by John Jakes
In the silence, the hatred was almost palpable. Ashton swept her eyes across the exposed beams of the new house. “Willard and I have discussed a winter residence in a climate gentler than Chicago’s. This should be ideal.”
Willa unthinkingly dug her fingers into Charles’s arm. She didn’t understand all the circumstances behind the confrontation but she recognized its dire nature. There was noise from the foot of the slope leading down to the Ashley: Gus, chasing half a dozen geese kept by a freedman’s wife.
Madeline took a long breath. “Ashton, I don’t have any home but this one. I beg you—”
“Beg? How charming. How very quaint. It must be a new experience for you.”
Rage colored Madeline’s face suddenly. “You don’t know what you’ve taken on, buying this plantation. Mont Royal isn’t what it was when you lived here—a lazy, sheltered domain. It’s a complex business. Part of a hard, complex world. We don’t grow any more rice than we can eat. We’re entirely dependent on the sawmill, and on the developers of the phosphate fields. Almost forty men live here. Free men, with families. They work so they can have homes, and schooling for their children. You don’t want the responsibility for them—”
“Madeline, sweet, I’ve already bought Mont Royal. So all of this is just chatter.”
“No. You’ve got to take care of those people.”
“A bunch of niggers? Oh, fie,” Ashton said, shrugging. “The black Republicans just stirred them up so they want what they aren’t fit to have. My poor first husband James wasn’t much, but he was right about the worthlessness of niggers. They’ll get no special favors from me. They’ll work all day for a cup and a crust or they can hike down the road and take their trashy litters of young with them.”
“Ashton—please. Show a little humanity.”
“Humanity?” she shrilled, no longer smiling. “Oh, I’m afraid not. My humanity went flying away the day your damn husband banished me from my birthplace. I swore I’d come back, and I have. Now it’s you who’s banished—and damned good riddance, too.”
Silence again. Madeline stared at Charles, who raised the blue-covered eviction order, which he’d examined for the proper signatures of court officials. They were all there.
“There’s no date on this,” he said. “How long have we got?”
Sweet-eyed, Ashton purred, “Why, let’s see. I do want to take possession before I return to Chicago, which I must do soon. My husband Willard’s an older gentleman, you see. He counts on me for companionship. Of course I don’t want to be uncharitable. I do consider myself a sensitive Christian person. Today is—” She sighed. “Mr. Herrington?”
“It’s Friday, Mrs. Fenway. All day. Yes, ma’am.”
“Then shall we say this same hour next Friday? I’ll expect you and all your, ah, boarders to be packed for departure at that time, Madeline. ’Less, of course, you choose to stay and work for me like any other nigger.”
Madeline’s head tilted down fiercely. Charles stepped over to restrain her. Ashton’s flawless smile stunned him again. He wondered why evil left some of its best disciples so unmarked.
“Friday,” Ashton said.
In the act of returning to the barouche, she noticed Gus, who had come loping up the lawn, curious about the visitors. The boy stood beside a great live oak whose shadow darkened his scarred cheek.
“My, what an ugly little boy. Yours, Cousin Charles?”
She didn’t wait for an answer.
Madeline gazed at the unfinished house. Tears of defeat welled and glistened in her eyes. “Orry, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry that I’ve destroyed everything.”
She stood there quite a long time, lost in pain and self-recrimination. Charles spoke her name. She didn’t seem to hear. He spoke again. Again there was no response. He raised his voice, and that way managed to penetrate her tearful state of shock.
When she heard what he proposed, she asked why. “We don’t even know where he is. If we did, how could he help us? The documents look completely legal. The sale can’t be undone.”
Harshly, he said, “Madeline, I don’t think you understand. You are going to be turned out one week from today. How much money do you have in your bank account?”
