MY THEODOSIA (29 page)

'Ladies and gentlemen,' said Jefferson, rising, 'I give you a toast to the success of the expedition, and to its leader.'

He sent the reddening Merne a smile of sincere affection, and went on: 'He is of courage undaunted, possessing a firmness and perseverance of purpose which nothing but impossibilities can divert from its direction; careful as a father to those committed to his charge, and yet steady in the maintenance of order and discipline; intimate with the Indian character, customs, and principles; habituated to the hunting life; honest, disinterested, liberal; of sound understanding, and of a fidelity to truth so scrupulous that whatever he shall report will be as certain as if seen by ourselves.

'Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Captain Meriwether Lewis!'

The company murmured congratulations and drank, while Aaron thought, All this for a country bumpkin of a backwoodsman who is about to be swallowed up forever in the wilderness. Good riddance to him! He was annoyed by the flash of what looked like pure hero-worship that he had seen on Theodosia's face. And he found to his surprise that he had not overestimated his previous dislike of Lewis. It had surged back with full force.

The talk now became general at the President's end of the table. Madison was asking Lewis questions about the expedition, and Dolly kept up a running obbligato of comment and admiration. 'What a wonderful adventure it will be, Captain Lewis ! How brave you are to attempt it ! It quite makes me shudder to think of the hardships you will have to endure. Still, men thrive on hardships, do they not?' Her blue eyes sparkled, and she laughed her infectious laugh.

Jefferson leaned back in his chair, beaming at his protégé, and relaxed as he always was by Dolly's cheerful chatter.

The Secretary of the Treasury addressed himself to the dessert. Jefferson's cherished project did not interest him, and inasmuch as the appropriation for it was but twenty-five hundred dollars, he felt no wish or need to oppose it.

Theodosia smiled blindly, and tried to force an appearance of attention, but the chatter, the private currents of thought swirled by her. She felt herself alone and desolate. Merne did not belong to her. The sweet isolation of their little time together had had nothing to do with his real life; while for her, it had come perilously near to being life itself.

A feeling of anguish possessed her. She felt herself detached from this roomful of people. For a moment she saw them all objectively, each with his dominant thought written large on his face. They were like characters in a morality play: Jefferson—Complacency. Dolly Madison—The Social Graces.
The Casa Yrujos—Affronted Indignation. Mrs. Turreau, who had not uttered a word since she sat down, was Anxiety, as her husband was Cruelty. Slowly her gaze traveled over them: Pedersen—Gluttony. Gallatin—Shrewdness. Even Meme was outside, and far away from her. His face expressed nothing except the 'firmness and perseverance' of which Jefferson had spoken.

Only Aaron's face she could not read. She knew him so well, and yet she could not tell what thoughts dwelt beneath that blandly smiling mask.

Her throat closed, and she looked at Meme. 'Come back to me. Come back,' she cried at him silently. But he would not hear.

It was only when Mrs. Madison gave the ladies the signal to rise that he turned to her under cover of the scraping chairs.

'Fix some safe meeting-place,' he whispered urgently. 'I will meet you wherever and whenever you say. Send your maid here with a note. I will get it.'

'When are you leaving?' she asked hopelessly.

'Tuesday at dawn.'

Tuesday, and this was Friday night. She made a small choked sound.

'Come, my child'. Dolly Madison swept her up with an affectionate arm around her waist. 'We must leave the gentlemen to their port. I fear they are eager to be rid of us poor females.'

The girl allowed herself to be led upstairs, walking, thought Dolly, with a too docile precision. Her dark beautiful eyes were blank and fixed. She seemed not to hear when Mrs. Gallatin addressed some civil remark to her. Dolly's kind heart was dismayed. She kept Theodosia close to her, covering the girl's behavior with a graceful screen of tactful chatter.

When the other ladies had withdrawn a little, and there was
opportunity, she gently patted Theo's hand. 'You're not happy, dear. What is it? Can I help?'

Theo started, her small face convulsed. 'Happy!' she cried, with explosive bitterness. 'Is anyone happy?'

