The Wages of Fame

by Thomas Fleming

  When it ended, and the ladies fluttered their fans and the men mopped their brows, Peggy Eaton drifted across the floor to the Stapletons. “I heard what you said to that bitch Floride Calhoun the other night,” she said. “I’m glad you know which side your bread is buttered on.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Caroline said.

  “Before this is over, everyone’s going to find out they can’t insult Peggy O’Neale.”

  Peggy’s extravagant use of toilet water again assailed Caroline’s nostrils. There was something vulgar about this woman; it was an undemocratic thought—but an unavoidable one.

  A half hour later, back on the dance floor, Peggy collided with Mrs. Alexander McComb, an admiral’s wife. Older and heftier, Mrs. McComb almost knocked Peggy down—and did not apologize. Instead she muttered something to her husband about inviting the wrong people into society.

  “What did you say?” Peggy cried. “Another crack like that and your husband will be commanding a sloop in Pago Pago.”

  “Obviously, your manners are as atrocious as your morals,” Mrs. McComb said.

  For a moment it looked as if the two ladies were going to start scratching and biting. An appalled Caroline looked around for their host, the secretary of state. He seemed to have vanished. She urged George to find him. George located Van Buren in the library, sipping port, while the name-calling on the dance floor reached ever higher decibels. The story would be all over Washington the next day, further embarrassing Andrew Jackson. Surely Van Buren would want to stop it. But when George urged the secretary to do something, he coolly replied it would be better to “let the heavyweights fight it out.”

  Obviously, Martin Van Buren did not give a damn how much Peggy Eaton embarrassed the president. His only interest in the affair was how much political capital he could coin from it. From that moment, George Stapleton ceased to like or trust this clever Democrat from New York.

  A week later, the Stapletons were invited to join the president and about forty guests for an excursion down the Potomac aboard a new steam-powered navy warship. Vice President and Mrs. Calhoun were among the guests, as well as the Legrands and John Sladen. As they trooped aboard, the president stood on the quarterdeck, shaking hands with the men and greeting the ladies.

  As the ship headed down the Potomac, John Sladen joined Caroline and George at the starboard railing. Toward them strolled Floride Calhoun in a saffron yellow spring dress and a small straw hat trimmed with white roses. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Calhoun,” Caroline said.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Stapleton,” Floride said. “How did you enjoy Mr. Van Buren’s ball?”

  “It was a very festive affair.”

  “I heard people placed bets on whether Mrs. McComb or Mrs. Eaton would win their prizefight. Did you make any money?”

  “No, but I almost wished I’d taken your advice and stayed home.”

  Her glance caught John Sladen’s eyes. Is that better? she silently asked.

  Down the deck toward them strolled Amos Kendall, the man whose toast had closed the inaugural ball. His hawk nose and bold gray eyes gave him a menacing air. Beside him was a shorter man with an odd-shaped, balding head and oversized eyes that made him look like a circus clown out of costume. With them was the dapper secretary of state in one of his creamy vests and tan suits.

  “Here comes President Jackson’s new cabinet,” Mrs. Calhoun said. “I hear they meet nightly in the White House kitchen.”

  It was the beginning of the phrase kitchen cabinet, which soon became a byword for Jackson’s style of government. Alienated from his regular cabinet by the Eaton imbroglio, he turned to informal advisers.

  “How do you do, Mr. Kendall,” Floride Calhoun said. “And Mr. Van Buren—whom I should have saluted first.”

  “By no means, Mrs. Calhoun. In the Democratic Party, we’re all equals,” Van Buren said.

  Martin Van Buren introduced Caroline and George and John Sladen to Kendall. He also introduced the balding man—Frank Blair, whom he described as the best newspaperman in the West.

  “Ah yes. Mr. Swartout’s friends,” Kendall said, his hard eyes sweeping over the Stapletons and John Sladen.

  “And proud of it!” John said.

  “I was discussing with these young people the Machiavellian element in politics,” Floride Calhoun said. “You must be familiar with his writings, Mr. Secretary.”

