“It was that painting you made the worst fuss about.” Jefferson emptied the bowl, handed it to the waiting servant, and got to his feet. “Ah, my old knees are stiff! But they still seem willing to support me. Now, I want to see everything. Yes”—he halted at the door of the high-ceiled drawing room—“there’s poor old John the Baptist whom you hated, Patsy.” He went nearer to study the painting over the mantel.
“It was Polly who loathed it most,” Martha said. “Not poor old John, all head and no body, but Salome lugging him on that charger wearing modern clothes and a very proper turban at that. I’d still like to throw that picture away, Papa. It used to give little Francis Eppes the horrors. Every time he had to pass through this room he’d have nightmares.”
“Nice polish on this floor, Patsy,” commended Jefferson, artfully turning her mind away from criticism of one of his favorite paintings by complimenting the gleam of the parquet floor. It was the first such oak floor laid in America and he was very proud of the way it reflected the glitter of the gilt chairs and sofas he had brought from Paris. They had cost fabulous amounts too, more than he could afford, but in his philosophy the things a man wanted and admired, that made life richer, were worth whatever they cost.
A brief nagging jerk of realism struck him—that now he would have to count the cost of things. Let that wait, let it wait until tomorrow. Tomorrow he would look over his lands, his farms; he would see how Randolph’s management had benefited them, and study what more must be done to the still unfinished house. Martha, catching his roving look, interrupted it with a protest.
“Papa, please! Don’t begin right away tearing down something and building it over. The house is fine as it is and we all love it—and you are so tired.”
“My dear, I should be even more tired with no occupation,” he argued. “Of course it will take me some little time to arrange and dispose of all my books and papers. Did they build those shelves I wrote you about in November?”
“Yes, Papa, come and see. I gave them the drawing you made and I’m quite sure they followed it exactly.” She walked ahead of him through the great hall and the narrow passage that led to the southern wing of the house which contained the library, Jefferson’s study, and his bedroom, with the bed alcove between and the steep winding stairs to the mezzanine-like second story.
There in the familiar rooms were all the homely things he had missed—his shabby old revolving chair, the painted wooden bench with its leather cushion that just fitted his lean, weary legs, the round revolving table he had had built with the legs set right so that the bench would slide under them and make of table, chair, and bench a comfortable kind of chaise longue with a high back to shut out the drafts. There was his file table with octagonal sides, each side holding a filing drawer labeled with a group of letters, and his high drawing table with drawers and shelves that could be adjusted at any angle.
Beside the library fireplace stood a high-backed leather chair, a pompous and official looking piece of furniture. Jefferson glared at it.
“And how came that thing here?” he demanded.