by John Jakes
The house was on Tradd Street, right around the corner from the famous old Heyward residence. It was a typical Charleston house, designed for coolness and privacy. Each of its three floors had a piazza, and each piazza ran the length of the building, or about sixty feet. The house was twenty feet deep, the width of a single room, and was situated on the lot so that one long side was flush with the public sidewalk.
Although the house was entered from this side, the opposite one facing the garden was considered the front. Cooper called the garden his second office. Behind a high brick wall he often worked for hours on company matters, surrounded by the seasonal beauties of azaleas and magnolias and the contrasting greens of the crape myrtle and the yucca. He thought it a shame that he lived in such a beautiful house all by himself.
But he didn’t think of that often; he was too busy. He had turned his quasi-exile into a triumphant success along with the little cotton packet company. He was now in the process of doubling the company’s warehouse space by means of an addition. He never consulted his father about such decisions. Tillet still thought of the Carolina Shipping Company as a burden, a financial risk. That left Cooper free to run it his way.
The company’s headquarters, warehouse, and pier were located on Concord Street, above the U.S. Customs House. The company symbol, appearing on a signboard in front as well as on the ensigns of its two rickety packets, was an oval of ship’s line surrounding three shorter pieces of line arranged to represent the letters C.S.C.
Cooper knew Charleston would never be the cotton port, as it had once been the rice port. Alabama and Mississippi dominated cotton production now. But Charleston still shipped a respectable tonnage, and Cooper wanted an ever bigger share for C.S.C. For that reason, a few months ago he had mortgaged everything and placed an order with the Black Diamond Boat Yard of Brooklyn, New York, for a new packet of modern, indeed advanced, design.
She would be driven by a screw propeller, not side wheels. Below decks, three transverse bulkheads would create four compartments that could be made watertight. In the event the hull was breached on coastal rocks, cargo in the undamaged compartments could be saved.
The bulkheads added substantially to the cost of the packet. But Cooper had already described the innovation to a couple of local cotton factors, and their reaction had been so positive he knew the extra expenditure would give his vessel an edge over its competition—and never mind that packets didn’t run aground that often. It was the provision for what might happen that influenced a factor’s choice of a ship.
A break in the hull was even less likely because of a second unusual feature—the use of iron instead of wood. Hazard Iron would supply a special run of plate for the hull.
Cooper was proud of the design of the new packet, which was to be christened Mont Royal. Before drawing up a list of features and performance specifications and taking them to Brooklyn, he had spent months reading up on naval architecture and filling sketch pads. Black Diamond’s president said that if Cooper ever tired of Charleston, they would hire him—and it wasn’t entirely a joke.
Cooper had little trouble arranging financing for his project. Although the Charleston bankers didn’t care for his political views, they liked his business ideas, his confidence, and his record thus far. He had already increased the volume of C.S.C. by eighty percent and its profits by twenty. He had accomplished it by refurbishing the old packets so that they were more dependable and by offering discounts to factors who placed a large part of their business with him.
In addition to the Concord Street property, C.S.C. now owned another piece of real estate—a twenty-five-acre parcel of land on James Island, across from the peninsula on which the city stood. The parcel had water frontage of one-half mile and was located not far from abandoned Fort Johnson. Cooper had acquired this seemingly worthless land as part of a long-term scheme he had kept secret from everyone. He wasn’t afraid of being laughed at; he simply felt that the prudent businessman kept good ideas private until it served his interest to make them public. Now, at twilight on the first Monday in May, he strolled the Battery and gazed at his real estate there beyond the open water. He continued to believe his decision to buy had been right. It might be years before he could put that land to use, but use it he would.
Tucked under his arm he carried the latest edition of the Mercury. The paper’s extremism repelled him, but it covered city and state matters in adequate fashion. One front-page article told the harrowing story of an old woman suffocated in her bed by two house slaves she had reprimanded. The slaves had disappeared and were still at large; the paper editorialized about the rebellious tendencies of Negroes and how those tendencies were being inflamed by Northern propaganda. Cooper never had any trouble understanding the state’s collective nervousness about its large Negro population.
Another article described several new fire laws. Charleston was always enacting fire laws in an effort to stave off another blaze like that which had threatened to raze the city in ’38. In the margin beside this article Cooper had jotted a list of things he needed for his trip north tomorrow.
Charleston was approaching a population of twenty-eight thousand people, slightly more than half of them white. In addition to the old aristocracy, there were sizable groups of turbulent Irish, clannish Germans, tradition-minded Jews. The city’s spires and rooftops, interspersed with great oaks and palmettos, looked lovely in the dusk. The pleasant prospect, coupled with the bracing salt air, reminded him of a vow he had made to himself months ago. This would be his home for as long as he lived. Or at least until his political views got him run out by a mob.
With a tart smile, he turned from the city to the vista he loved even more—the harbor and the great ocean beyond. Charleston harbor remained one of the Federal government’s strongest coastal installations; virtually everywhere you looked there was a fort. Away on his left lay Fort Moultrie on Sullivan’s Island. Closer, on a mud flat, he could see Castle Pinckney. Straight ahead rose the bulk of Fort Sumter, and over on James Island the forlorn old buildings of Fort Johnson.
