My Theodosia Page 20

  'I think no one could force you to do anything, Meme,' said Theo softly.

  He shrugged. 'Maybe not. I've always gone my own way.'

  He told her of his one close friend, Billy Clark, a lad four years older and yet the gentler and more biddable of the two. So that it was Meme who commanded and Billy who followed. They were separated awhile, when Billy went to soldiering, then, as soon as his age permitted, Meme followed his friend into the army. They fought together in the Whiskey Rebellion in '94. After that for a few years Meme acted as regimental paymaster. The life had suited him. It gave him travel, danger, constant opportunity to exercise his alert, resourceful brain.

  The safe transporting of the gold was no easy task. With his saddle-bags bulging with gold eagles, he rode regularly from Philadelphia to the forts at Pittsburgh, Wheeling, Cincinnati, and even on to the rough new blockhouse at Detroit. Often he was without escort and had many a brush with marauders both white and Indian. Yet his record was unstained. Not only did he safely deliver the government gold, but, far more remarkable in a soldier, he never made a mistake in accounting or apportioning. His books balanced to the last ha'penny.

  Jefferson had known him as a boy, for Monticello was not far from the Lewis homestead. After Meme received his captaincy, Jefferson kept in close touch with him, until two years ago, when he had offered him the post of presidential secretary.

  'Tis not much in my line,' said Meme, with a wry smile, 'crouching over a desk, smoothing down touchy ministers, handing teacups to the ladies. I cannot say I do it well or find it congenial. But it has pleasured me mightily to be near Jefferson in any capacity. He's a great man, and a good one.'

  'Father doesn't think so. He thinks him a dolt and overfond of shilly-shallying'. She spoke without thinking, repeating words she had heard many times from Aaron.

  Meme's face darkened. 'Colonel Burr——' he began roughly, but checked himself. 'We do not see alike on a great many matters.'

  Lewis fully shared Jefferson's distrust of the insinuating little man who had all but intrigued himself into the Presidency, and was even now beckoning to the discomfited Federalists with one hand, while he flourished the Republican standard with the other. That Burr was a trouble-maker, Jefferson was convinced. Small puffs of intrigue and disloyalty arose from his vicinity, wherever he might be, like smoke from a smothered campfire. A situation all the more annoying because there was nothing tangible. He discharged his official duties with dignified efficiency, and presided well over the Senate, as even his enemies were forced to admit.

  'Why do you speak of my father in that tone?' said Theo sadly. 'You have been listening to scandal, the lying tongues of his enemies. You do not, surely, believe the ridiculous allegations of Alexander Hamilton and his cat's-paw, Cheetham. He is well named, "Cheat'em." There is no truth in any of his scurrilous articles.'

  Lewis was silent. Doubtless no man could be the monster of iniquity which Cheetham in the American Citizen represented Aaron as being, but though Lewis and Jefferson agreed with Hamilton on little else, they did agree with him in his estimate of Burr's character. There was no purpose in discussing the subject with Theo. It would but give them both pain.

  'Meme,' she insisted, 'if you understood Father, you could not help but admire him. He is so brilliant, so learned and brave. He is the soul of honor and unselfishness. He is a great man. I know he is. In the years to come everyone will acknowledge it'. Her voice faltered. 'You do agree with me, don't you?'

  He could not lie to her, so he kissed the soft mouth that pleaded with him, murmuring lightly, 'He has earned my eternal gratitude by begetting you, my Theo.'

  She was not satisfied, but his caress effaced everything for the inStant. And she was quiet.

  They did not speak of Aaron again, nor did they ever speak of the future. Once he tried to tell her about his expedition to the West, but to this one thing she would not listen.

  'Why must you go, Meme? Who cares what lands lie beyond the Mississippi? The risk seems to me so useless and so foolish. If Jefferson wants this thing done, let him find someone else to go.'

  "The expedition has been my dream since I was fourteen, Theo. And I think there are perhaps no two men so well suited to this particular undertaking as William Clark and myself'. 'What good will it do?' she repeated desperately. 'You say yourself no other white man has ever been through those regions; why, then, should any white man ever go there?'

