Washington and Caesar

by Christian Cameron

  George Lake’s hands were cold with nerves.

  “That’s good,” he said. He sounded strained. Stewart frowned at him from inches away and Lake closed his coat.

  “Are you worrying about a dinner with General Washington and his staff?”

  “I don’t know how to act like them,” he said.

  “Fie on you,” said Mrs. Holding. “Don’t be an ungrateful body, Captain Lake. And poor Captain Stewart, putting himself out all morning to show you how to eat like a gentleman.”

  Lake hung his head, and Stewart hobbled across the room.

  “George Lake, you have, by all accounts, won several actions all by yourself. And now a dinner undoes you, and that with your own general? Look at me, sir. A poor wounded officer surrounded by his enemies, going to eat with the very ogre who looks to overturn the rightful government of this country.”

  “You put me in mind of Mr. Lovell, John. He says such things. But Washington is no ogre.”

  “That’s your sweetheart’s da’, then?”

  George blushed. He had been easy with his confidences, so quickly had he taken a liking to Stewart. And now Stewart was using them to abuse him.

  “Oh, fie on it, Captain. She is your sweetheart, will ye, nil ye.”

  “Oh, shame on you, Captain Stewart,” cried Mrs. Holding, laughing despite herself.

  George Lake simply shook his head at the two of them. “All very well for you to laugh,” he said. “I fairly dread this dinner. And the marquis will be there, too, I have no doubt.”

  A week on, and Caesar was finally getting to have his dinner with Polly, although it had widened into a dinner with Polly and her father…and Sally. Caesar hadn’t known what to make of Sally since that afternoon. She hadn’t been drunk again, and had comported herself soberly, and even sat patiently with Polly learning to put an initial on Captain Stewart’s shirt. Sally did one in the time it took Polly to pick out the letters in five others, but that didn’t lessen the accomplishment.

  They were to dine at the Moor’s Head, and Caesar arranged it, securing a table and ordering the food. The black patrons seldom ran to such an occasion, but it was not so rare for Reverend White, as he had prosperous friends. And the Black Guides had something of the run of the place. It promised to be a very good dinner, private in the little room off the hall to the kitchen.

  Caesar came in his best scarlet coat, wearing a watch he had kept from the days in the swamp and that Jeremy had arranged to repair last year. He had good new boots and fine smallclothes, all of which had been in Jeremy’s traveling trunk. It made him feel odd to wear them. Polly had taken them apart and altered them to fit. He was dressed to ask for Polly’s hand.

  “You look very fine,” she said.

  She was dressed in a sack-back gown of printed linen that made her look as slim as a young tree, and had a little cap on her head that made her face as beautiful as he had ever seen it.

  “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” he said with a bow.

  She looked over her shoulder as if looking for someone else in the room, and then smacked him on the arm.

  Marcus White was dressed in severe but fashionable black, with a new coat and new smallclothes and a white collar that seemed to shine like righteousness. He was leading Sally by the hand, and she was dressed as modestly as she ever had been in Philadelphia. Caesar, who had to judge men every day, knew in his bones that she had dressed to let Polly be the center of attention, and he liked her for it. As they walked through the common room, every eye there was on them. More than one voice suggested that some of the blacks were getting above themselves, but never loudly, and Major Simcoe rose and kissed Polly’s hand. He didn’t directly address Sally, a complicated piece of social tactics that avoided both offense and impertinence.

  “Your servant, miss,” he said formally, and Polly showed him just the least flash of her eyes as she curtsied in return, a flash that made him smile unexpectedly.

  Then they crossed the rest of the room and left it for their private dinner.

  Stewart was seated near the middle of the table, with Captain Lake across from him and Alexander Hamilton on his right. Lafayette was close, above Hamilton. Opposite Lafayette sat Colonel Henry Lee, now a famous cavalryman. General Washington filled the end of the table with both size and spirit.

