Chapter Seven
Chapter Seven
Paris, 12 October 1786
From Thomas Jefferson to Maria Cosway
Having handed you into your carriage, and seen the wheels in motion, I turned and walked, more dead than alive, solitary and sad. A dialogue took place between my Head and my Heart. We have no rose without its thorn; it is the law of our existence; it is the condition annexed to all our pleasures. True, this condition is pressing cruelly on me at this moment. I feel more fit for death than life. But the pleasures were worth the price I’m paying. Hope is sweeter than despair. In the summer, said the gentleman; but in the spring, said the lady: and I should love her forever, were it only for that!
I SHOULD BURN MY FATHER’S COPY OF THIS LETTER—a love letter, to be certain, written in a fashion only a sensitive heart and brilliant mind like his could’ve imagined. It unfolds, page after page, in a lengthy debate over whether or not he ought to have loved her.
This letter is a beautiful embarrassment that the world should never see.
But I cannot bring myself to destroy it with all the other evidence of his folly.
In the first place, I’m sure the wretched woman kept the original. And in the second place, I tried to burn it once before. . . .
That autumn, in Paris, somehow the duet of my life with Papa had become a trio. But the music stopped altogether when, in a foolish attempt to impress Maria Cosway by jumping over a fence, Papa badly injured his wrist. The echo of how he’d hurt himself trying to impress my mother all those years ago made me furious.
Mrs. Cosway was now leaving the city—and good riddance to her!—yet, Papa was chancing making a greater fool of himself by insisting on offering a personal farewell. On the dreary October day I returned from the convent to find my father gone, I fretted to Mr. Short, “But the doctor who set his bones said that he shouldn’t go anywhere!”
Mr. Short rose from the desk chair where he’d been conducting his work. “Your father insisted, Patsy. I offered my opinion that it wasn’t in his best interest to accompany Mrs. Cosway, but he’s my employer. I’m not his.”
There was something strange in the way he phrased it; something that made me worry Mr. Short also suspected the entanglement between Papa and Mrs. Cosway was improper. So I tried to cast the shameful matter in terms of my father’s health. “He’s barely sleeping for the pain. Saint-Denis is two hours by carriage each way. He’s canceled every other engagement these past weeks, yet, for her . . .” I shook my head, angrily, recalling the migraine that had kept Papa from my birthday dinner and his presentation of the Marquis de Lafayette’s bust to the citizens of Paris the next day. In both cases, Mr. Short had appeared in Papa’s stead.
“I share your concern, Patsy, but Mr. Jefferson was intent on seeing Mrs. Cosway off on her departure to London.”
I wondered if Mr. Short not only suspected but knew the danger Maria Cosway presented—to Papa’s heart, mind, and reputation. If Mr. Short knew of my father’s affair, ought I be glad or horrified? Horrified, I decided, and tried to deflect suspicion. “I suppose Papa has such tender sentiments toward his friends that he must see them off personally.”
Mr. Short wasn’t fooled by my efforts. “You’re a good daughter, Patsy. But you must try to remember . . . it’s been nearly four years since he lost your mother.”
My cheeks warmed. “I never forget it, for now I’m all he has.”
A vigorous shake of his head released a lock of sandy hair to shadow his eyes. “No, Patsy. That’s not true.”
“It is true.” My chest rose and fell swiftly under the weight of my obligation. I couldn’t bear for anything to tempt Papa’s melancholy to return. And I was the only one who could protect him from it. “Our kin are far across the sea. Even if they weren’t, I’m the only one who understands. . . .” I trailed off, twice as convinced. “I am all Papa has.”
“Patsy, you’re much mistaken,” he said with insistence, standing so close that the weight of his presence steadied me. “Mr. Jefferson has me, too. He’s a father to me, and ours is a bond of affection that cannot be broken. I honor him. He’s the beating pulse of every cause dear to me. He may always rely upon me, and so may you.”
The words were a balm to my heart. Mr. Short had repaid my father’s patronage with a devotion as clear-eyed as it was ardent. He’d seen my father in strength and weakness, cleaving to his side no matter how his fortunes rose or fell.
