THE LADY FROM MEXICO
As soon as women are ours, we are no longer theirs.
--Montaigne.
After a time my chief reëntered the office room and bent over me at my
table. I put before him the draft of the document which he had given me
for clerical care.
"So," he said, "'tis ready--our declaration. I wonder what may come of
that little paper!"
"Much will come of it with a strong people back of it. The trouble is
only that what Democrat does, Whig condemns. And not even all our party
is with Mr. Tyler and yourself in this, Mr. Calhoun. Look, for instance,
at Mr. Polk and his plans." To this venture on my part he made no
present answer.
"I have no party, that is true," said he at last--"none but you and Sam
Ward!" He smiled with one of his rare, illuminating smiles, different
from the cold mirth which often marked him.
"At least, Mr. Calhoun, you do not take on your work for the personal
glory of it," said I hotly; "and one day the world will know it!"
"'Twill matter very little to me then," said he bitterly. "But come,
now, I want more news about your trip to Montreal. What have you done?"
So now, till far towards dawn of the next day, we sat and talked. I put
before him full details of my doings across the border. He sat silent,
his eye betimes wandering, as though absorbed, again fixed on me, keen
and glittering.
"So! So!" he mused at length, when I had finished, "England has started
a land party for Oregon! Can they get across next fall, think you?"
"Hardly possible, sir," said I. "They could not go so swiftly as the
special fur packets. Winter would catch them this side of the Rockies.
It will be a year before they can reach Oregon."
"Time for a new president and a new policy," mused he.
"The grass is just beginning to sprout on the plains, Mr. Calhoun," I
began eagerly.
"Yes," he nodded. "God! if I were only young!"
"I am young, Mr. Calhoun," said I. "Send _me!_"
"Would you go?" he asked suddenly.
"I was going in any case."
"Why, how do you mean?" he demanded.
I felt the blood come to my face. "'Tis all over between Miss Elisabeth
Churchill and myself," said I, as calmly as I might.
"Tut! tut! a child's quarrel," he went on, "a child's quarrel! `Twill
all mend in time."
"Not by act of mine, then," said I hotly.
Again abstracted, he seemed not wholly to hear me.
"First," he mused, "the more important things"--riding over my personal
affairs as of little consequence.
"I will tell you, Nicholas," said he at last, wheeling swiftly upon me.
"Start next week! An army of settlers waits now for a leader along the
Missouri. Organize them; lead them out! Give them enthusiasm! Tell them
what Oregon is! You may serve alike our party and our nation. You can
not measure the consequences of prompt action sometimes, done by a man
who is resolved upon the right. A thousand things may hinge on this. A
great future may hinge upon it."
It was only later that I was to know the extreme closeness of his
prophecy.
Calhoun began to pace up and down. "Besides her land forces," he
resumed, "England is despatching a fleet to the Columbia! I doubt not
that the _Modesté_ has cleared for the Horn. There may be news waiting
for you, my son, when you get across!
"While you have been busy, I have not been idle," he continued. "I have
here another little paper which I have roughly drafted." He handed me
the document as he spoke.
"A treaty--with Texas!" I exclaimed.
"The first draft, yes. We have signed the memorandum. We await only one
other signature."
"Of Van Zandt!"
"Yes. Now comes Mr. Nicholas Trist, with word of a certain woman to the
effect that Mr. Van Zandt is playing also with England."
"And that woman also is playing with England."
Calhoun smiled enigmatically.
"But she has gone," said I, "who knows where? She, too, may have sailed
for Oregon, for all we know."
He looked at me as though with a flash of inspiration. "That may be,"
said he; "it may very well be! That would cost us our hold over
Pakenham. Neither would we have any chance left with her."
"How do you mean, Mr. Calhoun?" said I. "I do not understand you."
"Nicholas," said Mr. Calhoun, "that lady was much impressed with you."
He regarded me calmly, contemplatively, appraisingly.
"I do not understand you," I reiterated.
"I am glad that you do not and did not. In that case, all would have
been over at once. You would never have seen her a second time. Your
constancy was our salvation, and perhaps your own!"
He smiled in a way I liked none too well, but now I began myself to
engage in certain reflections. Was it then true that faith could
purchase faith--and win not failure, but success?
"At least she has flown," went on Calhoun. "But why? What made her go?
'Tis all over now, unless, unless--unless--" he added to himself a third
time.
"But unless what?"
"Unless that chance word may have had some weight. You say that you and
she talked of _principles?_"
"Yes, we went so far into abstractions."
"So did I with her! I told her about this country; explained to her as I
could the beauties of the idea of a popular government. 'Twas as a
revelation to her. She had never known a republican government before,
student as she is. Nicholas, your long legs and my long head may have
done some work after all! How did she seem to part with you?"
