Bon Marche (29 page)

“Frankly, Mr. Dewey, I had hoped for more for my only child than a debilitating life in this ungodly wilderness!”

Sarah Jackson was a humorless woman: sullen, argumentative, imperious, snobbish. And sarcastic. It was easy to see where Mattie got her casual sarcastic repartee. She got her looks from her mother, as well. Mrs. Jackson was a strikingly handsome woman, but her beauty was ruined by the perpetually stony expression.

Mattie's parents were a study in contrasts. Storekeeper James, whom Charles already knew, was extroverted, talkative, inclined to tell bawdy stories. He was cowed by his wife, however; she was clearly the dominant figure.

Thus the Saturday night dinner evolved into a competition between Dewey and Sarah Jackson.

“The wilderness can be difficult at times, ma'am,” Charles countered, “but I've never thought of it as debilitating.
Challenging
and
invigorating
are more appropriate words, I believe.”

Mrs. Jackson answered with a snort of derision. “I've seen women crushed by this frontier life—made old before their time.” Looking directly at her husband: “I myself have suffered. There are simply no graces here, Mr. Dewey. None at all!”

“Those will come, Mrs. Jackson.”

“So James has been telling me—for a decade now.”

Mattie tried to placate her mother. A courtship, she told her, didn't mean automatic acceptance of a marriage proposal. “I'm not certain I want to marry Mr. Dewey. Or anyone else, for that matter. It's simply a period of time to get to know him.”

“Hmmm.” Mrs. Jackson was unconvinced. And the longer the dinner went on, the more hostile she became.

“Your family, Mr. Dewey—may we know about them?”

“I'm an orphan, ma'am,” he said quietly. “From a very early age.”

“My daughter tells me you served in the French navy.”

“Yes.”

“A rough upbringing, wouldn't you say?”

“Yes, it was. But a man can rise above his background.”

“As the twig is bent!” she snapped.

James Jackson tried to interject one of his off-color stories; Mrs. Jackson would have none of it. She silenced her husband with a glare and continued her cross-examination.

“Are you wealthy, Mr. Dewey?”

Charles laughed lightly. “So my lawyer in Virginia tells me. I know for certain that I'm not poor, Mrs. Jackson. I really don't know how to compare my holdings with those of others, but I believe I have enough assets to be comfortable.”

“And you're a horse breeder?” She made it sound like an accusation.

“Yes.”

“A gambler, too, I imagine.”

Charles hesitated. He decided not to deny it. “I wager on horse races, yes.”

Sarah snorted again. “I must be frank with you, Mr. Dewey. I don't approve of your courtship of my daughter. I would much prefer it if she would find a young man in a more civilized section of the country. A professional man.”

“I appreciate your concern for your daughter's well-being”—she was beginning to annoy him greatly—” but I suggest, Mrs. Jackson, that the opportunities in this area for a man of ambition are much greater than those in Boston or Philadelphia or—”

She cut him off. “So James has been insisting.” She paused. “How old are you, Mr. Dewey?”

“Thirty-two.”

“And you have five children?”

“Yes.”

“My daughter,” she intoned, stretching out the words for emphasis, “is but eighteen. I would think she has enough sense to see the dangers of a ready-made family.”

“Miss Matilda has already expressed her reservations on that score.”

Mrs. Jackson's eyebrows shot up. “Oh, she has? It seems that the two of you, in a rather brief time, have discussed a great deal!”

“We've been candid with each other.”

“I'll be equally candid.” Her voice rose. “I don't believe you are the right man for Matilda. You are much too worldly for her, Mr. Dewey.” She sighed. “But Mattie is headstrong. I don't imagine she will listen to my objections.”

“Mother,” her daughter pleaded, “we're speaking only of a trial period—”

“Which could very well end with a pregnancy!”

“Mother!”

James Jackson interjected: “I think, Sarah, that you're being unfair to—”

“Unfair!” The woman's anger took over. “Was it fair of you to drag me into this godforsaken wilderness to … to serve drunks and illiterates and white men who are more savage than the Indians they trade with?”

