Stephen O'Connor - Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings

“I’m sorry, Sally, I’ve given this matter all the attention I have time for. I have every sympathy for Mary. You know that. I know perfectly well what it is like to miss one’s child. But even so, a time comes when children must be allowed to make their own way in the world. I went off to school when I wasn’t much older than Joey—”

“But Betsy is nine years old!”

“Indeed, but that is older than Maria was when she journeyed across the ocean.”

Now it is Sally Hemings’s turn to cast a skeptical glance. She does not bother to say what she is thinking, because she can tell from the exaggerated attention Thomas Jefferson is paying to the reins of his horse that he knows — after all, one of the reasons he is bringing Maria with him to Philadelphia is to compensate for having abandoned her when she was so young.

“At the very least,” she says, “why don’t you have another talk with Colonel Bell?”

Thomas Jefferson gives her a beleaguered glance. “I’ll do what I can.” Then he kicks his horse’s flanks and moves in front of her as the wooded road narrows down into a path.

She doesn’t make it into Charlottesville for nearly two weeks, at which point Thomas Jefferson, Maria, Jimmy and Bobby are long gone. The very first thing she does is go over to Bell’s Store, but Mary is not comforted by Thomas Jefferson’s suggestion that she is free to visit her children and to have them visit her, and she has seen no indication that he spoke to her husband before leaving for Philadelphia.

“He’s been very busy.” Sally Hemings explains about Alexander Hamilton and the Marquis de Lafayette and ends by saying, “I’m sure that Colonel Bell will be receiving a letter on the matter any day now.”

Sally Hemings knows perfectly well that no such letter will ever arrive. But she tries to believe that it will for as long as she is with her sister and for some days afterward.

When, at last, she feels she has no choice but to face the facts, she comforts herself by resolving to speak to Thomas Jefferson as soon as he returns — at least if either of the two children seem truly to be miserable by then.

She watches them over the course of several months. While neither seems especially happy, she sees no evidence whatsoever that they are unhappy. Joey, in particular, strikes her as an entirely ordinary twelve-year-old boy — loud and rambunctious but never sullen or tearful. Betsy does seem a bit subdued, but perhaps she is only thoughtful. Both children, in any event, are being schooled in useful trades: Joey in blacksmithing and Betsy in sewing and child care. And what is more, neither child seems appreciably happier when their mother comes to visit. They are not rude to her by any means, nor are they joyful. As far as Sally Hemings can tell, their demeanor does not alter one jot in the presence of their mother.

Mary’s demeanor, on the other hand, alters dramatically as the months pass — at least in regard to her sister. At first she will greet Sally Hemings with nothing more than a baleful glance, but after a while not even that. On her part, Sally Hemings tries to look cheerful when she spots Mary and will raise her hand and call out a greeting, but her sister keeps her eyes to the ground and walks past as if she hasn’t seen or heard a thing. Ultimately Sally Hemings decides that Mary is simply not being realistic, neither about the malleability of Thomas Jefferson’s will nor about the true situation of her own children. As winter turns into spring and spring into summer, Sally Hemings becomes increasingly inclined to see her sister’s enduring misery as a matter of choice. Mary could choose to make the best of the situation, but she simply refuses to. Over the course of the year, Sally Hemings also notices that Mary’s hair goes from silver-laced brown to completely gray.

It is September of 1793, and Maria has been back in Monticello for nearly a month. She has been sent home early because a plague of yellow fever has struck Philadelphia and her father is worried for her health. Critta is still down at Edgehill helping with Martha’s baby and won’t be back for a couple of weeks, so Sally Hemings is on her knees in the washroom, scrubbing bloodstains off the back of Maria’s sky blue riding gown. Earlier that afternoon Maria, who is fifteen, took a solitary ride around the mountaintop and did not realize that her period had commenced until she climbed down from the gig and felt her shift sticking to her legs. And now Sally Hemings is, herself, so intent on what she is doing that she does not notice the knock on the jamb of the open door behind her and is startled when she hears her own name called out by — she realizes in half an instant — her brother.

“Jimmy!” she cries, getting to her feet and hugging him with her forearms, because she does not want to wet him with her hands.

“Hey there, Cider Jug!” He lifts her off the ground and spins her in a circle.

She shrieks as the room whirls around her, and she is still laughing when he sets her back on her feet.

“What are you doing home so early?” she says.

“Oh, all the white people decided to clear out of Philadelphia because of the fever.”

“I know,” she says somberly. “Maria’s told me about it. I’ve been so worried about you.”

“No need to worry about me! Colored people don’t get yellow fever, only whites.”

“Really?”

“That’s what Mr. Jefferson says.”

Sally Hemings finds that hard to believe, but before she can query Jimmy any further, a big grin comes onto his face. He puts his hands in his pockets and swells out his chest.

“So?” he says. “Haven’t you noticed anything different?”

He is wearing an elegant gray frock coat, cream breeches and black shoes with plain silver buckles. His clothes look remarkably clean for someone who has just spent ten days on the road, but Sally Hemings has seen them all before.

“New stockings?” she suggests.

Jimmy doesn’t say a word, just continues to grin at her.

“What?” she says.

“You mean you really can’t tell?”

“What?” she says emphatically.

“You are looking at a free man!”

“What!” she shouts. “You did it? You finally did it?”

Jimmy replies only with a broader, happier grin. Sally Hemings is so happy she bursts into tears. “Oh, Jimmy! Oh, Jimmy! Praise the Lord!” She throws her arms around him, and he gives her another whirl.

Jimmy has been talking about asking for his manumission ever since an evening in Paris when the Church family came to supper at the Hôtel de Langeac. He prepared a blanquette de veau that all of the guests found so delicious he was called in to accept compliments. Amid the general praise, Kitty Church cried out, “You should open a restaurant!” and Thomas Jefferson interjected, “Not until he trains a replacement!” Everybody laughed, but in the middle of it all, Thomas Jefferson shot Jimmy a glance that made him wonder if the remark had not been partly in earnest. Over the four years since that time, Jimmy primarily considered the possibility that he might be freed as little more than a pipe dream, but then, when Thomas Jefferson granted Mary’s and Thenia’s requests to be sold so that they would be with their husbands and allowed Martin to buy his own freedom, Jimmy began to be more hopeful.

“So how did you do it?” Sally Hemings asks.

“I told him Adrien and I want to open a French restaurant in Philadelphia.”

It takes Sally Hemings a moment to realize that Adrien is Monsieur Petit, who has been Thomas Jefferson’s chief of staff in Philadelphia for the last year. “What did he say?” she asks.

“He said he thought that was an excellent idea, and he drew up the papers on the spot.”