Probable Claws

18

March 18, 1787

Sunday

The glow of the fire behind her snatched some years from Maureen Selisse Holloway’s face. Very feminine, narrow nose, full lips, blond hair maintained with a secret remedy, she proved attractive. In her youth she exuded a potent allure. Two sumptuous perfect breasts added to this, as well as a very sizable inheritance. Now perhaps fifteen pounds heavier, in her early forties, she remained attractive but no longer devastating. She vowed to regain her girlish figure but those French sauces, the piecrusts so light they might fly away, and the fine wine. Too much temptation.

Sitting across from her in her petite parlor as she called it, was Catherine. Unlike Maureen, she didn’t much care about looks or allure. Yes, she wore beautiful clothes because her sister and Bumbee worked her over. No one would describe Catherine as warm, friendly but not especially warm, whereas Rachel was so warm she drew people like a magnet. In ways, Catherine frightened people. She was too beautiful, too logical, too in possession of her emotions. She loved the horses, loved commerce. People she endured. Working with her father opened the world to her.

Maureen, shrewd, silver quick with money, appreciated Catherine’s qualities although she wished the younger woman was less beautiful.

“Have you ever attended mass?” Maureen asked as a well-dressed young servant poured tea.

“Yes. Mother took me once when we visited Philadelphia. Very dramatic, colorful, magical for a child.”

“Your mother must have been a woman of wide interests.”

“She had such curiosity about the world. She’d whisper to me that an Anglican was just a Catholic with an English accent.”

Maureen laughed. “There’s truth to that. Of course with Mother being Irish and Father Spanish not only did I go to mass, I was schooled by nuns. Oh, they were so strict.” She shook her head. “Much of the Caribbean is Catholic, most of the New World is except for America and Canada.”

“This room shines. You have a touch.”

Maureen beamed. “Color, fabrics, furnishings. Mother trained me to look for proportion, color, harmony. She would say, ‘Fashion is one thing but be cautious. You don’t want to look like everyone else!’ ”

“Indeed.” Catherine liked that thought.

“Did you, John, and Ewing go to church this morning?”

“Roads were treacherous but we managed. Father says it makes him feel close to Mother.” Catherine nibbled a tiny meat pie. “Wonderful.”

“High praise from a woman who has the best cook in Virginia. Bettina is a treasure.” She paused. “A treasure with many opinions.”

They both laughed for Bettina was not shy, but she was smart enough to keep much to herself. Then again, people expected an outgoing cook.

“Do you know, driving over here, I realized you and I have never been alone to chat,” Catherine remarked. “I have always been curious as to your farsightedness concerning things like the foundry down by the James, your surprising and successful importation of French fabrics, even some Italian ones.”

“Father entertained ships’ captains. He would pose questions to the Englishman, the Frenchman, the Spaniard, his countrymen. He would inquire about where the aristocrats were putting their money. This provoked a laugh because have you ever met an aristocrat or a royal who could turn a profit? But of course their managers must or they would get the sack. And my father was trusted by these captains to handle their money. I listened. I was usually in the next room pretending to embroider with the governess, after they would leave, I asked my father questions.”

“Seems we both learned from intelligent men. Quietly, of course.”

Maureen nodded. “It would never do for a woman to discuss business but I learned how to work through Francisco.” She inhaled. “That could be a chore. My late husband thought he knew everything.” She lifted a bit of crust with her fork. “My current angel has no head for business. I tell him what to do and he readily does it. I must add that he does understand timber whereas I, from the islands, am weak in that crop, if you will. He is a sweet man, Jeffrey.”

“And so handsome. The two of you together make a fine pair,” Catherine complimented her, and it wasn’t an outright lie.

“You are too kind.” She changed the subject. “What do you and your father hear from France?”

Catherine knew Maureen had her own sources as they both did business with the French. Maureen was double-checking.

“Great uncertainty. The foreign minister, de Vergennes, has died. Those with whom we trade are beginning to ask for us to extend their terms. And my father’s friend from his Grand Tour, Baron Necker, writes that Calonne, all bombast and twaddle, his exact words, can’t settle the crown’s debts.”

Maureen stared at Catherine, her hazel eyes bright. “No one can, my dear. Not even Crassus could solve their problems.”

She named the richest man in Rome during the time of Julius Caesar.

“Ah, so you, too, have heard.”

“My father did brisk business with bankers in Paris and I have kept many of them as friends. Mostly through their wives, of course, but one does learn, one does learn. This king is unkingly. Now, Louis XV was every inch a king.”

