America's First Daughter: A Novel(133)

“I’ll tell you how,” Nancy explained. “John falsely accused me of carrying on with slaves in my sister’s house as if I lived in a tavern. He’s saying I poisoned Richard, and he’s giving Judith the excuse she needs to turn me out.”

For years now, I’d held my tongue about the scandal at Bizarre, even though my blood still ran cold at the thought of a dead baby hidden under a woodpile. Now, with grief eating me alive, I couldn’t hold my tongue one moment longer. “Does Judy need an excuse, Nancy? We all know the kind of desperate acts you’re capable of!”

Nancy drew back, pale as the petticoat on the line. “I thought—I thought you knew the truth, Patsy. I thought that’s why, at trial . . . that’s why you said . . .” My blood ran even colder at the thought of her lying to me again after all these years. So I said nothing. But Nancy sputtered, “You think I’m guilty. You think I killed my baby. But if you believed I was guilty, then why—”

“I didn’t want to see you hanged,” I said, very quietly.

Nancy let out a cry, as disconsolate as if I’d turned against her before the entire tribunal. “You don’t understand, Patsy. I wanted to confess from the start, but Richard wouldn’t let me. He wanted to protect me. It’s true that I surrendered my virtue to the man I loved. It’s true. But I did nothing to harm the child, and neither did Richard. I swear it.”

“Do you forget that I saw the herbs?”

Nancy blinked. “You can’t think they were mine! It was always Judith who had my mother’s way in the garden. I was never any good with herbs.” That was true, and the whole world realigned under my feet as I remembered it. Tears spilled over Nancy’s cheeks, her lips trembling. “Judith notices everything. Always has. She knew I was pregnant before I did. She put the gum in my tea. I didn’t know what I was drinking, Patsy.”

Had Judith noticed—from the start—her husband’s attraction to her sister? Had she given her sister the herbs to be rid of her husband’s bastard?

As I asked myself these questions, Nancy was near hysterical, more than a decade’s worth of anguish bubbling to the surface. “When you testified that you gave me the gum for an upset stomach, I thought it was because you didn’t want anyone to know what Judith had done.”

In shock, the freshly laundered undergarment fell from my grasp into the dirt, but I didn’t stoop to retrieve it. Instead, I shivered, wondering if I’d somehow saved the wrong sister from the gallows. “But she defended you, Nancy. She defended both of you.”

“How else was she to cover up the crime of killing my baby?” Nancy asked. “Judy wanted both of us to pay. Me and Richard, both. You have no idea what it was like returning to that house. Richard finally told her he intended to divorce her. And lo and behold, two days later he was dead of cramps in his stomach. But John blames me for bringing disgrace on the family, and I think she has him convinced that if Richard was poisoned it was my doing.”

Richard Randolph’s death had been strange. But then, everything about the people of Bizarre plantation specifically, and Tom’s family generally, was strange. Still, I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. “What you’re saying, Nancy! If you suspect these things of your own sister, why did you stay with her at Bizarre all this time?”

Nancy gave a bitter laugh. “I’m a spinster sister with a blackened name. I had nowhere else to go. The Harvies would never have me at Tuckahoe. I knew you’d never have me in your household. Besides, how was I to leave until one of my brothers came for me? Judith reads all my letters coming or going. No one visits Bizarre since the scandal. Even those willing to associate with me, Judith keeps away, claiming pecuniary embarrassment. Every night, Judith takes out her Bible and makes me pray forgiveness for every little gift or kindness Richard ever bestowed on me. She employs me with drudgery every day and locks me in my bedroom at night. I’ve been so guilt ridden, I could hardly complain. I felt . . . I felt as if I deserved it. Especially since now I’m nothing but an object of charity.”

I didn’t want to believe her. I didn’t want to believe a word. Yet, it had the ring of truth to it. And tenderness for Nancy stole over me at the thought she’d been silently suffering. We’d been taking care of Tom’s younger sisters for years and I didn’t know how we’d afford another, or how our reputation would endure the scandal, but I said, “Stay here for a spell, Nancy.”

Smearing tears with the back of her hands, Nancy said, “You can’t mean it.”

“I do.”

It took her a moment to believe me. When she did, she threw her arms around my neck. “You’re so kind. My brother is so fortunate to have you for a wife. Never did there exist a more excellent woman! And you won’t be sorry. I’ll be a helper for you. And a sister in truth. A new sister for the one you lost.”





Chapter Thirty


Washington, 1 July 1805

From Thomas Jefferson to Robert Smith, United States Secretary of the Navy

You will perceive that I plead guilty to one of their charges, that when young and single I offered love to a handsome lady. I acknowledge its incorrectness; it is the only truth among all their allegations against me.

THIS LETTER IS A DENIAL OF SALLY. Or at least, it will be read as one. Which is why I don’t burn it, even though it contains an admission of dishonor.