America's First Daughter: A Novel

by Stephanie Dray

  Setting me back down, Papa crossed to the rocker and squeezed Mama’s hand. “Some were carried off, but most remain.”

  “Carried off?” Mr. Short asked with a strange intensity in his boyish gaze. “Or did they flee at the promise of freedom?”

  Papa’s jaw clenched, as if Mr. Short’s question carried with it some note of impertinence. “If Cornwallis took them to give them their freedom, he’d have done right. But I fear he’s only consigned them to death from smallpox in his camp.”

  Mr. Short put his pistol away and bowed his head. “Is the war lost then?”

  My gaze flashed to Papa, dread squeezing my stomach.

  Papa answered with scarcely disguised bitterness. “The war, I don’t know, but my honor is certainly lost. They’ll remember me as the governor of Virginia who let plumes of smoke rise over the James River for nearly thirty miles. And there’s a nine-year-old girl the British soldiers—” Papa’s eyes landed upon me, and because I was nearly nine years old myself, I was desperately curious to know what he’d been about to say. But he didn’t finish. “I fear history will never relate the horrors committed by the British army.”

  “What of the remaining legislators?” Mr. Short asked after a moment. “Surely I’m not the only one who escaped.”

  “A few were captured. Most are gathering in the Old Trinity Church in Staunton. All things considered, our cause fared well.” Despite his words, the etched lines on Papa’s face made it clear the losses pained him. “Thanks to Captain Jouett’s ride. Had he not warned us …”

  Mr. Short nodded. “I must join the legislature. I’ll carry your messages to them, sir.”

  I couldn’t imagine Mr. Short riding through the woods by himself, even with a pistol in his belt. Papa was the son of a surveyor and knew the land, but Mr. Short was a bookish young man, so gentrified that even in exile, he still wore a lace cravat tight against his throat, as if expecting to pose for a portrait.

  The same thought must’ve occurred to Papa. “It’s too dangerous, William.”

  “Not as dangerous for me as for you,” Mr. Short insisted. “Loan me a horse and I’ll be out and back again within days.”

  “We won’t be here,” Papa replied, grim but resolved. “I’m taking my family into hiding.”

  And though Mama was still unwell and Polly kicked her little feet in a tantrum, we left that very day. We fled into the Blue Ridge Mountains, to Papa’s wilderness property, the one in the shade of poplar trees. In those days, there wasn’t a house there, only rude huts for the slaves and a two-room cabin for the overseer. No one came to greet us, for they’d no cause to know we might arrive. Nothing was ready for our comfort. Not even a fire. I thought of the sunny rooms at Monticello and our big warm feather beds, and worried that we might now spend all our days here, in a soot-stained cabin made of rough-hewn logs and a roof that leaked.

  What’s to become of us now? How long can we hide?

  My father was a scientist, a scholar, and a Virginia gentleman, but in the days that followed, he set about repairing fences, thatching roofs, and hunting small game for our supper like a frontiersman. He was wry when presenting my mother with a rabbit for the stew she was trying to boil in our only pot. “Ah, Martha, the circumstances to which I’ve reduced you …”

  Yet, Mama was strangely content. “On the eve of our wedding, I rode out with you in the worst winter storm to live in a small chamber of an unfinished house. We called it a Honeymoon Cottage, don’t you remember? You were no great man of Virginia then, my dearest. But we were happy.”

  That’s when I first knew my mother had heard enough of revolution and the sacrifice of patriots. Indeed, it seemed to be her singular mission to draw Papa into the delights of simple domestic life. Though the overseer’s cabin was no proper home for a gentleman’s family, Mama set up housekeeping. She had me down on my knees with her, scrubbing at the floorboards with a stiff brush. We hung quilts and beat dust out of them. And when Papa had to leave to make his forays into the woods, Mama and I saw to it that there was a candle burning in the one window of the cottage to guide him back to us.

  A few weeks later, harvest time for the wheat arrived, and Mama sent me with Papa to oversee the slaves toiling in our fields with sharp sickles. The women cut the stalks, beads of sweat running down their bare brown arms. Meanwhile, the shirtless dark-skinned men gathered the cut wheat into bundles, hauling the golden sheaves into the sun to dry.

