Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings (9 page)

I
t is June 26, 1787. Sally Hemings is fourteen and has arrived in a country where the air smells of rancid meat and of flowers too long in the vase, and all the people speak in grunts, coughs and fluting whinnies. In one hand she holds the canvas bag that contains her every possession in the world. Her other hand is on the shoulder of Polly Jefferson, whom she clutches against her side. Beside them on the stone quay is a waist-high sea chest stuffed with Polly's belongings. Her little sister, Lucy, is dead of the whooping cough, and Polly has come from Virginia to live with her father and her big sister, Patsy, in France. But this mud- and gravel-colored city is not France. Sally Hemings does not know what this city is. She thinks it might be London.

“What's happened to Captain Ramsey?” says Polly, who is nearly nine years old but so small and frail she looks six. Her hair is exactly the rich earth-brown of Sally Hemings's, and the two girls have done their hair in an identical fashion, with hanks drawn back loosely from the temples and framed by the ruffle of their cotton bonnets. Sally's bonnet, however, is topped by a straw hat, partially eaten by mice during their passage (at the crown and the back), and pinned, through the bonnet, to her hair.

“He'll be right back,” she says.

“But where did he go?”

“Didn't you listen?” Sally Hemings is irritated, but she knows she shouldn't be, so she gives Polly's shoulder an encouraging squeeze and speaks softly. “He's just looking for the porter. He'll be right back.”

“But why didn't he send Mr. George?” says Polly. “Or one of the mateys?”

“They're busy, I reckon.” Sally Hemings gives Polly's shoulder another squeeze, but more for her own encouragement this time.

She doesn't like Captain Ramsey. Throughout their five weeks at sea, he was always coming up behind her, slapping her on the bottom and shouting, “Get along there, girl!” One night when she was on her way back from emptying Polly's chamber pot over the gunwale, he stopped her at the top of the companionway and put his hand on her bodice, just over her
left breast. When she pushed his hand away, he said, “What's the matter! I just want to see how healthy you are.” That is the worst he ever did, and he has never been anything but grandfatherly to Polly—who loves him as if he actually were her grandfather—but Sally Hemings suspects he's one of those white men her mammy has told her about, the ones you have to keep your eye on.

She looks down the long marble quay toward the building with the huge windows into which Captain Ramsey disappeared. He ought to have been back ages ago; it can't take that much time to find a porter.

When their ship docked, brilliant silver and white clouds with gray undersides were scattered across a powder blue sky, but since then the clouds have grown steadily denser and darker, and she can see a heron-blue smear of rain falling diagonally beyond the big building.

A sudden chilly gust blows down the quay, and she has to hold on to her hat. This is a cold country, she thinks. It is nearly July, and yet she and Polly have to wear their shawls tight across their shoulders if they want to keep from shivering. France will be nicer, she hopes.

Polly makes a small noise and flings her arms around Sally Hemings's shoulders.

A bearded man in a black coat is standing just behind Polly, holding the grips of a wooden wheelbarrow and shouting, in a low, angry voice, words that sound like English chopped into pieces and rearranged in a nonsensical order. The front edge of his wheelbarrow is actually touching Polly's skirts, and the girl seems to want to climb into Sally Hemings's arms.

“Did Captain Ramsey send you?” asks Sally Hemings, thinking the man may be the porter. But her question only makes the chopped-up English tumble ever more rapidly and loudly out of his three-toothed mouth.

He keeps jerking his wheelbarrow back and forth on the cobbles. It is stacked high with oil casks and has no room at all for Polly's chest.

“He just wants us out the way,” Sally Hemings says, and pulls Polly back until they are both standing with their heels half over the quay's edge. The bearded man grunts and pushes his wheelbarrow through the gap between their toes and Polly's sea chest.

“Where's my papa!” cries Polly. “I hate this country! I wish we stayed with Aunt and Uncle Eppes.”

“There, there.” Sally Hemings pulls the weeping girl into her arms, feeling that it will be only a matter of seconds before she, herself, will be crying.

Polly was furious at being left behind when her father and Patsy went to France, and she only became more so when little Lucy died of whooping cough, a disease she might never have gotten had she and Polly gone to Paris, too. And when her father finally wrote to Aunt Eppes saying that he wanted Polly to join him, she said that she wouldn't go. “Don't you want to see Patsy?” her Aunt Eppes asked her. “Don't you want to live in a real castle and see real princesses walking the streets?” No! Polly was determined. If her father didn't love her enough to come and take her to Paris himself, then she wouldn't go, and no one could force her.

