Jefferson's Sons

by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

  Eston sighed. “Too bad he doesn’t have another one to sell.”

  It never once rained at Monticello that summer, but at Poplar Forest a fierce storm broke the drought—not just rain, but hail, big chunks of ice hurled from the sky. They crushed the meager crops flat and shattered the windows of the great house. The overseers wrote there wasn’t a single one still whole.

  Master Jefferson went there at once, with Miss Ellen and Miss Cornelia, Burwell, and Miss Fanny’s brother Israel. A week later Master Jefferson sent for Uncle John. He wrote that he’d ordered new glass shipped to the nearest port on the James River. Uncle John should pick it up along the way.

  Uncle John, Maddy, and Eston traveled three days in sweltering heat under a blazing sun. When they reached Poplar Forest the house looked as though it had sat empty and neglected for years. Tall weeds grew up around the front portico, and all the front windows were covered with boards. “Where’s that rascal Israel?” Uncle John muttered. “Can’t he at least cut the grass?”

  No one came out to hail the wagon. Uncle John drove around to the stables, and asked a boy working there to unhitch and care for the horses. They looked into the empty kitchen, then found Hannah in the laundry next door.

  “Oh, they need you in the great house,” she said, the moment she saw them. “Burwell’s that sick, nobody knows what to do.”

  Burwell lay in Maddy’s bed, in the room on the lower floor. Usually he slept on a mat in the small room off Master Jefferson’s bedroom. “Couldn’t stay upstairs,” he said. “Not when I can’t stand up, and have to keep using—” He broke off, groaning, his hands pressed to his belly. Maddy didn’t have to ask what he meant. The stench from the chamber pot nearly made him retch.

  “Where’s Master Jefferson?” Uncle John asked. He knelt beside Burwell. “Eston—get fresh water. Maddy—deal with that pot.”

  Maddy carried the pot to the privy. On his way back he ran into Miss Ellen, who was carrying a mug full of liquid. “Have you seen Burwell?” she cried. “I’ve got another dose for him—something Cornelia says Mama used to use. At least, she thinks so. We’ve tried everything. Grandpa’s sent twice for the doctor, but he hasn’t come.”

  The dose didn’t help. Burwell gritted his teeth and groaned; his sweat soaked the blanket he lay on. “How long have you been like this?” Uncle John asked.

  Miss Ellen said, “I don’t think he’s slept for two days.”

  Uncle John told them to leave him alone with Burwell for a while. Maddy and Eston followed Miss Ellen upstairs. “It’s horrid here,” she said. “The books grew mold after the storm.”

  Inside, the house smelled dank and stuffy. All the windows facing north were broken. The dining room was entirely ruined, its wooden floor buckled, its plaster walls moldy, and its skylight beaten into an empty frame. The beautiful octagonal table Uncle John had made did survive the storm; Hannah had moved it to the parlor.

  That night Maddy thought Burwell would die. He tossed and turned on the bed, sweating and groaning through clenched teeth. Uncle John sat beside him, wiping his face with damp cloths and trying to get him to drink.

  In the middle of the night Maddy rose from his pallet on the floor. “Let me have a turn,” he said to Uncle John. “You get some rest.”

  Uncle John shook his head. “I’ll stay up with him,” he said. “If it comes to the worst, I want to know I did all I could do.”

  In the morning Uncle John said, “Let’s try a warm bath. A really warm bath might ease him.”

  Maddy went to the kitchen to ask Hannah’s help. Israel was loading a breakfast tray for the table upstairs. “More bad news,” he said. “Master Jefferson’s sick.”

  Maddy’s heart fell. If Master Jefferson was as sick as Burwell, he would die; he was too old to fight it. While Hannah put bathwater to heat, Maddy climbed the steps to see. Master Jefferson lay on his bed, panting a little, his face stiff from pain. “It’s only rheumatism,” he said. “My knees mostly. I’ll get Ellen to wrap my legs in flannels. I’ll be fine.”

  The warm bath helped; Burwell sank into something like sleep. Israel went for the doctor again. Eston and Maddy began to replace broken windows.

  “Will you serve dinner?” Miss Cornelia asked Maddy that afternoon. “Since Burwell can’t, and Israel’s gone.”

