Sally Heming by Barbara Chase-Riboud Read Free Book Online Page B

couldn't be dead because she didn't know the
secret. Her mother had taken it along with her slavehood to the grave.
    She felt a chill. Her mother's face was calm, smiling. She
had murdered herself before they had done it for her.
    "Mama!"
    Sally Hemings tore Martha's encompassing arms from around
Elizabeth Hemings and began to shake the frail body of her mother.
    Even Martha, who was strong, could not unlock the two
women. It was Thomas Jefferson, who, with all his force, finally wrenched his
mistress away from her mother and carried her in his arms from the cabin, as the
other slave women began the ritual wail which echoes from cabin to cabin,
following them along Mulberry Row, as he strode grimly back with her to the Big
House.
    Elizabeth Hemings had a fine funeral. All her children,
grandchildren, and their children were summoned to Monticello from the
neighboring plantations. One hundred and four descendants, all answering to the
surname of Hemings, came to pay their last respects. Black. Brown. Yellow.
White. All slaves.
     
    here lies the beloved
elizabeth (bet) hemings of
    monticello born 1735    died 1807
     
     
    "Mama—" She paused as if she expected an answer.
"I'm so lonely."
    The last sound came from her throat like the rasp of a
night cricket. Sally Hemings stretched across the rectangle of earth and
pressed her face into the cool young April grass.

CHAPTER 5
     
    ALBEMARLE COUNTY, JUNE 1831
     
     
    With the morals of the people, their industry also is
destroyed. For in a warm climate, no man will labour for himself who can make
another labour for him. This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves a
very small proportion indeed are ever seen to labour. And can the liberties of
a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a
conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God?
That they are not to be violated but with his wrath?
    thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1790
     
     
    It had been more than a year
since the census taker's first visit. Several months had passed before he
appeared again, but thereafter Nathan Langdon's visits to Sally Hemings had
become almost regular. Madison and Eston had finally accepted the presence of
this tall lanky Virginian. They had become friends of a sort. Langdon never
arrived empty-handed. There was always the town news, a book, or a newspaper,
or a pamphlet, or some exotic fruit off one of the West India boats, some New
England sweets, or a tool catalogue for Eston. Today he brought her something
special.
    Nathan Langdon entered and sat in the battered armchair
while his hostess placed herself opposite him. She had prepared something to
drink, and the silver platter, with its silver pitcher, was no more incongruous
than his "unofficial" visits to the recluse Sally Hemings. In the
rounded curve of the silver pitcher lay reflections, mauve and green, of the
room. There was also a pool of yellow light in the center of the tray, heavy
and still. The woman before him had raised her arm to pour into the small
goblet.
    The South had anchored these two people into predetermined,
unbridgeable positions. Yet all they both represented was suddenly shrouded in
such ambiguity that it made them ill at ease. The light made this forbidden
woman almost ethereal, and, for a moment, Langdon imagined their separate
worlds coming together. He was filled with a sense of intimacy.
    "What is it?" asked Sally, eyeing the package he
was offering her.
    "New poems by Lord Byron. Straight off the ship from
London!"
    "I have never read much poetry.... A little in French
when I was in Paris. My teacher used to give us lines to memorize...."
    "Byron is the most famous English poet living."
    "Thank you, Nathan. How I envy those who can express
themselves with words."
    "Most people express themselves with too many words
... such as Southern lawyers. Verbosity is not lacking in any Virginian. And
what they can't talk about, they