by John Jakes
They arrived forty minutes after the end of the marriage service, which had been held in a tiny separate chapel. Only close relatives had attended. Now the reception was in progress. Guests were chatting and laughing under the oaks and magnolias on the side lawn, where four yellow-and-white-striped pavilions had been erected.
The LaMotte plantation reminded Cooper of some Charleston whore who tried to hide time’s ravages under a lot of powder and paint. At first glance the great house looked huge and impressive. Then you noticed planks warping away and extensive evidence of mold. Large pieces of mortar had fallen from the brick pillars supporting the rear piazza—Resolute’s great house faced the river at the summit of a low hill—and many of the shutters showed unrepaired storm damage.
Still, the festive crowd didn’t seem to mind. Counting family members, guests, and all the slaves required for the occasion, Cooper estimated that three hundred people were present. Fine carriages and buggies were parked on two acres at one side of the front lane. Smoke drifted in the air, evidence that barbecue was being served. Barbecue was a tradition at low country weddings.
An orchestra from Charleston began to play. Cousin Charles ran off. A grim-faced Orry searched for the bride. Cooper hoped the punch would be strong; only intemperance would make the rest of the afternoon bearable.
“There she is,” Orry said. “We ought to pay our respects before the line gets any longer.” Clarissa and Cooper agreed. They joined the line and presently moved up to greet the rector, the various LaMottes, and the bride and groom.
Justin LaMotte was a handsome, thick-waisted man with a ruddy complexion and silky brown hair that looked as though he treated it with dye. He accepted the congratulations of the Mains with a smile and some charmingly correct phrases of thanks. But his eyes held no warmth.
Cooper was busy studying the bride. She was breathtakingly beautiful. No wonder his brother had taken a hard fall. Justin didn’t deserve such a prize. Did the girl know much about the man she had married? Poor creature, he hoped so; it would be a tragedy if she only just now discovered what lay beneath her husband’s superficial charm.
Cooper had deliberately gone first in line, so that he might turn back and watch his brother’s behavior with Madeline LaMotte, and he hoped there wouldn’t be any sort of mawkish display. Orry felt bad enough already; he needed no further embarrassment.
He was the perfect gentleman, however. He held the bride’s hand a moment while he leaned forward to give her the ritual peck on the cheek. But as Orry drew back, Cooper saw the young people look at each other. In his eyes—hers, too—Cooper detected sorrow, a swift but stunningly candid acknowledgment of a lost opportunity.
Then, showing a flash of guilt, the bride glanced away. Justin was greeting another guest and missed the little interchange. Thinking of what he had seen in Madeline’s eyes a few moments ago, Cooper said to himself, I hope some woman looks at me that way just once before I die.
The Mains left the reception line. Cooper wanted to commiserate with his brother but couldn’t find the proper words. Anyway, Orry would probably be offended. So, instead, Cooper set out for the punch bowl. On the way he noticed Cousin Charles crawling under one of the trestle tables. The boy was carrying a plate heaped with mutton barbecue and relish. Charles’s shirttails already hung out.
Cooper saw that his mother was served, then left her with three matronly ladies, two of them Main cousins, the third a member of the huge Smith family. He consumed four cups of punch in half an hour. It didn’t help much. On every side he heard compliments about the bridegroom that made him wince. The guests were being charitable, but Cooper’s charity didn’t extend to lying.
He soon found himself reeling around the outdoor dance platform with a good-natured matriarch named Aunt Betsy Bull. Cooper loved to polka, but Aunt Betsy spoiled it by saying:
“Don’t they make the handsomest couple? She’ll be supremely happy. I don’t know Justin well, but he has always impressed me as a kind and charming man.”
“At a wedding party, all men are angels.”
Aunt Betsy tsk-tsked. “How did someone as sweet as your mother raise such a cynical scalawag? I don’t think you care for Justin. You’ll never get to heaven with that kind of attitude.”
