When I finally heard Tom’s wagon roll up that warm day, I grabbed up my skirts and raced out into the yard to scoop up my children, kissing them all over their faces in relief to see them alive. But Ann pressed shyly against my bodice, whispering, “My papa isn’t well.”
Tom was drunk. It was the middle of the day and he was drunk—so red-faced and staggering I wondered how he’d driven the horses. “Go,” he barked at the children. “Get on in the house.”
When they ran off, my husband put his finger in my face and drew near enough that I could smell whiskey on his breath. “You think you’re so much above me, don’t you, Patsy? All that convent learning …” Scarcely knowing what I’d done to anger him, I was struck by his sudden resemblance to his father. And while I stood there in bewilderment, winding my hands in my apron, he shouted, “Don’t you ever apologize for me.”
So he’d seen the letter I’d written to excuse his absence on election day. “I only thought—”
“Who are you to apologize for me? You’re Mrs. Thomas Mann Randolph. That’s who you are. You’re the wife of a man who has been erased by a younger brother, rejected by the voters of Virginia, and can do nothing whatsoever right. You’re that man’s wife and that’s all you are.”
With that he shoved past me, leaving me to stare off in the horizon, where I, too, fancied I could see the shadow of Colonel Randolph. But I decided then and there that old tyrant could only haunt my husband.
Not me.
I wasn’t just Mrs. Thomas Mann Randolph. I was first, foremost, and above all, Thomas Jefferson’s daughter. So while Tom slept off his hangover, I packed up my sister and my children, and returned to Monticello.
Philadelphia, 8 June 1797
To Martha Jefferson Randolph from Thomas Jefferson
I receive with inexpressible pleasure the news of Jack’s proposal of marriage to your sister. After your own happy establishment, which has given me an inestimable friend to whom I can leave the care of everything I love, the only anxiety I had remaining was to ensure Maria’s happiness. If she had the whole earth free to choose a partner, she could not have done so more to my wishes. I now see our fireside formed into a group, no one member of which has a fiber in their composition which can ever produce any jarring or jealousies among us.
“I do believe you’re faking,” I said to my limping sister, helping her with her stomacher. “If you don’t stay still and let me finish dressing you, I’m going to tell everyone that you turned your weak ankle on purpose to force Jack Eppes to carry you over the threshold of your wedding chamber.”
“I’m not that clever,” my sister protested, radiant in her best gown, and blushing. “Besides, why would any bride willingly forgo dancing at her own wedding? It’s not my fault that Papa’s house is in perpetual disarray. Silly me for expecting there to be a stair under the door to step down onto!”
I’d regretted the dangers of returning to Monticello’s permanent chaos of construction as Papa’s Italian-inspired architecture took shape into a domed manor house that would have three stories while appearing only to have one. And yet, we were still happier here amongst hammers and plaster dust and tarps than we’d been at Varina. When Tom discovered that I’d left, he’d been enraged. But I’d only meant to strike a little fear into his heart, not mount a rebellion, so I lied to him about the reasons why. I told him that in his shamefully drunken state, he’d commanded me to go so he could put all his attention on the harvest.
And when Polly—who disapproved of men who drank—confirmed my story, Tom was too embarrassed to admit that he couldn’t remember what he’d said. I sensed there lingered in him a fear that he had a willful wife who might not always tolerate his outbursts, which suited me.
And I saw some of the same sincere regret he’d shown after he’d struck me. But more happily, our return to Monticello had coincided with a visit from Jack Eppes, our country cousin with whom Polly had spent many years. He’d proposed marriage, and she’d agreed straightaway.
Jack Eppes wasn’t as handsome as my own husband, but then few men were. Still, Jack had a sunny disposition. He seemed amenable to my father’s plan to have us all live close together when he retired from office. And so we were all very optimistic that autumn. We anticipated long sojourns here at Monticello, which would—Papa promised—be completely renovated and habitable by New Year’s Day.
