Sally Heming (29 page)

"She's in no danger or difficulty because of what
happened so many years ago? Surely there is someone to protect her?"

"That's just what I tried to do! Protect her! I was
not even sure she was in Virginia legally, and that's why I declared her white
... you see—"

Aaron Burr didn't see at all, but he intended to. He raised
himself up on his pillows in the disordered, book-strewn bed to which he had
been confined since his second stroke. How had he managed to get her declared
white? Or had he done it himself? To absolve the great man from the
"crime" of miscegenation, he assumed. This was fascinating! This
cipher had been playing God, and Sally Hemings (knowing a lot about a god,
having lived with him for thirty-eight years) had found him out. Fascinating!

Bastards Aaron Burr knew quite a bit about, he thought,
having fathered several, but this was a special kind of bastardy. Something
deeper than mere illegitimacy. Many great men, including himself, had
illegitimate children, yet the special loss of a son or daughter to an entire
race had something mythical about it. How fatal and touching this story was,
and how ironic that it should be Jefferson, the image-maker, the definer of
America, the nation's most articulate voice!

Aaron Burr lay back on his pillows. Nathan Langdon was
silent. They sat staring at each other for what seemed like a long time.
"Was it Voltaire, dear lad, who said 'There is no history, only fictions
of varying degrees of plausibility'?

"Here is a true fable. If only we could unravel the
beauty of it from the obscenity and disgrace that has surrounded its
revelation.... I remember the papers."

"You find it beautiful?"

"Yes," said Aaron Burr. "I can forgive
Thomas Jefferson a lot of things because of it."

Nathan Langdon gazed into the large dark eyes which had
always been famous for their intensity, and were now, in their twilight,
somehow more terrible than ever. Sally Hemings had spoken of them: "What I
remember most of him," she had said, "were his eyes, of such size and
darkness as to strike terror in the hearts of anyone except the very brave.
There was something lewd about their power." Now Burr looked narrowly at
the young Washington lawyer.

"Yes," Burr said, "he was lucky in a way. If
a man arrives at love, no matter how, when, or why—love beyond convention—then
he has already lived well. Does not every man dream of some overwhelming,
unfathomable love? But few have the courage to risk it, to keep it, or to honor
it. If he did, then Jefferson has once more amazed me."

Nathan Langdon turned from the wistful, smoldering eyes and
bowed his head. Lucky. He had never thought of Thomas Jefferson as
"lucky." Nathan's own sense of failure oppressed him. He was
appraising, not without bitterness, his lack of wealth, his mediocrity as a
lawyer, and, yes, as a man as well. Had he not lost the two women he really
cared about? Had he not lost all sense of proportion, he thought? For the sake
of erasing miscegenation from the crimes of a famous man, he had annihilated
his own sense of worth as well. He repeated to himself that Jefferson's
biographers were already at work. He would emerge two hundred years from now,
spanking clean, shorn of even the few shreds of humanity that had managed to
cling to him despite all his efforts to conceal them from the public eye.... As
for the Hemings family, half of which had already sunk into the unwary arms of
white America, no one would ever know how they really felt about their
lives....

Nathan promised to pay his host another visit, but Aaron
Burr knew he would not. It didn't matter.

"Tell my friends I am in a position to deliver any
messages they may have for any of their departed loved ones, as long as they
are in the same location that everyone is sure I'll be repairing to quite
soon...."

Nathan Langdon smiled.

"As soon as I get there I'll give your best to Thomas
Jefferson," he added with a wry smile.

CHAPTER 23

NEW YORK CITY,
1834

"Mr. Nathan Langdon
to see Colonel Trumbull, sir."

Nathan Langdon, fresh from his meeting with Aaron Burr, was
introduced into the company of the now famous and fashionable "artist and
patriot," John Trumbull. The announcement had been made by a gray-faced,
gray-liveried servant, who bowed out as if he were in the presence of royalty.

Nathan almost stood at attention as he introduced himself
to the formidable personage that appeared before him. Trumbull was handsome,
erect, and slim, with a military bearing, radiating a bitter but unmistakable
arrogance and self-confidence. He could better say that he had introduced
himself into the company of the Founding Fathers, since flanking John Trumbull
were copies of two of his most famous paintings:
The Declaration of Independence
and
The Resignation of Washington.
He found himself
staring not only at Sally Hemings' old friend from the Hotel de Langeac, now
himself transformed into a national monument, but at George Washington, John
Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and all the other illustrious
names. John Trumbull seemed to blend into and arrange himself as if he were
part of the famous assembly of his paintings, and in the glow of the immense
skylights that bathed his rooms at the academy, the effect was impressive and
not at all coincidental. John Trumbull felt, in fact, that he was well placed
in the company of his paintings. He had devoted his long life to painting the
glorious deeds and the famous names of the Revolution, he reminded himself
every day. Although he had spent only a total of eighteen months in the
Revolutionary Army, and nineteen days as aide-de-camp to General Washington, he
had cashed in on his military career since his return to the United States. He
had insisted on being addressed, Virginia style, by his military title, a title
he had come by belatedly and not without considerable vexation and humiliation,
he remembered. Nathan, who had only Sally Hemings' description of Trumbull as a
gentle romantic portrait painter, was completely taken aback.

"Colonel, please excuse my staring... but I pass the
originals of these paintings every day in the Rotunda of the Capitol. They are
so familiar to me they seem part of my life. To come across them in New York is
quite a shock."