  They were all men of culture and civility—except perhaps Lake, and he was learning. They did not discuss any matter which might give pain to a guest who was an enemy, but instead chatted amiably about letters and sport. Hamilton was delighted to find that Stewart was a fellow fisherman, and they discoursed on horsehair lines and the latest fashion in hooks and snells for several moments until they realized that they had spread a sort of wondering silence all down the table.

  “A glass of wine with you, Captain?” said Lafayette, leaning forward.

  “Your servant, Marquis.”

  “And perhaps you will then enlighten us all about this multiplying reel?”

  Stewart winced in embarrassment.

  “I am sorry to be a boor,” he said.

  “Nothing of the kind, sir, I assure you, and I can guarantee that my friend Hamilton will insist.”

  “Well, then,” said Stewart. “It is a brass winch, for holding line, you see? Except that it has a gear on the shaft so that the user has some mechanical advantage as he winds. Am I plain? So that, instead of just storing your line on a winch, now you could actually use it to land a fish.”

  “Gimcrack notion,” said Fitzgerald. “What if the thing slips and you lose your fish?”

  “Does the sear slip on a well-made flintlock?”

  “I take your point, sir.” Fitzgerald raised his glass, acknowledging it. “But do you really need such an advantage?”

  “Oh, as to that…” Stewart shrugged. “I don’t use one meself, mind. I was just explaining to Colonel Hamilton here why they are coming into fashion. Friends of mine had them made in Philadelphia.”

  “Oh they did?” Hamilton smiled. “Perhaps I can do the same, now that…Oh, I’m sorry.”

  Stewart smiled at them all. “I’m not so sensitive as that.”

  Washington, as the senior, could not be asked a direct question; it was not done. But he could listen, and by his listening betray an interest. Stewart realized that Washington was listening attentively, and turned to him, inviting a question.

  “These are trout you are speaking of?”

  “Oh, pah, trout,” said Hamilton and Stewart together, which gave rise to a general laugh.

  “No, sir,” said Stewart. “Although I do enjoy fishing for the trout from time to time, it is the salmon, that prince of fishes, that is the true heart of the sport.”

  “So I have gathered from Mr. Bowlker and Mr. Fairfax.” Washington dropped these names so that they would know that he was not behindhand in matters of sport, although the books were far away with his old life at Mount Vernon.

  “Oh, sir, indeed?” Stewart had sat through a great many regimental dinners, and he knew that a great deal of complaisance on these matters was expected of him as a guest. A decent show of interest. Greatly daring, Stewart asked him a direct question.

  “Do you fish yourself, in Virginia?”

  “All too seldom, Captain. We don’t have salmon, and the only trouts I have seen are in the mountains. Have you seen our mountains, Captain?”

  “Only from a distance, sir. You always seem to be keeping me from them.”

  This last prompted a burst of nervous laughter. Stewart could tell he was sailing close to the wind, but Washington did not seem an utterly formal man, and was obviously used to men of good breeding and good conversation. Judging by Hamilton and Fitzgerald, better breeding than his own. He smiled for the absent Jeremy, who had trained him so well. He looked at George Lake, who was chewing carefully and trying not to be seen.

  “Are you a farmer at home, Captain?” Washington clearly wanted him to say yes, as everyone knew that Washington liked to go on about farming
. Stewart shook his head.

  “I fear not, sir, although I gather that you are an eminent farmer. My father is a Turkey merchant.”

  “How many turkeys does he have?” asked George Lake from across the table. It was almost his first comment since they had been seated. The roar of laughter in return was like a volley of musketry, it was so loud and so high. Lake shrank with embarrassment.

  “Look how different the language is already,” said Stewart into the last of the laughter. “My father owns ships that trade between Edinburgh and Smyrna, in the Empire of the Grand Seigneur.”

  “Goodness,” said Hamilton. “Have you been there yourself?”

  “I have, too. A wonderful place, like the Arabian Nights brought to life. I went twice as a lad.”

