “Oh.” For the first time in my life I felt shy around him.
    “And you have changed your hair too. It’s very becoming.”
    “Mother says ringlets are all the rage these days. I take her word