  It was the hottest day in the history of the world. Half the house lay sick in bed. Maddy thought Miss Cornelia and Miss Ellen might just once have been able to fetch themselves something from the kitchen, but no. They expected dinner served as usual. Maddy washed his hands, composed his face, and started to shuttle food from the downstairs kitchen to the table in the parlor. Part of the girls’ old bedroom had been turned into a pantry, so at least he had a place to set the food down after he brought it up the stairs. He wished he had a dumbwaiter, like at Monticello, or about three more people to help him. When the table was finally ready, he called the granddaughters to sit down.

  Miss Cornelia patted the sweat off her neck. “Is there ice today?” she asked.

  Maddy didn’t see how there could be. Poplar Forest didn’t have an icehouse.

  Miss Ellen nodded to Maddy. “Go check.”

  In the kitchen, Miss Hannah said that they bought ice from a neighbor’s icehouse, a little bit every day, but that today’s ice was gone. “Half of it melted on the way over here,” Hannah said. “If you ask me, it’s a waste of time. But those girls get fussy when the butter’s melted, or the wine isn’t chilled.”

  Maddy reported the lack of ice. Miss Cornelia pursed her lips. He filled her empty water glass. “Oh, don’t bother,” she said. “I wanted something cold.”

  Someone knocked on the front door. Maddy answered it. A man handed him a packet of mail. Master Jefferson couldn’t go anywhere without letters following him. He’d probably have mail delivered to his grave.

  Maddy went through the boarded-up dining room and knocked gently on the door to Master Jefferson’s bedroom. “Sir?”

  “Come in,” Master Jefferson said. Maddy opened the door. Master Jefferson looked puny, but nothing like as sick as Burwell.

  “The mail,” Maddy said, handing him the packet. “Shall I bring you some dinner?”

  “No. The girls said they’d fix me a plate.”

  A little bell rang. That was the girls, calling Maddy to the parlor. “Could you give this plate to Grandpa?” Miss Ellen said.

  Maddy took the plate back to Master Jefferson’s bedroom.

  Master Jefferson had propped himself up on a pillow. He was staring at a letter open in his hand, and his face was so perfectly still that for a moment Maddy thought he had died. He could swear Master Jefferson wasn’t breathing. Maddy cleared his throat. Slowly, very slowly, Master Jefferson looked up.

  “What’s wrong?” Maddy asked.

  “Nothing,” Master Jefferson said. “Nothing.” He closed the letter in his hand, and set it atop the others on the pile. “I’m not hungry. Take that food away.”

  The letter turned out to be from Mr. Nicholas. The bank had asked him to repay his loan. He couldn’t; he had no money left. Mr. Nicholas’s money had disappeared. Since Master Jefferson had signed the loan, he would have to pay instead. The twenty-thousand-dollar debt belonged to him.

  A day later the doctor finally arrived. He bled Burwell until Burwell nearly fainted, and gave him laudanum to make him sleep. Burwell survived.

  Master Jefferson’s rheumatism gradually improved. Uncle John, Maddy, and Eston repaired the windows, one by one. It seemed to take forever. For the first time Maddy was impatient to return to Monticello. He might get news of Beverly there. But when they finally reached home Maddy got the shock of his life.

  Beverly had returned.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Beverly’s Story

  The first thing Maddy saw as he came down Mulberry Row was that someone had shut the door to their room. He scowled. In summertime that room could heat up something dreadful. He yanked open the door.

  Beverl
y sat on the edge of the bed. He looked up at Maddy with a sad half smile.

  Maddy froze, his hand still holding the door. Eston bumped into him, then ducked under his arm.

  “Beverly!” shouted Eston.

  Maddy hoped everyone on Mulberry Row already knew Beverly was back, because if not, Eston had just told them.

  Eston jumped forward and threw himself on Beverly. Beverly hugged him, hard. Then he turned to Maddy, who stood frozen from shock. “Aren’t you glad to see me, Maddy?” Beverly asked.

  “I don’t know,” Maddy said. “What happened?”

