Bon Marche (53 page)

“No more than that?”

He looked into her eyes for a moment. “Mary Elizabeth, I'm not very good at this game. I'm not even sure that I appreciate it being played. It's childish, isn't it, to suggest any more than friendship?”

The lovely woman sighed. “I'm sorry. Teasing has become a defense with me. Langdon is away so much, and I do receive … well, proposals.”

“So you talk your way out of them?”

“Exactly.” A frown. “It's strange, Charles, but in this case I'd rather not have the defense.”

“More teasing?”

“Truth.”

He laughed at her. “Loneliness can be a great tempter.”

Mary Elizabeth didn't comment. But she continued to cradle his hand in hers. When she spoke again, she changed the subject. “I hear everywhere, Charles, that your horses are the sensation of the race meeting.”

“I've been very fortunate, that's true.”

“Charles Manigault told me two nights ago that he covets one of your colts—one by Royalist, if I remember the conversation correctly. You'll have to excuse me, but I'm not much on racehorse pedigrees.”

“Two of my colts are by Royalist.”

“Anyway, Mr. Manigault seemed quite taken with one of them.”

“I've had some offers on several of the horses, and while I hope to sell them all, I'm not quite sure how to proceed. Obviously, I want to get as much as I can. I also want to keep the friendship of these gentlemen.”

“Let them bid on them,” she suggested.

Charles shook his head. “I don't want to auction them. That takes too much preparation.”

“Accept sealed bids, then.”

He thought for a moment. “I believe that's the answer.”

“May I help you with it?”

“Well…”

“Please! I want to! I'll let it be known—I do get around, you know—that you're accepting sealed bids, and then I'll gather them for you.”

“I'm afraid that would be too much of in imposition.”

“Nonsense! I'm going to do it.” She laughed. “I'll be your horse agent. Is that the correct term?”

“It is indeed.”

“Wonderful!” She was excited by the prospect. Impulsively, she leaned over and kissed him. And then her arms went around his neck and she kissed him again.

Charles responded, and they held each other, sitting on that stone wall, neither wanting to let go.

“This is rather public out here,” she whispered.

“Hmmm.”

She was on her feet, tugging at his hand. “Come.”

He followed her into the entrance hall of the mansion, up the wide, curving stairway. She opened the door to the bedroom, beckoning that he enter.

“I think I've come far enough.”

“Charles, this isn't teasing.”

“I know.”

“Don't you want me?”

“At this moment, more than anything I can imagine.”

“But…”

“‘But love is blind, and lovers cannot see,'” he quoted, “‘the pretty follies that they themselves commit.'”

The spell was broken.

“Damn you!”

“What?”

“Spouting some stupid poetic morality at a time like this!” She was deeply annoyed.

“Shakespeare,” he explained weakly.

“I don't care!”

There was an absurdity about the whole thing. When that came clear to Mary Elizabeth, she began to laugh. Charles laughed, too. They walked down the stairway, still clasping hands, as the laughter ran its course. At the door he kissed her cheek.

“Are you going to regret this?” she asked.

“No. We've done the right thing.”

As he walked to his horse and heard the door closing behind him, he cursed under his breath.

Dewey didn't believe at all that they had done the right thing.

VI

M
ARY
Elizabeth Cheves fulfilled her promise. She spread the word among her circle of wealthy Charlestonians about the sealed bids being accepted on the Bon Marché horses, and she gathered the bids for Charles.

In one happy afternoon together at her home, they opened the bids, culling out the highest ones. All twelve horses were sold, at an average price of over eight thousand dollars. Charles Manigault had bought the Royalist colt he coveted for twelve thousand five hundred—fully five thousand dollars over what was offered by another bidder.

Strangely, there was no bid at all from young Thomas Pinckney on the Predator colt for which he had earlier offered ten thousand dollars.