Sally herself was with child again, which seemed to give my father great pleasure, though he never said so. He guarded the privacy of his rooms, which must have been their lovers’ sanctuary, but I wondered where Sally took herself on days like this one, when our country neighbors and relations gathered for Polly’s wedding.
Kissing my sister’s cheeks, I said, “Mon Dieu, Polly. You are a beautiful bride.”
“It’s Maria!” she cried, laughing in exasperation.
“Maria,” I agreed, with a grin.
She beamed, taking up a bouquet of lavender, feverfew, and coneflowers. “You are my very best sister, and I promise, when we live apart, I’ll write you every day.”
At this, I snorted back a laugh. “That’s what you said when you went off with Papa to Philadelphia, but I can scarcely count one letter you sent me. I’m afraid you deal much in promises, but very little in deeds performed with a pen, Maria.”
“I’ll do better,” she said solemnly, staring at her reflection in the mirror.
Though I doubted it, I kissed her again, for it was a day for joy.
Alas, after the vows were exchanged, I found my husband miserable, leaning against the rail of the gallery, a glass in hand, watching everyone else dance in the entrance hall below. “Martha,” he said stiffly.
Since the day I’d left Varina, we’d scarcely spoken a word, so I simply answered, “Mr. Randolph.”
“They make a handsome couple,” my husband said, eyeing Jack, who whirled my sister around so that her petticoats swirled up under her skirt, heedless of her injured ankle. “Your father says Jack’s a talented lawyer.”
Truthfully, Jack wasn’t terribly talented at anything in my opinion. Certainly, my sister’s new husband didn’t have Tom’s intellect or scientific curiosity. And where my husband had a manly swagger, Jack still presented himself as a pudgy-cheeked boy. There wasn’t anything better about Jack Eppes but his temper.
Yet, he had a patrimony and a father who loved him.
Two things Tom envied.
Two things Tom would never have.
And I hurt for him, but I couldn’t let my husband’s jealousy or fears put a damper on my sister’s wedding. So I put my hand on his arm, where it rested upon the colorful buffalo robe on display over the rail, and said, “I think I forgot to tell you—my father is hoping to compare his meteorology book with yours. He doesn’t trust anyone else’s.” Shaking my head with feigned bewilderment, I added, “You two and your record keeping. Two peas in a pod, you are. I can’t imagine how your scientific minds work.”
“Your father likes Jack,” Tom said, an edge in his voice.
Frustrated, I said, “Everybody likes Jack. And Jack likes everybody.”
“No, he doesn’t. He’s all pretense,” Tom said, finishing his drink in one gulp. “He proposed to your sister because his parents wanted him to.”
Which—even if true—was no bad reason for marriage.
“Don’t spoil things, Tom.”
Setting his glass down, he lowered his eyes. “Say what you will, Martha, but I wanted you … and I still do.”
It softened me to hear it, and I smoothed my hands over the bodice of my gown, knowing that the striped silk taffeta in shades of gold brought out the fiery hues in my curled hair. “Then why don’t you come downstairs and dance with me.” Taking his hand, I drew it to my hip. “Look at our guests flapping about without any grace. They need our example.”
“Patsy,” Tom said, his fist balling within my grasp. “I’m trying to tell you something.” His throat bobbed, as if he was mustering courage. “It pains me to be an e
mbarrassment to you, but I don’t know how to remedy my flaws. All I know is that whenever I feel strongly compelled to any act, a doubt always arises. And whereas the voice of reason is low and persuasive, passion is loud and imperious.”
It was a kind of apology. And I was reminded again that there was no guile in my husband. What he thought, what he felt, was always there on his skin. He wasn’t a diplomat; he wrestled every day with the necessary fictions of gentility that came so easily to me and my father, born politicians that we were. Sometimes Tom’s directness was refreshing, intoxicating, even.
Tom finished by saying, “I wish I knew what part of my nature prevents me from being happy.”
I knew exactly what part of his nature was to blame. It was the Randolph in him. And when I considered his miserable father, his shameless sisters, and all his selfish, hotheaded kin, I counted it a miracle that Tom was, at heart, a good man. That he wasn’t a happy man couldn’t be counted much against him.
