America's First Daughter: A Novel (5 page)

A deadly, avenging thing.

I wanted to shout a warning but the silence had bewitched us both and the cry died dry in my throat. I could say nothing. Yet, some internal force sent me gliding toward him, my feet barely touching the floor. Almost as if I
floated
to his side. My hand reached out and covered the pistol before he could take it.

The smooth walnut grip felt cold and hard beneath my hand. Almost as cold and hard as my father’s bleak stare, suddenly fixed on me. I looked into Papa’s eyes and what I saw, I dare not trust myself to describe.

All at once, my father shuddered. He took a gulp of air as if he’d been drowning and pulled up suddenly from the water. “Is that my Martha?” he murmured, the spell broken. “My angel?”

“Yes,” I said, for Martha was my given name, too. But I think it was my mother he saw in me. Perhaps that was only right, for I knew it was my mother who sent me to him, who made sure I kept my promise to watch over him. Still clutching the pistol, I knelt beside him. “Yes, Papa, I’m here.”

Those were the last words we spoke that night, but we sat together for many hours, the pistol like ice in my hands, until the deathly oblivion passed. And I learned that night that the silence was not terrible. The silence was my mother’s gift to us. Ours to share. Ours alone.

F
ROM THAT DAY FORWARD
, I stayed at my father’s side. Huddled beside the iron-fitted oak chest containing bottles of spirits, I watched Papa walk the rough-hewn wood floors, his buckled shoes clicking with each step. He was on his feet, night and day, pacing incessantly, as if some solution would present itself to undo the tragedy of my mother’s death.

He wouldn’t touch the trays of food brought to his room, for he had no appetite. My aunts tried to put baby Lucy in his arms, but he wouldn’t hold her, for she was the squalling infant that had hastened my mother’s death. And when Polly came to the door, my father became unsteady on his feet, as if he might swoon away, for my little sister so closely resembled my mother. It was the same reason, I think, he could not even bear the sight of Sally Hemings; the set of her mouth and shape of her eyes appeared familiar even then and greatly disturbed him.

Papa would have only
me
at his side.

Maybe it was because I was long and lanky like a boy, with ginger hair just like his, that he chose me to be his constant companion. Or maybe he sensed in me more than a daughter. A kindred spirit in the darkness.

Whatever the reason, mourning forged us together like hot metal under a smith’s hammer. I was afraid to leave him for fear that if I did, I would be motherless
and
fatherless. I think he feared it, too.

Only I could coax him out of the house to bury my mother beneath the great oak tree in Monticello’s graveyard, where my father blinked unseeingly into the afternoon sun and Aunt Elizabeth tried to offer comfort. “Our Martha has found a happier station. She’s in heaven, now. Alas, until we join her we all must attend ourselves to
this
life.”

My father’s frown made it clear he didn’t believe a word of it, but he avoided arguments, with silence, whenever possible. Still, he knew he must say something, for my mother’s kinsmen had gathered to pay their respects. His voice caught with emotion. “If there
is,
beyond the grave, any concern for this world, then there’s one angel who must pity the misery to which life confines me. I’m in a stupor of mind that has rendered me as dead to the world as she whose loss occasioned it.”

These words hushed not only the small crowd of stooped slaves, but also the stern-faced men in powdered wigs and their weepy women in bonnets. The depths of my father’s despair seemed to shame them. And him. Papa said nothing more during Mama’s funeral, but together, we read the words carved on her tombstone. Not a quote from the Bible, but from Homer’s
Iliad
:

N
AY IF EVEN IN THE HOUSE OF
H
ADES THE DEAD FORGET THEIR DEAD, YET WILL
I
EVEN THERE BE MINDFUL OF MY DEAR COMRADE.

Below that, a simple accounting of her:

T
O THE MEMORY OF
M
ARTHA
J
EFFERSON,

D
AUGHTER OF
J
OHN
W
AYLES;

B
ORN
O
CTOBER 19TH, 1748,
O
.
S
.

I
NTERMARRIED WITH
T
HOMAS
J
EFFERSON
J
ANUARY 1ST, 1772

—
T
ORN FROM HIM BY DEATH
S
EPTEMBER 6TH, 1782

T
HIS MONUMENT OF HIS LOVE IS INSCRIBED.

The slaves used ropes to lower my mother’s coffin into the ground and then shoveled earth over her, rivers of sweat running down their black faces. Then she was gone from us. Truly gone.

One of our neighbors murmured, “Poor Mrs. Jefferson, another victim of the British. Her death is the aftermath of fright . . .”

As if struck guilty by those words, my father stumbled toward her grave. Was it the fault of the British? Had our flight from Monticello and fearful hiding from enemy soldiers stolen my mother’s life? And would we have been forced to hide if Papa had not been a revolutionary?

Papa’s stricken expression told me that he counted himself to blame.