Her husband had heard it all before; he had reached the limits of his forbearance. “Our daughter,” he said forcefully, “is intelligent enough to make her own decision in this matter. I know Mr. Dewey as a gentleman. If they wish to consider marriage, I'm for it.”

Sarah glared at him. But she had made her argument; she said nothing more, retreating into sullenness.

The dinner ended, Charles and Mattie sat on the porch of the store overlooking the village square, hearing the raucous noise from the Nashville Inn cockpit.

“I warned you,” Matilda giggled.

“She is formidable.”

“Uh-huh. And very unhappy. She really hates it here. I feel sorry for her.”

Charles frowned. “Your father, it seems to me, deserves your sympathy more. He has built a good business here, becoming one of the most respected men of this community. Yet he gets no credit for it—only vilification.”

“But, Charles, this is
Nashville,
not Philadelphia or Boston. Mother wants desperately to go back east.” Her voice dropped. “I'm afraid I was her last hope for that. If I had married a Bostonian, she would have had an excuse to leave Nashville. To get back to civilization.”

Dewey just nodded. He didn't want another argument.

“And I
am
her daughter. There's some truth, you know, in what she says. I'm not sure, myself, that I want to stay here.”

He took her hand. “Then I'll just have to convince you, won't I?”

“You have a difficult task, Charles Dewey.”

III

A
BNER
Lower groaned as he came awake. He had slept fitfully as, all through the night, the blacks had been trying to match the orphaned foal colt with a nurse mare. There had been much squealing and kicking and frustration.

The long-hunter got to his feet. “Well, Malachi,” he said to the patriarch black, “what luck?”

“Ain't had none, Mistah Abner,” the slave admitted. “Thet baby jest ain't wanted.”

“And what now?”

“He die if he cain't nurse.”

Lower shook his head sadly. “We can't let him die that way, can we?”

“No, suh.”

Once more the guide went for his musket, once more the sound of a shot echoed through the woods.

“Come!” Lower called to the blacks. “We're movin' on! We have a long way to go yet.”

He felt sad about what he had had to do. He was a hunter, but he never thought of himself as a killer. He hunted as a business; shooting the two horses seemed somehow wanton to him. But he had no other choice.

Opening the log book Andrew MacCallum had given him, he crossed off two entries: Estella, bay mare, by Messenger; unnamed bay foal colt by Premier Etoile, by Skullduggery, out of Estella. Lower wondered how much money was involved in the deaths of those two blooded horses. A great deal, he imagined.

IV

I
N
late June, Charles Dewey more than doubled the original acreage of Bon Marché. Patton Anderson offered him two parcels: one amounted to one hundred seventy-five acres at six and a half dollars an acre; for another oddly shaped piece of land encompassing two hundred sixty-three acres, Anderson was asking seven dollars an acre.

Charles demurred. The prices, he thought, were too high. Anderson, as agent for the sellers, was demanding too high a fee. After much haggling, they arrived at a compromise price of six dollars and twenty-five cents an acre for both plots. Yet Dewey felt that Anderson had taken advantage of him.

“But I want the land,” Charles told Mattie. “The land is
everything
to what I want to do here.”

“I don't like that man Anderson,” she said.

“He's a good friend of your Cousin Andy.”

“I know,” Mattie said, frowning, “and I can't understand that. Sometimes Cousin Andy is loyal to the most unlikely people.”

“Loyalty is an admirable trait.”

“If it's not misplaced,” she insisted. “Aren't there other land agents with whom you can deal?”

“Anderson has his fingers in a lot of pies in this area.”

She was silent for several moments. Then: “Suppose I acted as your agent?”

“Oh, I don't know…”

“I'm intelligent,” she said. “I meet a lot of people at Father's store. I hear a lot of things.” A hesitation. “Or don't you want to be represented by a mere woman?”

He laughed. “My dear, I know you well enough to know that there's nothing mere about you. If you want to try…”

Three days later, Mattie took Charles to see the young widow of a frontiersman who had been killed in a brawl at de Monbreun's tavern. She lived in a mean little cabin on the edge of Nashville; her only asset in her widowhood was a parcel of two hundred fifty acres of uncleared land near the Richland Creek—not contiguous with Bon Marché, but close enough to be a desirable acquisition.

