Instead, I felt William’s gaze upon me, as if imagining the wedding we’d never had.
Glancing furtively at him over the punch bowl and floral arrangements, I found myself snared by his wistful smile. I remembered that, like my new son-in-law, he, too, was once an aspiring diplomat that everyone feared would be penniless. My eldest daughter had married a man more like her father than I wished to contemplate, but Ginny was taking the risk I never took.
Later, William sat beside me to listen when Papa gifted Ginny with a gilded cittern guitar with which she serenaded her new groom. Love endures, I thought, then tried to shake the thought away. But it was a thought that stayed with me well into the night.
THEREAFTER, TOM ABSENTED HIMSELF FROM MONTICELLO. He didn’t come for dinner, nor take tea in the early evening. It was only after the music was played and our guests had retired that he returned—hiding away in the north pavilion, refusing my company.
I knew my husband was in pain, shattered to atoms in body and spirit. I hurt for him. I wanted to reassure him of my love, of my father’s love, of his family’s love—even Jeff’s love. But the only thing Tom wanted from me was to persuade Jeff to leave the creditors unpaid. And, for the sake of our children, that was the one thing I wouldn’t do.
“Where do you think he goes during the day?” Ellen mur mured as the younger children ran inside the house ahead of us, their feet pitter-pattering across the cherry and beech wood parquet floor.
I suspected Tom actually went to Charlottesville to drink in the taverns, but couldn’t bear to tell even Ellen as much. “I’m sure I don’t know.”
Ellen leaned against one of the columns of the west portico. “I can bring my father a tray tonight. He’s made a recluse of himself in the north pavilion, but he might open the door for me. If not me, then Septimia.”
Yes, he might open the door for Septimia because she was a child, but I didn’t intend to use her in such a way. “Your father has always suffered dark moods. Then he comes out of them. He always comes out of them. So we must give him privacy.”
From the parlor, where he’d been setting up a chessboard, my father called, “Ah, Ellen, come play!” Papa was inordinately proud of both his granddaughter and his chess set—a gift from the French court. “I’ve been telling Mr. Short that if you’d been born a man, you’d have been a great one. So show him how you’ve learned to use my chessmen.”
William had been examining Papa’s “magic” double doors, which, by some ingenious innovation, opened of their own accord. But he looked up when Ellen pulled a crimson damask chair to the board by the window and challenged him to a game. “You won’t go easy on account of my sex, will you, Mr. Short?”
William smirked. “To the contrary, I’m contemplating asking special dispensation on account of my age.”
Ellen threw her head back in laughter, a dark tendril of hair escaping the bun at her nape . . . and proceeded to a ruthless victory.
Smiling in easy defeat, William turned to me. “Your daughters have inherited your talents, Mrs. Randolph. Ellen’s wit. Virginia’s music. Cornelia’s artistry . . . why her architectural drawings rival those of professional draftsmen. I’ve advised your father to hire her for the University.”
My girls were delighted by this praise, and I was, too. Even so, I felt compelled to say, “You forget I was an abysmal artist in my youth—to this day, I can scarcely sketch a pea.”
“I remember perfectly well,” William countered. “It’s only that paints and pencils were never the tools of your trade. You were a different kind of artist. The craft you mastered was spycraft!”
“Spycraft?” Ellen asked, eyes round at the mention of the disreputable business.
My children were fascinated, and William looked very satisfied. “Shall I tell your children how you rooted out an English spy?”
I gave my assent with an indifferent shrug and a secret smirk, deciding that so many years had passed there could hardly be scandal in it.
The story of how I’d stolen papers from the rooms of Charles Williamos was one my father had never heard before. And in hearing it, poor Papa looked as if he didn’t know whether to scold or congratulate us. “The secrets come out only when your children think you’re too old and feeble to discipline them!”
We laughed together beneath the rows of paintings that my father prized. All of us had needed to laugh. Which left me even more grateful for William’s visit. He paid court to my father with the affection and comfort of an old friend, bolstering his spirits. He played games with my children and told them stories about Lafayette, which put them in even more excited anticipation of setting eyes upon our beloved Marquis.
William made us forget our troubles; he made it easy to pretend that my husband wasn’t lurking on the grounds each night . . . or even that I wasn’t married at all.