America's First Daughter: A Novel

by Stephanie Dray

  Then I took a deep breath as something snapped inside me. I’d told myself that Tom would one day recover from the blow of his father’s death and rejection. Just as my father had come through his madness. That given enough love and time, my husband would stand up like the man he wanted to be, and I could lean on him in times of trouble.

  Now I knew better.

  I could never, ever, lean on him or my sister or anyone else. I hadn’t chosen a life in which I might be cared for and pampered. I’d chosen a different path. And I ought to be grateful to Tom, I told myself, for having obliged me to exert all the strength and energy I had at my disposal. Because in this exercise, the mind acquires strength to bear up against evils that would otherwise overcome it.

  Realizing it, my aches and pains and ailments melted away, to leave me in more perfect health than I had enjoyed in years. For if I wanted to hold my family together, if I wanted my children to survive, I could neither be tired nor ill. If I wanted to carve out anything for myself or anyone I loved, I couldn’t lean or waver.

  I’d have to be the pillar to hold it all up … if only because I was Thomas Jefferson’s daughter.

  Washington, 18 April 1802

  From Thomas Jefferson to Robert R. Livingston

  The cession of Louisiana by Spain to France will form a new epoch in our political course. Of all nations France is our natural friend. Her growth we viewed as our own, her misfortunes ours. But it’s impossible that France and the US can continue long friends when they meet in so irritable a position as they do now. The day France takes possession of New Orleans we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation.

  My father was not, as the Federalists suggested, blind to the dangers of Napoleon. Rather, I believe it was his well-known sympathy for France that made possible—in a way it wouldn’t have been possible for any other president—the successful purchase of Louisiana.

  Even before it was completed in the third year of his presidency, it was plain that the Louisiana Purchase would be one of his greatest achievements, a staggering success of careful and opportunistic statecraft that doubled the size of the country. And the Federalists could scarcely mount up an opposition to it.

  My father’s political victory had been a bloodless revolution, we said … but there had been blood. Hamilton’s blood. Spilled from the body of his eldest son in defense of his honor. One of my father’s supporters had claimed Mr. Hamilton intended to overthrow the government to stop a Jeffersonian presidency. That claim now proven utterly untrue, Philip Hamilton confronted his father’s accuser in a duel and was shot dead.

  It was a reminder to me that public life could be fatal, exerting a toll on families that was difficult to underestimate. So my husband couldn’t have astonished me more if he’d grown a horn in the middle of his head, when, before the purchase of Louisiana was negotiated, he said, “Jack Eppes is running for Congress. I’m going to do the same.”

  My sister’s husband was running in a newly created district where his chances of victory were good. The seat Tom wanted was already occupied by one of my father’s strongest supporters. If Tom lost, it’d not only alienate the man against my father, but would also crush my husband utterly. And even if Tom won, they’d say he hadn’t earned his seat in Congress on his own merits, but on my father’s name; for both of Jefferson’s sons-in-laws to run together was to invite rumor of a Jeffersonian dynasty.

  But when Tom told me, there was an earnest pride and eagerness in his expression, one I hadn’t seen since he was a boy, gazing up at my father with admiration. I realized what it would mean to him to win a seat in Congress. What it would mean to him to succeed. Tom had never wanted to be a planter. His responsibilities as a father and a husband had probably put a legal career out of reach forever. But he didn’t need that to serve in Congress.

  I didn’t know how we’d manage the plantations without Tom or my father, but I didn’t have the heart to discourage my husband; I simply didn’t have the heart. “Why, I think it’s a wonderful idea, Tom.”

  He embraced me, planting a thousand kisses on my cheeks. “What a lucky man I am to have you for a wife,” he said, holding my face in his hands. “Don’t you worry about the farms. I have a plan.”

