by David Nevin
He rode on, jaw clamped in his urgency. Yet after a couple of blocks, at Fourteenth and F Streets, he dismounted and continued on foot, leading the gelding. The message he carried was imperative, but the clerk would keep him waiting a half hour—that seemed the way Mr. Randolph wanted it—so he might as well take a moment now.
It happened that Mr. Secretary Madison lived on F Street between Fourteenth and Thirteenth and it happened too that Miss Anna Payne lived with her sister and brother-in-law. Of course he didn’t expect to see her and he certainly didn’t intend to knock on her door, but just the sight of a window behind which she might be drinking her morning tea would be balm to a ravaged heart.
His foot still burned from the sweet contact of the night before. The erotic force of that touch amazed him—certainly he’d never considered a foot in quite such terms. And she had just done it. She had put her foot there, he had moved away in courtesy, and she had followed, she had moved and touched and rubbed, all the while talking to someone else. It was that that made it so devastating, the secrecy, the intimate touch hidden from the world, her conversation with someone else a sham to cover the blazing center of the whole incredible experience!
When he was before the house, only covertly glancing toward its windows, the front door opened and Anna came running down the steps. She’d seen him, come out to greet him, she’d expected him, perhaps he should have called, perhaps any gentleman would have known enough—
“Oh, hello,” she said, obviously surprised. And then, “Good morning, Captain Lewis.” She stepped right in front of him to a landau drawn by two smart grays with both its hoods rakishly down that he now saw had pulled up behind him. It held two young men and a young woman. One of the men jumped down to hand Anna up. She waved and in an instant they were gone, carriage wheels rattling against dried ruts, a little dust cloud drifting over him.
He walked on, feeling as if she’d slapped him. Still, he told himself, it wasn’t her fault, she hadn’t expected him, it meant nothing. But that old darkness was crowding the edge of his vision. He mounted and rode on.
From an upstairs window, Dolley observed this tableau. She’d been glancing out from time to time, wondering if she would see Jimmy. If the meeting with Tom went badly, he might come home to brood alone in his study. But it was late enough now so he’d be here if he were coming, so probably he’d been satisfied, meaning Tom had buckled down to it as she knew he could when he chose. Still, she’d bet a dollar to a doughnut he’d laid the main effort off on Jimmy. One more glance from the window and there were Merry and Anna. Something was going on, and she’d warrant it was Anna up to some devilment.
“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, Mr. Secretary,” Ned Thornton said. He eased his fawn-colored breeches and flicked a dust mite from a polished boot. That fine blooded mare of his was tied to the rail before the department.
“It’s always a pleasure to see His Majesty’s representative,” Madison said. Again he noticed that calm in the man, with its air of self-assurance and strength. Speaking formally, Thornton described the great pleasure that Whitehall, that august heat of the British foreign service, felt in having been able to deliver the French treaty on Louisiana to Mr. King and to have provided passage to America on a warship for Mr. King’s man. Of course, Whitehall had sent a dispatch to him on the same ship with a copy of the treaty and note of instructions.
He was to report, therefore, that Britain would look with much disfavor on the idea of French penetration of the North American continent. Should the matter come to extremes, Britain would consider taking New Orleans itself to keep it from French hands. But it felt that such action might more appropriately be taken by the United States.
Cautiously, Madison said, “Perhaps Great Britain would even lend a hand under the right circumstances.”
Thornton nodded. “I have no specific instructions, of course, but indirect commentary makes it clear that is a safe assumption.” He smiled warmly. “After all, we are locked in a death struggle with the same tyrant, who now reveals himself as the enemy of the United States as well. Our common interests”—he put delicate emphasis on the phrase—“urge that we smite him wherever and however we can.” He paused. “Of course you know that Britain looks upon the United States as a very close friend.”
“Really?” Madison asked.
Thornton colored slightly but didn’t waver. “It sees the United States as related, as is, say, a man by marriage. It would want to assist in time of trouble, and I suppose it is only natural that it would look for some degree of reciprocity.”
