The Seekers Page 28

  Via a platform controlled by pulleys, the dumbwaiter lifted food from one floor to another. Carpenters had ripped out part of a dining room wall to install the shaft, which connected the downstairs with Gilbert’s bedroom directly above. Jared had realized that, by means of the shaft, he might be able to hear the dinner conversation. He was so excited at the prospect, he quite forgot to be nervous about the coming discussion of his future.

  Around three o’clock, he found an opportunity to slip into the dining room unobserved. In the kitchen, Aunt Harriet was yelling at the servants again. The roasting capons hadn’t been properly stored in the ice delivered by Mr. Dawlish. One bird had spoiled—and she was going to take the cost out of the guilty party’s wages!

  Jared barely heard, busy unfastening the brass latch on the door of the dumbwaiter. He only opened the door a couple of inches. To open it more would invite discovery. He prayed no one would shut the door accidentally.

  One of the servants in the kitchen commented that a Kentuckian would probably think a gamy capon very flavorful. Other servants laughed—which only made Harriet Kent launch into another tirade.

  With a smile on his face, Jared stole out of the room.

  iii

  “Jared, what are you—?”

  Angrily, he jerked his head around and put a finger to his lips.

  Robed for bed, Amanda stood in the doorway. She blinked in dismay when Jared scowled. He sat on a chair pulled up to the opening of the dumbwaiter in Gilbert’s bedroom. The room was plain, its furnishings wholly masculine. For as long as Jared could remember, Gilbert and his wife had occupied separate quarters.

  “You scared me half to death,” Jared whispered. “Why did you open that door?”

  “Because it was closed.”

  “Don’t you suppose doors are shut for a reason?”

  “But Papa’s downstairs, Jared. He never closes this door unless he’s in here by himself, read—”

  “Keep your voice down! Leave or come in, as you please. But whichever it is, do it quietly! They’ve served the fruit and wine. Aunt Harriet will be leaving in a minute, so the gentlemen can talk.”

  The little girl darted a glance into the gloomy second floor hall. Then, curiosity mastering apprehension, she shut the door.

  She padded across the carpet, her shadow long and distorted. Jared had turned down the single lamp always lit in the room after nightfall. Gilbert usually retired early, to work on copy for the newspaper or read one of the countless manuscripts submitted to the book department. With the bellpull at the side of his narrow bed, he summoned tea and cakes during the evening. The dumbwaiter brought them up—the same shaft that now carried hollow-sounding male voices to Jared’s ears.

  “Sit down. Here.” He pointed to the floor near his knee. Amanda still looked a bit fearful. But she folded her legs beneath her, leaning her head against Jared’s leg, her dark eyes large. She smelled pleasantly of soap.

  “It’s terrible to spy on grown-ups—” she began.

  “You spy with your eyes, you ninny.”

  “Then what’s the word for doing it with your ears?”

  “Eavesdrop. Do be silent!”

  “But who is down there? I saw Mr. Rothman’s carriage drive up—”

  “Yes, he came in the front way. The other two guests arrived in a coach that pulled into the alley. They used the rear entrance. At last I understand why,” he added, with the smugness of one privy to a secret. “If your papa’s guests showed their faces in Boston, they’d be mobbed—or worse.”

  “You still haven’t said who—”

  “Politicians! All the way from Washington. Very important men—hush! I hear Aunt Harriet leaving.”

  From below, a muddle of voices, one female, indicated the formal part of dinner was finished. Jared bent his head near the open door of the shaft, heard another door close distantly.

  Glassware clinked—more wine being poured. Someone offered a compliment about the excellent capon. A loud spitting sound was followed by a pling as the jet hit the spittoon. Gradually, Jared began to sort out the voices.

  He recognized Royal Rothman’s easily. The middle-aged Jewish banker was a frequent guest at the Kent table, because he was involved with Jared’s uncle in business ventures. His bank provided money whenever Kent’s needed to float a loan.

  The voice of the spitter was rich and deep. His accent was definitely not that of the northeast.

  The third guest spoke English with a foreign accent.

