Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-four
Poplar Forest, 3 December 1816
From Thomas Jefferson to Martha Jefferson Randolph
We’ve been weather bound at this place. Johnny Hemings and company will set off on Thursday. Our only discomfort is not being with you. The girls have borne it wonderfully. They’ve been very close students and I’m never without enough to do to protect me from ennui.
M Y FATHER KNEW I’d go through his letters once he was dead. This letter is proof that he meant to spare me from having to burn more than I already have. The company my father mentions in reference to their Uncle Johnny were Sally’s sons: Beverly, Eston, and Madison.
They were almost always with Papa in those days, engaged in a grand project to build a new octagonal house at Poplar Forest, where we once hid from the British. My father fled there now for the same reason: to escape. To escape Monticello, which had become, in some respects, a glorified museum and inn.
Though it was a great expense, my father wouldn’t deny his hospitality to visitors. It seemed to him somehow undemocratic, or at the very least, un- Virginian . Strangers stopped without even a letter of introduction, expecting supper and a bed. Most of all, they desired to lay eyes on the former president, the sage of Monticello. And, of course, to satisfy their curiosity about Dusky Sally .
Under that scrutiny, Papa increasingly withdrew to Poplar Forest, where he could make plans for his new university and enjoy the sons Sally had given him.
But he never wrote their names down in any letter.
He knew better. And so did I.
Perhaps my father also absented himself to give Tom the illusion of being in command, hoping it might ease the strain on our marriage. And I made myself as obedient and accommodating as possible, even though Tom had scarcely a tender word for me. I missed the husband I’d known—temperamental and morose, but fiercely loving. And I despaired of having lost that love, possibly forever.
Meanwhile, from Washington came a steady report on Ellen’s beaux:
Mr. De Roth was “an insignificant little creature.”
Mr. Hughes was “a man of no family or connections.”
Mr. Forney was “aloof.”
Mr. Logan was “not at all clever.”
Though my daughter had success pricing the Scientific Dialogues for her grandfather’s library, she made no progress in finding a husband, and I couldn’t find it within myself to encourage her to try harder, given how miserable my own marriage had become.
I tried to count myself content that the love Tom once lavished upon me he now gave to our daughters. But it left me lonely even in a crowded house. I missed Ann unbearably and worried every day what her husband might do to her. As for Ellen, I wanted her to come home straightaway from her husband-hunting trip, but Papa sent her the profit from his tobacco so she could visit Baltimore and then Philadelphia. Which put me in a near depressive state until she returned to regale us with tales of her adventure.
“Everything’s so cheap and good in Philadelphia. And the people were most hospitable. Mr. Short came to see me, too,” Ellen said, working her polishing cloth over one of the silver goblets Papa bought our last summer in Paris.
Nearly the whole of Papa’s silver inventory lay spread out before us on a dining room table, and I looked up from the silver tumbler I’d been polishing, one from a set of eight that Papa had commissioned a silversmith to make per his own design. It must’ve been because Tom and I were so unhappy that I felt wistful to hear William’s name again. And surprised, too, that William had visited my daughter.
Papa had, indeed, given William an appointment that sent him to France and then Russia. But when Mr. Madison became president, he brought about an abrupt end to William’s diplomatic career. For spite, I suppose. No matter the cause, William’s return from Europe had been unheralded and shrouded in mystery. I only knew that he’d settled in Philadelphia—without his duchess—and I was painfully curious to know more.
“Mr. Short called upon you?” I asked, setting the tumbler aside.
“Twice, actually,” Ellen replied. “He took me to see the house you lived in with Mrs. Hopkinson when you were a little girl. It’s now occupied by trades people and has nothing to distinguish it. But I gazed on it with mixed feelings of pleasure and melancholy.”
I, too, had mixed feelings of pleasure and melancholy to think of the man I once loved squiring my daughter about Philadelphia, walking cobblestone streets I once walked, and telling her stories from my youth.
Ellen continued, “We also visited the spot where my grandfather lived as secretary of state. And I strained my eyes to get a distant view of his lodgings while vice president. I was gratified by the sight of these now humble buildings which recall those in whom my fondest affections are placed.”
The swell of my heart made it ache. William had done more than watch over my daughter. He’d taken her places that recalled me and my father. Places I was sure I’d never see again. But William gave these memories to my daughter, and it moved me beyond words to think he was still, after all these years, doing for me what I couldn’t do for myself.
Ellen would do well to find a man like him in the northern states where everything was so cheap and so good. I’d never say it out loud, certainly never in my father’s presence, but like Mrs. Nicholas, I, too, now prayed that none of my daughters would bury themselves in Virginia.
