America's First Daughter: A Novel

by Stephanie Dray

  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—”

  “You can’t compare yourself to my father!”

  His eyes narrowed with … something that looked like disappointment, and he shook his head. “All my friends have said you’re still too young—”

  “What friends say that?” I snapped, anger boiling now.

  “That’s not important. What’s important is that you can be a wife and mother or you can be a devoted daughter all your life. You can’t be both. Not when Thomas Jefferson is your father. You have to choose, Patsy.”

  His words echoed the very debates that I’d been having with myself for weeks. And that horrified me. Because he was saying that I couldn’t have them both. “You’re asking me to choose you over everything else and blaming my father for it.” My voice cracked. “My papa isn’t asking me to choose, but you are.”

  William didn’t even lower his eyes at my rebuke. “You’re right. I am. If you go to Virginia, two months will become six. Six will become a year. We’ll never be together. So if you leave France, know that I won’t be waiting.”

  Just then the trumpets blared to announce the king’s procession, and we fell silent, watching the street below. Mesmerized by the sight of the surging crowd. Not knowing if it would come to open war, then and there. The people wanted their freedom; they strained for it. Were willing to fight for it in bloody struggle.

  But, like a father of the nation, the king had come to Paris to restore order. And between these two forces, between the carriage of the king and his people, was caught the Marquis de Lafayette.

  In proud uniform, a cockade of red, white, and blue just like the one I wore pinned to my own gown, he rode at the head of the processional. It required courage and honor in its rawest form to ride as he did, defending the very king whose authority he sought to strip away against an armed mob with whom his heart belonged. And my eyes filled with tears at the thought that Lafayette might falter and be torn to pieces by the crowd.

  I didn’t brush those tears away as Lafayette’s horse passed under our window. And though he rode in a crowd of thousands, he looked up at me. I imagined that our eyes met—that I saw in Lafayette’s white-faced grimness an acceptance of his fate so long as he never betrayed his cause.

  Then he bowed to me, and I knew I had not imagined it.

  He bowed to me, and his honor and courage became my own.

  The spark of his devotion lit a fire inside me that burned away my doubts.

  My hand fell away from William’s grasp, and my voice no longer wavered. “I’m going to Virginia with my father, and if you love me, you’ll wait for me a little longer.”

  OUR TRUNKS WERE PACKED and I took a
last look at the inventory list of books, busts, pictures, and clocks to be shipped ahead of us. The Hotel de Langeac was strangely bare and quiet. And I kept hoping—hoping desperately—for William. No matter how angry he was at my leaving, surely he’d see us off!

  I lingered near the door, jumping up at the sound of every passing carriage in the street. And when a carriage finally pulled inside our gates, I ran out to meet it. It was not William inside that carriage but Marie, her expression bleak. “Has Mr. Short changed his mind?” she asked, coming into the house with a hat box. “Has he agreed to wait for you?”

  When I shook my head, she lowered the hat box and her eyes filled with tears as she rained curses down upon William’s head. Finally, she asked, “With all the men who pursued you, is there no other offer that might keep you in France?”

  No, there was no one for me but William. That morning, a messenger wearing the livery of the Duke of Dorset had presented to me a parting gift—another ring, this one a simple silver band, with a note begging me to accept it as “a feeble proof of my fond remembrance.” I had nearly burst into tears on the spot because the duke thought to send me a token of farewell, whereas I had nothing but angry silence from William. But if I told Marie about that, then I surely would burst into tears, so I only shook my head.

  “Then you will not come back.” She choked on a sob, utterly undone. “I have not wanted to believe it, but now I cannot bear to part with you, and I cannot stop crying.”

  “Oh, Marie!” We embraced and held one another tightly, our hearts pounding against one another as we fought off tears.

  Finally, Marie murmured, “I shall throw myself into a river without you.”

  I drew back abruptly. “You must never say anything that, Marie. Never.”

  She looked abashed, brushing away her tears with her thumbs. “Of course. I am the one who first taught you to pretend at happiness in Paris. Now we must both pretend.” She straightened, sniffling into a kerchief. “I’ve had a hat made for you, because yours are all out of style. They don’t indent hats in the front anymore and yours with the rosette is good for nothing. You must wear this one and think of me. And we must promise to write letters.”

  We promised. We exchanged tokens of remembrance. Then we parted, abruptly, as Marie fled from me in tears. I had not offered her any hope that I would return to France, as I now feared there was none. I think it was the excruciating fear that William might truly let this be the end of it between us that left me so confused to see Sally in the foyer with her own satchel of belongings.

  All she owns in the world, I thought. I was moved by her plight, not only because I was fond of her, or even only because she was, in the way of the Hemingses, near kin to me. But also because the truth of our situation was leaking around all the barricades I’d put up against it.

  Inside her, she carried my little brother or sister. One I could never acknowledge and might never see born. At least the baby would be born in France—born free. That heartened me, and seeing glimpses of pain and anxiety in her amber eyes, my heart went out to her—the warmth of sympathy and concern a welcome balm from the cold ache of William’s absence.

  “You won’t become destitute,” I promised with a small smile, twisting the ring Papa bought me from my finger and pressing it into her hand. “You keep this for a day you need it, but you won’t. I’ll send a letter to Marie and Madam de Tessé and the Duchess Rosalie to find a place for you as a lady’s maid. Until then, why not stay on here at the Hotel de Langeac? Mr. Short won’t put you out in the street—”

  “James and I are going home with you to Virginia,” Sally said, stunning me into silence. “Your papa has made us an offer.”

  My throat tightened. What offer could he have made them? Though they were his slaves, the Hemingses had the laws of France on their side, not to mention the laws of God. And I found it hard to imagine my dignified father bargaining with any slave, much less his own.

