by John Jakes
He, too, had fallen victim. The cause was more than loneliness and longing for Madeline exacerbated by the months of delay. He hated his work in the War Department—the constant battle to curb Winder’s excesses in the prisons he supervised and to check the reckless arrest of anyone the general deemed an enemy of the state. Currently, Winder was trying to sniff out members of a highly secret peace society, the Order of the Heroes of America.
A report from a reliable source had informed Orry of Israel Quincy and two other plug-uglies jailing and beating three suspected members. Orry’s letter of protest had gone unanswered. A personal visit to Winder’s office led to nothing but another nasty exchange with Quincy. The suspects had been released from Castle Thunder solely because Winder decided they knew nothing about the peace society.
Orry thought of Dick Ewell, West Point class of ’40, who had lost a leg at Brawner’s Farm last August but still led troops in the field. At Fair Oaks in the spring, Oliver Howard, ’54, had lost an arm, but the Union high command didn’t shunt him to a desk. Perhaps it was time he asked for a transfer to the war’s cutting edge.
He worked his way slowly to the entrance hall, where he discovered Judah Benjamin with three admiring women. The Secretary of State hailed him cheerfully, as if the recent widely known unpleasantness had never happened. Benjamin had been nabbed when Winder’s detectives swarmed into a Main Street gambling establishment. The raid, meant to net deserters, yielded only some chagrined civilians, including a cabinet member.
“How are you, Orry?” Benjamin asked, shaking his hand.
“I’ll be better once Madeline’s here. She’s on the way at last.”
“Capital. We must have dinner as soon as she arrives.”
“Yes, certainly,” Orry muttered, nodding and passing on. A realization had jolted him. After Madeline had struggled for over a year to reach Richmond, it would be damned unfair of him to request a transfer the moment she arrived. She would understand, but it would be unfair. Maybe he would stick it out a few more months. He mustn’t blame anyone but himself for failures in dealing with the provost’s men. He would try harder.
Passing by the foot of the great staircase, he stiffened at the sight of three people entering the mansion: his sister, beautifully dressed and pink-faced from the cold; Huntoon; and a third man, in the baggy trousers, fine sack coat, and round, flat-crowned hat that identified so many of his breed.
“Good afternoon, Ashton—James,” Orry said as the stranger took off his hat. He hadn’t seen either one of them in months.
Huntoon mumbled while looking elsewhere. With a wintry smile, Ashton said, “How delightful to see you,” and rushed on to Benjamin. They didn’t bother to present the handsome, sleepy-eyed chap with them, but Orry didn’t care. To judge by his clothing, the man was one of those who infested the Confederacy like parasites: a speculator. Ashton and her husband were keeping peculiar company.
He jammed his hat on his head and left the White House in a foul mood.
65
AT LAST, MADELINE’S HEART sang, at last—the miracle day. For more than a year, it had seemed a day that would never arrive.
Now, on the same New Year’s afternoon that found her husband at the Richmond White House, she closed the last ledger, locked the last trunk, checked the strip of green tickets a tenth time, and took her final tour of the house and grounds. She knew the rail trip to Richmond would be long, dirty, and uncomfortable. She didn’t care. She would have detoured through the nether regions with Satan as her seatmate if only it would bring her to Orry.
Her tour done, she knocked at Clarissa’s door. The spacious, well-furnished room inevitably inspired sadness within Madeline. Today was no different. Clarissa sat at the tilt-top table beside the window, the table at which she had once designed her intricate family trees, one version after another. The mild sunshine fell on a block of paper that bore a charcoal drawing of a cardinal, sketchy and barely recognizable, like child’s work.
“Good afternoon.” Clarissa smiled politely but failed to recognize her daughter-in-law. Small signs of the seizure remained: a slight droop at the outer corner of her right eye, a certain slowness of speech and occasional thickness of a word. Otherwise she was recovered, though she seldom used her right hand. It lay in her lap, motionless as the bird on paper.
“Clarissa, I am leaving for Richmond shortly. I’ll see your son there.”
“My son. Oh, yes. How nice.” Her eyes, sun-washed, were blank.
