Chapter Eighteen
brAINTREE
Massachusetts
When I heard a new merchant vessel from France had slipped past the British ships and now lay at anchor in our harbor, I hastened
to Boston to receive long-awaited mail from my husband. Eagerly, I bundled against the cold in a new red scarf that my sister
Mary had knitted for me.
I did not mind the nip in the air. It was a bright winter’s day, the sunlight shone on the snow like a scatter of diamonds,
and I intended to make the most of my trip.
I’d taken a few bottles of cider to give as gifts while making visits. My supplies of everything else had dwindled, but that
would soon be remedied. For whatever goods John had sent me, I’d either keep for myself or easily find buyers.
Everyone was much in need.
I knew Congress wanted John to stay in France and convince the French to send more ships, money, and guns. Still, I hoped
John’s letters would say he was coming home. My husband and sons had been living a whole new life in Paris these past months,
one that I had no part of. And the distance, both physical and emotional, was growing painful.
Clasping the pendant I still wore every day around my neck, I resolved yet again for heroism. Heroism and hope. Thus, I jostled with the others at port for deliveries until a sailor said, “Nothing for you, Mrs. Adams.”
“I’m sure there’s been some mistake,” I said. “This ship came with cargo from Paris, no? Surely it carries packets from our representatives there.”
The hapless sailor nervously glanced at his superior, a whiskered older man who held the manifest. “I am sorry for it, Mrs.
Adams, but we aren’t carrying anything for you.”
My chest tightened even as denial sprang to my lips. “Perhaps it was arranged under a pseudonym. Or, instead of letters, some
packages? Linens. Gloves. Handkerchiefs.”
The weathered old sailor must have recognized my crushing disappointment, because he suggested, “Mayhaps Mr. Adams sent his
packets by way of Philadelphia. Safer that way.”
It wasn’t inconceivable that John might’ve sent packages to that city. But the delay put yet another obstacle in my way of
paying the tax bills and feeding Nabby and Tommy. They deserved more than potato peel pie and whatever other scraps I found
in the larder.
I relied upon John to send goods for our survival. All this to say nothing of the fact that I relied upon him for news of himself
and my sons!
How long did he think a mother’s heart could stand not knowing about the health, happiness, or schooling of her beloved boys?
Nearly a year they’d been gone with nary a word.
Now I fought off the urge to sink to my knees, for seldom in my life had I ever felt as low-spirited. Not wishing to make
a spectacle of myself, I took a few steadying breaths of nippy air. “I’m sure you’re right. Mr. Adams must’ve sent his packets
by way of Philadelphia. I’ll write Mr. Lovell and I’m sure it will all be straightened out swiftly.”
That night I took up my pen and wrote to the only person in Philadelphia who could tell me with some authority whether I had
cause to despair. Mr. Lovell’s reply came swiftly, but it was not what I wished.
You may be assured, dear lady, that not a line for you has arrived, or anything material under your husband’s hand. Personally,
I have not had a single line of answer, though I have written sixteen times or more to him.
Should I be comforted or horrified by this report of my husband’s silence? I could think of no reason that did not trouble me.
Another thing that troubled me was the way in which Mr. Lovell continued to dance over the line of impropriety. For this latest
letter also contained an impertinence far beyond anything attempted before.
In the first place, he’d addressed me as Lovely Portia. Then he went on to say he was relieved that my husband’s “rigid patriotism” hadn’t left me pregnant before he left.
The cheek of this! It was nearly obscene. I flushed hotly at the thought any man but my husband might tease me about the sex
act. It mortified me to imagine how Mrs. Lovell might feel if she were to see this letter.
And it somehow made me feel as if I ought to be ashamed. What was my recourse? I’d tried to discourage him the way Mercy had advised, telling him his flirtations
were dangerous and unwelcome. But there was little else I could do. My husband had left me to this man’s mercy, so I dared
not offend him.
When I visited Plymouth to fetch my daughter home, Mercy was gossipy as a Boston fishwife. “Well, this is a scandal.”
Fearing she’d somehow got wind of Mr. Lovell’s increasingly improper letters, I trod carefully. “What scandal do you mean?”
From her sickbed, she leaned close to confide. “They say Dr. Franklin leads a debauched life at Versailles. Our patriotic
sage may be a widower, but to embrace the French custom that every man of importance must have a mistress? Outrageous.”
I blinked at her. “That cannot be the custom.”
