Bon Marche
Page 30
The steward shook his head. “No, sir, it was accidental. It’s a dead heat!”
“Then you’ll run the rest of it without my horse,” the owner yelled. “Rambler is drawn!”
“That’s your choice, of course, Mr. Masters.”
When the announcement was made to the crowd, a mad flurry of additional betting went on for the remaining colt, Blue Ridge.
Thus, only three horses were called to the start line for the third heat.
“Don’t try to run with that colt,” Franklin instructed Marshall. “Just be content to finish.”
“I will.”
The completion of the four miles was just as Franklin had wanted it. Blue Ridge shot to the front with early speed, and only in the last mile did the mare, Harpy, challenge him, falling short by a length at the end. Matilda was last.
Everyone on the course now seemed convinced that Blue Ridge would finally end the marathon race with another first in the fourth heat. Everyone but Franklin.
And Charles Dewey.
In the refreshment pavilion, Dewey was accepting all the bets on the outcome of the race.
“I have money for Matilda,” he roared, quite drunk. “Either on the heat or the entire race.”
He took any bet offered, at whatever odds, and some of it for even money. He seemed to have just enough sobriety to mark down the wagers in his small notebook. His risk exceeded three thousand dollars.
As he boosted Marshall aboard for the fourth heat, Franklin was very specific about his orders. “First, stay within striking distance of the colt. Don’t worry about the mare, just keep the colt in sight. Two, no more than three, lengths off the pace.”
Marshall listened to him intently. Soberly.
“Then, at the beginning of the fourth mile, make your move. But not suddenly. Increase the pressure slowly, but be sure, when you have a hundred yards to go, that you’re abreast of him. That’s the time to go to the whip.”
Franklin smiled. “I don’t think the colt will have enough left to hold you off.”
The drum tapped for the fourth time. The crowd, having seen some of the finest racing in Tennessee, now seemed emotionally spent. They watched the early part of the heat in comparative silence.
Marshall did precisely what he had been told. In the last mile of four, he began urging Matilda forward. Gaining, gaining, ever gaining.
With one hundred yards still to go, and looking the Blue Ridge jockey squarely in the eye, Marshall cracked Matilda hard with the whip. She shot ahead, as a roar like thunder bounced off the surrounding hills. Blue Ridge bobbled momentarily—and was beaten a length. The mare, Harpy, finished four lengths back.
Raymond Cross, after inspecting his exhausted colt, approached the course officials: “Gentlemen, Blue Ridge is drawn. I have no desire to kill him.” He sought out Mattie. “Ma’am, it seems I may owe you six thousand.”
The mistress of Bon Marché was very calm, outwardly. “You think, then, that Matilda can win two heats?”
“I think so—yes.” He laughed. “But you’ll excuse me, I’m sure, if I cheer for the mare.”
“Of course.”
“If the mare wins, you know,” Cross continued, “my horse and your horse will each have won once, but the bet is null and void without two wins.”
“I understand the rules, sir.”
Cross bowed clumsily. “I’m still enough of a gentleman, in my defeat, to wish you well, ma’am.”
Franklin Dewey was speaking to his jockey: “She’s tired, Marshall, but I think she has enough left to put away the mare. We had to go eight and thirty-seven to win the fourth heat. I’m certain that we’ll not have to go nearly as fast to win this time.”
“All right.”
“Don’t concern yourself at all with time. If the boy on Harpy wants the lead, let him have it. But stay close. Not more than a length out of it, please. If the mare walks, you walk. Save it all again for that last hundred yards. If you do, Marshall, we will have won the most amazing race ever run in Tennessee.”
“Just as you say,” Marshall assured him.
Franklin clapped him on the back and helped him into the saddle for the fifth time.
When Franklin turned around, his father was standing there. Weaving.
“I don’t imagine,” he said, the words slurred, “that you need my advice.”
“No, sir.”
“Good, good.” He hung his head contritely. “May I speak to your jockey before he goes off?”
