“I’m still debating, although I’m feeling stronger. I just might do it.”
Samson slapped him on the back.“Don’t let the press get hold of Poppa’s will. Well, you let me know. I’ll be your ardent supporter, your campaign manager, you name it.”
“Sure. I’ll let you know as soon as I do.” Warren headed for the post office as Samson entered Market’s by the back door. With remarkable self-control Warren acted as though not a thing was wrong, but he knew in that instant that Ansley had betrayed his trust and was betraying him in other respects too.
It never crossed Samson’s mind that he had spilled the beans, but then, he was already spending the commission money from the Diamond deal in his mind before he’d even closed the sale. Then again, perhaps the trysting and hiding were wearing thin. Maybe subconsciously he wanted Warren to know. Then they could get thepretense over with and Ansley would be his.
45
Since Kimball had kept most of his private papers in his study room on the second floor of Monticello, the sheriff insisted that nothing be disturbed. But Harry and Mrs. Hogendobber knew the material and had been there recently with Kimball, so he allowed them, along with Deputy Cooper, to make certain nothing had been moved or removed.
Oliver Zeve, agitated, complained to Sheriff Shaw that lovely though the three ladies might be, they were not scholars and really had no place being there.
Shaw, patience ebbing, told Oliver to be grateful that Harry and Mrs. Hogendobber knew Kimball’s papers and could decipher his odd shorthand. With a curt inclination of the head Oliver indicated that he was trumped, although he asked that Mrs. Murphy and Tucker stay home. He got his way on that one.
Shaw also had to pacify Fair, who wanted to accompany“the girls,” as he called them. The sheriff figured that would put Oliver over the edge, and since Cynthia Cooper attended them, they were safe, he assured Fair.
Oliver’s frazzled state could be explained by the fact that for the last two days he had endured network television interviews, local television interviews, and encampment by members of the press. He was not a happy man. In his discomfort he almost lost sight of the death of a valued colleague.
“Nothing appears to have been disturbed.” Mrs. Hogendobber swept her eyes over the room.
Standing over his yellow legal pad, Harry noticed some new notes jotted in Kimball’s tight scribble. She picked up the pad. “He wrote down a quote from Martha Randolph to her fourth child, Ellen Wayles Coolidge.” Harry mused. “It’s curious that Martha and her husband named their fourth child Ellen Wayles even though their third child was also Ellen Wayles—she died ateleven months. You’d think it’d be bad luck.”
Mrs. Hogendobber interjected,“Wasn’t. Ellen Coolidge lived a good life. Now, poor Anne Cary, that child suffered.”
“You talk as though you know these people.” Cynthia smiled.
“In a way we do. All the while we worked with Kimball, he filled us in, saving us years of reading, literally. Lacking telephones, people wrote to one another religiously when they were apart. Kind of wish we did that today. They left behind invaluable records, observations, opinions in their letters. They also cherished accurate judgments of one another—I think they knew one another better than we know each other today.”
“The answer to that is simple, Harry.” Mrs. H. peeked over her shoulder to examine the legal pad. “They missed the deforming experience of psychology.”
“Why don’t you read what he copied down?” Cooper whipped out her notebook and pencil.
“This is what Martha Randolph said: ‘The discomfort of slavery I have borne all my life, but its sorrows in all their bitterness I never before perceived.’ He wrote below that this was a letter dated August 2, 1825, from the Coolidge papers at U.V.A.”
“Who is Coolidge?” Cooper wrote on her pad.
“Sorry, Ellen Wayles married a Coolidge—”
Cooper interrupted.“That’s right, you told me that. I’ll get the names straight eventually. Does Kimball make any notation about why that was significant?”
“Here he wrote, ‘After sale of Colonel Randolph’s slaves to pay debts. Sale included one Susan, who was Virginia’s maid,’ ” Harry informed Cynthia. “Virginia was the sixth child of Thomas Mann Randolph and Martha Jefferson Randolph, the one we call Patsy because that’s what she was called within the family.”
“Can you give me an abbreviated history course here? Why did the colonel sell slaves, obviously against other family members’ wishes?”
“We forgot to tell you that Colonel Randolph was Patsy’s husband.”
“Oh.” She wrote that down. “Didn’t Patsy have any say in the matter?”
“Coop, until a few decades ago, as in our lifetime, women were still chattel in the state of Virginia.” Harry jammed her right hand in her pocket. “Thomas Mann Randolph could do as he damn well pleased. He started out with advantages in this life but proved a poor businessman. He became so estranged from his family toward the end that he would leave Monticello at dawn and return only at night.”
“He was the victim of his own generosity.” Mrs. Hogendobber put in a good word for the man. “Always standing notes for friends and then,pfft.” She flipped her hand upside down like a fish that bellied up. “Wound up in legal proceedings against his own son, Jeff, who had become the anchor of the family and upon whom even his grandfather relied.”
“Know the old horse expression ‘He broke bad’?” Harry asked Cooper. “That was Thomas Mann Randolph.”
“He wasn’t the only one now. Look what happened to Jefferson’s two nephews Lilburne and Isham Lewis.” Mrs. Hogendobber adored the news, or gossip, no matter the vintage. “They killed a slave named George on December 15, 1811. Fortunately their mother, Lucy, Thomas Jefferson’s sister, had already passed away, on May 26, 1810, or she would have perished of the shame. Anyway, they killed this unfortunate dependent and Lilburne was indicted on March 18, 1812. He killed himself on April tenth and his brother Isham ran away. Oh, it was awful.”
“Did that happen here?” Cooper’s pencil flew across the page.
“Frontier. Kentucky.” Mrs. Hogendobber took the tablet from Harry. “May I?” She read. “Here’s another quote from Patsy, still about the slave sale. ‘Nothing can prosper under such a system of injustice.’ Don’t you wonder what the history of this nation would be like if the women had been included in the government from the beginning?—Women like Abigail Adams and Dolley Madison and Martha Jefferson Randolph.”
“We got the vote in 1920 and we still aren’t fifty percent of the government,” Harry bitterly said. “Actually, our government is such a tangled mess of contradictions, maybe a person is smart to stay out of it.”
“Oh, Harry, it was a mess when Jefferson waded in too. Politics is like a fight between banty roosters,” Mrs. Hogendobber noted.
“Could you two summarize Jefferson’s attitude about slavery? His daughter surely seems to have hated it.” Cooper started to chew on her eraser, caught herself, and stopped.
“The best place to start is to read hisNotes on Virginia. Now, that was first printed in 1785 in Paris, but he started writing before that.”
“Mrs. Hogendobber, with all due respect, I haven’t the time to read that stuff. I’ve got a killer to find with a secret to hide and we’re still working on the stiff from 1803, excuse me, the remains.”
“The corpse of love,” Harry blurted out.
“That’s how we think of him,” Miranda added.
“You mean because he was Medley’s lover, or you think he was?” Cooper questioned her.
“Yes, but if she loved him, she had stopped.”
“Because she loved someone else?” Cynthia, accustomed to grilling, fell into it naturally.
“It was some form of love. It may not have been romantic.”
Cynthia sighed. Another dead end for now.“Okay. Someone tell me about Jefferson and slavery. Mrs. Hogendobber, you have a head for dates and stuff.”