Bon Marche

by Chet Hagan

  “Ah, yes, the Princess. My dear, you’re going to have every swain in Charleston at your feet.”

  Alma May smiled, her eyes asking questions about who this woman was.

  “And this is my first granddaughter, Carrie.”

  “My, my,” Mary Elizabeth gushed, “aren’t you a darling!”

  Dewey realized that he was still holding her hands and he let go of them.

  “Charles, this isn’t a chance meeting,” the woman said, dropping her voice into an intimate tone. “This is a small town, you know, and I heard about your arrival early this afternoon.”

  He laughed. “We didn’t get here until noon.”

  “As I said, it’s a small town. In any event, I talked Langdon into bringing me here tonight for dinner, in the hope of seeing you. I want you to meet him.” To the daughter and granddaughter: “Excuse us, dears.”

  A firm hand on Dewey’s arm, she guided him across the dining room.

  An unsmiling Langdon Cheves rose as they approached his table.

  “Darling,” Mary Elizabeth said, “may I present Mr. Charles Dewey of Nashville.”

  Cheves nodded, offering his hand. “My wife has spoken of you often, Mr. Dewey. In horse racing, aren’t you?”

  “Breeding and racing, yes. I’m pleased to meet you, sir.” He shook the hand.

  “Won’t you sit down, Mr. Dewey?” Cheves suggested politely.

  “Well, my daughter and—”

  “For just a moment, Charles.” Mrs. Cheves had given an order.

  Ill at ease, Dewey joined them at their table.

  Cheves made conversation. “I appreciate a good race, Mr. Dewey, but I’m afraid I never had the time to indulge myself in the sport.”

  “The country should be grateful, sir, that your time was spent in the legislature.”

  “Yes, well…”

  “Mr. Dewey is here with his daughter and granddaughter, dear,” Mary Elizabeth said to her husband, “and I thought it might be possible to have a reception for them.”

  “Of course.” Without enthusiasm.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t want you to go to any trouble—”

  “Nonsense! We’d be honored.” She cast a stern glance at Langdon Cheves.

  “Honored,” he echoed.

  After a few more stiff moments, Charles was able to go back to his own table.

  “That lady is pretty, Grandfather,” Carrie chirped.

  “Yes, she is.”

  Alma May made no comment at all, then.

  When they had finished dinner, though, and had put little Carrie to bed, the Princess followed her father to his room. Charles retrieved a bottle of sherry from one of his traveling cases and poured for both of them.

  “This Mrs. Cheves, Daddy,” Alma May asked, “who is she?”

  “An old friend.”

  “A friend who Mother knows about?”

  Charles grinned. “Yes, Princess.”

  “Oh.”

  “And what is that supposed to mean?”

  “It’s just that Mrs. Cheves doesn’t think of you as just an old friend.”

  “How did you arrive at that conclusion?” Dewey was amused.

  “Her eyes,” the Princess replied. “I could see it in her eyes. She’d go to bed with you if you gave her any encouragement.”

  “Young lady, I think this conversation has gone far enough!”

  “I’m not a child anymore. Women see those things in other women.”

  He laughed loudly. “Well, Princess, I’ll just have to take your word for that. And I’ll say good night.”

  Alma May went to the door. “Daddy?”

  “What now?”

  “She would, you know. And I want you to know that if … well, Daddy, I can be discreet.”

  “Good night, Princess!”

  Dewey shook his head disapprovingly as his daughter left the room … but he had never felt closer to her than he did at that moment.

  V

  RACING in Charleston had changed since Charles’s last visit. Subtle changes, perhaps, but changes that made the racing more competitive. He started three horses on the first day of the meeting without a winner, either on the track or in the betting pool.

  Shrugging off the losses—over the years he had learned to lose with grace—he decided that the long trip in the vans had taken a lot out of his animals. He immediately rented a fenced pasture and turned the thoroughbreds out into it to graze and unwind.

