Jessie

by Judy Alter

  I knew that John would not dare seek me out or even write me a letter. Papa Joe Nicollet would have told him the climate of the Benton household, and John was nobody's fool. He would wait for me to make the first move. It was symptomatic of how comfortable I felt about our love that I felt no hesitation in making that move. I went again to the Nicollet studio, this time sneaking away when Father was engaged with business in the Capitol Building.

  John was there, pacing anxiously and wondering how to get in touch with me, as Papa Joe told me later. I stood briefly in the doorway looking at him. The outdoor life had toughened him, giving him a hardy manliness that was, to my eyes, irresistible. His blond hair was bleached and his complexion darkened, both by the sun. But it was the way he held himself—strong and sure—that most impressed me.

  There was no pretense of propriety. John simply opened his arms, and I walked into them.

  "Jessie," he murmured, stroking my hair, "I have missed you more than words can tell... and the fact that I could not write to you, could not hear from you..." His voice drifted away in a whispered anguish.

  "Shhh!" I put a finger on his lips. "We are together now, and we shall not be parted again." Young as I was, I am sure I did not realize what boundaries I had crossed, what common standards of courtship and manners I had left behind by being so open about my emotions.

  "Ah, Jessie," he murmured, "I hope you are right." And because Mr. Nicollet had tactfully left us alone, John kissed me full on the mouth, hard enough to cause that strange twisting sensation in my stomach. For a moment I went weak at the knees with wanting more.

  Then, to myself, I vowed to see that my pledge was faithful. We would never be parted again. It was the most foolish pledge I ever made in my life... and one that I wished over and over I could have kept.

  Mother and Father within due time heard that I had been seeing John surreptitiously. To my surprise Father did not openly confront me about my disobedience. I suspect he saw the inevitable handwriting on the wall. For once he turned the handling of his rebellious daughter over to his invalid wife.

  Mother, not the politician that Father was, was nonetheless equally cunning and clever. She bided her time, passing only pleasantries with me on my daily visits to her room, for several weeks after John returned. Then one day, perhaps because she was feeling stronger than usual, she brought up the subject almost abruptly.

  "You have been seeing Lieutenant Frémont," she said, though there was more resignation than accusation in her voice.

  "Yes, Mother, I have," I said. One of the lessons I learned early was that lying was not only immoral, it often proved impractical.

  "Your father has asked you not to see him." Those pale blue eyes stared directly at me, making it hard for me to return her look directly. I reasoned, however, that if I did not defend my love, I was not worthy of it... or him.

  "I could not abide by Father's wishes," I said, reaching for her hand as though the gesture would bind us together. "I... my tie to John is stronger."

  "Stronger than your tie to the father who has raised you and who has counted you his most important aide?" Her voice held no hint of resentment that I had taken the role that should have been hers. Indeed, I sensed a slight panic that I might desert Father, leaving her to bear the burden of being his supporter.

  "Yes, Mother," I said. "Parental ties are strong, but when we meet the person with whom we are intended to spend our lives... our soul mate, if you will..."

  "Poppycock!" she said, her voice showing more strength and exasperation than I had heard in months. "You are too young—only sixteen—to make such a decision. You have no idea who you are meant to spend your life with. And marriage decisions are not made for such flighty reasons....You need to think of his ability to provide you with security, the comforts of life."

  She grew impassioned as she gave what was for her a long speech. "Look," she said, "at how well your father has provided for me and for you children."

  I drew a deep breath. "It took you seven years to marry Father. Did you not have the same strong feeling for him that I have for John?"

  Mother turned her head away, and I was mortified that my arrow had hit home so closely. "Mother," I said, taking that limp hand in mine again and noticing how pale her skin was against my own healthy tone, "I would not hurt you, and I know that you love Father. But you must understand that what John and I share is different."

  "We ask you," she said woodenly, as though repeating a fixed speech, "to wait one year before you reach any decision."

  I was nearly knocked off my feet by this slight indication of possibility, this hint that someday approval might come our way. "May I see John in that interval?" I asked.

  "Only in our home, at large dinner parties," she said. "He will continue to be invited. But you may not see him under other circumstances."

  I stared out the window. There was no answer, no way to explain how long a year was, how difficult their request. What I also knew was that I could not explain to them the burning in the pit of my stomach whenever John kissed me. Whether or not my parents would understand that eluded me completely, but I had the sense—and the schoolgirl propriety—not to mention it.

  In the end I avoided giving Mother a promise. It was a promise I could not make, though I was reluctant to disobey her. I left her room with a kiss and a whispered "I love you, Mother."

  I knew I would never give in to the year's separation forced on us. John and I continued to meet, but now secretly, and the furtive nature of our romance gave it added spark. Ah, the forbidden fruit! Mornings, beginning very early, I worked with Father in his library, and then, after the midday meal, I always took my exercise—a long walk on which I accidentally happened to meet John.

  "Jessie, I think I shall accompany you today," Father said. "We haven't walked through Washington together for a long time. Remember the walks we used to have when you were little?"

  "Of course I remember, Father," I said, hoping to calm the rapid beating of my heart. If Father was to find out I was meeting John... The consequences seemed too terrible to ponder.

