The Pearl Brooch

by Logan, Katherine Lowry

  “Go on. I prefer finished sentences,” Jefferson said.

  “I won’t presume to tell you what to do,” she said, “but it’s not safe out there. The king’s dismissal of his finance minister, who is sympathetic to the people, caused this eruption. I saw the mob kill the Bastille’s governor, and I heard rumors that the lieutenant governor was also killed, along with several guards. The rioters are now a heavily armed force.”

  Jefferson turned to face the man. “William, I need to find Lafayette.”

  “I’ll find him,” William said. “He’s presiding over the National Constituent Assembly at the Church of Saint Louis.” William acknowledged Sophia with a slight nod. “I’m William Short, Mr. Jefferson’s secretary. Were you injured by the rabble?”

  “I acquired a few bruises from being at the Bastille, but I hurt my knee when I stepped in a pothole in front of the house.”

  Mr. Petit returned with a small silver bucket and an armload of towels. “Oh, Mr. Petit, how kind. Thank you,” she said.

  “Is there anything else you require, mademoiselle?”

  “A cup of hot tea with lemon, please. Willow bark, if you have any.”

  With a silent nod, he hurried out of the room.

  Sophia made a move to lift her skirts to evaluate the injury and apply ice, but both men were watching her curiously. “I need to see how bad it is. Do you mind?”

  “You need a physician,” Jefferson said.

  “I can treat this more effectively than any doctor.” At least any eighteenth-century physician. If she’d been at home, she would have gone to see the orthopedist who treated her prior twists, sprains, and breaks.

  Jefferson and William turned in unison to face the fireplace. Sophia untied the garter on the injured leg and rolled the stocking below her knee.

  “On a scale of one to ten”—she said, more to herself than the two men who were waiting impatiently—“the pain is about an eight. I’m pretty sure it’s an MCL sprain.” She filled a towel with ice chips, then wrapped another towel on top of it to tie it securely around her knee.

  She wiggled her toes inside her shoes and considered taking them off—her shoes, not her toes—in case the swelling continued down her leg to her foot. But it would have to wait. She arranged the icepack before making herself presentable again.

  “I’ll send for a physician to come when he can,” Jefferson said.

  “There’s no need. He won’t approve of what I’m doing, but for a sprain, I’m following proper protocol.” Which probably didn’t make any sense to him, but she didn’t want a doctor trying to treat her injury. He might want to amputate. “If I keep it iced, compressed, and elevated, the swelling will go down in a few days.”

  “How long do you keep the ice on?”

  “Ten minutes, remove for ten minutes, then reapply as often as possible for the first twenty-four to forty-eight hours.”

  Jefferson rubbed his wrist, probably remembering the dislocation of a few years earlier that, according to a political biography by Jon Meacham, would bother him for years. “But it could be broken.”

  “I’ve had broken bones before, and I know I don’t have one now. My knee will hurt for a few days, but if I treat it right, it’ll improve.” She reached behind her for a pillow and slipped it under her leg, then leaned back in the sofa.

  “How did you end up at the Bastille?” Mr. Short asked.

  “I got stuck in the middle of the mob and couldn’t get away. Wrong place, wrong time. It sounds silly when I think about it, but we were packed together so tightly that I could only move with the mob, not against it. When I did find a chance to get away, I was caught by a couple of angry men. Luckily, Monsieur David came to my rescue. He was going to bring me here to meet Mr. Jefferson, but we got separated at the Hôtel de Ville, so I came here on my own.”

  “I’ve met Mr. David on several occasions. He was wise to insist you come here. What about your companion? We need to find her.”

  “There’s no need. She was paid to travel with me to Paris, and her family is here. I’m sure she went to find them.” Another lie that always worked, and it appeared to be working on the two men standing in front of her.

  Jefferson tugged on the chain of his gold pocket watch and checked the time. “Patsy and Polly are at the Abbaye Royale de Panthémont.” He closed and pocketed the watch. “I’ll send word to my daughters to stay at their school until order is restored in the city.”

