Eaton gave him the same glacial stare.
“Forgive me if I speak out of turn, General.”
“No, I appreciate your sentiments. However, what has not yet entered the discussion is that the twenty thousand dollars in gold and silver that I expended in Egypt and Libya was my twenty thousand dollars, which I placed at the government’s disposal on the promise that it should be paid back.”
Barton had been taking a sip of wine but set his glass down, wide-eyed.
Eaton continued, “If the government wishes to use me so ill as to merely scare the bashaw into making a treaty—which he won’t keep, by the way, but never mind—very well. But they needn’t think that I will contribute twenty thousand dollars to that cause. Sir, I mean to have it back!”
“Speaking as the new consul here,” Barnes spoke up, “I will support you in that cause.”
“And speaking as the old consul here”—Barton held up a hand defensively—“let us pause to take stock. There is nothing in the treaty that touches upon General Eaton’s contribution to the war. He may find the government as willing to repay his twenty thousand as they were willing to hand over sixty thousand to the tyrant in Tripoli. Is it not so?”
“May it be so,” nodded Eaton, still angry.
“Now, Mr. Jefferson’s secretary of state is an extraordinarily crafty man,” Barton continued. “Let us remember that Mr. Madison opposed the Jay Treaty some years ago, and he has the Quasi-War with France to point to as the result of not taking his advice. I have every confidence in Madison’s sense of honor, but one must never forget that his primary goal is to further the interests of the United States, to increase its power and prestige before the rest of the world. And he can act as pragmatically as a situation requires to achieve that, even at the cost of his personal opinions. And he requires no less of his ministers and consuls representing the country in courts abroad. Mr. Barnes, you have suffered a great deal of injury, which you may now be called upon to set aside. I can assure you from my own correspondence that Mr. Madison has viewed your situation with the greatest solicitude, but if it has rendered you unable to support the government’s positions, whatever they may be, he will not spare you.”
The silence around the table let Barton know that his admonition was not taken lightly, and that it was time to lighten the air as he always sought. “But look, now,” he said more brightly, “there is no guarantee that the treaty will even be ratified, is there? It may hover around and be debated for a year or so, and we’ll be right back where we were. And there is also no bar to Mr. Barnes pursuing a private indemnity, if he wishes, against the Algerine government.”
There was no need to add that with a peace having just been concluded with the bashaw of Tripoli, and with quiet now settled over the whole of the southern Mediterranean, the chances of the United States raising any trouble to vindicate Barnes’s imprisonment were very small. Barnes sat, motionless and sullen.
“For us, gentlemen,” Barton gestured grandly, “we must play our parts gamely, each according to his station—which I am happy to say will include attending the opera, three nights from tonight. It is an opportunity for our commodore to thank the king for his indispensable aid, which, you will tell him”—Barton made sure to catch Preble’s eye—“yes? You will tell him, made the difference between victory and a prolonged and indecisive conflict, a sentiment that our new consul will second.”
Preble had looked weary all evening. “Very well. What time?”
“Our carriage will pick you up on the wharf at seven.”
“With Mr. Putnam,” said Susan. “I particularly wish his company.”
When all had departed, Susan Barton went downstairs to lock away the silver. Since hiring Rafaela at a good wage to oversee the kitchen and scullery, she no longer counted the silver herself, but her eye was practiced enough to know at a glance before closing the chest of flatware, and from the arrangement of trays and chargers in the silver closet, that all was as it should be.
It was always labor to ascend the stairs, but she had never lost her satisfaction in hearing her footfalls on stone steps. In even the best homes in Virginia the staircases were of wood, and she would have to accustom herself to that again. Marble bespoke a station, a permanence and an order that, as far as she could forecast, the United States would likely never achieve. The corridor that led past the file of bedrooms had runners of cut-pile Aubusson, half an inch thick, and she made almost no sound as she walked toward their suite at the rear of the house, overlooking the garden.
She paused a moment at the door of Rebecca’s room, thinking that if she heard her still awake she would knock and say good night, but to her astonishment she detected a muffled sob within. Disbelieving, she waited until she heard another. Susan rapped lightly and rapidly with her fingernails. “Rebecca?”
No answer came, and she clicked upon the latch and peered in. “Rebecca?”
She saw her sitting on the side of the bed in her nightclothes, her face buried in a handkerchief, but at the sight of Susan’s face at the door, amiable and solicitous, she beckoned her inside. She sat next to Rebecca, so close that their combined weight made a single deep depression in the feathers of the mattress. “My dear, my dear, what is it?”
With comfort at hand, Rebecca tried to toss it off. “Oh,” she said, “oh, it’s nothing, and it’s everything.” She looked into Susan’s eyes, light blue, clear as aquamarines, and the kindest, she thought, that she had ever encountered.
“My poor child.” Susan put her arm around her.
“I am close on a whole year older, a year when I should have been here, a year that I cannot have back again.”
“I know.”
“And nine months in that, that place! Oh, God, how did I live through it?”
