The Lost Constitution

by William Martin

  And what English town could surpass St. Albans? George glimpsed it from a distance as the train rounded a bend, and he decided that if the Lord had planned a New England village, he would have put it there, on that gentle slope a few miles up from the lake. He would have made it a place with neat businesses and solid banks and churches of the several Christian denominations. And he would have arrayed it all around a village green where elm leaves fluttered like hammered gold in October.

  But the Lord in his wisdom had not reckoned with the works of man, which sometimes resembled the efforts of the more infernal spirits. That was George’s thought as the train pulled into the St. Albans depot. Since the war, this had become an important railhead: acres of iron and brick carved out of the farmland, sidings lined with freight cars, a giant brick engine house, all of it blanketed in the smoke and steaming breath of locomotives being turned or sidetracked or sent on their way.

  George rearranged the contents of his leather satchel—a clean shirt, a nightshirt, a crimson cravat, toothbrush and powder, razor—so that they would conceal his Navy Colt revolver. Then he put on his long canvas duster and slung the satchel over his shoulder.

  Six others got off the train: a pair of farmers; two young men, one carrying a side valise, the other a leather satchel like George’s; and two women—a mother and daughter perhaps, each carrying stacks of hatboxes bound together with twine.

  The young men glanced at George’s limp, then at his satchel.

  On the platform, another young man sat on a bench, reading a paper. He studied George’s satchel, then gave nod.

  George nodded, thinking it a friendly town, then he approached the two women. They wore shawls, dresses without hoops (train travel in a hoop skirt was near impossible), and stylish hats.

  Yes, mother and daughter: the same bone structure, the same coloring, the same direct gaze, and—further proof—the mother frowned at the young man who might be no more than a common masher, while the daughter gave him a smile, as if to say that life in St. Albans could use a handsome stranger to enliven it.

  George tipped his hat. “Might you ladies direct me to the American Hotel?”

  “Up Lake Street.” The mother gestured toward a street sign, hatboxes swinging.

  “And would you allow me to carry a bit of your load?” he asked.

  “We can handle it,” said the mother.

  “Mine are heavy, Mummy.” The girl offered George the boxes in her right hand.

  After a moment, the mother relented and handed one of her stacks to George as well, so that he now had hatboxes in both hands and his satchel over his shoulder.

  He introduced himself: Joshua Burns of Bangor, Maine. They were the Widow Mills and daughter Annie.

  The mother said, “You didn’t get that limp from walkin’ with a stone in your shoe. What regiment?”

  “Twentieth Maine.”

  “Fredericksburg. Gettysburg. Now in the trenches of Petersburg,” said Annie.

  “You know a lot about them,” said George.

  “Her brother is Tenth Vermont.”

  In the short walk from depot to hotel, George learned that they ran a millinery shop and had just returned from a buying trip to Burlington, so they would have a selection of hats for the country ladies who came on market day. More important, they not only knew Dawson Caldwell, the Widow Mills was his first cousin, which made her a granddaughter of Caldwell P. Caldwell. These were small towns, after all.

  “Are you a friend of Dawson’s?” asked the Widow Mills.

  George explained that he was a timber man, looking to buy land in Vermont.

  “Dawson’s the man to meet,” she said as they came up to the town green.

  Farm families had arrived from every direction with dairy, poultry, the autumn squashes, the last of the tomatoes. They had set up their stalls beneath the elms on the green, while the stores all around—apothecary, dry goods, hardware—bustled with business.

  Widow Mills pointed out the American Hotel—four solid stories of brick, a corniced roof, railed balconies overlooking the green. But George insisted that he carry the hats all the way to their shop. He wanted to appear the gentleman, and the widow’s tone expressed a degree of animosity toward her cousin that he wanted to explore.

  Annie’s Millinery was in the block between Bank Street and Congress, in a row of two-and-a-half story buildings with plate-glass windows for first-floor shops, living space above, and triangular gabled fronts that gave even the simplest of them a bit of the grandeur of the Greek Revival, the architectural style that had spread across New England a few decades before, proclaiming every home and every small emporium a temple to the rewards of Democracy.