Dear Mr. Short.
Knowing that there existed someone else who cared so much for Papa was the greatest relief. And for the first time, I felt understood . I believed Mr. Short understood me completely. It was such a revelation that it felt oddly intimate, forcing me to take a step back. “Thank you—”
The jingle and clatter of a carriage sounded from the front of the house. I headed for the stairs, with Mr. Short following, knowing it must be Papa returned from his ill-advised adventure. My father’s face was white as a bedsheet, each step costing him a great deal. Mr. Short poured a glass of amber liquor for Papa, who emptied it with a grimace. In a flat voice that invited no discussion, my father said, “Go to bed, Patsy.”
I was forever being sent to bed early, but what argument could I make to convince him that I should stay? When Papa was in such a dark mood, he wouldn’t hear me. His wrist clearly pained him, but there was something else. Something else terribly wrong. And I knew that it must have something to do with Maria .
Acid flooded into my stomach at the realization that Mrs. Cosway had said or done something. Maybe she had quarreled with Papa. I was desperate to know how she returned him to such melancholy, but I dared not ask because I was afraid he’d taken this woman to his heart—a heart he pledged forever to my mother on her deathbed. Having captured that heart, was it possible that Maria had shattered it?
If so, perhaps it was no more than he deserved.
Angry, I pushed up from my chair. “Good night, Papa.”
But it wasn’t a good night. And my father’s mood failed to improve. Indeed, much of the weekend he closed himself in his chamber struggling to write with his uninjured left hand, with which his penmanship was quite poor. Each time I entered to check on him, he scrambled to secure the pages. He didn’t fool me, of course. I knew he was writing to her. He was writing a secret letter to a married woman. And I knew that it must be a shameful letter if he wouldn’t even let Mr. Short write it for him.
What new kind of madness was this?
I feared he had written a love letter—which Maria Cosway might use to embarrass him. Worse, I feared he’d written a plea for her to leave her husband and take up notorious residence as my father’s illicit lover. Such scandalous arrangements were not uncommon in France. Indeed, they were common enough for my classmates at the convent to discuss them in excited whispers. But they’d destroy Papa’s reputation with our countrymen. And, as Papa had said of the French queen, reputation is everything .
Of course, I’d also heard him say that a person ought to give up money, fame, and the earth itself, rather than do an immoral act. Ask yourself how you’ d act if all the world was looking and act accordingly. This was the advice Papa gave all the men who looked up to him. He said it to his nephews, to Mr. Madison, to Mr. Monroe, and to Mr. Short. He’d also given this advice to me.
But in the matter of Mrs. Cosway, he seemed to have forgotten it.
So it was that I found myself doing a dishonorable thing, telling myself that I was doing so in order to protect Papa from his own folly. Having heard my father give instructions that his secret letter should be posted to Maria Cosway, I decided that I must find the letter before Mr. Short had the chance to seal it. Reading Papa’s private letters would be wrong, and I knew that, but I could think of no other way.
I dared not sit upon the stiff-backed desk chair for fear it might make the floorboards creak beneath my feet, so I held my skirts tight in one hand while sifting through the stack of letters with the other. My fingers brushed an envelope so thick it formed a packet and my heart dropped. I pulled it from the pile, knowing before I saw the address it was the one I sought.
Dread washed over me as I unfolded the pages.
My hand shaking, I read Papa’s secret words.
My heart suddenly beat in my throat.
He characterized himself as more dead than alive ?
The words pulled me into the past, into the woods surrounding Monticello upon Caractacus’s strong back, into our wandering journeys looking for a ship to set sail, into the time when Papa still yearned for the grave. I thought him quite beyond that, quite recovered, but he still claimed, in this extraordinary letter, to feel more fit for death than life .