  “There’ll be time in the second week of the meeting,” he told one of the jockeys, “to win our share of races.”

  And so, on the first Saturday night in Charleston, not the conqueror he had been seven years earlier, Dewey prepared himself for the reception at the Cheves mansion. He had sent Alma May on a shopping expedition, both for herself and for little Carrie. He wanted his women to be dressed in the highest style. The Princess chose for herself a gown that her father wouldn’t have allowed her to wear in Nashville, with revealing décolletage and bare arms. She was gorgeous.

  Charles, too, had made an effort to bring his wardrobe up to fashion. A Charleston tailor was pressed into hurried service to make him a suit with a velvet-collared coat, leg-hugging trousers, and a ruffled silk shirt featuring the high collars of the day.

  “Father, you’re handsome!” Alma May had exclaimed. “She’s going to swoon!”

  “That’ll be enough of that, young lady.” But he admitted to himself that he wanted to look just right for Mary Elizabeth.

  Langdon Cheves and his wife had invited all of the first families of Charleston to the reception: the Izards, and the Manigaults, and the Mazycks, and the Lowndeses, and the Pringles, and the Cogdells, and the Kinlochs, and the Pinckneys. The spacious parlors of the mansion were jammed.

  Mary Elizabeth greeted them at the door. Effusively. She was even more beautiful than he had remembered, her auburn hair, longer now, piled high on her head, a silky white gown outlining her superb figure, scooped low in front, a single diamond on a delicate gold chain nestled just above the cleavage of her breasts.

  She took his hand and led him, the Princess, and Carrie through the entrance hall. As they made their way through a crowd of people, Charles glanced up the long, winding stairway that led to the bedrooms above. She seemed to sense what he was thinking, squeezing his hand gently.

  They crossed the main living room, Mary Elizabeth making quick introductions as they moved, but not stopping until they came to Langdon Cheves. He was standing, with an elbow on the mantel, in a circle of five or six other gentlemen.

  “Darling,” his wife said, “our guest of honor has arrived.”

  “Mr. Dewey,” Cheves said, bowing slightly. “I believe you know some of these gentlemen from your last visit.” He quickly ran over their names again, and handshakes were exchanged.

  “The Royalist colt I purchased from you, Mr. Dewey,” Charles Manigault interjected enthusiastically, “has done marvelously well. He earned himself out … oh, by seven or eight times. I have him at stud now.”

  “I’m delighted,” Charles replied.

  “Whiskey, Mr. Dewey?” Cheves wanted to know.

  “Yes, please.”

  His host snapped his fingers, and a black waiter was instantly by his side with a silver tray loaded with crystal glasses filled with whiskey.

  As Dewey took his drink he realized that Mary Elizabeth had left them. He could see her across the room, introducing the Princess to young men in the crowd.

  “Are you here on another selling foray?” Manigault asked.

  “In one sense only,” Charles explained. “Actually, I’m on my way to New York to test the racing there. But I will sell along the way if sales develop.”

  “I understand, Mr. Dewey, that your first day of racing here wasn’t too kind to you,” Manigault said sympathetically.

  “Not too kind,” he admitted with a wry smile.

  After a few more moments of racing talk, the conversation shifted to politics, with Langdon Cheves holding forth.
Charles found himself bored, his eyes wandering about the room seeking out Mary Elizabeth. He caught only fleeting glances of her, but each time his heart pounded harder. Old fool! he thought.

  “There’s talk, Mr. Dewey,” Cheves was saying, “that your General Jackson will be competing for the presidency in the next election. What think you of that?”

  “Jackson is very popular.”

  “And is he popular with you, sir?”

  Charles hadn’t been paying enough close attention to gauge the sentiments of the men in the group. He answered cautiously. “Well, if there is to be a westerner in contention, I think I would prefer Henry Clay. But you must understand that I’m not too well versed on politics.”

  “Yes, of course,” Cheves sniffed.

  Only then did Charles remember that Clay and Cheves had been opponents for the post of Speaker of the House. He decided not to apologize for his preference of Clay for President.

