I wondered if I’d been wrong to keep Papa’s secrets. I wondered if I ought to have confessed the full breadth of my fears to Mr. Short the day he came upon us in the woods. But now there was no one to whom I could turn. For Papa kept us always moving from city to city.
Everywhere we found brown and red brick buildings squeezed close together, jostling carriages on snow-covered cobblestone streets, docks burdened with goods waiting to traverse safe seas, and mobs of people. The cities of the new states blurred, one into another, until we returned again to Philadelphia, where bells rang and celebrants gathered around great bonfires blazing orange in the streets in celebration of the news.
Peace with Great Britain had been achieved.
A provisional treaty had been signed, and when I heard, I tugged on Papa’s sleeve from my place beside him in the carriage. “Then the war is over?”
“Nearly,” was his soft reply.
After so great a struggle, so many harrowing hours and devastating losses, I thought Papa would be overjoyed at our victory. But he received the news with reserve, chagrined to learn that peace was made without need of his negotiations.
I’ve come to believe that he hoped to regain his honor by ending the revolution he’d helped start. In his guilty grief, he counted my mother as a casualty of that war and felt robbed of his chance to ensure her loss was not in vain. But at the time, I thought the cause of Papa’s melancholy was because we wouldn’t be going to Paris after all, and he didn’t want to go home. Indeed, he seemed to think of every possible excuse to delay, even contriving a visit with our Randolph relations at Tuckahoe.
I wondered if, in this, there was an opportunity. The Randolphs were Papa’s people through his mother, and he’d spent his childhood on Tuckahoe Plantation. Some part of me hoped the Randolphs would be able to see behind the cool blue veneer of my father’s gaze to the dark abyss I still saw. No one at Monticello had the authority or audacity to question Papa, but I knew Colonel Randolph would have no such qualms.
“You’ll be glad to see Colonel Randolph, won’t you, Papa?” I asked as the carriage jostled along on the long, narrow drive to Tuckahoe under a foreboding canopy of trees. The drive was so narrow, in fact, that if we veered even a little, our wheels would get stuck in the mud.
“He’s a good man,” Papa said, which is what he always said about Colonel Randolph, for the two men had been raised together as boys by my grandfather when he was custodian of Tuckahoe.
Yet, even now, I cannot imagine a less likely candidate for my father’s friendship than his childhood companion Colonel Randolph. Where Papa projected a calm, composed demeanor, the colonel was a militant man, marching impatiently along the white-painted fence in front of his riverside home, barking out his welcome to Tuckahoe plantation. Where Papa wore a gray homespun frockcoat with wooden buttons, we found Colonel Randolph clad in formal dress, colorful as a Tory in a crimson coat and matching embroidered waistcoat. And whereas Papa was the author of our independence, Colonel Randolph was decidedly conflicted about the revolution. “This damned war,” he spat, when my father shared the happy news of a treaty. “The inability to ship tobacco overseas has brought my finances into a very low state. Now, I’ll have to pay a fortune on it in customs duties.”
“The price of liberty,” Papa replied with a tight smile.
Colonel Randolph grunted, waving us into the dark-paneled entryway of his abode. “I fear liberty has impoverished us.” It was a boast cloaked in modesty, much like his wooden plantation house itself. At first glance, Tuckahoe looked to be a modest white-painted house with two chimneys, but circling round the drive revealed it was really two houses connected by a central block, like the letter H. The rear of the mansion was dedicated to entertaining guests in high style, complete with salons and a great hall, which gave the lie to the idea that the Randolphs were in any way impoverished.
A veritable army of well-dressed house servants carried our luggage up the ornately carved walnut staircase, while I drifted into the parlor, entranced by mirrors and polished rosewood and mahogany—every piece so splendid I was afraid to touch. The only thing to mar its beauty was the damaged paneling over the fireplace, and as I stared at it curiously, Tom Randolph, the eldest of the Randolph children, happened upon me. “The British came searching for your father during the war. When we wouldn’t give him up, Tarleton ripped our coat of arms from the wall.”
“Your coat of arms?” I asked.
