Jefferson's Sons (8 page)

“Oh, Beverly,” Mama said.

“Just the scraps,” said Beverly. “So we look like—”

Mama cut him off. “If we looked like all one family,” she said, “what kind of secret would it be?”

 

Master Jefferson—or Papa, as Beverly still called him in his heart—went back to Washington like always. Beverly missed him. Even if his father didn't talk to him, Beverly felt like he had a father when Master Jefferson was nearby. Now the quiet mountaintop seemed lonely and forlorn. Some days clouds hung down so far upon the mountain that the cabins and the great house poked out the top of them. The tip of the mountain, with the house and cabins, looked like an island on a sea of cloud. “Is this like the ocean?” Beverly asked Mama.

She drew her shawl around her shoulders. “Very much like the ocean,” she said, “only you don't get seasick here.”

That night Mama told them again about her trip to France. “When Mrs. Jefferson died,” she said, “Miss Martha was ten years old. I was nine, Miss Maria was four, and little Miss Lucy had just been born.

“The little girls were so small that when Master Jefferson went to France, not long after, he only took Miss Martha with him. He sent Maria and Lucy to live with their aunt, Mrs. Eppes, and he sent me along to help take care of them.

“Two years later, Miss Lucy died. Master Jefferson wrote that he wanted Miss Maria sent to France. She didn't want to go. She didn't remember her daddy, and she was afraid of the ocean. Since she trusted me more than anyone else, they made me take her.”

Beverly had heard this story over and over. Now he tried to imagine Master Jefferson an ocean away, gone for years. Beverly would get on that ship. He would be glad to. “How old were you then, Mama?”

“By the time everything was settled, I was fourteen,” Mama said. “Miss Maria was eight, going on nine. I didn't speak a word of French and had never been to any city at all.”

“Were you afraid?” asked Beverly. He wouldn't be.

Mama laughed. “I didn't know enough to be afraid!” she said. “Sometimes it's better to be ignorant. To me it seemed like nothing but an adventure. Miss Maria was so scared and seasick, she about cried the entire trip, but I used to stand on the deck sometimes watching the wind carry the ship—and I loved it. I loved Paris too.”

Harriet said, “I think I like Miss Maria better than Miss Martha.”

“You would have liked Miss Martha then,” Mama said. “I did.” She paused before she continued. “She married Mr. Randolph two months after we came back from France. She'd known him less than five weeks. She didn't take time to think. I wouldn't want to walk in her shoes.”

Beverly wouldn't want to walk in her nasty shoes either. They probably smelled. But how he wished he could take her place! He could live in the President's House. Master Jefferson would introduce him to people with a proud smile, saying, “This is Beverly, my son.”

“If you and Master Jefferson got married,” he asked Mama, “would you make Miss Martha stay away?”

“Beverly!” Mama said. “What a thing to say!”

“I would,” Harriet said.

“There's no sense discussing it,” Mama said. “No sense even thinking about it. It can't happen, not ever, not this side of Paradise. Put it right out of your heads.”

Beverly did until the next day, when he and Harriet were alone. Then they talked about it some more. “We'd travel in the carriage to Washington City,” Beverly said. “Think about it. We'd be with Mama and Papa both, all the time.”

“We'd eat in the big dining room,” Harriet said. “Roast chicken off china plates. Miss Edith would cook for
us
.” Harriet stopped. She clapped her hand over her mouth.

Beverly understood. “We'd
pay
Miss Edith,” he said. “We'd pay her good for all her fancy cooking. And we'd let Joe Fossett come to Washington and be blacksmith there, and he could live all the time with Miss Edith and James.”

“And we'd invite them to dinner,” Harriet said, “like Mr. and Mrs. Madison come to dinner now.”

She and Beverly looked at each other.

“No,” Harriet said softly. “That can't happen.”

“We'll just make them not slaves,” Beverly said. “We'll make everybody free, and everybody equal, and then Mama can marry Master Jefferson and everybody can do what they want.”

But, he thought, what if Miss Edith didn't
want
to be a French cook? What if Joe Fossett didn't
want
to move to Washington? If Joe and Edith were free, would they want to work for Master Jefferson?

