Bon Marche (5 page)

“Yes, sir.”

Charles thought that he ought to protest the continuing gracious hospitality. He didn't, however. He was perfectly willing to accept the largess of the outgoing gentleman. And he was too drunk, he knew, to venture out.

Within a few minutes Albert was back. Without further orders, he hoisted Charles to his feet and guided him up a narrow flight of stairs to a bedroom. He helped him undress and manhandled him into the bed, gently but firmly.

The coolness of the fine linen sheets shocked Charles. So, too, the softness of the goose-down mattress. He had never known such luxury. Indeed, he had never slept in a real bed before.

Never.

IV

A muscular hand gripped his shoulder, shaking him with authority, spoiling a marvelous dream of silk-clad ladies and heroic gentlemen. The beautiful music that had accompanied the idyllic visions ended in discordant notes as Charles came awake.

“Mr. Milton requests your presence at breakfast, sir,” Albert was saying to him. “He has instructed me to help you dress.”

The words of the black man were proper enough, but the tone of them reflected Albert's annoyance at having Charles as an interloper in
his house.

“Good morning, Albert,” the young Frenchman said with a smile. He made no effort to rise.

“Mr. Milton is waiting, sir.”

“Yes, of course.” But when Charles sat up in the bed, his head throbbed from too much wine. He couldn't suppress an audible groan.

“You're ill, sir?” Albert asked with some sarcasm.

“No, no, I'm just fine.” He swung his legs out of the bed and stood naked on the chilly floor. “Just fine.” He thought it best not to show any sign of weakness in the presence of the no-nonsense Negro servant.

Albert had brought a basin of steaming hot water. He pointed to some clothes he had hung over the back of a chair. “After you've washed, sir, you are to dress in those clothes. Mr. Milton feels they will be more appropriate.”

On the chair were a pair of buff-colored heavy-cord breeches, a plain white shirt, a substantial buff wool waistcoat, a coat of blue broadcloth, a serviceable broad-brimmed wool hat, and a dark green cape, also of wool. Charles guessed that the cape would reach his knees. By the chair stood a pair of sturdy black knee-high boots.

“Those are for me?” Charles asked in surprise.

“Quite,” Albert replied stiffly in his British manner.

“But my own clothes—?”

“Your underclothes have been washed and ironed, sir, and your other clothes have been put away in a saddlebag, ready for your trip.”

“My trip?”

“Mr. Milton will explain, sir,” Albert snapped. “Will you require my further assistance?”

“No, no. Thank you, Albert.”

The Negro backed his way to the door, bowing slightly. Before he left the room he gave his final order: “Mr. Milton is anxious that you be prompt, sir.”

“Thank you, Albert,” Charles said again, feeling some resentment of the black man's imperiousness. Nevertheless, he washed and dressed quickly, draping the cape over his arm and making his way to the ground floor, where he found George Milton seated at breakfast in the small dining room.

“Well, good morning, Mr. Dewey,” Milton said cheerfully.

“Good morning, sir.” He bowed. “I must admit that it has been an eventful morning. These clothes—”

“You couldn't go traipsing around your new country in that rather flimsy French naval uniform, could you?”

“No, but—”

“Sit,” Milton said with a gesture, “and have some breakfast. I'll explain.”

Charles hung the cape over the back of a chair and joined Milton at the table. Albert was immediately at his side with a cup of hot chocolate and a plate of freshly toasted bread, heavily buttered.

“We Americans eat a modest breakfast,” Milton told him. “I hope it's to your taste.”

“Yes, it's fine.” He bit into a piece of toast.

“Now, young Mr. Dewey, I want you to understand that I have my own reasons for providing the new clothes—sturdy enough, I trust, for the fall and winter.” Milton smiled at him. “I need you to do a chore for me.”

“Of course.”

“I have a decently bred mare that has to be delivered to Elkwood, some sixty miles inland along the James. I intend to have her bred there in the spring, but I find it inconvenient to make the trip myself, now or later.”

Charles nodded.

“And I'm asking you to make the delivery. Do you ride?”

