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

by Jodi Daynard

  Johnny was moved by these men’s fears. They were rough, uneducated men, but hardworking and honest. They had wives and children. Why should they live in fear for their families because their leaders could not work together?

  Back in his lodgings, Johnny sat down at his desk and wrote for several hours. When he was finished, an essay was before him. He called it “Reflections Upon the New Year 1799: Ending or Beginning?”

  So very much has happened “in the course of human events” since that fairest of documents came into being. A beleaguered people vanquished a great foe. Their new nation created a great Constitution. Now, stirrings of a dark and unhealthy nature have begun to rattle the peace like a snake beneath autumn leaves. One does not know whether to count one’s blessings or batten the doors for yet another assault of man against men. Will 1800 mark the end of strife, or the end of honor?

  The article went on to discuss the challenges that faced the young nation, particularly the need to agree upon an interpretation of the Constitution. He ended it with something for Adams as well, urging dissenters to support “the heroic efforts of our government” in its spirit of unity, if not in its particulars. By “particulars,” Johnny meant, disingenuously, the abhorred Alien and Sedition Acts.

  When he was finished, Johnny felt satisfied. He gave the article to a servant at the hotel to deliver for him. It was addressed to Joseph Dennie, Editor, Gazette of the United States, 119 Chestnut Street.

  Several days later, as he was sitting in Adams’s study, prepared to read the day’s Republican papers while Adams perused the Gazette, Adams suddenly frowned. “Well, would you look at this! Some idealistic fellow calls for peace abroad and peace at home. Does the daft man think I’ve got a magic wand? Is he from Mars and knows not how our citizens despise one another?”

  Johnny, having gleaned that the article was in fact his own, was slowly turning an even whiter shade of white.

  “Ah, well,” Adams continued. “I suppose I can’t fault a young fellow his idealism. I was once youthful and idealistic myself. But that was a long time ago.”

  Johnny mustered the courage to ask, “How do you like the last line, sir? The one about supporting the government?”

  Adams stuck his nose back into the fold of the paper.

  “. . . even if not in its particulars. Hmm.” All at once, Adams looked suspiciously at Johnny. “How know you this article? I only just received it.”

  Johnny paused. “It’s mine, sir. I hope it meets with your approval. In some ways, if not in all.”

  “Nay, good work, good work, er,” he said and looked down at the pen name, Concordia Discors. Adams had not meant to ridicule Johnny, and yet he was not satisfied, either. “But you are gentle, John. I fear that if you are to penetrate the tough American skull these days, you must use a verbal sledgehammer.”

  Then Adams seemed to remember something. He reached across his desk and proffered an ornately engraved invitation. “Here. I meant for you to have this.”

  Johnny took the invitation and read:

  THE HONOR OF PRESIDENT JOHN ADAMS’S COMPANY IS REQUESTED ON FEBRUARY 22 AT OELLER’S HOTEL . . .

  AT A BIRTH-NIGHT BALL FOR GEORGE WASHINGTON

  “But this invitation is addressed to you, sir.”

  “Yes, well, you may attend in my stead. I have no wish to go. I shall write back, civilly yet succinctly, that I decline the invitation.”

  Johnny set the invitation down on Adams’s desk.

  “Why decline it? Do you have a previous engagement?”

  “No.”

  “Then do not decline it, sir.”

  “Why not?”

  “You’ll look peevish, and forgive me for asking, but why should you be so?”

  “Why, indeed!” Adams slammed his hand down on his desk, making a dish of tea rattle precariously. “Why do I not get a ball on my birth night? I did not receive so much as an ice cream float. Why is he the one to get a birth-night ball?”

  “Perhaps because he’s—taller.”

  Adams frowned and cleared his throat. Then he suddenly burst out laughing. “Ha ha. Because he’s taller! That’s excellent!”

  40

  JOHNNY ATTENDED THE BIRTH-NIGHT BALL ALONG with Mr. Adams, although they arrived in separate carriages. Johnny used his small salary to buy a new waistcoat. It was bright red and went well with the suit Miss Burnes had prevailed upon him to buy in Baltimore. His overcoat, alas, bought in his second year at college, was in a sad state, but he could not afford another. Johnny hoped the weather would allow him to carry it across his arm.