  I loved nothing more than riding atop majestic Caractacus with Papa, and though we were far away from our mountaintop home, it almost made me feel everything was just the way it should be.

  But I knew it wasn’t.

  “Will the British find us, Papa?” I asked, peering up at him over my shoulder.

  His strong arms tightened around me. “This farmstead came to me through your Grandfather Wayles. The British won’t think to look here… .” he said, trailing off when he heard Mama singing from across the field where she scrubbed linens in a bucket.

  Her voice carried sweetly, unaccompanied, until Papa joined in her song. At hearing his tenor, she smiled, and I felt his breath catch, as if she’d never smiled at him before. He loved her, maybe more than ever. And with her eyes on us, Papa used his heels to command his stallion to a proud canter. “Let’s show your mother what Caractacus can do.”

  He urged the stallion into a gallop. The fence was no obstacle for the stallion, who flew up, up, and over with an ease that delighted me. I was still laughing with the thrill of it when we landed on the other side.

  Then we heard a rattle… .

  A coiled snake near its hooves made the stallion snort in fear, rearing up wildly. I held fast to the horse’s black mane and my father used his body to keep me from falling. But in protecting me, Papa lost his balance, toppling from the horse. He threw his arm out to break his fall but came down hard upon his hand and howled in pain.

  Caractacus trampled a circle and I tried desperately to calm him by digging my knees into his sides. Meanwhile, the overseer of the farm came running to help, several slaves at his back.

  “Rattlesnake,” Papa gritted out as the serpent slithered away.

  The overseer grabbed the horse’s reins and called to the closest slave. “Kill it, boy.”

  The sweat-soaked slave shook his head in fear and refusal as the serpent escaped into the woods.

  Outraged, the overseer lifted his lash.

  “Stay your whip!” Papa barked, cradling his injured hand against his chest as he slowly rose. “Everyone back to work.”

  As the slaves dispersed, I could scarcely feel my fingers, so tightly were they wound in the horse’s mane. My heart still pounded with fear and thrill. The overseer, by contrast, was overcome with anger. Cheeks and jowls red, he said, “It does no good to be gentle with them, Mr. Jefferson. A firm hand is all the Negro understands.”

  Papa’s voice pulled tight with pain and … something else. “What I understand is this: we’re two white men, one gentlewoman, and two little girls on a secluded farmstead, hiding from an army promising freedom to the Negro.”

  My father’s gaze darted to the men in our fields with sharp instruments in their hands, and a strange and sickly feeling stole over me. Is my papa afraid of them? Afraid of his own slaves? It was the first time I ever wondered such a thing.

  Papa’s wrist was bent at an ungainly angle. The overseer rode out to fetch a trustworthy doctor while Mama fretted that there might not be one so far from Charlottesville. It was nearly night when the doctor arrived to do his grisly business of resetting Papa’s bones. After, Mama wrapped my father’s wrist and gave him the last of our brandy for the pain. Upon orders from the physician, Papa was forbidden to ride or go out from our cabin for two weeks. Unless, of course, the British chased us from here.

  I remember that in those weeks, Mama and Papa were tender with one another every moment of every day. Our meals were simple. Our days were long. I was forever keeping Polly from mischief. At night, in spite o
f his painful injury, Papa led us in cheerful song while Polly and I bundled together atop a little nest of quilts.

  Kissing us good night, my father gave a sly smile. “Do you girls know how it was that I wooed and won your mother?”

  Mama looked up from tucking the blankets around us with a sly smile of her own. “Mr. Jefferson, you’re not going to keep our daughters awake with an immodest boast, are you?”

  “Indeed, I am. You see, girls, I wooed your mother by making music with her in the parlor—me with my violin and tenor, she with her harpsichord and soprano. And when two other waiting suitors heard the beauty of our song, they left, vanquished, without another word, knowing they had heard the sound of true love.”

  With that, he kissed my mother’s furiously blushing cheek. And, cleaving to one another, our little family, we could almost believe the British would never find us here.

