Book: 54 40 or Fight

E >> Emerson Hough >> 54 40 or Fight




We at the White House ball that night also made history in our own
unrecorded way. As our army was adding to our confines on the Southwest,
so there were other, though secret, forces which added to our territory
in the far Northwest. As to this and as to the means by which it came
about, I have already been somewhat plain.

It was a goodly company that assembled for the grand ball, the first
one in the second season of Mr. Polk's somewhat confused and discordant
administration. Social matters had started off dour enough. Mrs. Polk
was herself of strict religious practice, and I imagine it had taken
somewhat of finesse to get her consent to these festivities. It was
called sometimes the diplomats' ball. At least there was diplomacy back
of it. It was mere accident which set this celebration upon the very
evening of the battle of Palo Alto, May eighth, 1846.

By ten o'clock there were many in the great room which had been made
ready for the dancing, and rather a brave company it might have been
called. We had at least the splendor of the foreign diplomats' uniforms
for our background, and to this we added the bravest of our attire, each
one in his own individual fashion, I fear. Thus my friend Jack Dandridge
was wholly resplendent in a new waistcoat of his own devising, and an
evening coat which almost swept the floor as he executed the evolutions
of his western style of dancing. Other gentlemen were, perhaps, more
grave and staid. We had with us at least one man, old in government
service, who dared the silk stockings and knee breeches of an earlier
generation. Yet another wore the white powdered queue, which might have
been more suited for his grandfather. The younger men of the day wore
their hair long, in fashion quite different, yet this did not detract
from the distinction of some of the faces which one might have seen
among them--some of them to sleep all too soon upturned to the moon in
another and yet more bitter war, aftermath of this with Mexico. The tall
stock was still in evidence at that time, and the ruffled shirts gave
something of a formal and old-fashioned touch to the assembly. Such as
they were, in their somewhat varied but not uninteresting attire, the
best of Washington were present. Invitation was wholly by card. Some
said that Mrs. Polk wrote these invitations in her own hand, though this
we may be permitted to doubt.

Whatever might have been said as to the democratic appearance of our
gentlemen in Washington, our women were always our great reliance, and
these at least never failed to meet the approval of the most sneering of
our foreign visitors. Thus we had present that night, as I remember, two
young girls both later to become famous in Washington society; tall and
slender young Terese Chalfant, later to become Mrs. Pugh of Ohio, and to
receive at the hands of Denmark's minister, who knelt before her at a
later public ball, that jeweled clasp which his wife had bade him
present to the most beautiful woman he found in America. Here also was
Miss Harriet Williams of Georgetown, later to become the second wife of
that Baron Bodisco of Russia who had represented his government with us
since the year 1838--a tall, robust, blonde lady she later grew to be.
Brown's Hotel, home of many of our statesmen and their ladies, turned
out a full complement. Mr. Clay was there, smiling, though I fear none
too happy. Mr. Edward Everett, as it chanced, was with us at that time.
We had Sam Houston of Texas, who would not, until he appeared upon the
floor, relinquish the striped blanket which distinguished him--though a
splendid figure of a man he appeared when he paced forth in evening
dress, a part of which was a waistcoat embroidered in such fancy as
might have delighted the eye of his erstwhile Indian wife had she been
there to see it. Here and there, scattered about the floor, there might
have been seen many of the public figures of America at that time, men
from North and South and East and West, and from many other nations
beside our own.

Under Mrs. Polk's social administration, we did not waltz, but our ball
began with a stately march, really a grand procession, in its way
distinctly interesting, in scarlet and gold and blue and silks, and all
the flowered circumstance of brocades and laces of our ladies. And after
our march we had our own polite Virginia reel, merry as any dance, yet
stately too.

I was late in arriving that night, for it must be remembered that this
was but my second day in town, and I had had small chance to take my
chief's advice, and to make myself presentable for an occasion such as
this. I was fresh from my tailor, and very new-made when I entered the
room. I came just in time to see what I was glad to see; that is to say,
the keeping of John Calhoun's promise to Helena von Ritz.

It was not to be denied that there had been talk regarding this lady,
and that Calhoun knew it, though not from me. Much of it was idle talk,
based largely upon her mysterious life. Beyond that, a woman beautiful
as she has many enemies among her sex. There were dark glances for her
that night, I do not deny, before Mr. Calhoun changed them. For, however
John Calhoun was rated by his enemies, the worst of these knew well his
austerely spotless private life, and his scrupulous concern for decorum.

