by John Jakes
“They invited you because politeness required it, that’s all!” They had been back in Lehigh Station two days. This was their fourth argument about the trip. “They don’t want you down there insulting them and sneering at their way of life every waking moment,” George went on. “You’d probably parade this around Mont Royal.” He snatched up the broad satin ribbon she had brought into the study. She would be wearing the ribbon on Saturday when she marched in a Free Soil parade in Harrisburg. The ribbon bore the slogan of the party: Free soil—free speech—free labor—and free men. “Inviting you to come with us would be like carrying a torch into a dry forest, Virgilia. I’d be a fool to say yes.”
“What if I promise that I’ll be on my very best behavior? I feel it’s important for me to see the South firsthand. If you’ll take me, I’ll be good as gold. Not a word about free soil or anything else the Mains might find offensive.”
He peered at her through smoke curling from his cigar. “You mean that? You’d be polite the entire time?”
“Yes. I promise. I’ll swear it on a Bible, if you want.”
He managed to smile. “That won’t be necessary.” He shaped his mouth into an O and blew out a thin rod of smoke while weighing the risks. Then:
“All right. But at the first slip, I’ll send you home.”
She flung her arms around him and squealed her thanks. It had been a long time since she’d behaved in such a girlish way. For a moment he felt he had a sister again.
When Virgilia went to bed that night, she was too excited to go to sleep. But at last she did. She dreamed of black men’s bodies.
28
THE HAZARD PARTY CONSISTED of eight: Maude, George and Constance, the children, their nurse, and Billy and Virgilia. All but Billy were seasick on the stormy trip to Charleston. They rested a few days at Cooper’s house and improved rapidly.
After supper the second evening, Judith entertained them by playing the piano. Then she gathered the guests around her and they had a grand time for almost an hour, singing hymns and popular songs in a rousing way. Everyone took part except Virgilia, who excused herself and went to her room.
Mont Royal happened to be in port, loading cotton for New York. Cooper took them through the vessel, pointing out every detail from the sleek clipper bow to the advanced-design propeller. The visitors didn’t understand the engineering innovations as well as their host did, hence couldn’t be quite as enthusiastic, but all of them could appreciate the vessel’s exterior design. She was lean, graceful—unmistakably modern.
Next Cooper took them over to James Island, to the acreage he had bought earlier. “What I’m proposing to put here, using my profits from C.S.C. to do it, is a shipyard. A yard to build commercial vessels. A yard that will be the best on the East Coast.”
“You’re starting to sound like a Yankee,” said George. They both laughed.
Cooper and Judith showed them the sights of Charleston, including the marble marker at Calhoun’s grave in St. Philip’s churchyard. Then Cooper proposed to take any interested adults to a rally being sponsored by an organization calling itself the Charleston Southern Rights Coalition.
“Is that a political party?” George asked.
“Nobody’s sure,” Cooper answered. “Not yet, anyway. The traditional parties are disappearing faster than I can keep track of. ‘Whig’ and ‘Democrat’ have become virtually meaningless labels down here.”
“What has replaced the regular parties?” Virgilia wanted to know.
“Groups that fall into two camps. In one camp you have the Unionists, men such as Bob Toombs of Georgia who love the South but can’t quite swallow the secession pill. In the other camp are the Southern rights crowd: Yancey, Rhett, Ashton’s friend Huntoon—he’s one of the speakers at the rally, incidentally. You probably won’t like anything you hear”—the gently pointed statement brought a prim and humorless smile to Virgilia’s mouth—“but it will give you a flavor of current thought in Charleston.”
Only George and his sister accepted the invitation. George feared Virgilia might make a scene despite her promises—perhaps even disrupt one of the speeches by shouting insults from the box in which they were seated. But she seemed uninterested in the oratory, preoccupied. While Huntoon was at the rostrum, proclaiming the need for “a great slaveholding republic from the Potomac to the tropic latitudes,” she whispered that she needed fresh air and left.
