People forgot the fragility of our enterprise as a new nation, and sometimes forgot, too, how much we owed France for it. But it was different for my father and me. We’d gone from one revolution to another, leaving America flush with victory only to find ourselves ensnared in the same struggle for liberty on a distant shore.
For us, the revolution had never ended.
Papa’s words had shaken the world, but if liberty failed in France, it could still fail in America, too. Then everything we’d sacrificed would be for naught. However, letting my eyes caress each cherished word of Marie’s letter, it wasn’t only the politics that pained me—there were also the lines she penned of William Short.
According to Marie, he had despaired my leaving France. So much so that when she asked after his feelings for me, William angrily renounced them. Marie didn’t believe him; she wrote that she thought he still loved me. But this was long ago. It had been just over a year since I’d left him, and now I was great with another man’s child.
It doesn’t matter any longer, I told myself.
Nevertheless, my mind was still in a fog of regret when I stumbled upon my husband in the greenhouse, some unrecognizably bloody animal hacked to pieces on a butcher block under his hands. “What can you be doing?” I asked, tugging my shawl around me.
“Dissecting a dead opossum,” Tom replied, as if there were nothing odd about it at all. The kill was fresh, judging by the steam still rising off the remains of the carcass in the chilly air. “Your father has engaged in a debate with someone about the creature, and asked me to perform some experiments and observations to keep in a diary along with meteorological readings.”
I pressed my hand to my mouth, unable to look away from the gore. Only my father would debate anyone about opossums! If Papa still did have a madness, it was in that he had to take a measure of everything under God’s creation, obsessively recording the tiniest minutiae, as if it would all add up to an answer for what ailed us in this world. And now he’d dragged poor Tom into it. Poor Tom, who was here running another man’s plantation—my father’s plantation—instead of his own. And for my comfort.
I cleared my throat. “I regret my father has troubled you with this.”
“It’s no trouble,” Tom said, wiping bloody hands on a gardener’s apron.
He was being mannerly. My husband had been ripping out dead trees for my father and planting new ones at Monticello, working himself from dawn to dusk. And when he wasn’t busy with that, he was kindly tutoring my little sister in arithmetic and botany. He wasn’t as tired as he’d been at Varina, but he was restless, as if always finding new ways to prove himself.
“Papa will understand that you’re too busy to indulge every little curiosity.”
“Patsy,” Tom said, with a sheepish shake of his head, “I’m happy to do whatever Mr. Jefferson asks because your father wants to learn everything, whereas mine thinks he’s got nothing left to learn. And if my father ever did have a question, I’m the last person he’d ask for help.”
Seemingly of its own accord, my body moved closer to him. My hand found Tom’s cheek and stroked it tenderly. Bashfully, he turned his face to kiss my palm, careful not to touch me with his own bloodied hands. “Don’t suppose you’ve a French recipe for opossum stew?” he asked.
I laughed. And in that moment, my life in Paris seemed as far away as the stars.
Part Two
Founding Mother
Chapter Nineteen
Monticello, 8 February 1791
To Thomas Jefferson from Thomas Mann Randolph Jr.
Patsy continues in very good health and would’ve written herself had I not prevented her from the fear of her being fatigued. The little one is perfectly well and increases in size very fast. We are desirous that you should honor her and us by conferring a name on her and have deferred the christening till we hear from you.
OUR DAUGHTER ARRIVED three weeks into the new year, a whole month early, leaving me fevered. But love cured me of that fever. Love for the little baby, bald and blue-eyed as she was, with a pink gurgling smile.
Because we were waiting on Papa for a name, the poor baby girl went without one for two whole months. But it was worth the wait. Papa chose Ann, after Tom’s dead mother.
Nothing could’ve pleased my husband more—except maybe a son of his own. The night of Ann’s christening, I rested in bed with Tom, the baby between us. My husband looked happy, and it made me want to find ways to make his happiness stick.
As the baby suckled, I whispered, “If it’s in God’s will to bless us, I’ll yet give you a boy.”