Franklin hesitated.
“Please…”
“Very well.”
Charles staggered to the side of the filly and laid a hand on Marshall’s thigh.
“I know I have acted the fool, Marshall, and I hope you’ll be able to forgive me someday.” He drew a deep breath, fighting the nausea he felt. “No matter how this turns out, I want you to know that I’m proud of you”—a long pause—“son.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“To the post!” the steward shouted.
The two remaining runners walked to the start line.
A tap of the drum.
Before the race had gone a half-mile, everyone at the track was aware of what the outcome would be. Harpy took the lead, setting a slow pace, flagging her tail. Matilda, under restraint, was just behind her.
They went that way, two tired horses on a dead-slow pace, for three and a half miles. On the final half mile, Marshall, hand-riding only, came abreast of Harpy. At the hundred-yard mark, he just clucked to his filly, and she took off, winning by four lengths.
Mattie’s delighted scream could be heard all over the course.
Charles stood back and watched her collect the six thousand dollars from Raymond Cross.
George ran up to him, throwing his arms around his father, whirling him about. “Wasn’t it grand, Father? Just grand!”
“Marvelous,” Charles grunted, hoping he wouldn’t throw up.
“Do you realize,” George said, “that that wonderful filly has run twenty miles to win today?”
Dewey could barely stand straight. He handed his wagering book to George. “If you can decipher this mess, I wish you’d collect my bets.”
George studied the book, his eyes opening wide. “My God, Father, you’ve won more than ten thousand dollars!”
Charles just stood there, weaving, his eyes hooded in drunkenness. “I’d give it all, George, to have back some angry words I said to your mother earlier.”
“She’ll forgive you, Father.”
“I don’t deserve forgiveness.”
“Nonsense.”
Dewey sank slowly to the ground, unable to stay on his feet any longer. “Damned fool, that’s what I am!”
“Drunken fool, too,” a voice said, “but I love you.”
Charles looked up into Mattie’s glowing face.
“Oh, Charles, Matilda did it!”
“Yes,” he mumbled. “Just like you … small and tough.”
He passed out.
IV
WITHIN the week a lawyer appeared at the Davidson County Court House in Nashville to file two petitions on behalf of his client, Squire Charles Dewey of the Bon Marche plantation.
The first asked that the court look favorably on a desire of Mr. Dewey to have one of his slaves, a lad called Marshall, given the legal name of Marshall Dewey. Attached to the petition was an affidavit declaring that the young man’s parents were the aforementioned Charles Dewey and a slave woman, Angelica.
Another document was a manumission appeal, in which Dewey asked that one of his slaves, Marshall Dewey, a minor, be declared “now and forever” a free man.
At Bon Marché the family crowded around Matilda’s stall, offering her carrots and fresh alfalfa hay.
“What’s next for her, Charles?” Mattie asked.
“Next?” He laughed. “Can you imagine that she could ever be greater, in any other races, that she was last Sunday? I can’t. And, since she could never top herself, I think she’s earned retiremen
t. To stud, of course.”
“Just like a man!” his wife said, pretending to be annoyed. “Considering motherhood a retirement.”
“I think she ought to go to the court of Predator.” Charles looked to Franklin for confirmation of his choice.
“I think you’re right, Father. His foals could use some stamina.”
Dewey held out a leaf of hay to the filly. “What think you of that, Matilda? Could you add some guts to the babies of Predator?”
Drawing back her upper lip, exposing her teeth, the filly nickered loudly.
They all laughed.
29
CHARLES was weeping unashamedly.
He stood at the head of the long lane leading to the Bon Marché mansion, waving wildly at two riders coming toward him. They were only pygmies in the distance, unrecognizable by any normal eye, but Charles knew who they were. He had been waiting for days and now, in mid-December of 1808, the day had arrived.
As they drew closer, the familiar face of the lead rider came clear to him.
“Andrew!” Charles shouted.
