America's First Daughter: A Novel

by Stephanie Dray

  The next morning, Polly opened her eyes. In the days that followed, her rash disappeared, her fever abated, and she answered when we called—her deafness cured. But Polly’s mind never entirely recovered. In the months that followed, she suffered from a torpor of intellect. When we returned to the convent school, Polly struggled with her studies. And by springtime, it was manifestly evident that the bright little girl who had charmed Abigail Adams with her cheek and sassed me into exasperation was no more.

  Nevertheless, God had answered my prayer. The bargain had been struck. I was bound by my promise to take my vows and didn’t despair of it. It’d been almost seven months since Mr. Short left on his tour of the Continent, never writing a line to me in all that time. This painful silence ensured that I didn’t see for myself a future as any man’s wife, so why shouldn’t I welcome the convent as my sanctuary and salvation?

  My friends at the Panthemont helped me to practice the words to tell Papa, but no combination of utterances ever seemed to capture everything I felt—and not even putting it to paper made it come out right. Still, I knew I must find a way before my father took us back to Virginia.

  The matter was decided for me one Sunday in mid-April, when Polly and I returned to the Hotel de Langeac to find Sally wearing a fashionable new dress in crimson damask that matched the ribbon for her locket. Sally had a trunk full of new clothes, too. Papa had bought her expensive silks and satins, petticoats and stockings, ribbons and heeled shoes—things she’d never have need of were she to return to our plantation in Virginia.

  I doubted Sally had asked for any of this largesse. My father had spoiled her, either because he felt responsible for her or infatuated with her. Or perhaps he spoiled her because it eased his conscience for the way he’d once used her. Was it possible that he meant to free her, and leave her here in France when we returned home? Or did he intend to keep Sally Hemings with him, even as he made plans to send me and my sister back to Virginia?

  The suspicion made me as sad as it made me angry, and because I was sixteen years old, it finally felt right to tell him my adult inclinations.

  Chapter Eleven

  Paris, 18 April 1789

  To Thomas Jefferson from Patsy

  I ask your blessing to take my vows and join the holy order of the convent, where I intend to live out my days with my new sisters.

  THIS LETTER AND ALL THE OTHERS I ever sent my father are carefully preserved within these wooden filing presses. My father always said my letters were precious to him; I believe it now as never before. And as I hold this letter above the candle flame—for I cannot let it survive—I remember how my hands shook to write it in the first place, all those years ago.

  I’d never feared my father before. I’d feared for him, but never before had I dreaded seeing him as I did the day I sent this letter. At the convent, awaiting his reply, time passed so slowly I found myself checking and rechecking the tall case clock that stood sentinel over the library as it counted out the minutes and chimed at the quarter hours.

  But Papa didn’t send a reply that night.

  Part of me knew he wouldn’t.

  When he rode up in the carriage the next day for our weekly visit, I was afraid to meet his eyes. Thankfully, he gave no evidence that anything was amiss. Instead, he took us to the Palais-Royal, a center of gardens, theaters, shops, and cafés, with gentlemen’s clubs open from noon to midnight. I never tired of shopping amongst ladies with frilly parasols, and gentleman being carried in sedan chairs under the colonnade. But on that day, I could barely stand the unspoken tension, waiting for my father to acknowledge the note that I’d sent him.

  It wasn’t until evening that Papa called me to sit with him, alone, where he sipped at wine by the fire. “Has someone at the convent proselytized to you on the subject of religion?”

  “Never,” I replied, knowing how much it’d displease him if the answer were otherwise.

  He stared down into his wine, which glowed like a garnet in the firelight. “In my role as ambassador, I’ve been made aware of the plight of an American girl, schooled in a convent just like you. She’s somehow been seduced into remaining there as a nun, thereby abandoning her country, her relations, and her religion. And yet, even learning this, never did I think my own daughter was just as vulnerable.”

  Papa’s characterization of a religious epiphany as seduction made my belly knot. Worse was his assertion that taking my vows would amount to abandoning my family and country. How could I argue for my convictions when the man who opposed me was both beloved and formidable? I tucked my hands between my knees so he wouldn’t see them shake. “Would you forbid me to follow the dictates of my conscience?”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose, as if the question gave him great pain. “Patsy, you’re young and inexperienced. This decision needs more time and consideration. Mature reflection.”

  His words were unbearably familiar. They sounded like Mr. Short’s description of his own conversation with Papa, which also turned on the subject of youth and inexperience. And heat crawled up my neck.

  My father and I seldom spoke in open disagreement, only circling about subjects of contention without touching them directly. Yet, this time, I felt as if he allowed me no avenue of retreat. And for once, I said just what I believed. “I’m old enough now to judge my own happiness.”

  My father took a long drink before returning his glass to the table beside his stuffed chair. He squinted, lines of hurt etching his face. “How can you think to be happy separated by an ocean from your sister and me?”

  I’d expected him to be angry; instead, he was wounded. Yet, I bristled, defensively. “I could ask the same of you. Don’t you intend to leave us in Virginia and return to France?”

  His brows knitted together, as if he’d never considered I might object. “My commission won’t keep me in Paris forever. Five years I’ve served in France, while my own country formed a new government in my absence. I’ll stay only as long as duty requires. Very soon I’ll retire from public life to Monticello. I’ve always looked to you to render the evening of my life serene and contented, never realizing you loved me so little.”

