Chapter Thirty-One #2
While I unpacked, Nabby attended the cradle in the corner, where my newest grandson—John Adams Smith, named for his grandfather—slept
fitfully. And watching her rock her little Jack with pride, I said, “You’ve done so well that I begin to think my own furniture
will stay packed. At least whilst your family remains with us here in New York, which I hope will be for some time.”
I had more than a maternal reason to hope so. I had scarcely rested from my travels before the house was a scene of levee.
The city’s leading lights descended daily in ornate carriages. First to call upon me was a friend I made in Paris, the beautiful
Angelica Church, who introduced me to her sweet younger sister, Mrs. Alexander Hamilton. Next came Mrs. Morris, dripping in
jewels, followed by Mrs. Knox wearing hoop skirts so wide I feared for my end tables. Senators’ wives, the ladies of foreign
diplomats—somehow they’d all heard of my arrival and wished to pay call.
If I meant to do anything useful here, I’d need my daughter’s help to fend off well-meaning callers and keep up appearances.
Especially as the only person I wished to see was my very own husband.
How upright and distinguished the vice president looked when he finally strode in the door at one o’clock to clap Charles
on the back and fold me into his embrace.
Yet, there was a certain hint of fear in my husband’s eyes that I couldn’t account for when he said, “Your first call must
be to Lady Washington.”
“Lady Washington? Is that what we are to call her?”
John scowled. “No one in this new government knows what to call anyone. We’re living in bedlam.”
How annoyed he was on that point! I could scarcely blame him. Had there been a republic of the sort we’d founded since the days of the old Romans? It felt as if we were creating everything anew.
“President Washington has been very ill,” John finally said. “His life was despaired of.”
“No,” I said, quite horrified.
We’d heard some rumor along the journey that the new president was suffering a mild fever, but now John explained, “He had
an infected tumor of the leg; he had to undergo surgery. It was feared that gangrene would take him.”
My hands went to my mouth. “Is he—Washington—er, His Lordship—or is it His Majesty—recovered?”
John only said, “The immediate crisis has passed. The tumor was cut out and the fever has abated, so we believe he’ll survive.
But that is hardly a guarantee, is it?”
No man’s life was guaranteed in this world, and my husband stood only one man’s breath away from the presidency. The weight
of responsibility descended upon me, making my limbs weak. Washington was chosen to be the president of our new government
because he was the only man they believed could hold it together.
If he died, could my brilliant but irascible husband do the same?
I simply did not know. And everything felt in such a precarious state.
“Washington cannot even sit up,” John said, all but wringing his hands. Had any provision been made in the Constitution about
what might happen if a president was alive but too feeble to serve? “But he must survive because this nation is too young
to survive such a calamity.”
Nabby and I went the very next morning to pay respects to Mrs. Washington at the three-story redbrick presidential residence
on Cherry Street, with its freshly painted white stoop and a uniformed sentry standing guard. The drive was roped and chained
out of fear that carriages might wake the president while he recovered, so we were obliged to come down from our carriage
and walk part of the way.
I was prepared to be told that the Washingtons couldn’t receive us but we were taken to Mrs. Washington’s drawing room to call upon the woman who not only held the first position of ladies in our nation, but who must also be living in fear she might lose her husband.
For the occasion, I’d worn one of my best gowns from the Court of St. James. But Martha Washington, as it happened, was plain
as a Quaker. Every bit of her clothing was of the finest quality, but it was plain, nonetheless. And she greeted me with great
ease and politeness, her soft Virginia accent at the fore. “Mrs. Adams, you do us the greatest honor.”
“The honor is all mine,” I said with a curtsey.
Nabby also bobbed a curtsey, glancing to me nervously for direction as to how she ought to behave. But truly, I didn’t know
how to behave, or what I expected of Washington’s lady, for despite her visits to her husband’s winter camp during the siege
of Boston, we’d not met before. And I feared that I stared too long taking in her appearance.
The plump Martha Washington had white hair, and when she smiled, I saw she had beautiful teeth. Somehow, all the parts put
together gave her an air of dignified femininity without even the tincture of hauteur.
“I’m grieved to hear of His Majesty’s illness,” I told her. “And I regret that I came at a time that I cannot present myself
and my daughter to him.”
“I assure you, he regrets it more,” she said, offering tea and cakes.
