rampnts
☾ SIMPLE BUT EFFECTIVE ☾
I KNOW YOU BY THE FLAMES SCATTERED ACROSS YOUR NOSE
December, 1782
Thomas Jefferson, grieving the recent loss of his wife, arrives in Philadelphia to serve in Congress. He soon meets a man serving as well, who considers James Madison a good friend, and calls himself Alexander.
December 27th, 1782 || 11:00 PM
Sleep swam in Thomas Jefferson's eyes and he dragged a hand up to swipe across his eyelids. He rotated his neck, feeling tendons cracks vivaciously in his aching back. The roll of the carriage wheels echoed, bouncing off the brick buildings and floating back to him in waves. He struggled to keep his eyes open and felt his head continuously dipping forward before he snapped his shoulders, waking himself up. Darkness enveloped the city streets of Philadelphia and out the window he caught sight of a woman in a night cap shutting the shudders of an upstairs balcony before blowing out a candle. Thomas blinked again, tapping his head to the side of the walls, his body shifting with every vibration from the cobblestone streets.
Vision partly blurred, he dug his hand into his waistcoat pocket, pulling out his pocket watch, flipping the silver head open with his fingers. He pursed his lips, it was too dark to see when he glanced down at the object, holding the watch directly in front of his face and squinting: 11:02. The bolt clicked back into place and was stuffed back into his pocket. He extended his long legs out and allowed his shoulders to sink, shadows from taverns caressed the outside of the carriage, so numb with sleep deprivation even the crack of a whip from the driver couldn’t end his body from shutting throughout him (although the corners of his mouth did cringe).
How much longer? Thomas wondered and brushed a piece of curling, ginger colored hair behind the shell of his ear. He revolved his tongue in his throat, thirsty. His empty stomach let out a growl, hungry. He groaned, straightening and becoming irritated when the strands did not remain behind where he had placed them and fell back into his perception - he was too sleepy to even care. His attention fell towards the seat next to him and the small head lying in his lap. His daughter, Patsy Jefferson’s auburn shaded hair frayed across his legs, in a slumber; her knees coiled up into the fetal position against her stomach, gentle breaths moving her chest up and down. A sigh penetrated the air, and he ran a hand over the top of her tiny skull, wrapping a finger around one of her curls; the father ceased this action when she began to stir, eyebrows meeting at the center of her brow before stalling into grace once again.
He chewed on his lip, twitching his nose from the cold. So cold and yet no snow? His hands were stiff, even inside of his gloves, the cold nipped at the joints. A thin pasty shirt and waistcoat over his arms, shivering in his seat, his coat temporal like a makeshift blanket across Patsy’s shoulders and he suffered from the sacrifice. The carriage jolted, catching on a specific stone, the fabric slipped from his daughter’s neck and he hurried to cover the revealing skin to the frigid air. The hair on his arms standing straight up and Thomas clenched his jaw and the base of his neck jittered. Books in the opposite seat seat across from them, a few on the floor near his feet but he wouldn’t dare move and disturb Patsy’s peace. He wrapped an arm around her waist, tugging her closer to him, studying how shadows from the whale oil street lamps danced on her cheeks.
We’ll be there soon.
The carriage wheels grew more quiet and arrived to a halt as the Virginian lifted his temple off of the door, where his breath had cloaking the glass, sitting upright. “Fifth and Market?” a coarse voice, shaken with illness and wavering in sicken tones called from the front, slightly echoed. Thomas Jefferson did not answer, kicking off from the wall and skimming Patsy’s jowl with his glove. For some reason he nodded, yes, though the driver could not witness his motion.
He hesitated for a minute until he heard the man step off of the top and onto the streets, bolts and wrenches easing as it toppled on one side from the weight and he shifted. “Patsy?” he whispered, shaking her shoulder slightly, “We’re here, dear.” She murmured incoherently, eyelashes fluttering across her pale cheeks before they shut again. “Patsy… Come on, up,” he shuddered her again in an another attempt.
“No… Papa…” her head slid off of her father’s lap and onto the seating, rubbing her cheek. Thomas gave up, carefully placing her crown down before opening the carriage door; he contemplated grabbing his coat off of his daughter’s covering but tossed the thought away and treaded out onto the icy Philadelphia streets.
If he was frosted stiff arranged in the carriage idle, it was naught compared to the slick streets under his boots and although there was no wind, the temperature - slightly before zero - caused Jefferson to tug the sleeves of his thin shirt until they came to his knuckles and stiffening his rigid exterior. What a bliss it would of been to of had snow pierce the earth in this very moment; a divergence of mood. He strided towards the rear of the carriage, gliding his fingers across the surface of the ride. The driver had already began to unload the bags out of the back, setting them with an odd delicacy.
