The Wages of Fame

by Thomas Fleming

  “No,” Caroline said, avoiding those dark sibyl’s eyes. “Someday I will. It doesn’t affect my promise.”

  “I love you anyway.” Sarah kissed her on the lips. Then she gripped her hands with a ferocity that almost made Caroline cry out. “But I love James too. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes.”

  Dazedly, Caroline descended the stairs to the first floor of the White House. With each step she felt she was sinking deeper into the underground river that had swirled through so many days of her life. If she could not change George Stapleton’s mind about Mexico, she would have to tell John Sladen to destroy him—with the president’s heartfelt support, and her approval. What else could that mean to John but the reawakening of his perpetual hope for her love?

  Yet Caroline knew, even as Ezekiel McCall, the Negro porter, led her chaise to the South Portico, that there was no possibility of her loving John again. The woman who had given herself to that pitiful boy-man in that New York basement was dead. She had lived too long in those caves of ice above the sunless sea. Her heart had shriveled in the eternal cold to the size of a pumpkin seed, and the winds of chance had long since blown it away.

  With George lost, she only loved one thing now. At the gate, Caroline looked back at the white-pillared temple of American fame. A voice whispered:

  ’Tis not in mortals to command success

  But we’ll do more, Sempronius; we’ll deserve it.

  Yes, she thought, yes. She and Sarah would prevail—in spite of the weakness, the stupidity, the cowardice, of men.

  ELEVEN

  “YOU MUST FORGIVE HER. I insist on it.”

  General George Stapleton almost groaned aloud. Dawn was graying his last night in Mexico City. Maria Pena de Vega was lying beside him in his bed, her lips pressed against his throat, telling him that he had to return to Caroline Kemble Stapleton’s treacherous arms.

  “Even if I find her in bed with John Sladen?”

  “Yes. Even if the worst is true. But it may not be so. I have reread your ex-friend Jeremy’s letter. He’s not a reliable witness. His heart is full of hatred. How strange you Americans are! To hate a whole section of your own country—because they own slaves. It would be like a Mexican hating the people of Yucatán because they have so many Indians living in terrible poverty. We Mexicans only hate individuals—fathers hate daughters and vice versa, brothers loathe sisters and vice versa, wives hate husbands—and we know this hatred is wrong. We know we have to ask God’s forgiveness for it eventually. Whereas this abstract hatred of Southerners your abolitionists consider a virtue! Truly appalling. I shudder for the future of your country.”

  “What about the priests and bishops here in Mexico?”

  “Oh, we all hate them—because they want to enslave our souls.”

  “The South is enslaving souls and bodies.”

  “But all this should have nothing to do with your love for your wife! When the political invades the personal, that is the sin against the Holy Spirit, the one that cannot be forgiven.”

  “I shouldn’t hate John Sladen either?”

  “That is a more difficult question. If he’s conducted an affair with your wife in your own house, he’s wounded your honor. You may have to kill him. But you should try to do it without hatred—as an act of duty to your sons.”

  She was determined to shepherd his soul through the rest of his life so they could meet in paradise. But her insistence on forgiving Caroline went beyond this act of faith. It entered that dark borderland where all women were linked in a perpetual union of sympathy and resentment against the aggrandizing power of men. Again and again Maria had quoted Sor Juana’s poem. It whispered now in George’s very veins.

  Hombres necios que acusais

  a la mujer sin razón

  Ah, stupid men, unreasonable

  In blaming woman’s nature

  “I love you,” George said. “That’s the only thing I know right now. If I find Caroline in bed with Johnny Sladen, I’ll divorce her and come back here a free man and marry you.”

  “You wouldn’t be happy in Mexico, and I would be miserable in the United States.”

  “Why?”

  “How many times must I tell you? Because I love Mexico and you don’t. You love the United States of America, and I don’t.”

