Page 13 of America’s First Daughter
Chapter Twelve
O UR EYES LOCKED across the crowded ballroom, never wavering, in spite of the servants passing with silver trays of bubbling pink champagne in crystal glasses.
Without breaking my gaze, William Short whispered a quick word into his companion’s bejeweled ear. I hated the sight of his cheek so near to the porcelain skin of her shoulder and plunging décolletage. Then hated more when he left her side to close the distance between us, striding between plumed ladies and men swaggering about with swords on their hips.
Most violently, my heart tried to take flight, leaving me suddenly breathless and light-headed. I’d yearned for our reunion, but now that it was upon me I felt utterly unprepared.
As if sensing my plight, my friends circled to form a phalanx before me in a violent swish of petticoats and lace. Marie, who had the best reason to know the pain Mr. Short’s long absence had caused me, didn’t bother with subtle gestures. She rudely shook her dance program at him as if shooing away a fly.
“Ladies.” Wearing the warmest smile, Mr. Short ignored the flapping page and bowed. “Miss Jefferson . . .”
I just stared.
Eight months he’d been absent. Eight months, without a word. Wars had been fought and won in less time. Certainly, my whole world had changed. Yet, he addressed me as if a mere day had passed since our last visit.
William Short ought not have presumed we were still friends. No, he ought not have presumed.
I finally managed an icy, “Mr. Short. What a surprise.”
“May I have a quiet word, Miss Jefferson?”
He scarcely waited for me to nod before herding me away from my coterie. I pulled away, not letting him touch me, not taking his arm, even as I followed him into an empty alcove where gold-tasseled curtains framed a tall, elegant window. I was so dizzied by his presence that the fleurs-de-lis on the blue silk wallpaper danced before my eyes, but I refused to let him see how affected I was.
I crossed my arms, seething. “I had no word you were back in Paris, Mr. Short.”
“I just arrived in the past hour, actually, which explains my state of dress.” It was then that I realized how out of place he looked in a dark coat and breeches, an outfit more fit for travel than the ballroom. “I feared I might be denied entrance, but fortunately, Rosalie vouched for me.”
The gall of mentioning her to me in this moment! My gaze narrowed and my tone chilled even more. “Fortunate, indeed.”
Mr. Short winced and shook his head. “I only meant to make clear that I came straightaway, from your father’s house.”
Accustomed to loss and calamity, I was thrown into instant worry and dropped my arms. “Has something happened to Papa? To Polly?”
He stepped closer. “No. They’re both well. But I didn’t want to miss seeing you tonight, so I dared not delay in coming here.”
I frowned. He wanted me to believe he’d come to the ball to see me ? I could scarcely credit that. “I’m very curious to know what has happened to make you so suddenly remember my existence.”
His hand went to his heart. “I never forgot you, Patsy. Never.”
I quite nearly snorted. Men were apt to say sweet nothings. Some men more than others, and Mr. Short was a practiced diplomat. How could I trust anything he said?
It sent a surge of rage through my veins. But rage was a forbidden emotion, so I forced myself to be aloof, to resist his flattery and his handsome face as I’d resisted all the other men in Pari sian ballrooms. I waved my fan. “Will you be returning to my father’s service at the Hotel de Langeac?”
“Eagerly.”
Mon Dieu . When he’d lived at the embassy before, I spent most of my days and nights at the convent. Must we now live together under the same roof? I thought it such an injustice, I could manage only a bland nicety. “Well, then. Welcome back, Mr. Short. My father will be happy for your return.”
“Patsy,” he said, drawing nearer still. “Please don’t retreat behind a polite facade.”
An ache of desire opened up inside my chest, an ache my heart said would only be assuaged by giving in to his entreaties. But I still remembered how much worse was the pain of the heartbreak he’d caused. “I cannot imagine what you mean.”
“You and your father both do it, but whereas Mr. Jefferson can’t help himself, being too vulnerable otherwise, you’re resilient enough to say what you think and feel.”