It was Mr. Short and I who steadied Papa, even when my father tried to push away from our assistance. When Papa found his footing again, he uttered the briefest niceties to my mother’s kinsmen, before retreating up the long path to the house, forcing me to chase after him.

Straightaway, he sat down at the table where the pistol still rested, but he didn’t touch it. Instead he took up his
Garden Book
. He hadn’t made entries since summer. But in the moments after my mother’s burial, I watched him write feverishly, scratching ink to paper with each hasty stroke. Curious, I peered over his shoulder, wondering what he was so keen to record, now of all times. . . .

I was shocked by what I saw.

W. Hornsby’s Method of Preserving Birds

In painstaking detail, my father wrote . . . a macabre description of how to preserve dead birds in salt and nitre, mortar and pepper.

I clasped a hand to my mouth.
Is this what my aunts did to my mother before setting her to rest in her coffin?

Mama was delicate; my father used to tease that she had the bones of a bird. I think he would’ve preserved her for all time, if he could have. He would’ve used salt and nitre, mortar and pepper, or any other means to keep some part of her with him. But he had only her belongings, her letters, the little scrap of paper still tucked against his heart . . . and her daughters.

Could that ever be enough?

Just then a knock came at the door. My father did not look up from his writing table. Papa continued to scratch notes about dead birds—and I was suddenly vexed that our servants let anyone into the house when Papa was in such a state.

Aunt Elizabeth must have been similarly vexed, for I heard her address our visitor on the other side of the door. “Mr. Short, he cannot receive you. I fear he has lost his wits.”

Mortified, I pressed my hot cheek against the cool door and heard Mr. Short chastise my aunt in no uncertain terms. “Never say it! Or you’ll inspire every man of Tory sympathies left in the country to crow that the author of the Declaration of Independence has gone mad.”

Papa
couldn’t
be mad. I wouldn’t
let
him go mad. He was writing about birds, but at least he was writing again. Though the sight of my sisters still disturbed him, he was eating again, too. Little nibbles, here and there. And that night, when he collapsed onto his pallet in exhaustion, I stroked Papa’s red hair, singing softly a song my mother used to sing to soothe him.

I made sure he was asleep before finding my way to my little sister in our bed. “Courage, Polly,” I whispered to soothe her tears, bolstering myself as much as her. “We mustn’t cry. We must be of good cheer. Our papa is burdened with such sorrows that we must never burden him with our own.”

W
E ROAMED AIMLESSLY
on horseback through the dense, mountainous woods that, themselves, seemed to have taken on Papa’s sorrow. A misting rain remained after a night’s steady showers, and the branches hung heavy. Turning leaves sagged and droplets splashed to the ground, as if the forest grieved with my father. For him. I wiped moisture from my face with a gloved finger, but I was glad for the rain, because I resented the sun as a liar.

No matter how much it shined, there was no light at Monticello.

Since my mother’s burial, my father and I had taken many long solitary rides like this, but he got no better. I’d promised myself that I wouldn’t let him go mad, but I’d come to understand that my mother was gone forever, and my father was only one step out of the prison of madness her passing created.

On that particular day, Papa’s arms rested listlessly around my waist; I wished he’d held me tighter. Not because I feared Caractacus, but because I craved proof that Papa actually saw me, actually knew I was there with him. I missed the warm strength and protection of his embraces.

He was behind me on the broad back of the stallion, but I missed him as if
he
were the one in the grave. The thought made me bite down on the inside of my cheek until the tang of iron spilled onto my tongue. The curious taste, more than the pain, helped me resist the urgent pressure of my tears. My mother bade me not to grieve, and before my Aunt Elizabeth’s recent depar ture she had encouraged me to be strong. As for Papa, it’d been hard enough to coax him out of his confinement. I knew that I mustn’t cry.

Caractacus’s hooves thudded against the wet ground, and occasionally he gave a low nicker. The trees creaked under the weight of the recent deluge and in the distance, the hammering of a tenacious woodpecker echoed. And yet, it was quiet. That special quiet. My father’s quiet and mine.

The memory of how we sang together at Poplar Forest, when we were hiding from the British, swamped me. The contrast was so sharp, I shivered, the dampness of my hair, bodice, and skirts pressing a chill into my skin, as I came to understand that we’d never laugh or sing like that again.

Papa tugged at the reins, directing Caractacus down a diagonal cut between the trees. The horse snorted and blew at the steep decline, but obeyed with a steady hoof. All at once, Papa let out a shuddering breath, the sound that was always the prelude to the wild grief to follow.

Please, no. Not again,
I thought, a knot in my belly.

But this moment always came. Every single ride. Nothing I ever did stopped it, or made it end any faster. Papa’s chest and arms trembled behind and around me, and his breathing hitched in starts and stops. Then the sob burst out of him and his forehead fell heavily on my shoulder.

