by John Jakes
________
1867
FALL FASHIONS.
DUPLEX SKIRTS.
J. W. BRADLEY’S CELEBRATED PATENTED DUPLEX ELLIPTIC (or Double Spring) SKIRTS are the most durable and economical skirt made, each hoop being composed of two finely tempered STEEL SPRINGS ingeniously braided firmly together, edge to edge, and while they are very flexible and easy to the wearer, they are also the STRONGEST and MOST SERVICEABLE SKIRT WORN. They are made in the MOST FASHIONABLE and ELEGANT SHAPES for RECEPTION, PROMENADE, OPERA, CARRIAGE, CHURCH, HOUSE and STREET DRESS …
________
MADELINE’S JOURNAL
December, 1867. Christmas nearly here and we are as close to starvation as we have ever been. Soon I will have to tell everyone—Prudence, the Shermans, the other loyal freedmen. For every cent we earn, I pay out two. Unless I go crawling to George H., I see no alternative but to admit failure and inform Cooper that I lack the ability to manage Mont Royal successfully. The prospect of leaving this place, with my dream of rebuilding it a ruin, is exquisitely painful. Yet abdication, if that is the right term, seems my only course.
If I choose to follow it, Andy, of all those here, will take it hardest, I think. He is proud and excited about going to Charleston as a convention delegate. Talks about it constantly …
Des LaMotte talked about it, too, with Gettys and Captain Jolly, in Jolly’s shanty.
It was two weeks before Christmas; dark, drizzly weather. Des was worn to emaciation by his months in prison. Jolly in contrast looked fit, was sporting a new linen duster he’d stolen from a traveler. He was busy with a greasy rag that he slid back and forth on the barrel of one of his Leech and Rigdons, burnishing it.
“We have got to do something besides talk,” Des declared. There was a wounded quality in his friend’s eyes, Getty’s observed. Des would say almost nothing about his time behind bars, but it was evident that it had been a harrowing experience.
Jolly spat on the barrel and caressed it with the rag. “Shit, that’s all we ever do, sit around and talk. She’s sending her darky to the convention. Why don’t I just hunt him up and blow him down?”
“Because then it’ll be something else, some other issue or outrage, until she turns the whole district into high niggerdom.”
“LaMotte, I’m tired of this,” Jolly said. “Do you want to get rid of her or don’t you?”
“You know I do.”
“Then let’s do it. Otherwise you’re just a dog with a bark and no teeth.”
The tall dancing master reached for Jolly’s throat. The captain quickly set the muzzle of his revolver against Des’s palm. He grinned. “Go on. Try to choke me. I’ll put a ball through your hand into your skull.”
Red-faced, Des lowered his hand. “You just don’t understand, do you? I want her dead but I don’t want to go to prison for it. I’ve been there, in prison”—he was sweating—“terrible things can happen to a man of intelligence and sensibility. Vile things not even physical strength can prevent.”
Gettys decided it was time to relieve Des’s misery. He drew a packet from his old velvet coat. “If you all can stop your spatting, I think we’ve got the answer. My cousin Sitwell traveled all the way to Nashville for a secret conclave—” He saw Jolly’s puzzlement and took pleasure in saying with a superior air, “Convention, Captain. Meeting. He brought this back.”
He showed a wrinkled broadsheet with a big, bold heading. Tennessee tiger. The tiger, a steel engraving, crouched ferociously in front of a Stars and Bars. “Read the poem,” Gettys said, pointing it out.
Des read it aloud. “Niggers and Leaguers, get out of the way. We are born of the night—” Captain Jolly’s interest perked up. Des said, “You mean they allow publication of this sort of thing in Tennessee?”
“And similar things in a lot of other places, Sitwell informed me. You don’t see any names, do you? Read on.”
“Born of the night, and we vanish by day. No rations have we but the flesh of man. And love niggers best … the Kuklux Klan.”
Des stared at the others with slowly dawning understanding. Loftily, Gettys explained to Jolly, “The Kuklux is that club for skylarking and scaring darkies. Sitwell says it’s turned into something more. A white man’s defense league. Klaverns are springing up all over the South.”
