Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings (39 page)

M
artha does not come to the funeral. But when, the following day, Sally Hemings walks the four miles to see her at Edgehill, Martha greets her at the door herself and invites her into the parlor.

“My dear Sally,” Martha says over and over. “My dear, dear Sally.”

While Sally Hemings sits, Martha remains standing, rubbing one hand over the other as if she is washing them. “I am so sorry,” she says. “I wanted to come to the . . . to the . . . to your—” She cuts herself off with a swallow before continuing. “But I was kept here by pressing concerns. I hope you can understand.”

Martha does not wait for a response before telling Sally Hemings that Mrs. Maria (who, at nineteen, has married her cousin Jack and moved to Eppington) sends her consolations and apologies.

“Would you like some tea?” Martha asks after a moment of silence.

“No, thank you.” Sally Hemings looks down into her lap. “I am wondering if I might ask a favor of you. Would it be possible for you to write to Mr. Jefferson, and—”

Martha's teeth flash white in a relieved though still anxious smile. “As it happens,” she says, “I have already written to Papa. I will be sure to give you his reply the instant it arrives.”

As this is all Sally Hemings wanted to hear, she stands up.

“Are you sure you won't have some tea?” asks Martha.

“No, thank you.”

Martha escorts Sally Hemings to the door and gives her hand a quick, forceful squeeze before saying good-bye.

A week and a half later, Mr. Richardson, the steward, comes to Sally Hemings's cabin with a letter from Martha, which he reads aloud, in total: “‘Sir, Could you convey at your earliest opportunity to Sally Hemings my father's expression of sorrow at her recent misfortune—to wit, “Please tell Sally I am sorry to hear of the loss of her child.” Yours, Mrs. Randolph.'”

“Is that all?” asks Sally Hemings.

Mr. Richardson shrugs. Before he leaves, he looks at her as if he has something more to say. In the end he only mutters, “Sorry,” and walks out into the daylight.

Sally Hemings is alone, sitting on the edge of her bed.

Her child
, she thinks. Her
child?

“N
o point getting angry at Mr. Jefferson for that,” says her mother. “Might as well get angry at a mule 'cause he stubborn.”

“But he's not a mule,” says Sally Hemings. “He's a man. And a man has a choice about what he says and does.”

“I didn't say he ain't got no choice. All I said is that anger won't get you nothing. You got a choice, too, and you got to do what's good for you—that's all I'm saying.”

“You mean whatever he does, I'm just supposed to shut up and take it? What kind of choice is that?”

“All I'm saying is you do what's good for you. He's a man, and men don't think about nothing in a woman except pussy. That's just a fact. Nothing you can do about that. But Mr. Jefferson—seems like, long as you let him get a little every now and then, you in the catbird seat. That's not so bad, far as I can see.”

“I'll kill myself first!”

Betty shakes her head wearily. “Oh, baby, ain't no one ever said being a woman is easy—a colored woman especially.”

I
t is nearly midnight, and Thomas Jefferson is stretched out in his bed, fully dressed except for stockings and shoes, his legs under the covers and his portable wooden desk in his lap. His fire has burned down to cinders, and his breath is making a bronze fog in the light of the candelabra on his night table. Two letters lie drying on the covers beside him, one to Aaron Burr, asking for his aid in keeping President Adams and the Federalists from launching a full-scale war against France, and the other to James Madison, concerning the deeply troubling rumors that Adams is planning to pass a so-called Sedition Act that would allow him to imprison for treason anyone who published, wrote or even uttered criticism of his government. While the former is the more pressing issue, the latter is by far the more serious, and a clear violation of the most sacred principles articulated in the Declaration and the Constitution.

What Thomas Jefferson feels is more sorrow than outrage. It is beyond his comprehension how Adams, someone he had once so admired and thought a dear friend, would want to arrogate unto himself the powers of a monarch. Not merely is such an ambition a complete repudiation of the most passionate and noble struggle of both their lives, it would seem to indicate that no human being, not even the most idealistic and pure, is immune to the corruptive influence of power.

How might the nation be preserved from the weaknesses of human nature? Only, apparently, through the constant vigilance and fervent efforts of the truest believers in the ideals of democracy and republican government. But if Adams can be so compromised, where are such true believers to be found? Is simple human nature the greatest enemy of government by and for the people? Is democracy even possible if the representatives of the people yield so easily to self-interest? Or is the concentration of power in the hands of the corrupt and greedy few the inevitable and most natural form of human governance? Is this why there have been no true democracies since creation? Is the entire American venture doomed?

