Dolley

by Rita Mae Brown

  Just then the children burst through the door, Dickey and Walter punching at one another like two tiny drunks.

  “I’m gonna tear your thumbs off!” Walter bellowed.

  His younger brother, one day from being four and already feeling more mature, bellowed right back, “And I’m going to blow you right out of the water!” This was followed by a kaboom sound.

  Walter pasted Dickey, knocking him back. Unfortunately, Dickey cried and Walter’s torments increased. “Fraidy-cat, fraidy-cat!”

  “Am not!” Dickey took another swing and this time Walter socked him harder and bloodied his nose.

  The other children, watching the fight, shrewdly melted into their rooms when Dickey’s nose began to bleed. Anna leaped up, grabbed Walter, and fried his ears with a lecture liberally laced with punishments; the worst was that he was forbidden to come to Dickey’s birthday party. That hurt. After all, Walter was five and was looking forward to the party games. He knew he was going to win some prizes. He was marched to his room while Anna carried the still-sobbing Dickey.

  After much kissing and soothing, Anna gave the little boy a cookie and allowed him to sit in the kitchen with the cook, where he was sure to filch more sweets.

  She returned to her sister, dropped in the chair, and wiped her flushed face with her hand.

  “You ought not to protect Dickey. He has to learn to fend for himself.”

  “He’s too small and weak. At his age James was half again as big.”

  “It doesn’t matter. There’s rough justice in child’s play and if he doesn’t learn to fight for himself, he’s going to have a hard time in this world.”

  “Oh, do keep quiet, Dolley Payne! Your son is hardly an example of fending for himself. He sponges off everyone, he made a fool of himself in the militia, and—”

  “He did not make a fool of himself in the militia! He’s not cut out for military life.”

  “Apparently he’s not cut out for any kind of life. I have yet to see him earn a dollar.”

  “He has to go to college.” Dolley felt her own temperature rising.

  “Then he can get himself to the College of New Jersey in Princeton. He has no business squandering time and money in Europe. You can’t afford it!”

  “Europe is an education in itself.”

  “I’d hate to think what he’s learning,” Anna snorted. “In the future I’ll thank you to stay out of how I raise my children. If you ask me, Payne Todd has too much mother. My word, Dolley, you even dragged him along when you and Jemmy were first married.”

  “Jemmy loves Payne, and he didn’t mind.” Dolley was really offended.

  “Mind? The poor man had no choice. It was weeks before he was alone with you.”

  “It wasn’t that bad.” Dolley’s memory had glossed over that event.

  “It wasn’t that good. You had one child to fuss over. I have five and believe me, it’s different. I don’t want any of my boys turning out like Payne.”

  “If you weren’t my sister, I’d smack you right in the face!” Dolley shouted. She stood up and hurried out of the house. She slammed the door so hard that the timbers of the house trembled.

  Dickey, hearing the raised voices, emerged from the kitchen with the cook in tow. “Mommy, why was Aunt Dolley hollering? Is she sick?”

  “No,” Anna curtly replied.

  “Did you have a fight, Mommy, like me and Walter?”

  “No!” Anna boomed. “Aunt Dolley sees what she wants to see.”

  “Does she have bad eyes?” The child was confused.

  “Dickey, Aunt Dolley likes to give orders. I am her little sister just as you’re a little brother. I’m tired of her giving me orders, that’s all. Grown-ups don’t—fight.”

  “But Mommy, grown-ups are fighting the British.”

  “That’s enough, Richard!” Anna’s face reddened, and the cook grabbed the child by the wrist to drag him back into the kitchen.

  20 January 1814, Thursday

  Sukey has been the soul of cheerfulness since last night. She aired out my dresses voluntarily. I wonder what she’s up to.

  I called on Anna today, and the entire brood was at home. Little Dickey and Walter were engaged in a furious fight and Anna got up to stop it. Frail as Richard is, Anna can’t go on protecting him. He must learn to get along with other children. He must also learn to stand up for himself and watch out for little Dolley Payne.