  These Vermonters knew how to build a town, he thought. Two blocks from that seething railyard, all seemed orderly, friendly, and quietly prosperous.

  The shop smelled of lavender. There were hats displayed on wooden stands, gloves and purses and other gewgaws in the cases, a ledger open on the countertop.

  The Widow Mills thanked George. “We’ll put the hats in the window. Once the ladies are done marketing, they’ll come by, just for a look. We’ll be sold out by dark.”

  “A pleasure to meet you both.” George tipped his hat once more. “And it would be a great honor, Mrs. Mills, if I might call upon your daughter.”

  “I thought you were here for business,” said the mother.

  “I am, but—”

  “Call tomorrow,” said Annie.

  Again the Widow Mills relented. “We’ve seen our share of young men comin’ through town lately. Travelers, hunters, Bible students. You’re the first who’s gentleman enough to ask permission to visit. Two o’clock.”

  George turned to leave, then asked, “Where does Mr. Caldwell keep his office?”

  “Right there.” The mother pointed across the street. There was a shingle on another little building: CALDWELL BROTHERS, LAND BROKERS.

  “With the McClellan for President poster in the window?” said George.

  “My cousin is a Democrat. A Copperhead, if you ask me, goin’ back and forth to Canada all the time. Who knows what he does up there?” The widow grew more open as she talked, while the daughter, who had seemed so bright at first, furrowed her brow and shifted her eyes, as if the conversation was going too fast for her.

  Finally Annie chimed in, “I think Uncle Dawson takes art lessons in Canada.”

  “Darlin’,” said her mother, “he couldn’t draw a mustache on Lincoln’s picture.”

  The girl fixed an exaggerated frown on her face. “I heard him tell Uncle Porter that he went to Canada because of Clay. Clay is what you sculpt things from. It’s art.”

  George was beginning to sense that for all her beauty, Annie was a bit backward.

  “I think Clay is a man, dear, a man in Canada,” said the mother.

  Clay. George would remember the name.

  Widow Mills turned back to George, “My cousin would see Lincoln lose, so that the war will end and we can get back to ‘business as usual.’ “

  “Then his opposition is not principled?” asked George.

  “Principled?” The widow gave a hoot.

  “The rebels claim they fight for the principle of State’s Rights,” said George, “which they say is derived from the Constitution.”

  “My cousin’s only principle is the one that appreciates, compounded annually. He wants to end the war so soldiers will come home and start buying land again.”

  “A man like that can’t love the Constitution too well.” George kept tossing out the word, fishing waters he did not know. He caught no reaction, so he said, “I think I’ll go over and introduce myself.”

  “Don’t forget to come tomorrow,” said Annie. “Two o’clock.”

  IN THE LAND broker’s office, there were file cabinets, a woodstove, a stand-up desk. A skinny man hunched over the desk, writing in a ledger. Ink stained his fingers and the side of his hand, but sleeve protectors covered his arms. He barely glanced up. “Hel
p you?”

  “I’m looking for Mr. Dawson Caldwell. Are you he?”

  “No, I am not he,” said the man. “He will not be here until this evening. You’re early. You aren’t expected until dinner.”

  “Dinner?” George realized he had been mistaken for someone else. But he decided to play along.

  The man wrote down an address and gave it to George. “What’s your name? They never told us your name.”

  “My name is Joshua Burns.” The man wrote that down. George thanked him and turned to leave. “Just one thing,” said the man. “They said that you’d limp. Is the limp real?”

  “It’s real.”

  THE LOBBY OF the American Hotel: a clerk snoozing behind a counter, French doors leading to the dining room, burgundy carpet wearing in the places where people walked but still bright under the furniture, chairs and sofa circling a woodstove.

  Four older women sat around the stove and discussed Scripture with a young man. A minister, thought George, and a handsome one at that, with a strong jaw and a face so smooth-shaven he looked like a boy. No wonder the ladies were enraptured.

