Dolley

by Rita Mae Brown

  “Oh, Jemmy, I love you. I learned to love you. You were a rather quiet and reserved man. I had to get to know you.”

  “Quiet. Yes. I was … nervous.”

  “Now, I don’t believe that.” She pushed his arm. “You were such an important man. Everyone in the nation knew who you were, and I was an impoverished widow with a son.”

  “A beautiful widow besieged by many men. When I used to wonder how I would compare with John Todd, I knew I would be found lacking.”

  “This may sound strange to you, but I never compared you with John. I didn’t want to marry John. I told my mother and Mother Amy I would never marry.”

  “You did?”

  “I couldn’t imagine being married, but John did have good prospects and Mother was so burdened. I helped with the boarders and the other children and my father.” She paused. She rarely spoke of her father at the end of his life. “But she needed more. I knew that John would honor me and honor her, too. And so I married him. He was good to me and good to my whole family.”

  “You did love him?”

  “Yes, but Jemmy, I was so young, so young compared with now. I can’t compare you with John; I can only compare me, now, with my younger self. I love you in a way I have never loved another human being. I love your white beard.” She brushed his stubble and kept her hand there. “I love your sense of humor.”

  “People outside the family don’t think I have one.”

  “Well, you are—reserved with acquaintances, but no man loves his country more, and no man has loved me more. I love you for everything you have given me, not just things, not just the jewelry and the horses, but our talks. You were my teacher.”

  “You were mine.” He smiled.

  “What did I know when we married?”

  “You knew how to love and you knew how to make people feel loved. I used to watch you when you would meet a new person. Within minutes that person was your best friend. I think all eight million Americans are your best friends—even John Randolph.” He held up his hand. “You know, if he walked into this room, you’d be chatting with him like a blue jay. He’d forget to be hateful. Oh, how I envy you that, and how I adore being the recipient of that warmth.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. You taught me how to love. I’ll always have a hard time showing it, I fear, but I feel it, Dolley. I do feel it, and I try to let you and those I love know. Often I let you do it for me—talk to people, I mean.”

  “Well, I often let you think for me. Too often, I’m afraid. I add to your burdens.”

  “You have never been a burden to me in all the years we’ve been married.”

  “I must sometimes have been an irritation.” She smiled. “I wish I could do better with money.”

  He kissed her forehead. “I wish I could do better, too. You know, I would give up my five thousand acres in Orange County, my holdings everywhere, even my library, if we could be young together and live to be old together. I saw men die today, Dolley, young men, brave men—on both sides. In an instant. I don’t care about the money or the land. I care about you. I care about life.”

  “You’re going to live to be a hundred.”

  “My mother certainly is.” He smiled again, then became intent. “I will never be the same man again.”

  “I hope that you are.”

  “I mean that I will never take anything for granted, not even the next breath, and I will never, ever hold another human life in light regard. I know now, if I never knew it before, that life is a gift from God, and to despise that gift, to take that gift from another man, woman, or child is a blasphemy so terrible that God has every right to turn His back on us.”

  They sat quietly together for a long time after that. The large clock in the hall struck eleven-thirty, then twelve, and James Madison, taking his Secretary of the Navy and a renewed sense of purpose with him, bade his beloved wife goodbye and rode into the battered night to search for his Army.

  25 August 1814, Thursday

  Praise God, my husband is safe! We have been playing tag for nearly two days, crisscrossing paths until tonight. He’s drawn but in better spirits than I expected. He so desperately needed sleep, but he was wound up like a top and couldn’t stop spinning. I’m afraid he will drive himself into a relapse of last summer’s illness. I know these times are desperate, but that summer I thought I would lose my mind with worry over him. Now my worries are of quite a different order.

  He talked constantly. I could not keep him quiet. His mind raced, he jumped from one subject to the next. He surprised me when he confessed that he compared himself with John Todd when he first courted me. I would never have dreamed that he would worry or wonder. To think that we’ve been married nineteen years—it will be twenty on September 15—and I didn’t know this about him. I wonder if one truly ever knows another person. I think I know my husband better than anyone alive and yet, who knows the secrets he keeps, what fancies and fears he shows no one?

  I usually say whatever pops into my head. Once married to Jemmy, I had to break that habit. Jemmy used to laugh at me when I would blurt something out, and chide me: “In politics, think before you speak, and if you intend to say what you really mean, then think twice.” That used to make me laugh because he is not a dissembler, although he does keep a great deal to himself.

  A tremendous storm ripped up trees, the sky was pitch-black with a greenish cast, and if it had poured any harder, I would have expected the animals to march two by two. I stopped at a house where I was driven out by the proprietress and other women who had fled Washington and the storm. They threw vegetables at us and Sukey threw one back at them.

  When we drove off in the carriage, apples were hurled at us, too. If I am the recipient of this hatred, what will happen to Jemmy? He’s riding around with the tattered remnants of his Cabinet and two dragoons. At this point I am more concerned with angry citizens than I am with the British.

  I don’t know if the British are crossing the Potomac. Jemmy said before he left that he believed they were still in the city and regrouping after the battle.

