His heavy shoulders moved uncomfortably in the loose woolen jacket. He was not dressed for the heat. His thoughts had taken him far away, so that he was startled to find himself looking at the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, a woman old enough and fair enough to be his mother. It can’t be, he thought wildly, unnerved by her physical beauty.
The woman was indeed beautiful. The face was unlined, the gaze fragile but unyielding. The eyes were almost emerald in the bluish shadow. The mouth was soft and childish in its contours, and vain. The body was well proportioned. She had removed the white cloth and her hair seemed to glow like a silk cap, the braid coiled around her head breaking into planes of light.
No sound came from the dark recess, and Nathan Langdon struggled to find a way of addressing this woman. How did one address a creature who did not exist, who was the negation of everything he had been taught to believe? There were no white slaves. There could be no white ex-slaves. There were no women who looked like this, who lived in a Negro cabin at the end of a dusty, weed-choked footpath out of time and memory, who had been loved by a great man who had never freed her. The smell of poverty and cooking hung in the interior. The woman’s dress and apron were of poor-quality black linen, faded to gray and without trimmings. A window in the room let in the afternoon light, silhouetting this figure who neither moved nor spoke.
Finally, he said, “You are? …”
“Sally Hemings.” The voice was crisp and clear. “Are you the census taker for the county my son spoke of?”
“Yes, Ma’am. Nathan Langdon, at your service.”
The simplest words seemed to explode into the atmosphere. Langdon caught his breath as the woman emerged gently from the shadow of the room into the light. In the brightness, her eyes assumed their true color, fringed with thick black lashes and by heavy eyebrows. The nose was slightly flared, the cheekbones abnormally high, the eyes wide-spaced. There were streaks of gray in the fine black hair, which, if loosened, would doubtless have reached her waist.
“You live here with your sons Eston and Madison?”
“Yes.”
“Ages?”
“Mine?”
“Yours first, Ma’am, then your sons’.”
“Fifty-six. My son Eston is twenty-two and Madison is twenty-five.”
“All born in Albemarle County?”
“At Monticello.”
“You are manumitted slaves, are you not? Do you have a special dispensation to remain in Virginia?”
“Yes.”
“Former slaves of Martha Jefferson Randolph?”
“Of Thomas Jefferson. My sons were freed by his will in 1826.”
“And you?”
“The same year.”
“This cabin and land, the property of?”
“Cornelius Stooker of Charlottesville.”
“Land?”
“Twelve acres.”
“Yearly rent?”
“Two bales of cotton and seven bushels of corn.”
“The professions of your sons?”
“Musicians …”
Nathan Langdon raised his eyebrows. “They farm the land as well?”
“Yes.”
“No other adults living here?”
“No.”
“Total?”
“Total?”
“That is, there are three adults and no children in residence, am I correct?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Other members of your family not living at home?”
“What?”
“You have other children, do you not?”
“They are listed as runaways in the Monticello Farm Book.”
“How many?”
“Two—three.”
“Three runaways?”
“Three.”
“Five children in all?”
“Seven.”
“Two deceased?”
“Yes.”
“Are your sons at home?”
Sally Hemings hesitated. She was alone in the house and unprotected.
“They will be coming home shortly.”
“Where are they?”
“At the university.”
“Can they read?”
“Yes.”
“Can you read?”
“Yes.”
“Vote?” The question had come automatically to his lips. Now there was an embarrassed silence. Of course they couldn’t vote. They weren’t even supposed to know how to read and write. It was against the law. But then they were freed now, and there was no law saying freed slaves could not read and write. Or was there? He covered himself as best he could.
“Uh … property?” He flushed deeply. He was questioning her as if she were white. As if her sons were white farmers and musicians.
“Would you like a drink?” she asked suddenly. “Ginger beer, perhaps?”
“Thank you, Ma’am.”
“Wait here. No. Come inside out of the sun. You have no hat on. It is finished, no?”
The strange involution of the sentence startled him. There was something foreign about her speech, as if she were thinking in a different language. It had no tremor of old age, but was delicious and young.
Nathan Langdon had to stoop to enter the somber cabin; quickly he took in the room. It was the most disconcerting interior he had ever seen. He had been in many slave and ex-slave cabins in the past weeks, so that he was not surprised by the simple handmade benches and tables, the rough plank floor, the whitewashed clay walls, the bits and pieces of hand-me-downs, broken, and repaired finery from the Big House, but as his stunned gaze took in the delicate cherrywood pianoforte, an exquisite onyx-and-bronze pendulum clock ticking away over the finely carved wooden chimney, the elegant dark-green leather chest with its brass fitting gleaming dully in the gloom, the French armchair, a huge ornate and gilded mirror, and, strangest of all, a French flag, a musket on which hung what looked like a small effigy or doll. He felt he had walked into the inner sanctum of some desperate and overwhelming mystery.
