Dolley

by Rita Mae Brown

  Mother Amy’s husband died before I was born. She used to tell me that she loved him but that it was a relief when he was gone. He kept her busy as a cat’s hair. “Mens is juss big babies, that’s all they is. Juss mo’ work,” she’d say. Then she’d laugh. There are times when I’m inclined to agree with Mother Amy’s assessment, except in Jemmy’s case, of course.

  Lisel noticed how many ladies are absent now. We agreed that when there’s the right balance of men and women at a gathering, it’s the liveliest. Then we mourned the gentlemen who are the liveliest: Henry Clay, James Brown, Langdon Cheves—more Lisel’s choice than mine. Dr. William Thornton was here, but without the congressmen it’s slow. Dr. Thornton told me he believes we should create a phonetic alphabet. It would make English easier to teach and to learn. I suppose it would, but I’m so used to the old one.

  I made Lisel and even Elizabeth Monroe laugh when I told them the story of Senator Brown’s losing a beautiful lady to a rival when he was a young man. Distraught though he was, he didn’t lose his sense of humor. He had cards printed with a black border, Toujours en deuil, “Always in mourning,” which he sent out to her wedding guests after bribing a slave for the guest list. The beauty stamped her foot and shook her pretty head and Senator Brown was disinvited to the wedding. Every year on her wedding anniversary he sends her the same card. Secretly he confided in me how fortunate he was not to have married her. She’s fat as a tick now and a terrible nag, but he sends her the card anyway as a remembrance of youth and lost love. I doubt his wife is amused, but then again, I doubt that his wife knows about it.

  And who knows what she’s about? Those Louisiana people break all Ten Commandments with as much haste as possible. But oh, what delightful company they are!

  I caught Sukey rubbing her lips with raspberries. When she was out of range, I tried it. Produces quite a rosy glow.

  Until the morrow, God willing.

  D.P.M.

  King George lasciviously spied on the chickens reposing on the kitchen table, their plucked legs akimbo. The fragrance of blood enticed her. French John and Paul carried in corn, flour meal, and milky-white pattypan squash, as well as deep yellow crookneck. Mrs. Madison featured American foods at her table. Her husband’s only intrusion on this national celebration was French wine. James Madison’s refined taste brought him the respect of foreign ministers if not that of his own. But then, taste isn’t strength.

  Sukey swirled into the kitchen, her right hand in her large apron pocket. André had bestowed upon her a golden snuffbox with a bee carved on it. One of his numerous relatives sent it to him after the retreat from Moscow. The thousands on thousands of dead Frenchmen, sleepers in the deepest cold, bequeathed to the pursuing Russians many a precious bauble.

  Dolley, Uncle Willy on her shoulder, came in from the garden, her basket full of cuttings, mostly roses.

  “Sukey, put these in water, please. I’ll arrange them later.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Sukey chirped and then winked at Paul, who blushed deeply.

  “How far did you have to go to get provisions today?” Dolley asked French John.

  “The Georgetown market. Today there was an abundance.” He hesitated. “But the cost: came to seventy-five dollars.”

  “What?” Dolley exclaimed.

  Daily food supplies usually came to fifty dollars, far more than the bills under the frugal John Adams, who lacked the Southern sense of hospitality.

  “The chickens alone were a dollar twenty apiece.”

  Dolley slammed her basket on the table. “I think the farmers ought to move to Boston. They’d fit in nicely there, except the Boston bankers make them look like pikers when it comes to profiteering.”

  A knock at the front door captured French John’s attention. He composed himself and left to open the door. Within minutes he returned, his face strained, a letter in his hand.

  “Now what?” Irritation crept into Dolley’s usually soothing voice.

  French John handed over the letter. Dolley opened it and read it, her face flushing with color. The President was being dunned for not paying the saddler’s bill for her birthday present.

  “Enough is enough!” Dolley smacked her hand on the kitchen table. King George, who had edged closer to the chickens, thought it was meant for her. She leaped off the table, scurrying down the hall to the hoots of Uncle Willy, now as upset as his mistress.