I don’t want to get to heaven, just back to the punch bowl, Cooper thought as the music stopped. “Thank you for the dance, Aunt Betsy. Excuse me?” He bowed and left.
With a new drink in hand, he lectured himself about letting his feelings show. He didn’t give a damn what people thought of him, but he shouldn’t and wouldn’t embarrass his mother. Not for anything. Still, it was hard to stay neutral about Justin LaMotte. The man pretended to be such a gentleman, but it was a sham. He treated his horses better than he treated his niggers. Abuse and outright cruelty had been staples at Resolute ever since Justin had taken over when his father died.
The previous summer, after Justin had suffered a defeat in a horse race, one of his black grooms had done something to displease him. Justin’s rage was all out of proportion to the offense. He had ordered nails pounded into an empty hogshead, then put the offender in the hogshead and rolled it down a hill. The slave’s injuries had left him unable to work, useless to anyone else. A month ago he had taken his own life.
Such barbarous punishment was rare in the low country and nonexistent at Mont Royal. Cooper considered it a major reason Resolute unfailingly yielded poor crops and year after year slid a little closer to bankruptcy.
Setting aside all moral questions, Cooper found one great practical weakness in the peculiar institution. The very act of holding a man against his will constituted mistreatment. Add physical cruelties to that, and how could you expect the man to work to the limit of his ability? To give everything and then a little more? Cooper had concluded that the significant difference between the economic systems of the North and South was not in industry versus agriculture but in motivation. The free Yankee worked to better himself. The Southern slave worked to keep from being punished. That difference was slowly rotting the South from the inside.
But try telling that to a Justin LaMotte—or a Tillet Main. Feeling dismal, Cooper helped himself to another cup of punch.
Francis LaMotte was three years older than his brother. He excelled in horsemanship, routinely beating Justin and all the other contestants in the medieval tournaments so popular in the low country. Francis thrilled spectators by charging the rows of hanging rings at a dangerous speed, and he inevitably caught the greatest number of rings on the point of his lance. He always rode in the gander-pulling, too, and nine times out of ten he was first to wring the animal’s greased neck from horseback.
Francis was a small, sinewy man with a suntanned face and none of his brother’s social graces. He looked waspish as he and Justin enjoyed punch, momentarily left alone by the guests. A few feet away, Madeline was chatting with the Episcopal rector.
“I don’t know who will win the election in the fall, Father Victor,” the brothers heard her say. “But it’s obvious the outcome will hinge on the issue of the annexation of Texas.”
“Are you aware that one of South Carolina’s own played a vital role in bringing the question before the public?”
“You mean Mr. Calhoun, don’t you?”
Father Victor nodded. Calhoun was serving as the third secretary of state in the troubled Tyler administration. After receiving his appointment earlier in the year, he had drafted the annexation treaty which the Republic of Texas and the United States had signed in April.
“You’re quite right about the prominence of the issue,” the rector agreed. “Before the year is out every man in public life will have to declare his position.” He didn’t need to add that many had already done so. The support of Polk and ex-President Jackson for annexation was well known. So was the opposition of Van Buren and Clay.
“That’s as it should be,” Madeline replied. “Some are claiming the Texas question goes much deeper than the politicians care to admit. I’ve heard it said t
he real issue is expansion of slavery.”
The rector bristled. “The only ones who say that are agitators, my dear. Unprincipled Yankee agitators.”
Out of politeness, Madeline shrugged to admit the possibility, but then she murmured, “I wonder.”
Displeased, the rector snapped, “Shall we get some food?”
Madeline realized she had annoyed him. “Of course. Please lead the way.”
She gave her husband a smile, which he returned with a rather forced one of his own. After she and the rector strolled off, Francis squinted at his brother. “Your bride has opinions on quite a number of public issues.”
Justin chuckled. The sound was deep and mellow.
“You’ve noticed that have you?”
“She shouldn’t speak so freely. Intelligence is desirable in a woman, but only within limits.”
