by John Jakes
“Yesterday I went to the store for some licorice. I heard a boy telling about two bullies who attacked him the other day.”
“Did you know the boy?”
Brett shook her head.
“What did he look like?”
“He had yellow hair. Pale, almost white. There was a dirty bandage on the back of his neck.” She touched the approximate position at which Charles had sunk the hook into Towhead.
“Go on.”
“I stood looking at the candy jars till he finished his story. He said the bullies were summer people. When he described them, I decided he was talking about you and Charles.”
Billy glanced past her. Ashton was still resting, paying no attention. Damn.
“You must be mistaken, Brett.”
“For heaven’s sake, don’t bite my head off! It was you, all right.” She stared at him in an earnest way. It annoyed him and made him uneasy. “You’ll get hurt if you hang around Cousin Charles,” she went on. “I know he’s handsome and fun, but he’s too fond of fighting. He’s a bad influence.”
Billy scowled. “Are you always so damn free with your opinions?”
“You shouldn’t swear, either.”
He jumped up and kicked the castle apart. “If I want your advice, I’ll ask. Meantime, don’t say anything bad about Charles. He’s my friend.”
Bewildered, she watched him storm away, kicking more sand. “I was only trying to help you. I just wanted to tell you honestly—”
The sentence died unfinished. She twisted her pigtail so hard it hurt. Billy misunderstood her every word and action. He didn’t realize her pursuit of him was adoration, her warnings expressions of concern. Just like all other boys, he was unable to deal with a girl who spoke her true mind.
Oh, she knew she was often too tart with him, but that was the result of being nervous. Of feeling a longing and lacking the experience to express it. Why couldn’t he look beyond the words and into her eyes, her soul? Discover what it was that she thought about every moment of the day and wept over every night? Why couldn’t he see?
She watched him slow down as he approached the big striped parasol. She knew the answer to all her desperate questions. Billy couldn’t see her because of Ashton.
Ashton was expert at handling any boy. She dimpled and lowered her lashes in that coy way of hers, and the boy melted. She always agreed with the boy’s opinion, and if she truly wanted something from him, she got it so sweetly and skillfully he never suspected he had been manipulated.
She had one other, immense advantage. She was older, already a woman.
Angry at Billy, but more angry at herself, Brett spun and marched up the beach in the other direction. She raised a palm and pressed it against her hatefully flat bosom. She pressed hard, until there was pain.
Oh, Billy, Billy, she thought. You’ll never see what I really am. Or how much I love you.
Ashton had awakened while Billy was still talking to her sister. She knew Brett worshiped Billy, but she had never seen the younger girl speak to him so directly or with such obvious emotion. Even from a distance, the imploring look on Brett’s face was evident.
Hopeless little ninny, Ashton thought. Brett had no idea of the meaning of the word love. Ashton did, three times over. But on none of those occasions had her lover been that slug Huntoon.
The first time had been terrifying, the second less so. Neither time had she derived any physical satisfaction from her partner, a young man from the Smith family who was about her own age and plainly inexperienced. Not that experience mattered; her fright coupled with her curiosity kept her tense and unresponsive.
She felt sure her failure to feel anything was the boy’s fault. She had heard whispered remarks from girls in her set who were just a bit older, and every such remark hinted at the intense delight of lovemaking. The third time proved the other girls were right; the experience was a revelation.
It had happened one dark, wet day in Charleston. Just as twilight was settling and a thundershower ending, Ashton had slipped off by herself. The streets were virtually deserted.
The man she chanced to encounter was a sailor, rough-spoken and a good fifteen years older. They walked awhile. Then, with great anticipation, yet great trepidation too, she agreed to accompany him to a dingy riverfront inn. She was mindful that she could still be recognized—undone—at any moment. Yet she was so overcome with wicked excitement that turning back was out of the question.
A block from the inn, the rain began again, soaking her bonnet. She stopped to remove it and examine her reflection in the window of a seamy shop.
