Murder at Monticello (25 page)

66

The grand library of Eagle's Rest smelled like old fires and fresh tobacco. Harry, Mrs. Hogendobber, Mim, Fair, Deputy Cooper, and a composed but subdued Warren had gathered around the fireplace.

“I have already read this to my boys. I've tried to explain to them that their mother's desire to protect them from this—news”—he blinked hard—“was a mistake. Times are different now, but no matter how wrong she was about race, no matter how wrong we all were and are, she acted out of love. It's important for them to have their mother's love.” He couldn't continue, but slid the dark blue book over to Harry.

She opened the pages to where a ribbon, spotted and foxed with age, marked the place. Mrs. Murphy and Tucker, curled up at her feet, were as still as the humans.

Warren waved her on and excused himself. At the doorway he stopped. “People talk. I know some folks will be glad to see the Randolphs humbled. Some will even call my boys niggers just to be hateful. I want you all to know the real story, especially since you've worked with Kimball. And—and I thank you for your help.” He put his hand over his eyes and walked down the hall.

A long, long moment of silence followed. Harry looked down at the bold, clear handwriting with the cursive flourishes of another age, an age when one's handwriting was a skill to be cultivated and shared.

The diary and papers wedged into it, other people's letters, belonged to Septimia Anne, the eleventh child of Patsy Jefferson and Thomas Randolph. Septimia's letter to her mother was either lost or in someone else's possession, but Patsy's response, written in 1834, was interesting so Harry started there. In the letter she recalled a terrific scandal in 1793, three years after she married Thomas Mann Randolph, the same year in which they acquired Edgehill for $2,000. At the time the farm was 1500 acres. Slaves were also acquired in this lengthy transaction.

Thomas Mann Randolph's sister, Nancy, embarked on an affair with yet another sister's husband, who was also their cousin. This monkey in the middle was Richard Randolph. At Glynlyvar in Cumberland County, Nancy, visiting at the time, suffered a miscarriage. Richard removed the evidence. He was charged with infanticide. Patrick Henry and George Mason defended Richard and he was found not guilty. The law had spoken and so had everyone who lived in the thirteen colonies. This was gossip too good to be true.

Patsy counseled Septimia that scandals, misfortunes, and “commerce” with slave women were woven into the fabric of society. “People are no better than they ought to be.” She quoted her own mother, whom she vividly remembered, as she was three weeks short of her tenth birthday when her mother died.

She made a reference to James Madison Randolph, her eighth child and Septimia's older brother by eight years.

“The more things change the more they stay the same,” Harry said out loud. She turned pages wrapped up in notations about the weather harvests, floods and droughts, births and deaths. The death of Medley Orion riveted them to their chairs.

Harry read aloud:

Dear Septimia—

Today in the year of our Lord, Eighteen Hundred and Thirty-Five, my faithful servant and longtime companion, Medley Orion, departed this life, surrendering her soul gladly to a Higher Power, for she had devoted her earthly days to good works, kind words, and laughter. The Graces fitted her with physical beauty of a remarkable degree and this proved a harder burden to bear than one might imagine. As a young woman, shooting up like a weed and resembling my beloved father, not necessarily a benefit for a daughter, I resented Medley, for it seemed cruel to me that a slave woman should have been given such beauty, whereas I was given only some small wit.

Sally Hemings and I played together until such time as our race is separated from theirs and we are taught that we are the master. This happened shortly after my dearest mother died, and I felt I was twice removed from those I loved. No doubt many Southerners harbor these same feelings about their sable playmates. As Medley was younger than Sally and me, I began to watch over her almost as I watched over our dear Polly.

Medley remained at Monticello while I journeyed to France with my father and Sally, who for a year or two was no help at all, being too dazzled by the enticements of the Old Order. How Sally managed to find enticements at Abbaye Royale de Panthemont, I still do not know. When I would visit my father at the Hotel de Langeac on Sundays, I did notice that Sally, a beauty herself, seemed to be learning quite quickly how to subdue men.