“What’s that?” Jolly said.
“Klavern? It means a Klan den, a local chapter. They have a regular constitution, called the Prescript, and a whole lot of fancy titles and rituals. And robes, Jolly. Robes that hide a man’s face.” Grinning, he tapped the captain’s sleeve with the broadsheet. “Know who’s going ’round the South helping to set up the klaverns? The head man of the Klan. The Imperial Wizard. Your old friend Forrest.”
“Bedford himself?” Jolly’s tone was reverential. Service with Forrest’s cavalry remained the high point of his life, and for a moment he was in the past, remembering how they had campaigned. In the worst rainstorms, through winter sleet, riding with the blood up, faced always with the possibility of death and never turning from it, because they rode for the cause of the white race.
As Jolly thought of his great leader, he kept losing track of his surroundings, the shanty that smelled of stale food, discarded coffee grounds, urine. He kept seeing the general on his great war-horse, King Philip. And the niggers. The wailing, terrified niggers of Fort Pillow—
It was in ’64 that Jolly had helped Forrest invest the garrison forty miles north of Memphis. After capturing Fort Pillow, Forrest had busied himself elsewhere, allowing his men to deal with the prisoners. They dealt with them with gun, sword, torch. Jolly had personally driven six nigger privates into a tent at gunpoint, then ordered his first sergeant to set fire to it. He could hear the niggers screaming now. The memory made him smile.
After Fort Pillow, the North howled “atrocity” and “massacre.” Forrest insisted that he hadn’t ordered the killings, and had been elsewhere when they took place. But neither had he restrained his men.
Lowering his voice, Gettys said, “Cousin Sitwell’s friends in York County have invited Forrest there to help start a klavern. I’d say we need one on the Ashley, too.”
Des’s carroty hair glowed in the light of the kerosene lamp behind him. “Can we get Forrest here? Send him a telegraph message?”
“Yes, and I’ll pay for it from store profits,” Gettys said with enthusiasm. “Got plenty to spare. Where do we send it?”
Jolly stroked his close-shaven face with the gunsight, raking the disfiguring scar because it itched like the devil. A nigger corporal at Fort Pillow had given him that with a skinning knife, a moment before Jolly put one of his Leech and Rigdons against the buck’s eye and fired.
“Mississip,” Jolly said. “Sunflower Landing. That’s the general’s plantation in Coahoma County. Last I heard, he was trying to farm again. You sign my name to the message, Gettys—no, shut up. Do like I tell you. Sign Captain Jackson Jerome Jolly. The general will come here for one of his officers, I promise you.”
He leaned back, pleased. Again he dragged the metal sight back and forth over the Fort Pillow scar.
“Things is finally movin’, boys. We’re about ready to declare open season on uppity nigger women.”
Have resolved to break the news of Mont Royal’s plight no later than a week before Christmas. Meanwhile, there is some startling geologic discovery at Lambs, a short distance down the river. It has the entire district excited. Must find out why.
38
THE NIGHT LOCAL CHUGGED up the Lehigh Valley in a thunderstorm. Near Bethlehem, George’s attorney, Jupiter Smith, fell asleep, leaving his client to stare out the window at the rainy dark.
The men rode in a private car at the back of the train. Built to George’s specifications, the car had furniture upholstered in red plush, fine wood paneling, and etched glass dividers to screen the dining table. Years ago, Stanley had bought a similar car for the Hazards; a rail accident had destroyed it. George had scorned the wasteful expenditur
e until a year ago, when he began to see a certain sense in it. Pittsburgh was fast becoming the state’s iron and steel center. George wanted Hazard’s to have an important part in that expansion, and he expected to travel there often. He decided he’d worked hard and deserved to travel comfortably.
The train was almost an hour late. Yawning, he rested his forehead against the window and watched raindrops on the other side. He wished the engineer would speed up. He’d been away four nights. He knew men who could leave their wives for weeks and enjoy it. He couldn’t. He imagined Constance in their warm bed at Belvedere. He’d be there soon, his body curled around hers, holding her as they slept.
Constance heard a strange sound.
