Distant Dreams

by Judith Pella

  “What keeps dem from fallin’ off?” Granny asked.

  Carolina puzzled over that one for a moment. “I suppose I really don’t know. Oh, but, Granny, I wish I did. I loved the locomotive, and I wanted so much to ask a hundred questions. But they were very unladylike questions and ones which I’m sure my mother would have found most appalling.”

  Granny nodded. “When I was a girl in de islands, I saw such ships as I thought never to be possible. Dey held the wind in their sails and by this, dey went across de world. I wanted very much to go on one of those ships. It was my dream. I wanted to know how dey worked and where dey could go. When I was twelve, de man put me on one of them and never again was I to return home.”

  Carolina wondered what it would be like to be taken away from her home and all that she knew. Even if given the chance to ride the locomotive far and wide, she would still want to return home to share the experience with those she loved.

  Granny stared up with unseeing eyes. Thick white membrane nearly blotted out the color that once had shone cocoa brown. “I thought for a long time how de thing I loved had done took me away from de people I loved. My mama and papa and all my brothers and sisters stayed on de island, while I came here to America.”

  “How sad,” Carolina said, patting the old slave’s hand.

  “No, not so much,” Granny replied. “I had a good life in de islands, but I found a good life here, as well. A fine man, yor grandpappy, done bought me from my master and brought me here. He treated me good.”

  “But you never saw your family again?”

  “No, and I never saw me another sailin’ ship again, either.” Granny closed her eyes. “I still remember de snap of the sail in de wind. I can still smell de sweetness of de island air and de salt of the sea. I still see my mama washin’ clothes and tendin’ my papa when he nearly done cut off his foot choppin’ cane in de fields. Dey be here now,” Granny said, thumping her hollow chest. “Dey be here.”

  Carolina felt a lump in her throat. “But your dream took you away from the life you knew. From the people you loved and cared for.”

  Granny smiled and this time it was the old woman whose weary hand offered the comfort. “Sometime yo trade one for de other. I loved dat old sailin’ ship, and I loved my mama and papa. Can’t keep things from happenin’, child. Life goes on without much recollectin’ as to whether yo want to go with it. Yo make good out of what yo get, and God, He do the rest.”

  “I’d like to travel on the train,” Carolina whispered, as though by doing so, she was breathing life into the dream. “I have never before in all my life seen anything like it. I heard a man say that one day the train will be able to go from one ocean to the other. I’d like to see all of the land in between, Granny. I’d like to see the mountains in the West and the great Mississippi River. I’d like to know what other people are like and even meet up with Indians.”

  The old woman chuckled. “Yo got a big dream, but yo got a big heart and a strong mind. I figure yo know the truth about life, and yo know a truth about yo dat no other men know.”

  “What truth is that, Granny?”

  “Can’t say. Only yo know for sure. Think on it and it come to yo. Just be rememberin’, ain’t nobody to blame but yo for de choices yo make—” The old woman paused and looked straight at Carolina, as though she could see her clearly, and added, “—or don’ make.”

  Margaret Adams had paused outside the slave quarters upon hearing her daughter’s voice. Coming back from the sewing house, she’d not given much consideration to the old woman, but now, recognizing the voice of her daughter in conversation with the ancient slave, Margaret thought to check in on her.

  She’d really had no intention of eavesdropping, an act she surely would have scolded her own children for doing. But the words passing between Carolina and Granny were so tender and intimate that Margaret shrank from intruding. However, she could not make herself move on, either. Carolina was talking of things and feelings she had never expressed to her mother. That fact made Margaret more sad than hurt or upset. How she wished she could understand and accept her daughter like the old slave woman could.

  How like her father she was! Margaret had never really understood him and his talk of travel and such dreams, but she couldn’t help smile a little at hearing almost identical words of adventure from her daughter’s lips. It was as endearing to the mistress of Oakbridge Plantation as it was frustrating. Still, it was that same wanderlust desire that she’d seen quelled in her husband, and with its demise went a special part of what had attracted her to Joseph Adams in the first place. Not that she’d ever tell him that. No, the dreams had to be put aside, for there were far too many practical matters to be dealt with that would not allow for such a disease to supersede the importance of home. However, listening to her daughter’s words brought it all back—the nights they’d lain awake talking, just she and Joseph. He’d told her of distant lands where no white man had ever been, and he shared his desire to explore those places.

  Life had imprisoned him in an honorable way, Margaret thought, but it did nothing to take away his heartfelt desire, even need, to go west into the unknown. Now her fifteen-year-old daughter was expressing the same desire she’d heard in her husband’s voice so long ago. When had he stopped talking about journeying west? Was it after Carolina had been born and he suddenly found himself father to four children? Perhaps it was when his sisters married and moved away, one to England and one to Georgia. Maybe it was after his mother died and he had felt more strongly than ever the responsibility to carry on the family heritage at Oakbridge. Or had it been after Margaret had given birth to a baby named Hampshire and the next year to another called Tennessee? Their deaths from fever had profoundly affected the family. Margaret had fallen into a deep depression after that, and only the birth of Virginia a year later had brought back her sanity.

