Stephen O'Connor - Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings

Martha and her family go back to Edgehill that afternoon, and thus, late that night, when Harriet’s temperature rises so high that Sally Hemings cannot quell her shivering, even by covering her with several blankets and lying on top of her, Jupiter has to ride through the night and rouse Martha from sleep so that she can write him a note to bring to Dr. Cranley.

By the time the doctor arrives late the following morning, Harriet’s shivering has turned into violent shudders that culminate with her back arching and the whole of her little body going rigid before she gasps and collapses into unconscious exhaustion. And then, after less than a minute, the whole process starts over, and so it has gone since long before sunrise. In an effort to keep her temperature down, Sally Hemings has stripped the little girl naked, despite the cold weather, and bathes her body constantly with rags dipped in water straight from the rain barrel. But the fever stays high and possibly gets higher.

It is clear that Dr. Cranley has no idea why he has been summoned all this way to treat a nigger girl — even though her skin is as white as his own and her sweaty curls are red. As soon as he walks in the door, he shakes his head pathetically and makes a tsk that is like a blade of ice plunged into Sally Hemings’s heart. “Put some water on to boil,” he tells her. Without bothering to examine his patient, he sets his satchel on the table, removes a mortar and pestle, into which he dispenses some dried herbs and a white tablet and begins to grind them into a powder.

When the water has boiled, he pours a little into the mortar, stirring it into the powder. Once he has turned the ingredients into a gray syrup, he pours it into a tin cup that just happens to be sitting on the table. “Let this cool,” he says while wiping out the interior of his mortar. “Give her a mouthful every four hours until her fever passes.”

“But how can I do that,” says Sally Hemings, “when she is either unconscious or grinding her teeth in her fever?”

Something like a smile comes into the doctor’s eyes before he looks away. “Well, if you can’t get her to take her medicine,” he says wearily, “I am afraid there is no hope.”

He packs up the rest of his belongings and puts on his oilcloth overcoat. Just as he passes through the doorway, he looks back and says, “God be with you.”

Then he is gone.

Sally Hemings closes the door and leans her head against it, her hands clutching her own shivering shoulders. For a long moment, she feels as if she cannot move, as if she might never move again. But when at last she turns away from the door, she finds her daughter watching her patiently, neither convulsing nor unconscious.

“Hey, Little Apple,” Sally Hemings says. “You feeling better?”

Harriet only looks up at her mother with her large, dark eyes that seem so deeply lonely and filled with longing.

Sally Hemings puts her hand across the little girl’s forehead and finds her temperature unchanged. She is no longer shivering, but her pulse is visibly beating with a birdlike rapidity at the base of her neck.

Sally Hemings pulls the covers up over the child’s bare body, and goes to the table, where she pours a little of the gray syrup into a spoon. Returning to the bed, she eases her daughter into a semi-seated position. “Here,” she says, holding up the spoon, “this will make you better.”

Harriet turns her face away, grimacing as if in intense pain.

Sally Hemings sniffs the syrup, which smells like day-old urine.

Lowering Harriet back onto her mattress, she dumps the medicine into a bowl, adds a bit more from the tin cup, then stirs in a spoonful of molasses. “Here,” she says, holding another spoonful to her daughter’s lips, “all sweet and delicious!” But the mixture is met only by an averted face.

When Sally Hemings tries to force the mixture into Harriet’s mouth, the little girl pushes the spoon out with her tongue and then spits out the trickle of medicine that managed to pass her lips.

“Come on, Little Apple, you have to eat this! It’s good for you.”

Again and again Sally Hemings tries to get her daughter to take the medicine, but either the child grimaces and turns away or she spits out whatever her mother manages to force between her lips.

Eventually Harriet falls into an exhausted sleep, and Sally Hemings uses her fingertip to smear a bit of the syrup inside her mouth, hoping that some of it will trickle down her throat. The little girl sleeps quietly for a couple of hours, and Sally Hemings begins to wonder if the medicine has actually begun to do some good.

She drifts into a light sleep herself, lying on the floor beside the bed, but after only seconds, or so it seems, she is awakened by a howl and finds Harriet gripped by a new kind of convulsion — one caused by or causing agonizing pain.

Sally Hemings sends again for the doctor, but Jupiter returns saying the doctor is busy with other patients and will return when he can.

Harriet’s convulsions go on almost without interruption for two more days. She howls so relentlessly that eventually her voice gives out and she can only emit a ragged hiss. She will neither eat nor drink — not even a mouthful of water — and soon goes yellow and gaunt, looking more like a tiny old woman than a child.

Sally Hemings cannot imagine how the girl has the strength to endure such racking agony. Many times, even as her voiceless screams rip from her throat, she will look right at her mother as if asking to be put out of her misery.

At dawn of the second day, Sally Hemings sends once again for the doctor, and at noon Jupiter returns with the same message as before (on neither occasion did he see the doctor himself but had only been given the message by the doctor’s wife).

Sally Hemings has not rested or even closed her eyes in three days, and finally, near dusk, while her mother, Critta and Aggy keep watch, she falls into a deep sleep.

When she wakes, the cabin is dark in that way it can only be after midnight, and utterly silent, apart from the whispery riffling of Aggy’s snores. A solitary candle burns on the table where her mother and sister are sitting wordlessly and have clearly been waiting for her to rise.

They don’t have to speak.

Thy will be done.

The first thing Sally Hemings feels is relief.

And then she knows that she has killed her daughter — that because she could not restrain her rage, disease took possession of this sweetest and most innocent of creatures. Little Harriet is dead, and Sally Hemings doesn’t know how she herself will continue to live. She is an evil woman.

Martha does not come to the funeral. But when, the following day, Sally Hemings walks the four miles to see her at Edgehill, Martha greets her at the door herself and invites her into the parlor.

“My dear Sally,” Martha says over and over. “My dear, dear Sally.”

While Sally Hemings sits, Martha remains standing, rubbing one hand over the other as if she is washing them. “I am so sorry,” she says. “I wanted to come to the… to the… to your—” She cuts herself off with a swallow before continuing. “But I was kept here by pressing concerns. I hope you can understand.”

Martha does not wait for a response before telling Sally Hemings that Mrs. Maria (who, at nineteen, has married her cousin Jack and moved to Eppington) sends her consolations and apologies.

“Would you like some tea?” Martha asks after a moment of silence.

“No, thank you.” Sally Hemings looks down into her lap. “I am wondering if I might ask a favor of you. Would it be possible for you to write to Mr. Jefferson, and—”

Martha’s teeth flash white in a relieved though still anxious smile. “As it happens,” she says, “I have already written to Papa. I will be sure to give you his reply the instant it arrives.”