  It might take ten years.

  “I’ll get a message to Lafayette, then go to the Abbaye,” William said. “You should stay. You’ll have visitors throughout the evening.” Then to Sophia he said, “Is there anything I can do for you while I’m out?”

  “Are you familiar with the queen’s jewelers, Charles Boehmer and Paul Bassenge? I have jewels I need to sell to pay my expenses. And since my baggage was lost when our carriage was confiscated”—another recycled lie—“I need clothes, paint supplies, and money to book passage to America.”

  “You’re a painter?” Jefferson asked.

  “You’re going to America?” William asked simultaneously.

  “I am,” she said to Jefferson. “I am,” she said pointedly to William.

  It was time to roll out a variation of her second most-used explanation for her presence. “I’ve been studying in…Tuscany, but my work there was done, so I came to…Paris to complete my studies before returning to…New York. After what I experienced today, I don’t plan to stay any longer than it takes to arrange transportation.”

  “It must have been frightening to arrive here on a day such as this,” Jefferson said.

  She glanced at her hands and nervously chipped a bit of blue paint off her fingernail. In her real world, she never broke a promise, never fabricated, never told a bold-faced lie, and never exaggerated her talent. Honest to a fault. Except when it came to her holidays. Then she lied to everyone.

  “If I’d known I’d be arriving on the eve of a revolution, I wouldn’t have come. But what happened in Paris today will be seen as one of the most important events in world history.”

  “France is in transition,” Jefferson said, “but not a revolution. The monarchy will withstand the turmoil.”

  You’re wrong, Mr. Jefferson. You might praise it now, hesitate over it, but eventually you will recoil from it.

  “I disagree,” she said. “America is the torchbearer of liberty to the world. The political creed you penned will have implications around the globe. Why would the French peasants not want the same unalienable rights—life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness—you professed in the Declaration of Independence? And you’ve been the tip of the spear pointing General Lafayette in the right direction with his Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen.”

  “You are frighteningly well-informed, mademoiselle, and you sound like a politician. The general only presented a draft three days ago.” Jefferson’s whole demeanor changed, as if he’d been ordered to stand at attention—chin up, chest out, shoulders back, stomach in, eyes locked in a fixed position. “I’ve always believed enfranchised women might take it into their minds to run for office instead of focusing on their husbands, hearths, and children.”

  She managed a nervous laugh, and she would have been offended if she hadn’t previously been subjected to fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, nineteenth, and twentieth-century men espousing similar sexist views.

  “I don’t have a husband, hearth, or children. I’m not a politician, but I am opinionated. I have strong views about the role of women in our new democracy. But I’ll strive to keep them to myself and focus instead on painting magnificent architecture like the Louvre and the Hôtel de Salm, and the gardens of le Jardin des Plantes and le Jardin du Roi.”

  To Jefferson, the mention of gardens and architecture was an at-ease command. He relaxed his shoulders. “The gardens are more appropriate endeavors for a woman. What else do you paint?”

  “Whatever a patron commissions—buildings, landscapes, portraits.�
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  “Is there anyone in Paris who will recommend you?”

  “No one but me,” she said. “If you want to know about my style of painting, I would say…I’m influenced by the Old Masters: Rubens, Rembrandt, Caravaggio, and a current English painter named Thomas Lawrence. Like him, I’m known for bold use of color and technical innovation.”

  “My dear friend Maria Cosway mentioned the young artist. She said he was considered an artistic prodigy.”

  Sophia was familiar with the artist’s paintings and Cosway’s affair with Jefferson. “Lawrence was also referred to as a chocolate box painter because his paintings are the kind of overly sentimental, sweet art that decorates—”

  “Boxes of chocolate?” Jefferson smiled. “The next time I visit À la Mère de Famille, I’ll ask for a painting on my box.”

  William cleared his throat in an obvious attempt to get Jefferson’s attention. “Sir, I should go. Lafayette might travel to Versailles before I can get a message to him.”

