America's First Daughter: A Novel

by Stephanie Dray

  THIS IS HIS LAST LETTER.

  I read it often, wondering sometimes if he left one like it for Sally. If there are letters, tokens, evidence … well, she has good reason to keep them quiet.

  Along with the linens, the artwork, the furniture, and the rest of the slaves at Monticello, she’s been priced for auction. Her value has been set at fifty dollars. But she won’t be sold with everything else.

  On the night we buried my father, we faced one another in Papa’s chambers and she gave me the keys she’d claimed as her own for decades. She surrendered to me her dominion over my father’s private sanctuary … and her place in his life.

  She hadn’t bargained for her freedom in France, only for the freedom of her children.

  But she will have her freedom. I’ll see to that. I’ll let her walk off this mountain like Harriet and Beverly did. She’ll be given her time.

  And her silence is the price.

  I make Jeff swear upon God and country and his honor as a Virginia gentleman and upon his grandfather’s honor, too, that Sally will not be sold. He doesn’t ask me why; my son knows better than to ask. I wouldn’t tell him the truth, anyway. If it comes to it, I will lie about Sally to my deathbed.

  But in exchange for Jeff’s vow, he demands that I make one of my own. I must agree not to witness the rest of the slaves being auctioned off at Monticello.

  I feel as if I should be there. As if I must witness the final destruction of everything. As if I need to see every tear as my father’s people are ripped away from their mountain, from the only home they’ve ever known. I ought to hear their sobbing as the auctioneer calls out their worth… .

  But Jeff says, “It’s making you sick.”

  “I am sick now, but shall be well again.” Because I have to be. My work—my father’s work—remains undone. And as with Ann’s death, I must hold myself together until I’ve finished doing for my father the very last thing that I can do for him in this world.

  Jeff puts a hand on my shoulder. “Spare yourself the bitter anguish of seeing his abode rendered desolate, the walls dismantled, and his bedroom violated by the auctioneer. And take the children before my father snatches them from you.”

  Perhaps he fears that in my grief, I’ll become as unhinged as his father. Whereas what I fear is his father. I am uniquely vulnerable to Tom as I never was before in our marriage. I am his wife, and he has dominion over me, without having to answer to Thomas Jefferson. His conduct at the funeral is proof enough of his intentions. He will come for me now, either to claim me or tear the children away.

  The law would say I must submit to him. The scriptures command it. But I do not wait to lower my head meekly and do what is expected of me. Not after all I’ve seen and lived through. No. I do not stay to see the slave auction and wait for the whirlwind of Tom’s wrath to come down on my head.

  Instead, I pack up the children swiftly, and take them to Boston.

  There are no slaves in Boston.

  “There’s more housewifery to do because the servants are unreliable,” Ellen complains, showing me about her luxurious new home on Beacon Hill. “They’re lazy because they know they can leave any time for better wages or any reason at all. Why, I’ve gone through three cooks in the past six months. But I cannot wish to ever return to a slave state.”

  “You should never.” I catch myself by surprise with my vehemence. “Land and Negroes in Virginia are to nine persons out of ten certain ruin and a vexation of the spirit that wearies one of life itself.”

  And I am weary of life. I’ve really suffered so much that I cannot comprehend the possibility of better days. Consumed by despair, every morning is a struggle to get out of bed. I do it for the people yet depending on me, while I depend upon Ellen.

  She does everything in her power to cheer me. She shows me the city, which has grown enormously since I was here with my father as a little girl. Everywhere I look now is perfect luxury and wealth. The stately homes, though all squeezed together, are unimaginably well furnished. In Ellen’s house, I wash my feet each morning in a plain basin that cost at least thirty dollars, and the water’s deep enough I might take a swim. The dining table glitters with cut glass and silver. And surrounded by such wealth, I’m consumed with guilt for the discomfort in which I left the rest of my family at Monticello.

  We celebrate Christmas with trips to the theater and visits. Ellen arranges a party in an oval drawing room with paintings, silk damask curtains, and carved mahogany chairs. We dine on oysters and lobsters and other bounties of the sea. There’s ice cream and every variety of cake in silver baskets. And people keep asking how it is that my father, remembered for his responsible management of the nation’s finances, could have died in penury and embarrassment.