  Then one evening we heard the dreaded clatter of a horse’s hooves up the path. From the window, I peered out to see it was a horse-drawn wagon. To my relief, William Short rode in the buggy seat—still wearing his now much-dirtied cravat—bearing corn, brandy, and chickens. And that wasn’t all. Mr. Short had breathless news. “Tarleton has turned back to join up with Cornwallis, who is being harried by Lafayette. They’re retreating, Mr. Jefferson. Thanks to Lafayette, the British are retreating!”

  I squinted into the firelight, trying to make sense of Mr. Short’s exhilarated glee. Retreating? Then … the British wouldn’t capture and hang my papa! And whatever British soldiers had done to that nine-year-old girl, they wouldn’t do to me. Tears of relief pricked at my eyes while Papa breathed out a long exhale. “What of the legislature?”

  “We were able to convene a session.” Mr. Short stared into his cup of brandy, as if he were reluctant to tell the rest. “A motion passed accusing you of having failed to defend Virginia. I argued on your behalf, Mr. Jefferson, but I was no match for the machinations of Patrick Henry. There’ll be an investigation into your conduct.”

  My shoulders tensed in indignation. How could anyone question my father’s defense of Virginia? No one had been braver! I remembered how he stood so tall, refusing to leave Monticello until everyone else had gone. How he went back to scout for soldiers …

  Father groaned, as if this news caused him more agony than his injured wrist. “So, my honor is gone.”

  “Only imperiled,” Mr. Short swiftly replied. “A thing that can be remedied if you accept an appointment to France. The Marquis de Lafayette sends word that your countrymen wish for you to represent us in Paris.”

  Renewed hope danced in Papa’s eyes. “That would be a singular honor.”

  Paris? I could scarcely conceive of such a place! Would he take us with him?

  But Mama’s eyes went flat and hard. And when Mr. Short stepped out, tears slipped from beneath her long lashes. “No more, Thomas. I beg you.”

  He reached for her. “My dearest—”

  “Hear me,” she pleaded. “For this cause, I’ve endured long absences, followed you to cities far and wide, and sewn linen shirts for soldiers until my fingers bled. I’ve buried three children and been dragged from my sickbed and sent fleeing in the dead of night. Decline this offer. Retire to the tranquility of private life. Retire, I beg of you.”

  Papa put his hands in her hair, but shook his head. “I’m a gentleman of Virginia. To turn down this offer would give me more mortification than almost any other occurrence in my life. I’ve said that I’d serve my country even if it took me to hell—”

  “Which it has,” Mama replied, tartly.

  And I dared not move or make a sound.

  “Martha,” he said, a plea for understanding in his voice. “I must defend my honor. That anyone should think me a coward or traitor inflicts a wound on my spirit which will only be cured by the all-healing grave.”

  The mention of the grave sent my mother’s chin jerking up. She touched the locket at her throat, the one that held the hair of her dead babies. “At what cost, your honor?”

  Papa flinched, as if he’d taken a blow. Then the fight went out of him. Staring at her fingers on that locket, he seemed to shrink, his shoulders rounding in defeat, and he sucked in a deep breath that sounded like surrender.

  And I knew that my mother would have her way.

  Brushing her wet cheeks with his thumbs, he murmured, “Leave off your tears, Martha. You have my promise. We’ll go home to Monticello. We’ll add children to our hearth. I’ll retire to my farm, my books, and my family, from which nothing will evermore separate me.”

  It was a promise. And sometimes I wonder how differently everything might have been if he’d been able to keep it. What a different life we’d have lived. What a different woman I might’ve become.

  What a different nation might have been built …

  Chapter Two

  Monticello, 20 May 1782

  From Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe

  Mrs. Jefferson has added another daughter to our family. She has been ever since dangerously ill.

  I HOLD THIS LETTER IN SHAKING HANDS, the candle casting a golden glow over a bland description of an event that changed us forever. And though I am tempted to burn it because of the sheer pain it gives rise to, I am instead pulled into the memory of the promises that started it all.

  Mama’s auburn hair curled in fevered sweat against her pale cheek, her hazel eyes shadowed beneath a frilly morning cap. And from the confines of her sickbed, she whispered, “When I escape the unhappy pains of this world, Patsy, you must watch over your father.”

