America's First Daughter: A Novel(35)
To that letter, Papa did not reply.
IN THE CONVENT’S SALON, clutching his smart tricorn hat and a nosegay of posies, Mr. Short said, “Patsy, I’ve had word that you were ill. I shouldn’t have insisted the nuns rouse you from bed, but when you refused to see me, I feared—”
“It was only a violent headache,” I said, pulling my shawl round myself for warmth, though it was springtime. “The kind Papa suffers when he’s upset.”
I didn’t tell him of the mysterious pain in my side that had blistered up and caused me such suffering. No doubt elegant duchesses never fell prey to such unsightly maladies. If he was to find out about my blisters, he’d have to learn it from the bewildered physician, not from me, so I offered nothing else by way of explanation. Nor could I explain to him the wound on my spirit—one that’d driven me, in prayer and contemplation, to a religious epiphany.
What I couldn’t tell him, for fear he might tell my papa, was that I had resolved to take my vows and join the convent.
The idea had first come upon me in a sudden swirl of anger and resentment . . . and yet, during my illness, it had transformed itself into a genuine desire. Though I knew my father would despair to hear it, I was more contented at the Abbaye de Panthemont than at any other place I’d ever been. Immersed in its world of women devoted to each other and the betterment of mankind, I felt sheltered against the wickedness of Paris. What’s more, my dearest friends were always near to me at the convent, and I felt more suited to a life of reflection and scholarship than to a mar riage or to a plantation to which my father supposed I must one day return.
None of this, of course, could I tell William Short.
At my silence, Mr. Short exhaled a long breath, then drew one of the purgatorial wooden chairs closer. I sat, careful of the shifting of my gown against my side. When he sat, he didn’t cross his legs like a man of leisure, but perched on the edge, as if waiting for a verdict at court. “Your father couldn’t bear it if anything should happen to you, and under my watch—”
“I’m quite recovered of my infirmity. You needn’t worry for your career.”
Mr. Short scowled, extending the nosegay to me. “Enjoy these in good health, then.”
Taking the posies, a tenderness crept through me that I was forced to steel myself against. “Have you any word of my papa? Of my sister?”
“Your father’s return has been delayed, but your sister is en route. I cannot imagine how your Aunt Elizabeth got the girl onto the ship, considering Polly refused to come. Your father is quite bedeviled by the child. She defies him as if he were no more to her than a strange beggar on the streets.”
Polly had been scarcely five years old when we left her. Now she was nearly nine. She’d lived half her life with Aunt Elizabeth, and through our neglect, I worried that we had lost her as surely as we’d lost baby Lucy. It was a failure that gave me the greatest pain, and I was determined to live up to the promise I’d made my mother to watch over my little sister. Which I could do right here, in the convent. When Polly came to us in France, Papa said I must teach her to be good, and to tell the truth, for no vice was so mean as the want of truth.
But I’d teach her to be devoted, for that seemed to me a much more important virtue. Nuns were devoted. And if I was to be a devoted friend to Mr. Short, I knew that I must overlook the blots on his character as he overlooked mine.
So I determined to think no more about his pretty duchess.
Nuns wouldn’t think about his duchess.
I took the posies and inhaled their sweet scent before drawing Mr. Short into conversation. He obliged me, explaining how antislavery sentiment grew hand in hand with constitutionalism in Paris. These talks, in which he showed respect for my opinions, made me think about new things and challenge what I’d been told. Challenge, even, my papa.
And the next day I wrote to my father:
It grieves my heart when I think that our fellow creatures should be treated so terribly as they are by many of our country men. Good god have we not enough slaves? I wish with all my soul that the poor negroes were all freed.
In answer to this sentiment, Papa was also entirely silent.
Chapter Eight
London, 26 June 1787
To Thomas Jefferson from Abigail Adams
I congratulate you upon the safe arrival of your little daughter. She’s in fine health and a lovely little girl, but at present everything is strange to her. I told her that I didn’t see her sister cry once when she came to Europe. Polly replied that her sister was older and ought to do better, and had her papa with her besides. I showed her your portrait, but she didn’t know it. If you could bring Miss Jefferson with you, it would reconcile her little sister to the rest of the journey. The old nurse you expected to have attended her was sick and unable to come. Instead, she has a girl about 15 or 16 with her, one Sally Hemings.
I WAS READY TO FETCH POLLY AT ONCE. But my father bewildered me by sending a French servant to escort Polly from London instead. And I was outraged when Mr. Short let slip the reason why.
Papa had urged Mrs. Cosway to return to Paris. The shameless woman had agreed, and because she was on her way, Papa didn’t want to chance the trip to fetch Polly for fear he’d miss his paramour!
Maria. Maria. Maria.
That night, when Papa kissed me good night, I bit down on the impudence that tempted my tongue. But Mrs. Adams showed none of my reserve in her next letter, in which she tartly informed us: