CHAPTER 20
THE WAYWARD, OCTOBER 1789
The passports with the king's signature had been delivered. Thomas Jefferson, his two daughters, and his two servants were going home. Everything was to leave on Sunday by river diligence for Le Havre.
Petit checked the list again. If he had calculated right, there were eighty-two crates. And his master claimed he was only going back for a visit! Petit shrugged. He was responsible for the safe arrival of the baggage at Le Havre, not Monsieur Jefferson's future plans.
He edged his way toward the south corner of the courtyard, where three carpenters were at work on the packing crates for the great phaeton to be shipped back. The carriage itself, which would be driven to Le Havre, stood in solitary splendor outside the stable door. Poor Trumbull, thought Petit. That carriage had almost driven him to distraction. His master had ordered it from London through his good services.
It had taken more than a year to build, with all the changes and additions that had been made, but it was undoubtedly one of the finest, most original carriages in France; and in Virginia it would, without a doubt, cause an absolute sensation. Petit walked around the carriage, admiring it, and flecked a speck of dust off the shining lilac body. At once the coachman growled to a standing position. Petit only smiled and bowed with great ceremony. He was not supposed to touch the carriage.... It was a new crane-neck carriage. How splendid. Petit turned back to supervise, not without pride, the hampers of wine to be taken back to Virginia.
He shuddered at the thought of the long sea voyage. Water, any body of water bigger than the reflecting pools at Versailles, terrified him. Discreetly he crossed himself.
He glanced again at James Hemings, who was busily supervising the closing of the wine crates, making sure that no bottles found their way out of the crates and into the blouses of the workmen. James, who was in his shirtsleeves, sweated over these crates and the trunks, piling up in the noisy courtyard of the Hotel de Langeac. The Hotel de Langeac was not the only fashionable hotel whose courtyard bustled and burst that day with packing crates and trunks. Recent events had been the signal for the first great exodus of aristocrats toward England, Belgium, and Austria.
He shook his head. He was sorry that Jim-mi was returning to Virginia. So much fire and intelligence wasted on servitude. He, Petit, knew himself to be valuable as a second in command, much like an aide-de-camp to a general. He knew his worth. He was an incorruptible, and silent. Voila tout; his entire life. As for James, he was of another race. Like a thoroughbred horse, he would never survive as a servant, as a slave. Besides, he was now a first-class chef and could surely command the best place and the best salary. But James, for reasons Petit could not fathom, had decided to return to Virginia with his sister who was carrying the child of his master, according to Marie-Louise. Petit was sure that James would never again see the shores of France. From one of the upper windows overlooking the courtyard, Petit saw Martha Jefferson. She was calling to James, waving him frantically into the house. Again Petit shook his head. It was only with the return of Sally to the mansion that he had learned the true relationship between the Hemingses and the Jeffersons. James was Martha Jefferson's uncle! The whole Byzantine story of this strange American family had finally been related to him in great detail by Jim-mi. He, who was quite inured to the bizarre nature of French aristocrats, had been profoundly shocked at this odd genealogy.
That blue and black blood would mix was nothing more than the nature of things, but that it would continue into the second and now the third generation seemed to him beyond propriety, even aristocratic propriety!
There was something uncivilized, raw, and brutal about it. On one hand, they hated and despised blacks, and, on the other, they were the objects of the most violent and emotional desires and obsessions....
That the defection of a chambermaid could bring low a man like Thomas Jefferson ... Adrien Petit pursed his lips in distaste. He would never understand this American family.
James Hemings felt as if he had been raped. His face held the same blankness of defeat. Men raped men, he thought, as well as women....
He had had his "explanation" with his master and had been left humiliated and outmaneuvered. All his resistance had dissolved in the face of his enemy! His master as a diplomat was as unconventional, imaginative, resourceful, and tough as the best Old World courtiers. His arguments were turned against him, his reasoning inside out. He had become tongue-tied. How could he have been so abject! He had practically thanked Thomas Jefferson when he had said that he, James, would be freed by his grace as soon as he had trained another cook at Monticello to take his place. This, his master had argued, was the least James could do to repay the training and education of these past years. And he had accepted. He would have been a "monster," a "serpent at my breast," a "traitor" if he had refused. James, like his sister, was now locked in a promise of more years of servitude. But he clung obstinately to this one shred of what he considered his essential dignity.
I will never steal myself! he thought. He has no right to force me to do so... to make a criminal and an outlaw out of me who has served him for so long and with such loyalty. He must free me legally and openly.
The disappointment of his return burned his chest. Suddenly, tears splashed onto the large leather trunk he was filling with silver. With an uncontrollable sob he flung himself behind the bulk of the crates.
But there were two people who saw him crying: the discreet and ever-watchful Petit, and, from her window, Martha Jefferson.
Neither James nor Sally Hemings could shake a sense of doom as the small party set forth for Le Havre and England. As for their master, he was buoyant and optimistic, giving instructions to William Short about his return to France in a few months. But all four young people stood there in silence, each in his own anguish. Martha, because her father seemed at last willing to separate himself from her and Polly and return alone to France. James, because he, despite all his vows to the contrary, had further servitude to look forward to. If Sally Hemings was apprehensive about returning to Virginia, she was also doubting her lover's promises that they would return together to France.
Even before their arrival in Le Havre two days later there was a bad omen: the axle on the phaeton broke, and they were stranded on the road for hours.
The day after they finally arrived, a vicious storm broke out and continued unabated for six days. Hail and slashing rains and cold sleet, accompanied by unseasonable thunder and lightning—everything the heavens had to offer—came pouring down. The unceasing wind that whistled day and night brought everyone to the edge of endurance. Only Thomas Jefferson remained calm and cheerful, and on the fourth of October, during a lull in the storm, he had their baggage put on the packet for England. But again they were delayed when the storm suddenly returned.
On the eighth of October the gale had dropped and the packet stood out of Le Havre for Cowes, where we would board the ship for home. It was not until the seventeenth that we reached our destination because of contrary winds, and as we approached the Isle of Wight, we encountered a virtual armada of sailing ships, all collected there and unable to sail because of the storm. More than thirty tall ships lay at anchor as our packet approached the shore.
We were met by John Trumbull, who had been waiting for us to arrive for two weeks. He had farewell letters from the master's friends in London and parting gifts for all of us. Together we stood and looked out at all the ships anchored in the somber gray sea. I stood near the slender, black-eyed, black-haired figure of John Trumbull, whose affectation of dressing only in black, but of the richest, most elegant cloth, made him stand out amongst the multicolored, brightly dyed velvets and satins of the large group of waiting passengers on the shore.
As if sensing my inner turmoil, Master Trumbull turned to me, fixing his endearing, slightly amiss gaze upon me. "Are you going home, 'Sallyhemings'?" he asked me. We both smiled. The way he said my name was our own private joke. When he had asked me my name that winter now two years past, I had replied, as my mother had taught me, with my first and last names. Master Trumbull thought it all one name, and had continued even after I had laughingly corrected him to call me "Sallyhemings." Now all the affection he stirred in me turned into a kind of self-pity.
"We will be coming back," I said. "Indeed?"
"Yes, it is promised. Virginia is only... an interval."
"I hope you are right," replied John Trumbull. He frowned, and I knew what he was thinking. "And you?" I asked.
"Oh, I doubt that I will return to London. I must make my way in my own country." And in his usual wordy fashion he went on: "To earn a living as an artist is no easy matter. If my affairs were as I would wish, I would stay, and accept the offer of your employer to replace Mr. Short as his private secretary. Nothing would make me feel more honored, but, as an artist, I need the patronage of my countrymen—that is, if I am ever to proceed in my work. My future depends on my reception in America and as that shall be cold or cordial, I shall only decide then whether or not to abandon my country, or perhaps my profession. I hope for better things than perpetual though voluntary exile. I do hope that America will encourage me in producing monuments, not only of heroes but of those events on which their title to the gratitude of the nation is founded."
I had great affection for this man. He was a sentimental and dreamy young artist, as bone-proud as my brother James. Both clung to their small eccentricities and obsessions. To stand alone with only a frail sable-hair brush in hand to meet the world took a lot of courage, I thought. I guarded the sketches he had done of me with my life.
"At any rate, Sallyhemings, just in case we don't meet again, I have something for you. I did it these past weeks."
Master Trumbull was looking down at me.
"Mr. Short suggested it would be a gallant thing to make a copy of my portrait of Thomas Jefferson for Martha, which I have done, as I had already done for other ... London ladies. And for some reason, one afternoon, I did another."
He took something from his pocket and offered it to me. I could not believe my eyes. It was a replica of Martha's new miniature of her father, taken from the portrait made for Master Trumbull's painting of the Declaration of Independence. I did not trust myself to speak.
"Sallyhemings. Don't I even get an 'Ah' or an 'Oh' over the brilliant likeness, the fine shading, the delicate color, the inimitable expression?" He smiled.
"God bless you, John Trumbull."
"I sincerely hope he will, Sallyhemings ... and you too," he whispered softly. And he was gone.
I clutched the tiny painting to my breast, and looked out over the harbor. Beyond was the sea, rolling and unfathomable. All the great ships in the harbor had their huge sails unfurled like the wings of the sky-darkening flocks of sea gulls that circled overhead, waiting for the wind.
It was a warm and clear twenty-third of November, 1789, when we landed at Norfolk, Virginia. My child stirred, and James let out a string of curses as we stepped off our ship and back into slavehood. The docks were crowded with hustling, sweating bodies of the dockworkers of every hue, from yellow to blue-black. All slaves. The provincially dressed whites who mingled with them seemed pocks on a sea of colored flesh. The low slurred slave dialect reached my ears without meaning and the Virginia accent sounded harsh and uncouth to my ears so long attuned to French.
For some moments I stood bewildered and foreign in my own country. Only my master seemed to comprehend my confusion. He took my arm gently and led me through the melee of orders and shouts that accompanied the unloading of the vessels, toward an inn where I could rest. But before we had gone more than twenty paces, a delegation of Norfolk citizens accosted him, excitedly greeting him as the new secretary of state of the United States of America. Stunned, I was quickly thrust aside. The first promise had been broken.
The looks directed my way were polite and curious until it was discovered I was maid to Master Jefferson's daughters. Then the looks ceased to be those directed at a living person and became the looks one fastens on a crate or a sack of meal. I felt faint with the shock of those looks, so well remembered but also so well forgotten. It was Polly who took my hand and held it tightly until the carriages and horses had been arranged for and we were safe inside. Trembling, I was helped into the rented phaeton by James, who was also energetically supervising the loading of our hand baggage, his own distress lost in the rush of activity. My master was still being held by the press of the anxious, noisy delegation.
In the darkness of the carriage, I pulled my veil over my face, and let Polly sink her head on my shoulder. We both slept, I think, because it was hours before the carriages started up for Monticello.
It took us a month to get home. The slave telegraph, I knew, would communicate not only our arrival but every detail of our journey—our whereabouts, our baggage, clothes, state of health ... including and above all, my impending confinement, which I could no longer conceal. My mother would know long before I reached home.
At Eppington, a more official notice of his appointment, from the United States government, awaited Thomas Jefferson, and finally, at Shadwell, the nearest plantation, four weeks later, the Monticello slaves poured down the mountain to meet us. It was a scene that I would remember forever. The dream of Marly was gone. I knew I would never see Paris again.
The slaves had discovered the approaching carriage as soon as it had reached Shadwell and had come as one body; a flux of undulating black and brown and copper and yellow and white bodies flowing toward us, covered with cheerful ragged clothing. I recognized the unbleached Monticello woven woolen shirts of the field hands, the red-and-blue gingham head rags of the house servants, the brown and black linen dresses of the housemaids with stiff white aprons, the rough, shapeless Mother Hubbards of the female field hands, punctuated now with a red or blue blanket, now with a brightly dyed coat.
Old, shapeless felt hats and beavers were thrown into the air or waved wildly, skirts and petticoats were snatched up, showing bare feet. Most of the men were coatless as the day was warm and bright. The slaves were shouting. Some were singing, waving handkerchiefs and red bandannas; the cries and cheers were a blanket of sounds following us up the mountain. The horses were unhitched and the carriage was opened and we were received into the arms of the singing crowd, my master's servants and my fellow slaves. I sat horrified. Maria and Martha were caught up as well in the pandemonium, lifted out of the carriage, and carried by strong arms into the crowd.
They were happy. This adulation pleased my master, and the veneer of French refinement seemed to be rubbed off by the press of warm flesh.
Only James and I remained untouched by the celebration: James out of shame and bitterness; I out of fear. A wave of nausea overwhelmed me, the nausea of defeat as well as of pregnancy.
I recognized Hemingses among the crowd. And standing in the doorway, rising like a giant accusing finger above the tumult and shouting, was my mother, her hands on her hips, filling the doorway of the mansion like the stone frescoes on the facade of the Hotel de Langeac.
Suddenly, eager hands reached for me within the carriage; I would have to face the multitude. I put the miniature which hung around my neck on a velvet ribbon, inside my dress, lest it be torn off me in the excitement. The black velvet pressed against my neck with a special softness ... it seemed to be speaking to me, slowly. If I was ashamed to be home, no one would know it except me. I appeared at the door of the carriage, my veil lifted, a smile on my face, tears rolling down my cheeks. A murmur of "ahs" went out, like the rings of a tossed pebble upon water. "Dashing Sally" had come home! Gently I was lifted from black arms to black arms, my voluminous yellow cloak wrapped tightly around me hid the new life I carried. Joy at seeing Monticello again washed over me.
Then I saw the small figure in the doorway turn her back and walk into the Big House. The wind bit deep into my face as I was handed from slave to slave into the darkness of the now empty doorway.
She would have chosen freedom.
"Mama!" I cried against all the other cries and commotion. But, if she heard me, she did not turn back. "Mama!" I screamed again and again. It was years before she answered that call.
Within three months, I had my first child and named him Thomas; my master had gone to New York with James, to take up his post as secretary of state; Martha had married her cousin, Thomas Mann, and left the mansion; Polly had gone to live with her beloved Aunt Eppes, a hundred miles away; and I was left alone, having just passed my seventeenth birthday, the mistress of Monticello.