  “I need to make arrangements for lodging. There are hundreds of expats in Paris. If you would introduce me to other Americans, I’m sure they could recommend temporary lodging.”

  “Expats?” Jefferson asked.

  “Expatriates.”

  “Mademoiselle, since my negligence caused your accident, you’ll stay here until you can walk again.”

  “Paris is very cosmopolitan, Mr. Jefferson, but a woman who isn’t a member of your family living in your household wouldn’t be prudent. I wouldn’t want to sully your reputation, much less my own.”

  “Then I shall commission you to paint my garden. I’ve had other painters stay in my house. John Trumbull spent several months here. So it’s not unheard of for me to provide accommodation to painters and other travelers from America.”

  “I’ve seen Mr. Trumbull’s paintings,” she said, mentally flipping through his portfolio. “Some of them aren’t historically accurate, but history will forgive him for his inaccuracies.”

  There was a subtle flicker of shock in Jefferson’s eyes. “Historical inaccuracies? Give me an example.”

  “If a painter is going to paint an event in the past, he needs to be sure the fixtures, furnishings, clothes, and hairstyles are correct. If I painted a scene from the early years of the Revolutionary War, I wouldn’t clothe soldiers in uniforms they were only wearing at the end of the war. A hundred or even two hundred years from now, art critics will notice those mistakes.”

  “A hundred years from now, no one will know what uniforms were worn.”

  “You know what Caesar wore,” she said. “Why would soldiers in the Revolutionary War be any different? Besides, don’t you look at paintings now and find mistakes? Why would the future be any different?”

  “I disagree.” Jefferson locked his hands behind his back and paced in front of her. “It’s my opinion, Mademoiselle Orsini, that every artist believes in three kinds of truth. Simple truth is the appearance of things. Ideal truth consists of selective combinations of parts. Perfect truth combines the simple and ideal, and is probably truer than truth itself. This theory allows painters the license to compete with literature as a liberal art.”

  “Are you saying there aren’t inaccuracies in paintings, just selective combinations of parts to create an ideal truth?” she asked.

  He smiled, and the color of his piercing gray eyes changed back to the enticing gray-blue, and he looked at her as if she was the center of a confusing universe, or, better yet, a bug in a jar, an object to study up close and at his leisure.

  “I look forward to exploring the idea of ideal truth at length,” he said. “First, though, we need to settle the matter of your lodging. I also have selfish reason for asking you to stay here at the legation. I have tried to shelter my daughters from French morals, but since Mrs. Adams left for London and then returned to America, they’ve had no other woman to model American manners and morals. It’s not that our morals are better than the French, but they are better for us. And being around you will remind them of the difference as they prepare to return to Monticello.”

  Sophia had been a role model for many young female artists and could appreciate what he was asking of her. “Your offer is very generous, but I don’t want to cause a scandal that would be far worse for your daughters.”

  “You are an unescorted American in Paris who injured herself due to my negligence. No one will think it inappropriate for you to stay here while you recover. And while you’re recovering, you’ve agreed to paint my garden.”

  If she agreed to paint Jefferson’s garden, it would mean she couldn’t commission Vigée Le Brun to paint her portrait for her collection or sit for Jacques. But she would much rather paint than be painted. “You’ve just commissioned an American portraitist, President Jefferson.” She realized her slip immediately. It wasn’t the first and wouldn’t be the last. She’d learned several holidays ago that when she misspoke, she only had to smile and act like she wasn’t aware of what she’d said.

  “Thank you for the promotion, Mademoiselle Orsini, but ambassador to France is a far greater challenge than I ever anticipated, and I have no desire to serve our young democracy in any other capacity.”

  “Whatever role you play in the future, sir, you’ll do it quite well.”

  “There will be no other role. When I finish here, I’ll retire to Monticello.”

  “Then I hope to have a few paintings of you and your garden completed so you can enjoy them in your retirement.”

  If she thought matching wits with him would be a challenging game, she’d better rethink and get over it. He was an intellectual, an endlessly curious man, and too perceptive to let her slips go by unchallenged.