  Our mother used to demand that we pray and forgive one another. Naturally, nothing was settled that way. When Mother’s back was turned, Mother Amy would take us out behind the slave quarters and let us go at it. We learned.

  Anna flew up in my face and accused me of protecting Payne, doting on him, making excuses for him, and said that she’ll raise her children without any help from me.

  Anna and I haven’t fussed so at each other in years. I left. Otherwise I would have said something unkind in return. Having five children in the house between the ages of two and a half and nine frays the nerves, and Anna gets so emotional when she’s angry that there’s no reasoning with her.

  I decided to walk home and sent Paul ahead with the carriage. At first I was put out with my little sister. I much prefer to tell her what to do than to have her tell me. The older-sister bully in me was coming out, although I am right about Dickey. As I walked off my anger, I considered her criticism. I did dote on Payne. I still dote on Payne. He looks so much like his father, and after John died—and our son within days—all I had was Payne.

  I don’t speak of that time, when I inhabited a continent of despair, yet it’s with me. I probably did pour my grief and loneliness into love for Payne. Is it possible to love too much? I know it’s possible to love too little, and I have observed the consequences of parents who don’t want their children.

  I realize Payne has not found his way in the world, which is one of the reasons we sent him to Russia. When he comes back, he will have received the valuable education of travel, and perhaps he will have found out what he wants to do with his life. Then we will send him to the College of New Jersey despite the hideous price of tuition, and he can acquire those skills necessary for a man to succeed.

  I really don’t think that my telling Anna to let the boys fight it out quite deserved her retort, and Payne was the brightest, most beautiful little boy. He has his father’s features and build with my dark blue eyes and black curls. I believe he took the best of John Payne and me.

  When Jemmy and I married, I was apprehensive about how my new husband and my son would get along, but Jemmy loved him like a father. He was so mild with him, rarely rebuking him—he was patience itself with the boy. I am not given to choleric outbursts but I can pitch a fit, as Mother Amy used to say, on rare occasions. The more Jemmy loved Payne, the more I knew I had the most wonderful husband. Not only did he provide me with companionship, steadfastness, and every comfort he could afford, he also provided love for a fatherless child.

  Jemmy is a great man. History will so record him when people realize how he had to hold together the country, but it will never know that his true greatness was in his heart.

  I have had more love in my life than most women dare dream of, and I am grateful for that love.

  Lately, when I’m alone at night, writing in this diary, and my handwriting becomes increasingly illegible, or I rise early to set about my chores, I find myself going back to John’s death. The Yellow Plague. I remember his anguish and his refusal to complain. It was God’s will, he said. Then I think of those women widowed by this war. If they loved their husbands and sons as I love and loved mine, I pity them and pray for them and ask God why women must suffer so for the deeds of men. This war is a stain on all. All wars are grotesque blasphemies against God’s greatest gift: Life.

  Until the morrow, God willing.

  D.P.M.

  21 January 1814, Friday

  I patched it up with Anna today and Dickey had a nice party this afternoon.

  Sukey remains helpful and bright.
She told me that the latest fashion in Europe is a slightly lower-cut bodice than what we are currently wearing. Any lower and we’ll be nude! I asked her how she came by this news, and she saucily replied that she has friends, too. I take this to mean she’s been talking to servants working in European ministers’ houses. She certainly isn’t talking to Toffey anymore, for which Elizabeth Monroe and I are grateful.

  Elizabeth brought her daughter, Maria, with her today when she came to call. I sent the child with King George—Maria loves cats—into the kitchen. French John saw that she was given a nice hot drink. I noticed Elizabeth was pale, so I wanted a moment alone with her. She is so circumspect it took me a good twenty minutes, but she finally relaxed enough to confess that the current political strain is fatiguing. She rarely sees her husband, who runs from meeting to meeting. I commiserated. I rarely see mine until the wee hours. He too is fatigued. One good thing, Mrs. Monroe does not question the necessity of the war, but then she wouldn’t.

