A More Perfect Union: A Novel (The Midwife Series Book 3)

by Jodi Daynard

  “Do my stays, would you?” Marcia asked. He tied them quickly. “Do you believe me now?” she whispered as they parted.

  When Johnny arrived in the parlor, Claire and Rosa glanced at him and then giggled.

  “What’s so amusing, pray?”

  “Your shirt is buttoned all wrong. You skipped a hole.”

  Marcia rose proprietarily to adjust his buttons, but he backed away from her. At once, her eyes flashed surprise and hurt.

  “Very well, do as you wish.”

  Johnny felt sorry that he had bruised her feelings, but they needed to remain correct before the Martins.

  Mr. Martin, engrossed in his paper, missed this exchange. Now he looked up and spoke: “You weren’t at the office this morning, lad. Shall you come this afternoon?”

  “No, sir. I apologize. I had letters to write, and then there is packing to do. You know I leave tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow?” Mr. Martin cried. “Certainly not. But, well, did I know this?” He looked beseechingly at his daughters.

  “Papa,” Rosa objected. “Johnny told you of his intentions two days ago.”

  “Indeed. But how quickly the time passes!”

  “Oh!” cried Rosa suddenly. “Both of you gone at once? It won’t do! How dull our lives shall be!”

  “Yes,” agreed Claire. “I know not how we lived before you came to us, Marcia. It’s cruel to leave us. And Johnny flies the coop at the same time.”

  “I shan’t be a stranger,” Johnny muttered unconvincingly. “Philadelphia isn’t so very far.”

  But the twins were glum. Never had they met a more intelligent, charming, or loveable boy. Indeed, Rosa had a mind to ask Miss Burnes whether they had an understanding. For if Marcia did not want him, well, she did! One of them, certainly, must have him.

  Mr. Martin soon returned to his office, and Johnny spent the rest of that day writing letters, including one to his mother informing her of his move to Philadelphia. Abroad, it was windy; he could hear the wind’s howling above the crackling embers.

  The afternoon and night before his departure were long; Johnny thought the time would never pass. He was unable to sleep, and at one point nearly leapt out of bed to follow the post coach, thinking he would retrieve the letter he had sent to Kate. What if she did not truly love this Pearce or Putnam, whoever he was? It certainly did not sound like she was very in love with him. But then, he consoled himself, if Kate did not love the man, she would have no wish to marry him.

  He fell asleep around four, and it was near nine in the morning when he finally made his appearance in the parlor and took his breakfast. Mr. Martin had already left for work, but the ladies were there. They had finished their breakfast and sat chatting over a final cup of coffee.

  Seeing him, Miss Burnes glanced up briefly but took no special notice. She would be leaving later that day as well, and she gave the twins her full attention.

  After he had breakfasted, Johnny called for the carriage and driver that Mr. Martin had agreed to lend him. Then he panicked to realize that he had not asked the attorney for a loan of cash. He would need it in order to pay for a night’s lodgings and board.

  Just then, Mr. Martin came noisily up the stairs. He was out of breath.

  He approached Johnny and proffered eight silver dollars.

  “Here are two pounds,” he said, speaking in the language of the old currency. “You may pay it back when you’re able. I’m glad one of us remembered. Why, you’re near as absentminded as I, son, and not half my age!”

  Johnny took the coins and bowed deeply.

  “Thank you, sir. For everything.” He put the money in his waistcoat pocket. “I think I must go before the roads become impassable.”

  Snow threatened. If it held off, Johnny would have a good chance of reaching Elkton before midnight. From there, setting off early, he could reach Philadelphia in time for dinner.

  “Of course, of course. Off you go, son.”

  Just then, a servant descended the stairs with Johnny’s trunk and another large sack containing the suit Marcia had insisted he buy.

  Where was Miss Burnes, anyway? Would she not say good-bye? Suddenly a noise made him look up. There she was, at the top of the stairs, a goddess in blue satin with a black velvet ribbon beneath her breast, her dark hair in tight curls at the sides of her face, her green eyes grave but full of feeling.

  Johnny was possessed of a sudden, wild hope that she would run down the stairs and fling herself into his arms. But she was composed, even stately as she descended the stairs. In the hall, she faced him squarely.

