America's First Daughter: A Novel(52)
In the days after my withdrawal from the convent, Papa undertook what I believed to be a campaign to distract me from my desire to take my vows. He gifted me with a gold watch on a chain. He arranged for riding lessons so that we could ride together as we used to, just the two of us. And he spent three hundred francs on new ball gowns for my coming-out during the social season, jesting that I would be limited to only three balls a week. . . .
Already bewitched by the glow of the many candles burning in glittering crystal chandeliers overhead, my friends giggled and exclaimed in wonder behind their fans. All evening, we’d been gathered against a wall of gilded paintings, watching ladies and lords pass us by in powdered wigs and swishing petticoats. The Tufton sisters wore matching pink brocade and Marie a patterned dark blue silk with lace frothing at her elbows. I towered above my friends in shimmering bronze, my hair styled in a wild halo of red curls, a braid looped behind, all ornamented with ribbons and peacock feathers.
To Lafayette, I curtseyed my gratitude and acceptance. “Merci.”
On the dance floor, we circled one another with intricate footwork, touching hands, then retreating. When we came together with the music, the aristocrat said, “I should envy you for your graceful dancing, Mademoiselle. Yet, because I’m dancing with you, I am the envy of every man on the floor.”
I didn’t know how to reply to such courtly flattery, except by blushing furiously.
When the music next brought us close, Lafayette insisted, “Send my regards to your father. I see too little of him of late . . . and I hear disturbing rumors that he intends to return to Virginia.”
I didn’t want to confirm it, in part because I didn’t want it to be so myself. Instead, I smiled as if I hadn’t heard over the music.
When the dance was done, Lafayette led me back to my friends, saying, “Tell your papa I’ll call upon him soon. Mr. Jefferson is still very much needed here in Paris, where his revolution remains undone. In my study, I have a copy of his Declaration of Independence in half a frame. The other half of the frame is empty. One day, with his help, it will house a Declaration of French Rights and they’ll stand side by side, like proud brothers. Like France and America. Like your father and me.”
Ordinarily, a man’s importance can be judged only by the pas sage of time. But in those years of convulsive political change, we knew we walked amongst living legends, and my father was one of them. That’s why Lafayette’s worshipful words echoed long after our dance, a lingering reminder that my father had never belonged only to me, or to me and my sisters, or even to my mother. . . .
His true mistress had always been the Revolution.
The Republic.
The Enlightenment.
Given that profound calling, and all the people who looked to my father for inspiration, was it really so silly or selfish that I desired a calling of my own? I couldn’t help but wonder. And yet, as much as I still thought about my desire to take my vows, I very much enjoyed French society.
As the daughter of a foreign minister, I was welcomed into the highest circles. As an American, I was a curiosity, which garnered me invitations to many balls. I accepted them all, and not only because I loved to dance. I also went because the ballroom reunited me with my bosom friends from the convent. We filled our cards, danced late into the night, and dined past midnight, returning home at unorthodox hours. Marie flirted with gentlemen by dangling her white gloves and taught me to fend them off with a slow wave of my fan. Together, we mastered the subtle language of the ballroom in which entire conversations took place in gestures.
One memorable night, I slowly waved away the attention of several gentleman but touched my right cheek with a closed fan to accept the attentions of the Duke of Dorset. How could I not, given that he was both an ambassador and the uncle of my bosom friends? Besides, every eye was upon him in his bejeweled amber raiment and it would have been churlish to refuse. Guiding me to the dance floor for a minuet, the duke leaned close to whisper, “You are a rare bloom in this garden of forward French flowers. Your simple manners, your enticing reserve, the radiance of your hair—I simply had to have you adorn my arm.”
I blushed again, uncertain as to whether this was the practiced flirtation of a diplomat or a rake. Either way I could not take seriously his sweet talk because he was a veritable uncle to me, as he was in fact to the Tufton sisters. “You flatter me overmuch, Your Grace.” To which he responded with vehement denials as he whisked me onto the dance floor.
“Fils de putes!” Marie cursed, after my dance with the duke was done. “Must you grab the attention of all the most eligible bachelors in France? Will you leave none for the rest of us? The men all stare at you for your height and that red hair. If I did not love you so much, Jeffy, I would rip it from your head.”
“I’m merely a freckled American curiosity!” It was true that in a ballroom, I attracted the notice of young men who might have overlooked me on the street. But I don’t think it was my height or red hair or even my dancing skills that drew them to me. I think it was because I held myself unattainable.
I’d already foolishly given my heart to a man who abandoned me. I wouldn’t make that mistake again. So I remained cordial but cool to the men who asked me to dance, and found myself flattered by admirers and overwhelmed by male attention, bewildered and intrigued.
My most ardent suitor, by far, was the young and energetic Armand Jules Marie Héracle, son of the Duke of Polignac, who, upon making my acquaintance, drew my hand up to kiss as if I were of rank to offer, and said, “Enchanté . . .”