  And I always reply, “His public virtue was the cause, if you should call that an embarrassment. I never shall be ashamed of an honorable poverty. It’s the price we’ve paid for a long and useful life devoted to the service of this country.”

  Ellen owlishly watches my every move, so I smile for her sake. Until my father’s debts are extinguished, I have no income but the monies earned by my servants, who have all hired themselves out in Virginia. Their wages won’t be enough. Until a sale of my father’s papers can be arranged, I’m now, like Nancy Randolph once was, utterly at the mercy of my relations and their goodwill. So I don’t dare object when Ellen’s husband enrolls Septimia and George in school. The children behave well enough there; it’s only when they return home that they give themselves over to the Randolph, bickering like children who have no reason to know how precarious our circumstances are.

  My older children know.

  When it becomes clear that the lottery will be canceled, Cornelia writes bitterly, “It’s over, then. After sixty years of devoted services, his children are left in beggary by the country to whom he had bequeathed them.”

  Ellen impresses upon me that I have no choice but to stay in Boston. “Live with us. You and the children together. My husband rented a place for you in Cambridge so as not to crowd this house. We’ll send for Mary and Cornelia and see them married off well.”

  It’s a generous offer, but it makes me uneasy to be a burden to Ellen’s husband, who is already worrying about overcrowding the house. Ellen mistakes my hesitation, holding tight to my hand: “I know it pains you to leave Virginia, but I fear there are no ties which should bind any descendants of Thomas Jefferson to the state any longer.”

  She’s echoing the sentiments of my sister’s son Francis. Polly’s precious boy wrote with bitterness over our plight, arguing that the liberality and generosity and patriotism of the Old Dominion has vanished under the influence of Yankee notions and practices.

  But I don’t blame the Yankees.

  The lottery, grudgingly approved, was the only thing Virginia offered my father in his waning days. But the northern states raised money. Donations came from New York, Baltimore, and Philadelphia … where William still lives.

  William sent money—tried to, anyway. But these and all donations Papa refused, out of pride or fear that it’d undermine the lottery.

  I burned William’s letter of condolence, filled as it was with tender sentiments and an unwise insistence that I visit him. I don’t trust myself to see him. I’m so unmoored of everything but grief, I don’t trust myself or my virtue. And my virtue must be pristine. For my father’s reputation—and what is imputed to it by mine—is an asset I use shamelessly.

  In the outpouring of national grief over my father’s death, I see that Tom is given a public employment. Hopefully an income will restore my husband to his right mind.

  More importantly, it will keep him away.

  Milton, 6 August 1827

  From Thomas Mann Randolph to Septimia Randolph

  I have loved your mother, and only her, with all my faculties for thirty-five years next December. I wish to spend some happy years yet, in the decline of life, with her.

  I am always reading letters now. My father’s
to me. Mine to him. His to everyone else. Letters from his friends. Condolences. Tributes. Poems. And now I’m reading another letter, having nothing to do with my father at all.

  A letter from Tom expressing his wishes to reconcile.

  I linger over the part where he writes he has loved me and only me. On its surface, a tender sentiment. But I know it’s also an accusation. I loved Tom, but not only Tom. Not ever. And I feel no regret for that. Especially because Tom’s declaration is to guard himself against divorce.

  My son-in-law Mr. Coolidge explains, “I’m sorry to inform you that even in Boston the only grounds for divorce are consanguinity, bigamy, impotence, and adultery. None of which apply, I assume.” I flush, shamed to even be discussing it, but he continues, “On the other hand, you may obtain a legal separation for cruelty or desertion.”

  Tom has certainly been cruel. And I’d argue that he deserted me—that he always deserted me—in times of need. But it’s equally true that I’ve deserted him. I fled to Boston in the darkest hours of my grief, and now, there must be an accounting for it. “Tom will want to see his children and I can’t keep them from him forever.”

  He would take them from me forever, if I tried.