Charles wondered if he had offended Pinckney by not accepting that first offer. He shrugged. He thought the prices exorbitant, but he rationalized that the business of Bon Marché had to come first, not his rather old-fashioned ideas about the worth of a horse. There was money in Charleston; he would accept it.

Two more days were spent in the company of Mary Elizabeth Cheves, as the horses were delivered to the plantations in the vicinity of Charleston and payments accepted. His last morning in the fascinating city was spent at breakfast with Mrs. Cheves, a leisurely meal that neither one of them wanted to see end.

“I have in my saddlebag,” he told her, “bank drafts for nearly one hundred thousand dollars. I've even sold the horse vans.”

“You had a good agent.”

“I did, indeed. Agents get fees for their work, you know. I figure that I owe you almost ten thousand dollars.” He reached into his pocket for a bank draft he had drawn in her name.

She raised a hand to stop him. “You owe me nothing, Charles. Except your warm friendship.”

“That you have—in full measure.”

It was time to leave for Tennessee. He took her in his arms, kissing her tenderly.

Her head on his chest, she had the last word.

“Think sometime about what it might have been if it hadn't been for your damned ‘pretty follies.'”

37

“Y
OU
haven't had much opportunity,” Mattie chuckled, “to tell us about Charleston, what with Alma May's constant babbling about that actor.”

“The Princess does seem taken with him.”

“Thank the Lord they've finished here now and have moved on to Kentucky. I don't know how I would have handled her if those actors had stayed.”

“That young lady is in love with all of life. We'll see other such enthusiasms before she settles down.”

Charles got into bed, gathering his wife into his arms for the first time in more than a month. “I thought about this moment a great deal.”

“I guess neither one of us is very good at sleeping alone.” She kissed him. “Now, tell me about Charleston.”

Quickly, Dewey described the Charleston trip, the racing successes, the wagering coups, the unexpected windfall on the sale of the horses.

“You were very wise to sell the thoroughbreds with that sealed-bid device. It probably increased what you got for them. Quite substantially, it seems.”

“No doubt about that.”

He thought of Mary Elizabeth and was racked with guilt, hoping that his face didn't reveal it.

“And the people—were they hospitable?”

“Exceedingly so. Charles Manigault, a wealthy rice planter, had me as a guest one evening at the estate he calls Steepbrook—I want to tell you about that house later—and Henry Izard, of another old-line Charleston family, had me to The Elms, also quite magnificent. I was much impressed with all the horsemen.”

“And the women?”

He saw another vision of Mrs. Cheves. Cool, lovely, desirable.

“Charles!”

“What?” He realized then that his thoughts of the lady from Charleston had prevented him from answering Mattie. “Oh, yes, the women…” He wondered what Mattie was thinking.

“The women,” he went on, “seemed to me, for the most part, to be spoiled. They have so many house servants—seemingly three times what we employ—that I don't believe the ladies have anything at all to do. Except, perhaps, to be beautiful.”

Why in the devil did I say that?
Charles asked himself.

“Were they beautiful?”

“Well … attractive, let's say. They dress in fashion, of course, Charleston being much more sophisticated than Nashville.”

“I see.” Mattie frowned. “Do you want to tell me about her?”

Charles had a feeling of panic. “Who is that, dear?”

“The woman”—her tone was icy—“who seems to have captivated you.”

“Mattie,” he said, forcing a laugh, “you have a vivid imagination.”

“Is that your answer?”

“Yes, dear, that's my answer. I suppose I should be flattered that you could be jealous—especially at my age—but, in truth, I can't recall that I was introduced to any unmarried women.”

“She was married, then.”

“Mattie, for God's sake!”

He ended the conversation by being more aggressive than usual in his lovemaking. But he wasn't convinced that Mattie would drop the subject.

She reads too damned well.

II

“D
ADDY
! Daddy!” Alma May cried, rushing into the drawing room, waving a copy of the
Nashville Monitor.
“They're coming back! Just think of it, they're coming back!”

Her father grinned at her. “And who might that be, Princess?”