“The house people and Mr. Meek will look after your needs, but I wanted to tell you I was going.”
“That’s kind of you. I have enjoyed your visit.”
Tearful all at once, seeing in the older woman her own mortality, her own probable decay into old age, Madeline flung her arms around Clarissa and hugged her. The precipitous act surprised and alarmed Orry’s mother; her white brows shot up, the left one a little higher than the right.
The melancholy light of January, the odors of musty clothes pervading the room—the awareness that a whole year of her life with Orry had slipped away—brought the tears more strongly. I am behaving like an idiot at the very moment I should be happiest, Madeline thought as she hid her face from the smiling, quiet woman. She rushed out.
Downstairs, she spoke briefly with Jane, whom she had put in charge of the house people last summer, agreeing to pay her wages. Then she proceeded down the winding walk toward the small building that by turns had been Tillet’s, Orry’s, and hers. It was now occupied by the overseer.
Sun shafts pierced down through the Spanish moss, lighting the base of a tree where a slave lounged, snapping a piece of bark into small pieces. He gave her an insolent stare. She stopped on the walk.
“Have you nothing to do, Cuffey?”
“No, ma’am.”
“I’ll ask Andy to remedy that.” She swept on. Andy would not be reluctant to discipline Cuffey; the men loathed each other. Cuffey’s presence made Madeline uneasy about leaving.
Last May, Hunter, the general in charge of Yankee enclaves on the coast, had issued a military order emancipating blacks in South Carolina. By the time Lincoln annulled it, word had spread, and the tide of runaways was already flowing from up-country plantations. Madeline’s letters to Richmond reported each loss at Mont Royal—the total now stood at nineteen—and at Christmastime, Orry had written that he was glad his father hadn’t lived to see the defection. Tillet had believed, perhaps with some justification, that his nigras loved him for caring for them and would never repay that love with flight. In Tillet’s lifetime, only one had betrayed him that way; Orry had often told the story of how it had nearly undone his father mentally.
Last year, following the proclamation, Cuffey had been one of the first to go. Philemon Meek had already conceived a great dislike of the slave—most of the slaves despised him, too—and had devoted extra effort to pursuit and recapture. Meek, Andy, and three other blacks had found Cuffey unconscious in a marsh, his legs under water. He had a high fever and might have drowned if he had slipped a little farther.
Meek returned Cuffey to Mont Royal in irons. He grew angry when Madeline refused to sanction additional punishment. Recapture and his sickness during flight were enough, she said.
It bothered her that Cuffey had not attempted a second escape. He was attracted to Jane, but Jane couldn’t tolerate him, and that was evident. Did Cuffey stay on because he had some labyrinthine plan to harm the plantation after she departed?
Near the office, she glanced back. Cuffey was gone. She immediately changed direction, found Andy and spoke to him. Ten minutes later she knocked at the office door and walked in. Philemon Meek laid his Bible aside—he studied it for short periods every day—and removed his half glasses. How lucky they had been to find him, Madeline thought. Meek was safely past the upper limit of the second conscription act passed in September and should be able to remain at Mont Royal indefinitely—unless, of course, Jeff Davis got desperate enough to draft grandfathers.
; “Are you ready, Miss Madeline? I’ll call Aristotle to load the luggage.”
“Thank you, Philemon. I wanted to say one thing before I go. Should any emergency arise, don’t hesitate to telegraph. If that isn’t possible, write. I’ll come home at once.”
“Hope that won’t be necessary—least not until you’ve had an hour or so with your husband.”
She laughed. “I hope so, too. The truth is, I’m fairly aching to see him.”
“Shouldn’t wonder. It’s been a hard year for you, what with tending poor old Mrs. Main. Things should run smoothly if the bluebellies don’t push any closer. I did hear yesterday that some tax collector read Lincoln’s proclamation down near Beaufort. Big crowd of nigras gathered around a tree they’ve already named the Emancipation Oak.”
She described her encounter with Cuffey. Meek bristled. “Nothing to do, eh? I’ll set that to rights.”
“No need. Andy will take care of it, at my request.”