  On his way out that evening, he passed a looking glass nailed to the wall of the hotel foyer. The person in the mirror looked back at him dubiously. He was a hale young white man with slickly pomaded hair and an aristocratic bearing. Only a pale band of skin where Madame Pringle’s pinky ring had been reminded Johnny of the kinky-haired child he once had been.

  Oeller’s Hotel, which stood in contrast to the absurd folly that was Rickett’s Circus beside it, was the grandest building Johnny had ever seen. One entered into a hall that he estimated to be about 3,600 square feet, with a handsome music gallery at one end. It was papered after the French taste, with Pantheon figures in compartments, festoons, pillars, and groups of antique drawings. Many guests had already arrived and now milled about holding glasses of punch. Looking closer at his own beverage, Johnny noticed something floating in it. It appeared to be a translucent rock.

  “It’s ice,” whispered a girl standing next to him. She was a pretty, slender person of perhaps sixteen or seventeen dressed in a simple white silk gown with a high waist. This new fashion, with its references to ancient Greece, appealed to Johnny. “Oeller’s keeps a forty-foot block of frozen Delaware River in a store room. They sell chunks off to the neighbors and make a tidy profit, I should say.”

  Somehow, the idea of the Delaware River floating in his glass made Johnny even less inclined to drink it than he already had been. At around nine, the dancing began at Rickett’s, and Johnny was dragged there by the girl who had told him about the ice, accompanied by several of her friends. The girl laughed gaily as she took his arm. “You appear to be the only man here under the age of two hundred.”

  “I’m afraid that means you shall be obliged to dance with all of us,” said one of her friends, giggling.

  Six months of dance lessons in Bridgetown, to which he had vigorously objected when he was a lad of ten, now saved him from abject humiliation.

  At around eleven, from across the crowded dance floor, Johnny saw Mr. Jefferson. The vice president nodded to him in recognition. When the dancing had finished at around midnight, Johnny returned to Oeller’s for a final toast to Washington. He was about to take his leave from the young ladies when a handsome man of perhaps sixty, tall and distinguished in bearing, approached him. The man’s face was in keeping with the rest of him: aristocratic, with discerning blue eyes and a guarded expression that was not unkind.

  This man came within two feet of Johnny and then extended his hand. “You must be John Watkins. You look a great deal like your father. I’m John Langdon. Senator Langdon, now.”

  “Colonel Langdon? Sir!” Johnny bowed deeply. He felt his knees tremble. “I never imagined I would meet you. You have been a figment of my imagination for so long. But how did you know I was here?”

  “I didn’t. But your mother wrote not long ago to tell me you were in Philadelphia. The moment I laid eyes upon you, I knew you were Watkins’s son.”

  Johnny cringed at the mention of his real name. He moved closer to the man, “But you know, sir, we go by the name Boylston, now. Mama thought it prudent.”

  Langdon touched his forehead in self-reprobation. “Of course. Forgive me, Mr. Boylston.” After a moment Langdon went on, “I hear you study law with . . . our friend.”

  “I do.”

  “But we can hardly talk freely here. I should very much like to see you.” The senator added, “If you wish it.”

  “Oh,
but I do!”

  Langdon smiled, and Johnny had a glimpse of the dashing young rebel he must have been.

  “I have stories of your father, ones even your mother does not know. If you’d be so kind as to meet me at my lodgings—are you free tomorrow?”

  Johnny nodded. For John Langdon, he would be free at any hour.

  “Excellent.” Langdon gave Johnny the name of the boardinghouse. “Until then. I take my leave. I find all this”—he waved his hand—“more exhausting than a battlefield.”

  “I suspect it is a battlefield, sir.”

  “You learn quickly. Like your father.” But Langdon was no longer smiling. He bowed. “Till tomorrow, then.”

  “Till tomorrow, sir.” Johnny bowed deeply.