The horse was spurred and Andrew MacCallum raced to Dewey’s side. “Charles, my friend!”
Dismounting, the former tutor groaned. “Oh, God, the old legs are protesting mightily.”
The two men embraced, holding each other for a long time in a kind of desperation. Abner Lower, who had made the trip to New Jersey to guide MacCallum to Bon Marché, sat on his horse and smiled.
Finally, Dewey held Andrew at arm’s length, studying him. “Andrew, dear Andrew! How long has it been?”
“Twelve years.”
“You’ve grown gray, Andrew.”
“I am in my fifties, Charles. And a bit paunchy, too.” He patted an ample stomach.
“Fifties, gray, paunchy—it doesn’t make any difference. You’re here—that’s all that matters.”
Dewey looked up at Lower.
“A difficult trip, Abner?”
“A lucky one,” the guide reported. “The weather held for us. I was afraid we were goin’ to have snow in the mountains coming out of Virginia, but I reckon we stayed in front of it all the while.”
Charles wiped a hand over his teary face. “I’m grateful to you, Abner.”
Lower nodded.
Taking MacCallum by the arm Charles propelled him toward Bon Marché. “It’s only a short walk, Andrew. Or would you rather ride in?”
“If I never have to get up on that nag again, it’ll satisfy me.”
“You know, Andrew, if I had realized that it would take Franklin’s wedding to get you here, I would have had him marry at sixteen.”
MacCallum laughed. “I really believe you would have.”
II
ANDREW had thought a great deal about what he would find in Tennessee. It would give him an opportunity, he had decided, to study the family unit on the frontier. He didn’t mean to be totally academic about it; the visit to his dearest friend was paramount, of course. But he had spent all of his life in study, and he couldn’t change now.
As Dewey proudly showed him around Bon Marché, Andrew made mental comparisons with plantations he had seen in Virginia. The way of life on those plantations was more leisurely, but few had the full range of facilities he found at Bon Marché—and the fair-minded management he could deduce almost immediately. Bon Marché, he concluded, was a happier place than any plantation he had ever seen that was based on a slave economy. There was less of the depressing master-slave attitude.
Dinner that night was in MacCallum’s honor. Many toasts were drunk, many old stories revived. And the dinner hour went late. Finally, when Franklin asked his father to check on a sick foal with him, Andrew was left alone with Mattie. It was a welcome respite for him. She led him to the drawing room.
“A sherry, Andrew?”
“No, I think not. As always when I’m with Charles, I’m inclined to drink too much.”
Mattie grinned. “He’s spoken of nothing else for weeks but your arrival.”
“Yes, we have a rare relationship. I find it difficult to put it into words.”
“You have a good effect on Charles.”
Andrew laughed, getting up to stand with his back to the fireplace. “I was about to say the same thing regarding you. Quite honestly, the Charles I knew in Virginia is different from the Tennessee Charles.”
“In what way?” She was intrigued.
“Oh, he always had the same self-assurance, but he was … well, existing alone. It was Charles Dewey against the world, so to speak. Here I see him as a man who is guided and molded and nurtured. By you, Mattie.”
She blushed at the compliment, but she was pleased. “You give me too much credit.”
“I think not.”
“His first wife—wasn’t she supportive?”
He ran his hand through his hair, using the brief moment to organize his thoughts. “Supportive yes, but she didn’t challenge him. Martha Dewey was a lovely woman—a beauty, I can tell you—and she loved him deeply. But Charles had to be the impetus in everything. You’ve challenged him; you’ve made him more than he might have been.”
She smiled wanly. “Nagged him, you mean.”
“No, no, nothing like that at all,” MacCallum protested. “You’re strong. He needs that strength to complement his own.” A chuckle. “Indeed, Mattie, you are the woman I’ve searched for and never found. I take vicarious pleasure in knowing that my dearest friend has found you.”
