Bon Marche (59 page)

The young woman gasped.

“It doesn't matter any longer that he left the girl to fend for herself when she became pregnant. Nathan will just have to live with that. The important point, now, is that he's capable, and you can stop—you
will
stop—this insanity of trying to prove him inadequate. It's
you,
Alma May, who has the problem, not Nathan!”

“Oh, God! Oh, God!” She was weeping now.

“We are left with the reality of patching this up somehow. And it's going to be done this way. You and Nathan will make a public display of reconciliation. I don't give a damn what you do in your bedroom, but publicly you will be husband and wife once more.

“And if there is one more report, Alma, like those I've already heard, you will be totally cut off from the Deweys. You'll not get a penny more! You and your husband will have to find another way to live—and
not
in Nashville! Do you understand?”

“Yes, Daddy,” the Princess sobbed.

“Furthermore, starting next week I will expect to see you at least once a week at Bon Marché for dinner. And you'll come there without your problems! Understood?”

“Yes, Daddy.”

“Nathan?”

“Yes, sir.”

Charles clapped his hands together. “One final word, Alma.” He moved to her so that he stood over her. “Don't look to me for forgiveness. I'll play my role for the sake of Mattie. But you … you've acted like a whore, and so you will always be in my eyes!”

Charles whirled and was out the door quickly, Schimmel following him.

As they walked down the stairway, the publisher said quietly: “That last, Charles—it didn't have to be said.”

“It was a moment for the truth,” Dewey grunted.

III

T
HERE
was an even greater truth in the inevitability of the passage of time. Charles felt it as a weight pressing down on him, as if time had a gravity of its own.

He was used to making his own opportunities; he liked to believe that he guided his own destiny. But the forces of time seemed to be taking that from him; forces at work in his family, and in the nation, perplexed him, even defied him.

The flood of immigrants into the western region of the country was changing the face of it. He read a dispatch in the
Nashville Monitor
that disquieted him. An English visitor had written: “The practical liberty of America is found in its great space and small population. Good land, dog-cheap everywhere, and for nothing, if you go for it, gives as much elbow room to every man as he chooses to take. Poor laborers, from every country in Europe, hear of this cheap land, are attracted to it, perhaps without any political opinions. They come, they toil, they prosper. This is the real liberty of America.”

Twenty years earlier, Charles Dewey would have reveled in such a report. Now he wasn't so sure that what was happening was right. More and more, when he rode into Nashville, he found the streets crowded with men and women with unfamiliar faces. Strangers in
his
town. Strangers doing strange things.

Why there was that fellow, Ralph Earl, one of Andy Jackson's intimates, who was digging around in that Indian mound along the banks of the Cumberland, trying to uncover the secrets of the aborigines who had inhabited the area long before the white men had come. He's toying with sacred matters, Dewey thought, and he ought to leave the graves alone.

In a more mundane matter, there was talk of providing Nashville with a water system: a reservoir, with underground pipes running to every dwelling and business place. And at what cost? It seemed that everywhere money was being spent on grand schemes. In New York State there was begun something called the Erie Canal; it was stupidity to think that such a thing could be dug with pick and shovel, at whatever cost. And closer to home there was the federal government's vaunted Military Road—called the General Jackson Road, for God's sake!—connecting Nashville and New Orleans, just to reduce the distance between the two cities by two hundred miles. Money was literally being poured into the project.

Charles discussed all this one night with his publisher son-in-law.

“August, we're moving too fast,” he insisted. “The country is being expanded beyond any hope of doing it with any intelligence. New states seem to be in place every time you turn around: Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama, Missouri. Now we even have the Territory of Florida—and what the hell are we going to do with that?”

“Your attitude surprises me,” Schimmel had said. “I seem to remember you talking enthusiastically at one time about the expansion of the nation to the Pacific Ocean.”

“Yes, but with prudent speed. It's not unlike a horse race you know. Pace is all-important. Too much speed at the beginning will make it impossible to have anything left for the stretch run.”

“A colorful analogy, but hardly applicable to the growth of a nation. What is happening now, it seems to me, is the American destiny. Our expansion is not only necessary, Charles, it is inevitable.”

Dewey shook his head. “No, August, you've missed the undercurrent of what is happening. Regional animosities are coming to the surface. The New England states are suspicious of what is happening in the West and the South; they resent this growth, this apparent new wealth of an area that now has one-quarter of the nation's people.”

“And that's as it should be,” the publisher contended. “It won't be too many years before this area will elect a President.”

Charles groaned. “Andy Jackson, I suppose!”

“Yes, and why not?”

“God help the country if Andy ever heads it!”

But that was only drawing-room talk between two friends. What bothered the master of Bon Marché even more was the loss of his last vestiges of control over the plantation.

It came clear to him one morning as he strolled among the horse barns, jollying the blacks, feeling good about being there. In his element. At the stallion barn, the good feeling evaporated as quickly as dew in the morning sunshine.

In one stall was a stallion he didn't recognize—a well-muscled dark bay giant with fire in his eyes.

“Who's this?” he asked of one of the grooms mucking out the stalls.

“Oh, dat's Eagle, suh.”

“A new boarder, eh?”

“No, suh. Dat's a new stallion what Mistah Franklin done bring in from England.”

“When?”

“‘Most a week ago, suh. He already been introduced to some ladies”—the slave chortled—“and he laik it, too.”

Charles went looking for his son, his temper rising with each stride.

“I see we have a new stallion,” he said to Franklin, making no effort to hide his annoyance.

“Yes. How do you like him?”

“Since I don't know anything about him at all, I can't very well make an appraisal, can I?”

Franklin calmly gave his father the details of Eagle's pedigree. “He's just the kind of new blood we need, Father.”