And oh, how furious it made me to read it! It was one thing for Papa to have longed to die of grief for my mother, but to feel that impulse over this . . . this . . . this foreign harlot? Anger and panic tingled up my spine and my gaze flew over Papa’s words, some of which leaped up from the parchment as he likened himself to a gloomy monk, sequestered from the world. Had the promise he made never to remarry left him to compare himself to a monk? My gaze rushed on. “The human heart knows no joy which I have not lost, no sorrow of which I have not drank.” The sentiment made my chest tighten, and then I gasped as Papa expressed his wish that Mrs. Cosway never suffer widowhood, but that he, above all men, could offer solace if she did.
It wasn’t difficult to see Papa’s fantasy through the thin veil of his prose: he wished not only for Mrs. Cosway to be his mistress, but perhaps even for her husband to die so that she might come to live with us at Monticello. Despair rushed through me. This letter was such a betrayal of my mother’s memory that I was eager to hurl it into the fire!
Intending to destroy the letter—every scrap of it—I returned my attention to the pile of letters to make sure that I had all the pages. That’s when my gaze landed upon my own name within the missive that sat atop the stack. Not in my father’s handwriting, but in the hand of Mr. Short . It was a scribbled note to a painter of some renown, from whom my father had commissioned a miniature of himself to give as a gift to Maria Cosway.
Mr. Short might have taken it upon himself to cancel such an unwise commission—but instead, he requested the painter make another miniature for me. More astonishingly, Mr. Short asked the painter to pretend the request came from my father. This gesture, at once thoughtful, gallant, and modest, moved me deeply. It also shamed me, for there I was, snooping about in Mr. Short’s desk.
I began to wonder how many times Mr. Short had secretly interceded on my behalf. How many men with such responsibilities would take the time to worry after the feelings of a girl? How had I betrayed the trust of such a friend, even if my intentions were good? The full measure of my wickedness sank in, like a stone dropping to the bottom of the sea, when the door creaked open.
Mr. Short caught me where I should not be, still clutching my father’s love letter. Given the soft look of reproach in his eyes, he knew just what I’d come here for and why. He came toward me, reaching wordlessly for the letter. “Don’t make me wrestle it away from you, Patsy.”
I couldn’t excuse myself—nor could I lie. Red-faced and miserable in my guilt, I let him take it from me, but pleaded, “Pray throw that letter in the fire!”
He replied with an indulgent chuckle. “I’d never do such a thing. Every shining word that flows from your father’s pen is a national treasure.”
He was jesting, but I couldn’t smile. “You don’t know what’s in that letter, or how it might embarrass Papa or sully his honor.” I hated that I had to speak the words, but it was better than admitting that my father was slipping back into the state of mind that nearly ruined him.
Mr. Short gave a rueful sigh. “I have a rather good idea of what’s in this letter. Your father confided that it was a debate between the wishes of his heart and the restraint of his intellect.”
Stung that Papa had confided in Mr. Short what he wouldn’t confide in me, I said, “Then you know it’s better burned. He compared himself to a lonely monk! How can he still be so unhappy when he has your company and mine?”
Mr. Short started to reply, then snapped his mouth shut again before giving a rueful little shake of his head. “Oh, Patsy.”
My nostrils flared at his condescension. “Didn’t you tell me that my father may rely upon you? Isn’t it your duty to keep him from making an error in judgment? Sending this letter would be a grave error!”
“Patsy, it’s the very essence of liberty that a person be allowed to err.”
And we both knew how I had erred in being there like a thief in the night.
Mr. Short met my eyes. “Besides, I’m the last man on earth who may judge another for unwise associations and attachments.”
He must’ve meant the notorious women of whom he and I had once spoken. The Belle of Saint-Germain and the married Rosalie, the Duchess de La Rochefoucauld. But something made me dare to hope that Mr. Short aimed this pointed remark at me. Was he forming an attachment to me and did he think it unwise?
And yet, his apparent reference to those women made my face heat such that it took me a moment to find my voice. “It’s for God to judge, but perhaps you can advise Papa against—”
“I’ve advised your father to make a long trip to the south of France.”
