America's First Daughter: A Novel(143)
But I worried about my father’s largesse, which extended itself to everybody. Papa was more popular now than when he was president, and people felt no shame in prevailing upon our hospitality. Unexpected visitors cluttered up our entrance hall beneath the quirky great clock, powered by cannonball weights on a rope, for which a hole had to be cut in the floor. They marveled at the inventions and curiosities my father collected—everything from maps and soil samples to Indian artifacts, mastodon bones, and classical statuary. And Papa took on the expense of a plentiful table with all the seasonal bounty our plantation had to offer, topped off with Italian and French wines.
Which is why, I think, we always had guests. We had persons from abroad, from all the states of the union, from every part of the state, men, women, and children. In short, almost every day for at least eight months of the year brought people of wealth, fashion, men in office, professional men military and civil, lawyers, doctors, protestant clergymen, Catholic priests, members of Congress, foreign ministers, missionaries, Indian agents, tourists, travelers, artists, strangers, and friends.
They’d line up in the passageways for a glimpse at Papa. One lady even punched a windowpane with her parasol trying to get a better view!
Neverthless, I scolded Ellen when she moped down the narrow staircase in the morning, eyes half-lidded. “Be more cheerful in the morning lest your grandfather’s guests think you’re a sullen girl.”
“You know I hate mornings,” Ellen said, unrepentantly sullen.
I did know. Indeed, since she was a child my father had made a game of catching her in bed long after sunrise. And I also knew her love for him would make her behave. “Your grandpapa relies upon us to leave a good impression.”
Ellen plastered a sarcastic smile on her face as we took our places in Papa’s chrome yellow dining room with its wispy white curtains. My daughters were all practiced hostesses at my father’s breakfast, where we had fried eggs and meat, biscuits, tea, and honey. Then, while our guests amused themselves in my father’s book room or by walking our gardens or horse riding in our woods, I made the girls help me tidy up and find places for the strange little trinkets people sent Papa from all over the country just because he might find them fascinating.
Mary and Cornelia bickered about the proper way to do everything from planning a menu to choosing cloth for the servants, and Ginny goaded them on to avoid doing any of the work herself. Meanwhile, I taught the children from early afternoon until our supper at four or five in the evening. The schoolroom was my sitting room at Monticello, painted a cheerful blue. It’s where I did my sewing, and breastfeeding, too. And where the servants found me to ask for direction at least two dozen times a day.
All except Sally, of course.
Sally and I both worked in proximity to my father’s private rooms, where he emerged each day like the glowing Jove to reign over Mount Olympus. The grand patriarch made all the rules for the house—including that the children were to keep out of the flower beds and that no one but Sally was to venture into his sanctum sanctorum.
Such was my children’s adoration for him that he only had to say do or do not, and they’d all obey. And he adored them in return, playing games with them in the evening. In returning from overseeing cloth production at the textile mill, I’d see my father throw down his kerchief to set the children off on a race on the lawn—sometimes with hoops. And while Sally’s children only ever looked on, the racers were sometimes joined by my sister’s only surviving child, little Francis, whom Jack Eppes finally consented to let visit.
Jack hadn’t been persuaded by my pleas nor my father’s cajoling. There wasn’t anything any of us could say to convince Jack that his son wouldn’t be exposed to my husband’s lingering ill will. No, it took someone in the Hemings family. My sister’s maid promised that her aunt Sally would watch over the boy. And Jack trusted his concubine in a way he’d never trust me.
But I counted myself grateful for it, because I never tired of hearing my sister’s laugh in her son’s voice. And every night after Tom returned home and the children were all tucked into bed, we had the best fruits from the orchards with our tea and enjoyed the relative quiet.
The only blot on our happiness was our son-in-law. When Ann married Charles Bankhead, he’d been a student at the law with a promising future. He’d since quit the profession to better appreciate my father’s stock of wine, leaving us to worry for Ann and my new grandson. But my father was fond of Charles and optimistic about his future.
Tom was less charitable. “We made a mistake with that one, Martha. He’ll never go farther than a tavern.”
At the time, I thought it an unkind thing to say, and hypocritical, too, considering my husband so often retreated to drink. I reconsidered my opinion, however, the night my twenty-year-old son came to the table after a day of backbreaking work, during which he nearly put his father into the ground.
Serving great portions of ham onto his plate, Jeff asked, “Grandpapa, do you think war with England is inevitable, now? We can make enough to eat and drink and clothe ourselves, but we can’t have salt or iron without money. Without a market for our wheat, we just feed it to the horses. Tobacco isn’t worth the pipe it’s smoked in. And whiskey . . .” He paused, casting a sly glance at Ann’s husband. “Well there aren’t enough drunks in the world to drink it.”
My son should’ve never given that sly, knowing glance to Charles Bankhead, who guzzled down my father’s brandy as if in defiance of Jeff’s remark. Charles and Tom were both good and drunk that night. So much so that my husband fell into a deep, exhausted slumber before I finished tucking my children into bed in their nursery.