Sally Heming (41 page)

A test of power at Monticello between Martha and me had
been postponed by the simple expedient of letting my mother keep the huge iron
ring of house keys that hung at her waist. My mother, now sixty-six, knew her
position as dowager queen could not last much longer. Nevertheless, while she
ruled, she ruled, and it was to her that all the children, Martha's and mine,
turned to as ultimate arbitrator and bounty-giver. I knew my mother secretly
feared that I would never have the will to fight for Monticello. She had often
said that once she let the reins of power go, it would be Martha, not me, who
would take her place. But she didn't know that Monticello had been promised to
me by my master.

It was bad enough that I could not take my place at the
head of the table at Monticello. But that Martha should wear the keys ...
never!

The summer was hot and humid. The heavy perfume of jasmine,
honeysuckle, and peach blossoms exuded a sweet, deep, dangerous sensuality. It
was the heat, I suppose, and some mysterious chemistry that seemed to combine
into a volatile mixture of sullen arrogance and irritability. The mountain
reeked of that climate that bred fevers and sudden violence.

Both Maria and Martha were coming home to give birth. Maria
arrived first. She was enduring her second difficult confinement, still a semi-invalid,
suffering the complications of her first child's birth. She brought, as usual,
her own servants. They were Monticello slaves that had been given to her on her
marriage and who found their friends and family again. They included her
personal maid, her coachman, her cook, her outriders, her nurse, and several of
their children.

Next came Martha Randolph, heavy with her sixth child,
along with all her children, Anne, Thomas Jefferson, Ellen Wayles, and
Virginia. Both her husband and Maria's were in Washington City and would arrive
in August with their body servants, coachmen, horses, and luggage.

I greeted my nieces with my babe in arms. We were genuinely
glad to see one another. The winter had been long and lonely. Maria, ill all of
the time, isolated at Bermuda Hundred, enjoyed the added attention, the music,
the conversation, and her father's triumphal presence. After only five years of
marriage, her bright beauty had washed away to the almost transparent delicacy
of a much older woman. As for Martha, her big-boned and robust body had already
settled into middle age. Her face had hardened with the bitter struggle against
her husband's erratic and increasingly uncontrollable behavior. After several
years of relative lucidity, Thomas Mann Randolph was again slipping back into
the melancholy and depression which were the harbingers of his insanity. All
the weary travels from doctor to doctor, from cure to cure, had not helped him.
More and more Martha looked forward to summers at Monticello with her father.
Like him, she too suffered from violent migraines that disappeared only on the
mountain.

There were now thirty-two servants for six white people,
including the children. Before the summer was over, there would be as many
sleeping guests.

We settled into our positions, re-establishing the old
accommodation and bonds among ourselves. We girded for the arrival of the men,
who must at all cost be recaptured, comforted, redomesticated, and spoiled
after their long absences. The air, as always, again became heavy with
jealousies and unrealized dreams.

All this would focus itself on Thomas Jefferson. All the
loves and hates and jealousies of Monticello would gravitate toward its center,
my master. Calm and possessed, he would ride above the often stormy, half-smothered
passions that struggled around him, both at home and in Washington; and by his
fierce will, would repress any open violence. He would turn a deaf ear to the
problems of all of the women on the mountain. And we dared not intrude upon
him. He wanted peace. And he wanted his facade of perfection. He would not
tolerate less. And I, I tolerated Martha and Maria on their summer visits, but
they were not the mistresses of Monticello. I was. That was our covenant. He
had promised.

Even before the men's arrival, the first bad news of the
summer had filtered into Monticello. Danby Carr, the youngest of the
hot-tempered Carr brothers, had been involved in a duel. He had severely
wounded his opponent and had been arrested. Danby had rowed across the James River
in the early dawn, cocked his pistols at a friend, and half-killed him, then
had gone bragging all over Milton and Charlottesville on the quality of his
pistols and the cowardliness of his target. Peace? If Thomas Jefferson thinks
he is going to have peace, I thought, he had better think again. Depressed, I
began trying to keep order among the slaves, to find rooms for the
ever-increasing white family, which now included the Carrs and Jefferson's
sister, a poor relative. I suppressed the dark foreboding of the months to come
and lifted my own burdened and disappointed heart to my task.

The August sun beat down on his back and bared head. It was
the second time he was riding up his mountain as president. He had taken his
saddled horse and mounted up at Shadwell, leaving the phaeton with Davey Bowles
and Burwell, and had gone galloping ahead, his still reddish hair brushed back
by the wind. Thomas Jefferson returned depressed and convinced that his robust
constitution had finally failed him, stricken with a dysentery that had not
left him since he had taken office. He had also begun to keep track of the
deaths of the signers of the Declaration of Independence with the same
precision as he noted the singing of Dick, his mockingbird.

The death of Jupiter had struck fear into his own heart....
Not without bitterness, he remembered that neither Martha nor Maria had written
to congratulate him on his election as president. He had won by a hairbreadth
over Burr, and now he would have to crush his power as well as the lingering
residue of Federalist influence.

Thomas Jefferson looked up at the tall Virginia pines. He
was haunted with death. The bursting mountainside underlined the tragedy of
that other summer, so many years ago, when his great love had let life go, after
giving birth to a girl child, now also dead. It was the nineteenth anniversary
of Martha Jefferson's death. And now, in fear, he clung to the image of his
slave wife who gave birth easily.

