American Dreams Trilogy

by Michael Phillips

  “Would you be the Lady Daphne Beaumont I have been hearing about?” he said, sidling up in one of those ambiguous moments of conversational transition that characterize the social ebb and flow of such gatherings.

  “Why… yes, I am,” said Lady Daphne, turning toward the question, blushing with pleasure at the underlying implication of its wording. “I don’t believe I have had the pleasure.”

  “Cecil Hirsch, ma’am,” said Hirsch, taking Lady Daphne’s offered hand and drawing it to his lips, where he let it linger just a second longer than was customary. “I cannot tell you how happy I am to finally make your acquaintance. It seems that everywhere I’ve gone today I keep hearing your name.”

  “Really, Mr. Hirsch? I can’t imagine why,” said Lady Daphne, her blush deepening.

  “Oh, it’s obvious, isn’t it—you’re the hostess. Your husband may be the center of attention with all those politicians over there,” he said, nodding his head in the direction of an earnest discussion in progress on the other side of the lawn, “but everyone knows who makes an event like this possible, and successful I might add. If you want my opinion—”

  Here he paused slightly and glanced around, lowered his voice, and drew close in affected confidentiality.

  “—if you ask me not one of these men would be worth a thing without their wives. The women do everything for them behind the scenes, yet what thanks do they get? None. That’s why I always find women far more interesting than men.”

  “Why, Mr. Hirsch, you are a naughty one!” laughed Lady Daphne.

  He allowed his lips to curl slightly into a coy but knowing smile.

  “I mean it,” he said. “And you… I mean—after what I have seen today, goodness… your parties will be the toast of the capital!”

  “Oh…!” exclaimed Lady Daphne, nervously bringing up her fan and flapping it a time or two.

  “Promise me, please—you must promise now, before you become the social hub of Washington and forget such people as me—that you will invite me to at least one of your parties after you arrive.”

  “I shall never forget you, Mr. Hirsch,” laughed Lady Daphne. “And you shall have invitations to all my parties!”

  Hirsch laughed as if it were the wittiest thing he had ever heard.

  “Thank you so much,” he said suavely. “I cannot tell you what that will mean to me.”

  “Are you really from the capital?” asked Lady Daphne.

  “My work takes me there occasionally.”

  “What is your work, Mr. Hirsch?”

  “News, Lady Daphne.”

  “Oh, how simply marvelous!”

  “That is why I had heard of you before I came. No one in the news business has failed to hear of the former Lady Daphne Downes MacFadden of the Charleston MacFaddens. It is already setting certain circles abuzz in Washington that the granddaughter of Sir Richard MacFadden, knighted by the king of England himself, is in all likelihood already packing her bags for the capital, where she will soon be the wife of Virginia’s newest senator.”

  Hirsch had not added that this information had been given him in a brief dossier on Beaumont by his rival in the campaign, who had in fact sent him here for the express purpose of making sure Beaumont never made it to Washington at all.

  By this point in the conversation, nearly drowning in pleasure under the weight of Hirsch’s blandishments, Lady Daphne’s reserves were completely gone.

  “You are really too kind, Mr. Hirsch!” she said, employing the fan again to breeze away her reddened cheeks. “To think that you had actually heard of me… I don’t know what to say!”

  “It is no more than a woman of your social prestige deserves.”

  “I only hope we get to Washington,” she said.

  “There is little doubt of it, from what I hear,” said Hirsch.

  “I don’t know…. Sometimes I think my husband is too pro-slavery even for a slave state like Virginia.”

  “How could that be?”

  “It’s just that he says things, that, if they got out, I’m not sure people would understand.”

  “But surely he wouldn’t say anything to put himself in a negative light.”

  “Oh, but you don’t know my husband. He has a dreadful temper and things come out. Sometimes he becomes so angry with the slaves—”

  She paused just long enough to lower her voice.

