As George rode through the blossoming forest, which Betsy's ancestor had bought from the Indians a century before, he must have had mingled emotions. There was the pleasure of the expectation of seeing Betsy again, mixed with the uncertainty of the outcome of his suit. Then too, he must have wondered if she would notice the scars on his face. While he had been in the Barbadoes, where he had accompanied his brother Lawrence in his fruitless search for health, George had contracted the smallpox which had left permanent scars on his face.
Tradition says that Betsy did notice the scars. Whatever the reason may have been--George's mission was unsuccessful.
For years historians have tried without success to settle the question--was Betsy Fauntleroy the "Lowland Beauty" to whom Washington made references in his correspondence, or did he have in mind another Northern Neck beauty named Lucy Grymes?
It was an autumn day in the year 1753. A group of men lounged in the sunshine before a rudely constructed log tavern in a Virginia wilderness clearing. Their rough attire of buckskin and homespun and their knives and rifles proclaimed them to be hunters, trappers and settlers.
Suddenly they were aroused by a noise in the forest. The drooping tree boughs came to life and the tall grasses were pushed aside as an amazing spectacle for this frontier setting emerged. With a great rattling of wheels, creaking of leather and clumping of hooves, four shiny horses came forth drawing behind them an English chariot that would very well have graced the streets of London.
The liveried driver drew up before the hitching rack and the footmen descended from behind and opened the door of the chariot. Out stepped a middle-aged man, so tall and so gigantic in frame, that he had difficulty in getting through the opening. He was richly clad in a coat of brown cloth decorated with embroidery and a waistcoat of yellow silk, ornamented with silver thread and flowers. His peruke was carefully powdered and his shirt ruffles were snow-white.
As he issued from the chariot he drew about him the folds of a red velvet cloak, and then bowing his head slightly to the admiring crowd, he entered the tavern.
This man was no stranger to these frontiersmen. Most of them had hunted with him, or eaten at his "broad board," or transacted business with him in his little stone office. But it was rarely that they saw him thus, in the trappings of an English gentleman. They had seen him stab his hunting-knife into a deer's throat, and hold up the brush of a fox at the end of the chase, but then his garments had been weather-beaten and on his head he had worn an otter-skin cap with a buck's tail stuck in it.