America's First Daughter: A Novel

by Stephanie Dray

  That the news had traveled so far, so fast, surprised me. But it shouldn’t have. In slave society, families on one plantation almost always had kin on another. Slaves hired out, they traveled as messengers, worked as boatmen and coach drivers, and saw one another at church. If they wanted to get word to each other, they could. What should have surprised me was the insistence of the slaves telling this tale, even under threat of their master’s whip.

  With a weary sigh, I nodded. “We’ve heard it, Sally. It’s just Mr. Harrison’s people telling a malicious story and they’ll be punished for spreading it.”

  Sally gave a quick shake of her head, her bronze fingers tightening into fists. “At least twelve of Mr. Harrison’s people claim to know something of it personally. Maids saw Miss Nancy naked and big with child. Some heard her scream at night. Some saw Richard Randolph go into her room. And there’s a bloodstained wood shingle.”

  So Richard had apparently taken no care to shield his sins from their eyes. Such indiscretion might be that of a man who wished to help his sister-in-law in need. Or in a man who was guilty.

  Either way, it was the act of a fool.

  Sally leaned in. “White folk are talking, too. Mr. Page says he’s seen Richard Randolph’s familiarity with Miss Nancy, kissing and hugging on her. Nancy’s aunt says she saw her in a state of undress … that she was with child. And the white housekeeper saw bloody sheets the next day.”

  White witnesses. That changed absolutely everything. I glanced nervously at the house, hoping Tom was well out of earshot.

  Sally lowered her voice to a whisper. “I heard it at Mr. Bell’s store. My sister Mary thought it might touch on us, here at Monticello, given that Miss Nancy stayed here for a time. And given what people are saying about your father.”

  That stopped me cold. “What are people saying about Papa?”

  Sally’s pretty dark lashes swept low. “You haven’t seen the gazettes?”

  Most of the Hemingses could read and write, though how they’d learned, I’d never asked. Still, it surprised me a little that they’d been following matters in the papers. “Let me see them.”

  “We haven’t any papers here,” Sally said. “They’re all down at Mr. Bell’s store. But it’s dreadful. In the press, Master Jefferson is being attacked for everything from intrigue to dishonor.”

  Fury washed through me. I was already road weary and worried for my husband’s state. And now to learn Papa had been attacked! Despite my exhaustion, I got back in the carriage and summoned Sally to follow, telling the driver, “To Charlottesville, straightaway.”

  MR. BELL’S STORE stood on the corner of Main Street. Boxes and barrels crowded together in the middle of the wood plank floor while tins and glass bottles and blue-painted plates lined the shelves. The scent of lavender wafted down from baskets hanging on the eaves overhead so that, tall as I was, I had to stoop to get to the counter where Mary Hemings busied herself boxing up a pipe for a customer, who replied, “Thank you, Mrs. Bell.”

  Mary wasn’t Mr. Bell’s wife, but given the way Thomas Bell smiled at her from where he stacked goods on a high shelf, he was plainly smitten. Everyone in Charlottesville seemed willing to accept the arrangement, and I was happy to do the same.

  Sally sorted through stacks of pamphlets and pulled free some copies of the Gazette of the United States. Handing them to me, she warned, “It’ll sicken you.”

  Nevertheless, I began flipping through the pages of papers published this past summer and fall. My eyes landed on one passage right away.

  Cautious and shy, wrapped up in impenetrable silence and mystery, seated on his pivot chair, Mr. Jefferson is involved in political deception… .

  I’d seldom heard a word of censure against my father. He’d been, here in America and in France, idolized by nearly everyone. I suppose that’s why my cheeks stung to read such pointed criticism. Rifling through pages so violently I might’ve torn them, I found another attack.

  Had an inquisitive mind sought evidence of Mr. Jefferson’s abilities as a statesman, he’d have found the confusions in France. As a warrior, to his exploits at Monticello. As a mathematician, to his whirligig chair.

  I frowned anew that anyone might blame the “confusions” in France upon Papa and not the royalists who bankrupted their country and left the peasants to starve. It embittered me, too, that we were to still suffer censure for our late-night flight from Monticello—where I suppose they believed we ought to have brandished pistols and pitchforks against the trained British dragoons, women and children, and all.