  "I remember," he went on, "the first time you saw the slave market, and you were so horrified at those poor people in chains."

  "I still am," I replied.

  "So am I, so am I. I guess that came to mind because this damnable slavery issue is everywhere... and it's going to split this country, mark my words." Then, brightening, he said, "Come, we won't walk anywhere near the slave market. Where would you like to go?"

  Anywhere but the public gardens near the White House, I said to myself, knowing that was where John awaited me. Aloud I said, "Have you been to Mr. Nicollet's studio lately to check on the maps of Lieutenant Frémont's latest expedition?" It was a bold move.

  "Jessie," Father said in exasperation, "is this an excuse to see the lieutenant?"

  "No, Father, it truly is not. I know how interested you are in these explorations, and the studio is just the right distance for a fine walk." My reasoning was twofold: John would not be there, which would make the visit acceptable to Father, and when John did return, Papa Joe would report that I had visited with my father. John would then understand why I had not met him.

  As we walked, Father and I talked of borders and boundaries, of England's belief that the Columbia River must be the northern boundary of the United States while Father held out for a line more to the north, which would include rich timber and farming lands yet to be settled.

  "And Mexico, Jessie," he said, "we're bound to have trouble there, but California must be made a part of the United States. There is no sense in a country not stretching to its own natural borders, and this country will go from ocean to ocean."

  I knew he had spoken at length on this subject in the Senate just the day before—so long that at least half the senators departed during his speech, he reported—and I felt a surge of pride in his strong beliefs, his commitment to what was right for his country. In spite of my anxiety over missing John, I was enjoying on
ce again being my father's close companion.

  Mr. Nicollet greeted us effusively, though I saw a flash of confusion in his eyes when we were first admitted to the studio. I managed to respond to it with a strong smile, and he responded with that most Gallic of gestures—a slight shrug.

  The visit was a success. Father was most impressed with the maps that were under way and with John's work, which completed the earlier work Mr. Nicollet had done on the upper Des Moines. With Mr. Nicollet's running commentary Father leafed through John's sketchbooks, commenting on the thoroughness of detail in them.

  I watched over his shoulder, thrilled to be seeing John's hand at work, as it were.

  "Tell the lieutenant that Jessie and I are sorry to have missed him," Father said as we left, unaware of his own irony, "and give him my compliments on a job well done."

  "I will do that, sir," Papa Joe said, giving me a quick smile that told me he would say even more than Father had asked him to.

  John and I had a good laugh about the incident the next day, when he confessed that he had been nearly undone with concern waiting for me. "I thought you were ill... or that you had met an accident walking here. A thousand possibilities, all of them bad, went through my mind....Oh, my darling, I could not bear it if anything happened to you."

  My finger to his lips silenced his concern, but in a few minutes he said, "Jessie, we cannot go on like this. How long must we meet in secret and feel guilty because we love each other?"

  "A year," I said, knowing in my heart that we would not—could not—wait the year.

  I waited, half in anticipation and half in dread, for word of our meetings to get back to Father. Sooner or later someone would recognize us in the public gardens—the place we most frequently met—and mention it. But if anyone told him, Father chose not to mention it to me.

  On rainy days we met in Maria Crittendon's parlor. That good lady was my guardian angel—friend, confidante, and adviser all in one charming and gracious person, who tactfully disappeared from the parlor for a few minutes each time we were there. She never left us long enough to compromise my honor, but she gave us the privacy needed for a stolen kiss or two, a pledge of love.

  John was still an occasional guest at our home. Father had lost none of his enthusiasm for westward exploration, but he seemed to have lost some of that feeling for John himself. He was civil but distant, and John was included only when Mr. Nicollet came. "Courtesy to Nicollet," I heard Father grumble to Mother once. "Can't invite him without his aide."

  When John was present, we carefully avoided each other, though I know Father saw the looks we exchanged across the dinner table or during the long talks in the parlor afterward. Sometimes they were looks of love and longing, and sometimes they spoke more of amusement. It made us smile to think of the wonderful secret we shared. Most evenings I was so busy with my duties as hostess that it was not hard for me to keep my mind off the handsome lieutenant sitting at the other end of the dinner table—Father always sat him there, as though to distance him from me.

  In September, John began to act distracted and nervous. On our walks in the public gardens, he was moody, silent for long spells of time. My questioning brought no satisfactory answer except "I have something on my mind." He began, to my careful eye, to lose that look of health that he had brought back from his expedition.

  One day he was almost distraught beyond words. We met in Maria's parlor, as the weather had turned too breezy and cool to be comfortable outside. Indeed, Father had questioned the wisdom of my going for a walk, and I, desperately concerned about John's agitated state, had nearly flown out the door of the house over Father's protests.

  Now I sat in a stiff horsehair-stuffed chair, watching as John paced in front of the fireplace where Maria had lit a small fire to warm the room. He took three steps one way, then turned and took three the other way, his hands always clasped behind his back, his brow furrowed in concern.

  "Jessie, this cannot go on...," he began.

  "I know," I interrupted. "A year is too long. I shall speak to Father."