Finally Aunt and Uncle Eppes told her that they would go to France with her. They packed valises for themselves and carried them onto the ship at Jamestown. When she was settled in her cabin, they gave her a medicine they said would keep her from getting seasick, but that actually just put her to sleep. And when she woke up, she and Sally Hemings were all by themselves on a boat full of men, miles and miles at sea. Sally Hemings had never felt so lonely and afraid as she did during the hours she sat beside the sleeping Polly, and she feels a little of that loneliness and fear now.

She squeezes Polly against her chest and kisses the top of her head. “Your papa loves you,” she says. “That's how come he sent for you. He'll be here soon, and you'll see how much he loves you. Everything'll be just fine.” She kisses Polly's head a second time, and the little girl returns her squeeze. “Who knows?” says Sally Hemings. “Maybe Captain Ramsey found your papa already and they're just talking down there in that big house.”

Polly is no longer weeping, but she keeps her head tight against Sally Hemings's breast.

It's been more than half an hour since Captain Ramsey left them. All of the other passengers on their boat are gone, and Sally Hemings feels more alone every instant. Maybe this isn't London. Maybe all these gruff men in their leather aprons and grease-stained clothing aren't speaking English at all but some other language she's never heard of. Maybe Captain Ramsey has just abandoned them here.

She gently extracts herself from Polly's grip and says, “You wait here, Polly-Pie. Let me go see what's taking that Captain so long.”

“No!” cries Polly, grief-stricken all over again. “Don't leave me!”

“I'm not leaving you. You can see me the whole time. I'm just going down this dock here, so I can see in the windows of that big house. You got to wait here, because someone's got to look after our stuff.”

Polly's eyes are jittery with tears, and there is a groove of worry between her eyebrows, but she doesn't complain. Sally Hemings steps backward and, after a few yards, begins to hurry sideways, alternately looking where she is going and back at her charge. She knows there is no reason Polly shouldn't come with her. All of the men on the dock are busy with their own labors, and they could never make off with that big chest without her noticing. But somehow she can't stand the idea of Polly coming with her. The two girls have been together every single minute of the last thirty-seven days. Sally Hemings would just love a few moments alone. Nothing bad could happen in so short a time.

She has gone only a dozen yards, however, when she spots a heavy-shouldered woman in a blue gown hurrying down the quay, clamping her feathered hat onto her head with one hand, her knees thrusting, one after the other, against her shimmery skirt.

“Polly!” the woman is calling. “Polly!”

She is close enough to see Sally Hemings's smile of relief, and she, too, starts to smile, even as she continues to run.

“I am so sorry!” the woman says between wheezing gasps when at last she is at Sally Hemings's side. “We were told . . . you wouldn't be . . . getting in . . . until tomorrow . . . or the next day. . . . When I heard . . . your boat . . . was here, . . . I ran all the way. . . .” She stops talking, grips Sally Hemings's wrist and places her other hand against the base of her own throat, gasping so fiercely that she makes a ghost moan with every breath.

“Forgive me!” she says at last, letting go of Sally Hemings's wrist. “I haven't introduced . . . myself. . . . I'm Mrs. Adams. . . . A friend of your father.”

“I'm Sally,” says Sally Hemings. “That's Miss Polly over there.” She points toward the little girl who has already taken several tentative steps in their direction.

“Yes. Of course,” Mrs. Adams says briskly. “So sorry.” And with that she runs toward Polly with both arms extended. “Polly! Oh, Polly! It is so good to see you at last!”

 

London june 26 1787

My dear Sir

I have to congratulate you upon the safe arrival of your Little Daughter, whom I have only a few moments ago received. She is in fine Health and a Lovely little Girl I am sure from her countanance, but at present every thing is strange to her, and she was very loth to try New Friends for old. She was so much attachd to the Captain and he to her, that it was with no small regret that I seperated her from him, but I dare say I shall reconcile her in a day or two. I tell her that I did not see her sister cry once. She replies that her sister was older and ought to do better, besides she had her pappa with her. I shew her your picture. She says she cannot know it, how should she when she should not know you. A few hours acquaintance and we shall be quite Friends I dare say. I hope we may expect the pleasure of an other visit from you now I have so strong an inducement to tempt you. If you could bring Miss Jefferson with you, it would reconcile her little Sister to the thoughts of taking a journey. It would be proper that some person should be accustomed to her. The old Nurse whom you expected to have attended her, was sick and unable to come. She has a Girl about 15 or 16 with her, the Sister of the Servant you have with you. As I presume you have but just returnd from your late excursion, you will not put yourself to any inconvenience or Hurry in comeing or sending for her. You may rely upon every attention towards her and every care in my power. I have just endeavourd to amuse her by telling her that I would carry her to Sadlers Wells. After describing the amusement to her with an honest simplicity, I had rather says she see captain Ramsey one moment, than all the fun in the World.

