Chapter Fifty-Six
QUINCY
Massachusetts
I am quiet next to my husband in the carriage, still absorbing the news. With Washington burning as John has reported to me,
my fears are all realized. The British mean to put an end to the United States of America, and they are winning.
Would it have been better, I wonder, never to have known the blessings of liberty than to have enjoyed it and then have it
ravished from us?
I don’t know the answer.
I only know that with no children, and no country, and every sacrifice for naught, I cannot think of a reason to go on.
Like me, John is also silent as we return to Peacefield, for I know his mind is as filled with dark ruminations as my own.
When we reach our gate, we find friends, neighbors, servants, relations—all gathered to exchange bits of what they’ve heard.
“President Madison narrowly escaped the British—”
“—they found his dinner still hot on the table—”
“They say Mrs. Madison was a great patriot that day!”
Allegedly, in the chaos of the attack, before she would flee, the president’s wife rescued crucial government papers, stuffing
them into trunks while directing the doorkeeper and the gardener to cut down the painting of George Washington so it would
not fall into British hands.
Someone asks, “Where is President Madison now?”
“In hiding, they say,” John replies. “The army is cowering and the capital laid waste.”
I feel so sick at heart I want to climb into bed, cover my head, and never awaken from my slumber. But somehow duty still resides in me like a bad habit. And though I am a very old woman now, I remember that I, too, was once the lady of first rank in this republic.
It behooves me to show some of Mrs. Madison’s fortitude, so to our nervous and frightened neighbors, I say, “Washington was
a city in name only—an embryo in the wilderness, inhabited largely by enslaved people who cannot be expected to defend it.
The British will not find our other cities so easily taken.”
I don’t know if this is true, but it isn’t my place to drag others down with me into the depths of gloom. There is still some remnant of my upbringing, some iron at the core of me, that keeps my back straight.
John predicts that the British will next attack Baltimore, but if I were to give the dastardly villains advice, I’d tell them to try Boston. For here in Massachusetts, Federalists have been
braying that we should secede from the union. These remnants of Hamilton’s faction would happily surrender to the British,
for they want no more of this unholy union with slave states.
But John believes union is all that can save us from becoming the hewers of wood and drawers of water for our British masters. I don’t know if I
agree. I only know that it is all out of my aged hands. I can offer a stiff upper lip, but young men on the battlefield will
decide our future.
Yet, even knowing my own grandson is in the fight, in this desperate hour, the destiny of men is not what occupies my thoughts.
I have decided that if everything else is to collapse, at least I will remember the ladies.
In the days that follow, with the nation’s fate hanging by a thread, I am occupied at my desk with a magnifying glass, scribbling
with pained hands now stained by ink. My fingers hurt in every joint, and my penmanship is pitiful. But still I keep writing,
scratching out lines, and tossing whole pages into the crackling fire to begin anew.
I burn the candle down without stopping for meals. Nor do I eat much when trays are brought to me. And John becomes distressed. Hobbling into the room with the latest dispatches, my husband leans on his cane to inform me, “The tide of the war may be turning . . .”
I’m unwilling to believe it. “We always said that during the revolution. Yet it dragged on eight years.”
John glances at my writing table where I’ve covered my scribblings. “What are you up to, Abigail?”
I’ve no intention of endangering my enterprise by speaking of it prematurely, so I say, “You’ll know soon enough.”
But he’s not content to leave me to my writing. My mysterious and manic behavior drives him mad. And every hour he intrudes
upon my work with the excuse of news.
Eventually, I close the door.
When that doesn’t stop him, I lock it.
Through the keyhole, he shouts, “Abigail, I have news!”
He’s like one of the grandchildren pestering at me for attention, but I cannot simply send him outside to play. “Unless you’ve
come to tell me that we’ve sunk the British Isles, I don’t wish to hear it.”
“We’ve won a battle,” he says.
In spite of myself, I unlock the door.
“In Lake Champlain,” John says, flapping the dispatch in my face with pride. “My navy . . .”
Oh, he was once mocked for his insistence upon a navy, but now it might be our salvation, and his chest swells as if he’d
been the admiral of the flagship.
“Baltimore!” John crows, flapping another dispatch that neither of us can read without squinting. “The British attacked Fort
McHenry. Bombarded our soldiers for twenty-five hours. We drove them off!”
