America's First Daughter: A Novel (39 page)

Which is why I agreed to it.

I knew it would never work. Like every other wild-eyed scheme of easy fortune I’d ever heard, this one would require a sharp focus that my husband could never bring to bear while campaigning for a seat in Congress. A campaign he’d decidedly lose, after which maybe we could get back to the sensible business of paying off the debts on farms he already owned.

In the end, I was half right.

Tom’s interest in cotton came to nothing. He never even made the trip to Georgia. But he and Jack both won a seat in Congress. Jack by a landslide. My husband by thirteen votes.

And I was now the daughter of the president and the wife of a congressman.

Monticello, 12 August 1802

From Thomas Jefferson to William Short

Will you not come and pass the months of August and September with us at Monticello? Make this place your home while I am here. You will find none more healthy, none so convenient for your affairs and certainly none where you will be so cordially welcome.

T
HIS ISN’T THE FIRST TIME
I’ve found William’s name while thumbing through my father’s papers. Not even the first time I’ve traced the lettering of his name with a bittersweet ache. Since our break in Paris, William continued to exchange letters with my father, though Papa was always prudent enough not to speak of them to me beyond the occasional
Mr. Short sends his regards
.

At the time, it had seemed perfectly natural that William would—upon finally returning to America—call upon his mentor. But I never knew, until finding this letter, that it was my father’s invitation that brought William back into my life.

And now that my father is dead, I’m left to wonder why.

That summer, my father came to Edgehill to fetch me in a fine carriage pulled by even finer horses. At the sound of wheels grinding up the road, I came flying out of the house, my daughters behind me, squealing with glee to see the kindly grandfather who sent them books and poems and other treats with every packet.

My children all loved him, and he loved each of them in return. And I nearly envied my children the sweet, playful side Papa always showed them. If I were to tell them that he’d once been a stony and remote father with exacting standards, they’d scarcely believe me. Why, watching him play the Royal Game of Goose with my children as we loaded up the carriage, I could scarcely believe it myself.

And I’d lived it!

“This visit is going to restore our spirits, Martha,” Papa said, boldly placing a smooch on my cheek when we were ready to leave. How I basked in his love and affection.

Tom and Jeff would follow our caravan on horseback, but I climbed into the carriage with my father. As the wheels rattled on, I said, “I’m relieved to see you’ve somehow come home without your presidential entourage. I hope we won’t have many visitors this summer.”

“Just the Madisons.” My father bounced little Ginny on his knee with genuine delight. “And one special visitor we’ve been waiting to see for a very long time: Mr. Short.”

It’d been nearly thirteen years since I left William Short in Paris.
Thirteen years.

In that time, I’d taught myself to forget him. But when Papa told me that he was to visit with us, my practiced indifference unraveled. And I couldn’t decide if it was a blessing or a curse that my husband knew nothing about my anxieties at this reunion.

One evening, Tom asked, “So this Mr. Short, was he one of your suitors in Paris?”

I’d just finished playing the harpsichord for the Madisons and my fingers froze over the keys, unable to make my tongue move in answer. Fortunately, Papa rescued me by saying, “Oh, Patsy had a gaggle of suitors in Paris. Even the son of a duke, I seem to recall.”

I smiled gratefully at my father, but Mr. Madison’s face pinched in a sour disapproval far more affecting than it ought to have been from such a tiny little man. “Mr. Short has had a very storied career.”

Madison’s wife—whom everyone was encouraged to call Dolley—put her delicate hand on his arm and laughed until the careless plume with which she’d ornamented her hair shook with merriment. “They
do
say Mr. Short has a way with money, and he’s done the country a great service.” Then her eyes twinkled with the promise of juicy gossip. “But I’ve heard notorious stories about him living in open congress with his lover . . . a French harlot at that.”

Tom’s eyes widened.

My father winced.

I did not. “The Duchess Rosalie is no harlot.”

“Oh, you knew her?” Dolley asked me, leaning forward with rosy pink cheeks that matched the satin of her gown. “I suppose you’re quite right to hold her blameless. It’s Mr. Short who hasn’t made an honest woman of her. He’s allowed himself to be debauched away from the morals of his countrymen. I daresay, in returning to America, he’s likely found himself in another world. It’s good that he isn’t returning with the duchess on his arm or the stain on his honor would be more difficult to wash out.”