  He told me to stay here until he sends word. He left at midnight. I don’t know how he can cross the river because the bridges have been destroyed, and after that torrent the waters must be flooding. I’d rather go with him than stay. He won’t even hear of it. He stops me before I can finish my sentence. I know I could be useful to him, but he refuses to expose me to danger. I don’t care about the danger. I care about him. Jemmy can be a very obstinate man in his way. So here I sit.

  William Jones departed with Jemmy, so Eleanor and I are left with Sukey and the children. Eleanor has been so solicitous of her children that I don’t think she has had time to realize all that has befallen us.

  Sukey has risen to the occasion and been much stronger than I could have believed. I do hope that French John and Paul are safe. And Uncle Willy. I’m sure that King George is safe because she’s too mean to be killed. And Lisel. I pray the British respect foreign legations.

  I am rattling on. I’m as bad as Jemmy and probably nearly as tired. I can’t slow down.

  I can smell another thunderstorm coming up, too. I do hope Jemmy finds shelter. Worrying about him won’t change anything, but I can’t help it.

  When I walked outside to kiss him goodbye, I noticed a bush near the mounting block. As he rode off into the darkness, the light from the inn spilled into the yard and I again noticed the bush. I could not take my eyes off a raindrop on a black thorn. It was so beautiful, a moment of perfection in the midst of human debacle.

  How curious what we remember.

  Until the morrow, God willing.

  D.P.M.

  At dawn James Madison crossed the turbulent waters at Conn’s Ferry. His destination was Montgomery Courthouse in Maryland, where he would link up with the Army. As he and his party rode along, he struggled to separate rumor from fact.

  The fact was that the British had burned Washington, although he heard private building
s had been spared. Frightened citizens said the enemy was marching on Frederick, yet no Redcoats had been seen in that direction.

  General Winder had reached Tenleytown, seven miles northwest of the Capitol, on the night the city was burned. That seemed like years ago to the President as he changed to yet another fresh horse. Thinking the British would push west from Washington, Winder had pulled back to Montgomery Courthouse, and that was Madison’s last report of his whereabouts.

  The United States Army of six thousand, shattered and demoralized, had never regrouped. Whatever Madison’s hopes were for reforging the Army, that hope was fading. Soldiers milled around. Some looked for their units. Others disappeared. The President heard that Colonel Beall had found only one hundred of his eight hundred Annapolis men, and Madison figured that was probably the rule of thumb.

  Even if the Army had managed to re-form, how would they be fed? Because Armstrong never believed Washington would be attacked, he had never attended to food, supplies, and shelter in the area.

  Madison didn’t know which of his Cabinet officers had made it to Frederick. He didn’t know where anyone was, other than the people riding with him. The government of the United States of America happened to be in the saddle.

  Richard Rush, faithfully riding with Madison since the trip to Bladensburg, suggested that the government might move to Philadelphia.

  “No,” Madison answered the Attorney General. “The government will reconvene in Washington as soon as possible. Tomorrow, I hope.”

  “What if all the public buildings are destroyed?” William Jones asked, shifting in his saddle. Unaccustomed to riding regularly, he was quite sore.

  “We’ll use private buildings.” Madison paused. “We’ll sit in the streets if need be. We aren’t abandoning Washington.”

  That was the end of it, and Rush and Jones decided that if the President could make do, then so could they.

  The sky was crystal clear after yesterday’s titanic storm. The sultry heat wave was broken and the air sparkled.

  At six in the evening Madison reached Montgomery Courthouse only to discover that General Winder had moved on. Picking up a troop of dragoons, the President forced himself into the twilight.

  By nine o’clock Madison realized he couldn’t catch Winder. He halted at a small Quaker community, Brookville.

  Overrun with soldiers and refugees, the town greeted the President with calm dignity. Mrs. Caleb Bentley took the President into her white clapboard house and allowed the soldiers to sleep outside around the house. Mrs. Bentley had served five unexpected suppers that night, so one more wasn’t a problem, nor was she cowed by the sight of the President at her table.

  When Madison apologized for the inconvenience, she replied, “It is against my principles to have anything to do with war, but I receive and relieve all who come to me.

  “You remind me of my departed mother-in-law”—Madison smiled—“a devoted Quaker.” And a formidable woman, he thought to himself.

  “I had heard that your esteemed wife was raised in a Friends household.” Mrs. Bentley stuck her hands in her apron. “I also heard that she has a beautiful complexion, her Grandmother Coles’s complexion, people say.”

  As Mrs. Bentley and Madison chatted, her family was spreading beds in the parlor, fetching kindling for campfires outside, finding more room in the stable for men and horses, and doing everything possible to see to the comfort of their guests.

  “Do you attend services, Mr. President?” Mrs. Bentley was curious.

  “I have attended your faith’s services. My mother took me to the Episcopal Church.”

  “I imagine you found the two quite different.”

  “Yes, but my wife had carefully prepared me. She herself feels the Inner Light strongly, and I think she wanted me to experience it also.”

  “And did you?” came the forthright question.

