“The work at St. Luke’s has brought me attention. I’ve received a commission to design a home along the James outside of Scottsville. I will take you to St. Luke’s. I would like for you to see it.”
“I would like to see it. I can’t speak for Maureen. She is a dedicated Catholic, which means she likes the ritual. What she believes, I couldn’t say.”
“Ah well, perhaps none of us can really understand any church. I read my catechism—oh yes, Church of England has catechism. I still don’t know what it’s about, although I can recite the Nicene Creed by heart.”
They both laughed.
The clock struck five o’clock. The late-afternoon light streaked across the land like butter.
“I have taken up too much of your time. I’d better find DoRe and we can drive home before twilight. I assume he is visiting your cook.” Jeffrey smiled.
“Or she him. When DoRe and Barker O are together, they can talk.” Charles again opened the box to admire the pistol. “Thank you for this.”
“I am merely the messenger. Your brother wished to restore the mate to the one John has as the spoils of war. He knew how you valued it.”
“My father gave me an excellent education, a Continental tour, clothing, but he wasn’t much for gifts to his sons. He didn’t want us to become, in his words, effeminate. I don’t think either Hugh or I was in danger, but he gave me the pistol when I left for the Army. I wasn’t close to my father, but I liked him. Does that sound strange to you, having worked with your father?”
“One sees the distance with many sons. Then again, fathers are often absent. I call upon my father often for help in my work. He is astonishingly good, you know, and I don’t say that because he is my father, but he can put his hands on a piece of wood and feel it.”
Charles smiled. “A gift. You possess it, too.” He rose and Jeffrey rose with him.
As they walked to the door, Jeffrey confided in him. “There was an unfortunate incident at Big Rawly yesterday.”
“Elizabetta.”
“How do you know?”
“Word travels fast.”
Jeffrey nodded. “I believe the slaves have ways to reach one another of which we know nothing. Bad as it was, it is settled and that will never happen again.” Then he paused again, cleared his throat. “You have been married a few years now.”
“To the best woman on earth.” Charles lit up.
“Certainly a woman of great beauty and uncommon sweetness. Her mother must have been a beauty.”
“I never met Isabelle, but Yancy Grant declared she was a breathtaking beauty, which her daughters reflect, but he also said she possessed an intense allure. His very word, ‘intense.’ ”
Jeffrey smiled. “Charles, yours is a good marriage.”
“It is.”
“Do you understand women?”
A burst of laughter followed this question. “No. Does any man? I love my wife. I worship my wife. Do I understand her, no, but”—he took a deep breath—“I believe she understands me and sometimes better than I understand myself.”
A look of relief crossed Jeffrey’s face. “I see.”
Charles slapped him on the back as he still laughed. “Brother, don’t even try.”
They talked about Florence, about how restorative it is to finally come to one’s own home. They walked to the stables where DoRe sat with Barker O, a basket of food in front of him, for Bettina had also been visiting before returning to the house. Charles and Jeffrey shook their heads about both of their wives swooning over fabrics.
When Jeffrey climbed up next to DoRe on the light, lovely, one-horse carriage, he looked down at Charles, smiled, and tipped his hat. “Thank you, brother.”
Charles touched his forehead with his finger. “The pleasure was mine, brother.”
27
April 25, 2018
Wednesday
A bit of breeze swept through the alleyways, which was how Harry thought of the ground floor of Monticello. Must have been a hive of activity, people moving to and fro, ladies attending the cooking fire, people poking their heads in storage rooms for this or that.
“Being here, being anywhere where a powerful man lived, I am always reminded of how many people it takes to free one to do major business,” Arlene commented as they walked along a corridor.
“Still does,” Harry rejoined.
“You know, you’re right. Technology can perform some of these services, but it still takes people, highly trained people. I learned that when the Agency sent me places. If I had a long land time, I would rent a car and, if a friend was, say, in Amsterdam, off I’d go. Once Paula Devlin was in Paris when I was in London. We’d hunted together a few times when I was home on leave, so I called her, crossed the Channel, and she drove me everywhere. That’s when I got to know her. Versailles, of course. Impressive. Beautiful. The reflection of the Sun King, yes, but it was too much. Here at Monticello, more, u-m-m, what am I trying to say, in proportion.”
“I know what you mean.”
“You’ve been to Versailles?”
Harry nodded that she had. “I was an art history major at Smith and one summer Susan, who was at William and Mary, and I traveled to Europe, the hostel route.” She smiled. “We’d worked that year at our respective schools, saved everything, and off we went. I wore out three pairs of sneakers.”
“Ha.” Arlene enjoyed the detail.
They took the tour through the house, walked on the raised walkways to the small buildings at the ends, then walked along the path by the food plots, where some of the sturdy slave cabins once stood. They reached the graveyard, Jefferson’s monument simple, unadorned. Other family members slept behind the wrought-iron fence.
“Isn’t it odd that both Jefferson and Adams died on July Fourth, 1826?” Harry remarked.
“And the stuff they argued about we’re still battling over.” Arlene shrugged. “Maybe that’s good. Right now it seems like a bad time, but we’ve been through worse, and this going back and forth between a strong centralized government, which we do have, and states’ rights, growing again, it’s good. My time in Washington taught me that if we harden, we lose.”
“You know more than I do. You and Ned Tucker should talk. I’m not much of a political person.” Harry swept her eyes over the tombstones. “Did you know that Monroe also died on the Fourth of July? Eighteen thirty-one.”
“We will never see public servants like our Founding Fathers.” Arlene thought a moment. “And mothers. In so many ways they were ahead and, in other ways, creatures of their times. I think that can be said of all of us.”
They walked down the path through the woods to the parking lot and the visitors center.
“These last few weeks, it’s sure been a focus on the dead, hasn’t it? We go to Aldie, all those cavalrymen somewhere. Then Jason. And then you come to Crozet and we put that murdered woman in the ground, a proper Christian burial.”