by John Jakes
Forbes flexed his bruised right hand, then adjusted his cravat. Behind him stood a slender, sallow young man wearing elegant clothes. He had let Forbes do most of the fighting.
Using his elbows, the Georgian attempted to rise. Forbes had knocked out three of his teeth. Blood and saliva coated his lips and chin. Gently Forbes lowered the sole of his shoe onto the man’s head, then pushed. The man’s face buried in the sand again.
Forbes reached inside his coat for a slim silver flask. He shook it. Half full. He uncorked it, put his head back, and gulped the rest. He tucked the flask into a roomy side pocket and glowered at the fourth man in the alley—another well-dressed Georgian who hunched against the wall of a shed, obviously frightened. The man had watched while Forbes kicked and pounded his companion into unconsciousness.
“Now, sir,” Forbes said in a slurred voice. “Shall we resume the discussion that necessitated this little disciplinary action? Let’s see. When Mr. Smith and I ran into you and your fellow visitor on the Battery, you were loudly criticizing those of us who reside in Charleston. You said we presumed to speak for all the South.”
The sallow young man, Preston Smith, stepped forward. “Presumed arrogantly. Those were his exact words.”
Forbes blinked. “I remember.”
Preston Smith’s malicious eyes flicked to the terrified Georgian. Preston enjoyed a good muss, especially when others did the fighting. He hoped he could keep this one going.
“He also said we act as if being born in South Carolina confers a patent of nobility.”
“Patent of nobility,” Forbes repeated with a bleary nod. “That was the remark that riled me the worst.” With the toe of his boot he nudged the fallen man. “I should say we proved there’s something to it. You two gentlemen met your betters today.”
Preston snickered. “I’m not sure he believes you, old friend.”
Forbes gave an exaggerated sigh. “Why, no, I don’t believe he does. We shall just have to impress the lesson upon him too.”
He stepped over the fallen man and moved toward the other Georgian, who would have melted into the shed wall if that had been possible. The man glanced one way, then the other, and, just as Forbes reached for him, bolted.
At the sight of the man’s flying coattails, Preston burst out laughing. “You’d better not stop till you get to Savannah, you ignorant cracker.”
“Tell them your friend is missing in action,” Forbes shouted.
The running Georgian cast one wild look backward, then disappeared. Forbes laughed so hard, tears came to his eyes.
Preston fastidiously dusted his knees and sleeves with his kerchief. “Damn me, I hate all these tourists,” he declared as Forbes picked up his hat. The friends started down the alley in the other direction. “They think they can come here and say whatever they please.”
“It’s our duty to teach ’em otherwise. Blasted dry work, though. Join me in another drink?”
“But Forbes, it’s barely two in the afternoon.”
Forbes didn’t like the implication of the remark. “What the hell does that mean?”
Preston withheld his answer. How could he tell his friend that he was imbibing too heavily? Of late, Forbes did almost nothing but celebrate South Carolina’s independence in various barrooms around town. And drinking did little to improve Forbes’s disposition. When he lacked a target such as the two Georgians, he sometimes turned on his friends. Preston saw the warning signals that this might be about to happen again and hastily invented an excuse.
“Why, it only means I’d be glad to but I can’t—I’m supposed to be at Doll Fancher’s salon at two. Come, let’s find your carriage again. Then I’ll go on.”
“Don’t need the carriage,” Forbes snarled. “All I want is another drink.”
The two walked on in silence while the rain clouds muttered and darkened above them. When Preston inadvertently stumbled and bumped his friend, Forbes pushed him away, hard.
Their route took them from the alley to Gibbes Street, then down Legare to the Battery, where they came upon a company of elderly men drilling with equally ancient muskets.
The home guard had been visible in Charleston for several weeks. It was an unofficial police force designed to intimidate the slaves and keep them docile in the event all young and able-bodied men were suddenly called to military service. Preston hailed one of the guardsmen, a gray-bearded relative of his, Uncle Nab Smith.