“W HY DOES E LLEN HAVE ALL THE FUN?” Ginny asked at my old harpsichord. She’d been playing song after song to entertain our company. And once our guests had retired, leaving only family and near-relations, she complained, “First her travels, now Grandpapa intends to take her to Poplar Forest. Not just Ellen, but Cornelia, too!”
My father gave an indulgent chuckle. “Oh, it’s a very monastic sort of existence at Poplar Forest. Ellen and Cornelia are the severest students. In daytime they never leave their room but to come to meals. About twilight of the evening, we go out with the owls and bats, and take our evening exercise. You wouldn’t enjoy it.”
Jeff added, “There’ll be better bachelors at the governor’s mansion than amongst owls and bats at Poplar Forest. I’ve asked Governor Nicholas to host a party for you girls to come out into society in Richmond next winter, when the legislature is in session.”
There were advantages, it seemed, in his having married the governor’s daughter. But I worried that Jeff arranged this for his sisters without asking Tom. Hoping to stave off an argument, that night as I got ready for bed, brushing my hair out in front of the mirror over my marbled dresser, I gently broached the subject with my husband.
He surprised me by saying, “The girls would like that.”
I nodded, abandoning my brush to climb over Tom to get to my side of the alcove bed—a ritual that had once been flirtatious but had now turned to annoyance.
He stopped me, hands on my hips. “What ails you, Martha?”
“What makes you think something ails me?” I was resolved to say nothing about my worries for the expense. My husband would tell me it wasn’t my place, even though his generosity—the dresses, the ribbons, the fripperies—would come out of pockets that were already empty. It wasn’t my place to question him; my meddling is what had brought us to this unhappiness, so I bit my tongue.
But Tom’s eyes bored into mine in the candlelight. “I suppose Jeff told you I intend to sell slaves to bolster the family finances, running off to his mother like he always does. He’s still tied up in your apron strings.”
I’m not certain how he could’ve surprised or appalled me more. When Tom proposed marriage, he said he was against slavery. Since then, of course, we’d quietly reconciled ourselves to the evil, convinced that the poor slaves needed us, as children need parents. But selling slaves . . . how could we ever reconcile ourselves to that? “Tell me you’d never do such a thing.”
“I’m only selling one sullen girl,” Tom answered. “She’s difficult to manage, but she could go for more than five hundred dollars. It’ll be an investment in the happiness of our daughters, and maybe the slave will be happier with a new master, too.”
I rolled off him. Turning to the wall, a scream echoed in my mind. I’d held back my news as long as I could, but upon hearing the evil thing my husband planned, I was too upset to dissemble. “We’re having another baby, Tom.”
I heard nothing but silence behind me. It’d been four years since our last child, and we’d assumed my child-bearing days were over. I’d been grateful for it. But now, at nearly forty-five years of age, I was pregnant again and near tears to think it.
I already had ten children—far more than I had the strength to care for. Much as I loved them, I was wrung out with little ones climbing on me night and day. Giving birth to my last had weakened my health. God forgive me, I didn’t want another baby. But children were a source of manly pride. So, given a moment or so, maybe Tom would find his composure and tell me how happy he was. Then I’d force a smile and tell him what a joy it’d be.
Except it would all be a lie—all of it.
So I turned and said, “I don’t know what to do about it.”
At these words, Tom eyed me with a mixture of curiosity and horror. Perhaps he was remembering my testimony in which I claimed to have given his sister an abortifacient. I was remembering it, too. It seemed, at the moment, like an answer. We’d never stand trial for it. My father, if he knew, might not even object, for he’d commented almost admiringly on the practice amongst Indians. I’d hate myself, but I already hated myself for bringing another child into the world when we couldn’t provide for the ones we already had.
And yet, I should never have implied such a solution to Tom. Not even as a desperate consideration that I’d talk myself out of. Not even to get my husband’s reassurances. Tom’s lips thinned into a mean line. “There isn’t anything to be done about it, Martha.”
Chastened, I lowered my eyes and murmured what I believed to be the truth. “It’s likely to kill me, this time.”
Then I turned back to the wall, where I lay trapped.
D URING THAT PREGNANCY, I was so sick and swollen and sad all the time that I couldn’t stand myself. The birth left me so insensible that I had to be told I’d given birth to a living babe—a fragile little boy, tiny and blue, for whom my father would eventually choose the name George Wythe Randolph.
I was too weak to hold the baby or feed him, consumed with excruciating, debilitating pain and delirium. And though I was grateful to have lived through the ordeal, every time it seemed as if I might recover, I succumbed to a new cough or ailment.
Scarcely able to sit up, I was confined to bed and bedpan, and Ellen moved into the room across from mine so that she could nurse me. In the months that followed, my daughters were forced to take turns at housekeeping in my stead. But the entire estate would have fallen to pieces if not for Sally Hemings watching over my girls and instructing them where I couldn’t. And I simply couldn’t . Neither smallpox nor typhus had rendered me so ill. Not even fears for my father’s reputation could get me out of bed. Not even to converse or dine with our guests.