  “Do write.” She curtsied.

  “Of course.” Johnny bowed.

  The wind blew fiercely, and the air had turned cold. He worried that they would not reach Elkton that night. As the coachman drove him silently northward, Johnny tried to understand what Marcia felt. Did she think the less of him for not consummating what they had begun on the servants’ stairs? Was she angry with him for leaving her? When would he see her again? She had said she would accept his proposal in a year’s time, but a great deal could happen in a year, Johnny knew.

  Several hours later, their carriage finally pulled up to the Indian Queen Tavern, where they would stop the night. The carriage bumped to a halt before the rambling wood structure, and the coachman blew his horn. A stable boy came running out to greet them.

  Johnny’s mind had been taken up with unhappy thoughts about women, and his mood was low. But then he reminded himself, I’m heading to Philadelphia to spy for the president of the United States. Bolstered by such a thought, he descended, stomped the snow off himself, and entered the tavern, where he spent a restless night in a cold room with a stranger, for all the beds were full.

  39

  December 25, 1798

  JOHNNY HEARD A CHURCH BELL STRIKE NINE. With a start, he realized he was meant to be at the President’s House at that very moment. He rose, splashed some cold water upon his face, threw on his clothing, and sped down the stairs, where he very nearly knocked Mr. Thomas Jefferson over the railing.

  Johnny shot one arm out to steady Jefferson, who had been mounting the stairs as he descended. “Oh, my sincere apologies!”

  Jefferson glanced at the boy with a small gleam of recognition. But he said only, “Take care you don’t break your own legs as well as mine, son.”

  “Yes, sir!” Johnny blushed, grabbed his cap from the hook, and ran out the door.

  The encounter left him in a state of confusion. Was this gentle-mannered man who quipped about taking care not to break his legs the same as that pernicious author of the Kentucky Resolutions? And stayed he, too, at the Francis Hotel?

  At the door to the President’s House, Adams greeted Johnny cheerfully. “How are you, son? How was your journey?”

  “Unremarkable, sir. But you’ll never guess whom I nearly toppled over the stairs at my hotel just now.”

  “Mr. Jefferson,” Adams said without hesitation. “So the viper returns to the pit. Took his time about it! And they say I stay away too long.”

  “How’d you know, sir?”

  Adams shrugged. “He stays there when he’s in town. I suppose he was very charming?”

  “Oh, but he was, sir! He seems most affable.”

  “Seems indeed. Well, come. Let me show you about.”

  Mr. Adams led Johnny into the reception room that Washington had built at the back of the main floor. The Levee Room, as Adams called it, had three tall windows decorated in crimson damask. Johnny could well imagine the old general standing erect at the end of it, in his black velvet suit, waiting to greet his many callers.

  There were several smaller reception rooms as well, everything appointed with the finest carpets, wallpaper, lamps, and silver. Johnny saw several servants scurry past, but otherwise the house was quiet.

  “The library is just here—oh, but you know that already! If you’ve not yet been, you must go to Franklin’s library around the block. It will astonish and perhaps devour you. Tak
e care! But say, Johnny,”—the president abruptly ceased their tour—“I have plans to take a sleigh ride with my nephew today. Would you join us?”

  At once, Johnny recalled that it was Christmas Day. In the tumult of his travels, he had entirely forgotten.

  “I should love to join you,” he replied.

  “Then off you go. You’ll need a warm scarf and mitts.”

  The day was clear, cold, and bright. Upon the fields, a foot of recently fallen snow lent Philadelphia a beautiful purity. Johnny was surprised to discover that Adams’s nephew, Mr. Shaw, was the same Mr. Shaw who had sat with him and Peter Fray on their first morning at Harvard.

  “Well, well!” Adams was delighted to learn of their previous acquaintance. “You must be thick as thieves.”

  “We hardly knew each other, Uncle,” replied Shaw.

  “Ah, well,” Adams pronounced sadly.

  Johnny thought Mr. Shaw was as charmless as ever. Indeed, after this exchange he had little conversation to offer and was soon asleep. They rode in silence over Gray’s Ferry and around by Hamilton’s Woodlands.