  “Oh, hush this instant, Willy,” Dolley commanded.

  Willy screeched more. Never had his beloved Dolley scolded him.

  Sukey held the roses in her hand and barely breathed.

  “I’ll take him.” French John reached over and lifted Uncle Willy off Dolley’s shoulder.

  “I’m not fit to pour whiskey on a dog.” Dolley charged out of the kitchen toward her private rooms.

  Paul quietly slipped out the back door to haul in the sweet potatoes. The sight of his mistress so upset frightened him. He had never seen her this frustrated. No matter what happened, she kept her level head and cooled flaring tempers around her.

  He pushed open the door with his foot and placed the bushel basket on the floor.

  “These are difficult times for Mrs. Madison.” French John noticed the expression on Paul’s face.

  “What was in the letter?” Sukey’s curiosity raged, and she wished she could read better because she knew where Mr. Madison hid everything, including those old letters in Dolley’s hand, tied together with a faded cream ribbon. The President surely prized those pieces of paper. After the diary episode, however, she stayed far away from anyone’s desk.

  “Trash, that’s what was in that letter.”

  “They talking trash ’bout her again?” Paul’s anger illuminated his sweet face. “If I was a white man, I’d call them out for a duel. Pistols or sabers, never no mind to me. Why don’t the Master stand up for her? Why don’t he call out those men spreadin’ rumors about her?” Paul, taught by French John, was learning to listen in the marketplace, at the stable, wherever he found himself. In this way he would be more valuable to the Madisons. But Paul, often outraged at what he heard, still had to learn to betray no emotion when he listened to lies, filth, and scandal brewing.

  “The Master is dead set against dueling. He thinks it’s barbaric. Believe me, if Mr. Madison weren’t so damned principled about it, I’d have fought plenty of duels by now. What’s a few more scars?”

  “They accusing her of—” Sukey was interrupted. She was going to say, “More men.”

  French John’s teeth glittered. “Sneaking out of the house late at night doesn’t always go unnoticed, and political enemies don’t much care which female is sneaking out. All they have to say is that they saw a lovely female form hasten out the back way to a waiting carriage. Imagination takes care of the rest.”

  Paul stopped unloading the meal sacks and stared at Sukey. Sukey stared back.

  “What’s he saying?” Paul’s voice rose.

  “Nothing. He ain’t saying nothing. French John don’t like me no how, no way.”

  “You’re a lazy, deceitful, lying bitch.” French John’s voice sounded almost sleepy. “And if you think I don’t know you’re still crawling all over that Russian, then you don’t know much.”

  “Are you?” Paul’s hands shook. “You promised you weren’t. When you tore up Miz Dolley’s diary—afterward, you promised me!”

  “I do as I please.” Sukey’s reply was not calculated to make Paul feel better.

  “But you promised …”

  “So what? A promise to a man don’t mean no more than a goat barking. And a promise from a man ain’t worth the time it takes him to make it.” She turned from the heartsick boy to French John, whose eyes had narrowed in contempt.

  “The whole goddamned British Army is maybe a day’s march from here,” French John hissed. “It preys on her mind. The ratty militia skulking about the streets couldn’t defend themselves from a rabid dog, and poor James Blake, flying in and out of here like a sparrow, ask
ing for help—” He waved his hand as if to say it’s hopeless. “The last thing she needs to know right now is that you lied to her again, you lied to the President, and you’re still”—he lapsed into French and used a very vulgar word for intercourse—“André Daschkov. I figure six weeks was the most rest you gave his part before you were pulling on it again.”

  Paul burst into tears and ran out the back door.

  “Paul!” Sukey called after him.

  Uncle Willy had had his fill of human drama. He hopped off French John’s shoulder and walked out of the kitchen, peering intently around corners for sight of that awful King George.

  “You leave that boy alone.” French John got up in her face now. “He’s a good boy with a good heart. Don’t you go spoiling him. Ruining him for some good woman. Ruining him for himself.”