“Unfortunately, Mr. Milton, I have never been on a horse in my life.” Charles felt inadequate in making the admission.

“Ah! I suspected as much. But you shouldn't have a problem with Abigail; she's a gentle beast.” Milton saw the apprehension on the young man's face. “We'll have some time to give you a rudimentary lesson in reining, and you should have no trouble. I daresay you'll probably just have to guide her.”

Dewey laughed nervously. “I hope the mare will understand that.”

“She will, she will,” Milton assured him. “But because you are new to riding, I've plotted out a two-day journey. You're to ride from Williamsburg to an ordinary.”

“An ordinary, sir?”

“An inn of sorts. We Virginians call them ordinaries because most of them
are.
Rather ordinary.”

He laughed loudly at his little joke.

“In any event, I've written a letter you'll carry to Mr. Stannard, who owns the ordinary west of Richmond, and you'll stay the night there. Then, tomorrow, you should comfortably make the rest of the way to Mr. Marshall Statler's Elkwood plantation near Goochland Courthouse.”

“Will I have a chart … uh, excuse me, a map?”

“Yes, although you'll follow the principal road west from here, having no difficulties, I'm sure. This isn't wilderness any longer, you'll discover, but in the current … uh … unsettled period, I suggest that you not attempt to ride at night. If you'd feel better about it, I could provide you with a pistol.”

Charles hesitated. “No, I think not. I'd rather not be armed.”

Milton nodded agreement. “Most wise. Guns have a way of inviting trouble.”

V

A
BIGAIL
was, as Milton had promised, a gentle animal. Dewey had little difficulty getting used to reining her under his host's expert guidance. As they rode through the streets of Williamsburg during the brief training session, the older man spoke of the breeding he had planned for the mare.

“Statler is standing a son of Yorick,” he explained, “a very good racing stallion campaigned by John Tayloe of Mount Airy. I swear to you that if I get a colt of the quality of Yorick, I'll be able to win some substantial wagers with him.”

“Is there a lot of horse racing in Virginia?”

“A lot of racing—?” Milton seemed taken aback by the question. “Young sir, let me tell you this: a Virginian has two important considerations in his life—his racehorse and his woman.” He grinned. “I suspect that he would place them in that order of priority.”

He held forth for some time, without interruption from Charles, about the importance of horse racing in the Dominion. About the racetracks at Williamsburg and Richmond and Alexandria.

“The war—damn it!—disrupted all that. But now, I vow, it'll be back. Some of my associates and I are banding together to build a new track at Petersburg. We hope to interest Squire Washington in it.”

“You mean
General
Washington?”

“The same. In earlier days he was involved in the race meetings at Alexandria and frequently subscribed to the purses at the Williamsburg Jockey Club. A fine racing gentleman he was. I hope he will find the time to be so again.”

For nearly an hour they crisscrossed the streets of Williamsburg, until Charles announced that he was reasonably comfortable with the mechanics of guiding Abigail.

Upon returning to Milton's house, Charles was given a saddlebag containing his old clothes, some food for the trip, a map, and two sealed letters: one to Mr. Stannard at the ordinary, the second to Marshall Statler.

“You'll like Statler,” Milton assured him. “He's a gentleman in the finest sense of that word. I've suggested to him that perhaps he might find a position for you at Elkwood. Of course I have no way of knowing what his exact situation is right now, but I've made the suggestion nevertheless.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“You may like Elkwood for other reasons—two of them.” Milton grinned wickedly. “Statler has a brace of young, nubile daughters. Something a virile Frenchman can appreciate, eh?”

Charles just smiled.

“Now I think you should be off. Godspeed!”

The Virginia countryside was a revelation to a sixteen-year-old whose total experience had been in a crowded, noisy, demanding city and in the confining community of a ship at sea. The comparative vastness of it all nearly overwhelmed him, as did the immediate oneness he felt with the new environment.

Now that he was alone, Dewey was free to turn the horse in any direction he chose. He knew that if he wanted to—and the thought of it was a bit frightening—he could abandon the route George Milton had set for him. And the task. He could go to Elkwood plantation. Or not go.