  Ellen’s husband replies in his cool, flat Boston accent. “You can keep the children from Mr. Randolph for a few years at least. Then they’ll be too old for him to force to his will. Unless there are grounds for legal separation, there must simply be a separation of miles. Even if Mr. Randolph comes for the children, I can see to it that they’re hidden away at some distance where he can’t get them into his hands.”

  There seems something immoral about this scheme. As well as impractical. I married the man and gave him children. The law puts me completely in his power even though he’s destitute.

  As if sensing my hesitation, my son-in-law says, gruffly, “You needn’t fear him. From what I hear, Mr. Randolph is holed up miserably in a little house with much liquor and without a second blanket for his bed. Nicholas Trist will keep him from Monticello, and I’ll keep him from here.”

  Far from alleviating my fears, this strikes me as profoundly unjust. Tom barred from Monticello, as unwelcome there as he was at Tuckahoe? Monticello is, until we can find a buyer for it, my home. And if it’s mine, it must also be my husband’s. That was always my father’s intention. It was our vow to Tom, implicit and explicit.

  “I cannot countenance abandoning Mr. Randolph to poverty,” I finally say.

  “Then he’ll take your money,” is my son-in-law’s harsh reply.

  In honor of Papa, the states of Louisiana and South Carolina have voted me $20,000 in bank stocks for my upkeep—not enough to save Monticello, but perhaps enough to support those who depend upon me. It’s a generosity I hadn’t solicited but which makes me the target of opponents who think me unworthy, as my father wasn’t a soldier and I wasn’t his widow.

  I suppose they believe I’ve done nothing, and meant nothing, to this country.

  It’s a sentiment that has made me redouble my efforts to edit my father’s papers. And it’s made me think hard upon my own character. “So long as property is vested in me, and Tom is destitute, I must make some effort for his support.”

  “Surely you aren’t thinking of returning to live as his wife,” my son-in-law replies. “He can make no mischief for you or the children in Boston, but I can’t keep that animal away from you in Virginia.”

  Ellen winces, carefully turning her head so her husband doesn’t see how calling her father an animal causes her distress. Whether it’s for love or shame, I cannot say.

  I suppose I must now be beyond both love and shame. What matters now are my children, my grandchildren, and my slaves.

  There’s an option that my son-in-law hasn’t considered.

  One I learned from my father.

  Negotiation.

  And I’m my own best ambassador.

  So in the spring of 1828, I return to Virginia and step into the now dilapidated white house in Milton to find my husband drunk and unkempt in the middle of the day. “Patsy?” Tom asks, squinting at my appearance in the doorway, as if I were a hallucination.

  I want to be angry. I want to remember that this is the man who destroyed himself with resentments. The man who struck me and beat my children. The man who tormented me at my father’s funeral. But when he tries to get up from a threadbare chair and his knees nearly buckle under him, I’m nearly undone with sorrow to see the ruin of him.

  I’m shocked by the sight of him, so pale and haggard. Truly shocked. He’s so emaciated I cannot think he’s had a meal in weeks. Why hasn’t anyone told me how very ill he is?

  “Don’t stand,” I say, helping him back to his chair before he falls.

  Clutching my arm, Tom barks, “Why have you come?”

  “I’ve come to have a frank discussion.” I hurry forth with the rest, taking advantage of his astonished speechlessness. “I can see that you’re cold and hungry and suffering. You haven’t a proper bath. And though you’ve come to this sorry state through your own stubbornness, understand that I’d never willingly leave you in poverty so long as I have a shilling in the world.”

  “My stubbornness?” Tom says, eyes bulging. “What of your son—”

  “You must give up this hatred of your own flesh and blood,” I insist, strangely unafraid. Then again, what can Tom do to me? He’s as weak as a newborn babe. “Or do you want us to remember you the way we remember your father?”

  Tom’s once-beautiful mouth thins. “That’s all you want?”

  “That’s where it must start, Tom. If we come to an agreement, we may all reside together at Monticello until such time as it’s sold away. It’s an unfurnished place now, but it’s better than keeping rats for friends, as you must be here.”

