Three hours later, the guests had departed. The president had taken the Gardiners with him in his coach, expressing horror at the mere thought of Julia being forced to shiver in the March wind while they searched for a hack. As Henry Orr and his team of blacks cleared away the dishes and the ruins of the pies and cakes, Caroline allowed herself her first glass of champagne. John Sladen slumped in a chair, having allowed himself several glasses too many. George was not in much better shape.
“What did you decide?” Caroline asked.
George grinned. “The president of the United States is insanely in love with Miss Julia Gardiner.”
“I mean about Texas.”
“He’s afraid of starting a war. He’s going to negotiate with the Mexicans. A waste of time in my opinion,” George said. “Jackson tried that for eight years and got nowhere. Texas is independent. The problem is getting an annexation bill through Congress, with Henry Clay opposed to it.”
“Harry the Great is terrified of the abolitionists of Massachusetts,” John Sladen said.
“What about Secretary of State Webster?” Caroline asked. “Will he negotiate seriously when he knows John Quincy Adams hates the idea?” She told them what Adams had said about the “slavocracy.”
“You should stop inviting that vicious old man,” John said.
“He’s upset about your motion to censure him. Will it carry?”
“No,” Sladen said.
“Adams isn’t an abolitionist,” George said. “He just can’t stand the way the South is hiding its head in the sand on slavery.”
“George,” John said, “I wish you’d come down to Louisiana and visit my sugar plantation. I have one hundred and twenty slaves working there. I have a full-time doctor in attendance. Their food is more wholesome than any Northern mill hand’s. They never have to worry about being laid off. They’re the healthiest happiest workers in America.”
“You’re not in the House of Representatives, John,” Caroline said. “What did Mr. Calhoun say about Texas?”
“He told the president he might have his support—depending on the treaty. There’s talk of the British putting an abolition condition on any treaty. Houston and his crowd might go along—if the British guarantee the treaty against Mexican reprisals. Calhoun will never agree to that.”
“Tonight, Secretary of State Webster told Mr. Adams he wouldn’t agree to it either. I think we can safely dismiss that worry,” Caroline said.
“I told Tyler to settle Oregon at the same time. Oregon will be a new free state, Texas a slave state,” George said.
“I’m not sure the South will agree to that,” Congressman Sladen said. “More and more, we’re tired of apologizing for slavery.”
“Johnny, you’ve obviously had too much champagne,” George said. “So have I. I’m going to bed.”
“One more glass and I’m gone.” John weaved his way across the room to a bottle in a cooler on the serving table. Caroline sensed he was not as drunk as he pretended to be.
“I’ll leave you to deal with him, dear,” George said, and stamped upstairs. Each heavy step seemed to say, I am bigger, stronger, more powerful, than Johnny Sladen.
John poured himself another glass of golden champagne and held it up to the light. “There’s much more at stake than Texas,” he said. “At the moment that’s nothing but a gigantic vacuum which will suck men and money out of the South. But Texas could lead to Mexico. Our agents tell us the Mexicans swear they’ll go to war if we annex. On the way back from Louisiana, I traveled through a dozen Southern states. They’re forming secret societies that are taking blood oaths to conquer Mexico and keep it, no matter what the Yankees say. Maybe this charmer you’ve introduced into our play can persuade old Tyler to go along with that idea. It can’t be mentioned to anyone, of course. Above all to George.”
“I understand,” Caroline said.
Congressman Sladen drained his drink. “Aaron Burr’s dream is not dead. It is only sleeping. Soon it will awaken on the lips of John C. Calhoun.”
“He agrees to this? Taking—keeping Mexico?”
“He will, when I finish persuading him.”
“Will this make Tyler president again?”
Sladen shook his head. “Calhoun. That’s where your charm girl comes in. She’ll ease the pain for Old Veto’s inevitable exit.”
“Will she marry a man of fifty-two?”
“What do you think?”
Caroline heard Margaret Gardiner say, My sister is part adventuress. “I think she will. I think she’ll marry him. I’d do the same thing if I were in her shoes.”
