Bon Marche (44 page)

“Whatever you need, Andrew,” Dewey said, “you shall have. I told you once just to name your price. That offer still stands.”

MacCallum smiled, trying to put aside the pressure from the Deweys. “I hope you'll allow us time for a honeymoon.”

“Of course! Of course! We'll discuss it later.”

“Yes—later.”

31

“G
ENTLEMEN
, we are about to start,” George Dewey shouted. “The terms of the sale will be for cash only. And since you have been afforded ample opportunity to inspect the animals, each will be sold as is. From what I remember of my Latin, I believe the proper phrase is
caveat emptor,
gentlemen—let the buyer beware.”

He looked around, smiling broadly, enjoying himself.

“When you have a winning bid, please go promptly to that table…” He pointed to where Mercy Callison MacCallum presided over a ledger. “Pay that handsome young woman. I caution you, sirs, that she is newly married!”

There was general laughter, joined by Mercy.

The late July day was cool and without the summer sultriness that usually plagued the Nashville area. Charles called the ideal weather “Bon Marché luck.”

Several hundred people, most of them horsemen, were milling about in the oak grove on the front lawn of the plantation, brought together by the auctioning of sixty-eight of Bon Marché's untried racehorses: yearlings and two-year-olds.

As Mattie had predicted more than a year earlier when she first proposed the sale, buyers had come not only from Tennessee, but from Kentucky and the Carolinas and Virginia. There were even two from New York.

It had been a total family operation in the planning. Charles and Franklin had selected the horses to be offered; they had also researched the pedigrees. Lee had designed the catalog—it had been his idea to print up the list of the horses—and had devised the numbering of the thoroughbreds, painting the numbers on their hips with calsomine. The younger children, Alma May and Thomas, distributed the booklets to those attending. Corrine, Louise, and Amantha were the hostesses—moving about the lawn, making certain that Bon Marché bourbon was readily available to all.

Andrew MacCallum had volunteered to join overseer Abner Lower in showing the animals prior to the start of the sale. Mercy, in light of her mathematics background, was keeping the financial records. And Charles and Mattie strolled among the prospective buyers, greeting them, jollying them, talking up the merits of the Bon Marché breeding program.

George, glib and extroverted, was the natural choice to be the auctioneer.

“Gentlemen, let's begin!” he bellowed again. “If you will refer to your catalogs: number one will be a yearling filly by Premier Etoile, out of a good racing mare by Medley. For those of you unfamiliar with the stallion, Premier Etoile is a winning son of Skullduggery, unraced because of an accident at birth, but himself a son of the great Yorick. May I hear the first bid, please?”

“Fifty dollars,” a voice cried.

George feigned distress, then laughed. “Well, it's a beginning anyway…”

The bidding quickly went to a hundred dollars, then two hundred, then three, then four. It halted for a moment and George, thoroughly enjoying himself, coaxed the bidding to five hundred fifty dollars.

“I have five hundred fifty dollars for this fine filly. Am I offered more?” He glanced about. “Very well, the filly is sold for five hundred fifty to that gentleman down there with the fine straw hat. May we know who you are, sir?”

“The name is Flanders,” the man answered.

“And you are from—”

“Lexington, Kentucky.”

“There you are!” George said, clapping his hands together enthusiastically. “Those Kentucky horsemen have a good eye for thoroughbreds. I recommend to the rest of you that you follow Mr. Flanders's lead.”

Charles, frowning, whispered to Mattie: “I hope they don't follow that fellow's lead. That filly should have brought more.”

“Patience. It has only started, dear.”

George, also realizing that the filly had been sold cheaply, suggested an opening bid on the next offering. “Number two, gentlemen: a well-muscled yearling colt by Predator, a tough, competitive son of Shark, out of a highly qualified Virginia mare with eleven wins to her credit. Let's start the bidding at a reasonable four hundred. Do I hear five, five?”

The colt brought twenty-one hundred dollars. Dewey smiled. “That's more like it,” he said to Mattie.

