Bon Marche

by Chet Hagan

  Andrew paused briefly. “Of course, perhaps you’ll see such an opportunity differently than did I. I call this to your attention only to make you aware of it. It will make no difference to me, one way or another, how you choose to handle it.”

  Charles nodded. He saw no reason to comment. But he was intrigued by what the tutor had just told him.

  “Finally, a third warning, if I may,” MacCallum went on. “The institution of slavery is deeply ingrained here. As a northerner—I was brought to New Jersey from Scotland at an early age and raised there—that institution remains foreign to me. It would be wise for a newcomer such as yourself not to intrude into the matter of the treatment of the slaves—not intrude in any manner! Such intrusion, believe me, will be resented. With vehemence. If slavery offends you, keep your own counsel. Nothing will bring you more trouble, perhaps not even the dalliance with a daughter, than expressing your disapproval of slavery. It’s a fact of life here. Accept it in silence.”

  “I appreciate your … uh…”

  “Candor is the word you seek, Charles.”

  The young Frenchman laughed. “Thank you. I can see that I’m going to learn much from this association.”

  “And perhaps I’ll learn to contend with French pronunciation,” MacCallum countered. “If we had a bottle of wine here now, I’d propose a toast.” He pantomimed pouring the wine, and lifting the glass high. “To a happy collaboration!”

  “To a happy collaboration!” Charles repeated, duplicating the mime.

  IV

  DEWEY’S first few days as a French tutor went well enough, under the firm direction of Andrew MacCallum. Since Charles knew only conversational French and had no grounding in grammar, Andrew had him give the girls a list of often-used words at first. Correct spellings were gleaned from the appendix of a very old and very large British dictionary in MacCallum’s possession.

  Katherine and Martha wrote the words in their copybooks. It wasn’t “lessons,” really—it seemed like great fun.

  And rudimentary. Tête, head. Oeil, eye, and the plural, yeux. Bouche, mouth. Menton, chin. Goulot, neck, and the feminine, encolure. Corps, body. Poitrine, breast. Charles noticed that Martha actually blushed when he included the word. Bras, arm. Jambe, leg. Pied, foot.

  They counted: Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf, dix.

  Into the copybooks went the common greetings and social niceties: Bonjour, bonsoir, au revoir, enchanté, merci, s’il vous plaît.

  At the end of the second day, Katherine interrupted the rote lessons. “Monsieur Dewey, you haven’t mentioned the most important word of all.”

  “And that would be?”

  “Love!”

  “Ah, mademoiselle,” Charles answered playfully, “that would be amour.”

  “You’ll note,” MacCallum interjected, ever the tutor, “that it has a Latin root: amor, which is the Latin word for love, you may recall.”

  Katherine ignored him. “Amour,” she repeated in a husky whisper. “There’s such a lovely sound to it.”

  Charles nodded. “And there are so many ways to use it. Affaire d’amour, a love affair; s’amouracher, to fall in love; mal d’amour, lovesickness; amourette, passing fancy; amour-propre, self-love.”

  “I think it’s important,” MacCallum insisted, “that you recognize the Latin base in so many languages—Italian, Spanish, French.” He tried to make his point in the context of what Katherine had started. “The Romance languages, they’re called. It was the ancient Romans who said, Amor vincit omnia—love conquers all.”

  “Does it, Monsieur Dewey?” Katherine asked.

  Charles gave a Gallic shrug. “Amour fait beaucoup, mais argent fait tout.”

  The young woman was perplexed. “What does that mean?”

  “Love does much, but money does all.” He laughed.

  “Mr. Dewey, you’re simply horrid!”

  “Monsieur Dewey,” MacCallum corrected her.

  “Very well … monsieur,” Katherine pouted. “But he’s still horrid.”

  Then she smiled at Charles.

  Invitingly.

  5

  CHARLES Dewey knew there was a God, even though he had never been inside a church.

  He could recall having been witness to only a single religious ceremony, when the bodies of three seamen killed in a gunnery accident off the West Indies were consigned to the waters of the Caribbean.