How his words provoked me! Certain that I’d make a fool of myself if I didn’t flee, I snapped, “Mr. Short, be glad I’m not ill-mannered enough to say what I think and feel. You must excuse me. They’re calling the next dance.”
Regret and contrition slipped into the cast of his green eyes. “You’re angry.”
“Ladies are never angry.” I was livid.
He blocked my avenue of escape. “Ladies and angels are never angry. But Amazons . . .”
I didn’t laugh at his little joke. Instead, I felt penned in, tormented by his use of words that had once meant something between us. My words came out as a hiss, leaking past the tight seal of my lips. “You never sent me a letter. Never in all the months you were gone.”
“How could I, without offending your father? I asked after you whenever I wrote to him and sent my best wishes. You’ve no idea the anxiety it put in me to hear that you and your sister were so very ill this winter.”
That had been months ago. Whatever anxiety he felt wasn’t enough to make him return. Not enough to mean anything. “You can see for yourself that I’ve recovered.”
“Yes.” His green eyes traveled with appreciation down my face, over the pale mounds of my bosom, which heaved over the gold satin bows on my gown. Finally, his gaze moved up again, on an intake of breath. “Beautifully . . .”
Heat touched my cheeks. “They’re calling the next dance,” I reminded him, my own breath shallow. “I’ve promised another dance to—”
“Polignac?” Mr. Short turned to see the approach of my chevalier . “Refuse him.”
Outrageous. “What cause do I have to be so rude to a suitor?”
“ Refuse him,” Mr. Short repeated, more emphatically. “Tell him you’re tired, tell him you’re ill, tell him—I don’t care what you tell him, but refuse him.”
Gripping my closed fan, I gave an exasperated shake of my head. “Why should I? Why would you even ask such a thing of me?”
“Because I hate him,” Mr. Short said with uncharacteristic malice. “He’s a monarchist. An enemy of liberty. And, more importantly, you just called him your suitor. You’ve danced with him before?”
Having let loose my temper, it now slipped dangerously out of my control at this apparent show of jealousy. “Yes, I’ve danced with him before. And other men besides. I’ll have you know that I am being pursued by the Duke of Dorset—”
“The British ambassador?” Mr. Short broke in, with a note of abject horror. “Does your father know?”
I had mentioned Dorset more to stoke William’s jealousy than because I believed the duke’s flirtations to be earnestly intended. But now I wondered if I’d been foolish not to mention it to Papa, given the politics of the situation. “I don’t wish to speak of it. Not with you. Besides, why should you mind? You left me feeling quite a fool and I will not be fooled again—”
“Patsy.” William’s unsettling green eyes pleaded with me from beneath sandy lashes. He shook his head and sighed. “I’m going about this all wrong. Please, I’ll beg a thousand pardons if you’ll only give me the chance to explain myself.”
Before I could answer, I was forced to contend with the expectant gaze of the duke’s son. Extending a hand to me that displayed the most elegant lace cuff I’d ever seen, the chevalier asked, “Mademoiselle, is this dance not promised to me?”
“Yes, it is . . .” I braved a look at William Short, whose expression barely masked his displeasure at the other man’s interruption. Confusion so gripped me that the decision was more instinctual than purposeful. “But I’m afraid I’m feeling dizzy. Will you forgive me for sitting out?”
The chevalier narrowed his eyes in concern and glanced between us. “Please, if you’re unwell, Mademoiselle, let me see you to—”
Mr. Short stepped between us. “I’ll tend her, Polignac.”
The two men must’ve been acquainted because a poisonous look passed between them. In fact, the chevalier wouldn’t withdraw until I rested my fingertips upon Mr. Short’s arm.
“As you wish, Mademoiselle Chefferson,” Polignac said, as if he no longer knew quite how to pronounce my name. “Another evening, perhaps.”
