by John Jakes
The day grew dark with thunderclouds. A light shower sent everyone scurrying. When the rain stopped five minutes later and the guests sorted themselves out again, George couldn’t find the Smith girl. He bumped into Orry and noticed his faraway expression.
“Who mesmerized you, Stick? Ah—I see.” His appreciative smile faded. “I notice large rings on her hand. One a wedding ring. Is she the one you fell in love with two years ago?”
Softly, Orry said, “She’s lovely, isn’t she?”
“Lovely is faint praise. I’d say the word is ravishing. So that’s Madeline. She looks exhausted.” Yet mere tiredness could hardly account for her strange, benumbed expression.
Orry offered the explanation when he said, “She just returned from New Orleans. Her father suffered another stroke, she rushed to his bedside, and a couple of days after she got there, he died. She had to handle all the funeral arrangements herself. It’s no wonder that she’s worn out.”
George was acutely aware of the emotion in his friend’s voice. He hadn’t heard much about the fabled Madeline during recent months, and he had decided Orry had gotten over the infatuation. He had been wrong.
He studied the girl more closely. Despite the fatigue shadows around her eyes, she was truly one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. Her mouth was red and full. Her pale skin and black, straight hair created a stunning contrast. He leaned closer to his friend.
“Have I met her husband?”
“Yes. That clod.”
Orry inclined his head toward one of the LaMottes. Then George recalled the introduction. Justin, that was the fellow’s name. Arrogant sod. So was his brother Francis, who stood nearby with his dowdy wife and handsome young son. The son, in a fine coat and flowing cravat, was preening as much as his father and his uncle. They acted as if they were European royalty, not American farmers.
“How can she possibly get along with that crowd?” he whispered.
“She does very well. Madeline could charm the devil himself. And my mother tells me she’s become extremely good at her duties on the plantation. That’s unusual because Madeline wasn’t trained to birth babies or run a kitchen. I’m sure Justin has no appreciation of her ability. Come on, I’ll present you.”
The young men started toward her. Madeline saw them and spontaneous joy animated her face. My Lord, George said to himself, she’s got a case as bad as his. Then Madeline’s lifeless look returned. She reminded George of someone who had just made a horrifying discovery. Something to do with her husband, no doubt, he thought cynically.
Madeline stepped away from Justin. Before Orry could speak to her, however, Calhoun strolled up with Tillet Main at his right hand and several other male guests at his heels. They were hanging on the senator’s words.
“Some say the lesson of the nullification affair was this, Tillet. That the doctrine itself was wrong. I disagree. The doctrine is constitutionally correct. Only the way in which we tried to implement it was foolhardy. Foredoomed. One state cannot hope to prevail against the might of the Federal government. But several states—unified and determined—that’s another matter.”
Tillet cleared his throat. “Are you speaking of secession?”
Calhoun’s shrug was quick, almost fierce. “Well, it’s a term you hear a good deal in the South these days. I heard it in Charleston just the other evening. A gentleman I respect called secession the only adequate reply to Congressman Wilmot’s proviso.”
He was referring to an amendment to some Federal legislation that would have appropriated two million dollars to expedite negotiations with Mexico. Wilmot had proposed that slavery be expressly prohibited from territory acquired in any such negotiation. The arguments pro and con had caused a national uproar. The bill had passed the House, but the Senate had beaten it back before recessing in mid-August.
“The gentleman is right,” said one of the others. “The proviso is extreme provocation. An insult to the South.”
“What else do you expect from a Pennsylvania Democrat?” Tillet asked. “They have a bottomless treasury of righteousness up North.”
Calhoun nodded. “Secession talk is in the air for precisely that reason. There may be no other way to redress the grievances of this region.”
“I say let’s get on with it,” Justin LaMotte put in. He walked past his wife, and as he did so he scowled at her. George couldn’t imagine the reason, unless it was because she was interested in the discussion—one woman in the midst of a dozen men. The wife of the other LaMotte had crept away.
