American Dreams Trilogy

by Michael Phillips

  “Perhaps I can remedy that… because I know everyone,” he added with a smile.

  “Do you really!” Veronica did not even try to hide her excitement.

  “Almost. I doubt I can get you into the White House to see President Buchanan. You might have to wait for your father to secure an invitation for that. But I think you would find yourself otherwise pleased with the results should you place yourself in my capable hands.”

  He smiled. She smiled. Both understood.

  What Seth Davidson had never grasped about Veronica Beaumont, though having spent most of his life in proximity to her, Cecil Hirsch had understood almost the moment he laid eyes on her. Seth was not enough like Veronica to understand her. For both to its credit and its peril, innocence is always slow to recognize opportunism as the potent and subtle force it is. Cecil Hirsch and Veronica Beaumont were both users. As long as they both knew it, neither minded the trait in the other. In its own way it sweetened the attraction by adding to the risk.

  Still smiling, Hirsch offered his arm. Veronica took it, and he led her to the refreshment table, and then, as the evening advanced, about the floor. At his lead, they dabbled here into one conversation, there into another, as Hirsch played the role for which he had already begun to be known in Washington. On this evening, however, he was playing it with just a bit of added flair and panache to an audience of one.

  It suit Hirsch’s purposes, also, to be seen with such a stunning young woman on his arm. New faces, especially beautiful ones, always roused comment and curiosity in Washington. The Senate was one of the world’s most exclusive clubs. To have a new arrival join its ranks in an off year was in itself enough to make the name Beaumont one that everyone recognized. The fact that he was a controversial figure, and an outspoken pro-slavery advocate from the very state where the Harpers Ferry ruckus had taken place, increased interest in him all the more. And when word began to leak out that there was another Beaumont, a daughter, unmarried, reportedly beautiful, inquisitiveness concerning the name increased many times.

  Hirsch had already caught wind of such whisperings. Thus he now made the most of this opportunity that had fallen in his lap to increase the cachet of his own standing in the eyes of Washington’s elite.

  “Why, Mr. Hirsch!” exclaimed Lady Daphne as the two approached Veronica’s mother. “You do move in high circles!”

  “I am only trying to keep pace with you, Lady Daphne!” taking the woman’s hand and kissing it. “How nice to see you again. You are looking wonderful. I hope you haven’t forgotten your promise about an invitation to one of your parties!”

  “I haven’t indeed, Mr. Hirsch,” replied Mrs. Beaumont. “Veronica and I are already planning it.” The truth was, however, Lady Daphne was willing to forget her suspicions with regard to this man’s possible involvement in the news articles that seemed to have originated out of their private conversations. One flash of his smile and she was ready to let bygones be bygones. They were here now, that was all that mattered. The young man seemed nice enough. Perhaps she had been mistaken.

  As they chatted, the new senator himself walked up, followed by three people none of the rest had ever seen.

  “Hello, my dear,” he said to Lady Daphne. “I see you have found plenty to keep you occupied, Veronica,” he added, smiling to his daughter.

  He glanced toward Hirsch. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I seem to know your face, but…”

  “That is a common malady this evening!” laughed Hirsch. “I am not quite sure how to take it! Cecil Hirsch, sir,” he said extending his hand. “I was fortunate enough to attend your daughter’s birthday celebration at your estate in Virginia a year and a half ago.”

  “Ah yes, of course,” said Beaumont. “I remember you now. A newsman, wasn’t it… you and I chatted informally for a few minutes. I see you have also renewed your acquaintance with my wife and daughter.”

  “Yes, sir, and found them as charming as ever. Let me take the opportunity to congratulate you, Mr. Beaumont, on your appointment. I am certain the Senate will be considerably livelier for your presence.”

  Beaumont laughed. “Thank you, Hirsch,” he said. “I shall certainly try to do my part to keep things interesting.”

  He paused and glanced to his side.