  “I’m afraid I did not. Mrs. Madison says I think too much and in order to feel the Light, one must open one’s heart. I do though, Mrs. Bentley, experience great peace and fulfillment in my wife’s presence, so perhaps her Light has reflected on me.”

  Mrs. Bentley smiled broadly. “I’m sure it has.” She paused. “You know, of course, that we are opposed to all killing, to all war.”

  “Yes.” Madison accepted a piece of sponge cake when Richard Rush passed the plate.

  “You have a good wife, indeed, Mr. Madison,” Mrs. Bentley said with conviction, leaving Madison to consider the full weight of her meaning.

  26 August 1814, Friday

  If government were a game of marbles, then you could say that the British shooter has knocked the American pieces every which way. Our government has scattered. Jemmy, Richard Rush, and William Jones are somewhere in Maryland. Where is Monroe? With Winder, I hope. Where is Armstrong? I won’t say where I hope he is.

  It’s important for people to know that the men they elected to lead them are doing just that. I know that Jemmy will do his utmost to collect everybody. Otherwise, all manner of internal mischief could occur. The rumors are—once more—that the slaves will revolt. I’m far more worried about looters than slaves.

  I’m returning to Washington tomorrow whether I hear from my husband or not. My place is in the capital and the moment I am assured the British have left it, I am going back.

  Sukey will stay in Virginia and guard what few possessions I have. She fussed and moaned, but she knows that I will send for her as soon as it’s safe for her to return. I think the girl needs a few days of relief. Her nerves are strained … and should she choose to use the confusion of war to flee, so be it. I know Jemmy won’t put out a warrant for her. I will pray for her and wish her well.

  I must find out if Anna and the children are all right. I’m sure they are, but I won’t rest until I know. And I won’t rest until I can repay those people who helped us during this terrible time, most especially the Seruriers and Matilda Lee Love.

  I just remembered that Paul left the table set at the house. I do hope he’s safe and sound, and French John, too, but I think French John can survive anything. I’m so accustomed to his presence that it’s disquieting to be without him.

  Changing into fresh clothes this morning felt more wonderful than I can describe. How we learn to be grateful for the little things. I took the dice out of the pocket of my other dress and rolled them. I don’t know why, but I just did, and I rolled seven! Everything will be fine.

  It doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not, rolling seven helped me through this day.

  I can’t concentrate on what I’m writing. Sometimes I feel as if I’m in a dream. I’ll be better tomorrow.

  Until the morrow, God willing.

  D.P.M.

  Dolley held on to the sides of Mr. Parrott’s carriage. The road, never good in the best of circumstances, was washed out in parts because of the violent storm. Potholes had become craters. Every tooth in her head rattled, but Dolley pressed on, determined.

  James Madison had sent a note to her at Wiley’s Tavern early in the morning, telling her to return to the capital: the British had retreated. Not wishing to draw attention to herself, she was fortunate enough to be able to hire a carriage from Mr. Parrott, a friend from Georgetown who happened, like many refugees, to be on the Virginia side of the Potomac. He was prudently remaining in Virginia for a while, but he was happy to rent his carriage.

  Joe Bolin stayed back at the tavern, but Edward Duvall, a Navy Yard clerk, accompanied her. A junior officer came along, too. Dolley missed Sukey already. Dolley was a good conversationalist, but under these conditions talking was hard work.

  As they jolted along, they occasionally met other people on the road. Surprisingly few were on their way back to the ruined city. Dolley assumed that by tomorrow they would know what she knew and there would be a traffic jam flowing back into Washington.

  The sun, high and hot overhead, caused the fields to shimmer. Each time they passed a new person, Dolley would lean out and ask questions.
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br />   What she heard was that the British had left Washington as they had entered it, by Maryland Avenue. They herded cows out of the city and were also laden with their ill-gotten gain.

  The revolting news was that the bodies of those fallen at Bladensburg remained unburied. The storm, with its torrential rains, had bleached the corpses, already stripped naked by looters, and then the sun had bloated them. It must have been a paradise for flies, vultures, and stray dogs. Dolley shuddered at the thought.

  Edward Duvall chattered on about his work, his feelings about John Armstrong, which were hostile, and his hopes for the future. He dreaded seeing the Navy Yard. They’d rebuild it somehow, though.

  Dolley listened indulgently. She had long ago learned that the more one listens, the more one learns, and there are few people who won’t take the opportunity to talk about themselves, given the chance. Edward Duvall, unexciting and a trifle fussy, was eager to get to work. He knew the task of rebuilding the Navy Yard would be gargantuan. He knew Congress and therefore realized that the task would be made even more difficult by their foolishness. A trickle of pennies would come his way, but he wanted to work. He liked William Jones. He liked the Navy men.

  As he rattled on, Dolley thought that it was men like Edward Duvall and thousands of men and women like him—unexceptional, able to see only their own corner of the world, hardworking—who would rebuild the country. Genius was rare and perhaps that was for the better. The Edward Duvalls of America made the country and proved that America worked.

  Unexceptional as he was, he earned a decent living, he enjoyed his work, and he played his part.

  She wondered if she had played her part. Could she have done more?