Beautiful she surely was. Her ball gown was of light golden stuff, and
there was a coral wreath upon her hair, and her dancing slippers were of
coral hue. There was no more striking figure upon the floor than she.
Jewels blazed at her throat and caught here and there the filmy folds of
her gown. She was radiant, beautiful, apparently happy. She came
mysteriously enough; but I knew that Mr. Calhoun's carriage had been
sent for her. I learned also that he had waited for her arrival.

As I first saw Helena von Ritz, there stood by her side Doctor Samuel
Ward, his square and stocky figure not undignified in his dancing dress,
the stiff gray mane of his hair waggling after its custom as he spoke
emphatically over something with her. A gruff man, Doctor Ward, but
under his gray mane there was a clear brain, and in his broad breast
there beat a large and kindly heart.

Even as I began to edge my way towards these two, I saw Mr. Calhoun
himself approach, tall, gray and thin.

He was very pale that night; and I knew well enough what effort it cost
him to attend any of these functions. Yet he bowed with the grace of a
younger man and offered the baroness an arm. Then, methinks, all
Washington gasped a bit. Not all Washington knew what had gone forward
between these two. Not all Washington knew what that couple meant as
they marched in the grand procession that night--what they meant for
America. Of all those who saw, I alone understood.

So they danced; he with the dignity of his years, she with the grace
which was the perfection of dancing, the perfection of courtesy and of
dignity also, as though she knew and valued to the full what was offered
to her now by John Calhoun. Grave, sweet and sad Helena von Ritz seemed
to me that night. She was wholly unconscious of those who looked and
whispered. Her face was pale and rapt as that of some devotee.

Mr. Polk himself stood apart, and plainly enough saw this little matter
go forward. When Mr. Calhoun approached with the Baroness von Ritz upon
his arm, Mr. Polk was too much politician to hesitate or to inquire. He
knew that it was safe to follow where John Calhoun led! These two
conversed for a few moments. Thus, I fancy, Helena von Ritz had her
first and last acquaintance with one of our politicians to whom fate
gave far more than his deserts. It was the fortune of Mr. Polk to gain
for this country Texas, California and Oregon--not one of them by desert
of his own! My heart has often been bitter when I have recalled that
little scene. Politics so unscrupulous can not always have a John
Calhoun, a Helena von Ritz, to correct, guard and guide.

After this the card of Helena von Ritz might well enough indeed been
full had she cared further to dance. She excused herself gracefully,
saying that after the honor which had been done her she could not ask
more. Still, Washington buzzed; somewhat of Europe as well. That might
have been called the triumph of Helena von Ritz. She felt it not. But I
could see that she gloried in some other thing.

I approached her as soon as possible. "I am about to go," she said. "Say
good-by to me, now, here! We shall not meet again. Say good-by to me,
now, quickly! My father and I are going to leave. The treaty for Oregon
is prepared. Now I am done. Yes. Tell me good-by."

"I will not say it," said I. "I can not."

She smiled at me. Others might see her lips, her smile. I saw what was
in her eyes. "We must not be selfish," said she. "Come, I must go."

"Do not go," I insisted. "Wait."

She caught my meaning. "Surely," she said, "I will stay a little longer
for that one thing. Yes, I wish to see her again, Miss Elisabeth
Churchill. I hated her. I wish that I might love her now, do you know?
Would--would she let me--if she knew?"

"They say that love is not possible between women," said I. "For my own
part, I wish with you."

She interrupted with a light tap of her fan upon my arm. "Look, is not
that she?"

I turned. A little circle of people were bowing before Mr. Polk, who
held a sort of levee at one side of the hall. I saw the tall young girl
who at the moment swept a graceful curtsey to the president. My heart
sprang to my mouth. Yes, it was Elisabeth! Ah, yes, there flamed up on
the altar of my heart the one fire, lit long ago for her. So we came now
to meet, silently, with small show, in such way as to thrill none but
our two selves. She, too, had served, and that largely. And my constant
altar fire had done its part also, strangely, in all this long coil of
large events. Love--ah, true love wins and rules. It makes our maps. It
makes our world.

