MY THEODOSIA (37 page)

For the theater she did not have to feign enthusiasm. And though she privately thought both the productions and the actors far inferior to those in New York, she admired the graceful pseudo-Greek building on New Street with its white-and-silver interior, which set off the ladies' gowns to such advantage. Here she laughed or thrilled with the others to the drama of
Gustavus Vassa, The Mountaineers
, and
Blue Beard or Feminine Curiosity
, forgetting for a little while even the delicious consciousness of 'X.'

She and Joseph did not often discuss the project. There was little that she knew tangibly to discuss, and he was often absent from her in Columbia, where the House had appointed him its Speaker. It made her happy, however, to know that she might mention it to him. It would have been a weighty secret to carry alone, and the knowledge brought them closer together.

Sooner or later she knew that Aaron would summon her to a more active part in the project, and she waited with what patience she could, devouring his letters and training Gampy for his exalted rôle to the best of her abilities, in view of her son's extremely tender years.

She unearthed an exiled Spaniard in Charleston and began Spanish lessons with him, for the French and smattering of German and Italian which she already possessed would be of scant use in Mexico.

The call came at last, in the spring of 1806. 'This time I wish you to accompany me on my trip to the West,' Aaron wrote her, 'and come alone for the present. Joseph and
Gampy may follow later, if all goes as I expect. Prepare yourself to endure some hardships, and I want no mournful complaints about them. You will be surfeited with luxury in time.'

She joined Aaron in Philadelphia, having left the Waccamaw with a heart fast beating with hope. Perhaps she need never see it again. Somewhere in the West a new home must be waiting, prelude to the magnificent one she would eventually inhabit. This hope lightened her parting from the baby; he would be well tended by Eleanore; and 'It won't be for long, darling,' she assured the solemn child. 'Your papa shall bring you to me soon.'

Eleanore came into the room on this sentence and exclaimed: 'Nom de Dieu, Madame, what do you mean by that? You arc not going to drag lc petit across those horrible mountains! The savages will massacre him and me too. I do not go.'

'Oh, yes, you will, my good Eleanore,' said Theo, laughing. 'You would not let Gampy move one foot without you, I know. You don't realize what is waiting for us all out there: a golden future. Ah, I can't tell you, but you must trust me'. 'Pfoui!' snorted Eleanore rudely. 'There is no future out there, nozzing but log cabins and savages and wolves.'

Theo hugged her and laughed again. 'You will see.'

Aaron had warned her of hardships, and she was cheerfully prepared to accept them. But in his company the journey did not seem unduly rigorous. True, there were many days on horseback, and he traveled fast; still, at the end of them he always contrived to find remarkably comfortable lodgings at houses he had visited the year before. And at Pittsburgh a commodious flatboat awaited them. It was more like a floating ark than anything else, containing as it did four rooms, glass windows, and a fireplace.

When Theo expressed her surprise and delight, her father
laughed. 'Wait until you see Blennerhassett's Island; that will really amaze you.'

While they floated down the Ohio, he told her something of the eccentric and wealthy Irishman who had built for himself a palace in the wilderness. Harman Blennerhassett and his wife were won over heart and soul to the cause, 'As indeed is the whole West,' added Aaron with satisfaction. General Wilkinson had promised to provide troops, General Andrew Jackson in Nashville was sympathetic, Jonathan Dayton and Daniel Clark were loyal supporters; and in New Orleans, gateway to Mexico, Aaron had piled triumph on triumph, winning over not only the French and Spanish elements, but the Catholic Church as well.

He had not, of course, presented exactly the same aims to each different group. There were many facets to the project: the colonization of the Bastrop lands on the Washita River suited some, the most timid; the disaffection and union of the Western Territory suited others; while only a very few had the vision and discretion to be trusted with knowledge of the ultimate goal, the liberation of Mexico from Spanish rule.

The Blennerhassetts were amongst the elect.

A thousand miles from civilization, sixteen miles from Marietta—still a rude frontier village—this enterprising Irishman had metamorphosed his hundred-and-forty-acre island into an elaborate estate that was part pleasure garden, part imitation of an English manor house, and part pure fantasy.

