I was wrong about that.
Tom had swung that iron poker hard enough to kill, but it had glanced slightly off to the side, leaving Charles badly injured, but alive. Groaning and sobbing, Charles tried to get to his feet, slipping on his own blood just as Ann stumbled in. Seeing her husband dripping in gore, she let out a blood-curdling scream that drew the servants and even our children from their beds.
Sally scarcely took two steps into the room before she herded everyone away. Meanwhile, my husband was still in an unthinking and murderous fury, so I threw myself into Tom’s arms before he used the poker to finish the job. “You saved me,” I whispered, holding tight to his waist, using my body to force him back from the scene.
But even Tom’s shock as he came more fully awake did not make him relinquish his desire to murder. “You think you can get away from me, Bankhead? Get back here, you dog.”
“Don’t kill my husband,” Ann sobbed, trying to stop his bleeding.
I put my hand round Tom’s to make him drop the fire iron, and he roared, “I want him out of this house!”
Had this been Edgehill, he’d have been well within his rights to be obeyed. Truthfully, I thought he was within his rights anyway. But Ann was hysterical now, with her husband’s blood staining her nightdress and her hands. “This is my grandfather’s house. He’d never send me out with a dying man into the dark. You’ve nearly killed him. You’ve nearly killed my husband!”
Ann didn’t know—hadn’t seen—how it had happened.
And by morning, Charles was so apologetic and ashamed that Ann felt nothing but pity for him. “He tries to stop drinking, Momma. He swears it off. But then he can’t stop. I don’t know why, but he can’t stop.”
At her words, I pulled the shawl tighter around my neck, hiding the red marks that had bloomed there just as my clothing covered the bruises Charles’s rough handling had caused. I’d been careful as I’d dressed to ensure Tom hadn’t seen them, either. If any of the men in my family saw my bruises, the violence would erupt all over again.
Meanwhile, my father suggested Bankhead might be suffering from some sort of illness, that perhaps a doctor could help him. Not knowing the full violence of Charles’s actions, Papa was unfailingly kind to the young man, which infuriated Tom so much, he slammed out of the house and stayed gone for two days.
My son only made matters worse. Jeff had been away on his grandfather’s errands during the altercation—the trust my father increasingly placed in him to conduct matters of business emboldened Jeff and chafed at my husband, who thought our boy wasn’t ready for such responsibility.
When Jeff heard about the fight, he said, “Just two drunks having a row, then. I’m sure they’ll patch it up straightaway.”
I didn’t tell him how it had really been. No one knew but me and Tom and, to some extent, Burwell. To tell my proud and devoted son a thing like that would’ve invited a duel. So I only said, “It breaks my heart to hear you speak of your father that way.”
Truthfully, Tom had never been more justified in his rage, but there was no question that if the fire iron had hit Charles Bankhead squarely, he’d be dead. Dead on my father’s floor, at Monticello, where the eyes of the whole country seemed to look for example, especially now.
Because that summer, the United States of America declared war on Great Britain.
If we’d waited a little longer, we would’ve discovered the British had finally cracked under the weight of my father’s embargo. They’d decided against harassing our neutral merchant ships. They’d surrendered to my father’s policies. But as in the Revolutionary War, the British had come to their senses too late.
Now there would be blood.
And both my husband and my son were called to fight.
LIKE MY FATHER, I’d begun to count things for comfort. Twenty-three was the number of years I’d been married to Tom Randolph. Nine was the number of children we had, with another on the way. Forty-four was my husband’s age the day he declared that he must join the army because if he didn’t fight to defend America, he’d be unhappy for the rest of his life.
Tom wanted and expected my father’s blessing and encouragement, but Papa worried that my husband was beset with military fever. “His willingness to sacrifice for his country is admirable, but at his age, with all that depends on him—what can be driving him to it?”