Tillet said to Justin, “Much as I despise some of those Yankee politicians, I’d hate for us to choose disunion after all the struggles to establish this country.”
Calhoun’s lips twisted. “The word choose puts the wrong color on it. If there is disunion, we shall be driven to it. Flogged to it by those Northerners whose favorite entertainment is sneering at us.”
“We’d be better off as a separate nation,” Francis LaMotte declared.
“How can you say that, Francis?”
The feminine voice stilled everyone else, turned heads, and set mouths agape. Justin looked as if he wanted to sink into the earth. Orry watched his shock and shame turn to anger.
Madeline seemed oblivious. Once again that odd, stunned expression faded, and her eyes grew lively. Having spoken out, she showed no inclination to stop. She talked to Calhoun.
“I am a Southerner born and bred, Senator. It was years ago that I first heard men speak of seceding from the Union. My father said the idea was pernicious twaddle because it wouldn’t work. I’ve thought about it since, and I agree.”
Calhoun’s reaction was more polite than those of the other men, who scowled and grumbled. Yet he, too, was obviously put off by a woman intruding into a man’s domain. With a faint lift of a gray brow, he said, “Really, madam?”
Madeline managed a disarming smile. “Of course. Just think about the practicalities. What if we were a separate country and the cotton and rice markets went soft. It’s happened before. How much sympathy—how much help—would we receive from the other nation up North? What if a genuinely unfriendly government came to power there? What if they passed laws to prevent us from buying the goods we need for daily living? We depend on the North, Senator. We have no factories of our own. No substantial resources other than—”
“We have our principles,” Justin interrupted. “Those are more important than factories.” He closed a hand on her forearm. George saw her wince. “But I’m sure the senator isn’t interested in feminine opinions.”
Alarmed by the rage in LaMotte’s eyes, Calhoun tried to be gracious. “Oh, I’m always interested in the opinions of my constituents, whoever—”
Justin didn’t let him finish. “Come along, my dear. There is someone waiting to see you.” His cheeks showed spots of scarlet. His smile looked like the teeth in a skull.
She tugged against his constricting hand. “Justin, please—”
“Come along.”
He turned her around by pressure on her arm. Francis closed in behind them as they withdrew. George looked anxiously at his friend. For a moment he thought Orry might commit murder. Then Calhoun made a little joke to ease the tension, and the crisis passed.
Justin, meantime, was pushing Madeline toward the far side of the lawn where carriages were parked in long rows. He knew people were watching. He was too angry to care. Francis begged him to calm down. Justin swore at his brother and ordered him to leave. Looking mortified, Francis about-faced and returned to the crowd.
Justin shoved his wife against the big rear wheel of a carriage. The hub jabbed her back. She gasped.
“Let go of me. You have no right to treat—”
“I have every right,” he said. “I am your husband. You humiliated me in front of the senator and all my friends.”
She glared at him, color suffusing her face. “I beg your pardon, Justin. I wasn’t aware that disagreement with someone’s opinion had become a crime in South Carolina. I wa
sn’t aware that free speech had been abridged by—”
“Don’t give me any of that!” He wrenched her arm, thrust her against the hub again. She cried out softly, then looked at him with loathing.
“You bastard. It’s only your damned reputation that matters, not the feelings of those you hurt whenever the whim strikes you. After our wedding night I suspected as much. Now there’s no doubt.”
And I could ruin your precious reputation forever. But angry as she was, she knew she could not.
Justin, however, was out of control. Even Madeline’s show of resistance—something he found astounding in a female—couldn’t do much to brake his temper. He shook her again.
“I’ll tell you something else that is not in doubt, my dear. Your position. You are a wife. That means you are not entitled to offer opinions on any substantive issue. Women with intellectual pretensions come to a bad end in this part of the world—a lesson your late father should have taught you.”
