Bess Truman by Margaret Truman Read Free Book Online

apparently sent home little money.
    It is evident that Mrs. Ross’ objections to the match were influenced by Mary’s career as a journalist. Why did Charlie succumb to this maternal edict? The reason is visible in one of Charlie’s letters. “I love you,” he wrote, “but I find it harder to tell you about it - a woman, than I did to you - a girl.”
    I am convinced that if Mary had burst into tears and told Charlie she could not live without him, he would have gone home and informed his mother that he was getting married the next day. But Mary was so stunned and hurt, she barely reacted. She was a proud, independent young woman. She was not going to beg any man for his love.
    Coolly, almost casually, without betraying a trace of her turmoil, Mary turned slightly away from Charlie and said: “That’s too bad. I understand perfectly.”
    Charlie went back to Columbia convinced that all his fears were true: Mary had changed and no longer really loved him. Mary careened into an emotional and physical collapse that lasted for the next two years.
    Mary’s story is part of the story of Bess not only because they remained friends for the rest of their lives. At a crucial moment in a then unforeseen and unimaginable future, Mary and Charlie would rejoin Bess in an entirely different dimension, when she stepped onto the stage of world and national history. Mary was so hurt, she was never able to reveal what Charlie had done to her for almost fifty years. But Bess undoubtedly knew that some male had deeply disappointed her best friend. Henceforth, Mary’s letters were full of wry, often bitter comments about men.
    By this time, Mary’s father had married again, always a difficult experience for a daughter and especially for an oldest child. Mary lost weight to the point of becoming a virtual skeleton. Everyone was convinced she was developing the tuberculosis that had killed her mother. Finally, her father persuaded her to go to Mississippi, where she lived for two years with cousins who owned a large plantation near Greenville.
    During the same years that Charlie’s romance with Mary flowered and faded, Bess Wallace had another kind of experience in Independence. It did not affect her deepest feelings as directly, but it was difficult, not to say disillusioning, in its own way. As a frequent guest in the Swope home, Bess knew a good deal about its emotional strains and stresses. The oldest daughter, Frances, had fallen in love with a doctor named Bennett Clark Hyde, whom her mother found objectionable. Frances and Dr. Hyde eventually eloped, and Mrs. Swope did not speak to her for a year. Then there was a tearful reconciliation and Dr. Hyde became a frequent guest at the Swope mansion.
    The man who possessed the fortune was Tom Swope, a reclusive bachelor who had more or less adopted Mrs. Swope and her children when her husband, his brother, died. Tom Swope felt embarrassed by his riches, which he often said he did not deserve. He simply had been lucky enough to hold onto the right real estate in Kansas City until it was worth millions. A cousin, Moss Hunton, an amiable fellow, lived with Tom, and to assuage his guilt, used to wander the streets of Independence almost every day, giving away Tom’s money to anyone who asked for it. As for the Swope children, anything they wanted, from trips to Europe to expensive ball gowns, was instantly supplied by Uncle Tom.
    Dr. Bennett Clark Hyde observed all this guilt and generosity with a jaundiced eye. From his point of view, the Swope fortune, a good chunk of which he had expected to inherit, was vanishing day by day. He decided to do something about it. His first step was to order a box of five-grain capsules of cyanide of potassium sent to his office. He brushed aside the druggists’ objections to putting this dangerous poison in capsules. It was never done because it could easily be mistaken for medicine.
    One night, as a number of the children’s friends gathered at the