Free to choose!

It was heady wine.

3

C
HARLES
Dewey's every muscle ached.

Two days of having his legs in an unaccustomed attitude—spread across the broad beam of a horse—had numbed them. When he shifted them to seek a more comfortable position, they rewarded him with spasms of pain.

His rump was sore, chafed raw by sixty miles of pounding against a saddle that was rock-hard, not leather-soft. His back hurt. His fingers were cramped around the reins. And, because everything else about him was suffering, his head throbbed.

He knew, from having stopped at Stannard's ordinary the night before, that getting off the horse brought him no relief from the misery. It meant only that he had to get back on the animal again—and that was more torment.

Charles wondered about George Milton's enthusiasm for horses, concluding that the Virginia gentleman and all his ilk were certainly mad!

Then, too, he was concerned whether he would ever reach Elkwood plantation. When he left the ordinary that morning, Mr. Stannard had told him that he ought to be at Elkwood by midafternoon. But midafternoon had passed; the sun was fast approaching the western horizon.

Just as those thoughts were running through his mind, he saw it. Off in the distance was the mansion Stannard had described to him, beautifully situated atop a small hill, its white columns gleaming against the dark red brick facade.

He dug a heel into Abigail's side, asking her for more speed, even though the faster pace brought new agony to his rear end.

The road led him directly to two ornate brick pillars, connecting scrolls of wrought iron forming an archway over the wide lane between them. He stopped the mare. From his vantage point Charles could look down the lane at the perfect symmetry of the huge trees that lined both sides. And at the end of the tunnel of trees, he could make out again the white columns of the big house. It was a magnificent sight.

As he sat there, a farm cart rumbled up behind him, driven by an elderly Negro man.

“Pardon me,” he called to the black, “is this Elkwood?”

“Yas, suh, it is.”

“The home of Mr. Marshall Statler?”

“Yas, suh.”

Charles tipped his hat slightly, kicking the mare forward. Slowly. He had the feeling, as he moved between the trees, that he was riding into another world, one he couldn't begin to comprehend.

His progress was uphill. It was not something he realized at first, so gradual was the upward grade of the lane. But when he turned in the saddle to idly look back at the entrance arch, he found that he was gazing
down
at it.

Although he guessed that he still had half a mile to go in his ascent to the mansion, he was close enough to see that the house had three stories dominated by the massive columns across the front. Six of them. A balcony off the second floor was supported by those columns. The full third floor was under a slate roof, and featured six large windowed dormers. Double chimneys extended high above the roof on both ends, wispy smoke curling up from them in the near calm of the day.

Nearer now, and it came clear to him that there was a fourth floor; a basement level, really, with half-windows visible above the ground. Therefore, the entrance to the mansion—Charles reasoned that it must be the main floor—was up some dozen stone steps, guarded on both sides by carved marble balustrades.

In front of the house was a sweeping circular drive, in the center of which stood giant evergreen bushes—taller than a man, that had been trimmed into perfect spheres. Boxwoods, he was to learn later.

As he rode into the circle, the heavy mahogany double doors at the entrance opened and a liveried black man hurried down the steps to take hold of the horse's bridle, bowing at the same time.

“My name is Dewey,” Charles announced formally, “and I bring a message for Mr. Statler.”

At the top of the steps now stood another Negro, dressed in a somber black suit and a starched and ruffled white shirt. A Negro of some importance, apparently.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Dewey,” he called out. “Won't you come in? William will take your horse.” His speech suggested a good education.

Charles handed the reins to William and slid to the ground. He groaned audibly as his aching legs protested the sudden movement. Removing the saddlebag, he mounted the wide steps, noticing out of the corner of his eye that William was leading the mare away at a trot. To where, he didn't know.

“I'm Samuel, Mr. Statler's butler,” the black man at the door explained, holding it open for Charles, gesturing him inside an entrance hall so large that Dewey imagined George Milton's compact Williamsburg home might fit inside it.