  The talk of politics continued without another effort by the host to draw Dewey into it. After another ten minutes of that, Charles excused himself quietly and left the group. No one seemed to notice his departure.

  He found Mary Elizabeth chatting with a thin-faced, stern matron introduced to him as Mrs. Rawlins Lowndes.

  Charles bowed to her. “Ma’am, an honor.”

  “We met the last time you were in Charleston,” the woman said.

  He didn’t remember. “Of course,” he lied. “It’s just that there are so many beautiful women in Charleston that…” He let the sentence trail off with a shrug.

  She smiled.

  “Charles, have you run across that gentleman yet,” Mrs. Cheves said pointedly, “who’s interested in buying one of your horses? Oh, dear, which one was it, now?”

  “Huger?” He picked a name of one of the Charleston horsemen he knew to be in the room.

  “That’s it—Mr. Huger. Have you seen him yet?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I believe I saw him go out on the veranda a few moments ago.” To the matron: “Would you excuse us, Mrs. Lowndes? Mr. Huger wanted very much to talk to Mr. Dewey.”

  A quick bow to the older woman and Charles and Mary Elizabeth were through the French doors onto the veranda. She pulled him behind a tall boxwood and threw her arms around his neck, kissing him wildly.

  “Oh, God, it’s been so long,” she whispered.

  He kissed her back, but was concerned. “This is dangerous business.”

  “Do you care?”

  “Certainly I care. Your reputation—”

  “To hell with it!”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  A wan smile. “No. Maybe you’re just a fantasy, Charles Dewey, but I’ve missed you terribly.” She frowned. “And I can’t understand why you didn’t write to me!”

  “Because it wasn’t the right—” He stopped. “Because my wife read your letter.”

  “Oh!”

  “You might have been less … intimate, you know.”

  “Did I cause trouble for you?”

  “For a time.”

  She laid her hand on his cheek. “What did you tell her about us?”

  “That I would always remember you fondly.”

  “Will you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Did you come back to Charleston to see me?”

  “No,” Charles said firmly. “I came back to race my horses—on my way to New York.”

  Mary Elizabeth pouted.

  “I was convinced,” he went on, “that you wouldn’t speak to me again because I hadn’t written to you.”

  “You were wrong.”

  Dewey sighed. “Yes. You know, my daughter said she saw in your eyes that you wanted to go bed with me.”

  “She’s very perceptive.”

  “She said that women see those things in other women.”

  “That’s true.”

  “And if she could see, then others can see it, too.”

  “Probably.”

  Her seeming lack of concern about the situation worried him. “I think we’d better go back inside.”

  “Very well.” She laughed. “We really can’t do much out here anyway.”

  They started toward the door.

  “Your daughter, Charles, is very charming. I think she’s going to like Charleston—and its young men.”

  VI

  “MY husband’s name was Nat,” the Princess said.

  The tall, dark-haired young man was taken aback. “Your husband? But I was under the impression that you were an unmarried lady. Mrs. Cheves’s introduction—”

  Alma May chuckled. “Single, but not a maiden,” she said, using the racetrack term. “I’m divorced.”

  “Really?” His eyes opened wide.

  She had wondered what polite society would think of her divorce. And now she found herself amused by the reaction of this man she knew as Nathaniel Heyward II. Mrs. Cheves, in introducing him, had left no doubt about the importance of the Heyward family in Charleston.

  They strolled along on the wide lawn in front of the Cheves mansion. The evening was warm, the sky clear, with only a few stars visible. He was smoking a long, thin cigar, puffing at it in a rather imperious manner.

  “Does my divorce shock you?” she asked.

  “No, no, certainly not!”

  “Would you be interested to know that I don’t believe you?”

  “Really, Miss Dewey, I’m not a prude.”

  She was having fun with him. “Have you ever known a divorced woman before?”

  “No, I can’t say that I have.”