“Mr. Ludlum's acting company!” She placed the newspaper on the desk in front of him, jabbing a finger at an article. “They're going to settle here permanently, and there's to be an acting school in Nashville, Daddy!”

“That's very nice.”

“Nice! It's the greatest thing ever to happen! I wonder why Louise didn't tell me about this.”

“Maybe because she didn't see it with the same end-of-the-world enthusiasm that you seem to have.”

“I'm going to enroll in the acting school!”

“Wait a minute, Princess. I think you ought to talk to your mother about this.”

“She'll say yes if I can tell her that you said it was all right.”

Charles laughed. “And that's exactly why the three of us will sit down calmly and discuss it together.”

“Oh, Father!”

He was Father when Alma May was annoyed, Daddy at all other times.

“When does this marvelous happening take place?”

“In January, it says here.”

“That's three months away, Princess. Do you think you'll be able to wait?” He was laughing at her again.

The young girl squeezed her way onto his lap and hugged him. “You'll like Nathan, Daddy. He's so—”

“Nathan? Do you know this young man well enough to call him by his first name?”

“Well, no,” she confessed sheepishly. “But, Daddy, he's so handsome!”

“So I've been hearing. Now, Princess, take your unbounded enthusiasms elsewhere and let me finish my work.”

Alma May sprang to her feet. “You
will
like him, Daddy! Just you wait and see!”

She skipped out of the room. Charles looked after her, smiling at the pleasant picture she made: her mother's auburn hair and fair skin, but taller, with slim, firm legs, her figure budding.

The Princess was a beautiful young woman.
Woman?
He had never seen his youngest daughter in that light before.

III

I
T
was two days before Christmas 1816. Charles had gone out in the woods with a number of blacks to cut a yule log, continuing a tradition he had brought from Elkwood.

Mattie sat at her desk working on the ledgers when he returned.

“We found a spectacular yule log, dear,” he reported.

“Oh? That's nice.”

It was said with her old sarcasm, and he immediately recognized the danger signals. “Is something wrong?”

“I sent Horace into Nashville for the mail, since you haven't found time in the last few days to attend to that.”

“Bad news in the mail?”

“No, I guess not. Not for you anyway.” She held out a letter to him.

Charles took it. The envelope was addressed in a clearly feminine hand, carrying the postmark of Charleston, South Carolina. He didn't have to open it to know who had sent it.

He had no choice but to look at it right there. He did, scanning it quickly, trying to leave the impression that it was of little importance.

“Seasons greetings from Langdon Cheves and his wife.” He swore inwardly when his voice wavered. “You may remember that Mr. Cheves has been the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. I met them on my trip.”

That last was a lie, and he wanted the words back as soon as he had said them. Dewey started to put the letter in his pocket.

“I'm not to be allowed to see it?”

“Of course, dear.” He nonchalantly tossed the letter on the desk, going to the sidebar to pour himself a bourbon—to gird himself for what he knew was coming.

Mattie slowly unfolded the letter.

“Dearest Charles,” it began. She raised her eyebrows. “It has been a disappointment to me that I haven't heard from you since that sad day when you rode away from Charleston. I know it's silly, but I feel a jealousy in knowing that you are in the bosom of your happy family while I am here, denied your fond companionship.”

His wife glared up at Dewey, who had his back to her, idly studying a painting on the wall he had seen a thousand times.

“I write now to wish you the happiest of Christmases—with the sure knowledge that you return those wishes to me. It would make it easier, though, if I could hold a letter from you in my hands, knowing that you had touched the paper and that I might vicariously touch you again.”

Mattie angrily brushed away a tear that was trying to make its way down her cheek.

“My days here have been lonely since you left. And I'm afraid, when Langdon returned, that I talked too much about you. Perhaps I was acting like a schoolgirl, but the memory of what we had together—and what we might have had—is too bright a one to dismiss lightly. That I cannot do.”