  George flung aside the sheet and walked to the window. A four-man marine patrol clumped down the Avenida St. Francis. Mexicans hurried past them, their eyes averted. Maria’s words burned in his brain with the bitterness that only history’s irony can create. By blocking the All Mexico movement, he was forever separating not only Mexico from the United States, but also George Stapleton from Maria Pena de Vega. As minister plenipotentiary of Mexico, he could make her his wife in everything but name. Caroline and her salon could be left in Washington. His sons could visit him and perhaps find inspiration, or consolation, in their father’s fame.

  Suddenly George could not breathe. The Avenida St. Francis became a dark blur. A bubble seemed to expand in his chest as if his heart were exploding. But it did not burst. It seemed to be crushing his lungs. “Pray … for … me,” he gasped.

  “I will, always,” Maria said.

  “No … now. I—”

  He stumbled back to the bed. Maria lit an oil lamp. “Madre de Dios. You’re so gray. Shall I call a doctor?”

  George knew what it was—the same apoplexy that had killed his grandfather. “No. Just hold me. Your arms … around me.”

  Her arms were too short to reach that far. But she pressed herself against him, and for an hour they lay together while she murmured prayers to the Virgin Mary. Slowly, George’s breathing became normal. His color returned. In another hour he was able to begin packing for his departure.

  That task completed, George went to the residence of Judge Pena y Pena, Maria’s uncle, and Mexico’s acting president, the man who had negotiated the treaty of peace with Nicholas Trist. “I’ve come to say good-bye, and to reiterate my intention to do everything I can to support the treaty in our Senate. But there’s something even more important I want to discuss. Can you prevail on your brother to accept his daughter into his family again?”

  Judge Pena y Pena, a large, solemn man, with a face that emanated aristocracy, shook his head. “My brother is a pharisee to his bones. I can see him in the story Jesus tells, about the man who boasted about his holiness, while the sinner pleaded for forgiveness in the back of the synagogue. But Maria shall have a place in my household. I promise you that as solemnly as anything to which I’ve pledged Mexico’s honor in our treaty.”

  “Would it help if I spoke to your brother?”

  “On the contrary, it might discourage you from saying a word on our behalf in your Senate. He despises our treaty as violently as he condemns his daughter. He accuses me of dishonoring Mexico. He wants everything back—Texas, California, New Mexico—and Louisiana and Mississippi by way of compensation for our dead soldiers.”

  For a moment George sensed that in his bones Judge Pena y Pena agreed with his brother. Deep inside him there was a Spaniard who snarled, Death before dishonor. Negotiating the treaty had been a terrible agony to which he had subjected himself for Mexico’s sake.

  “It’s been an honor to know you, sir,” George said.

  “Let’s hope we can both emerge from this business with a few tatters of that rare ribbon on our escutcheons.”

  Back at his apartment, George told Maria what Judge Pena y Pena had said about welcoming her into his house. She dismissed the offer. “He’ll try to persuade me to crawl on my knees to my father.”

  Dismayed, George tried to give Maria a draft on Barings, the British bank in Mexico City, for ten thousand dollars. She tore it into shreds and flung it at him, crying, “Can’t you imagine what my father would say the moment he heard about this? ‘So the whore has received her payment.’”

  “How will you live?”

  “The way I’ve always lived. Under Sor Juana’s protection. For Mexico.”


  He tried to kiss her one last time. She refused to let him touch her. “We must begin to deny our love. Starting here and now. Facing each other.”

  “I’ll never do that.”

  “You must. I was your Mexican whore. You fucked me just as you and the rest of your Yankees fucked Mexico! For money! For glory! For fame!”

  For a terrible moment George sensed Maria meant it. Like her uncle, the judge, in a part of her soul she could never forgive the Americans for the humiliation they had inflicted on her country. In another part of her soul she told herself that she was destroying their love for his own good. The revelation of her hatred was the ultimate expression of that love.

  “I know exactly what you’re trying to do,” George said. “It won’t work.”

  Going down the dim stairs to the street, he heard Maria weeping. The sound lingered in his ears for five days, on the highway to Vera Cruz. It dwindled into silence only as Mexico vanished over the horizon and the U.S. Navy steam frigate Brandywine plowed north through wintry seas toward Washington, D.C.

