Bon Marche (52 page)

One of the women, Charles had to admit to himself, stirred erotic thoughts in him. She was the petite Mrs. Langdon Cheves, whose husband had just completed a term as Speaker of the House of Representatives. There was nothing reticent about her. She spoke and moved with a confidence that suggested she was comfortable in a male-dominated world. Unlike many of the women, she eschewed the popular ringlet coiffure and wore her auburn hair cut short, exposing all of the breath-catching beauty of her face. The decolletage of her gown displayed more soft shoulder and bosom than most of the other women; indeed, she had more worthy of display.

“I regret that my husband is away in Washington,” Mrs. Cheves said to Charles. “He'd want to know all about your Andrew Jackson.”

“Yes, General Jackson is a large figure in the nation now.”

“Are you acquainted with him, Mr. Dewey?”

“Yes. He's my wife's cousin.” He was uneasy with this woman; the desire that she aroused in him made him cautious.

“Well, then, do tell me about him.”

Charles gave her a rather laudatory recital on the merits of Andy, omitting the things about the general that raised his own ire. He told her what he thought she'd want to hear.

“General Jackson seems a paragon.”

He laughed. “Hardly. No man is, I'm afraid.”

It came to him suddenly:
My God, she's just like Mattie!

Dewey coughed nervously. “You'll pardon me, Mrs. Cheves, but you remind me so much of my wife. In many ways you're very similar: the confident manner, the auburn hair, the figure—” He stopped, realizing he had gone too far.

“Oh?” She laughed delightfully, her eyes opening wide. “Spoken, Mr. Dewey, like a man who has been away from home for too long a period.”

“Please forgive me.” His face reddened. “I meant nothing—”

“Of course you did, Mr. Dewey.” She seemed to find delight in his discomfort. “I find your unique interest in me flattering.”

He was left without words.

“Perhaps, Mr. Dewey,” she went on, “if you find the time heavy on your hands, we might find it mutually beneficial to discuss further my astounding similarities with your wife. I'd be interested to know just how far they extend.”

Her candor only reinforced the thought that she was like Mattie. Had she issued an invitation? No, Charles decided; she was toying with him. What an old fool he was!

Dewey was rescued, in a sense, by his host, Charles Izard Manigault, a grandson of the patriarch of the prolific family. After proper apologies to Mrs. Cheves, Manigault led him to a group of gentlemen anxious to discuss horse racing.

“We're very proud of our racing here,” a man named Fenwick told him. “There was a Jockey Club in Charleston as early as 1734, even before the English thought of such a thing.”

“I hope my horses will be up to your tradition,” Dewey said.

“What have you brought with you, sir?”

Charles was eager to tell them. “Twelve young runners. I had special vans built to make the trip, four horses to a van.” He smiled. “And to be perfectly honest, gentlemen, I hope to sell the horses here—to you. All are uncut males with breeding potential: sons of Royalist, a rather nice imported English sire; of New York, with Messenger bloodlines; of Predator, who is by Shark; of Arrangement, a solid racing son of Medley; and also two sons of a stallion I brought from Virginia when I first established headquarters in Nashville: Premier Etoile, who traces back to Yorick.”

“Impressive bloodlines, Mr. Dewey,” another horseman commented, “but can they run?”

A laugh. “We'll just have to see, won't we? All are young—three to five—and their greatest racing potential is still in front of them.”

“A question, Mr. Dewey,” Manigault said. “Why are they all for sale?”

“Because, sir, that's what we do at Bon Marche—breed to sell.”

He thought then of Mattie, who had devised that strategy for the plantation. And he thought, too, of Mrs. Cheves.

III

I
T
was a rare social engagement away from Bon Marché for the ladies—for Mattie; her stepdaughter, Louise; her daughter-in-law, Amantha; and her daughter, “Princess” Alma May. The occasion was the sixteenth birthday anniversary of Alma May.

The youngster had been disappointed that her father would be away from home at the Charleston races on that important date. She had told Mattie: “I don't think I want a party, Mother, if Father can't be here.”