Unending moans poured out of him. Their violence pounded against my heart, causing an ache there. He squeezed me until I struggled to breathe. He cried so hard and so much, the desolation of his grief made its way through my rain-soaked frocks to the chilled skin beneath. His words were a mournful jumble, but the hoarse pleading, interspersed with agonized wails, made his lamentation understandable to any living soul.

Even Caractacus, whose ears rotated to the rear. That one small movement was my only proof that someone shared Papa’s grief with me, carried the burden of it, too. It made no matter that a horse couldn’t speak words of comfort. His very presence, and that turn of his ears, made it possible for me to shoulder my father’s outburst.

Suddenly, Papa wrenched his head away and sat back in the saddle. I swayed from the unexpected movement and the sharing of his rage as it washed off of him and through me, hot and acidic. Papa snapped the reins and shouted, “Ha!”

The stallion startled then obeyed. My stomach tossed as Papa pushed the horse into a gallop. A thin branch whipped against my ear. I cried out and pressed my hand against the wound, but Papa didn’t slow as the branches lashed at us.

My throat went tight with fear. I wanted to hide my face against the horse’s neck, but my father’s arms prevented that. So I twisted my fingers around thick chunks of mane and ducked down, eyes shut tight. I prayed a litany that no one heard. And just when I thought we’d ride straight into oblivion, Caractacus swerved with an alarmed whinny.

A second horse answered. Papa pulled up on the reins, bringing us up hard. In fear and confusion, I raised my head too fast, then swooned. Before I knew what had happened, my body slammed to the ground, knocking awareness into me once again. I’d fallen and there’d been no one to catch me. . . .

That was the source of my shock. Unlike the day the rattlesnake made Caractacus rear up, my father hadn’t kept from me from falling. He hadn’t been able.

A voice sounded from above, calling my name. I rolled onto my back. Gray light filtered down through gloomy trees towering high above. Then a warm hand smoothed my ear where I had been slashed by the branch.

“Patsy, are you injured?” I blinked. It wasn’t my father who had dismounted to attend to me; it was William Short. “Patsy, say something. Are you hurt?”

“Yes,” I whispered. “I think so.”

The young man’s green eyes stared down at me. “You’re bleeding.” He took a kerchief from inside his coat and pressed it into my hand. I accepted the fine linen square and sat up as Mr. Short glanced over his shoulder. “Mr. Jefferson, have you come to harm?”

Papa didn’t answer.

Mr. Short tried again. “Mr. Jefferson, I fear your daughter is concussed.”

Papa’s blank stare betrayed that he couldn’t hear—that he wasn’t even with us. Papa was still in the jaws of his grief, caught in the madness I couldn’t bear for anyone else to discover. I tried to rise, to go to him, but Mr. Short stopped me with a warm hand upon my arm. “Get your head about you, Patsy. I’ll fetch some water.” From the saddlebag of his own mount, Mr. Short withdrew a flask and brought it to me. I wiped my mud-smeared hands on one of the few clean spots on my skirt. What a sight I made, and in front of Mr. Short. Mama would’ve scolded me, but, then, she’d never scold me again for anything. . . .

I took the water. Cool and clean, it eased the constriction of my throat. With sagging shoulders, I held the flask out to him. “I’m sorry. I’ve muddied the pewter.”

Mr. Short smiled. “Pay it no mind. It’s but a little dirt. Can you stand?”

I nodded and my gaze flicked to Papa, whose eyes were still blank and distant, his hands twitching on the reins like he was restless to move on. When Mr. Short helped me up from the ground, Papa seemed to remember himself at last. “Come, Patsy,” he said, his voice hoarse and strained.

It always sounded that way after one of his secret outbursts, but I think, too, he was ashamed anyone else had seen him this way.

Perhaps Mr. Short was right to say that I was concussed, because when I stepped toward Caractacus, I stumbled. Mr. Short steadied me with his hand at my elbow, then bade me to lean on him. “Mr. Jefferson. If you’ll allow me, I’ll see your daughter to Monticello.”

Papa stared a long minute, his dulled blue eyes moving back and forth between us like we were a puzzle to decipher. Seeing the mud on my dress, as if he’d only just realized that I’d fallen, a flush crept up Papa’s neck. “Yes,” he finally murmured, his hands lifting the reins. “Yes, of course.”

“No!” I cried. The thought of Papa wandering alone filled me with icy dread. In his madness, what would he do?

Mr. Short squeezed my other hand. “Come along, Patsy.”

“But, Papa—”

“Go with William,” Papa said, his voice cracking. “It’s for the best. He can take care of you.”

“But you’ll be home for supper?” I searched my father’s eyes for a promise.

Papa pressed his lips into a thin line and looked away. “I’ll be home.”