  She frowned, fearing that life had taken from Joseph the very precious spark that had once ignited a passionate love between them. She’d not been overly attentive to him of late. With a plantation to run and seven children demanding her attention, she had rather forgotten about his dreams. This business of the railroad, she feared, would bring it all back. But was it really something to fear? Certainly Joseph would never go traipsing off after his dreams this late in life. She must make a concerted effort to be more sympathetic about these things in the future.

  Then a notion came to Margaret that rather stunned her. She’d never given serious heed to Carolina’s prattle about dreams. Yet, for the first time, Margaret sensed that it might not be wise to discount Carolina’s talk as mere whim. Perhaps it was in the excitement she now detected in her daughter’s voice as she poured out her heart to the slave, but there was an earnestness in the girl’s voice that was disturbing. Yet it also touched Margaret, causing her to regard Carolina in a whole new light.

  A bit embarrassed at these uncharacteristic emotions, Margaret turned quickly and started to hurry away.

  “I’ll come by again tomorrow, Granny,” Carolina told the old woman, backing out the door. “I’ll close this tight, so don’t you worry about catching the fever.”

  Carolina had no sooner secured the latch than she caught sight of her mother. “Mama! What brings you this way? Is something wrong?”

  Margaret smiled in a way that Carolina couldn’t understand. It was as though her mother saw her there, and yet she didn’t.

  “Mama?”

  The momentary cloudiness left Margaret’s eyes, and she reached out and tenderly stroked Carolina’s cheek with her hand. “You remind me so much of your father.”

  Carolina grinned. “So you have said on occasion.”

  Margaret took Carolina’s arm and looped it through her own. They walked very slowly toward the house. Her mama had seemed in a hurry a moment ago, but now she kept to a leisurely pace. Carolina didn’t mind at all, for she was in no hurry for this tender moment with her mother to end.

  “Carolina, I heard you talking to Gr
anny. I hope you’ll forgive me for listening,” Margaret admitted. “It took me aback.”

  Carolina said nothing, hoping she’d not offended her mother with talk of her dreams. Yet she could think of no way of asking her mother about this.

  Yet as Margaret continued, she didn’t sound offended. “Your father used to share his dreams of vagabonding about the countryside. I suppose I could see very little prospect in such an affair, and I did much to take his mind from such things.” Margaret stared at the huge three-story white house they now were approaching. “Your father had to acquire a great deal of responsibility at an early age.”

  “I know,” Carolina replied softly. “He reminded me just the other day that he was no more than my age when he became the man of the plantation.”

  “Yes, and so much more. He had to care for his mother and take on the full responsibility of a task he had not been trained to do. You see, his older brother had been given the lessons in land management and dealing with the slaves. Until the accident occurred, your father was pretty much free to seek his own way. He wanted to go west and see the rest of the world, just like you. Listening to you just now brought back the memory of him as a young man.”

  Carolina looked up at her mother. She seldom looked upon her in any other way than as “Mother.” But now she suddenly saw her as a person apart from that. Did her mother have dreams and hopes? Maybe even a few silly notions? She was hardly an old woman like Granny, whose life was all but used up. Margaret Adams was still a lovely woman with hardly a wrinkle marring her alabaster skin. There were hints of gray in her hair, but they were only noticeable because of the dark coffee brown color that the rest of her coiffure boasted. Carolina was usually only aware of her mother’s stern demeanor, enhanced even more by her tall stately figure. But now it occurred to her that some of that might well have been sadness, not sternness. At thirty-eight, Margaret Adams had known much of life—its tragedies, its joys, its disappointments. But once, not so very long ago, she had been a southern girl of ease just as Carolina was now.

  Growing quite serious in her expression, Margaret stared down to meet her daughter’s gaze. “I was harsh with you at the celebration. Much too harsh and I apologize, Carolina dear. I worried overmuch that I would face the retribution of my peers and did not give enough consideration to the revelry of the day.”

  Carolina could only remember a handful of times when her mother had ever made such a grand gesture. She opened her mouth to reply, but Margaret raised her hand.

  “Hear me out, Carolina. A mother has the best of intentions toward her children. She takes them from the cradle to the world outside, and somewhere in between she must instill godly values and sensibilities to civic duties and personal ambitions. In teaching young girls to become young women, a mother must guide them carefully to take on the tasks of life that will one day bring them to motherhood as well.” Margaret stopped and smoothed back an errant strand of Carolina’s unbonneted hair. “I mourned the dreams your father gave up when he assumed the responsibilities of this plantation and a growing family,” she said soberly. “But it had to be done, and oftentimes I’ve had to be the bearer of the harsh realities that killed off those dreams.”

  Even more, Carolina began to see a side of her mother that she had never suspected existed. Always before it seemed that her mother simply detested travel and the idea of seeing anything outside of the plantation boundaries.

  “I had little choice in the matter,” Margaret continued. “I found myself with child almost immediately after our marriage, and from that point on, there was little consideration for travel and nonsense. Your father couldn’t even join the army because his responsibilities to the plantation were so great. Too many people demanded he grow up and deal as an honorable man with the needs at hand. His own dreams seemed a small price to pay, at least to everyone else.”

