America's First Daughter: A Novel

by Stephanie Dray

  Who this dead, mangled man was, or what had caused his anguish, was something I was destined never to know. For my father took me at once in his arms and turned me away from the sight, cradling me against his chest while the rain and hot tears mingled on my cheeks. As I sobbed, my father shielded me from the horror and pulled me from it. When we’d stumbled some distance away, he clutched me tightly. “Oh, Patsy. Would that you had never seen it. Forgive me.”

  He murmured the sentiment over and over, the tempest hiding the words from everyone except me until I was sure he wasn’t speaking only of the dead man. Because despite the dreadful shock of the suicide we’d witnessed, and the reminder of my father’s own brush with pistols so long ago, I knew Papa’s grief came from someplace much deeper.

  His pain made the lingering doubts about the choice I’d made fly away. I couldn’t have abandoned my father. Neither for William Short nor for God could I have ever chosen a life away from Papa. The country he’d founded—the land he loved—needed him, and he needed me.

  If William had ever truly loved me, this was something he should’ve known and understood.

  TWO DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS, as we rolled up to the foot of our mountain with carts filled with French treasures, Papa’s black field hands and lighter-colored house slaves collected in crowds to greet us. Dressed in their best church clothes, they almost drew the carriage up the mountain by hand. When the door of the carriage was opened, they received their master in their arms and bore him to the house crowding round and kissing his hands—some crying, others laughing.

  It seemed impossible to satisfy their anxiety to touch and kiss the very earth that bore him. They lifted him up into the biting air against his wishes, carrying him to the house while James helped me and Polly and Sally down from the carriage. And in spite of being so heavy with child, once Sally got down, she ran into the arms of her mother.

  What did Sally’s mother think to see her children return from France, when they might’ve been free? The Hemingses were all too careful to let such emotions play freely on their faces, but I wondered if Sally’s mother was secretly furious or proud that her daughter was now the master’s mistress.

  “Oh, Miss Patsy,” Mammy Ursula exclaimed tearfully as she took in my elegant French dress and my pristine traveling gloves. “Look at the lady you’ve become. We’ve missed you so very much!”

  “I’ve missed you, too,” I said, a sudden tightness in my throat. Standing here again seemed almost a dream, and my heart swelled with affection and ached with guilt for having been gone so long. The lives of Papa’s people had been uncertain, at the mercy of those he put over them. They must’ve wondered if we’d forgotten them. If they’d be ripped away from each other and sold off like farm animals. And because of my father’s financial difficulties, we couldn’t even promise it wouldn’t happen.

  “Now, come in and we’ll get you settled,” Mammy insisted, leading me up the stairs into the house. That’s when I realized that the neoclassical double-porticoed plantation manor of my childhood was in shambles. Peeling paint, warped wood, crumbling stairs. Looming over a row of slave cabins in much better repair, the once-lovely mansion looked like it might fall off its pillars.

  “Mon Dieu!” whispered Polly, who had no memory of the house as it was. I could guess at her thoughts. This was Papa’s idyllic mountaintop refuge he boasted of so often?

  After an absence of six years, perhaps the dilapidated condition of the house was to be expected, but it very much gave the impression that we’d come down in the world. And inside was worse. We stepped past tarps that covered holes stripped down to the brick for renovations barely started and never finished. We’d have no indoor plumbing, as we’d enjoyed at the Hotel de Langeac. The furniture was moth-eaten.

  Not much had been made in the way of provisions, either. We lacked for bedding, candles, coffee, and firewood. It was almost Christmas and there was already a bite in the air; how were we to keep warm? Thankfully, I was mostly numb to the cold. A little bit numb to everything, really, since the day I left William Short.

  Or, to be more precise, since the day he told me he would not wait for me …

  Because our journey had been slowed with visits to friends and family along the way, I’d let myself believe that I’d return to Monticello to find a letter from William—a tearful letter reassuring me that all was not ended. Maybe even one that pleaded with me to return to him on the fastest ship I could find.

