Jefferson's Sons (6 page)

Grandma lived down the hill, in a cabin by herself. She was old, old. It was hard for Beverly to imagine her as a little girl.

“The captain was at sea when Elizabeth was born,” Mama continued. “He didn't come back for years. But when he did, he tried to claim his daughter. He wanted to take care of her. But the law said Elizabeth belonged to Mr. Eppes, and Mr. Eppes wouldn't sell her to the sea captain. She was pretty and smart, and Mr. Eppes wanted to keep her.”

Mama smiled. “Everyone always loved your grandma.”

“Tell us about France,” Beverly said. He was sick of hearing about Great-grandma and the sea captain. Why couldn't Grandma Elizabeth belong to her daddy, the way Beverly belonged to his? “Tell us about the French soldiers,” Beverly said.

So Mama told them about the French soldiers, who wore feathers on their helmets and guarded the city gate near where she lived in Paris. She told them about the fancy people who lived in France, lords and ladies and even a king, and how she used to watch them when she was lady's maid to Miss Martha.

“You saw a king?” Beverly asked. He knew kings were like presidents, only with crowns.

“No,” Mama said. “Master Jefferson met the king, but Miss Martha never did, so I never did, either. I went to parties with Miss Martha, as her chaperone. That's how I got to see things. The maids had to stay off to the side, but we used to sit together and laugh at all the fancy goings-on.”

“Did she go to lots of parties?” Harriet asked.

“Not at first,” Mama said. “At first she was away at school. But when she grew up and had her come-out, our last year there, she went to parties two or three times a week.”

“Were they fancy?” asked Harriet.

“Fancier than you can imagine,” Mama said. “Fancier than anything that's ever happened in Charlottesville. Silk dresses and silk ribbons, and everyone with powdered hair.” She tweaked Beverly's hair. “Wouldn't you look fine with your hair dusted white? Should we ask Uncle Peter for some flour?”

“Mama,” Beverly protested.

Mama laughed. “That was the fashion. Even the soldiers powdered their hair. The skirts of the ladies' dresses stuck out sideways on wooden hoops, so wide they could barely get past the door.”

Harriet giggled. “Did your dresses do that?”

“No,” Mama said with a smile. “Maids' dresses weren't
that
fancy. But I did have beautiful silk dresses. Maids had to dress fine, to be a credit to their employers.”

“What's an employer?” asked Beverly.

“A person that's paying you to work for them,” Mama said. She bit her lip. “Servants are paid in France. There are no slaves there.”

Beverly said, “You were paid?”

“I was,” Mama said.

“But not anymore,” Beverly said. “Not here.”

“No,” said Mama.

“But Mama,” said Beverly, “why—”

“Here,” Mama said, getting up from the rocker. She opened the trunk Beverly and Harriet weren't allowed to touch. “I kept one of my old dresses. I'll show you.” From the bottom of the trunk she pulled out a real dress, like Miss Martha wore, made of shiny, bright-colored cloth. Harriet rubbed it between her fingers. Beverly just stared. He tried to imagine Mama wearing such a dress.

“Did you buy that?” he asked. “With your pay-money?” Mama shook her head. “I could never have afforded silk,” she said. “Master Jefferson bought it for me, once I needed clothes to be a proper chaperone. He took me shopping. He had wonderful taste. Still does.” She smiled.

Beverly stiffened. “He never takes you shopping here.” Mama got cloth for their clothes at the give-out time, same as everybody else on the mountain.

“Of course not!” Mama said sharply. “It's different here, you know that.”

Beverly didn't know it. He knew what it was like here, but he didn't know what it had been like in France. Sounded pretty fine.

“Maybe we should have stayed there,” he said.

“Master Jefferson had to come back,” Mama said. “His term there was over.

“I could have stayed,” she continued softly, almost as though speaking to herself. “I knew it too. I spoke French, and I knew how to find a good job. But my family was here, my mama and my brothers and sisters, and I was expecting a baby—your brother, the first one, that died.” Mama sighed. “I was only sixteen.”