There was a large bouquet of fresh flowers, and on the floor lay a piece of black cloth, crumpled, as if discarded. In this incongruous setting, the light silhouetted the woman, and the effect was so intimate, so seductive, that Nathan Langdon instinctively took a step backward. As he did, his head almost hit the low doorframe, and Sally Hemings, in an unconscious, protective gesture, stepped forward.
“Please sit down.”
“Thank you, Ma’am.”
Even this invitation, so noncommittal, made Nathan blush.
“Your mules need water?”
“Why, I’d be much obliged.” Langdon fell into the Southern formula for politeness. He had hardly used that term since his return. As Sally Hemings turned away from him, Langdon had the distinct impression that he recognized her; he knew he had seen this woman turn in that same way before. But where? He had lived four years in Massachusetts. It was five years since he had been in Charlottesville.
“But don’t bother. . . . They’ll be heading home now … this is my last visit.”
Langdon had risen from his chair and followed her to the door, but she had already turned and was out of the cabin to fetch the water. Again, the same acute sense of recognition came back to him as the slender back disappeared into a shaded area not far from the house, where he supposed there was a well or a spring.
When she returned, she was carrying two buckets of water.
“You can take these down to those pretty mules of yours. If you’ll be so kind as to leave the pails at the bend, my son Eston will see them and pick them up when he returns from work.”
“I’m much obliged. Thank you. I’m sorry I missed seeing your sons, Ma’am.”
“You must know them by sight. Pretty much everybody in town knows who they are. They work around the university.”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been home. You see, I just arrived from the North not too long ago. I don’t know much of what has been going on for the past fou
r or five years … but now I’m staying to help my family.”
“Oh, you a lawyer? You look like one.”
“Not exactly yet, but shortly. I intend to finish my studies this year at the university. I’ve already spent four years studying up at Harvard.”
“Many of those brick buildings—and the carpentry and windows and metal work—they were done by my brothers, Robert Hemings and John Hemings, for Master Jefferson when he started to build his school. Now Madison and Eston do a lot of repairing and additions, since they are the most familiar with the original work. You see …”
Her voice floated like silk scarves, sweeping and billowing the simple everyday language into a honeyed intimacy. He wondered whether she was, by nature, a talkative woman. Certainly many of his visits to the isolated farmhouses in Albemarle County had ended in long bouts of conversations with lonely farm women. Yes, he sensed a loneliness, a sadness here. Charmed, Langdon kept her talking, adding little bits of gossip he had picked up in town, explaining himself and his family to her (something he had done so often at Harvard it was by now second nature). He realized she knew a great deal about what went on in Tidewater. He had always remarked that the Negroes had a wonderful art of communicating among themselves. Information and gossip would run several hundred miles in a week; but where had she learned the art of conversation that would do justice to a lady in these backwoods?
They spoke late into the afternoon, the fair, blue-eyed youth and his mysterious hostess. He, with his feet planted solidly on the floor, hunched forward in his seat, elbows on knees, his large hands folded loosely in front of him. She, also leaning away from her chair, swayed slightly with the conversation, or suddenly propelled herself backward as her girlish laughter responded to some amusing tidbit of gossip. She knew everything and everybody, despite the fact she hadn’t been near the town in years.
The lovely face glowed with the pleasure of unaccustomed male company. The pretty hands gesticulated, folded and unfolded, or moved to fondle a large oval locket that hung on a velvet ribbon around her neck—her only adornment except for the ruby earrings—but obviously a valuable and beautifully executed jewel.
Surely I’ll have leave to come again after such a long conversation, thought Langdon. He tried to find more anecdotes and gossip to please her. Never in all his drawing-room experiences had he striven so hard to entertain a woman. When she laughed he was hopelessly flattered. Would her sons appear? Langdon wondered. He wanted to see what they looked like. Madison and Eston Hemings. Their names brought the reality of the outside world back to him. The pails of water stood like sentinels on each side of the door, unattended.
Piedmont, like the rest of Virginia, was caught up in the political and racial torment of the times, Nathan mused. Already, the distant thunder of the coming conflict could be heard if one cared to listen. Virginia had tightened its slave laws the past years, measures which invariably affected the freedmen as well. The large cities in the South, including Charlottesville and Richmond, were armed camps. There was the scent of violence in the air, and families were already divided on the slave issue. Tensions were high, and repressions against the black population had increased tenfold. It had been deemed a crime since 1814 to teach a slave to read. There were curfews as well as passports and grade-shotted cannon for those who didn’t respect it. There were kidnappings and lynchings, and daily public whippings for even accidental infractions.
In this year alone more than seventeen resolutions concerning slavery had been introduced and debated in the House of Burgesses. The spread of slavery was fiercely fought state by state, territory by territory. A sinister stillness had taken hold of the soft, low-lying countryside from Williamsburg to Richmond. Wrapped in an unnatural suffocating calm, the elements seemed to be waiting for some sign.
Langdon finally gave up waiting for Eston and Madison. As the shadows lengthened, Sally Hemings gracefully brought the conversation to an end, and, before he knew it, he was out of the cabin and on his way down the footpath toward his buckboard and thirsty mules.
