America's First Daughter: A Novel(37)

But Mrs. Cosway was even less faithful to my father than she was to her husband. When unrest fomented in the city, with the king closing all political clubs and dismissing the parlement, Papa was forced to attend American interests in the midst of the growing crisis, and Mrs. Cosway pouted and complained of it over dinner one night.

I had to keep my gaze trained on my cutlet of chicken for fear of her seeing the exasperation and disapproval on my face. One day, when Papa was away debating the merits of the newly proposed Constitution for the United States, I told her she might take comfort in his absence with the miniatures he’d given us, but she brooded that he hadn’t commissioned them from her.

She apparently had a very high opinion of her own artistic talent.

If Mrs. Cosway loved my father, she’d have been his helpmate in this difficult time. If she’d loved him, she’d have been a balm to soothe his agitation. Instead, after only a few weeks, whenever Papa called upon her, she managed not to be at home. Then she called upon Papa at our embassy only when she was sure he’d be out. Because of his bad wrist, he couldn’t play the violin for her anymore. And they stopped going to the follies or to the royal gardens or to the opera. She preferred to hold court at the reputedly beautiful Polish princess’s salon, while Papa was swamped by a storm of political chaos.

I shielded my little sister from all of it, and the convent was our refuge. And I was comforted by the routine of the place, secretly slipping in to attend mass, for I felt the wont of God. Alas, on Sundays we were often at the Hotel de Langeac, where I worried for the lack of moral examples for Polly, especially when Mrs. Cosway was our guest.

One quiet afternoon, I asked my sister, “Would you like to learn from Jimmy how to make a pudding?”

Cheekily, Polly replied, “Isn’t Jimmy our chef? If he knows, why should we learn it?”

“Because Mrs. Adams once told me that every woman ought to know how to make a pudding.” The mention of Abigail Adams was the surest way of convincing my little sister, and so Polly trailed behind me into the kitchen, where we found Sally near tears because Jimmy would only speak to her in French.

Pleading amber eyes turned toward me. “Miss Patsy, I’m supposed to take a tray up to your father’s chambers, but Jimmy won’t tell me in a language I know what’s to be on the tray.”

“Jimmy, don’t be churlish,” I said, feeling sympathy for Sally.

But Jimmy insisted, “Sally must learn to speak the language if she’s to live in Paris. Perhaps she’ll learn it when she’s sent away.”

This forced Sally all the way to tears.

“Hush, don’t cry,” I said, a hand on her shoulder, shooting a sharp look of rebuke at Jimmy. “Your brother has gotten very much above his station since coming to France. Why, he’s become so sullen and secretive Papa jests that he’s forgotten how to speak English but doesn’t know how to speak French, either. You aren’t being sent away, Sally.”

Sally stifled her sob in a napkin. “I am. I’m being sent to take the pox.” This was a surprise to me, though it shouldn’t have been. It made sense; my father believed cities like Paris engendered disease. I only wished he’d informed me of his intentions, because it sent Sally into a rare panic. Glaring at her brother, she said, “And I might die of it, so you might never see me again. Then you’ll be sorry!”

She meant this to induce Jimmy’s guilt for teasing her, but Polly’s beautiful blue eyes filled with terrified tears. “Do you mean you’re going to die? Like my baby sister Lucy?”

“Of course not,” I said, trying to comfort both Polly and the servant girl who shared my little sister’s bed at night. “Polly, we took the treatment years ago. So did Jimmy. What’s more, it didn’t hurt very much.” That was at least mostly true. “Why, Polly, you can scarcely remember it, can you?”

Polly shook her head, clinging to Sally’s skirts.

“There,” I announced. “Do you see? If it was so dreadful, don’t you think you’d remember it?” Polly agreed, comforted. Sally seemed to be, too, and Jimmy hugged her before sending her up to my father’s rooms with coffee and a pastry.

But that night, Sally crept from my sister’s bed to perch at the end of mine. “Miss Patsy,” she whispered. “Your father told me I’m likely to get very sick.”

“Yes.” I remembered what my father said when I took the treatment. “We must take upon ourselves a smaller evil to defend against the greater evil. We must take upon ourselves a smaller pain in order to survive.”

Sally nodded, gravely. “But if I pass, I want Polly to have the little bell your mama left me.”

I remembered it well. “You still have it?”

“In my bundle,” she said of her small satchel of belongings. Moved, I stroked her back between her trembling shoulder blades. “You’re not going to die, Sally. And I’ll care for you. I’ve already had the pox, so I can stay with you until you’re better.” I imagined myself wiping sweat from her brow, brushing her long black hair, and tending to her as gently as Papa once had tended to me.

Alas, that was never a possibility. It wasn’t legal to give the treatment within the city limits, so Sally was sent away to a physician’s care, where she remained quarantined for the next forty days. Which meant two things. First, that we spent forty days in fright for Sally, not knowing if we’d see her alive again. And second, that Polly finally cleaved to me.