by John Jakes
Outside, the fall breeze was cooling. The redness slowly left Brett’s face. “I must be a sight. I didn’t expect anyone to come looking for me.”
“I had to see you before I left. Virgilia ruined this visit, but I don’t want that to spoil the friendship of our families. Not when we’re just getting to know each other.”
“Are we? That is—”
She wanted to die on the spot. Mortified by what she perceived as a total lack of feminine grace, she could barely speak two words coherently. How ugly she must look to him, all daubed with flour and flecked with yeast dough. But what she had told him was true; she was completely unprepared for this encounter. She had dreamed of his noticing her—but not, dear God, when she was sweating in the kitchen.
“I hope we are—will—” Billy too got lost in his own embarrassment. He gave up and just laughed, and that broke the tension for both of them.
“No one blames you for what your sister did,” Brett said.
He studied her eyes. How pretty they were. How free of guile. She wasn’t as flamboyantly attractive as Ashton, and she never would be. Yet she did possess beauty, he thought; beauty of a simpler, more substantial sort, compounded in part of the shy gentleness of her gaze and the kindness of her smile. It was a beauty that time could never erode, as it could her sister’s. It ran like a rich, pure vein, all the way to the center of Brett’s being.
Or so his romantic eye told him.
“It’s kind of you to say that, Brett. Virgilia made an awful mess. But all the rest of us want your family to come back to Newport next summer. What I wondered—”
The rear door of the great house opened. Out poked the bonneted head of the nurse.
“Master Billy? We’ve been searching for you. We’re ready to go.”
“Coming.”
The door closed. He abandoned caution. “If Orry does come to Newport, will you be with him?”
“I hope so.”
“Meantime—though I’m not much with words—could I send you a short letter now and then?”
“I wish you would.”
The smile on her face kindled joy in his soul. Dare he kiss her? Instead of yielding to impulse and giving her a regular kiss, he bent from the waist, seized her hand, and pressed his lips to it, like some lovelorn nobleman. Then he ran like the devil—chiefly to hide his beet-colored face. Brett clasped her hands at her bosom and gazed after him, her face shining with happiness. After a long moment she turned toward the house.
The angle of the sunlight at that moment created glittering reflections in every window. It was impossible to see whether anyone was watching. Ashton didn’t know that, however. Fearing discovery by her sister, she quickly stepped back from the upper window from which she had observed the entire, sickening encounter between her sister and Billy Hazard.
Brett was soon gone from her line of vision, but Ashton continued to stand motionless with her gaze fixed on the window. Pale sunlight fell through the lace curtain, casting a pattern like a spider’s web onto her face. Only the compressed line of her mouth and the slitted look of her eyes revealed her fury.
“Papa, what did the man with the whiskers want?”
Little William Hazard asked the question while leaning against his father’s legs. Patricia sat on George’s lap, her arms around his neck and her cheek pressed drowsily to his. Both youngsters wore flannel nightgowns.
Belvedere smelled sweet with the greens of the Christmas season. The scent here in the parlor was augmented by the tang of apple wood burning in the fireplace and by the not unpleasant scent of soap on the children.
“He wanted me to be a soldier again,” George answered.
William grew excited. “Are you going to be a soldier?”
“No. Once is enough. Off to bed, both of you.”
He kissed each child soundly and patted their bottoms to speed them along. Constance was waiting for them in the hall. She blew George a kiss, then raised her index fingers to her forehead and bleated like a billy goat. The children squealed and ran. They loved the nightly game of pursuit. Sometimes Constance was an elephant, sometimes a lion, sometimes a frog. Her invention delighted them. George wasn’t surprised. She thoroughly pleased and delighted him, too.
This evening, despite his time with the children, George felt out of sorts. The visitor had come representing the adjutant general of the Pennsylvania militia. He had begun by saying the militia needed qualified officers in order to expand and prepare for the war that was a certainty within the next few years.
“What war?” George wanted to know.