Among all these distinguished men, these beautiful women, she had her
own tribute of admiration. I felt rather than saw that she was in some
pale, filmy green, some crepe of China, with skirts and sleeves looped
up with pearls. In her hair were green leaves, simple and sweet and
cool. To me she seemed graver, sweeter, than when I last had seen her. I
say, my heart came up into my throat. All I could think was that I
wanted to take her into my arms. All I did was to stand and stare.

My companion was more expert in social maneuvers. She waited until the
crowd had somewhat thinned about the young lady and her escort. I saw
now with certain qualms that this latter was none other than my whilom
friend Jack Dandridge. For a wonder, he was most unduly sober, and he
made, as I have said, no bad figure in his finery. He was very merry and
just a trifle loud of speech, but, being very intimate in Mr. Polk's
household, he was warmly welcomed by that gentleman and by all around
him.

"She is beautiful!" I heard the lady at my arm whisper.

"Is she beautiful to you?" I asked.

"Very beautiful!" I heard her catch her breath. "She is good. I wish I
could love her. I wish, I wish--"

I saw her hands beat together as they did when she was agitated. I
turned then to look at her, and what I saw left me silent. "Come," said
I at last, "let us go to her." We edged across the floor.

When Elisabeth saw me she straightened, a pallor came across her face.
It was not her way to betray much of her emotions. If her head was a
trifle more erect, if indeed she paled, she too lacked not in quiet
self-possession. She waited, with wide straight eyes fixed upon me. I
found myself unable to make much intelligent speech. I turned to see
Helena von Ritz gazing with wistful eyes at Elisabeth, and I saw the
eyes of Elisabeth make some answer. So they spoke some language which I
suppose men never will understand--the language of one woman to another.

I have known few happier moments in my life than that. Perhaps, after
all, I caught something of the speech between their eyes. Perhaps not
all cheap and cynical maxims are true, at least when applied to noble
women.

Elisabeth regained her wonted color and more.

"I was very wrong in many ways," I heard her whisper. For almost the
first time I saw her perturbed. Helena von Ritz stepped close to her.
Amid the crash of the reeds and brasses, amid all the broken
conversation which swept around us, I knew what she said. Low down in
the flounces of the wide embroidered silks, I saw their two hands meet,
silently, and cling. This made me happy.

Of course it was Jack Dandridge who broke in between us. "Ah!" said he,
"you jealous beggar, could you not leave me to be happy for one minute?
Here you come back, a mere heathen, and proceed to monopolize all our
ladies. I have been making the most of my time, you see. I have proposed
half a dozen times more to Miss Elisabeth, have I not?"

"Has she given you any answer?" I asked him, smiling.

"The same answer!"

"Jack," said I, "I ought to call you out."

"Don't," said he. "I don't want to be called out. I am getting found
out. That's worse. Well--Miss Elisabeth, may I be the first to
congratulate?"

"I am glad," said I, with just a slight trace of severity, "that you
have managed again to get into the good graces of Elmhurst. When I last
saw you, I was not sure that either of us would ever be invited there
again."

"Been there every Sunday regularly since you went away," said Jack. "I
am not one of the family in one way, and in another way I am. Honestly,
I have tried my best to cut you out. Not that you have not played your
game well enough, but there never was a game played so well that some
other fellow could not win by coppering it. So I coppered everything
you did--played it for just the reverse. No go--lost even that way. And
I thought _you_ were the most perennial fool of your age and
generation."

I checked as gently as I could a joviality which I thought unsuited to
the time. "Mr. Dandridge," said I to him, "you know the Baroness von
Ritz?"

"Certainly! The _particeps criminis_ of our bungled wedding--of course I
know her!"

"I only want to say," I remarked, "that the Baroness von Ritz has that
little shell clasp now all for her own, and that I have her slipper
again, all for my own. So now, we three--no, four--at last understand
one another, do we not? Jack, will you do two things for me?"

"All of them but two."

"When the Baroness von Ritz insists on her intention of leaving us--just
at the height of all our happiness--I want you to hand her to her
carriage. In the second place, I may need you again--"

"Well, what would any one think of that!" said Jack Dandridge.

I never knew when these two left us in the crowd. I never said good-by
to Helena von Ritz. I did not catch that last look of her eye. I
remember her as she stood there that night, grave, sweet and sad.

I turned to Elisabeth. There in the crash of the reeds and brasses, the
rise and fall of the sweet and bitter conversation all around us, was
the comedy and the tragedy of life.