So I pushed onto my toes and kissed him, very softly, at the corner of his mouth. “Ask me to dance, Mr. Randolph.” And when he finally swept me onto the dance floor, I whispered, “I’ll tell you a secret about being happy, Tom. Sometimes you just have to pretend at it until it becomes real.”
Monticello, 11 October 1798
From Thomas Jefferson to Stevens Thomson Mason
These Alien & Sedition laws are merely an experiment on the American mind to see how far it will bear a violation of the constitution. If this goes down, we shall see another act of Congress declaring a hereditary President for life or the restoration of his most gracious majesty George the third. That these things are in contemplation I have no doubt after the dupery of which our countrymen have shown themselves susceptible.
My husband snapped open his paper at the breakfast table. “This damnable Jay Treaty is going to be our undoing.”
I wish he hadn’t said it, only because I didn’t want Papa agitated about politics during his visit. It some ways, we all lived in a state of suspended animation until my father came home each autumn, and I didn’t want to spoil our time together.
Unfortunately, Tom’s words worked Papa into a rare state of heat. “For President Adams to side with Britain against France.” Papa fumed, glancing at Tom’s paper and adjusting the spectacles he’d purchased for his sore eyes. “Against our sister Republic, our lone ally in a world of monarchies!”
The treaty had gone down badly. Violence between political factions broke out in Philadelphia and had to be dispersed by light cavalry—much as in Paris on the eve of revolution. What’s more, President Adams had authorized the prosecution of critics of the president’s administration, which now included my father, his vice president.
Federalists claimed these measures were necessary to keep anarchy—and the guillotine—from American shores. But we saw in this the possibility for the very end of the American experiment with liberty. We were afraid to write political letters of any kind for fear of being jailed—especially since Papa was certain his were being intercepted and read.
He removed his spectacles and rested them upon the ledge of the small mahogany lap desk he once used to draft the Declaration of Independence itself, then gave a mournful sigh. “I know not which mortifies me most—that I should fear to write what I think or that my country bears such a state of things.”
“Papa,” I said, trying to soothe him. “Perhaps you should resign the vice presidency in protest. Retire early, because in a very short time, there will be another election and it shall all be someone else’s worry.”
Papa should’ve agreed with me. He might at least have pretended to think about it, especially considering the weight it would take off Tom. Instead, Papa snapped, “This reign of witches must end!”
That was the moment I realized my father was going to run for the presidency. Not be reluctantly volunteered. But actively campaign for the office.
He was ready for rebellion. Papa’s powerful, implacable, political outrage reminded me that underneath his gentility, he would always be a revolutionary. He wouldn’t retire. He’d run for the presidency of the United States, and this time, he wanted to win.
Like a soldier readying for battle, he’d returned to Monticello only to regroup in the bosom of his family. A thing made even plainer to me when he groused, “Where the devil is Maria? I gave Jack my chariot to make it easier to come, and assured them both the house and servants would be ready to receive them.”
But Jack hadn’t seen fit to bring my sister home. In fact, we’d scarcely seen Polly since her wedding the year before. In that time, Sally had lost poor little Harriet to some childhood illness and borne my father another child—a boy named Beverly. It must’ve been some consolation, but babies were fragile, and Papa had already lost so many children he was apt to guard his heart against loving the new ones too dearly. So, my father centered his anxieties on my sister. “Is she ill?”
“Just a newlywed,” I said, because if it was an illness, it mysteriously reoccurred whenever it served to excuse a visit to Monticello, and I began to harbor a belief the Eppes family was keeping my sister from us once again.
My husband had cause to know how very much this upset me and as we prepared for bed one night, he attempted to raise my spirits against the specter of a holiday without my sister. “You ought to chaperone the Christmas Ball in Charlottesville, Patsy. It promises to be a gay season.”