  “Tell me, then, what went through your mind when I told you that?”

  He was flustered. “Oh, well, surprise, of course. I mean—”

  “No thought that here might be a choice piece of fruit?”

  She had silenced him. He puffed faster at the cigar.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Heyward,” she said, laughing. “I didn’t mean to make sport with you. And I apologize for having embarrassed you.”

  “You are a rather … gay person, aren’t you?”

  “I’ve had enough somber moments in my life.”

  “And your husband—your former husband—what did he do, Miss Dewey?”

  “He was an actor.”

  Again the eyes opened wide. Again: “Really?”

  Now the Princess laughed. She couldn’t help it. The proper young man’s reaction was farcical to her.

  “Oh, my,” she said, trying to stop laughing, “I really am being quite rude to you.”

  “I don’t think that, Miss Dewey. It’s just that I’ve never met anyone like you before.”

  “And you probably don’t want to meet anyone like me again.”

  “Please don’t say that, Miss Dewey!”

  “My name is Alma May.”

  He nodded.

  “Or Princess, if you prefer.”

  “Princess? That’s perfect. It fits you admirably.” He sobered. “You are quite beautiful, you know.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “I would like to have the opportunity to show you Charleston. It’s quite a lovely place.”

  “I’d like that.”

  “Really?”

  Another chuckle. “Yes, Nat, I really would. If you can stop being so surprised about everything I say.”

  “I am a boor, aren’t I?”

  “Not at all. I find you very charming.”

  He studied her face for a moment. Then he glanced at the ember of his shortening cigar, flipping it away into the grass.

  He’s going to kiss me, Alma May thought.

  He didn’t.

  “Perhaps … uh, Princess”—he still was not comfortable with her nickname—“you would permit me to drive you to your lodgings tonight?”

  “I’d like nothing better.”

  “Real—” He began to laugh. “I must get over that habit, mustn’t I?”

  “Yes, Nat, you must.”

  A small gong sounded from inside the house.r />
  “The signal for supper,” he explained. “Are you hungry, Miss … uh … Princess?”

  “Uh-huh. But not for food.”

  He opened his mouth to reply, but closed it without having spoken.

  Finally: “Princess, you are quite a tease, you know.”

  “I know.”

  He kissed her then.

  Good Lord, finally!

  42

  “I’M not sure that I approve of your dalliance with this fellow Heyward.” Dewey was angry with his daughter.

  “‘This fellow Heyward,’” Alma May said, “is of one of the finest families in Charleston.”

  “All the more reason to—”

  “And it’s not a dalliance. Lord, Father, where do you get those old-fashioned words?”

  Charles sighed. “Old-fashioned or not, you know what I’m talking about! You’ve been seeing this man every day since the reception. It’s unseemly.”

  “No, Father, it’s not. I enjoy his company; he enjoys mine. It’s as simple as that.”

  “And as innocent as that?”

  “At least he’s not married.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  The Princess grinned at him. “Daddy, when Nathaniel and I were walking on the lawn the other night, I saw you with Mrs. Cheves hiding behind the boxwood.”

  “We weren’t hiding.”

  “Maybe you should have been.”

  “Alma May, you’re still my daughter, and I’ll not stand for this insolence!”

  “It’s not insolence, Father; it’s just a statement of fact.”

  “And this Heyward fellow,” Charles groaned, “I suppose he saw us, too.”

  “No. I was distracting him, you might say. Shocking him with my candor, if you want the whole truth. Your secret is safe with me.”

  “What you saw,” Charles tried to explain, “was an innocent kiss. One kiss, nothing more—and nothing more implied.”

  “Yes, Daddy.” She was grinning again.

  “Damn you! It was innocent!”

  “I’ll accept your protestations of innocence if you’ll accept mine.”

  “That smacks of blackmail, young lady.”

  “Uh-huh. Or … let’s just say we’ve reached an understanding.”

  Dewey sank down on the edge of his bed. “Princess, what am I going to do with you?”