Forbes felt raindrops on his forehead. The first splashes quickly became a drizzle. The rain hid the dark hulk of Sumter out in the harbor.
Forbes’s carriage and driver were waiting by the seawall. Preston helped his friend inside. Attempting to negotiate the small step, Forbes fell twice. Once he was seated on the wine-colored plush upholstery, he crooked a finger at Preston.
“Climb in and I’ll drop you at Doll Fancher’s.”
“No, thank you, it’s only a block. I’ll be there by the time your boy turns this rig around.”
Forbes’s smile grew stiff. “Goddamn it, Preston, I said get in and—”
“I’ll see you in a day or two,” Preston interrupted, knowing better than to linger. In such a mood Forbes had once broken a seaman’s back in a brawl in a waterfront saloon. Although Preston had provoked that particular altercation with several sarcastic remarks, he had been horrified by his friend’s capacity for violence.
Preston left quickly. Forbes leaned back against the cushions as the rain intensified. He struggled to remember the date. Oh, yes. March third. Tomorrow in Washington that damned ape would be inaugurated.
“Where you want to go, Mist’ LaMotte?” the driver called.
“I don’t know. Drive up Meeting and I’ll decide.”
He was weary and bored. That was why he drank so heavily and started fights with tourists. His occasional assignations with Ashton no longer provided much satisfaction. Various local artillery units, eager to add the prestige of the LaMotte name to their roster, were begging him to accept a commission, but he had no interest in the offers. He hated discipline.
He was sufficiently lucid to realize that a peculiar simmering rage was loose within him. He knew his acquaintances recognized that fact. Even Preston, a vicious fighter when the odds were safely in his favor, stayed away from him a good part of the time. Clinging to the hand strap of the swaying carriage, Forbes wondered why he felt so angry and why brawling did little to relieve that anger.
Staring into the rain, he was driven to confront the answer. The one woman he had desired most had rejected him. He had never stopped hating Brett Main for favoring someone else. Paradoxically, he had never stopped wanting her, either.
He sat up suddenly, releasing the strap. Was the hurrying figure real or a figment of his imagination?
No, he wasn’t that drunk. He thumped the roof and shouted over the chatter of the rain. “James, pull to the side.” Then he leaned out the window and waved.
“Brett? Brett, over here!”
The moment she heard the voice, she recognized it. She turned to see Forbes stumble down from the carriage. He swept off his hat.
“Please permit me to drive you wherever you’re going. A lady shouldn’t walk in this weather.”
That was obvious. But when setting out for the home of a seamstress several blocks away, Brett had assumed she could reach her destination before the shower started. Now the shower had become a downpour. She was getting soaked.
Surely it couldn’t hurt to accept his assistance; he was, after all, a gentleman. Impulsively, she closed her dripping parasol and stepped toward the carriage.
She sank onto the plush cushions with a grateful sigh. Forbes closed the door behind her, took a seat opposite, and relayed the address of the seamstress to the Negro driver. The carriage lurched forward.
Forbes settled his hat on his knees. His smile had a sullen, almost angry quality, she realized with a sudden tight feeling in her stomach. His eyes were glassy. She began to regret her decision.
“
Haven’t seen you for an age, Brett. You look fetching, as always.”
“You look fine yourself, Forbes.” The words came with difficulty.
He pinched his waistcoat between thumb and forefinger. “Putting on weight, I’m afraid. I reckon that’s what comes of spending so many hours in barrooms. Don’t have much else to do. Nor much to think of besides you.”
“Really, Forbes”—her laugh was uncomfortable, nervous—“we settled that a long time ago.”
She glanced out the window on her side. They had gone only a block; the carriage was moving slowly. Good. She’d jump out if he grew boorish.
He watched her silently for a few seconds, his odd, sly smile heightening her tension. Abruptly, he dropped his hat on the cushion and heaved himself over next to her. The carriage springs creaked. His sudden movement somehow transmuted her fright to determination.
“I thought you were being courteous when you made your offer. Don’t disillusion me.”