  He sighed, yet, because he loved her, he answered patiently. 'We shall take title to those lands for our country. They will become part of the United States. We shall stretch from one ocean to the other, a mighty nation, unified, of one tongue. Does this mean nothing to you?'

  'All I know is that you wish to go far away and into certain danger. Don't talk of it now—please'. She reached her arms out to him, and he drew her gently to him, allowing her to lead him into the tender murmured nonsense which delights lovers.

  Still, he knew with grim clarity that this idyll of theirs was a piece of beautiful folly that could not last. Each day when he left her, he turned tirelessly to his plans—the ordering of supplies, the meticulous directions to people in St. Louis, from which town the complete expedition would eventually start up the Missouri. And he spent his evenings in the study of astronomy, latitude and longitude.

  Yet each day it was harder to leave her; they put off the parting hour until the forest lay hot and muted under the noon heat. Jefferson did not question his tardiness, Meme enjoyed his complete trust, but his tired old eyes wondered, and Meme threw himself savagely into the accumulated work, cursing his own weakness.

  It could not last, and it did not.

  On the fourth afternoon Aaron returned, and, with the first glimpse of his spare, energetic figure and his delighted smile, Theodosia was jolted from her dream.

  'It's most kind of you to shorten our separation, Miss Prissy,' he said, embracing her warmly. 'I scarcely dared suggest that you meet me here, knowing your fondness for New York, and knowing, too, your love of comfort. I fear Washington has little of that to offer as yet.'

  'Indeed, I have wanted for nothing,' she said briefly. 'We have not been uncomfortable.'

  He put his arm around her waist. 'And how is the really important member of the family?'

  She smiled and led him upstairs to view the drowsy baby, who opened his dark eyes at once and, seeing his grandfather, crowed with pleasure.

  'I believe he actually remembers you!' cried Theo, laughing.

  'I have always said that he was a singularly intelligent infant. Look——' He pulled a small silver rattle from his pocket, jingling the bells. 'See what Gramps bought for you in Philadelphia.'

  The baby lunged forward, his fat fingers closing around the toy. 'Gampy,' he said joyfully, bestowing on Aaron a seraphic smile.

  'He means you, I think,' said Theo. 'He calls himself Gampy, but he calls your picture Gampy too, the one I always carry with me.'

  'So,' said Aaron, pleased. 'Then we share even our nicknames. We are both Gampy'. He stroked the child's curls.

  'Just so fiery red was your hair, Theo, at his age. Little Gampy is much like you, only a great deal handsomer, of course.'

  His eyebrows shot up in their characteristic quizzical manner when he teased. She smiled at him, thinking how young he looked for all his forty-seven years. Over the fine bones the flesh was firm and ruddy, scarcely marred by a wrinkle. Though his hair had receded a trifle from his forehead, it was still brown and abundant. He never lost or gained a pound, nor had he since his eighteenth year, having long ago found the secret of his interior chemistry. He looked young and buoyant, in some ways younger than Merne, she thought with dismay.

  But she couldn't think of Merne now.

  Seated with her father at the other end of the supper table, she slipped insensibly into the old familiar pattern, stirring the sauces as he liked them, watching anxiously for his approval of her choice of wine, responding to his affectionate banter with eager amusement. Deep under
neath, her love for Merne throbbed poignantly, but she dared not even think of it now.

  That she could have been with him this morning, close in his arms, his lips on hers, seemed incredible while Aaron sat there chatting of Joseph, or telling her witty stories of his pursuit of the lady Céleste.

  'The lady leads me on,' said Aaron, chuckling; 'then, as I gallantly approach, she runs for cover, cheeks mantling, eyelids fluttering as though she were fifteen instead of—well, I shall not be so cruel as to hazard a guess. She bids me begone, then summons me back with vague little notes which I' cannot fathom. What, ma chère, is your opinion of all this?'

  Theo sipped her wine and pretended to consider. 'Well, here is my opinion. She meant from the beginning to say that awful word yes, but, not choosing to say it immediately, she told you that you had furnished her with arguments against matrimony, which means, "Please, sir, to persuade me out of them again." But you took it as a plump refusal and walked off. She called you back. What more could she do? I would have seen you in Japan, before I should have done as much.'