The merchandise displayed in the window was junk, even including the plated locket and chain on which her eye fell. The sailor was impatient, and in an instant she decided to test the level of that impatience. She indicated the locket and chain, and with sweet, circuitous language made clear that the trinkets were the price of her favors. The sailor shot into the shop with scarcely a hesitation. Thus Ashton discovered the power of the sexual appetite to motivate a man.
Having learned such a valuable lesson, it was then an added pleasure to disrobe for the sailor in his sordid rented room and to find herself hardly frightened at all but rather damp and trembling with expectancy as he undid his trousers and showed his machine. It was immense; a spasm shook her at the sight of it. Before long, alternately groaning and blaspheming, she was stunned by a succession of spasms, each more violent than the one before.
No one had adequately prepared her for such pleasure. Not only was this act of great practical use, it was something to be enjoyed—voraciously. The two lessons together were almost more than she could bear. She soon threw the locket and chain away, but she was happy for days.
Because of this background of experience, Ashton pitied her skinny, naive little sister. Yet now she suddenly found herself jealous of Brett, too. Ashton didn’t care a fig for Billy Hazard. But she expected every young man who met her to worship her and no one else. Even though she didn’t consider Brett a serious rival, rivalry of any kind had already become unacceptable to her; rivalry from her sister was unthinkable. So when Billy came tramping back up the shore, kicking sand every which way, Ashton was alert and smiling her sweetest smile.
She called his name and waved. In seconds he was on his knees beside her. “I thought you were resting,” he said.
“Resting for very long is boring. We’ve had so little chance to become acquainted. Won’t you sit and chat?”
“Yes. Surely. Of course!”
His pliability amused her. But he was rather good-looking, in a burly, bullish way. Perhaps she would do more than just keep him away from Brett.
A week later, on the skiff, Charles said to Billy, “Noticed you strolling with cousin Ashton again last night. Saw you heading down Beach Road. Can’t imagine what you find so fascinating there—unless it’s an absence of human habitation.”
Billy laughed. “Habitation. That’s a real five-dollar word.”
Charles leaned over the transom and drifted a hand in the water. “Last year I’d never even heard of it. But you can’t be an ignoramus and attend the Academy.” He grinned. “You surely did a smooth job of changing the subject. Tell you one thing about Ashton. I never thought she’d take a fancy to a Yankee.”
They came about as lightning forked in the belly of some thunderclouds far out at sea. The chance remark about Yankees led them into a conversation about the issues their elders discussed frequently. The start of the exchange was friendly enough, but both boys were soon speaking with the intensity typical of their age.
“The thing is,” Charles said, “the rights of a state are supreme.”
“Over those of the Union?”
“Absolutely. The Union was created by the consent of the separate states. Any state can withdraw that consent whenever it wishes.”
“No, Charles, it’s a legal contract. And unless there’s a specific part of the contract—”
“Clause.”
“All r
ight, clause. Unless there’s a clause that describes a method for voiding the contract—”
“Now who’s using fancy words?”
“Let me finish,” Billy said, with a scowl. “A contract can’t be broken legally unless the contract provides for it. In the case of the Union, it doesn’t.”
“You sound like a regular Philadelphia lawyer. We’re not talking about an agreement between a couple of peddlers. It’s a compact between government and the governed. It’s altogether different. I maintain that any state has the right to withdraw at any time.”
The sail began to flap. As Billy corrected their course, he growled, “That would lead to chaos.”
“No, sir—just to an end of a Union grown tyrannical. There’s another dandy word for your collection.”
He fairly spat the remark into the wind; Billy couldn’t recall seeing his friend so tense or humorless. He tried to lighten things by smiling and saying:
“George told me that you Southerners love argument. He’s surely right.”
“It’s liberty Southerners love,” Charles retorted. “And they love it too much to see it whittled away to nothing.”
Offshore, thunder resounded like cannon fire. Billy’s lips compressed and lost color. Charles’s taunt had abruptly made him angry.