  “—when they don’t work hard enough I’ve overheard him speak of hanging them!” she whispered. “People would not understand that kind of thing.”

  “But he hasn’t actually has he—hung any of your slaves?”

  “No. But I truly think he could. If he ever does, I just hope I don’t find out about it.”

  “What can you tell me about this rumor I heard somewhere that the Negroes on one of the plantations near here are being taught how to behave like whites?”

  “Oh, it’s true, Mr. Hirsch. I don’t know how you heard about it way up in Washington, but it is definitely true. They are being taught to read, how to buy things and use money. And not only that,” she added, lowering her voice and drawing near him with a confidential tone, “they are being taught all these things by the wife of an important plantation owner.”

  “Lady Daphne!” gasped Hirsch in a shocked whisper, as if it was the most scandalous thing he had ever heard, “you don’t mean—”

  He allowed his voice to trail off significantly, catching her eyes as he did and holding them with his own. Slowly his eyebrows raised as if he were just now grasping her intent.

  She nodded with a look of playful cunning, thoroughly enjoying having such a juicy secret, as she thought, with such an enchanting young man. The moment lasted but a second or two.

  “—Oh, here comes Veronica,” she said, glancing away. “You must meet my daughter, Mr. Hirsch…. Veronica, dear—”

  As Lady Daphne proceeded to introduce the two who had noticed one another earlier, Hirsch immediately knew that Veronica Beaumont was nothing like her mother. A single glance into her eyes and he knew she was cut of the same cloth as he. She was shrewd, and a user.

  “Miss Beaumont,” he said, now lifting her hand to his lips for a lengthy kiss.

  As he let her hand down and allowed his eyes to drift upward into her face, he found her staring straight into his eyes.

  “Why, Mr. Hirsch,” she said playfully, batting her eyelashes, “you do flatter a girl with your eyes!”

  In that moment he knew that an unspoken understanding had passed between them. Her occasional glances in his direction throughout the rest of the day, and the subtle smiles that accompanied them, even over the shoulder of her beaux as they danced, told him well enough that she recognized the affiliation too. He knew they would meet again.

  Cecil Hirsch walked into the restaurant of the Fairmont Hotel two days after the Beaumont shindig.

  Why Hoyt wanted to meet him so far north was still a mystery. No one knew his face. They could have conducted their business on the streets of Washington, D.C., in front of the Capitol building and no one would have suspected what the senator was up to. But the senator insisted that the meeting, like their first, must take place away from prying eyes.

  As soon as they each had a Scotch in front of them, the senator got down to business.

  “Did you get anything for me, Mr. Hirsch?” he said.

  “I don’t know,” replied Hirsch. “I suppose you will have to be the judge of that. I spoke with a lot of people.”

  “Did you talk to Beaumont himself?”

  “I did.”

  “And?”

  “He played it close to the vest. He’s a cool customer, knows what he’s about, doesn’t reveal much. Platitudes mostly, states’ rights, the need to keep a balance of slave and free states so that the senate is split and the country is regionally balanced, good for the economy… all the standard Southern arguments.”

  Hoyt nodded. “Yeah, that’s the trouble about trying to be a moderate in Virginia. People are too easily swayed by
all that. It sounds good, but it will kill our country’s future, not preserve it. What else?”

  “I spoke with Beaumont’s wife. She said her husband occasionally talks of hanging their rebellious slaves.”

  “He’s a U.S. Commissioner—that’s a serious charge!”

  “I’m only telling you what I heard.”

  “Has he ever done it?”

  “Not that she is aware of.”

  “That may yet do me some good. Tell me more about it.”

  Cecil recounted the details of the conversation. At one point, the senator suddenly sat forward.

  “He actually said that?” he said.

  “According to the man’s wife.”

  A twinkle came to the senator’s eyes. “We might just have him with that,” he said. “If we could get another secondary source, we would definitely have him.”

  “There was considerable talk about a friend of Beaumont’s, a neighbor who, as I understand it, set his slaves free a couple of years ago.”