“Except you’d make him president for two more terms.”
Caroline laughed mirthlessly. “Probably.”
“When it happens, if it happens, I have another event in mind. The migration of a certain Northern woman to the new Southern nation—beyond the reach of her husband’s brainless devotion.”
Suddenly, in her mind, Caroline was kissing John Sladen’s drunken mouth. His hands were roving her body. “I can promise you nothing on that score.”
“I’m simply stating my case.”
“Your prophecy has been duly noted. Good night, Congressman.”
EIGHT
Dearest Friend,
President Tyler continues to pursue Texas and Julia Gardiner with equal persistence. Both seem determined to elude his grasp. Our charming vixen from New York has been to the White House more often than anyone else in Washington, including members of the President’s cabinet. The city abounds with tales of him chasing her from the Elliptical Salon to the Red Room to the Blue Room in pursuit of a kiss while the bewitching creature cries no no no—before yielding it up. Her mother continues to resist the idea of a marriage, and her father would not dream of doing anything to which his wife objects. Would that we had husbands a tenth as obedient as Mr. Gardiner! Julia confides in me as her “second mother”—a title I would gladly forswear—that her heart is exquisitely balanced between yea and nay. Meanwhile she tantalizes the poor man by carrying on simultaneous flirtations with Supreme Court justice Mc-Lean and Congressman Pickens. Both have proposed, she confided to me yesterday.
As for Texas, it still looms out there like a gigantic will-o’-the-wisp. The President has jettisoned Daniel Webster as secretary of state and moved a pleasant nonentity named Abel P. Upshur (a boyhood friend) from doing nothing in particular as secretary of the navy to take charge of serious negotiations. In short, Mr. Tyler has become his own secretary of state. The best thing that can be said about Mr. Upshur is, he worships John C. Calhoun and tells him everything that is happening inside the administration. Mr. C. is still running hard for the Democratic nomination.
Mr. Tyler told George he is deeply alarmed by Texas’s latest flirtation with the British. Reports from unofficial sources suggest that without some immediate help, the so-called independent republic faces financial collapse—which would invite an early assault from the Mexicans, who still refuse to recognize it.
All this Washington hugger-mugger dwindles to nothing in comparison to my anxiety for you and Mr. Polk in the wake of your latest loss to the insufferable Slim Jimmy Jones. It is dismaying to realize how much power demagoguery can wield in our wonderful republic. I have never been a worshiper of the people, except in the most abstract sense of the term. Are you coming to a similar opinion?
I must close—we’re going for a cruise up the Potomac aboard the new steam frigate USS Princeton. It is equipped with a gigantic new gun, the Peacemaker, which is supposedly capable of sinking any warship afloat. George and every other male in Washington cannot wait to see it in action.
As ever,
Caroline
“Caroline, they’re going to sail promptly at noon!” George called from downstairs.
“I’m ready,” she said, hastily addressing and sealing the envelope.
Caroline handed the letter to Hannibal as she got into the carriage, with orders to mail it on the way back from the Navy Yard. “How is P
olk? Has his health improved?” George asked as they rode through the crowded streets. The exhausting struggle for the Tennessee governorship had triggered a recurrence of his intestinal problems, worsened this time by excruciating cramps and digestive spasms.
“Yes. But not his spirits,” Caroline said.
More and more, it began to look as if James Polk was on his way to the political graveyard. Losing two elections in a row in his native state was a mortal blow. Worse, Martin Van Buren was moving inexorably toward the 1844 presidential nomination. State conventions in New York and Pennsylvania had named him their candidate. As long as Andrew Jackson was alive, Little Van did not need a vice president from Tennessee.
“Maybe it’s for the best,” George said. “Politics doesn’t seem to agree with his stomach.”
“That’s a ridiculous thing to say!” Caroline snapped.
“I’m only saying it to you.”
“You shouldn’t even think it!”