“Ah …”
“There are so many ways to deal with an enemy in world war terms—trade, for example, and the movement of foodstuffs and other war materiel—and then, we are both great maritime nations. Together we would command the world’s seas and none could stand against us. We feel that such a connection, Britain and the United States, would flow as easily as spring water gushing pure from the ground.”
Spring water … purity … interesting formulations. Madison gazed at the handsome envoy. There would be no help from Britain but on Britain’s terms. And what else could he expect? That was the way of nations.
“Thank you for this information,” he said. “It is most reassuring.”
Thornton did have the grace to color again. As he rose to go, Madison heard Johnny Graham arriving at a gallop.
Captain Lewis was at a small desk he had rigged in the unfinished East Room where he had partitioned a sleeping cubicle for himself in a corner; the partition’s walls of canvas fluttered when the wind blew. He was still unsettled over the encounter this morning. Afterward, the meeting with the pale clerk and Mr. Randolph had gone predictably badly. He had restrained himself, but it had left him feeling disheveled as if nothing in his life was within his own control. Now he was laboring over the paperwork he hated. Mr. Jefferson did write his own letters as promised, but there seemed countless lists, reports, presidential directives to be written and social activities to be recorded. He was working on a list of diners at the presidential table to be sure none were slighted whom Mr. J didn’t want to slight when a slender young groom came in looking agitated.
“Mr. Grumby, he calling for you, Cap’n—he got somebody out there he holding.”
Grumby was the guard on duty at the front door. Lewis was almost finished with this damnable list and he didn’t welcome the interruption, but he capped the inkwell and wiped the quill.
He found Gmmby planted in the doorway, cudgel in hand, and heard him snarl, “Mister, you’re fixing to get yourself a sore head, you keep on like this.” Lewis had a confused impression of a heavyset man rushing the guard. Grumby hurled him back, so he fell on his seat, and charged him with the cudgel raised.
“All right, Sam,” Lewis said. “I’ll take over.”
Face red, breathing hard, Grumby said, “You do that, Cap’n. Leave him to me, I’ll split his damned head.”
The intruder scrambled up, turning his back as he did so, and it took Lewis a moment to recognize Mr. Callender, the Richmond editor with all his mad grievances.
“Aha! The soldier boy,” the editor squalled. He laughed. “Soldier boy, errand boy. Here’s your errand: You get your ass up those steps and tell the great president that James Thomson Callender is here and he’s wore out waiting, and he wants what the man can give in a stroke of the pen and he wants it right now!”
“Mind your tongue, Mr. Callender,” Lewis said. His voice shook in his rage, his fists so tight they ached.
“Don’t you use that tone on me, Mr. Soldier Boy. I tell you, I’ve waited long enough. I suffered for the Democrats. They were happy to use me when I was winning elections for ’em. I went to jail, I lost my press and my paper—well, Democrats won like they wouldn’t have without me, and now I want mine! I want that postmastership at Richmond. It’s mine by right, and I want it! You go tell him!”
For a moment the image of this impossible man in hopeless love with a society belle in R
ichmond softened Lewis, but sympathy fled as Callender continued his obscene caterwauling. Lewis took him by the arm and marched him down the gravel path toward the iron gate. When the editor lunged about trying to break free, Lewis lifted him almost off the ground and said in a venomous whisper, “You scurvy bastard, you give me trouble and I’ll beat you bloody!”
Callender’s head whipped about. He looked at Lewis wide-eyed and made no further effort to break away. But he gave a low moan and then, with his voice a compressed hiss, said, “I’m warning you. I know everything about this holier-than-thou, this oh-so-important man, whole country looking up to him, thinking he’s just the most noble thing, when all the time he’s rotten to his heart. You can drag me around and threaten me, you can get away with it now, but I’ll win in the end ’cause I’m going to tell the world. Tell the whole vile story. I’ve got it all, every bit, names, everything. Whole world will know …”
His voice rose to a kind of howl as they reached the gate. Lewis restrained his impulse to kick the bastard into the street. Instead he growled, “Walk on, Mister, while you’re still able to walk.” Callender scuttled away.
