Bon Marche

by Chet Hagan

  There was almost no conversation as the Deweys drove back to Bon Marché in an open buggy.

  “Are you angry, Charles?” Mattie asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I hope your anger isn’t going to cause you to do anything foolish.”

  Charles laughed. “No, no, Mattie. You can be at ease. I wouldn’t give your vaunted cousin the satisfaction of knowing he has offended me. I can’t believe that this nation thought him worthy to be its President! Thank God the Congress has frustrated him and Quincy Adams is now in the White House.”

  “There’s another election in three years,” Mattie reminded him.

  “Yes, and isn’t it obvious,” Dewey groaned, “that Andy’s running already … on the coattails of the honored Lafayette.”

  There was a long silence.

  “You know,” Dewey said eventually, “I was just thinking about that morning in that grove of trees in Kentucky—my God, it was way back in 1806—when Charles Dickinson might have rid us of Andy Jackson had he been more deliberate with his shot.”

  “Charles! That’s dreadful!”

  “Maybe. It’s strange how history can turn on what seems at the time a minor event. If Dickinson had killed him in that duel we might now have a man of competence like Henry Clay in the presidency, instead of the prospect that Andy—”

  “That’s enough! I won’t hear any more!”

  Charles sighed. “My apologies, dear.” He reached over and patted her hand. And then he grinned at her. “I promise, no more such maudlin talk. Now … you have your new gown for the ball tomorrow night?”

  “Yes. It’s lovely.”

  “And I’m sure you’ll be the most beautiful woman there.”

  Mattie leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.”

  III

  MARQUIS de Lafayette’s age showed in his face. There were lines in it that told of his hard imprisonment in Prussian and Austrian jails after leading a French army against the Austrians. And there were lines, too, that mirrored his fight against the excesses of the French Revolution and, later, his political battle against Napoleon. His hair had thinned, the strands being combed forward on his forehead in an attempt to hide the loss.

  But the old patriot stood ramrod straight in the receiving line at the ball in Nashville’s new Masonic Hall. And smiles wreathed his face as he charmed each and every Tennessean presented to him.

  Charles and Mattie, with Carrie in tow, arrived early for the ball. Dewey was determined to find the opportunity to talk to Lafayette. That came in mid-evening when, after a round of dances with some of the Nashville ladies, Lafayette was suddenly alone for a moment on the edge of the dance floor.

  Dewey went up to him quickly. “General,” he said, bowing deeply. “My name is Charles Dewey. Actually, Charles Dupree, a native of France.”

  Lafayette returned the bow.

  “But now a citizen of America,” Charles continued, “thanks to you.”

  “To me?”

  “Yes, sir. You see I was in the crew of the Ville de Paris when you came aboard during the siege of Yorktown—”

  “Ah! So we were comrades in arms?”

  “That’s putting too grand a face on it, sir. I was merely the cabin boy to Admiral de Grasse—”

  Lafayette interrupted again. “Poor de Grasse. He’s long been gone from us.”

  “I know. In any event, it was your shining example, your enthusiasm for this country, that made me determined to be an American.

  “Well, I’m pleased to have influenced you in that manner. And what do you do as an American?”

  “I run a horse farm, General. Here at Nashville. It’s called Bon Marché.”

  The French nobleman grinned. “And is it a ‘good bargain,’ Mr. Dewey?”

  “Indeed it is.”

  Lafayette took him by the arm and drew him away to a quiet corner. “As a fellow Frenchman, Mr. Dewey, may I presume to ask you a question about your farm?”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you use slaves to run it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Many?”

  “Nearly two hundred, sir.”

  “And are you … content with that?”

  Charles frowned. “No, General, I’m not.”

  “In the course of my tour of America, I have been … well, constantly distressed by the spectacle of slavery. It seems to me that it is so deeply engrained in the South that…” He shrugged.

  “I, too, am distressed by it.”

  “Yet you engage in it.”

  “Yes.” Dewey hung his head.

