Beneath my gloved hand I felt the warmth of the leather. If ever there was a time to repair my breach with God, I thought, it was now. So I swore my sacred and solemn oath to tell the truth.
Then I thought of the promise I had made to my mother to care for my father always. I thought of the sacrifices I’d made toward that end. A stain on Tom would be a stain on my father’s name, too. A stain on all of us.
“It was gum guaiacum,” I said, when put to question, my hand still upon the leather Bible. “That’s what Nancy Randolph had been taking in her tea.”
At the table for the defense, John Marshall didn’t look up; he merely continued to scribble notes of the proceedings. His cocounsel, Patrick Henry, however, threw me a look that blazed with surprise.
Coming closer, Mr. Henry asked, “How could you possibly know this, Miss Jefferson?”
“Mrs. Randolph,” I corrected. “I’m a married woman now.”
He hadn’t called me to testify at this hearing, after all, because he suspected I knew anything material. I hadn’t been anywhere near the Harrison place when the wicked deed was allegedly done. I’d already told him this before the hearing, but he’d insisted on calling me anyway. These two Federalist lawyers had called me to perform at this spectacle for one reason, and one reason only—to embarrass my father. To connect the Jefferson name to this scandal by whatever means necessary, even while arguing on behalf of my Randolph kin.
They thought they were so clever. They thought they knew my father’s weak spots. Maybe they did. But they didn’t know me or mine. “You’re asking how I know Nancy Randolph took gum guaiacum?”
I let my eyes slide past the old firebrand to settle upon my pale and trembling sister-in-law and the devil that brought us all to this state. Not Richard—though he, too, was a villain—but Colonel Randolph, whose indifference to his children had sent them fleeing his house. There the old buzzard stood, gouty and in ill health, doing nothing whatsoever to save his own daughter’s life. And standing next to him was Gabriella Harvie, with a sweet smile on her face, as if she weren’t half to blame for driving her stepdaughter to such peril.
Richard stood accused, but Nancy’s life was at stake, too. Popular sentiment ran so strongly against them that the prisoner had to be taken to the jail under heavy guard. If this hearing went badly, he’d face the gallows, because murder was a capital offense. Adultery, fornication, incest, and bastardy were crimes, too, but I doubted anyone could remember the last time someone was prosecuted for those, even here in Virginia. No, it was the death of the baby that’d put Richard in his grave, and Nancy thereafter—for she’d be charged with infanticide, the only crime for which women were legally presumed guilty, rather than innocent.
Knowing this, I steeled myself. I made sure not to look at my tall, beautiful, but temperamental husband. And though each false word bit at the edge of my tongue with the sharp conviction of the guillotine, I let the blade fly. “The reason I know Nancy Randolph took gum guaiacum . . . is because I gave it to her.”
A collective intake of breath punctuated a chorus of shocked murmurs that echoed from one side of the courtroom to the other. All sixteen magistrates leaned in closer to hear my words, the curls of their powdered wigs bobbing as they stared. Even the unflappable John Marshall looked up from his scroll, one eye twitching.
Patrick Henry’s jowls reddened. “You mean to say—do you mean to say—Miss Jefferson—”
“Mrs. Randolph.”
The fire breather advanced. “Are you telling this court that you provided an abortifacient to your sister-in-law?”
Without lowering my gaze, I nodded. “Yes, I did.”
The prosecutor was suddenly on his feet. “Do you know what you’re saying, woman? It is your testimony that you knowingly aided and abetted Nancy Randolph in ridding herself of a bastard child by giving her a dangerous medicine to produce an abortion?”
Inside, I was all atremble, but I somehow kept my voice steady and calm. You’re a Jefferson, I thought, as if to spite Colonel Randolph. Sunny disposition, but ice water in your veins. “No sir, I’m not confessing to a crime. In truth, I hadn’t the slightest notion that Nancy could’ve been with child, though, obviously, I suspect it now.”
At my words, Patrick Henry couldn’t recover swiftly enough. It was John Marshall whose cool question cut through the crowded courtroom. “If you had no notion that Nancy Randolph might be with child, why did you supply her with the gum?”
That was the question I’d needed someone to ask, and I wanted to pat Mr. Marshall on the head like a good dog for asking it. “I gave her the gum because I know it is an excellent medicine for colic. So when my sister-in-law complained of colic—you know, Nancy has been afflicted with colic as long as I’ve known her—”