Bon Marche (48 page)

“Yes, sir.”

“Secondly, does Jackson say there”—he stabbed a finger toward the newspaper—“that he has a commission from the United States government to raise an army?”

“No, sir.”

“Of course he doesn't. The government in Washington, in its great wisdom, I think, has been reluctant to give a command to Andrew Jackson, distrusting—as do I—his ability to command in concert with a coordinated military plan that would be necessary were we at war.

“And that brings me to my third point: War has not been declared, has it?”

“No, sir.”

“Hmmm. And finally, Lee, a most important point. You're needed here at Bon Marché. George has now gone off to England with his bride—we don't know when he might return, if ever—and Franklin and I need you here now more than ever. You can appreciate that, can't you?”

“Yes, sir.” Lee was now thoroughly cowed by Dewey's arguments. He hung his head, staring at his plate.

“Very well. I said I had made my final point, but I do have one more.” He looked around the table, setting his gaze on Mattie. “If the time comes when the country
needs
my sons in its defense, I will be the first to agree to their going.”

He slapped a hand on the table, making the dishes dance again. “But never—I repeat, NEVER!—will I allow them to bear arms under the command of Major General Andrew Jackson!”

There was dead silence at the table.

Dewey's eyes stayed fixed on Mattie's. “Is that understood?” he asked quietly.

“Yes, dear,” she answered.

II

T
HE
baby giggled with delight, gaily waving her arms and legs, cooing at the mare chewing hay next to her.

Charles had placed little Carrie in the hayrack while he ministered to a sick foal in the stall.

“I think if we dose him tonight,” he was saying to a black groom, “and again in the morning, he's going to come around.”

“Yas, suh, Ah hopes so.”

“So do I, Ephraim, so do I. I'd hate to lose another foal to whatever this is that's going around.”

A scream rent the air!

Amantha rushed into the stall and snatched Carrie from the hayrack, cradling her protectively against her breast. “My baby, oh, my baby!”

She whirled on Charles, anger sparking from her eyes. “Are you crazy?” she shouted at him. “That horse could have—could have—”

Dewey tried to calm her. “That mare wouldn't hurt a fly. Carrie was in no danger.” He laughed. “She was rather enjoying it, as a matter of fact.”

“You damned old fool!” His son's wife stalked out of the stall, clutching her child tightly.

Chuckling, Charles watched her go. “There's no more vicious animal than a mother who believes her baby is threatened.”

“Yas, suh.” The slave was chuckling as well.

Later, though, at the Bon Marché mansion, Charles found no such amiable agreement.

“Damn you, Charles Dewey,” Mattie shrieked at him, “have you lost all your senses?”

“If you're talking about the baby—”

“Of course I'm talking about the baby! Amantha came back here in absolute hysterics. And I can't say that I blame her!”

“The woman was overreacting. There was no danger at all.”

“So you say! Well, there are new rules now, Charles. Hereafter, if you want to take little Carrie anywhere, you ask Amantha first. No more of this just snatching her away and taking her wherever you want!”

Charles sank wearily into a chair. “Mattie, listen to—”

“Carrie is not your child!”

He ran a hand across his eyes. “Mattie, do you believe that I would, for one single moment, place that baby in jeopardy?”

“No, of course not.”

“And I didn't this time.”

His wife sat down opposite him, calmer now. “Charles, you simply have to recognize that you can't continue to dominate that baby's life. Carrie is Amantha's child, and Franklin's. I appreciate how much you love her, but—”

“You're right. Once more.” He sighed.

After a moment of silence: “I was going to tell you this at what I thought was a more appropriate moment. But maybe this
is
the appropriate moment. I'm pregnant, Charles.”

His eyes opened wide in astonishment and delight. “Mattie, dear Mattie!” He rushed to her, pulling her to her feet, crushing her in his arms. “Oh, God, this is wonderful!”

“I have to tell you,” she said softly, “that I would prefer that it weren't true.”