  Beverly sighed. He sat down again, Eston clinging to his arm. “I’ve been back three days. Haven’t done much. Straightened the woodshop a little, worked on a cabinet—”

  “Beverly.”

  “I didn’t like it, Maddy. Being alone. I’ve never felt like that.”

  Maddy thought of all those roads, all the places between Monticello and Poplar he wanted to explore. Beverly didn’t like freedom? Maddy didn’t know what to think. Finally he asked, “What’d Mama say?”

  Beverly shook his head. “She’s about wore me out. She was so mad, for the first day she couldn’t quit screaming at me. Since then she hasn’t talked to me at all.” Beverly sank his face into his hands. “She cried.”

  Maddy walked forward and hugged Beverly tight. Oh, he’d missed Beverly. He’d missed him so much, and he never wanted to see him again. His heart hammered. He didn’t know what to think or say or do.

  “She thinks I don’t appreciate her,” Beverly said. “She thinks I don’t want what she’s given me. It’s not that. She won’t listen. We’re not doing it the best way, but Mama doesn’t want to hear it. Neither does Harriet.” Beverly sighed. “The women in this family wear me out.”

  Beverly was right. Neither Mama nor Harriet would speak to Beverly, or listen to a thing he had to say. For a few days Eston and Maddy just kept their heads down and hoped the storm would pass. Beverly went back to work in the shop. He stayed indoors and mostly out of sight. Maddy waited to hear what folks along Mulberry Row would say, but it was like Beverly was some kind of ghost. Nobody had said anything when he left, nobody said anything when he returned. Joe Fossett and Miss Edith and Burwell all looked like they could say plenty, but they held their tongues. The white overseers just passed their eyes over Beverly as though they couldn’t see him.

  Strangest thing ever, Maddy thought.

  After a few days, when the hum of Mama’s anger had begun to subside, Beverly told his story. It was evening. They’d propped the door to their room open with a chair, and Harriet sat on it, brushing out her hair. Mama sat on the other chair, near the empty hearth, and Beverly and Eston and Maddy sat on the floor.

  “We’re not doing it right,” Beverly said. “We’ve got to have a story. We didn’t know.”

  Mama looked at Beverly, but didn’t speak.

  “White folks are different from black folks,” Beverly said.

  Mama snorted. Harriet said, “That is such twaddle. You’re as good as any white man—you are a white man—Beverly, I—” Harriet was getting wound up again.

  “Harriet, listen!” Maddy said. He was suddenly furious. Why wouldn’t they listen to Beverly? He’d been out there, he knew more than they did. “Nobody said you aren’t going to get what you want. Nobody took anything away from you. You’re not leaving here for another three years. Shut up and pay attention.”

  Harriet looked stunned.

  “Thank you,” Beverly said. “I repeat: White people are different. Not because they look different, not because they are born different. They’re raised different.” Beverly paused. “It’s not the skin. The skin could be any color. We could all be purple, there’d still be a difference. Black people are either free or enslaved. They’ve got papers or they don’t. If they’re slaves, as long as they’re doing what they’re supposed to, nobody asks them questions.

  “No white person wants to know who a slave is inside, what they enjoy, who their family was. A white person doesn’t care if a slave is good at singing or had a brother they loved. A white person wants to know who they belong to and if they’re where they’re supposed to be.

  “Now, if you’re a black person and you’re free, white folks don’t care about your story either. As long as you’ve got papers, and you’re doing something you’re supposed to be doing, white folks don’t care who you are. Where you’re from. What your story is, who your folks are. None of that.

  “And black people—”

  “Which are you now?” Harriet interrupted.

  Beverly looked pained. “I’m coming to that,” he said. “I’m getting to that. You’ve been all over me for a week, and now you’re going to listen. Hush up, Harriet.”

  Maddy had never heard the edge in Beverly’s voice he heard now. He wouldn’t have spoken for a dollar. Harriet rolled her eyes and looked ready to say more.

  “Hush,” Beverly repeated. “That’s the problem. You all told me as much as you could about being white, but you raised me black. You couldn’t help it. I know. Black folks, we know how sad our stories can be. We know better than to ask another slave who his daddy is—maybe nobody ever told him, maybe he was sold as a baby, maybe it’s a white man and everyone’s supposed to pretend they don’t know. You can’t ask another slave his story. Maybe it’s so sad he’s buried it deep, and he’ll never tell it again. Black folks, they don’t ask too many questions. They tell the stories they want to tell, and they forget the rest.

