Christian Cameron - Washington and Caesar

“Hole in the wall,” said one of the fiddlers. Queeny nodded in time to the first bars of the music, and Caesar took a moment to see how beautiful she was, and how happy, living in the moment. Then they turned away from each other and headed down the set, the two of them in perfect time. When they met again he turned her, not by one hand like a proper gentleman, but with an arm locked around her waist so that his lips were at her ear.

“I think I should marry you, Queeny.”

Her smile lit her face, and then the dance took them apart.

The mountain of business that awaited Washington when he returned to Mount Vernon might have prompted a rebellion of spirit in a lesser man. Jack Custis’s wedding required a final pile of paper to be cleared, although it seemed obvious that he would reside at Mount Vernon with his new wife for a while. Gibson’s accounts had to be cleared, and the problems of shipping goods and grain dealt with. He looked over his accounts, wondering why he had bought the brig and where it might make a profit.

He heard the gentle rustle of Martha’s gown as she paused in the door to his study and he looked up. She shook her head and frowned, very slightly.

“I wish you found my son’s wedding as interesting as you find his accounts,” she said.

“The best gift I can give Jack is a clean bill and unencumbered estates.” Washington waved his pen at the ledger next to him, as if the book held all Jack’s fields and houses within leather covers. They locked eyes for a moment.

“We have guests, George. Come be hospitable and leave the books for a bit.”

It was something he enjoyed, the process of management. He liked building the tools that allowed him to do the jobs that ran the estates, watching the careful plans of years come slowly to fruition. He considered a protest. There was more to be done. In fact, there was always more to be done. Between them, he and Martha and Jack owned a great deal and were likely to own more. But as always, Martha was more in the right, and he bowed in his chair, wiped his pen and rose to join her.

Several of their guests talked about George Muse and his notions of fairness, and while George Mason speculated on the Crown’s reaction to the dumping of tea for the thirtieth time that winter, Washington writhed at their comments. As soon as he could free himself, he settled himself to write the strong letter he had promised.

As he wrote the draft, his pen flew along, the strokes as powerful as sword thrusts.

As I am not accustomed to receive such from any man, nor would have taken the same language from you personally, without letting you feel some marks of my resentment; I would advise you to be cautious of writing me a second of the same tenor, for though I understand you were drunk when you did it, yet give me leave to tell you that drunkenness is not an excuse for rudeness…

He paused, licked the tip of his pen and failed even to note the taste, but dipped and wrote on, fueled by anger.

… all my concern is that I ever engaged in behalf of so ungrateful and dirty a fellow as you are.

Hugh Mercer, late in the library because he couldn’t sleep, committed the unpardonable offense of reading it over his host’s shoulder, because his strong eyes had caught the phrase about “dirty a fellow” from the shelves.

“No, please feel free,” said Washington with a hint of stiffness, when he realized that the doctor was reading the letter on the table.

“Damn, sir. My apologies. I should never…”

“Nonsense, sir. I welcome your opinion. You must know to whom it is addressed.”

“I assume it is to that whelp Muse.”

“It is.”

Thus invited, Mercer read what was offered him. The lengthy justification of the process by which officers’ land claims were settled was worded awkwardly, but it made sense and it utterly dished the arguments Muse was making in public. But the personal attack at the end was a shock, the more so from such an old stoic as Washington.

“But it is the most deliberate provocation, George.” Mercer had known Washington for a long time. He was in his lodge, though he didn’t use his first name without a little hesitation. This was serious-pistols-in-the-morning and Martha-a-widow serious.

“He’s a coward. He won’t fight.”

Mercer looked at Washington amazed that so mature and noble a man could see the world in such a schoolyard manner, could base his expectations of men’s actions on such simple stuff.

“He’ll fight if you drive him to it, coward or not. Would you fight his like, sir? He’s a rascal, I’ll own, but the entire world knows it. You’ll lose nothing-”

“That is not the matter to hand, sir. He has said things, monstrous things, of me and my intentions on these land grants. I won’t stand it; I’ll not be called names by this coward.”

Washington’s voice was calm but his hand almost trembled with indignation. Mercer couldn’t remember when he had himself last been so indignant, although he thought he might have approached it when the Townshend Acts were announced. To be so enraged by some fool’s tattle-but Washington had ever been a proud, noli me tangere sort of fellow, and allowances had to be made.

“I don’t want to pull a bullet out of you. You are too important to us for that, George.”

The comment went right to him, the sort of flattery Washington liked, but the anger was still present. He folded the letter.

“Just a draft. Perhaps I’ll cool off by tomorrow.”

And with that, Mercer had to be content.

Mount Vernon, Virginia, early May 1774

It was really too late in the season for a hunt, with the wheat and the tobacco in the ground, but Washington wanted the pack out one more time and his neighbors joined in happily enough despite the business of the time. Even George Mason, the most bookish of the men in the parish, was to be seen approaching, though to be sure, his clothes suggested more of the scholar than the huntsman, and he had gaiters on, not boots. Washington watched him ride, and smiled at the way his head rose and fell with the horse’s stride like a cock crossing the yard. Not exactly a natural horseman.

They had fewer dogs than usual: just Washington’s pack and French’s, because the chance of a decent fox was low, and because Cedar Grove was not represented in the field today and none of the Cedar Grove people seemed disposed to offer hounds. Washington knew why, but his neighbor’s relative financial troubles didn’t matter to him, except that he would eventually be asked to help them and he would. It was certainly nothing he would think to discuss. And young Lee had insisted on joining the small hunt, despite the fact that he would be the only young sprig in it. Washington watched him with remote tolerance. The boy was already better behaved than he had been on that distant December morning.

Beyond young Lee was Caesar, helping French’s John sort the dogs and send the select pack with the huntsman. He was good, and Washington knew it-knew with satisfaction that several neighbors envied him his luck in finding the boy. He’d won a footrace at a fair, and a small purse with it, and more for his master in wagers than he had cost in Jamaica. But Washington couldn’t warm to him, or to the Ashanti airs that the boy seemed to have. Too arrogant by half, and his habit of standing with a hand on his hip like a classical statue irked him, as he must have learned it on the plantation. He never liked to see the scars above the eyes that seemed to deny any possibility of civilization in the boy. Washington winced inwardly at his unfairness, as he had never minded scars on Indians, but then, he was used to seeing Indians in their own deep woods, not on his plantation.