"Elisabeth," I said to her, "are you not ashamed?"

She looked me full in the eye. "No!" she said, and smiled.

I have never seen a smile like Elisabeth's.


THE END




EPILOGUE

"'Tis the Star Spangled Banner; O, long may it wave,
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave!"
--_Francis Scott Key_.


On the night that Miss Elisabeth Churchill gave me her hand and her
heart for ever--for which I have not yet ceased to thank God--there
began the guns of Palo Alto. Later, there came the fields of Monterey,
Buena Vista, Cerro Gordo, Contreras, Cherubusco, Molino del Rey--at last
the guns sounded at the gate of the old City of Mexico itself. Some of
that fighting I myself saw; but much of the time I was employed in that
manner of special work which had engaged me for the last few years. It
was through Mr. Calhoun's agency that I reached a certain importance in
these matters; and so I was chosen as the commissioner to negotiate a
peace with Mexico.

This honor later proved to be a dangerous and questionable one. General
Scott wanted no interference of this kind, especially since he knew Mr.
Calhoun's influence in my choice. He thwarted all my attempts to reach
the headquarters of the enemy, and did everything he could to secure a
peace of his own, at the mouth of the cannon. I could offer no terms
better than Mr. Buchanan, then our secretary of state, had prepared for
me, and these were rejected by the Mexican government at last. I was
ordered by Mr. Polk to state that we had no better terms to offer; and
as for myself, I was told to return to Washington. At that time I could
not make my way out through the lines, nor, in truth, did I much care to
do so.

A certain event not written in history influenced me to remain for a
time at the little village of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Here, in short, I
received word from a lady whom I had formerly known, none less than
Senora Yturrio, once a member of the Mexican legation at Washington.
True to her record, she had again reached influential position in her
country, using methods of her own. She told me now to pay no attention
to what had been reported by Mexico. In fact, I was approached again by
the Mexican commissioners, introduced by her! What was done then is
history. We signed then and there the peace of Guadalupe Hidalgo, in
accordance with the terms originally given me by our secretary of state.
So, after all, Calhoun's kindness to a woman in distress was not lost;
and so, after all, he unwittingly helped in the ending of the war he
never wished begun.

Meantime, I had been recalled to Washington, but did not know the
nature of that recall. When at last I arrived there I found myself
disgraced and discredited. My actions were repudiated by the
administration. I myself was dismissed from the service without pay--sad
enough blow for a young man who had been married less than a year.

Mr. Polk's jealousy of John Calhoun was not the only cause of this.
Calhoun's prophecy was right. Polk did not forget his revenge on me.
Yet, none the less, after his usual fashion, he was not averse to
receiving such credit as he could. He put the responsibility of the
treaty upon the Senate! It was debated hotly there for some weeks, and
at last, much to his surprise and my gratification, it was ratified!

The North, which had opposed this Mexican War--that same war which later
led inevitably to the War of the Rebellion--now found itself unable to
say much against the great additions to our domain which the treaty had
secured. We paid fifteen millions, in addition to our territorial
indemnity claim, and we got a realm whose wealth could not be computed.
So much, it must be owned, did fortune do for that singular favorite,
Mr. Polk. And, curiously enough, the smoke had hardly cleared from Palo
Alto field before Abraham Lincoln, a young member in the House of
Congress, was introducing a resolution which asked the marking of "the
spot where that outrage was committed." Perhaps it was an outrage. Many
still hold it so. But let us reflect what would have been Lincoln's life
had matters not gone just as they did.

With the cessions from Mexico came the great domain of California. Now,
look how strangely history sometimes works out itself. Had there been
any suspicion of the discovery of gold in California, neither Mexico nor
our republic ever would have owned it! England surely would have taken
it. The very year that my treaty eventually was ratified was that in
which gold was discovered in California! But it was too late then for
England to interfere; too late then, also, for Mexico to claim it. We
got untold millions of treasure there. Most of those millions went to
the Northern States, into manufactures, into commerce. The North owned
that gold; and it was that gold which gave the North the power to crush
that rebellion which was born of the Mexican War--that same rebellion by
which England, too late, would gladly have seen this Union disrupted, so
that she might have yet another chance at these lands she now had lost
for ever.