“He taught me there was nothing wrong with a woman’s thinking independent—”
“I am not interested in your father’s mistakes. Furthermore, I’m grateful I never had to debate the issue with him. I might have been forced to knock him down.”
With a wrench she freed her forearm and drew it against her bosom. “That’s all you know how to do, isn’t it? Strike those who disagree with you. Bully your way through life!”
“Call it whatever you wish. Just remember this: women and ideas were not meant to mix. The Grimké sisters had to leave this state because they forgot that lesson. Now they’re up North preaching nigger freedom and free love, disgracing themselves and their sex. I’ll not have any wife of mine behaving that way. You must know your place and stay in it. I also promise you this.” He leaned close, his silky brown hair tangled over his forehead. Her defiance drained away, replaced by fear when he looked into her eyes. “If you ever again speak out and embarrass me as you did a little while ago, you’ll suffer. Be warned.”
He drew himself up and smoothed his hair back into place. Then he returned to the picnic, trying to smile as if nothing had happened. But a change had come into their relationship, and both of them knew it. They had reached down to the hidden places within themselves and revealed things only hinted at before.
“Bastard,” Madeline whispered again. How sweet and cruelly fitting it would be to tell Justin what her father had told her just before he died. Tell him every last stunning word.
She leaned against the wheel, struggling to contain her tears. She didn’t know which was the worst of it—her humiliation, her rage, or her new certainty that Justin had issued no idle warning.
Orry watched the scene in the carriage park from a distance. Seldom had he been so tense and frustrated. He wanted to intervene, rescue Madeline, beat LaMotte senseless. But she was bound to her husband by religious and civil law. She was a wife, Justin’s property. If Orry followed his instincts, he would only make matters worse for her.
He admired Madeline’s bravery when she composed her face and moved back among the people still whispering about her. He silently cursed them for the scornful looks they gave her behind her back. George noticed his agitation. So did Cooper, who had already heard a good deal of gossip about Madeline’s dispute with Calhoun.
Both Cooper and George tried to talk with Orry, but he broke away from each of them. Finally, after striding aimlessly for several minutes, he noticed Madeline standing by herself. He cast aside caution and did what his emotions had been driving him to do for the past hour. He walked straight to her side.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, yes.” She wasn’t; he could hear the wrath bubbling. “We mustn’t be seen talking.”
“I love you,” he said. His eyes were on the tips of his boots. He felt feverish. “I can’t stand to see you treated badly. Meet me tomorrow. Or the next day. Please.”
She barely hesitated. “All right. Tomorrow. Where?”
Quickly he gave directions to the first safe spot that came to mind. Just as he finished, she drew in a sharp breath. “Someone’s coming.”
He whispered a time for the meeting. She whirled away. He hurried in the other direction, his heart pounding from fear and joy.
Nathanael Greene had belonged to John C. Calhoun for most of his adult life. Sixty-three now, he hated the stress of traveling and the necessity of mixing with slaves of inferior station.
Greene’s pride had a twofold origin. His master was one of the nation’s most eminent men, and Greene served him as a house slave—a position vastly superior to that of common field hands.
Greene had been born in the low country, but he despised its heat, stench, and stretches of insect-infested marsh. He longed for the familiar highlands up at Fort Hill. For the cool, narrow Calhoun house with its surrounding flower beds and wild orange trees. At Mont Royal he was cranky, and this crankiness tended to bring to the fore a certain meanness of disposition.
He soon grew bored with the company of the house slaves around the buffet tables set up for their use. Greene had certain perquisites and was thoroughly familiar with the limits of his master’s tolerance. He took a couple of furtive swigs from a whiskey flask he kept hidden in his fine linen coat. Then he went searching for some sport.
Near the kitchen building he observed a big, strapping field hand lugging stove wood inside. The air near the kitchen felt as hot as the pit. Greene chuckled and waited.