  Hamilton nodded along eagerly. Again, Stewart had the ears of the whole table.

  “Did you like it much? In Turkey?” asked Fitzgerald. Stewart thought that when alone, he might ask about the women there. Everyone did. Veils made men so curious.

  “All but the absolute nature of the place. The slavery had worked its way into the national fabric,” he said, and winced. The table fell totally silent.

  “Polly was never a slave,” said her father, looking at her with affection. “She was born one, of course, but her mother and I were free before any man ever told her what a slave might be.”

  Polly nodded. “I remember England. Most of the ladies were very kind, although I did tire of being a curiosity. Because of my color, I mean, and being from America. Other people were from America, but they didn’t have to wear a sign on their skin to say as much.”

  “And you were a slave for Washington,” Marcus said.

  “I met Washington once,” said Sally. They all looked at her in surprise.

  “I was with Bludner. My mother was still alive then, I think. We was taking crabs on his river, an’ he came an’ near beat Bludner to death. I liked him fine.”

  “Washington?” Caesar looked surprised. “He beat Bludner? I’d have paid good money to see that.”

  “Who is Bludner?” asked Polly, quietly.

  “He’s a slave-taker from Virginia. He almost killed me, and Virgil and Jim when you come to it, back in ’75.”

  “He owned me my whole life,” said Sally, her lips trembling, and she spilled a little wine from her glass.

  “He doesn’t own you now,” said Marcus White, but Sally rose and bolted out the door. Marcus made to follow but then came back. Caesar shook his head.

  “I don’t know what you see in her, Reverend,” he said. “She’s been trouble since I knew her. And men get ideas, seeing you going around with her.”

  “Perhaps they should get ideas if I don’t go around with her, Caesar. Do you know your Bible?”

  “Not as well as you, I dare say. But I’ve read it, yes.”

  “Then you know that Our Saviour spent a great deal of time with prostitutes. And soldiers and tax men, too, I think.”

  Caesar bowed his head at the answer.

  “It’s never as easy as you think, Caesar. No matter how hard your life has been, hers was harder. And no matter how brave you are, she has been braver. Think on that before you jibe at her again.”

  Sally came back with a little powder over the tear tracks she had made, and sat composedly.

  The silence dragged on. Stewart knew he could end it with an easy apology, but some part of him knew that he had wanted to say those words since he sat down with them, and that he wasn’t sorry. But he hated to seem a boor, so he attempted to change the subject.

  “May I ask what kind of fish they do have in Virginia?” he asked. George Lake was white as a sheet.

  Lafayette leaned forward, smiling as if he had followed this point for some time. He blinked his eyes, and Stewart suddenly knew he had an ally, someone else who had long wanted to speak out.

  “I have always felt that slavery leaves an indelible mark on a country,” he said. And the silence deepened.

  Hamilton turned to Stewart and shook his head.

  “This is a most unfortunate subject for this table. Are you a particular enemy to slavery?”

  “I didn’t think so, before,” said Stewart.

  “You had a slave of your own, I think?” said Johnson.

  “No, sir. A servant. Closer than servant.”

  Washington spoke up from the end of the table, where he had been silent.

  “A slave may be close, I think. Both the ancients and the Bible tell us as much.” Washington was careful in his speech, and Stewart realized that he was quite angry.

  “Oh, aye, they do. But not as close as a true friend, surely?”

  Washington considered Billy, and his fury grew. “Surely not only equality can bring true friendship? So that a slave can be as much your friend as a servant?” Washington was just civil. He knew he was berating a guest at his own table, a sin at least as great as the one the guest had committed by starting this fox, this damnable subject, at his table. And yet he realized that his views were not as simple as they had once been.

  “And yet, are not these men your friends, though they also serve you?” Stewart thought, I am contending with a man at his own dinner table. Jeremy would have my head. And he thought this is the arch-rebel himself. I’ll say what I please. “And how do you know that the friendship of a slave is not compelled or feigned? A servant can leave. Even a staff officer…” He smiled, willing them to laugh.