“So I have heard.”

“Mother and Father took me to Paris as a young girl, just on the cusp, so to speak, and I saw the king. Impressive, as were his mistresses.” She lifted an eyebrow. “No wonder the treasury is low.” She couldn’t help but laugh.

“We may well have to endure losses, but strange to say, Yancy Grant wants to create horse races down on The Levels with large purses. He mentioned in passing to Father that we had best find other sources of income.”

“Did he now?” Maureen loathed Yancy, who insulted her husband and wound up in a duel with him.

“You have suffered from his drunken rage.” Catherine meant that. “But he may have come up with something worth examining, which is looking to ourselves as opposed to Europe.”

Maureen, turning this over in her mind, nodded but said nothing.

They ate in silence until Catherine said, “You know that Bettina and DoRe are courting.”

“Yes.”

“We shall have to hope for the best.”

Noncommital, Maureen shrugged. “We’ll see. I have endured enough uproar on this estate from slaves.” As Catherine said nothing, she continued. “But I will bear in mind what you have said about not looking toward France or England.”

“Well, I think you have the answer right here.”

“I do?”

“Look at the beautiful coach Jeffrey built. He borrowed ours, reproduced it, and made one even better.”

Maureen’s eyebrows shot upward. “Yes, he did.”

“To find a good coach one must go to Philadelphia or import one from England or from the Continent. Much too expensive and now unreliable. If you can keep a foundry going, this ought to be easy.”

Maureen, shorn of sentiment, knew better than to ask “What’s in it for you?” but she circumnavigated the direct questions. “However did you come up with this idea, which I must think about?”

Catherine smiled. “We are both women who understand profit, one must grow. And I think Yancy is right. What beautiful horses will pull your coaches, phaetons, gigs?”

“Ah.”

“A thought.”

Catherine left knowing she’d put a tantalizing idea in front of Maureen. She could breed coach horses. They wouldn’t be in business together. Catherine couldn’t abide that, but one would bolster the other.

As she was helped into the coach by Barker O., who had stayed in the stables with King David and Solomon, the elegant coach horses, she smiled at DoRe.

Barker O. and DoRe, while competitive, had great respect for each other. Discussing horses, training methods, enlivened them.

William, a young man Jeddie’s age, nineteen, quietly listened. It wouldn’t do to interrupt one’s elders.

As Barker O. drove the coach away, William said to DoRe, “Is it true she memorizes bloodlines?”

“She knows them back to the old king, Charles II: He had a mare, Creme Cheeks.”

Still watching the coach, putting his hands in his pockets, William looked from the coach to the formidable DoRe.

“A man good with horses can go anywhere in the world.”

DoRe stepped back into the barn, William behind him. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

“You go everywhere.” William’s lower lip jutted out.

“I drive the Master and Missus. I see things.” He shrugged.

“I want to ride. I want to make money. I hear they race all the time in England and France and jockeys grow rich.”

“You think the Missus will send you to France? She won’t even send you to Richmond or Williamsburg. She cares nothing about racing. Best you keep your thoughts to yourself.”

“Your son got away from here.”

DoRe rounded on William. “My son was falsely accused of murder. If he hadn’t run, that bitch”—he couldn’t help it, he used that word—“would have seen him hang.”

DoRe, circumspect, was grateful no one else was in the barn. Maureen set her people against one another spying. Someone might have tattled on him, receiving money or preference. Trust was in short supply on Big Rawly.

Defiant, reckless, William glared. “I’ll be free even if I have to kill someone.”

“Don’t be a fool, William. Don’t ever say that again. You know she has eyes and ears everywhere.”

“I’ll get away and you’ll watch me.”

With that William returned to the tack room to clean a bridle.

DoRe shook his head. The young, he thought to himself, as he also thought best to keep his distance from a hothead.

Rocking in the coach, feet on a brazier, wrapped in a fur blanket, Catherine felt a tingle of excitement. Risk pushed her on, provoked her to do better. Not a fearful person, she’d try new things. And she wanted to make money, pots of it.

She hoped France would pull things together, honor debts. Then again, she hoped other states would honor debts.

If one couldn’t make a profit, if one couldn’t get credit, commerce would be strangled. Catherine rarely wished to be a man, but when it came to business, she felt she knew more than many of the men she had observed. And she knew she could never let them know that. She would fight the anger rising in her throat by realizing how easy they were to influence. Maybe it evened out. Who was to say?

But she wanted to win and win big.