After that, the selling went quickly. Astonishingly so, in that there had never been a sale like it before in Tennessee, and no one—the sellers or the buyers—knew quite what to expect. It was fast-paced, and no other yearling of the thirty-five offered sold for as little as the initial filly.

There was money in the crowd; no doubt of that. When the first of thirty-three two-year-olds was offered—a handsome, gleaming colt by Cranium—the bidding rapidly reached five thousand dollars.

Prior to the sale, Charles and Franklin had tried to estimate what each horse would bring. They had agreed that number forty-seven, a two-year-old son of Arrangement, by Medley, should garner the top dollar. Disappointingly, it sold for forty-three hundred.

It was a smallish two-year-old colt by New York, a son of Messenger, that drew the most attention. Dewey had never liked the Messenger blood and was amazed when the bids swiftly exceeded five thousand dollars. Then six thousand.

“That's wrong, that's wrong,” he muttered, making for the tree stump from which George was operating.

By the time he got there, his son had sold the thoroughbred for seven thousand!

“I want to say something, son,” Charles said. George relinquished the stump to him.

“I'm sorry, gentlemen, to interrupt.” He looked out at the faces below him. “I didn't see who made that winning bid.”

A hand went up. “I did, Squire Dewey,” a German-accented voice said. “August Schimmel.”

“Oh, of course. Our winning bidder,” he announced to the others, “is the gentleman who printed our catalogs. A recent arrival in Nashville, and we're most pleased to have him. Uh … I believe, quite honestly, that the bid of seven thousand dollars is excessive—too much for any untried thoroughbred.”

A murmur of surprise ran through the grove.

“Perhaps the seller of horses shouldn't make such an admission, but I've always prided myself on being an honest man. I don't see how we can undo this sale and start over, so perhaps, Mr. Schimmel, you'll allow me to halve your risk by taking back fifty percent of the colt. That is, if you wouldn't mind being a partner with me.”

“I'd be honored, sir.”

“Good! We'll work out the details when this is over.” Dewey jumped down from the stump, George going back to work, concluding the sale.

At the end, Mercy MacCallum totaled her ledger and held it up for Charles to read the sum: $181,500.

The figure stunned Charles for a moment. He made a quick mental calculation. Sixty-eight animals—an average of more than twenty-six hundred dollars apiece. That was fully eight hundred dollars over the average Dewey had anticipated.

He turned to Mattie, kissing her hard. “Mrs. Dewey,” he said soberly, “you were born of genius.”

She laughed merrily. “It has taken you a long time to realize it.”

II

I
T
was late—nearly midnight—when the successful day finally came to a close. Charles and Andrew sat alone in the drawing room, sipping sherry.

“Like old times, eh?” Charles suggested.

“Yes, it is.” MacCallum gestured with his wineglass. “There seems to be something ritualistic about this, doesn't it?”

“Uh-huh. You know, Andrew, I don't know when I've been more proud than I am now. Of Mattie. Of all the children. Of Bon Marché. I think of it in that context because this plantation has become a flesh and blood thing to me.”

“That's understandable.”

A brief lull.

“Did you notice George,” Dewey asked, “making off in his carriage with that blond young lady just after the sale?”

“That's what I love about George—the model of consistency.”

“I hope her father isn't too worried about her whereabouts. He's one of those men who came in from South Carolina, I believe.”

“If I were her father,” Andrew chuckled, “I'd be showing some concern. Of course, he's probably not fully cognizant of our George's reputation.” The chuckle turned to a full-throated laugh. “Maybe, though, her eyes won't mist over.”

“What?”

MacCallum waved the question away. “Just a bit of expertise that George and I have shared.”

“I see—another secret kept from your old friend.”

“Men of the world, Charles, must maintain some secrets.”.

Dewey shrugged. “It seems to me that all that needs to be done now, Andrew, is to reach agreement on an arrangement for you at Bon Marché. It certainly was evident today that you—and Mercy—could have a significant role here.”