The virgin forest had been hewn and clipped into tortured figures. There were circles and mazes and arbors. There were artificial pools and several unsuccessful fountains where Blennerhassett's knowledge of physics had not been quite equal to his ambition. He had imported grass seed and fruit trees from England, and around an incredible expanse of lawn,
peach, apricot, and pear trees stood as background to a formal garden.

In the center of the island he had built himself a twenty-two-room mansion which was actually three houses connected by covered porticoes. It was furnished, as Theo later discovered, with a luxurious abandon which far eclipsed Richmond Hill in its heyday. This creation had cost him sixty thousand dollars, not counting the purchase of the army of slaves whose unremitting labor had made his dream concrete.

As the Burr houseboat tied up to a wooden dock at the Ohio River island, Theo was even more amazed than Aaron had prophesied. The dock had been carved and painted into the semblance of a huge recumbent lion. And behind this monstrosity, upon a species of white-graveled plaza, there milled a horde of waving, cheering negroes. When Theo and Aaron descended the gangplank to a strip of red carpeting which had been laid across the lion and stretched into the distance toward the house, the negroes raised their right arms in a salute, then with obviously rehearsed precision pelted the arrivals with roses and daisies.

Two odd male and female figures detached themselves from the crowd. They came forward, bowing. Theo felt her hand seized and respectfully kissed. The lady before her executed a sweeping curtsy.

'Welcome, ma'am,' said Mrs. Blennerhassett, adding in a piercing whisper, 'We welcome our sovereigns in expectancy.'

Dazed and battling a desire to laugh, Theo threw Aaron a quick look. His eyes were twinkling, but there was also in them a gratified gleam. She heard Harman Blennerhassett address him as 'Sire' and saw Aaron bow response in a manner even more than usually courtly.

Her father took her arm and they progressed together up the
carpeted strip, while Theo mustered all the imperial dignity which she could find at short notice.

'Let them play-act if it gives them pleasure,' said Aaron in her ear. 'It will be in sober earnest before long.'

'I'll do my best,' she whispered. 'But my breath is taken away by all this. I fear I have not yet acquired the regal manner. What position will they hold in our—our empire?' 'He shall have a dukedom, and I have promised to make him Minister to the Court of Saint James's. He wants that above all else, as what Irishman wouldn't!'

She smiled, but checked it at once. Incredible and fantastic as all this might seem, it was none the less real. Had Josephine too smiled when her little corporal first said to her, 'Some day I shall be Emperor of France, my brother King of Holland, another, King of Westphalia?' For them, too, there must have been a shadowy beginning, when the vision alone sustained them, the vision and Bonaparte's unswerving belief in his destiny. And here was more than dreams, the tangible result of the forces which Aaron was molding to his ambition.

She trembled in sudden excitement.

The excitement sharpened during the weeks which they spent upon the island. Aaron came and went gaining supporters up and down the rivers. On his frequent returns he brought with him new converts and these were a mixed crew—uncouth backwoodsmen, buckskinned scouts, plantation owners from as far south as New Orleans, Frenchmen, Spaniards, even soldiers in the white-and-blue United States Army uniform. Once General Wilkinson himself came, pompous and long-winded, with sly little eyes. And him Theo could not like, though she bestowed on him a careful courtesy, knowing that he was closest of all to Aaron and vitally necessary to the cause.

She grew fond of the Blennerhassetts. How could she help but be fond of people who treated her father with worshiping awe and extended to her the heady flattery of subject to queen!

She no longer was amused by their peculiar methods of dress. They both clung to the mode fashionable in Ireland when they had left it twelve years back. Mrs. Blennerhassett, with her brocaded panniers and sweeping hats loaded with ostrich plumes, was only slightly less bizarre than her husband, who wore red smallclothes and a white peruke constantly askew above his shortsighted eyes while he peered and puttered about his domain.

Perhaps it was just as well that Blennerhassett could not distinguish a horse from a man at twenty paces, for his fair lady sometimes cast upon Aaron glances whose warmth was not entirely attributable to her reverence for royalty. And Theodosia one evening was startled, upon walking unexpectedly into the library, to come upon a tender scene.