  But there were no letters from William Short waiting at Monticello. Not for me. Not even for my father. William couldn’t spare a scrap of paper or a blot of ink for either of us. And all hopes were dashed that the breach between us might ever be mended. I wasn’t as practiced at reading William’s silences as my father’s, but the finality of it came crashing down around me, smashing my heart to pieces.

  He wasn’t going to forgive me.

  He wasn’t going to wait for me.

  He was done with me forever.

  I’d made that choice—an irrevocable choice. How would I ever make peace with it?

  Chapter Sixteen

  Monticello, 2 April 1790

  From Thomas Jefferson to Madam De Corny

  My daughter, on her arrival in Virginia, received the addresses of a young Mr. Randolph, the son of a bosom friend of mine. Though his talents, dispositions, connections and fortune would’ve made him my own first choice, according to the usage of my country, I scrupulously suppressed my wishes, so that my daughter might indulge her own sentiments freely.

  THAT IS NOT, OF COURSE, THE WAY I REMEMBER IT.

  “I’ve invited Tom Randolph to join us at Christmas,” Papa announced as we took tea in our dilapidated parlor. One glance provided proof that our house was in no condition to receive visitors, but I protested because I wanted to be alone with my secret agonies. More importantly, I couldn’t bear visitors seeing Sally afforded deference by all the slaves at Monticello.

  Of course, I said none of this to Papa, who continued, “I intend to take your cousin Tom under my wing. He excelled in his studies at Edinburgh. With guidance he could be one of the great men of the next generation. Besides, Patsy, I should think you’d welcome his company. He’s no blockhead, and as the heir presumptive to Tuckahoe, Tom’s the most eligible bachelor amongst the Virginia gentry.”

  I couldn’t find a reply. Why should I care about the eligibility of the gangly and exceedingly maddening boy who taunted me in my youth? But I knew exactly why Papa thought I should care. After the drama in Paris, William Short had made no proposal of marriage. Whereas I was heartbroken at William’s silence, my father was furious at William’s apparent break with us and failure to update him on the revolution, considering that he’d entrusted to his young protégé our American mission in France.

  Papa felt betrayed, I think. Perhaps in Tom Randolph, he was seeking a new adoptive son… .

  “I’ve invited the Carr brothers, too,” Papa said, to put my mind at ease. “Trust me, Patsy, the season will be much merrier in the company of your cousins.”

  I couldn’t begin to see how. But for all of Papa’s insistence that he suppressed his feelings, when Tom came riding up our drive on Christmas morn, Papa quite nearly pushed me out the door to greet him.

  And I’ll say this for Tom. Even from the distance of all these years, staring at the smudged and yellowed letter in my hand, I can still remember the way my breath caught at the sight of him on that horse.

  Tom Randolph rode like a demon, his broad shoulders and strong arms exerting expert control over the animal beneath him. He was all athletic grace when he swung down from his saddle in a swirl of black cloak and his boots landed with a splash in the mud. He stood a good deal taller than even my father, so he had to bend his head to acknowledge me. His dark, savage eyes took in my gown and he drawled, “Well, I do declare, Miss Jefferson. You’ve turned into a Frenchwoman.”

  Given his unsmiling expression, I couldn’t tell if he meant it as a compliment or an insult, and
truthfully, I didn’t care. With jet-black hair and skin of an olive hue, he’d grown to be, without a doubt, the most handsome man I’d met on any continent. He was beautiful to behold in the way of artwork and more striking in plain riding clothes than a nobleman in satin and lace. I could acknowledge that about him as objective fact, because while his exotic allure roused something in my blood, it stirred nothing in a heart that still longed for William Short.

  Moreover, I was too weary to entertain a friendship with any American who didn’t embrace the French Revolution. Most of what our countrymen knew about France was defamatory and inflammatory. On several occasions already, Papa had been forced to defend the actions of patriots—as if we ought to blame the French peasants for not cheerfully starving in the streets.

