by John Jakes
Again he kissed her. “I don’t care. Understand? I don’t care.”
With a little cry, she pulled herself against him. “Oh, my God, how long I’ve loved you.”
He felt her body tight to his, her breasts and her billowing hip. Her windblown hair tossed against his cheek. “I love you too.”
“Take me upstairs.”
“Madeline, are you sure—?”
She stopped his words with a kiss. “We’ve both waited too long, Orry.” She kissed him again, fervently. “Far too long.”
“Yes,” he said, moving with her toward the stairs. “So we have.”
In the dark of his bachelor’s room, she bared herself without shame. With her gentle, compassionate hands to help him, so did he.
Orry feared she’d be repelled by the sight of his stump. He was grateful for the dark that hid it. She kissed him and touched him everywhere, including that ruined part of him. She shared his flaw as he had shared hers earlier, with no qualm. She brought her nakedness to him, and their emotions surged like floodwaters let loose. Their relief was immense and complete. They drowned in each other, rose to float in lassitude awhile, then drowned again as new tides seized and hurled them on.
Presently they lay drowsing, her arms around his chest, her murmurs a counterpoint to the comforting sound of the rain and to a halloo from Charles down in the drive; he was evidently calling to one of the sentries he had posted.
Well, he could handle the guarding of Mont Royal for an hour or two. Orry wouldn’t have disturbed the moment for anything. He had never known such joy.
During Madeline’s first days at Mont Royal, she suffered an assortment of symptoms. She complained of itching skin and a thirst no amount of water could quench. During the daylight hours, chills alternated with periods of sweating. Asleep, she often raved and mumbled. The doctor Orry summoned could diagnose nothing more specific than female complaint, and he issued that pronouncement with noticeable uncertainty. He prescribed three tonics, none of which Madeline would take.
She flew into unprovoked rages, although about the tenth day these began to occur less frequently. At the same time her symptoms moderated, then disappeared altogether.
Marked improvement followed at once. She lost her pallor. Her flesh was once more pink with life. Soap and hard brushing restored a glow to her black hair. She regained ten pounds, which rid her of the haggard look that had been her lot for more than a year.
Charles had kept the armed slaves on watch for two weeks. There were no visitations by either of the LaMotte brothers, no threats in any form. Yet it was clear that events in the dueling field had come to light. Cuffey had visited the field and found Forbes’s body gone.
One afternoon Charles encountered Francis while riding on the river road. Charles reined in, his heart beating hard. The older man’s accusation was brief and blunt:
“Your friend murdered my son.”
“Killed,” Charles corrected. “He killed Forbes after accepting a challenge. Nor was the fight a fair one. Preston Smith tampered with my friend’s pistol. I’m sorry Forbes is dead, Francis, but I’m willing to testify to the circumstances at any time. In front of a magistrate or on the dueling ground. Your choice.”
Francis gave him a long, bitter look and rode on.
That was the end of it.
Gradually Charles relaxed the vigilance at Mont Royal. Orry studied a medical book from his father’s extensive library and discovered that Madeline’s recent symptoms matched those of a person whose regular dosage of laudanum had been abruptly withdrawn. Why had the doctor pretended ignorance? Orry supposed it was because, being a local man, the physician was acquainted with Madeline’s husband and didn’t want to involve himself in an unsavory domestic matter. Better to appear incompetent than to antagonize the LaMottes.
Madeline and Orry speculated that Justin for months had secretly been administering tincture of opium to dull her senses. Certainly it would have been possible with the connivance of the house slaves. The circumstantial evidence, as well as her new energy and restored clarity of mind, lent further credence to the theory. But they would never be sure.
In the evenings, after Charles had taken supper with them and left, Orry and Madeline liked to discuss the day’s news from Charleston. There was precious little of it that could be termed reliable. One day the Mercury would proclaim that Anderson’s garrison was about to be withdrawn; the next, the story would be characterized as just another rumor. It went on that way until mid-March, while Beauregard diligently rearranged the batteries, the better to bombard Sumter if bombardment became necessary.
