Dolley

by Rita Mae Brown

  She buttoned her lip. Paul pushed her but she kept silent.

  “You don’t have to spy in my diary. I can tell you what I think about you.”

  “I can tell you what I think about you, too.” She jumped on that idea. “You like Uncle Willy, full of noise and bright colors. You keep everyone hopping. You flatter everyone and you don’t forget Master James. Everything you do, you doin’ for him. You don’t really like nobody.”

  “That’s not true!” She shocked me so much I shouted. “I love people and yes, I love my husband first, something you’ll not know, I fear.”

  “You don’t like me.” She was quiet now.

  “No, Sukey, I don’t. You’re spoiled. You don’t care about anyone but yourself.”

  “You think Paul cares about you? Any slave that cares about his master is a born fool.”

  “I do so care!” Paul gripped her with his powerful fingers.

  “Sukey, you once said that to me before, in so many words, about men—that any woman who cares for a man is a fool. Why is love so frightful to you?”

  “Love? Don’t make me laugh.”

  I sighed. I was unexpectedly quite tired. “Do you want to go back to Mother Madison?”

  “No.”

  “What do you want?” This threw her.

  Sukey thought, then shrugged off Paul’s grasp. I tipped my head and he released his hands, but he stayed behind her. “I want to be free.”

  “And that’s the one thing I cannot give you. You aren’t mine.”

  By now I realized that André Daschkov or another of her romantic victims had been teaching her to read. I found this fascinating because Sukey grumbled so much when she had to dust around papers. She never evidenced the slightest interest in reading, and she asked few questions. I wondered what had provoked her to make such an effort—and at some risk to herself.

  “You could talk to Master James,” she hissed at me.

  “I have talked to Master James, you know that!” I started to lose my temper again. “He refuses to free or sell any slaves as long as his mother is alive. He plain won’t do it, Sukey.”

  Paul observed me with curiosity. “You asked him?”

  “Of course I asked him, Paul. I ask him once or twice a year. Every year. I’m a Quaker. We don’t believe in slavery. We don’t believe in war, and for the love of God I find myself in the middle of a war and surrounded by slaves. You make sense of it, I can’t!”

  My explosion sobered Sukey and caused Paul’s face to crumple in consternation.

  “Well,” he said after deliberation, “I wouldn’t mind being free, but Miz Dolley, I am never, ever, gonna leave you. I love you.”

  Paul said this with such simple dignity, with such true emotion, that I burst into tears. I couldn’t help myself. I don’t know what got into me. Then he worried that he had upset me. Sukey sat in amazement. Apparently she believes she is the only person in the world with feelings and was stunned to discover that we have feelings, too.

  “I’m sorry.” He lowered his voice.

  “Oh, Paul, don’t be sorry. I’m crying because I don’t know when I’ve ever heard anything that touches me so. And here with all this—this mess. I don’t even know if we’re going to keep this country together. People act hateful to my husband and the papers are hateful to me and my family. For all I know, people have been hateful to each of you, as well.” I regained my composure. “I will try to be deserving of your love, Paul.”

  “You like a mother to me.” His deep brown eyes filled with tears, too. “I won’t never leave you. No matter what, unlessen you tell me to go.”

  “Thank you.”

  Now Sukey was crying.

  Paul couldn’t believe it. “What you bawling about?”

  “The newspapers. I know what’s been in the newspapers about the Missus. They blaming her for what I done.”

  “They’d blame me anyway. They’re looking for targets that can’t fire back. Sukey, the war is going from bad to worse. The British are looting the Chesapeake again and Commodore Barney has fewer than a dozen gunboats and only a handful of men to try and stop them. They destroyed Fort Oswego, and the blockade now goes all the way up the coast of New England.” I felt so drained, I sat down. “And those Federalists blame us for the loss of their money, not the British for finally blockading their ports. Sukey, ease your mind. If they didn’t accuse me of carrying on with André Daschkov or Louis Serurier, they would have found other men. They even slander Anna. They’ll do anything to hurt Jemmy.”

