Bon Marche (55 page)

The idea frightened her. “Oh, Nathan, how can we? Mother will—”

The actor kissed her tenderly. “Dearest, we have to be honest about it. This isn't the fiction of
Romeo and Juliet.
This is real! We love each other.”

“Oh, yes, we do … we do!”

“Then let's tell them.”

“When the time is right,” she said.

“Soon?”

“Yes, dear, soon,” she promised, kissing his face, feeling her passion stirring again.

They heard Margaret returning. Hurriedly rearranging his clothing, Nathan stepped out from behind the folds of the curtain to call out into the semi-darkness of the theater. “Margaret, Miss Alma is getting her hat and cape. She'll be with you shortly.”

“Yas, suh.”

The black woman didn't like that man. And she wasn't a fool. She knew she shouldn't have left them alone.

VII

“N
O
! No!” Mattie screamed. “Absolutely not! I'll not permit it!”

Charles tried to be calm. “Your mother is right, Princess. Actors are a … well, an unstable lot. It's not the life for you, dear. Not at all.”

“I love him!”

Alma May sat hunched on a straight-backed chair in the Bon Marché drawing room, her hands folded in her lap, her pretty face a somber stone carving.

“Love him!” Mattie shouted. “What do you know about love? You're seventeen years old … and I didn't raise you, educate you, and train you to be the wife of an itinerant ne'er-do-well actor!”

Her daughter stared at her defiantly. “You're the one who's always telling that story about how your mother wanted you to marry a rich merchant, and—”

“Your father was a substantial, mature man when I married him. But this actor—what is he?”

“Nathan is talented and ambitious. With a little help he could be the finest—”

“With the help of your father's money, I suppose!”

“Horses aren't the only thing worth spending money on!”

Dewey tried to mediate the argument. “Princess, we love you, and we don't want to see you make a mistake that will stay with you for the rest of your life. You
are
a bit young, you know, for such an important decision. Perhaps if you went away for a while? Maybe we should consider touring Europe for a few months.”

“No!”

“I know that, right now, you find this man fascinating—”

“It's
more
than that.”

“Maybe you think so at the moment, dear, but—”

“I'm going to have his baby.”

Mattie gasped.

There was a frozen moment and then she advanced on her daughter, standing over her, shrieking at her. “You slut! You damned slut! How dare you?”

Charles was quickly between them. “Mattie,” he said firmly, “please try to control yourself.”

His wife pushed him aside, anger and hurt burning in her eyes. “Alma May, is this the truth?”

“Yes, Mother.”

Mattie threw her hands in the air, beginning to stalk about the room. “Well, that ends it, doesn't it?! All my plans, all my dreams … you've destroyed them. You've destroyed them!”

Mattie Dewey began to weep. She had never wept like that before.

VIII

“Y
OUNG
man,” Dewey said, his voice quavering, “you should understand that I am deeply distressed by what Alma May has told us.”

“Sir?”

“Don't feign innocence with me, Ludlum!”

On the morning after the confrontation with Alma May, Charles had ridden into Nashville to see the actor. They stood now among the chairs in the empty theater. Opponents.

“Squire Dewey, I can only assume,” Nathan said politely, “that the Princess has told you that we're in love.”

The father felt his ire rise; he had promised himself that he'd be reasonable. He broke that promise.

“Damn you, Ludlum, you know what she told us! She's pregnant!”

Nathan stared at him in disbelief.

“You
did
know that…”

“No, sir, I didn't.”

“Do you have any reason to doubt it?”

“If you mean did we—”

“That's exactly what I mean!”

Crestfallen: “Yes, sir, she could be pregnant.” He wondered how much detail the Princess had revealed to her parents.

Dewey walked away from him. One step. Two. Three. Clenching and unclenching his fists. He turned slowly back to the actor.

“Ludlum, I'd like nothing better than to thrash you! But, unhappily, that would prove nothing. You intend to marry her, of course?”

“Naturally.”