  “Men deserve what they get.”

  “So do women.” He smacked her. “You get in line, girl, do you hear me? Mrs. Madison is too softhearted to take the strap to you, but by God, I’m not. You’ve got a job to do and you get to it. This whole world does not revolve around you, Sukey. If you don’t straighten up, I will get Mr. Madison to sell you, and I mean every word.”

  “He’d never sell me!” She spit in his face.

  “Just you wait. You aren’t doing anything but making trouble. Don’t you know what they’re suffering? Don’t you have any feeling for them at all?”

  “He’ll never sell me.” Sukey crossed her arms over her alluring bosom. “And if the British win, they’ll set me free.”

  For good measure French John struck her again, harder. “Free you? To do what?” he bellowed. “To starve in the streets? You think they’ll take you back to England? They’ll play with you because you’re pretty and then cast you out. I know the British. You’d better wake up, girl, and figure out who your people are. They aren’t the British!” He then went outside to find a sobbing Paul.

  Sukey, with precise deliberation, put the chickens in the water to drain. That was really the cook’s job, but she had no desire to go back into the rooms and see Dolley.

  She hated French John’s spying on her or doing whatever he did to figure out her affairs.

  She fingered the gold snuffbox. It was worth it. She wanted money. She sometimes thought about buying her freedom. She knew she’d be expensive, but the Master would never sell her unless it was to herself. She was in the richest bloom of youth, accustomed to the company of powerful people, and her special skill was with ladies’ clothing. Her demeanor and training would fetch a handsome price. You couldn’t give away an old broken-down field hand. A mammy carried high value but not as much as she. Only a cook or a butler would bring more. She figured her market price to be between six and seven thousand, in hard cash and not the current devalued dollar.

  She liked knowing her worth.

  Buying her freedom, a fluttering daydream, wasn’t the real reason Sukey wanted jewelry and money. She wanted them because they were proof of her power over men, white or black.

  The Missus would never understand the icy thrill rushing to Sukey’s temples when she recalled one of her conquests, sweating, begging her to caress him. Sometimes when she’d take a man’s member in her mouth, he’d choke back tears of pleasure. For that, they’d do anything, give anything, and Sukey made sure she got what she wanted.

  The President had power. Mrs. Madison had a kind of power, too, but Sukey believed she herself wielded the ultimate power. Immediate power. Tangible power. She could feel it beneath her fingertips. She could brush a man’s nipples with her lips and make him burn. Raw sex was the greatest power of all.

  French John, his arm around the wretched Paul, walked with him behind the flower garden Dolley so lovingly planned and tended. He spoke of good women and bad women, of love and sex, of desire and dependence, of slavery and freedom. It had never occurred to the handsome boy that one could be slave to one’s own desires. Being born a slave, he thought that was the extent of it, and one learned to live with that. This was different, and more painful than a physical hurt.

  “This game’s not worth the candle, boy.”

  “But I love her.”

  “She’s no good, Paul. No good to herself, either. You be patient. There’s a woman out there who’ll be good for you. She’ll be worth the wait. I know I’d be half a man without my wife.” He hugged the boy closer to him, feeling the shoulder muscles, feeling the developing power in Paul’s young body.

  How different from James Madison’s small frame.

  He thought about the old man and Dolley, still bursting with energy at forty-six years. Two small figures in a swirling maelstrom, the British at their doorstep, Congress adjourned, no help from any quarter save God; and God cared not for the United States of America these last few years.

  He’d watched the citizens of Washington slip out of town in the middle of the night, hurrying across the river to Virginia and then to who knows where. He’d seen that before in Paris—the hunted, haunted look on people’s faces and the thin shine of cowardice on their brows.

  He knew, too, that Dolley was frightened more for her husband than for herself. She thought of James first. She thought of many people before herself. Hers was a giving nature. Yes, there was fear for herself—she wouldn’t be human if there wasn’t—but she resolutely kept going, keeping to routine, seeing people and being seen. Her cheerfulness blessed others with a bit of light piercing through the dark cloud cast by the British approach.