“Why?”

“Because I've watched you with Carrie. And your … your possessiveness … well, it frightens me, Charles.”

He held her at arm's length, staring at her. “Frightens you? How can you be frightened by love?”

“Ask yourself this: Is the way you've been behaving with Carrie rational?”

He looked into her eyes, then kissed her. “Perhaps I have been too possessive, as you suggest. I'll apologize to Amantha. And I promise you, dear, I'll be rational when our … when's it to be?”

“I think it's been two months. Or nearly so.”

Dewey thought for a moment. “October, maybe. During the fall meeting at Clover Bottom.”

Mattie's laughter echoed through the big house. “Charles, I believe even your funeral is going to be related to the dates of a racing meeting.”

“I couldn't wish for anything more.”

III

C
HARLES
lounged in an armed wooden chair in the print shop, his feet propped on a railing, scanning a freshly produced copy of the
Nashville Monitor.

“Well, those young hotheads have their declaration of war now,” he complained. “And I wonder what good it's going to do them? My God, a militia army and a navy of only twenty ships with a mere five hundred guns!”

Editor August Schimmel smiled wryly. “I've suggested in my editorial that the English may not even recognize that act of our Congress. That they're too busy with France to care what the United States does.”

“When Andy Jackson reads that, he's going to come storming in here with another one of his rousing perorations.”

“Probably. But it seems clear now that Madison isn't going to give him a commission for a command.”

“Thank the Lord for that!”

Schimmel shrugged. “For the life of me I can't get stirred up over this war news. Do you realize that it will be only a week before I'll be married?”

“Uh-huh. And that's the reason I've come to Nashville—to pick up my new wedding suit at Jackson's store.”

“I'll admit to you, Charles, that I'm a bit nervous about all this.”

“A perfectly natural reaction.” Dewey grinned at him.

“No, it's not just the thought of being married that makes me somewhat uneasy: it's the … well, the imposition we'll be placing on you and Mattie by moving into Bon Marche.”

“Nonsense! We
want
you there. Work has already started on the new wing.”

“And that's another thing. I'll not have you paying for the whole construction!”

“I'm so delighted to have you as my son-in-law, August,” Charles said easily, “that I'll even agree with you on that. You'll pay for half. Is that satisfactory?”

“I'd feel much better about that kind of arrangement.”

“Then that's the way it shall be.”

Charles turned to watch Schimmel's assistants operating the small flatbed press, turning out copies of the
Monitor.

“That's fascinating,” he said idly, “the constant repetition of words being turned out there, to be read by God knows how many thousands of people. People you don't even know, August, and yet your words will influence them in some manner.”

Schimmel nodded soberly. “It's a grave responsibility.”

“Not all newspaper owners feel as you do. Some of them are nothing but scoundrels, using the printing press for their own narrow interests.”

“Unhappily, that's true. But they don't last. The
Monitor
is … what?… the third newspaper to start in this community.”

“Yes.”

The editor set his square jaw firmly. “I intend to last, Charles, not only here but in other cities, too. There
is
a kind of power inherent in a newspaper, and I mean to use it for good. The country is growing, and my business is going to grow with it.”

“A large ambition, August.”

“So? Didn't I come to this country because such ambition could be realized? Didn't you?”

“I did, yes.” He got to his feet. “I must get back.”

“Could you spare me another moment?”

“Of course.”

“Uh … Louise and I have talked about this a great deal, and she's going to take an active role in the newspaper.”

“There are those who are going to be critical of you for bringing a woman into a man's world.”

Schimmel showed some slight annoyance. “Isn't your wife a partner, so to speak, in Bon Marché?”

“Certainly. It's not me who's being critical. Louise will be a great asset to you.”

“Good!” The editor pounded a fist into his palm. “Then it's settled.”

Charles seemed surprised. “You don't need my approval, August.”

“I thought perhaps you might object to your daughter in such a … well, such a public enterprise.”