“I can’t be courteous. I care for you too damn much.” He took hold of her wrist. “Brett—”
“Stop it,” she said, not in a prudish way, but firmly.
“Afraid I can’t do that, sweet.” His thumb began to stroke back and forth over the inside of her wrist, just above the ruching on her muslin glove. “I can’t keep you out of my mind five minutes, seems like. I would think you’d favor a man who cares for you that deeply.”
With her left hand she reached for the handle of the door. “I have to get out.”
He seized her shoulders, flinging her back against the wine-colored cushions. “Hell you do,” he growled as he brought his mouth down on hers, hurting her.
Through his parted lips poured the smell of his breath, rancid as the fumes from a distillery. His right hand dropped to her bodice. Pinning her with his left side, he mauled her breast and breathed against her chin and throat.
“Jesus, I love you, Brett. Always have—”
“Let go of me!”
“No, damn it.” He twisted onto his left hip, flung his right knee over her to pin her to the seat. The pressure of his fingers grew rougher. Through layers of cloth he hurt her nipple. Although she was terrified, she started to work her left hand out of the muslin glove.
“Brett, you don’t belong with that sawed-off Yankee soldier. You need a man who’s big enough in every respect to give you what a woman—”
With a shriek he jerked away. She had reached across and clawed his cheek. Three nail tracks bled.
It took him a moment to react. He touched his face, drew his hand away, and saw scarlet stains on the frilly cuff of his shirt. That sight focused his rage. Cursing, he again groped for her with both hands. She unfastened the door. It flapped open. Before she could leap out, he seized her right arm. She exclaimed softly, thinking he meant to do her injury. She leaned down, grasped her parasol from the floor, slashed at his head. Once, twice, three times—
“Mist’ Forbes, what’s wrong down there?”
The old driver guided the vehicle nearer the curb and reined to a halt. On the other side of Meeting, pedestrians gaped at the sight of a respectably dressed white woman struggling with a gentleman in his carriage. Brett was too frightened to worry about appearances. She hit Forbes again, then tore away from him and hurled herself out the door. She missed the step and sprawled in the muddy street.
“Ho, look out!” shouted a drayman, pulling his team aside at the last moment. Passing her with only inches to spare, the heavy wheels flung mud over her face and clothing.
She staggered to her feet, her hat falling off. The rain drenched her again. Forbes hung in the carriage doorway, looking like some demented goblin as he yelled:
“You goddamn bitch—”
She heard no more; she turned and ran.
Shaking, Forbes came to his senses. He realized men and women on the sidewalk were watching him. Someone mentioned his name. He flung himself back inside the carriage and jerked the door shut.
He leaned back, patted his cheek with his handkerchief. The sight of blood infuriated him all over again. He nearly punched a hole in the ceiling with his fist.
“Drive on!”
Fleeing the scene of his humiliation didn’t help. He pulled out his flask, remembered it was empty, and hurled it out the window. He hated Brett more than ever. He wished he could throttle her to death, then row out to Sumter and shoot that Yankee son of a bitch she fancied.
Gradually, the sound of the rain and the motion of the carriage soothed him a little. He thought of Ashton, clung to her name and her image like a man clinging to a life preserver.
Ashton was on his side. Ashton would help him get revenge.
That night, hundreds of miles away, Stanley Hazard and Simon Cameron attended a reception for the President-elect.
Three railroad detectives provided by Mr. Pinkerton stood guard outside the doors of the private parlor at Willard’s. Inside, cabinet members and guests mingled and talked softly. Lincoln had come down from his rooms a few minutes ago. Stanley had spoken with him. He was not impressed.
He left Lincoln cracking another joke and searched for his patron. He found Cameron in earnest conversation with Chase, the stiff, priggish secretary of the treasury. Of all the cabinet members, Chase was the most outspoken and perhaps the most unswerving on the need to free the Negroes. Stanley found the man’s idealism offensive.
At last Cameron broke away and joined Stanley at the champagne bar. The boss looked powerful and important, Stanley thought. And well he might. Exactly as he had planned, Cameron had bargained his convention votes for the post of secretary of war in the new administration.
