by Tara Cowan
“No problem. I’ll get back with you.”
“Thanks.”
“Alright, talk to you later.”
She was about to say goodbye, when, still looking at the map, she said, “Oh, Harris?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you have any idea what it might have been called?”
“Oh. Yeah—I guess that would be helpful, actually,” he said with a laugh. “Santarella. It was called Santarella.”
Santarella, October 1859
Chapter Three
The rice plants tossed in the early autumn breeze. It was the threshing season, as the wealth of vibrant green attested while the lady cut up through the narrow path on her chestnut mare. The day was darkening before its time, clouds rolling in.
Slaves dotted the fields near Miss Ravenel’s path as she cantered by. They were working with urgency, sweat glistening and running down their ebony faces, though there was a gentle breeze, the kind that stirred just before a storm. But most of them paused as she neared in the next field, watching.
The ribbons on her hat fluttered as she made her progress. Her speed was not strictly proper for a tenderly protected young lady, but there was no one about for miles, very few even on the island. And then, reaching her destination, she halted with neat hands.
She patted Eliza Lucas’s neck as she caught her breath, blue eyes scanning the slaves absently, and then, in the distance, the Big House, brick and Palladian in style, with four white columns on the outset porch, flankers on either side.
Her eyes again strayed to the fields, taking stock as the Negros would bend, scythe, and load, the low hum of their songs reaching her ears. The breeze fluttered the sleeves on her riding habit, the temperature was extraordinary, and she ought to have been perfectly content. And yet a restlessness stole over her. Perhaps it was the months stretching out in front of her before the season began after Christmas.
She jerked her head up, hearing someone ringing the dinner bell, obviously calling her to the house, though not for dinner. It wasn’t yet three o’clock.
“Alright, Eliza,” she said, giving the horse her head again and covering the open field in mere moments, riding into the stable yard before continuing to the porch, where her father was standing in his gray suit and burgundy waistcoat, his arms crossed, waiting for her. “Is something wrong, Papa?” she asked, holding tightly to the gray’s reins.
His silver hair and beard were striking. His eyes were deep set and contemplative, almost unknowable. He was not a tall man. But he had a presence none could deny. Neither child nor slave had ever dared to cross him. “I’ve just received word from your brother that they’ll be returning around two o’clock. It’s close on two now,” he said, eyes running over Eliza’s points with the knowledge of a connoisseur, as though checking that all was in order. He had spared no expense on her when he had purchased her last year and presented her as a gift for Shannon’s nineteenth birthday. “I thought you might want to be here to greet him,” he added, looking back up.
“Yes, though whether he deserves it is another question.”
“We have discussed this, Shannon,” he said, in a thick, upper echelon drawl. “Young ladies do not take tours abroad.”
“They might if their fathers would take them,” she said provocatively.
“And their fathers might do so if they did not have business affairs to attend to.” He glanced at her new green riding habit, which was becoming against her pale skin and rusty red hair. “And wardrobes to purchase,” he added grimly.
She twinkled. “Dear Papa. Very well, I shall take Eliza to the stables.”
“I’ll tell your mother,” he said, going back inside.
Miss Ravenel, accepting a groom’s help in dismounting, left Eliza in the loving hands of their head groom, Harry Tilman, and caught her train over her arm for the walk to the house. She crossed the checkered porch and went into the great hall. The butler, John Tilman, was looking very regal. “Missus Rav’nel’s in yo’ room, Miss Shannon.”
“Thank you, John,” she said, handing her riding whip to him and going up the left side of the double staircase, which was built after the colonial fashion. “Yes, Miss Shannon. You run ‘long now. Your mama done been lookin fo’ you.”
“Yes, John,” she said, continuing in an unhurried fashion to the turn at the stairs, and then the next flight. The upstairs consisted of four bedchambers, hers and Frederick’s on one side, her mother’s and father’s adjoining on the other, and a great drawing room between, which was used as a ballroom as well. Off the ballroom was a large portico.
When she topped the staircase, she turned left and went toward her chamber, which was the smallest above stairs but commanded an excellent view of the front lawn. She passed Frederick’s room and ended up in her own, where she saw her mother waiting for her, her maid, Phoebe, also present with a cream-colored dress draped over her arm. Her mammy, too, stood in the wings.
“You stayed out late, Shannon,” her mother said in a chiding voice which nonetheless flowed like honey. “Frederick and young Mr. Haley will arrive at any moment.”
She rolled her eyes discreetly and turned to let Phoebe unlace her.
“I saw that, Shannon,” she said. “But you wouldn’t wish to look discomposed when Mr. Haley sees you. You were visiting your aunt when they left for Europe, but indeed, my dear, you would not have known him.”
“Very likely not. I was at school when he last visited Charleston, I think.” She had only seen him once. She had a vague image of a too-thin boy with hair that could use a brush taken to it.
“Yes, I believe so.” Her eyes were narrowed on Phoebe’s handiwork with her hair, her lips pursed slightly. “Release a few more wisps, Phoebe.” Mammy placed plump hands on Shannon’s shoulders to correct her posture. Shannon sat up taller.
“Yes, ma’am,” Phoebe said.
Shannon cast a look over her shoulder at her mother. “Good heavens, must we impress Massachusetts?”
“Naturally not, but you have a reputation to uphold. If you think the gentleman won’t be looking to see if what he has heard is true, you are mistaken, Shannon.”