“You’re speaking of the liberty of white men, of course.”
Billy knew he had overstepped. Yet he was damned if he’d back off. Charles glared and started to reply. Then he noticed white combers beginning to break about a mile off their bow. While they argued, the dark clouds had blown in on a rising nor’east wind.
“Storm coming,” Charles muttered. “We’d better head for shore.”
“I agree.”
They were curt with each other the rest of the day. Neither apologized, but neither continued the unresolved argument. They simply let it fade as it would. Gradually, good feelings returned. But in those moments when Billy’s mind was free of visions of Ashton, he recalled the scene and was amazed at how close he and Charles had come to shouting at one another. A couple of years ago he had laughed whenever members of his family got into windy disputes about national issues. Now he found himself pondering the same issues and taking sides.
But he’d better not do it if he meant to keep Charles as a friend. From then on he carefully refrained from making any remark that might spark controversy. Charles showed a similar restraint.
Still, a definite change had taken place in their relationship. They had both become aware of a force that could destroy their new-found friendship, and although they pretended to forget it, they couldn’t. It was always there, threatening, like that distant storm the afternoon they had quarreled.
Ashton led him behind a rock that perched on the shore like a seven-foot brown egg. She leaned back against the rock, safely sheltered from accidental observation. Billy squeezed his legs together and hoped she didn’t notice the reason.
The sea rolled gray under a gray afternoon sky. Gulls shrilled and dove for fish. The day was tinged with the melancholy of summer’s end.
“I hate the thought of leaving tomorrow,” she said.
Billy braced his palms on the rock on either side of her head, as if to hold her there forever. Cool air raised bumps on his bare arms. “I’ll write once a week,” he promised.
“Oh, that’s wonderful.”
“Will you write me?”
Her red mouth glistened as she smiled. Her brows puckered slightly. “I’ll surely try. But I’ll be fearfully busy this fall.”
How skillfully she did that. Gave something, yet withheld something too. She withheld just enough to keep him from feeling satisfied or comfortable. She did it with little things, and with her whole self as well. Sometimes he hated her for it. Then he gazed into her dark eyes and didn’t care about anything except possessing her, on whatever terms she demanded.
“Will you be back here next summer?” he asked.
“I hope so. This has been so delightful.”
His face fell. “Is that all—delightful?”
She gazed past his bare wrist to the ocean. “It would be forward of me to say more. Perhaps you wouldn’t think me too unladylike if I showed you how I feel.”
She rose on her toes and kissed him on the mouth. Then her tongue squirmed between his lips. Billy’s mind reeled. He had only heard about girls who kissed that way.
He groped for her waist and dragged her against him so she’d feel him through her layers of clothing. She did, and uttered a soft little moan. A moan of pleasure, he thought.
How experienced was she? Partly to find out—but only partly—he slid his hand upward from her waist. The moment he touched her breast, she broke the embrace. She dashed down to the water, laughing and patting her hair.
He chased her, fearful that he had made her angry. But that wasn’t the case.
“Billy,” she gasped, her eyes on the sea, “we mustn’t do that sort of thing. You have a power to make me forget what’s proper.”
He was flattered but confused. He didn’t believe her. She knew exactly what she was doing; she always knew. It was part of the terrifying fascination she held for him. The disbelief didn’t trouble him long, though. He was too caught up in the memory of their embrace.
So was Ashton; annoyingly so. She had manipulated Billy until the moment they embraced. Then he had crushed against her and utterly destroyed her control. For a moment or two she had actually felt she was falling in love. It must never happen. She, and not the man, always had to be the one in charge.
She seemed powerless to translate the warning into action. As they started home, she twined her fingers with his and pressed his hand against her skirt. She leaned her head to the side so that her temple touched his shoulder. Then she started murmuring like a lovesick fool:
“I’ll insist that Orry bring us back next summer. I do so want to see you again, my dear. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything more.”