Planting a playful kiss on my bared shoulder, Tom’s eyes smoldered. “When can we start on that business, Mrs. Randolph?”
Though I wasn’t in any condition to entertain the notion, I smiled. “In due time, Mr. Randolph. In due time.”
With an uncharacteristic grin, he nodded, gently brushing our baby’s cheek. “For tonight then, I’ll content myself to be truly pleased with our Ann.”
He’ll be a good father, I thought, softening to him as I hadn’t allowed myself to before. We were a family now—a reality brought home to me more powerfully when my husband’s four young sisters fled to us en masse one cold day.
“We can’t stay at Tuckahoe anymore,” said Nancy, at sixteen, the oldest of the four. “Our father’s wife is a monster!” Nancy wept on Tom’s shoulder while he patted her back. “She slaps the little ones. She says it’d be a happier home without them, so I took them with me … not that our father cares one way or the other.”
The servants had ushered the younger girls into the kitchen for a spot of warm milk, and I was glad for them not to hear Nancy’s words, true though I believed them to be. “I’m sure Colonel Randolph loves you all very much,” I said, though I was sure of no such thing.
“No,” Nancy sobbed. “He loves only that vile woman.”
With baby Ann in the crook of my arm, I knelt before Nancy and grasped her hand. “Oh, he’s just enamored of her youth. In time, when the ardor fades—” I stopped speaking then, because Sally came in, setting down a tray of tea for us.
“It’ll be too late then,” Nancy cried. “My father insists that I marry the man he chooses or leave his house. But it’s her choice.”
I could guess which kind of man Gabriella Harvie Randolph might choose for her stepdaughter. Someone old and wealthy, on a faraway farm. So I persisted in my silence until Nancy sniffled and said, “Well, I left her a farewell gift anyway. I scratched the date of our mother’s death into a windowpane to remind Gabriella that no matter how many coats of white paint she puts in the parlor, she’s only the mistress of Tuckahoe because our mother is dead.”
“Oh, dear,” I said, imagining the trouble that might cause. Did all the Randolphs show their emotions so openly—going so far, even, as to enshrine them in glass? “Well, now you’ll have to stay with us until tempers cool.”
Nancy sobbed her gratitude. “I won’t be a burden to you. I won’t stay long. I’m not sure what to do with the younger girls, but Judith says I can live with her family at Bizarre plantation.”
At this, my husband stiffened. “No.”
Tom’s flat refusal surprised me. He must have surprised Nancy, too, because she whined, “Why ever not?”
Tom narrowed his dark eyes. “You know what I think of Richard Randolph.”
Curious. He’d never said anything about his brother-in-law to me.
My husband continued, “The Matoax Randolphs are scoundrels, every last one of them. Richard, Theo, and John. No. To say they’re scoundrels is too kind—and does a bit of injury to scoundrels.”
Nancy gasped. “But I’m so fond of Theo!”
The tension in Tom’s ticking jaw made it clear how hard he worked to keep his anger reined in. “All the more reason you can’t stay at Bizarre unchaperoned.”
Tom was being strangely unreasonable. If he couldn’t trust his own brother-in-law to look after Nancy, who could he trust? But my hu
sband’s family had a knack for working him into a state.
He crossed his arms. “Richard Randolph isn’t a fit guardian for you, Nancy.”
Nancy blew on her tea. “He’s married to our sister.”
“Only because we had no choice but to let him marry her!” Tom’s sudden shout was so unexpected that I jumped and baby Ann wailed in my arms. I rose to rock and console her. Meanwhile, Tom seethed. “Richard purposefully got Judy into a delicate condition—”
Tom’s gaze cut to my face, and he swallowed his words, as if belatedly recalling my presence in the room. Or perhaps it was the sight of my mouth hanging agape that gave him pause. Richard and Judith’s wedding had seemed a happy one, without a trace of distrust or discontent, and Judy had borne no child. So why did Tom think … ?
I didn’t know. But I did know that appearances could be deceiving, and Virginians are better at hiding their troubles than just about any other people on earth. So, I snapped my mouth shut again.
