Papa smiled distractedly over a game board upon which he was playing chess against himself. “He’s quite occupied arranging for his travels.”
“Travels?” In his role as my father’s secretary, Mr. Short was part courier, part negotiator, part translator, and representative—he was Papa’s voice wherever Papa couldn’t be. He traveled frequently throughout France and sometimes beyond. And yet, I’d have thought I’d first hear of a new mission from Mr. Short himself. More than that, I feared I couldn’t bear the waiting if he should decide to postpone his talk with my father until after such a sojourn.
With my heart filled with love that I couldn’t express, I was afflicted with the greatest impatience of my life. So much so that I waited up late, going down the stairs on some pretext of needing chamomile tea for an unsettled stomach when I heard Mr. Short come in.
Mr. Short’s first, instinctive reaction to the sight of me that night was a smile. But then that smile gave way to sadness. “Whatever are you doing awake at this hour, Patsy?”
My position on the staircase caused me to look down upon him. “I’m told you’re to leave Paris.”
Setting his hat upon an entryway table, he nodded, gravely. “Yes.”
“When?” I forced myself to move down one more step, then another.
“Soon, if all goes as to plan.”
“Where will you go?”
“To Rome and other places.”
I was unused to his cryptic answers and cringed at the way they turned me into an interrogator. Trying to regain my dignity, I descended the remaining step until only an arm’s length separated us. “How wonderful. I know you’ve wanted to see Rome for yourself. You must be very eager to go … but are you in such a rush that you must leave matters behind you unsettled?”
At that, his shoulders sagged. It was only with real effort that he seemed to square them again, and face me directly. “I’m afraid I must.”
The acute pain of it was like an arrow. I sucked in air, determined to disguise my anguish. “Do you mean you won’t … you haven’t …”
“Miss Jefferson,” he began, stiffly. “I’ve had an illuminating conversation with your father. It began with the topic of domestic contentment and ended on the subject of youth, inexperience, and the need for matured judgment.”
Puzzling through his remarks, I wondered if my father had opined on my youth and inexperience or Mr. Short’s.
Before I could ask, he added, “In light of this conversation, your father has seen fit to release me from my duties. In fact, he’s encouraged my oft-wished-for tour of Europe.”
His words sounded like the closing of a leather-bound book, and resounded with a hollow thud. There was no question that whatever had passed between my father and Mr. Short would delay our courtship indefinitely, if not make it impossible. And a thousand emotions passed through me at once.
Anger and upset, sadness and fear, panic and a frantic desire to think how I might change these circumstances. Devastation, too, at Mr. Short’s apparent resignation. He’d said, in the snow, that he was a daring man, that he wouldn’t stop chasing me. But now he wouldn’t risk my father’s esteem.
Not for me.
And despite our imagined painting, and Mr. Short asking what I wanted, I had no say in the matter at all.
Still, I could make no sense of this. Hadn’t Papa said he viewed Mr. Short as his adoptive son? I’d heard him entreat his secretary, on numerous occasions, to buy parcels of land near Monticello, near us. Mr. Short shared my father’s views, was a fellow Virginian, was familiar and cherished with great affection. Wouldn’t it be natural for Papa to welcome Mr. Short as a suitor for his daughter?
I was young, it was true. But friends my age were already starting to court and marry. Did my father think I was less accomplished, less sensible, less womanly than those French girls? Distress gripped me, making it hard to swallow.
These were all questions I couldn’t ask. Mr. Short hadn’t declared his feelings for me. And now, if I tried to speak of my own feelings, I might drive a wedge between the men I loved best in the world. Mr. Short must’ve sensed this, because he nodded and softly excused himself to conduct his business.
And for a while, I confided my despair in no one but Marie.
“Poor Jeffy,” she said as we whispered in the darkness of our dormitory. “It is only a trip. If Mr. Short feels love for you now, he’ll still feel it when he returns.”