Other rumors warned of relief flotillas steaming from the North. But the only representatives of the Yankee government who showed up were three men sent to assess Anderson’s situation. One of the three was a Colonel Lamon, known to be a crony of Lincoln’s.
Presumably the new President was making up his mind about the fort. Governor Pickens continued to insist that any attempt to provision or reinforce Sumter would be repulsed. President Davis also repeated his promise to take Sumter by force if it could not be won by negotiation.
Such pronouncements deepened Orry’s gloom. He felt that the entire South was being led down a dark road toward an even more stygian darkness. His dreams were filled with drumming, screaming, gunfire; the fools who prated of glorious war on behalf of injured honor had never whiffed a day-old battlefield corpse.
The national situation turned his thoughts to the money George had put into the Star of Carolina. Guilt about the investment weighed more heavily on him with each day that passed. Early April brought a fresh spate of rumors, including a persistent one that a relief force had put out to sea from New York. Huntoon and the other fire eaters repeatedly called for action against the fort in the harbor. All this pushed Orry to a decision.
Charles tried to argue him out of it, saying that if war erupted, he was absolved of responsibility. Orry countered that war absolved him of nothing, since George wouldn’t have risked a penny in such a chancy enterprise were it not for personal friendship.
He took the train to Atlanta and remained there seventy-two hours. When he boarded another train to go home, he was carrying a small satchel.
He arrived in Charleston on the night of April 11. He trudged through milling crowds to Tradd Street. Cooper was astonished to see him.
“I went to Atlanta,” Orry explained. “I mortgaged Mont Royal.”
“What?” Cooper looked almost witless with surprise.
“We owe George part or all of his investment. We owe it now, before the firing starts. I raised six hundred and fifty thousand dollars.” He nudged the satchel with his boot. “Cash.”
“For the entire plantation? That’s a fraction of what it’s worth.”
“I was lucky to get anything. I want as much from you as you can come up with, and I want it immediately.”
“How do you propose I get that kind of money?”
“You have collateral. The shipping company and the James Island property are still valuable.”
“Orry, the local banks won’t give loans now.”
“Try.”
Cooper looked at his brother’s worn face and saw no ground for argument. “All right.” He sighed. “In the morning. I’ll see to your room. You need some sleep.”
Orry wakened in the dark, hearing thunderclaps. Red light glared through the shutters he had closed against the spring breeze. He thrust the shutters open. A shell arched high over the rooftops, then dropped.
He rushed downstairs. Cooper, Judith, and the children were at the windows. “What time is it?”
“Four, four-thirty, something like that,” Judith answered in a sleepy voice.
“That sounds like the harbor batteries.”
Another boom, another flush of red beyond the roofs and steeples. The floor shook. Cooper nodded and put his arms around his children in a protective way. Orry had never seen his brother so sad.
“It’s all over. We’re at
war,” Cooper said. After a moment he added, “I don’t think the banks will be doing business this morning.”
66
MAJOR ANDERSON CONTINUED TO return the vastly superior fire of Beauregard’s guns until late on the afternoon of the twelfth, Friday. But the situation of the garrison was hopeless, and he and every other man in the fort knew it.
By some miracle, no one had died during the thirteen-hour bombardment. Anderson reckoned it was only a matter of time, however. He was thinking of asking for terms, particularly the right to give a formal military salute to the flag flying over the fort, the Stars and Stripes, before he ordered it lowered for the last time.
Up at Mont Royal, Orry was packing a small carpetbag with a razor, strop, soap, some shirts, and underdrawers. He threw the carpetbag into the carriage along with the satchel of money. The satchel was closed by a small, cheap lock, the key for which reposed in his watch pocket. The lock could be easily forced, but he figured he would attract less notice with two ordinary valises—one held in his hand, the other gripped between body and arm—than he would with one bag and a bulging money belt.