So he’d counseled my papa to go somewhere he might forget Mrs. Cosway; perhaps it was good counsel. I didn’t wish to be left behind in Paris, but I wouldn’t be lonely. I had friends at the convent and no harm came to my father when he traveled to London, save for the snubbing at the hands of the English king. . . .
As if to forestall objection, Mr. Short added, “He can use the trip to investigate commercial opportunities that will enable our new nation to meet its financial obligations. It will keep him busy .”
Yes. Perhaps distraction and duty were exactly what Papa needed right now.
Mr. Short’s words were both cloak and candor. And I realized that there was no one else in the world who spoke to me this way. The garrulous Mrs. Adams spoke to me as if I’d become a woman of good sense. Papa shared with me his enthusiasm for science and inventions and architecture and music. Especially music. But only Mr. Short ever spoke to me of politics, spies, and finance. Only Mr. Short seemed to believe I had some right to know more about the revolution my family had brought about.
He didn’t treat me like a child anymore, and that was for the best, because I very much wanted William Short to know that I hadn’t been a child for quite some time.
T HANKFULLY, WHEN P APA’S WRIST HAD HEALED A BIT , he embarked on the trip to the south of France. As we stood together on the street in front of our embassy waiting for the carriage, I wished I could tell my father to forget Maria Cosway. I wished I could tell him to find joy in discovering the countryside and observing the beauty of nature—instead of the beauty of a married woman.
But I could say none of this without confessing that I’d read his letter. Instead, I let my breaths puff silently into the cold morning air, hoping he could divine my hopes in those little clouds of steam. Hoping he’d sense my love, my longing for him to confide in me where he wished only to confide in others.
Maybe he did. “Patsy, I have a farewell gift that I hope you’ll hold close to your heart.” He withdrew from the pocket of his embroidered coat a miniature portrait of himself.
I pressed it against my chest. “Oh, it’s lovely, Papa. I’ll treasure it. Why, it must be one of a kind!” In saying this, I hoped to give him an opening. A chance to confess that it was a duplicate of the one he’d commissioned for Mrs. Cosway. A chance to beg my pardon for remembering me only because of Mr. Short’s kindness.
I waited for Papa to say these things, ready to tearfully confess my own sins. Eager for him to embrace me and reassure me that he hadn’t forgotten Mama and that he didn’t intend to return to Virginia with Mrs. Cosway and make her the new mistress of Monticello. But Papa merely kissed my cheeks. “I’ll write to you so often you won’t even know I’m absent from Paris.”
Then he climbed into the carriage and was gone.
Watching the wheels of Papa’s carriage rumble down the street, I backed up the stairs to find Mr. Short waiting there. Still smarting with disappointment, I asked, “So, I suppose you’re to be master of the embassy while Papa is away?”
“Custodian anyway.” He clasped his hands behind his back, swaying with faux hauteur upon his buckled shoes. “But since you’ve also been entrusted to my care, I’m uncertain as to which duty will be more trying.” He raised a brow, as if to remind me that he knew a part of my nature to which the rest of the world was blind. “If you have any care for the prospects of my career, make certain I’m not forced to account to your father for bad behavior while in my charge.”
I did have a care for the prospects of Mr. Short’s career. I had a very great care. And so, when he next came to the convent to pay my tuition, I quizzed him on France’s financial troubles, which, to my ear, sounded like a very grown-up topic indeed.
“The finance minister has called for tax reform,” Mr. Short explained as we strolled through the convent’s inner courtyard past neatly trimmed shrubbery and an explosion of spring flowers in yellow, red, and pink. “And at least half the city stands insulted by the king’s refusal to put the matter before parlement .”
“I’ve heard the political quarrel has spilled out into the streets in scuffles,” I said, a little ashamed of the thrill in my voice, especially since it wasn’t the danger that excited me, but the nearness of Mr. Short. How had I never noticed before how noble a profile he had? And his green eyes . . . how could eyes be so strangely world-weary and enchanting at the same time?
“Men will fight for liberty,” Mr. Short was saying, sounding very much like Papa. “But there’s always a risk that fighting will descend into lawlessness.”