  “But not to you?” Carolina asked with more wonder than she had intended to show.

  Margaret smiled sadly. “No, not to me. You see, I knew what it cost him.” She lifted her eyes to the house once again. “Only I realized what it took for him to turn his back on the life he’d plotted out for himself, to accept the yoke of a life that should never have been his to bear.”

  “But he knew,” Carolina thought aloud. “Papa knew you understood. That’s why he doesn’t get mad when you speak of the wanderlust. It has always seemed a private joke between you both. Now I think I understand.”

  Margaret started walking toward the house again, and Carolina kept pace, hoping she would say more. For several minutes, only the noises of the life around them filled the vacant silence. Singing came from the wash house, and they could hear Naomi, Oakbridge’s mistress of the summer kitchen, instructing three small children on how to peel potatoes.

  “Granny was right, you know,” Margaret finally said, pausing again and taking hold of Carolina’s hands. “There is a truth inside you that only you can know. You must be true to that or else you lose a very special part of yourself. I cannot say that I will always approve of where that truth might direct you, but it is the very core of what makes you the person you are. Seek God’s guidance on it, pray much, and remember that going your own way is more than having your own way. You might have to conform your dreams to meet social, physical, and spiritual limitations, but God will teach you best.”

  Carolina nodded and felt as though her mother had bestowed a most wondrous gift upon her. The demands of society would cause her mother to once again become the prim and proper mistress of Oakbridge, but Carolina would forever have this small sliver of her mother that would always be hers alone.

  “Never,” her mother said in parting, “never let fear keep you from living life. I fell victim to that as a young woman, and I have paid the price ever since.” Without warning, Margaret pulled Carolina into her arms and held her close.

  Carolina thought she might cry. It had been ages since her mother had shown her any real affection. Perhaps somewhere in her concerns for Oakbridge and the appearance she had to maintain, her mother felt that such displays were unnecessary, but to Carolina they were sorely missed. She wrapped her arms around her mother and hugged her tightly. No matter what happened from this point on, she would always remember the tender love of this moment.

  6

  The Banker and His Son

  Leland Baldwin squeezed his body into a stout leather chair behind his massive mahogany desk and considered the ledger before him. The opening of the Washington line was nearly a week past, and the glory he’d relished for his part in organizing it was fading. He had to return to the mundane demands of business. But he didn’t expect to enjoy his work; it was simply a fact of life, a man’s duty.

  There were, however, enough aspects of his work to keep him duly challenged and interested. The banking business was a complex one and often irrational. There were too many variables to count at once, and frequently something remained overlooked until it was too late and the damage was done. Wasn’t Nicholas Biddle a good example of this? Biddle had run the Bank of the United States as though it had been his own private game. Of course, given the background of Biddle’s power, for all intents and purposes, it was his game.

  Nicholas Biddle and banking were one and the same. Having been drawn into the system as savior to the country after the final war with England earlier in the century, Biddle had been almost single-handedly responsible for keeping the government functioning financially. Called upon by then Secretary of War James Monroe, Biddle was advised of the gravity of the situation and enticed to offer his help.

  Leland still found it hard to believe that a mere twenty-one years ago, Washington City had been sacked by British Admiral Cockburn. This struck a tremendous blow to the spirit of the American people. And though America rallied and soundly defeated her enemy, the War of 1812 had emptied the Treasury and paralyzed the government. Someone had to do something, and that someone became Nicholas Biddle.

  Biddle went among his rich friends and found funds
for the government to borrow. He fought, even against his father wishes, to re-establish the Bank of the United States as a means of bringing the country out of financial ruin. The central bank would stabilize the country’s economy, but it would also place a tremendous amount of power in the hands of one man, namely Nicholas Biddle, who would come to be known as “Tsar Nicholas.”

  With the war over and the bank reestablished, Biddle at first declined the position to become director to the major stockholders. He had done what was necessary out of loyalty to his country. But Monroe wouldn’t hear of it and insisted that Biddle accept one of the five government directorships. Again feeling a patriotic sense of duty, Biddle accepted.

  What came next, however, was not all that unusual. Biddle, tasting fame, power, and fortune, was very soon corrupted by the same. He became more powerful than anyone could have foreseen, and soon he was the president of the Bank of the United States. But for all those who hailed and loved him, there stood an opposing force who despised him. Tsar Nicholas soon made enemies, and among them was Andrew Jackson.

  It was said of Biddle that he alone destroyed the bank when he deliberately chose to unite with Senator Henry Clay, Jackson’s sworn enemy. When Jackson sought to bring Biddle down once and for all, private banking was issued a tremendous boost. The government discontinued making deposits to the corrupt and hopelessly misguided Bank of the United States. Instead, Jackson saw to it that banks more friendly to his own political goals were given these deposits. Leland Baldwin was in the right place at the right time and stood with the right side.

  Baldwin often wondered if it had been entirely prudent to tear apart the Bank of the United States. Not that he wasn’t honored when Amos Kendall, fiscal agent for the President, approached him to include his bank in the historic transfer of public monies to private banks. But the entire matter was far from over.