Prelude To Separation Jefferson lay with his head on Patty’s lap, his eyes closed, his cheek pressed against the soft material of her skirt. The continual pressure of the throbbing behind his eyes and the vice clamp of pain across his head made him feel ill, lethargic, unhappy. She gently moved her legs, his head pressing on the nerve that sent tingling sensations to her feet. Her warm hand lay at the nape of his neck, caressing it, making it’s intimate way through the locks of his red hair, her fingers like tendrils of comfort curling over his skull, gently surrounding it, trying to massage the agony from his eyes. He cried out softly and moved to leave her, returning moments later, haggard, his face colorless. She moved herself into a more comfortable position, rubbed her knees. His head had been heavy there; her knees ached from sitting so long with him. He lay back against a pillow she placed there for him, and closed his eyes, trying out of desperate necessity to block out the evening noise that aggravated his unremitting, innervating headache. She moved quietly beside him, spoke gently into the heavy silence. “You do have a lot on your mind these days. Just lie here and be easy my dearest. Whatever you are writing is taking your energy, leaving you spent. Get well, soon. Virginia needs you.” “Yes, it is true,” he said quietly, unwilling or unable to expend much energy in conversation, “I am weary from all my thinking and the drafts. But someone has to do this. It is God’s providence which has selected me to lay out the grievances, though it is a wearying task.” She pushed back his hair, let her hand lay gently against the moist skin of his forehead. “Is there no relief, my dear?” she asked gently, “you do look so weary.” She touched his hand, let her fingers curl familiarly into his still ones. He did not move to push her away. “No,” he said, not opening his eyes. He held her small hand in his larger one, sweat forming between them in the hot, heavy heat that rapped it’s wet, humid breath around them. “I must go get baby Jane,” she said, breaking the congenial compatibility that fell between them. “She is waking. She will want feeding.” “No,” breathed the anguished Virginia planter, “please don’t leave me.” “I must if only for a short time,” she responded, catching the plaintive quality to his voice, “I will bring your daughter here if she will be quiet. Would you like me to bring her to you?” “Of course.” As if to add emphasis to her words, a cry summoned her from his side. She got up, made her way across the hard, wooden floor and into another room. She knelt down and picked up the crying little girl. The girl put her small arms out to her mother. Her mother was tired, weary. The days were hot and the work never ended, and her husband lay crushed by his debilitating headache. No callers had shown up at their door. The colonies in crisis, and Virginia in particular, was calm, or perhaps a worsening situation just had not yet reached them. The jingle of horse harness these days set Jefferson on edge, and patty, raising their two-year-old daughter and this little sick, weak child stayed in the background hoping things would settle and stop playing havoc with her husband’s health and obsessions. She sighed wearily, resigned as so many other wives were, to this temporary unhappy time. What has God brought me, she said to baby Jane, preparing to nurse her, “colonies in crisis, a thriving older daughter, and you little dear one whose life falters, and a husband whose head rules him in a physical way on occasion. It is a curious lot. She sat down with her baby girl and suckled her. The child slept on her breast. Patty got up and returned to her husband. He did not acknowledge her return, but instead lay with his eyes closed in retreat from the pain that sickened him. She gently touched his head, the oppressive heat causing sweat to glisten where her hand made contact with his skin. Suddenly across the air, in an eerie piercing tinkling overwhelming crash, a sound grating and harsh came to them, died away, the crash of falling dishes clattering, shattering, subsiding like ocean waves losing energy followed by a plaintive wail. Jefferson’s wife cringed, her hands clutching at the baby she still held, her nerves gone raw with weariness. The ripples of sound crashed against her husband’s head, exploding into tentacles of pain, shooting across his skull, around his eyes. His hands went across his head as if to quell it’s throbbing protest. He whimpered and tensed, burying his head deeper in the pillows. He bit his lip, cursing under his breath. Patty’s hands slowly eased his escalating discomfort, and he retreated into uneasy silence. “The servants,” she apologized when the sudden explosions of pain had abated, “they’ve broken the china.” “It’s only British china,” he whispered hoarsely, “only British china.” Through the pulsing pain he suddenly wondered if the new set of china had yet been paid for. The thought vanished as suddenly as it came, lost in a rising swell of nausea. The house grew quiet again. No running feet came to summon the Virginia planter’s wife. She wondered if she