Sally Heming (51 page)

The Randolphs.

They were the bane of her existence.

The Randolph blood.

It was the tragedy of her life.

Without it, Martha might never have returned to Monticello
and Thomas Jefferson.

Without it, she and Martha might have lived out their lives
apart.

The Randolphs, and God knows there were enough of them, were
strange people. John Randolph was one of the most eccentric men who ever lived,
and Thomas Mann Randolph was well nigh his equal. Like two identical steers.
Having Thomas Mann on the mountain permanently didn't make her sleep any
easier. Thomas Mann didn't like it any better—living with his father-in-law and
watching his wife worship the ground her father trod on, any more than Thomas
Jefferson liked his son-in-law drinking and acting crazier and crazier. But
Martha was in such bliss to be back up here, she didn't seem to notice that her
husband was crazy. Jim, the overseer at Legos, had told her the other day that Thomas
Mann had driven Dromedary over to Edgehill and right into a row of haystacks,
just like that. Scattering them in all directions and covering himself with
straw. When he had reached the overseer and finished his business, he had
calmly declared that he thought an old bull must have gotten into the wheat
field, 'cause he had seen a good many shocks overthrown and scattered on his
way over. As serene as you please, when he had done it himself, she thought.
The overseer had laughed, because he knew Thomas Mann Randolph was crazy as a
loon! Burwell said he had seen him take Dromedary's tail and run him up the
mountain as fast as he could. And he was in money trouble too. Bad. Selling his
slaves for cash.

Then there was Anne Cary, Thomas Mann's sister. She had
been brought to trial for infanticide with her cousin and lover Richard
Randolph. That had rocked the gentry!

Her thoughts were interrupted by the screams of the
half-naked children who came racing by her; Ceres, the bull terrier, on their
heels. Sally Hemings looked up into the lacy greenness of the immense ash trees
that shrouded the Big House in shadow—trees planted by her lover before she was
born. She loved these trees. Encompassing her in their soft violet shade, they
seemed to stand between her and the world. Protecting that strange love which
was her secret and her burden.

A dull pain struck her temple. She was almost forty years
old. If she lived as long as her mother, there was as much of her life behind
her as in front of her. And in those forty years she had had to learn slowly,
like her mother before her, like every female before her, the uses of love.

And Martha. Everything would be all right, she thought, if
only there were not two mistresses at Monticello, as if there could really be
two mistresses of anything.

CHAPTER 39

SUMMER
1812

Thomas Jefferson
was happy. He had
deeply missed the pleasures of Monticello. He had missed his slave wife. How
many times when he had been away from her had he imagined his hands riding over
that beautiful body, seizing it as if it were handfuls of his own buff clay
Monticello earth; the fragile woman's landscape of her turning, twisting, rising,
and falling under his hands; the long black hair winding like a tributary of
his own Ravina River; the golden eyes which turned dark amber in heat, shining
upon him like his own Virginia sun, steady and enervating. Those eyes, this
mountain, his friends, his neighbors. They were the only places he really felt
safe. The mansion, his mansion, was finally finished. His burden of state, his
presidency, was over. Only his university remained to be built now, and his
family to care for: slave and white. He thought of Anne, soon to be married,
and dismissed Sally's son Thomas, who had deserted him. He turned and beckoned
to Beverly. Often, for the last year or so, he had seen Beverly waiting, as he
was now, saddled up, hoping to be invited. And sometimes, when he really didn't
feel like being alone, he would take Beverly along with him. Isaac, who held
his horse, looked up at him and then over to Beverly, who sped to join his
father.

As young as he was—thirteen and a half—Beverly was a
splendid horseman, thought Thomas Jefferson. He rode almost as well as Burwell,
and certainly better than anyone near his age at Monticello. Sometimes, when
they raced, he would rein in Brimmer and let Beverly win. Sometimes. Beverly
had grown so much in the past year, the boy's height would equal his own.

The two bright heads met in the light, Beverly's hair
brighter and blonder than the fading, graying mane of his father. The two
bodies were cast from the same mold with their heavy, awkward necks and wrists,
their huge hands, and their long legs. Beverly flushed with pleasure and
adoration as they rode off silently together. He had taken to riding the
fields, asking questions, demanding—yes, demanding— instructions, begging to be
taught, calculating, planning, counting, pleading for more knowledge. His
father had been surprised at the astuteness of his questions, his quick mind,
his grasp of trade, banking, interest, exports, tariffs, yields, crop rotation,
loans ... everything seemed to fascinate him.

His mother had begged that he be allowed to go to school
with the Randolph boys in Charlottesville, if only as a body servant. She had
not succeeded in this, but he had finally agreed that Beverly could be tutored
secretly after classes by the instructor there, Mr. Oglesby. He was proud of
Mr. Oglesby's reports on Beverly's progress. Beverly was the only boy he
allowed the freedom of his library. Even his grandson Jefferson had to ask
first. What power there was in teaching, he thought. His dream now was a
university in Charlottesville and he was determined to build it.

Yes, thought Thomas Jefferson, his slave wife would forgive
him in time for Martha. He had had no choice, and he had wanted his daughter
with him. Peace. He was home. He had returned to the scenes of his birth and
early life, to the society of those with whom he was raised and who had always
been dear to him. The long absences, the pomp, the turmoil, the bustle, the
splendor of office had drawn but deeper sighs for this place; he longed for
private life, friends, and family. He had laid down his burden of power and
hoped only that he had obtained for himself the approbation of his country. He
mused.

He reined in his bay and waited for Beverly.