I reached for Caractacus and stroked the stallion, as much to reassure him as myself. “Take care of him,” I whispered. The horse nickered and pressed his big, regal face against mine. It was all the reassurance I had that someone, or something, would look after Papa in my stead.

Papa tugged the reins and turned about, forcing Mr. Short to huff out a breath. “Mr. Jefferson? Your daughter—” My father had already wheeled his horse around, but Mr. Short shouted after him, more fiercely. “Mr. Jefferson!”

The young man’s tone caught Papa’s attention. My father brought the stallion around, almost warily. I remember now that in that moment, William’s hand trembled where it rested atop mine, a small show of nerves.

“Mr. Jefferson, it didn’t—” Short broke off, swallowing hard on a wavering voice. “This loss didn’t happen only to you, sir.”

I couldn’t appreciate the full measure of these words. Not then. That day, I gasped so forcefully at William’s impertinence that I hurt my throat. “Mr. Short!”

Papa blanched but gave a single, tight nod that made my heart feel heavy within my chest. I felt as if that acknowledgment cost him something I couldn’t name.

Then he turned Caractacus and kicked him into a trot.

“Papa, I . . .” I didn’t think he could hear me. So I shouted, “Papa!”

But he was gone.

Fear drove away concern for manners, and I worried not about offending William Short. I rounded upon him. “How
could
you?”

At my censure, he merely bowed his head. “He lost a wife, but you lost a mother, Patsy. This cannot go on.”

So he
knew
.

He knew that Papa had descended into madness. And if he knew, who else did? The heat of shame flooded my face and tears pricked at my eyes at the thought of Papa’s political enemies or even our neighbors gossiping. They wouldn’t understand. Papa was still the bold hero of the Revolution. Still the great man he’d always been. It was only that Mama’s death had laid him low.

Panicked and angered, I no longer felt the cold, the sting of my ear, or the ache in my back. Papa’s outbursts were to have been a secret, between Caractacus and me. I was horrified that William Short had witnessed it, too. “You mustn’t say a word, Mr. Short. On your honor, you mustn’t say anything to anyone.”

Mr. Short stiffened as a Virginia gentleman must when honor is mentioned. “Patsy, I admire your father more than any other man. I’d do nothing to damage his reputation. But your aunt shouldn’t have left you and your sisters in his care. At the very least, Mr. Jefferson should find it in himself to be firmer in your presence. You’re only a child.”

“I’m not,” I stated.

“You
are
a child, a child who has lost much.”

I looked away, sure that if I didn’t, I’d find myself sharing things better left unsaid, sharing burdens that were mine alone. I couldn’t tell him that I feared Papa was more than mad—that the violence of his emotions might drag him into my mother’s grave with her. I bit back these words, for my mother had asked
me
to be my father’s solace. No one else.

At my silence, Mr. Short sighed. “Come. I’ll take you home.”

The word
home
rang between my ears, taunting me with how comforting the very thought of home had been not so very long ago. Even when the British came and we knew not whether Monticello might be burned to the ground, Mama maintained that feeling of home that families provide, even in the worst of situations.
Especially
in the worst of situations. But now that role and responsibility fell to me.

I followed Mr. Short to his horse, an old brown gelding with a white star on his forehead. Mr. Short offered me a hand up onto his mount. I paused before accepting it. William Short had always been kind to us, and I hated the idea that I might do something to change that. But the way he spoke to Papa . . . “You mustn’t take such a tone with my father, Mr. Short. You must never do something like that again. We must comfort Papa in his loss.”

I held his gaze so he would regard me seriously. Perhaps he did.

“I didn’t intend to be provoking, my dear. And I’ll try to hold my tongue. But answer me this.” His smile was small and sad. “Who comforts you in your loss?”

“D
ONE LOST HIS MIND
,” one of the servants said in a harsh whisper. The words froze me outside the cellar kitchen door. “Bringing pox into this house . . . he’s gonna kill them babies.”

“Maybe it’s what he wants, so he can follow them to the grave,” another said.

A chorus of agreement from the others sounded out, making my heart fly. Papa had talked about the threat of the pox for days and argued inoculation was the only way to guard against it. But could the slaves’ suspicion be based in truth? Could Papa really want to—

“Hush right now!” Mammy Ursula said, as if she knew I was listening.

Forcing my feet to move, I entered the kitchen, finding the group of women gathered in front of the hearth. In many ways, the kitchen was the domain of the slaves, and even before my mother’s death, it was the cook’s habit to shoo me away when she was busy so that she could gossip with the others. Now, the cook froze by the fire at the sight of me, her wooden spoon clutched in her hand, midair. The other slaves went silent, also stilled.

All of them but Mammy Ursula, the sturdy black laundress and pastry chef whose innate sense of authority was such that the other slaves obeyed her like a queen. With her hair tied tight and regal atop her head in a red-checkered handkerchief, Mammy snapped, “Why are you sneaking about, Miss Patsy?”