  Stilt, the months of strain, the not knowing, the struggle to find a way and discovering every path blocked—all had taken their toll. Her flash of temper today, so small compared with what was arrayed against her, would seem terrible to Mrs. Madison. She expected a great deal of herself and punished herself mercilessly if she failed her expectations.

  French John sighed. The Quaker upbringing. Underneath the turbans, the clothing, and the gaiety, that stringent, austere voice sounded in Mrs. Madison’s head. He wished she had been raised a Roman Catholic. She wouldn’t be so hard on herself. She wouldn’t be troubled by the war in quite the same way, for her upbringing had taught her that it was wrong to kill, no matter what the situation. French John knew Dolley, knew and respected her in a way both tender and admiring. What did it do to her, to support the killing? What silent betrayal of faith gnawed at her? The ghosts of her mother and father must be hovering close by. He worried about her and for her.

  Men kill and are killed. Thus it will always be. To beat oneself for the reality of human nature, to believe that one can improve it, seemed a cruel delusion to French John. Far better to accept the human animal and to accept oneself. Human beings hadn’t changed since the Greeks fought beneath the walls of Troy. Who knows what they did before that, but he was quite sure there was killing and more killing. Human beings weren’t going to change now, and no matter how much Mrs. Madison prayed and worked, the blood would flow.

  He prayed hers wouldn’t flow with it. And that bill. Mr. Madison’s creditors were turning on him now. They figured he was lost and they wanted their money. French John spat on the ground. Vultures with dollar signs on their wings. He’d seen them in France, too, first picking over the bones of dead aristocrats and then over each other.

  Paul wiped his eyes as French John released him.

  “Everything will be all right. You’ll see.” French John said it, but he didn’t believe it.

  11 August 1814, Thursday

  The creditors are hounding us. I have no intention of showing my husband the insulting letter from the saddle maker. And Sukey is up to no good. Armstrong flies between incompetence and insolence. Elbridge Gerry is failing in health and, I fear, so is little Dickey. Anna is overburdened and looks pale to me although her spirits are fine. Jemmy is losing weight and sleep. My son doesn’t write. If it weren’t for Henry Clay, I wouldn’t know that Payne is still alive. The weather is oppressive. So are the British.

  At this late hour, with only the sound of the crickets and the peepers, I ima
gine I can hear them breathing—thousands of British lungs inhaling our freedom, exhaling death. They sit miles away like a great beast, sides rising and falling, waiting and watching before it strikes. Where?

  Here. I know in my heart that they are coming here.

  I don’t know what else I can do for my husband, my country, or even myself. My world is crumbling around my ears. If I were a man, even an old man, I’d join the Army. But I’m not a man, so I watch.

  I have a splitting headache; the left side of my head is throbbing. I so rarely feel sick that I note it here.

  My true sickness is in my heart. I can’t stop an army. I can’t stop the New England Federalists from plotting against their own country. We’ve heard the rumors of the secret convention they’re planning. Given their disposition to contentiousness, it will take them all summer to determine a date and a place.

  I can’t stop John Armstrong in his headlong rush to ignominy.

  I can’t even stop my own husband from punishing himself by working until he drops. This war will kill him.

  I don’t know how I arrived at this moment in my life. Did I purposefully reach this point or was I carried along by the current? I’m not sure it matters.

  I’ve ransacked my past to find an answer. I’ve reviewed my childhood, my mother and father, my sisters and brothers, Mother Amy, the Revolutionary War. There are no answers because, simply, I was a child. Whatever agony the War of Independence caused my mother and father, I perceived it as a child.

  Well, I have put away childish things. I have no power, nor am I responsible for these current horrors. I am still responsible for myself and my family. I can only pray that I will acquit myself with honor. I still can’t find the path between my own beliefs about war and peace. However much I long to hold to the faith of childhood, I do not see how it can possibly work in this world.