America's First Daughter: A Novel(136)
He said all this with his head hanging down, as if it unmanned him shamefully to confess such tender sentiments, but I was deeply moved. I supposed the same thing in his nature that made him so temperamental and morose was what let him pour out his heart in such a way. So I kissed his cheeks, one side, then the other, finishing with a tender kiss to his lips that I hoped might tell him how my heart swelled to know his true feelings.
Then I set out that autumn, six months pregnant, with all my children crowded together in a carriage, making our way slowly over bumpy roads to Washington City.
“Look at the capitol building,” Ellen said, wrestling Cornelia to see out the window.
“One day it will have a great dome atop it. Your grandfather designed this city, you know,” I told my girls, and watched their eyes widen. Even now when I look at the great capital Washington has become, I see the bones of it as my father laid them. And I marvel. But Jeff wasn’t as impressed as his sisters by his grandfather’s handiwork—he was merely disappointed that the Mammoth Cheese no longer occupied the downstairs of the President’s House. Fortunately, my son gorged his curiosity on Papa’s new camera obscura, which made silhouettes, and the collection of fossil bones my father had all in one room, displaying the artifacts of the America he was building and exploring.
The capital had grown since I last visited, but the more important change was the society in which Dolley Madison now reigned as queen, spearheading numerous charity events at which people fluttered about me, hanging unnaturally upon my every word.
“Your father’s plans are ambitious,” Dolley explained. “They won’t be passed without the support of the congressmen’s wives. We’ll have to win them over.”
I realized after only a single luncheon that these ladies were introducing a new version of the parlor politics I’d become so well acquainted with in France. When last I was here with my sister, I hadn’t embraced the role Dolley had advised me to play. Not truly. That had been a mistake I intended to rectify.
I couldn’t rival Dolley’s bright sense of fashion—especially when I was so big and round with child. But I ornamented my darker, more sedate gowns with yellow sashes and red ribbons and white bonnets with gauzy trim. I quietly informed the chef and the secretaries and staff that I’d be hostess at all my father’s events from the moment Congress convened until it adjourned. From seating arrangements to etiquette, from soup to dessert wine, to conversation and music—I took my place at my father’s side, where he needed me. Where I was meant to be.
EARLY IN DECEMBER, my daughter excitedly pulled on long white gloves over her delicate arms and exclaimed, “I heard the guns from the frigate at the Navy Yard!”
It was to be Ann’s first formal dinner in the President’s House, one at which we’d greet the envoy from Tunisia. And though she could be a shy, tremulous thing, tonight Ann vibrated with excitement. “I’ve never met a Muslim.”
“I’ve never met one either,” I said.
She turned to me, astonished. “Not even in France?”
I was charmed that my children seemed to believe I’d seen and done and knew everything because I’d been to France. What I did know about the visiting Tunisian envoy, Sidi Suliman Mellimelli, was salacious. Dolley had whispered over tea that the ambassador was perfumed like a woman. And her husband had been obliged to provide concubines for the Tunisian delegation at a nearby hotel, which had set tongues wagging. Papa insisted that the cause of making peace with the Barbary pirates was too important for us to balk at the “irregular conduct” of their ministers. That’s why I’d postponed dinner from late afternoon to after sunset in honor of the religious practice of Ramadan.
“We’re to be the only ladies in attendance?” my daughter asked.
I nodded. “Ambassador Mellimelli is unaccustomed to the calming presence of women in political society, and we’ll have to ease him into it.”
There was much bowing and greeting when the ambassador and his two secretaries arrived, and upon seeing me and my daughter, he begged our pardon, through an interpreter, to retire to smoke his pipe.
“Feel free to smoke here,” Papa said, and the gold-and-scarlet-clad ambassador stroked his long beard, thoughtfully. Looking first to his two secretaries, who wouldn’t partake of wine, he nodded, then lit his wonderfully unusual four-foot pipe.
I was painfully worried of giving offense—especially considering the company. Amongst our American guests—John Quincy Adams and our own snarling kinsman, Congressman Randolph of Roanoke. After making snide quips implying that my husband and Jack Eppes held their congressional seats only through my father’s influence, John finally leaned over to me at the table and whispered, “I’m so glad you didn’t bring the vampire with you.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Nancy,” he hissed. “She’s sucked the best blood of my race.”
Whether he was accusing her of murdering his brother or making some lewder accusation, I couldn’t guess. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
“I’m sure you do. You and your husband are harboring her. Don’t think I’ll forget it.”
He had the Randolph. He was irritable, jealous, suspicious, and habitually indulgent of the meanest little passions. But I was a Jefferson, so I merely announced, “Ann and I will retire now to leave you gentlemen to your business. Ambassador Mellimelli, I look forward to spending a lively winter with you.” Having observed that even a perfumed man wished to be thought manly, I added, “I’m sure you’ll be the lion of the season.”