She smiled at Beverly. “It's a good thing I came back. Otherwise, you wouldn't have been born. Nor Harriet, nor Maddy.”

Beverly nodded. “You would have been lonely.”

“I would have,” Mama said.

“Did Miss Martha like France?” asked Harriet.

“She loved it,” Mama said. “She wanted to stay forever. She told Master Jefferson she felt a vocation to become a Catholic nun. He didn't like that!” Mama shook her head. “Miss Martha was happier there. She was happier then.”

“How about you?” Beverly wanted to know. “Were you happier then?”

“Of course not,” Mama said. She reached down and scooped him into her lap, and rocked him like he was the baby, not Maddy. “Look at my beautiful children. I'm happier now.”

In late December Miss Edith came home in Davy Hern's wagon. James was a beautiful baby, bigger than Maddy, and just as bright-eyed. Joe Fossett couldn't take his eyes off them, James or Miss Edith, either one. He held Miss Edith on his lap and kissed her neck, and she laughed and smiled. He bounced baby James on his knee.

Beverly wished Master Jefferson would come to their cabin, hold Mama on his lap, and bounce Maddy on his knee. He wished Master Jefferson would smile at him as often as Joe Fossett smiled at baby James. It was hard, knowing Master Jefferson was right there in the great house, and not getting to see him at all.

Of course the great house was full of all kinds of people, not just Master Jefferson. Miss Martha, who had lived with him in the President's House all fall, came to Monticello for Christmas, instead of going to her own farm only three miles away. She brought her grumpy husband and all six of her children with her, and a slew of maids and nurses. Friends of Master Jefferson came too. They filled the great house, top to bottom, side to side.

Field hands didn't work on the days around Christmas, but up at the great house there was more to do than ever. When Mama came back to the cabin at dawn, she prodded Beverly awake. “Get up and help Burwell,” she said. “Fetch firewood.”

Beverly groaned. All the bedrooms in the great house had fireplaces. Beverly hauled armload after armload from the woodshed to the house, up the narrow twisting staircases to the second and third floors. He took wood to Master Jefferson's room, the parlor, and the dining room. After that he carried armfuls to the kitchen, where Uncle Peter was stirring and chopping and cooking fit to bust. Then he ran errands, to the stables where the guests' horses were, or to the big storeroom or the smokehouse. Then Uncle Peter told him to wash the dishes and dry them and stack them up without breaking one, as though he weren't almost eight years old and didn't know how to stack a dish.

All the time, all he could think about was Master Jefferson. He longed to see him. Sometimes he imagined conversations with him. They could talk about violins or music or France. Maybe Beverly could tell him how awful James Hubbard's whipping had been. Then Master Jefferson could explain that the overseers had made a terrible mistake, and that Master Jefferson would never let it happen again.

But no matter how hard Beverly hoped, he never got to speak to his father. He hardly even saw him from afar.

 

The guests at Christmas ate so much that Master Jefferson didn't have enough food in his cellars to feed them. That was good news for the slaves. On the Saturday before Christmas, Uncle Peter sent word all over the mountain that Miss Martha was buying for the great house.

All year long, everyone except Beverly's mama grew vegetables or raised chickens for their own. The field hands did it so they'd have something to eat besides the cornmeal, fatback, and salt fish that was all the overseers gave them, but even they saved extra to sell. Now they slit the throats of the oldest of their chickens, or dug into their store holes for sweet potatoes or turnips or eggs. They stood in a long line by the back door of the great house, holding whatever they could scrounge for sale.

Miss Martha stood on the porch, pursing her lips while she chose. She took coins out of her purse and dropped them into people's hands. Beverly collected whatever she bought, and carried it to Uncle Peter in the kitchen.

Uncle Peter was feeling fine. “Some turkeys would be tasty, did anybody catch any,” he told Beverly. “And I'd never say no to possums or nice fat raccoons.”

“I didn't see any turkeys,” Beverly said. You could catch them sometimes in snares. Raccoons and possums were hunted at night, but they were hard to find in winter when they holed up in their dens. “I saw lots of folks with sweet potatoes,” he said.