“My ancestors were great lords in England and Scotland,” Tom said, showing me a leather-bound book opened to a page of what looked to be heraldry. “My people were amongst the first families of Virginia. Better than yours.”
Tom was just an overeager puppy then; if I forget the wolf he became, I can still smile at the memory of the fourteen-year-old boy, tall and lanky, with brown hair and eyes so dark they appeared almost black. Given his imperious pronouncement about his lineage, I felt as if he expected me to curtsy. Instead, I said, “We’re kin, Tom. Your people are my people, too.”
“But I’m also part Indian,” he countered, making of his face an amusingly savage scowl. “That’s why I’m an excellent horseman. I’m descended of Pocahontas. Are you?”
“I don’t think so,” I replied, for I was certain Papa would’ve told me if we had any direct relation to the famous native princess. “But we display buffalo robes at Monticello.”
A hint of genuine curiosity shone in Tom’s black eyes. “I’d like to see those … though savage items are hardly fit to display in a home where girls and women are about.”
I bristled with indignation, but this was more attention than a boy of Tom’s age had ever paid me, and though I had weightier worries, I didn’t want it to go badly. “Papa doesn’t agree.”
“I’m sure he doesn’t. After all, your father thinks nothing of carrying you to Boston and back again, when you should be in the care of a woman to teach you domestic arts.”
Red hot anger straightened my spine at these words he must’ve heard spoken by his parents. Though my journey with Papa had been a terrifying blur of grief and long carriage rides and cobblestone streets, I met his smug gaze and boasted, “Not only Boston. We went to Philadelphia and Baltimore, too, and now I’ve seen all the states. Have you?”
This proved to be an embarrassing mistake, for Tom quizzed me on all thirteen newly independent states until it became apparent that I was woefully short of the full set. Moreover, my ignorant boast caused Tom to puff up and announce, “Anyway, I’ve come to tell you that you’ll take your supper with the children. I’ll be dressing for dinner and sitting at the table with the other men—of course.”
He wanted me to feel young and foolish, and I did. But more than that, he made me anxious that Papa and I should be apart even for the length of a supper. Leaving Tom, I found my father dressing for dinner, his manservant adjusting his cravat. When I told Papa what Tom said, he stared into the mirror, muttering, “Patsy, try to get along with Tom. It isn’t easy for him as the colonel’s heir apparent.” He said the last words with a hint of contempt, then added, “The Randolphs like to make much of their pedigree, to which I suppose everyone else must ascribe whatever merit they choose.”
Thus, banished to the lower-level kitchen where the children ate, I intended to sulk. It didn’t quite work out that way when I fell into the company of the Randolph sisters. Judith was my age and Nancy only a little younger, and by the time we’d taken our fill of egg custards and apple tarts and candied cherries, we were fast friends. Their companionship both eased the ache I felt for missing my sisters and worsened it.
Before bed, Mrs. Randolph gathered us round her harpsichord in the richly appointed great hall, and the men drifted in with their brandy. Puffing on a pipe, Colonel Randolph said to Papa, “It’s fortunate your appointment to France came to nothing. You’re better off in retirement. No good comes of public service anymore.” Ignoring the strained smile of his wife, whose expression seemed to warn him away from such talk, Colonel
Randolph continued, “I practically funded Washington’s army myself, but I’ve been criticized by so-called patriots for the liberality with which I treated British soldiers.”
Settling into one of the tasseled armchairs, Papa crossed one leg at the knee. “We must endure criticism if we’re to honor the spirit of independence.”
Colonel Randolph’s jowls reddened. “The spirit of independence! Every man who bore arms in this revolution now considers himself on the same footing as his neighbor. I tell you, Jefferson, the spirit of independence has been converted to the abominable idea of equality.”
Papa, who had declared to the world that all men are created equal, was long acquainted with Colonel Randolph’s bluster, and merely drank in silence. And in irritation, Mrs. Randolph chirped, “Shall we have Judith play another song?”
Alas, Colonel Randolph wouldn’t be silenced. “I won’t serve again in the legislature, and you should follow my example, Jefferson.”
