Patriot Hearts (32 page)

Though Martha discouraged politics as a topic of conversation at her receptions, within the first twenty minutes the crowd that gathered in the green drawing-room separated along factional lines like a badly made sauce. The Senators and Congressmen who favored a French alliance and immediate war against Britain—mostly Southerners who mistrusted the strength of the new Federal government and didn’t want to be taxed to pay Massachusetts’s debts—clumped around Thomas Jefferson, who had been Genêt’s champion from the first.

Even in the face of the news in April that the French had killed their King—with a new scientific head-chopping machine, no less!—and had auctioned off locks of his hair from the scaffold, Jefferson would hear no word against the revolutionists in France. The Spirit of Liberty must be served.

“I’ve seen besotted boys less obsessed with their first mistresses, than he with the French,” remarked Alexander Hamilton, eyeing the tall Virginian with loathing across the double parlor. The cocky, golden-haired Headquarters aide whom George loved like a son had put on a little weight since the War, but his dazzling good looks remained. He had gone on to marry one of New York’s richest heiresses, but his interest in money was more than pragmatic. Alex Hamilton was one of the few men Martha had ever met who understood how national finances actually worked. It was his proposals for a National Bank that had put the new nation on the road to solvency.

Jefferson detested him, the Bank, and the powerful central government that was required to make Hamilton’s financial proposals work. Possibly, Martha sometimes thought, this was because Thomas Jefferson was incapable of balancing so much as a household account-book.

“Tom is a man obsessed with Liberty,” said John Adams. “Wherever it may take root.”

“Obsession in any form is deadly,” Hamilton retorted. “It blinds its victims. And personally, I would rather not have a member of our President’s Cabinet listening blindly to the representative of a foreign government that has been trying since 1775 to gain a foothold in our nation’s territory.”

“Hammy,” said Martha firmly, “this is a social occasion, and a man who enters into a political discussion out of season runs the risk of having charges of obsession leveled against himself.” She tapped his elbow with her fan, and gave him her most twinkling smile.

“Lady Washington—” Hammy pointed his toe and made a profound leg. “Your wish as usual is as the Holy Writ to me.” He had a voice like the god Apollo’s would sound, if the deity were trying to talk a woman into bed or a man into the purchase of Bank of New York stock. “Let us confine ourselves rather to a discussion of the new Minister’s utterly deplorable coat. What is it about the Rule of the People that seems to unravel all sense of sartorial propriety?”

“You shall not entrap me into slandering M. Genêt on the grounds of his taste. For all we know, coats such as he wears may be perfectly acceptable in France, as breechclouts are among the savages of the Pacific Islands. Rather, Mr. Adams, tell me how it goes with dear Mrs. Adams. Is she feeling better? Will she be able to return to Philadelphia next year? We have sorely missed her.”

And as Mr. Adams—who despite years as a diplomat had not the smallest talent for social banter—recounted the news and opinions that the always-entertaining Abigail had sent from Massachusetts, Martha let her eye rove over the rest of the drawing-room, as a hostess must. She picked out at once George’s nephew Steptoe, the obstreperous Harriot’s older brother, a handsome boy of twenty-three who’d studied enough law—barely—to get a job with the lean and rather frayed-looking Edmund Randolph, George’s Attorney General.

It was due to his employment with Randolph, Martha presumed, that Steptoe was on the pro-French side of the room. Her nephew’s very proper black velvet suit and powdered hair stood out among the unpowdered locks and less-formal blues and browns favored by that faction. The only other man clothed with perfect formality on that side of the room was little Aaron Burr, newly elected Senator from New York and reputedly the best trial lawyer in that city (though Hamilton also claimed that title). Martha remembered Colonel Burr from Valley Forge. He’d been one of George’s aides for about ten days at Cambridge, before she’d arrived, but had left the General’s household after George came into his tent one day and found the young man calmly reading the papers on George’s desk.