“Then I’m glad our revolution is over in America.”
Mr. Short’s lips twitched up. “You think our revolution is over and done, Patsy?”
“Have we not wrested our liberty from the British?”
“We’ve won, at force of arms, the right to draw up a Constitution. Yet, you need look no further than your father’s own plantation in Virginia—or indeed, our embassy kitchen—to see that liberty hasn’t been secured for all men.”
My lips parted in astonishment. Mr. Short was unwilling to judge my father for his affair with Mrs. Cosway, but on the matter of slavery, I heard the very certain note of censure. Bristling, I said, “I suppose the Virginia gentlemen of Spring Garden, from whence you hail, don’t keep slaves?”
“Not this Virginia gentleman,” he said, with a determined shake of his head. “I entered this world with a small patrimony. I hope to grow my investments such that my fortune may sustain me. But I will not water it with the infamous traffic in human flesh. The practice compromises our morals and teaches us a habit of despotism.”
His vehemence took me entirely unawares. I couldn’t imagine this was a conversation of which my father would approve, but the lure of discussing anything with an impassioned Mr. Short proved too much to resist. “Then what—what is to be done about slavery?”
Mr. Short turned us into the bright green hedge maze. “I haven’t an answer yet. But I intend to join a society for effecting the abolition of the slave trade.”
As we walked, Mr. Short explained to me his vision for a world where slavery was no more and men lived in equality and deference to the law. And for once I didn’t curse my long legs, for I had no trouble matching his stride as our shoes fell into rhythm together. I’d always taken him for a pragmatist—a shrewd man if not an entirely virtuous one. But that day I learned he was a man whose ideals were as lofty as my father’s.
Perhaps loftier.
When he left me, I raced up to the bedroom so that I could stand at the window overlooking the street to watch him go. Marie came upon me and flounced atop the embroidered-coverlet of the bed, propping herself up on one elbow in bored repose. When she glanced out the window to see the retreating figure of Mr. Short, her mouth formed a little circle of surprise. “ Mon Dieu! Jeffy, you are smitten.”
“Nonsense,” I said, not risking a glance at her. “Mr. Short is merely a friend of long acquaintance.”
“Then why are you pink to the tips of your freckled ears?”
At last, I decided it would do no good to hide it from her. I spun on my toes in an excited pirouette. “Do you think he fancies me? Whenever he visits, he stays longer than he is obligated to do. He had an artist paint a portrait for me. . . .”
Marie’s expression fell. “Oh, poor Jeffy. Has no one told you that your Mr. Short is infatuated with Rosalie, the Duchess de La Rochefoucauld?”
I pretended to dismiss it, waving a hand. “That’s a malicious rumor.”
She hesitated at my staunch defense, then concluded, “I think it’s true that he’s infatuated with her, but let’s hope it is only rumor that they’ve become lovers.”
Lovers . I was wholly unprepared for the flash of pain that burned just beneath my breastbone at the thought. Mr. Short was a man of twenty-seven who spent his days with the cream of French society . . . of course he took lovers.
With sinking spirits, I decided that I’d been a fool. The reminder made me wonder how I’d ever so much as entertained the notion that he might take an interest in me. How ridiculous to dream, for even a moment, that a mere schoolgirl could compete for his affections with the likes of a duchess, no matter that she was another man’s wife. . . .
Wounded, I kept to myself, finding comfort in the scriptures. I reported the political happenings in Paris to Papa by post, hoping to keep him apprised. But he didn’t seem pleased by my interest in politics. My letters were all too often met with silence and, in one case, a veiled rebuke that I should attend ancient Latin texts and keep my mind always occupied to guard against the poison of ennui!
How could I care about the translation of Livy with the world in such a state? Moreover, I wouldn’t need to keep my father apprised of the goings-on in France if he hadn’t been away, pining for the plumed and piffling woman who aroused his sinful impulses.
