Chapter Forty-Four
NEW YORK CITY
New York
I’d grown accustomed to warm welcomes as the president’s lady. People passing me on the street always touched their hats.
So why did I feel a decided chill as I walked the streets of New York City?
It was a Federalist stronghold, but it was Hamilton’s city, and I ought not forget that.
I hadn’t warned Charles I was coming. I simply walked into his cluttered law office, where dust gathered in the corners of
smudged windows, books spilled from every shelf, and an inkpot had overturned onto the pine floor.
At the sound of the bell pull on the door, my son looked up from his desk and tears instantly sprang to his eyes. “Mother . . .”
Tears sprang to my eyes, too, because I scarcely recognized him! Liquor had made my handsome cherub into a ruin. His once dewy complexion was dry as paper. Spider veins crawled over his nose and cheeks. Darkness encircled his eyes. And
when we embraced, I felt nothing but skin and bones. Which is why I couldn’t help but say, “Oh, Charles, you look so unwell.”
“I’m working hard on a case,” he said. Given the pages sprawled on his desk, I saw this was the truth. Even if not the whole
truth. Straightening his cravat, Charles said, “I’m expected at court soon. If I’d known you were coming—”
“You would have absented yourself,” I accused.
He hung his head. “I’ve wanted to see you. But Father . . .”
His father wouldn’t reply to his letters. Wouldn’t even hear mention of him. There was much we needed to discuss. Yet my son’s glance darted down to his pocket watch. “Mama, I truly am due in court.”
“Then I’ll go with you.”
“No, please. I’ll come see you tonight.”
His word was still good, at least in that. He came that evening. And I asked, “Charles, what’s happened to you?”
He shrugged, staring down at his hands, which were splayed on the table. “I have tried to stop drinking. But I couldn’t sleep for the shaking, which meant I couldn’t work. It only got better when I gave
in. So I gave in.”
Remembering my brother’s fate, I said, “You must give it up. For honor, for reputation, for your family. You must give up
the bottle, the women, the gambling—or whatever other means by which you’ve blackened your good name.”
“The drinking habit is too rooted.”
I couldn’t accept that. “Think of what you’re doing to your wife!”
“Do you mean the woman who abandoned me at the lowest moment of my life and ran to tell tales to my father?”
“How can you blame her?” I asked.
He had no answer. Instead, he said, “When we met, Sally thought she saw in me someone important. Now that Papa’s presidency
is imperiled, she’s eager to divorce.”
Oh, the contempt that dripped from his voice . . .
“Charles, if you persist in these attitudes, you’ll lose everything. Everything.”
“Haven’t I already lost everything? All I’ve ever really had of my father was his name. Now he’s renounced me.”
Though I could feel my frustrations with him boil up in my blood, I willed myself to calm. “My dear prodigal son, change your
circumstances and he could forgive you. He’d say my son was lost but now he’s found!”
To that, Charles gave me the saddest smile I ever saw. “That’s your idea of who you married. I wish I didn’t have to rip that
illusion from your tender heart.”
“Charles,” I snapped. “Your father is the president of the United States. He has more cares upon his shoulders than you dare imagine. And you’ve added to them. Your father will come see you when the election is over—”
My son snorted. “The election.”
“Yes, the election. Have you no care for your country’s future?”
“I have too much care. I still socialize with those in Hamilton’s circles. I collect information that might be useful to my
father—that is, if he would read my letters. But Papa has a softer heart for Thomas Jefferson than he could ever have for
his children.”
“Absurd. What are you raving about?”
“It’s what they say in this city!”
Charles pulled from his satchel a pamphlet entitled Letter from Alexander Hamilton, Concerning the Public Conduct and Character of John Adams, Esq. President of the United States. “This is General Hamilton’s broadside against Father. Page after page of attacks. T’would be sedition if the laws truly
applied equally to everyone.”
I snatched the pamphlet from him, and one line in particular caught my eye: “Not denying to Mr. Adams patriotism and integrity,
and even talents of a certain kind, there are great and intrinsic defects in his character, which unfit him for the office
of chief magistrate.”
So Hamilton truly was willing to split the Federalist vote. “He’s out of his senses to print this.”
“It’s worse,” Charles said. “Hamilton’s lackeys are spreading the rumor that Father is no true Federalist. That he has come
to terms with Mr. Jefferson in a corrupt political deal to eject all Federalists from power.”
Oh, this was too much. “By spreading these lies, they’re all but ensuring Jefferson will be elected, and I almost wish it for them.”