The various forts didn’t thrill Cooper at all. What thrilled him day in and day out was the steamship traffic in the harbor. In a relatively short time he had developed a profound love for ships and for the sea that carried them.
The land at his back seemed old, frozen in a pattern fixed centuries before. The land was yesterday, obsolete or nearly so, but the sea with all the restless steam vessels it bore was a modern realm of speed, endless discovery, endless possibility. The sea was tomorrow.
And in some unexpected, almost inexplicable way, Cooper had ceased to be a man of the land and had become a man of the sea. He loved that too.
Cooper rode the train to New York, there spending two weeks at a shabby hotel near the Black Diamond yard. His packet was already under construction; the transverse bulkheads would be finished before the month was out.
He made numerous drawings of the vessel and the construction site, and filled whole booklets of notes before hurrying away with feelings of relief. The twin cities of Brooklyn and New York made Charleston appear drowsy and backward. Their size and their bustling, aggressive citizens intimidated him.
He boarded a train for Pennsylvania. The number of railroads operating out of New York seemed to have increased tenfold since his last visit. By way of contrast, the famous “Best Friend” of Charleston, the first locomotive built for service in America, had made its historic run nearly twenty years ago—December 1830. Three years after that the entire Charleston and Hamburg line went into operation, 136 miles of track running all the way to the head of navigation on the Savannah River. Cooper thought it a sad irony that railroad building was now lagging in the state that had pioneered it. The Yankees were out to become the railroad kings, just as they wanted to be the kings of every other major industry.
When Cooper arrived in Lehigh Station, George took him into the mill and showed him some of the plate destined for the hull of Mont Royal. Above the roar Geo
rge shouted, “A lot of naval architects still scoff at plate for ships. But it’s the coming thing.”
Cooper yelled a reply, but George didn’t hear it. “That British engineer,” he went on, “Brunel. He built Great Britain out of iron, and she had no trouble with Atlantic crossings. Brunel swears that one day he’ll build an iron ship so big that Great Britain will look like a speck beside her. So you’re in excellent company.”
“I know,” Cooper called back. “Mont Royal’s actually a scaled-down version of Brunel’s ship.” The idea of an adaptation had come to him when he first read a description of Great Britain.
George showed his visitor the entire Hazard complex, greatly expanded since Cooper had seen it last. The huge blast furnaces, the finery and plate mill, the new rail-rolling installation—all were running at capacity, George said. The streams of molten iron, which gave off clouds of sparks, blinding light, and hellish heat, intimidated Cooper even more than the cities he had recently quit. In the fire and noise of Hazard’s he again saw the growing industrial might of the North.
That power and the teeming crowds in the cities lent a ludicrous quality to the South’s posturings about independence. Why didn’t the Carolina hotspurs spend a week up here? They would soon see it was the North, and only the North, that provided most of what they used, from structural iron to farm tools; from hairpins for their wives and mistresses to the gunmetal of the very weapons with which some of them proposed to defend their preposterous declarations about a free and separate South.
On the other hand, Tillet Main would never change his ways because of such a visit, Cooper decided. His father didn’t want his beliefs muddied by truth. Cooper knew a lot of men exactly like him. He expected the North had its share, too.
He was in poor spirits during supper that night. While spouts of fiery iron jetted across the dark field of his thoughts, he put on a smile he didn’t feel. He struggled to keep track of the conversation carried on by George’s charming Irish wife and her lively mother-in-law. The Hazard youngsters, William and Patricia, had been fed separately. “They’re good children,” Constance said, “but they can be bumptious. I thought we should dine without the threat of custard flying through the air.”
George’s table talk consisted largely of a monologue about the need for a better and cheaper method of producing steel. He explained some of the technical problems with such clarity that Cooper remembered them in detail long afterward. Constance understood her husband’s concern and didn’t interrupt while he was holding forth. When the meal and the monologue ended, the two men retired to the smoking room. George lit a cigar while Cooper sipped brandy.
“We’ll rejoin the ladies in the music room in a little while,” George said. He didn’t sound enthusiastic. “My brother Billy will be coming over from next door. Stanley and his wife, too. Billy’s going to the Military Academy. Did Orry tell you that?”
“No. What a splendid surprise. Perhaps there’ll be a reunion in a year or two.”
“A reunion? What do you mean?”
“Remember Cousin Charles? He’s changed a lot since you saw him. He has ambitions to attend West Point too.”
George sat forward. “You mean it’s possible there could be another Main and another Hazard there together?” They compared dates and found it to be entirely possible.
Smiling, George leaned back in his chair. “Well, that improves the evening.” He quickly sobered. “I hope the remainder of it won’t be unpleasant for you.”
“Why should it be unpleasant?”
“My sister Virgilia is home for a few days. She seldom takes supper with us, but she’s here.”
“I recall her very well. Handsome girl.” Cooper dropped the lie into the conversation gracefully.