  “Why?”

  “The intensive labor needed to run a big plantation—”

  Lafayette stopped him with a raised hand. “That’s an argument I have heard before, Mr. Dewey. I mean no offense to you, sir, but it seems a poor defense for slavery. And worse: I see this issue dividing your nation. Don’t you?”

  “I do, yes.”

  “In that case, why continue with it?”

  “Years ago, in Virginia, my father-in-law told me that men of greater minds than his—and he was an intelligent man—had struggled with the problem and had failed to find a solution. That problem still prevails, I’m afraid.”

  The Frenchman shook his head sadly. “I certainly hope someone comes forward with a solution before it is too late.”

  Dewey could only nod agreement. He changed the subject. “General, might I presume on you to present my granddaughter? She has been wanting to meet you.”

  “I’d be delighted.”

  Charles signaled to Carrie, who stood a few paces away, and she came to them.

  “Your Grace, may I present my first granddaughter, Carrie Dewey?”

  Carrie curtsied.

  “Ah! Another American beauty!” Lafayette smiled at her. “May I ask, mademoiselle, how old you are?”

  “Fourteen, sir.”

  “Then old enough, wouldn’t you say, for a dance?”

  He offered his arm, and they whirled onto the floor.

  Hours later, when Charles and Mattie were in bed, Dewey asked: “Was the marquis a good dancer?”

  “Extremely so. My God, what charm that man has! I think he danced with every woman present.”

  “Carrie was captivated by him.”

  Mattie sighed deeply.

  “What?” Charles sensed disapproval in her.

  “You have other grandchildren, you know. It seems to me that you ought to consider them at times. Joy and Hope might like to have danced with General Lafayette, too, you know.”

  “Louise and August could have taken them to the ball if they had wished,” Dewey said defensively. “I give some special attention to Carrie because she is without a mother. I see nothing wrong in that.”

  His wife stayed quiet for a moment. “Are you going to the races Saturday?”

  “No, I think not.”

  “But George has Sir Matt ready for his debut.”

  “I know, but I promised Carrie that we’d take a ride in the woods as part of her botany studies.”

  Mattie sighed again, then turned away from him, seeking sleep.

  IV

  SIR Matt was a strapping bay son of the noted Virginia-standing stallion, Sir Archie, by the great Diomed. The dam of the new Bon Marché competitor was the tough Matilda, who had carried Mattie’s name in the unique five-heat, twenty-mile race back in 1808. As a brood mare she had been disappointing until mated with Sir Archie, but now George Dewey was convinced that he had a champion on his hands in the five-year-old Sir Matt.

  His maiden race was to be at Gallatin, the scene of Matilda’s triumph. George had kept the training of Sir Matt under wraps; he meant to make a killing with him in his first time out. Indeed, George did everything he could to keep the ability of his runner a secret.

  When invited by the managers of the Gallatin track to enter a horse in the Gallatin Cup event he delayed his decision until the last moment. Then, seemingly reluctantly, he dropped Sir Matt’s name into the entry box, with
apologies.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, “I’m entering this nag only because you have been so fair to Bon Marché in the past.”

  He also undertook two other ploys. He instructed the Negro grooms not to work on Sir Matt. “I want him to look a little shaggy,” he said. George also kept his best jockey off the horse, putting up an apprentice named Harry, a ninety-seven-pound lad riding his first race.

  To the members of the Dewey family who had traveled to Gallatin for the event, George said: “I don’t want to see any Bon Marché money wagered on the first heat. No money at all, do you understand? I’ll tell you when the time is right.”

  Mattie was suspicious of his tactics. “George, is what you’re doing … ethical?”

  “Ethical?” Her son laughed. “All’s fair in love, war, and horse racing. Haven’t you ever heard that cliché?”

  “George, I don’t think I like this.”

  He hugged her. “Mother, indulge me a bit, will you? What can you really know about a maiden? I don’t want us to waste our money, that’s all.”