  The next morning, as Johnny perused the day’s newspapers in the president’s library, Mr. Adams popped his face in the door. It was the quiet hour before the masses began to arrive. Thus far, Johnny had seen members of the Senate visit, singly and in large and small groups. There had been Indian chiefs, with whom Adams had dined, judges, lawyers, and the inevitable herd of job seekers. For the president, hours of peace and quiet were few and far between.

  “Do I disturb?” asked Adams.

  “Nay. Come in, sir.”

  “Oh, don’t bother to stand, lad. I come merely to hear your impressions of the circus. Whom did you meet?”

  “Hardly anyone, sir. The ladies kept me busy dancing.”

  “Ha—no surprise there.”

  “But I did happen to meet one whom I have greatly esteemed since I was very small.”

  “Who was that?” Adams said warily, jealous of anyone Johnny might esteem more than himself.

  “Colonel Langdon, sir. Senator Langdon, now.”

  “Oh, my dear friend. How remiss of me not to have introduced you.”

  “That’s all right, sir. I shall see him in an hour’s time.”

  “Indeed. Well, send him my best.”

  Johnny soon found himself sitting across from Senator Langdon in his well-appointed study at a boardinghouse on North Fourth Street.

  Langdon was curious to hear about John Watkins’s life after fleeing America, and Johnny told him that, at the time of his death, his father owned a large shipyard with near fifty shipwrights in his employ.

  “I don’t doubt it,” Langdon said. “He was the hardest worker I ever knew, and the most able.” Langdon looked up into Johnny’s eyes. “You have his eyes, you know.”

  Langdon was interested to know how Johnny’s mother fared and how Johnny had enjoyed “the college at Cambridge.” But Johnny, while endeavoring not to seem impatient, longed to hear the promised stories.

  Langdon soon obliged him. He told Johnny how his father had risked his life to smuggle arms to Washington, and how he helped a young slave couple escape their masters, though he himself was yet enslaved. Then he told Johnny the story of John’s meeting his infant son for the first time:

  “Toward the end of the war, your uncle fared poorly. His house was confiscated, and he quickly sold all his property, including your father. Your mother begged me to help her find him. The moment I discovered his whereabouts, I sent for your mother. I arranged for Watkins to visit her and her infant son at their lodgings, stealing him away in the dead of night. But, though I was in great distress lest we be caught, he bade me wait while he put on a clean shirt. He had hidden it beneath his pallet for this unlikely moment. But he had not laid eyes upon your mother in more than a year and would not meet her in filthy rags. All the way to the tavern, he kept repeating, ‘Is she really come? Is the child truly with her?’ He did not cease his querying until your mother stood before him.

  “Johnny, I shall ne’er forget how she stared at him as if she saw a ghost. And he nearly was, too. Worn down to nothing from grief and worry, the bones of one hand crushed—”

  “Yes, I knew his hand had been broken, but Papa never told me the story. I assumed it happened at the shipyard.”

  “No. It was worse than a shipyard accident, I’m afraid. His master did that to him. I could tell he was in terrible pain that night, but the sight of you took all that away.

  “He remained several hours, and when it was time to return to his prison, he was meek as a lamb. On the way back to his master’s, he asked me, ‘Did you see him, colonel? He’s very fair, is he not?’ I agreed that you were quite fair, if not white. ‘He shall have a chance, then, thank God!’”

  Suddenly, Johnny could no longer sit. He stood up as tears spilled from the rims of his eyes.

  “But why could you not manage to free him then?” It came out as a reproach, which Johnny, in his anger, had partly meant it to be.

  Langdon glanced at Johnny and understood. “Oh, you poor child. Yes, we were too slow. We had not the means just then. It took a great deal of work. But we did succeed—eventually. But never forget: those hours he spent with you and your mother were among the happiest of his life.”

  “Happy to learn that I would not suffer his fate,” Johnny replied bitterly as he walked toward the door.

  Langdon said, “I fear I’ve given you pain, rather than pleasure, as was my intention.”

  “You have given me both, and for both am I grateful. I hope we shall meet again soon. I am forever in your debt for the love you showed my parents.”

  Then, before he burst into tears, Johnny bowed and left.

  Those angry tears were faithful companions as he walked back to Francis’s hotel. It had begun to snow, and Philadelphia looked almost holy in its white mantle.