  “Do you blame me?” Sukey asked.

  “No.” I did blame her, though, for making trouble for herself over André. But I’d talked to her about that and so had James. It wouldn’t have been right to discuss it in front of Paul. He couldn’t help being in love with her. If Sukey had a brain in her beautiful head, she would realize that Paul, young though he was, was worth a bushelful of rich men, powerful men. It has always puzzled me, how a woman can pick the worst man possible when a good man is available. Not that she loved these men, but I still believe God meant for a man and a woman to care for one another, honor one another, and work together. As these thoughts raced through my head, I searched for something to say. I could think of nothing, so I dismissed them both and got on with the chores of the day.

  Now, with the stars overhead, I wonder how I could have become so angry. I have been faithful in keeping my diary. Yes, I missed days here and there as the year progressed, but I was unusually disciplined, for me, and I was so proud of that. I guess losing my record of the political struggles and the war isn’t so bad. Surely other people are keeping records, too. Maybe it’s just as well that the litany of losses isn’t spelled out by my hand.

  We did have a few victories. In March Andrew Jackson crushed the Creek Indians at Horseshoe Bend on the Tallapoosa River in Alabama. There was a bloody battle this month near Niagara Falls at a place called Lundy’s Lane. Neither side won. Vicious finance plagues us. There’s not much left in the larder.

  What saddens me about my torn-up diary is the loss of my personal memories. I don’t know if I can recapture them. Maybe it’s wiser not to try to remember but just to push ahead. All I have left of my diary is January.

  Sukey can’t realize, truly, what she has done.

  We’re all close to the boiling point. When Congress adjourned in the late spring and the population of Washington shrank accordingly, I think even the Sukeys of this town realized that we’re but a handful against the British. What are a few ink-blotted pages against that fear? And how curious that Sukey wanted to know if I blame her. Perhaps she feared I would point the finger at her in some fashion and the newspapers would write about her. I don’t know.

  This war has caused a fatal looseness of social restraints in people regardless of their station. It’s not just Sukey. Anna and I have been arguing more frequently than either of us could have imagined—about the fact that I borrow money, repay her, and then borrow again. About a change in the weather! We’re like two banty roosters. Jemmy has lost weight. How he keeps his temper I don’t know because he is the Federalists’ whipping boy. The other night at my levee a very haughty lady, for whom I will do a great service by not mentioning her name, said to me in regard to my husband, “He must be thinking of the presidency.” She implied that he was thinking only of his own reputation.

  I replied, “I assure you, madam, he is not. He is thinking of the country.” The idea that my husband would be so petty as to worry about how people, how posterity, will regard his presidency!

  John Randolph, writing that Washington is Gomorrah on the Potomac, says a British cleansing might not be so terrible. Now I know he’s insane. He is also reputed to have said, “It’s a pity they won’t march as far as Monticello.” Hate takes such effort, small wonder John Randolph is what he is.

  I’m trying to collect my thoughts and they’re still scattered. I feel as though I’ve been wounded. Those pages all over the floor—I felt a loss like physical pain. Vanity
, I suppose. Why should I think that my musings are of any importance? Sheer vanity.

  Yesterday a few summer squalls came through and cleared the air. Afterward the sky sparkled and Lisel Serurier and I hopped in her carriage for a drive along the river. It was such a pleasure to be in her company and to get away from here for a few moments. My only sadness was that my husband was chained to his desk. As we drove along, we found ourselves talking about the battles, the dead, the terrible toll of war. Thank God the Seruriers remain here, even though Louis XVIII is back on the throne. No orders have arrived to clarify their status.

  I told Lisel that even with the British drawing ever closer, I am not personally afraid. I asked her what she thought of that because I don’t regard myself as especially courageous.

  She replied, “Since the French Revolution we have all become habitués of terror.”

  I have turned this over in my mind and I think there’s a great truth in what she said. One becomes accustomed to the killing.