  What religion he knew had been assimilated into his consciousness as a result of what he had heard. But what told him there was a God, what made him a believer, was the sure knowledge that his life was directed by a guardian spirit. Who else but God could be responsible for such a spirit?

  In that somewhat narrow sense, he was a devout believer.

  The prospect, then, of going to church with the Statler family on his first Sunday at Elkwood was pleasing to him. Until he met Funston Lee.

  As Statler had announced during dinner at the beginning of the week, Lee sent his coach to take Marshall Statler, his daughters, Andrew MacCallum, and Charles to the services. But Lee himself arrived with the coach, and there was limited room inside it.

  Charles’s trouble began early, when they were just leaving the mansion. Katherine suddenly took his arm as they went down the stone steps, holding it tightly, walking closer to him than was necessary. Hurrying ahead of the others, she guided him to the coach where Lee awaited the Statler party.

  Lee was tall and slim, with smoldering, deep-set eyes. His thin lips were pressed together in disgust at that moment. He was grandly dressed; his lavishly embroidered cape was trimmed with rich fur.

  “Funston dear,” Katherine cooed, pressing so close to Charles that he could feel her thigh, “I wish to present Monsieur Dewey.”

  Lee glowered at him for an instant, then removed his black velvet tricorne and made a sweeping bow so exaggerated that it could only suggest contempt.

  “Ah! The Frenchman,” he said. “Your servant, sir.”

  Imprisoned by Katherine’s determined hold, Dewey couldn’t return the bow. The others were at the coach now, with MacCallum helping Martha inside. Lee extended his hand to Katherine. Before relinquishing Charles’s arm, she patted it affectionately, a gesture that Lee was meant to see. Katherine boarded, then Statler and the tutor.

  “Oh, dear,” Funston said, glancing inside the coach, “I fear the ladies will be most uncomfortable if we attempt to crowd a half-dozen in there.”

  He paused in feigned thought, turning finally to Charles. “Perhaps Monsieur Dewey will play the gallant Frenchman and ride on top … with the coachman.”

  The insult was obvious. A half-bow and Lee sprang into the coach, shutting the door firmly.

  Charles quickly climbed to his seat, smiling at the black driver. He was determined not to let his anger show.

  A cold, light rain began to fall as the coach made its way toward the church. He pulled his cape tighter around him, glancing over at the Negro coachman. “Under these circumstances,” he said, making an attempt at lightheartedness, “perhaps we shouldn’t have ventured out.”

  “Yas, suh.” The black man didn’t look at him.

  “May I ask your name?”

  “Ah belongs to ole Mistah Lee.”

  “But, you do have a name?”

  “Mistah Lee call me Driver.”

  It seemed to Charles that the Negro was having difficulty keeping his answers civil. “What does your family call you?”

  The coachman looked over at him at last, surprise registered on his face. “Ain’t got no family, suh. An’ mah name’s Driver.”

  Dewey kept silent after that.

  The drizzle had ended by the time the half-hour drive to the church was completed, but it had done its damage. Charles’s cape was wet, and he was shivering from the cold.

  His spirit was dampened as well.

  II

  THE scene at the rural Virginia church was not at all what Dewey had anticipated.

  Almost immediately af
ter leaving their carriages, the women of the congregation disappeared inside the small white clapboard church while the men stood around in groups outside the building, not discussing matters of religion. The talk was of tobacco prices, the manner in which grain would be sown in the spring, trouble with slaves. And horses.

  Marshall Statler got into a protracted conversation with a gentleman who had been introduced to Charles as Mr. Ransom.

  “I swear to you, Ransom,” Statler said, “that there’s never been a finer stallion in Virginia than John Tayloe’s Yorick. Why, after six seasons at stud, Tayloe was able to return him to training to accept a challenge from Dr. Flood’s breed horse. Let’s see—that was in seventy-three, as I recall it.”

  “Yes, I believe it was.”

  “Did you see that match?”

  “No,” Ransom admitted.