26
COOPER WENT TO THE pier to welcome the family home. He planned to extend Judith’s invitation to a family reunion at the Tradd Street house as soon as they’d recovered from traveling. He was in a fine mood. The unexpected arrival of James Huntoon spoiled it.
With the young lawyer was a tall, princely black man of about thirty. Cooper recognized him as one of the few slaves still owned by the Huntoon family. His name was Grady. He was a second-generation Ibo whose father had been brought illegally from Benin around 1810, two years after Congress outlawed the importation of blacks. Very likely Grady’s father had arrived via Havana and some deserted cove on the Florida coast. Even today Cooper heard occasional rumors of a secret slave trade operating along that route.
Ibos had never been popular as slaves because of a marked tendency to run away. The Huntoons had ensured that if Grady ever chose to run, he could be identified easily. Long ago, his four upper front teeth had been pulled. It was a common means of marking human property.
Grady gave Cooper a polite greeting, much more polite than Huntoon’s. “I brought Grady to help with your sister’s luggage,” the lawyer explained. He gestured at some poorly dressed black men nearby. “Those nigger porters are worthless. I’ve seen them deliberately drop a valise because they know the owner is white but powerless to punish a freed man.”
Cooper held his tongue. What in the world did Ashton see in this fool?
Some problem held the incoming steamer offshore an extra thirty minutes. Huntoon began damning the compromise bills. Cooper didn’t want to debate, but the lawyer annoyed him so badly he was soon in the thick of it. They argued over a state’s right to secede, an argument being heard all over the country these days.
Neither man won. The only result was bad feeling on both sides. Huntoon wished that he had the physical strength—and the courage—to give Cooper the thrashing he deserved. But the lawyer’s only combative skills were verbal, and he knew it. He had to be content with getting in the last word.
“It’s no wonder you don’t
have a friend left in the ruling class of this state.”
The steamer warped to the pier. From the rail Clarissa and Brett called down and waved.
Cooper lifted an eyebrow and said to Huntoon, “Do we have a ruling class in South Carolina? I was under the impression that we did away with that sort of thing in the Revolution. What’s the next idea that will experience a rebirth? The divine right of plantation owners?”
His cool sarcasm enraged the lawyer. But Cooper got an unexpected comeuppance, with his entire family watching.
As he walked toward the gangway that Negro stevedores were lifting into place, he spied a familiar figure approaching on the crowded pier: Huntoon’s relative, Robert Rhett of the Mercury. With him was a visitor who had been pointed out to Cooper on the street yesterday, a Georgia politician named Bob Toombs—another strong defender of Southern rights.
Toombs and Rhett strolled arm in arm. When they saw Cooper, their smiles disappeared. Cooper said hello. Neither man replied. They swept by and went straight to Huntoon, shook his hand, and greeted him loudly so that Cooper would be sure to hear.
Ashton watched Rhett and the other man cut her brother. She had been dreading the return to Charleston because it meant Huntoon would be pestering her again. Sure enough, there he was, the poor slug. He had even brought his handsome nigger with the missing teeth.
How soft Huntoon looked in comparison to Billy Hazard. How weak, with the sunlight flashing on his spectacles. And yet, she couldn’t fail to be impressed by the warm greeting Rhett gave the young lawyer.
Her father pointed to Rhett’s companion. “That’s Bob Toombs of Georgia.” He sounded impressed. She must find out about the stranger. Lately she had begun to ponder the significance of being a Main from South Carolina. The significance of being wealthy, prominent—powerful, and a friend of the powerful. The distinction became clearer and more important when she saw what it was like to be devoid of power and dismissed because of it, as her own brother had been dismissed a moment ago.
Power had always been the key to Ashton’s relationship with Brett. Ashton knew very well that she had a deep, only partially understood need to be the person in charge. Now, abruptly, she saw her need in relation to the wider world. There, too, she wanted to be the one who gave the orders, and she wanted to be recognized as such.