  In a few days he would be facing a very different woman. George took Jeremy Biddle’s letter out of his wallet and reread it for the hundredth time. Soon Maria’s insistence on forgiveness vanished as totally as the sound of her tears. His original rage returned to clog his lungs with a kind of mad pneumonia.

  He had deliberately told no one in Washington about his departure from Mexico. He wanted to walk into his house on Pennsylvania Avenue unannounced. He intended to give Caroline no time to prepare a defense. He almost hoped he would find her in flagrante delicto with Senator John Sladen. That would simplify everything. He could send her back to New Jersey in disgrace. He would have a totally free hand politically.

  But General Stapleton, now about to become Senator Stapleton again, had no control over the weather and the time of the Brandywine’s arrival. He found himself debarking from the frigate in Alexandria in a gloomy December twilight. By the time he located a hack and began the muddy journey to Washington, night had fallen. A cold rain began drooling from the dark sky. In front of 3600 Pennsylvania Avenue, he found a line of waiting carriages and hacks. Yellow light glowed from all the first-floor windows. Caroline’s salon was in full swing.

  From the steps, a voice called, “Senator—General—is that really you?”

  It was Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri and his wife. What could George do but confess his identity and follow them into the house? Benton all but babbled his eagerness to hear the latest news from Mexico. “Is there any hope of a peace treaty?”

  “I hope there’s one in the White House right now,” George said. “If not, I have a copy of it in my trunk.”

  In the crowded parlor, George’s appearance created a sensation. Ancient Dolley Madison was in her usual corner, with Senator Daniel Webster and Congressman John Quincy Adams in attendance. Webster looked old and Adams looked prehistoric. Nearby were two of George’s fellow soldiers from Mexico, angular Jefferson Davis of Mississippi and broad-shouldered Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire. Both had recently been elected to the Senate, evidence that the voters were still enthusiastic backers of the war. Caroline was having an intense conversation with diminutive Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois—and Senator John Sladen of Louisiana. She looked, if possible, more beautiful than ever. She was wearing her dark hair high, in a kind of crown. Her classic face had acquired an almost sculpted quality.

  Smiling, waving, George kept his eyes on Caroline. Her face registered shock and amazement, but he could see no trace of guilt. But why would there be guilt, if she had been betraying him for twenty years? That vagrant emotion would have long since been banished. “Dearest!” she cried, and rushed across the room to kiss him. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? I would have had the house decked in flags of triumph!”

  “My letter must have gone astray,” George said. Did she notice he did not return her kiss? He hoped so.

  He had to shake hands with every man in the room, including John Sladen. John bounced upward on the balls of his feet as if he were trying to add a few inches to his height. “I hope you’ll give me the honor of nominating you for president at the party’s convention next spring, Senator,” he said.

  “I’m sure there are many more deserving Democrats, Senator. Men more in touch with the party’s current opinions and policies,” George said.

  “Pay no attention to him,” Jefferson Davis said. “I saw him in action at Monterrey and Buena Vista. I want the privilege of seconding Senator Sladen.”

  “He says he has a peace treaty in his trunk—and there’s a copy in the White House!” Thomas Hart Benton said. .

  That got everyone’s attention. “I think it’s a good treaty,” George said, “but I don’t feel at liberty to discuss it until I learn what the president thinks. It was negotiated under rather unusual circumstances.”

  “By whom? You?” Benton said.

  “By Nicholas Trist.”

  “I thought the president recalled that fool. Didn’t he try to give Texas back to the Mexicans in his opening gambit?” Benton said.

  “He repented of that error—with some help from me,” George said.

  “Can’t you give us at least an idea of what we’ve gotten—and didn’t get?” John Sladen said.

  George sensed hostility in his voice. Benton, Webster, and every other man in the room seconded Sladen’s motion. “What about the northern provinces of Mexico?” Davis said. “We’ve conquered them—and pacified them. They want to join the United States.”

