North and South Trilogy

by John Jakes

  “It might work,” he said when she came out of the shop. “There is a great likelihood that it will not,” she said. “That’s why we mustn’t tell anyone ahead of time, and raise false hopes. Why are you smiling?”

  “Thinking of my partner Wooden Foot. He’d like your grit.”

  “Thank you. Let’s hope it isn’t totally wasted.”

  She settled her skirt over her legs and clasped the reticule that held her purchase. Charles shook the reins over the mules and started the wagon toward home. He had no reason to whistle the little tune, but he did anyway.

  69

  THE BAROUCHE RACED UP the lane much too fast. The top was in place to spare Ashton and Favor Herrington the dust of a swift journey from town. The two liveried black men hung on to the front seat, grinning like hunters closing on a fox. They didn’t know much about what was happening at Mont Royal, but they’d quickly grasped that the white woman was haughty as a queen and tough as a general. They liked working for her.

  Behind the barouche rattled a second carriage, less opulent. In this carriage rode two clerks employed by Herrington, and a jowly bailiff of the court who’d been bribed to come along.

  As the barouche swayed to a standstill. Ashton felt her heartbeat quicken. She’d slept lightly, restlessly, and jumped out of bed while it was still dark to begin combing and arranging her hair. She was nervous as a virgin in the bridal bed; at least she supposed virgins felt this way. She hadn’t been a virgin for so many years that it was impossible to recall.

  This time Herrington had brought a big carpetbag, whose contents he fussily examined as the driver hopped down to open the door on Ashton’s side. Great shinning lances of sun fell between the massive oaks at the head of the lane; the residue of a river mist was burning off. It was half past nine on what promised to be a sweltering June day.

  Ashton’s upper lip gleamed with perspiration. Her eyes were lively, and despite her state of nerves she could barely keep from smiling. She’d spent half an hour choosing her dress, finally selecting a three-thousand-dollar one from Worth’s of Paris. It was rose pink, restrained and elegant. Her gloves and little straw hat were black. The black and rose made her powdered face starkly arresting.

  Cousin Charles heard the carriages and walked around from the other side of the house in that lazy cat’s way of his. He wore his old cavalry boots, a pair of white linen trousers turned yellow by time, and a shirt with the sleeves rolled above the elbows. His hair was still long as a gypsy’s, and as usual he clenched a foul cigar in his teeth. Cousin Charles was no longer young, but exposure to Western weather had given his face the wrinkled toughness of someone much older. Ashton had always found him handsome. She would have found him so today if she didn’t hate him worse than a snake because of his family ties.

  “Good morning, dear Charles,” she trilled. He leaned against one of the studs in the unfinished wall of the new house and stared. If looks were nails, she would be spiked to the barouche.

  Insolent bastard, she thought. Harrington summoned his clerks from the second carnage. The bailiff belched and scratched his paunch. He strolled toward the corner of the whitewashed house next door. Charles snatched the cigar out of his mouth.

  “Just a minute, you.”

  Favor Herrington stepped in front of him. ‘This gentleman can go anywhere he pleases, Mr. Main. He is an officer of the court, and he has the owner’s permission. We brought him with us to forestall trouble. We realize this is not a happy day for you all.”

  The lawyer fairly oozed sympathy. Charles would have smashed him, but there were bigger fish to be hooked. Looking defeated, he said, “You won’t need him.”

  “Good, very sensible,” Herrington said, giving a nod to the bailiff. The paunchy man wandered out of sight, pulling at his crotch.

  Ashton treated her lawyer to a brilliant smile. “Now, Favor, you know what’s to be done. These two gentlemen are to visit every home on the plantation. Tell the niggers that all previous arrangements concerning their land are null and void unless they can show written proof of such arrangements, and can also read the terms aloud.”

  Herrington nodded crisply. To the pair of pale ciphers accompanying him he said, “Every ’cropper on this place henceforth owes a rental of twenty-five dollars per month, with two months in advance due and payable at five o’clock today. If they can’t pay, they can sign one of those employment contracts I drew up. Or they can get out. I’ll join you shortly. Get busy.”