Cameron drank a little champagne, then tapped a bulge beneath his coat. “A friend passed me a summary of the inaugural address.”
“What are the salient points?”
“About what you’d expect, given his past pronouncements.” Cameron’s voice was pitched low. His eyes kept moving, darting, to make certain no one wandered close enough to overhear. “He refuses to yield on disunion. Says it’s unconstitutional and, ultimately, impossible. He’ll continue to hold Sumter, but if there’s to be war, the Confederacy will have to initiate it. Altogether”—again his eyes shifted, watching—“an undistinguished speech from an undistinguished man, not to say an inadequate one.” Cameron murmured the last few words while bending his head to sip champagne.
Inadequate hardly described it, Stanley thought. Tomorrow General Scott would be stationing riflemen on the curbstones and rooftops along Pennsylvania Avenue, to guard against possible insurrection. A shameful beginning for what promised to be an inept administration. With a few exceptions, of course.
Cameron extended his glass for a refill. When he had it, he moved away from the bar, continuing, “But what do you think of the new President?”
Stanley glanced through the crowd to the ugly, angular profile. “A prairie buffoon. Any fellow who pokes you in the ribs and tells stories as coarse as his certainly can’t amount to much.”
“Precisely. In my opinion, that is the weakest man ever sent to the White House. But that’s to our benefit. The power will then devolve to us.” Suddenly animated, he signaled with his glass. “Seward, old friend! Just the man I want to see.”
The boss rushed away. Soon he was arm in arm with the new secretary of state, whispering to him. Stanley consumed more champagne and basked in the reflected limelight. He was happy to be here, almost deliriously so.
He would have a post in Cameron’s department. Isabel would be thrilled with Washington. For his part, Stanley was savoring the thought of power and of the chance to increase his wealth. Insiders always gained from their positions, the boss said. Stanley secretly hoped the rebels would go ahead and provoke war down at Charleston. If they did, the opportunities to make money would increase just that much more.
61
EARLY THE NEXT AFTERNOON, Billy paced outside Major Anderson’s office with his forage cap under his arm. He had to wait while the commandant finished a
letter apologizing for a practice round that had slammed into the cotton bales at Fort Moultrie. With both the Sumter and South Carolina batteries being tested frequently, accidents were common. After each mishap, the offenders rushed an explanation to the other side. Most of the explanations were elaborately formal, but with accidental war a distinct possibility, Billy supposed too much apology was preferable to too little.
Hart, Anderson’s orderly sergeant, appeared with the finished letter. “He’ll see you now, sir,” the noncom said as he hurried off down the dim, echoing passage.
Billy stepped into the commandant’s office, another dingy brick cubicle lit by the stub of a candle. Anderson returned the younger officer’s crisp salute with a slow, weary one. Then he pointed to a stool. “Rest yourself, Lieutenant. You won’t be resting much during the next few days.”
Anderson’s fingers showed a tremor as he touched a fat pouch of oiled cloth. “I’ve written some new advices for General Scott. I’d like you to carry them.”
“To Washington, sir?”
“Yes. I want the general to know that in my estimation penetrating the harbor defenses and reinforcing this garrison would now require a force of at least twenty thousand men. There are some other confidential communications in the pouch as well. Pack your kit and be ready in three hours.”
Billy’s mind reeled. To be released from this dark, oppressive place was what every man in the garrison wanted, though few admitted it. Would he have a chance to spend a little time with Brett before he left Charleston?
“I can be prepared sooner than that, sir.”
Anderson shook his head. “Not necessary. Hart will be departing shortly to row over with my letter of apology to Captain Calhoun. He will also call on Pickens at the Charleston Hotel, to obtain your clearance. Even with the governor’s consent, a departure is a touchy business. I’m told that each time a boat puts out from our dock, bands of men swarm to the Battery. They hope it will be Doubleday coming over.” After a curt, humorless laugh, Anderson added, “In any case, Hart won’t be back for a while. You’ll go at dusk or a little later.”