Jefferson's Sons

On the last day of March, Beverly tried to give Eston and Maddy the kit violin. He polished it, tuned it, and played one final song. Then he put it into Maddy’s hands. “You boys take care of that,” he said.

Maddy choked and could only nod, but Eston said, “We don’t want it. That old kit violin. You better take that violin with you, Beverly. Otherwise you’ll have nothing to play.”

“If I take it,” Beverly said, “you won’t have anything to play. How’d you like that?” Maddy enjoyed playing the violin, but he could survive without it. Eston, on the other hand, would die.

Eston lifted his chin. “Our father will get me another violin,” he said. “A real one, a good one. I can’t make a living playing music on an old kit violin.”

Eston was not quite eleven. It was hard to believe sometimes, the way he talked like a old man. He looked just exactly like Master Jefferson.

“You aren’t going to make a living playing music,” Maddy said. “You’ll be a carpenter, like the rest of us.”

Eston narrowed his eyes. He said to Beverly, “I don’t want your lousy violin.”

Maddy couldn’t believe they were arguing about a violin on Beverly’s last day with them. He said, “Well, I do. You’re just nuts, Eston, if you think somebody’s going to buy us a better one. How much do you think violins cost? You know there’s no extra money. Beverly’ll make good money where he’s going, he’ll be able to buy himself a new violin.”

Maddy didn’t know where Beverly planned to go. He supposed Beverly had it figured out, but he didn’t want to ask. It was safer if he didn’t know. He also wasn’t sure, even now, that he believed Beverly would be allowed to just walk away.

“There was money to buy Miss Virginia a new saddle last week,” Eston said. “There’ll be money for my violin.”

“Arguing with you is like arguing with a tree,” Maddy said. “Only a tree might get old and fall down.” Eston wouldn’t ever budge.

“You say that,” Eston said, “but you keep arguing anyway.”

“Oh,” Maddy said, frustrated, “have it your way.”

Beverly looked at the violin, then shut it up in its case, and slid the case back under the bed. “I’ll fetch it in the morning,” he said.

“You’re really going?” As soon as Maddy said that, he wished he hadn’t.

“Tell Uncle John he taught me well,” Beverly said. “Tell him I’m grateful.”

“Tell him yourself,” said Eston.

“Eston, show some sense,” scolded Harriet. She was knitting by the fire. Mama hadn’t come in from her work yet, even though it was nearly dark and Beverly’s last day.

“I’ll send word,” Beverly said. “Once I’ve found a place. A letter—”

“Send it to Jesse Scott,” Maddy said. “We’ll write back. We’ll put Jesse’s name on the envelope.”

The door opened. Mama slipped in, her arms full. She sat on the edge of the bed and showed them what she’d brought.

A tailored white man’s suit of clothes—a coat, and brass-buttoned breeches. A new pair of shoes, with brass buckles. A new felt hat. A knife that fit into a small leather sheath. A leather pocketbook. Mama opened the pocketbook and showed them the money inside. “Fifty dollars,” she said. “With the shirts and socks and neckcloths I’ve made, it should be enough to get you on your way. Uncle John’s set aside a box of tools for you. They’ll be just inside the workshop door.”

“And the violin,” prompted Eston.

Beverly looked like he was about to cry. In the morning he slipped away. He took the violin with him.

He disappeared like a rock falling into a lake without a ripple. No one, not in the great house, not in the kitchen, not anywhere on Mulberry Row, so much as mentioned he was gone. Even little Peter Fossett acted like Beverly had never existed. The overseers didn’t speak of him. Mama didn’t speak of him. Harriet walked around with a closed expression on her face. Eston looked sad, but he held quiet too.

All Maddy’s thoughts were of Beverly. Could he really pass for a white man? Was he somewhere safe? Was he frightened? Was he happy? The silence wore Maddy down like rough sandpaper on a board. “Uncle John,” he said at last, when they were alone in the woodshop, just the two of them and Eston, “do you think Bev—”

“Hsst!” said Uncle John.

“But I just—”

“Not a word.”

“But every—”

“Keep still,” Uncle John said. “Less said the better. Trust me.”

Maddy didn’t understand why. Mama had promised nobody would try to catch Beverly. “We don’t need folks from Charlottesville knowing our business,” Uncle John went on. “The less they hear about any escaped slaves, the better.”

“But he’s not—”

“Hsst!” said Uncle John.

Eston looked over from the corner of the workroom, from where he was sweeping the floor. He winked at Maddy. Grateful, Maddy winked back.

On their way home that night, Maddy asked Eston, “Have you stopped thinking about him yet?”

“Nope,” Eston said. “What do you think he looks like, free?”

“What do you think he feels like?” Maddy asked.

When they asked Mama, she said, “Someday, you’ll know.”

A week later, the laundry room in the north dependency caught fire. It spread to the laundry roof, then down the walkway toward the great house, fueled by a rising wind. Maddy joined everyone on the mountaintop, even Master Jefferson, who was still weak and thin, in beating the fire out with wet gunny sacks, brooms, and snow from the icehouse. Afterward, filthy and exhausted, Maddy slumped to the ground. Peter Fossett climbed into his lap. “That was scary,” Peter said. “I thought it was going to burn up the horses.” The stable next to the laundry had caught fire, but Wormley had gotten the horses out.

“I know,” Maddy said. “Everything’s okay now.”

Peter nodded. “Wait ’til we tell Beverly.” Then he clapped his hand over his mouth. “Sorry, sorry,” he said. “Mama says we’re supposed to pretend there wasn’t a Beverly.”

Maddy put his arms around Peter. “There was a Beverly,” he said, “and there still is a Beverly. We’ll stay quiet about him, but we won’t forget.”

Two weeks after Beverly left, only a few days after the fire, Mama came to the woodshop in the middle of the day, carrying something wrapped in a shawl. “It’s for both of you,” she said, setting the bundle on the workbench.

Mama unwrapped it. Eston sucked in his breath. It was a violin case. “Is it Italian?” Eston asked.

Maddy let Eston unsnap the case and lift the violin from its velvet bed. Eston’s eyes shone. He stroked the violin’s face and ran his thumb across the strings. “I’ve never seen this one,” Eston said. “It’s not the one he usually plays.”

“It’s the violin he played as a young man,” Mama said. “The one his father gave him. Now he’s giving it to you.”

Eston sucked in his breath again. “To both of us,” he said, very softly.

Maddy had a moment of understanding, of what Beverly, of what a good brother would say. So he said it. “No, sir,” he said. “You’ll have to let me play it, but you’re the musician in this family. This violin belongs to you.”