“Bad one, that Cuffey,” Meek declared.
“Orry says it wasn’t always so. Cuffey and Cousin Charles were very close as youngsters.”
“Don’t know a thing about that. I sometimes regret we caught him in the marsh. He bears watching.”
“I know you can handle him. You’ve done a magnificent job, Philemon—with the people and with planting and harvesting the crops. Do write or telegraph if there’s anything you want.”
He started to speak, held back, then said it. “I’d be pleased if you told Jane she can’t teach any more. Learning’s bad for nigras, particularly in these times.” He cleared his throat. “I strongly disapprove.”
“I’m aware of that. You also know my position. I made a promise to Jane. And I think Mont Royal’s calmer for having her here, teaching, than it would be if she went north.”
“One thing sure—if she left, we’d lose Andy.” The overseer peeked from under a scraggly brow. “Still don’t like nigras learning to read. ’Gainst the law, for one thing.”
“Times are changing, Philemon. The laws must change, too. If we don’t help the people improve themselves, they’ll go straight to the Yankees at Beaufort. I accept full responsibility for Jane’s activity and any consequences.”
Meek tried one last sally. “If Mr. Orry knew about Jane, he might not—”
Sharply: “He knows. I wrote him last year.”
No sense saying the rest. No sense telling him she believed the Confederacy would lose the war, and the people on the plantation would face freedom in the white man’s world without even minimal preparation. That was the strongest reason she wanted Jane here teaching.
Meek gave up. “I wish you a safe journey. I hear the railroads are in mighty bad shape.”
“Thank you for your concern.” She overcame a hesitation, ran to him, and hugged him, making him cough and blush. “You take care of yourself.”
“Surely will. Give my regards to the colonel.”
Still scarlet, he left to summon Aristotle for the trip to the little railroad flag stop not many miles distant. Through slanting bars of sunshine and shadow, Madeline drove away, waving to some forty slaves gathered in the drive to see her off.
Standing apart, arms folded over his chest, Cuffey watched, too.
That night, Jane held class in the sick house.
Thirty-two black people crowded the whitewashed room lit by short pieces of candle. Andy sat cross-legged in the first row. Cuffey lounged in a corner, arms crossed, eyes seldom leaving Jane’s face. She was uncomfortable with the attention but did her best to ignore it.
“Try, Ned,” she pleaded with a lanky field hand. She tapped her writing instrument, a lump of charcoal, on her board, a slat from a crate. “Three letters.” She tapped each in turn.
Ned shook his head. “I don’ know.”
She stamped her bare foot. “You knew them two days ago.”
“I forgot! I work hard all day, I get tired. I ain’t smart ’nuf to ’member such things.”
“Yes, you are, Ned. I know you are, and you’ve got to believe it yourself. Try once more.” She curbed her impatience; this was like pushing stones up a mountain. She tapped the board. “Three letters: N, E, D. It’s your name, don’t you remember?”
“No.” Angrily. “No, I don’t.”
Jane exhaled loudly, wearily. Madeline’s departure had affected her more than she realized. It upset the balance at Mont Royal by removing a strong, moderating hand. Meek was fair but stern, and very much opposed to these classes. Others scorned them—like Cuffey, silently standing in the corner. Why didn’t he just stay away, as the rest of them did?
“Let’s stop for tonight,” she said. The announcement brought reactions of dismay. Her eldest pupil, Cicero, protested the most. Recently a widower, Cicero—too old for field work any longer—was a year shy of seventy but swore he would learn to read and write before his next birthday. He said he would die an educated man if he didn’t live long enough to die as a free one.
Cuffey, who stood in the same place night after night, finally spoke up. “Ought to stop for good, ’pears to me.”
Andy scrambled up. “If you don’t want to learn anything, stay away.” An older woman mumbled an amen. Cuffey searched the group with murderous eyes, hunting the culprit. The woman was careful to conceal herself behind Cicero.
Jane always took pains to hide her feelings about Andy. He was her outstanding pupil, and no wonder. They met almost every night, late, so she could give him extra work, and the last time Madeline sent him to Charleston, he had managed to secure a book of his own—an 1841 reader in the series prepared by William McGuffey for the white academies.
