America's First Daughter: A Novel(164)

A sanctuary as far away from my own bedroom as it was possible to get on this plantation. It was a fact not lost on him as he eyed the chaise. “Where you should like me to sleep, I gather.”

I think he meant to shame me, to make me feel as if I were refusing his love, when, for years now, he’d been refusing mine. “I’d like you to stay wherever you can be made happy, Tom. It would mend much between us if you could be happy beside me, but if you can’t, then you should sleep here.”

Tom’s chin jerked up. I thought he might upbraid me, but instead a flash of anguish crossed his face. “Dear God, Martha. Don’t you know that beside you is the only place I’ve ever been happy?”





OUR RECONCILIATION, TENTATIVE AND FRAGILE, bolstered my health. I still suffered the aches that’d plagued me since giving birth to George. But I resorted to a charcoal remedy and rebelled completely against the household management of my daughters. My spirits were also brightened by my friendship with Dolley, who brought with her into every room a constant sunshine of the mind.

In short, that first year after Tom’s retirement from the governorship was a happy one.

I think that’s why its end was so devastating.

On the morning of her birthday in January of 1824, Septimia raced down the narrow staircase—certain her father had brought something special back for her from a recent business trip to Richmond. “What do you think it is, Mama? Could it be a new pet? Maybe a songbird of my own, like Grandpapa’s?”

As the family gathered round, Tom was near manic in his merriment. He had gifts for Septimia and stories of new curiosities in Richmond, including an Egyptian mummy. “It’s wrapped in dusty old bandages, preserved eternally, the insides having been scooped out.” Tom’s description set the children mad upon the subject of the mummy, hoping they could see it for themselves. Then Tom reported, “There’s a new Unitarian minister, too.”

The children wanted to hear him speak, which exasperated me. “Haven’t we done enough already to scandalize the neighbors? We already stand suspected in religious matters for shunning their revivals. To do so in favor of a Unitarian . . .”

But my concerns had no place amongst the frivolity of a birthday party, and Ellen rightfully twitted me for it. “Mama wants to go to a revival!”

Laughing, I said, “Heaven forbid. I cannot bear the ranting.”

“But think of the amusement,” Ellen smirked, taking a bite of gingerbread.

Throughout our little celebration in the bright parlor, my husband maintained great cheer and humor—virtues not amongst his chief traits. I didn’t take it as an ominous sign until he over looked the misbehavior of our sons at the table. You see, Tom indulged our daughters to the point of criminality, but never our sons, so I found myself wary. When the cakes were eaten and the children put to bed, I found Tom in the solitude of his study, hunched over in his chair, head in his hands.

“Tom?” I asked.

He never looked up. Perhaps he could not.

“Martha, there’s something I must tell you.” And with those ominous words, he explained, in halting words, the derangement of his financial affairs.

“How much is owed?” I asked, sure that if I knew the number, it’d make it more solid and less frightening.

“Thirty thousand,” he murmured.

I barely suppressed a gasp.

How wrong I was. Knowing the number made it worse.

A debt of twenty thousand had ensured that my father would never know true security again—but he had resources in his possession. What did Tom have? Only Edgehill and Varina, the latter of which he’d been unable to sell.

Though he was a Randolph, a former congressman, a three-term governor, and the inventor of the furrowing style that had been adopted in nearly every farm in Virginia—he was fifty-five years old. He could never pay back that debt in his lifetime; he’d end up leaving it to our sons . . . and only if the creditors didn’t call in the loans first.

The truth was, my husband was ruined.

Finally and utterly ruined.

After years of struggle and loss, of financial instability, Colonel Randolph’s long shadow had finally swallowed Tom up. I went to him where he sat bent and miserable, and stroked his hair as he buried his face against my belly. “You mustn’t reproach yourself, Tom. You’ve rarely spent even the fourth of your income, nor ever the half of it in any year. Our expenses are small and your profits would’ve maintained our whole family in affluence were it not for . . .”

I trailed off, wondering what it was. Bad luck? His father’s spite? I didn’t know, but Tom wept in my arms as he’d done all those years ago when we were first married, when he’d loved me so fervently . . . and so blindly. His financial ruin was a profound humiliation to him, I knew. But we were more fortunate than most. My father would provide for the children; they’d always have a roof over their heads and food on their table.

“I had to go to Jeff,” Tom blubbered. “The shame of going to my own son for help. But he’s going to take on my debts because they won’t foreclose on him. Creditors are more apt to be lenient with Jeff. He still has his youth, and he’s the grandson of Thomas Jefferson.”

It was a sensible argument, and yet, I was horrified. How could we expect Jeff to risk it? I argued against it. I railed against it. But in the end, the men in my family negotiated together in private the instrument that put the burden of the whole family upon Jeff’s shoulders.