Such thoughts have been eating away at his own will to fight ever since his arrival in Philadelphia a week and a half ago. He has found it
impossible to sleep for more than two or three hours a night, and whatever he eats passes almost instantly through his body, causing painful turbulence all along the way. He has been alternating almost daily between despairing lethargy and frenzied, not entirely rational or well-coordinated efforts to combat his opponents, solidify bonds with his supporters and gain new allies. This entire day has been devoted to such efforts, and now, even as the fire and his candles burn low and the December cold seeps under the door and through the window sashes, he feels so restless that he can't imagine going to sleep.

The letter on the wooden desk in his lap is the one from Martha he received three days ago telling him of the death of poor little Harriet. When he first read the news, his head reeled and it seemed minutes before he could breathe again. Of the eight children whom he has sired, Harriet is the sixth to die. For days he has been seeing images of her trying to catch dust motes in a sunbeam, making her satisfied
gnar-gnar-gnar
moan at Sally Hemings's breast and taking great effort to articulate her every syllable when, two days before he left Monticello, she told him, “I want to ride with you on your horsey.” How is it possible that this sweet little girl should be gone? He remembers all the dear little ones he has lost, their fluffy heads, their dewy cheeks, their delicate smiles. He remembers Lucy, the second Lucy, who, only two years old, had no comprehension of what he was saying when he went to bid her good-bye before leaving for France. She had looked up at him with those huge, dark brown eyes of hers, some sort of consternation at what he was telling her brewing inside them, but not enough to amount to real understanding. They were the eyes of trust. She was trusting him never to do anything that would bring her sorrow or put her in harm's way—and he had done both, by turning his back and walking out the door to his carriage loaded with trunks and boxes.

It was the same, he feels, with little Harriet. When he left, he had told himself that her illness was only
la grippe
, that in a day or two she would be outside again, squealing happily as she ran after squawking chickens. But now it seems to him that he actually knew she was going to die and that the reason he had not postponed his departure for Philadelphia was that he could not bear to witness her death agony or to see her bright and avid little face go pale and permanently still. And thus it was that he had betrayed not only her but also her mother.

His first thought on hearing of Harriet's death was to write to Sally
Hemings directly, through Jimmy. He had even begun the letter but had hardly gotten through his second sentence before he realized how disastrous it would be were so incriminating a document to be intercepted by Adams or Hamilton—especially at this particular juncture. So he tore up the letter and threw it into the fire. There followed a day of despondency, during which he could not bear to even think of the news Martha had conveyed to him. Yesterday he wrote several different letters to Martha, all of them containing descriptions of Harriet's sweet and lively face—but then, knowing the unpleasant thoughts such description would put into his eldest daughter's mind, he tore up each letter as soon as he had finished it and threw it into the fire.

And now, as one of his candles has already guttered and gone dark and as, even under his greatcoat, both of his shoulders are shaken by a chill, he decides that the simplest and least lugubrious message is the best: “Please tell Sally I am truly sorry to hear of the loss of dear little Harriet.” Excellent reader of character that she is, Sally Hemings will, he hopes, intuit all the sorrow and sympathy behind his words.

But as he folds the letter and slips it into an envelope, he thinks that should she not understand his true meaning, that might not be so bad. At this moment, when he is in such despair over the corruption of so many of his onetime allies and friends, perhaps it would be best if he were able to transcend his own human weakness, even at the cost of hurting a lovely and kind young woman.

T
he day after Mr. Richardson reads Martha's letter, Sally Hemings drags the trunk containing her Paris clothes off the hidey-hole under her bed and pulls out the primer. That night she goes to Thomas Jefferson's chambers, where, taking his pen in hand and opening his inkwell, she copies out onto several sheets of foolscap every letter of every word in all the couplets. She works until long after midnight, and the result of her efforts looks more like an assemblage of broken twigs than actual writing, and the muscle between her thumb and first finger has grown so hard and painful that she has to sit on her hand before she can open it flat. But this time she knows that she has actually
read
every word she copied rather than recited it from memory or simply guessed what it might be. And she also knows that her marks will become more and more like real writing with every new attempt.