Charles entered the room. “If that foal doesn’t improve by the morning,” he said sadly, “we may have to destroy it. I’m perplexed; I don’t know what’s wrong with it. But I do know that it’s simply wasting away.”
“Franklin must be distressed,” Mattie commented.
“He is. I wish he wouldn’t take every failure with a horse as his own guilt.” He clapped his hands together to mark an end to that subject. “Well, what have you two been talking about?”
“Secrets,” Mattie said, smiling.
“Indeed?”
“That’s right,” MacCallum confirmed.
“And I’m not to be taken into your confidence?”
“Never.” His friend laughed.
Charles waited for more. It didn’t come. He shrugged. “Well, I know when I’ve been shut out. A sherry, Andrew?”
“No, thank you. I’ve already had that kind offer from your wife, but your toasts at dinner were quite enough for me.” He sighed. “Truthfully, Charles, I am rather tired.”
“Of course, you must be. Let me show you to your room.”
As the two friends climbed the stairway to the second floor, MacCallum said, “Mattie’s a very special woman, Charles.”
“Yes.”
“I told you once that you were the luckiest man I knew, and I have to repeat it again.”
“I give thanks every night for my good fortune.”
They entered a large bedroom. Horace had already unpacked Andrew’s clothes and put them away.
MacCallum began to undress. “I stopped at Elkwood on the way through Virginia.”
“Oh?”
“Katherine is a very unhappy lady.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.”
Andrew frowned. “You don’t forgive easily, do you?”
“It isn’t a case of forgiving or not forgiving, Andrew. Elkwood is part of my past. A long-gone part. I have nothing that ties me there anymore.”
“Lee has become a drunken sot,” the visitor went on. “And his affairs are common gossip throughout central Virginia.”
“Why doesn’t she leave him?”
“She can’t. Statler’s will, you’ll recall, gave them Elkwood jointly. If she tries to get out, he’ll tie her up in unending litigation.”
“Hmmm.”
“She’d like to hear from you, Charles.”
“No, I can’t do that.”
“The children are her nieces and nephews,” Andrew reminded him.
“Their recollection of her is minimal.”
“I’ll give it some thought.” He changed the subject.
III
THE days leading up to Christmas, and the wedding, were crowded with activities. Charles tried to fill every minute of Andrew’s time until his friend, genuinely annoyed, asked him to desist.
“Charles, I’m not a child,” he said as gently as he could. “I don’t need to be led around.”
“I’ve been smothering you,” Dewey said gravely.
“Yes.”
Charles shrugged. “I apologize for that, old friend. You have the free run of Bon Marché.”
MacCallum, intent on his study now, sought out Corrine. “You may not know it,” he said to the girl, “but you are your mother from head to toe. The same hair, the same eyes, the same … uh … womanliness, the same beauty.”
Corrine flushed. “Thank you, Uncle Andrew. You embarrass me. But I don’t remember much about my mother. She’s more of a shadow than a reality.”
“Your father doesn’t speak of her?”
“Rarely.”
“Hmmm. They were married, you know, when your mother was several years younger than you are now. Let’s see, you’re—”
“Eighteen.” She said it with pride—perhaps even defiance.
“Is there a young man?”
“Oh, yes!” She became animated. “His name is William Holder. He’s a lawyer.” The happy animation turned suddenly to sadness. “Father doesn’t care for him.”
“Oh?”
“Billy, you see, doesn’t hold any brief for horse racing and gambling. He considers such things … well, corruptive.”
MacCallum laughed. “I can see where Charles might not see eye to eye with him.”
“Billy’s not awed by Father, as most people are.” The words reflected her pride. “I’m afraid they’ve exchanged some heated words. Billy says gamblers are wastrels…”
“My, my.”
“… and horse race people are ne’er-do-wells.”
“You seem to have a real problem, young lady.”
“Oh, no,” she replied, the defiance returning. “Billy and I will be married, just as soon as his career allows us to have a home of our own. He refuses to rely on Bon Marché money.”