  “If you read his books, you’ll find him a much slandered man,” Van Buren said. “He favors honesty and plain dealing among those in power.”

  “Mr. Kendall and his fellow Kentuckian, Mr. Blair, are going to establish a new newspaper in Washington,” Floride Calhoun said, ignoring Van Buren’s defense of Machiavelli. “It will speak for the administration. Everyone on the federal payroll recently received a subscription to it. The implication, it seemed to me, was—either you paid for your subscription or you should begin looking for another job.”

  “You reason too closely, Mrs. Calhoun. Like your husband. In politics, appearances are deceptive,” Kendall said.

  “How well we Southerners know that,” Floride said. “We thought we belonged to a united Democratic Party, for instance.”

  “United under Andrew Jackson, madam,” Van Buren said.

  “How stupid of me not to realize that,” Mrs. Calhoun said.

  With a twirl of her parasol, she left the Stapletons and John Sladen to digest what they had just heard. Kendall, Blair, and the secretary of state also departed. Again, Caroline sensed John was asking, Now do you believe me—trust me? She resisted the question violently for reasons both personal and political.

  “There’s Jack Donelson and Emily,” she said. “Let’s say hello.” She pointed across the deck, where the White House hostess and her husband, the president’s secretary, were looking at the scenery off the port side of the ship.

  “Beware,” John Sladen said. “The uncrowned queen approaches.”

  Peggy O’Neale Eaton strolled toward the Donelsons. She was wearing a crimson red silk dress trimmed with Turkish embroidery. Its tight high waist more than emphasized her superb figure. On her dark hair was a chaplet of red roses. A brisk wind had risen, fluttering their leaves. Clutching the flowers, Peggy said, “Oh, Mrs. Donelson. Would you like to use my toilet water? It will protect your skin against this wind.”

  “No thank you,” Emily Donelson said in a voice that could not have been more icy.

  Peggy’s lovely face convulsed with fury. “If you continue to insult me, you’ll find your husband and you and your brats on the way back to Tennessee.”

  From that moment, Caroline wrote off Peggy Eaton as a hopeless case. The woman had no political judgment. It was only a question of time before she would destroy herself and her husband. In the meantime, where should the Stapletons pledge their allegiance? Beside her stood John Sladen, telling her it should go to John C. Calhoun and the wronged abused South. But where did that leave her loyalty to the unhappy old man in the White House? Was he irrelevant, a kind of king without real power, manipulated by the men around him? If that was true, her political instincts told her that the man who was going to emerge victorious from this amoral struggle was the admirer of Machiavelli, Martin Van Buren. Did that make John Sladen, with his forlorn, father-driven loyalty to Samuel Swartout, somehow pitiable?

  No, no, no, Caroline told herself. She had traveled down that river once. Never, never, never again. Why was she attracted to men who backed losing causes? Suddenly she was in the Bowood library again, looking at her father’s memorial. Was he the reason? Was that proud, poverty-haunted man the secret ruler of her soul? Did she feel she had betrayed him by marrying George Stapleton?

  “Look,” George said. “Mount Vernon.”

  Off the starboard bow was the white mansion of the ultimate founding father, George Washington. For almost five minutes, conversation on the deck dwindled as everyone contemplated the memory and meaning of a man who had won authentic imperishable fame.

  “He’s the one man
we must never forget,” George said. “He embodied America.”

  Caroline found this idolatry annoying. Her experience with Hugh Stapleton inclined her to think the past was a foreign country that no one should try to visit. Better to free themselves from its grip, to banish all the ghosts, personal and national.

  “Someday, George, maybe they’ll say that about you.”

  For a moment George’s glance was unfriendly. He thought she was ridiculing him. “I mean it,” she said. “Don’t you think it’s possible, John?”

  “In American politics, anything is possible,” John Sladen said.

  Was that mockery in his saturnine eyes? If so, Caroline dismissed it. For a fantastic moment she had a glimpse of a future in which she and John would conspire to convince George Stapleton that he could achieve this goal—for a purpose which he did not comprehend. She did not know what that purpose would be. But she felt destiny gathering around her in this capital city, where personalities and power were in violent collision.