Given his high color, I doubted very much that there’d be other evenings with the duke’s son, as he’d obviously taken my refusal for a snub. I ought to have chased after him and explained myself, but all I wanted was to hear what William Short had to say.
Infuriatingly, he said nothing. Instead he guided me to the grand marble staircase, wrought in iron and tipped with gold. Arm in arm, we descended, together, very slowly, awkwardly passing the Duke of Dorset, who raised a curious brow, making me wonder just what the Tufton sisters had told him of my feelings for William.
Finally, William said, “I never meant to leave you feeling a fool.”
A hollowness filled my chest. “Then why did you? Without a word of explanation!”
“Please understand that a year ago, when I begged a hearing of your father on the matter of my feelings for you, he made clear that he still considered you—a mere schoolgirl—too young to be wooed much less wed.”
I suspected as much, nevertheless, I swallowed on the word wed . “Didn’t you try to persuade him otherwise?”
“And risk losing his esteem forever? No, Patsy. Only time would persuade him my intentions were honorable. So I gave us that time by traveling, by trying to convince your father, in my letters, that I want to provide for a wife and a family.”
I sniffed, trying to hold firm against the words I’d long yearned to hear. “He said nothing to me of these letters.”
“Your father cannot have mistaken my meaning because he wrote with advice on how I might best build a fortune with which to support a wife. Now I’ve returned to Paris to find everything changed.”
“Changed how?”
We stopped on the landing and Mr. Short put his hand on the railing, his gaze searching mine. “The moment I set foot in the Hotel de Langeac tonight, I asked after you. Your father told me that you were no longer in the convent and that he’d let you come out into French society.”
Had Papa also confided in him my desire to take my vows as a nun? While I wondered, Mr. Short continued, “That’s why I came straightaway to find you. I knew, at long last, I could speak openly. I didn’t want to let another hour—not another second —tick by without declaring myself.”
I swayed on my heeled shoes, quite fearing a swoon. “What is it you wish to declare?”
He looked down, almost shyly. “I’ve so often planned what I’d say in this moment that it should be ready on my tongue. But poetry has suddenly fled from me . . . how can I find the words?”
I stared, expectantly, wondering if he might dare to take my hand and kiss it. If he might scandalously twine his fingers with mine. If he might lean close to whisper in my ear. Instead, he reached into his coat and pulled forth the little piece of folded paper, now worn and creased with time, and unfolded it for me to see my hair still pressed within. “Patsy, this token has never left my possession. It’s been a reminder, every day. What I want to declare—what I want to offer—is quite beyond abiding friendship.”
I gulped, then forgot to breathe. “You kept my hair, all this time?”
“Yes. Near my heart. A year ago, I adored you. But now I adore you even more than before. For you’ve grown into a graceful and beautiful woman.”
How could I believe him? Perhaps I was graceful. Shapely, too, with the added allure of an ample bosom and ginger hair. But even then, in the flower of my youth, I knew that I wasn’t so much beautiful as appealing, my face a delicate rendering of my father’s. Maybe it was the very resemblance to my father that accounted for the beauty Mr. Short saw in me—for I was a feminine reflection of a man he idolized.
But still, I was wary. “There are prettier ladies in Paris.”
“Not in my eyes,” he insisted, emphatically.
Now he did draw my hand up and clasp it against his chest, where I felt his heart throb beneath the buttons of his waistcoat—evidence that he did think me beautiful.
That, in turn, made me feel beautiful. It was a heady, intoxicating feeling. A feeling that could rob a girl of all reason.
“Patsy, will you allow me to take you home?”
In that moment, I’d have gone anywhere with him. It didn’t matter that I’d left my shawl behind. Or even that when I looked up, I realized that the Duke of Dorset was standing at the top of the stairs and had witnessed the entire exchange. That spring in Paris, defiance was the norm. And a wild defiant liberation had taken hold of me, so I didn’t fight it. I simply went with William out into the night, and alighted a carriage back to Paris, quite undone by this turn of fate.