Soon the field hand came out again. Greene beckoned to him. He gave the field hand a peek at the flask under his coat, then said with an innocent grin, “You look mighty thirsty, nigger. Come over into the shade and cool yourself with a nip of the corn.”
The field hand was tempted, but held back. “Niggers aren’t allowed to drink. You know that.”
“Sure I know that. But today’s a party day, and Mr. Calhoun, he’s looking the other way.”
Uneasily, the field hand glanced toward the slaves gathered by the special tables. They were eating and chatting and sipping punch that contained no alcohol. From time to time one of them left to answer a summons from lawn or kitchen, while others returned from like errands.
“I ain’t supposed to hang around the house niggers, either,” the field hand said. “They get uppity if I do.”
“You let me worry ’bout that, nigger. I’m a house nigger for Mr. Calhoun, so if I invite you, it’s all right.” He steered the field hand toward the group. “What do they call you?”
“Priam.”
“Mighty fine name. Have a sip.”
Priam was hot and thirsty. That and Nathanael Greene’s persuasive manner overcame his caution. Greene walked him up to the others. They recognized Priam, of course, and looked at him scornfully until they grasped Greene’s intentions; he was doing a lot of winking and gesturing behind Priam’s back.
The scornful looks disappeared. Priam’s tense face relaxed. At intervals of three or four minutes, Greene whisked the flask from its hiding place and shielded Priam while the latter drank. It didn’t take long for Priam to start chuckling and even laughing out loud. The rest of the slaves, except for two women who didn’t approve of the sport, smirked and nudged one another.
“’Nother drink,” Priam said.
“Sure enough,” Greene grinned. “Come get it.”
He held the flask at arm’s length. Priam shambled forward, reaching for it. At the last minute Greene pulled the flask out of the way.
Priam blundered straight into the table. His outstretched hand knocked a dish of butter beans onto the grass.
Greene laughed. “My Lord, you are one clumsy buck.”
“He’s just a dumb field nigger, that’s why,” someone else said.
Suspicion pierced Priam’s stupor. “Give me that drink,” he growled.
Greene waved the flask with a willowy motion. “Right here it is, nigger. All yours, if you can still see it.”
Loud laughter.
“You give me that!” This time Priam roared.
> “My, ain’t he something,” said Greene, still waggling the flask. “Givin’ orders to his betters.”
“Uppity,” another slave said with contempt.
Priam blinked and used his palm to swab sweat from his neck. He watched the flask being waved at him in a tantalizing way. Suddenly he leaped forward, trying to seize the flask in a bear hug. Greene danced back. Priam caught nothing but air. The laughter exploded.
Priam lowered his head, turned, and charged the other Negroes with swinging fists. The women screamed. The men scattered.
The tumult brought Tillet and some of the guests on the run. Tillet’s temper was short because of the heat and because he couldn’t shake the bitter aftereffects of the quarrel with Cooper. It didn’t help when he spied Cousin Charles under one of the tables, a rip showing in the knee of his fine breeches. With gleeful enthusiasm, Charles was calling encouragement to both combatants.
Tillet arrived just as Priam again attempted to grab Nathanael Greene. Calhoun’s slave darted behind three big house blacks. The senator himself arrived just as Greene recognized Mont Royal’s owner and exclaimed:
“That nigger took after me! He’s drunk as a coot.”
Tillet needed no one to help him see that. “Priam, go to your cabin. I’ll deal with you later.”
Fear showed on Priam’s face. He saw that all the house people would side with Greene, and that made him angry all over again. He stepped up to Tillet and pointed to the fallen flask.
“I took a drink out of that ’cause Mr. Calhoun’s nigger gave it to me. He acted friendly, but then he started to call me names.”
Tillet was so affronted he could barely speak. “I am not interested in your explanations.”
Greene gave a little disbelieving laugh. “What’s that nigger saying? Everybody know niggers aren’t allowed to drink spirits. He didn’t get one drop from me. No, sir,” he finished with a soulful look at his owner.