  The sleigh sped away from the ferry and headed north before circling back to the city. Out of the silence, Mr. Adams said, “You know, Johnny, you yourself might well be president someday. What do you think of that prospect?”

  At this moment, Mr. Shaw woke. Hearing his uncle’s words, clearly not addressed to him, he frowned.

  “I like it exceedingly well.” Johnny grinned. Then he pretended to take Mr. Adams seriously. “Yes, indeed. I even know what my first order of business will be.”

  “Oh? What is that?” Mr. Adams repositioned himself in the sleigh, the better to enjoy the promised conversation.

  “Free the slaves.”

  “Aha. And shall such a decree be legal by the writs of the Constitution?”

  “I would have it no other way.” Johnny could not contain a note of pride in his voice.

  “How could it be?”

  “Wartime decree. I suppose I shall first have to start a war and then declare the slaves necessary to the war effort.”

  Adams turned to look at the young man whose blue eyes shone in the darkening winter light. “I think I’ll appoint you secretary of war. I’ve been having trouble with mine lately. What say you?”

  Mr. Adams sounded amused, but his eyes looked at Johnny unsmilingly.

  “I believe I need to be thirty-five years of age, sir. As I am but twenty, perhaps you could hold on to power another—sixteen years.”

  “God forbid!”

  Adams slapped his thigh and the two settled back in the sleigh, chuckling. Mr. Shaw frowned, finding nothing amusing about the exchange.

  They were now into the new year, and Johnny felt obliged to do the work he had been brought to Philadelphia to do: stand so close to the enemy that he could see their tonsils.

  Each day, before heading over to the President’s House, Johnny walked past the private residences of Adams’s cabinet members McHenry, Pickering, and Wolcott. He rode out to Germantown, where Pickering retained an office, and to the State House on the corner of Sixth and Arch. He pressed his face to the window glass or pressed his ear to the crack beneath their front doors. Spying duly accomplished, he would head back to his hotel, stopping first at the library to read the day’s papers.

  After several weeks, Johnny had to admit that not only had he not found anything revealing about these men, but that what he had found made him sympathetic toward them. One had too many children to care for; another had recently lost his wife. A third seemed to have an unrelenting pain in his knee.

  Johnny concluded that either one could not, in fact, “see into the hearts of men,” or he was woefully inept at it. Too ashamed to face the old man, he wrote him a letter, which he delivered to Bartlett, the butler.

  Dear Sir

  You may wish to burn this letter at once and save yourself the time it takes to read. I must conclude that I lack that talent of reading men and fear I have come to Philadelphia on false pretenses. Here is what I learned in these past two weeks, for what little it’s worth:

  P. lives in a very plain house on Arch Street just off Sixth. He worships at the old Presbyterian Church, at the corner of Arch and 3rd. I espied five children at supper. I have also observed his comings and goings at the State House and at his office in Germantown. He has regular habits and usually goes to the City Tavern at around noon, where he eats a slice of ham with pickle on a thick slice of bread. He washes this all down with a single mug of cider. He still grieves for a son, who died suddenly in May. His grief appears very great.

  I have seen no letter come or go addressed to B. (for Bonaparte, or Alexander Hamilton). Did you know that he was orphaned as a child and is also a passionate abolitionist? And does not that knowledge at least sweeten his poisonous breath somewhat?

  As for the Scotsman, he lives in a plain house on the edge of town. He has a wife and one son. I have seen no letters to or from B. Did you know the Scotsman, too, is a confirmed abolitionist?

  But this information cannot be helpful to you in pursuit of tonsils.

  I must conclude, sir, that between the daily domestic life of these men and their destructive intent lies, for me at least, an unbreachable gulf. I must conclude that men’s evil resides not in their persons but in the ideas they express and act upon. Alas, it seems the more I know a man, the more I pity him.

  Apart from its vexing praise of Alexander Hamilton, Mr. Adams found this earnest letter from Johnny rather touching. The boy had many gifts, but clearly spying was not one of them. Taking up his pen, Adams replied,

  My dear boy

  Do not worry overly about your skills, or lack thereof, in this regard. I have others more adept. No, you are right: Read the papers, glean from them what you can. Reply when you are moved to. And you may as well keep an eye on the redhead, since you are neighbors. As for the rest, finish your studies so that I may have the pleasure of telling your mama that you have passed the bar.