Upon our return to our sylvan state, our free and majestic Virginia, I again became acquainted with Medley. If ever a woman was Venus on earth, it was she, and curious to note, she evidenced no interest in men. I married. Medley appeared chaste in this regard until that New World Apollo, Braxton Fleming, the boldest rider, the most outrageous liar, the incarnation of idle charm and indolent wit, arrived one day on the mountaintop to seek my father's assistance in a land matter. The sight of Medley as she walked along Mulberry Row unstrung his reason, and Braxton had precious little in the first place.

He laid siege to Medley, encouraged no doubt by the all too evident fact that Peter Carr had made Sally his mistress and Sam Carr enjoyed the favors of Betsey, her sister. And he could not have been ignorant of the condition of my uncle, John Wayles, a good man in most respects, who took Betty Hemings, Sally and Betsey's mother, as his mistress. The Federalists accused my father of being the sultan of a seraglio. Far from it, but politics seems to attract the coarsest forms of intelligence with a few luminous exceptions.

Medley eventually succumbed to Braxton's flambouyant infatuation. He dropped gold coins in her apron as though they were acorns. He bought her brocades, satins, and the sheerest silks from China. I believe he truly loved her, but two years passed, and his wife could no longer bear the whisperings. He was good with horses and bad with women and money. He drank, grew quarrelsome, and would occasionally take a strap to Medley.

At this time I was domiciled at Edgehill with my husband, but the servants would come and go between Edgehill and Monticello and I heard the tales. Father was president at this time. He was spared much of it, although I do fear his overseer at the time, Edmund Bacon, a trusted and able man, may have burdened him with it.

Braxton decayed daily in a manner we were later to see in the husband of Anne Cary. But I will greet the Almighty in the firm conviction that Charles Lewis Bankhead should have been placed in the care of an institution for dypsomaniacs. Braxton was a horse of a different color. He had not much mental power, as I have noted, but he was a sane man. However, circumstance and the crushing weight of impending financial ruin sapped whatever reserve and resolve he possessed. Upon learning that Medley was to bear his child, he—and this was reported to me by King, one of your grandfather's most loved servants—appeared to collapse in on himself. He was reputed to have gone to his wife and spurned her before their children. He declared the intention to divorce her and marry Medley. She told her father, who conducted a meeting with his son-in-law, which must have been incendiary. The man, now deranged, arrived at Monticello and plainly stated to Medley that since they could not live together they must die together. She should prepare to meet her Maker with a clean breast, for he was going to murder her. He, as the suicide, would bear the stigma for this deed. “Even in death I will protect you,” he said.

Despite her love for Braxton, Medley felt she could not save him. She once said to me years later, “Miss Patsy, we were like two bright things caught in a spider's great web.”

More, Medley wished for the unborn child to live. When Braxton turned from her, she seized her iron and smote him as hard as she could upon the back of the head. He perished immediately, and while it may be wicked to wish death upon another, I can only believe that the man was thereby released from his torments.

King, Big Roger, and Gideon buried his body underneath her hearth. That was May 1803.

The fruit of that union is the woman you know as Elizabeth Goorley Randolph. You are charged with protecting her children and never revealing to any her odyssey.

After the crisis Medley came to me, and when the baby was born, I recognized the child, even more beautiful than her mother, and a child who bore no trace of her African blood.

I believe no good can come from a system wherein one race enslaves another. I believe that all men are created equal, and I believe that God intended for us to live as brothers and sisters and I believe the South will pay in a manner horrible and vast for clinging to the sin of slavery. You know my mind upon this subject, so you will not be surprised that I raised Elizabeth as a distant cousin on the Wayles side.

