And the worst of it is that he has already sent Petit to London in his place. Were he to go there now, he would probably find that Petit, Polly and the Hemings girl had already set out for Paris. So he has nothing to do but wait. And nothing to distract him from thinking about Maria. And nothing whatsoever to stop him from pitting the ever-more-hopeless possibility that she might, in fact, visit against the ever-more-monumental-and-oppressive certainty that she won’t.
He is standing in his study off the garden, in front of the cabinet where he keeps his wine, and he is pouring himself a second glass. How could he have strayed so far outside his better nature? Isn’t this relentless agony his punishment for having betrayed the memory of his tender and beautiful wife and for having neglected his dear daughters? He is nothing but a monster and a fool, who will be unloved and lonely in his old age, a pathetic, neglected, ridiculed, gout-ridden inebriate and an incurable onanist — and that will be the only fate he deserves! It is an unfortunate fact of his nature that his moral instinct is strong enough only to punish him for his transgressions but not to preserve him from transgressing in the first place. He pours himself another glass.
~ ~ ~
“Are we here!” Polly says. “Are we here!”
The coach passes along a grand boulevard lined with row on row of geometrically shaped trees through a massive wrought-iron gate and then turns right, with a lurch like a ship surmounting a swell, into a small courtyard before a magnificent marble-and-limestone house with columns on either side of its portico and marble steps cascading down to the sandy paving.
“Are we here!” says Polly.
“I don’t know,” says Sally Hemings, although, in fact, she does know; she just can’t bring herself to say it.
“Are we here!”
“Yes, you silly girl!” says Monsieur Petit. “This is your new house, the Hôtel de Langeac. Your father is waiting.”
“We’re here, Sally! We’re here!”
Polly has grabbed hold of Sally Hemings’s forearm and is shaking it up and down in her excitement. For some reason Sally Hemings is not excited. She is the opposite of excited. There is an ache in her heart and stomach, as if something bad is about to happen.
“Yes, my little Polly-Pie,” she says softly. “We’re here.”
A female voice is calling, “Polly! Polly!”
At the top of the steps is a huge black door, half open, with a young woman standing in it. “Polly!” she shouts, waving her plump, pale hand. “Polly! Dear Polly!” And now the young woman has lifted the skirts of her embroidered green gown and is drifting down the stairs, her little feet appearing and disappearing beneath a white cloud of lace.
Can this possibly be Patsy? The last time Sally Hemings saw her was almost exactly three years ago. They’d both been eleven years old then, and it was the day before Patsy left Monticello for Paris. She had just been to say good-bye to her horse and was sitting on a box in front of the stable, scraping manure off her boots with a stick, tears making pale trails through the dust coating her cheeks. When Sally Hemings had asked her what was wrong, she had wailed, “I don’t want to go! I’m going to hate Paris! Why can’t I stay here with Polly and Lucy?” How is it possible that this young woman, in her flowing gown, with her hair pinned high atop her head and a cameo pendant at the base of her neck, should ever have been so filthy and abject with grief? It is not just that Patsy’s clothes are so elegant and her manner so refined, but that she seems even at fourteen (though she is almost fifteen) to have shot right out of girlhood and be ready for marriage.
“Patsy! Patsy! Patsy!”
Polly is so excited that she can’t get the coach door unlatched, and Monsieur Petit has to walk around from the other side to do it for her. The little girl leaps straight to the ground and races up the steps. By the time Sally Hemings has lowered herself to the gritty, yellowish driveway, the two sisters already have their arms around each other and are rocking from side to side.
A number of other people have emerged from the big black door, servants mostly, though none Sally Hemings recognizes—
But then she sees a tall, dark-skinned young man in a burgundy frock coat, a yellow waistcoat and yellow stockings. It is Jimmy, of course, but somehow she can’t allow herself to believe it. He smiles and waves but doesn’t come down. He seems to be waiting for her to mount the steps and greet him. Jimmy is twenty-two, and except for his fine clothing, he looks almost exactly as he did at nineteen, when he left Monticello. The big difference is in his manner. There is a somber hesitancy in the way he holds himself at the top of the stairs. Or a seriousness. Maybe he, too, has shot into adulthood.
Just as Sally Hemings is about to rush up to her brother, someone else steps through the door — a tall, rangy man with white-laced red hair and alert hazel eyes. He holds his shoulders square and his head high and seems possessed of immense strength. He descends the steps with the fluid rapidity of an athlete.
Sally Hemings knows that this is Thomas Jefferson, and, indeed, he has changed less than any of the other people with whom she has been reunited. But he scares her. There is something in the length of his legs and arms, in the confident elevation of his chin and even in the happy squint of his eyes as he sees his daughters that makes it impossible for her to look away from him but that also makes her dread the moment when his eyes will turn in her direction, and he will speak, and she will be compelled to answer.
~ ~ ~
… My mother didn’t like to talk about my father. That was another topic that would make her face go still and drab. When I asked about him, she would say, “He was just a man. But he’s gone now.” Maybe it was the flat hush in her voice, but from the very beginning I understood “he’s gone now” to mean he had died. I remember thinking that knowing my father was dead was my secret, as if it were something I had stolen from my mother without her noticing. But then, when I finally worked up the courage to ask her about it, she said, “That’s right. Your pappy’s dead and gone. You were just an apple pip when he died. He hardly got to hold you in his arms.”
I never actually grieved for my father, but I did miss him. I’d watch other children riding on their fathers’ shoulders, and I would wish I had somebody who would do that for me. Or I’d see some big, strong man get down on his knee and tickle his little girl, then hug and kiss her while she laughed and laughed, and I would feel pierced through by loneliness. Of course, Bobby and Jimmy were eleven and eight years older than me and most of the way to being men — in my eyes, at least — by the time I started paying attention to these things. But they didn’t love me the way a father would. Every now and then, they’d give me a little squeeze, but the main way they showed their love was by teasing. Jimmy’s nickname for me when I was little was “Cider Jug.” He was always saying things like, “How come your belly’s so big and round, Cider Jug?” or, “You best stay away from the men after sunset, or they’ll pop your head like a cork and drink you down.”