  “Right, a plantation owner named Davidson.”

  “That’s the one—I heard his name all afternoon,” nodded Hirsch.

  “Did you speak with him?”

  “Actually, no. As I was picking it up, though they used to be close friends, there is now a rift between this Davidson fellow and Beaumont. I didn’t want to spoil my chances of earning Beaumont’s trust, or that of his wife, by getting too friendly with the enemy, so to speak.”

  “Fair enough. When they were talking about him and his past association with Beaumont, was anything of interest said?”

  Hirsch recounted fragments of several conversations he had overheard throughout the afternoon, including one item that seemed to interest the senator more than all the rest, Lady Daphne’s comments on the education of local Negroes.

  “You don’t actually think she was referring to herself?” asked Hoyt.

  “I doubt that,” replied Hirsch. “The lady’s a wingding. I don’t think she’s smart enough for one thing. For another, Beaumont himself would never stand for it. It’s got to be the Davidson fellow and his wife. It’s the only explanation.”

  “But the way you have recounted the conversation, the implication could be drawn that it is this Beaumont lady.”

  “I suppose.”

  “And if we exaggerate a little—well, it’s politics!”

  They continued to talk and Hoyt continued to ply Hirsch with questions about the gathering for another twenty minutes. At last he stood.

  “My boy, if all this information does what I hope it will,” said Hoyt at length as he prepared to leave, “you may have just saved my political career and given the Senate back to the Union. Believe me, I won’t forget it. I never forget a favor.”

  He withdrew a small packet from inside his coat pocket and handed it to Hirsch.

  “I think you will find this satisfactory for your efforts,” he said.

  As he turned to leave the restaurant, a man rose from a nearby table, stared at them a moment, then approached.

  “Senator Hoyt, isn’t it?” he said.

  “Yes,” nodded Hoyt.

  “I’m James Waters. I write for the Globe… up in Boston. We met last year in D.C.”

  “Ah, yes… Mr. Waters, now I remember. You wrote that piece on the reaction of the western states and territories to the slavery-abolitionist debate.”

  “That was me.”

  “A decent piece, Waters.”

  As they spoke, Waters glanced over the senator’s shoulder at the young man still seated at the table where the senator had just left him. He couldn’t be sure, but he had the distinct feeling he had seen him at the Beaumont estate two days ago.

  “How do you like your chances against the slavery advocate Beaumont in November?” he said, returning his attention again to the man standing in front of him.

  “On or off the record?”

  “Both,” smiled Waters.

  “On the record… I think my record speaks for itself, and I have every confidence that the good people of Virginia will return me to the Senate for another term working hard for the interests of our state in the nation’s capital.”

  “And off the record?”

  “To be honest, Waters,” replied Hoyt, a serious expression passing over his face, “the fellow has had me more than just a little worried… until a short time ago. So off the record,” he added with a smile, “I am now more confident in victory than ever.”

  Thirty-five

  The envelope delivered to Oakbriar by a black messenger who had ridden up in a small white man’s carriage bore the simple imprint, “Greenwood Acres.”

  It was taken by the Beaumont house butler straight from the front door to the luncheon room where Veronica Beaumont sat with her mother whiling away the leisurely hours of early afternoon.

  The moment it was handed to her, she tore at the envelope and read the simple message on the sheet inside.

  To Miss Veronica Beaumont,

  With your permission I would like to call on you this afternoon.

  It was signed, Seth Davidson.

  “Oh, Mother,” she exclaimed, “it’s from Seth. He is coming to call this afternoon!”

  She glanced up. Their black butler still stood at the door.

  “Who delivered this, Jarvis?” she said.

  “Da Dav’son’s groom, Alexander, Miz Veronica.”

  “Is he still here?”

  “Yes’m. He said he wuz to wait fer yo’ reply.”

  “Good… give him this!”