  And what was their obsession with my father’s chair?

  As a philosopher, his discovery of the inferiority of blacks to whites, because they’re unsavory and secrete more by the kidneys.

  There I stopped, remembering that Sally had brought this to my attention. Perhaps if I’d not come of age in France, I wouldn’t have felt such an acute shame, but I couldn’t look at either Sally or Mary. I could only whisper, “Who wrote this? Do we know these men?”

  Mr. Bell stepped down off his ladder. “Some say it’s the secretary of the treasury using different names.” Given all my father had said of Mr. Hamilton, I believed it. “But plenty of others agree with him. Not just northerners either. John Marshall is leading the Federalists here in Virginia, and now Patrick Henry is going over to that side, too.”

  Patrick Henry. The very man who cried give me liberty or give me death, had spread the story of my father’s supposed cowardice in the face of British soldiers. Though I had only childhood memories of the famous orator, I’d long disliked Patrick Henry as my father’s political enemy. Now my anger was fueled anew.

  “They’re calling on your father to resign,” Sally said, pulling me from my bitter thoughts. “They’re digging for an excuse, and the gossip about your kin—”

  “Nancy Randolph hasn’t been under my father’s roof in nearly two years!” Quickly, I brought my fingers to my lips, as if to recall what I’d said, for it was a tacit admission that I believed my sister-in-law guilty.

  Fortunately, if the Hemingses knew anything, it was discretion. Clutching one of the screeds against my father, Sally replied, “It doesn’t seem as if Federalist writers care much for facts or fairness.”

  No, they didn’t. And if these men could work themselves up into such a furor over my father’s chair, what would they make of kin who lived in incestuous and adulterous union, and murdered a baby? Still, I tried to persuade myself that the scandal wouldn’t touch my family. “Surely, no one could think my father would tolerate the debauching… .”

  There I trailed off. I couldn’t pretend in front of the Hemingses—no matter how discreet they might be—that nothing improper ever took place under my father’s roof.

  For Sally Hemings was proof that, in fact, it did.

  HONOR. IN VIRGINIA it wasn’t merely a matter of masculine pride—it was a matter of survival. Every loan for the farm, every advance of credit for seeds and foodstuffs, every public office and proposal of marriage depended on honor.

  Men would fight and die for it.

  And women would lie for it.

  Which is why, whenever asked about the rumors about Nancy and Richard—as I was, more and more often that spring—I dismissed it as an absurd story having no merit.

  If only others had done the same.

  When Tom learned there were white witnesses, he flew into a rage that had him slamming about the house, heaping undeserved abuse on every servant he passed. And whenever he heard Richard’s name, he cursed in the most obscene manner possible. Egged on by his younger brother, Tom determined to ride out and rescue Nancy from the clutches of her seducer, who must be made to confess and suffer the loss of his honor.

  Tom said it often, and to everyone who’d listen, which struck me as madness, for it fueled the gossip.

  But then, the entire world had gone mad.

  The new revolutionary government in France had charged Lafayette with treason. A galling notion—the ve
ry idea of Lafayette being a traitor to the revolution he helped start was an unjust, enraging indignity! More ridiculous and horrifying was that in attempting to escape arrest, Lafayette had been caught by counterrevolutionary forces, who also deemed him a traitor.

  He was, as of the last news we had, in a dungeon awaiting execution.

  Even consumed at Monticello with chores, child rearing, and family scandal, I couldn’t seem to shake the violence this news did to my faith in the revolution. What knaves had come to power in France that they could turn on Lafayette?

  Perhaps the same sort of knaves who hounded my father in the papers, savaging his ethics, and twisting every word that flowed from his pen …

  That’s why I wasn’t surprised when Papa wrote to tell me that he couldn’t resign for fear his enemies would say he was driven out of office or that Washington had no confidence in him. Or they’d say that he ran from public office like he ran from the British.

  No, he couldn’t be seen to leave under a cloud.

