The word conscience echoed between us.
Mr. Short glanced to the door and the stairway beyond, in the direction of my father’s bedchambers, before rounding his shoulders beneath his dark coat. “Certainly, Mademoiselle Sally can see to your father’s comfort, but you’re the center of his world, Patsy. Moreover, how would your conscience allow you to leave me utterly bereft of your company?”
In spite of his exquisite charm, I winced at his mention of Sally, dying a little at his unwitting implication of how she might see to Papa’s comfort, by the way he called her Mademoiselle, as if she were a free Frenchwoman.
It was only a wince. It shouldn’t have betrayed me. But to William Short, I was capable of betraying myself without a word. “Patsy, sit down before your knees give way.” Then, more quietly, without a note of censure, he added, “You’re old enough now to know the natural way of it between men and women.”
There I suffered my second shock of the evening—the realization that Mr. Short was somehow aware of my father’s liaison with his slave girl. Did that mean I’d not witnessed its first in carnation? Could there have been other encounters, other kisses, other. . . .
Sitting down hard upon the chair by the fire, I shook away the knowing of any of it. None of this was anything a lady of character ought allow herself to be aware, nor something a Virginia gentleman like William Short ought to acknowledge. So I exclaimed, “Pray do not speak another word.”
But Mr. Short was already more of a Frenchman than a Virginian, and instead of honoring my request, he took the chair beside me and spoke my name very softly. “Patsy. Why not tell me what troubled thoughts are racing under that lace-trimmed cap?”
How soothing he made himself sound, as if he wasn’t the same man who had just characterized my father’s desire for Sally as the natural way of it between men and women. So soothing that the savage whisper of my answer took us both by surprise. “Because you, sir, for whom I’ve unwisely contrived no small admiration, never find fault in my father’s conduct.”
Mr. Short gripped the armrest of his chair. “How unjust! I’ve spoken to your father many times about the evils of slavery and shall continue to do so.”
“I’m not speaking of the evils of slavery—”
“But you are, Patsy,” he insisted. “Should we object to a man’s affection for his slave more than we object to the fact that he holds her in bondage? I’ve told you before that slavery is a practice that compromises our morals. Perhaps beyond redemption. Whether we claim a slave’s labor in the tobacco field or the smoky kitchen or in the pleasures of a candlelit bedchamber, slavery makes it all the same.”
“It’s not the same,” I argued, though, unlike Mr. Short, I had no experience in the pleasures of a candlelit bedchamber to guide my convictions. I had only my conscience. And my conscience cried out that this was wrong. I knew it was. So did William Short. Yet apparently he’d do nothing to stop it, even if it meant putting souls, as he said, beyond redemption. Was it because Mr. Short had seduced and corrupted the Belle of Saint-Germain and his married duchess, too? Did he feel as if he had no standing to judge my father’s illicit conduct when he himself stood guilty of indiscretions?
Mr. Short reached for my hand. His eyes filled with desire, the same desire I’d seen only moments ago on my father’s face. . . . “Patsy, it’s no sin to—”
“It is,” I said, pulling away.
Not everything I’ve felt for Sally Hemings over the years has been noble or unselfish, but that night I perceived a difference between her and the preening, pampered Maria Cosway. With the memory of Sally’s tarnished little bell, the one my mother bequeathed her, I felt somehow compelled to defend her. But because I could conceive of no way to influence her circumstance or my own, I was filled with rage not only at my father, but also at William Short—the man who made our helplessness plain.
I wrenched away before he could reach for me again, thinking myself miserably foolish to have ever presumed his flirtation carried with it an honorable intent. Foolish to have ever thought Mr. Short wished to court me—or marry, ever.
“It is a sin, Mr. Short,” I said, remembering all the teachings my father supposed I didn’t hear at the convent. I knew God gave us commandments, the sixth of which forbade adulteries and fornications—even those lusts committed only in the heart. Yet the men of Paris seemed to believe the Lord could not see past the glittering brilliance of Versailles into the darker deeds done in its shadow. Deeds done under the same roof where my innocent little sister played with her dolls.
So it was that with all the righteous indignation that can be mustered by a confused and heartbroken girl of fifteen, I brushed past Mr. Short without a backward glance.