Thomas Jefferson's knees and thighs increased the pressure
on his mount as Beverly reached him. Then, as they moved together, he cast a
sidelong glance at his slave son. The clear, handsome profile was a replica of
his own, even to his color. Love. God knows, he loved the boy's mother.
Cherished her. He was bonded to her. She owned him just as surely as he owned
her, the only difference being that her possession of him was a gift while his
was a theft.

He was stirred as always by the thought of her fragility
... her smallness, her smooth round skull he could cup in one great hand, the voice,
that lovely voice.... He never ceased to be amazed at her beauty that seemed to
deepen year by year. She was more beautiful now than at twenty, he thought. As
for his own age, he wore it lightly, despite his attacks of rheumatism, his
constantly aching right wrist, his bouts of dysentery. His wife had been dead
for twenty-nine years, and this woman, whose image was before him in her plain
blue gown, he had loved faithfully, with a mixture of guilt and passion, for
more than twenty-three years.

Beverly, he thought, would soon be a man. He stared at his
second son. A wave of love and bad conscience overwhelmed him.

"And how are your studies coming with Mr.
Oglesby?"

"Fine, Master, sir."

"He's treating you well?"

"Oh, yes! He's very kind, Master. He's ... wonderful
to me, Master, sir."

Thomas Jefferson felt a pang of jealousy. It was the
Charlottesville schoolmaster Beverly adored, not he. This Scottish schoolmaster
was opening the door of the world to him, leading him, not he....

"Come to my study this afternoon, Beverly. I have some
books for you."

"Thank you, Master, sir. Shall I come before my
classes?"

"Yes. You can show them to Master Oglesby."

He took a deep breath but the pain remained. Why didn't
this son, whom he had never called son, and who had never called him father,
love him?

Martha Jefferson Randolph was four weeks into her twelfth
pregnancy. Twenty years of childbearing, and her eldest about to marry. She sat
at the downstairs window of the salon and watched her father ride away with
Beverly Hemings.

She wondered where Jeff was. Of course he was in school,
she remembered. How stupid. Jefferson was eighteen now, a gentle boy, but not a
Jefferson. Simply a Virginia gentleman without any special talent. Soon he
would carry on his fragile shoulders the responsibility of the whole estate.
Not only his father's affairs, which were in a dreadful state, but his
grandfather's as well. Martha shuddered. How would he hold up under such a
burden? If only Thomas Mann ... But Thomas Mann was lost to her, to everyone.
He had turned on his family. His delusions of persecution had cast her out. He
accused her and the whole family of the most detestable crimes. Yet, he slept
in her bed every night, got her with child every year, and made her life hell.
She only hoped that Anne would do better. She didn't trust the handsome, rich,
wellborn Bankhead. She prayed that Anne would never live to regret her choice.

Why did she feel so old? She smoothed back a strand of
hair, already turning gray, into the indifferent coiffure of the morning. She
was only months older than Sally. Yet Sally's face was unlined, and her body
seemed as fresh as it had been in her eighteenth year. Her own body felt used
and abused, and she knew she had a slovenly air about her. Even her father had
said so in so many polite words. Since then she had made a special effort to
appear not only neat but with some style, especially at dinner.

Martha felt a burst of loneliness. She tried to conjure up
the image of her mother, dead now for twenty-nine years. The unclear face of
her mother flickered briefly before her. After Martha Jefferson's death, her
father had gone on a rampage of destruction. There remained no vestige of her
portraits, letters, journals, accounts, diaries ... everything went. He had
never forgiven her for dying and leaving him. But she, Martha, had forgiven
her. She strained to remember the face of this woman before the time when, sick
and wasted, she had bound her father to a vow which had kept him wifeless and
her motherless.

Then, Martha Randolph realized, she did look into the face
of her dead mother every day. When she looked into the face of her slave, her
aunt Sally Hemings. She had realized it even in Paris, although she didn't know
how long it had been evident to her. There were differences, but there were the
same eyes, the same small stature—so different from her own—the same dreamy
look, the same steely submission that masked the same taste for luxury and
powerful men, except that her slave had more of a taste for politics than her
mother had ever had. And if this is what she saw when she looked at Sally
Hemings, what might her father see? She would give all of Monticello to be as
adored as that. Or would she?

Martha Randolph shifted the weight of her awkward body. She
picked up her sewing. Two things Sally Hemings, for all her resemblance to her
mother, could never be: she was not white and she was not free. She, Martha,
was mistress of Monticello now, and she would rule here, she vowed, until the
day she died. Her father could have his pleasure. She would have Monticello,
and her children after her, and her children's children. Monticello would
descend upon her children unto the third and fourth generations, she thought
proudly.

Sally Hemings held her straw hat in one hand and shaded her
eyes with the other. She watched Beverly Hemings ride down the mountain with
his father. The small head glistened in the slanting sun, the smooth brow
furrowed with the effort of following father and son as far as she could see.
Sally Hemings was in the summer of her life. There was a voluptuous richness
about her. The yellow eyes had darkened to gold with a glint of steel, and the
ivory skin to a delicate amber. The soft, pointed chin and dimpled mouth had
the set now, not only of authority but of confidence. Her children were all
born. Each birth had been difficult, but she had always recovered quickly. She
had inherited the robust constitution of her mother and the vicious will of her
father, so that pain had never stopped her from anything.

Thomas Jefferson was sixty-nine years old. Their passion,
she knew, would diminish. She would not regret it. He had been an amazingly
virile and passionate man, and their life together had been rich and full. But
the body tired. The body simply refused. She would never take another lover.
She had been one man's only. His. And if they were now like father and
daughter, their contours, she thought, would always blend into that entity
which was the human couple.