  But then Sally convinced me. “We’ve been negotiating a treaty.”

  A treaty. That did sound like my father, the minister to France. Recalling the duke’s wish to make an alliance with me, I could easily imagine Papa condescending to charm his enslaved lover, giving her the courtesies due an ambassador from a foreign land. “Oh?” I managed, weakly.

  She lifted her chin, a hint of pride there. “Your father promises that if James goes back and teaches someone else all he’s learned in the kitchens of Paris, he’ll go free. And if I go back, your father will keep me and care for me well, till his death. He’ll free my babies, too, when they turn twenty-one, upon his solemn oath.”

  Babies? As if there would be more. As if they meant to carry on indefinitely?

  I nearly slapped her. My anger was so volcanic that it burned coherent thought from my mind. I wasn’t even sure why I was so angry, only that I was. “You want to be a slave all your life, Sally?” Past my strangled fury I choked out, “You want to be my father’s … whore?”

  She brushed the wetness of her eyes away, as if it pained her for me to see her cry. “How am I to leave my family in Virginia, Miss Patsy? Never see my momma again? Knowing your father wants me, how could I refuse? He’s good to me, and I hate nothing like disappointing him. It hurts to disappoint him.”

  Who knew the truth of that statement better than I did? And yet I stood there, shaking with a fury at her choice that I couldn’t comprehend, biting the insides of my cheeks to keep from howling with it. It was the wrong choice. Could she not see it? “You’re giving up your freedom!”

  “I know it.” Her chest heaved with emotion beneath her pretty blue gown. “But women have to give hard thought to the men we’ll wind up with. Make a mistake and get a drunk, a spendthrift, a cruel man. A man who won’t keep his word. But your papa gives his word and nobody ever doubts it. You think I’m likely to find some better Frenchman? Or some better man at all? Or any man willing to have a woman carrying another man’s baby?”

  Sally’s shoulders fell, and for just a moment, sympathy pierced my anger. She’d be with child, in a city full of upheaval, with no one to rely upon but her brother.

  But then she said, “In marriage, man and woman become one, and that one is the husband.”

  Did she think of herself as my father’s wife? The very thought of it sent fire through my blood anew and made sense of my rage. It sounded as if she believed that what passed between her and my father was a lifelong sacrament, when it was nothing but sin!

  And while I stood there, wondering how to tell her that she’d never replace my mother, she straightened her shoulders and said, “He loves me, Miss Patsy.”

  I did slap her then.

  Sally shrieked and clutched her cheek. But I wasn’t moved to pity.

  I’d given up William to save my father from dying of a broken heart, thinking that Sally was going to leave him and take his child with her.

  Was my whole life in ruin because of this girl?

  My rage grew even hotter toward my father. For his words about William’s fitness and his melancholy about Sally had brought me to the conclusion that I must give up what I wanted for myself and do my duty, and yet all the while Papa was making deals to ensure he’d make no sacrifice at all. Not now. And, very likely, not in the future, not as long as Sally chose to remain at his side. In my mind’s eye, I saw him on his knees before me, reaffirming his deathbed promise never to take another wife and pleading that his happiness depended on me—all to keep me from taking my vows.

  And now I’d given up everything I’d ever dared to want for myself. The convent. My dearest friends. William.

  Everything.

  The room spun around me, and pressure built inside me that demanded release. I felt less in control of myself than ever before or at any time after. And so I did something that to this day I regret as much as slapping her. I hissed in her tear-streaked face what I knew to be a lie. “Papa doesn’t love you. And he never will.”

  I’VE MADE A MISTAKE, I thought, imagining
I could see England across the fog-covered waters of the channel.

  There was still time to turn back. I could run back to William Short’s embrace and beg a thousand pardons for having left him. My father wouldn’t stop me. Not when he knew his honor was so tarnished in my eyes.

  Indeed, it seemed as if Nature herself commanded me to turn back, because the bumpy earth had split the axle of our phaeton and broke the wheels of our carriage to slow us down. Then the most tempestuous weather we’d ever seen trapped us with a storm of wind and squall, the fury of which was an echo of all the turmoil inside me.

  But William hadn’t tried to stop me from going. He’d never even said good-bye. And so this was an ending, I told myself. Turning away from the view, I knew I wouldn’t—couldn’t—look back. But neither could I go forward, for this storm blew for nine days until the only way Papa could calm my little sister was to promise her a puppy.

  Papa said, “Come search out shepherd dogs with me, Patsy.”

  Why don’t you take your lover? I let the silent question show in my sullen eyes. Then, furiously, I grabbed my coat with an insolent stare. Numb with heartbreak, I scarcely felt the chill of the rain or the blow of the wind when we went clambering the cliffs. Though Papa tried to engage me in conversation, I said next to nothing as we walked together for hours, nearly ten miles in all.

  It was a fruitless, awkward search. I had too much dignity to pretend there was nothing wrong between us. My father knew what weighed upon my heart and I knew what weighed upon his. And at long last, I decided that if we were going to quarrel, why not do it here in the howling wind?

  When we neared the docks, I opened my mouth to reprimand him for his immoral conduct with Sally and for putting a wedge between William and me. But just as I inhaled to speak the words, we heard a crack sharper than thunder.

  Hearts hammering, we turned to see a man collapse upon the beach. My father rushed closer, demanding I stay back, but fear carried my feet forward. It was the most ghastly sight I’ve ever witnessed … the body of a man who had, just that moment, shot himself. His pistol had dropped at his feet and he’d fallen backward. The blast completely separated his whole face from the forehead to the chin, pounding it to a bloody pulp. And the center of his head was entirely laid bare … red blood, white bone, and blue-gray brain.