  FIVE

  “YES, HE’S DADDY’S BIG BOY. Isn’t he Daddy’s big boy?” George said, bouncing Jonathan Stapleton on his large knee.

  Six-month-old Jonathan giggled and gurgled with glee. “I think he looks more and more like Grandfather, don’t you?” George said.

  His frequent attempts to detect the family bloodline in Jonathan’s looks always made Caroline uncomfortable. Every time she saw the child, she encountered John Sladen’s gray eyes and thin-lipped mouth. “Yes,” she said.

  “Here’s some iced tea, mistress,” Tabitha said.

  “Oh, thank you,” Caroline said. Tabitha was always doing thoughtful little things for her.

  It was June at its worst in Washington, D.C. Waves of soggy heat seemed to drift on the desultory Southern breeze. George had added a broad porch on the second floor of their house. It gave them a blessed escape from the heat—and a nice view of the empty fields and vacant streets of the capital. As the sun sank, the birds twittered sleepily in the trees along Pennsylvania Avenue, crickets began to chirp, the traffic dwindled.

  The clop of horses’ hooves reached their ears. Looking down, they saw the president of the United States, Andrew Jackson, and his secretary of state, Martin Van Buren, out for another evening ride. Over the last month, their appearance around this time’ had become almost a fixture of the capital scene. George and Caroline watched in silence as they passed. The significance of this deepening companionship was too obvious to mention.

  “I’m glad we’re going back to New Jersey,” Caroline said.

  “I am too,” George said.

  They were closing their Washington house for the summer. Few Washingtonians endured the broiling heat and stifling humidity of the place if they could avoid it. Bowood would be a haven of comfort in comparison. But Caroline was not talking about the weather. She was referring to Martin Van Buren’s growing ascendancy and John C. Calhoun’s steady decline as a result of the ongoing social war over Peggy Eaton.

  Peggy’s mastery of the president made her truculent public behavior almost irrelevant. She took all her insults and rebuffs to him and blamed them on the vice president. Sarah Polk sent Caroline a quotation from a letter that the president had written to James Polk: “That base man Calhoun is secretly saying that Mrs. Eaton is the president.”

  Other spies had reported to Sarah a particularly flagrant Van Buren ploy. He had confided to Peggy that he considered Andrew Jackson the greatest man who ever lived—but sternly forbade her to tell the president. Of course, Peggy passed on the remark the next time she went to the White House. Old Hickory’s eyes filled with tears. “That man loves me,” he said.

  “Sickening” was among the milder terms George Stapleton used to describe Van Buren’s oily flattery and his manipulation of Peggy Eaton to destroy John C. Calhoun. Caroline was equally repelled, but she continued to marvel at the power Peggy was wielding on one side—and Floride Calhoun was displaying on the supposedly moral side of the question. In her secret heart Caroline rejoiced at the sight of women forcing flabbergasted males to deal with them.

  Caroline was also discovering how totally unpredictable history can be—how seemingly trivial quarrels and animosities can tilt events in ways that loom far longer than their petty origins. On his side, George was discovering what it meant to resist a powerful politician. For his John Sladen-inspired flirtation with Samuel Swartout, now installed as collector of the port of New York, George suddenly found it impossible to name a single postmaster to the many vacancies that occurred in New Jersey. The postmaster general and his wife were on the Eaton-Van Buren side of the quarrel over Peggy.

  Worse, the editor of the Newark Plebian, the leading Democratic newspaper in New Jersey, suddenly began to wonder in his editorials if George was a “true Democrat.” . He was, after all, still rich, his uncle was still the president of Principia Mills and chairman of the largest bank in the state, and according to rumor George was paying a man five dollars a month to put flowers on his grandfather’s grave—proof that he secretly yearned for a return to rule by aristocrats. Congressman Stapleton may have charmed Old Hickory at the Hermitage, but the editor decided only “deeds” would convince him. The editor’s brother-in-law had become assistant collector of the port of Perth Amboy thanks to Van Buren’s friend Amos Kendall, who was virtually running the Treasury Department.

