Chapter Twenty-One
brAINTREE
Massachusetts
The new year finally brought my darling boy back home. At nearly twelve, he was no longer small enough to leap into my arms
and be spun round. But he ran to me, crying, “Mama!”
After being smothered in hugs and kisses from his mother, his sister, and his little brother, Charlie told harrowing tales
of his journey. Of storms and learning to gamble for additional biscuits for his dinner. He told me how he’d clung to the
soldier into whose hands his father had entrusted him, begging him not to abandon him in Spain.
Yet, despite five months at sea with rough, hard-drinking sailors—my son’s heart was still soft. And I delighted in his joyful
reunion with the little songbird he loved so well.
“I heard you were homesick,” I told him, running my fingers through his curls.
“It was no fun in Holland without Johnny. Then I was sick, and Papa got much sicker. So sick the servants said he’d die.”
I startled. “This is the first I’m hearing of it.”
Thereupon Charlie described to us a terrible scene. “Papa fell from his chair, sweating and panting. I couldn’t wake him.
Six weeks he lay abed, and on the days he was awake, he couldn’t even hold a book.”
John Adams abed for six weeks? I couldn’t imagine it. “What ailment could possibly render him so?”
“The doctor said malaria,” Charles replied, continuing on with one breathless story after another until the fire burned down and he finally fell asleep in his father’s chair.
While I cherished the return of such spirited conversation with my son after so long a separation, my thoughts kept returning to John’s illness.
Malaria. A disease so often fatal. Debilitating to those who survived it. Regret for my most uncharitable thoughts swamped me. For
I realized now that when my husband sent our sons away, he was completely unable to care for them—so bedeviled by malaria
that he wasn’t in his right mind.
When I was ill with dysentery, struggling to care for the children, begging my mother to take Nabby with her, my illness had
not been six weeks. To think of my husband so monstrously sick and suffering amongst strangers . . . well, my heart was not
so hard that I couldn’t feel a pang of pity.
Certainly, the news seemed to weigh on Nabby.
Our daughter was going on seventeen now, with a lovely oval-shaped face framed by soft auburn curls. All about her was refinement,
from her almond-shaped eyes to her rosy lips. Majestic as a princess, she cared nothing for the increasing interest of young
men in town. In fact, she’d refused numerous invitations to join them at Harvard commencement—the highlight of every year’s
social calendar.
Pensive since the news of her father’s illness, she finally said, “Papa could’ve died in Europe and the last we would’ve seen
of him is years past now.”
With that, she lapsed into one of her chronic silences that lasted all the next day. When the silence continued through bedtime,
I was finally exasperated. “Why are you so quiet?”
“In this family, I should not get a word in edgewise even if I tried.”
“Impertinent child.” Hers was a saucy reply, but I much preferred a show of spirit to her brooding silence. “It’s true your
family are talkers. But that’s because the world is too interesting not to talk about. And we now occupy a prominent place
in it.”
“I wish we didn’t,” she said wearily. “My friends tell me I ought to be happy about Papa’s exalted station.
And I endeavor to appear so, because it would be wrong to wear a sorrowful countenance during the war.
But a girl with a heart of adamant couldn’t be truly happy when never having her family together. ”
I eyed her with growing concern. “I didn’t know you were so unhappy.”
“I don’t talk upon the subject, because I don’t wish to add to your woes, Mama. But I seldom reflect upon our situation without
tears.” Tears did well in her eyes as she asked, “Why not send me to Europe? Papa complains that he has a house in Amsterdam
but no housekeeper. I could keep house for him, tend to him if he’s still ill, and otherwise see this interesting world you speak of.”
It would be absurd to send my young, unmarried daughter alone across the sea. Nevertheless, I could see the child really believed
herself to be quite serious. After all, it’d been just as absurd to send my sons, who were both younger. Now Charles, speaking
three languages, had returned with tales of adventure. And Johnny was well into an apprenticeship in the dazzling court at
Saint Petersburg.
Nabby said, “I’ve scarcely visited as many towns as John Quincy has kingdoms.”
It was natural that Nabby might envy her brothers. I almost envied them, too. And I remembered well my own wanderlust at her
age, so I didn’t have the heart to tell her she couldn’t go. I’d let her father disabuse her of these notions as he’d disabused
me of so many of mine.