Proudly, he showed her the book when he returned. He produced it from under his shirt, handling it as if it were a treasure instead of tattered sections held to moldy binding by a few threads and dabs of glue. How he had gotten McGuffey’s First Eclectic Reader he refused to say, shrugging off her questions about it—“Oh, it wasn’t hard.” Which she knew to be a falsehood. In South Carolina, a black man who acquired a book placed himself in mortal danger.
Andy was making fine progress in his studies, which was one reason Jane’s feelings about him were changing. One, but not the only one. Twice, shyly, he had kissed her. The first time on the forehead, the second on the cheek. This earnest, determined young man was changing her life in ways she didn’t altogether understand.
In response to Andy, Cuffey growled, “I jus’ may. None of us got to stay on this place. We go down to Beaufort, we be free.” Word of Lincoln’s proclamation had spread through the district like invisible fire. People at Mont Royal who had never seen a picture of the Union President spoke his name with a reverence usually reserved for divinities.
“Sure enough,” Cicero said, shaking a finger at Cuffey. “You go down to Beaufort—you’ll starve ’cause you’re an ignorant nigger who can’t read or write your name.”
“Mind your tongue, old man.”
Cicero didn’t step back or lower his gaze. Cuffey glared and addressed the group. “Won’t starve in Beaufort. They gonna give land to the freedmen. Piece of land and a mule.”
“So you raise a crop,” Andy said, “and the white factors cheat you because you can’t understand or add the figures.”
Cuffey answered reason with rage. “Somebody raised you to be a real good piece of property, nigger. You ain’ got no backbone; you just got yalla there.”
Andy lunged. Old Cicero stepped in and barred his way, pushing, panting from the strain of holding the much younger man. Dark hands with candle stubs shook with alarm; shadows wavered violently.
“I hate being property much as you,” Andy spat back. “I saw my momma sold off, my baby sister sold off. You think I love the folks who did it? I don’t, but I care more about myself than about hating them. I’m going to be free, Cuffey, and I can’t make a life for myself if I stay stupid, like you.”
Silence.
Eyes shifted from man to man. Shadows leaped on the whitewashed ceiling. Feet
shifted, a whispery sound. Cuffey clenched his fist and raised it.
“One of these days, I gonna take that tongue and cut it right out of your head.”
“Shame,” Cicero said softly but firmly. Others repeated it. “Shame—shame.” Cuffey poked his head forward and spat on the floor, a big gob of bubbly white showing his opinion of them.
“I don’ want your books,” he said. “I don’ want your jubilo neither. I want to burn this place. I want to kill the damn people who killed my babies and kep’ me chained up all my life. That’s my jubilo, you dumb nigger. That’s my jubilo.”
“You’re crazy,” Jane said, moving to Andy. The chance positioning, side by side, seemed to heighten Cuffey’s anger. “Crazy. Miss Madeline’s the best mistress you could have right now. She wants to help everyone in this room get ready for freedom. She’s a good woman.”
“She’s a white woman, an’ I’ll see her dead. I’ll see the whole place burned ’fore I’m done.” Cuffey whirled and kicked the door open, stormed out of the sick house and into the dark.
Shaking their heads and muttering “Shame,” Jane’s pupils drifted away too. Andy stayed. Jane called, “Ned? The two of us can study alone any time you want.”
Ned didn’t turn or act as if he heard. He just walked straight ahead out the door. She put a hand over her eyes.
Only one candle remained, the one Andy had brought. It flickered in a cracked bowl near their feet. Jane uncovered her eyes and looked at him. “There’s no helping Cuffey, is there? He’s gone bad inside.”
“Think so.”
“Then I wish he’d run again. I wish Meek wouldn’t go after him. I’ve never met a nigra who frightens me as much as he does.” Hardly thinking of what she was doing, she bent her head against Andy’s shirt. He put an arm around her waist, stroked her hair with his other hand. It felt natural and comforting.
“No need for Cuffey to scare you,” he said. “I’ll look after you. Always, if you’ll let me.”