Madeline kissed him and tried to hide tears of anxiety. She knew the risk he was taking, traveling north just now, but she said nothing.
Not so Charles, who had reluctantly agreed to take him to the flag stop in the carriage.
“You shouldn’t go, Orry. You owe him nothing.”
“I owe him my life. Drive.” He slammed the carriage door behind him.
Clarissa slipped up beside Madeline, whom she didn’t recognize, and waved cheerfully to the departing stranger. Madeline wondered if she would ever see him again.
On Sunday a freight derailment in North Carolina blocked the northbound line and delayed Orry’s train six hours. Passengers in the first-class coach talked of little besides the Sumter crisis. From the accents and the sentiments he heard, Orry judged most of the speakers to be Southern. A few hundred miles north that situation would reverse. He would need to be very careful about what he said, and to whom.
At twilight the track was cleared and the train chugged on. Soon they stopped at a station in a small piedmont town. The ticket agent was gesturing and shouting in the dusk.
“Sumter’s fallen. Anderson pulled out. Word just flashed over the telegraph.”
Cheering filled the coach. The vendor hawking day-old newspapers in the aisle gave Orry a suspicious stare when he didn’t join in. Orry stared right back and the vendor moved on. It seemed there was no escape from the suspicion and enmity swirling through the land.
Next morning, in Petersburg, he left the train for a meal in the depot. He took the money satchel with him and placed it carefully between his feet under the table. The flyblown dining room raised echoes of a similar stop in Baltimore two years ago. This time, however, Orry encountered no hostility; people were too busy discussing yesterday’s events in South Carolina. Several times he heard the word victory. Most of the customers agreed that Virginia’s departure from the Union was inevitable now that a blow had been struck.
Shaking his head, he quickly finished his beef hash and corn grits. Then he bought a paper. When the train left Petersburg, a paunchy, well-dressed man sat down next to him. Orry paid no attention. He was immersed in the telegraphic dispatches on the front page. The day before, Sunday, Anderson had formally surrendered the fort in Charleston harbor. Ironically, it was during preparations for the ceremony that the first life had been lost.
According to estimates in the paper, four to five thousand rounds had been exchanged during the bombardment. There had been no casualties, but the shelling had started fires throughout the fort. Some had still been smoldering yesterday. Flying sparks had ignited a pile of cannon cartridges. The explosion had instantly killed one of Anderson’s artillerists and wounded five others.
First blood, Orry said to himself. He was convinced there would be more, much more.
The Federal commander had been allowed to salute his flag before striking it and leading his men to waiting longboats. The boats carried the soldiers out past the bar to a Federal relief flotilla that had proved to be something more than a rumor—the ships had arrived offshore during the bombardment. Soon the chartered liner Baltic and her accompanying warships were steaming northward, in defeat. Orry doubted it would be long before the Lincoln government reacted.
When he finished reading, he fell into conversation with the fat man, who introduced himself as Mr. Cobb of Petersburg, a commercial traveler.
“British needles and the finest sewing threads,” Cobb explained in his soft Virginia voice. “Distributed only to the best mercantile establishments. Heaven knows what will become of my trade with all this trouble. I take it you are also a Southerner?”
Orry nodded. “From South Carolina.”
“How far are you going?”
“Into Pennsylvania.”
“Permit me to offer a word of advice. I was in Philadelphia last week, and I had a difficult time. I might go so far as to say it was extremely difficult. Southerners are too easily identified by their speech. At one point I felt my life might be in jeopardy. I am not traveling beyond Washington on this trip, but even so I have taken precautions.”
His plump finger ticked against his lapel, where Orry saw a rosette of red, white, and blue ribbon.
“I suggest you do the same, sir. Any store carrying notions can supply you with the materials for a Union rosette.”
“Thanks for the suggestion,” Orry said, although he had already rejected it. He did not believe wholeheartedly in the cause of the South. But neither would he wear the colors of the other side.