  “—indeed generous of you to arrange this meeting, Mr. Kent,” boomed the Kentucky tobacco chewer. “The secretary and I felt the long journey and the inconvenience of traveling incognito were justified if we could sample the sentiment of New England firsthand.”

  “I’m flattered you chose to do it at my table, Mr. Speaker,” Gilbert said.

  “Mister who?” Amanda breathed.

  “That’s not his name, it’s his title. Mr. Clay of Kentucky is a new member of the Congress. One of the Republicans called war hawks. He was just elected Speaker of the House. I don’t know anyone in Boston who doesn’t hate him.”

  A moment later, the cousins heard the voice of Royal Rothman. Despite surface politeness, his hostility was evident.

  “Shall we address the issue, gentlemen? Mr. Kent and I wish to know whether there will be a war—which I would personally consider a national disaster. Mr. Kent must speak for himself—”

  “In due course,” Gilbert murmured.

  Rothman went on, “You gentlemen in turn want to know New England’s position. I trust I made that clear during dinner. And I believe I express the attitude of the entire business community.”

  “I’d be careful there,” Gilbert said.

  “Sometimes, Gilbert, I have the impression you actually favor a war. God pity you if you’re that misguided! Your pardon, gentlemen. But I believe in being frank.”

  The heavily accented voice drifted up the shaft. “Your candor is appreciated, Mr. Rothman. However, the Speaker and I are seeking somewhat more specific information.”

  Jared bent, lips to Amanda’s ear. “That man’s name is Gallatin. He’s in charge of the government treasury. Money. He’s foreign-born, French, Swiss, something like that—”

  “If we are forced into a second war for independence—” Henry Clay began.

  “May we dispense with slogans, Mr. Clay?” Rothman asked curtly. “The issue is neither independence nor the one expressed in that other overworked phrase, free trade and sailors’ rights. We know perfectly well what the main issue is. You and your associates—Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Cheves and Mr. Grundy and all the rest—you want Upper Canada, don’t you?”

  “That is the desire in the west, yes, sir,” Clay returned, a chill in his voice. “It’s a matter of—”

  “Avarice,” Rothman cut in. “Your constituents are greedy for the land. For the furs—”

  “We are not acting out of greed, sir! We are acting on one of mankind’s oldest principles—self-preservation! The lives of thousands of citizens of this country are being threatened. The British are inflaming the tribes of the entire Ohio valley!”

  “The British foreign minister has repeatedly denied that charge.”

  “And I say Castlereagh’s a damned liar, sir,” Clay shot back, punctuating the retort with another loud spit.

  The man did have a marvelous, resonant voice, Jared thought. He was a trial lawyer and, according to popular gossip, he’d trained himself as an orator by reading heavily, then going alone to a cornfield in his native Kentucky and speaking aloud for hours, discoursing on what he’d read. Most Bostonians wished he had never left that cornfield.

  Secretary of the Treasury Gallatin spoke more moderately. “We also have evidence that the Hudson’s Bay Company is pledged to a plan to monopolize the fur trade—and is arming the savages with fusees to that end. You know how the British have coddled and encouraged that devil Tecumseh and his fanatical brother—”

  “All of which,” Gilber
t said, “Castlereagh has denied.”

  Furious, Clay burst out, “If you gentlemen refuse to be reasonable about a clear threat to—”

  “We will be reasonable if you will be truthful,” Rothman said.

  “Sir, are you calling me a liar?”

  “I am saying every argument you put forward is spurious. Taken together, they resemble a rotten mackerel in the moonlight. It shines beautifully from afar. Up close, it stinks.”

  Clay snapped, “ ‘So brilliant, yet so corrupt—’ Those were Congressman Randolph’s exact words, I believe.”

  “I didn’t claim the simile was original,” Rothman said.

  “But your choice of a source is regrettable. You’re quoting an effeminate fool!”

  “John Randolph of Roanoke is—”

  “Half a man! Can you take seriously anything said by a scarecrow whose proudest claim is his descent from Pocahontas? Who struts into Congress wearing silver spurs, armed with a riding whip, and trailed by a damned slavering hound? Why, Randolph can’t give a speech without stopping every ten minutes while the doorkeeper brings him a tumbler of malt liquor! Even that doesn’t make his voice manly. He squeaks and squeals like a goddamned eunuch!”