  Caroline told these troubles to Sarah Polk, who coolly assured her they were annoying but not particularly surprising. Similar feuds and rivalries existed in every state. Sarah advised an early return to New Jersey to assert George’s leadership of the state Democratic Party. She also urged George to do unto his enemies what they were doing to him and start a newspaper of his own. Van Buren had a newspaper, the Albany Argus, that chastised foes and praised friends in New York. In Nashville, the Republican was edited by one of President Jackson’s close personal friends. Every major politician had a paper manned by an aggressive editor who spoke in his behalf.

  Not long after Martin Van Buren and Andrew Jackson disappeared down Pennsylvania Avenue, Tabitha returned to the porch. “Mr. Sladen is downstairs,” she said.

  “Send him up, by all means,” George said.

  The twilight was deepening on the porch. John Sladen was a figure of darkness in the doorway. “I’ve come to say good-bye.”

  “You’re leaving for New Orleans tomorrow?”

  “Yes.”

  “I hope you’ll come back a congressman, Johnny,” George said.

  “That will take some doing. I’m still pretty much an outsider. But it’s not an impossibility, if Senator Legrand’s health remains good. I think I’ve convinced him I can be of some service.”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  “In some ways this has been the most momentous three months of my life. I’ve met a truly great man. Greater than Aaron Burr—or Andrew Jackson.”

  “Calhoun? I admire him too,” George said. “But his stock is slipping steadily downhill. He’s barely selling at par these days.”

  “That’s another reason why I want to come back here. I assure you he’s not going to sit passively and let the leadership of this country go by default to a scheming swine like Martin Van Buren.”

  “Sit down. Would you like some iced tea?” George said.

  “No, no thank you. I’ve still got packing to do.” John cleared his throat and fumbled with his hat. “I’ve got some news of my own. I’ve asked the senator for Clothilde’s hand.”

  “Wonderful!” George’s hearty tone gouged Caroline’s nerves. “I presume he said yes?”

  “He’s delighted. He’s giving us a very generous dowry. I think she’ll be a good wife, don’t you? She has beautiful manners. She’s a sweet, lovely girl. I’m very fond of her.”

  “It’s a wonderful choice,” George said. “My only complaint is she sometimes seems too quiet. But I suppose I’ve seen her with Caroline and Sarah Polk. They’re never at a loss for words.”

  “How true,” John said. “I’m
afraid I’m that way myself. Maybe that’s why I like the idea of a quiet wife. At least one person will listen to me.”

  “Johnny, you’re rating your powers much too low.”

  “Well, you’re among my oldest friends. I thought I’d share my … my good news with you.”

  “I’m glad you did. I wish I could persuade you to stay for a drink. Did I scare you off with iced tea? We can have a rumfustian or some cold white wine in your hand in two minutes.”

  “No thank you, George. One other thing—I hope you or Caroline can find time to write me a letter now and then about what’s happening here in Washington. I’m sure it would tell me more than any newspaper.”

  “I hereby appoint Caroline your official correspondent.”

  “Wonderful. Good-bye to you both. Good-bye, Caroline.”

  “Good-bye,” she said.

  She listened to John’s footsteps descending the stairs. She knew why he did not stay. He had been hoping to find her alone. She knew exactly what he had wanted to say—by what he had failed to say about Clothilde. The word love was singularly absent from his good news. Caroline knew in John Sladen’s heart that word would always be reserved for her. Had he come hoping to extract the same confession from her? What would she have said if he had asked her, challenged her, to tell him?

  The birds had ceased their drowsy twitters. Darkness was almost total in the street, on the porch. “That’s the best news I’ve heard in a while,” George said. “Don’t you agree?”

  “Yes,” Caroline said.

  “I guess he’s gotten over you, my dear. Do you wish it were otherwise? Do you still sometimes imagine yourself as La Belle Dame sans Merci with poor Sladen—and me—in your thrall?”