Papa grimaced, contemplating the crystal goblet in his hand. “What else is left for me but public service when all my private happiness has been so utterly destroyed?”
Colonel Randolph swallowed and Mrs. Randolph fluttered her fan. In the astonished silence, Papa’s cheeks reddened. He’d been goaded into expressing his darkest thoughts and his embarrassment pained me like a hot stone in my belly. Some part of me had hoped the Randolphs would see my papa’s devastation, that they’d realize he was a man on the edge of something … terrible, but their silence was excruciating.
Young Tom had been slumped in his chair, trying to affect an air of manly indifference. But now he perked up, sitting straighter. “I’d like to serve in public office one day, Mr. Jefferson.”
I didn’t know if Tom blundered forth in self-interest or to ease the tension, but his question gave my father a moment to recover. His mother flashed him an adoring smile of appreciation, and the gratitude I felt toward Tom made me forget I’d ever disliked him.
“You’ll need an education,” Papa suggested. “You’ll want to study law—”
“He’ll study how to plant tobacco,” Colonel Randolph barked. “There’s good reason gentlemen are withdrawing from public life, my friend. Retire to Monticello, plant your crops, and enjoy the fruits of your labor. That’s my advice to you.”
Despite the colonel’s provocation, it seemed good advice to me; certainly, it was what Mama had wanted. And, in the days that followed, I hoped Papa would be persuaded by it. But on the day the Randolph sisters coaxed me to play with them and their dollies in the springtime sunshine, Papa saw me laughing and his gaze filled with an even deeper melancholy.
That night he didn’t sleep. He paced the floors of his room, then came into mine. I think he knew I’d be awake. Gently brushing my hair from my face beneath my sleeping cap, he asked, “Could you be happy here, Patsy? With the Randolphs?”
The question was mildly spoken, but his eyes had a mad intensity to them. Both sent my heart into a breath-stealing sprint. Was it a rebuke? Did he think I’d forgotten my mother? Did he consider my laughter a dishonor to her memory? My stomach knotted in guilt, and I bunched the quilt in my fists. “No.”
“The schoolhouse here,” he said softly. “Your grandfather built it. Judith and Nancy are suitable playmates, and Tom might even make a good husband for you one day.”
“No, Papa,” I insisted, my fears rising. “I couldn’t be happy here. Not without you.”
“You might be—”
“It’s not true, Papa.” Now anger swirled with fear inside me, forcing me to cry, “I can only be happy with you!”
“It’s only that circumstances might take me … elsewhere for a time.” He sighed with a gravity that made me recognize it as a plea. Even if he could hide it from the rest of the world, he couldn’t hide from me his longing for death. It was in the spaces and silences between his words that the truth could be found.
I heard it in what he didn’t say.
And I determined never to give him an excuse to take his leave of this world. “I’d be miserable here, Papa. I find the Randolphs entirely disagreeable. Wherever your duty takes you, it must take me, too.”
For the memory of my mother could not be honored, my promises could not be kept, and my own duty could not be met anywhere else.
Only when his shoulders sagged in resignation, and he pressed a tender kiss to my brow, did my heart finally calm within my chest. The next morning, I shied away from Judith and Nancy, instead following Mrs. Randolph past the schoolhouse into her orderly herb garden. There, in the striped linen short gown and straw hat she wore for gardening, she let me help her tend the raspberry and sweet goldenrod she used to brew her liberty tea. “I suppose now that the war is over, we’ll drink the real stuff again. But my boy Tom has been kind enough to pretend he’s fond of my concoction and I dare say your father likes it, too.”
The warm affection in her voice for her son and my father beckoned my trust. Should I tell her that Papa was unwell? Did I dare even hint at what he’d said the night before? Biting my lip, I debated what path was most right in a situation that was so very wrong. Finally, I stayed silent, knowing she wasn’t the sort to involve herself in the business of men.
Only someone like Colonel Randolph could make things right. And perhaps he tried, in his own way. When the gentlemen took their ease under an awning on the back lawn overlooking the James River, Papa sketched the gardens into a little leather book and I climbed into his lap, where he encouraged me to nibble at the untouched biscuits on his plate.