Charles’s smile turned wry. “I see your heart is also soft still for Jefferson. Yet, hardened against me. Will you renounce
me, too?”
I blew out a frustrated breath. I wanted to reassure Charles that I loved him and always would, for that much was true. I
wanted to cry that he was still my beautiful baby boy. But that was a lie. For I could only think of the ugliness that would
come of the dissipation of this miserable man whom I could no longer consider my son. Or at least, I should not consider him
so.
At my silence, Charles’s bravado collapsed. He sank from his chair to his knees, wrapped his arms around my waist, and murmured, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I never meant to hurt anyone. Ever. Except myself.”
“Well, you’ve done that, my boy,” I said, stroking his hair, knowing that if he couldn’t reform, it would embitter every moment
left to me in life.
I had to try to save him.
“Good habits take time to build,” I finally said. “If you can stay away from the bottle for the entire summer, I’ll prevail
upon your father to permit a visit to Peacefield. He’ll see you restored to yourself. And if your wife and children see you
sober and chastened, it may yet save your marriage.”
Charles nodded his head, pressing his cheek against my bosom. And I kissed the top of his head praying God might grant him
strength.
“So you saw him,” John snarled when we were reunited at Peacefield. I’d already written about it, so he had no cause to be
surprised, but now he flung it at me like an accusation. “You saw Charles.”
I’d come to his study with a glass of milk to settle his stomach, and now I set it down on his desk. “You never forbade it.”
Not that it would’ve stopped me if he had.
The president reached for his milk. “Did the reprobate justify himself?”
“No.”
“Then what did you speak about?”
“We spoke about your re-election, for one thing.”
John made a sound of disgust. “And?”
“In truth, in New York I heard so many lies that I’m disgusted with the world. And the majority of its inhabitants do not
appear worth the trouble and pains it costs to save them from destruction.”
It was something John would’ve said. Probably something he had said a dozen times before. But hearing it from me, he looked pained. “Do you mean lies from Charles or about the election?”
“The latter,” I said.
“Well, if the treaty of peace with France arrives before the voting, people will see through these lies and I’ll be vindicated and win re-election.”
“Then pray the treaty arrives soon.”
The grandchildren were all with us for the summer. Nabby’s boys and my granddaughters Caroline, Susanna, and Abbe. Hooligans
running up and down the stairs and making mischief in the garden. Their mothers were with us, too. Sally was as dutiful a
daughter-in-law as we could wish, though she was sometimes cool to me.
When Nabby and I took a long walk, I asked her if she knew why.
“Sally loves Charles, Mama, but they’ve both said unforgivable things to one another. Yet she knows you’d have her reconciled
to him . . .”
“Well, that depends entirely upon your brother. I wouldn’t try to force it upon her.”
Together Nabby and I walked and walked until we found ourselves outside our old saltbox house, where we stopped to visit Phoebe.
And there I made the mistake of repeating that I was in an ill humor and so disgusted with people that I wasn’t sure they
were worth saving.
Phoebe sucked her teeth. “That’s an uncharitable sentiment. Especially coming from a girl I raised, who has become the lady
all Americans look up to.”
That shamed me. But in defense of myself, I murmured, “Well, not all Americans.”
Phoebe’s husband piped up to say, “You leave Mrs. Adams be. In truth, you’d do better to be less charitable to people, Phoebe.
I’ll do anything to support you, but not the vagrants you feed and house. I’m sorry, Mrs. Adams. I try to keep her in line . . .”
But Phoebe was now too old, it seemed, to worry about the opinion of a husband.
“You’ve got no compassion,” she told him.
“I’ve got good sense,” Mr. Abdee argued, for Phoebe was constitutionally incapable of turning away needy strangers. All the
town knew of it. Whenever a man got a servant girl in trouble, he dumped that girl on Phoebe’s doorstep.
“People are taking advantage,” I said.
She was also too old now, it seemed, to worry about my opinion either. “If you’ve come to scold me about doing my Christian duty, it’ll fall on deaf ears. You can put me out on the street if you please.”
“Mama would never do that,” Nabby said.
“I wouldn’t,” I insisted. “Of course I wouldn’t.”
There was, it seemed, a great deal I couldn’t control anymore. Not even in my own sphere. I couldn’t make Charles stop drinking,
though I feared it would kill him. I couldn’t make Sally reconcile with him, though failing to would impoverish her. I couldn’t
make John Quincy come home from Europe, no matter how much I missed him. I couldn’t make Phoebe stop offering sanctuary to
strangers in my old home. And I couldn’t convince voters that my husband was a better, wiser, more worthy president than they
could ever know . . .