“The war to silence the treasonous utterances being heard in the South. The war to guarantee personal liberty throughout the nation’s new territories.” Thus the caller revealed himself an advocate of free soil. He went on to explain that if George joined the state militia, he was virtually certain of being elected to a captaincy. “My contacts in Lehigh Station tell me you’re a popular man. I’m sure that would overcome the handicap of a West Point background.”
He said it so condescendingly that George nearly threw him out into the snow. Memories of the Mexican War were fading. The public was reverting to its old suspicion of the military—and its dislike of the institution that trained professional officers.
The visitor was stubborn. George had to decline to join the militia three times. The third time, growing annoyed, he said he would hate to see slavery ended by any means except a peaceful one.
George had disliked the discipline of soldiering and hoped he never again would have to put up with it. His dislike was even stronger for the visitor and his sneering intimation that George somehow lacked patriotism because he didn’t care to kill other Americans. At that point George became rude. The man left in a huff.
The visit brought back the nagging questions George had thought about so often. How could the South’s peculiar institution be dismantled if force were rejected as a means? He didn’t know. No one knew. In most discussions that might lead to an answer, passion usually supplanted reason. The quarrel was too deep-rooted, too old. It was as old as the Missouri Compromise line of 1820. As old as the first boatload of black men brought to the continent.
He remembered the letter he had been meaning to write for several days. Perhaps he hadn’t written it because he disliked withholding some of the truth. Yet he knew that was necessary. He passed the gaily decorated Christmas tree, nine feet high. The sight failed to cheer him. He sat with pen in hand for about ten minutes before he put down the first lines.
My dear Orry—
Perhaps it will help ease the memories of last autumn if I report that my sister has moved away, at my request. Virgilia’s behavior in her various abolitionist groups became too outrageous to be borne.
He told no more than that. He said nothing about Grady’s having reached Philadelphia safely; nothing about Virgilia’s going everywhere with the escaped slave. She had ordered new artificial teeth for him, teeth to replace those removed by his former masters. The matter of the teeth had provoked her final quarrel with George.
She had asked him for a loan to pay for the new teeth. He had agreed—provided she accept one condition: she must stop flaunting herself on Grady’s arm. The fight that followed was brief, loud, and bitter. It ended with his ordering her to leave Lehigh Station. For once Stanley endorsed his brother’s decision.
Virgilia and her lover were now living in Philadelphia. In squalor, George presumed. A few landlords with decent quarters to rent might be willing to give them to a man and woman who weren’t married, but that would never be the case if the woman was white and the man was black.
Grady had thus far been secretive about his past; as far as most people knew, he was Pennsylvania-born. But his background couldn’t be kept completely quiet for long, especially when Virgilia was pulled by conflicting desires to protect her lover and to use him to forward her cause. So there had been one or two requests for public speeches, which Grady had declined. Speeches were reported in newspape
rs, and Northern newspapers might be read by Southern slave catchers in the employ of James Huntoon.
The runaway had, however, addressed a private meeting of Philadelphia abolitionists, one of whom was a business acquaintance of George’s. Appalled, the man reported to George that Grady had called for the overthrow of slavery by “rebellion, arson, terror, or any other effective means.” George suspected Virgilia had written most or all of the speech. God knew what insane plots against established order she and Grady were hatching.
Sometimes George wished he didn’t care about his sister. But family loyalty never quite deserted him—nor did the memory of something his mother had once said: “Love will somehow defeat hate. It will, and if we’re all to survive, it must.”
That was why he said nothing about Grady in the letter. The news might reach Huntoon and cause him to send a slave catcher to Philadelphia.
What a hypocrite you are, George thought. He didn’t give a damn about Virgilia’s relationship with the former slave, yet he was protecting it, protecting a Negro fugitive right along with his own sister. Some compulsion drove him to it. At the same time, his behavior left him with a bad feeling, a feeling of betraying his friend.