John let her down gently. He told our daughter there was no point in her coming to Europe, because though Congress had not
yet seen fit to release him from his duties, he might be sailing home at any moment.
Of course, he wouldn’t commit to that. And fists clenching with frustration, Nabby said, “If I am ever married, I could never
imitate my parents. I simply could not endure this uncertain way of living.”
I looked up from my knitting. “Life will soon instruct you how much more you can endure than you think you can. But is there
some reason to believe you won’t marry?”
She became quite focused on her knitting. “Because romantic sentiments—like patriotism and love—are very dangerous.”
My eyebrows inched up. “Why do you say so?”
She waved a hand, as if to encompass our drafty, distressed home and the empty beds upstairs. “The life you lead has instructed
me, Mama.”
Amused, I asked, “Are you certain your mind hasn’t turned to the subject of patriotism, love, and marriage because of the
attentions of a certain young lawyer who has hung up his shingle in town?”
“Of course not.” Her knitting needles clicked together with more force.
I hadn’t wished to broach the topic for fear of upsetting her burgeoning friendship with Mr. Royall Tyler, a handsome young
lawyer who had dazzled the town with his learning and talents. He was boarding with my sister Mary, and we first met him there
where we ended up talking late into the evening about books.
Since then, he’d made himself a regular visitor at my fireside where my children were variously occupied—Charlie reading,
Nabby sewing, Tommy studying grammar.
But I knew Mr. Tyler’s attentions weren’t for me and my literary conversation. His growing attachment to Nabby was too obvious
not to notice. Now I teased, “I think you aren’t as indifferent to Mr. Tyler as you pretend.”
Nabby threw her head back. “You were never more extravagantly mistaken, Mama.”
“Is that so?”
“Your Nabby is the same cold indifferent girl she ever was. But I long to be in love, if only because it must be a strange
feeling and it would let me know whether I have a heart or not.”
“Of course you have a heart.” I put down my knitting. “Not even one so hard as adamant.”
“One made of ice then. That’s what I tell everyone.”
I knew she was indifferent to the sons of Mrs. Warren—which was for the best in my opinion, as those young men seemed like
rogues. But in town, Nabby was acquiring a reputation for fickleness when it came to the attentions of the male persuasion.
One day, Mr. Storers was at least agreeable. The next day, she was not fond of him. To say nothing of Mr. Guild, who she now
said was quite out of her books.
She’d have to be more charitable to find a partner in life. “I think you have a warm heart, Nabby. I know you love your siblings, cousins, parents, and family. I’ve seen you cry over the loss of people dear to us.”
“Those were the days of my weakness,” Nabby said.
I suppressed a laugh at her world-weariness, for in that moment, my daughter reminded me very much of myself when I was close
to her age, piercing the pretensions of everyone who sought to tame me with a determination never to fall prey to the passions
that led other girls astray.
Though I believed she could be won by Royall Tyler, I didn’t believe she’d be won easily, for in truth, my daughter had loathed him upon first meeting—warning her cousins that he was too charming to be sincere.
“Our sex cannot be too careful when it comes to the acquaintances we form,” she had said.
Which was, of course, very true. But from what I could surmise about the young lawyer, he was perfectly respectable, if love-addled.
For the colder she was to him, the more it seemed to ignite his pursuit.
In fact, the very next afternoon the young barrister appeared at our doorstep ostensibly to look at one of my husband’s law
books, but in reality to present Nabby with a heart that he’d carved from ice, accompanied by a little poem in her honor.
“I shall never be won with trinkets,” she insisted to hush her younger brothers, who both taunted her gleefully. Thereupon
she abandoned the ice sculpture to melt by the hearth. But I noticed she tucked the little poem into her sleeve for safekeeping . . .
Not long after, Mr. Tyler declared his intentions. “Madam, I wish to court your daughter, but with her father absent, I’m
at a loss as to how to proceed.”
I had, of course, already made every secret inquiry after this young man. I’d learned of his good education, the steadiness
of his learning habits, and the estate he stood to inherit, which was not inconsiderable.
“If you wish to court my daughter, sir, you must know that one aspect of your history brought to my attention troubles me.
It seems you spent several years after your father’s death squandering a third of your inheritance.”
Mr. Tyler had the grace to flush before admitting it. “Even then, madam, I always applied myself to my studies with a mind to business. Thankfully, I have reformed and put those days behind me.”