  “What are you saying, Martha?”

  “I’m saying that I want you to come home to your family. Of course, given your unsocial habits and hatred for the necessary restraints of civilized life, I assume you’d prefer a little establishment of your own on some sequestered spot of Monticello.”

  He takes the opportunity I’ve given him to save face, but a bit too far, as always. “I’d live entirely in my own room, making no part of the family and receiving nothing from it in any way whatever.”

  “As you like.” Though I’ll insist he take food.

  Tom’s eyes narrow. “What about Short?”

  No. I will not discuss William. “It’s better for both of us to drop a curtain over the past. There’s enough warmth of heart between us to live in harmony, Tom. But upon such subjects as we cannot agree, we must be silent.”

  He nods. And it’s enough.

  Truthfully, seeing him in such a state, he could’ve refused all my terms, and it would still have been enough. Because I realize even before my daughters and I get him settled into the north pavilion, that he’s afflicted by more than hunger. He complains of stomach pains and gout, and is so meek and softened of temper that I think he must be dying.

  My daughter Ginny is a disapproving sentinel at the door. “Mother, your children shall have a right to interfere if things between you return to their former state. He won’t be allowed to disturb your rest.”

  “I’m not tired or in need of rest,” I say, because after two years of grieving for my father I’m finally awakening. I said that I was sick but would be well again, and now it’s come to pass.

  Would that Tom were as fortunate.

  I see to it that my husband has food and blankets and healthful teas and medicines to ease his pain. I sit by his bedside hour upon hour, day after day, reminiscing about the good times, of which we can both recount surprisingly many.

  One morning Tom’s eyes, bleak and teary, meet mine. “Did you love me, Patsy? Did you ever?”

  “Oh, I did.” I’m heartbroken by how easily the admission falls from my lips now. “The young man who told me he preferred trees stripped bare of their leaves and kissed me so passionately in a schoolhouse; the young husb
and who tried to coax a slave girl’s infant to suck at a cloth soaked in milk; the man who rode so hard, worked himself sick in the fields, fought for his country, and wrote poems to his daughters. Yes, I loved you, Tom Randolph.” My throat tightens and tears—real tears—roll down my cheeks. “I loved you truly and deeply.”

  As if he’s been waiting for my tears his whole life, Tom reaches out and touches the wetness, smooths it with the pad of his thumb. “Oh, Patsy. My adored wife.”

  He weeps.

  We weep together.

  And when we’re done, he says, “Send for Jeff. I cannot die without making friends with him, cannot leave him in anguish as my father left me.”

  My heart fills at that. Jeff comes straightaway. My husband asks for my son’s forgiveness, and my tall, upright boy has the heart to give it. Tom has kind words for me and the children and the grandchildren. We nurse him, stroke his hair, hold his hands. His daughters surround the bed, fanning him of his fever during the day and his sons through the night.

  Tom gives some strange directions about his shrouding and burial, then takes them back, fearing they’ll confirm the idea that he’s insane. And he looks to me, a bit fearfully, as he asks to be buried not at Tuckahoe with his kin and his own father but with my father at the head of his tombstone.

  “It’s only fitting,” I tell him, moved by this final request, even though I know it will put Tom eternally in the shadow of my father’s monument, as he was all his life.

  Then Tom begs for Jeff to stay with him in his dying hours.

  All I want is for his suffering to end and for him to die in peace with everybody. Which is just what he does, on the twentieth of June, without a struggle or a moan.

  My sons must dig the grave because my father’s people have been sold off. I’m told the auction at Monticello was no less heartrending than the sacking of an ancient city with children wailing and women rending their garments. And I feel as if I hear the echo of their anguish here.

  They’re all long gone except for Burwell, who continues from habit to tidy the empty house. Sally and her sons live in Charlottesville now, so I know better than to look for her at the grave site. But once we bury Tom and make the slow walk home past Mulberry Row, my eyes drift to her old cabin, as if I expect to see her standing in the doorway in her apron, those amber eyes saying: “Now it’s done. We’ve both buried our husbands now.”