  I was worried. If Tom won, he’d be absent from home, just as my father was perpetually absent. Our already shaky fortunes would suffer. I wasn’t worried about Monticello; in Papa’s absence, the Hemings family ran everything there from the blacksmith shop to the dairy. We only needed to send an overseer there once a week to discipline the nail boys. But the outlying farms … slaves could do the planting, but the operations would need to be overseen every day, and I doubted we could recoup the expense of a more permanent overseer. Though I’d found more strength in me than I knew I had while nursing my entire family back to health through the whooping cough and managing a household besides, I feared that along with the children, and the house, and the outbuildings, the responsibility for the farms and the crops would now fall to me. And that I might not prove worthy of the challenge.

  So I girded myself for his answer. “What plan?”

  “Cotton,” Tom said as he began to describe his scheme. “It’s like printing money, it’s so profitable.”

  This confused me utterly. “I hadn’t thought cotton a profitable crop in Virginia.”

  He nodded. “That’s why I’m going to Georgia. I thought, originally, to try the Mississippi territory, but every white man there is outnumbered by slaves and dangerous Indians. So I’m going to purchase land in Georgia.”

  The blood drained from my face. It was, of course, a husband’s prerogative to decide where his family would go. But if Tom thought I’d submit to dragging our children into parts hitherto unknown, he’d misjudged me thoroughly. My voice actually quavered when I said, “You want to pack up and move to Georgia?”

  He stroked my hair. “No, no. Of course not. I can’t hold a congressional seat in Virginia if we make a home in Georgia, can I? No. I’ll go to Georgia to prospect land, and when I find a good place, I’ll establish all our Negroes there.” My horrified expression must not have changed a whit, because he quickly added, “I know you’re worried about our people, Patsy. I have nothing but the deepest concern for those whose happiness fortune has thrown upon our will. We won’t break up any families—we’ll send them all together. I promise you, the culture of cotton is the least laborious of any ever practiced. It’s a gentle labor.”

  Maybe. But what about domestic servants? Even if I could part with them, I couldn’t bear to see them sent away in fear. “They’ll be terrified, Tom.”

  “We’ll have to ease them into it,” he agreed. “We’ll have to tell them that we’re all going. My slaves are willing to accompany me anywhere, but their attachment to you would make their departure very heavy unless they believed you were to follow soon.”

  No wonder my husband never liked deception. Even when he could muster up the stomach for a lie, he had no talent for it. There was no earthly way we could fool our domestic servants, who watched our every move and listened to our every word. And if our domestic servants knew we weren’t going with them to Georgia, our field hands would soon learn it, too, at which point the entire thing would be completely unmanageable.

  Which is why I agreed to it.

  I knew it would never work. Like every other wild-eyed scheme of easy fortune I’d ever heard, this one would require a sharp focus that my husband could never bring to bear while campaigning for a seat in Congress. A campaign he’d decidedly lose, after which maybe we could get back to the sensible business of paying off the debts on farms he already owned.

  In the end, I was half right.

  Tom’s interest in cotton came to nothing. He never even made the trip to Georgia. But he and Jack both won a seat in Congress. Jack by a landslide. My husband by thirteen votes.

  And I was now the daughter of the president and the wife of a congressman.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Monticello,
12 August 1802

  From Thomas Jefferson to William Short

  Will you not come and pass the months of August and September with us at Monticello? Make this place your home while I am here. You will find none more healthy, none so convenient for your affairs and certainly none where you will be so cordially welcome.

  THIS ISN’T THE FIRST TIME I’ve found William’s name while thumbing through my father’s papers. Not even the first time I’ve traced the lettering of his name with a bittersweet ache. Since our break in Paris, William continued to exchange letters with my father, though Papa was always prudent enough not to speak of them to me beyond the occasional Mr. Short sends his regards.

  At the time, it had seemed perfectly natural that William would—upon finally returning to America—call upon his mentor. But I never knew, until finding this letter, that it was my father’s invitation that brought William back into my life.

  And now that my father is dead, I’m left to wonder why.

  That summer, my father came to Edgehill to fetch me in a fine carriage pulled by even finer horses. At the sound of wheels grinding up the road, I came flying out of the house, my daughters behind me, squealing with glee to see the kindly grandfather who sent them books and poems and other treats with every packet.

