Saturday, March 6, 1801

On the thirty-sixth ballot, Vermont and Maryland switched their support to Mr. Jefferson,” Sophie Hallam reported. “Delaware and South Carolina cast blank ballots, withdrawing their votes from Mr. Burr. I understand that rumor is rife that Mr. Jefferson indeed reached an understanding with the Federalists, though he has been protesting to everyone who’ll listen that he did nothing of the kind. I assume that his first act upon taking office will be to propose an Amendment to the Constitution making sure such a situation never arises again.”

“After all that ink wasted slandering poor Mr. Adams.” Martha sighed, and rang the bell for Christopher, for the third time.

Nelly said, “I’ll get it, Grandmama.” She collected the empty tea-pot, and rustled away in quest of more hot water. Her footfalls echoed in the shabby emptiness of the hall.

“After all that ink wasted slandering poor Mr. Adams, and Mr. Jefferson’s real foe was there at his elbow the whole time.” Sophie dipped a final shard of bread and butter into the dregs of her tea. “A pity, really. Those frightful newspapermen wouldn’t have had to make up scandals about Mr. Burr’s personal life.”

“Did you hear the story the Republicans tried to put about,” put in Pattie, “about Mr. Adams sending Mr. Pinckney to France with instructions to bring back four beautiful opera-dancers, two apiece, as mistresses for them? When Mr. Adams heard it, he only said, ‘I declare, Pinckney’s cheated me, for I never got my two!’ ”

If the absence of her undivided guidance and care had pressed hard on her elder granddaughters, Martha reflected as they all laughed, at least Pattie seemed to have surmounted its effects. While Eliza still wore dramatic mourning for the General, Pattie had returned to ordinary dress, if one could call “ordinary” the high-waisted, narrow-cut gowns that more and more women seemed to be wearing nowadays.

Martha had long ago given up wondering whether she would have been different, had she, Martha, been able to raise all four of her grandchildren instead of the younger two when Jacky died.

Now Eliza declared, “I have heard that rather than endure seeing his foe made President, Mr. Adams sneaked out of the city in the dark before dawn on the day of the inauguration.”

“If one is going to catch the public stage from Baltimore to Massachusetts,” said Nelly reasonably, returning, “one had better sneak out of the city in the dark before dawn. Did Mr. Jefferson even think to invite Mr. Adams?”

Sophie said, “I understand Mr. Jefferson—whose inaugural address was perfectly inaudible, by the way—is still in residence at Conrad and McMunn’s Tavern, taking his meals in the ordinary with the other guests.” She leaned to scratch the ears of Nelly’s elderly lapdog Puff, who had come around to sit at Nelly’s feet again in hopes of a tea-cake. “Since I’ve never known him to occupy any building without tearing it down and putting it back together again to suit his fancy, I expect there will be changes in that dreadful Mansion.”

“Will he live in it?” asked Pattie.

“Oh, he’ll live in it,” prophesied Nelly wisely. “It’s all very well to proclaim one’s Republican principles by living in a cottage, but one can’t do one’s work properly in one’s sitting-room. You know how Grandpapa was driven distracted by people coming to see him. Mr. Jefferson shall want offices and some kind of state rooms to receive Ambassadors in. And once he’s got those, whatever he’d replace the current Mansion with would have to be almost as large. And we certainly haven’t seen him building a humble little dwelling at Monticello, have we? The question is, who will receive for him? Mr. Jefferson’s a widower, and I think both of his daughters have too many small children to come here from Albemarle County to look after things. Will it be Mr. Burr’s daughter, then, since he, too, has no wife?”

She glanced at Martha, and Eliza added in her booming voice, “Yes, Grandmama, what would be proper? You were, after all, the first Presidentress. You remain the ultimate arbiter of what is proper in a Republic.”

Martha couldn’t keep from smiling. Mr. Madison and Mr. Jefferson, and Mr. Hamilton, had all labored to bring forth the principles of a Republic. But to the best of her knowledge, only she and George had considered what the actual practices would be. Rather like playwrights who didn’t give a thought to how the scene would be set or performed, as Dolley would have put it, Martha had long suspected that her dinners at Valley Forge had done more to convince the French that they were dealing with civilized reformers rather than wild-eyed King-haters than had any amount of rhetoric.

“Mr. Burr’s daughter was married in February, just before the voting in the Senate began,” said Sophie. “To a rice-planter, from South Carolina, a very wealthy man. So I expect Mr. Jefferson’s hostess will be Dolley Madison, won’t it?”

Martha smiled. “It will indeed.”



Dinner was served at three, as always in Mount Vernon in winter and spring. Nelly saw to it at least that the reduced kitchen staff turned out a respectable meal. To Martha’s disappointed shock, during their last return-journey from Philadelphia to Mount Vernon in March of 1797—in that crowded carriage with Nelly and Puff and Nelly’s parrot, and young George Lafayette and his tutor and Martha couldn’t recall who-all else—their faithful and excellent cook had run away, disappearing into Philadelphia’s community of free colored without so much as a backward glance at the masters who’d been so good to him the whole of his life. His replacement wasn’t nearly as good. Moreover, bills in the kitchen had risen appreciably since he’d taken over, despite all Nelly’s watchfulness.