He reined in his bay Wildair, and sat slumped under the
arched green vaults of his own forest, the bridle paths leading up the west
slope, etched by the years of riding his own favorites. The dappled sunlight
played about his broad shoulders, and the flanks of his horse.

He had left Washington City in a state of weariness. His
illness, the unfinished president's house, the strain of political life had
taken a toll on his state of health. His migraines, which had not tormented him
since he had left France more than ten years before, were plaguing him again.
His estates were slipping, and the Wayles legacy of debt was still not
resolved. Yet, he thought, raising his head, the mountain was still there; a
young mother waited for him at the top; his two daughters, and his
grandchildren were within his embrace. He dug his spurs into the sweating flank
of Wildair, urging him faster and faster up the mountain.

My master returned with the news that James was back on
these shores. James had written to me all last year, wild incoherent letters
filled with impossible dreams of fame and fortune, as he wandered from one
European capital to another in the wake of refugees fleeing the wars of
Napoleon. He still begged me to leave Monticello. Like some flying eagle, he
had dipped and swooped above my head, rattling my nest with the beating of his
wings, always with his lure and song of freedom. But I had known he would be
back. James had turned his back on his former master, and had refused to come
to Monticello, or even send greetings to me, his own sister.

The master ensconced himself in his private apartments,
reading and writing in the morning, appearing for dinner, then riding out for
hours in the afternoon. Only I was allowed entrance into his chambers where he
worked, often morose and depressed. Yet, he appeared without fail at the supper
table, cheerful and serene.

All the children, black and white, competed for the
attention and love of the master; all fought for their places in the sun.

In August, Martha went into labor. The double-faced clock
on the east patio rang hour after hour, as the birth, despite the ease of the
previous ones, proved to be a long and difficult one. My mother and I sat on
either side of Martha's plank as the midwife, Ursula, struggled silently to
bring forth the new life. Martha's labor had begun the night before, and now,
well into the end of the day, her eyes were glazed with pain and exhaustion.
Our dresses clung to us in the August heat, but we could not throw open the
windows that were sealed shut, nor douse the fire that burned in the hearth.
Martha moaned, filling me with dread. I thought of Maria, no more than a month
away from her travail. I had so begged Maria to attempt no more children, just
as my mother had begged Maria's mother before her; but now there was no time to
think of Maria. There were only Martha's moans, and finally only her screams;
almost eighteen hours after the first pains, the girl child came at last.

Downstairs, the white family waited as I descended to
announce the birth of a girl, who would be named Virginia. During the long hours
of labor I had a premonition of the awaited test of power. Two days after
Virginia's birth, when Martha's milk had not come, it happened.

"You will wet-nurse Virginia, Sally. You have plenty
of milk." Before I could answer my mother answered for me.

"There's no need for that, Mistress. There's two newly
delivered slave women. I'll send for Sulky for you."

"I don't want Sulky, Mammy Hemings, I want Sally. She
will be the one to nurse Virginia. After all, she doesn't have anything else to
do!"

"But, honey, your milk will come, it always do, and
meanwhile Sulky, she much better, she's—"

"I said I want Sally to do it."

My mother shrugged and turned away. This was between Martha
and me. She watched with horror as I took the white infant, and with tears of rage
streaming down my cheeks, pressed her to my breast.

Virginia's birth was celebrated for two days. The school
bell rang, the slaves were issued whisky and the children candy; the white
family celebrated with French champagne in a state of happy relief.

It was in this festive atmosphere that Danby Carr attempted
to seduce my sister Critta. Critta belonged to Peter Carr, who was the father
of her children, and neither of the other Carr brothers had ever dared to
coerce my haughty and beautiful sister.

I was sorting linen with Elizabeth Hemings when Critta,
pale and distraught, burst in on us.

"Mama, Masta Carr messing with me!"

My mother didn't look up from her sorting.

"Which Masta Carr?" she asked.

"Danby!"

We both knew the danger. Danby had always been jealous of
Peter over Critta. Now he was bloodied, he had decided to challenge him, and
Samuel, the eldest brother, was probably egging him on. Danby had just fought
one duel.... Trouble. They were spoiling for trouble.

"He put his hands on you?" Elizabeth Hemings
asked.

"Not yet."

"He going to?"

"He got a mind to. You know what Masta Peter do to me,
he find out?"

"Did you tell him yourself?"

"Tell him?"

"Tell, tell on Danby? Tell Masta Peter he messing with
you?" Elizabeth Hemings looked into my sister's hazel eyes. She was
beautiful, but not too bright. Disgust drew down the corners of Elizabeth
Hemings' mouth.

"It's the only way, Critta, 'less you want real
trouble."

"I ain't looking for no trouble," Critta said.
"I just want to be left alone."

"Well, you ain't going to be left alone with them boys
around. Just try to stay out of their way. Don't get into any close quarters
with him. Stick close to Masta Peter."

"But Peter's going to Richmond tomorrow."

"Then come stay with me. You can stay in my room. Don't
sleep alone."

"He set on it," Critta said.

"Well, he can get set off it. Them nephews got enough
slaves in trouble around here, including you."

"Why you suppose all a sudden? ..."

"Jealous of Peter, feeling his oats with his dueling,
showing off to Samuel—how should I know what goes on in white men's
heads?" The helplessness of the situation caused a tremor in the hand
Elizabeth Hemings placed on my sister's shoulder.