The census taker had spent all afternoon in her cabin. How strange, she thought, he had spoken to her as if she had been a white woman. She watched him disappear and reappear among her apple trees as he made his way toward his buggy carrying the two pails of water. She saw the tall figure emerge at the bend beyond the orchard, approach his mule team, and water them. Then he set down the pails and got into his buggy. She expected him to drive away, but he sat there for a long while. She watched him as the sun got lower in the sky and the silence broke with the beginnings of night sounds. Still he did not move. Maybe he’s waiting for the boys. Maybe he has questions to ask Eston as the head of the family. But what could they be? Nobody was interested in their lives. A few dates in a Farm Book, a price in an account book, a bill of sale, a number in the ledgers of a census taker. No more. At least no more than she was telling.
Her silence was what had kept her alive and sane in this world where everything had been taken from her except these last two sons. And even they knew little about her life. Slaves revealed as little as possible about their origin and background to their children. It was an old trick. Not to speak was not to put into words the hopelessness of having no future and no past. But now, her sons had that future. It was only she who had none. And the past… what did she really feel about the past?
Sally Hemings continued to watch the census taker as he sat motionless in his wagon. Why could he not bring himself to drive away?
Nathan Langdon had descended the steep footpath leading away from the Hemings’ cabin. He had felt the woman’s eyes on him, felt the backward pull of her silence and her peculiar sadness. He could not rid himself of the feeling that once, before today, somewhere, he had seen her. He acknowledged an eerie recognition in their meeting. He smiled. Fate? Reincarnation? How many nights at Harvard had he spent discussing just such nonsense. He was an atheist, like Jefferson. No God could have a hand in anyone’s affairs on this earth, for if He did, how could He make such a mess of things?
Monticello, he thought. It had to be Monticello. He had been in the mansion only once in his life, as a student when Jefferson was already a very old man. It must have been in ’25, before he had left for Boston. A cousin of his had invited him to sit in the presence of the great man at dinner.
The memory was still vivid. The straight, thin, enormously tall man with the burning eyes and thick white hair, was pale and still freckled, though age had given his face a delicate transparency, and the famous voice had turned edgy and slightly petulant. Thomas Jefferson had dominated the dinner and the company of younger men with vast and brilliant monologues, virtuoso pieces almost like music, which were occasionally interrupted by sullen and inexplicable silences when his thoughts seemed to be elsewhere. But his rejoinders were always precise and to the point. He dearly loved a metaphor, an elegantly turned phrase, and had a genius for storytelling. People around the table spoke a little louder than normal, as is often the case with old people, but, so far as he knew, there had been nothing wrong with Jefferson’s hearing or any of his faculties. Even then, at eighty, Thomas Jefferson was known to ride twenty or thirty miles a day. He, Langdon, had sat awed and silent while the conversation had ranged from the tobacco crop to Italian and French wines; the annexation of Cuba; the Monroe Doctrine; the Second Missouri Compromise; and the raging political struggle over the extension of slavery in Illinois.
At the end of the meal, over which his daughter Martha Randolph had presided, Jefferson had been taken with malaise, Langdon remembered. He had floundered in midsentence, gagged, and turned pale, then abruptly pushed back his chair, almost tipping it over. His daughter had quickly taken charge, and, with the help of one of the guests had led the old man from the table. As the company milled around the dining room, Langdon had glimpsed Jefferson being handed over to another woman, who had led him away. Sally Hemings? The small figure had been dwarfed by him; the small sleek head had not reached the stooped shoulders o
f the fainting man. He remembered, too, a fleeting glimpse of a coiled braid.
The picture was so sharp; it startled Langdon out of his reverie. He leaned down and absently stroked the warm living flesh of his mules, as if to bring himself back to the present. Then he got out his ledgers. He “knew” everyone in Albemarle County—by sex, age, religion, and occupation; by property, political party, race, and condition of servitude. But the two people he thought about at the moment didn’t figure on his list.
One had been rich, famous, powerful, covered with honors, and years in the greatest office of the land, respected and loved. He was dead and buried. A permanent fixture in American history. The other had been a slave. A woman despised for her color and her caste; and yet still alive, and so had to be counted.
He opened to a new page in his ledger. If Sally Hemings was who and what people said she was, then Thomas Jefferson had broken the law of Virginia. A law punishable by fine and imprisonment. And he, Langdon, was an official of the United States government and a Virginian. He hesitated for a moment and then wrote:
Eston Hemings, Male, 22. Head of Family. Occupation: Musician. Race: White
Madison Hemings, Male 25. Occupation: Carpenter. Race: White.
Sally Hemings, Female, between 50 and 60. Without occupation. Race: White.
Whatever he thought of Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, third president of the United States, there was one thing he, Nathan Langdon, was determined that Thomas Jefferson would not be guilty of: the crime of miscegenation.
CHAPTER 2
MONTICELLO, 1815
The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what he sees others do. If a parent could find no motive either in his philanthropy or his self-love, for restraining the intemperance of passion towards his slave, it should always be a sufficient one that his child is present.
Sally Hemings Page 2