But Louise had come home from the newspaper office with a report that a young showman from Philadelphia had rented a building on the public square in Nashville to convert into a temporary theater, the first such enterprise in the city. Mattie immediately made plans for them to attend the debut performance.

Making it a special time for the Princess was important to her mother. It was to be a full evening. They'd have dinner at Mr. Parker's Nashville Inn, then attend the play and stay the night at the inn. She bought a new dress for Alma May, and made sure that Horace, in full livery, would drive them to Nashville in the little-used formal coach.

Nashvillians turned out in impressive numbers for the introduction of the theater. The impresario, one Nathan Ludlum, was staging a comedy,
The Soldier's Daughter,
for the opening night and had proudly posted an SRO sign at the box office. He was surprised by the number of times he had to explain what the letters meant.

Mattie had bought seats in the first row, and she was delighted that Alma May was so excited about the event. They had gone through the entire dinner without the Princess mentioning the absence of her father.

Applause rolled through the little theater when the curtain parted for the first act. And the traveling players didn't disappoint the entertainment-starved Nashvillians. Ludlum—dark-haired, broad-shouldered, and slim—played the lead with professional aplomb.

Alma May leaned over to whisper to Mattie: “Isn't he handsome, Mother?”

“Hush, dear.”

“But isn't he?” she insisted.

“Yes, Princess, he's very handsome.”

It may have been that the actor could make out the whispered words, in that they were spoken so close to the stage, because Ludlum looked down at Alma May and smiled.

“Oh!”

Mattie looked over at her daughter, annoyed. “Do be quiet, Alma May.”

“But he smiled at me, Mother!” The words were in more than a whisper now, turning other heads to them.

An elbow was dug into the young girl's ribs. Hard. It took that to silence the Princess.

When the play was ended and the cast had taken several curtain calls, Nathan Ludlum came to the apron of the stage.

“Thank you,” he said exuberantly. “It is so nice to know that we are so warmly welcomed in Nashville. I hope we will continue to please you. And I hope, too, that I will be able to meet many of you”—he looked directly at the Princess—“at the door as you file out.”

At the entrance, with Mattie and her party among the last to leave, Ludlum was particularly solicitous to Alma May.

“Ah, yes,” he said, “the beautiful young lady in the front row.” He took her hand.

Her mother spoke rather pointedly: “This was a present to her on her sixteenth birthday.”

“Indeed.” The actor smiled. “I'm most pleased to have shared it with you, Miss Dewey.”

“Oh! You know my name?” The Princess was flustered.

“Of course. When someone so lovely graces my theater, I make an effort to find out who she is. Happy birthday, Miss Dewey.” Ludlum bent to kiss her hand.

The young girl from Bon Marché danced back to the Nashville Inn.

As she and her mother undressed for bed in the room they shared, Alma May could speak of nothing but Nathan Ludlum.

“He's so handsome and so gallant, don't you think, Mother?”

“Yes, dear.” She hid her frown from the Princess. The attention the actor had paid to her daughter worried her.

“And Louise says he's not married.”

“That shouldn't be of concern to you.”

“You might have thought twice, Mother,” Alma May pouted, “about telling him that I was only sixteen.”

“Yes, dear. Now, do go to sleep!”

In the tavern of the Nashville Inn at that hour, Ludlum sat with his fellow actors at a large table, drinking ale.

“Nat,” one of them laughed, “I saw that little hand-kissing exhibition at the front door tonight. The bucolic type really isn't in keeping with your style, is it?”

“Bucolic?” Ludlum grinned wickedly. “You see, my friend, your comment is just another proof that you're never going to prosper in this world. Miss Dewey's father, you should know, is the richest man in western Tennessee!”

He raised his glass of ale in a toast.

“To money,” he said.

IV

R
ACING
at Charleston was elegantly social and all-pervasive; businesses and government offices closed for the races.