“Oh, my dear.” Susan shook her head slowly in condolence and squeezed about her shoulders. “It is beyond me to even imagine the horrors you must have experienced, imprisoned in a Moorish harem for nine months. It must have been—the men must have been—brutish.”
“No, no!” cried Rebecca. “You don’t understand! Nobody touched me!” The looks on their faces met, and Susan’s utter amazement confronted Rebecca’s deep wounding at so profound a rejection that not even her jailers would have her. Rebecca took Susan’s shock as confirmation of the injustice of her plight, the humiliation she had suffered, and a single heaving gasp escaped her lips before she composed herself again. “Nobody wanted . . . me.” She sniffed. “Nothing interesting is ever going to happen to me.”
“Oh, I see,” Susan whispered.
“Jailed up in there eating those awful olives and dates. And I shall never be able to eat lamb again.”
“Well,” ventured Susan, “I promise we won’t serve you any lamb while you are here.” They laughed. “But this other—”
“No one will ever want me. Look at me, I am plain. Do people think I don’t know this? Who will ever look at me?”
“Nonsense, girl. Look at me, we were cast from the same mold, yet I have a good husband and a good life. I have servants, and featherbeds, and watered silk.”
“But you are pretty.”
“No, I know how to make myself look pretty, and that makes all the difference. We can do the same for you.”
Rebecca broke her gaze and looked at the floor. “You are kind to say so.”
“It is true, and we will start, right now. The first tactic is to change one’s outlook. No one can be pretty when she is cross, or self-pitying, no matter her justification in feeling so. Beauty begins in being kind to people, taking an interest in them, helping them when you can. If you do that, the beauty inside rises to the surface, and it shows. Really, I promise you, people can see it.”
Rebecca looked at her once more. “I do not wonder that Mr. Barton loves you.”
Susan smiled. “Mr. Barton and I are not young anymore. And when we are together,
that way, well, let us say no artist would be moved to carve statues of us.” They laughed. “But we do love each other, and respect each other.” She sighed. “Still, being pretty is no guarantee that a man whom you want to notice you will do so. But God did not make us capable women to no purpose. We just need now to set our minds to making something happen for you.”
“Then you don’t think me terrible?”
Susan framed Rebecca’s face in her hands, looking deeply at her. “Brown hair, brown eyes,” she said. “That is to your advantage. Blue eyes convey transparency, but distance. Brown eyes convey mystery and passion, and that is what is wanted. My hairdresser is coming in the morning. Why don’t you come to my room after you wash up, and we’ll see if we can’t help nature just a little bit.”
“I shall never forget your befriending me.”
“Well, let us think. You can’t have met anyone here that you fancy, there hasn’t been time. We cannot leave immediately. I shall think up a list and see to whom I can introduce you.”
In such a consideration demureness seemed pointless, but Rebecca attempted it anyway. “Well, that gentlemanly Lieutenant Putnam and I became rather good friends after he rescued me. We had several lovely visits while we were on his ship.”
“Perhaps he was not aware of your interest. Is he spoken for? Did he mention a sweetheart back home?”
“He did not.”
“Well, let’s see. Three nights hence is the opera—oh, my dear, you will get to meet the king! Not many American girls get to do that, do they? Can you curtsy?”
“Of course.”
“Not a little social pop-down, dear, but a full court curtsy. Never mind, I’ll show you. The king won’t really notice if you curtsy correctly, he’ll be looking down your dress.”
Rebecca erupted in a short, sharp laugh, her first in a long time.
“Mr. Barton and I, and you and your father, will be there, and so will some of the American officers. Let me work on it. I’ll see to it that you meet someone.”
• • •
PREBLE WAS QUIET THE WHOLE TIME the jolly boat rowed them back out to the Constitution. He swayed idly with it as they were rigged to the davits and hoisted up. He steadied himself with the bosun’s hand as he stepped over the taffrail onto the quarterdeck, and turned around to Bliven. “Mr. Putnam, a word with you in my cabin, if you please.”
The commodore’s return was long expected; the lanterns were lit, the chef had seen them coming and materialized with a cup of cool milk. Preble waited until they were alone and the door was shut, and he pointed Bliven to a chair. “Mr. Putnam, I expect word of this will get around soon enough, but until then, this is in confidence.”
“I understand, sir.”
“The other Barron sailed from Gibraltar some days ago. He is putting into Port Mahon to take on supplies; he should be here in a bit over a week. He will assume command of the Mediterranean squadron at that time. Our days here are numbered—you have known that this would happen for some time.”
“Yes, sir, but I still don’t like how you have been treated. When—”
“Barton told me first thing we got to the consulate this evening.”
“Ah, that’s when he took you aside into his—”
“Yes.”
Bliven shook his head. “It still smells of intrigue, and it is unworthy.”
“Well, I thank you for your indignation. Heh!” Preble laughed so seldom that Bliven was always shocked by it. “Tell me, Mr. Putnam, what did you think of old Mr. Barton’s giving of advice this evening—about counting up the cost of fighting for your vindication, and being able finally to just say, ‘Oh, to hell with it’?”
“To General Eaton, you mean?”
“Did you think he was speaking only to Eaton?”