She put down her hairbrush, rose, and walked to the dormer nearest the canopied double bed. She wondered about the noise, because both the children were away at school and the house was empty except for the servants in a remote wing.
Frowning, she pushed the window open six inches. Lightning glittered behind the laurel-covered mountains. The misty night sky was reddened by light leaching up from Hazard’s furnaces. Rain blew in, dampening her face and her powdered cleavage. She’d chosen the Chinese silk bed gown because George was coming home tonight. He was late.
She stared into the storm, trying to recall the sound. But it was difficult. She assumed some piece of debris had been lifted by the wind and flung against the dormer. It was two and a half stories above the lawn, but the wind was strong.
Constance was tired, but happily so. She’d spent the evening in the kitchen, helping to bake pastries for the holiday. Every cranny of Belvedere was awash in pleasant scents that spoke of Christmas: the yeasty smell of bread dough; the tang of the huge blue spruce tree down in the parlor; the smoky sweetness of perfumed candles that burned throughout the mansions until very late in the evening. She looked forward to the warmth and festivity of Christmas—to the children being home from their schools, to the family being together.
Over the noise of the rain, she heard a distant whistle. She smiled. That was his train. She closed the window, leaving it unlatched as she always did. Seated again, she gave her gleaming red hair twenty more strokes, then performed her customary evening inspection of the woman in the mirror.
A woman not unattractive for her age, Constance believed. But definitely overweight by at least thirty pounds. Most days she ate sparingly, inspired by the previous evening’s mirror inspection. And yet she gained weight. Who would have thought that a happy life could include that kind of struggle?
Smiling drowsily again, she stretched. George should be home and in bed within a half hour. Thoughts of him drew her attention to a small velvet box lying amid her pins and cosmetic pots and brushes. He was such a dear, generous man. He liked giving her presents, even when there was no special occasion. The velvet box held the latest—earrings.
She took them out. Two large pearls were clasped in tapered mountings of filigreed gold. The effect was that of teardrops. She held one up beside her earlobe, pleased with the effect. She thought of how much she loved her husband, how good their life was after four years of war and separation.
Gazing at the mirror, she didn’t see the dormer window slowly begin to open.
Taking the full brunt of the storm, a contorted figure had clung to the roofpeak of the dormer when Constance opened the window in response to the strange sound. Presently she had closed it, but the figure had remained still as a gargoyle on a cathedral.
Down among the misted town lights at the foot of the mountain, an arriving train whistled into the depot. The man on the roof had paid no attention, caught up in what was about to happen. Tonight was the culmination of years of waiting. Months of wandering and planning. Days of skulking about the town asking questions. Then more waiting, until nature provided the cover of this thunderstorm. Tonight, the guilty would begin to pay for thwarting and hurting him.
The climb to the dormer, using slippery gutters, ornamentation, windowsills, had taken a half hour. The wetness, the slackness of everything increased the difficulty. So did his own memories of the fall into the James, the ghastly pain lancing his body as it caromed from rock to rock. He was proud, very proud of himself for overcoming those memories and the accompanying fright, and for making the climb successfully.
He had waited a few moments, then reached down from the roof of the dormer. He worked grimy fingers into the thin space between the frame and the upper edge of the window. A wind gust tore the stolen top hat from his head. He grabbed for it, causing his right foot to slip and scrape the roof. The hat sailed away. He clenched his teeth, cursing silently. Just such a noisy slip had brought Hazard’s wife to the window the first time.
He hung in a strained position, waiting. Nothing happened. Evidently she hadn’t heard the second scrape. Slowly, he crept down the side of the dormer and with great care pried the window open.
Squinting through the narrow opening, he saw a gaslit room, handsomely furnished. Beyond a canopied bed a woman sat at a dressing table, holding earrings to her ears to study the effect.
He pulled the window open, stretched a crippled leg over the sill, and jumped into the room.
Switchmen with lanterns uncoupled the private car. Above the dim lights of town George saw the shining windows of Belvedere on its terraced peak. To his left the sky shimmered red; the night crews at Hazard’s were at work.
