by John Jakes
Charles obeyed and followed his uncle. The boy had always loved the sights and sounds of the great house at this hour of the day. The silver pots and bowls, the rosewood and walnut furniture giving back the candle and lamplight. The crystal chandelier pendants catching the river breeze and jingling. The house servants murmuring and laughing occasionally as they finished their work. He saw and heard none of that tonight.
Charles had always liked Tillet’s library, too, with its heavy, masculine furniture and the fascinating and highly realistic mural of ancient Roman ruins that formed part of the wall above the mantel. The shelves held hundreds of fine books in English, Latin, and Greek. Charles had no interest in those, although he admired his uncle for his ability to read all of them. This evening the library seemed unfriendly and forbidding.
Tillet asked Charles to explain his behavior. Haltingly, the boy said that since Jones had a quirt and a stick and Priam had no weapon there had been no question about whose side he would take.
Tillet shook his head as he reached for his pipe. “You have no business taking sides in that kind of dispute. You know Priam’s one of my people. He doesn’t have the same rights or privileges as a white man.”
“But shouldn’t he? If someone’s going to hurt him, does he have to take it?”
Tillet lit his pipe with quick, jerky motions. His voice dropped, a sign of anger.
“You’re very young, Charles. It’s easy for you to fall prey to misconceptions—the wrong ideas,” he amended when the long word produced a look of bafflement. “I take care of my people. They know that. And Mr. Jones, while a good manager, is in some ways a blasted fool. There is no need for him to strut around with a stick and quirt. We have no troublemaking niggers at Mont Royal—well, I take that back. Priam and one or two others show signs of rebellious temperament. But not all the time, and not to an unforgivable degree. I work hard to maintain a good atmosphere here. My people are happy.”
He broke off, awaiting the boy’s approval. Charles asked, “How can they be happy when they can’t go wherever they want or do whatever they want?”
It seemed a perfectly natural question, but Tillet flew into a rage.
“Don’t ask questions about things you don’t understand. The system is beneficial to the people. If they weren’t here, they’d be living in savagery. Negroes are happiest when their lives are organized and run for them. As for you, young man—”
Tillet’s gaze flicked to the door, which he hadn’t quite closed when they came in. Someone was out there listening. Tillet didn’t appear concerned. He shook the stem of his pipe at the boy.
“If you cause Mr. Jones any more trouble, I’ll put you across my knee and give you a tanning. I wish to heaven you’d behave yourself and try to act like a young gentleman—although I realize that’s probably an impossible request, given your disposition. Now get out of here.”
Charles pivoted on the heel of his boot and ran. He didn’t want his uncle to see the tears that had filled his eyes so unexpectedly. He tore the door open and gasped when he saw the looming figure—
It was only Aunt Clarissa. She stretched out a comforting hand.
“Charles—”
His uncle thought him worthless. No doubt she did too. He dodged her hand and ran out of the house into the dark.
Later that night, in the large bedroom on the river side of the second floor, Tillet helped unfasten the lacings of his wife’s corset. She breathed a long sigh, walked around several partially packed trunks and valises, and stepped behind a screen to finish her preparations for bed.
Tillet tugged on the linen drawers he wore for sleeping in warm weather. They weren’t fashionable, but they were comfortable. The room remained quiet. The stillness upset him. He looked toward the screen.
“Out with it, Clarissa. I’d like a good night’s sleep.”
She emerged in her nightdress, stroking her unbound gray hair with a brush. Clarissa Main was a small woman with delicate, aristocratic features that somewhat offset a strong peasant look created by her plump face and thick arms. Few people thought her sons resembled her, except in one way: their noses were exactly like hers. Clarissa’s ancestors, Huguenots named Gault, had arrived in Carolina two years before Charles de Main—a fact with which she twitted her husband whenever he became overbearing.
“I already apologized for eavesdropping,” she said. “How you discipline Cousin Charles is your affair. He’s your brother’s son.”
“You can’t abdicate so easily,” Tillet replied with gruff sarcasm. “Not when I know you have definite ideas of your own.”