  Gilbert said, “Nevertheless, Mr. Speaker, John Randolph of Roanoke argues his positions in a compelling way.”

  “Not to Kentuckians he doesn’t!”

  “Ah, but you must grant he has a wit,” Gallatin chuckled. “Adore him or despise him, you must admit that. I relish the time he was accused of lacking virility, and told his opponent, ‘Sir—you pride yourself upon an animal faculty, in respect to which the Negro is your equal and the jackass infinitely your superior.’ ”

  No one but Gallatin laughed. “I doubt if any black man would find that witty,” Gilbert said. Gallatin harrumphed.

  Rothman said, “We’ve strayed from the point. It’s public knowledge that your faction wants Upper Canada, Mr. Clay, so we’ll save time and eliminate distasteful acrimony—”

  “It’s you. who were acrimonious, sir, not I! You brought up the mackerel by moonlight—and as much as called me a liar.”

  “Will you accept my apology so we can proceed?”

  Clay grumbled something inaudible.

  “Proceed from the assumption that war is inevitable,” Gallatin suggested.

  “Let’s hope to heaven it’s not!” Rothman cried.

  “American liberty is again threatened on the land and on the sea,” Clay declared. “There’s just one way to teach Johnny Bull a lesson. At the point of a gun! From the mouth of a cannon!”

  Once again Gilbert spoke, quietly but with authority. “Since you raise the subject of guns, Mr. Speaker, perhaps some simple mathematics are in order. My newspaper keeps track of the state of the army. We have, I believe, not quite twelve thousand men in uniform—most of those green recruits. Moreover, the forces are widely scattered. A few at Michilimackinac, a few at Fort Dearborn out on the Illinois prairie—”

  “The navy is in somewhat better shape,” Gallatin said.

  “You’re joking,” Rothman said. “Six frigates and scores of those worthless Jeffersonian gunboats—the whirligigs of the sage of Monticello? That’s nothing compared to six hundred British men-of-war, more than one hundred of which are ships of the line.”

  Clay objected. “But Britain still has her hands full on the continent.”

  “And that is where our attention should be focused. On the true enemy. Bonaparte!”

  “I must raise another hard question,” Gilbert said. “I don’t mean to be rude. But have you gentlemen in Washington ever considered the danger to this country if Britain suddenly finds herself in a position to free large masses of men and great numbers of ships now committed to the struggle with Napoleon? We stand every chance of being crushed.”

  Clay quickly overcame the argument. “War will be declared before that ever happens, Mr. Kent. We’ll overwhelm the British, not vice versa.”

  “So you intend to have your way regardless of any consequences?” Rothman demanded.

  There was a strained pause. Jared leaned his head against the wall, his blue eyes large, his expression awed at the thought of men discussing the fate of millions of human beings over wine and the pling of tobacco hitting a spittoon.

  “Answer me, please, Mr. Clay.”

  “We will press ahead,” Clay said.

  “To disaster!” Rothman predicted.

  “Gentlemen, please,” Gallatin put in. “Once more we have drifted from the question Henry and I came here to discuss. It is no longer a matter of whether a war will be fought, but how it will be fought—”

  “Why are you so set on this hasty, reckless course?” Rothman roared, pounding the table. “Britain has already shown some small sign of yielding eventually. Rescinding her Orders in Council. Stopping the impressment—”

  “Don’t forget Castlereagh is shrewd and slippery,” Gallatin said. “He may be playing for time.”

  “I don’t think so,” Gilbert said. “At least not according to what I hear from sources I trust. Visitors who’ve just returned from England. Aboard ships lucky enough not to be chased, stopped or fired upon, I might add!”

  “Now you sound like a hawk,” Rothman complained.

  “I’m only stating facts, Royal. But like you, I believe we can bring the British ministries around. Convince them to change their policies. If we have time.”