The only part of Washington he saw was a railway terminal. Army officers and civilian families thronged the platforms and waiting rooms. Most of the officers were arriving; most of the families were leaving. Southerners, he presumed, homeward-bound after resignation from a post with the government or the military.
That Monday evening, by the smoky light of depot lamps, he watched the country take its next lurching step toward widespread war. A sweating man in shirt-sleeves chalked news bulletins on a blackboard. One said President Lincoln had declared the existence of an insurrection and called for seventy-five thousand volunteers to bear arms for three months.
Applause swept the small crowd standing in front of the board. Orry turned to go to his train. The crowd pressed forward, shouting approval of the President and cursing the South. He found he couldn’t move.
“Excuse me.”
No one budged. Three men close by gave him hard scrutiny. He wished he’d brought a pistol on the trip.
“What did you say, mister?” one man asked.
Orry knew he should speak as few words as possible. But he resented that restriction, and so ignored it.
“I said I’d like to get through, if you have no objection.”
“Why, this here’s a Southron gent,” a second man growled. Immediately, onlookers pressed Orry from all sides; most, it seemed to him, were sweaty men with stubbled faces and hostile eyes. They blocked him in front and on both flanks. Beside his back, he could hear ugly-sounding whispers spreading. His mouth went dry.
The crowd jostled him. There was barely room for him to slip the money satchel up beneath his right arm and clamp it there. Hands plucked at the satchel. Voices overlapped.
“What you got in that bag, reb?”
“Val’ables, I bet.”
“Let’s see.”
Immediately the cry was taken up. “Let’s see. Let’s see!”
Panic started a ringing in his ears. He felt the satchel start to slip. He deliberately reached across the front of his coat. The man whose hand was on the satchel gasped at the sudden move.
“If simple courtesy won’t persuade you to let me through, gentlemen, I’ll have to resort to other means.”
Orry slid his fingers under his left lapel. The man holding the satchel let go. “Watch it, lads. He’s armed.”
Those close by abruptly lost their enthusias
m for baiting him. He kept his hand beneath his lapel as one man, then others, shuffled backward to open an aisle. It wasn’t easy to carry the bag with only the pressure of his upper arm, but he managed. He walked quickly along the aisle, feeling his furious heartbeat against the palm of his hand.
Free of the crowd, he hurried away. A couple of men shouted obscenities. He didn’t look back.
He tried to sleep on the train but he was too shaken. He sat with the money satchel clamped between his feet. Next morning in Philadelphia, he located a large dry-goods store and purchased a small pair of scissors, needle, thread, and pieces of ribbon in three colors. From the ribbon, with patience and the aid of a ruddy woman behind the serving counter of a restaurant, he fashioned a rosette.
The woman seemed happy, even proud to help him. “You from Virginia?” she asked in recognition of his accent. “Lot of anti-slavery feeling in certain parts of the state, they say.”
He merely smiled. Any suspicion she felt disappeared as she fastened the rosette to his lapel.
Orry reached Lehigh Station late on Tuesday, April 16. The town had grown larger; a new borough, consisting of a few dozen hovels and cheap houses, South Station, sprawled along the opposite bank of the river. In the depot, a man with a paste brush was posting a bill on the wall by the yellow light of a lantern. Orry saw that it was a recruiting notice, urging men to join a volunteer regiment being organized in response to President Lincoln’s call.
He passed out of the light, but not before he was noticed by several loungers in front of the Station House. How could they help but notice a tall, bony man with dusty clothes, two bags, and only one hand to take care of them? Orry hoped the rosette was visible.
As he walked by the hotel, he heard one lounger say, “Queer duck. Anybody know him?”
The others said no. One remarked, “Looks a little like old Abe, don’t he?”
“Could be his brother.” The speaker left the hotel porch and ran after Orry. “Want a hack, mister? Only ten cents to any point in town.”
Orry raised his eyebrows in a questioning way, at the same time nodding at the lights of Belvedere on the hilltop.