  She jumped up and ran to a small writing desk that sat in the corner, where she dashed off a hurried note. Stuffing it in an envelope, she walked across the floor and handed it to the black man. He turned and disappeared through the house.

  Half an hour later, in her room fussing with dress and hair, Veronica heard the sound of horse’s hooves outside. She ran to the window. Two horses pulling a wagon were coming up the drive!

  The next instant she was flying down the stairs.

  “I’ll open it, Jarvis,” she said as she hurried toward the door.

  She pulled it open and ran out onto the porch just as the wagon was slowing in the dirt entryway. Slowly the smile of anticipation faded from her face.

  “Oh… oh, it’s you, Scully,” she said slowing to a walk.

  Riggs reined the horses to a full stop, set the wheel brake, and jumped down.

  “Hello, Miss Veronica,” he said. “I got a delivery from the station for your father. I was hoping I’d see you too.”

  “Well, now you’ve seen me,” said Veronica, turning to go back into the house.

  “I heard you had a birthday,” said Scully at her back.

  Veronica paused and turned. “Yes… what did you hear?” she said.

  “Just that you had a big party.”

  “Yes, I did. And if you’re real nice, Scully,” she added in a teasing tone, “I just might let you give me a present.”

  Again she turned toward the house.

  “Do you have to go so soon?” he said. “I don’t have to be back to the station for two hours. I thought maybe you’d like to go for a ride in the wagon with me.”

  “No, thank you, Scully. Seth is coming over this afternoon. I have to get ready.”

  The words plunged into Scully Riggs’ heart like a cold knife.

  “I’ll get one of the slaves to go tell your father you are here,” said Veronica, then spun around just fast enough to make sure her dress twirled up around her knees.

  “The delivery’s for Mister Beaumont, if you please,” he called after her a little irritably.

  “Suit yourself.” she answered without turning around. “But he won’t want to see you.”

  Scully watched Veronica’s back disappear into the house, then turned and walked to the wagon to wait. In fact, neither of their fathers appeared, but two sullen black slaves who unloaded the wagon silently, then left Scully to turn the horses around and start back into town without another word to a
nyone.

  An hour and a half later, Seth Davidson rode into Oakbriar in a one-horse buggy pulled by a spirited reddish thoroughbred. The differences between the two young men was like night and day, a fact lost on neither budding socialite daughter, nor her ambitious father. Both chanced to see his arrival from their respective windows. But how different were their reactions. The man who hoped to be the junior senator-elect from Virginia come November, and then the senior senator of national prominence as soon as aging Senator Everett decided to call it quits, merely mumbled a few words to himself and returned to the papers on his desk. In her own room, however, Veronica shrieked with delight.

  “He’s here!” she exclaimed as she continued to watch from a corner of the window. A moment later she pulled back so he would not be able to see her, then ran from the room to find Lady Daphne.

  “Now, Mother,” she said, “here is what I want you to do….”

  A minute later her mother descended to the ground floor. By the time the knocker sounded below, Veronica had calmed. She heard indistinguishable words from where she listened through a crack in her door, then she sat back to wait. A minute later her mother knocked on the door of her room, then poked her head inside.

  “Seth is here, dear,” she said.

  “Is everything ready?”

  “Just leave it to me.”

  Veronica had studied boys and their mannerisms since before the coming of her twelve-year-old molars. Now she left Seth for just enough time for him to cool his heels and fret nervously, so that he would be putty in her hands. After about five minutes, Veronica descended the stairs and walked into the parlor where he stood alone in the middle of the room.

  “Hello, Seth,” she purred, “how nice of you to call.”

  Carefully scripted, almost the same moment Lady Daphne walked in behind her.

  “Why don’t you two young people sit out on the porch?” she said. “I always find it far more romantic there than in a stuffy old parlor. I will have Jarvis bring you some lemonade.”

  Veronica looked at Seth with a big-eyed inquiring expression, fluttering her eyelashes a time or two before glancing demurely away.