The Pearl Brooch

by Logan, Katherine Lowry

  After an unsuccessful hour he decided to change locations. Maybe the government people were all in court, or legislating, or whatever they did during the day. If so, they’d be meeting in Federal Hall, a few blocks away.

  He looked around, but none of the surrounding buildings were familiar, and while the layout of the streets was similar, it wasn’t what he was used to. As leader of this rescue, Jack made two crucial mistakes: not making plans for a meet-up place, and not bringing maps of the early city. Which didn’t bode well. Pete had been on enough adventures, he should have thought of it himself.

  He wasn’t worried about Matt and Jack finding their way. They knew the people and the history. And having time alone to search for Sophia was okay with Pete. All he had to do was find Jefferson, and he’d find her.

  He followed the crowd, making his way to Murray’s Wharf at the foot of Wall Street on the East River. From there he followed Wall Street, discreetly checking out every woman who went by.

  Would he recognize Sophia in colonial dress and hat? Of course he would. It wouldn’t matter what she wore. He’d know her anywhere. His heart would know her.

  He continued up Wall Street, a muddy thoroughfare with cobblestone sidewalks and two- and three-story brick buildings lining both sides. Federal Hall stood at the end, facing him and towering above the other buildings. Carts, carriages, and men on horseback clomped and creaked as they passed by.

  Pete couldn’t remember ever seeing a picture of the first rendition of Federal Hall, and the reality was a bit of a surprise. There was no wide, steep staircase. No monument of Washington. No groups of international tourists or sidewalk vendors selling hot pretzels.

  The building ahead of him was a two-story Queen Anne-style building with bilateral symmetry, rows of painted sash windows set flush with the brickwork, stone quoins emphasizing corners, central triangular pediment set against a hipped roof, a tower, and a recessed balcony.

  JL had laughed at him early in their partnership when he described architectural styles of buildings as they drove down the streets of the city. He’d taken an elective in college on NYC architecture and never forgot it.

  History only impressed him when it concerned his city. And ahead of him was the actual building where George Washington took the oath of office, where the Bill of Rights was adopted, where the first Congress met. If this building had been saved instead of razed in the early 1800s, it would not only be the most historical building in America, but also the most valuable. How could anyone put a price on the place where it all began?

  He reached the front of Federal Hall and dodged the flow of traffic to find a spot to surveil the people coming and going.

  “Pete!”

  He turned to see Jack and Matt standing near the side of a building, Matt’s trunk and a suitcase stacked between them.

  “Where have you been?” Pete asked.

  “We arrived a few blocks from here,” Jack said. “We figured Federal Hall would be the best place to find Jefferson.”

  “Yeah, I was a little slow in figuring that out. What’s the date? Do you know?”

  Matt opened a newspaper with the masthead United States Gazette. “We bought this from a newsboy, then we hired him to help with our luggage. If it’s today’s edition, it’s June 20, 1790.”

  Jack pulled a map from his pocket. “We got a lead on a boardinghouse located on King Street. According to this map, it’s close by. We should go there and drop off our bags.”

  Pete looked at the map over Jack’s shoulder. “That’s too far away. We need something within a block or two. I saw a boardinghouse down the street, and two men were leaving with luggage. Either they were checking out or looking for rooms and there was no vacancy. I’ll check it out. Stay put.”

  “Wait.” Jack dug into his pocket. “I just traded a nugget at a bank a block from here, and I have a handful of money. I don’t know how much you’ll need.”

  Matt picked up two suitcases. “Take these with you. Jack and I can handle the trunk.”

  Pete pocketed a few coins, then carrying the suitcases, returned to the building with the sign he’d seen earlier, pushed open the door, and entered a busy establishment that looked respectable enough, which meant there were no drunken sailors falling on the hardwood floor. After two years in Afghanistan, he could sleep anywhere.