  The clerks fetched portmanteaus from their carriage. Ashton pointed toward the road to the old slave quarters. “You’ll find them scattered around down there.” Charles folded his arms, high color blotching his dark cheeks.

  “Now,” Ashton said as the clerks hurried off, “the important business. Where might I find Madeline?”

  “Around in front,” Charles said with a jerk of his head.

  “Thank you, you’re so polite,” she said with a sneer. She ought to take his sullen behavior as a tribute to her victory. Unfortunately, it just made her mad. She couldn’t think when she was mad. She composed herself as best she could and swept down the side of the whitewashed house and stepped around to the lawn overlooking the river, only to be figuratively knocked flat by the sight of three women seated there, stiff as subjects in a photo gallery. One of the women was Virgilia Hazard.

  “Virgilia, I’m floored. I’m positively floored.”

  “Hello, Ashton.” Virgilia stood up. She was old, and heavy, and gray, as a mouse in her drab dress. Ashton remembered Virgilia’s past behavior. Her arrogant pronouncements about Southern ways and Southern people. Her lust for black men. The woman was an abomination; Ashton wanted to spit right in her face. But Mr. Herrington was standing beside her. He wouldn’t approve.

  “What a charming surprise,” Ashton said. “Was your brother too busy to come? Did he send you down here to wring your hands in his behalf?”

  The little blond tramp, Cousin Charles’s companion, shot her a furious look. Madeline merely looked despondent. Virgilia said, “I regret that George is in Europe.”

  Ashton pursed her lips. “Oh, too bad.”

  “For God’s sake,” Madeline exclaimed, “let’s load the wagon and get out of here.”

  “In a moment,” Virgilia said. “There’s something Charles and I would like to say to Ashton in private.”

  That startled the visitors. Down by the ruined dock, Ashton noted, Charles’s ugly little boy was chasing geese again. She studied Virgilia, her expression opaque, searching for some sign of a hidden intent. She could detect none.

  “I can’t imagine we’ve anything substantial to discuss,” she said. “Mont Royal’s mine, and that’s that.”

  “Yes, true enough. But we would still like to speak with you.”

  Ashton tilted her head and blinked prettily. “What do you think, Favor?”

  “I see no purpose, but I see no harm in it.”

  “Well, then, all right.”

  “While you’re busy, I’ll join my clerks, if you don’t mind.”

  “Yes, you just go right on ahead,” Ashton trilled. Charles threw a swift look at Willa; he seemed to be signaling her in some conspiratorial way. Neither Ashton nor her lawyer paid attention.

  Virgilia gathered her dowdy gray skirt in her left hand, which Ashton noticed for the first time. “Let’s step inside. We’ll only be a moment.”

  Ashton’s sense of triumph puffed her up again. She could afford to be generous to these whipped curs. She was smiling radiantly as she stepped in front of Virgilia without apology and preceded her into the cheap little room that served as Madeline’s parlor:

  Everything was packed and piled near the door except for one handmade shelf holding a small stoppered apothecary’s bottle of dark amber glass. Dim light fell through the curtained window in the stove alcove. Charles followed the women inside. He closed the door and leaned against it, with arms folded. His cigar had gone out but it still reeked.

  Ashton’s smile wavered
and faded away; although there was absolutely no way these people could threaten her any longer, she was nervous. She cleared her throat and said to Virgilia, “My dear, is that an engagement ring?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Very handsome. Congratulations. I should like to meet the gentleman.” What her tone tried to convey was, I should like to meet the man desperate enough to marry an ox like you.

  Virgilia seemed to catch that. “I don’t really think you would. He’s a colored man.”

  Ashton could have gone all the way through the ground to China. Even Charles looked thunderstruck. Ashton began to feel annoyed and genuinely upset by this queer confrontation in the dark bare room. “Well, that certainly is a piece of news. I wonder, could we just get on with this?”

  “Immediately,” Virgilia said, “Charles and I would like you to sign something, that’s all.”

  Ashton tittered. “Sign? For mercy’s sake, what are you talking about?”

  Virgilia picked up the reticule lying on a crate. From it she drew a single sheet of stiff paper, folded twice. She unfolded it. “This. There’s a pen in one of these boxes. It will only take a moment.”