  “But I am being remiss!” he said. “I came over, my dear,” he said to his wife, “to introduce you to Ambassador Fitzpatrick. Ambassador, may I present my wife, Lady Daphne Beaumont, and my daughter Veronica, and Mr. Hirsch. My dear, Mr. Fitzpatrick is the U.S. Ambassador to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, and this is his wife, Eloise, and son Richard.”

  Handshakes and greetings went round the small group. Even as she clung to the arm of Cecil Hirsch, Veronica could not help stealing a second glance at young Richard Fitzpatrick… and then a third. Already Washington seemed a veritable breeding ground of handsome young men! She would never condescend to thank Seth for it, of course, but she was thinking how glad she was not to be married!

  “And where is Luxembourg?” asked Lady Daphne, to her husband’s silent chagrin.

  “A good question, Lady Daphne!” laughed the ambassador. “And a fair one. Most people have never heard of it, much less know where it is. Luxembourg is a tiny kingdom in northwestern Europe bordered by France, Belgium, Alsace-Lorraine, and Westphalia. The Luxembourgers like to think of themselves as at the heart of the European Empire.”

  “And what are you doing here?”

  “We come back once or twice a year to consult with my colleagues in Washington about various European affairs. And to visit family and friends. New York is our home when I am not on assignment elsewhere.”

  “I see. Well… that is very interesting.”

  “It was very nice to meet you, Lady Beaumont,” said Fitzpatrick. The two wives exchanged a few more words, and gradually the coterie broke up. The new senator and the ambassadorial trio wandered off. With an involuntary glance behind her at Richard Fitzpatrick, Veronica and Hirsch sauntered away in the opposite direction.

  Lady Daphne was left alone.

  As the gathering continued, groups forming, breaking up, and reforming in constant superficial social ebb and flow, Veronica remained at the side of Cecil Hirsch, as he purposed she should. Before the evening was out, she had been introduced to thirty or more people whose names she would never remember. Hirsch was well satisfied with the results. Within an hour or two of their meeting a tacit intimacy had been established between them that would give him leave to call anytime at the modest Beaumont dwelling in Georgetown. A few clandestine dealings with certain European governments and business interests of influence were in the offing. This fortuitous approach to the Beaumont family would give him expanded opportunity to move yet higher among Washington’s elite in the sorts of negotiations by which he was able to afford just about anything he wanted.

  From his very boyhood, Hirsch had learned to play any side of any situation to whatever advantage it could provide him. He could affect a half dozen regional tongues and pass himself off as from any class, culture, or occupation. He had been working on several Eastern European accents and could already add a cunningly persuasive Italian or German cadence to his native street English.

  Long ago he had learned that people would pay for information. Information and what one did with it was the commodity of power. Information created deals, relationships, progress, opportunity. People would pay for information about socialites, about candidates running for office, about runaway slaves, about potential votes in Congress, about military plans and promotions… and about where to find things people wanted. He had cultivated friendships of supposed intimacy with no fewer than thirty prominent Washington insider wives. They little knew how many secrets they had inadvertently divulged during the last year or two which he had catalogued away for future use. Their slips of the tongue never failed to amuse, and meanwhile his file of useful information on the powerbrokers of the nation steadily grew, and he put his discoveries to use, matching people with ne
eds on the one side with people who could supply those needs on the other, while he, the middleman, reserved the greatest profits for himself.

  Meanwhile, Ambassador Fitzpatrick and his family had bid Senator Beaumont and several others of their acquaintance good evening, and Beaumont was now engaged in discussion with half a dozen men in a small parlor off the main ballroom. The room hung thick with the smoke of expensive Havana cigars, and eighteen-year-old Napoleon brandy flowed freely.

  “What are your plans, Beaumont,” the new senator from Virginia had just been asked. “Any… national ambitions?”

  “Certainly not this year, Senator Douglas,” laughed Beaumont. “I only just arrived. As I hear it, the field is already crowded with those who would like to oust our current president. Will you be the Democratic nominee?”

  “You believe in speaking your mind!” rejoined the senator from Illinois, chuckling lightly. “I have heard that about you, Beaumont. But it is early yet. You Southern Democrats and our colleague John Breckinridge may have something to say in the matter.

