Eagle's Cry: A Novel of the Louisiana Purchase (20 page)

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Authors: David Nevin

Tags: #Fiction, #Historical

BOOK: Eagle's Cry: A Novel of the Louisiana Purchase
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Randolph’s voice went silky, the sort of turn that made him formidable in debate. “You’re confused, dear friend. We had a trial, what we call an election, and we won it. Remember? People
want
us to clean house.” He stood abruptly and leaned forward, both fists on the desk, whiplash in his voice. “Now, let me tell you, Mr. Secretary of State, those of us who really care about this democracy want that scoundrel Wagner out by the close of business today. Today! What is your answer?”
Madison’s mood shifted; he had to struggle to avoid laughter. He stood and stretched. “Well, John, it’ll be evident by the close of business today.”
“Mr. Wagner,” Madison said, seated at the plain table, “do you consider yourself a professional?”
“I do indeed, sir, and I try to conduct myself accordingly.”
A candle guttered on the desk. It was after six, growing dark outside, supper delayed, Dolley probably worried, the other clerks long since departed. Ruefully it struck Madison that the three-block-walk home in the dark on muddy streets innocent of either sidewalks or lights would be no great pleasure.
“You’re aware that you’re regarded as the architect of all Mr. Pickering’s excesses?”
Wagner smiled. “So I’ve heard. Mr. Pickering liked to use me as a lightning pole. Is that correct, Mr. Franklin’s invention?” Madison nodded. “But Mr. Pickering ran the ship of state to suit himself. I carried out his orders. In fairness, I agreed with most of them.” He hesitated, then added, “Should I stay on, sir, I expect I would continue to think as I do.”
“The question is how you would
act.
Things will be dif ferent, not extreme but different. Can you carry out orders whether you agree or not? Give me honest advice toward what I want done, not what you may think proper?”
Wagner seemed genuinely surprised. “Why, of course, Mr. Madison,” he said. “I’m a professional.”
Madison gazed at his clerk. Randolph’s vehemence had shaken him more than he liked, for it suggested deep divisions among Democrats that in time could become dangerous and treacherous. Yet Madison was sure—he and Tom had talked endlessly about, it—that it was crucial to set a steady course and follow it. Still, Mr. Wagner was just one man and was a huge burr under a lot of saddles among extremist Democrats. Must Madison really pick a fight even as he started?
He sighed. So be it … .
“I think, Mr. Wagner, that I’ll not ask you to resign.”
WASHINGTON, FALL 1801
Dolley was on her way to the President’s House for a showdown. The social season was just beginning, and Tom was counting on her for a major diplomatic dinner he planned. But he also had hired a professional steward from France and had made no attempt to connect her to this worthy. She hadn’t even met him.
Taking a Frenchman in hand seemed an unlikely beginning, but then she hadn’t supposed the mansion would be in such a shabby state either. She had more sympathy now for Mrs. Adams’s laments, for the big house was essentially an unfinished shell, beautiful on the outside where Tom had, at least, ordered the construction debris removed, but bare on the inside. Well, she would see about that … .
As she started up the mansion’s walk the front door opened and Captain Lewis emerged. The figure in the doorway, small in the bare front, made her see again the need for a portico or wings or outbuildings or a pool … anything to break that plain expanse.
Lewis wore a black suit of rakish cut with boots. Not quite handsome—there was an angularity in his face—but he exuded vigor, intelligence, force. Too much of the latter, perhaps; there was an intensity in him that seemed to crackle.
He bowed over her hand just as her little sister came dashing up the walk after her. “Dolley! Oh, I’m so glad I caught you!” Anna’s clear young voice was highly musical. She had turned nineteen, had Dolley’s coloring, and her figure already was full. Dolley felt a little outclassed though Jimmy said that was ridiculous; Anna was just youthfully pretty
while Dolley was beautiful, and she certainly wouldn’t argue with him.
She presented Captain Lewis and was startled to see on his face the look of a man smitten if not poleaxed, lips parted, eyes yearning. Force seemed to flow off him like heat rays. But even as he bowed over Anna’s hand, her sister was saying with that snap in her voice that made her so popular, “There’s a big picnic at Great Falls, Mr. and Mrs. Douglas are going as chaperones, they invited me. You don’t mind, do you, Dolley?”
The captain’s face shifted abruptly to dismay as Anna went on heedlessly, “Oh, and I met the nicest young man. A Mr. Cutts, a congressman, I think. The Douglases invited him too. There’ll be twenty of us or so. I rather liked him …”
Seeing Lewis’s stunned expression, Dolley thought, Oh, this is just too much. “Well,” she said, “enjoy yourself, dear,” and fled toward the mansion, shaking her head.
