She teased him. “Head or back?”
“Just you wait.” He smiled at her. He then launched into what was on his mind. “Roger Davis wrote Maureen Seli…I mean Holloway, to tell her there is to be a convention in Philadelphia in May. Settled. It will happen, and those representatives farthest away from Babylon on the Delaware are already on their way. What an opportunity this will be for endless pronouncements, legal twaddle, and rampaging self-interest. I don’t know what’s worse: deteriorating as we are or letting those men argue at a convention.”
“Father, you’re the one who says we have to do something. We can’t have export and import taxes between states and that’s what the current situation amounts to, doesn’t it?”
Grimly, he nodded. “Does, but Jefferson and his minions will be philosophically opposed to Adams and his following. Each will parade his Latin, too.”
“Surely there will be more moderate men.”
“Hamilton?” Ewing’s voice lowered. “Jefferson hates him, loathes him, and I expect it’s mutual. So that means Madison loathes him. I don’t see how an accord, even a rough accord, can be affected with these intensely self-regarding men.”
“When you speak, I am glad I am not in politics.” Catherine smiled.
“It’s the devil’s work. Is. I have lived a long time. I have observed from across the ocean the foolishness of kings, who worry more about their conquests and how they will be remembered than in fostering trade. They know nothing about trade and how wealth is created. They only know how to spend it like the mess in France with the queen’s jewelry. It’s absurd. And we’re absurd, too.”
“Will Washington be there?”
“He will. He’s probably the only man who can keep order. Franklin is eighty-one. But he has a way of bringing people together.”
“I thought Jefferson was still our ambassador to France.” Catherine was well informed, but only her family knew this, as well as Maureen, who divined it.
A slight breeze tousled Ewing’s hair. The early afternoon burst with spring’s promise of renewal. Many trees sported small buds opening to reveal true spring green color. The daffodils still bloomed but on the down side. Next would come the tulips with their wide array of colors.
“Oh, he’s in France, but I tell you who will be there, in his clever way. Madison. Madison. Madison.”
“Hence Roger Davis’s centrality to all this?”
“Mmm.” Ewing pursed his lips. “Madison is shifty. Brilliant, yes, but so are Hamilton and others. But Madison leaves little trace of his goings and comings. He’s like a tailor using invisible thread.”
“I thought you liked his mother.”
“She makes Franklin look young.” Ewing laughed. “Nell Madison has been dying since the day she was born. Whatever affliction is present or talked about, she has had it or is exhibiting the first symptoms. She’ll outlive us all. No wonder James isn’t married. She’s driven them all away.” He laughed again.
“Much as I like John’s family, I am glad they are in Massachusetts. And then when we visit them once a year, or they come here, I feel peeved at myself. His mother is a hardworking, loving woman and she never tells me what to do.”
“Oh, my dear, who can do that? I’ve been trying since you learned to walk.”
A slight blush rose on Catherine’s cheeks. “I listen.”
“Now you do but you were a handful.”
“Rachel was perfect.” Catherine smiled.
“Let’s just say Rachel is more like your mother.”
“And I am more like you.” Catherine slipped her arm through his.
He looked down for a step or two then looked up at an aqua sky. “So they say.”
She laughed. “Back to Philadelphia. It’s a Quaker city. How can it be Babylon on the Delaware?”
“Don’t be fooled by all that simplicity rubbish. A Quaker can spend money as well as the rest of us. Perhaps they’re smarter about hiding it. No lavish jewelry or excessive furniture. However, I have yet to see a rich Quaker who doesn’t own a handsome carriage.”
“I suppose each group of people has their ways and a way to get around them.” She drew even closer to her father.
“True. My fear is an agreement that is sensible, focused on trade, the latest farming practices won’t be reached. Everyone will question slavery but no state will really do anything. Look how many slaves New York has. It will be a deadlock. And all the disagreements will be on the table.”
“Maybe they have to be on the table to get anything done.”
He patted her hand. “I don’t know, my dear. I believe in letting sleeping dogs lie.”
“It is a sensible way to live and yet these are new times. No one ever thought we would throw out King George, defeat the British Army and Navy, dispense with born aristocrats and royalty. I suppose we should all fall on our knees and give thanks for Lord North.” She cited the prime minister who most felt misled the king.
“And fall on our knees for Washington. How he kept together the different state militias, most of whom only signed up for three months and weren’t paid, I might add.”
“Many still haven’t been.”
“Yes. Yes. That’s unforgivable. You see a man begging on a Richmond or Williamsburg street and he lost his legs at Guilford or some other battle. It’s a sin, you know.”
“I do. John isn’t shy about expressing himself when it comes to his comrades. He’s not a political man but he feels deeply for those who served.”
A sharp smile crossed Ewing’s face. “Old men start the wars. Young men fight them. It’s been that way since Marathon.” He waved with his free hand. “I can’t let this affect me so.”
“Father, you risked your life not in battle but by working for the cause, by pouring money into it, by raising troops.”
“I did and I never dreamed it would come to this.”
“Does the future ever turn out as we dream?”
“I don’t know, my dear. My future has you, your sister, good husbands, grandchildren. In so many ways it’s better than I could have imagined. Politics, national direction, that’s a different matter.”
“Why do you think Roger Davis writes Maureen?”