Preble’s meaning sunk in slowly. “He was speaking to you as well, sir, wasn’t he?”
“Yes. He knows that I am somewhat pricklish over the whole matter. Happily, I am better situated to take his advice than General Eaton, poor bastard. He was very badly used, I fear. You have your old berth, next to Mr. Bandy?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Good night.”
Bliven stood to go. “Sir, I am very glad to be sailing home with you.”
“Thank you. And—your Algiers report, end of day tomorrow.”
“Without fail, sir.” From the wardroom Bliven took a lit lantern into his berth; he already had one in there, but all night he had carried the letter from Clarity in his breast pocket, and he wanted good light. He took off his shoes and stretched out, taking care that a lantern was hanging over each shoulder.
LITCHFIELD, CONNECTICUT
8TH MAY, 1805
My Dear Lieutenant Putnam,
Or perhaps, if your forecast has been verified, you are now Lieutenant Commandant Putnam. Your kind favor of three months ago came to hand only two days since.
It is true that I did encourage you to write me of your adventures, and indeed, your account of meeting the old king of Naples, and of his manners, and we now know of the firing of the gallant Philadelphia and the bombardment of Tripoli are all quite thrilling. You must not be surprised if you read of them in my novels one day.
However, touching upon this other incident you relate, that of the Sicilian king scolding his dogs after himself committing an unpardonable social faux pas in releasing nature’s vapors, I must confess that I am perplexed utterly, how to incorporate it into any book—even a novel. For my own part, you need have no fear for the delicacy of my sensibilities. The true case is so much to the contrary, that when I read of the king, and of the dogs scurrying under chairs at the sound of his farting, knowing that they were to be blamed, it reminded me of nothing so much as what I hear of Mr. President Jefferson and the members of the current Congress. Whenever the man commits some new act meriting opprobrium, even outrage, his henchmen in the Congress scurry about like mad to search out arguments to make it sound as though what he has done is not just legal, but is somehow congruent with his political philosophy. I declare that ancient Greece produced athletes of no greater flexibility.
Bliven found himself laughing out loud, and decided he must share such a feast. Racing out of his own berth, he rapped sharply twice on Sam’s door before opening it and entering without waiting upon an answer. “Sam—”
Sam Bandy shot off his mattress with a gasp, by habit back into the bulkhead and not upward, for there was barely room to stand. Bliven saw on Sam’s face not that he was startled, but a catastrophic shock, deep and desperate sadness, his eyes red in the lamplight, his breath shallow. A letter lay open on his table.
“Sam?”
He collapsed back onto his bunk, his head hanging loosely, his eyes unfocused.
Bliven joined him on the bunk, taking his hand. “Sam, what is it?”
“My fa—” His voice caught, for he had never said such a thing before, and he swallowed, fearful of hearing it. “My father is dead.”
“Oh my God, Sam,” he whispered. For a moment they felt nothing but the ship’s slow rise and fall in the bay swells.
“Close the door, please.”
“Of course.” Bliven did so—naturally, Sam would not want the men to see him in such a state—and then sat again. “How?”
“Yellow fever.”
“Oh, no.”
Bliven released his hand and reclined against the bulkhead. “What shall you do? Will you need to resign your commission and go home to manage the family’s affairs?”
“No.” He thought for a minute. “It wouldn’t do much good to resign here, I’m halfway around the world. But no. There are my two brothers close at hand, they can help my mother make decisions, and she is strong. The overseer and our people will keep working as before. I wish I was there, but no, I am not needed, not really.”
“When did all this happen?”
“Well, the poor man is long past his pain. That is a blessing.”
“Yes. But I would like to have said good-bye.” He turned away and cried softly.
“Is there anything I can do for you?”
Even in port, only the captain could order the grog tank opened. “Galley, please—bring me a cup of tea? No one must see me like this.”
“Of course.” It was too early in the evening for the galley fire to have been banked. Some of the crew saw him coming forward through their hammocks and stood, until he raised a hand. “As you were, men.” Willingly they dropped back down to their sail-canvas tarpaulins on which they were reclined, gambling or playing Going to Boston.
He reached the camboose, and as he prepared tea Bliven thought what he would do, if such a blow fell upon him. Indeed he would have to resign his commission, return home, and manage the farm and the business. His mother could not do it all, and they had never hired anyone other than seasonal harvesters. Through this he descried one advantage of the Southern system that they had never discussed, that plantations assumed something closer to lives of their own. He could not set it down as any merit of slavery, but indeed, such large operations need not cease with the death of any one person, even the master.
Sam was a little recovered by the time Bliven handed him the tea, and they sat together again. “My mother,” said Sam, “ordered some furniture and mirrors from France. The merchant in Savannah wrote her that they had come. My father took some of our people and two wagons, and went down the river to fetch them. April in Savannah, it should have been too early in the year for the fever. But he had four of the darkies with him; there was no place for them to stay in the town, so he camped with them outside of town, by the river. And it had turned hot; there was a heavy mist on the river that night. Three days later he was dead.” He shook his head hopelessly.
The Shores of Tripoli Page 37