  “We don’t,” Rothman replied. “And it makes no difference to Mr. Clay anyway. The west is hungry for land—nothing but land. Last year Jemmy Madison grabbed the West Floridas—”

  “Annexed,” Clay corrected.

  “—and at the moment he’s eyeing the East Floridas. You know who to blame, Gilbert. Your blasted Monticello squire started the fever. Now it’s epidemic!”

  Gilbert had no immediate answer. Gallatin said, “Since New England is so important—indeed, we might say paramount—in commerce and finance, I must ask the position of gentlemen such as yourself, Mr. Rothman, in the event hostilities do break out.”

  “Are you asking about loans to the government, Mr. Secretary? War loans?”

  “I am.”

  “You’ll not get a dollar from Rothman’s. I venture every other banking house in New England will say the same thing.”

  “And you gentlemen will have a difficult time funding a war without New England money,” Gilbert said.

  “We will make do,” Clay said in a flinty way. “We’ve obtained the answer we came for—”

  Sounding dispirited, Gallatin said, “Indeed we have.”

  “I warned you what it would be, Mr. Secretary.” Clay spat again.

  Now that the hard truth had been brought into the open, Rothman attempted to soften it a little. “I’m sorry, gentlemen. New England simply can’t afford a war. We depend on overseas trade for marketing our goods. Jefferson nearly destroyed us with his embargo, and a war would bring complete ruin.”

  “That’s sheer imagination—” Clay began.

  “That is our position,” Rothman countered, cold again.

  “Thank God, it’s not the position of the rest of the country. We will make do.”

  “You can’t dismiss New England quite so quickly,” Rothman warned.

  “Why not, sir? Isn’t she ready to set herself up as an independent nation?”

  “Not as yet, sir. But if you and your cohorts persist—”

  “I believe we have exhausted this subject, sir.”

  “No, we have not!” Rothman shouted. “I fought for these states in the Revolution, but I am not going to see your damned, unwashed mobocracy plunge them into a second, useless war with a people who should be our closest friends!”

  “Is that patriotism speaking, sir? Or the balance sheet?”

  “You damned poltroon—!”

  “Royal, you forget yourself!” Gilbert exclaimed.

  “To the contrary! New England is the bedrock of this nation—!”

  “No longer!” Clay thundered. “Y
ou are living in the past, sir! The west is the rising star!”

  And may it sink to hell, Jared thought, the memory of his father breaking his concentration.

  Downstairs, voices rose in a confusion of accusations and epithets until Gilbert cried, “Gentlemen, this is my house, not a tavern! Please act accordingly!”

  That elicited another round of halfhearted apologies, and a degree of calm. The subject of war was dropped, in favor of perfunctory conversation about business in general, and Gilbert’s newspaper in particular. Avoiding the question of whether the Bay State Republican would support a war, he tried to interest his visitors in some of the innovations he had in mind.

  He spoke of his plan to launch a penny paper, undercutting the prevailing six-cent price in order to capture a larger share of the increasingly literate population.

  He speculated about the possibility of employing boys to sell papers on the street in an organized way, not haphazardly, and of sending the same boys door to door to boost circulation even further.

  When the troubles at sea cleared up, he said, he wanted to purchase a dispatch boat to sail out and meet incoming ships, so he could get the latest European news into print ahead of his competition.

  By the time he started to discuss the possibility of modern invention being harnessed to improve printing equipment—“The prospect of a steam-powered press is staggering, gentlemen, and not at all out of the question”—his guests were murmuring that they must leave.

  Chairs scraped. The goodbyes were stiffly polite. Jared closed the door of the dumbwaiter and caught his cousin’s hand, hurrying her out of the room.

  “They kept talking about war,” Amanda said when they reached the stairs. “Do they mean men fighting other men?”

  “Yes, that’s what they mean.”

  “Will you have to fight?”

  Startled, he realized her question raised an entirely new issue, injected a completely new factor into the uncertain future.

  “I don’t know whether I’d have to. But I might want to,” he answered.

  At the back of the house, a coach clattered away. In the lower hallway, Royal Rothman was having a final word with his host. Jared heard the banker growl something about the rotten mackerel stinking worse than ever—