Stephen O'Connor - Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings

I had been with Mrs. Jefferson many times, but never on my own, and so the notion that she wanted a private conversation with me filled me with apprehension — especially as my mother had told me that as Mrs. Jefferson’s illness had grown worse, she had become increasingly irritable and vindictive. As I crossed the lawn, the boys trailing along behind me, I tried to think of what I could possibly have done wrong and what I might say to my mother if Mrs. Jefferson were angry with me.

But, in fact, she only smiled as I approached — though it was one of those smiles that seem to have been born out of pain. She was in her mid-thirties but she looked almost twice her age. Her skin was the color of trout flesh, and there were purple hollows under her eyes. Despite the heat she had a woolen shawl drawn up around her neck.

I told the boys to sit down on one of the tree’s enormous, serpentine roots and that if they were very good, I would teach them how to catch pollywogs at the pond. When at last I stood in front of Mrs. Jefferson, she reached up and caressed my cheek with her cool hand. “You’re such a pretty girl!” she said. “You have such lovely, kind eyes.”

The intensity of her gaze disconcerted me. I lowered my head and couldn’t bring myself to speak.

She had been lying diagonally on the couch, her slipper-shod feet not quite touching the ground, but now she sat up properly and patted the empty space beside her. “Sit down. I have something to say to you.”

When I didn’t move, she smiled and said, “You don’t have to worry. I promise not to bite!”

When I still didn’t move, she asked if anything was the matter, and I nodded at the boys, who had found an anthill and were looking for a twig to stick into it.

“Oh, don’t worry about them.” She laughed. “They’ll be fine. And this won’t take a minute.”

She stroked the silk upholstery with her pale hand, then patted it.

I turned and sat down, but only at the very edge of the cushion. I folded my hands in my lap.

“I’ve been watching you,” Mrs. Jefferson said. “And I see that you are very good with children. You never threaten to thrash them, you never even raise your voice, and yet the children do exactly what you say. It is because they want to please you.”

“Thank you.” I swallowed to suppress a smile of pride.

Mrs. Jefferson smiled and took my hand. She had grown so thin that I could feel every one of her bones, even in her palm. She looked at me for a long moment, with her soft, faintly pained smile. I wanted to pull my hand away.

“You know that I have a very small baby,” she said.

I nodded.

“Ever since she was born, it has been difficult for me to devote as much attention as I should to her sister, my dear little Polly.” Mrs. Jefferson let go of my hand and pulled up her shawl, which had begun to slip from her shoulders. Then she took my hand again and gave it a squeeze. “And so I have an offer to make to you. I am wondering if you would like to be little Polly’s companion. She is not even five years old, and I am afraid she spends too much time alone.”

When I didn’t respond, she continued, “Do you know what a companion is?”

“No, ma’am.”

“I want you to spend the day with her and do whatever it is that she would like to do. If she would like to play a game with you, play a game. If she would like to go for a ride, you should accompany her in the carriage. And, of course, I would like you to tidy up her room and look after her clothing, as your mother does for me.” She gave my hand another squeeze. “So is that something you think you could do?”

I knew that what I was being asked to do was only what I was already doing at the nursery, but for some reason it filled me with dread. I hardly knew Polly and didn’t understand why she should be lonely when she had another sister — Patsy — who was almost exactly my age.

There was, however, only one answer I could give, and so I gave it.

“I’m very happy,” Mrs. Jefferson said, although she looked anything but happy. “I think that you will be the perfect companion for little Poll. I am sure that one day you will be as dear to her as your mother is to me.”

I thanked Mrs. Jefferson again, collected my boys and continued my journey to the cow pond, wondering if there was some way my mother could talk Mrs. Jefferson out of using me in this fashion.

Poor Mrs. Jefferson. She was never anything but kind to me. Even when she could no longer speak, she would still cast me lingering glances and smiles.

In less than a month, she was dead….

It is 1784. In the months after Martha died, Thomas Jefferson lost three stone, and now, more than a year later, he is still so thin that the contours of his teeth are visible through his cheeks, and multiple deep creases fan vertically on either side of his mouth. He arrives late for every session of Congress and leaves early whenever he can manage it. For several weeks he throws himself into preparing a bill that will determine how the Northwest Territory is to be managed, but when his provision banning slavery within the territory after 1800 is deleted under pressure from southern delegates, his exhaustion is total, and more spiritual than physical. He is through with politics. He will return to farming. If he never sets foot in a congressional meeting again, he will count himself a lucky man.

He is sitting at the table of the Virginia delegation, dull-eyed, staring into space, tearing strips from a newspaper, crumpling them into balls, then unfolding them. James Madison is seated beside him. They are alone. Night has fallen so recently that they are unaware of it. The panes on the windows all around them wobble and swirl, like a full stream in April frozen midflow. The light from their solitary oil lamp and their illuminated faces is broken into yellow twists on the glass, like the topmost flames in a fireplace, just before they vanish into black.

“I don’t want to,” says Thomas Jefferson.

“You will be working with Adams,” says Madison. “And Dr. Franklin loves Paris.”

“Then why is he leaving?”

“He’s not,” says Madison. “Not yet. At least not officially. He’s old, though. Eighty if he’s a day. And if he waits much longer, he won’t be strong enough for the return voyage.”

“I get seasick in a canoe.”

Thomas Jefferson places a ball of paper on the table, then flicks it away with his middle finger.

Madison speaks in the low voice of reproach. “Tom.” And then his eyes widen and he slaps his hand on the table. “It’s Paris , Tom! Paris! There’s no more beautiful city in the world! And when Adams goes to London and Dr. Franklin returns home, you are certain to be minister.”

Thomas Jefferson gives Madison a leaden glance. “And spend my days negotiating tobacco duties with fat aristocrats and singing the praises of our blubber oil to quartermaster generals across the Continent?”

Madison leans close, his voice thrumming in Thomas Jefferson’s ear. “The French women, you know, are very fond of Americans and very free with their affections. Dr. Franklin is an old man, but by all reports, he has no shortage of female company.”

Thomas Jefferson places another crumpled ball of paper on the tabletop.

“And the wine!” says Madison. “The French wine!”

Flick. The crumpled ball arcs off the edge of the table and hits the shadowy floor just in front of the vacant speaker’s desk.

“Please stop,” says Thomas Jefferson.