  Personally, I couldn’t find it in my heart to pity the French royals, who were now rumored to be captives of the revolutionaries. I still recalled our harried flight in the dead of night from British soldiers sent by a king to capture my father. And to my mind, a king who brought troops against his own people was no worthy king at all, if ever there could be such a thing.

  So I merely held my head higher so Tom Randolph might get a better look at my red, white, and blue cockade. And I spoke not another word to him during our inelegant supper of chicken and root vegetables.

  But he was not to be put off. “Your cockade, Miss Jefferson. Did you wear it in honor of the French revolutionaries who stormed the Bastille?”

  As he’d addressed me directly, I replied. “Indeed. The king himself could’ve seen it if he’d looked up at my window upon entering Paris.” The king hadn’t looked up, but Lafayette had. And in that moment my life changed, and the French cause became the American cause in my heart.

  But that wasn’t what interested Tom. “I’m told your French is very elegant. You must be the most well-educated girl in Virginia. You’ve returned to us a very cultured and accomplished young woman.”

  It was a simple and unaffected compliment. One that I should’ve accepted with gracious thanks. But I sensed a flirtation and was still too raw to bear romantic attention with poise. To accept even harmless pleasantries made me feel something akin to nausea. So I answered with a dismissive flick of my fan, as the ladies did in France, to show unavailability and disinterest.

  Of course, I should’ve known better than to try to put off a Randolph with a show of snobbery.

  If anything, it made Tom like me better. When he’d known me as a girl, I’d had the stink of a country bumpkin—a lesser relation. Now I was as close to a lady from the Continent as could be found in Virginia. And I suppose Randolph pride demanded that my affections be won over.

  “Miss Jefferson,” Tom said, rising from the table with great informality. “Would you be so kind as to show me the grounds?”

  “There’s nothing to show. Everything’s covered in snow.”

  This earned me a frown from my father. But Tom Randolph fastened his black eyes on me with special intensity. “All the better. There’s a bleakness to snow that calls to me. A stark white challenge.”

  I had no idea what he could mean, and I meant to refuse him, but my father arched a brow in a way that presaged his displeasure. So I fetched my coat. And I let Tom lead me off into the winter forest, his hands clasped behind his back, as if to keep them from mischief.

  As we walked he towered over me, which was remarkable, since I was of a height with most men. “The forest has lost its color,” I said, feeling strangely small and delicate in his presence.

  “I like the trees this way. Stripped bare.” Before I could suspect him of innuendo, his voice lowered, gravely. “They’re so exposed now that we can see their great melancholy.”

  I thought I was the only one who ever considered that trees might suffer melancholy, and the way their branches drooped under the weight of the ice suddenly made my own limbs heavier in sympathy. “But springtime will come, and they’ll blossom again.”

  Tom stopped, taking the unpardonable liberty of grasping my chin. “Yes, but then, they’ll hide their true beauty behind a mask of showy flowers and leaves. That’s why I prefer them as they are now. You remind me of these trees, Miss Jefferson. You’re a veritable Venus with the eyes of a sage.”

  My gaze narrowed. There was something wrong with Tom Randolph. Something reckless and inappropriate and unguarded. I tried to shield myself from it, asking sarcastically, “What kind of eyes do sages have?”

  “Sad ones,” Tom replied. “You’re very sad.”

  As a rule, I wasn’t sad. I’d been raised to mantle myself always in cheer, and everyone but William Short said I had my father’s agreeable disposition. Yet, in that moment, at the vulnerable age of seventeen, stripped bare of all my defenses, I fought back sudden tears. And this man—this stranger, in truth—saw the darkness inside me and found it alluring.

  Taking a kerchief from his coat, he said, “You can cry, Patsy.”

  But I couldn’t give him the satisfaction. I couldn’t open that well inside me, or I’d never get it closed again.

  THE NEXT MORNING, Papa allowed Sally to accompany him into town to pick up some candle snuffers and other supplies at the store where her sister Mary had taken up with the storekeeper, Mr. Bell. Sally and Mary had both become mistresses to white men. I wondered if that was to be the natural fate of pretty mulatto girls in Virginia.