  My children all loved him, and he loved each of them in return. And I nearly envied my children the sweet, playful side Papa always showed them. If I were to tell them that he’d once been a stony and remote father with exacting standards, they’d scarcely believe me. Why, watching him play the Royal Game of Goose with my children as we loaded up the carriage, I could scarcely believe it myself.

  And I’d lived it!

  “This visit is going to restore our spirits, Martha,” Papa said, boldly placing a smooch on my cheek when we were ready to leave. How I basked in his love and affection.

  Tom and Jeff would follow our caravan on horseback, but I climbed into the carriage with my father. As the wheels rattled on, I said, “I’m relieved to see you’ve somehow come home without your presidential entourage. I hope we won’t have many visitors this summer.”

  “Just the Madisons.” My father bounced little Ginny on his knee with genuine delight. “And one special visitor we’ve been waiting to see for a very long time: Mr. Short.”

  It’d been nearly thirteen years since I left William Short in Paris. Thirteen years.

  In that time, I’d taught myself to forget him. But when Papa told me that he was to visit with us, my practiced indifference unraveled. And I couldn’t decide if it was a blessing or a curse that my husband knew nothing about my anxieties at this reunion.

  One evening, Tom asked, “So this Mr. Short, was he one of your suitors in Paris?”

  I’d just finished playing the harpsichord for the Madisons and my fingers froze over the keys, unable to make my tongue move in answer. Fortunately, Papa rescued me by saying, “Oh, Patsy had a gaggle of suitors in Paris. Even the son of a duke, I seem to recall.”

  I smiled gratefully at my father, but Mr. Madison’s face pinched in a sour disapproval far more affecting than it ought to have been from such a tiny little man. “Mr. Short has had a very storied career.”

  Madison’s wife—whom everyone was encouraged to call Dolley—put her delicate hand on his arm and laughed until the careless plume with which she’d ornamented her hair shook with merriment. “They do say Mr. Short has a way with money, and he’s done the country a great service.” Then her eyes twinkled with the promise of juicy gossip. “But I’ve heard notorious stories about him living in open congress with his lover … a French harlot at that.”

  Tom’s eyes widened.

  My father winced.

  I did not. “The Duchess Rosalie is no harlot.”

  “Oh, you knew her?” Dolley asked me, leaning forward with rosy pink cheeks that matched the satin of her gown. “I suppose you’re quite right to hold her blameless. It’s Mr. Short who hasn’t made an honest woman of her. He’s allowed himself to be debauched away from the morals of his countrymen. I daresay, in returning to America, he’s likely found himself in another world. It’s good that he isn’t returning with the duchess on his arm or the stain on his honor would be more difficult to wash out.”

  As painfully shy and withdrawn as my sister had become, this prompted her to break in with, “Perhaps we ought not judge them too harshly. I remember Mr. Short very kindly from our time in Paris.”

  “Well, you would, you sweet dear,” Dolley said. “You give us all a good example to follow. We must be very kind to Mr. Short, for I fear our neighbors won’t be so forgiving.”

  What I feared was that William wouldn’t be forgiving. Had he ever forgiven me? I still had Marie’s letter—the one that said how angrily he’d denied loving me. I wondered if he was angry still. And I wondered, too, how he might look now, at the age of forty-three. I hoped he’d grown bald and portly. Certainly, he wouldn’t be as handsome as my own husband, whose beauty had only sharpened with years.

  I was to find out for myself at the start of August, when William arrived in a carriage even more splendid than the president’s, with scarlet velvet curtains and gilt trim on the doors, driven by matching black horses with red plumes.