Again, Caroline’s vision of the future had become unhinged by the unpredictability of politics. This time she could not see even a modicum of hope for Sarah Polk’s triumphant return to Washington. Without Sarah, John Sladen seemed to be moving into the foreground of her soul. He visited almost every day, telling her about the mounting frenzy for Texas and Mexico sweeping the South.
At the Washington Navy Yard, they boarded the gleaming new man-of-war Princeton, which Caroline, as the wife of New Jersey’s senior senator, had christened when it slid down the ways in Philadelphia six months ago. The captain, Robert Stockton, gave them an especially warm greeting. He too was a New Jerseyan, from a family as distinguished as the Stapletons. His grandfather had been a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Faces swirled past. Robert Walker, the short, bald Mississippi senator who had fanned the flames of enthusiasm for Texas’s annexation even higher with an open letter arguing it would be good for the whole country, North and South. Rambunctious Congressman Henry Wise of Virginia, the sole member of the Tyler “party” in Congress; he had been pursuing Margaret Gardiner. Although he was no more than forty, she said his wrinkled face made him look as if he had one foot in the grave. Francis Pickens, the South Carolina congressman who had pursued Julia Gardiner, also in vain. She had shown Caroline the poem he had sent her.
On! Come to the South
The land of the sun
And dwell in its bower
Sweet beautiful one.
On the upper deck, Julia Gardiner was chatting with the president. She was wearing a dress of soft rose; her wonderfully expressive face was lifted to his, like a flower to the spring sunshine. Caroline again found herself envying Julia’s spontaneity. Or was it her youth?
Julia could be calculating when it suited her. She had allowed Justice McLean, another suitor, to take her autograph album to Capitol Hill to obtain the signatures of the rest of the Supreme Court. In the album was a poem from the president, which Julia had privately shown Caroline. The justices, prone to investigate documents thoroughly like all lawyers, had found it and spread it all over Washington.
Shall I again that Harp unstring
Which long hath been a useless thing
Unheard in Lady’s bower?
For another twenty lines the president brooded on his unstrung harp, admitting it was “touch’d with decay.” But he still hoped there was a “parting note” left that might stir “a brimy fire” in Julia’s eyes.
“Oh, Mrs. Stapleton,” Julia called. “Come help me advise the president. He’s telling me about his hopes for an early annexation of Texas. But he wonders if Mr. Clay will let his followers vote for it.”
“Even so, the Democrats are a majority in Congress again. A little artful politicking on your part at White House dinners can easily detach a few Whigs and give him his two-thirds vote.”
“You really think so?” Julia said, her eyes widening with excitement. She pouted prettily. “You could do much more at your salon. You understand politics so much better than I do.”
“But you, my dear, would be a fresh recruit,” President Tyler said. “Mrs. Stapleton and I are like veteran soldiers, hobbled by old wounds, our escutcheons a mixture of victories and defeats. We find it harder and harder to intimidate our enemies.”
“Mr. President, that may be an apt description of you,” Julia said. “But it’s grossly unfair to Mrs. Stapleton. I only hope I possess one-half her looks when I reach her age.”
“I stand corrected in my aesthetics, but not in my politics,” Tyler said, beaming at Caroline. He regarded her as the godmother of his romance.
A chilly February wind was whipping across the Potomac. Julia shivered and remarked that her sister, Margaret, had stayed home, nursing a dreadful cold. The president immediately led them below, where a merry company had assembled to dine and drink their way to Mount Vernon and back. Holding court in a corner of the spacious compartment was Caroline’s old friend Dolley Madison. As they got under way, young naval officers led small groups down to the engine rooms to see the gleaming boilers and pistons of the Princeton’ s steam engines.
Around two o’clock they trooped up on deck for a demonstration of the Peacemaker. Mounted on the bow, it thrust its black snout over the water like a huge ugly animal. A half dozen times, the sailors and the officer in command performed the dance of ramming home the powder and cannonball. Then the officer barked, “Fire!” A sailor thrust a match into the touchhole and the big gun sent the ball hurtling a good mile down the empty river.
