America's First Daughter: A Novel(70)

“Come away from the windows, Patsy,” William urged, his voice strained with worry.

I choked back a sob. “It’s all torn apart. Everything is going wrong!”

William dared to fold me into his arms, saying again, “Come away from the window. There is no telling with what violence the king’s processional will be met.”

I couldn’t be made to budge. If there was violence, I would see it. I’d bear witness to it as I’d been witness to everything else. Like all of Paris, I was caught up in the spell of waiting. Waiting for something to happen, not knowing if it would bring liberation or despair.

William’s eyes fell upon the ruin of our tree and he held me tighter. “We’ll carve another tree.”

Turning, I blurted, “I have to go back to Virginia.”

“I know you’re frightened—”

“I’m not frightened,” I said, which wasn’t entirely true, but I feared my father’s debilitated emotional state even more than the cannon fire we’d heard outside. I couldn’t tell William about Sally’s pregnancy. Unlike me, he was unlikely to be surprised to learn she’d gotten with child. And Sally’s condition would soon be obvious to everyone, so why couldn’t I tell him?

It was the shame.

William had once asked if we should object more to a man’s affection for his slave than to the fact that he holds her in bondage. But it felt altogether objectionable, even though I somehow felt as if my father needed my protection more than ever.

Which is why I bristled to hear William say, “You cannot go back to Virginia with your father, Patsy.”

“Papa has asked it of me—it’s all he’s asked of me.”

“He’ll never bring you back to France.”

I stared at William, half-forgetting to breathe. “Surely, you aren’t saying he won’t keep his word.”

“He’ll ask me to return to Virginia to fetch you,” William said. “I know he says that he’ll finish out his term as minister in Paris, but your father will be offered a position to serve in America as a member of President Washington’s cabinet.”

This was nothing short of stunning news. “Who told you such a thing?”

“It was in a letter I read from Mr. Madison.”

I fumbled for a reply, fumbled to understand what this meant for our future. Or if there was a future for any of us in a city on fire. “Even if Papa is offered such a position, he won’t accept it. He wants to retire from public life. You’ve heard him say it many times.”

“And I wagered a beaver hat that Mr. Jefferson will refuse the appointment. But it’s a bet I’m going to lose. I haven’t the slightest doubt that your father will accept a cabinet position in the new government no matter what he says to the contrary.”

I gasped. “That’s twice you’ve questioned my father’s honor.” The words came uneasily off my tongue, even though Papa’s liaison with Sally had called his honor into question all on its own. And I knew it. “You think he’s lying when he says he wants to finish his work here and return to Monticello forevermore?”

“If he’s lying, it’s only to himself,” Mr. Short replied evenly. “Your father will let his friends persuade him, because his mind’s already made up. He’s the only one who doesn’t know it.”

Heat came to my cheeks. “I cannot agree.”

“Patsy, all the world thinks of your father as a man of cool temper. Some assume that because he dabbles in everything, he holds true passion for nothing. We know better. The abiding passion of his life is a government that derives its authority from the people. These past few months here, in Paris, working to enlist France in the spirit of revolution—have you ever seen him more himself?”

“No,” I whispered, for it was true, even if government was not the only thing for which he held a passion. Not since my mother’s death had my father been so alive. What part did Sally play in that? And what would happen to him when he accepted that she and the child were both lost to him?

William continued, battering at my weak defenses. “We treat your father like a living monument because he was born to do important work. You’re his daughter and he says I’m his adoptive son. But the American Experiment is the child he birthed and will never abandon. So he can wax prosaic about the joys of private domesticity on his mountaintop all day, but in the end, he’ll join the president’s cabinet. And he won’t return to Paris, with or without you.”

“You’re just impatient for us to be together,” I said, desperate to deny it all. Almost as desperate as the people on the streets below, anxious for the answer of their king. “We’ve waited this long and you don’t want to wait any longer. But this is all my father asks of me. To return with him to Virginia and settle Polly there before marrying you.”

“And all I’m asking of you is not to go.”

I’d loved William all my life, but never had I been angrier with him. As shouts from the crowd rose up to our window, I said, “That’s not all you’re asking of me. You want me to give up my father, my sister, and my country. You’re asking all these things of me, but all I’m asking of you is to wait for me to return.”

It seemed to me to be a perfectly reasonable argument, one that might have persuaded a man in love. Even a man as stubborn as William Short. But his chin jutted out willfully. “I’m thirty years old, Patsy, and what do I have to show for it? No career, no wife, no fortune. I have done everything your father has asked of me save return to Virginia, and still he would keep us apart. Still I am lectured to, by your father, as if I were a boy. And maybe he thinks it right because when he was my age, your father was building Monticello. Already had a wife and child. Had already written A Summary View of the Rights of British America—”