  When Maria returned, she wanted to feed Uncle Willy. When she finished giving him bread, that terrible glutton wanted more, so he hopped onto the floor and tried to bite her toes. He frightened her, and I had to put him on his perch and take Elizabeth and Maria into another room. Uncle Willy, bereft of manners, is really a brightly colored pig. I do love the monster!

  Until the morrow, God willing.

  D.P.M.

  22 January 1814, Saturday

  Anna came over today to thank me for helping with Dickey’s party. Since I apologized yesterday, she apologized today, and we had a good cry and talked of how we miss our darling Lucy.

  I told her she was a good mother and except for coddling Dickey, she is. She replied that being a good mother isn’t enough. You never know how your children will turn out, and you pray that the ones who survive will not become a burden.

  Anna and I are as close as two sisters can be, and yet I continue to find facets of her being that are new to me. Anna’s a thinker and I’m more of a doer. Since I’ve been keeping this diary, I am thinking more—more like Anna, I suppose. It’s not natural to me. I believe that what’s done is done and one must press on.

  Why argue the matter? The difficulties will argue themselves. Just keep working, breathing, trying.

  Not that Anna doesn’t work hard, but she dwells on the complexity of things. Because she’s my little sister, I’m afraid I underestimate her.

  Still no word from Payne.

  I did show Anna how to play craps. I shouldn’t have but we needed to laugh. I told her I stopped playing cards because you need too many people and people talk. I don’t wager to excess, but I do enjoy a bet. This way I can bet against myself, so I don’t lose any money.

  Money! Not one of the Paynes has evidenced a skill for making money. I can manage it and Jemmy never complains, although I did scare us both when I ordered some clothes from Europe and the duty, just the duty alone, came to two thousand dollars. If there were a hole in the earth, I would have crawled into it and covered myself up. My husband stalked off for the entire day, but when he returned that evening, he wiped away my tears and said that we’d find the money somehow; after all, I was the most beautiful woman in the capital and the public paid such attention to my clothes, I really had to be fashionable.

  I didn’t have to be that fashionable.

  French John has taught Uncle Willy to say “Dolley’s coming!” When he says this, he stretches out his feathers. I believe French John loves that silly bird as much as I do. He’s also taught him to say “merci” and “vive l’Amérique.” What a lovely surprise. It quite took away my worries about my conversation with Anna. Of course, Uncle Willy still swears like a trooper in French and in English.

  I feel certain that the vote for more troops will come this week. I hope so. Not knowing is worse than knowing, even if the news is bad. I feel like taking a gun and drilling on the front lawn to shame those Federalists into supporting this war.

  Until the morrow, God willing.

  D.P.M.

  23 January 1814, Sunday

  It turned bitter cold again early this morning. A light snowfall dusted the rooftops. This has been the strangest winter within my memory. The weather goes from warm to bitter cold and then back to warm. I think that today winter finally has us in its grasp and won’t let us go until spring.

  I hate winter. The only colors to assault my eyes are white, gray, brown, and more brown. Where are my soft pink roses and laughing yellow daffodils? The brilliant hummingbirds, like flying emeralds with ruby throats, and the sound of peepers in the night—oh, how I love the summer. When I was little, I would kick off my shoes and run barefoot to feel the warm earth between my toes. Mother would shout that I’d become splayfooted but I didn’t care. Still don’t. When no one’s around here, I kick off my shoes. I’d even welcome a battle with beetles over possession of my roses or with rabbits over the garden.

  A solemn heron lives at Montpelier. Mother Madison and I believe he is the soul of her husband, James Senior, coming back to check on the place and on us. He stands, one-legged, in the marshes, peering not only into the water but up at the house as well.

  I can’t imagine living without my husband. Mother Madison was sixty-eight when Mr. Madison died, and now she’s eighty-one. Or is it eighty-two? At such an age, does it matter?