  “And the Republicans,” asked Beaumont, “will they nominate your old nemesis Lincoln?”

  “Not a chance,” replied Douglas. “The party has any number of more well-known names than his—Seward, Cameron, even Governor Chase. Lincoln is too moderate to appeal to the Republicans as a whole. Seward will be the Republican nominee.”

  “Perhaps, Stephen,” now put in another member of the discussion, one Alfred Whyte, a grey-haired diplomat from the old school of Whigs. “But for a new party like the Republicans to have a chance of winning, they might consider Illinois a must. Nominating Lincoln could give them Illinois and much of the North.”

  “Are you saying I would not carry my own home state?”

  “I meant to imply nothing, only that your advantage in the North would also be Lincoln’s. It would make for an interesting election—two candidates from the same state. If you and the vice president cannot come to terms about your differences and you Democrats split, it could give him the election.”

  Douglas nodded with serious expression. “You make a good point,” he said. “Which is why you Whigs need to throw your support our way rather than nominating a candidate of your own.”

  “We are the nation’s oldest party,” rejoined Whyte. “Surely you do not expect us to lie down without a fight when the Republican party is less than a decade old.”

  I only say that you could give Lincoln and the republicans the election.”

  “As could you Democrats if you split. Our fielding a candidate poses far less a challenge to you Democrats maintaining your hold on the White House than a split within your own party. Tell me—how serious is the Breckinridge challenge?”

  “The Southern caucus does not confide in me.”

  “You are of the same party.”

  “Perhaps,” nodded Douglas, “but with distinctly different views on the future of the South, the nation, and the question of slavery.

  Perhaps our friend Senator Beaumont here could enlighten us.”

  “I am sorry, but I must confess ignorance as well,” replied Beaumont. “I have not yet met to discuss the election with my Southern democratic colleagues, and I have only met Vice President Breckinridge once. The subject of his presidential aspirations did not come up.”

  “Well if he does go through with it and split the party,” persisted Douglas, “catastrophe could result. Lincoln may be a moderate, but his abolitionist views are well-known.”

  “As I understand it,” said Beaumont, “he is not a strict abolitionist.”

  “Take it from me,” rejoined Douglas, “he is more abolitionist than he lets on publicly. Perhaps not to the extent of a John Brown, but an abolitionist nevertheless.”

  “Do you consider him dangerous?” asked Whyte.

  Douglas thought seriously a moment. Slowly he nodded. “If Lincoln wins their nomination,” he said, “and should, against all odds, succeed in getting himself elected, I do not see how the Union can survive. The South would, perhaps literally, be up in arms at his election. But still,” he added, “I cannot imagine it. If he could not defeat me two years ago for the Senate, how can he possibly hope to gain the presidency?”

  The group became silent. A few took sips from their glasses or puffs from their cigars.

  Thirty

  It did not come as a surprise this time when Nancy Shaw walked up the hill to the big house just as the first hints of dawn were breaking over the hills in the east, six coloreds in tow whose faces had never been seen in these parts before.

  Richmond, as was his custom, had been up long before daybreak and had wandered outside onto the veranda a few moments before, cup of coffee in hand, to see what kind of morning beckoned. He had just drawn in a deep breath of the chilly January air when he saw movement in the distance from the direction of the workers’ quarters.

  He squinted into the semidarkness. Gradually Nancy and her following band of blacks came into view.

  He descended the veranda steps and went to meet them.

  “Hit’s happened agin, Mister Dab’son,” said Nancy in a tone of some irritation. “Look at dis. What dey think, Mister Dab’son, dat you kin take in eb’ry stray dat takes it inter dere blame heads ter cum wanderin’ in here? Lan’ sakes—I don’ know what dey’s thinkin’! Don’ dey know da danger dey’s puttin’ you an’ da missus in?”

  As Nancy vented her minor frustrations, Richmond quickly looked over the ragamuffin family of seven—father, mother, a girl of about eleven, a boy a couple years younger, and two more girls about seven, of which he couldn’t tell which was the older, and another boy of about five.