The new secretary of the navy, Thomas Gilmer, invited David Gardiner, Julia’s father, into the inner circle around the gun. The pudgy little secretary of state, Abel Upshur, proudly joined them. The navy had bought the gun while he was their civilian leader. They stood directly behind the gun’s commander, practically inhaling the billowing smoke from the long black muzzle.
Belowdecks again, the guests began enjoying more champagne and a delicious collation that the sailors had laid out on tables. Caroline noticed George and John Sladen were having an intense conversation with Secretary of State Upshur. She joined them in time to hear Upshur say, “I count forty votes in our favor. Do you agree, Senator?”
“With a little greasing of the machinery, yes,” George said. “Only one thing worries me. To what extent Mr. Van Buren is committed to annexation. Have you had any contact with his friends?”
Upshur shook his head. “The president is hoping to make this his issue. Why should he give any credit to a man who’s spent the last three years in New York?”
“He hasn’t spent all his time in New York,” George said, making room for Caroline on the bench where he was sitting. “You’ll recall he toured the country six months ago. He visited General Jackson—and he also stopped for three days with Henry Clay in Kentucky. In fact, he spent more time there than he did at the Hermitage. Tell us what your friend Sarah Polk heard, my dear.”
“Mr. Clay and Mr. Van Buren have jointly agreed not to allow Texas to become a campaign issue,” Caroline said. “Their followers in Congress will be told to vote against annexation. Without either of them saying a word.”
Upshur was badly shaken. A former Virginia judge, he had no experience in national politics. “I must discuss this with the president,” he said.
Elsewhere, the flowing wine was inducing martial songs and poetry. Secretary of the Navy Gilmer, the acting host for the day, decided they were all entitled to another thrill. They would soon be passing Mount Vernon, and he Asked Captain Stockton if he would fire the Peacemaker one more time to salute George Washington. The captain was more than agreeable.
By now it was four o’clock. Caroline was not enthusiastic about braving the cold wind on the river and stayed behind. So did most of the women and not a few of the men. George, fascinated by the big cannon, was among the departees. Secretary of State Upshur and Julia’s father, David Gardiner, followed him. John Sladen stayed behind to discuss Sarah Polk’s rumor about a secret deal between Clay and Van Buren.
/> “Who told her?” he wanted to know. “These stories should be pinned down.”
A young naval officer began reciting a heroic poem to Julia Gardiner. The president, jealous of even the most unlikely suitors, paused near the ladder to the upper deck and called, “Are you coming on deck, Miss Gardiner?” Julia smiled in her flirtatious way but chose to let the young man continue his poem.
“Ten more lines and he’ll be on his way to Pago Pago,” John Sladen muttered to Caroline.
“‘Eight hundred men lay slain—’” the officer intoned.
A tremendous boom on the deck above their heads shook the ship from bow to stern. The Peacemaker had fired. Everyone burst into applause for the might of the U.S. Navy. Moments later, a dazed powder-streaked lieutenant clattered down the ladder to where the president stood.
“A surgeon,” he cried. “For God’s sake get a surgeon up on deck. The Peacemaker exploded!”
The president sprang up the ladder. Dozens of people rushed to follow him. Caroline and John Sladen were among the first to reach the deck. A pall of black smoke hung over the ship, which had lost headway. The president and Congressman Henry Wise barred their path to the bow.
“It’s not a sight for a lady’s eyes!” the president said.
“Are many killed?” John Sladen asked.
“At least a half dozen,” Wise said.
“My husband?” Caroline said, horror driving thought from her mind.
“There he is!” John said.
George reeled toward them, blood streaming from his ear. His face was chalky white. With him was Senator Thomas Hart Benton, with the same ghastly coloring. His ear too streamed blood. The explosion had ruptured their eardrums and all but stopped the circulation of their blood. But they were alive.
“Don’t let Miss Gardiner come on deck,” the president ordered one of the naval officers. “Her father’s dead. So is Secretary Upshur and Secretary Gilmer. Make sure their families stay below. Their bodies are badly mangled.”
The Wages of Fame Page 39