  “What is it? What the hell are you talking about?” She was angry over the mummery.

  “A very simple legal document,” Virgilia said. “It transfers the title to Mont Royal to Hazard’s of Pennsylvania, for a dollar and other considerations.”

  That was even more shocking than the news about Virgilia’s intended. Ashton’s mouth opened, and her eyes widened. She gaped at them as if they were crazy people. She abandoned all pretense of politeness:

  “You Yankee bitch. You fat whore. What are you thinking? Have you drunk yourself into a state?”

  “I suggest you calm down, Cousin,” Charles said behind her.

  “You shut your mouth, you goddamn good-for-nothing. You’re both ready for the asylum. There’s no consideration on God’s earth that could make me sign that, and you’re lint-headed fools even to think it.”

  “Perhaps this consideration would influence you,” Virgilia said. From the shelf she took the amber bottle. She showed it, stoppered, in her open palm.

  Ashton’s squeal went right up the scale. “Oh, what a fool you are—an idiot! A complete ninny! I always thought you were a crazy woman, now I’m sure. Get that out of my sight, whatever it is. Charles, you open the door.”

  She stormed toward him, only to stop abruptly when he stayed put, arms still folded. He frightened her.

  “Do you think”—Ashton’s voice quavered just a little—“do you think some shabby little gift would do anything, anything at all, to influence me? Mont Royal’s mine, and I’m taking it.”

  “Gift?” Virgilia repeated with a puzzled smile. The smile disappeared as though a curtain had come down. “For the likes of you?” Ashton felt a distinct chill. What in God’s name were they up to? “Stand fast, Charles. Don’t let her out.”

  Ashton’s heaving bodice showed her agitation. She seemed to lose an inch or so of height. Her black-gloved hands fisted at her waist. “What’s going on here? What is that bottle?”

  Virgilia drew out the stopper. “It’s something for your face, but it isn’t perfume.” She held out the bottle. “Oil of vitriol.”

  Charles said, “Sulfuric acid.”

  Ashton screamed.

  It didn’t disturb Virgilia. “Go ahead, yell. That feeble lawyer of yours has gone off to find his helpers. If he hadn’t, Willa was prepared to lure him away. You’ll have witnesses to support anything you say about this conversation.”

  Ashton held still, trembling. From the corner of her eye, she gauged the distance to Charles. A fly buzzed near Virgilia’s forehead. Ashton clenched her fists and cried, “Favor!”

  Silence. Virgilia smiled in a dreamy way. “My dear, it’s no use. Even if he were standing right outside and tried to force the door, I’d still have plenty of time to splash this all over you.” The smile grew broader. “You know I wouldn’t hesitate. I’m a Yankee who hates you and your kind and I’m crazy to boot. So I suggest you sign. There’s an old quill and some ink in that box right beside you.”

  “A paper like that—it’s no good,” Ashton raved. “I can take it to court. I can take you to court. I only have to say that you forced me—”

  “Why, there’s no duress,” Charles said gently. “I’m a witness. There are two of us to testify that you signed voluntarily. Where are your witnesses to say otherwise?”

  “Damn you. Damn you!”

  “Ashton, you’re wasting your energy for nothing,” Virgilia said. “This paper is perfectly legal, and it will be legal after you sign it. We can hire the best lawyers in the nation to guarantee it. As many lawyers as it takes. My brother George can easily afford that, and a lot more. So be sensible. Sign.”

  Ashton screamed again.

  Virgilia sighed. “Charles, I’m afraid we miscalculated. Her appearance isn’t important to her any more.”

  “Her face, you mean—”

  “Yes. Her face.”

  Virgilia held out the open amber bottle and started walking toward Ashton. Ashton pressed her wrists to her temples and screamed for a full five seconds. Then she sagged to her knees, rooting in the box. “I’ll sign. Don’t hurt my face. I’ll sign it. Here, I’m signing it—”

  She spilled the vial of ink as she dipped the quill in. Huge black spots spread on the rose pink bodice and skirt from Worth’s. Spots of ink fell like black tears on the margin of the paper she didn’t bother to read. She flung it on top of a stack of books for support, then signed her name.

