Thomas Jefferson could almost visualize that spindle-legged, freckle-faced bridegroom, that brash twenty-nine-year-old fiddler who had charmed his lady with his music and won her away from a swarm of admirers by tricking them with a clever stratagem. It had never occurred to him in those courting days at the Wayles’ place, The Forest, that he might likely be catalogued with some of Martha’s other swains as an ambitious country boy and embryo lawyer set on improving his state by marrying a rich young widow. He had cared too much for Martha, loving her, he was arrogantly certain, as no man had ever loved a woman before, and he had brought her here to this cold little room so confident of her love and courage that a chill or two did not matter.
Now he thought back on that snowy ride up from Blenheim, where, because of the deepening snow, they had been obliged to leave the chaise in which they had started out from Williamsburg, as well as the warm robes and blankets with which it had been loaded. There had been a debate, he remembered now, about whether they should ride on or wait for morning, but Martha had laughed his misgivings down.
“I can weather any storm that you can weather, Thomas Jefferson.”
So saddle horses had been brought, his own tired team stabled, and the slave who had driven the chaise sent to bed with orders to drive to Monticello in the morning. Jefferson recalled now his dubious concern when he discovered that the snow on the mountain road was eighteen inches deep.
He had ridden ahead, breaking a track for Martha’s horse, trying to shield her as best he could from the storm that stung their eyelids and sifted inside collars and up sleeves. But Martha had been undismayed. She had shouted jokes at him through the wind, ordering him to wait now and then while she wiped the snow off her face. Eight miles they had had to climb, the horses sliding, stumbling, and blowing through the dark until at last they saw the brick piles and scaffolding of what was to be their home through the weird snow light.
Not a light showed, not a feather of smoke lay on the air. Where were all the black people who should have been there ready to serve them with warm fires and a hot meal? Jefferson burned with hot angry impatience; then common sense prevailed. No one could possibly have expected them home at this hour. It was far past midnight.