As painfully shy and withdrawn as my sister had become, this prompted her to break in with, “Perhaps we ought not judge them too harshly. I remember Mr. Short very kindly from our time in Paris.”

“Well, you
would,
you sweet dear,” Dolley said. “You give us all a good example to follow. We must be very kind to Mr. Short, for I fear our neighbors won’t be so forgiving.”

What
I
feared was that William wouldn’t be forgiving. Had he ever forgiven me? I still had Marie’s letter—the one that said how angrily he’d denied loving me. I wondered if he was angry still. And I wondered, too, how he might look now, at the age of forty-three. I hoped he’d grown bald and portly. Certainly, he wouldn’t be as handsome as my own husband, whose beauty had only sharpened with years.

I was to find out for myself at the start of August, when William arrived in a carriage even more splendid than the president’s, with scarlet velvet curtains and gilt trim on the doors, driven by matching black horses with red plumes.

For a moment, watching William step down from the coach, I was transported in time and place. Paris, before the revolution, when such carriages went every day to and from Versailles. And when William flashed a grin, I could see, to my great disappointment, that he hadn’t grown soft or bald or portly. Nor did he even look as if he’d aged—his facial features remained boyish, even if there was a hint of silver in his sandy hair. In an embroidered blue tailcoat, a dangling gold watch fob, a newly fashionable top hat, and breeches tucked into tall riding boots, he gave every impression of a dignified courtier and man of importance. It was suddenly easy to imagine people calling him
His Excellency, Mr. Short, the minister of the United States of America
.

All the more when he stepped forward to greet my father and executed a very correct bow. “Mr. President,” William said, as if the words gave him delight and satisfaction to speak aloud.

At their long-awaited reunion, my father pulled into an embrace with the man he’d once considered his adoptive son, patting his back with so much vigor and affection that I thought I might weep. The two men who had been most important to me in my youth held each other by the arms, taking stock of one another after more than a decade, laughing at the joy of it.

William said, “President Jefferson, from the harbor all the way here, I’ve heard nothing but joyous thanksgiving. You’re very much in the public favor, sir.”

With his arms about William’s shoulder, my father replied, “I fear more confidence has been placed in me than my qualifications merit. I dread the disappointment of my friends.”

“Never that,” William replied, even though, in his case, I knew it to be a polite lie. Though he tried to disguise it, his eyes swept uncomfortably to the servants who ran forward to fetch his bags and water the horses. There was no mistaking his loathing of slavery, but it wasn’t in his nature to criticize his host. He was, after all, still a Virginian; diplomacy ruled him. And it’s because I knew that he was a diplomat, well practiced with words, that I startled when he lifted his green eyes to mine and said in French, “
Vous êtes une vision angélique,
Madame Randolph!”

These were the first words we’d spoken to one another after thirteen years and an ocean of silence. I’d expected some tightness at the mouth that might hint of pain or regret. Instead, he’d made his eyes twinkle while comparing me to an
angel,
of all things.

Did he mean for his words to cut? Perhaps I’d been so eclipsed in his life, and in his heart, that he didn’t even remember he’d once pointedly praised me not as an angel but an
Amazon
. And I was suddenly swamped by the memory of that day, when he confessed to having stolen a lock of my hair to keep as a token—a memory so bittersweet that it was hard to speak the words, “Welcome home, Mr. Short.”

But I said it, and then it was done. The moment that had filled me with dread and anticipation was simply over, as if it were of no significance. Not even attended by the awkwardness that might have made it of some comforting consequence.

Instead, the awkwardness belonged to Sally Hemings. Seeing her on the portico with her two light-skinned, blue-eyed, freckled children clinging to her skirts, William made an elaborate and courtly bow. “What a delight to see you again,
madame
.”

We all froze in an awkward tableau, for William had acknowledged my father’s slave-mistress with a courtesy title, one accorded ladies or women whose marital status was unknown, as one might do in France when openly acknowledging a man’s mistress. At Monticello, my father kept quiet his relationship with Sally—such that even my children seemed unaware of it.

But, of course, William had been there when it started.

Thankfully, Sally was quick to bob an exaggerated curtsey like a French courtier, then adopted the strange sliding gait we’d all practiced at Versailles. “
Monsieur
.”