  When the bugle called the field to the post for the Gallatin Cup—the best of three heats at three miles each—George took the young jockey aside.

  “Now, listen carefully to me, boy! I don’t want you to do anything out there but keep from falling off. No whip, no spurs. Your only job is to keep him from being distanced. Do you understand?”

  “Yas, suh.”

  “Our race is not in this first heat, Harry.”

  “Yas, suh.”

  George clapped him on the back and boosted him into the saddle. Harry trotted the horse to the starting line to join the eight other runners. The public pool, seeing very little money bet on Sir Matt had his odds at twenty-five to one.

  When the drum tapped and the field sped away from the line, Harry, following his instructions to the letter, was nearly left at the post. Only through vigorous hand-riding in the course of the three miles did he keep the Bon Marché horse in contention at all. A Kentucky horse named Ridgerunner was the clear winner by three lengths over a Nashville mare called First in War, named, it was understood, to honor Andy Jackson.

  Sir Matt was barely drawing a deep breath after his first heat, in which he finished sixth. George was grinning broadly.

  The second heat was called. “Harry,” George said sternly, “it’s going to be a little more difficult this time. I want you to win this time, but right at the wire. The way I see it, you have only two horses to beat: First in War and that Kentucky animal, Ridgerunner.”

  The jockey nodded.

  “But I don’t want to see you in contention until the last half mile. Keep those two in sight and come on late.”

  “But—” The lad was perplexed.

  “Don’t worry about it, Harry. Sir Matt is clearly the best of them. He could beat them any day of the week and twice on Sunday.” He laughed. “Just as long as you don’t do it too soon.”

  “Yas, suh.”

  On his performance in the first heat, and because of the lack of Bon Marché money on him, Sir Matt went off in the second at forty to one.

  Harry did his job once more, keeping Sir Matt within a few lengths of the leaders as Ridgerunner and First in War dueled for the lead. In the last three hundred yards the Bon Marché jockey, whipping and driving, first disposed of First in War and then caught Ridgerunner at the wire, winning by only a nose.

  It was exactly what George Dewey wanted.

  It was going to be a match race between Sir Matt and Ridgerunner in the third and final heat.

  “Now,” George announced to the family members, “bet the jewels.”

  The sudden large rush of Bon Marché money—George himself wagered ten thousand dollars—drove the odds down considerably for the third heat. Ridgerunner was held as the even-money favorite, but Sir Matt, getting little respect from the other bettors in the crowd, was allowed to go off at nine to one.

  The drum tapped again, sending the two heat winners off the line. Sir Matt immediately went into the lead and lengthened his advantage with each stride. In the last mile, Harry just sat there, holding the reins loosely, as Sir Matt easily held off the rush of Ridgerunner and won by six lengths.

  One of the managers of the track, after presenting George with the Gallatin Cup, drew him aside.

  “We are not happy, Mr. Dewey,” he said, “with what happened here today. There is the suspicion that you carried off a betting coup.”

  George’s open face was all innocence. “The horse was a maiden before today—a true maiden. He had never competed at all. He simply found his legs in the last two heats, that’s all.”

  The manager frowned. “There’s no way we can prove otherwise, of course, but if we knew for certain that you did have a coup in mind, we’d start action to have you ruled off!”

  “Would I risk the Bon Marché reputation for a mere few dollars?”

  “Hmmm.” The manager looked into his clear blue eyes. “Perhaps not.”

  “Just the luck of racing, sir,” George said breezily. “The luck of racing!”

  The “mere few dollars” that George had mentioned added up to nearly one hundred fifty thousand.

  Mattie, deeply distressed, took the story to Charles that night.

  “Well,” he sighed, “it’s not my concern any longer. George and Franklin are in charge now.”

  “Charles Dewey! Do you condone his actions?”

  “If he engaged in a betting coup, of course not. But maiden horses are notoriously unpredictable runners, you know.”

  His wife was angry. “Charles, don’t close your eyes to this! It’s so obvious!”