Dolly smiled. 'I am. You won't believe me, dear, you're too young, but happiness comes from acceptance, from ceasing to struggle with things you cannot change. And it lies in small, unconsidered joys, the beauty of flowers, a cup of tea beside the fire with a friend, the pleasure of good conversation, music——' She spoke with unaccustomed seriousness. But she saw that it was of no use. The girl was deep in an emotional crisis, where she could not be reached by tame philosophizing. Dolly had formed a shrewd idea as to the cause of the trouble. Lewis and Theodosia had been transparent enough to her worldly-wise eyes. But there was nothing to be done about that. It would pass, as all violent emotions passed. One worked through them somehow to peace.

'At any rate, smile, Theodosia,' she urged affectionately. 'You must never let the world read your pain, whatever it is. Nakedness of the spirit in public is far more lewd than nakedness of the body.'

Theodosia reddened. The gentle reprimand was deserved. She had been false to her father's training, false to her own ingrained social discipline. 'I'm sorry, ma'am. You're quite right.'

Dolly nodded approval, pulled a tiny gold snuffbox from her reticule. 'I am now about to indulge in one of the small joys I spoke of,' she laughed. 'I believe many people arc shocked by it, but it gives me pleasure and I am stubborn.'

She applied a hearty pinch to cach nostril and sniffed with a sort of humorous voluptuousness. This produced the effect she had intended. Theodosia smiled a little.

'That's right, my child. You have a lovely smile. Now let
os join the other ladies, whom I hear chattering in French for the sake of poor Mrs. Turreau. I know that in languages you are most proficient, and alas, I am not. So you must
assist my
stumbling efforts.'

She drew Theo with her and joined the other ladies.

I
T DEVELOPED
next day that Aaron had an engagement at the Union Tavern in Georgetown, and, though this was to be a masculine political dinner, he urged Theodosia to accompany him, suggesting that she might visit either the Stodderts or the Carrolls until he was free to rejoin her. But she pleaded headache and fatigue so successfully that he reluctantly gave in.

His absence would be providential. There would be some free hours in which to see Meme. But how? And where? The rain continued. Their meeting-place by the river would have been impossible even had Merne not vetoed it. She considered summoning him to the boarding-house, but rejected it at once. The landlady was a renowned gossip and possessed of a fierce curiosity about the comings and goings of her boarders.

Theo locked her chamber door and paced up and down nervously. It can't just stop like this, she thought. We've had
so much beauty, it can't be all over. If we can be alone and quiet once more, I can bear it afterward. There's so much we haven't said to each other. Just once more—please. Then I'll be good. I promise I will.

She didn't know what entity she was trying to propitiate in this old childish formula; she was beyond coherent thought.

It was Eleanore who provided the solution. She tapped on the door to ask some question about the baby's clothing, and when Theo finally unlocked it, the maid ran to her mistress with a cry of sympathy.

'Mon Dieu, Madame. Qu'avez-vous?'

She soon found out the trouble and, while her sympathy deepened, it became tinged by the amusement which passion always inspires in those not involved. La pauvre petite! So now her fine lover was going away. Papa had returned, le mari would soon be here, and the lover must leave. Madame wished to say farewell in private: most natural.

'Mais c'est tout simple, Madame. There is a house in the woods by Rock Creek where they take couples embarrassed as you arc. The owner is bien discret. No one will be the wiser,' said Eleanore, who had her own channels for finding out things.

Theodosia flushed. 'You mean it is a house of assignation?'

The maid shrugged her stalwart shoulders. 'Ah bien, one may call it what one likes. But when one is starving, one docs not examine a crust of bread too closcly, n'est-cc-pas?'

'I suppose not,' said Theo slowly. For, after all, what difference did it make, as long as they would be together?

She wrote a brief note and handed it to Eleanore with instructions.

'Soyez tranquille, Madame. I will arrange everything. How fortunate that monsieur votre père is going elsewhere tonight. When the cat's away, the mice will play.'

Theodosia sprang to her feet. 'Hold your tongue!' she blazed.

Eleanore's jaw dropped; she was too astonished to feel indignant at the first anger she had ever seen in her mistress.

Theo slumped back on the chair and covered her face with her hands. 'I'm sorry, Eleanore—go now.'

She couldn't explain, that, put in the maid's crude words, the thought of deliberately deceiving Aaron had twisted her with sudden hot pain. Self-loathing sickened her; but much stronger was her longing for Meme.