  Mother Madison, not a woman to complain about life’s hard blows—in contrast to her constant worries about her physical infirmities—once said to me that the first year after James Senior died, she thought she would die. She’d wake up in the morning and wonder why she hadn’t managed to die in the night. A selfish feeling, for she had children to love although they were all grown. That year Franklin was born, a spindly, sickly colt whose mother’s milk had dried. Mother Madison determined that Franklin would live. Every morning she would stride down to the stables—her long steps leaving giant footprints in the dew because she’d slide—and she would order the stable boys to care for Franklin. She tired of their lack of mothering, so she took to giving Franklin the milk herself. Franklin today is a far cry from his former self. He stands sixteen and a half hands and is a shining blood bay. He’s the handsomest fellow on the farm and follows Mother Madison about like a puppy. He’s getting on in years. She swears that horse kept her alive and that when he goes, so will she.

  I don’t know where the will to live comes from. I have seen people go under for lack of it and I have seen people fight against impossible odds and live. I don’t think anyone can live without someone or something to love, and Franklin seems to me as worthy of devotion as any human being.

  Among children from the same family, some have the will and some don’t. I have often wondered if my brothers Temple and Isaac lost their will to live. I know John Todd had will enough for twenty persons, but the fever proved too strong. Then there was my father, who wasted away a healthy man. Why?

  My mother passed away in the full triumph of the Christian faith. She showed not a shred of fear toward death. I fear it. Oh yes, I fear it. I don’t want to die. I want to live forever and I want to see yellow butterflies and calico kittens and pretty dresses from Paris, and I want to hear the laughter of my nieces and nephews and I hope, someday, my grandchildren. I want to watch the clouds sail across the bright blue sky and I want to make shapes out of them. When I’m too old and frail to ride, I can still walk into the stables to catch that rich, tangy horse smell and hear them grinding their oats. How can I leave this world? How can I leave my friends? Why must we die just when we are learning how magical life is? I don’t believe I had sense enough to come in out of the rain until I was forty. I love everything more now than when I was young. I love the color of the green frog and I love the light in my Jemmy’s eyes. I’m even getting used to my wrinkles. I don’t care. I just don’t want to miss anything. I don’t want to die. I have not my mother’s faith.

  I was taught that life is a vale of tears, an illusion. The reward lies in the beyond. Then why did God make this life so sweet? Wh
y should I deny his handiwork? Isn’t that the same as denying beauty? The Society of Friends frowned on any expression of outward beauty. It’s all one to me: life, beauty, laughter. The senses are not to be denied, they are to be fulfilled. I can find God in the deep purple of an iris as easily as in a church.

  I feel as though I am waddling full of sorrow and I don’t know why. I guess missing the summer is as good a reason as any.

  Until the morrow, God willing.

  D.P.M.

  Thank God for Mother Amy, Dolley thought as she surveyed her dinner table. When they lived in Philadelphia, Mother Amy would take Dolley to the market and show her how to buy the cheaper foods and make delicious dishes out of them. Tonight was testimony Dolley learned her lessons. John Calhoun couldn’t get enough of the corn relish Dolley had put up at Montpelier. The chicken, beets, and potatoes, in various guises, seemed to satisfy everyone this night.

  The vote for more troops still had not been called on the floor of Congress. Each day the tension mounted. Perhaps that’s why the gathering was so lively. She’d made a point of inviting the Federalists Daniel Webster, Laban Wheaton, and Michael Lieb along with Republican stalwarts Henry Clay, John Calhoun, James Monroe, and Elbridge Gerry, of course. William Thornton, although a Federalist, always enlivened her table.

  Elbridge was romanticizing the hero of his youth, Samuel Adams. John Calhoun listened to the Vice President politely.

  “Great man, great man—thumbed his nose at King George.” Elbridge sipped his wine. “If that conflict taught me anything, it is that Europeans have no concept of the New World, none at all. Perhaps Talleyrand does.”