Looking up at her towering nephew, Burr gave the impression that if he took his shoes off he’d have cloven hooves underneath. Martha saw Steptoe hand him something—a note?—which the little man slipped into an inner pocket with a nod and a conspiratorial smile.

Martha sighed. A love-note, no doubt, from some lady of one or the other’s acquaintance. Burr adored his ailing wife, but that apparently didn’t stop him from bedding almost as many women as Hammy did. Steptoe took his meals at the same boardinghouse as Colonel Burr, and Martha earnestly hoped the boy would have better sense than to be led into either vice or those Jacobin clubs whose views the Colonel was said to favor.

On the other hand, she was pleased to see Jefferson had arrived accompanied, not by Citizen Genêt, but by his younger daughter Maria—Mary, the girl had been christened, and only her father still called her Polly these days. A week shy of her fifteenth birthday and delicately pretty, Maria hurried across the drawing-room to clasp Nelly’s hands—they’d been schoolmates in New York and here in Philadelphia—and exchange kisses of greeting, French-fashion, with Eliza and Pattie. In her wake came her cousin Jack Eppes, who was part of Jefferson’s household and acted as a secretary to him.

Indeed, reflected Martha, there were a number of young people here of the next generation: Steptoe, Maria, fourteen-year-old Nelly and her sisters (Eliza still visibly smoldering over Nelly’s claim on the garnets—goodness knew what had become of the pearls that Martha had bought for her at the same time), and Mr. Adams’s youngest son, twenty-one-year-old Tommy, plumpish and amiable and newly fledged as a lawyer. All following in the footsteps of their errant parents, making their lives the best way they could.

It is the next generation,
thought Martha,
who’ll have to pick up the pieces if we go to war, either with England or, God help us, with France on England’s behalf.
It was for them that George had issued his Proclamation of Neutrality, and neither England nor France seemed to understand the meaning of the word:
He who is not with me is against me.

“But don’t you see, the French will help us clear the British out of the Great Lakes forts!” Pennsylvania Governor Mifflin’s voice carried over the subdued chatter as footmen, liveried in white and scarlet, came in to light the candles. “They’ve refused for years to live up to the treaty terms that demand them to leave—”

“And you think having the forts in the hands of those lunatics in Paris is going to be an improvement?” countered Robert Morris. “It’s all very well for the French to swear they’ll be our allies, but considering they can’t even keep their own people from murdering one another I doubt they’d be much help to us if the British came back.”

Across the room, Washington signaled Steptoe with a glance and the two of them moved in on the trouble-spot. Before they could reach the Governor and the merchant, however, the drawing-room doors swung open and Citizen Genêt stood framed in them, clothed, not in the long-tailed coat and knee-breeches of polite society, but in trousers, top-boots, and a coat of such military cut as to give the impression of a uniform. A young man—thirty—of medium height, he was, Martha supposed, good-looking enough, except his skin was bad, his teeth worse, and his manners more deplorable than either.

“Citizen Washington!” Édouard Genêt had a voice trained to cut through the hubbub of gatherings and, presumably, frenzied mobs. Martha saw George’s eyes open wide in startlement at this completely undiplomatic form of address, and, at his elbow, saw Jefferson wince. She could almost feel sorry for the man. He had spent the past three months praising Genêt and trying to smooth over the feelings of those he’d offended—and trying to mediate between the Cabinet, the Congress, and Genêt’s increasingly threatening demands.

“You have toyed with me, avoided me, and set your face against the obligations of your country long enough!” Genêt cried, striding forward. “I must and will speak to you, and remind you of your duty—and your country’s duty—not only to the nation to which you owe your liberty, but to Liberty Herself.”

Stunned silence fell on the room. Jefferson, looking as if he were about to become prey to one of his worst migraines, started to move toward Genêt, but Washington raised his hand. His face wore that calm, stony expression that was worse, Martha knew, than shouting rage.

“Please come into my study, Monsieur Genêt,” he said in his most even voice. “I’m sure we will be more comfortable there than among all these people.”