Only you, Martha . That’s what he swore to my mother four years before as she gasped her last breaths. I believed him then and so did she. But what I learned about men in Paris—even American men in Paris—opened my eyes and bruised my heart. And so I wrote to Papa, bitterly, of the latest news, almost hoping to wound him:
There was a gentleman, a few days ago, that killed himself because he thought that his wife did not love him. I believe that if every husband in Paris were to do as much, there would be nothing but widows left.
To that letter, Papa did not reply.
I N THE CONVENT’S SALON , clutching his smart tricorn hat and a nosegay of posies, Mr. Short said, “Patsy, I’ve had word that you were ill. I shouldn’t have insisted the nuns rouse you from bed, but when you refused to see me, I feared—”
“It was only a violent headache,” I said, pulling my shawl round myself for warmth, though it was springtime. “The kind Papa suffers when he’s upset.”
I didn’t tell him of the mysterious pain in my side that had blistered up and caused me such suffering. No doubt elegant duchesses never fell prey to such unsightly maladies. If he was to find out about my blisters, he’d have to learn it from the bewildered physician, not from me, so I offered nothing else by way of explanation. Nor could I explain to him the wound on my spirit—one that’d driven me, in prayer and contemplation, to a religious epiphany.
What I couldn’t tell him, for fear he might tell my papa, was that I had resolved to take my vows and join the convent.
The idea had first come upon me in a sudden swirl of anger and resentment . . . and yet, during my illness, it had transformed itself into a genuine desire. Though I knew my father would despair to hear it, I was more contented at the Abbaye de Panthemont than at any other place I’d ever been. Immersed in its world of women devoted to each other and the betterment of mankind, I felt sheltered against the wickedness of Paris. What’s more, my dearest friends were always near to me at the convent, and I felt more suited to a life of reflection and scholarship than to a mar riage or to a plantation to which my father supposed I must one day return.
None of this, of course, could I tell William Short.
At my silence, Mr. Short exhaled a long breath, then drew one of the purgatorial wooden chairs closer. I sat, careful of the shifting of my gown against my side. When he sat, he didn’t cross his legs like a man of leisure, but perched on the edge, as if waiting for a verdict at court. “Your father couldn’t bear it if anything should happen to you, and under my watch—”
“I’m quite recovered of my infirmity. You needn’t worry for your career.”
Mr. Short scowled, extending the nosegay to me. “Enjoy these in good health, then.”
Taking the posies, a tenderness crept through me that I was forced to steel myself against. “Have you any word of my papa? Of my sister?”
“Your father’s return has been delayed, but your sister is en route. I cannot imagine how your Aunt Elizabeth got the girl onto the ship, considering Polly refused to come. Your father is quite bedeviled by the child. She defies him as if he were no more to her than a strange beggar on the streets.”
Polly had been scarcely five years old when we left her. Now she was nearly nine. She’d lived half her life with Aunt Elizabeth, and through our neglect, I worried that we had lost her as surely as we’d lost baby Lucy. It was a failure that gave me the greatest pain, and I was determined to live up to the promise I’d made my mother to watch over my little sister. Which I could do right here, in the convent. When Polly came to us in France, Papa said I must teach her to be good, and to tell the truth, for no vice was so mean as the want of truth.
But I’d teach her to be devoted, for that seemed to me a much more important virtue. Nuns were devoted. And if I was to be a devoted friend to Mr. Short, I knew that I must overlook the blots on his character as he overlooked mine.
So I determined to think no more about his pretty duchess.
Nuns wouldn’t think about his duchess.
I took the posies and inhaled their sweet scent before drawing Mr. Short into conversation. He obliged me, explaining how antislavery sentiment grew hand in hand with constitutionalism in Paris. These talks, in which he showed respect for my opinions, made me think about new things and challenge what I’d been told. Challenge, even, my papa.
And the next day I wrote to my father:
It grieves my heart when I think that our fellow creatures should be treated so terribly as they are by many of our country men. Good god have we not enough slaves? I wish with all my soul that the poor negroes were all freed.
In answer to this sentiment, Papa was also entirely silent.