Her antics broke the tension and allowed everyone to laugh, but I was unsteadied enough to miss a step going into the house. Tom noticed, catching me by the elbow and hugging me against his side with the fit of good humor that had struck him since his election to Congress.

“It seems Mr. Short will be amiable company,” Tom said, oblivious to the storm of emotions inside me. “The children certainly like him.”

Ahead of us, my little cherubs all danced around William, who had a bag of half-melted chocolate drops for them.
Chocolate drops
. Another reminder for me, or simply a gift for the children? And why should it bother me that I didn’t know?

I was overaware of William every single day he spent with us that hottest of summer months. I tried desperately to stay away, but the sound of his laughter carried to me through the house wherever I went. I seemed to sense him even before he passed by the doorway of the blue sitting room where I taught my children. I knew when he took his seat at the supper table beside my father, before even turning to see. And that is how, without even having to look up, I knew it was he who had come upon me in my father’s garden that day.

“I think you’re avoiding me, Mrs. Randolph,” William said, bareheaded, shielding his eyes against the sun.

“I think I’m harvesting the garden, Mr. Short,” I said, from beneath the shadow of my straw hat, fretting that he should come upon me in my housedress, my hands covered in dirt. A Virginia gentleman would’ve pretended not to see the lady of the house hard at work—even if the garden was her sweet escape from the demands of everyone inside the house; a Virginia gentleman would’ve passed by without a word and waited to address me in polite company.

But perhaps the code of Virginia gentlemen no longer applied to William Short. “Not growing Indian corn this year?” he asked.

I plucked a squash for my basket, too nervous to do more than glance at him. “Are you missing it?”

“I’ve missed many things from Virginia,” he said, moving with gallantry to take the basket from me.

Feeling as if I must surrender it to him, I said, “You’ve been gone a very long time.”

“Seventeen years. Partly in service to my country, partly for powerfully personal reasons.”

I had no right whatsoever to ask about those powerfully personal reasons and I was determined to say nothing of his duchess. “You must find everything much changed.”

His eyes fell upon our enslaved gardener, Wormley Hughes, working with spade and hoe at the far end of the rows, and he frowned. “Some things not enough changed.” Then William turned his gaze to me. “And other things changed nearly beyond my comprehension. I daresay your friends in France won’t believe me when I tell them the girl who ran through the convent with her petticoats in the dirt is now a reserved and nurturing mother of five.”

He walked with me as I worked down a row. “Six if you count Tom’s little sister Jenny—and I always do. Of course, she’s of marriageable age now, and so very pretty I don’t doubt she’ll have her choice of suitors.” I rambled, unable to stop myself. “I’ll have to write more to my French friends.”
Especially Marie,
I thought. Marie, whose letter from a year ago I still had not answered, finding it too painful to acknowledge that we would never see one another again. “I will write the ones who I still have a way of finding. We’ve been very afraid for them since the revolution.”

His posture stiffened. “With good reason. I’m afraid your father was entirely too optimistic about the happenings in France. But I suppose it’s difficult for anyone who wasn’t there to imagine the horrors that have unfolded.”

“I thank God Lafayette has finally been released. Papa says it was your doing.”

“I wish that were true. Thank Monroe and Morris. I was merely a go-between, but I’m happy for Lafayette. And I wish others had been as fortunate.”

Then I knew that I must say something about his duchess, if only because it was beyond the bounds of decency not to. “Please know that it pained us to learn what befell the Duke de La Rochefoucauld during the September Massacres. My heart suffered for Rosalie to become a widow in such a tragic way. When you see her next, please convey my deepest sympathies and my hopes for her happiness.”

William stared, as if doubting my words. But there was no artifice in what I’d said. Though I harbored jealousy for Rosalie—I could never wish her unhappy. Or him.

At length, William must’ve seen the sincerity in my eyes, because he said, “If I see Rosalie again, I’ll give her your message.”

“
If
you see her again?” I asked, unwisely, rashly.

At my question, his gaze slid away. “She and I have come to a crossroads. Three times I asked her to marry me and three times she’s refused. At first, in respect to her husband’s memory. Then because she couldn’t leave Madame D’Enville to the mercy of the Jacobins. And finally, because she’d rather be the dowager Duchess de La Rochefoucauld in blood-soaked France than simply Mrs. William Short anywhere else.”