“Oh, Tom,” Nancy said, waving her handkerchief in dismissal. “Judy and Richard aren’t the first country lovers to fall into bed before they said vows. Why, you and Patsy—”
“Did no such thing!” Tom roared, a vein throbbing at his temple. “I’ll thank you to apologize.”
Nancy paled. “Oh, Patsy, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“It’s quite all right,” I said, though I was sure she meant exactly what Tom feared she did.
Nancy turned her eyes back to Tom. “Richard did marry Judy, and no child came about in the end, so what difference does it make?”
Tom’s eyes bulged. “What difference? That you could ask is a demonstration of why you’re not going to Bizarre. And that’s the end of it.”
That wasn’t the end of it. When Tom stomped off to attend one of the many chores my father set for him, Nancy pleaded with me. “Patsy, won’t you soften my brother to my situation? My prospects for love and marriage are better at Bizarre.”
I saw her predicament. Without Colonel Randolph’s protection, all Nancy had was youth and looks. I didn’t blame her for being terrified of becoming either the wife of a man she loathed or a spinster, dependent on all her relatives.
That night, I asked Tom, “You won’t send all your sisters back to your stepmother’s care at Tuckahoe, will you?”
He rubbed at his face with both hands and blew out a sigh. “Gabriella Harvie is evil incarnate.”
I nodded. “Your father must be blinded by her beauty.”
“She’s not beautiful,” Tom grumbled. “There is nothing interesting about her face or manner whatsoever.” Oh, but Gabriella was beautiful. So it warmed my heart that Tom couldn’t see it. But then, he never even liked trees in all their showy foliage. “You cannot imagine how I want to keep my sisters from her, but how—”
“Let them stay here with us as long as they like,” I said.
His head jerked up and he stared. “Patsy, your days and nights are already occupied with caring for a newborn baby. How will you manage all our sisters, a gaggle of motherless girls ranging from the ages of four to sixteen?”
“I’ll manage it somehow,” I said. “And meanwhile, we might as well let Nancy stay at Bizarre, where she’ll have a better chance at finding a suitable husband than here, where we’ll be caught up in caring for all the girls.”
All at once, Tom kissed me. A kiss full of gratitude and urgency. And it reminded me of the kiss he’d given me when I’d first voiced my concern for his sisters. In the carriage. His love and concern for his sisters, whom no one else in the world cared for, made me love him yet a little more.
Tom understood the need to protect your family, something that had always been so important to me. As a new babe grew in my belly, I thought perhaps the thing for Tom I felt that was deeper than love might be dedication.
And it was because of that emotion that I changed his mind, and in the end, Nancy had her way.
A thing that gave us all much cause to regret.
“WHY, MY DEAREST DAUGHTER, you’ve brought forth a reformation here at Monticello,” Papa said, approving of the way I’d organized the larder. He’d come home that autumn to dote upon me and my baby girl, but had kind words for Tom, too, and the way he’d managed things.
This paternal praise fell on Tom like rain on dry, drought-ridden fields; my husband swelled with such pride that I began to wonder if he’d ever heard a kind word in his life. But we weren’t the only ones hanging upon my father’s every kind word… .
Sally Hemings put on her best dress for Papa’s homecoming, and I watched—while pretending not to watch—the reunion between my father and his lover, the first since the death of their child. But neither Papa, nor Sally, gave my prying eyes satisfaction. In fact, for some curious reason, my father kept a scrupulous distance from her.
There were no flirtatious glances and—as if by silent assent—Sally no longer tended my father’s chambers. It was her older brother Martin who brought a daily bath of cold water for my father’s feet. I wondered if perhaps they were just keeping their affair secret, given all the girls now living in our house. In Paris they’d kept it secret … until they couldn’t. Papa had been shamed to be thought a seducer, but he was infatuated then. Maybe now the shame was stronger than the infatuation. Or maybe their sadness over the baby’s death had extinguished the fire of ardor between them completely.