Father knew of this deception. When Elizabeth turned seventeen I gave her seventy-five dollars and secured for her a seat on the coach to Philadelphia, where she would be joining Sally Hemings's brother, who made his life in that city after Father freed him. What I did not know was that James Madison Randolph wished to honor the lady with his heart and his life. He followed her to Philadelphia, and the rest you know. James, never strong, surely hoped to live longer than the scant twenty-eight years allotted to him, but he has left behind two children and Elizabeth. I am too old to raise more children, my dear, and I have heard death's heavy footfall more and more often in the twilight of my years.

I will not live to see an end to slavery, but I can die knowing I was an agent of sabotage and knowing, too, that I have honored my father's truest intentions on this issue.

I no longer fear death. I will rejoice to see my father in the bloom of youth, to see my husband before his misfortunes corrupted his judgment. I will embrace my mother and seek my friend Medley. The years that God bequeaths us are as moths to the flame, Septimia, but with whatever time we own we must endeavor to make the United States of America a land of life, liberty, and happiness for all her sons and daughters.

Yours,
M.J.R.

“God bless her soul.” Mrs. Hogendobber prayed. The little group bowed their heads in prayer and out of respect.

67

Mrs. Murphy sat beside Pewter in Mrs. Hogendobber's garden. The stakes for the peas and tomatoes all had been driven into place at last.

“I guess you all are lucky to be alive.”

“I guess so. She was crazy behind the wheel of that car.”
Mrs. Murphy knocked a small clod of earth over one of the rows.
“You know, humans believe in things that aren't real. We don't. That's why it's better to be an animal.”

“Like a social position?”
Pewter followed Mrs. Murphy's train of thought.

“Money, clothes, jewelry. Foolish things. At least Harry doesn't do that.”

“Um. Might be better if she did believe in money a little bit.”

Mrs. Murphy shrugged.
“Ah, well, can't have everything. And this color thing. It doesn't matter if a cat is black or white as long as it catches mice.”

Tucker nosed out of the back door of the post office.
“Hey, hey, you all. Come around to the front of the post office.”

The cats trotted down the tiny path between the post office and the market. They screeched to a halt out front. Fair Haristeen, bestride a large gray mare and wearing his hunting clothes, rode into the post office parking lot. Mim Sanburne stood out front.

Harry opened the front door. Mrs. Hogendobber was right on her heels. “What are you doing? Vetting a horse on Main Street?”

“No. I'm giving you your new fox hunter and I'm doing it in front of your friends. If I took her to the farm, you'd turn me down because you don't like to take anything from anybody. You're going to have to learn how, Harry.”

“Hear. Hear.” Mim seconded the appeal.

“She's big—and what bone.” Harry liked her on sight.

“Take the horse, Mom,”
Tucker barked.

“May I pet him?” Miranda tentatively reached out.

“Her. Poptart by name and she's got three floating gaits and jumps smooth as silk.” Fair grinned.

“I can arrange to pay you over time.” Harry folded her arms over her chest.

“No. She's a gift from Mim and me to you.”

That really surprised Harry.

“I like her color,”
said the gray cat.

“Think Mom will take her?”
Tucker asked.

Mrs. Murphy nodded.
“Oh, it will take a while, but she will. Mother can love. It's letting someone love her. That's what's hard. That's what this is all about.”

“How'd you get so smart?”
Tucker came over and sat next to the tiger cat.

“Feline intuition.”

Dear Highly Intelligent Feline:

Tired of the same old ball of string? Well, I've developed my own line of catnip toys, all tested by Pewter and me. Not that I love for Pewter to play with my little sockies, but if I don't, she shreds my manuscripts. You see how that is!

Just so the humans won't feel left out, I've designed a T-shirt for them.

If you'd like to see how creative I am, write to me and I'll send you a brochure.

Sneaky Pie Brown
c/o American Artists, Inc.
P.O. Box 4671
Charlottesville, VA 22905

In felinity,
SNEAKY PIE BROWN

P.S. Dogs, get a cat to write for you!