Fate seemed still to be with us, after all, as I have so often had
occasion to believe may be a possible thing. That war of conquest which
Mr. Calhoun opposed, that same war which grew out of the slavery tenets
which he himself held--the great error of his otherwise splendid public
life--found its own correction in the Civil War. It was the gold of
California which put down slavery. Thenceforth slavery has existed
legally only _north_ of the Mason and Dixon line!

We have our problems yet. Perhaps some other war may come to settle
them. Fortunate for us if there could be another California, another
Texas, another Oregon, to help us pay for them!

I, who was intimately connected with many of these less known matters,
claim for my master a reputation wholly different from that given to him
in any garbled "history" of his life. I lay claim in his name for
foresight beyond that of any man of his time. He made mistakes, but he
made them bravely, grandly, and consistently. Where his convictions were
enlisted, he had no reservations, and he used every means, every
available weapon, as I have shown. But he was never self-seeking, never
cheap, never insincere. A detester of all machine politicians, he was a
statesman worthy to be called the William Pitt of the United States. The
consistency of his career was a marvelous thing; because, though he
changed in his beliefs, he was first to recognize the changing
conditions of our country. He failed, and he is execrated. He won, and
he is forgot.

My chief, Mr. Calhoun, did not die until some six years after that
first evening when Doctor Ward and I had our talk with him. He was said
to have died of a disease of the lungs, yet here again history is
curiously mistaken. Mr. Calhoun slept himself away. I sometimes think
with a shudder that perhaps this was the revenge which Nemesis took of
him for his mistakes. His last days were dreamlike in their passing. His
last speech in the Senate was read by one of his friends, as Doctor Ward
had advised him. Some said afterwards that his illness was that accursed
"sleeping sickness" imported from Africa with these same slaves: It were
a strange thing had John Calhoun indeed died of his error! At least he
slept away. At least, too, he made his atonement. The South, following
his doctrines, itself was long accursed of this same sleeping sickness;
but in the providence of God it was not lost to us, and is ours for a
long and splendid history.

It was through John Calhoun, a grave and somber figure of our history,
that we got the vast land of Texas. It was through him also--and not
through Clay nor Jackson, nor any of the northern statesmen, who never
could see a future for the West--that we got all of our vast Northwest
realm. Within a few days after the Palo Alto ball, a memorandum of
agreement was signed between Minister Pakenham and Mr. Buchanan, our
secretary of state. This was done at the instance and by the aid of
John Calhoun. It was he--he and Helena von Ritz--who brought about that
treaty which, on June fifteenth, of the same year, was signed, and
gladly signed, by the minister from Great Britain. The latter had been
fully enough impressed (such was the story) by the reports of the
columns of our west-bound farmers, with rifles leaning at their wagon
seats and plows lashed to the tail-gates. Calhoun himself never ceased
to regret that we could not delay a year or two years longer. In this he
was thwarted by the impetuous war with the republic on the south,
although, had that never been fought, we had lost California--lost also
the South, and lost the Union!

Under one form or other, one name of government or another, the flag of
democracy eventually must float over all this continent. Not a part, but
all of this country must be ours, must be the people's. It may cost more
blood and treasure now. Some time we shall see the wisdom of John
Calhoun; but some time, too, I think, we shall see come true that
prophecy of a strange and brilliant mentality, which in Calhoun's
presence and in mine said that all of these northern lands and all
Mexico as well must one day be ours--which is to say, the people's--for
the sake of human opportunity, of human hope and happiness. Our battles
are but partly fought. But at least they are not, then, lost.

For myself, the close of the Mexican War found me somewhat worn by
travel and illy equipped in financial matters. I had been discredited, I
say, by my own government. My pay was withheld. Elisabeth, by that time
my wife, was a girl reared in all the luxury that our country then could
offer. Shall I say whether or not I prized her more when gladly she gave
up all this and joined me for one more long and final journey out across
that great trail which I had seen--the trail of democracy, of America,
of the world?

At last we reached Oregon. It holds the grave of one of ours; it is the
home of others. We were happy; we asked favor of no man; fear of no one
did we feel. Elisabeth has in her time slept on a bed of husks. She has
cooked at a sooty fireplace of her own; and at her cabin door I myself
have been the guard. We made our way by ourselves and for ourselves, as
did those who conquered America for our flag. "The citizen standing in
the doorway of his home, shall save the Republic." So wrote a later pen.

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