God, how he hated this turmoil. Like the nation, he was slowly being torn apart.
30
THAT WINTER BRETT ACQUIRED another beau, though not entirely by her own choice.
Some sportive strain in Francis LaMotte’s family had produced a son much taller than his father and much better-looking than either parent. Forbes LaMotte had grown into a strapping six-footer with fair hair, a swaggering walk, and a disposition that inclined to indolence except when there were drinks to be downed, horses to be raced, or pretty girls to be pursued. Francis had hoped to see his son graduate from The Citadel, the state’s own version of West Point that had been established in 1842. But after one term at the Charleston military school, Forbes had been dismissed for academic deficiency.
Weary of low-class sluts too easily bedded, and not interested in Ashton Main, who secretly frightened him, Forbes took notice of Brett. In 1852 Brett would reach her fourteenth birthday. She was continuing to mature rapidly, filling out and gaining the poise that frequently accompanied young womanhood. With that poise went an awareness of her own powers of attraction.
Forbes rode to Mont Royal to ask permission to call on her. Normally he would have made the request of Tillet, but the health of the patriarch of the Main family had lately begun to suffer. He had trouble breathing and was bedridden much of the time. Orry had taken over virtually all family responsibilities.
Neighborhood gossip had revealed to Forbes that Brett received an occasional letter from that Pennsylvania boy who had visited the plantation last fall. Forbes didn’t consider Billy Hazard a threat. He was far away, and in the long run his temperament would never blend with that of a girl bred in the South. If Billy ever did turn into a serious rival, Forbes, who was bigger, would just bash him and scare him off.
Orry found Forbes less objectionable than some of the LaMottes but still didn’t like him very much. Nevertheless, he said yes to Forbes’s request. Permission to call was a far cry from permission to marry. Besides, he didn’t expect his sister to pay a great deal of attention to the courtship gifts Forbes immediately began to send or to be cordial when Forbes visited in person.
Brett surprised her brother. She had her reasons.
Even if she hadn’t known Billy, she would never have considered Forbes a serious suitor. Like most of the other LaMottes, he thought his own opinions were holy writ, and he angered easily when someone disagreed with any of them. When sober and in a good mood, however, he could be charming.
Brett couldn’t judge the seriousness of Billy’s intentions. There was always a long interval between his brief, awkwardly phrased letters, and she recognized the possibility that he might all at once take up with some Northern girl. By seeing Forbes now and then she hoped to cushion herself against possible disappointment; she liked Billy more than she cared to admit.
Forbes was five years older than Brett and three years younger than that pale toad Huntoon. There was no resemblance between the two suitors—Ashton’s beau was a dog on a leash, but Forbes was his own man, which Brett rather enjoyed.
Fending off Forbes was a constant challenge. “Stop that” was what she said most often. Never harshly, but always firmly. She had said it again just now as he leaned over her shoulder while she played the pianoforte. Instead of turning the page of her sheet music, he reached down and gently grasped her breast.
“I said stop that, Forbes,” she repeated when he didn’t let go. She took her fan from the music rack and slapped his thumb. “Why do you insist on treating me like one of those Charleston trollops you fool with?”
He grinned. “Because you’re ten times as pretty as any of them, and I want you ten times as bad.”
“Want is a word for husbands and only for husbands,” she said with a smile.
“My. Pretty racy talk for a girl of your tender years.”
But he relished it. Apparently she did too, for she teased him right back:
“If you’re so concerned about my tender years, why is your hand always groping every which way like I’m some old hen?”
“Can’t help myself,” he said, sidling to the end of the pianoforte, where he could rest on his elbow and gaze down at her. His unexpectedly serious expression made her squirm. “You know I’m crazy about you, Brett. You and I are going to be married one of these days.”
“Don’t count on it,” she replied, jumping up. “Why, you won’t even bring me the presents I ask for.”
”Now listen, blast it—I don’t know anybody who sells the National Era in Charleston. And if somebody did, I wouldn’t be caught dead buying an abolitionist rag.”