At a safe distance, he turned and shouted, “I’m going to tell! The great man, he won’t be nothing but dirt when I’m done with him. You wait and see!”
Samuel Clark was standing in front of the carriage, holding the horses while Miss Danny was in the office over the wharf doing business. The square-rigged brig Sallie Mae, arriving the night before from Santo Domingo, was off-loading cargo; and what with the stevedore yells and the creak of the windlass and the cracking whips of carters backing their trucks into place, the horses were restless. Samuel held their bridles and talked to them, voice low and soothing. Now and then he rubbed their noses, one and then the other. Presently he saw a big black man in seaboots with a slouch hat pulled low, a red feather in his hatband, come down the gangway.
“Hello, Tinker,” Samuel said, his lips scarcely moving. Tinker didn’t break stride. “Come see me at Miss Molly’s,” he said from the corner of his mouth. Samuel watched him go and shook his head—those seaboots, that red feather, that swagger, someday they would fetch the man a load of trouble. Tinker was a free black, and he never let anyone forget it. Bo’sun mate on the Sallie Mae, bossing black and white alike, they said he could bring a ship through seas that made the captain piss his pants and ashore he would kill any man who fooled with him. Fighting knife a foot long tucked in his boot. Samuel admired him but from a distance because one of these days Tinker was going to get killed himself.
That night Samuel left the house about eight.
“You going to get in trouble, black man walking the streets at night. You don’t know what—”
“Ain’t nothing going to happen. Ship in from Santo Domingo; he wants to see me? He’s got something for me. Got word from Joshua, I’ll warrant. I bet that rascal really did get there!”
No reason he shouldn’t walk at night, he was a free man, but he kept his eyes open all the same. When he turned down the alley that led to Miss Molly’s, he looked around first; and when he got to her door, he opened it just enough to slip through and closed it quickly. Smoke was thick enough to cut and a banjo was playing somewhere and the odor of rum and beer was strong. No white faces. Good-looking black girls with their gowns cut about to their navels and their waists snugged in so that a man’s hands could near encircle them moved about with trays, bringing drinks and eluding patrons’ slaps and tickles with practiced laughter.
Miss Molly’s was a nice little whorehouse that paid the constable in various ways and kept things quiet, and it was Tinker’s place of residence when the Sallie Mae was in port. Samuel saw the big man at a table in a far corner, an absolutely beautiful woman with breasts like melons snugged under his arm. He felt a lift in his own groin at the sight of her. ’Course, he had a fine wife and he didn’t patronize fancy women, but a woman like that, she looked like she’d turn a man every way but loose.
Just then Tinker saw him and raised an arm. Samuel sat at the table and called for rum, tossing a coin on the girl’s tray. Up close the woman with big breasts looked like she’d kill you for a couple of coppers. Tinker rummaged around in his pocket.
“Feller in Santo Domingo come up to me, asked did I know you?” From the pocket came a small packet of papers, and Tinker sorted them out. “I said maybe I did and maybe I didn’t, and he pulls out this and asks me to give it to you.” He handed Samuel a crumpled, sweat-stained paper folded small. A letter! By God, Joshua had sent him a letter!
“You know this feller, eh?” Tinker asked.
Samuel smiled. “Maybe I do and maybe I don’t.”
Tinker laughed. “I ain’t asking no questions and it don’t pay to talk much about no slave revolt in this town; but fact is, now that I see your ugly face again, that feller could have been your brother.”
“You don’t say,” Samuel said. He slipped the letter into his pocket. “I’m much obliged to you, Tinker. What say I have Miss Molly set aside a couple of bottles for you, my treat?”
Tinker grinned. “Make it four.”
“Done!”
An hour later he and Millie were reading the letter together by the light of a single candle. She was a better reader than he, but even she had to work hard to get all the words straightened out. It was written with a stub pencil and looked like it had been wetted through more than once. But the meaning came through loud as the exultant shout that Joshua used to give when he figured he’d beaten Samuel at something, a loud, yelping bark of triumph that Samuel could hear right now in their room.