She rushed down the dim staircase to the foyer. Sure enough, he was there, loitering with the other coachmen outside the main doors. He was a strikingly handsome black man wearing heavy velvet livery. She had noticed him earlier, as he was opening a carriage door for his master—Huntoon, she realized suddenly.
Virgilia’s breasts felt tight and heavy as she walked to and fro, waving her lace handkerchief in front of her face to indicate why she had left the hall. Sweat glistened in the down on her upper lip. She could hardly keep her eyes off the Negro.
Huntoon’s voice rolled through the open doors behind her. “Our institution must follow the American flag, wheresoever it goes. For our system to contract, or even fail to expand at a steady pace, would be tantamount to defeat. We shall not permit it to happen.”
Wild applause and cheering interrupted him at that point. Boots stomped and shook the floor. The sound poured out of the hall and engulfed her, somehow heightening her feelings of desire. Over the shoulder of another coachman she tried to catch the tall Negro’s eye.
He noticed her but didn’t dare show cordiality toward a white woman, lest he be punished for his boldness. She understood. With one long glance she tried to convey that understanding, and something else. His eyes flickered with surprise. Then, looking past the other coachman’s shoulder, he smiled. She caught her breath. Four of his front teeth were missing. He was one of those poor wretches whose owners identified them in that inhuman way.
His dark, shiny eyes dropped to her breasts for a second. She thought she might faint. He understood! Another coachman took note of his stare and turned to see its object. At the sight of Virgilia’s white skin, the coachman looked at his tall companion with shock and disbelief.
“Here you are.” George came hurrying out to her. “You left so quickly I was worried. Are you ill?”
“No, it was just too hot in there. I feel better now.” She slipped her arm through his and led him inside.
She couldn’t get the tall Negro out of her mind. On the way back to Tradd Street she asked whether there was any special significance if a slave had several teeth missing. “I saw a man like that outside the hall.”
George tensed while Cooper explained the probable reason for extraction of the teeth. Virgilia reacted as if it were new information, but no outburst followed. Then Cooper said, “The chap you saw must be Huntoon’s man, Grady. Tall fellow? Handsome?”
“I honestly didn’t notice,” Virgilia lied, pressing her legs together beneath her skirts. She had the information she wanted.
Grady. She savored the name as she drifted to sleep that night. A sultry breeze blew from the fragrant garden. The sweet odors and the dampness of the night heightened her hunger until she ached.
“Grady,” she whispered in the dark. She knew she would never see him again, but she wished there were some way it could be otherwise.
Cooler weather arrived at Mont Royal just when the Hazards did. October’s sharp, slanting light lent a melancholy beauty to the days, but it was beauty of which Billy was unaware. He hardly saw anything, or anyone, except Ashton.
He spent every free hour with her. On horseback she took him around the plantation, though he suspected she was improvising much of what she said about it. He sensed that she had little understanding of, or interest in, the way rice was planted or harvested.
The slave community fascinated Billy in a grim, almost morbid fashion. The Negroes returned his stare with sad, hopeless eyes. He heard laughter, but not much. For the first time he had some understanding of why Virgilia, Constance, and the rest of the famil
y opposed the peculiar institution.
In the past his attitude had been largely a reflection of theirs: correct, but lacking any passion. The ride down the dirt street between the rows of mean cottages changed that. If slaves were carefree and happy, as Southerners claimed, he saw damned little evidence. He grew angry. Here was an obvious wrong. The conviction was like a splinter in his foot, not really severe enough to interfere with anything, yet a constant source of discomfort.
There was a similar splinter produced by his relationship with Ashton. At first he couldn’t identify the reason he felt uneasy in her presence. She still excited him. This was true even though some of the mystery of sex was gone, thanks to tumbling with that Newport girl in her father’s hayloft; after the initial embarrassment of removing his pants, Billy had enjoyed his hour with Sophie.
Physically, Ashton remained one of the most perfect creatures he had ever seen. And if not exactly intelligent, she was gifted with an innate cleverness and a glib tongue. What troubled him, he concluded toward the end of his first week at Mont Royal, was a certain quality in the way she kissed, or touched his face, or looked at him. It was adult; there was no other word. Yet she had only turned fifteen this year.