“My dear, it is so much the custom that even the king—the king—endures mockery for his fidelity to his wife.”
I was shocked into silence, and she mistook its cause.
“Oh, my dear, you have nothing to fear when it comes to the fidelity of your good man.”
Instantly, I bristled. “Madam, I never doubted his fidelity.”
That was the plain truth of it. I’d felt increasingly abandoned, taken for granted, and even condescended to. But the idea
that John might disgrace our marriage bed . . . never.
Mercy reached to pat my hand. “Good. I think your Mr. Adams to be the most honest man I’ve ever met. If by living among European courtiers his integrity should be undermined, I shall never trust another man again.”
Stoutheartedly, I said, “I am quite sure that you will never have cause to mistrust men on my husband’s account, and neither
will I.”
“Of course,” Mercy said, smiling conciliatorily. “But Mr. Adams would have to forgive you if ever you doubted him. You’ve
been snowed in all winter, without a line from him, alone with your thoughts, and without even the comfort of your good little
girl, our dear Nabby, whom I really love, and love more the longer she resides with me.”
Happy for a change of subject, I said, “A sacrifice I was glad to make for her education.”
“Nabby is such an amiable girl. Obedient and polite with an assemblage of other virtues that do you great honor. She’s certainly
blessed with the intelligence one might expect of such parentage—an intelligence that would render her opinions on political
matters interesting should she care to form any.”
I couldn’t hide a scowl of disappointment to learn that, apparently, no intellectual passion in my daughter’s breast had been
stirred by the unique opportunity to spend an entire winter here. Surely if I had been offered such an opportunity when I was Nabby’s age, I’d have devoured every book in the household and peppered the
talented playwright with so many questions she’d have been eager to send me away . . .
My disappointment must’ve been evident, for Mercy reassured me, “It won’t dim her future prospects a jot. It’s her lack of
interest in a different direction that might cause her difficulty, though.”
“A different direction?”
Mercy gave a helpless laugh. “Most girls her age fall in love with a different fellow every week. Nabby, however, is quite
indifferent to romantic prospects.”
“Well, she is not grown into a woman yet . . .”
“She is woman enough to have attracted the attention of some young men,” Mercy replied. “Yet, she confessed to me that she’s
never been pierced by the arrow of love and finds boys to be tiresome.”
I sputtered an unexpected laugh at that.
Mercy chuckled, too. “In any case, it’s only right that the daughter of John Adams set a high standard for herself. But she
takes after her father in plumpness, so she cannot afford to haughtily shun every boy who offers a tender heart.”
I sucked in a little offended breath, wanting to defend my daughter’s beauty against this unnecessarily brutal appraisal.
It felt so unnecessary, in fact, that I began to wonder if any of the boys for whom my daughter confessed indifference were, in fact,
Mercy’s own sons.
To soothe hurt feelings if any existed, I said, “Oh, I doubt my daughter harbors a haughty indifference toward anyone, much
less a boy offering a tender heart. She’s more likely sad and homesick.”
Of course, this put Mercy on the back foot. “If our Nabby has been unhappy, she conceals it from me; she says living in Plymouth
is just as pleasant as Boston or Braintree.”
Apparently, living arrangements were yet another matter about which my daughter was indifferent . . .
Mercy smiled, sipping at the teacup a servant brought on a tray to her bedside. “Don’t be vexed. You’re blessed to have a
daughter whose only fault is that she’s aloof!”
Aloof. Haughty. Indifferent. Were these really faults that could exist in a girl with good disposition? No matter what she claimed, Mercy wouldn’t have
reported them if she didn’t believe I should be vexed. And I was vexed. So vexed that I wished to quarrel. “I believe you’ve misjudged her.”
Whatever else I was going to say died on my lips at the sight of Nabby in the doorway, just returned from a sledding expedition
with Mercy’s rowdy sons.
“Mama!” she cried, throwing her arms around my neck in a way that was decidedly not aloof, haughty, or indifferent.
“Oh, I’ve missed you,” I said, looking down upon her beloved round face, which did not seem too plump to me in the slightest.
In that face I saw not only my daughter, but also the husband I pined for. Not to mention the shining hope I still clung to
of a better world that might yet be built for her and all my country’s children.
Heroism, heroism, heroism, I exhorted myself on the carriage ride home to a near-empty larder. For surely, one day soon, John would return triumphant
and relieve me of my cares.
But still a dark question now bedeviled my brain.
What if he doesn’t?