Chapter Twenty-Four
LONDON
England
We soon found better lodgings with a friend of my husband’s in London. And one afternoon, shortly after being ensconced in
our new dwellings, a manservant poked his head into the parlor. “Are you at home, Mrs. Adams?”
I blinked in confusion. “I am right here, sir.”
“Quite, madam. Shall I say you are at home?”
I stared at him.
He stared back at me.
I was the first to blink. “To whom would you say otherwise, when you can see I am here?”
The manservant gave a long-suffering sigh. “If someone comes to call upon you, and I say that you are not at home, a card will be left. If I say that you are at home, you would receive visitors.”
“You cannot be serious . . .” It would take time to understand the rules and customs of the strange place in which I now found
myself. Customs that apparently included routine dishonesty about one’s whereabouts. “And what am I to do with these cards?”
“You return the visit at your leisure. If the card was left by someone you don’t wish to see, then you return the visit at
a time they are similarly unlikely to be at home.”
“That will end the matter? Or will the person I do not wish to see then return my visit?”
“They may, indeed, return the visit, madam.”
Bewildered, I asked, “Wouldn’t that create an endless loop of fruitless visits between people who don’t wish to see each other?”
“Precisely, madam. Unless, of course, you wish to offer a deliberate snub.”
Blinking, I nearly declared this all to be a ridiculous waste of time, but as my mouth opened to utter the words, I remembered
I was a diplomat’s wife. It wouldn’t do to disparage the rules of British society if my husband was now to promote good relations
between nations.
Besides, I didn’t expect that I’d receive many visitors.
In that, I turned out to be quite wrong.
To my astonishment, former American colonists who had fled to London during the war now left an avalanche of little cards.
And perusing the names on these cards, Nabby asked, “Do you think these Tories have come to admit they were wrong?”
My ill-mannered cousin Samuel Quincy, who had once threatened to sail to England and leave his wife behind, had done just
that during the war. I hoped to see his name on one of the cards, but my hope was in vain. “People don’t like admitting a
mistake. More likely those who have called upon us believe I might help them return home or better their circumstances here.”
“Then you should return the visits,” Nabby said, surprising me. “Because I think you’ll take great satisfaction in offering
Loyalists forgiveness while drinking their tea.”
I laughed. “Do you think me so petty?”
With a quirk of her lips, she replied, “I know my mother to be a godly woman for whom observing Christian charity—no matter
the incidental vindication—offers the sweetest reward.”
Thus, absolving myself of my smugness toward those who once cursed us but now curried favor, I returned these visits eagerly
and with good cheer.
This and the marvels of London occupied my time.
I was fascinated by the shocking grandeur of Westminster Abbey, so large that footsteps echoed as we explored the monuments
to dead kings and queens. I was amused by colorfully dressed jugglers in the Hay Market while hawkers tried to sell us roasted
chestnuts. And I was refreshed by the verdant splendor of Kew Gardens with its great, red-painted pagoda ornamented with gilded
dragons.
All this offered distraction as we waited for John to come from The Hague.
But still, what took so long? If I’d come across an ocean only to be deserted again, I would not account for my actions!
One afternoon while I attended my correspondence in the main parlor, the butler burst in with a surprising lack of decorum.
“Mr. Adams is come! The young Mr. Adams that is.”
Johnny? Overcome with excitement at the unexpected arrival of my eldest boy, I leaped to my feet. “Where is he? Downstairs in the
parlor?”
“In the guesthouse, madam. He stopped to get his hair dressed.”
“His hair?” I laughed, perplexed, for no son of mine had heretofore so much as straightened his waistcoat to make himself
presentable for his mother. It had been hard enough to make my boys wash their faces, comb their hair, and wear clean stockings!
The idea that my eldest son now felt the need for a barber before greeting his mama confounded me entirely.
When Johnny finally crossed the threshold, I drew back, not really believing my eyes. Good God. John Quincy Adams was no longer
one of my boys. He’d grown into a man. His jaw and shoulders squared. His cheeks freshly shaved, but a whisper of hair upon
the backs of his hands. Truly, if it weren’t for his penetrating dark eyes, I wouldn’t have known him as my own dear son.
Much taller than me now, Johnny had to stoop to take me into his embrace. “Oh, Mama! And my dear sister, now a lady!”
