OUR TRUNKS WERE PACKED and I took a last look at the inventory list of books, busts, pictures, and clocks to be shipped ahead of us. The Hotel de Langeac was strangely bare and quiet. And I kept hoping—hoping desperately—for William. No matter how angry he was at my leaving, surely he’d see us off!
I lingered near the door, jumping up at the sound of every passing carriage in the street. And when a carriage finally pulled inside our gates, I ran out to meet it. It was not William inside that carriage but Marie, her expression bleak. “Has Mr. Short changed his mind?” she asked, coming into the house with a hat box. “Has he agreed to wait for you?”
When I shook my head, she lowered the hat box and her eyes filled with tears as she rained curses down upon William’s head. Finally, she asked, “With all the men who pursued you, is there no other offer that might keep you in France?”
No, there was no one for me but William. That morning, a messenger wearing the livery of the Duke of Dorset had presented to me a parting gift—another ring, this one a simple silver band, with a note begging me to accept it as “a feeble proof of my fond remembrance.” I had nearly burst into tears on the spot because the duke thought to send me a token of farewell, whereas I had nothing but angry silence from William. But if I told Marie about that, then I surely would burst into tears, so I only shook my head.
“Then you will not come back.” She choked on a sob, utterly undone. “I have not wanted to believe it, but now I cannot bear to part with you, and I cannot stop crying.”
“Oh, Marie!” We embraced and held one another tightly, our hearts pounding against one another as we fought off tears.
Finally, Marie murmured, “I shall throw myself into a river without you.”
I drew back abruptly. “You must never say anything that, Marie. Never.”
She looked abashed, brushing away her tears with her thumbs. “Of course. I am the one who first taught you to pretend at happiness in Paris. Now we must both pretend.” She straightened, sniffling into a kerchief. “I’ve had a hat made for you, because yours are all out of style. They don’t indent hats in the front anymore and yours with the rosette is good for nothing. You must wear this one and think of me. And we must promise to write letters.”
We promised. We exchanged tokens of remembrance. Then we parted, abruptly, as Marie fled from me in tears. I had not offered her any hope that I would return to France, as I now feared there was none. I think it was the excruciating fear that William might truly let this be the end of it between us that left me so confused to see Sally in the foyer with her own satchel of belongings.
All she owns in the world, I thought. I was moved by her plight, not only because I was fond of her, or even only because she was, in the way of the Hemingses, near kin to me. But also because the truth of our situation was leaking around all the barricades I’d put up against it.
Inside her, she carried my little brother or sister. One I could never acknowledge and might never see born. At least the baby would be born in France—born free. That heartened me, and seeing glimpses of pain and anxiety in her amber eyes, my heart went out to her—the warmth of sympathy and concern a welcome balm from the cold ache of William’s absence.
“You won’t become destitute,” I promised with a small smile, twisting the ring Papa bought me from my finger and pressing it into her hand. “You keep this for a day you need it, but you won’t. I’ll send a letter to Marie and Madam de Tessé and the Duchess Rosalie to find a place for you as a lady’s maid. Until then, why not stay on here at the Hotel de Langeac? Mr. Short won’t put you out in the street—”
“James and I are going home with you to Virginia,” Sally said, stunning me into silence. “Your papa has made us an offer.”
My throat tightened. What offer could he have made them? Though they were his slaves, the Hemingses had the laws of France on their side, not to mention the laws of God. And I found it hard to imagine my dignified father bargaining with any slave, much less his own.
But then Sally convinced me. “We’ve been negotiating a treaty.”
A treaty. That did sound like my father, the minister to France. Recalling the duke’s wish to make an alliance with me, I could easily imagine Papa condescending to charm his enslaved lover, giving her the courtesies due an ambassador from a foreign land. “Oh?” I managed, weakly.
She lifted her chin, a hint of pride there. “Your father promises that if James goes back and teaches someone else all he’s learned in the kitchens of Paris, he’ll go free. And if I go back, your father will keep me and care for me well, till his death. He’ll free my babies, too, when they turn twenty-one, upon his solemn oath.”
Babies? As if there would be more. As if they meant to carry on indefinitely?