  She must be on guard. At all times. Because the consequences of revealing the future to him would far outlast her brief presence in his life.

  5

  Mallory Plantation, VA—Matt Kelly

  Midsummer Virginia weather was hotter than Hades. The recent squalls had raised the humidity level to match the temperature, something Matt Kelly hadn’t experienced in a lifetime of living in Colorado. But after two years of living in the Commonwealth, he was slowly adjusting. It was on days like this, though, that he second-guessed his and Elizabeth’s decision to relocate.

  He was already wiping sweat off his face when he walked into the air-conditioned library at Mallory Plantation. When Charlotte Mallory and her husband, Braham McCabe, first mentioned building a state-of-the-art library and resource center on their property, Matt offered to move his extensive collection of books and maps from his ranch to the plantation.

  Braham said he’d happily accept the donation if Matt and Elizabeth would live on the plantation. So they sold their ranch to their daughter, Olivia, and her husband, Connor, to house the next generation of Kellys/O’Gradys, and built a stately home on five acres of land they purchased from Braham and Charlotte.

  Now they lived close to their other daughter, Amber, her husband, Daniel, and two wonderful children. Amber’s health and the grandkids—Noah, age fourteen, and wee Heather, age two—were the reasons they gave up all they had built in Colorado and moved to the outskirts of Richmond. Noah was more than a step-grandchild. After only four years, they were almost inseparable.

  His gaze shifted to the rows of bookcases packed with first edition classics and history books. Like the twenty thousand books Thomas Jefferson sold to the Library of Congress to form the nucleus of the library, Matt’s collection formed the nucleus of the library at Mallory Plantation. And also, like Jefferson, Matt had shopped at every bookstore in every city in every country he ever visited, and turned over every book with his own hands. Jefferson’s Holy Trinity were Francis Bacon, John Locke, and Isaac Newton. Matt’s were Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt, and, when he was asked for his Holy Trinity plus one, he included Churchill.

  Over the past four years his role as historian, librarian, and world tour guide had evolved. He spent his days teaching and advising the MacKlenna Clan children whil
e Elizabeth worked remotely in the MacKlenna Corporation legal department. The clan had one child in medical school, one finishing his second year at Harvard, and two others applying for early admission there. And the role model to beat all role models, Austin O’Grady, recently graduated on the Dean’s List at the University of Kentucky, was drafted by the Cavaliers, and was playing in a summer league in Las Vegas.

  Matt’s most challenging students, by far, were the McBains’s ten-year-old twin boys. If he ever made a mistake, they pointed it out. It was as if they stood over his shoulder when he wrote his lecture notes and knew exactly what he was going to say.

  Matt had just finished reviewing his American Revolution lecture notes to be sure they were mistake-free, and he now had time to skim The New York Times before class started.

  He logged into his account and quickly perused each section of the paper, planning to go back and read the articles later.

  One article, however, caught his attention, and he stopped to read it. An Orsini painting of Thomas Jefferson sailing to America was recently discovered during a renovation of one of the oldest homes in Amagansett on the South Shore of Long Island.

  Orsini, an eighteenth-century portraitist, painted like Donatello a century before the renowned painter bridged the gap between nineteenth century Impressionism and early twentieth century Cubism. Orsini, along with Charles Willson Peale, John Trumbull, and Gilbert Stuart were all well-known portraitists of the Founding Fathers.

  To find an unknown Orsini painting was astounding. If the painting sold at auction, it could break seven figures, especially if it was proved to be another life painting.

  Matt entered a tickler into his calendar to check on the status of the painting in five days. He could incorporate a study of Orsini’s work into an art history lecture scheduled for next month. The kids would enjoy researching the provenance of the Jefferson painting. He finished writing the tickler just as Elizabeth rushed through the back door.

  “Matt!”

  He gathered up his notes and tapped the ends on the table to align the sheets into a neat pile, then attached a binder clip. “Over here.”