  The minister glanced at George’s limp, then at George’s satchel, then he held George’s gaze, and held it, and held it a bit more, while one of the ladies was saying, “Isn’t that right, Mr. Young? Don’t you think this war is a fulfillment of the Book of Revelations?”

  Finally the minister turned back to the ladies. “Yes. Indeed. Absolutely.”

  Serious young men seemed to abound in St. Albans, thought George, and none of them had learned from their mothers that it was impolite to stare.

  IN HIS ROOM, George stripped off his shirt, looked into the glass above the basin, and wondered what he had stumbled into. He could run now, or he could take another step and have dinner with Dawson Caldwell. And if a question arose that he could not answer, he would simply fall back on his story, which was half-truth anyway: He was a timber man come to do business.

  He stayed in his room the rest of the afternoon. He did not wish for another lingering gaze from another young man, because he plainly did not know what the gazes meant. So he paced for a while, and watched out the window for a while. Then he picked up the Burlington newspaper. And he read this:

  CONFEDERATE COMMISSIONER HOPES FOR RECOGNITION (reprinted from the Montreal Star)

  Mr. C. C. Clay, Confederate Commissioner in Canada, spoke yesterday regarding the impending American election. “It is my sincere hope that if McClellan wins the presidency, Britain will forthwith recognize the Confederate States of America as a sovereign nation. This can only accelerate the process of ending this war and bringing an amicable peace between two great nations that began as one.”

  Clay. Mr. Clay. If the widow and her daughter were correct, Dawson Caldwell had recently been in contact with the Confederacy’s spokesman north of the border, which had become a haven for blockade runners, escaped prisoners, and infiltrators.

  Did Dawson Caldwell hold the same beliefs as Clay? Did he hold the Constitution? Or had he already passed it to Clay?

  And did George have it in him to pull off a masquerade, when he did not even know who he was supposed to be?

  But he had come too far to turn back. And he carried a letter from Cordelia. It urged him to bring the Constitution to Brunswick, almost as proof that he could do something extraordinary. And there were others in Brunswick who had doubted him, too, others who should see what he could accomplish. And then there were the hypocrites in Millbridge….

  So he loaded his Navy Colt and lay down for a nap, with lines from Tennyson singing him to sleep: “All-armed I ride, whate’er betide/Until I find the Holy Grail.”

  THAT EVENING, AT the appointed hour, he followed Bank Street up from the town green into a neighborhood of big houses, enormous elms, and picket fences. The smell of wood smoke and the crunch of fallen leaves reminded him of happier days.

  But up ahead, he noticed the two young men from the train, lurking in the shadows near a spruce hedge. They seemed to be peering from the street into a barn behind one of the houses.

  Then he heard the voice of the Widow Mills from her porch. “Is there something I can do for you gentlemen?”

  “No, ma’am,” said one of them. “Just wonderin’ if you might have horses to rent.”

  “No, I don’t,” answered the Widow Mills. “So quit sneakin’ around.”

  “Very sorry, ma’am. But we ain’t sneakin’. Jest lookin’. Enjoy the evenin’.”

  The men went on their way, giving George a glance and a smile as they passed.

  George watched them go on down the street; then he called, “Evening, Mrs. Mills. It’s Joshua Burns. Would you know which house is Caldwell’s?”

  “Third up on the other side,” said the widow from behind her screen door.

  “And come for dinner tomorrow,” called Annie from behind her mother.

  DAWSON CALDWELL ANSWERED his front door himself. He was burly and tall, like the Big Jack branch of the family, and his bushy beard had a single streak of gray running down from the corner of his mouth.

  He led George into the front parlor, a room with stuffed chairs, heavy drapes, a red-and-blue Turkey carpet, and a portrait of a burly ancestor on the wall.

  “That’s the patriarch,” said Dawson. “Caldwell P. Caldwell himself. And you’ve met my brother, Porter.”