  “Well, I imagine the danger to themselves is considerably greater than the danger to us, Nancy,” he said. “When did they come?”

  “Just now, Mister Dab’son. Dey jes’ walked in from outta da woods. Dey said they been hidin’ out up on da ridge yesterday an’ all night tryin’ ter figger out which coloreds wuz da free ones an’ which wuz da slaves, us or dem dey seen down where da Bowmont’s coloreds wuz workin’ yonder.”

  “Well, at least they came to the right place. I shudder what to think of the reception they would have received on the other side of the ridge. Where’s Malachi?”

  “He dun disappeart las’ night. He ain’t back yet.”

  “Hmm…” nodded Richmond. “Were you supposed to meet someone?” he asked, turning toward the man.

  “Yes, suh,” the father replied. “We wuz ter meet a black man sumwheres up dere near’s I kin figger, but he din’t cum an’ we figgered maybe we dun got los’. We din’t know what ter do effen no conductor come, so my boy here he sneaked down here an’ he seen da horse’s head yonder on da barn dere, an’ dat’s when we come an’ looked our fer where da black folks stayed, an’ den we met dis lady here—,” he said, nodding toward Nancy.

  “Humph,” said Nancy. “I ain’t no lady. I’s a nigger jes’ like you.”

  “Nancy,” said Richmond in a tone of admonishment. “You are a lady. Now we have talked about all this, haven’t we?”

  “Yes, suh, Mister Dab’son.”

  “We told you that we would help people who come to us, didn’t we?

  “Yes, suh.”

  “So I would like you to go back and wait for Malachi. Tell him what has happened and send him up to the big house.”

  “Yes, suh.”

  “All right, Nancy, thank you for seeing them safely to me… you may go home. I’ll take care of it now.”

  Nancy turned to go, somewhat chastened but mumbling to herself as she returned down the hill. She was still annoyed at Malachi about this whole thing. When they were alone, Richmond turned to the head of the family where he stood waiting, all his family staring nervously at him waiting to see what he was going to do.

  “Welcome to Greenwood,” he said, offering his hand. “I am Richmond Davidson. You will be safe here.”

  Several hours later, in midmorning, Richmond and Carolyn walked away from the house i
n the direction of the arbor.

  “Did you succeed in getting any more out of the woman?” Richmond asked.

  “Only that she is Lucindy’s cousin and was aware of the same reports, that if they could reach a certain plantation in Virginia, they would be safe and could find their way over the border from there.”

  “They heard about it from Lucindy herself?”

  “No. When she never returned and apparently wasn’t captured, after several months went by, they assumed she had made it to safety. So they set out to follow her. Like so many others, they found their way into the railroad network, then before long they heard about the wind in the horse’s head.”

  “That explains most of it, I suppose,” said Richmond. “For all our talk with Malachi about making preparations, we now find ourselves again unprepared. We should have started immediately but… here we are.”

  “Nancy still doesn’t seem to like it much.”

  “That is clear enough,” laughed Richmond. “She will get used to it. Some people have a more difficult time than others opening their hearts to those less fortunate.”

  “I will talk to her. We need her with us in this.”

  “And Malachi said several groups are expected in the next week or two. I am concerned about the future. What if it becomes like Malachi said earlier with a flood of refugees?”

  “You always say we must just take one step at a time and wait to see what God does next. Now is apparently such a time in our lives. We took a new family in today. Now we have to see what God will do next.”

  “Right, as always, dear wife! We shall see what develops… and trust God that his hand is in the developments.”

  “We have a great deal of room in the house,” said Carolyn, “upstairs, the second floor, the attic, the lofts above the barns. We could house fifty people.”

  “With a few modifications!” laughed Richmond.

  He quickly grew serious again. “You are right,” he said. “But all those places are so visible. How would we hide them during the day? How would we keep the children quiet? How would we feed them? How would we see to their basic physical needs? We do not have many visitors to Greenwood, but all it would take would be one unfriendly set of eyes and a few difficult questions. A delivery… a chance glance into an upstairs window, and all could be undone.”