The single guard touched truncheon to hat brim; inside she saw a new streak on roughly plastered walls and realized the roof, faulty from the start, had sprung still another leak. Visitors were in the oval drawing room beyond the entrance hall. A child brayed with laughter, pointing at something out of Dolley’s sight; and a man sprawled on a sofa, boots on the brocaded blue cover. It was part of the president’s democratic philosophy that the mansion be open daily to the public … .
Still thinking of the captain’s poleaxed expression, she went down a flight of stairs and along a vaulted passageway, massive stone groins overhead, to the big kitchen. Only one of two cooking fireplaces was in use. Chef Julien, whom she’d met, was tasting soup. A smallish man with waxed mustaches sharply pointed, cravat but no coat, soup spot on his shirt, bounded up from a desk, his expression fierce, and babbled in French. She smiled. He switched to halting English.
“
Madame, madame
, please, here is not for visitors, no, no—”
“You must be Mr. Lemaire. I’m Mrs. Madison.”
His eyes widened. He was new, but she saw he’d learned cabinet names. “Yes, madame, but what—what—”
She switched to conversational French. “The diplomatic dinner,” she said. “We must go over the details.”
“Details? What details?” He frowned. His French was fluid and very rapid. She struggled to keep up. “I will design the dinner, oversee its preparation and its service. The president chooses the wine.” He clucked his tongue. “I disapprove, but so be it. Nothing else is needed.”
“You know the president asked me to serve as hostess?”
Lemaire sniffed. “He mentioned something to that effect. You’re to charm the guests, I suppose. Make everyone welcome .”
“Perhaps I should review the planning too.”
“
Madame!
It is in the hands of Etienne Lemaire of Paris! Everything will be to perfection!”
She smiled and switched to rapid English. “Why don’t I just tell the president that Mr. Lemaire sees no need for a hostess?”
He leaned forward, struggling to understand. “Eh?” he said. “
Pardon?
The president?”
“I’ll tell him you’ll brook no interference. Settles everything.”
“No, no.” He returned to French, but sharply slowed. “Please,
madame
. I will … ah, appreciate your participation .”
But she saw Chef Julien smother a smile.
“
Merci
,” she said. “Tomorrow, then. But, Mr. Lemaire—hereafter we will speak in private.”
His glance flicked to the others. Chef Julien was peering at the soup.
“Thank you,
madame
,” Mr. Lemaire said.
It was a good beginning.
Lewis set his mount at a swift trot down Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Capitol. Rain the day before had left churning mud that splashed his boots. Mrs. Madison was charming. She was damned handsome herself, and she had a kindly quality that made you want to sit down and talk with
her—but Anna, oh, my God, what a woman! The look she’d given him even while talking about some man she’d met, a fop, probably, this Mr. Cutts. One of those fancy Dans who drew women but couldn’t keep them, lacking the solid virtues of someone like, well, like Lewis, for example. He’d scarcely gone a block before he’d worked up a substantial hatred for Mr. Cutts, whoever he was.
But the
look
she’d given him—sudden, fierce as a lightning bolt, right into his eyes, clearly for him alone. Oh, she’d been attracted, all right; for an instant he’d had her full attention, her whole force of being concentrated just for him—he wouldn’t forget that very soon. She was so, so—
alive,
that was the word, beautiful, yes, but that vitality …
And then, oddly, Mary Beth popped to mind. Which made him think of the expedition, on which not one word had been said, not one. He slowed climbing Capitol Hill, circled the unfinished building, tied the horse to a sapling. Not a hint. It seemed Mr. Jefferson really did want him as a glorified errand boy. When did men of power ever care about the dreams of underlings?
Underling he was, important for whom he represented, not for himself. A captain in the U.S. Army had a clear position, one widely respected too. He’d go back anytime, maybe soon if there was to be no expedition. He’d tell Mr. Jefferson he wasn’t cut out for this, damned fish out of water; he was going back where things were clear and men were men and a captaincy meant what it meant. He scraped mud from boot soles and walked into the big building, trying to look as if he belonged when he knew every fool could tell he was a rank outsider, adrift in the halls of Congress. He pulled a kerchief to wipe his boots, thought better of it and decided to find the Ways and Means chairman’s office on his own rather than humiliate himself by asking.
His mood, therefore, was less than sunny when he found the ornate door. Inside a slender youth, delicate in look and manner, stood by a bookcase examining a volume.
“Yes?” the high-pitched voice was rude and impatient.
“I’m Captain Lewis. I have a message for the chairman from the president.”
The youth tossed a hank of black hair out of his eyes. “Drop it on the desk,” he said, and went back to the book.
“No,” Lewis said. “It’s for the chairman.”
“Just leave it.” The youth gave him a glare. “He’ll see it in due time.”