I have only time before the post goes, to present my compliments to Mr. Short. Mr. Adams and Mrs. Smith desire to be rememberd to you. Captain Ramsey has brought a Number of Letters. As they may be of importance to you to receive them we have forwarded them by the post.
Miss Polly sends her duty to you and Love to her Sister and says she will try to be good and not cry. So she has wiped her eyes and layd down to sleep.

Believe me dear Sir affectionately yours &c &c,

A Adams

 

London june 27 1787

Dear Sir

I had the Honour of addressing you yesterday and informing you of the safe arrival of your daughter. She was but just come when I sent of my letter by the post, and the poor little Girl was very unhappy being wholy left to strangers. This however lasted only a few Hours, and Miss is as contented to day as she was misirable yesterday. She is indeed a fine child. I have taken her out to day and purchased her a few articles which she could not well do without and I hope they will meet your approbation. The Girl who is with her is quite a child, and Captain Ramsey is of opinion will be of so little Service that he had better carry her back with him. But of this you will be a judge. She seems fond of the child and appears good naturd.

I sent by yesterdays post a Number of Letters which Captain Ramsey brought with him not knowing of any private hand, but Mr. Trumble has just calld to let me know that a Gentleman sets off for paris tomorrow morning. I have deliverd him two Letters this afternoon received, and requested him to wait that I might inform you how successfull a rival I have been to Captain Ramsey, and you will find it I imagine as difficult to seperate Miss Polly from me as I did to get her from the Captain. She stands by me while I write and asks if I write every day to her pappa? But as I have never had so interesting a subject to him to write upon [corner torn off] I hope he will excuse the hasty scrips for the [corner torn]y intelligence they contain, and be assured Dear Sir

that I am with sentiments

of sincere esteem your

Humble Servant,

A Adams

T
homas Jefferson gets two letters from Abigail Adams at once, six days after they were sent. In the same post is a letter from Maria Cosway, telling him for the second time that her visit to Paris will be delayed and all but begging, since she remains in London, to be allowed to visit Polly at the Adamses'. Thomas Jefferson feels a sinking ache as he reads her letter. He would love for her to meet his darling Polly and for the little girl, perhaps, to come to love her. But Mrs. Adams is a veritable savant of what she calls “secret life.” Were Maria to utter one item of intimate knowledge—say, about Mistress Jelly, Polly's favorite doll, whose name Thomas Jefferson has more than once applied to Maria herself—then all would be revealed. The mere fact that this woman, whom Mrs. Adams knows only as an acquaintance of John Trumbull, should be so interested in visiting a mere child would be suspicious enough all on its own. No. Impossible. Out of the question.

But Thomas Jefferson suffers another sort of ache as he reads Maria's letter, because this new delay means there was simply no reason for him to have pretended to be off in Tuscany negotiating a trade agreement when Polly's ship arrived. He could easily have met her at the dock in London as he had promised and returned to Paris in time for Maria's visit—if, in fact, she will be visiting at all. He might also have been able to see Maria in London, though that could have been decidedly unpleasant, given that he would most likely have had to see her in the company of her husband.

As he thinks about it now, he knows for certain that Maria will not be visiting—and this is the most potent source of his ache. She already loathes herself for having betrayed Richard; how is it possible, then, morally and emotionally (to say nothing of practically), that she will manage so complex a deception as getting to Paris on her own? And how could Thomas Jefferson have let himself imagine she would! No doubt, in her heart, she doesn't want to see him ever again. Hasn't she told him repeatedly that Richard is a good and tender man? And that she couldn't bear to live if he were ever to find out? This is how it has always been for
Thomas Jefferson. The only woman who ever returned his love with all her heart was Martha. As soon as he revealed the strength of his passion to Becca and to Betsy, they vanished like quail into the forest. And now it is the same with Maria.

And the worst of it is that he has already sent Petit to London in his place. Were he to go there now, he would probably find that Petit, Polly and the Hemings girl had already set out for Paris. So he has nothing to do but wait. And nothing to distract him from thinking about Maria. And nothing whatsoever to stop him from pitting the ever-more-hopeless possibility that she might, in fact, visit against the ever-more-monumental-and-oppressive certainty that she won't.

He is standing in his study off the garden, in front of the cabinet where he keeps his wine, and he is pouring himself a second glass. How could he have strayed so far outside his better nature? Isn't this relentless agony his punishment for having betrayed the memory of his tender and beautiful wife and for having neglected his dear daughters? He is nothing but a monster and a fool, who will be unloved and lonely in his old age, a pathetic, neglected, ridiculed, gout-ridden inebriate and an incurable onanist—and that will be the only fate he deserves! It is an unfortunate fact of his nature that his moral instinct is strong enough only to punish him for his transgressions but not to preserve him from transgressing in the first place. He pours himself another glass.