Stephen O'Connor - Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings

One afternoon Thomas Jefferson overhears Patsy tell Sally Hemings, “If you are to make a good impression in society, the first requirement is that your speech be flawless, in both English and French,” and it is soon clear that the girl has taken this advice completely to heart. On more than one occasion, he has seen her at the kitchen table gazing with fierce intensity at her French tutor as he clarifies some nuance of the language, and she even asked if she might have three rather than two lessons a week. By October — barely two months after her arrival — she is able to hold rudimentary conversations with Clotilde and other French servants — and in this regard is far more advanced than Polly, even though all of Polly’s classes at school are in French. And while Sally Hemings is never able to completely banish the kitchen from her consonants and vowels in English, she listens carefully to Patsy and Polly, with the result that her vocabulary expands rapidly, and she gains complete mastery of her verbs.

Another afternoon Thomas Jefferson hears Sally Hemings exclaiming out in the garden, “Oh, look! It’s like an emerald! Even the bugs are beautiful in Paris! They’re all made out of jewels!”

And then he hears her laughter amid the rolling pigeon coos and the wind seething in the plane trees.

And now the actor in the copper-colored wig is on horseback amid a crowd of Negroes in spotless rags, who are speaking all at once in a dialect that Thomas Jefferson finds almost impossible to comprehend — all of the language assaulting his ears in this dark room has sounded jagged and warped, but none has been as impenetrable as this. The one word he can understand is “Massa!”—and these people shout it incessantly, many of them smiling, their eyes avid, wide.

This would seem some sort of joyous celebration, but the voices of the people are so loud, their cries come so thick and fast and they press so close upon the actor in the copper-colored wig that his horse whinnies, snorts and lurches away. And then, in an instant, the illuminated wall is entirely filled by the face of a young Negro man, whose expression morphs from jovial good-spiritedness to stone-eyed fury.

In the next scene, this same young man — who can’t be more than sixteen — is high in an apple tree with half a dozen other boys and one extremely pretty girl, whose skin is almost the same honey gold as her glinting, tightly curled hair. A cocked hat is visible, bobbing up and down as it drifts just over the top of a nearby hedge. The young man snatches an apple off a branch, and, his face now filled with devilry, he flings the apple and knocks the bobbing hat right off its owner’s head — which immediately rises (along with the head of a rearing, whinnying horse) a good yard above the top of the hedge and inspires new cries of “Massa! Massa!”—for the man rising above the hedge is, of course, none other than the actor in the copper-colored wig.

There are images of boys leaping and bare feet striking the ground, then a cluster of backs disappearing over a grassy hillside. But the solitary girl has had the misfortune of catching the hem of her dress on a sharp branch of the apple tree. Her shocked face dropping between leafy branches yields to the bemused expression of the man in the copper-colored wig, who has rounded the hedge on his horse and is in the process of dismounting.

The girl is now hanging upside down, only her head, arms and shoulders visible beneath the lowest branches of the tree. “I’m sorry!” she shouts as her arms flail in the empty air. “I’m sorry! I didn’t do it! I’m sorry!” The actor in the copper-colored wig’s bemusement is clearly inflected by an appreciation of the girl’s beauty, absurd as her position may be.

“Let me help you,” he says, reaching over his head and seeming to fly into the tree. With one hand he supports the girl beneath her shoulders, while the other lifts her impaled hem off the sharp branch. The struggle to get her safely to the ground, with her feet down and her head up, involves something very like an embrace. The embarrassed girl continues to apologize, making liberal use of that word, “massa.” But finally the actor in the copper-colored wig silences her with a handsome smile and asks her name.

“Sally,” she says. “Sally Hemings!”

“Oh, no!” cries Thomas Jefferson.

Dolley is patting his arm. “It’s all right, Tom,” she says. “Everything turns out all right. You’ll see.”

The man seated behind them leans his head between theirs and says to Dolley, “Could you please keep this guy under control!”

Dolley gives Thomas Jefferson a wry smile and a final pat on the forearm, then resumes her expression of idiot’s wonder.

During her first weeks at Hôtel de Langeac, Sally Hemings is afraid of Thomas Jefferson. He is always so quiet, and his quietness seems like anger to her — or, at the very least, like the claustrophobia-inducing stillness before a summer storm. But soon she comes to understand that he is quiet only because he is shy. She watches him in society and sees that he is always doing an imitation of himself. He wears a wide, fixed smile, but he never displays much of a sense of humor and is never relaxed, even though he often drinks prodigious quantities of wine. He is far happier when he is with just one other person. Often, when he is sitting with Mr. Short or with the Marquis de Lafayette in the upstairs parlor, she will hear their laughter spilling out into the corridor, sometimes until late at night. But he seems happiest of all when he is entirely alone in his study with his books and his writing and drawing (his desk is always covered with sketches of buildings and machines). When she brings him tea in his study, he often greets her with a light in his eye, as if he is keeping a secret he cannot wait to reveal. On these occasions his gestures are easy and unstudied. He seems entirely at home and to have no wish to ever be anyplace else.

But most of the time, Sally Hemings thinks Thomas Jefferson is sad.

During those days that Patsy and Polly are at their school, there are many occasions when she can observe him without his knowing she is present. Often when she is sitting in the parlor window, restitching Patsy’s and Polly’s fallen hems and split seams, she watches him passing from room to room like a ghost. Other times she will catch sight of him looking up from a book by the fire, and he seems so lost, as if he has entirely forgotten where he is. This is a man who owns so much, who can do almost anything and who knows more than anyone she has ever met, but there is something wrong in his life. Something is missing.

A year passes. Sally Hemings is fifteen, and now she never sees anything to be afraid of in Thomas Jefferson, only tenderness. His lips are almost womanly. His hands are huge, but his fingers are slender and their movements are so delicate that she can’t imagine him ever doing harm. He is a wounded giant, she thinks. He is a paradox of tenderness and power.

1. Kitty Church, an American classmate of Polly’s, always makes a point of including Sally Hemings in card games when she visits the Hôtel de Langeac and seems especially interested in her opinion of the boys who are a part of their social circle. Sally Hemings is almost absurdly grateful for such attention, even though she is often humiliated when she tries to keep up with the conversation. There are many things that she doesn’t understand even in English: ironic remarks, certain jokes and especially references to literature, art and politics. There are times when she feels so profoundly stupid that she can’t help wondering if she has only been invited to join the girls’ games and conversations so that everyone might have someone to laugh at.