America's First Daughter: A Novel(36)
Polly told me this morning that since she had left all her friends in Virginia to come over the ocean to see you, you might have taken the pains to come here for her yourself. I haven’t the heart to force her into a carriage against her will and send her from me in a frenzy, as I know will be the case, unless I can reconcile her to going.
I was glad Abigail Adams’s letter shamed Papa.
I took greater solace that Mrs. Adams would reconcile Polly to join us and that I’d soon have my sister with me once more. After all, I knew from experience that people found it extraordinarily difficult to hold out against Mrs. Adams!
Weeks passed before the welcome sound of the hired coach turned from the rue de Berri and into the courtyard of the Hotel de Langeac. Hearing it, I rushed from the salon out to the front steps. As I held my breath, two girls stepped down from the carriage, their eyes wide with wonder and uncertainty.
Oh, dear Polly!
How changed she was. Still petite, with the blue eyes I remembered so well, but now a grown girl that I might’ve passed on the street without knowing. And yet, when I tried, I could see my mother in miniature.
“Dearest Polly, I am overjoyed to see you,” I said, hurrying down the steps.
My little sister turned shy at the sight of me, sucking her lips in as she examined my face. I smiled brightly, holding my arms out to her, but they drooped when I realized that, in fact, she had totally forgotten me.
The pain was an arrow to the heart—as sharp as any wound I’ve suffered.
Reluctantly, Polly accepted my embrace but then squirmed away, her gaze swinging over the house’s facade. “Everything here is so grand. . . .”
I grasped her hand. “I know. Paris is a wonder. You’ll love it here. Come. Papa’s eager to see you.”
As I guided her to the steps, I glanced over my shoulder at the slave girl. I hadn’t seen Sally in many years and she’d changed, too. If I’d ever doubted that Sally was my mother’s half-sister, I was convinced the moment she said hello. She had my mother’s voice. The soft lilt of her greeting was so familiar. And, in truth, her appearance was strikingly similar to my sister’s. Sally was a mulatto of fair complexion, but not so perfectly fair that the French wouldn’t suspect she was a slave. And I worried what our French friends would think. I remembered the words spoken against my father’s reputation as our slaveholding spokesman for freedom. But perhaps Sally’s resemblance to Polly would be to our advantage, for it was perfectly common here for lesser relations to take on positions as servants to their wealthier kin.
Like all our Hemings servants, Sally had been raised at the hearth of our family; she’d make a very fit companion in Paris, where she might learn a good trade, just as her brother had been doing with his cooking. When we entered the entrance hall, Jimmy Hemings stood waiting, dressed in his chef’s toque and work uniform. He bowed and offered a warm welcome to my sister. And his.
While the Hemings siblings celebrated their own reunion, I led Polly into my father’s study, where he leaped to his feet at the sight of us. My little sister stumbled back, still clinging to my hand as my father went down on one knee. “Don’t be frightened, child.” And when she smiled a little, he asked, “You know me, Polly, don’t you?”
She shrugged apologetically. “I think, upon seeing you, I recollect something of you, sir.”
It was another barb that dug its way into me. I had dreamed of restoring the happy little family that had laughed and sung in a wilderness cabin while hiding from the British, yet my sister didn’t even know us.
By evening, Polly and I started to overcome the deep sense of separation, and I hoped she’d spend the night in my bed, but she wanted to sleep with Sally.
“We had to trick Miss Polly onto the ship,” the slave girl explained. “Mrs. Eppes lured her onto the boat for an outing with all their children, then we played with Miss Polly till she was so tuckered out she fell asleep in my arms. When she was asleep, the Eppes family tiptoed off the ship and we set sail. Poor child woke up at sea with no way home but to swim.”
Poor Polly. The sudden surge of sympathy redoubled my determination to do my duty by her. And I instructed myself to take no offense at the closeness she seemed to share with Sally.
By week’s end, we enrolled Polly in school with me where we finally bonded over our studies. I tutored her in French, not wanting her to experience the teasing I had. I enjoyed teaching her and basked when she complimented me as being a patient and encouraging instructor.
Polly was intelligent—if occasionally too strong-willed—and quick to make friends; she adjusted far more easily than I ever did. She had an independence I admired, even if it caused Papa to fret. Indeed, she took him to task, boldly professing her resentment that he did not go to England to fetch her.
She couldn’t know it was because of Mrs. Cosway. I never told Polly how that woman clouded his judgment. No, I held that secret for him with all the others.
SHE DIDN’T LOVE HIM. By God, nor ought she to have loved him. Why couldn’t he see it? Mrs. Cosway returned to Paris at the end of summer without her husband, and I was no longer too naive to understand her liaison with my father was of a passionately carnal nature. Papa rented an apartment in the hermitage of Mont Calvaire on the pretext that he needed privacy from the bustle of our embassy, and it served to excuse his absences when he indulged in clandestine meetings with his mistress.