I have to sit down again to digest this.
It is good news. Monumental news.
It is, in fact, a miracle.
But my battered heart doesn’t trust it. I read the dispatches for myself, my eyes already strained and weary, but now wet,
too, with the possibility that all might not be lost.
My desperate mind tells me this is decisive—this must mean the end of the war. Our enemies may have burned our capital but they will leave, yet again, with ashes in their mouths, and these United States will remain free!
Hope sparks a fire in my breast, giving me the final inspiration I need to finish what may be the most telling act of my life.
And the next morning dawns brighter than any in recent memory.
I join my husband in the parlor amongst the Louis XV sofa and chairs, the four-seat ottoman, the tiny end tables, and the
other souvenirs of our time in Europe now gone shabby with age. Wrapped in a shawl, I carry a rolled document that John eyes
suspiciously as he dabs apple butter upon a biscuit.
With one hand, I struggle to pull down the sash of the open window to block the autumn chill. And John grouses, “Now we must
close windows during the day as well as night?”
“We’re too old to let such cold into the house.”
“But I like the earthy scents of our orchard,” he says, taking a ferocious bite of his biscuit. And when he finishes chewing,
he glints me a mischievous smile. “Besides, I’m not cold at all. I’m warmed from within by the knowledge of today’s anniversary.
Happy day of jubilee, Mrs. Adorable! Or did you forget?”
“I did not forget.” Despite all the despair of recent days, I cannot help but smile. And clutching his arm for balance, I
lower into the chair beside him. Then I kiss his beloved cheek, thumbing away a bit of apple butter from the wrinkled corner
of his lips. “Fifty years of marriage to my good man, finding our way through love, war, politics, and revolution. Only to
wind up back where we started.”
“Not quite where we started.” John nods at the window to encompass our orchard, our farms, our lovely house.
“You are in an unusually pleasant mood,” I accuse, still clutching my rolled-up paper.
And John’s smile is nearly smug. “How can I be otherwise when I am in the company of my beloved wife, and our star-spangled
banner yet waves?”
“You think we’ve won the war then . . .”
“I think it a draw, but we’ll call it victory and be glad.”
The faint stirrings of long-absent faith warm my breast. “Praise God,” I say and mean it earnestly for the first time in a very long time. “Can it be that Providence has saved the United States?”
John is thoughtful. “No. We may make ourselves popular by boasting that Americans are the chosen people, exceptional by nature
and worthy of God’s special notice. But it will be flattery and delusion. If this republic survives, it will always be because
we saved it ourselves.”
“Yet here we are in a state of turmoil and distress, in suspense of knowing whether the liberty of the country is truly secure.”
He takes my hand, brushing a kiss across the knuckles. “We’ve lived nearly all our fifty years of marriage in a state of turmoil
and distress. So why should today be any different?”
I surprise myself with a laugh that bubbles up from my chest. The first laugh I can remember in a very long time. “You speak
the truth. For I daresay that if we have ever had a dull or untroubled year, I cannot remember it.”
“Nevertheless, we have both lived with a determination to suck the marrow out of whatever joys might still remain between
us and the grave.”
That was true until this last year. I am painfully aware that old age gallops upon us with rapid strides, and there are matters
between us I must, at long last, resolve.
“I’ve a gift for you to mark the occasion of our anniversary,” I say, reaching into a pocket to pull forth a fob for his gold
pocket watch.
It has a pendant similar to the one he gifted me before leaving for France. And squinting to examine it in the light, John
seems quite moved. He blinks several times, clutching my gift to his heart, his expression filled with adoration.
At last, his gaze drops to the fob, and he fiddles with the chain, sheepish. “Now I feel a doddering fool for I’ve no gift
of equal value for you. I meant to surprise you with a sumptuous feast, fearing you’d scold me if I gifted you with anything
grander.”
“As it happens,” I say, mustering my courage, “there is a gift I want from you. And it will be far grander, and more expensive, than any gift you’ve ever given me.”
“Now you frighten me,” John says.
“This is my Last Will and Testament,” I say, unrolling the paper to show him.
“Abigail,” he whispers with what sounds like dismay. “None of this, now. I didn’t think you, of all people, would surrender.”
“This isn’t surrender,” I say, slightly affronted. “When the lengthening shadows admonish us of approaching night, it must
reconcile us to our destiny. Thus, my twilight hours ought to affirm who I am, who I have been, and what legacy I leave.”