  Porter was the scrawny man from the land office. Without a word, he poured three tumblers of whiskey, handed them out, and they got directly to business.

  Dawson said, “So, did you bring the money?”

  “The money?” said George.

  “Clay said to watch the trains. A man would bring the money, a limpin’ man.”

  So, thought George, the wound that had done so much damage to his public character might at last be working to his benefit.

  Dawson repeated, “So, did you bring the money?”

  George sipped the whiskey and made a show of admiring the glass, while he looked for a way to draw the Caldwells along without revealing himself.

  “Good Canadian rye,” said Dawson.

  “Smooth,” said George, “like Champlain in August.”

  “A poet,” said Porter, “in addition to a rebel.”

  George said, “Back to the money. Is the merchandise here?”

  “It’s in the Franklin County Bank,” said Caldwell. “In the safe.”

  “Why sell it?” asked George.

  “Because we’re good Americans.” Dawson Caldwell refilled his glass. “The war’s been good to our pocketbooks. We’ve made good money on freight. But it’s time for peace. Time for Lincoln to lose.”

  “Can you help defeat him?” asked George.

  “That’s for others to decide. I’ve read the draft, and there don’t seem to be much that’s different from the draft they ratified.”

  Draft. Ratified. George swallowed more whiskey, hoping that it would calm him and sharpen his wits at the same time. “How will this defeat Lincoln?”

  “It shows that there was never certainty about things Lincoln claims to be certain about,” said

  Dawson. “There was never a clause sayin’ that the South can’t leave. And the writing on the draft shows how hard the Founders were arguin’ over everything … even the Bill of Rights.”

  He had found it. There could be no doubt. Now he had to get it. He said, “Before I pay, I need to see its condition.”

  “Condition?” said Dawson. “You ain’t buyin’ a collector’s item. You’re buyin’ a political tool, somethin’ to publish in the New York Tribune to sway the election.”

  “Clay said I should read it before buying it.”

  Dawson looked at his brother. “They’re negotiatin’. These rebel bastards are—”

  George said, “So send a telegram to Clay. Tell him you can’t hand it over.”

  “Mr. Burns, if folks in St. Albans found me communicatin’ with the head Confederate in Canada, they’d string me up. Why do you think we’ve been so secreti
ve?”

  “Then I can’t help you,” said George.

  After a moment’s thought, Caldwell downed his whiskey, “All right. Tomorrow. Three o’clock, when the bank closes. Bring the five thousand dollars.”

  “Just one question,” said George. “Will you accept Confederate money?”

  “I’m a Copperhead,” said Dawson Caldwell. “Not a fool.”

  GEORGE BEGGED ILLNESS so that he would not have to stay for dinner. This was not easy, because somewhere in the house someone was cooking beef stew, and the smell had set his stomach to rumbling.

  But the more he talked to the Caldwells, the more likely George Amory was to reveal himself.

  So he was glad to get out into the October chill and start walking, until he was startled by a shadow emerging from behind a tree.

  “Mr. Burns. It’s me. Annie.” Her eyes reflected the glow of the streetlamp. “I was waitin’ for you … to warn you. Those two ain’t to be trusted. That’s what Mummy says.”

  “Thank you.” George gave her a smile.

  And she kissed him.

  It happened so quickly that before he could pull back or wrap his arms around her, she stepped away and wiped the back of her hand across her mouth. “Mummy says I’m slow. She says men will do bad things to a slow girl. But I can add my figures and do my letters. I ain’t slow.”

  “No. Not at all.” George looked around. If someone found him here with the girl, nothing good would follow.

  “Mummy says that I’m slow on account of her granddad. He had two names the same, because his ma and pa was first cousins.”

  “I don’t know about that,” said George. “Seems like a long time ago.”

  From her house came the sound of her mother’s voice, calling.

  “I better go. But I ain’t slow. And my Mummy don’t trust those men. So sometimes, I go under their window and listen to their talk. That’s how I heard of Clay.”

  The October chill turned cold against his flanks. “You weren’t listening now?”