  I remember even after the Reign of Terror in France, Jemmy remained distraught. Publicly, of course, he had to support France’s overthrow of the monarchy, but no one imagined the horror that would follow. Once, when we were first married, we were talking about that terrible time and he turned to me—I will never forget the anguish etched on his face—and he said, “The guillotine casts a shadow even at night.”

  I think adding up the numbers of the dead, whether they rode in the tumbrels or fell screaming in Lundy’s Lane, is somehow obscene, somehow a great sin. Those weren’t numbers that died. Those were men and women. They had names. They had lovers. They had mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, daughters and sons. They had homes, dogs, cherished gardens, and well-tended fields. Those weren’t numbers that died. Oh, how we gloss over the evil of our deeds by removing the faces of our victims. I ask myself, “Where is God?” I don’t know where God is but I know where man is. Man is behind the guns, firing away.

  Until the morrow, God willing.

  D.P.M.

  1 August 1814, Monday

  The crape myrtle is blooming today. I noticed as I drove through the city that white and deep cerise flowers splashed cheer everywhere. It was such a mild day that I was tempted to walk over to Anna’s, but we are currently so unpopular that Jemmy requested I ride with Paul and French John. “Surely you don’t think I will be shot?” I jested. Well, Jemmy’s face turned white. I got in the phaeton. No more jests.

  Anna, quite huge, should deliver next month. How she can care for a sixth child I don’t know. Even little Dolley is a handful at three. Her birthday was July 13 and she’s already looking forward to the next one. I asked Anna what name she and Richard had chosen for the baby. If a boy, Temple, she said, which brought tears to my eyes, and if a girl, Mary, for our dear sister. That brought more tears.

  Poor Mary, not even thirty when she died. She and John Jackson so enjoyed each other and their home in Clarksburg. When she began to fail, she asked John to bring her over the mountains to Anna and me. Because the racking cough was so severe, she could no longer sit upright; John bought a buckboard, hoping that she could lie down for the journey. Before he could carry her to us, he was clubbed nearly to death outside the courthouse by henchmen of the criminals he was prosecuting. As he recovered, Mary and all their children except one died. He wrote me the most heart-wrenching letters, and I replied as best I could, for my grief, too, ran deep. I’m becoming a heretic. I see no reason why people must be made to suffer so.

  I think Anna and I talked about Mary and both Temples so we wouldn’t talk about what’s in front of our faces. The congressmen left a long time ago. They had an excuse, of course—Congress adjourned. The residents of the city have made more than one reference to rats fleeing a sinking ship. We have only five hundred men in Washington’s ragtag militia and, I think, three rickety gunboats. Joshua Barney has gunboats out on the Chesapeake and the rivers feeding into the bay, but he’s too far away to sail up the Potomac. James Blake, everywhere at once, rallies those citizens remaining. I always liked the mayor, but now I much admire him.

  He dropped by the other day as I was feeding Uncle Willy, who brings crowds in the warm weather. The children gather at the window to see Uncle Willy flap his wings and screech. He’s without shame. The larger the crowd, the worse his antics. The French he sputters is obscene. My French is poor at best, and, of course, the varmint never speaks French when Lisel Serurier is here. Then he jabbers in English. French John assures me that Uncle Willy is well mannered. I seriously doubt this. His attacks on King George are now accompanied by much verbal abuse. He screams, “Fatty, fatty, fatty cat.” His best word, and French John’s favorite, is “British,” followed by a terrible sound I don’t think I will describe. Trying and difficult as times are, it even makes Jemmy split his sides, and I never know when the crazy bird is going to say it.

  Where was I? Oh yes. Well, James Blake dropped by to tell me that he’s heard the Alexandria bankers are taking their money out of town. They’re rowing it down the Potomac. To where, I asked, and he said he didn’t know, but that there was an ugly rumor they would give it to the British if the enemy got that far upriver. We both agreed the story seemed far-fetched.

  Far-fetched. Some New England governors, aided by New England congressmen, are planning a meeting to question the war. Is that far-fetched or traitorous? They think Jemmy doesn’t know about it. He does, and he told me there is nothing he can or would do. Any state or group of states can meet whenever they please. Jemmy must be correct about the ability of the states to convene, but to do so in order to question a war in progress? I wonder, where does one draw the line?