  "No, Jessie, hear me out, please. That is not what I mean." There was a terrible desperation in his voice, a kind of begging.

  "What is it that you mean?" I asked, now fearful to hear the answer.

  Of a sudden he was on his knees before me, clasping my hands in his and looking at me with the most pitiful expression I had ever seen. Fleetingly, I wondered what had become of that strong out-doorsman.

  "There is... there is a terrible secret in my past," he began, while I waited with bated breath. "My parents..." He seemed unable to go on.

  I knew, of course, something of his family. He had been raised in Charleston. His mother's family had been planters in Virginia, but his father was a Frenchman—hence the last name—who had given French lessons and ballroom instruction. The family had been poor, and John's mother had taken in boarders to help provide for John and two other children. The father had died when John was quite young, and he had been fortunate to find a sponsor who saw to it that he advanced in school. I had long thought that John's fierce pride and his determination to succeed could be traced to the poverty of his childhood. Indeed, I had once assured Father that I knew John would provide for me appropriately, because he had once been poor and was determined never to be so again.

  "What about your parents?" I asked gently, somewhat relieved that the terrible secret was theirs and not John's. For just a moment the possibility of another marriage, another wife, had flashed through my mind.

  "They were not married when I was born," he said slowly and deliberately, hesitating over each word. "I am a bastard." He almost spat the last word.

  Stunned, I stared at him. Did he think this would change my love for him? How could he even imagine such inconstancy on my part, such faithlessness? And yet I could not laugh at him, for it was obviously something he took seriously.

  "Did they love each other?" I asked.

  He nodded, and the story came tumbling out. His mother's family, fallen on hard times, had sent her to live with a sister in Richmond when she was but ten or twelve, and the sister had married her off to an elderly widower when she was seventeen—just my age.

  "She never talked of it," John said, "and I don't know the details, only that he was sixty or more when she married him, and that they were married for twelve years but had no children."

  "And then?" I prompted.

  "And then she met my father and fell in love with him. They... they had an affair, and my mother's husband divorced her. It was a scandal... a terrible scandal, and they left Richmond for Savannah."

  "But, John, they loved each other and they loved you. And it was wrong for her to be married against her will to an old man. Surely there is some higher law..."

  "But your father is right, Jessie. I cannot bring you an honorable name."

  "It is honorable because it is your name," I said. "And no one today knows your family's story. It will be... our secret."

  I was the one who initiated the slow kiss of longing that time. John held me woodenly at first, still wrapped in misery, but I kissed away his doubts. Too soon we heard Maria's tactful cough in the doorway.

  In early October, President Tyler gave a ball in honor of the prince of Joinville, son of King Louis Philippe of France. Mother had been planning my appearance at the ball all summer. It would be, she said, my coming out into Washington society as a young woman of marriageable age.

  I was to wear a Paris gown that had belonged to Sally McDowell—now Sally Thomas. Indeed, Liza and I had brought it carefully back from Richmond after the wedding. I spent many hours corseted into that peau de soie gown while the dressmaker fitted it here and there under Mother's watchful eye.

  "Jessie, dear, you don't seem excited about this ball," Mother complained. "It... it marks a milestone in your life. I remember my own first grand ball...." And she was off into a hazy reminiscence of grand days in Richmond.

  I wanted to tell her I might be more eager if I k
new that I could arrive at the White House on John's arm.

  I went, instead, on Father's arm, and Liza took his other arm. The arrangement made me feel still the little girl, rather than the young woman ready for society that Mother had promised me I now was.

  Senator Buchanan, as courtly as ever, was the first to ask me to dance. "You look lovely tonight, Miss Jessie," he said, having added the "Miss" to my name, I guess, in recognition of my new status as an adult.

  "Thank you, sir," I replied, concentrating on the waltz rather than on my partner.

  "You will soon be receiving suitors, I imagine."

  Was there something in his voice that cautioned me? "Oh, I doubt that, Mr. Buchanan. Father will never find anyone he thinks good enough for me." I tried to laugh lightly.

  He fixed an intense stare on me. "Perhaps you will one day have to defy your father."

  I expressed the proper indignation, but inwardly I thought, If only you knew...!

  Liza was asked to dance three times by a young lawyer and was bloomingly happy, especially since Father seemed to approve of the man wholeheartedly. I watched them with the sour feeling of jealousy creeping up from my stomach.

  John was at the ball, of course, as one of Washington's most interesting and eligible young bachelors and also one of its leading army officers. He approached as Father and I stood, glasses of fruit punch in our hands.

  "Senator. Jessie." He nodded his head at Father and bowed to me as he greeted us. Then, "Senator, may I have the honor of the next dance with your daughter?"

  Caught in public, with this senator and that congressman and his wife standing next to him, Father could do little but mutter, "Of course." Oblivious of his stare, John and I lost ourselves in the dance and the music, the joy of being—however formally and properly—in each other's arms. My feet fairly flew, and I doubt I have ever since danced as well and with as much abandonment as I did that night.

  Father still looked glum when John returned me to him, with a courtly bow, and departed to dance with Maria Crittendon. I followed them with my eyes, which must have shown what was in my heart.