  Watching Papa help Sally alight the carriage, I regretted having lashed out at her. She’d been wary of me since I struck her, and I wanted to beg her forgiveness but couldn’t find the words to do so. Especially not when I felt locked in some manner of battle with her for my father’s affections.

  Sally was nearing her time now. Her baby would come in a month or so. If she worried that she’d made a mistake, she’d never say. She’d made her choice and I’d made mine, and now we both had to reconcile ourselves to it. So I stood at the front window watching Papa and Sally ride off, lost in my thoughts.

  Tom came upon me so stealthily that he gave me a start. “I’ve a gift for you.” He presented a book of sheet music and a few lines of poetry scribbled on pretty bark paper. “The music is from my sisters, but the poem is from me.”

  I cringed because though I’d brought back from Paris some fripperies for his sisters Nancy and Judith, I’d quite forgotten him. “I’m afraid I’ve no gift for you in return and know little of poetry.”

  “It’s about my late mother,” he said, and my heart filled with sorrow to know that the lady who had once taken me into her herb garden to teach me about liberty tea had perished. “Given the loss of your own mother, I thought it might speak to you.”

  It did, I confess. I’d thought myself quite the most miserable person in the world, but Tom’s verse of grief for his mother reminded me that there were worse pains in this world than romantic heartbreak.

  Before I could tell him so, Polly raced in, the puppies we’d finally found after that grisly day on the cliffs of England nipping at her heels. “Come on, Patsy,” she cried. “You and Tom, come skate with us on the big pond!” Near the end of the trail, she and the Carr brothers ran about, making a little war game with snowballs.

  They wanted me to enjoy myself, but Tom didn’t seem to mind that I couldn’t smile. When I hit a patch of ice that sent me down hard, knocking the wind from my lungs, he lay down beside me, staring up at the clouds.

  I remembered William when we fell together in the snow. The way his little finger had clasped mine, and the way I’d felt, so innocently, as if our hearts had touched. And then, that night, I’d seen Papa and Sally… .

  That was, I think, the very last moment I was an innocent. Now, when my belief in the sweetness and goodness of romantic love was so tarnished, I feared Tom Randolph would whisper sweet things in my ear just as likely to melt away to nothing.

  But there was no playfulness or guile in Tom. In truth, he was as different from William as could be. Instead of whispering sweet words, he pressed his whole body against me in such a reckless manner that
I could feel his desire.

  Desire. Could a man as handsome as Tom Randolph possibly want me?

  There was no mistaking the predatory gleam in his eye. His excitement, his fears, his happiness and pains were always very close to his skin. And now they were close to mine.

  Feeling the creep of his fingers into my cloak, I asked, “What are you doing?”

  “I want to kiss you,” he replied hoarsely. “I want very much to kiss you and beg your leave to do so.”

  My heartbeat kicked up in offense. “Tom, we scarcely know one another.”

  “To the contrary, we’ve known each other since we were children. But we’re not children anymore. I’m twenty-one and you’re seventeen and there’s nothing to stop us from doing as nature demands.”

  As nature demands …

  I told myself that Tom’s sudden interest in me had to do with his admiration for my father. I told myself that by my indifference to him, I’d inadvertently set myself up as the fox to his hound. But I think the truth was that his blood ran hot at the sight of me sad and helpless and mired in the snow. And another truth was that his lustful gaze promised me obliteration. Obliteration of thought, of pain, of doubt.

  So when he bent to kiss me, I didn’t turn away.

  “SAY YOU’LL MARRY ME, PATSY.” The demand came between panting breaths in the dark of the little schoolhouse at Tuckahoe where Tom and I had stolen away to exchange fevered kisses that made me forget everything.

  Only a week had passed since that first, reluctant kiss, and my reluctance hadn’t entirely faded. But his kisses appealed to me for a new reason, a darker reason, a carnal reason. They made my body burn. It mattered not that I didn’t desire the reaction. With his mouth on my skin and his hands skimming over my bodice, I almost felt as if I were possessed.