“Oh, dear,” Angelica said. “Although no one would fault him if he did. And consider the service he’d do for the country, ridding us all of that fussy little bag of noxious wind!”
“Don’t even make jests like that, I beg you,” I said. I was serious, too. Soon after Mr. Adams had been elected, Alexander had written him a long letter of congratulation, and included a compendium of suggestions and proposals for managing his new responsibilities as president and negotiating the government. It was all sound advice drawn from my husband’s long experience at President Washington’s side, and presented in the most respectful fashion possible. President Washington would have considered it both generous and useful, as any wise man would.
But Mr. Adams wasn’t wise. He was, as Angelica had said, a fussy little bag of noxious wind. Instead of finding my husband’s memorandum useful, he declared it to be insulting, and wondered aloud whether the man who’d written such a piece of rubbish had lost his wits. As can be imagined, this ingratitude had not sat well with Alexander, who’d every right to feel insulted by the ill usage. It had taken considerable persuading on my part to convince him not to take offense.
“The best I can say of Mr. Adams is that he has no use for the capital, and keeps to Massachusetts instead,” I said, fluttering my fan before my face. “The more distance there is between him and Alexander, the better.”
Angelica shook her head. “What manner of president avoids his own capital?” she said. “And what a slovenly display that makes to the rest of the world! There should be parties every night, musicales, balls, and all with the most brilliant company that can possibly be assembled.”
Of course, my sister had just described this very party of her own, and certainly the capital—which I heard had become a sad and empty place—would benefit from having her in charge of official entertainments. I thought of Mrs. Adams with her sharp tongue, proudly plain and old-fashioned, and then Angelica as she sat beside me, dressed in a provocatively sheer white dress with a diamond necklace and earrings, and towering white plumes in her artfully curled hair.
“At least Mr. Jefferson as vice president remains in Philadelphia,” she continued. “He can be depended upon to offer a certain level of elegance and civility to the capital city.”
“Not now,” I said. My sister continued to retain a favorable impression of Mr. Jefferson that was entirely at odds with my own, although I prayed that with time she’d come to see the man for the false, conniving rogue that he was. “I’ve heard that Mr. Jefferson has so completely assumed the guise—and surely it is a guise—of the plain and honest Democratic-Republican that he wears only rough homespun and answers his door himself, his hair unpowdered and unkempt.”
Angelica’s eyes widened. “That does not sound at all like the gentleman I knew in Paris!”
“I have it on the best authority.” I nodded sagely, making little jerks with my fan for emphasis. “I know you believe that the politics in London are especially uncivil, but you’ll soon see that the style here in America is every bit as ferocious, and marked with backbiting, lies, deceit, and ill will. I cannot tell you how relieved I am to have Alexander removed from it.”
The sorrowful truth was he’d not so much withdrawn from politics, as politics had removed from him. Although Alexander had resigned from his post in the cabinet, he had harbored hopes that he would continue as a kind of advisor to the new government, as he’d done during the final year of General Washington’s term. He hadn’t confessed as much to me, but I recognized the signs, and I would have been surprised had it been otherwise. The arrangement would have made perfect sense, too. President Adams had decided to keep the cabinet members chosen by President Washington, and those men were not only staunch Federalists, but Alexander’s friends. My husband had had every right to expect them to reach out to him for help addressing difficult problems, for the good of the country as well as the Federalist cause.
But so great was President Adams’s dislike and distrust of my husband that he wanted nothing to do with him. Further, he seldom consulted his own cabinet, either, effectively excluding them from his circle of counselors, too. Every attempt my husband made to contribute was sharply rebuffed, or even ignored outright. After being involved and consulted on every major decision for so many years, my poor husband had overnight become an outcast.
His pride was badly wounded, as anyone’s would be, and he couldn’t help but feel unappreciated and unloved. He tried to look for other diversions. He concentrated on his legal work. He doted on our children. We spent considerable time in the company of the Churches. Because Mr. Church had lost his much-desired seat in Parliament shortly before returning to America, and he and Alexander commiserated on the gross unfairness of their mutual governments, and the idiocy of those now in power.
It was about this time that I arrived home one afternoon to find a foreign gentleman, colorfully dressed, just departing our house. This in itself was not unusual, for New York was a cosmopolitan city, and many visitors from abroad came to call upon my distinguished husband. But this one was in turn distinguished himself, or at least he’d made himself out to be so to my husband.
“Do you know who that man was, my dear?” Alexander asked, his excitement clear. “None other than the great Roman-born sculptor Giuseppe Ceracchi, a master-carver in marble. He has just undertaken an important work capturing the likenesses of the greatest men of our time, to be on public display in a gallery, and has begged my indulgence to be among them.”
“As you should be,” I said, pleased for his sake. Roman-born master-carvers in marble were unknown in America, though the Churches had several fine examples of marble sculptures in their home. “Will it be a kind of portrait, then?”
He nodded with satisfaction. “Each gentleman is to be captured in the manner of an ancient senator, as is fitting for our republic,” he said. “Ceracchi has arranged a makeshift studio in his lodgings, and I must go to him for sittings.”
“That is fitting,” I agreed. “You’ve borrowed the names of so many ancient Romans when you’ve written your various essays that you might as well pose as one.”
He grinned, likely intrigued by the notion. Alexander had sat for the best painters from our country including Charles Willson Peale and John Trumbull, and his likenesses hung in several public buildings as well as the one by Peale that hung in our parlor across from my own by Mr. Earl. But in all of these he’d been shown wearing his customary dress.
“Must you wear a toga,” I teased, “or some other heathen costume? Will he swaddle you in an old bedsheet before you strike a dramatic pose?”