Yet I worried that whatever he felt for me was already gone. While preparing for his Grand Tour, Mr. Short held himself as distant from me as I once held myself from him, avoiding me at every turn. Long before he left Paris, I felt Mr. Short’s absence as a wound to my very core. Worse, I didn’t know who to blame. Had Papa discouraged Mr. Short as a potential suitor? Or had Mr. Short toyed with me and given me false hope?
I didn’t know. And not knowing was a torment.
One visit home, while I sat staring unseeingly at the artificial flowers I was making as gifts for my friends in the convent, Papa took the seat beside me and handed me a small sack. I blinked up at him. “What is this?” I asked, taking it in hand and working at the little string.
“Something to cheer you,” he said, a small smile on his face.
He’d meant it as a kindness. Of course he did. For he had no way of knowing that the chocolate drops that filled the bag would remind me of that day Mr. Short and I had imagined our futures. But remind me they did until I could no longer hold in the torment, or the questions. “Why did you release Mr. Short from his duties, Papa?”
For a long moment, my father didn’t answer. “As his mentor,” he finally said, “it is my duty to shepherd his career. William wishes to be a diplomat, and that requires that he be well traveled and conversant with places and customs beyond that with which he now has experience.” He said this quietly, seriously, as if this was more than a casual answer to a casual question. As if he didn’t fully approve. As if he knew why I asked, and thought me quite improper for doing so.
“Will he return to your service when he’s completed his travels?” I forced myself to ask around the knot in my throat.
“I hope so. We’ve talked about his returning to Virginia with me, but each man must make his own destiny. At present, William’s is unclear to me.” I didn’t think I imagined that Papa chose his words very carefully—which confirmed what I already suspected. They’d discussed me, or at least intimated that I might be a part of William’s future—a part of his destiny—and the result of that discussion had been for Papa to send him away.
And for William to decide to go.
I asked nothing more of my father that night because I was shaking with upset, and I feared I would not be able to speak without my voice quavering. Instead, abandoning the chocolate drops on the side table, I simply walked from the room without another word and sharply closed the door behind me, letting my silence say to my father all that I could not.
But I should have gathered more courage that night. I should have pressed and asked him the more direct questions whirling through my mind. Because Papa never gave me another opening to do so.
My father was always an artful politician, too clever to be drawn into discussions of matters of the heart when his was so guilty. Too crafty to be cornered into a confrontation with his daughter that he wasn’t ready to have, especially after I’d asked him about William—and about William’s future.
So I was forced to try to win Papa over to reopening the subject. I forced myself to be genial and even-tempered to prove that I was a grown woman with good sense enough to be wooed. Failing that, I hoped my comportment would encourage my father to confide in me any reservations he had about Mr. Short so that I might put his mind at ease. But at the time, my father’s praise of Mr. Short was so lavish and his affection so sincere that it left me entirely bewildered.
Meanwhile, there was nothing for me to do but drown my sorrows in tea. British tea, to be precise, taken with the Tufton sisters and our convent frien
ds at the home of the Duke of Dorset. For an ambassador of a country that was so hostile to my own and whose king had ordered his army to hang my Papa, the duke quite generously extended his enormous charm to me. Some of my convent friends jested that the handsome duke was especially solicitous of me, but he was known for his solicitations with all sorts of ladies, honorable and notorious. I gave little thought to him at the time, since he was my father’s age and prone to talk more about cricket games than matters of importance. Besides, my thoughts were all of William and what objection my father could possibly have to our match.
It wasn’t until that summer, when Papa took me to see an opera, that I had my first inkling of the heart of the matter. Squiring me to my seat in gentlemanly fashion, my father asked, almost absently, “Have you had any word from Tom Randolph, Patsy?”
“Cousin Tom? No. Should I have?”
“He’d planned to visit us here in Paris this summer but I haven’t heard from him since his last letter. I worry he’s been waylaid by brigands.”
This was the first I learned of Tom’s intention to visit. “I hope no harm has come to him.”
“I’d grieve of it,” Papa said. “I’ve set a plan for Tom’s education. I want him to study law in France for two years, then embark on a political career. He could be a great man of Virginia. He has the aptitude for it and the Randolph name. Not to mention lands and fortune.”