  Sukey is moping. She appears chastened after yesterday’s uproar. I keep remembering things I wrote about in my diary. My birthday, May 20, was truly a wonderful day. Jemmy had a new saddle made for me and it’s beautiful. My nieces and nephews made me little presents and sang to me. My son did not forget my birthday. He wrote me a wonderful letter of his accomplishments in Russia, and now he’s in Ghent with Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams. Here I am edging closer to fifty and my son has his whole life before him—yet I wouldn’t take back the time. My years are my true wealth.

  Anna embroidered a pillowcase for me. She has such a fine hand. I don’t.

  What a wonderful day my birthday was, and I wrote page after page in my diary.

  I can’t think about losing that diary to Sukey’s spitefulness. I’ll become angry all over again.

  Thinking of Sukey makes me think of André Daschkov. He has been helpful of late. He even offered to seek out Cockburn and treat with him. Naturally, Jemmy and the Cabinet declined.

  Mother Madison reports that the new team of horses is working well; the truth is, I don’t even miss my necklace.

  Mother Madison also says she has heard John Randolph is having money woes. Aren’t we all?

  Armstrong still asserts that the British are simply doing what they did last year, marauding. No one believes him but himself.

  Mother Amy used to say that trouble came in threes, as did good things. Since not one awful thing has yet happened to me or to this city, I am waiting. I feel trouble coming, just as one can smell the turn in the air before a thunderstorm even though there’s not a cloud in the sky. Somehow waiting is worse than knowing.

  I did manage to read Lord Byron’s Bride of Abydos. How I don’t know. Lord Byron is fortunate that he does not depend on me for his literary reputation.

  Until the morrow, God willing.

  D.P.M.

  2 August 1814, Tuesday

  The one good thing about this summer is that the crater in front of the house has been filled. But now it’s a giant dust mushroom. If one doesn’t know it exists, one falls into it, sending the dust billowing upward. If the Romans could build roads that lasted for nearly two thousand years, I don’t see why we can’t do the same, or at least get rid of the potholes.

  The Secretary of the Navy and the Secretary of War bellowed at each
other at the tops of their lungs today. I heard them clear at the other end of the house. When the meeting was over, Jemmy said to me, “If only they evidenced as much hostility toward England.”

  What started the row was William Jones’s report that he was making preparations to burn down the Navy Yard should the British march on Washington. To allow such a store of munitions and supplies to fall into enemy hands would be as bad as the capture of the city itself.

  John Armstrong jumped to his feet and shouted that even considering burning the Navy Yard was absurd. He stated that the British target was Baltimore, is Baltimore, and always will be Baltimore.

  Jones replied, “Then why haven’t they taken Baltimore?”

  Armstrong said, “Because they haven’t had the men. They want to make sure they have superiority in numbers.”

  Jemmy said calmly, “They will shortly.”

  Both belligerents were silent then. Jemmy did not elaborate and Armstrong was foolish enough to ask, “How do you know?”

  James Monroe stepped in and chastised him. “The President’s word should be quite enough.”

  Is Armstrong so stupid that he doesn’t realize Jemmy is privy to information to which he is not? The utter arrogance of the man! To make it worse, he is a College of New Jersey man. Oh, how this upsets my husband.

  Monroe attended William and Mary, of course. Jemmy declined to go to this college; he thought the College of New Jersey would offer another view, an opportunity to experience another region. Much as he loves Virginia, one can have too much of it, or of one’s mother. The College of New Jersey was a good choice for Jemmy.

  Poor Elbridge Gerry sat through this uproar, gasping for breath. Jemmy has pleaded with him to return home for the summer because Washington’s climate can only exaggerate his discomfort.

  Elizabeth and Maria Monroe were with me when the commotion occurred. We adjourned to the back gardens, and still the ruckus could be heard. Elizabeth’s only comment was, “Your roses appear a haven for beetles.” Indeed.