I didn’t know about that. I knew Nancy intended to try to find a husband there, in spite of her blackened reputation. And Tom’s littlest sister, Jenny, would come out into society for the first time. I myself hadn’t been out in society in years and couldn’t imagine that it’d make me feel any better about missing Polly or about losing my father to politics for another four years.
But then Tom added, “I’ll go to the Christmas Ball with you. It occurs to me you need a chaperone. One never knows what kind of trouble you might get up to without me, young lady.”
Lighthearted flirtation didn’t come naturally to Tom, and it warmed me to know that in spite of all his own struggles, he was trying to help me with mine. In my nightdress, I sat on the edge of the bed, my fingers trailing along the neckline. “Mr. Randolph, it’s your sisters you need worry about. I’m an old woman of twenty-six years and quite above reproach.”
Tom tugged me against the strong muscles of his bare chest and playfully leaned his face close to mine. “But I might like to give you a stern reprimand or two anyway.”
He wanted me. That hadn’t changed. Not since the day he decided he must have me did his desire wane. Sometimes I thought it was because whenever he made love to me, he was reaching inside me for something more than the love I bore him, reaching for something I couldn’t give. But as long as he kept reaching, I thought it would hold us together.
So that Christmas, we loaded up Jenny and everyone else we could stuff into the carriage. Tom and I danced and exhausted the youngsters, putting them to shame. We were still laughing when we returned, much to the consternation of our children at Monticello, where we’d left them in Sally’s care.
When Tom smooched my cheek, our six-year-old son Jeff—a little heathen who refused to wear shoes even in coldest winter—made an ugly face. His older sister Ann complained bitterly of the unfairness that we hadn’t allowed her to come with us, threatening to go to Phildelphy with her grandpapa who would surely spoil her with cake. And two-year-old Ellen—a child I named after the daughter I’d lost, promising myself to love her enough for two angels—babbled her complaints, clinging to my skirts.
Oh, how I loved my little cherubs, and by springtime, I was expecting another. At this news, my husband leapt from his chair to spin me around. Tom wanted another boy—of course he did. And the knowledge we had another baby coming set him off on a manic fit of activity, building us a new house at Edgehill.
Tobacco was in the ground, and everyone was predicting high prices. “This will be a good year, Patsy,” Tom said. “We’ll get a good harvest, se
ll at the peak of the market, pay off debts, and live easy the rest of our lives. Just you wait and see.”
Chapter Twenty-four
Varina Plantation, 1 July 1799
To Thomas Jefferson from Thomas Mann Randolph Jr.
There is a story of an ancient king whose touch turned everything to gold. You will recognize in me the makings of Midas, except that everything I touch turns to dust.
NOTHING CAME UP out of the dirt that summer.
What plants did grow were small and sickly things. Most farmers lost their entire crop; we lost most of ours. Tom worked desperately to salvage what he could. In the end, he had to rely on tobacco, which was his undoing.
That summer prices reached dizzying heights, but the odious Federalists had suspended commerce with France—the biggest market for Virginia tobacco. By autumn, prices crashed, and we couldn’t give it away. My husband had gambled and lost, but he wasn’t the only one—not the only one by far. Every man in Virginia suffered that year.
That’s why I burn this old letter.
I thrust it into the flame and watch the edges curl, happy to protect my husband’s too-earnest heart, as he was never able to do for himself. Tom’s bitterness was a cause of much misery in my life, but he came by some of it so honestly that I can’t bear to think of people reading this letter and mocking his pain.
And so I burn it, gladly, to ash.
At the time he wrote this letter, of course, Tom kept from me the magnitude of the financial disaster. It wasn’t a wife’s place to know the particulars. I was meant to concern myself with raising our children—four in all now, including baby Cornelia, who we’d named after the famous Roman matron, in keeping with the revolutionary spirits of the time. But in the midst of chasing after the little ones, I had guessed that he wouldn’t be able to pay the mortgage on Varina and tried to comfort him, hushing baby Cornelia in my arms. “You couldn’t know the right time to sell the tobacco, Tom. Nobody could. Besides, the trade embargo with France will expire in the new year and you can sell then.”
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