It was no coincidence, then, that my father took up only with women he could never marry. Beautiful women who meant something to him without having to mean anything to us. Or women like Sally—a slave who could never push me or Polly out of my father’s home.
That night, when I sat down to play music with Papa in Monticello’s parlor, he grasped my hands and brought them to the light for inspection. “What’s this?” he asked of the state of my bruised knuckles and blistered thumbs.
“Just war wounds,” I said, remembering how I’d smashed those knuckles between two buckets while hauling water. “I’ve been fighting a battle against dirt and thirst at Varina.”
“Tom isn’t doing well for himself there?” he asked, the light of the fire highlighting the red of his hair.
Because I sensed in this some criticism of my husband, I said, “You wouldn’t blame him if you knew how little mercy he shows himself in trying to make a profitable farm. He’s strong, Papa, but he’s working himself near to death.”
My father smiled mildly, for he knew better than I did the hard work of plantation life. “No word, yet, on whether Colonel Randolph will sell him Edgehill?”
I shook my head, clenching my teeth to keep from saying something ugly about Colonel Randolph. Just then, Tom came in from some errand, his boots heavy on the floor. “Are you to make music for us, Patsy? I’ve never heard you sing.”
I preferred playing to singing, but Papa rescued me by announcing, “Tom, I regret imposing upon you, but I find myself in need of a favor. I supposed my appointment to France to be the last public office of my life. However, now my duties will keep me at President Washington’s side for an indeterminate time. And it pains me to see Monticello in this run-down state, my people still scattered to the winds.”
Sally, he meant, and I cursed myself again for not sending for her sooner.
Tom stood just behind me in my chair, his hand on my shoulder while Papa continued. “If you and Patsy would be willing to stay at Monticello through the winter and bring some order here, I’d be forever in your debt.”
The truth was that we’d be in his debt. It was an act of generosity—my father wanted to give us somewhere civilized to live while bringing our baby into the world. But in spite of my father’s exquisite diplomacy, Tom knew it for what it was. His hand squeezed my shoulder. “Mr. Jefferson,” he said, his tone just shy of indignant. “I don’t—”
“I realize, of course, that I couldn’t ask you to toil here on my account forever,” Papa said quickly to soothe stung pride. “Not when you want a place of your own. But perhaps, in small repayment for your help, I could go to Tuckahoe and talk with your father about securing Edgehill for you. Perhaps his happy nuptials will put him in a mood to agree.”
At that moment, the gratitude I felt for my father was sweeter than jelly on fresh bread, hot from the oven. For a long moment, Tom didn’t reply, and I felt that I might burst in waiting for his answer.
Finally, Tom’s hand relaxed again and he gave a small bow. “I’m your humble servant, Mr. Jefferson, as always.”
Happiness welled in my chest. Farewell Varina.
I was to be, for the first time in my life, the mistress of Monticello.
ON A RIBBON WORN ROUND MY GROWING BELLY, I wore the keys to all the cabinets and storerooms at Monticello. And as a woman soon ready to birth a babe, I was in a frenzy to put the house right. I counted and polished my father’s silver like my mother had done before me. I kept close records of everything coming in and out of the kitchen. I brined meat in a big wooden salting barrel. I went a thousand times a day from the storehouse, to the washhouse, to the orchard, to the garden, to the kiln, then back to the storeroom again, navigating my way among sacks of grain and loaves of sugar and boxes of supplies.
And, of course, I found myself in command of the house servants—doling out their rations of cornmeal, fish, and pork. In France, when Sally was our maid, I’d not hesitated to direct her, but now that she’d returned to Monticello in my father’s absence, what was she? Fortunately, Sally took on mending and cleaning without having to be told, and so we settled into a silence all our own.
I’d lost a friend in her, without realizing that I’d had one. I tried never to show just how much I missed Paris and our friends there, great and small. Still, I did long for them. More than I would, or could, ever say. Which is why I nearly swooned when, as the Indian summer gave way to the first bite of winter, a letter from Marie de Botidoux came to the house.
The packet had taken some time to arrive because the post was in a shambles. Now, moving as fast as my belly would allow, I made for the parlor, my little sister trying to snatch the thick paper from me, crying, “I want to read Marie’s letter!”
Fortunately, my height made it easy to keep it from her reach. “It’s not for you, Polly.”
“Well, then, fine,” she fumed. “But I’m too grown-up to be called Polly—if you’re going by Martha, I want to be Mary.”