I’d been planning our domestic life together.
But he’d been planning this. And it made me realize I still had so much to learn about my husband’s ambitions.
Chapter Twenty
June 1789
New York City
WELCOME TO THE menagerie,” I said to James Madison as a cacophony of our chickens squawked in their pen in the yard. There were advantages to living across the street from the busy Federal Building—for example, when my husband left the house to attend business there, he wasn’t far—but it was also too easy for him to return home with colleagues.
One hot summer afternoon when my daughter was shrieking at the top of the stairs because one of her brothers had taken her ribbon, I was obliged to receive Mr. Madison. As I wrangled the children, he glanced out the back door—propped open to permit a cooling breeze—and asked, “Is that—”
“The neighbor’s monkey,” my husband answered, with more gravity than I would’ve expected. He led his friend into the yard for the shade of a tree. “It keeps climbing over the fence to taunt the chickens.”
I watched the men settle themselves, fretting over Alexander’s pensiveness. And I took them some lemonade. “Is anything the matter?”
The men exchanged a glance that made my stomach drop. “Washington has fallen ill,” Alexander said, glumly. “They say it’s anthrax. I worry for the man, of course, but more than that, too. What comes of the Constitution if he dies?”
Madison’s expression was equally grim. “The crisis this could bring about in our public affairs may be insurmountable.” It was already bad enough, he explained, that our countrymen were getting into tavern brawls over whether we should prefer to trade with the British or the French. The only thing everyone agreed on was George Washington. “If Washington dies, we’re to entrust the whole enterprise of the federal government to a man lambasted as His Rotundity, the Duke of Braintree?”
John Adams, he meant. And yet, was the possibility of the president’s death not the entire purpose of having a vice president? So my prayers, when I made them, were not for the Constitution. I prayed for the president and for Martha Washington. Because how would she bear it if her husband were to die?
Leaving the men to talk, I sent Jenny to fetch more water and cut lemons to fill a pitcher for more lemonade—all this before greeting Angelica at the front door and hefting fourteen-month-old James into my lap to nurse.
I told my sister the news, then shook my head. “Mrs. Washington must be frantic. I should like to visit her to offer comfort or assistance.”
“I’ll go with you,” Angelica said.
But I wondered if a visit with the president’s lady was truly possible. Because Mrs. Washington’s position meant that things had changed between us. At her receptions, I always found the president’s lady seated atop a dais, her round face smiling benevolently down upon us from beneath a modest powdered coiffure and lace veil. And there she regally received each lady in turn.
The first time I’d seen her that way, I realized, with a start, that Martha Washington and I might never again be easy and familiar together. She was the closest thing we had to royalty. There must be a distance now, I thought, almost sadly. And as I made my way to the dais to present myself, I’d been acutely aware that I’d never attended a royal court. I hadn’t known how low to drop or how long I ought to hold the curtsy. In the end, I’d grasped my skirts and endeavored to a posture between obsequiousness and mere respect, hoping, quite sincerely, that I wouldn’t somehow teeter off my embroidered silk shoes.
Much to my relief, when I rose, Mrs. Washington’s smile had widened. Almost a secret message just for me, as if to reassure me that a friendship remained. But that friendship would never be the same because she was now, more than ever, a public figure. Every gesture and smile a reflection upon her husband until the day he died, which I prayed would not be soon.
“President Washington simply must recover,” Angelica decided, making herself helpful by brushing little Fanny’s curly hair. “And he will. At the inaugural ball he looked as strong and vigorous as ever. So right now I refuse to worry about anything but you.” She nodded toward the babe at my breast. “I don’t know how you manage all this. And you’re expected to host a dinner tonight besides?”
I nodded, eyeing a gown piled atop the chair that I needed to mend before I could wear it. “Some gentlemen are coming to arrange for the care of Alexander’s legal practice when he takes up his new position.”
Angelica sighed. “This won’t do. It’s too much for you without more servants. It’s too much for Jenny. It isn’t seemly for the wife of such an important man to scrub floors next to her maid. It wouldn’t be fitting for the president’s lady to stoop to it.”
In light of the current crisis, I could scarcely imagine such a position. Certainly, I didn’t want to imagine it. “I am not the president’s lady.”
“But you might be, one day,” my sister replied with a sly smile.
My mouth went dry, for the situation cast Angelica’s comment in a too-calculating light that made me uneasy. And it was more proof that, though I was coming to better understand my husband’s ambitions, sometimes it seemed as if my sister sympathized with those ambitions more than I did.
I didn’t want to be the wife of the secretary of the treasury, much less the president’s wife. And I shuddered to think I might ever find myself in Martha Washington’s position. Especially given what she was facing now.
Perhaps sensing my panic at the idea, Angelica sighed and said,