Meme arrived first at the house near Rock Creek, and went through the necessary business of hiring a room with cold distaste. He knew the place by reputation and had been astonished by Theodosia's note, designating it for their meeting. For a moment he had been seized by a normal male reaction of triumph. Surely this could mean only one thing: tacit surrender. Invitation to spend their last hours together, not in the idyllic romantic haze of their days by the river, but in the frank consummation of their passion. On reflection he knew that he was wrong. She was incapable of such cold-blooded planning. She must have picked the place because she could think of none else. Nor for that matter could he. But the frowzy, leering atmosphere of the house revolted him.

He stood by the dirty cracked window of the bare room assigned him, and saw Theodosia, her face concealed by a dark hood, slip from a carriage and walk uncertainly to the door below. It opened silently at her approach.

'Tis like a stinking French play, he thought angrily: intrigue and shoddy gallantry: 'The Officer and the Married Lady'. Phaugh!

The room smelled of countless unwashed bodies, and from the rumpled bed there rose an odor of patchouli. The fumish
ings, frankly practical, consisted only of bed, table, and slop bowl. Through the flimsy partition which separated this room from the adjoining one came excited squeals of laughter punctuated by male grunts and guffaws.

Meme opened the door at a sharp knock. The fat proprietor entered, smirking. Theodosia, shrinking into her hooded cape, followed him.

'Here's your little lady, sir. Anything more I can do for you?'

Meme drew Theo against him, encircling her with a protecting arm. 'Yes. Make me a fire,' he ordered sharply. 'This dismal hole is damper than a cellar.'

The man shook his head. 'Can't be done, sir. I ain't got no wood. Don't pay to cut none in summer. Anyways, the folks that comes here don't need no fire. They got something better to keep'em warm.'

Merne's fist clenched, as he felt Theo tremble against him. 'Get out!' he shouted violently. The man scuttled from the room. The door slammed to.

Theo stirred, looking up at him piteously. 'Oh, Meme, this is terrible. I didn't dream it would be like this.'

'I know you didn't,' he said quietly. 'It can't be helped'. He untied the ribbons of her wet cloak, laying it across the worm-eaten footboard of the bed.

She stood silent, more beautiful than he had ever seen her. She wore a plain gown of dark blue silk from which Eleanore had removed all trimming so that in case of mishap it would not be recognized. Her skin against the unrelieved blue took on the thick white luster of a dogwood petal, except on her cheekbones where excitement had tinted it pink. Her bronze hair disordered by the hood lay loose about her neck and at the temples small tendrils, curled tight by the dampness, gave her face a luminous delicacy.

The force of her beauty unnerved him. A honeyed lassitude swept over him and into his brain. His hands shook suddenly. He scowled, and, turning sharply, lit the candle on the table, consciously prolonging the small business with the flint and steel and tinder.

He came back to her and drew her gently to the bed. She shrank, with a slight embarrassed sound.

'There's nowhere else to sit, my darling,' said Merne, with grim humor.

She looked about the dingy room. The wavering candle-flame flickered to the rafters from which hung cobwebs and dust in long furry shreds. Cockroaches skittered across the floor. The couple next door who had been murmuring burst into raucous song. This was followed by the clink of bottles.

Theo sank on the lumpy bed beside him. Her eyes filled with tears. 'I wanted it to be so beautiful, Merne: our last hours together. A memory to live by, to hold it close in my heart forever. It should have been as it was before: the sun, the trees, the river that we love. I never felt shame there. But here——'

Her head drooped against him. He pressed his lips silently to her hair.

'Don't go West,' she whispered. 'I can't let you go. Stay near me, my beloved, even if we cannot see each other. You'll be safe. And sometimes we could meet.'

He raised her face so that she must see his eyes. 'Sometimes we could meet,' he repeated bitterly. 'How, Theodosia? In places like this?'

She flung away, burying her face in the corn-husk mattress. Her arms curled around her head in a gesture at once so childish and so full of despair that it turned him to water.

'I thought you loved me,' she cried, with the complete unreason of women.

He leaned over her. 'I do. There will never be anyone else. Don't you know that?'

She turned her body slowly so that she could look up at him. Her warm breath scarcely passed her parted lips. Her face was stilled by a sorrowful tenderness. 'Yes, I do know that,' she whispered. She raised her arms. He kissed her then as he had never kissed her, even on that first day by the river, with the brutality of desire long held in check. Suddenly she stiffened; he saw beneath the answering passion in her eyes an agonizing fear.