should go and investigate the accident. They would expect her to at least inquire as to the nature of the strange sound that had violated the hot, heavy silence. She decided to sit this one out. She arranged her skirts about her and curled next to him on the floor. The child had stirred in her sleep, disturbed by the crashing glass, and now she comforted her against her breast, easing the baby back to sleep. She reached up and laid her cool hand against her husband’s cheek, letting it rest there, gently stroking it with her fingers. On a table farthest from them, a knitting basket lay untouched. The quiet reasserted itself in the hot, Virginia evening. The gentle strains of an artfully played harpsichord wafted to them on the hot, sultry air. The future writer of the Declaration of Independence sighed, the wearying headache slowly placated in the silence and lack of light, leaving him spent and unsettled. He got to his feet carefully, standing to his full six foot two inch height, his thoughts bound up in the resolves he was working on so feverishly. The prelude to separation, outlining the rights of the colonists who had settled there earlier so blatantly laid out on paper all left him with the nagging sensation that such harsh sentiments could cost him his life. But, never mind that now, first things first. Martha came to his side, and took him by the hand, leading him quickly to the door of the room. “Hurry quickly and do what you must. You look kind of sick.” She touched his hand affectionately. “We’ll wait here.” His vision cleared slightly and he quickly left her. She heard his dying footsteps across the rocky ground. The silence lengthened as somewhere the sounds of voices carried to her on the heavy air. She leaned against the door, holding her youngest child, her weight pressing for security into Martha's chest. “I wonder what this will all come to,” she crooned to the child, “my bright intelligent mild-mannered husband gifted with a pen and felled by such headaches in the midst of crises with all our colonies. We will see, won’t we, little girl.” She looked up, hearing approaching footsteps. A shadowy figure strode easily toward the house as if it were some beacon of hope. Silently he came to her and she took him by the hand. In the darkness of the room, she saw that his eyes seemed brighter, more alert. “Feeling better? Your eyes look less weary.” “Perhaps somewhat. Headache is relieved till morning.” “Are you so troubled about things?” she suddenly asked, as if he would and wanted to read her mind, as if she were picking up the threads of some long ago rendered conversation. “Not troubled,” he said easily enough, his fatigue evident, “perhaps only resigned. You shouldn’t’ worry about such political questions,” he advised, gently. “What will be between Britain and the colonies is God’s design,” she told him wisely, “it is not “such things” I worry about.” Her face grew softer in the darkness. “It is only you who troubles me. It is my privilege to worry over you, and your charge to wrestle with these hard things.” He was tired, his eyes gaunt, the lines around them deep. He seemed speechless, the man whose perorations had brought him notice in the Virginia courts was either too overcome with gratitude or too ill to respond. He only nodded in affirmation and ran his fingers along the smooth complexion of her cheek. The sudden whimper of the child on her hip interrupted the prolonged gaze that now passed between them. They turned their attention to her. “Here, give her to me.” The man took his child in his arms, saying nothing. Her head rested against his chest, he felt it’s small, trusting weight, relishing the relief from his latest bout of headache. He stood awkwardly holding the child. Affection did not come easily to him. The securely rapped warm bundle of flesh seemed inordinately heavy. He handed her back to his wife. “Where is Patsy, the oldest one?” “Asleep,” she said, catching his eye over Jane’s head, “like you should be. It is getting late, too late for you, I think.” A disobedient streak nagged at him, but he found that his aching head and the dysentery that racked him this summer of 1774 in the midst of all his work and worry left him with precious little energy for rebelling against this charge. She was, he decided, because it was easier, and it was true, right about it being too late for him. An early riser he was often in bed by 10:00 or 11:00 and the necessity of dealing with his illness combined with ardent devotion to his pen had kept him awake till this hour. It was quiet, not even a cricket sounded, the servants and the slaves having retired earlier. He sighed wearily, turning toward the bedroom. Patty took her cue, but suddenly fiercely devoted to the baby and her husband, she stopped in the tracks that almost led to the baby’s sleeping quarters. Instead, she turned and followed him to their room. Perhaps with intuition born of experience, she knew that tonight would be one of the last nights they would have with their youngest daughter. Tonight, decided the Virginia planter’s weary wife, baby Jane would share their bed.
Copyright © 2003 Shelley J Alongi |