  Back at the hotel, Johnny spent several feverish hours writing an article he knew he would never publish. He called it “My Life as a White Man.” The longer he wrote, the angrier he grew. Having heard Langdon’s story, Johnny regretted that his family had shielded him so well from the ugly truth of his father’s life. Had he known, Johnny might never have left Barbados, never renounced the legacy his father had worked so hard to build. But perhaps that was the point. His father had no wish for Johnny to stay in Barbados out of a sense of guilt.

  When he finished his essay, Johnny’s anger was spent. He reminded himself that, above all, his parents had wanted him to be happy. But was he happy now? Johnny didn’t dare to answer. He went to bed, snuffed out his candle, and slept fitfully.

  The following morning, he wrote a letter to his mother about meeting Senator Langdon.

  He is as great, kind, and noble a man as ever I met, Mama. Such stories as he told me of Papa I shall never forget. Nothing unworthy, I promise you. Quite the opposite. He sends his deepest regards and hopes to have the pleasure of seeing you again in this life.

  That letter signed and sealed, Johnny was just on his way to the post when he came upon the postman, who took this letter in exchange for one from Miss Burnes. Eager to hear the news, Johnny raced back to his lodgings, slipping more than once on the ice that had frozen beneath the powdery snow. Heedless, he mounted the stairs two at a time. He was nearly at the top when, once again, he smashed directly into Mr. Jefferson. This time, the vice president was with his manservant.

  “Easy there, my good man,” said Jefferson. “Surely that letter is not worth killing us all for?”

  “No, sir.”

  Jefferson smiled and patted Johnny on the arm before continuing down the steps. He noticed the powdery snow on Johnny’s sleeve.

  “But say, does it snow? Perhaps I should take my hat.”

  “Nay, sir,” Johnny said, abashed. “I slipped and fell. The roads are icy.”

  “Worse and worse!” Jefferson laughed openly now. Then he looked at the letter Johnny gripped in one hand. “Well, she’s a lucky woman to have a suitor so ardent that he is willing to break the neck of the vice president.”

  “No, sir—Mr. Jefferson.”

  All at once Jefferson stopped his descent and turned to face Johnny. His pale-blue eyes rested steadily on Johnny’s face. “Have we not met before? I feel I’ve seen you somewhere or other.”

  “John Boylston, sir.”
He bowed deeply. “We met four years ago, at Moorcock Manor. I was with my roommate from Harvard, Mr. Fray. It was Christmas, sir.”

  “Ah, yes! I remember.” Mr. Jefferson closed his eyes as if the memory were vivid. “We discussed Mr. Adams’s crops, if I recall.”

  Johnny was astonished that the man remembered such an insignificant moment, so many years in the past.

  “And what brings you to Gomorrah, Mr. Boylston?”

  “I’m a student of law. I hope to pass the bar next fall.”

  “You have my condolences; now go read your letter.”

  Johnny nodded dumbly and continued his way up the stairs. He might have stopped to wonder at the easy banter he had exchanged with his former hero. But at that moment he sorely wished to know Miss Burnes’s news.

  Reaching his chamber, he tore the letter open at once. He skipped over accounts of parties and sleigh rides and came to the heart of the matter:

  Papa is not well. I fear he shall not survive till summer. I have told him about you. He wishes to meet you before he leaves this earth. Can you not find a way to come? I long to see you.

  Your everlasting,

  Marcia

  Within moments, Johnny raced back to the President’s House, this time checking to assure himself that Jefferson was not upon the stairs.

  Mr. Adams was not happy to hear that he would need to do without Johnny for several weeks.

  “I shan’t be gone more than a fortnight.”

  “I hope not. We’re in a bad way, Johnny.” The president shook his head, ready to enumerate all the alarming turns the country had recently taken. Election fever had risen, and throughout the streets, cries of “King Adams!” and “Off with their heads!” could already be heard.

  “My fiancée’s father is unwell, sir.”

  “Fiancée? Did I know you were engaged?”

  “Please don’t tell Mama. I’ve told no one as yet. The engagement is—unusual.”

  “And who is this lucky young woman?”