“Would you listen if I offered them?” The question was serious, yet free of acrimony. They seldom had arguments, but they had an almost infinite number of what they termed discussions. “I think not. You’ve already written the boy off as a wastrel and a failure.”
Tillet fell back on a catchphrase: “Like father, like son.”
“Sometimes. Sometimes not.”
“He has dangerous notions. Did you hear some of the questions he asked?”
“Tillet, my dear, Cousin Charles isn’t the only one with doubts about the system under which this family has lived for six generations.”
“Lived and prospered,” he corrected, sitting heavily on the edge of the canopied bed. “As have the Gaults.”
“I don’t deny it.”
“Even my own son harbors the same kind of mad ideas.”
His accusing tone kindled her anger. “If this is the start of your standard lecture about Cooper’s bookish turn of mind and my responsibility for it, I don’t want to hear it. I remind you that Cooper went to Yale—your college—at your insistence. And, yes, I do share some of his doubts about the wisdom of keeping tens of thousands of people enslaved.”
He waved. “That’s your fear of rebellion. Nothing like that will happen here. This parish isn’t Haiti. We have no Veseys at Mont Royal.”
He referred to the organizer of an 1822 slave uprising, one Denmark Vesey, a free mulatto of Charleston. The uprising had never taken place; it had been discovered and crushed ahead of time. But the memory of it influenced the behavior and haunted the sleep of most South Carolinians.
Tillet’s condescending tone infuriated his wife. “Yes, indeed, that is my fear of the black majority. But more than that, it is, believe it or not, the expression of my conscience.”
He jumped up. Spots of color appeared in his cheeks, but he withheld an angry retort and quickly got control of his temper. He loved Clarissa, which was why she was the only person in creation able to argue with him—and win.
More mildly, he said, “We’re far from the original subject.”
“You’re right.” Her nod and smile signaled a desire to end the quarrel. “I only want to suggest that you might do more than disapprove of the boy. He has a great deal of energy. Perhaps you should try to channel it in a positive way.”
“How?”
A small shrug, a sigh. “I don’t know. That’s always the question on which I founder.”
With the lamps extinguished and a cotton sheet drawn over them as protection against the cooling air, he curved his body around hers and rested his arm on her hip, as he did every night. The discussion refused to die—perhaps because, deep down, Tillet felt she was right about Cousin Charles. Like Clarissa, he often racked his brain for a remedy to the problem, and he always failed to find one. Inevitably, he took refuge in hostility.
“Well, I have no time for the herculean task of redeeming that young scoundrel. Did I say herculean? A better word is impossible. Along with every other person of sense in the neighborhood, I’m convinced Charles will come to a bad end.”
“If everyone thinks that,” Clarissa murmured sadly in the dark, “he will.”
5
TO GEORGE AND ORRY, the 1843 encampment proved far more enjoyable than their first one. George was promoted to corporal, which somewhat embarrassed his friend who continued to crave a military career. Nevertheless, Orry shook the new
cadet noncom’s hand warmly, and together they ran it to Benny’s for beer and cigars. They didn’t get caught. They were veterans now.
All during camp Orry worried about the third-class academic work. He was no longer a plebe, but that didn’t mean he could relax. Not when he faced more French, plus descriptive geometry and instrumental drawing.
George persuaded him to attend the final summer hop. As always, it was held in the Academic Building. Stylishly dressed girls and their mothers converged on the granite and brownstone structure from the hotel and Buttermilk Falls. Orry felt foolish going to such an affair and did so only to put an end to his friend’s incessant pleading.
In his full-dress uniform he felt not only hot but comical. There were certain compensations for the suffering, however. Orry loved the sight of the powdered shoulders and flirtatious eyes of the feminine guests, although this emotion was made bittersweet by the realization that none of the girls would ever cast encouraging glances his way.
Elkanah Bent also provided some diversion. He arrived escorting a hatchet-faced girl with a bad complexion. George nudged his friend and smirked. Pickett almost went into convulsions of laughter.