That’s when Colonel Randolph said, “Jefferson, if you stay longer, we’ll organize a horse race to be followed by an evening of dancing. No doubt, every pretty widow and unmarried girl in Virginia will want an invitation.”
Papa’s pencil stopped midstroke. “No doubt.”
Scowling after a gulp of his wife’s liberty tea, Colonel Randolph added, “Men like us weren’t meant to live alone.”
My father stiffened against my back, his whole body rigid and brittle. With awful clarity, I understood that Colonel Randolph was encouraging Papa to take a new wife. That was how he thought to help matters. He thought a new wife would keep Papa away from his pistols in the night, which meant that he didn’t understand my father’s grief at all, nor the promise that Papa had made at my mother’s deathbed.
My father quietly closed his sketchbook and excused himself with a litany of bland niceties. The next day, Papa announced our departure. I believed he’d finally realized there was nowhere else for us to go but home.
But I was wrong.
Annapolis, 28 November 1783
From Thomas Jefferson to his Dearest Patsy
The conviction that you’d be improved in the situation I’ve placed you solaces me in parting with you, which my love for you has rendered a difficult thing. Consider the good lady who has taken you under her roof as your mother, as the only person to whom, since the loss with which heaven has been pleased to afflict you, you can now look up.
The acquirements I hope you’ll make under the tutors I’ve provided will render you more worthy of my love, and if they cannot increase it they’ll prevent its diminution. I’ve placed my happiness on seeing you good and accomplished, and no distress this world can now bring on me could equal that of your disappointing my hopes.
On a cobblestone street of Philadelphia, sniffling into my sleeve like a little child, I pleaded, “But, Papa, why can’t I stay with you?”
I couldn’t believe what was happening. We’d only been home long enough to pay a visit to my sisters at Eppington before Papa informed all of us that he’d been elected to Congress and, this time, he meant to serve. Now, he meant to leave me in Philadelphia with a Mrs. Hopkinson—a patriotic goodwife supposedly well known for her pious virtues. Had I convinced Papa not to leave me with family and friends, only to have him abandon me with strangers?
I couldn’t fathom why Papa would take me by horse and carriage up bumpy roads and by ferry across treacherous rive
rs only to part with me here.
In truth, I cannot fathom his reasoning even now.
A wind blew down the alley, howling between the narrow spaces that separated Mrs. Hopkinson’s tall brick home from its neighbors, rattling the shutters. But my father didn’t take it as a sign of foreboding. Instead, he explained, “Congress is sure to convene in Philadelphia or nearby, and we need to attend to your education. I won’t be far from you day or night.”
In this he turned out to be wrong. Congress wasn’t called to Philadelphia, where, in the Independence Hall, Papa’s Declaration had been signed eight Julys before. Instead, because of a mutiny of Pennsylvania soldiers who hadn’t been paid their wages from the war, Philadelphia was deemed unsafe for the legislators. So, Congress was called to Annapolis, and three days later, Papa left for Maryland without me. All I knew, all I could see, was that I’d been abandoned in a huge, bustling city amongst strangers.
At first, panic left me inconsolable upon my borrowed bed. Despair rushed in close behind, making me listless and sullen. I was sure that I’d never see my beloved Papa again. At least I’d said my good-byes to Mama before she was taken from us. And she was taken; she hadn’t left of her own accord.
Not like Papa, who wanted to join her.
My distress was such that I struggled to keep down the victuals Mrs. Hopkinson served at her table. She wasn’t an unkind woman, but she urged me to pray for God’s solace, and she prayed often. Loudly.
I had a bevy of exotic tutors—the French Mr. Cenas, who taught dancing, the English Mr. Bentley, who taught music, the Swiss Mr. Simitière, who taught art, and a special tutor for the French language, too. But I didn’t wish to learn anything. Without my sisters or my papa, I didn’t even wish to rise from bed. My stomach pains worsened, but I feared Mrs. Hopkinson didn’t believe me, for the only tonic she offered was a morning prayer.
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