Aaron sat upon a sofa, and from the quick stir and mantling confusion upon Mrs. Blennerhassett's buxom face Theo was forced to suspect that until her entrance the lady had been nestling exceeding close. Aaron, perfectly composed, favored his daughter with the faintest quick droop of the right eyelid. Theo fled, murmuring apology.

Later, when she and Aaron were alone, he referred to the matter at once. 'Perhaps, my dear girl, it would be as well if you knocked before precipitating yourself through closed doors, don't you think?'

'I'm sorry,' she stammered. 'But I had no idea—and Father, really——'

She was so accustomed to his charm for women that she never thought about it. She knew vaguely that he often indulged in amatory adventures, though he seldom allowed any
of these to intrude on her notice. An affair with their hostess, however, under the circumstances seemed a bit dismaying.

Aaron laughed. 'Don't be prudish, my dear, and pray do me the honor to believe that I know what I am about. If a few kisses can please the ladies and bind their loyalty to our cause, I see no reason to deny them. There is, to put it vulgarly, more than one way of killing the cat.'

He looked at her with such a blend of affection and puckish humor that she ended by laughing with him; and then forgot the matter. In any event she made no more embarrassing discoveries.

The days slipped pleasantly by. Theo ignored peremptory letters from Joseph, demanding to know what she was doing and when she would return. She missed the baby, missed him achingly, but she knew that he was safe with Eleanore, and surely it would not be long now before she could send for him.

The tension and bustle on the island, meantime, increased to fever point. Fifteen large batteaux were being built. Mrs. Blennerhassett, aided by Theo, directed the purchase and temporary storage of vast quantities of flour and pork and meal. Kilns were built for the drying of corn. The island resounded with the din of preparation.

Down at Natchez boats were building, too. At a given signal, when the flotillas should be ready, they would converge—the glorious offensive would begin by water, while General Wilkinson would start the land march at the head of his troops.

' When will it be, Father?' asked Theo, seizing upon a rare opportunity for private conversation.

'The instant we declare war on Spain, or she on us.'

'Are you certain that there will be war?' How could he be so calm, so contained?

'I am quite certain, my anxious one,' he answered, smiling.

' But if there shouldn't be?'

Aaron shrugged. 'If there shouldn't be, then we shall have to proceed more slowly; we shall then commence from my lands on the Washita. I have many strings to my bow'. He patted her hand gently. 'Come, Theo, patience, my child. An empire can unfortunately not be built in a day. '

She subsided, reassured.

But Aaron was not so well satisfied as he sounded. The war with Spain was unaccountably delayed, and Sam Swartwout, his loyal young friend, had written him in cipher that there had of late been disquieting mention in the eastern newspapers, dark hints of a conspiracy in the West, a treasonable plot led by 'an erstwhile high executive of this country who has fallen into disgrace'. This premature leakage was unfortunate. Speed and surprise were essential to success now. He redoubled his energies.

And yet there were unavoidable disappointments. In October the war had not started; the preparations were not finished; there was still much left to do.

Theodosia awoke one morning to look through the red damask curtains of her bedroom and see a rowboat approach the Blennerhassett dock. In the bow sat a familiar stocky figure whose stubborn black hair and air of affronted belligerence were visible even at that distance. Theo gasped, leaning far out the window, hoping that her eyes had deceived her and yet ashamed of the hope. There was no doubt about it. She flung on her clothes and rushed out of the house to greet him.

'Joseph!' she called. 'I'm so surprised and so delighted!' She put unusual warmth into her greeting, guiltily conscious that, though she was certainly surprised, her delight was tepid.

He gave her a brief kiss. 'I've come to take you home,' he
said, frowning. 'You pay no attention to my letters. I had never permitted you to go had I realized the situation.'

'But you don't realize the situation; everything is under way,' she began impulsively, then stopped. There was no use talking to Joseph when he wore that black mulish look.

'Come and have some breakfast,' she said pacifically. 'You must have had a hard trip.'

A terrifying thought struck her. 'Gampy's all right, isn't he? That isn't why you came, is it? He wasn't ill?'

'No, he wasn't ill. He's been on Debordieu with Eleanore. But he's fretting for you. You must come back at once. I'll have no more of this idiotic business.'