The cakes were bright and tart with lemon, and the tea a rich and fragrant brew I hadn’t tasted in America since long before
the war. As we ate and drank, we traded social niceties about the weather and our new home on Richmond Hill but soon turned
to our business as the wives of the nation’s most public men.
“I never expected to find myself in this position,” Mrs. Washington confided. “I had hopes, after so much toil and sacrifice
during the war, to spend the evening of our lives in domestic peace. I think this a position better suited for a woman such
as yourself—a woman with more gaiety and youth.”
I was flattered that she could possibly think me youthful. “My dear lady, we are both grandmothers.”
That pleased Martha to hear. “In any case, henceforth I’m determined to be cheerful about my situation because I firmly believe that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions. But I find this business of receiving and returning calls most tedious.”
I sympathized. “In Britain, there’s quite an elaborate system. I found it helped to return the calls in the early evening
when ladies were exhausted from the day’s business and less apt to say they were at home.”
Martha smiled at my ingenuity but then offered her own. “I believe I’ve devised a means by which to dispense with it efficiently.
I will hold public levees on Friday evenings. And I should hope you may often be in attendance.”
“Of course,” I said, only belatedly realizing this would be, for Mrs. Washington, like a queen holding court. Which meant
that I’d be . . . what? Her lady-in-waiting? The etiquette was quite vexing.
She then informed me that as I was the lady second most in rank, the public would expect me to host entertainments of my own
at a given time every week at which they’d be offered refreshments and the opportunity to chitchat by my warm fire.
Trying to be agreeable, I said, “I’ll receive guests on Mondays, so as not to conflict with your levees.”
Martha smiled approvingly. “Do be a dear and let the other ladies know. They’ve been waiting for your arrival to make firm plans.”
Having quietly nibbled at her cake, Nabby now glanced up. “The other ladies?”
Though we didn’t know it at the time, each of the important ladies in the new administration would hold receptions on a different
night of the week. Henry Knox was now secretary of war and his wife, Lucy, would claim Wednesdays. Mr. John Jay would be serving
as the chief justice, and his wife, Sarah, would claim Thursdays. And so on.
There wasn’t a public budget for these entertainments. We’d have to pay for them ourselves. But before Mrs. Washington could
tell me all this, a servant bent to say, “The president has awakened, and upon hearing of Mrs. Adams’s visit, would like to
receive her. Perhaps you’d be so kind as to visit his rooms?”
Nabby and I rose swiftly, duly sensitive to the honor, and a servant ushered us into the president’s presence, where we found him lying upon a settee.
Though his manner forbade overfamiliarity, he was still quite personable.
Half raising himself up, he said, “I beg you to excuse me for receiving you and your daughter in this posture, Mrs. Adams.”
I curtseyed with true reverence. “Given your illness, it is perfectly understandable, Your Majesty.”
I’d been impressed by Washington all those years ago when he was the general in whom we put all our revolutionary hopes. Age
had only made him more venerable. Like my husband, he’d come out of retirement to make these states into a nation, and in
so doing, he seemed to have grown in stature. Now I felt his eyes sweep up and down my elaborate court gown. “I congratulate
you and your husband on your good service overseas, Mrs. Adams. Though I do wonder if you can relish the simple manners of
America after having been accustomed to those of Europe.”
I couldn’t help but tease, “Oh, I think Americans enjoy more of the same luxury and manners of Europe than they’re willing
to admit.”
The president smiled at my unwillingness to pretend Americans were inherently humbler people than those found across the sea.
“As I have discussed with your Mr. Adams, it will be a difficult balance to instill our new republic with power and majesty
whilst refusing to festoon it with the trappings of monarchy.”
“A continuing discussion I know he’d welcome, should you honor us with a visit to Richmond Hill when you are able. It is a
beautiful spot. Peaceful. You must make it your resting place, as it’ll restore your spirits.”
I meant it but didn’t anticipate that he’d come so soon. Not long after this visit, the president had a bed put into his carriage
so he could ride to our home. The stairs into the house gave him quite a bit of trouble. Nevertheless, I counted it amongst
the honors of my life that he did visit and somehow managed the obstacle of those stairs. Over dinner, he gifted some sugar plums to my two little grandsons.
And in very short order, I decided that George Washington was a man of unassuming kindness, which left me much more deeply
impressed than I ever felt before the monarch of Great Britain.