  Aaron laughed. 'No doubt you arc right, my Minerva. Perhaps also she sensed that her five thousand pounds dowry attracted me more than her full-blown charms. I must find me some more congenial way of raising a little money.'

  Theo frowned. 'Is it so bad? Were you really considering marriage seriously? I thought it all in jest.'

  "Tis no jest, alas, I'm hard-pressed again. Barring a rich wife, which I really cannot stomach, I fear I must sell Richmond Hill.'

  'Sell Richmond Hill!' she cried, thunderstruck. 'Oh, no! Surely things cannot be so bad as that. It's like a part of ourselves. I can't conceive of your not owning it, of our not being able to go there. It's home. No other place on earth could ever be that to me.'

  'I know, my dear. The thought pains me too. But we must face the crude, unpalatable fact. I am financially embarrassed.'

  She had never questioned this familiar predicament. All her life periods of prosperity had alternated with periods of retrenchment and anxiety, but they had never before threatened her personally or threatened Richmond Hill.

  'But surely you can think of some other way,' she said, miserably, then brightened. 'There's Joseph. He'll help, I'm sure.'

  Aaron's mouth quirked. She had no idea of how much Joseph had previously helped, and of late the young planter had become increasingly difficult, had shown a regrettable tendency to hang on to his money. In short, he had tried Joseph already.

  Aaron pushed back from the table, wiped his mouth delicately on his cambric handkerchief. 'Let us speak of pleasanter subjects. I shall manage some way. I always do. What have you been doing with yourself during these days here while you waited for me?'

  Had she really in her purblind folly thought that she might tell him of Merne? Father, I have met Meriwether Lewis again. I love him. What shall I do?

  She turned a little, shading her cheek with her lace fan. 'I have seen no one, gone nowhere. It has been very quiet'. Aaron shrugged. 'Quiet, yes. I suppose so. I'm not in very good odor with our society here. Our worthy President disapproves of me, the cabinet and senatorial ladies follow suit. Only Mrs. Madison remains kind.'

  'Mrs. Madison is always kind,' said Theo. 'Papa, why are you unpopular here? I cannot understand it.'

  'Nor I, my dear, except that, egged on by the excellent Hamilton, who apparently has naught else to keep him busy at present, they do me the honor to consider me a dangerous man. A very Lucifer of villainy and corruption.'

  'Why should people believe this? No statesman but has had his politics impugned, had derogatory articles printed about him. It is the usual thing, is it not?'

  Aaron smiled at her calmly. 'There are always some who believe what they see in print, and besides it is more than my public life that has been attacked. I am thought monstrous lewd. It is said that I consort with niggers, because, indeed, I allowed my good Peggy and Alexis to give a party at Richmond Hill for their own people. It is said that I keep a secret collection of indecent pictures with which to debauch the young men who visit me. This, my dear, is our poor picture gallery. It is said that the brothels of New York are filled with the victims I have seduced, not to speak of my unbridled assaults upon virtuous ladies of fashion'. He gave a contemptuous snort. 'I fear that they vastly flatter my virility.'

  'But it's so monstrous!' she cried. 'Deny all this! Write counter-articles!'

  He shook his head. 'No. I hate apologies and explanations. They do no good. They but fix the matter more firmly in the public mind. The time may come when I shall have to take action, and then I shall act, you may be sure of that, but in the meantime I shall not dive into the sea of ink'. He added, with bitter humor, 'At least no one can take exception to the manner in which I fulfill my office. I am a confounded good Vice-President.'

  She smiled with him, but her heart ached. He was so gallant, so devoid of self-pity. He was fashioned to be a ruler of men, a king, instead of an insignificant understudy to a man who disliked him, and who constantly blocked even the scant authority which his office gave him.

  She went to him and kissed him. 'It will not always be like this, Father. I think—I know—your star is but beginning to rise. Some day you will be the greatest—the very greatest in the world.'