When he asked Harriet about it, she frowned. “These are just stories,” she said. “We're making them up. They're not real like Mama's stories. They're pretend.”

Beverly knew that. “I only like pretending things that can happen,” he said.

 

In the spring, Master Jefferson arrived at Monticello with plans for new dependencies. That was what he called them. What he meant, Beverly learned, was more construction—not on the great house this time, but all along Mulberry Row.

Right now the little brick guesthouse with the kitchen in its basement was a long way from the great house, so food was always cold by the time it reached the dining room. Master Jefferson wanted the kitchen closer to the house. He wanted the kitchen to be bigger too, and he needed more stabling for guests' horses. But what really bothered him was that anyone standing on the back porch of the great house got a clear view down Mulberry Row, of the double row of cabins, the stables, blacksmith and woodshops, smokehouses and garden sheds. Master Jefferson was tired of looking at all that.

He decided to dig out part of the great house lawn, and put a row of buildings—the dependencies—halfway underground, disguised by fancy walkways covering their roofs. He would hide a new kitchen, a smokehouse, and some rooms to live in—including one for Beverly's family—on one side of the lawn, and a new stable, icehouse, and laundry on the other. Then he could tear down the part of Mulberry Row that was most visible from the great house.

“He wants to hide us?” Beverly asked. He felt grumpy. Papa had been home two days, and Beverly hadn't even caught a glimpse of him.

Mama sighed. “It's nothing to do with us,” she said. “It's to make the mountaintop more beautiful.”

“Our house isn't ugly,” argued Beverly.

Mama gave him an eye. “A log cabin or the great house,” she said. “Which one would you rather look at?” She picked up a piece of her sewing.

He could just make the cabins look better, Beverly thought. He wandered outside, still grumpy, and found Uncle John standing near the garden shed, sharpening a hoe.

“What're you doing?” Beverly asked. Burwell's brother Wormley was in charge of the gardens, not Uncle John.

“Wormley's covered up,” said Uncle John. “Didn't you see that wagonload of trees Davy Hern brought? Master Jefferson wants new flower beds laid out this morning, and since Wormley's setting the trees, I told him I'd dig the beds.” Uncle John straightened and smiled at Beverly. “Master Jefferson's coming out to show me where to put them. Want to help?”

Beverly's grumpiness evaporated in an instant. “Sure,” he said. He grabbed a spade and followed Uncle John.

Master Jefferson was waiting for them at the front of the great house. Beverly saw him and started to smile, but the smile froze on his face. His grumpiness came flooding back. One of Miss Martha's girls stood beside Master Jefferson, holding his hand. She was all decked out in big ribbons and a crisp white dress and shoes, and she swung Master Jefferson's hand and beamed at him. “I love flowers!” she said in a happy, chirpy voice Beverly instantly despised. “I can't wait to see them bloom!”

Master Jefferson smiled down at her. He didn't even glance at Beverly.

Beverly dropped his eyes. He didn't know the girl's name—all Miss Martha's girls looked alike to him—but he hated her just the same.

Master Jefferson and the girl laid string on the ground to mark the space for two big oval beds. Beverly and Uncle John cut out the edges of the ovals with their spades, then stripped the sod inside the ovals while Master Jefferson and the girl stood and watched. The girl chattered constantly. Beverly thought her voice sounded like a horsefly buzzing.

It was hot work for a warm morning. Sweat ran down his back until his shirt stuck to him. He wished the girl would go away. If Harriet were here, little as she was, she would grab a spade and help. She wouldn't just stand and giggle. He stomped hard on the edge of his spade. It hurt his foot.

Uncle John noticed. “Take the hoe and strip the sod,” he said quietly. “I'll go get a wheelbarrow of old manure. We'll mix it in before we set out the plants.”

A big piece of Master Jefferson's hair came loose from its tie. The wind blew it in front of his eyes. He pushed it back with an irritated gesture.

“I'll fix that, Grandpa,” the girl said. She untied Master Jefferson's queue and combed his hair with her fingers.