“Everything, my dear brother, carries a certain price. The dowry provided by old Fabray is no exception.” Justin gazed over the rim of his silver punch cup at the swelling bodice of Madeline’s wedding dress. He calculated the angle of the sun with sleepy, half-lidded eyes. In a few more hours he would be the possessor of everything hidden by that pristine satin and lace. He could hardly wait.
How curiously fate worked, he thought. Nearly two years ago he had decided to take a trip to New Orleans, even though he could scarcely afford it. He had gone there to indulge himself at the gambling tables and to attend one of the legendary quadroon balls in the famous hall overlooking Orleans Street. But before he went to the ball or got a look at the nigger beauties, chance put him next to Nicholas Fabray at the bar of a fashionable gambling establishment. Fabray didn’t gamble, but he frequented the place because it was one of several where influential men of the city congregated. It soon became evident to the visitor that Fabray must be one of those. He knew everyone, his clothing was elegant and expensive, and he spent money with the ease of someone who didn’t have to worry about it. Later, Justin asked questions and learned that all his suppositions were correct.
Two evenings later he ran into Fabray again at the same place. There he made the discovery that the sugar factor had a young unmarried daughter. From that point on, Justin fairly oozed politeness and good humor. Fabray was completely taken in; when Justin wanted to be charming, no one could rival him.
A few references by Justin to his status as a stranger in town prompted Fabray to invite him home for supper. Justin met the daughter, and from the instant he saw her, he was almost dizzy with lust.
He carefully concealed it, of course. He treated Madeline Fabray with the same restrained courtesy he lavished on her father. Before the evening was over, Justin concluded that although his age and experience awed the beautiful creature, she was not afraid of him.
He extended his stay in New Orleans a week, and then another. Fabray seemed pleased to have a gentleman of Justin’s caliber pay court to Madeline. And everything Justin learned about the father only heightened his desire to possess the daughter. For one thing, there were no religious problems. The family was German—the original name was Faber—and Protestant. Madeline attended church, although her father did not; he was not interested in his soul, but in making money. Sensing what Justin had in mind, Fabray hinted that he would bestow a good deal of that money on his daughter, as her dowry.
On one occasion Justin inquired about Madeline’s mother. He learned little other than that she had died some years earlier. She had been a Creole, which meant she was the New Orleans-born child of European parents—French, most likely, although they could have been Spanish or one of each. Justin, viewing Fabray’s small gallery of family portraits, asked whether there were any pictures of the lady, to which Fabray replied with a curious vagueness, “No, not here.”
Then and there Justin decided not to pursue the inquiry. Every respectable family, including his own, had a few skeletons hidden away; these usually belonged to wives who ran off with other men or who succumbed to a nervous disorder and had to be locked up until they died. He had heard nothing unfavorable about the late Mrs. Fabray—no one he had questioned had even mentioned her—so he would happily set aside this minor worry in exchange for Madeline’s irresistible beauty and the money he so desperately needed to support his style of life.
If Fabray’s daughter had any flaw at all, it was her obvious intelligence and her reluctance to conceal the fact that she had opinions about matters that were ordinarily the province of gentlemen. Fabray had seen to it that she received the finest education available to a young woman in New Orleans—that provided by the sisters of Saint Ursula. Fabray had many good friends in the city’s Catholic community and was known to be a strong supporter of the worthy causes of the Roman church. He had overcome the initial reluctance of the Ursulines to accept a Protestant pupil by donating heavily to the hospital and orphanage the nuns maintained.
Madeline’s forthright nature was no great deterrent to Justin, however. He had methods for dealing with that kind of problem, although he intended to conceal those methods until she was legally his wife.
Before he left the city, he asked for and received Fabray’s permission to propose. Madeline listened to his rather long-winded declaration of love, and he became increasingly certain she would say yes at the end. But she said no, although she thanked him several times for flattering her with the proposal.