The next night she makes two copies of the couplets and the following night three, and with every repetition she feels the sounds the letters signify rising more naturally within her mind and the forms the letters take flowing more naturally from her quill. She repeats the exercise for two more nights, and on the third she brings
Notes on the State of Virginia
with her and copies out its first page, a much more arduous labor that takes her two long nights, not because there are more words but because the words are much more difficult to sound out and comprehend—especially since there are no rhymes. But even so, by the time she has copied the whole page, she feels that she has mostly understood what she has read: that Thomas Jefferson is explaining the circumstances under which the book was written and apologizing for its flaws, which he ascribes, in part, to “the want of talents in the writer.”

Sally Hemings is surprised that even Thomas Jefferson should worry about his writing, but at the same time his confession is a comfort, because it tells her that writing is difficult for everyone, and so she feels less alone.

With this thought in mind, she closes the book, and just below the last sentence she has copied, she inscribes:

“I am Sally I can red and writ”

By the time she finishes these eight words, her heart is pounding as if she has just climbed a mountain, and a strange, uneasy thrill is running all through her body. It takes her a long moment to understand why she should feel as she does, but then the thought comes to her that she has just acquired a dangerous skill. She isn't sure how she is going to use it or if she should let anyone know that she possesses it. She is proud of herself—very proud. But she is much more afraid than she is proud, and she isn't sure why she should be afraid at all.

J
ames T. Callender is hated because he sees people exactly as they are—and they know it, even when he keeps what he sees entirely to himself. But since the truth is a weapon, and one that gains potency according to the wealth and influence of the man it concerns, many people are willing to pay Callender to put the truth into words. Almost all of these people are either cowards, who are actually paying him to say what they dare not say themselves, or hypocrites, who desire nothing more than the brutal evisceration of their enemies but who rely upon Callender's perspicacity and impeccable journalistic reputation to give them license to proclaim, at the first twinge of guilt or hint of condemnation, “But it's the truth!”—as if paltry factuality were an unassailable guarantor of virtue.

While the clarity of his vision is what has kept Callender in meat and drink for decades, it is also the primary source of his despondency. There is not, for example, another man on the American continent whom Callender admires more than Thomas Jefferson. Again and again, on reading Jefferson's remarks on the natural rights of man, the corruptions of monarchism or the evil of concentrated political or economic power, he has had the uncanny sensation that he is reading his own thoughts. And so, when his Philadelphia publisher brings a tall, redheaded man into his office and introduces him as Vice President Jefferson, Callender staggers as if a thunderbolt has burst within the room. Were Jesus Christ standing before him, he could not have been more cowed by awe. But then he shakes Thomas Jefferson's soft, perspiring hand and knows the truth: The man is both coward and hypocrite, animated solely by a desire for revenge. There follows a brief moment during which Callender is enraged that Thomas Jefferson should turn out to be so abjectly human. But in the next moment, Callender realizes that his former hero's weakness amounts to his own strength.

Thomas Jefferson says nothing of his real motives, of course, but, on parting, Callender intimates that he understands them perfectly. Making a gesture that combines a deferential bow with a knowing wink, he says,
“Should you ever have need of my services, I am entirely at your disposal.” And, indeed, two days later Callender receives a message from Thomas Jefferson asking for a private conference at the home of their mutual friend, Thomas Leiper.

While secretary of state, Thomas Jefferson rented Leiper's house, and as has been the case in every house he has rented, he substantially renovated it during his tenure. The stately room where he and Callender meet, with its mauve walls and brass chandelier, was once divided by a rough wooden partition into the work and storage rooms for a hat manufactory. Leiper was extremely dubious when Thomas Jefferson suggested that he might renovate, but so satisfied with the results that he moved into the house after his illustrious tenant departed and now rents out his former home instead.

After the briefest exchange of pleasantries, Leiper places an open bottle of burgundy and two glasses on the table and leaves the room. The bottle poses a question: Which of the two men will pick it up and serve the other? Callender decides to answer this question by remaining perfectly silent and still. When, at last, Thomas Jefferson reaches over and begins to fill one of the glasses, Callender raises his hand, palm forward. “That's for you.” Thomas Jefferson glances at him, perplexed. “I've brought my own.” Callender pulls a silver flask out of his pocket. “Don't have much taste for wine, actually.” He fills the empty glass with brandy, then taps its base against the glass Thomas Jefferson has already filled. “To your health.” He smiles. Clearly disconcerted, Thomas Jefferson returns the smile uneasily, then begins to chatter compulsively about President Adams's proposed Sedition Act, his monarchist tendencies and the betrayal of the Revolution by the Federalists in general. But finally, after pausing to moisten his dry mouth with a sip of wine, he comes to the point. “I am wondering if this might not interest you in a professional capacity, which is to say if you mightn't make some of these points in an essay or a pamphlet?”