“And you made that decision on your own?”

“Yes. Well, I did talk it over with George.”

“And what of me?”

His son hesitated. “I was under the impression that I was in charge of the breeding.”

“And I was under the impression,” Charles snapped, “that I was still the owner of Bon Marché!”

“Of course. But you've been preoccupied—”

“Superseded, you mean!”

“Nothing like that at all, Father,” Franklin answered, his own temper flaring. “You can't argue, sir, that you have shown little interest lately. It occurs to me that this is the first time in several weeks that I've seen you here at the barns.”

Dewey struggled to maintain his composure. “And how much of
my
money was spent for this animal?”

“Seventy-five hundred plus the cost of bringing him here from England.”

“And you believe you have the unquestioned authority to spend that kind of money without my approval?”

“I did get Mattie's permission,” Franklin replied defensively.

Charles stared at him. “Mattie knew of this?”

“Naturally. She manages the Bon Marché finances, doesn't she?”

The bald truth of what his son had said came through to Dewey. He shrugged, walking away disconsolately.

Perhaps he had neglected to keep in touch, Charles admitted to himself, but what difference did it make? Franklin and George and Mattie were going to do exactly as they pleased, no matter what the head of the family said.

It was clear that he had been left with nothing to do but to chronicle the growth of the Deweys in the family Bible. George and Mary Dewey had added two more grandsons to the clan: Statler in 1820 and George, Jr., early in 1822. He guessed that the second generation of the Dewey family was in place.

And what did Charles know of them all? To him they were merely names in a Bible! Except for Carrie, of course.

Carrie—at least she was his. Everywhere Charles went, the youngster tagged after him like a shadow. They rode together, played together, and studied together. He bought her a new geography volume of the expanding country and they spent hours together going over it.

“Have you ever been to New York, Grandfather?”

“No.”

“Philadelphia?”

“Yes,” he said sadly, “I went there on my honeymoon with your grandmother.”

“Grandmother Mattie?”

“No, darling, with your real grandmother. Your father's mother: Martha Statler Dewey. You remember that we've discussed her before.”

“Oh, sure. Was Philadelphia grand, Grandfather?”

“Hmmm.” He grinned at the child. “Yes, I suppose it was. It's been many years since—”

“I'd like to see those cities. Philadelphia and New York.”

“Would you, now?” An idea was born. “Well, maybe…”

IV

“I'
VE
made a decision,” Dewey said at dinner several nights later. He had thought of nothing else: the idea was set in stone. “I'm going to campaign a racing string of Bon Marché horses from Nashville to New York. And Carrie's going to go with me.”

Mattie gasped. Franklin and George frowned.

“Yes,” Charles went on determinedly, “I'll make a selection of … oh, let's say twenty horses. We'll take in the fall meeting at Charleston and then move on to Augusta and Virginia for the meetings at Petersburg and Richmond, and then Baltimore and finally, New York.”

“But, Father,” Franklin objected, “the cost of mounting such a trip would be—”

“Well within the capabilities of Bon Marché,” Charles interrupted. He looked at his wife. “Unless you're going to tell me that we are suddenly impoverished.”

“You know I'm not going to tell you that,” Mattie answered heatedly, “but what you propose isn't practical, Charles. I mean, making such a long trip with a little girl—”

“We'll take one of the housemaids with us.”

“And then there's your health to consider. After all, you're fifty-seven.”

“And in good health! Also, I'm not ready to have myself thought of as a vegetable. If it's felt that the Bon Marché coffers can't, or won't, support this venture, then I'll just have to seek financing from other sources.”

He winked at August Schimmel, who sat across the table from him.

“Damn you, Charles!” Mattie said angrily. “You suddenly come up with a scheme that defies common sense, and you expect us to agree to it without discussion. There would be so many things to plan.”

“And I would plan them!” He got to his feet. “No, let me be more emphatic: I
will
do them!”

He clapped his hands together.

41

D
EWEY
got his way. Yet, he had doubts. Could he care properly for Carrie on such a long trip; maybe even one with some hazards? She was a bright child, and a self-sufficient one, but she was only eleven years old. He had once undertaken an arduous journey with small children and had vowed that he would never do that again. And now—?

Nevertheless, he went ahead with his planning, trying to convince himself that the adventure would be the best thing that could happen to a youngster at this time, trying to dismiss his doubts.

Help came from an unlikely source.

After one of the obligatory Bon Marché dinners attended by Alma May and Nathan Ludlum, the Princess sought him out. It was the first time she had talked directly to him since the bitter incident in the theater apartment.

“Could we walk, Father? Sometimes I think your drawing room has ears.”

They strolled together, both of them uneasy, across the wide lawn.

“Father,” Alma May said, “Nathan wants to leave Nashville.”

“Oh, where will you be going?”

“Just Nathan, not me.”

The sudden anger. “If that bastard Ludlum thinks he can—”

“Please, Father.” She laid a hand on his arm. “Listen to me this time. Nathan and I are dreadfully unhappy. We don't have a marriage any longer, as you can imagine. It's my fault and it's his fault, too, I guess. We're going to get a divorce.”

“Divorce! That's unheard of among the Deweys—”

“Always the Deweys, isn't it?” she said gravely. “Well, the Deweys can't live my life. Or poor Nathan's. If there is a hell on earth we've made it for each other. And we've finally decided that we've had enough of hell. And the Deweys be damned!”

Charles knew she was right.

“I wanted to tell you this tonight,” the Princess went on, “because I have a proposal. I want to go with you on your trip. I can help you care for Carrie.”

Her father shrugged. “And what of Mattie?”

“She'll probably be glad not to have me around for a while. I'd be an embarrassment to her during the divorce.”

“One problem: what's to become of the theater?”