  “And can you speak in comfort of our having slaves when you attempt to impose tyranny over us by violence?” said Henry Lee.

  Stewart smiled, relishing his response. He no longer cared to be perfectly civil.

  “Can you speak in comfort about liberty, sir, when you keep slaves?”

  Henry Lee turned a bright crimson. Lafayette leaned forward attentively.

  “Yes,” he said decisively, as if he had just decided a question. “Yes. Slavery is a blot on the escutcheon of liberty that this country bears.”

  Stewart feared an explosion from General Washington, but instead he appeared troubled.

  “It is not a simple issue.” He looked at the table. “I once thought that it was a mere matter of property, but it does have to do with rights. And yet, if a man treats his slaves fairly…”

  “They are yet slaves,” said Stewart firmly. Washington loved Lafayette like a son, and Hamilton not much behind, and Stewart felt strongly that they were both of his opinion, and it made him bold.

  Washington turned on him. “What do you know of how a man treats his slaves, then?”

  “I know one of yours, sir.”

  Stewart suspected that if he had been hale, he’d have been summoned to a duel by half the room, but he was not daunted by their looks, although George Lake was cringing.

  “Who?” like a pistol shot.

  “Do you recall Julius Caesar, sir? He is now a sergeant in our army.”

  Washington sat a moment, as if stunned, and looked at Stewart. He was seeing the black man at Brandywine, and the one who had taken his cloak at Kip’s Bay, and the new African boy with the scars over his eyes.

  “I remember Caesar,” he said softly, as if the man were standing there himself, and Washington had just noticed him for the first time.

  “Do you hate Mr. Washington?” Marcus White had asked this before, and it always seemed to fascinate him.

  “No. No, I don’t hate him. I don’t love him much, either.” Caesar said, looking through the wine in his glass. “We exchanged shots at the Brandywine. Something like a duel, I think. I’ve thought that it settled something between us.”

  “Do you have any happy thoughts from then? When you was a slave?” Polly asked.

  “Oh, yes. I was learning a good amount every day. I had a comfortable place to live, and it was so much better than the Indies.”

  “But what of Washington?”

  “He was a distant master. He seldom beat a slave, and he was often fair. He never liked me.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh
, Queeny said it was my scars.” He rubbed them.

  “They do give you a savage look,” said Sally in a low voice, as if she was wooing him.

  “And I had to be free.”

  Marcus nodded at him, as if they had conspired together.

  “Yes, it comes to you that way, doesn’t it?”

  Caesar frowned, remembering. Sally looked at them both.

  “How did you ‘have to be free’?”

  “One day, you know you’d rather die than be a slave,” said Caesar. “Some never get it. I grew up with slaves, in Africa. Sometimes one would kill himself, or run. Now I know why.”

  Marcus looked at him. “Was it injustice that moved you?”

  “Perhaps it was. I just remember the little things. I was never beaten while I was at Mount Vernon. It was never a great injustice, and that is why I say that Washington was mostly fair.”

  Marcus White nodded. “That’s the power that slavery has, though. To make a man’s likes and dislikes into the power of a god. A man can be the very best of masters, and yet, in a fit of temper, abuse a slave in a way he would never abuse another free man. As if slaves aren’t human.”

  “What else do you remember?” asked Polly.

  “He loved to farm and he loved to hunt. He was a master of both. Those skills probably make him a good soldier.”

  “The first time I saw him…well, he reminded me of a soldier. He was my dogs boy. He had an eye for ground that…well, that has doubtless made him a good one.”

  Washington took a glass of wine from Billy.

  Stewart watched the black man, who pretended a complete lack of interest in the conversation.

  Washington spoke carefully, because the subject was so great and so painful that he could not simply dismiss it. Nor was this the first time the subject had surfaced at his table, and he wondered again if he was changing.