“But Forbes—all the papers and periodicals are discussing Mrs. Stowe’s serial. I want to read part of it.” Even Orry had expressed interest in the new novel.
“Read,” Forbes parroted with a contemptuous wave. “Girls aren’t supposed to read. Oh, I guess Godey’s is safe enough, and some of Mr. Timrod’s verse is harmless. But if God had wanted women educated, he’d have let them go to places like Harvard. They can’t get in, so I guess that tells you.”
“That’s an idiotic statement. Idiotic and backward.”
“The devil it is. Uncle Justin suffers something fierce because Aunt Maddie reads so much. You should see some of the trash she orders from New York. Sends him into a perfect rage.”
“Your whole family’s good at raging when you don’t like something. Good night, Forbes,” she said with finality, and swept out of the room.
Thunderstruck, he gaped at the empty doorway. “Brett? Wait, damn it. I didn’t mean—”
No use. Her footsteps were already fading on the stairs.
He whacked his right fist into his left palm, then glanced up to see Ashton in the hall with Huntoon. The couple had been in the library for the last hour, occupied with a book of pencil mazes.
Ashton’s beau had few chances to score a point against someone as physical as Forbes. This opportunity was too good to resist.
“Cussing, friend? Tsk, tsk. That’s no way to court a young lady. Most especially, it’s no way to court her family. What you should do—” Huntoon gulped and swallowed the rest of his advice as Forbes stormed toward him:
“You make any more comments, I’ll punch that pig bladder you call your face.” He grabbed Huntoon’s shirt ruffle. “There’ll be blood all over your nice clothes. I ’spect the sight of it would make you faint.”
He jerked, tearing the ruffle. Then he picked up his hat, stick, and gloves and stomped out into the mild February night. “Nigger, fetch my horse!”
The bellow made Ashton shiver with disgust. “He’s nothing but an animal.”
“Absolutely,” Huntoon agreed, fingering the torn ruffle. “I don’t know how your sister tolerates him.”
Ashton glanced at Huntoon’s glistening cheeks and s
uppressed a shudder of loathing. Smiling sweetly, she took his arm.
“She has no ambition. She chases one worthless boy after another.”
Including the one I still want.
Forbes and Brett soon patched up their quarrel. It was largely Brett’s doing. She decided that nothing Forbes said should be taken seriously.
Huntoon visited Mont Royal at least twice a week that winter. Somehow, the attention never made Ashton happy. Someone else was on her mind. One afternoon she raced her sister to the wicker basket that held the day’s mail. She beat her and snatched up a wax-sealed letter. “Why, here’s another one from Billy! That’s two this month. He’s getting ever so much better.”
Brett reached for the letter. It was impossible to miss the jealousy in her sister’s eyes. “Ashton, that’s mine.”
The older girl laughed and raised the letter over her head. “What’ll you give me for it?”
“If you keep teasing me, I’ll give you a black eye.”
“My. We’re sounding more and more like Mr. LaMotte all the time.” She flung the letter on the floor. “Does Billy know about him?”
Brett’s voice trembled. “You go to the devil.”
The older girl was stunned. Ashton had never heard her sister use any word that even approached profanity. Perhaps she’d gone too far. She couldn’t help it. She was miserable, and Huntoon’s visits only exacerbated the feeling. He always tried to draw her into some secluded corner and paw her. On those occasions when she chose to resist, he responded with a hurt whine:
“Why do you treat me this way, Ashton?”
“Because we aren’t married yet. Just because you and Orry agreed on a dowry and I said I’d become your wife in due time, that doesn’t give you any right to take liberties.”
Her whimsical behavior was a continuing source of puzzlement to him. Frequently, she seemed to enjoy his advances, although she never permitted them to go too far. On other occasions she rejected them with an almost prudish fervor—which was mightily confusing when he thought of the old rumors linking her with a male member of the Smith family.