“Only a few dollars. I’ve had to pay the builders and Mr. Lee, the architect, a sizable monthly draw. It’s taken almost all my income—”
“And there’ll be no more now that Ashton holds title to the plantation. I’m going to send the message. To ask for a place where you can stay till you recover from this. I’ve no place to offer you. Cooper’s house is closed to you—”
“My God, do you think I’d ask him for anything, after what he’s done to us?”
“Granted, granted. All I’m saying is, at a time like this you’ve no choice but to call on friends.”
“Charles, I won’t beg!”
“Yes, that’s exactly what we must do. I have a feeling that if you’d done it long ago, things might be different. Now there’s no other choice.”
She thought his idea was too humiliating to be borne. But she was emotionally drained, and she didn’t argue any further. An hour later Grant rode out on a mule, leaving a dust trail. In his ragged pants he carried money and the draft of a telegraph message addressed to George Hazard in Lehigh Station, Pennsylvania.
67
THERE CAME A DAY when everything was different. He knew it the moment he woke.
The enormous bedroom was no different. The nymphs and cherubs frolicking on the ceiling were no different. The villa was no different, nor the morning fragrances of hot coffee, a pan of brioches baked before dawn, the fresh-cut flowers in the hallway vases. What was different was George himself. He didn’t feel good, exactly. Physically, he was about the same: the usual touch of morning stomach from the red wine he loved and refused to give up. No, it was a subtler thing, but nevertheless quite real. He felt healed.
Lying there, he remembered a time of annoying discomfort before the war. Six or seven months of aggravation he thought would last forever. He’d broken a tooth, later extracted. Before the extraction, the tooth sat in his lower jaw like a forbidden love, one particular edge constantly tempting his tongue. He couldn’t keep his tongue from that edge, so his tongue always hurt, and occasionally bled. Constance repeatedly urged him to have the tooth taken out. He was busy, or simply bull-headed, and didn’t. His tongue hurt on the Fourth of July, and it still hurt on Christmas Day. That day, his disgust got the better of habit. He paid attention to keeping his tongue away from the tooth until he had it taken out in the first week of the new year. Then one morning in the winter—it was around the time Lincoln was attempting to reprovision Fort Sumter, where Billy was besieged as part of Bob Anderson’s small engineer garrison—he woke up and everything was different. A healing lump remained on his tongue, but it didn’t hurt any longer.
He tugged the bell rope and remained in bed until his valet knocked and entered with the silver coffee service and a brioche. He felt relaxed, comfortable, and full of memories of his two children, whom he hadn’t seen since the preceding summer. Painted on the canvas of his imagination there appeared a great sweep of mountains above Lehigh Station, where the laurel bloomed. He longed to walk those green heights again. To survey the town, Belvedere, and Hazard’s: the proud sum of what he had made of his life.
A pang of guilt troubled him. He didn’t want to be too carefree, and thereby disloyal to the memory of Constance, and the ghastly death she’d suffered because of him. The telegraph message about Bent’s execution, forwarded in a pouch by Wotherspoon, didn’t relieve him of his obligation to mourn her. Still, this morning there was—well, a shifted emphasis. He didn’t want to live in isolation in Switzerland forever. That was a clear, new thought.
His valet said in elegant French, “Mr. Hazard, I remind you that the gentleman who sent his card last week arrives this morning. Ten o’clock.”
“Thank you,” George said. The black coffee in the bone china cup tasted fine; the cook made it
strong. He was curious about the man who’d sent his card, a journalist from Paris whom he’d never met. What did the man want? He found himself looking forward to finding out.
He climbed from bed and padded barefoot to the small writing desk. He let down the front. There, pigeonholed, lay the flimsy yellow sheet carrying Charles’s message sent from Leavenworth. He knew the text by heart. It had gratified him when he first read it; even inspired a certain vicious thrill as he imagined Bent’s last hours. He was past that now. He walked to the small hearth of green marble where his valet always laid a fire on cool mornings like this. He dropped the yellow flimsy into the flames. Everything was different.