Nathan had been shocked by Charles's news, but now the whole thing was beginning to fall into place for him. Here, he knew, was the opportunity he had been seeking.

“Can you support Alma May with this?” Charles swept an arm to take in the makeshift theater.

“I make very little money.”

“Just as I suspected.” Dewey took a deep breath. “Listen to me, Ludlum, and listen to me well! Alma May's mother and I are not prepared to see her waste her youth in poverty, to put an honest face on it.”

The actor held his breath.

“Therefore, we have decided to finance a proper theater for you and Alma here in Nashville. We'll make every effort to give your enterprise stability.”

“That's very generous, sir.”

“Shut up! But, so help me, if you bring that girl one moment of grief, I'll kill you! And, Ludlum, don't believe for a second that what I've just said is an idle threat!”

Nathan Ludlum just nodded soberly, not wanting to use the wrong words. Not now.

He wanted to cheer. He was to have a real theater!

38

T
HE
Deweys put the best possible public face on it.

Alma May Dewey was to be married to thespian Nathan Ludlum, late of Philadelphia, in an elaborately staged outdoor ceremony at the plantation. She was seventeen; he, twenty-five.

Coincident with that revelation was the announcement in the
Nashville Monitor
of the plans of Squire and Mrs. Charles Dewey, of Bon Marché, to build a five-hundred-seat theater in the town square. Of brick and stone it was to be, modern in every respect, “designed to provide to Nashville and Davidson County all manner of entertainments.”

Mr. Ludlum, the impresario and general manager of the theater, was quoted: “In naming this important addition to the city the Dewey Theater, we are recognizing the continuing contributions of the Dewey family to the culture of our community.”

That was not the way Nathan had wanted it. He had thought of it from the first moment he realized it was a possibility, as the Ludlum Theater. Charles had swiftly and vehemently dissuaded him of that idea.

“Don't imagine, Ludlum, that this building will be a gift to you. Or that it's being built as a monument to your ego. My wife and I will hold the deed on it. You—and the Princess, of course—will have the income from it, but
not
the ownership.” Dewey had smiled. “Nor the name, either!”

The actor had learned rather quickly that he was dealing with western royalty. That Alma May's nickname of “The Princess” had validity.

In the hours immediately following his initial confrontation with Charles, Ludlum had sought out Alma May. He had ridden to Bon Marché, sending a message to her through one of the blacks. He needed answers.

She met him—in nightdress and robe—in the gelding shed, the barn farthest removed from the mansion. The hour was past midnight.

“Your father was quite angry,” he told her. “It seems he knew something that I didn't—that you're pregnant.”

“Oh? Did he tell you that?”

Her flippant tone surprised him. “Alma May, you
know
he did!”

“Yes.” She giggled.

“Well—are you?”

She stuck out her chin. “No.”

“But—”

“You wanted to marry me, didn't you?”

“Of course.”

“And you thought that by marrying me you'd get your own theater.”

“I wanted to marry you because I love you.”

“But you wanted your own theater, too, didn't you?”

“Yes.”

Alma May's lovely eyes opened wide. With innocence. “Well, now you have
both.
”

“But, damn it, Princess, they'll find out soon enough that you lied about the baby!”

“Not if we do something about it right away.” Her arms reached for him.

In a comfortable bed of sweet hay they tried to do something about it. Right away.

Ludlum couldn't object to her subterfuge; after all, as she had said, it had gotten him what he wanted. He recognized, too, that his own integrity was compromised. Although he had meant to use her, this young girl had undertaken to confound her parents and to involve him in her sophistry (as pleasant and as profitable as that might be), as if she had some
right
to do so—a right that shouldn't be challenged. In that sense, a
royal
right.

On the morning of his wedding, Ludlum again had the feeling that he was dealing with nobility. George Dewey came to see him in the bedroom at Bon Marché where Nathan was dressing for the ceremony. All smiles and outgoing, George, nevertheless, had come to issue a decree. At least that's the way Ludlum saw it.