Thomas stepped forward to aide the man in his strain, raising an arm to grab a trunk but the man shrugged him off, blocking him. Thomas faltered, clicking his tongue. “I’ve got it, sir,” he remarked. Apparently he didn’t because a trunk faltered off the top of the coach, chipping away paint in the corner. Containing his malcontent, he trailed the rider as he lugged two of the bags into the inn. Mary House’s Inn, the letters swirled elegantly against a verdant backdrop above the sloping roof that shrouded the wood porch in a shade. Two stairs connected up from the cobblestone. The lights were still in the window, illuminating against the red brick, creating an inferno of flames. It was only a trunk, and four large bags they had brought - the trunk of course, now chipped.
As the driver disappeared and then re-came, trotting back down the miniature steps and gathering another bag. The previous gone, Thomas lifted the door of the carriage open once again and climbed halfway into the backseat. “Patsy,” he pleaded sharply and nudging on her arm again. Only moans were received back. He rolled his eyes, climbing farther in and grabbing her underneath the arms, lugging her head over his shoulder and her stomach against his chest. He lifted her up as you would a small child. She tensed her legs before relaxing and wrapping them around her father’s stomach, lacing fingers behind his neck; but those too soon grew to be dead weight as she was not even attempting to keep herself up. He shut the carriage door and made his way slowly to the doors of the inn, the corner of his eyes watching to make sure his boots don’t catch. This section of town surprisingly muted at the time and the heavens blinked down with navy orbs, piercing the night in bright stars that cut into the sky like rough diamonds.
Thomas definitely expected Mary House’s Inn to be far more busy, but - to his luck - it was practically patent at this time. According to Madison, there was no place better in Philadelphia. Using his free arm, he entered the inn. Mary House was an elderly woman whose daughter, Eliza House, manned the building with the help of her husband. The inn, as Jefferson soon discovered, consisted to two floors. The first, with wood floors that creaked at the center had to the left a collection of tables with four chairs each around them. Towards the back wall, three longular boards with six stools on either side. In the center, vacant from tables were two thick, jagged wooden posts which held up the eggshell colored ceiling; at the end of the posts was a wide staircase that went up before more stairs sharply jeered to the left. To the right he acknowledged there were sixteen bar seats pushed in neatly to the counter with worn leather covers on the tops and painted gold beads circled them. Farther, near the staircase. a large fire flickered and swayed. Two carmine seats in front of the fireplace.
Grateful for the warmth and still holding Patsy in his arms, Thomas shifted her weight from one arm to the other and toppling over to the counter. Besides an older man laying, with optics fastened by one of the chairs at the fire; three men concentrated rather somberly in the corner blinking tiredly and sloshing the clear liquid in their glasses back and forward; a gentleman leaning over his potatoes and flipping the pages of his book; and finally a woman with muscular hands, and vivid rose cheeks twisted a rag inside a glass and setting it onto a shelf with others - there was not one else downstairs, most having retired for the night.
He huffed, a fiber strand of hair out of his face. “Excuse me?”
The woman’s attention immediately thrown to her side, acting as if she were startled. Thomas blinked, arms growing painfully numb. “Mr. Jefferson?” she replied, peeking at Patsy across his shoulder. She wiped the once white rag across her hands and folded it onto the counter next to a pitcher of empty beer.
“Yes, I have a room here?”
She beckoned, close enough to toss her wrist over the counter and even with his taken hands he was able to give back a feeble extension. “Eliza House. Pleasure to officially make your acquaintance, Mr. Jefferson.”
Already heated by the temperate ventilation in the room, color flooded to the tips of his ears. Scorching, he nodded in acceptance. Coarse skin and muscle that spiraled around her thumbs and the meat of her palms rather menacingly, their grip faded. She turned away, pushing open the thigh-high swing panel heading into a backroom that Jefferson merely caught a glance of. A case of keys glittered in a glass case that she opened with a key of her own, grabbing one off the third shelf and holding it out for Thomas to take - which he took and rubbed the pad of his finger over the imprinted number seven.
Eliza began to make her way around the bar. “Allow me to lead you,” motioning with her chin toward the stairs at the end of the room.
Thomas closed her off, “No, it is alright. I won’t be a bother.”
She nibbled on the edge of her lip, raw knuckles on her hips, contemplating before accepting. “I’ll at least get you a candle.”
“Thank you,” he murmured into his daughter’s shoulder when she tried to speak in her sleepless disorientation.
Shifting the key to his smallest finger, Eliza placed a metal tray with an already lit candle into his grasp. “The stairs lead to the second landing, Mr. Jefferson.” Gesturing towards their bags near the door, “I’ll get my husband to bring them to you tomorrow morning”.
He accepted, thanking her again and heading on his way.
“And, Mr. Jefferson?”
He side eyed her, “Yes, Ms. House?”
“If you want, we still have soup and potatoes - I could heat some if you’d like.”
The Virginian sighed with relief, his stomach aching and riping in agony. How long has it been since he last ate? He would’ve of eaten earlier had he hadn’t of given the last apple to Patsy a few miles out of town, and several minutes later - unable to ignore the lethargy and no longer able to stay up - she leaned against his shoulders before shutting her eyes.
“I’d like that very much.”