“Yes, well…” A hesitation. “As a matter of fact, Mercy and I had decided that we'd take advantage of this occasion to discuss it with you. We thought that tomorrow we'd sit down and—”

“That's wonderful!” Charles interrupted. “Simply wonderful!”

Shock showed on MacCallum's face. “Oh, Lord!”

“What's the matter?”

“I don't suppose I can delay this until tomorrow.” He sighed weakly. “The decision we have made, my dear friend, is that we can't stay. We'll be returning to Princeton within the month.”

Dewey stared at him. Wordlessly. Disbelieving.

“The college has been after me, Charles, to return. I'm to be the dean. And Mercy … well, she'd rather return to the East as well. Perhaps to teach again.”

Wearily, Charles pushed himself to his feet, moving to the fireplace, staring down into it, although there was no fire there to see. Without warning, he raised his arm and hurled the sherry glass into it. It shattered noisily, causing Andrew to flinch.

“Damn! Damn!” Dewey whirled around. “You can't do this, Andrew! It's wrong! Worse—it's stupid!”

His friend had thought there would be disappointment; the bitter anger was not something he had anticipated.

“You can't do this to me!” Charles raved. “No, sir, you can't!”

“To
you?
”

“Yes—to
me!
There's no damned rhyme or reason to what you're doing. Your place is
here.
If you value our friendship—as I certainly do—you'll stay!”

“You can't put our friendship on that basis. It has to be a sharing thing.”

“Damn it! Don't you see that that's what I want to do! I want to
share
Bon Marché with you. What more could any man ask?”

Andrew struggled with a rising anger; one unreasonable temper was enough. “I ask for nothing, Charles.”

“Is that what our friendship means to you? Nothing?”

MacCallum came to his feet, his hands outstretched in supplication. “Please, Charles, don't play childish word games with me.”

“Childish, am I?”

“Sit down!”

After a defiant moment, Charles obeyed.

MacCallum knew that his rejection of Dewey's kind offer had hurt him deeply; that he needed to explain his own position calmly.

“I told you once, Charles, that you were self-centered.”

“Another holier-than-thou lecture?”

“That you were self-centered and that you had to learn to
hear.
Not just listen, but hear.”

“All right, I'm
hearing.
” Charles set his face into a sullen mask.

Andrew spoke softly so that Charles would have to concentrate to make out the words.

“I want you to know that I am most appreciative of your offer, understanding, as I do, that it comes from the depth of your affection for me.” He sighed. “But Princeton wants me to be its dean. I've worked my whole life with a goal of that kind in mind. Now it has been offered to me. I would be dishonest with myself if I didn't take it.”

“Take it, then!”

“I mean to.”

“Take it now!” Dewey was on his feet again, striding about the room, stirring up his anger once more. “Take it right this damned minute!”

He came to where Andrew was sitting, putting his face down close to him.

“Do you
hear
me! Right this damned minute!”

“Charles, I simply don't understand—”

“I want you to understand only one thing: get out! Now! You and that damned widow you married!”

Andrew's hand lashed out—an angry reflex—catching Charles high on the cheek. Instantly regretting it, Andrew sprang to his feet, attempting to take his friend in his arms.

Dewey backed off slightly. Then he drove a fist deep into Andrew's solar plexus. Gasping, the older man went to his knees before he collapsed into a heap on the floor.

Charles stood over him for a moment, looking at him with disgust. “Get out!”

He marched out of the room, out of the house.

Mattie and Mercy, drawn by the angry shouting, ran into the room.

“Oh, my God!” Mattie screamed. “Andrew, what happened?”

Both of the women knelt by the stricken man, Mercy, near tears, stroking his brow.

Taking deep breaths and feeling the recurring pain with each one, MacCallum was finally able to speak. “We had a disagreement.” He forced a smile, trying to make light of it. “Charles was the better pugilist.”

“A disagreement?” Mattie cried. “Why would Charles do anything like this?”

Andrew knew that he owed her the truth; still, he tried to soften it. “I told him that I couldn't accept his offer to stay at Bon Marché, that I had been offered the dean's post at Princeton … and the situation became … quite heated.”