  “Obvious to whom?”

  “To me!”

  “Yes. Very well, I’ll speak to George. But I’m sure the win was due to the idiosyncracies of an untried horse.”

  George agreed with that evaluation by his father.

  V

  CHARLES Dewey’s interest in the fortunes of Bon Marché waned with each passing day. His life fell into an easy routine. His days were given over totally to Carrie: to her education, to her development as a young adult. He spent the late hours each evening in the drawing room with August Schimmel. He and the editor discussed what was happening in the world. Those two things contented Charles, even when the subjects talked about in the drawing room raised his ire.

  “Where are we headed?” he asked sadly one night in mid-July 1826. “I mean, it seems that we’re losing all of the old, stable leaders. What irony that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson should die on the same day—and on July Fourth, too. In some ways it seems, August, that the hope for the nation died on that day, as well.”

  “You’re too melancholy, Charles.”

  “Am I? Doesn’t the growth of sectionalism bother you? And this … polarization of political thought. Washington warned of that, you know. But now we see the establishment of two distinct political factions. On one side we have the Adams-Clay group, calling themselves the National Republicans. On the other side we have Andy and Calhoun and their sycophants trumpeting their cause as the Democrats. It’s all factionalism and sectionalism, and we’re going down the path to national destruction, I tell you!”

  “I find the national debate stimulating,” Schimmel countered, taking his usual position as the devil’s advocate. “There are pains in growth. We cannot ignore them. They should be aired so that the intelligent decision can be made.”

  “Is there any intelligence left?” Charles said sarcastically. “When Lafayette was here, he asked me why we had placed our reliance in slavery. And I couldn’t answer him. Does no one have the intelligence to deal with this problem?”

  “Men of goodwill shall find the answer.”

  Dewey laughed. “Men of goodwill? Do you consider me a man of goodwill?”

  “Of course.”

  “And yet I hold slaves. And will continue holding slaves because I can’t figure out how to maintain Bon Marché without them. Isn’t that insanity of a sort?”

  And
so the discussions continued night after night. When, finally, the national elections of 1828 came about, the two close friends found themselves on opposite sides—polarized, as the nation as a whole was polarized.

  Editor Schimmel supported Andrew Jackson. Dewey opposed Jackson, even though he felt that John Quincy Adams had been a weak President. He would always oppose Jackson, but while he could discuss his opinions with Schimmel, Charles never spoke of them to Mattie. In truth, he talked to Mattie less and less. Their relationship had become “polite”—a terrible, debilitating word for two people who had once been so much in love.

  In November, when the results of the presidential election were clear, Dewey said to Schimmel: “Well, now you have him, August. The great hero of New Orleans will be in the White House—the beneficiary of a spontaneous outpouring of public support. May God have mercy on the United States of America!”

  VI

  EARLY one morning a few days before Christmas, Mattie awakened Charles with the news.

  “A rider just came in from The Hermitage,” she said. “Rachel is dying. I think I ought to be there.”

  “Of course.”

  “I want you to go with me.”

  “Oh … do you think that’s wise?”

  “Charles, please.”

  Andy was disconsolate when they got there.

  “The doctors say there’s no hope.” he reported. “Good God, what have I done? My ambition has killed her.”

  “Don’t believe that for a minute, Cousin,” Mattie said gently.

  “No, it’s true. Earlier this month she was in Nashville and happened upon one of those … those scurrilous pieces of campaign literature in which she—that dear, sweet, innocent woman—was slandered so … viciously about her marriage to me—” He stopped to brush away a tear. “An adultress, they called her. And worse! She broke down, weeping hysterically over the awful things that were written about her. And then her wounded heart gave way.”

  Andy slammed a fist into his palm.

  “I swear to you, Cousin Mattie, the day of retribution must come!”

  Rachel lingered throughout the day and into the night. Near midnight she breathed her last, cradled in her husband’s arms. Andy cried inconsolably. It was less than three days to Christmas.