“How is my girl?” Papa asked, opening his arms to me. I wanted to run to him, but it had been so long and I had been so scared that I held firm in my seat. When he saw that I would not be so easily wooed, he wryly took from his pocket two tickets to an exhibition of hot air balloons. “I see an inducement is required. Come now, Patsy. Let me show you a glorious thing.”
Try as I might, I couldn’t resist my papa. In truth, when he put his mind to charm someone, no one could. I rose slowly, but then I flew into his arms and buried my face against his coat. And that very hour, he took me to see the marvelous contraptions that harnessed heat and rendered the balloon lighter than air. That was how I felt, holding my papa’s hand again. Watching the colorful balloons rise up, I thought I might float into the heavens. “Tell me we’re going home again, Papa. Tell me we won’t be apart anymore.”
His clear eyes followed the balloons into the sky. “I’m to be an envoy to Paris.”
I crashed back down to earth, afraid I’d cry. Right there, in front of the crowd, shaming myself and Papa besides. “No, Papa. Please—”
He gave my hand a small squeeze. “I’m taking you with me. I’ve learned in these past months that I cannot do without your company. In truth, I am quite lost without it.”
Gulping in breaths of relief, I hugged his arm tight. I never wanted to set foot in Mrs. Hopkinson’s brick house again. I didn’t even want to say good-bye.
Thankfully, Papa sent Jimmy Hemings to fetch my things from the boardinghouse. My father explained that Jimmy was coming with us to Paris to be trained in the art of French cookery so that when we returned to Monticello, we might entertain with the same grace we’d found at Tuckahoe. Those words were a balm to my soul, for they meant that Papa was thinking of a time when we would all live together at Monticello again . . . someday. Even if he couldn’t bear it now.
The thought made me so glad that not even the jostling three-week trip to Boston, where we traveled to catch our ship, dampened my excitement for this new shared adventure. And in the dawning hours of our nation’s eighth birthday, we boarded the Ceres and set sail.
Chapter Five
Hartford, 11 October 1784
To Thomas Jefferson from Lafayette
When I heard of your going to France, I lamented I couldn’t have the honor to receive you there. My house, my family, and anything that is mine are entirely at your disposal and I beg you will see Madame de Lafayette as you would your brother’s wife. Indeed, I’d be very angry with you, if you didn’t consider my house as a second home, and Madame de Lafayette is very happy to wait upon Miss Jefferson.
HAS THERE EVER BEEN such a labyrinthine city as Paris?
Upon our arrival, we found sooty walls within muddy walls around the city proper and beggars round every corner. But all the soot and mud gave way to beauty when, borne in a fine coach by seven horses, we passed under a bright blue sky onto the wide avenue of the Champs-élysées.
From there, the whole city fanned out before us in splendor. Stone archways, domes, and pillars all reached for the sun. In truth, the bustling seaports of Philadelphia, Boston, and Baltimore were mere infants in comparison to the ancient majesty of this grand city.
I was giddy at the sight, and I wasn’t the only one. Jimmy Hemings removed his cap, thunderstruck. And Papa gasped when the proud Palais-Royal came into view. The palace’s ex panse of creamy white bricks beyond ironwork gates was nearly too much to take in. I could never have imagined such a place. Overcome, I asked, “This palace belongs to the king?”
The word king elicited a frown from my father, but our coachman explained that the gardens were now open to the public—a thing we could plainly see as we turned a corner into the teeming crowds. Every man was ornamented in waistcoat and powdered wig, and the ladies wore their hair as tall as you pleased, strutting about like well-plumed songbirds. Every breeze carried a thousand voices in the melody of the French language.
The breeze also carried the disagreeable smell of so many people crowded close together, but the sweet perfume of the gardens and the ribbons of bright green shrubbery winding in every direction made me forget all else. “Oh, Papa! Is this what heaven looks like?”
“If there be such a place, perhaps it is just so.” There was a new light in his eyes. As his gaze slipped over the carved facades of the palace and its surrounding structures, the hard lines of his expression melted away into fascination. I hadn’t seen him this engaged with the world since my mother died.
And Paris was very much alive.
Taking it in, Papa sat with his mouth set in an awed half smile. I realized with a jolt that the shadow of grief seemed to have lifted from him. Could I dare to hope this momentous change I sensed was real? Unable to resist, I threaded my fingers through his.
His hand, so often stiff and cold since my mother’s death, closed warmly over mine.