  Guilt formed a lump in my throat that nearly prevented me from speech. Then my words tumbled out all at once. “That isn’t true, Papa! Of course I love you. And it isn’t that I want to be without you—”

  “Then why would you wish to take the veil?” Papa liked to have an iron discipline over himself. He never raised his voice, seldom let emotions rule. But now, to my horror, that self-control cracked and all traces of the seasoned diplomat, the dispassionate philosopher, the objective scientist fell away. Tears sprang to his eyes as he beseeched me. “Have I failed you so utterly as a father?”

  My heart beat a fast and painful cadence. He had failed me. But that wasn’t the whole of the story, or even the largest part of it. And at the sight of his anguish, tears welled in my eyes, too. “My dearest Papa, please believe that I’d never leave you, or my country, except for God.”

  But I did not tell him of my faith.

  Instead, breathlessly, I told him of my bargain.

  When I finished, he said, “Oh, Patsy. It’d be more pardonable to believe in no god at all than in one who bargains like a pirate for the life of a little girl. That god would be a demon. You mustn’t feel bound by such a promise. Not when it would make me so unbearably unhappy.” Leaning forward, he grasped my fingers, and it was his gnarled and injured hand that trembled, not mine. “Patsy, I rely on you for the evening of my life, because you know, as no one knows, that the morning of my life was clouded by loss after loss. I have nothing left but you.”

  The beseeching tone of his words stole my response, but my thoughts raced.

  What of Polly?

  The question swam silently on the tip of my tongue as he sank to his knees before me, like a penitent, holding my face in his hands. Overwhelming me with his emotion. “My dear girl, nobody in this world can make me happy or miserable as you. You’ve b
een my constant companion in my darkest hours. I’d be lost without you. Lost.”

  His supplication at my feet melted the edges of my anger and left only a desperate need to mend what I’d broken. “I’d never wish to grieve you so, Papa. I only wish to serve God’s demand.”

  Then we were both sobbing, my father’s forehead pressed to mine, our tears mingling. “Patsy, a just God would never demand this of you. I know what it is to be truly bound by a vow, for I made one to your mother.”

  He stopped to pull from his coat pocket the engraved gold watch key in which he’d preserved my mother’s hair beneath clear glass. “I swear again, here and now, that I’ll never take another wife. I’ll always be alone. So if I’m obliged to leave you here, shut up in a convent … it would be as much a grief to me as shoveling dirt over your grave. And I’d pray for someone to soon shovel dirt over mine.”

  I was truly shaken. I’d not seen my father in such a state since the night he stared down his pistols. I remembered our solitary rides. Those days he lay prostrate after my mother’s death. Here in Paris, he stood so much taller, a giant amongst men.

  I hadn’t realized—or perhaps I had forgotten—that he needed me, just as my mother said he would. And hadn’t I made a vow to her before I made one to God?

  Papa’s misery put me in doubt of my decision. Had I been seduced? Seduced by my own sadness and heartbreak? Perhaps I did need more time to think. More time to decide.

  My father had been, for so long, everything to me. My sun, my moon, my stars. No other being—not even William Short—had ever exerted such force in my universe as my father. So it’s true that Papa never forbade me from my vocation as a nun, but it is equally true that he didn’t think he needed to. Though I remained unsure, Papa clearly considered the matter decided, and the very next day he rode up to the convent gates in a carriage and told Polly and me to gather all our belongings. Then my father paid our tuition in full, closing our account. And we rode away from the Panthemont in silence.

  “MADEMOISELLE JEFFERSON, WOULD you do me the honor of a dance?” The question was put to me in the opulent gilded ballroom, following a regal bow, by the Marquis de Lafayette. He was, at that time, an elegant man of thirty-one, at the height of his power and his beauty. The heroic soldier, who was no less handsome for the long slope of his forehead beneath his powdered wig, had rescued us from the British when I was but a child. Now he rescued me again by singling me out for attention at my debut, and I couldn’t help but wonder if Papa had put him up to it.

  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 passage 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 …”

  The Polignacs were amongst the most powerful families at the court, and my suitor’s mother a great favorite of Queen Marie-Antoinette. The chevalier, who some afforded the courtesy title of prince, challenged me with an aristocratic bearing. “Do you care to test your American pionnière fortitude against my stamina?”

  I accepted and we danced a lively cotillion that had me sweating at the back of the neck. When the dance master called the next dance, Polignac said, simply, “Again.”

  “But that’s not permitted,” I replied, fanning my flaming cheeks, for we could not dance twice in succession without inviting scandal.

  “Then the dance after that,” he said with a rakish smile. “I must best the Duke of Dorset, so give me the honor of every other dance, Mademoiselle.”

  Polignac was brash and pleasant to look at in his sea-green coat with its embroidered gold lapels. Papa would’ve been appalled by my deference to titled nobility—but I found myself quite unable to refuse the son of a duke. Before the night was through, I’d danced sixteen times, eight of them with him.

  We caused a sensation, and I admit to feeling satisfaction at the brazenness of it, even when the ladies Tufton scolded, “Have you set your cap on a Polignac, Patsy?” and “If you aim to be a duchess, at least favor our uncle, so that we can all be family one day!”

  Marie hushed the Tufton sisters with a violent whack of her lace fan. “Tais-toi!” Then she turned shrewd eyes on me. “Cher Jef is just in revolt against her papa. She has half the French court whispering Jefferson’s daughter will convert to the true faith. Now the other half will whisper that the daughter of equality’s champion aims to marry an aristocrat.”