America's First Daughter: A Novel(151)
“I know,” was my truthful reply.
Papa squinted up at the clouds. “Dr. Bankhead will have more authority to deal with his son. And if I let Charles stay here, and Tom found out . . .”
I knew exactly what Tom would do if he found out that Bankhead beat our daughter. And I didn’t know if I should be sorry or grateful that Tom was still too furious with me to come home.
Rounding his shoulders, Papa said, “In the meantime, I’ve sold my library to Congress to replace the one burned by the British. I’ll use the profit to secure property for Ann alone, to make her independent if the worst should come to pass.”
“Oh, Papa,” I said, pressing a grateful kiss against his aging shoulder. It was startlingly generous and also startling because my father had never encouraged independence in any woman before.
“I’ll save some for Ellen, who’ll need to attract a husband of her own soon.”
“Given the fate of her sister, I almost wish Ellen would never marry,” I said. I deny loving any of my children more than the others. But you take more pleasure in some. Ann, Jeff, and Ellen were the children I knew best and to whom I’d formed the first tender attachments. Even amongst those three, Ellen was special. “She feels things too acutely for her own happiness. She’s like her father, but without his temper, and such people aren’t well suited for this selfish world.”
My father smiled because Ellen was his favorite, too. “She’s the jewel of my soul, but we mustn’t be too selfish. We must allow her into society and hope she finds a perfect love.”
“Perfect love?” Ellen asked, swishing her skirts as she came up behind us, not even pretending she hadn’t eavesdropped. “Ann loves Charles, and look how that’s turned out. There may be no such thing as perfect love.”
My father smiled. “There will be for you, pretty girl.”
Dark-haired, sloe-eyed Ellen wasn’t as pretty as Ann, but at the age of nineteen, Ellen was slender and dashing, with supreme confidence. And she used it now to distract us from the sadness of Ann’s departure. “I recently met a handsome gentleman who was so perfectly the victim of ennui that it destroyed every attraction I might’ve felt for him. Truly, I’d bore you to list the suitors I became completely disgusted with visiting Richmond. I’d just as soon become a spinster and devote myself to the care of my beloved grandpapa.”
She was teasing, I hoped, but the marriage prospects of our daughters were very much on my husband’s mind when he finally returned for Jeff’s wedding to Jane with the first hints of spring. Tom had never been a cheerful man, but he returned to me a dour one. He now styled himself Colonel Randolph, and it relieved me that though he’d taken his father’s title and demeanor, he wasn’t unfeeling toward his children. When he crawled into our bed after having been gone so long, he said, “Now that our son has taken a bride, it’s time to think about the girls. Mrs. Madison extended an invitation to have Ellen in Washington City. She’ll find a higher caliber of gentleman to court her there.”
Quietly, I gasped at the expense this would entail. Ellen couldn’t properly go to the capital without new dresses, new shawls, bonnets, and triflings of every sort. She’d be advised by Dolley, whose expensive tastes we could scarcely afford.
But when I confessed my worries, Tom exploded in temper. “What sort of man do you take me for? You think I’d help marry my sisters off but will deprive my own daughter of the few dresses and combs she needs to secure her happiness?”
Lowering my eyes, I said, “I know you’d never deny your daughters a thing if it were within your power. I’m only worried for the expense.”
“Did your father spare any expense for your coming-out in Paris?” Tom asked, staring hard. “I’ve heard the stories, so many balls you had to limit yourself to not more than three a week. Stories your daughters have heard, too.”
With that single, astute observation, Tom leveled me. I’d so often entertained my children with stories about my days in Paris that any one of the older girls could have named my friends at the convent and recounted their exploits. To buoy spirits in hard times, I’d fed my girls a steady diet of opulent tales. How could I deny my vivacious Ellen the opportunities I’d enjoyed? “You’re right, of course. I beg your pardon—”
“It’s not your place to worry about expenses,” Tom ranted, in a fever of anger that’d been brewing since I’d meddled in his military career. “That’s always been the trouble with you, Martha. You don’t know your place.”
He then proceeded to show me my place, by roughly tugging my nightclothes and pinning me to the bed. I made no attempt to refuse him. I didn’t dare. And, in truth, I hoped that our coming together—even in anger—might mend the wounds. After all, Tom’s ardent kisses usually broke through my reserve, and his release usually unraveled the knots inside him.
But on that night, not even pleasure could untangle the trouble between us.
In the dark, I whispered, “Tom, I offer my sincerest apologies. I know I’ve hurt you and offended your sense of honor. But please know that what I did, I only did for fear of losing you. I erred in love.”
To that, he had no reply whatsoever.
Chapter Thirty-four
Poplar Forest, 3 December 1816