Lewis took a step forward, fists unconsciously doubling. “You seem hard of hearing. This is a message from the president of the United States and it’s not to lie around on some desk awaiting the pleasure of a skinny clerk! It’s to be put in Mr. Randolph’s hand and I’m to put it there.”
That considerably exceeded his instructions, but by God, even errand boys must maintain some position. He took another step. The wretch dropped the book and stepped behind a desk. He picked up a paperweight to defend himself.
“Get away from me!”
The inner door opened and a slender man with an imperious eye appeared. He was emaciated, couldn’t weigh much more than a hundred pounds, but he radiated authority.
“What the devil’s going on?”
“I told him,” the clerk squealed. He glared at Lewis. “Mr. Randolph doesn’t like to be bothered. When he’s ready he asks for his messages.”
Lewis ignored him. “I’m Captain Lewis,” he said to the chairman, “the president’s secretary.”
“Oh, yes. The soldier. I rather distrust soldiers.”
Lewis thought that not worth comment.
“So you’ve brought army ways to Washington.”
“Not necessarily, sir. But the president deemed the message important. It’s his position on repeal of the Judiciary Act.”
“And he told you to come up on the Hill, browbeat my clerk, ram your way into my office, and slap me in the face with his message?”
“Of course not, sir—”
“Tell me, Captain, have you heard of the separation of powers? Tripartite government? Independence of each
branch? Not the army way, granted, but then, this isn’t the army. Here the president rules the executive branch—not Congress or the courts. My goodness, when I see him next I’ll ask if he’s forgotten all that. He—and Mr. Madison—have already decided to keep that scoundrel of a Federalist clerk, Mr. Jacob Wagner, a hound of hell if ever one walked, keeping him against the express advice of the Congress. Now perhaps he expects to rule the Congress as well, sending his military clerk up here to abuse, threaten, demand, crash open doors, ignore all norms of gentlemanly conduct. Perhaps flying in the face of the Congress on the question of that arch picaroon has so emboldened him he now plans to rule the Congress through his ferocious soldier-clerk—”
It was ridiculous, small-minded beyond belief. For an instant it was funny and he smiled, and then a tide of anger gripped his throat. But Mr. Randolph pounced.
“You laugh, sir. You are amused. You find it a matter of comedy that the U.S. Congress should defend itself against the encroachments of the executive branch?”
Lewis stepped forward. “Mr. Chairman, a message from the president of the United States.” He thrust the envelope forward and the chairman, startled, took it.
“Good day, sir,” Lewis said, and left the office, fearing in another instant he would lose control.
“Ah, Merry,” the president said when Lewis recounted the incident. “I take it you learned a lesson.” He smiled that gentle smile that Lewis had known since boyhood, kindly, almost sweet, and yet never lacking in authority. When he was with Mr. Jefferson all his angers seemed to flee, though an insistent voice in the back of his mind told him still that this was no place for a soldier.
“I fear I did, sir.” They were standing on the circular balcony looking south; in the clear air he could see Alexandria bright in the distance, the river a glittering ribbon. The president put a hand on the marble balustrade.
“Well, for the record, we’re far from the frontier. Force per se doesn’t work in politics. The army is behind you now, if only temporarily. But I suppose you understand.”
“Yes, sir.”
“When Mr. Randolph speaks to me—and he will, at the first opportunity—I’ll tell him I gave you a hiding that made all he said seem mild. That should satisfy him as to lèse-majeste and at the same time irritate him, since he feels no one speaks with more force than he.”
He turned, hip against the balustrade, and gazed at Lewis. “We are working tremendous change here,” he said, “quietly, ruffling as few feathers as possible. But this is truly a revolution, just as that of 1776. Make no mistake. The nation was moving to a centralized system of elitism, power in the hands of the few, the wealthy made part of the government, the common people cut out, dissent literally criminalized, hereditary aristocracy in the wings, monarchy itself looming in the future. You understand this?”
“Yes, sir.”
He gazed at Lewis, thumb under his chin, forefinger on his lips, pensive, thoughtful. They were of equal height, eyes on a level. Then, as if taking a plunge, the president said, “Yet, you know, it’s deeper than any single nation, single society. I believe we are at the turning point of a vast transition in human society. We’re moving from highly centralized and tightly controlled monarchy to a broadly diffuse form of democracy, shifting power from a wealthy elite to a broad base of the common man. We did this, here in this country, with revolution followed by a Constitution that institutionalizes the rights of the common man. The French Revolution shook the world because at the crucial moment it symbolized and articulated all the glorious possibilities of human freedom in this new form. And in its outcome it illustrated with equal force the profound dangers of loss of control and chaos that are inherent in men governing themselves as opposed to naming a king whose function, after all, has been to control them when they couldn’t control themselves.”

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