Martha thought for a moment that Genêt would stand his ground—the Frenchman looked like he’d have preferred to make a speech in front of an audience rather than have a private interview—but since he was about to get the conversation he’d demanded he couldn’t very well complain that he didn’t like the venue. As James opened the door for them to the private quarters at the rear of the house, George bowed to the room and said, “If the company will please excuse me.”

In the silence, the quiet closing of the door was like a gunshot. Martha suspected that every person there, had he or she been alone, would immediately have rushed to the study door and put an ear to the keyhole.

She knew she would have.

Instead, she signaled Nelly with her eye, calling her like a general beating commands to troops with a drum in battle. Picked out others she could trust in the room—the lovely Ann Bingham, at twenty-nine Philadelphia’s most prominent hostess; Hamilton’s graceful wife Betsey; Helena Pennington, the wife of one of the wealthiest Quaker merchants; Elizabeth Drinker, virtual queen of Philadelphia’s Quaker society; Elizabeth Powel and Maria Morris and others who ruled the city’s society. Whether their husbands were pro-French or pro-British, these ladies knew, exactly and instinctively, what they had to do, what any woman of proper upbringing would do in a like situation in her own drawing-room: break up the political claques before the entire gathering degenerated into a shouting-match.

Beside her, Adams had turned bright pink with fury and Hamilton’s blue eyes fairly snapped. “Did you see Jefferson’s face? I swear the man is in the pay of the French!”

“Nonsense, Hammy, if Tom were in the pay of the French he wouldn’t be in debt.” Martha laid a gently restraining hand upon the golden man’s elbow. “Now tell me honestly, do you really think when the year 1800 rolls around, there will be
any
buildings in the new Federal City for us to occupy? Or will poor Mrs. Adams—” She turned with a smile to her husband’s Vice President, “—be obliged to hold her receptions in a tent?”

Hammy looked as if he were about to rail at her: How could she possibly speculate about domestic architecture when Philadelphia stood on the brink of erupting into flaming riot with an invading force of French sailors? But furious as he was—and Hammy had a vicious temper—the Secretary of the Treasury knew better than to shout at any lady at a reception, much less the wife of the man who had been his Commander in Chief for almost twenty years.

“I’m sure it won’t come to that, Lady Washington,” he replied, with a steely rictus of a smile. “The rest of us may be dwelling in tents, but I’m sure the Senate will organize a barn-raising, as they do on the Ohio frontier.” And he inclined his head to his lovely Betsey, who appeared at his side to take his arm.

Martha had lived on a plantation long enough to know that the best way to keep a bull from charging is to bring his favorite cow into his line of sight. She turned her attention to Adams. The room was quieting down, though no one left. After some twenty minutes the inner door opened again and George returned, escorting Édouard Genêt with every appearance of cordiality through the room—unobtrusively permitting him to talk to no one—and to the head of the stairs. There, after a firm handshake, the footmen took over and saw him out.

Within minutes, Jefferson, Jack Eppes, and Maria made their good-nights. Jefferson was pale and looked ill. “And why shouldn’t he?” demanded Hamilton snidely. “He’s been urging everyone in the Cabinet for weeks to give Genêt money to fund a French expedition against Canada and Louisiana.” He spoke loudly enough to make certain Jefferson heard. Martha saw the Secretary of State’s back stiffen, as he paused in the doorway, but Jefferson didn’t turn back.

In his wake, Aaron Burr and young Steptoe Washington departed together, heads close in soft-voiced talk.

Martha didn’t learn the content of the conversation with Genêt until late the following day, and by that time, she had other matters to worry about. After the reception was over and Oney had undressed her, locked up her jewels, and brushed the powder from her hair, she spent most of the night sitting up with Pollie. She, the maid, and Tobias took it turn and turn about, to sponge the sick woman’s body with cool water, or as cool as they could manage from the well. By morning Pollie seemed to rest a little easier, but there were times when she barely seemed to recognize those around her. Just after full daylight Dr. Rush arrived and bled her. It didn’t seem to relieve the fever, but she did sink into sleep.