“Opinionated, too. Especially on the subject of abolition,” George said with a pointed glance at his guest. “In fact she’s managed to antagonize most of the residents of Lehigh Station. She takes a nugget of truth and surrounds it with the most outrageous qualifications and conditions. For example, she claims Negro freedom is philosophically related to the principle of free love. Believe in one, and you must believe in the other. Of course that linkage leads to relationships between the races, which to her is perfectly all right.”
Cooper swirled his cognac, withholding comment.
“Not even arguing that last question”—George chewed the smoldering stub of his cigar—“I can say this without fear of challenge: by the way she conducts herself, Virgilia stirs up a hell of a lot of animosity among people who would otherwise be sympathetic to some of her views. She upsets the household, too. My mother’s patience is tried to its limit. And I can’t begin to describe the way Virgilia affects Stanley’s wife—oh, but you’ve not met Isabel, have you? You will this evening. And you’ll get to know her this summer.”
“Afraid not,” Cooper murmured. “My duties will keep me in Charleston.” Another lie, but for his benefit this time.
“I’m sorry to hear that. Where the devil was I?”
“Isabel and your sister.”
“Oh, yes. Of the two, it’s Virgilia I’m worried about. Since she came home, she’s already received two vile anonymous letters. Down in the village the other day, someone threw mud at her. There’s no telling what will happen to her if she continues to promote her wild ideas. I expect she’ll also be joining us tonight. I felt I should warn you.”
Cooper crossed his legs and smiled. “I appreciate the concern. She won’t bother me.”
“I hope not, but don’t be too sure.”
Cooper found Stanley Hazard as stuffy as ever. Stanley kept dropping names of Pennsylvania politicians into the conversation. He pronounced each one as if he expected Cooper to recognize it and be impressed.
Isabel struck Cooper as a shrew. She had brought her twin sons to the music room. They writhed on her lap and tried to out-howl one another. Constance offered to hold one of them, but Isabel refused—sharply, Cooper thought; the sisters-in-law clearly disliked each other. Stanley finally ordered his wife to take the noisy youngsters out of the room. Everyone was relieved.
Billy talked excitedly about the forthcoming holiday in Newport. He’d completed the program at boarding school and now, guided through occasional visits to Philadelphia for tutoring, continued his studies at home. The boy was unmistakably a Hazard, though he was by no means a twin of George. His hair was darker than George’s, his eyes a deeper shade of blue. He had a cheerful face with a blunt chin that gave him an air of rugged dependability. His powerful chest made him look as strong as a tree.
Virgilia arrived. She seized Cooper’s hand and shook it, much like a man. Her mother frowned. After a bit of small talk, Virgilia seated herself next to Cooper and bored in.
“Mr. Main, what is the reaction in your part of the South to Senator Clay’s proposals?”
Careful, he thought, noting her fiery eye. She wants a rise out of you. Parlor politics seldom led to anything except bad feelings—certainly never to agreement—so he answered with a bland smile:
“About what you’d expect, Miss Hazard. Most people in South Carolina oppose any compromise with—”
“So do I,” she broke in. Maude uttered a quiet word of reproof. Cooper was sure Virgilia heard, but she paid no attention. “In matters of human freedom, there is no room for compromise or negotiation. Webster and Clay and that whole gang should be lynched.”
Cooper’s smile felt stiff. “I think John Calhoun had a similar, if less violent, reaction to those gentlemen and their proposals—though certainly not for the reason you mention.”
“Then for once I would agree with the late, unlamented Mr. Calhoun. In other respects he was a traitor.”
Having just struck a match, George unthinkingly flung it onto the carpet. “Good God, Virgilia. Mind your manners.”
Maude rushed forward to step on the match. “George, see what you’ve done.”
Stanley sniffed and folded his arms. “It’s Virgilia’s tongue that did it.”
“Traitor?” Cooper repeated. “Surely you don’t mean that, Miss Hazard.”
“There is no other word for someone who advocates disunion in order to protect slavery.” She leaned forward, hands fisted on her knees. “Just as there is no other word for a slave owner but whoremaster.”
The silence was instantaneous, so complete that the wailing of Isabel’s twins carried all the way from the back of the house. Quietly, Cooper said, “If I didn’t believe you spoke rashly, I would take that as an insult to my entire family. I won’t deny the Mains own slaves, but they run a plantation, not a brothel.”
He caught his breath and turned to Maude. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Hazard. I didn’t mean to employ vulgar language.” It was unnecessary for him to add that anger had prompted it. That was evident.
“Virgilia, you owe our guest an apology,” George said.
“I—” She began to twist her handkerchief. Her pitted face turned pink. She dabbed at perspiration on her upper lip. “I only meant to express a personal conviction, Mr. Main. If I offended you, it was unintentional.”
But it wasn’t. She continued to dab her lip, in that way concealing part of her face. But her eyes gave her away. They fixed on Cooper with a fanatical rage.
“I reacted too strongly myself. I apologize.”
He hated to say that, but courtesy demanded he do so. George stepped over the burn in the carpet and practically jerked him up from his chair. “Care to take a stroll?”