For he’d made it—he’d reached Santo Domingo, and it was a paradise! Black folk everywhere with their heads held high! Nobody shuffling and ducking and pulling off their hats and saying, Yassuh, Yassuh, none of that. Wasn’t many whites and the ones he saw were mighty polite. They were the plantation owners who once had owned the slaves, and now it was all turned around. Plenty of whites had been killed, good riddance, and the few who were left had mighty little to say and that was just as it should be, for this was black man’s land. He’d dreamed of freedom all his life, and now he had it and he’d never let it go. He had come expecting the French to return and fighting to resume, but such was the genius of Toussaint that the French had welcomed him. Santo Domingo was still a loyal French colony, and Toussaint was its ruler with official rank of captain-general in the French army! So he was figuring now on how he could get Junie and the children and bring them down. He begged Samuel to come on, bring Millie, they would all live free with a lifting spirit that he knew a mere set of papers couldn’t give in the United States. Come on down! He was alive as he’d never been before.
Samuel felt as if he’d been holding his breath, and now he let it out in a gasp and couldn’t stop himself as he cried, “Isn’t that wonderful! God, I’d like to go there, see—”
But Millie was on her feet. “Don’t you take the Lord’s name in vain,” she napped, “and don’t you go to talking about going yourself! Someone in this family has to have a little sense, and that’s surely not that miserable brother of yours.”
“Miserable!” Samuel was outraged. “He’s a hero.”
“My foot, he’s a hero! Goes off and leaves his family untended, he going to get himself killed, and what good does that do them? How’s he going to get them out of those Louisiana swamps? How? You tell me that. What kind of hero is a man goes off and leaves his family?”
“But think, Millie,” Samuel said softly. “Think about walking around with your head up, not bowing down to any man or woman, no slavers with their whips and clubs, no one asking for your papers. You don’t think you’d like that?” For a moment she hesitated and he saw a look of hunger flash over her face, and then she shook her head. “It ain’t going to last,” she said, her voice a whisper. “Joshua, he’ll be lucky to get out alive, and you and me, we’ll have to see to Junie and the children. Your brother ain’t going to do it.”
Her face was set in stone, an
d he knew better than to argue with her. But he lay awake a long time thinking about what it would be like to be where most everyone was black and they were free and proud and they didn’t truckle to every white face they saw. Someday …
After a while he realized Millie was crying and he got his arms around her and held her, she as little as a bird against his chest, and he stroked her hair.
Aaron Burr stood high on an upper terrace outside a row of windows on the east side of the Capitol, taking the sun and the brisk air, comfortably out of the wind. The Senate had gone into recess, and as it turned out in this most bitter political season of his entire life, sitting on the dais as president of the Senate was the sole duty that the vice presidency of the United States allowed him. He was empowered to vote only to break ties formed by men clashing in debate, men who were alive, active, living lives full of meaning. He was the third occupant of his august office; the other two had gone on to the presidency, while the third seemed destined for the ash heap. Or so the Virginia cabal was intent on placing him.
He long since had stopped imagining that Jefferson and Madison meant him anything but malignancy. He had liked them too, supported them, worked for them, seen to their great success. He had sewed up New York and handed it to them in a basket. Just as he had presented little Madison to his bride—he often thought of that day, Dolley an extraordinarily fine piece, radiant in full bloom, the little man gaping at her like a desert wanderer beholding a water hole.
And they had all turned on him, though Dolley was friendly when she saw him. She was still a damned fine-looking woman too, if heavier now and a little worn about the edges. But the betrayal that her husband and his Virginia friends had worked on New York’s thoroughbred prancer showed how little honor was to be found below Mason and Dixon’s line. Of course, the contretemps over the election was just a ruse, for Burr had examined his conduct again and again and found it spotless. He hadn’t raised a hand in his behalf, not a hand. It didn’t matter that the Federalists’ call for him to come and take the place by storm would have done no good; the point was that he had resisted that call, he had shown no sign of grasping desire. Just a ruse. The Virginia cabal would do anything to remove the New Yorker who stood as its greatest rival, the great threat to its dominance.