  She had to whisper it, because Papa would hear no one speak of her dying. Every day he asked if she was recovered enough to walk with him in the gardens. When she couldn’t, he sent slaves to fetch flowers for her bedside. In May, it was yellow jonquil, purple hyacinth, orange lilies, and then red hollyhock. But by early autumn the perfume of crimson dwarf roses couldn’t disguise the fetid scent of sickness in the room.

  Since the birth of the baby Mama had borne after we’d returned from the wilderness, Mama had lingered in bed saying she’d never rise up again. Like Papa, I refused to believe her, but in this moment, she reached for my hand to convince me. My hand had always felt tiny in her palm, but now her hand seemed smaller, fragile.

  I turned my head, so she wouldn’t see my fear, and glimpsed the small room that opened at the head of her bed where my father spoke with Dr. Gilmer, who treated Mama and asked no more than to borrow some salt and sugar for his pains. Through all the months of my mother’s illness, Papa was never farther from her than this.

  The men’s conversation was hushed and somber until some question forced my father to answer with bitter indignation. “No, I will not leave her. I’ve retired. My election to the Virginia legislature was without my consent, so let them arrest me and drag me to Richmond if they dare.”

  Dr. Gilmer took a step back at Papa’s quiet ferocity. “I pray it doesn’t come to that, Mr. Jefferson.”

  Still, my father seethed. “Offices of every kind, and given by every power, have been daily and hourly declined from the Declaration of Independence to this moment. No state has the perpetual right to the services of its members.”

  While my father lectured, my mother pulled me close, sighing, as if the scent of my hair were sweeter than her garden flowers. “Patsy, your father will need you all the days of his life. Promise you’ll care for him.”

  I shook my head, blinded by a sudden flood of tears. When one of Papa’s musical little mockingbirds died, Polly thought he’d come back again someday. But now, at ten years old, I knew that when my mother died, I wouldn’t see her again until we met in heaven.

  “Promise me,” Mama insisted, eyelids sagging.

  I swallowed painfully, once, twice, until finally a whisper ushered forth. “I promise, Mama. I’ll care for him always.”

  The words seemed impossible and carried the weight of the world. And of course, now I know just how essential this promise—this duty—has been
to my life.

  At the sight of tears spilling over my lashes, Mama’s soft hazel eyes went softer. “Don’t grieve, Patsy. Don’t live with an open wound on your spirit as a motherless child, not as I did. Be happy. That’s what I want for you. You’re my strong strapping girl, so like your father. You’ll care for our little doll Polly, and our baby Lucy, too. Won’t you?”

  I wondered how I could. Polly was a willful child who never listened and Lucy was just a baby, crying for milk. Still, I couldn’t deny my mother. “I’ll try, Mama.”

  “That’s my strong girl.” She sank deeper into the feather bed, alarming me with the labored rasp of her breath. “Help your father through his sorrow.”

  I nodded because my throat hurt too much to speak. Mama motioned with a trembling finger toward a book on her night table. The volume was Tristram Shandy, one of my father’s favorites. It was her habit to copy from the text, words that echoed the sentiments of her heart. With difficulty, she lifted herself against the pillows and insisted that I lay the tray with the book and feathered quill over her knees. When I did, she took the pen and dipped it in the inkwell before copying words in a spidery hand:

  Time wastes too fast: every letter I trace tells me with what rapidity life follows my pen. The days and hours of it are flying over our heads like clouds of windy day never to return—more everything presses on—

  She stopped there, too weary to go on. I took the quill from her shaking hand just as my father came in. His blue eyes were red-rimmed with exhaustion but he injected a false note of cheer into his voice. “What have we here, my dearest?” One glance at what she’d written and he blanched. “None of this, Martha. You only need rest, my love. You only need rest.”

  But by the next morning, my mother was plainly fighting a rest of the everlasting kind. She gasped through lips tinged with blue and our house servants drew near, as if straining to hear her last breath. These Hemings slaves had been with Mama since she was a child and some whispered they were kin. Though such things should never be spoken, much less repeated, on a plantation, I’d heard that Nance, Critta, and Sally were all my mother’s sisters. That my grandfather Wayles got them upon their enslaved mother, Betty, who now stroked Mama’s face as if she were her own daughter.