America's First Daughter: A Novel(27)
Mr. Short appraised me, his gaze running over my face. “You noticed this just sitting at dinner, behaving yourself like a little lady?”
My head bobbed with eager agreement, sensing that it pleased him. “Should I tell Papa?”
He paused a long moment, studying me with an intensity that caused my heart to beat faster. “No. What is there to tell?” He gave a small smile. “You worry too much for your father. Now, go on to bed Patsy, it’s getting late.”
But in the morning, I knew that I’d have to return to the convent. I’d have no opportunity to protect Papa from those who didn’t understand the depths of his sensitivity. To those who felt free to opine about Papa taking a new wife, not knowing—or perhaps, not caring—that he had sworn never to do so.
My father was too trusting; it was always the case.
So, I didn’t go to bed. Instead I slipped quietly into the empty room where Charles Williamos slept at night, not knowing what I was looking for. He had few belongings and even fewer that interested me. A scattering of papers on his writing table drew me closer. None of them useful, I thought, but, then . . .
A receipt. A tailoring bill charged to Papa—surely the sort of thing my father’s secretary ought to be aware of, if the expense was incurred on my father’s behalf. It was nothing, I told myself. Or at least not much. But maybe it was something. . . .
I snatched it up and carried it across the hall to where Mr. Short took dictation for my father. And I left Mr. Williamos’s paper there, as if it’d merely been mislaid by a servant.
“CELEBRATIONS ARE IN ORDER, Jefferson,” the Marquis de Lafayette exclaimed the next weekend over a glass of wine by the fire. “I’m told it’s now official that you’re to replace Benjamin Franklin here as minister to France.”
“No one can replace Dr. Franklin,” Papa replied. “I am only his successor.”
It was a modest reply, and Papa was earnest in his admiration for Dr. Franklin, but he couldn’t disguise his pride. He’d secured a position of great esteem and importance for our new nation. We were charged here with protecting American citizens, securing documents for travel and letters of introduction. We were to foster goodwill, educate Europeans about our new country, and make reports to America on the happenings overseas.
It was, Papa assured me, great and necessary work. I was very proud, of course. And upon hearing the news, Kitty Church behaved much better toward me. For if her father had been a rival to mine, he was no more.
In celebration, Papa took me to witness the grand procession to Notre Dame in honor of the new prince of France, born to his mother, Queen Marie-Antoinette.
Papa and I bumped and jostled along with the rest of the crowds that lined the roads. Given the harsh words some of the Frenchmen had for their queen, I was surprised they came out in such force to see her. But the moment her carriage rolled into view, the crowd roared and surged with eagerness. Such are the contradictions of monarchy, I supposed.
Even Papa was taken in by the spectacle.
“Look, look!” Papa cried, elbowing a space for me at the front of the crowd.
I clapped my hands in excitement. How beautiful the queen’s garments and how regal the king looked at her side! And yet, they were too far away to judge if they looked like their portraits in Philadelphia. “Why do some in the crowd boo the queen, Papa?”
“Because King Louis is too much governed by his queen,” Papa replied.
That hardly seemed like a thing she ought to be faulted for, but I held my tongue, for we were having a grand time. When the entourage disappeared, Papa and I walked hand in hand to the convent. I was a giddy girl the whole way, and didn’t want the feeling to end. “I should like to come out into society with you more often, Papa. Perhaps go with you to concerts and the theater.”
Papa smiled and pressed a quick kiss to my cheek. “You’re turning into my little lady, aren’t you?” The compliment lit me up inside and I stroked my hands over the fine silk of my beautiful green skirt. In truth, I was thirteen, no longer a child, nor even a girl, but, according to the nuns at the convent, a spring flower on the cusp of blooming. I’d just experienced my first woman’s blood, and I felt all the more like a woman when, with great adult satisfaction, I learned on my next visit home that Mr. Williamos had been sent packing.
Papa would say nothing of why his boon companion had been so unceremoniously ejected from our embassy. So, while he changed out of his formal waistcoat and powdered wig to take an evening brandy, I went to Mr. Short.
I suspected he would tell me the truth about such matters, and I was right.
Closeted with an array of ink pots and quill pens scattered upon his desk, my father’s secretary explained, “Mr. Williamos was ‘sent packing’ because he had his tailoring billed to your father’s account. What’s more, he had the temerity to lay the bill of receipt on my desk!”
I dared a glance up at Mr. Short in the light of a flickering candle. “Did he?”
An eyebrow lifted at my interest. “Indeed. Of course, he accused me of ransacking his belongings to find it. Can you imagine the nerve?”
Mr. Short must’ve suspected that I was the one who ransacked Mr. Williamos’s belongings. But he didn’t scold me for my misadventure. Indeed, I saw a hint of admiration in his eyes. That emboldened me to venture, “Surely a tailoring expense isn’t the whole reason Mr. Williamos was banished. Papa is very generous with his guests.”