  “There, goddamn you. There.” Tears coursed down her face. Her hand was shaking visibly as she thrust the paper at Virgilia.

  Virgilia took it and examined the signature. Ashton tottered to her feet, sweaty, pale, breathing noisily. She dropped the quill. It bounced off her skirt, leaving another stain. The vial of ink lay on its side on the floor, gurgling as it emptied itself into a black pool.

  Virgilia nodded and folded the paper. “Thank you, Ashton.” She flung the contents of the bottle in Ashton’s face.

  Ashton swayed and raked her cheeks with her nails, screaming like a harpy. “You Yankee bitch!” Her nails drew blood. “You’ve destroyed me!”

  “With a little well water? I hardly think so. Let her out, Charles.”

  He stood back and opened the door. Sunlight spilled in, lighting the pool of ink. Outside, he saw Madeline and Willa, both anxiously watching the doorway. Farther down the lawn, Gus pointed out something on the river for the paunchy bailiff.

  “Goodbye, Ashton,” he said.

  She screamed as she ran past.

  The barouche went down the lane even faster than it had come up, taking Ashton away. The clerks and Favor Herrington, Esquire, showed up an hour later. The bailiff had already taken the other carriage. The bewildered lawyer and his clerks had to walk back to Charleston.

  ___________

  1869

  Union Pacific and Central Pacific lines meet in Utah, creating transcontinental railroad.

  Samuel Clemens publishes a best-seller, Innocents Abroad.

  Jay Gould and Jim Fisk manipulate gold market on “Black Friday”; thousands of small investors ruined.

  1870

  John D. Rockefeller organizes Standard Oil of Ohio.

  Congress passes first Force Bill to guarantee civil rights, stop anti-Negro terrorism in the South.

  Washington receives first black Senator, Hiram Revels of Mississippi, and first black Representative, Joseph Rainey of South Carolina.

  1871

  Professional baseball players form the National League.

  Chicago fire kills 300, destroys 17,000 buildings.

  Indictments returned against William “Boss” Tweed of Tammany for stealing millions from New York City.

  1872

  Dissident Republicans, unhappy with Grant, nominate crusading journalist Horace Greeley; Vice President Schuyler Colfax accused of accepting bribe fr
om Union Pacific Credit Mobilier construction company.

  Congress refuses to authorize operating funds for Freedmen’s Bureau; Bureau closes.

  Authorities arrest Susan B. Anthony for attempting to vote; voters return Grant for second term; Greeley dies from mental strain of campaigning.

  1873

  Presidential proclamation authorizes Centennial Exposition for 1876.

  Rumors of corruption in the Grant administration continue to circulate.

  Collapse of Jay Cooke banking house touches off panic leading to three-year depression.

  1874

  Eads’ Bridge, world’s longest arch, spans the Mississippi at St. Louis.

  General Custer confirms discovery of gold in the Dakota Territory.

  Cartoonist Thomas Nast draws an elephant to represent Republicans.

  1875

  Gold prospectors illegally overrun Sioux lands in the Black Hills.

  Grant’s secretary, Babcock, linked to “Whiskey Ring” scheme to defraud the government of liquor taxes.

  Secretary of War W.W. Belknap grants Army trading post licenses in return for cash bribes.

  ___________

  THE INTERNATIONAL CENTENNIAL EXHIBITION AT PHILADELPHIA

  _____

  A GLIMPSE OF FAIRMOUNT PARK—THE BUILDINGS AND THEIR SURROUNDINGS—SIXTY ACRES

  ROOFED OVER—THE WORLD’S TROPHIES AT AMERICA’S FEET—WHAT THERE IS TO SEE

  AND HOW TO SEE IT.

  _____

  Today the grandest spectacle ever witnessed on this continent—and one unlikely to be repeated on our shores for years to come—will begin its six months’ existence at Philadelphia. The Nation’s hundredth year will be inseparably associated with never-to-be-forgotten memories of the choicest products of every branch of industry and useful and ornamental art. …

  Charleston News and Courier

  May 10, 1876

  70