My thoughts were as tumultuous as the jostling ride. I’d built a fortification round my heart, and not only because I’d been hurt. Given my intention to take my vows, I was forced to wonder if Mr. Short was a temptation sent by the devil himself. If so, I was ready to fall into the devil’s arms, but I wasn’t so unprincipled as to deceive him.
When we disembarked on the Champs-élysées beneath lamps hung in the trees, I turned to him. “Mr. Short, I’m very much changed since you left. You don’t realize the full extent of it. When you learn more, I fear—I fear you must reconsider your declaration.”
“That sounds ominously serious. . . .”
“I’m afraid it is.” I told him of my bargain with God. Of my admittedly wavering belief that I’d been called to serve as a Bride of Christ, rather than the bride of any man.
When I was finished, he exhaled. “What a relief. I feared you’d given your heart to Polignac. I’m much happier to have God as a rival. More glory in it for me if I win your love, and less shame should I lose.”
I gasped at his playful remark. “That’s blasphemous.”
He winked. “Probably so. I’m a sinner with more faults than you imagine, Patsy. But you’re the friend to which my soul is unalterably attached, so I’m prepared to make whatever alterations to my character would be conducive to your happiness. Only tell me this. Are my hopes in vain, or can you be induced to love me?”
I loved him already. Had loved him, it seemed, all my life. Loved his loyalty, his ambition, his radical vision for the world. That a man like William Short wanted my love filled me with such joy that I could’ve thrown my arms about his neck, heedless of the eyes upon us, and confessed it on the spot!
But did I not love God just as much?
Even if I hadn’t determined to take the veil, I’d been strictly taught that a girl’s easy confession of love was indecent and would destroy that love. I couldn’t answer him with true candor. Worse, in struggling to think of a reply of sufficient restraint, I uttered words he took for reproach. “Sir, your absence pained me more than I can ever express—”
“You cannot forgive me?” he asked, stiffening.
“I could forgive you anything, but I need time to petition Heaven for guidance.”
“You’re cruel, Miss Jefferson. I’ve already spent a year’s time waiting for you.”
I shook my head. “It’s not cruelty but confusion. For in that year’s time, I feared you despised me. Now in one night, everything I thought I knew is changed.”
“You feel hurried. Yes, I see that now. As do I. For your father tells me he expects permission for his leave of absence in the post any day now, and that you’ll set sail for Virginia. I saw the trunks, already packed.”
The breath went out of me. I hadn’t forgotten my father’s congé . But I hadn’t realized that the need for a decision would steal swiftly upon me. Now, here was Mr. Short, making my choice more complicated. “But I need to understand. If—if I loved you, what then?”
His hands tightened on mine. “Then you’d make me the happiest man who ever lived.”
His words radiated warm joy through me, but his answer didn’t tell me what I needed to know. “And what of our future . . . ?”
He smiled. “If you could give up all thoughts of the convent, our future depends upon the orders your father is awaiting from America. Your father has asked that in his absence, I be appointed in his place as chargé d’affaires with commensurate salary. If I receive such an appointment, then I can present myself to your father as a worthy suitor. Otherwise, I’m afraid he’ll consider me a wandering wastrel without employment.”
“He would never!”
Mr. Short chuckled mirthlessly. “You think not? I have in my possession a letter from your father lecturing me on the need to build my fortune. The most memorable line reads: This is not a world in which heaven rains down riches into any open hand. ”
How churlish of Papa, but had I not, from the youngest age, also received letters filled with his lectures? “You mustn’t worry, Mr. Short. If my father requested your appointment, then it’s sure to come. But until it does, how can I be sure of your intentions in asking for my love?”
I didn’t expect him to laugh. “You’re Jefferson’s daughter, to the bone. You want evidence. Well, give me the chance and I’ll give you the proofs you require—both of my love and of the world you should love too much to abandon even for God. I wouldn’t have you enter a convent, much less love, in ignorance.”