When Papa readied to leave again for Philadelphia—this time to take my little sister and our cousin Jack Eppes with him—Sally and I found ourselves standing on the front steps together to say farewell. Papa gave her a chaste hug good-bye and I heard her sigh. She’d given my father her freedom and a son. Now both were lost to her … and perhaps he was, too.
Understand that at eighteen years old, Sally Hemings was more beautiful than ever. Men flirted with her, but I never saw her encourage them, and I had the sense that even if we hadn’t been watching, she never would. I believed that my father was the only man she wanted, and he’d just left her on the steps without so much as a kiss.
I would have sighed, too. And my sympathy for Sally overcame the pang of jealousy that my sister would be living in some tidy town-home in the nation’s capital with Papa. Hopping up into the carriage, my sister reminded me, “You had Papa to yourself in Paris for a long time. Now it’s my turn!”
Conceding, I kissed her nose. “Don’t be too lazy to write, little Polly.”
“Call me Mary, now. Or Maria, if you must.” She wouldn’t have suggested that name if she remembered Maria Cosway, but that woman was an ocean away now, rumored to have abandoned her husband and their newborn daughter to join a convent.
Inhaling the milk scent of my own daughter’s cheek, I couldn’t imagine life without her, much less becoming a nun. If love had shaken my faith in a convent vocation, motherhood had shattered it completely. So I banished all thoughts of Maria in the convent, and as my sister tucked herself into the carriage next to our father, I cried, “Adieu, Papa. Adieu, Maria.”
Sally and I stood there together until the carriage rolled out of sight.
Then it was time to deal with Tom’s sisters.
With the hickory smoke of November rising from smokestacks at every farm, we took Nancy, according to her wishes, to live at Bizarre plantation in Cumberland County. There was nothing especially bizarre about the modest two-story house that sat atop a giant slab of cut stone, though the people who lived there were a bit strange.
Theo Randolph was a thin, sickly young man whose nervous disorder required a dependence on laudanum. Or so he said. Then there was his flamboyant brother John, whose youthful appearance belied his years as a result of a childhood illness. An illness some said occasioned his high voice, dramatic manner, and impotence with women.
Richard and Judith—the master and mistress of the plantation—seemed ordinary enough, but there didn’t seem to be much planting going on here, where they believed themselves far too genteel to embrace any other profession. Tom, grumbling that one of
the Randolph brothers of Bizarre had been expelled from school, added, “I feel like I’m leaving her in a bawdy house!”
I tried to soothe him. “Why don’t we take them up on their offer to winter over here?”
As Tom held our daughter’s little arms, teaching her to walk, he grumbled again. “They didn’t mean for us to take them up on it.”
“Nevertheless, they can’t refuse now that they’ve offered. We can help the girls settle in and ease your worries.”
Tom eyed me, as if stunned by the devious turn of my mind, but agreed. And during those blustery cold months, I helped set up housekeeping, since Judith was heavy with her first child. We ended up staying for nearly three months in all, Tom watching—like a hawk—Theo’s every move toward our virginal Nancy.
If only he’d been watching Richard.
I scarcely took notice of the way Nancy giggled whenever our host said something amusing. Or the way, when Richard hugged her, they embraced too long. Holding hands briefly before bed. Whispering in one another’s ear. I suppose I noticed all these things but dismissed them as Nancy’s gratitude to her brother-in-law for taking her in when her own father was so utterly indifferent to her.
“Tom, truly. Neither John nor Theo has an eye for Nancy. And Richard’s watching out for her. You see how attentive he is,” I said as we prepared for bed one night.
I should’ve been more suspicious. I should’ve wondered what those whispers and giggles meant, but by February I was distracted and bursting with happy news. “Mr. Randolph, I’m going to give you the son you so desire.”
Tom lifted me up, clasping me against him, spinning me round, and in our joy, we left Bizarre plantation without suspecting a thing.
Monticello, 9 September 1792
From Thomas Jefferson to President George Washington
America's First Daughter: A Novel Page 27