"As though she hated me; as though she hated herself and all the world.
Yet not quite that, either. As though she would have wept--that is the
truth. I do not pretend to understand her. She is a puzzle such as I
have never known."
"Nor are you apt to know another her like. Look, here she is, the paid
spy, the secret agent, of England. Additionally, she is intimately
concerned with the private life of Mr. Pakenham. For the love of
adventure, she is engaged in intrigue also with Mexico. Not content with
that, born adventuress, eager devourer of any hazardous and interesting
intellectual offering, any puzzle, any study, any intrigue--she comes at
midnight to talk with me, whom she knows to be the representative of yet
a third power!"
"And finds you in your red nightcap!" I laughed.
"Did she speak of that?" asked Mr. Calhoun in consternation, raising a
hand to his head. "It may be that I forgot--but none the less, she came!
"Yes, as I said, she came, by virtue of your long legs and your ready
way, as I must admit; and you were saved from her only, as I
believe--Why, God bless Elisabeth Churchill, my boy, that is all! But my
faith, how nicely it all begins to work out!"
"I do not share your enthusiasm, Mr. Calhoun," said I bitterly. "On the
contrary, it seems to me to work out in as bad a fashion as could
possibly be contrived."
"In due time you will see many things more plainly. Meantime, be sure
England will be careful. She will make no overt movement, I should say,
until she has heard from Oregon; which will not be before my lady
baroness shall have returned and reported to Mr. Pakenham here. All of
which means more time for us."
I began to see something of the structure of bold enterprise which this
man deliberately was planning; but no comment offered itself; so that
presently, he went on, as though in soliloquy.
"The Hudson Bay Company have deceived England splendidly enough. Doctor
McLaughlin, good man that he is, has not suited the Hudson Bay Company.
His removal means less courtesy to our settlers in Oregon. Granted a
less tactful leader than himself, there will be friction with our
high-strung frontiersmen in that country. No man can tell when the thing
will come to an issue. For my own part, I would agree with Polk that we
ought to own that country to fifty-four forty--but what we _ought_ to do
and what we can do are two separate matters. Should we force the issue
now and lose, we would lose for a hundred years. Should we advance
firmly and hold firmly what we gain, in perhaps less than one hundred
years we may win _all_ of that country, as I just said to Mr. Polk, to
the River Saskatchewan--I know not where! In my own soul, I believe no
man may set a limit to the growth of the idea of an honest government by
the people. _And this continent is meant for that honest government!_"
"We have already a Monroe Doctrine, Mr. Calhoun," said I. "What you
enunciate now is yet more startling. Shall we call it the Calhoun
Doctrine?"
He made no answer, but arose and paced up and down, stroking the thin
fringe of beard under his chin. Still he seemed to talk with himself.
"We are not rich," he went on. "Our canals and railways are young. The
trail across our country is of monstrous difficulty. Give us but a few
years more and Oregon, ripe as a plum, would drop in our lap. To hinder
that is a crime. What Polk proposes is insincerity, and all insincerity
must fail. There is but one result when pretense is pitted against
preparedness. Ah, if ever we needed wisdom and self-restraint, we need
them now! Yet look at what we face! Look at what we may lose! And that
through party--through platform--through _politics_!"
He sighed as he paused in his walk and turned to me. "But now, as I
said, we have at least time for Texas. And in regard to Texas we need
another woman."
I stared at him.
"You come now to me with proof that my lady baroness traffics with
Mexico as well as England," he resumed. "That is to say, Yturrio meets
my lady baroness. What is the inference? At least, jealousy on the part
of Yturrio's wife, whether or not she cares for him! Now, jealousy
between the sexes is a deadly weapon if well handled. Repugnant as it
is, we must handle it."
I experienced no great enthusiasm at the trend of events, and Mr.
Calhoun smiled at me cynically as he went on. "I see you don't care for
this sort of commission. At least, this is no midnight interview. You
shall call in broad daylight on the Señora Yturrio. If you and my
daughter will take my coach and four to-morrow, I think she will gladly
receive your cards. Perhaps also she will consent to take the air of
Washington with you. In that case, she might drop in here for an ice. In
such case, to conclude, I may perhaps be favored with an interview with
that lady. I must have Van Zandt's signature to this treaty which you
see here!"
"But these are Mexicans, and Van Zandt is leader of the Texans, their
most bitter enemies!"
"Precisely. All the less reason why Señora Yturrio should be suspected."
"I am not sure that I grasp all this, Mr. Calhoun."
"Perhaps not You presently will know more. What seems to me plain is
that, since we seem to lose a valuable ally in the Baroness von Ritz, we
must make some offset to that loss. If England has one woman on the
Columbia, we must have another on the Rio Grande!"