“What do you think me ignorant of?”
With mischief twinkling in his eyes, he stopped, drawing me into a grove of trees. Beyond us, in the ditch, we heard boys playing a ball game in the dim lamplight. Somehow, in the dark, Mr. Short’s fingertips found my cheeks, and his mouth stole over mine. This first kiss was soft and tender. As if he feared frightening me. Nevertheless, it shocked me. It was like my heart was a loaded cannon he’d held fire to, and it threatened to shoot out of my chest. But I wasn’t frightened and I didn’t pull away. Instead, it seemed quite the most natural thing to kiss him back, mimicking what he did, glorying in every soft, sweet sensation.
At the feel of my lips teasing softly at his, he groaned and pulled back. “Oh, my heart . . .”
The sweet taste of him still on my lips, our breaths puffing in the night air, I asked, “Have I done something wrong?”
He held my cheeks in his hands. “The error was all mine. I’d beg your pardon if I could bring myself to regret it, but I never want to regret anything with you, so tonight I must content myself with one kiss.”
Only one? I wanted to lavish a thousand kisses on his face. His lips, his cheeks, his ears. The desire was a sudden hunger, a desperate plea inside me echoing like the cry of peasants for bread. “What if I’m not yet content? Wasn’t kissing me meant to be the proof of your intentions?”
“No, Patsy. Kissing you, then stopping before satisfaction, is the proof of my intentions, which I hope you’ll see are honorable and directed toward your happiness.”
This made no sense to me whatsoever, but I followed as he led me a little farther, to a copse of trees near my father’s gate. Then, taking one of the hanging lanterns down, he reached into his boot for a knife—one that I didn’t know he carried there. He took it, holding the lamp with one hand and carving the tree with the other. When he finished, he showed me a heart, inside of which he’d carved his own initials. “Like mine, this heart is waiting for you, Patsy. Every morning, I’ll come look, and when I see that you’ve carved your initials here, with mine, I’ll have my answer.”
I’ D BEEN KISSED! And I wanted to die of the delirious pleasure of it, if only I wasn’t so delighted to be alive . All night, I tossed upon my pillow, touching with my fingertips the place Mr. Short’s lips had been. Thinking, all the while, of how much I wanted him to kiss me again.
Though I’d been dreading the arrival of Papa’s orders, I was suddenly eager for them, because they’d no doubt name Mr. Short as the chargé d’affaires . Then, he’d ask me to marry him.
I was sure of it.
In the morning, I wanted to rush down first thing and declare myself. I wanted to go straight to the kitchen and find James’s sharpest knife to carve my initials in that tree and take William Short there to see it. But such an act of imprudence was forestalled by the whole household already at an early breakfast before I could get Sally’s help with my laces. And Papa called up that I must hurry because the men needed to be off to Versailles.
When I rushed down, Papa snapped his fingers. “Candlesticks! Yes, that’s it, isn’t it? There were silver candlesticks on the table. They’re missing. Sally, did you take them to polish?”
Sally had been quietly refilling the new silver urn on the sideboard with hot coffee, and at this question, she overpoured with a quick shake of her head. Hissing as the coffee burned her fingertips, she made haste to clean up the spill. “I wouldn’t presume.”
Of course she wouldn’t. On our plantation, counting and polishing the silver was a task for the mistress. A task my mother claimed as her own. My father frowned, but the mood was quickly dispelled when Mr. Short grinned and set down a gauzy little bag of confections with a pink bow.
“Chocolate drops!” Polly squealed. “For me?”
“Hmm?” My father looked up, having taken a bite of a crumpet browned to his exact specifications the way no one but James could manage.
Mr. Short gave me a private smile that made me blush from head to toe. “The chocolate drops are for Patsy, actually.” But by that point, my little sister had already stuffed two in her mouth. “. . . and for you, too, Polly. For both of you, of course.”