  Ten minutes later he was back to report his success to Matt and Jack. “We got two rooms. I don’t know what shape they’re in, but for an extra coin I got clean linens and a promise of a bath.”

  “Works for me. Let’s drop off the trunk and come back here,” Jack said.

  “Maybe one of us should stay. Keep an eye out for Jefferson,” Pete said.

  “Probably not a bad idea. Matt and I will go drop this off and meet you back here. If you’re gone, we’ll assume you’re following Jefferson or Sophia. There’s a tavern over there.” Jack pointed. “See it? We’ll go there and listen to local gossip. We’ll either be at the boardinghouse or the tavern. If we go anywhere else, we’ll leave a message with the landlady.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” Pete settled in to wait, hoping it wouldn’t be long. But even if it was an hour, two hours, or longer, it was nothing compared to the twenty years he’d already waited.

  40

  New York City (1790)—Sophia

  Sophia sat in the balcony of Federal Hall watching Congress argue over the topic of the day while sketching speakers from Southern states arguing against assuming states’ debts, or as it was more notably called: the assumption issue.

  Hamilton wanted the federal Treasury to take over and pay off the debt the states incurred during the war. The Treasury would issue bonds that rich people could buy, giving them a tangible stake in the success of the government. Thomas didn’t like the idea because it would grant too much power in the national government. Nobody had a better idea. They just didn’t like Hamilton’s. So the argument continued.

  For the past several weeks she’d been making daily treks to Federal Hall to sketch the government at work. Then she sold the sketches to the United States Gazette. It was part of her marketing plan to interest New Yorkers in her work.

  To date she’d received two commissions: John Jay and John Adams, but she had Jefferson to thank for those. If she could snag George Washington, she’d paint him for free, but she hadn’t gotten a commitment from him yet. The next time she saw him, she’d lay out her vision for his portrait. It was so brilliant, he couldn’t refuse her.

  While members of Congress took a break, she flipped back through pages of her journal where she’d copied sketches of every painting she’d done, including the ones in Paris. The commissions she’d been offered while traveling to Mallory Plantation from Norfolk had come to fruition, and those paintings kept her busy until early March.

  When she finished the sailing portrait of Thomas in early January, she sent it to Captain Colley along with a message that she was staying in Virginia until spring. He’d returned a thank-you letter along with a note from his sister-in-law inviting Sophia and her companion to rent the lower floor of her home.

  Sophia had made a tidy sum, and so had Marguerite, who designed Parisian gowns for Mrs. Mallory and her friends. She and Marguerite had enough money to open a studio and workshop in New York. She also sent Monsieur Watin a shopping list in January. He had agreed to send supplies upon request and draw down on the funds she deposited with him until she found a reliable color merchant in America. Everything had been waiting for Sophia when she arrived at Mrs. Colley’s house.

  She turned another page and found a sketch of Patsy in her Marguerite-original bronze silk wedding gown. She married her third cousin, Thomas Mann Randolph Jr., in February at Monticello. It was a splendid wedding, and Thomas wanted to make it a double wedding, but Sophia refused, saying it was Patsy’s special day, and she deserved all the attention.

  After he settled Polly at Eppington with her aunt and uncle, Sophia and Thomas left for New York City, promising to return for a long v
isit in the fall. If she and Thomas married, Polly would come live with them.

  The trip to New York was hell. They encountered eighteen inches of snow, and Thomas and James Hemings were forced to give up their horses in Alexandria. They crowded into Sophia’s carriage and rode the rest of the way with her and Marguerite.

  Every time he asked her to marry him, she said, “Not yet.” And Marguerite asked her daily what she was waiting for.

  She and Thomas still had issues to resolve. Ownership of her painting income, a softening of his views on her rights as a woman, and an understanding that they would always live in the same city. She was not going to be abandoned at Monticello to take care of his home and hearth. As soon as he agreed to her terms, she’d marry him. They would have to agree to disagree when it came to religion, but she was a practicing Catholic and would insist on a church wedding. A justice of the peace did the ceremony the first time, and look how well that turned out.