Preparing to leave the car, he enjoyed a rare moment of tranquillity. In Pittsburgh he and Jupe Smith had negotiated the purchase of McNeely’s Foundry. McNeely, a premier Pennsylvania ironmaster, had died in late summer, and George had stepped in to try to buy the foundry from the heirs. McNeely’s was ideal for conversion to the new Bessemer process.
Tonight he was coming home on the crest of success. He had McNeely’s in his pocket, and here in Lehigh Station, Hazard’s was operating day and night, turning out everything from rails and architectural wrought iron to iron frames for a growing Chicago piano manufacturer, Fenway’s. George felt very good about all of it, and in that way he reflected the prevailing mood of the North. The North was enjoying almost unprecedented growth and prosperity. In the wake of four years of carnage and deprivation—years that had clearly shown war of any kind to be unthinkable—Americans of all classes exhibited a fierce dedication to turning a profit. Out of ashes, the industrial phoenix was rising triumphantly.
No credit was due the politicians. George thanked God that he’d gotten out of Washington before the war ended. He couldn’t stand to be there now, enduring the sordid intrigues and partisan schisms. Indeed, some conversations he’d had in Pittsburgh suggested that a great many citizens were growing tired of the political war. They were tired of Johnson’s harangues about constitutional principle, tired of the Radicals’ maneuvering to impeach him, and, sadly, they were tired of the issue of Negro rights.
As always, the politicians failed to recognize a changing mood, or chose to ignore it. But the signals were clear. In the fall elections, the Republicans had been turned out in New York and Pennsylvania and their majorities whittled away in Ohio, Maine, and Massachusetts. Referenda on black suffrage had been defeated in Kansas, Minnesota, and Ohio, states thought to be enlightened.
Despite a weakening hold on the electorate, the Radicals continued on their narrow course. Johnson remained the Arch-Apostate, or the “arch-demon,” as Mr. Boutwell, of the House Judiciary Committee, called him. The committee had brought in a 5-4 vote to impeach, although some moderate Republicans with whom George agreed—Wilson of Iowa who wrote the committee’s minority report was one—refused to take part in the blood sport. So did the House as a whole. On December 7, it had rejected impeachment, 108-57.
Unfortunately the Radicals remained undeterred. They would find grounds. Stanley’s crony and patron, Wade, was already in place as president of the Senate. The Congress might well name him President of the United States if Johnson could be removed.
Virgilia’s friend Thad Stevens wanted him gone. Some said nothing else
kept the old Radical alive. Stevens and his crowd wanted Johnson on trial for “monstrous usurpations of power,” and one defeat in the House wouldn’t spell the end of it. God, how vicious some men became when dogma drove them.
“Finally,” Jupe Smith groaned. He pressed his upper dentures with his thumb and collected his carpetbag and umbrella. The men said good night to the Welsh porter and the black chef who traveled with the car. It was only a few feet from the covered platform to the waiting Lehigh Station hackney.
“Sorry we’re late, Bud,” George said, shaking water off his hat as he climbed in. “A fallen tree blocked the track for an hour. Thanks for waiting.”
“Glad to,” Bud said through the roof slot. “By the way, Mr. Hazard. Been a man askin’ for you in town the last day or so.”
George moved to give the grumbling lawyer more room. “Who?”
“Didn’t say his name. Queer lookin’ bird, though. Looks like he was crippled in the war. Leon at the Station House Hotel told him you was away for a while. I s’pose it’s just some fella wantin’ to sell you something.”
“I get my share of those, God knows.”
“If this fascinating conversation is over,” Jupe said, “I’d like to get to bed. I’m an old man.”
“You don’t have a corner on that, Jupe.” George’s bones ached; was he coming down with influenza? He signaled Bud and the hackney lurched off through the almost deserted streets.
One moment the mirror was empty, then his image filled it. She pushed away from the dressing table. She was so stunned and terrified that she didn’t notice the earring as it dropped from her left hand. The other pearl-and-gold teardrop bobbed on her right earlobe.
He leaped at her, clapped his left hand over her mouth, and pushed his right knee into her back. “You be quiet. One sound and I’ll kill you.” He pulled her back harder against his knee to demonstrate his intent. Her back bowed painfully.