That night, to relieve his physical and mental frustration, he hired a whore and badly abused her with his fists and cane. After she had crept out of his hotel room, he lay awake in the dark for more than an hour, recalling Madeline’s expression at the moment she refused him. She was afraid, he concluded. Since she could not possibly be afraid of him—he had been the soul of politeness, after all—it must be the idea of marriage that frightened her. That was a common enough attitude among young girls, and one he could overcome. Her refusal represented a delay, not a defeat.
In the weeks and months that followed, Justin sent the girl long, flowery love letters repeating his proposal. She answered each with an expression of gratitude and another politely phrased rejection. Then, unexpectedly, her father’s stroke changed everything.
Justin was not exactly sure why the change had come about. Perhaps Fabray had feared he wouldn’t live much longer and had intensified his effort to get his child safely married before he died. In any case, Madeline had reversed herself, and the terms had been arranged. The financial rewards of Justin’s long campaign proved highly satisfactory. Beyond that, he would soon have the absolute right to put his hands on Madeline’s—
Rudely, Francis jolted him back to the real world. “I tell you, Justin, you may discover that Madeline is entirely too independent for her own good. Or yours. A wife should be discouraged from speaking her mind on political matters—and absolutely forbidden to do so at any public gathering.”
“Of course I agree, but I can’t achieve a transformation in one day. It will take a little time.”
Francis sniffed. “I wonder if you’ll ever be able to handle that young woman.”
Justin laid a big, well-manicured hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Hasn’t your experience with blooded animals taught you anything? A spirited woman’s no different than a spirited mare. Each can and must be taught who’s in charge.” He sipped from his punch cup, then murmured, “Broken.”
“I hope you know what you’re talking about.” Francis sounded doubtful, but then his knowledge of women was limited to slaves, prostitutes, and his dim-witted, downtrodden spouse. “Creoles are not noted for passive temperaments. All that Latin blood—you took a considerable risk marrying her.”
“Nonsense. Madeline may be from New Orleans, but she’s also female. Despite their pretensions, women are only slightly more intelligent than horses. She’ll give me no—good God, what’s that?”
He pivoted, startled by outcries and the crash of a table overturning. “A fight already?”
He rushed off.
A few minutes earlier, Cousin Charles had been seated against the
trunk of a live oak, his coat discarded and a second huge plate of barbecue in his lap. A shadow fell across his legs.
He looked up to see a thin, foppish boy and three of his friends. The boy, a couple of years older than Charles, was a member of the Smith clan.
“Here’s the creature from Mont Royal,” young Smith said as he postured in front of his cronies. He looked down at Charles. “Rather a secluded spot, this. Hiding out?”
Charles stared back, nodded. “That’s right.”
Smith smiled and fingered his cravat. “Oh? Afraid?”
“Of you? Not much. I just wanted to eat in peace.”
“Or is it that you’re ashamed of the appearance you present? Cast your optics over him, gentlemen,” Smith continued in an exaggerated way. “Marvel at the mussed clothing. Consider the crude haircut. Discern the dirt-stained cheeks. He looks more like white trash than a member of the Main family.”
The baiting infuriated Charles, but he didn’t let on. He figured he could get Smith’s goat if he acted nonchalant. He was right. While Smith’s friends made jokes about Charles, Smith himself stopped smiling and said:
“Stand up and face your betters when they address you, boy.” He grabbed Charles’s left earlobe and gave it a painful tweak.
Charles pitched the plate of barbecue at Smith. Meat and relish splattered the front of Smith’s sky-blue waistcoat. Smith’s friends began to laugh. He turned on them, cursing. That gave Charles the opportunity to jump up, grab both Smith’s ears from behind, and twist them savagely.
Smith squealed. One of his friends said, “See here, you trashy little bastard—” The fellow attempted to grab him, but Charles dodged away. Laughing, he shot around the tree and raced toward the wedding guests. He bet that Smith and his friends wouldn’t make a fuss in public. But he didn’t bargain on their hot tempers; they charged right after him.
Charles slid on a patch of grass where someone had spilled a drink. He slammed down on his back, the wind knocked out. Smith ran up, took hold of him, and hauled him to his feet.