  For a moment, watching William step down from the coach, I was transported in time and place. Paris, before the revolution, when such carriages went every day to and from Versailles. And when William flashed a grin, I could see, to my great disappointment, that he hadn’t grown soft or bald or portly. Nor did he even look as if he’d aged—his facial features remained boyish, even if there was a hint of silver in his sandy hair. In an embroidered blue tailcoat, a dangling gold watch fob, a newly fashionable top hat, and breeches tucked into tall riding boots, he gave every impression of a dignified courtier and man of importance. It was suddenly easy to imagine people calling him His Excellency, Mr. Short, the minister of the United States of America.

  All the more when he stepped forward to greet my father and executed a very correct bow. “Mr. President,” William said, as if the words gave him delight and satisfaction to speak aloud.

  At their long-awaited reunion, my father pulled into an embrace with the man he’d once considered his adoptive son, patting his back with so much vigor and affection that I thought I might weep. The two men who had been most important to me in my youth held each other by the arms, taking stock of one another after more than a decade, laughing at the joy of it.

  William said, “President Jefferson, from the harbor all the way here, I’ve heard nothing but joyous thanksgiving. You’re very much in the public favor, sir.”

  With his arms about William’s shoulder, my father replied, “I fear more confidence has been placed in me than my qualifications merit. I dread the disappointment of my friends.”

  “Never that,” William replied, even though, in his case, I knew it to be a polite lie. Though he tried to disguise it, his eyes swept uncomfortably to the servants who ran forward to fetch his bags and water the horses. There was no mistaking his loathing of slavery, but it wasn’t in his nature to criticize his host. He was, after all, still a Virginian; diplomacy ruled him. And it’s because I knew that he was a diplomat, well practiced with words, that I startled when he lifted his green eyes to mine and said in French, “Vous êtes une vision angélique, Madame Randolph!”

  These were the first words we’d spoken to one another after thirteen years and an ocean of silence. I’d expected some tightness at the mouth that might hint of pain or regret. Instead, he’d made his eyes twinkle while comparing me to an angel, of all things.

  Did he mean for his words to cut? Perhaps I’d been so eclipsed in his life, and in his heart, that he didn’t even remember he’d once pointedly praised me not as an angel but an Amazon. And I was suddenly swamped by the memory of that day, when he confessed to having stolen a lock of my hair to keep as a token—a memory so bittersweet that it was hard to speak the words, “Welcome home, Mr. Short.”

  But I said it,
and then it was done. The moment that had filled me with dread and anticipation was simply over, as if it were of no significance. Not even attended by the awkwardness that might have made it of some comforting consequence.

  Instead, the awkwardness belonged to Sally Hemings. Seeing her on the portico with her two light-skinned, blue-eyed, freckled children clinging to her skirts, William made an elaborate and courtly bow. “What a delight to see you again, madame.”

  We all froze in an awkward tableau, for William had acknowledged my father’s slave-mistress with a courtesy title, one accorded ladies or women whose marital status was unknown, as one might do in France when openly acknowledging a man’s mistress. At Monticello, my father kept quiet his relationship with Sally—such that even my children seemed unaware of it.

  But, of course, William had been there when it started.

  Thankfully, Sally was quick to bob an exaggerated curtsey like a French courtier, then adopted the strange sliding gait we’d all practiced at Versailles. “Monsieur.”

  Her antics broke the tension and allowed everyone to laugh, but I was unsteadied enough to miss a step going into the house. Tom noticed, catching me by the elbow and hugging me against his side with the fit of good humor that had struck him since his election to Congress.

  “It seems Mr. Short will be amiable company,” Tom said, oblivious to the storm of emotions inside me. “The children certainly like him.”

  Ahead of us, my little cherubs all danced around William, who had a bag of half-melted chocolate drops for them. Chocolate drops. Another reminder for me, or simply a gift for the children? And why should it bother me that I didn’t know?

  I was overaware of William every single day he spent with us that hottest of summer months. I tried desperately to stay away, but the sound of his laughter carried to me through the house wherever I went. I seemed to sense him even before he passed by the doorway of the blue sitting room where I taught my children. I knew when he took his seat at the supper table beside my father, before even turning to see. And that is how, without even having to look up, I knew it was he who had come upon me in my father’s garden that day.