His visitor, a man of about sixty, made a poor first impression because of his untidiness. Dried mud covered his cavalry boots. He wore a military overcoat with a high collar from which the identifying insignia had been torn off. He’d cut the fingers out of both his mittens. His hair was long, hiding his ears and tangling into a chest-length beard. He had a portmanteau full of books and sheets of paper covered with notes written horizon-tally, vertically, obliquely, and continuously along the edges. The man’s card had previously introduced him as M. Marcel Levie, Paris, political correspondent for La Liberté.
George quickly saw that his guest was neither crazy nor as careless as he looked. His appearance was a pose, probably to give him an aura of liberated intelligence. He was quick to respond when George asked about refreshment. Although it was only five past ten, Levie said he would have a cognac.
They sat on the sunny terrace above the lake in the blue softness of the morning. George sipped his second and last coffee. M. Levie said, “It came to the attention of our group in Paris that the wealthy American steelmaker Georges Hazard was on holiday in Switzerland.”
“Not exactly a holiday,” George said, explaining no further.
“I was delegated to approach you and, if possible, develop your enthusiasm for a scheme.”
“Monsieur Levie, I am not actively managing my company right now. Therefore I’m not in a position to make business investments. I’m sorry you made the trip for nothing.”
“Oh, but I didn’t. This has nothing to do with business except in the broadest sense. I am here at the behest of our chairman, Professor Edouard-René Lefebvre de Laboulaye.” George frowned, prompting the journalist to repeat the name. It teased George with a sense of familiarity, but he didn’t know where he’d heard it before.
“Among his many accomplishments, the professor chaired the French Anti-Slave Society for many years. He is a great admirer of American liberty. On the night a few years ago when he conceived the scheme at his home in Glatingy, I recall his zestful conversation, his enthusiasm, because we had just been informed that Lee was defeated.”
“Fine,” George said. “Please go on.”
“My friend the professor believes, as I do, that America and France are sisters in freedom. General Lafayette helped win your independence. Now America stands as an important beacon of liberty and human rights at a time when”—Levie squinted along the terrace like a conspirator—“France is grievously troubled.”
At last George had a political orientation. His visitor was a liberal, and probably not a partisan of Emperor Napoleon III.
Levie rushed on. “What my friend proposes, and our group seconds, is a symbolic gift to your country. A monument or statue of some kind, representing mutual friendship and faith in freedom.”
“Ah,” George said. “Who would finance such a gift?”
“The French people. Through a public subscription, perhaps. The details are hazy as yet. But our goal is clear. We want to complete and present the monument in time for your country’s one hundredth anniversary. Several years away, I grant you, but a project of this magnitude will not be brought to completion quickly.”
“Are you talking about some kind of statue for a park, Monsieur Levie?”
“Oh, grander, much grander. On the night the idea was conceived, a young sculptor was present for another purpose entirely. An Alsatian. Bartholdi. Talented fellow. The conception of the monument will be his.”
“Then what do you want from me?”
“The same things we request from any important American we hear of and contact on the Continent. An endorsement of the idea. A pledge of future support.”
George was in such a fine mood because of the direction the new day had taken that he said, “I should think I could give you that without qualification.”
“Splendid! That would be a noteworthy coup for us. What we are also trying to gauge, less successfully, is whether such a gift would be welcomed by the American government and the American people.”
George lit a cigar and strolled to the balustrade. “You’re very shrewd to ask the question, Monsieur Levie. Right off, you would expect that it would be welcome, but Americans can be a contrary lot. I receive newspapers from home regularly. What I glean from them is this. All that’s foreign is suspect.” He rolled the cigar between his fingers, thoughtful. “That would be especially true of a gift proposed by a country torn by strife between the right and the left, and ready to plunge into war with Prussia.” He took a puff. “Such is my guess, anyway.”
Downcast, the journalist said, “It confirms what Edouard has been told by members of the Philadelphia Union League.”
George pointed with the cigar. “That’s where I’ve heard his name. He’s on our roster.”