  I was brooding about this while making bayberry wax candles, Tom’s favorite, because of its pleasant fragrance. It soothed him, he said, and he clearly needed soothing, given the way his boots banged heavily into the cellar kitchen where I prepared the wicks.

  Arms crossed over his chest, as if he could scarcely contain his pounding heart, Tom growled out, “Richard dared to show his face at Tuckahoe, the shameless cur!”

  Shameless indeed for the seducer to have visited the home of his victim’s father and brothers, I thought. Reckless, even. It wouldn’t have surprised me to hear Colonel Randolph had pulled a pistol on him. “What did he have to say for himself?”

  Tom threw out his arms. “Richard asked—nay, demanded—that we stop accusing him of despoiling our sister’s purity!”

  Let it never be said that the Randolphs—any of them—lacked in boldness.

  While I let out a surprised puff of air, Tom ranted on. “Richard first insisted it was all a malicious lie. He claimed Nancy’s virtue is still intact and that if we wanted to preserve her reputation, we ought to all keep quiet and join a slander suit against anyone who’d spread the tale.”

  “Perhaps that’s best,” I ventured. “If the family doesn’t rally around your sister and profess a belief in her innocence, Nancy will be ruined.”

  “She is ruined!” Tom exploded, his voice echoing off the ceiling. “When my father refused, Richard tried his next gambit. He has a letter written by Nancy confessing her pregnancy and naming a dead man as her seducer. Her letter allegedly says Theo was the father, the child was stillborn, and she absolves Richard of all culpability.”

  I gasped that Nancy should put such a confession to paper, then flushed to remember that I’d suggested Theo as her seducer in the first place. Poor deluded Nancy must have determined that if she couldn’t save herself she’d save her lover instead. “You have the letter?”

  Tom’s hand flexed at his side, then balled in a tight fist. “Richard kept it and intends to vindicate himself on a field of honor. He’s called out my brother.”

  Icy dread rushed through my veins. “Your brother will duel over this?”

  “No. My brother won’t give Richard the satisfaction of pretending he’s an equal or a man of honor. But I swear, if Richard Randolph tries to transfer the stigma and evade blame, I will wash out the stain on my family honor with his blood.”

  Now the icy dread froze inside me, for I’d never heard such a sure promise of violence in my life. And it came from the man that I’d married. The man I’d come to love. Trying to reason with him, I murmured, “But Theo is dead. He’s the one least likely to suffer for it. Maybe you should let him take the blame for the blot on your sister’s reputation.”

  Tom slammed his hand to the tabletop. “Richard did it, Patsy! He did everything they’re saying he did. That creature seduced my sister—both my sisters. Then he killed an innocent babe. It isn’t gossip. I know it happened. I know it’s all true.”

  Alarmed at the state he was working himself into, I put my hand on his cheek. “Tom, if it’s going to destroy your family, what does it matter if it’s true?”

  At this question, my husband jerked away, his black eyes burning. “What sort of man do you take me for, Martha Jefferson Randolph?” He so seldom used my proper name that I stiffened. So did he. “If he pushes me to it, I’ll put a bullet in his heart, because I’m a gentleman of Virginia and cannot countenance a lie.”

  To this day, I don’t know why his words provoked me so. Perhaps it was that like my mother before me, I’d heard my fill of supposedly high-minded ideals that rocked nations, put unhappy women in their graves, and somehow ended with people I loved being chased or captured to await execution.

  Which would be exactly the fate of Richard and Nancy if their own kin wouldn’t come to their aid. Or it could end with a duel and my husband, the father of my babies, shot dead. I wouldn’t have it. I simply wouldn’t have it. “What sort of man do I take you for, Thomas Mann Randolph? Why, I suppose the sort of man who has enough sense to keep his mouth shut even if it costs him some pride.”

  In reply, Tom screamed in my face, “You dare speak to me about the cost of pride? We were there at Bizarre when my sister’s bastard was conceived! There, where I took Nancy on your say-so. If Richard Randolph isn’t to blame for my sister’s disgrace, then I am. And everyone in Virginia seems to know it but you!”

  I never saw the blow coming.