  “Well, sir, I had that great good fortune,” Statler continued enthusiastically. “It was agreed that they run a single five-mile heat at five hundred pounds a side.”

  The master of Elkwood laughed. “I was able to find a hundred pounds as an added wager on Yorick. And it was devastating, sir, absolutely devastating! He covered the distance in”—a pause for thought—“in twelve minutes and twenty-seven, if my memory serves me, and Yorick was in hand the whole way. That was carrying one hundred and eighty! And Yorick, by that time, was thirteen. A truly amazing racing stallion, Mr. Ransom. It’s why I’m so pleased to have his son, Skullduggery.”

  “Hmmm. I’ve always been partial to the Fearnoughts.”

  “Oh, yes,” Statler mused, “he was most prolific and his issue always had good size and stamina. But I always questioned his stud fee—ten pounds seemed exhorbitant.”

  “He was important,” Ransom said defensively.

  “True. And I hope that when the war is finally concluded we can look to England again for some new bloodstock. God knows, we can use it.”

  “Will your Skullduggery be open to service outside mares?”

  “Of course,” Statler answered. “I don’t have enough mares left to keep him content. Does two pounds seem fair?”

  “Eminently. We’ll talk of this again in the spring.”

  “Fine, fine.”

  Another large coach drew up. Andrew MacCallum nudged Charles. “Here comes John Lee,” he whispered. “Be most careful with this one.”

  “Funston’s father?”

  “The same.”

  The elder Lee, obsese and carelessly dressed, grunted his way out of the coach and walked slowly to the knot of men around Statler.

  “Good day, Marshall,” he said sullenly.

  “John,” Statler nodded. “May I present Mr. Charles Dewey?”

  “I’ve heard that you had a Frenchman in your household now.” He studied Charles as he would have examined a horse or maybe a slave. As a commodity. “Funston tells me that you’re late of the French navy.”

  “That’s correct, sir.”

  “Mr. Dewey,” Statler explained, “had the good fortune to have been at Yorktown.”

  “Yorktown,” Lee snarled, “was the ultimate victory of the rabble.”

  Statler laughed. “Don’t let Squire Lee frighten you, Charles. He’s inclined to pretend to be a Tory, although he’s in the same boat as we … uh … rebels. He delights, however, in the role of devil’s advocate.”

  “You may be content with the republican nonsense of Mr. Jefferson and his ilk, but I’m not!” Lee’s fat face was flushed. He looked directly at Charles. “And I place that young upstart, the vaunted Marquis de Lafayette, in that same dangerous company.”

  Charles bridled.

  “Careful,” MacCallum warned under his breath.

  Statler laughed even louder. “See—what did I tell you?” To Lee: “Young Mr. Dewey comes to us under the aegis of our mutual friend, George Milton.”

  “Milton!” Lee exploded. “That scoundrel is no friend of mine. He robbed me on my last consignment of tobacco to him.”

  “John, John,” Statler chuckled, “entirely predictable.”

  Lee snorted in derision.

  A young man came to the door of the church and called out, “Gentlemen, the services are about to begin.”

  III

  AS one body, the men trooped into the church and noisily took their seats on the side opposite the women.

  To Charles, the service appeared hurried. Prayers were mumbled hastily. The minister—MacCallum said his name was Lawrence Smith—spoke for only a short period on what he called “being,” with liberal mention of Aristotle and Plato, speculating on whether there was anything permanent in the changing phenomena of nature and whether God the Creator bore the same relationship to nature as to man.

  It was confusing. And boring, made more so by the monotone in which Pastor Smith read his text. Fortunately, the sermon lasted just about a quarter of an hour. It was followed by the desultory singing of a hymn, a cappella, and a final rapid prayer. The entire service was concluded in half an hour.

  As they left the church, Charles asked MacCallum: “What was that about?”

  Andrew grinned at him. “Metaphysics.”

  “What?”