  The arrangements at Mrs. Colley’s house at 6 State Street on the southern tip of Manhattan were perfect. Their leased premises consisted of two bedrooms, a combination studio/sewing room, and a receiving room. The house was one of several in a long row of mansions with an unobstructed view of New York Harbor. She’d painted a picture of the view and it hung in the studio window as an advertisement.

  Shortly after they arrived in the city, John and Abigail Adams hosted a small dinner party to celebrate Thomas’s forty-seventh birthday. Sophia presented him with a painting of his beloved horse Caractacus, a direct descendant of the Godolphin Arabian, one of the three stallions that founded the modern Thoroughbred. Of all the paintings she’d done to date, it was his favorite.

  The assembly hall quieted, and Thomas moved to the podium.

  He hadn’t mentioned making a presentation today.

  She snapped her journal shut and picked up paper and pencil to sketch him. When she sketched him at work, she added a hidden picture in the folds of his coat, usually the face of his antagonist de jour. So far no one had noticed.

  Thomas’s antagonist today was Alexander Hamilton. Actually, he was every day, but this afternoon the animosity so thickened the air in the chamber that it reached the balcony and engulfed her in its sticky quagmire. Their quarrels over assumption and the location of the national capital had grown so vitriolic, it wasn’t far-fetched to wonder and worry if the union might break up over the issues. She knew it wouldn’t, of course, but no one else did.

  During his five years as a diplomat Thomas was largely removed from American politics. But now, as a senior cabinet officer, he was exposed to the voracious attention of the New York political class, and it was taking him a while to acclimate.

  Sophia did what she could to encourage him, but at other times sent him to visit with John Adams. Thomas’s dependence on his old friend was obvious and touching. Their friendship would later be tested, but in the sunset of their lives they would reconcile and die within hours of each other on July 4, 1826—the 50th anniversary of Independence Day.

  When Thomas finished his speech, she gathered up her supplies and hurried to meet him on the first floor. He grinned when he saw her, and she bussed his cheeks. “You were brilliant.”

  “And you, my dear, are biased.”

  “Maybe, but only two other people down there will get their faces on currency notes.”

  “I don’t know where you get some of your ideas.” He glanced down the hallway, distractedly. “I need to find John Jay, but first I’m going to walk you home. And we have a dinner engagement.”

  Every night they either had an invitation or Thomas hosted his own dinner party. “Where are we going?”

  “The president has invited us to dine with them.”

  Her face flushed. Why had Washington invited them to dinner tonight? They dined together only a few evenings ago.

  Thomas looked askance. “What’d you do? I’ve seen that look before.”

  She stepped back to give him room to explode, although he rarely got angry at anyone. His motto was: When angry, count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred.

  “What did you do, dear?” he asked again.

  She’d never drawn a sketch of President Washington in her hidden pictures, and the one of him in today’s paper might have been noticed. It was time to confess, and she wasn’t at all sure how Thomas would react.

  “The sketch of you in today’s paper has a…well… It has a hidden picture in the folds of your coat.”

  Thomas folded his arms and glared down at her. “I know.”

  “You do?”

  “There’s nothing you do that I’m not aware of.”

  She was incensed. “Are you spying on me?”

  “Absolutely not,” he said calmly. “But I have adversaries who take great delight in advising me of your peccadillos.”

  “Peccadillos? What kind of word is that? Do you mean picadillo? That’s a Latin American dish. I guess your adversaries consider me a little spicy.”

  His mouth turned up just a little, but she could see him laughing at her at the back of his eyes. “I don’t know the word picadillo. But peccadillo is a petty sin or trifling fault.”

  She blinked, unable to hide her shock. “A sin? You’re calling my art sinful?”

  He dropped all pretense of controlling his laugh, and his delighted guffaw echoed throughout the hall. There was a private joke she wasn’t privy to in there somewhere, and it made her mad.