Orry arranged a Saturday-night picnic in honor of the visitors. As the breezy twilight was deepening, cousins and neighbors began to arrive. One guest was a handsome woman named Mrs. LaMotte, whom Orry seemed to treat with great politeness. She spent almost no time with her husband; he was off with some of the men and, to judge from their muted voices and raucous laughter, telling dirty stories.
When darkness fell, torches planted in holders in the ground lit the side lawn and kept the insects away. Billy and Ashton left the picnic site and slipped down to the river, hand in hand.
“It’s so grand to have you here,” she said as they walked to the end of the pier and stood gazing at the black water ruffled by the wind. “Will you stay long?”
“George says another week or so.”
“That makes me very happy. But sad, too.”
“Sad? Why?”
“When I’m close to you—”
She turned to face him. The distant torches put small, hard reflections in her eyes. Guests passed back and forth in front of the smoky lights, wraithlike.
“Go on,” he said.
“When we’re close, I must constantly fight my own feelings. I want to be even closer.” She brought her bodice, her mouth, then her whole body against him. He felt her lips move as she murmured, “Much closer than is altogether proper.”
He started to kiss her but abruptly felt something below his waist. God above! She was reaching down to grasp him through his pants and underdrawers. He couldn’t have been more astonished if the earth had opened under his feet.
She moaned his name, closed her hand tight, and kissed him ferociously. He quickly overcame his own surprise and reticence, and returned the kiss. Her left arm crooked around his neck while her right hand kept squeezing, squeezing. The play of mouths and hands rapidly reached an embarrassing conclusion. She felt him go rigid in her arms.
She jumped back, palms pressed to her lips. “My heavens, did I cause—?”
He was utterly humiliated, unable to speak. He turned away toward the river.
“Billy, I’m so sorry. I couldn’t help myself, dear.”
“It’s all right,” he mumbled.
Five minutes later, Brett and Charles came strolling across the lawn, searching for them. Billy had to face people whether he was ready or not. Fortunately his trousers were wool, in a busy checked pattern, so if anyone was so rude as to ask what had happened, he’d lie and say he’d spilled a cup of punch.
They rejoined the others. There were no questions. But Ashton’s behavior had left a vivid impression. She was too accomplished. Those were the words that repeated in his thoughts half the night and for days afterward. For someone so young, she was too accomplished.
How had it happened? When he considered the possibilities, an overpowering jealousy gripped him. He wanted to know how she had learned all she knew. And yet he didn’t. He knew the relationship had begun to wither. He was sad about it, yet a little relieved somehow.
A spell of gray, muggy weather settled in. Small annoyances began to spring up between Billy and Ashton. She didn’t understand something he said, even though he repeated it twice. A pebble in his boot kept him from walking as fast as she would have liked. Small annoyances, angering them, spoiling things.
The end came on a hot, still Saturday. They were unable to find anything to do that didn’t bore them. Finally they went strolling along the high bank separating the river from the fields. After ten minutes Ashton sat down, heedless of dirt on her skirt. He sat next to her, and she said bluntly:
“Are you anxious to go to the Academy next year?”
“Yes.”
“I think a man can find better things to do.”
He frowned. “Why should you worry about that? You’re not a man.”
She looked at him. Not with hostility, exactly, but neither did she show the warmth he’d seen in her eyes during the summer.
“No, but I’ll marry one,” she said.
“And you already know what you expect of him, is that it?”
“I know what I expect for myself. I know what I want, and he must give it to me.”
The tenor of the conversation was growing steadily more unfriendly; did she sense his withdrawal? He didn’t want to fight with her, though. He smiled in hopes of relieving the tension. He poised an invisible pencil over the tablet of his palm.
“Might we have the list for purposes of reference, Miss Main?”
“Don’t joke, Billy. I’m fifteen. In another five years my life will be nearly half over. So will yours.”
