Kimball also remembered that upon Jefferson’s return from France, he and John Walker began to move on separate political paths. Light-Horse Harry Lee, father of Robert E. Lee, later volunteered to mediate between the two former friends. As Light-Horse Harry loathed Thomas Jefferson, the result of this effort was a foregone conclusion. Things went from bad to worse with James Thomson Callender, a vicious tattletale, fanning the flames. It was at this time that the infamous allegations against Jefferson for sleeping with his slave, Sally Hemings, began to make the rounds.
By January of 1805 these stories gained enough currency to cause theNew-England Palladium to castigate Mr. Jefferson’s morals. Apparently, Mr. Jefferson did not stand for family values.
The fur flew. Few cocktails are more potent than politics mixed with sex. Drinks were on the house, literally. Congress wallowed in the gossip. Things haven’t changed, Kimball thought to himself.
To make matters murkier, Jefferson admitted to making a pass at Mrs. Walker. Acting as a true gentleman, Jefferson shouldered all the blame for the affair, which he carefully noted as having occurred before his marriage. In those days, the fellow accepted the stigma, no matter what had really happened. To blame the lady meant you weren’t a man.
Thanks to Jefferson’s virile stance, even his political enemies let the Walker affair go. Everyone let it go but John Walker. Only as Walker lay dying at his estate in Keswick, called Belvoir, did he acknowledge that Jefferson was as much sinned against as sinner. By then it was too late.
The Sally Hemings story, however, did damage the president. A white man sleeping with a black woman created a spectacular conundrum for everyone. A gentleman couldn’t admit such a thing. It would destroy his wife and generate endless jokes at his expense. Let there be one red-haired African American at Monticello and the jig was up, literally. That little word-play ran from Maine to South Carolina in the early 1800s. Oh, how they must have laughed in the pubs. “The jig is up.”
It did not help Mr. Jefferson’s case that some fair-skinned African Americans did appear at Monticello bearing striking resemblance to the master. However, as Kimball recalled, Thomas wasn’t the only male around with Jefferson blood.
So what if a cousin had had an affair with Sally? Bound by the aristocratic code of honor, Jefferson still must remain silent or he would cause tremendous suffering to the rake’s wife. A gentleman always protects a lady regardless of her relation to him. A gentleman could also try to protect a woman of color by remaining silent and giving her money and other favors. Silence was the key.
One thing was certain about the master sleeping with a slave: The woman had no choice but to say yes. In that truth lay lyric heartache sung from generation to generation of black women. Broke the hearts of white women too.
Stars glittered in the sky, the Milky Way smeared in an arc over the buildings as it had centuries ago. Kimball realized this murder might or might not have something to do with Thomas Jefferson’s personal life, but it surely had something to do with a violent and close relationship between a white man and a black woman.
He would go over the slave roster tomorrow. He was too sleepy tonight.
21
The Crozet Lutheran Church overflowed with people who had come to pay their last respects to Wesley Randolph. The deceased’s family, Warren, Ansley, Stuart, and Breton, sat in the front pew. Kimball Haynes, his assistant Heike Holtz, Oliver Zeve and his wife, and the other staff at Monticello came to say goodbye to a man who had supported the cause for over fifty of his seventy-three years.
Marilyn and Jim Sanburne sat in the second pew on the right along with their daughter Marilyn Sanburne Hamilton, alluring in black and available thanks to a recent divorce. Big Mim would apply herself to arranging a more suitable match sometime in the future.
The entire town of Crozet must have been there, plus the out-of-towners who had occasion to know Wesley from business dealings, as well as friends from all over the South.
The Reverend Herbert Jones, his deep voice filling the church, read the Scriptures.
Somber but impressive, the funeral would have been remembered in proportion to Wesley’s services to the community. However, this funeral stuck in people’s memories for another reason.
Right in the middle of Reverend Jones’s fervent denial of death, “For if we believe we are risen in Christ …” Lucinda Payne Coles whispered loud enough for those around her to hear, “You sorry son of a bitch.” Red in the face, she slid out of the pew and walked back up the aisle. The usher swung the door open for her. Samson, glued to his seat, didn’t even swivel his head to follow his wife’s glowering progress.
As the people filed out of the church, Mim cornered Samson in the vestibule.“What in the world was that all about?”
Samson shrugged,“She loved Wesley, and I think her emotions got the better of her.”
“If she loved Wesley, she wouldn’t have marred his funeral. I’m not stupid, Samson. What are you doing to her?” Mim took the position that men wronged women more often than women wronged men. In this particular case she was right.
Samson hissed,“Mim, this is none of your business.” He stalked off, knowing full well she’d never refer a customer to him again. At that moment he didn’t care. He was too confused to care.
Harry, Susan, and Ned observed this exchange, as did everyone else.
“You’re going to get a call tonight.” Susan squeezed her husband’s forearm. “That’s the price of being such a good divorce lawyer.”
“Funny thing is, I hate divorce.” Ned shook his head.
“Don’t we all?” Harry agreed as the source of her former discontent, Fair, joined them.
“Damn.”
“Fair, you always were a man of few words.” Ned nodded a greeting.
“My patients don’t talk,” Fair replied. “You know, something’s really wrong. That’s not like Lulu. She knows her place.”
“It’s going to be a much poorer place now,” Susan wryly noted.
“Mim will wreak vengeance on Samson. Bad enough he told her to bugger off, he did it in public. He’ll have to crawl on his belly over hot coals—publicly—to atone for his sin.” Ned knew how Mim worked. She used her money and her vast real estate holdings as leverage if she felt a pinch in the pocketbook would suffice. When her target was a woman, she generally preferred to cast her into social limbo. But the human is an animal nonetheless, and harsh lessons were learned faster than mild ones. Had Mim been a man, she would have been called a hard-ass, but she’d have been lauded as agood businessman. Since she was a woman, the termbitch seemed to cover it. Unfair, but that was life. Then again, had Mim been a man, she might not have had to teach people quite so many lessons. They would have feared her from the get-go.
Larry Johnson, physician to Wesley and the family, climbed into his car to follow the funeral procession to the family cemetery.
“Hear Warren wouldn’t let anyone sign the death certificate but Larry,” Fair mentioned. “Heard it over at Sharkey Loomis’s stable.”
“That must have been a sad task for Larry. They’d been friends for years.” Harry wondered how it would feel to know someone for fifty, sixty years and then lose them.
“Come on, or we’ll be last in line.” Susan shepherded them to their cars.
22
A hard-driving rain assisted Kimball Haynes. The slashing of the drops against the windowpane helped him to concentrate. It was long past midnight, and he was still bent over the records of births and deaths from 1800 to 1812.
He cast wide his research net, then slowly drew it toward him. Medley Orion, born around 1785, was reported to be a beautiful woman. Her extraordinary color was noted twice in the records; her lovely cast of features must have been delicious. White people rarely noted the physiognomy of black people unless it was to make fun of them. But an early note in a lady’s hand, quite possibly that of Martha, Jefferson’s eldest daughter, stated these qualities.