“I can’t believe it,” Pickett said. “He finally found someone willing to waltz with an elephant.”
From across the crowded hall, Bent noticed the attention he was receiving. He gave the friends venomous looks. Undaunted, George continued to grin. “I guess when you’re as ugly as that poor creature, even Bent’s phiz becomes tolerable.”
Ugly or pretty, the girls at the hop made Orry feel cloddish. George was soon dancing with great élan. Orry watched from the sidelines, wanting to ask someone but not sure how to go about it.
After he had stood for an hour, George rescued him. He appeared with a girl on each arm and made it clear he had brought one of them for Orry. Soon George and his girl danced off again. Orry felt as though the earth had opened and he was trying to stand on air. His questions were clumsy, his efforts at repartee ludicrous. But the girl, a plump, agreeable blonde, seemed charmed by his spotless uniform—she kept eyeing his buttons—and therefore willing to overlook his lack of social grace.
She was Miss Draper of Albany. His inability to keep thinking of intelligent remarks—or indeed any at all—drove him at last to dance with her. He trampled her feet. His conversation on the floor consisted of apologies. When he asked whether she’d care to stroll outside, she was almost breathlessly eager.
He had a pass permitting him to be on Flirtation Walk, so he took her there. But the leafy darkness, alive with the sounds of branches rustling—or were they the sounds of silks and satins being disturbed?—only heightened his embarrassment. They sat on a bench in awkward silence.
Unexpectedly, Miss Draper opened her large reticule and brought out a present of some little sugar cakes she had brought from the hotel dining room. Orry tried to nibble one and dropped it. He put the other inside his coat and promptly crushed it. Miss Draper gazed at him with an expectant look for about a minute, then jumped up from the bench.
“Please take me back, sir. It’s too chilly out here.”
It was, in fact, an exceptionally warm night. Orry escorted Miss Draper back to the dance in agonized silence. In less than thirty seconds she was dancing with another cadet. The evening was a failure and so was he.
“I’ll never go to one of those damn things again,” he said to George in their room after lights out. “I like being around girls, but I don’t know what to do. I especially don’t know how to flirt. Miss Draper said good night as if I had some contagious disease.”
“My boy, you neglected the quid pro quo.”
“What do you mean?”
“Didn’t Miss Draper offer you a little gift? Some cakes, perhaps?”
“How the devil do you know that?”
“Because I’ve gotten them too.”
“From her?”
“Of course not. Other girls.”
“How many other girls?”
“Several. It’s part of the game, Orry. In return for the gift, the girl expects a souvenir and a gentleman always obliges. Why do you think I’m constantly cadging spare buttons and sewing them on my coat?”
“I have noticed that you lose a lot of buttons. Do you mean to say Miss Draper wanted me to—?”
“The brave may deserve the fair,” George broke in, “but the fair in turn demand West Point buttons. Especially before they give you a squeeze or a kiss. My boy, a button from a cadet uniform is the most sought-after romantic souvenir in the nation.”
“My Lord,” Orry breathed softly. “I never suspected. No wonder she was looking daggers. Oh, well, I reckon I’m one of those men the Almighty intended for just one woman.”
“The same way He intended you for just one career? Orry, you’re too serious.”
In the dark George’s iron bed squeaked as he rolled over to face his roommate. “As long as we’re being candid, there’s a question that’s been bothering me. I must say I think I know the answer.”
“Well?”
“Have you ever been with a woman?”
“See here, that’s a personal, not to say ungentlemanly—”
“Confound it, don’t give me any of your damned Southern rhetoric. Have you or haven’t you?”
Orry very nearly swallowed the answer. “I haven’t.”
“We’re going to do something about that.”
“Do something? How?”
“You sound as if we’re discussing cholera, for God’s sake!”
Orry realized his friend’s anger was feigned. He chuckled in a nervous way and muttered, “Sorry. Go on.”
“A couple of very accommodating ladies live in the village. A visit to one of them might banish some of your sentimental notions about females. It would certainly help convince you that women won’t shatter the first time you glance crookedly—or lustfully—in their direction.”
