America's First Daughter: A Novel(48)
And for William to decide to go.
I asked nothing more of my father that night because I was shaking with upset, and I feared I would not be able to speak without my voice quavering. Instead, abandoning the chocolate drops on the side table, I simply walked from the room without another word and sharply closed the door behind me, letting my silence say to my father all that I could not.
But I should have gathered more courage that night. I should have pressed and asked him the more direct questions whirling through my mind. Because Papa never gave me another opening to do so.
My father was always an artful politician, too clever to be drawn into discussions of matters of the heart when his was so guilty. Too crafty to be cornered into a confrontation with his daughter that he wasn’t ready to have, especially after I’d asked him about William—and about William’s future.
So I was forced to try to win Papa over to reopening the subject. I forced myself to be genial and even-tempered to prove that I was a grown woman with good sense enough to be wooed. Failing that, I hoped my comportment would encourage my father to confide in me any reservations he had about Mr. Short so that I might put his mind at ease. But at the time, my father’s praise of Mr. Short was so lavish and his affection so sincere that it left me entirely bewildered.
Meanwhile, there was nothing for me to do but drown my sorrows in tea. British tea, to be precise, taken with the Tufton sisters and our convent friends at the home of the Duke of Dorset. For an ambassador of a country that was so hostile to my own and whose king had ordered his army to hang my Papa, the duke quite generously extended his enormous charm to me. Some of my convent friends jested that the handsome duke was especially solicitous of me, but he was known for his solicitations with all sorts of ladies, honorable and notorious. I gave little thought to him at the time, since he was my father’s age and prone to talk more about cricket games than matters of importance. Besides, my thoughts were all of William and what objection my father could possibly have to our match.
It wasn’t until that summer, when Papa took me to see an opera, that I had my first inkling of the heart of the matter. Squir ing me to my seat in gentlemanly fashion, my father asked, almost absently, “Have you had any word from Tom Randolph, Patsy?”
“Cousin Tom? No. Should I have?”
“He’d planned to visit us here in Paris this summer but I haven’t heard from him since his last letter. I worry he’s been waylaid by brigands.”
This was the first I learned of Tom’s intention to visit. “I hope no harm has come to him.”
“I’d grieve of it,” Papa said. “I’ve set a plan for Tom’s education. I want him to study law in France for two years, then embark on a political career. He could be a great man of Virginia. He has the aptitude for it and the Randolph name. Not to mention lands and fortune.”
That was my clue. So nakedly obvious I nearly dropped my opera glasses. Mr. Short was a Virginia gentleman with ability and ambition, but he’d divested himself of almost all his landholdings to follow us to Paris. Mr. Short said he had entered the world with a small patrimony, and now, as far as I knew, he relied entirely upon his modest salary. A salary my father perhaps thought too modest to provide for a wife. I understood the importance of financial security, but many of Mr. Short’s other attributes recommended him. Confusion and sorrow left me unable to reply.
Only one thing seemed clear. Papa disapproved of the man who had claimed my heart. And so he was sending him away.
SOME PART OF ME DIDN’T BELIEVE Mr. Short would really leave Paris. Certainly not without a note to explain himself. And some part of me refused to believe it right up until the afternoon when, with guarded eyes, he kissed my gloved hand in farewell, climbed into a carriage, and rolled away.
I stood on the cobblestones, staring after that carriage, half expecting it to stop or even turn back. Only when it was long out of sight and I was shivering against a cool autumn breeze did I finally surrender to reality.
Miserable with longing, I went inside and eased into the chair behind the desk where Mr. Short did his work, reaching for some essence of him in the things he’d left behind. A quill pen. An inkwell. A page of paper.
Nothing more.
Not even a note for me to tear to pieces and throw into the fire.
That night, I sat near a different fire, wondering why it would not warm me and whether or not I was so heartbroken that I would never feel warm again. Seemingly oblivious to my distress, Papa bade us to see how neatly Sally mended a silk stocking. At her master’s praise, she bent to show us her work, and I caught a glimpse of a locket round her neck. A silver oval stamped with flowers and tiny hearts hung on a crimson ribbon, delicate and lovely as the girl it adorned.
“It’s so pretty, Sally,” Polly said, reaching to trace the filigreed locket. “Where did you get it?”
“C’est un cadeau de mon—mon patron,” Sally said, revealing her near fluency in French. “A gift!” Her glance flicked to my father where he sat reading a book in his stuffed armchair. And though Papa never met her gaze, he smiled.
For a moment, I wondered if there was something in his smile beyond kindness. Sally spent her days lighting fires, dusting books, mending stockings, sewing on buttons, and helping James in the kitchen. But how did she spend her nights? She had a cot in the servants’ quarters under her older brother’s watchful eye, but no one would question if Papa should call for her at bedtime. And how could she refuse?