“I understand you've already butted heads with Father.”

Ludlum nodded, not sure of what he ought to say.

“And now here comes another Dewey.” George laughed heartily. “Not to further chastise you, Nathan … uh, do they call you Nat?”

“Some do, yes.”

“As I was saying, not to further chastise you, Nat, but to welcome you to the family!”

He offered his hand, and the bridegroom shook it gratefully.

“I'm really delighted with this marriage,” George went on. “The Princess needs a good strong man.”

He sat down, taking a cigar out of a leather case he carried in his coat, making a show of lighting it. He puffed out a wreath of smoke.

“I know one or two little things about you,” the second son of Charles Dewey said. “For example, Alma May says that you don't smoke.”

“That's true, I don't. I find that my voice becomes raspy when I do, and in the theater a clear voice is—”

George waved a hand imperiously. “Of course, of course.” He hadn't come for a dialogue. “That's too bad, though. A fine cigar can be a great comfort.”

Ludlum had no comment.

“I also know, Nat, old man, that there was in Pittsburgh, as it has been related to me, a young woman. What was her name?”

Silence from the actor.

“Ah, yes, I remember now: Rosalie McMurtry. And it's said that she had … uh … designs on you, that there even may have been a thought of an engagement, eh?”

“Mr. Dewey, I assure you—”

George smiled. “Of course, I understand those things. I had a dalliance or two myself before I married Mrs. Dewey. And I'm sure that such was the situation with Miss McMurtry.”

“It was several years ago,” Ludlum said weakly. “And I've not heard from her in—”

Another wave of the hand to silence him. “Obviously, Nat, I didn't come here to compare notes on our mutual … uh … indiscretions.” He puffed on his cigar. “No, I just wanted to talk to you before the wedding to try to … well, to perhaps make it easier for you to get over the shoals, as it were, of being a member of the Dewey family.

“You're marrying into a
proud
family,” George continued. “Our father literally created it from nothing. A street urchin in Paris, and now … What you see here at Bon Marché is only the physical manifestation of the family. The plantation and the horses and, yes, the wealth—is but a part of what it means to be a Dewey.” He paused. “I'm boring you, Nat.”

“Not at all.”

“You see, Nat, being a Dewey means that you strive for excellence, not on a par with your contemporaries, but above that. You're an actor and, even though your name is Ludlum, you'll be a Dewey, too, in the public's perception. As such, you'll find it necessary to be the finest actor you can be.”

Ludlum's discomfort was complete.

His brother-in-law-to-be blew a smoke ring and watched it circle lazily to the ceiling. “Oh, we don't always reach our goals, but the important thing is that we set them high.”

“Of course. I understand.”

“Good!” George rose from the chair. “I'm glad if I have been able to help you establish your priorities. Be assured, Nat, that if you ever need help, you'll find me readily available to you.”

“Thank you. That's comforting.” It wasn't, but he had to say something.

They shook hands again, and George moved to the door.

“Oh, by the way,” he said, turning back to Ludlum, “you may be interested in knowing that Miss McMurtry—a sad young lady, apparently—had a daughter out of wedlock some time back. A few years ago, I think. But that must have been after you left Pittsburgh.”

Nathan stared at him.

“Yes, indeed, a sad young lady.” George sighed. “You know, Nat, women in those unhappy circumstances, left with a bastard child, sometimes do irrational things. I mean, just suppose that she somehow heard of your good fortune here in Nashville. Why, she might even be driven, in her desperation, to accuse you of being the father of her child.”

The actor stood dumbly.

George waved a hand, dismissing such an alien thought. “But I guess not. Such things only happen in fiction or on the stage, right?”

Ludlum's stomach churned.

George smiled. “I sometimes think I should have been an actor myself. I'm often accused of overdramatizing certain situations. While Miss McMurtry
was
in somewhat dire straits, I understand that, just recently, some anonymous benefactor—” He stopped. “Well, that's of no consequence now, is it?”