That was my clue. So nakedly obvious I nearly dropped my opera glasses. Mr. Short was a Virginia gentleman with ability and ambition, but he’d divested himself of almost all his landholdings to follow us to Paris. Mr. Short said he had entered the world with a small patrimony, and now, as far as I knew, he relied entirely upon his modest salary. A salary my father perhaps thought too modest to provide for a wife. I understood the importance of financial security, but many of Mr. Short’s other attributes recommended him. Confusion and sorrow left me unable to reply.
Only one thing seemed clear. Papa disapproved of the man who had claimed my heart. And so he was sending him away.
SOME PART OF ME DIDN’T BELIEVE Mr. Short would really leave Paris. Certainly not without a note to explain himself. And some part of me refused to believe it right up until the afternoon when, with guarded eyes, he kissed my gloved hand in farewell, climbed into a carriage, and rolled away.
I stood on the cobblestones, staring after that carriage, half expecting it to stop or even turn back. Only when it was long out of sight and I was shivering against a cool autumn breeze did I finally surrender to reality.
Miserable with longing, I went inside and eased into the chair behind the desk where Mr. Short did his work, reaching for some essence of him in the things he’d left behind. A quill pen. An inkwell. A page of paper.
Nothing more.
Not even a note for me to tear to pieces and throw into the fire.
That night, I sat near a different fire, wondering why it would not warm me and whether or not I was so heartbroken that I would never feel warm again. Seemingly oblivious to my distress, Papa bade us to see how neatly Sally mended a silk stocking. At her master’s praise, she bent to show us her work, and I caught a glimpse of a locket round her neck. A silver oval stamped with flowers and tiny hearts hung on a crimson ribbon, delicate and lovely as the girl it adorned.
“It’s so pretty, Sally,” Polly said, reaching to trace the filigreed locket. “Where did you get it?”
“C’est un cadeau de mon—mon patron,” Sally said, revealing her near fluency in French. “A gift!” Her glance flicked to my father where he sat reading a book in his stuffed armchair. And though Papa never met her gaze, he smiled.
For a moment, I wondered if there was something in his smile beyond kindness. Sally spent her days lighting fires, dusting books, mending stockings, sewing on buttons, and helping James in the kitchen. But how did she spend her nights? She had a cot in the servants’ quarters under her older brother’s watchful eye, but no one would question if Papa should call for her at bedtime. And how could she refuse?
What if the locket wasn’t just a gift, but …
No. As resentful as I was at my papa, he’d been nothing but gentlemanly with Sally since the night I saw him kiss her. Besides, how could I trust myself to see attraction or affection between a man and a woman, when I hadn’t even properly understood Mr. Short’s feelings for me?
I put it out of my head and dismissed it entirely. I was too miserable with my own troubles to care about the dresses and baubles my father bestowed upon his servants. And to add to my misery, in November we learned Papa had requested a congé—a leave of absence that would enable us to return to Virginia.
When I gently questioned the decision, he only said, “When we came to France, I supposed an appointment of five months. We’ve been here five years. Affairs at home can no longer wait, and political passions here are poised to erupt. I must see you and your sister settled in a more appropriate place.”
“You intend to leave us in Virginia?” I asked, horrified. Was it to rid himself of the temptation Sally presented or to keep me away from Mr. Short? I couldn’t ask. I didn’t dare ask. And what answer could he have given that would’ve been a balm to my savaged heart?
“It’s for the best,” was all he said.
And I sat there, staring up at the painted domed ceiling to keep hot tears of helpless anger from escaping the corners of my eyes. Because what I thought best didn’t matter. It wasn’t even deemed proper for me to acknowledge my feelings for William. Not to him, nor to my father, who had not felt the need to consult me. I’d had no say—no sway, even—in his decision to release William, nor in William’s decision to go. Or even whether or not I wanted to return to Virginia. And I never would have a say, because in the world outside the convent, men did as they pleased and women were left to simply accept the consequences.