There were some surprises for Charles Dewey. He was astounded at the scale of wagering. Used to the flamboyant betting on the frontier, he knew what it was to see the backer of a horse risk property—real and human—on the outcome of a race. But never before had he seen so much cash money offered: hard money—gold and silver. Very little paper. Indeed, he had to amend his own wagering patterns, calling on the bank to exchange his paper money into large-denomination coins in order to keep pace with the Charlestonians. He did so willingly. And profitably.

Even more astonishing to Dewey was the quality of the horses. He had expected something much better in the way of competition. Starting six young horses in the first four days of racing, he saw five of them win convincingly; the sixth was beaten only a neck.

Thomas Pinckney, Junior, whose father and uncle had been stalwarts in the fight for American independence, was the first horseman to approach him with an offer for one of the Bon Marché runners.

“Your bloodlines, Mr. Dewey,” Pinckney said, “seem to be devastating us.”

“The luck of racing, sir.”

“Not at all. That Predator colt that won today—the big bay—is he for sale?”

Charles grinned. This was what he had come for. But he began cautiously. “Any horse is for sale for the proper price.”

“Ten thousand, sir.”

The visitor struggled to keep the shock off his face. The price he had anticipated for the colt had been far exceeded by the offer.

“Perhaps, Mr. Pinckney, we should not rush into this.”

“Oh? You have another offer?”

“Some interest has been expressed, yes.” The white lie was just a part of horse-trading.

“Tell me what it is and I shall match it.”

Charles needed time to think; there was a greater vein to be mined in Charleston than he had imagined. “I prefer that such offers be kept confidential.”

“Of course.”

“But when I do elect to sell him, you'll be given ample opportunity to compete for him.”

“That seems fair to me, sir.” Young Pinckney bowed slightly and retired.

Dewey needed a plan. It was clear to him now that he would have no difficulty selling the dozen colts he had brought with him. Pinckney's interest, he believed, only mirrored what was possible. He thought of Mattie and what ideas she might contribute; his wife, he admitted to himself, was a far shrewder bargainer than was he.

On the first Saturday of racing, his guardian spirit intervened. Mattie wasn't there, but Mrs. Langdon Cheves was.

“I'm disappointed in you, Mr. Dewey,” she said to him, coming up on him suddenly when he was saddling a runner for the feature event.

“Ma'am?”

“I've waited a week to hear from you.”

“Well, you see, the horses—”

“Now I've had to seek you out.” She was playing the coquette. “I'm not accustomed, Mr. Dewey, to playing second fiddle to a bunch of horses.”

Charles was uncomfortable. “I was … uh … concerned about the propriety of calling on a woman whose husband is absent—”

“I never knew,” she interrupted, “that propriety was a concern of men. My experience has been that women have had to set the rules in such matters.”

“Yes, well…” Once again her candor had cost him his words.

“Following that theory—to which I subscribe—you have an invitation for lunch tomorrow.”

“If you wish.”

“I wish, Mr. Dewey.”

V

S
EVERAL
times in the hours between Saturday afternoon and Sunday noon Charles had decided that he would send a message to Mrs. Cheves declining her invitation.

He didn't.

He went because he wanted to be with her. Because, tossing sleeplessly in his bed that night, he could not erase the erotic thoughts he had about her. He even concluded, in one brief moment, that if she allowed him …

They had a delightful meal together, laughing and teasing. She captivated him. He found, as the meal ended and they strolled together on the vast lawn of the estate, that she became less and less like Mattie. The physical comparisons were still there, and the candor, but Mrs. Cheves had her own charm. She was more sophisticated than Mattie, more experienced in the world of “old society.”

They sat on a low stone wall at the edge of the lawn, gazing out over the fields. Silently. She reached over and took his hand, holding it in her lap.

“Mr. Dewey,” she began. “Oh, I can't keep calling you that, can I?”

“It's Charles.”

“I'm Mary Elizabeth. I was a Dulles.” She grinned. “But that doesn't mean anything to you, does it?”

“No,” he admitted.

“Good! Because it's not important, really. What's important is that we be”—she hesitated—“friends.”

“I agree.”

“Friendship is what you seek in me?”

“Of course.”