I didn’t mind sharing them, as his thoughtfulness was all the sweetness I needed. Even if he hadn’t lain awake all night replaying the kiss and imagining our next, it was still proof that he’d thought of me. And wanted me to know.
He also had a gift for my father. A macaroni machine for the man who was passionate about every sort of invention! With much laughter, Mr. Short demonstrated how the thing could make the long and silly noodles of which we were becoming so fond. How glad I was for us all to be gathered together again under one roof.
My sister, my father, and the man I loved. Could I ever willingly be parted from any of them, even if it was God’s desire?
It was a question still on my mind when I returned to the convent.
I went back not to take the veil but to attend in the company of my father a musical performance by the mixed-race prodigy George Bridgetower. Music had long been a special thing between my father and I. The notes, and especially the silences be tween them, were a language we shared. Our songs were duets; they left no room for other singers. And so I took great pleasure in going, just the two of us.
With gallantry, Papa guided me to my seat saying, “I’ll be very interested to see if a boy of only ten years can have such talent as if by way of nature and not learning.”
Someone overheard and broke in. “I’m more interested to see if the mulatto boy’s talent weighs as evidence against his race’s inferiority.”
The whole room was alive with such talk as the boy-musician appeared in an exquisite pink suit coat embroidered with satin threads, violin in hand. In that strange moment, it seemed as if the question of slavery rested upon this little boy’s shoulders. He tossed his black curls and played to a room filled from velvet curtain to paneled wall. And what shall I say of his music? It was sublime. Technically precise, with stormy flurries that left tears shining in the corners of many eyes.
It left me profoundly affected, too, when, through the din, someone asked Papa, “Given this violinist is of mixed race, how can we know if his talent derives from his African or European ancestry?”
“It doesn’t matter,” my father replied.
“But if Africans are our natural equals,” I dared to ask, “doesn’t it make a stronger case for freeing slaves?”
I knew my father didn’t care to hear me opine on this subject. More, I feared my father might change the subject, as he did whenever I weighed in on a matter of any controversy. But instead, he replied quietly, “It does not. It’s my belief that blacks are more gifted than the whites for tune and time. It’s also my belief that the admixture of white blood always improves the black. Any man with eyes can observe differences—”
Perhaps it was the way I recoiled from my father that caused him to stop midsentence, for my heart had dropped to my stomach in shame at his words. And even though everyone else seemed to hang on his every utterance with fawning ad miration, the bitter disappointment in my eyes seemed to have shaken him.
Reaching for my hand, he hastened to add, almost apologetically, “And yet, differences shouldn’t be used to legitimize the unjust practice of slavery. It makes slavery no less wrong. It’s a dangerous premise upon which opponents of slavery ought not rely. Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just and that his justice cannot sleep forever.”
I was glad to hear my father reaffirm his opposition to slavery, in spite of our private circumstances. But I was startled, too, by the fact that he’d done it, in part, because I pushed him to. Until this moment, I had rarely dared to question him. But now, I had done more than question him. I had challenged him—perhaps more boldly than even Mr. Short would have done. For I had challenged him in public.
And he had answered that challenge by lending his voice to the cause of justice.
I’d be lost without you. Lost.
That is what Papa had said when he pleaded with me not to shut myself up in this convent. Now I wondered if he had not meant that he needed more than my companionship and care, if my father needed me and William both to challenge him when no one else would. Or could.
Renewed purpose welled inside me until my eyes sought out the crucifix on the wall, a gilded portrait of our Christ in suffering. I stared upon it for a long moment, and the lightness of clarity stole over me. I felt no more guilt for leaving this convent. I’d bargained with God that I’d give myself over to him if he saved my sister, but my father had been sent to France to protect and secure those inalienable rights endowed by our Creator. If Papa himself could be an instrument of God’s justice, was it not a moral duty for me and William Short to serve as his helpmates?