“Explain,” John says.
I pull my shawl tighter round my shoulders, less to guard me from the cold than from the potential for disappointment. “By
law in this country that you fathered, I own nothing. I am nothing other than Mrs. John Adams.”
His chest sinks, curling inward, as if taking a blow. “Is that so inconsiderable a thing to be?”
“No, my dearest. It is the pride of my life. I do not regret that upon our marriage vows, we became one. Nor that I have toiled
beside you for fifty years of marriage, running with you every risk of ruin. But I am not your equal unless you acknowledge
it to be so.”
He doesn’t bristle, as he might’ve in the old days. Instead, he reaches for his spectacles to read what I’ve written.
His silence weighs heavy and is too oppressive for me to bear. So I say, “I turn to you for justice where the law denies it.
To you, my husband, my partner, my dearest friend—the man most apt to recognize my rights as a citizen. Important amongst
them the right to do as I please with monies earned by my own industry.”
John finally gives up reading the document. He hands it to me to read for him. I know he long ago surmised that I amassed
a fortune; I also know he doesn’t like to think about the grubby business of money. But he’s no fool. It hasn’t escaped his
notice that I always find the funds we need. He simply decided not to ask the details, until now.
Steeling himself, he asks, “How much?”
When I tell him, his eyes widen, as if they might pop from his skull. Then he asks, “What is it that you want to do with it?”
“I want to give it to our granddaughters. Our daughters-in-law. My nieces. Our women servants. My lady friends and widowed neighbors. I want to give it to women. And I want them to have a right to it.”
“But how—”
I cut him off with an upraised hand, because I dare not let him muster a legal argument against me. Not until he has heard
me out. “You were a formidable lawyer, John. So, you must help me accomplish it somehow.” Predicting one possible objection,
I promise, “I will do our male heirs no injustice. I know you’ll provide for them of your farm and the lands in Vermont. But
I want to provide for the women.”
John shakes his head a bit, attempting levity. “What a peculiar fancy.”
“It’s no fancy. I asked you once to remember the ladies and you laughed at me, John. You laughed.”
Well, he does not dare laugh now.
He winces, which emboldens me to continue. “John, you may no longer be in a position to make our laws fair to my sex, but
you can be fair to me.”
Furrows deepen in his brow. He blows out a breath then holds his hand out to me, asking to see the paper again. I give it
to him, and let him stare, though I wager he is only buying time to think.
If his eyes can make it all out, he’ll see I’ve accounted for everything. Clothing, bed linens, jewelry, and furniture. Even
my shares in local bridges. And then, of course, the larger sums I’ve hidden away.
How consternated John looks. His lips twist, he grunts, and I sense a storm brewing. So, I hasten to explain. “I want my Last
Will to say something. To mean something. And yet, you look so vexed that I fear you may deny me, and then I shall not be
held to account for my heart.”
“My dearest friend,” John begins. “The only thing that vexes me is that this document supposes you will die before me—a thought
I cannot bear.”
“You will do it then? You’ll do this for me?”
John nods slowly, solemnly. “I will find a way. Your will, Abigail, will be done. Whether I breathe yet or no. I gladly make
you this vow and will keep it with the same fidelity as the one I made at the altar fifty years ago.”
Never in happiness or grief have I ever felt so untethered, my spirit cut loose. Entirely overcome, I cover my mouth with both hands. I fear I will cry. I fear I will laugh. I fear I will do both at the same time. “Oh, John . . .”
He draws me into the circle of arms once strong enough to carry me to bed, now trembling with age around my shoulders. And
I fall into his embrace, my home and my haven.
Against my ear, he rasps, “But you are mistaken in one thing, my lovely Portia.”
Wetting his neckcloth with grateful tears, I look up into his eyes to ask, “About what am I mistaken?”
John chuckles, the warmth of his breath caressing my face. “You said this would be an expensive gift. But the love and happiness
shining in your eyes recompenses me so lavishly I am in your debt.”
“I am yours,” I say, because it is true love between us then after all. He has allowed it to be. “I am, wholly, and freely, yours whatever comes.”
John kisses me tenderly and smooths my hair. “Whatever comes, they will say that of all the decisions President John Adams made in his life, none was more brilliant or consequential than marrying you.”