“The Dewey family, August,
is
a public enterprise!” Charles didn't laugh when he said it.

He rode easily back to Bon Marché, thinking of the happy time of the wedding—and then of being a father again. His merry whistle was echoed by the birds.

The butler, Horace, hurried out of the mansion when Dewey was still a hundred yards away.

“Mistah Charles,” he cried, “come right 'way! It Miss Mattie!”

Dewey raced to the house, following the hustling black man up the stairs to the bedroom, where he found Angelica bending over the bed, ministering to her mistress.

“What's happened!”

Mattie opened her eyes. Weakly, she said, “I'm sorry, darling. But the baby—”

Terror came into his eyes as he turned to the slave woman. “Oh, my God, Angelica, not again!” He was thinking of Martha so many years earlier.

“She fine, Mistah Charles. Jest a bit weak, mebbe.”

Charles went down on his knees by the bed, holding Mattie's hand. “Mattie, dear Mattie,” he whispered.

She was asleep.

“Are you sure, Angelica?”

“Hones', she jest fine. A strong lady, Mistah Charles.”

“She's got to be,” he mumbled softly, “to put up with my damned foolishness.”

IV

“S
O
much is changing so fast,” Charles said to Mattie one night in mid-December, “and now Christmas is coming around again, and I feel a bit sad about it.”

“Oh? Why?”

“For one thing, George won't be here for the first time. And Corrine. Oh, I guess that pompous ass, Billy Holder, will allow Corrine to be here for an hour or two…” He sighed. “And I had thought that maybe we'd have … Oh, I'm just being somber, that's all.”

“You were going to say that you looked forward to having a new baby at Christmas.”

“No, of course not.”

“Charles,” Mattie said softly, “we can talk about it. I just think that maybe God had other plans for us.”

“God certainly is saddled with a lot of heartaches, isn't he?”

“We ought to be happy for what we have, dear. Louise and August living here now; Franklin and Amantha looking forward to another child; Lee seeming to be content with his role here.”

“You're right, of course. I admit to you, though, that I'm worried about George. I mean, this war has become a lot more serious than I had imagined it might be. And I wonder how an American is being accepted in London these days.”

“With civility, I imagine. Could anyone be uncivil to George?”

Dewey laughed. “No, I guess not.”

His wife opened a new subject. “I rode over to see Rachel this morning.”

“How is she?”

“Terribly distressed. Andy is completely occupied with putting together his army, neglecting all else.”

He smiled slightly. “I was willing to wager that he'd never have a command until the Cumberland froze over. Well, it
has
frozen over—and he has what he wanted. Still, it's not a commission from Madison, but from the governor, who had little choice but to give in to Andy's pressure.”

“Rachel says this is the coldest winter she can remember here. And Andy is much distressed with the conditions of the volunteers in their tents. It's so bitter cold that they've used up all their firewood already—more than a thousand cords, I understand.”

Charles grimaced. “Cold weather won't stop that devil Jackson! Nothing will stop him now.”

“I guess it's supposed to be a secret,” Mattie said, “but Rachel told me that they leave on January seventh: John Coffee with a regiment of cavalry down the Natchez Trace, and Andy with the infantry on the flatboats.”

“God help those men!”

V

“G
ENERAL
, sir!” The young officer saluted smartly.

“Well, Lieutenant Dewey,” Major General Andrew Jackson said, smiling broadly. “I'm pleased to have you on my staff.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Jackson leaned close to the lieutenant, speaking quietly to him. “Lee, this is going to be a magnificent adventure. Your duty, you know, will be to document it—with your words and your pictures. You're going to be part of history being made.”

“Yes, sir.”

“In one sense, Lieutenant, I don't envy you.”

“Sir?”

Jackson continued his intimate tone. “Well, there might be some grumbling among the staff about your late arrival, and you may hear some choice words about your being related to the commanding general … but, Lee, take that with good grace. You have an important mission with us. You need only be concerned with my orders.”