We are sinners all, Sam thought to himself. It was a rueful thought, as it so often was for him these days.
The senator looked to Julia, now. "Are you sure about that, dearest? I don't like the idea of our kids being that far away."
Her face got tight. "You know any other school will take them, outside of New England-where they'd be just as far away? And even if there was one:"
She took a deep breath. When she spoke again, her voice started rising.
"What happens if you die, Dick Johnson? It don't matter what you think. By law, those two daughters you spoil so badly are your slaves."
"I freed you!" he protested.
"Not till after the girls were born," came her immediate rejoinder. "Richard Mentor Johnson, how in the world can a lawyer like you be that deaf, dumb, and blind?"
It was a good question-and the wide-open mouth of the senator made it perfectly clear that he'd never even thought about it. By Kentucky law, as well as the law in any slave state, a child born to a slave inherited the legal status of the mother, not the father. That was in complete opposition to the standard way of figuring birth status as usually applied to white people. But the South's gentry had made sure and certain that their frequent dalliances with slave women wouldn't produce any legally and financially awkward children.
As foul a breed of men as ever lived, was Patrick Driscol's assessment of southern slave-owners. Sam felt the categorization was far too harsh, as was so often true of Patrick's attitudes. But he didn't deny there was more than a grain of truth to it. Slavery corrupted the master as much as it degraded the slave. If there was any true and certain law of nature, there it was.
"Long as you're alive," Julia continued, "we don't got to worry none. But if you pass on, the girls are just part of your estate. And you got debts. Lots and lots of debts. You think your creditors will pass them over?"
"I'll free them, too, then. Tomorrow!"
She shrugged. "Good. But you trust judges way more than I do. With all those creditors circling like vultures, won't surprise me at all to find some judge will say the manumission was invalid."
The next words were spoken very coldly. "They'll be pretty, real pretty, give 'em another three or four years. But they inherited my color, too-enough of it, anyway-along with my looks. They'll fetch a nice price from some slave whorehouse somewhere. Your ghost can watch it happen."
"It's not unheard of, Dick," Sam said.
The senator was back to gaping. Again, obviously, never even having considered the matter. The man's blindness could be truly astonishing at times. The same blindness that led him into one financial disaster after another. Not so much because Richard Mentor Johnson was dishonest or rapacious as because it never seemed to occur to him that friends and relatives and acquaintances of his might be.
One of the house slave women came into the room. "Dinner's ready, Miz Julia."
One black woman addressing another as if she were a white mistress. The world had a lot more crazy angles in it than most people wanted to admit. Much less allow.
Imogene and Adaline were on their best behavior at dinner. That might have been because of Sam's presence, but he didn't think so. It was more likely because their mother had drummed it into them over the years. Dinner at a great house like Blue Spring Farm was rarely a small and private family affair. And so the girls of the family would act proper, they would, or they'd suffer the consequences.
The dinner table seemed as long as a small ship, with tall and stately candlesticks serving for masts and sails. Johnson at one end; Julia, presiding over the meal, facing him at the other. With, in two long rows down the side, well over a dozen other people in addition to Sam and the children. Disabled war veterans or their widows, for the most part. But there was also one of nearby Lexington's prominent lawyers, and one of the local plantation owners.
Sam wasn't surprised to see them there. Not all of the South's well-to-do disliked Johnson. Many admired him. That was true, starting with the president of the United States himself, James Monroe, who came from Virginia gentry. As always, in Sam's experience-contrary to Patrick Driscol's tendency to label people in sharp and definite categories-attitudes and habits blurred at the edges. Blurred so far, often enough, that no boundary was to be seen at all.
Fine for Patrick-the "Laird of Arkansas," in truth, even if no one used the term to his face-to sit up there in the mountains and divide the world and its morals into black and white. Sam lived down here in a world of grays and browns, just about everywhere he looked. And:being honest, he was more comfortable in that world. He had plenty of gray in his own soul, as young as he might be, and he'd always thought brown to be the warmest color of all.
"Clay's going to make a run for it," the plantation owner predicted. "In fact, he's already started."
The lawyer sitting across from him laughed sarcastically. "What else is new? Henry Clay was dreaming about the presidency while he was still in his mother's womb. More ambitious than Sam Hill, he is."
Johnson smiled into his whiskey tumbler. So did Sam. It was the same smile, half derisive and half philosophical. The difference was simply that the senator's tumbler was half full and Sam's was:
Empty, now that he looked into it. How had that happened?
"Don't make light of it, Jack," cautioned the lawyer. "I'm thinking he's got a very good chance at getting what he wants. With Monroe gone after next year, who else does it leave? Beyond Quincy Adams and the general, of course-and they've both got handicaps."
"Andy Jackson's the most popular man in America!" the senator stoutly proclaimed.
The lawyer, blessed with the name of Cicero Jones, gave him a look that might have graced the face of the ancient Roman statesman after whom he'd been named-just before he fell beneath the swords of the Second Triumvirate.
"Maybe so, Dick. But:"
For an instant, Jones's glance flicked toward Sam. Then he looked down at his plate. "But not as much as he used to be," he concluded glumly.
That was enough to tip Sam's decision over the immediate issue at hand. He held up his tumbler toward one of the slaves waiting on the table. "Some more whiskey, if you would."
As the slave made to comply, Sam gave Johnson a level gaze. "That's my doing. The settlement I made of the Algiers business hurt the general worse than the Treaty of Oothcaloga helped him. No doubt about it, I think."
Now that Sam had said it out loud, Cicero Jones was clearly relieved. "No doubt about it at all," the lawyer echoed.
Across from him, Jack Hartfield shrugged and spread his hands. As portly as the plantation owner was, the expansive gesture did unfortunate things to his tightly buttoned vest.
Adaline managed to keep quiet, but Imogene burst into a giggle. Sam almost did, too, for that matter. The way the button flew from Hartfield and bounced off one of the candlesticks was genuinely comical.
Hartfield himself grinned. But his good cheer didn't keep the girl from her chastisement.
"Imogene!" exclaimed Julia. A hand the color of coffee-with-cream smacked her daughter, leaving a red mark on a cheek whose color wasn't much lighter. "Do that again and you'll finish dinner in your room!"
"Oh, go easy on her, Julia," chuckled the plantation owner. "It was pretty funny. I probably would have laughed myself, 'cept I don't want to think what my wife'll have to say when I get home. I'm afraid I bust a lot of those."
"Don't matter," insisted Julia. She wagged a finger in Imogene's face. "You behave yourself, young lady. You know better than that."
Imogene assumed a properly chastened look. Although Sam didn't miss the angry glare she gave her sister across the table, once Julia looked away. Adaline's face had that insufferably smug look that a twin has whenever her sibling is rightfully punished-and she herself gets away with it.