“Everything’s so cheap and good in Philadelphia. And the people were most hospitable. Mr. Short came to see me, too,” Ellen said, working her polishing cloth over one of the silver goblets Papa bought our last summer in Paris.
Nearly the whole of Papa’s silver inventory lay spread out before us on a dining room table, and I looked up from the silver tumbler I’d been polishing, one from a set of eight that Papa had commissioned a silversmith to make per his own design. It must’ve been because Tom and I were so unhappy that I felt wistful to hear William’s name again. And surprised, too, that William had visited my daughter.
Papa had, indeed, given William an appointment that sent him to France and then Russia. But when Mr. Madison became president, he brought about an abrupt end to William’s diplomatic career. For spite, I suppose. No matter the cause, William’s return from Europe had been unheralded and shrouded in mystery. I only knew that he’d settled in Philadelphia—without his duchess—and I was painfully curious to know more.
“Mr. Short called upon you?” I asked, setting the tumbler aside.
“Twice, actually,” Ellen replied. “He took me to see the house you lived in with Mrs. Hopkinson when you were a little girl. It’s now occupied by trades people and has nothing to distinguish it. But I gazed on it with mixed feelings of pleasure and melancholy.”
I, too, had mixed feelings of pleasure and melancholy to think of the man I once loved squiring my daughter about Philadelphia, walking cobblestone streets I once walked, and telling her stories from my youth.
Ellen continued, “We also visited the spot where my grandfather lived as secretary of state. And I strained my eyes to get a distant view of his lodgings while vice president. I was gratified by the sight of these now humble buildings which recall those in whom my fondest affections are placed.”
The swell of my heart made it ache. William had done more than watch over my daughter. He’d taken her places that recalled me and my father. Places I was sure I’d never see again. But William gave these memories to my daughter, and it moved me beyond words to think he was still, after all these years, doing for me what I couldn’t do for myself.
Ellen would do well to find a man like him in the northern states where everything was so cheap and so good. I’d never say it out loud, certainly never in my father’s presence, but like Mrs. Nicholas, I, too, now prayed that none of my daughters would bury themselves in Virginia.
“WHY DOES ELLEN HAVE ALL THE FUN?” Ginny asked at my old harpsichord. She’d been playing song after song to entertain our company. And once our guests had retired, leaving only family and near-relations, she complained, “First her travels, now Grandpapa intends to take her to Poplar Forest. Not just Ellen, but Cornelia, too!”
My father gave an indulgent chuckle. “Oh, it’s a very monastic sort of existence at Poplar Forest. Ellen and Cornelia are the severest students. In daytime they never leave their room but to come to meals. About twilight of the evening, we go out with the owls and bats, and take our evening exercise. You wouldn’t enjoy it.”
Jeff added, “There’ll be better bachelors at the governor’s mansion than amongst owls and bats at Poplar Forest. I’ve asked Governor Nicholas to host a party for you girls to come out into society in Richmond next winter, when the legislature is in session.”
There were advantages, it seemed, in his having married the governor’s daughter. But I worried that Jeff arranged this for his sisters without asking Tom. Hoping to stave off an argument, that night as I got ready for bed, brushing my hair out in front of the mirror over my marbled dresser, I gently broached the subject with my husband.
He surprised me by saying, “The girls would like that.”
I nodded, abandoning my brush to climb over Tom to get to my side of the alcove bed—a ritual that had once been flirtatious but had now turned to annoyance.
He stopped me, hands on my hips. “What ails you, Martha?”
“What makes you think something ails me?” I was resolved to say nothing about my worries for the expense. My husband would tell me it wasn’t my place, even though his generosity—the dresses, the ribbons, the fripperies—would come out of pockets that were already empty. It wasn’t my place to question him; my meddling is what had brought us to this unhappiness, so I bit my tongue.
But Tom’s eyes bored into mine in the candlelight. “I suppose Jeff told you I intend to sell slaves to bolster the family finances, running off to his mother like he always does. He’s still tied up in your apron strings.”