Through this Orry had been trying to break in, but George refused to permit it:
“No arguments. It won’t cost you much, and you’ll find the whole thing vastly educational. If you value our friendship, you have to go.”
“I was afraid you’d say something like that.”
Orry hoped his voice didn’t reveal his sudden excitement.
Orry expected his initiation into sex to be a private matter, with only George and the woman in question knowing about it. Instead, a few nights later, George rounded up four other cadets and all six of them ran it to Buttermilk Falls. The initiation would be about as private as a convention.
The lady they visited seemed ancient to him, though in fact she was not quite thirty-three. She was a buxom brunette, Alice Peet by name. She had gentle eyes, a hard smile, and a face from which work and worry had scrubbed much of the prettiness. George said she was a widow who took in laundry “and other things” to support herself, three youngsters, and a cat. Her husband, a deck hand on a river steamer, had fallen overboard and drowned during a thunderstorm two summers ago.
Alice Peet had sent her children to stay with a friend, so she and the visitors had the house to themselves. House was hardly the word, though; shack would have been more fitting. The place consisted of one large room and a second smaller addition, presumably to be used for the evening’s business. A flimsy door divided the two areas.
Orry swallowed a burning mouthful of whiskey Alice Peet had poured. All at once shame and shyness gripped him. He knew he couldn’t step beyond that door. Without saying anything, he took himself out to the porch.
Alice Peet’s shack was located at the south end of the village, well away from the nearest neighbor. If the place had nothing else, it had a splendid view of the starlit Hudson. Orry sat down and relaxed.
Alice didn’t seem to miss her husband much. She laughed and drank and enjoyed herself with the other cadets. The party grew cheerfully rowdy. After an hour or so, Orry figured they had forgotten him, for which he was thankful. Then the front door opened with a bang.
C
adet Stribling lurched out. He had become a good friend now that George and Orry were yearlings.
“Main? Where are you, sir? Madame Pompadour-Peet awaits. And, believe me, I use the word advisedly.”
At that point Stribling almost fell off the porch. He caught himself and belched. “My Lord, the creature’s insatiable. We’ll be here all night. But as long as she doesn’t raise the price, who cares? Go on, now. It’s your turn.”
“Thanks, but I think I’ll stay right—”
“Cadet Orry Main sir?” That was George, shouting. “Get in here and do your duty, sir.”
After a few more minutes of badgering, he reluctantly went in. The leering cadets rousted him through the main room to the other one and shut the door behind him. He was terrified. Yet to his surprise, he was also living up to his nickname: stiff as a stick against the fly front of his trousers. The fly was a recent innovation in West Point uniforms. It had been introduced despite the opposition of, among others, Old Dickey’s wife, who had railed against the moral decay signified by pants with buttons down the front. Lust had been publicly acknowledged. And by the government, too.
Orry had wild fantasies of pressure causing those buttons to burst loose. In the dark the laundress had a pleasantly musky smell, a blend of toilet water, whiskey, and warm flesh. “Over here,” she murmured.
He stumbled against the end of the bed, elaborately excused himself. Alice Peet didn’t make fun of him. Perhaps she was drunk, but she sounded kind.
“Come, dear. You’re Orry, aren’t you?”
“That’s right. Orry.”
“Nice name. Your friend says this is all new to you.”
“Well—”
“You don’t have to answer. Sit down.”
Afire—did he have a fever?—he lowered himself to the edge of the bed. “We’ll make it easy and enjoyable for you, dear,” the woman said, and touched him in a way so shocking it might have given an older man a fatal seizure.
She was expert. Ten minutes later, Orry gasped involuntarily and no mystery remained.
On the way back to the post he tried to assure George that he’d had a fine time. Secretly, however, Alice Peet’s embraces had left him unfulfilled and curiously sad. He might be out of step with the rest of the world, but couplings with near strangers were not for him. The visit to the shack had convinced him again that there would be but one woman in his life. One and only one. He was sure he would know her the instant he met her.