_________ __________
Up the stairs and near the center of the corridor was his room with a glittering number seven that glistened against the flicker of the wax candle on the upper midway of the painted door. A brass handle met his grasp and from the faint gloss of the flame he received a glance of his inner room. Three compacted rooms close to one another, one a limited bedroom with thick copper curtains that held back from the window, illuminating the room in shine from the oil lamps down in the street; it had a bed, and a tiny dresser in the bend. Thomas observed there was a patch of faded paint where a mirror used to hang that was now gone. Another room, half larger than the other had a bed more than twice the size with wall etched in a deep maroon color. A desk under the high ceiling made of cherry wood (he suspected) owned a chair and four poster bed frame built for two that sat in between the two walls and small tables on one side of the bed near the window. Both rooms led into the largest gathering, where a couch stood in the core of everything as if it was holding everything together.
Thomas guided himself to the modest room, placing the candle on the top of the dresser; the lucent rebounding across the ceiling enlightendc the entirety of the room. He gently placed Patsy down on the bed, nestling the back of her head against a cream hued pillow. Revolving his shoulder, he felt blood rushing back into his arm. He allowed a sigh to pass his lips. Kneeling down at the foot of the bed, he tugged off Patsy’s brown leather boots, neatly placing them by the door to the room. He stood, about to exit the room.
“Papa…”
Thomas paused, Patsy’s weak voice cutting into the silence that once enveloped the atmosphere. Her eyes were separating, only some what welcoming the light, rolling on her side to face her father. He didn’t say a word, taking her hand in his and managing a half meant smile. Another hand dragged its way to side off her face, cupping her cheek and brushing stray hairs off of her forehead. A howl of wind ripped across the window pane, but neither looked to inspect.
“I’m cold, Papa.” No blaze lit, even though there was a fireplace in the main room, Thomas could understand - even he caught himself still shivering as the wintry blast fluffed right under the cracks at the edges of the icy glass. She lifted her feet and he aided in helping her body slip beneath the sheets.
He rubbed his finger underneath her eye, before she began to fasten her orbs. “Are you hungry? Would you like something?”
She was already asleep before the last word even came out. He rose an eyebrow, her chest serenely drifting up and down with her subtle breaths. The candle’s wild flicker wavered across the walls. Thomas waited, hoisting himself up on his ankles at Patsy’s weakening grip on his fingers as she shot into obscurity. The blend of the room blended, shining across her cranium, fraying across her pillow in its carrot tinctures at many strands and locks. Chocolate eyes now shut, his own streamed down her sharp chin, precise forehead and cutting fuchsia lips - all features of her own father. That was not it, no matter how much he willed to disregard her rounded chin, her tendency to grow into temper or the ginger filaments that seeped across her hair sometimes when she laughed - Thomas Jefferson couldn’t ignore his wife.
Head: Why do you weep over those who have passed?
Heart: We weep not for those who have passed.
Head: Then why weep at all?
Heart: They weep for half their soul which is buried in the soil; they weep for the lost half of a whole they cannot live to ever receive back.
Head: ‘Tis a stupid thing, to give oneself up for another without knowing whether they’ll be here forever more.
Heart: It’s what you do for love. The ability to cure the worst type of wounds, wounds that bleed on the inside.
Thomas shook his head, hand faltering from Patsy’s visage and caressing softly over her hair. Pieces of Martha in those darker strands he held between his grasp, twisting around his fingers. He could almost swear he was in his bed at Monticello, Martha next to him with her arms carefully placed around his waist and his hold on her hips; drinking in the scent on her neck and growing more addicted each day to to feel of her velvety skin rubbing against his own. There was nothing more awful in the crumbling, romantic world than losing someone he loved - knowing he’ll never feel her lips on his teeth and must learn to grow sober not having her as his favorite drink. There was a hole in his heart in the shape of her searing silhouette, every time he beamed her beauty glowing in the darkness. She was still like ash on his fingertips and at the edges of his brain, the centers of what remains of him. Somehow Martha was in the sun, and the wind in every breath of air that he breathed; every mournful tune plinked across a bow or keys was a tone of her song. He’d see her in the clouds as they drained, dripping from the heavens sweet, singing her name; she always loved the rain.
Thomas’s lip quivered and teeth etched to cremate themselves in the flesh of his lower lip to stop the quivering. Hands shaking he lifted them off of Patsy’s tiny head, rising the covers up to her chin, lifting off his ankles and dragging a finger underneath his eyelid. The stars practically invisible in that navy sky, he remembered he had cried much more than he pondered he would of, almost mediating if love was a price - oh, how he payed. He grinded his eyelids, arms heavy from sleep and back stiff from the carriage. Quietly, leaving the candle on the dresser, he rolled up his sleeves flipping a button to push them up to his elbows. He exited Patsy’s temporary room, tossing one last reconnaissance and inclining against the door frame, tugging the door closed and hearing the lock click into place.
She’ll be fine, anxiety brewed in the pit of his gut, swimming disconcertingly.
He shut the door to their room, throwing the key into his pocket where it jingled against a few coins. Gathering himself in calming respirations and flickering away a few stray tears lingering in his eyelids; he made his way down to the ground floor.
sodium