"Well, Mr. Langdon, when one enters the atelier of an
artist, one can expect to find the unexpected. Otherwise it is a mediocre
artist that you have come in contact with." John Trumbull fixed his dark,
peculiarly asymmetrical gaze on his visitor. "I have done several versions
of my large painting in the Rotunda. By the way, how are they holding up? I
haven't seem them in several years." He went on without waiting for
Langdon's reply. "Yes, indeed, I have devoted fifty-five years of my life
and my entire artistic career to memorializing our glorious Revolution, and
those who took part. I was, of course, in an extraordinarily fortunate position
to do so, being General Washington's aide-decamp...."

Nathan Langdon thought, even at the risk of seeming rude,
he had better come quickly to the point, as it was obvious John Trumbull's
career as aide-de-camp to General Washington was about to be recounted as part
of the tour of his painting studio.

"Colonel, which of the paintings were you working on
when you visited Paris in
1788
to do the portrait of Thomas Jefferson?" he asked.

John Trumbull was startled at the sudden turn in what was
usually a smooth and well-rehearsed recital.

"Well, I was working on the
Declaration,
of course, but
also on the
Surrender of Lord Cornwallis at
Yorktown,
and I needed portraits of all the French officers who took
part in that event. It was December
1787
when I arrived at the Hotel de Langeac, President Jefferson's home, and
I took with me the prepared canvas of
Yorktown
and painted a dozen portraits of the French officers while I was there.
Those that had participated in the battle or were present at the surrender. I
remember it was the end of February before I was finished."

Nathan Langdon listened in amazement to the roll call of
the French officers trip easily off the tongue of the tall, pompous old man. If
he remembered all this, he would surely remember what happened that winter at
the Hotel de Langeac.

"It is, sir, in connection with that visit to Mr.
Jefferson's ministry in that particular year that I have come to see you."

"Really? Are you a relative of one of the officers in
the painting? And you would like his portrait? I do many miniatures for family
and friends from my historical paintings." John Trumbull waited
deferentially, and tried to guess, from the manner and clothes of the
gentleman, how much he could reasonably ask for a portrait of the young man's
uncle, or father, or whatever. He had frightened off many a prospective
customer with his high prices. But what did they think? That artists lived on
air? He had received only twelve thousand dollars apiece for his Capitol paintings
from that tight-fisted Congress, and he had had to completely repair and
reinstall the paintings twice. The heartache ... the trials of those blasted
paintings, he thought. The size of them alone, twelve feet high and nineteen
feet long, had almost killed him with his one-eyed vision. And then the damp
and mildew from the new masonry and the swampy humidity of Washington climate
... These paintings were supposed to last as long as the Republic! God knows if
they will, with all the abuse they get! He turned back to his young visitor.
Normally he asked one hundred dollars for a head, one hundred and fifty for a
head with hands, two hundred and fifty for half-length, and five hundred whole
length. A full fifty percent below his famous competitor...

"The topic I had in mind, Colonel Trumbull, was only
marginal to your work in Paris and touched you only casually, I think. While
you were there, you did, I believe, some pencil sketches and a watercolor of a
young girl who was maid to the Jefferson ladies... one Sally Hemings."

Nathan Langdon glanced nervously up at the hooded blue eyes
of Thomas Jefferson gazing serenely, not at him, thank goodness, but toward the
venerable figure of John Hancock.

Then he heard Trumbull saying:

"Sketches? Of a servant? In Paris? At the Hotel de
Langeac? Not of Jefferson?"

Of course he remembered the little maid from Virginia,
thought John Trumbull, the exquisite maid with the superb bone structure and
the extraordinary complexion, little Sallyhemings….But that didn't mean he should
admit it to this young man. So many years ago. She would have to be an old
woman now. But still beautiful, if his artist's eye had not deceived him. Yes,
she had sailed back to Virginia with Jefferson the very same day he had sailed
back to New York. The last time he had seen her was where? In Cowes, when he
had given her the miniature of Jefferson. Ah, he had been a romantic young man
in those days. Now, how much should he admit to this young man? And who was he
anyway? And what did he want with his sketches of Sally Hemings?

"I do remember now. Perfectly. I did several sketches
of an exquisite girl at the ministry of Thomas Jefferson, the maid of Polly
Jefferson. I gave one of them to her."

John Trumbull gazed at the visitor. Who was this Nathan Langdon
and what did he want?

"Let us sit down, Mr. Langdon. I will order tea to be
served. You say you would like to commission a miniature. Why?"

"Let us just say I am an agent for a private person
who would like a miniature of... his mother."

Nathan Langdon held his breath. He had taken a bold step.
Either the old gentleman would feign ignorance or the prospect of a commission
would bring him around to talk. He had had no intention of commissioning a
painting, but he wondered why he had not thought of it before. He would like
very much to have an image of Sally Hemings for himself.

"If you care to, Mr. Langdon, you may tell me what you
know, and how you came to know it. But first you must give me your word as a
gentleman that you are not of the press."

Again the disclaimer, thought Nathan Langdon, always the
disclaimer ...

"I give you my word."

"And that this discussion will never be repeated to a
living soul. You promise this as a gentleman."

"I do."

Nathan Langdon felt much as he had felt that first afternoon
in the cabin of Sally Hemings, except that here there were no shadows, no
darkness. The surroundings were all light—the bright, elegant studio in the
prestigious American Academy, immense, immaculate, filled with portraits of the
great and the famous. A subtle and not unpleasant odor of turpentine and paint
blended with the steaming English tea served in delicate cups of Sevres China
by the liveried servant. The old man settled into a comfortable English
armchair and listened to the young lawyer's extraordinary tale.