“That is so, although he has never been privileged to visit your country.”
They discussed the European political climate for a while. Levie was vituperative about the Prussian premier, Otto von Bismarck, and his chief of the general staff, Moltke. “They are clearly bent on exacerbating tensions to the point of war. Bismarck dreams of reunification of the Germanic states—a new empire, if you will. Unfortunately our own so-called emperor is lulled by his conceits. He thinks he has built an invincible army. He has not. Further, Moltke has powerful breech-loading field guns, a superb spy system, and Bismarck to goad him. It will come out badly for France. I hope it will not come out badly for our scheme too.”
“I’m familiar with General von Moltke,” George said. “Two of his staff officers called here last month. They want to negotiate with my company for certain ordnance castings. Back in Pennsylvania, my general manager is working up figures. I’ve reached no decision on it yet.”
Levie became less friendly. “You are saying the possibility exists that you might work for France on the one hand and against her on the other?”
“Unfortunately that’s the iron trade, Monsieur Levie. Men in my profession are inevitably represented on both sides of battles.”
Levie’s hostility moderated. He squinted at his host. “You are forthright, anyway.”
“And I’ll say just as forthrightly that I’ll do everything I can to support and promote your scheme if it develops along the lines you suggest. You can consider me one of your group, if you wish.”
It was said before he quite knew he was going to. A gull swooped by and dove down toward the lake. A steamer whistle hooted. The sensations delighted his eye and heart. Everything was different.
After a moment, the journalist said, “Most certainly. You can be an important conduit for estimates of American reaction and opinion. Professor Laboulaye will be overjoyed.”
He didn’t say he was overjoyed, but they shook hands nonetheless. That evening, over a light supper at home of veal medallions and new beans—no pastries or heavy wines at night; his weight was becoming a visible problem, especially at the waist—George realized he had a new cause. Something not connected with the past, but instead, something that looked forward to the great celebration planned for 1876.
He finished his meal quickly, called his staff together, and announced that he was going home.
George sent a message to Jupiter Smith by the transatlantic cable and sailed from Liverpool on the Cunarder Persia. She was larger and more lavish than Mr. Cunard’s earlier oceangoing vessels, whose austere
cabins had earned the scorn of Charles Dickens. Persia advertised “Oriental luxury” and promised a quick ten-day crossing by means of her great forty-foot side paddles, assisted by sails when necessary.
The first night out, George drank too much champagne, waltzed with a young Polish countess, and surprised himself by spending the night with her. She was a charming, ardent companion, interested in the moment, not the future. He was pleased to discover his manhood had not atrophied. Yet the very detachment with which the young woman welcomed him to her stateroom and her bed only renewed his sense of love for Constance, and the attendant loss.
His mood was imperiled even more on the third day, when the huge steamship encountered heavy weather and began to roll and pitch like a toy. Though warned by the purser’s men to stay off the decks, George wouldn’t. He was drawn to the vistas of impenetrable gray murk with great fans of white water rising up to smash the funnels and sway the lifeboats and swirl around his feet as he gripped the teak rail. It was noon, and nearly as dark as night. Images of Constance, Orry, Bent flickered in his thoughts. The past ten years seemed to trail across his memory like a ribbon of mourning crepe. He lost the feeling of renewal from Lausanne and plunged backward again.
Something in him rebelled, and he sought to escape the bleakness by discovering its cause, by answering, if he could, certain questions that haunted him. Why was there so much pain? Where did it come from? The answers always eluded him.
In the storm’s murk, he glimpsed Constance again. He saw his best friend Orry. A set of conclusions came neatly out of the box of his mind.
The pain comes from more than the facts of circumstance, or the deeds of others. It comes from within. From understanding what we’ve lost.
I comes from knowing how foolish we were—vain, arrogant children—when we thought ourselves happy.
It comes from knowing how fragile and doomed the old ways were, just when we thought them, and ourselves, secure.