His voice was changed, too. When I last set eyes on him, it had been high and boyish. Now at the age of seventeen, his voice had a depth
to match his stature. And I couldn’t find words to express the feelings that overcame me. Pride, perhaps, to see the boy that I birthed grown into a self-sufficient man of the world.
Grief, too, to have missed so many years of his growing.
“My boy,” I kept saying, grasping his hands. I supposed I ought to call him Master Jack now. He dressed like a young nobleman, and
his hair was powdered like one, too. I could scarcely believe that he belonged to me.
In the days that followed, he entertained us with tales from the Empress Catherine’s court at Saint Petersburg.
“I wish I could tell you how very cold it is in Russia, but it’s also a very criminal place and someone stole my thermometer almost upon arrival.
” He made us laugh and he piqued our curiosity.
In speaking of Russian religious traditions, Johnny said, “Easter is a great holiday. They present each other with colored eggs.”
“Eggs?” Nabby asked, puzzled.
He explained the holy symbolism to her, then followed it with a story truly unfit for his sister’s ears. “At court it was
rumored that Catherine the Great has a special room with exotic furniture where she takes her lovers. Of course, I cannot
confirm it, as, I regret to say, she never invited me there.”
“John Quincy,” I scolded, though he only laughed. And as Nabby tried not to do the same, I knew I would forgive him anything. I couldn’t
stop looking at him, touching him, and marveling at the miracle of this reunion.
But another reunion was yet to come . . .
I was now so anxious to see my husband that my hands daily shook. Even if our love still burned, would the resentments and
disappointments finally gutter out the torch? I couldn’t know until I laid eyes upon him. After all these years, would he
be a stranger to me?
I might, indeed, be a stranger to him.
I’d carefully hidden my wounds. I’d pretended that his desires were law to me, all while becoming my own mistress. It’d be
far more difficult to keep up a ruse of self-abnegation when my husband could look into my eyes. Would he still love the woman
he found behind their surface? For that matter, would he still love the surface?
Standing before a mirror, I smoothed my dressing gown over my belly, frustrated by the fleshiness of my hips. I’d eaten very
little during our voyage at sea. What I had eaten, I’d thrown back up. Yet, I hadn’t wasted away even a little. Indeed, I’d
survived a decade of scarcity and hunger without becoming thin, which made me believe that nothing less than death would ever
carry away my flesh.
Certainly, I’d never again have the tiny waist of my youth.
I’d given up on that idea after the birth of my children.
But what I saw now was a matronly and unfashionable woman.
Well, that settled it. Both Nabby and I needed new clothes, and my husband had written that we should spend whatever was necessary to make ourselves presentable in the public eye.
So, my daughter and I set about getting ourselves pretty. We visited the stay maker, the mantua maker, the hoop maker, the shoemaker, the milliner, and the hairdresser—all necessary
to transform me into a fashionable lady of London.
And how bold these English ladies were, wearing their hats at a jaunty angle like gentlemen! Of course, this appealed to Nabby,
who insisted upon a riding habit. “Mama, riding habits are perfectly acceptable attire for women here in all manner of situations
I wouldn’t have expected!”
I worried she might appear to be an , given that she’d inherited a taller frame than the rest of the family. But I indulged
her if only because, having been dragged to Europe against the inclinations of her heart, she had a right to any small enjoyment
fashion could afford.
Moreover, I was pleased by her sudden curiosity. Nabby wanted to see everything, and with her brother, she strolled the British
Museum marveling over ancient artifacts. They saw Shakespeare’s plays performed at Drury Lane. They enjoyed late-night fireworks
at Vauxhall Gardens and were out again at sunrise the next morning with the energy of two young people on holiday.
Try as I might, I simply couldn’t keep up with them.
One Saturday morning before the rooster crowed, a soft knock came at my door. I ignored it, pulling the lavender-scented bed
linens higher round my shoulder and burrowing down into the feather pillow for more slumber.
The knock came again.
Assuming it was my children come to wake me, I peeked out from behind the damask curtains of the four-postered bed to murmur,
“I’m too weary to join you this morning. I’m going to sleep in late.”
The door opened with a squeak of hinges to reveal my husband in the low flickering light of a lamp. I gasped. I hoped this
vision of John was a mere byproduct of my sleepy haze, because I hadn’t wished for our reunion to be this way.