But it seemed to me as if the world outside of the convent was both wicked and unjust, and the only place I could be happy was at the Panthemont, where I thrived in the company of friends and God.
As autumn faded to darkest winter, and not a single letter arrived for me from William Short, the desire to remain at the Panthemont and take my vows grew more and more within me. And once I’d decided upon this course, the only question that remained was how to tell my father.
PAPA HAD DISCOUNTED THE FAITH to which I’d been called as “superstitious and hostile, in every country and every age, to liberty.” But I told myself that I didn’t care if my spiritual calling made him angry; perhaps I even hoped that it would. Still, my desires weren’t born of mere petty rebellion. I’d have opportunities to teach in the convent. I could think on great matters and help shape the minds of young girls. It was a vocation, a calling, both earthly and spiritual, to be of consequence. And because the desire rose up in me so strongly, I resolved to tell Papa at Christmas.
Why then, having found comfort in God, did I feel consumed by hellfires?
The very night I resolved to tell my father, shivering sent my teeth chattering, and yet, I burned. Outside, the canals were impassible with ice, the Seine River frozen solid, preventing shipments of grain from reaching the city. The other girls huddled together in the convent to keep warm, but a fire consumed me from the inside, and a rash had broken out on my skin.
Marie sent for an abbess. “Cher Jeffy has the typhus!”
By morning, Polly was sick, too.
We were both sent from the convent to my father’s home, with fear that we wouldn’t recover. My recollection is hazy, for I suffered from bouts of delirium. I scarcely knew day from night. I have slight memories of white snow frosting the windows and howling drafts stealing through the blankets under which I tossed and turned. One thing, however, I remember with perfect clarity: it was my father himself who tended us and no one else.
He lodged my sister and me in his own quarters, holding spoonfuls of gruel to our lips, urging us to take sips of wine, wiping our brows, cleaning our messes, and singing us little songs. The illness didn’
t swiftly pass over us. And while my father’s constant attentions helped ease my pain, Polly couldn’t be comforted. She suffered that bitter winter, through what Papa said was a Siberian degree of cold.
And all the time, he was never far from us. He never uttered a harsh word, no matter how often we called to him for water or cool damp cloths. He was so tender and motherly that I forgot my resentments. Forgot everything but my love for him as we were drawn together again in the fear of losing Polly.
One afternoon, I called to her from my bed and she didn’t answer. In terror, I screamed, “Papa! Make her answer. Make her answer me.”
In sweat-stained white shirtsleeves that matched his exhausted pallor, my father kissed the damp curls on my sister’s brow. “She can’t hear you,” he whispered, rocking Polly. “The fever has robbed her of hearing.”
My little sister wasn’t dead but in a stupor, deaf and insensible. At Christmas, Polly could no longer open her eyes. We had no hope she’d live to see the new year.
I half dreamed I saw my mother in our room with angel’s wings, but when I woke, I wondered if it was only the white lace curtain at the drafty window. When I asked my father if Mama was watching over us, he lowered his head to his hands and was quiet a long time. “I’d like it to be true … you’ll never know how I long for her, even still.”
The memory of my mother’s face had faded for me. Her voice I couldn’t remember at all. There’d been in me over the years a slow and gentle farewell. But he’d written on her gravestone that she’d been torn from him in death. He may have given up chasing her into the grave, but he was, even all these years later, still bleeding from what he considered a violent parting.
I think it was that desperation that drove him to work harder than any man I ever knew in a cause he deemed greater than himself. And in the midst of my fevered illness, when I had energy only for thoughts and little else, my heart ached in sympathy and sadness.
For I was nearly certain that Polly was to be torn from us, too. That night, I knelt over Polly’s bedside and steepled my hands in urgent prayer. Please save Polly. Save my sister’s life and I’ll give myself over to you. I’ll find the courage to tell my father. Take me as your bride and let her go. Take me and let her live… .
America's First Daughter: A Novel Page 15