  “White folks want to know everything.”

  Beverly passed his hand over his face. “I headed east,” he said. “I thought I’d probably end up in Washington City, it’s growing fast and they must need carpenters there. But one night on the way I stopped at a tavern. I ordered some dinner, and the man asked me what I did and where I was headed.

  “I told him I was a carpenter going to Washington. Nothing more than that. I didn’t know what all I was supposed to say, but I sure didn’t want to say too much.

  “He said he had a friend who was just desperate for a carpenter to help him finish building a house. The carpenter that had been working for him took sick. The man at the inn said this friend of his would pay me good to work for him a for few weeks, and anyhow I didn’t want to go to Washington in the summer with all the malaria and the flies.

  “It sounded like maybe a good idea. So the next day I started working for this man. I worked hard for two weeks. Kept my head down. Got my pay on Fridays. But along about the middle of the third week the man started asking me questions. He said, ‘Tell me your name again.’”

  “I said, ‘I’m Beverly Smith.’ And he said, ‘Whereabouts you from?’ I was afraid to say Charlottesville, so I told him it was just a little town. He wanted to know what town. I told him Bedford.”

  Maddy nodded. “That was smart.” Bedford was near Poplar Forest.

  “He said his wife was from around that area, maybe she knew my people. He wanted to know who all I was related to.”

  “Did he really know people in Bedford,” Harriet asked, “or was he just making that up?”

  Beverly shrugged, spreading his hands wide. “How could I know? I think he was just making it up. I think he was trying to rattle me. He kept after me all that day, more and more questions, ’til I didn’t know where to look or what to think. Then when I was packing up he looked at me and said, ‘I think you’re hiding something from me. I better not find out it’s something bad.’

  “So I took my tools and walked straight out of that town. Didn’t go back.”

  Mama looked hot with indignation. “That man got what he wanted,” she said. “He didn’t have to pay you for your third week. Beverly, don’t get spooked like that. You didn’t have to tell him anything. Your life wasn’t any of his business.”

  “I kept traveling down the road,” Beverly said. “And everywhere it was the same. What was my name, who were my people? What was I supposed to say? That my father is the president, and my mothe
r is his slave?”

  Mama said, “I hope I raised you smarter than that.”

  Beverly looked up, and his eyes blazed fire. “You did. Believe me, Mama, if I told anyone I’d been born a slave I’d have been run out of town. If not worse. The only way to be white is to not ever have been black.

  “But I didn’t have a story. I felt so out of place. I wasn’t ever good at lying. And I thought, my name is Beverly Hemings and my people live at Monticello. I’ll just go on home.

  “Besides, Mama, it isn’t going to work to have Harriet show up three years from now, out of the blue. I could maybe keep quiet about myself and get along, but I can’t have a sister without having folks we came from. Nobody would think she was a nice girl.

  “And I was lonely,” Beverly said. “I didn’t know I could be that lonely. But that wasn’t important, not really. I could have coped with being lonely. I came back to get a story.”

  As dusk fell the room had grown completely dark. Maddy could no longer see Beverly’s face, or Harriet’s, or Mama’s. It was past time for Mama to leave for the great house, but she hadn’t moved. From the open doorway Harriet spoke, low and firm. “Our mama and papa died of typhoid,” she said. “We were so little we can scarce remember them. Our aunt Sally and uncle John raised us, only they weren’t our aunt and uncle exactly, more like cousins, the only kin we had. Uncle John taught you carpentry. He died a few years ago, but you stayed on the farm, trying to be a help to Aunt Sally. Now she’s gone, and with the price of land so low and crops poor and all, you had to let the farm go for taxes. Not that you minded—you like carpentry better anyhow, and I’ve always hoped to live in a city.

  “So now you’re seeking a job, and a nice set of rooms to rent. You’ve got a sister—me—staying back with friends for a few months—and as soon as you get settled you’ll send for her. That’s how it is, Beverly. That’ll be our story.”