It sobered him. “True.”
“If you go through life without a plan, you wind up with nothing. I intend to marry a man with money. At least enough so that I know he isn’t after mine. But more important than that, he must be someone. A congressman. A governor. I wouldn’t mind if he were President. It’s time we had another Southern President.”
“Old Zach Taylor came from Louisiana.”
“Pooh. He was more Yankee than you are. Anyway—I want to be the wife of a man who’s powerful and important.”
The rest of it, unspoken, was still unpleasantly clear. The man she married would be driven to achieve her goals if he didn’t possess those same goals himself. With a flash of her dark eyes, she finished:
“Of course a soldier can become famous and important. Look at General Scott. Or that New Hampshire Yankee they’re mentioning for President—what’s his name?”
“Pierce. General Franklin Pierce.”
“Yes.” Her smile was taunting. “Will you be that sort of soldier?”
It was all over. He knew it. “No,” he said.
She wasn’t prepared for such a positive, final answer. Her smile grew coy. She leaned to him, letting her bosom brush his arm as a reminder of what she could give a man.
“Bet you could be if you wanted.”
“I don’t have the ambition.” He rose and slapped dirt off the seat of his pants. “Shall we go back? Looks like it might rain.”
They returned to the great house in silence. Hers was bewildered and sullen, but his was invested with an unexpected new peace. She had offered herself and informed him of the price. She was too deep, and too dangerous, for him. He had stepped back from the brink and was relieved.
A rising wind stripped leaves from the water oaks near the house. The leaves whirled around the young people as they came upon Orry supervising half a dozen slaves who were nailing shutters closed.
“Cooper just sent one of his men on horseback from Charleston,” Orry said. “Incoming ships are reporting gale winds a hundred miles offshore. I’ve got riders out warning the other plantations. We may be in for a hurricane.”
Ashton picked up her skirt and dashed into the house. Orry watched her, then scratched his beard. “Loo
ks like we’ve already got one closer to home.”
Billy’s smile was perfunctory. “Have you seen Charles?”
In the morning Ashton was all smiles again. She swept into the dining room and sat down next to Billy, who was finishing the last of several slabs of smoke-cured ham. She patted his hand.
“What shall we do today?”
He pushed his chair back. “Charles is taking me deer hunting with bows and arrows. I’ll see you tonight.”
After he walked out, a knot of pain formed in her stomach. She regretted what she’d said to him while they sat by the river. She had done it largely as a test, curious to discover what he was made of and how far she might bend him. Not that it really mattered; she was in love with Billy. He could remain a lieutenant all his life and she’d still love him. For him she’d gladly throw away her dreams, her ambition—everything.
But she had a feeling it no longer made any difference.
Squinting, Billy leaned forward over the neck of his horse. Visibility was cut to a few feet by the pouring rain. Trees creaked. Limbs snapped off and sailed away. Although it could hardly be later than mid-afternoon, the sky had turned an eerie dark gray.
“There’s the house,” Charles shouted from up ahead. Billy could see nothing but the tail of his friend’s horse switching back and forth. Without Charles as a guide, he’d have been lost. He ached from riding in the buffeting wind. Charles yelled something else, but a deafening cracking obscured it. Billy looked up just as a huge live-oak limb sheared off and dropped toward him. He booted the horse forward. Small branches whipped his face, but the heaviest part of the limb missed horse and rider.
The horse pranced in panic. A hand reached out of the murk to stroke the animal and calm it. As the effects of the scare passed, Charles asked:
“You all right?”
Billy gulped and nodded.
Five more minutes and they were in the stable. The other horses fretted and kicked the sides of their stalls. Billy and Charles surrendered their mounts to the frightened grooms and laid their bows and quivers on a hay bale. They were two very wet, tired, and unlucky hunters. They had sighted only one buck all day. Charles had given Billy first chance at it. Billy’s arrow flew wide, and the buck fled. Charles slashed the tail of Billy’s shirt in half—the traditional sign of a novice who had missed his shot.