  “Metaphysics,” the tutor repeated. “The study of—let’s see if I can recall my philosophy classes—of fundamental problems relating to the ultimate nature of reality. Of ‘being,’ as Mr. Smith put it, and of human knowledge. There,” MacCallum added proudly, “I did remember!”

  Dewey stared at him. “But that doesn’t make any sense, Andrew.”

  “I admit it’s abstruse. Old Aristotle could be that way at times.”

  “But as a sermon?” Charles was still confused.

  “Oh, that. It’s safe, you see. Also, a lot of ministers like to show off their scholarship. But, primarily, it’s a safe subject.”

  MacCallum drew him aside. “What you have to understand is that the church in this country is as much involved in the Revolution as is the political structure. In somewhat of a nutshell, Charles, the Anglican church, or the state church, has been equated with British royalty. Wherever the Anglican church was established, the colonists had to pay taxes to support it. Many Americans were not inclined to do so.

  “But they were, nevertheless, believers and didn’t want to disassociate themselves from God. Catholicism was not an answer for them, so they split within the Anglican church. Again in the most simple terms, the conservative members, primarily the Tories who opposed the war against the Crown, remained Anglicans. Dissenters, those who were opposed to the tax-supported church, and mainly those who supported the war, became Presbyterians.”

  He gestured toward the building. “That’s a Presbyterian church. So abhorrent is the idea of a state church—especially among these Virginia planters, it seems—that the ministers find it impossible to speak on anything that even remotely mirrors the real world: politics, the war, taxes, commerce. Even the Bible. So thay take the safe road. Metaphysics is safe because no one understands it—including, I’m inclined to believe, the ministers themselves.”

  Charles shook his head. “I don’t know—I just expected something more … well, religious.”

  “It will come,” MacCallum said matter-of-factly. “It’s just that the church is in transition right now. Like you, I think the transition is rather bland. Spiritually unrewarding.”

  IV

  THERE was no move among the worshipers to leave the church grounds. Men and women gathered in clusters, and once more there was no talk of religious matters. Charles and Andrew made their way to a group surrounding Marshall Statler and John Lee, the Reverend Mr. Smith now among them. The subject under discussion was cockfighting, with Mr. Smith being lavish in his praise of a bird he had bred.

  “Powerful across the breast,” he was telling the others, “and with a most aggressive spirit.”

  “Tested, Lawrence?” Lee asked him.

  “Only in hand, John.” He smiled. “Kept in restraint with difficulty. He’s a red, similar to that good one I had two years ago
.”

  Lee nodded knowingly. “You’ll have to bring him around some day, Parson. That is, if you’re prepared to back your bird with a wager.”

  “It’ll be done, John. Be assured of that.”

  Dewey turned away from the conversation, revolted by it. Cockfighting was a favorite diversion on French warships, and he had always hated it: the torn flesh, the lacerated eyes, the ignoble death. He remembered the glee exhibited by Captain de Boade at cockfights aboard ship. Now he was seeing the same enthusiasm, only a bit more restrained, in a minister of God. It made him ill.

  He found himself looking around for Martha, finally spotting her among a small group composed primarily of women, in which Katherine and a laughing Funston Lee were the center of attention.

  Katherine saw him approaching and called out to him: “Mr. Dewey, please come and let me present some of the ladies.”

  Quickly, she made introductions to some half-dozen women, one of whom was the Reverend Mr. Smith’s wife. Charles couldn’t help but wonder what she thought of her husband’s preoccupation with cockfighting.

  “Do tell the ladies about Yorktown, Mr. Dewey,” Katherine insisted. That brought a scowl to young Lee’s face.

  “I don’t wish to bore the ladies,” Charles said, hoping to get out of his predicament.

  “Bore them? Of course you won’t.”

  He gave them an abbreviated version of what he had earlier told the Statler sisters.

  The same lies.

  Even so, his concocted stories of the unobserved surrender ceremonies drew appreciative oohs and aahs from the listeners.

  “What role did you play in the festivities, Mr. Dewey?” an annoyed Funston asked.

  “I was with the delegation from the Ville de Paris, flagship of the French navy.”