  Johnny felt a fresh resolve to scour every printed word and to reply in print where he saw he could be of help to Mr. Adams. He was relieved that his spying days were over, for pity was inimical to action.

  Johnny had just finished breakfast and was preparing to head to the library when one of the servants handed him a letter. It was from Miss Burnes.

  January 14th, 1799

  Dear Johnny

  It is lonely here. Gone are the affable Martin sisters and the gay amusements of Baltimore. I shall dine in George Town tonight, however, and already I have received two invitations for sleigh rides. I have purchased a pianoforte to while away the hours, but I play it very inexpertly. The President’s House goes up slowly, as does the Capitol. I confess I can’t imagine the day when it shall all be finished and Pennsylvania Avenue more than a marshy (frozen, now) swamp. The sun declines early; the day has hardly risen then a veil descends upon it. Papa, though sick and in need of warmth, adheres to his old ways and is quite frugal with the firewood. I find I shiver most of the day.

  Poor girl! Johnny folded the letter and, after finishing breakfast, took up his pen:

  Dearest One

  Your letter of the 14th unsettled me for its despondent tone. I fear you do poorly without your Johnny. The roads are impassable at the moment, but I should like to visit as soon as is practicable, if you allow it. I long to see you . . .

  Johnny felt better after posting his letter. Had the roads been clear, he would have set off that same day. But the temperatures had plummeted precipitously, and the roads were slick as a skating pond. Indeed, when Johnny later entered the President’s House, he found Adams in his office behind his desk, jabbing viciously at his ink bottle.

  “Blasted ink has frozen,” he said. Smoke issued from his mouth as he spoke the words. “Briesler!” Adams called. “I can’t even write a letter to my own wife! For all I know she has frozen to death!” Briesler, Adams’s steward, was a man of middle age and deferent manner. He entered at once, but there
was little he could do except to place the ink bottle by the fire.

  Unable to write, Mr. Adams was fractious. “Well, son, give me a summary of the day’s news. At least I’ll have accomplished that much.” This Johnny dutifully did. Then, after thanking him, Mr. Adams announced, “I shall take a nap. There is nothing else to be done. Briesler!”

  Johnny bade the president good-bye, feeling useless. He weaved his way through the long crowded market and then watched the boats in the harbor. There, shipwrights sawed and fishmongers bartered from warehouse doors. Horses and oxen came and went, pulling carts that groaned with goods of every kind. And every living thing gave off a wispy, atmospheric smoke.

  Johnny dared not remain long, for his feet had begun to freeze. On his way back to the hotel, he stopped at City Tavern to warm himself with a hot cider. While he sipped his cider, he attuned his ears to the other customers. Several rough-looking harbor workers were speaking of the threat of an imminent military coup on the part of “Bonaparte.”

  “He’s just waitin’ for the signal.”

  “Signal from who?”

  “Washington, ’course.”

  “To do what?”

  “Invade us and shoot Mr. Adams. Next morning we’ll all have to bow down to ’im, like a regular king.”

  “G’won!”

  “You don’t think so? Why, he’s already general for the sittin’ army.”

  “Standing army, you eedjit.”

  “Not standing, neither—temporary army,” another, slightly less inebriated man corrected them. “And Washington’s the commander in chief while Hamilton’s only c’mander gen’ral, and Washington won’t be shootin’ ’is old friend Adams!”

  “Don’t you recall, Bonaparte already took up an army against the whiskey fellows out west? Well, ’e’d do it again at the drop of a hat!”

  As Johnny walked back to his lodgings, he thought over the conversation he had heard at the tavern. He had read about the Whiskey Tax, which Hamilton had instituted as Washington’s treasury secretary in 1791. In 1794, a rebellion against the tax in western Pennsylvania had culminated in an armed insurrection, in which several men were killed. Washington amassed an army of nearly 13,000 men to put down the insurrection, a step for which many blamed Hamilton.