  “Yucatán—I suppose you’ve heard they’ve declared their independence of the central government and requested our protection?” Senator Webster said.

  John Quincy Adams tottered into the center of the parlor, stooped on his cane. “Tell us the worst, Senator! Tell us what I dread more than the damnation of my own worthless soul!” he cried. “Have we taken all of Mexico? Have we made it into a protectorate that will enable the men of the South to create a slave empire? Has our country turned its back on liberty as totally as the lying hypocrites of London?”

  “Mr. President.” George and many others still used this title when they addressed the old man. “I wish I could satisfy you. But I’m not free to speak until I learn what the president intends to do. The direction of the country, of the Democratic Party, remains in his hands.”

  “You’ve been away from Washington too long, General,” John Sladen said. “The president has lost control of the locomotive. The direction of the country is in the hands of everybody—and nobody. If something dramatic isn’t done soon, it will be in the hands of the Whigs.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” For a moment George wanted to grab Sladen by the throat and throw him across the room. But he mastered the impulse and excused himself, saying, with considerable justification, that he needed a bath and a change of clothes after five days aboard the USS Brandywine.

  In the upstairs hall, a hoarse voice called, “Father!” It was six-year-old Paul, several inches taller. He rushed into George’s arms. “I’ve kept a scrapbook. I’ve got every story they printed about you in the Washington and New York and New Jersey papers. Some from New Orleans too that Senator Sladen gave me.”

  “Good, good. I’ll look forward to reading them.”

  “I prayed for you every night, Father.”

  “I’m sure that’s why I’m here. Nothing else gets a man through a battle in one piece.”

  In the bedroom, as he pulled off his blue army uniform, George realized that he would probably never wear it again. He was swept by memories of Monterrey, Buena Vista, Cerro Gordo, Molino del Rey. He saw the faces of the dead, he heard the cries of the wounded. He saw Lieutenant Ulysses Grant weeping beside the body of his roommate. He knelt beside the dying Hannibal. He heard Maria de Vega weeping as he descended the stairs for the last time. For their sake, he had to keep his head, he had to play his political cards with a steady hand. If Polk had the treaty of peace in the White House and was con
cealing it, that was a bad sign. Johnny Sladen was acting like a man who thought he had the winning cards.

  George bathed and put on a civilian suit and shirt and tie. He was Senator Stapleton again. From his valise he took Jeremy Biddle’s letter. Was it a trump card? He suddenly realized he did not want to play it. Not yet, at any rate. He wanted to settle the treaty with Mexico first and then try to solve his personal dilemma. He wanted to try to judge for himself whether John Sladen and Caroline were still lovers.

  Downstairs he found most of the guests had departed. Only old John Quincy Adams, the Bentons, and Webster lingered. They were all obviously determined to learn the whole truth about the treaty. When George stubbornly resisted telling them anything, the two senior senators left displaying more than a little irritation.

  Old Adams prepared to follow them. Struggling into his dark blue overcoat, which looked as worn-out as its owner, he turned to George and said, “I knew Hugh Stapleton. I shudder to think his grandson could do anything that would dishonor this country. Can you at least assure me on that point, Senator?”

  George was deeply moved. “I can do that much, Mr. President. This treaty will rescue our honor. I hope you’ll support it.”

  “You have my promise—to my last breath.”

  The old man tottered out the door, taking almost a hundred years of American history with him. He had talked with Washington and Franklin and Hamilton. For a moment George felt strong enough to face anyone and anything. He was sure he was being guided down a path that led to victory and vindication.

  Then Caroline spoke. “Shall we talk here, or in the bedroom?” A metallic clang was in her voice, like the clash of sword blades. George saw the anger in her eyes and was no longer sure of anything.

  The servants began clearing away the cakes and ice cream and coffee cups. George greeted the Parks sisters and Mercy. He told her how deeply he grieved for Hannibal, and asked for Tabitha. “She’s run away,” Caroline said. “Mercy saw her on the street the other day but she wouldn’t speak to her. She blames you for her father’s death.”