Papa’s brilliant courtship with the public went on below stairs—but my world was suddenly and sharply confined to the warren of attic rooms at the top of the house. Oh, I saw and heard most everything, for Monticello was a noisy place, with creaky hinges and floorboards, and more than twenty family members in residence at any given time. My window overlooked the same expansive vista as my father’s did—but my room was at a higher elevation. I saw more. I saw the reality. I saw, every day, Mulberry Row and all the little nail-shop boys who worked from sunup to sundown for our happiness—which only fueled my sickness and melancholy.
One night, when Cornelia brought my supper up, she burst into tears. “Oh, Mother, you’re so very pale, and I’m such an unworthy daughter!”
“Why would you say such a thing?” I offered my arms, and when she came to me, I removed her cap and stroked her dark hair.
Cornelia cried, “How do you remember the numberless variety of orders and directions for the servants? I’m so tired of putting away the books and other things that seem to get everywhere all the time.”
“It becomes routine,” I assured her, knowing she longed to trade the keys and the cookbooks for her drawing paper and pencils. “You’ll get better at it.”
“Father doesn’t think so,” she said, wiping her eyes and reaching into her apron for a scrap of paper written in Tom’s hand. I worried that he’d written a stern reprimand, but instead, it was a poem about her housekeeping.
While frugal Miss Mary kept the stores of the House,
Not a rat could be seen, never heard was a mouse,
Not a crumb was let fall,
In kitchen or Hall:
For no one could spare one crumb from his slice
The rations were issued by measure so nice
But when spring arrived to soften the air,
Cornelia succeeded to better the fare,
Oh! The boys were so glad,
And the Cooks were so sad,
Now puddings and pies every day will be made,
Not once in a month just to keep up the trade.
It was such gentle teasing from Tom—and so unusually good-humored—that I laughed. But Cornelia wept inconsolably until Tom came to comfort her. Speaking soft words before sending her off, Tom closed the door and pulled a chair up beside our bed. Taking my hand in his, he said, “Your hands are so cold.”
“I’ll feel better in the morning,” I said, cheered by this unexpected husbandly affection.
“You’ve been saying that for some time.” He clasped my hand tighter and lowered his head. “The physician says you won’t survive another birth. And I’ve no intention of doing what my father did to my mother or what Jack Eppes did to your sister. It may be that we’re better off sleeping apart.”
Even as ill as I was, I didn’t want to sleep apart from Tom. For twenty-eight years, we’d lain together, and as much as I’d come to resent him in my bed, it pained me more to think of him never there again. “Oh, Tom, can’t we . . .” I trailed off, wondering what to suggest.
I hadn’t been willing to find an “agreeable Negress” to sate my husband’s needs when Dolley suggested it. That unwillingness had nearly cost me my life. But I heard from downstairs the violin of Beverly Hemings—now nineteen years old and a great favorite at Monticello—and it bolstered my resistance. Sally’s oldest son had my father’s freckles, his posture, and shared Papa’s love of music, science, and hot air balloons. The time was coming, I knew, for Sally’s son to be set free, and I dreaded explanations that would need to be made to friends, neighbors, and even my children. I’d found a way not to think of Sally’s children as my siblings—not to think much of them at all beyond a bone-deep guilt and sadness. A guilt and sadness I never wanted my children to feel.
That’s why I hadn’t taken Dolley’s advice, and nothing had changed. So I never found a suggestion. Now Tom made one of his own. “When Governor Nicholas vacates the office, I believe I’d be a good successor. I can be appointed to the post from the state legislature, and . . . the governorship comes with a salary. Money that can’t be lost to droughts or tobacco rot or Hessian flies. Money that’s certain.”
It was as close as my husband could come to admitting that the planter’s way of life that had sustained generations of Virginians in wealth and luxury was a lifestyle in utter decay. My father’s idealistic visions of an agrarian Republic where men’s wealth could be measured in land no longer reflected reality. At least not our reality.
Tom didn’t need my permission, but he seemed to be asking for it. “Richmond’s not so far that I can’t be at your side within a few hours’ hard ride. But I’d have my own bed there—in my own house.”
That might be the most important part, I thought. Tom would no longer be living under his father-in-law’s roof. No longer a man whose position was uncertain. He might no longer be thought of as Thomas Jefferson’s underachieving political and intellectual heir—and dependent, but rather, master of a mansion in Richmond and the entire state of Virginia.
“Of course you’d be a good successor,” I managed as I debated the wisdom of an even greater distance between us. Given the long tension between us, how could I do anything but support him?