Peter grunted. “You tell Miss Martha I need a whole bunch. Tell her to buy every sweet potato she can.” He grinned at Beverly. Beverly grinned back. He knew Peter already had all the sweet potatoes he could use, but Miss Martha didn't know it. “Whatever you see people holding, you tell Miss Martha that's what I need,” Uncle Peter said. “Got that?”

“Got it,” Beverly said. Everybody ought to have a little money at Christmas.

“Good heavens!” Miss Martha said, when Beverly reported back. “How can Peter possibly need more sweet potatoes? You tell him I don't want them on the table every meal!”

Beverly rubbed his nose and looked away. Sometimes Miss Martha sounded exactly like Harriet. “Lots of extra folks around,” he said.

“Well, sure,” Miss Martha said, more calmly. “He must want them for the servants. I forget how you people like your sweet potatoes.”

 

That comment stuck in Beverly's head. He couldn't puzzle it out. He couldn't imagine anyone not liking a sweet potato. “Which people was she talking about?” he asked Mama at night.

“Enslaved people,” Mama said. “That's what she meant. Don't worry about it.”

“But I'm the same people she is,” Beverly said. “I'm her brother.”

Mama sighed and rubbed her hand through his hair. “Don't say that,” she said.

“It's true,” Beverly said.

“A lot of things are true,” said Mama, “but that doesn't mean we say them out loud.”

 

After the excitement of Christmas was over and most of the visitors had gone, Beverly asked Mama, “Will you get Papa to listen to me play again?” He was still with them for another week.

Mama swooped Beverly under her arm. She pulled Beverly's pants down and walloped his bare bottom hard. Beverly howled.

“That's for calling him Papa,” she said, shoving him onto the edge of the bed. “Quit crying. Next time it'll be a switch, and if there's a time after that it'll be Joe Fossett and a big leather strap.”

“But it's true!” Beverly said, between sobs. “He is my papa! He
is
!”

“It's also true you're not to call him that. Not
ever
. Do you hear me?”

Beverly sniffled and sobbed. He got down on the floor and wriggled under the bed to fetch his violin. Mama took it from him. “That's mine until he goes back. Maybe if you worry less about who's going to hear you play, you'll remember to mind your tongue more.”

 

Three days later Beverly finally saw Master Jefferson alone. Beverly was just leaving the great house after delivering still more firewood when Master Jefferson returned from his daily ride. Beverly hurried to the edge of the porch, and took the horse's reins while Master Jefferson dismounted. He looked at his father. Suddenly, he couldn't speak. “Hello,” he whispered, looking away.

“Hello, Beverly,” Master Jefferson said, as though they spoke every day.

Beverly smiled. He liked it that Master Jefferson called him by name.

“I haven't heard any music lately,” Master Jefferson said.

“Aren't you practicing?”

“Oh, yes—” Beverly kept his eyes on the ground. “Mama took my violin away. For punishment.”

“I see. What was your transgression?”

Transgression
. That was a lovely word, but Beverly didn't know what it meant. “Sir?”

“What did you do?”

Beverly studied his feet. “I'd rather not say. Sir.”

Master Jefferson put his hand under Beverly's chin and lifted it, so that Beverly had to look at him. “Then I won't ask. We'll leave it between you and your mother.”

“Thank you,” Beverly said. Master Jefferson put his hand down and started to walk toward the house. “Sir?” Beverly asked quickly, trying to make Master Jefferson stay. “Do you like the sound of words? Like—like
inebriation
or
transgression
?”

Master Jefferson stopped walking. He laughed. “Yes,” he said, turning back toward Beverly. “Yes, I do. Those are fine-sounding words. But their meanings, perhaps, leave something to be desired. What about—let's see—what about
tranquility
. There's a word that's beautiful in meaning and in sound.”

Tranquility. Beverly loved it. “What does it mean, sir?” he asked.

“It means peacefulness.”

Tranquility. Peacefulness. Beverly smiled. He watched Master Jefferson walk into the house, then led the horse to the tranquility of the stables.