  My husband’s backhand caught me high on the cheek and pain exploded behind my eye in a burst of tiny fireworks. I don’t remember falling, and for a second or two, I couldn’t fathom how I came to be on the floor. My vision swam with tears and black fuzzy cobwebs of pain.

  No one had ever put violent hands on me. Never in my whole life. Not even a nun had so much as laid a strap across my knuckles. I think it was the shock of it, more than the pain, that left me trembling so badly I couldn’t rise to my knees. When I finally looked up, I saw that my husband looked just as shocked.

  “Dear God,” Tom whispered, hoarsely, sinking to the floor beside me. He brought his shaking hand to my hair, and I flinched, refusing to let him tilt my face to his view. “Dear God, what have I done to you?”

  I’m not sure what I’d have said had the door not flown open. But open it did, and there stood Sally, her kerchief tight on her head, her brow furrowing as she took in the scene.

  “What do you think you’re doing, Sally?” Tom snapped. “No one called for you.”

  She ought to have fled, but when her majestic eyes found me sprawled on the floor, she stubbornly set her jaw. “Thought I heard something fall … you all right, Miss Patsy?”

  I couldn’t bear for Sally to know how I’d been disciplined by my husband. That he’d struck me, just as I’d once struck her. “Perfectly fine,” I said over the lump in my throat. “These long and clumsy legs of mine get tangled up sometimes. Tripped over that basket.”

  If she knew I was lying, she gave nothing away. Pushing past my husband, she said, “I’ll help you up.”

  But gently taking my forearms, Tom said, “No need. I have her now.”

  I WAS ALMOST GLAD THAT HE’D HIT ME.

  Glad because it absolved me of my guilt.

  I’d fretted about my father’s reputation, but I’d given too little thought to Tom’s. I deserved to be slapped to my senses. Everyone would have thought so. Besides, the incident seemed to have shaken Tom to his foundations. The man who said his honor wouldn’t countenance a lie hadn’t contradicted the story I told Sally. He’d taken me to our bedroom and suffered no one else to tend me, bringing me a cold wet cloth for my face and my supper tray with a bouquet of springtime flowers from the gardens.

  Now he sat at my bedside, kissing my hand again and again, wetting it with his tears. “Forgive me, Patsy, though I don’t deserve it. Please, forgive me for lifting a hand against you. What a wretched man I am. Heartless, just like my father.”

  “You aren’t wretched or heartless,�
�� I said softly, reminding myself that I’d no right to speak to him the way I did and that he had every right to correct me for it. “I’ll gladly forgive your lifting a hand against me if you forgive me for having given such offense to have occasioned it.”

  His voice was still shaky, his thumb reaching to brush the rising bruise underneath my eye. “There’s nothing you could say to justify my leaving such a mark on you. I’ve hurt you. My adored wife.”

  Though my cheek still throbbed, I said, “It’ll heal and be forgotten.”

  His expression crumbled again, with anguish and self-loathing. “No. I’ll never forget it. And it’ll never happen again. I’ll never again betray the sacred charge your father put in me in giving you over into my authority. A husband ought to be kind and indulgent with his wife. To protect her from harm. It won’t happen again, Patsy.”

  I believed him.

  His tortured expression would have been enough to convince me, but his behavior after confirmed it. For Tom never again spoke of dueling with Richard Randolph and resolved to be the peacemaker in his family. He didn’t even rise to the bait when Richard published a screed in the General Advertiser proclaiming his innocence and condemning his accusers without naming them. Everyone in Virginia knew he was slinging mud at my husband, but Tom kept his peace, determined not to give himself over to rage again.

  And I loved him more for it. Watching him struggle against undeserved abuse from such a villain made me forgive him, truly. But then, I was prone to forgiveness in the aftermath of Richard Randolph’s wretched newspaper notice. Especially since the very same issue announced the execution of the king of France.

  In truth, this news was more of a blow than the one my husband had dealt me. I never thought the French would put King Louis to the guillotine. The revolutionary men in my father’s parlor in Paris never even suggested it. Perhaps with France at war with its neighbors, the revolutionaries feared to hold the king captive when his very life encouraged enemies to attack them. And King Louis was guilty of all the crimes they accused him of.