  Aaron smiled. 'You are a loyal little partisan, my dear. Mayhap you're right'. He was silent a moment, went on with sudden force: 'You're the one being on whom I can depend, from whom I have no secrets. What should I do without you?' He took her hand in his, kissed the small white fingers briefly. For a moment they were held in silence, she leaning over his high-backed chair, the two faces, that so much resembled each other, close and filled with the same expression of brooding tenderness.

  Then Aaron stirred, releasing her hand. 'I have not yet told you of the treat in store for you tomorrow afternoon,' he said lightly. 'I am bidden to dine with Jefferson. You will, of course, accompany me.'

  Theo sank into the opposite chair, her heart pounding. She would see him there—Meme. The unthinking spurt of joy died down. But how should they meet as strangers? How comport herself through a state dinner without showing her feelings? How conceal those feelings from the all-seeing eyes of Aaron?

  'It's—isn't it late in the season for official dinners?' she stammered. 'There cannot be many people left in town.'

  'The Gallatins and the Madisons are still here, at any rate, and the foreign ministers. We are all in a rare pother over Jefferson's remarkable negotiation with Bonaparte. You haven't heard, I suppose?'

  He went on before she need answer. 'He has swapped some fifteen million of our hard-won dollars for a tract of country so far away and so vast that no one has ever seen it. I have no doubt Bonaparte was delighted to get rid of the burden, and is now sniggering up his sleeve at us, poor gullible fools. The Spaniards, moreover, are enraged. It is the beginning of a mort of trouble. How like Jefferson, who never can make up his mind, to choose for an exception a piece of unbridled bad judgment. And he did it, too, against all advice.'

  'But does it not add to the prestige of our nation? We shall be larger than the whole of Europe.'

  'Pish,' said Aaron impatiently. 'We had too much land already. Far more than can be governed from this ramshackle village here. Even a thousand miles away, on the shores of the Ohio, I hear that they are resentful of our pretensions. Think you that the bears and the wolves and the savages in the territory beyond will be an asset to us? If indeed that unexplored country supports any life at all. For no white man has ever penetrated most of it. No—the purchase was a piece of egregious folly.'

  Yet one white man was preparing to explore this new territory, thought Theo. For the first time she felt a thrill of pride in Merne's ambition, followed quickly by sick dread. Her father, too, thought the purchase was folly, and this confirmed her own instinctive judgment. The expedition was foredoomed to failure. Merne's lot would be not only foolhardy danger but ridicule. How can I stop him? she thought desperately. Somehow I must make him liste
n to me. I'll plead and reason, use all the influence of our love. Yet, even as she made incoherent plans, she knew how helpless she was.

  Aaron, staring abstractedly at the floor, went on, half to himself. 'Before long this unwieldy mass of land will divide into its logical parts. There is no government now or in the future which can cope with such geographical differences. The lands beyond the Alleghenies will break away. Those mountains form a barrier far more formidable than the arbitrary divisions in Europe.'

  'Do you think so?' said Theo politely. She had only one interest in the land beyond the Alleghenies, and that was not political.

  'I think so,' said Aaron thoughtfully.

  With his daughter he shared the feminine trait of boredom with impersonal concepts. His own idle prophecy had swung ajar a window which opened on an attractive new vista. He instinctively considered it in relation to himself. The disaffection of the West, the resentment of the Spaniards—could they not be used to advantage by an ambitious and farsighted leader? But how? To this there was for the moment no answer. The idea had after all been only a foolish fantasy. And he had no patience with impracticality.

  His course for the immediate future lay clear ahead. He would continue to be an excellent Vice-President, and he would run for the governorship of New York State. In the event of his winning—and he felt confident of doing so—he would find this key position a far better political springboard than any he had as yet tried.

  He now dusted a few flecks of tobacco from his black silk breeches, and rose with quick litheness. 'I'm going to bed, my dear; the highway from Philadelphia is enough to weary Apollo himself. Do you go and retire, too. I wish you fresh and shining for the President's dinner tomorrow'. He saluted her gallantly, but turned back as a thought struck him. 'By the by, do you remember the overgrown captain with whom you coquetted at Vauxhall Gardens?'