“Mr. Dewey is prepared to offer cash for your land,” Mattie explained to her.

Doubt showed on the widow's face.

“Has someone else made you an offer?”

“Well … Mr. Anderson has said he might be able to get three dollars—”

“Mr. Dewey will pay you three-fifty an acre,” Mattie said immediately.

Still the widow hesitated.

“Have you promised Mr. Anderson? Signed over the land to him, perhaps?”

“No.”

“Then I suggest that you accept Mr. Dewey's generous offer.”

The widow began to weep. “I don't … know what to do,” she said between sobs. “I just want to go home … to Vermont.”

Mattie went to her and cradled her in her arms. “Mr. Dewey,” she said, looking at Charles, “will give you cash immediately—”

“By tomorrow morning,” Charles agreed.

The deal was made.

As he and Mattie walked back toward the Jackson store, Charles chuckled. “I seem to have taken on a new land agent.”

“And you can see what kind of profits Anderson has been making at your expense. Grabbing up land that he can sell to you for twice what he offered the owners.”

“Probably.” He sighed.

“Hereafter,” she said coldly, “there'll be no more deals with Patton Anderson.”

Dewey laughed. “That poor fellow. He has no idea what a fighter he has for his competition.”

V

A week later, over Mrs. Jackson's vehement opposition, Charles and Mattie rode away from Nashville, heading north and east toward Lexington, Kentucky, some two hundred ten miles distant. Charles wanted to attend the races at the new Lexington Jockey Club track. He also wanted to arrange to breed several of his mares—still en route from Virginia—to a newly imported English stallion, Blaze.

They would be gone for nearly two weeks, and Mrs. Jackson railed about the impropriety of such a trip.

“Impropriety, Mother,” Mattie had said, “has nothing to do with travel. We could just as easily behave improperly right here in Nashville.”

The trip was a joy to Charles. The more time he spent with the self-assured young woman, the more he admired her. As they rode in perfect weather toward Lexington, the admiration turned, he believed, to love. At least for Charles. It was not something they discussed.

It was five days to Lexington, and when they got there, Postlethwait's Tavern, where the new track was located, was crowded.

“You're in luck,” the tavern owner told them. “I have one room still available. It's in the loft, but it's comfortable.”

“I was hoping for two rooms,” Charles said.

“If my life depended on it, there would be nothing else available.”

“Perhaps elsewhere, then?”

“Not within easy riding distance of Lexington. If you're here for the races, I suggest you take this one room now.” He grinned lecherously. “Your wife and you will be comfortable, I guarantee that.”

Mattie spoke: “Thank you, Mr. Postlethwait. We'll take what you have.”

It was a tiny room, with space enough for just the one bed. But as the innkeeper had promised, it was comfortable. And clean.

“You take the bed,” Charles said, “and I'll make do on the floor.”

“Why?” Mattie asked boldly.

“Well, I … uh…”

“Don't you want to share a bed with me?” She showed him a pout.

“Your mother's concern with impropriety—”

“I'm not asking you to go to bed with my mother.” She looked at him with wide eyes. “Of course, if
you're
concerned with what is proper…” She let the sentence trail off.

Charles had a sudden vision of a similar conversation with Katherine on a Christmas night at Elkwood many years earlier. And he thought now, in retrospect, how much that had changed his life.

“Charles!” She was annoyed by his silence.

“Oh, I'm sorry. A momentary reverie…” He grinned sheepishly. Boyishly.

“You were thinking of another woman?”

“Yes,” he confessed.

“And you're not going to tell me about her?”

“No,” he laughed. “It was many years ago, and it has nothing to do with us.”

Mattie feigned anger. “I ought to insist that you sleep on the floor!”

“But you're not going to.”

“No, damn you!” She kissed him. Meaningfully.

There was no more talk. They undressed quickly, sinking into the thick feather-filled mattress, making love feverishly at first. And then slowly and comfortably. They fell asleep in each other's arms.