  When she realized others were staring at them, she grabbed his arm and hauled him toward the door. “Let’s get out of here, and please stop laughing at me, or I’ll tell you exactly what I think of you in Italian.” When they stepped outside onto the sidewalk she said, “Now tell me what’s so funny.”

  “My dear, the city’s abuzz with talk of your hidden pictures. The newspaper has doubled its subscriptions. Everyone wants to be the first to discover who you’re satirizing in the day’s paper.”

  “How come I didn’t know? How come the publisher didn’t tell me? And if he’s gained so many new subscriptions, my sketches have more value. Tomorrow I’ll tell him I’ve raised my prices. He can pay more, or I’ll take my business elsewhere.”

  “I don’t know why you didn’t know,” Thomas said, looking quite amused. “It appears you’re the last person in New York City. And I agree. You should be paid more.”

  “Thank you for agreeing, and how long have you known?”

  “Darling, I spotted it immediately in the first sketch you sold. Since I discovered your first hidden picture last summer, I look at every sketch and painting for something out of place or an object that shouldn’t be there.”

  “I didn’t know that either.” It was unlike her to be so imbecilic. She was always the first to know about anything new in the art market. She didn’t paint to the market, but she was always aware of what was selling. Until now… She was off her game.

  “Being the subject of one of your hidden pictures has become a badge of honor. Those you haven’t satirized feel unworthy and have fallen into fits of depression. I was even offered a bribe to put in a good word on a particular congressman’s behalf. Then a senator from Pennsylvania picked an argument with me where it would draw your attention, hoping it would get his likeness in one of your sketches.”

  She was stunned. “Are you serious?”

  “You’ve brought entertainment to the city, darling. I’ve heard there are wagers made daily as to whom your next victim will be.” Thomas led her down Wall Street through thick pedestrian traffic. “I heard President Washington was flattered this morning when he found his own visage in your drawing.”

  “Was he really flattered? Or did he act flattered to save face? I need to know if I’m going to be chastised at dinner.”

  “He’s not angry. He’s hoping to entertain an announcement from me.”

  “So you’ve decided to run for president in ’93? If so, it’s too early. John Adams should go next.”

  “Ha. I’ll never run for
that office. When I finish my term as Secretary of State, I intend to take my bride home to Monticello.” He held her gaze, his own slowly taking on a wry amusement.

  She batted her eyelashes in mock innocence. “I haven’t met your bride. Is she someone I know?”

  He stopped and glanced heavenward, as if praying for divine intervention. He must have gotten some, because he gazed down at her and said very softly, “I want you to be my wife. I don’t want to wait another week, another day, another hour. Only this morning, I received a letter from Polly. The first line asked, ‘Has Miss Sophia agreed to marry you?’ I can’t write her back and tell her no.”

  Sophia fixed him with a direct look. “Please don’t use your children to pressure me into doing something I’m not ready to do.”

  He inhaled, straightening as air filled his lungs, adding another half foot to his already towering height. She might never see his face again if she gave him another reason to inhale so deeply out of exasperation with her.

  “If I must agree to your two conditions before you’ll say yes, then I will. All your painting income will belong to you, and you’ll never be alone at Monticello. When I’m away doing the work of the government, you’ll always be with me.”

  There was one more condition she hadn’t mentioned before. It might be a deal-breaker, but she had to protect her interests at a time when women had none. She intensified her look and stiffened her spine, but it didn’t make her any taller.

  “I want your agreement in writing.”

  His face twisted into an expression of pure shock and incomprehension. “You what?” He leaned over slightly, looking down, an intimidating stance that didn’t work with her.

  “You’re a lawyer,” she said. “You can draft a document that will stand up in court. I’m serious, Thomas. Money falls through your fingers like sand. I’ll help you turn Monticello into the magnificent plantation you envision. I’ll help you build the finest wine collection in America, but we won’t go bankrupt doing it.”