“I am at your service,” says Callender. And then he says, “I've met Adams on a number of occasions. The man is a clear sodomite.”

Thomas Jefferson glances down into his wine.

Callender smiles. “I'm sure it would be no trouble to come up with incontrovertible evidence of his proclivities, although our best sources might be his neighbors in Braintree.”

“I don't think that . . .” (Thomas Jefferson's mouth hangs open indecisively for a long moment.) “. . . will be . . .” (Another long pause.) “Well, let's just say I'm not sure that would be a productive avenue of inquiry.”

Callender doesn't respond, only stares straight into Thomas Jefferson's eyes, smiling all the while.

“My concern,” says Thomas Jefferson, “is entirely for the continuance of the Republic.”

“Of course! Of course! You know that no one has greater respect for you or is in closer accord with your political philosophy than I.”

Thomas Jefferson crosses one leg over the other and finishes his wine in a single swallow. His contempt for Callender is palpable, but so is his helplessness.

Callender lifts his index finger admonishingly. “Given how critical it is that we quash Adams and the Federalist traitors, we must pursue our every advantage. Anything less would show both a lack of backbone and a profound underestimation of the dangerousness of our enemies.”

“I agree that we should stop at nothing to defeat the Federalists, but it is my firm belief that we will be most likely to succeed if we pursue only
necessary
efforts. Irrelevant or unsubstantiated attacks will make us seem indifferent to moral and political principles and to care for nothing but the maximization of our own power, and so could undermine rather than advance our cause.”

“Mr. Jefferson?” Callender is holding out the bottle of wine.

Thomas Jefferson seems at first not to understand the significance of the gesture but then extends his empty glass.

Returning the bottle to the table, Callender sits back in his chair. “No one holds moral principle in greater estimation than I,” he says.

Thomas Jefferson recrosses his legs and takes a sip of his wine, his gaze turned entirely away from Callender.

“But in all due respect,” Callender continues, “you must bear in mind that our friend Colonel Hamilton was not brought down by the actions of the courts nor by any investigative body but by my revelations concerning his callous disregard for his wife's reputation and feelings and his sordid exploitation of the poor Mrs. Reynolds.”

Thomas Jefferson takes another swallow of his wine but still does not look at Callender.

“I would ask you, then,” says Callender, “to consider which efforts were, in fact,
necessary
to rid the nation of so corrupt an influence as Hamilton.”

“Mr. Callender, I would not be here if I did not have immense respect for your capacities as a journalist.” Thomas Jefferson speaks with bitter irony, and he looks Callender straight in the eye, as if to underline that fact.

“Exactly,” says Callender. “And I trust, then, that you understand that as the journalist
I
will be taking full responsibility for what I write. What this means is that anything you have to tell me about Mr. Adams, Mr. Jay or about any other matter will be held in strictest confidence. My readers and the nation as a whole will benefit from your wisdom, but not a soul will even suspect that you were the one to advance my understanding.”

“Yes,” says Thomas Jefferson. “Good.”

He is weakening. James T. Callender smiles and refills his own glass with brandy.

“But at the same time,” he says, “since I am the one taking responsibility for what I write, I am the one who will determine what that might be. You may speak to me about Mr. Adams or not, as you choose. But if I determine that a trip to Braintree is merited, I am entirely within my rights to undertake it. Mr. Leiper has informed me of the gracious contribution you have made toward the care of my ailing wife and my poor children, and I am immensely grateful. I thank you, in fact, from the bottom of my heart. But nonetheless I must still insist upon my journalistic freedom. If you have any misgivings in that regard, I will immediately return your moneys to you, with interest.”

Thomas Jefferson has finished his second glass of wine. He is looking out the window. His voice is low. “That won't be necessary.”

“I assure you that I hold myself to the strictest standards. My investigations will be exhaustive, and I will not make one assertion unsupported by fact.”

“Good,” says Thomas Jefferson.

Callender is holding out the bottle of wine once again. “Mr. Jefferson?”

Thomas Jefferson looks at the hovering bottle, then offers his empty glass. Callender fills it, then refills his own with brandy. He smiles and lifts his glass. “We are on the verge of great things!”