Beverly slashed at the sod. He hated this. Then Master Jefferson said, “You're getting stronger, Beverly.”

It wasn't much, but it made Beverly feel better. “Yes, sir,” he said, straightening. “Mama says I've grown.”

“I can see.”

The girl finished Master Jefferson's hair, then tugged his shirt sleeve. “Are we done here? I want to go look at the strawberries. I want to see if they're ripe.”

“Certainly,” Master Jefferson said. He took her offered hand and they walked away. Beverly waited for something else, for Master Jefferson to turn back, or wave or say good-bye. Surely he wouldn't just leave, not after starting a conversation.

He did. As he and the girl walked past Uncle John, who was pushing the barrow of manure, the girl said, “Oh, Grandpa, aren't we lucky to have John to help us?”

I'm invisible to her, thought Beverly. She doesn't see me.

John set the wheelbarrow down. Beverly said, “Did you hear what she said? Like she did the work, and you and I just helped a little.”

John shrugged. “She's young,” he said. “She doesn't know better.”

“She's older than me,” protested Beverly.

Uncle John shook his head. “Don't let little things bother you. If you do, you'll be nothing but bothered, all the days of your life.”

 

But Beverly
was
bothered. He shouldn't be invisible. His house shouldn't have to be hidden. He ought to have just as much right to talk to Master Jefferson—his father—as that girl had to talk to her grandfather.

Mama wouldn't take his side. “You listen to Uncle John,” she said that night, when Beverly complained. “People in our position don't have the luxury of being upset. You'd best learn to ignore all you can.”

“What's my position?” Beverly said.

Mama looked stern. “You're Sally's son,” she said. “Sally's oldest son.”

“But I'm
his
son too,” Beverly said. “I'm family. That girl acted like she couldn't even see me. I'm her
uncle,
and she acts like I don't matter at all.”

“You matter,” Mama said.

“Not to her,” said Beverly. “Not to—”

“You matter,” Mama repeated. “Not because of whose son you are. Because of who
you
are. You're as important as every other human being that ever was or ever will be. Everyone matters. What that girl thinks of you, how she treats you, can't change the fine person that you are.

“I don't want you walking around thinking of Miss Martha's girls as family. It won't help you. They aren't going to treat you like family. There's nothing we can do about that.

“But you matter. Harriet matters, Maddy matters. Uncle John matters. There's not a soul on this mountain that doesn't matter.”

Mama turned suddenly to Harriet. “But you, now, you listen to me,” she said. “These few weeks while we've got Miss Martha's girls around, you need to start paying attention to them. How they act. How they dress, how they talk, how they carry themselves. They're being raised as little ladies, and someday, Miss Harriet, you're going to be a lady too. You're going to need to know how to behave just the way they do.”

Harriet's face lit into a cheerful gap-toothed grin. She was six now, still a tree-climbing wild child. “I'm going to be a lady?” she asked.

“You're going to be a lovely lady,” Mama said. “You're going to grow up so beautiful, folks are just going to love to look at you. You'll need beautiful manners to match.”

“If she acts prissy,” said Beverly, “I'll punch her.”

Harriet bounced off the edge of the bed and twirled Maddy around until they fell down. She looked up at Mama from the floor. “When, Mama?”

“When you're older,” Mama said. “When you're grown.”

“Can I have a white dress, like Miss Ellen's?” asked Harriet. “And pink shoes with bows?” She looked delighted. “Can I have hair ribbons?”

Ellen,
thought Beverly. That was the name of the garden-bed girl.

Mama laughed. “Yes,” she said. “You can have any color dress you want, and any kind of shoes, and wear ribbons every single day.”

“Good!” said Harriet. “And then I can be rude to Beverly.” She laughed. “Like Miss Ellen.”

Beverly scowled at her. Harriet, still laughing, stuck out her tongue. She rolled over to grab Beverly's ankles, but missed.

“No, no,” Mama said, swooping Beverly into her arms. “You must never be rude to Beverly.” Mama leaned forward, but instead of kissing Beverly as he expected, stuck out her own tongue and waggled it. Despite himself, Beverly laughed.