Shannon was more striking than beautiful, with red hair which waved gently, sometimes with a hint of blonde, dark blue eyes, extremely pale skin, and eyelashes and eyebrows which were so light as to be almost invisible. A long face, nose which tilted slightly downwards in an attractive manner, and lips which sloped down but were full enough to be enticing, and a very slightly cleft chin. She was very willowy, but with a passably sized décolletage, her waist narrow, her height medium. Her family name and fortune were enough to give her a perhaps undeserved reputation as an exotic beauty. She was, however, very unusual, and she had quite a following in Charleston.
At twenty years old, she was sought-after, and there were several matches which her mother and father had hinted would please them. But she was biding her time. Her mother often chided her for behaving as though her options would always be as broad as they were now, reminding her darkly of several beauties’ reigns which had ended abruptly in her day.
Finally, once Phoebe had puffed a delicate measure of expensive perfume onto her wrist, her mother smiled at her and said gently, “There. You look lovely, my dear.”
“Thank you,” Shannon said, torn between exasperation and amusement. She picked up her fan and brushed her skirts to the side to leave the room, her mother following behind. The two women were of a height, but there the similarities ended. Her mother was a dark beauty of forty-five years, every edge and corner gently and femininely rounded. Shannon was not without curves, but bony childhood had long since given way to thin womanhood. Her chest was not flat, but it would never be described as full, like her mother’s. While Shannon’s best features were her collarbones and the way every bone in her chest could be seen before the swell of her breasts, her mother’s were her eyes, large and
dark, slanting downward just slightly, and full lips. Shannon’s neck was very long, while her mother’s was short, giving way to a lady-like round chin, with nothing so masculine as a slight cleft in sight. The two ladies were simply not to be contrasted.
Mrs. Ravenel, however lovely she had been in her day, never sought to push her beauty forward. She knew her day had passed, and that her daughter’s had come. She dressed fashionably and expensively but not in a vulgarly flashy manner. If her figure was a bit fuller than it had been upon her marriage, that was the consequence of the bearing of two children and the passage of twenty-four years, but this she carried with the grace for which she was renowned.
They descended the stairs together, Shannon two steps ahead of her mother so that both skirts could fit, and met Mr. Ravenel in the foyer. He was looking at his watch and, after glancing up at them, said, “They are late. We cannot be expected to stand in the foyer and await their pleasure.”
“I’m sure they will be here soon, Mr. Ravenel,” her mother said in a calm voice. “And for my part, I’m glad they are a little behind schedule, for it gave us the opportunity to dress Shannon. Doesn’t she look lovely, my dear sir?”
Her father turned from his perusal of the sweeping lawn to cast his eyes over his daughter. “Very lovely,” he said, shifting his eyes, which were now a bit narrowed, to his wife. Her mother held his eyes, and some sort of tension passed between them which Shannon did not understand.
Clearing her throat, Shannon said, “I daresay the tides were against them. They have been so treacherous the past few days.”
“Indeed, my dear,” her mother said. “Mr. Haley will think our ways quite different from his, I don’t doubt. I only hope they do not hinder him from his travels home in two weeks.”
“As to that,” Mr. Ravenel said, “he’s welcome to stay as long as he wishes. He has always been a pleasant boy, for a Northerner.”
“Yes, of course,” her mother said. “I only meant that his mother will be missing him after a year of being parted from him.”
“Hardly,” her father said. “Aren’t there a dozen of them?”
“Eight, I believe,” her mother answered somewhat stiffly.
Shannon looked between them. But there was no time for further conversation: they heard hoofbeats.
John Thomas Haley cast his eyes over the fields which sprawled out in front of him. Negros dotted the landscape, women dressed in simple homespun with rags on their heads, men in white shirts and tan pants, none of them with any shoes. It had been some time since he had been to South Carolina.
He glanced at his friend and saw only tender affection as his eyes rested on his ancestral home. His conviction that Frederick Ravenel was the best friend a man could have could not be shaken. But for a moment, he wondered how they had ever become friends. Their worlds were as divergent as though they had been raised in different countries.
“Haley! What the devil’s gotten into you? Writing sonnets to the French beauty still?”
“I never wrote a sonnet to her,” he said, a little shortly, mind elsewhere, gently spurring his horse into motion. He might not be the high-stickler his father was, but an entire raising could not be thrown off entirely.
When Frederick was again beside him, he felt his study.“You know I was only joking you,” Frederick said.
John Thomas’s lips lifted. “Yes, of course,” he answered.
“Your behavior is always impeccable. You didn’t give her encouragement, if that is what troubles you.”
“It doesn’t,” he said. “And nothing troubles me. Will your mother be angry that we are late?”
“Likely not. It will be my father who is tapping his foot in the great room, I imagine. He loves a schedule, and we have let three o’clock slip by.”
He looked at him, brows drawn together. “Three o’clock?”
Frederick lifted his brows, and then, with recognition, laughed. “Oh, good God, don’t you know how sacred three o’clock is in the Lowcountry? Have I never told you? It is when we take our dinner, John Thomas!”
He blinked.
“You think us unfashionable,” young Mr. Ravenel said mournfully.
He laughed. “It is too early even to be unfashionable. I think you are strange.”
“Thank you,” his friend said, taking this in good part as they rode up the oak-lined drive.
When they arrived in front of the austere house, two boys of perhaps twelve or thirteen ran out, staying back as they had been trained until the gentlemen had their powerful thoroughbreds under control. Frederick, a slight young man, both in stature and build, leapt down, removing his hat, and running a smoothing hand over his dark hair before handing his reins off to one of the boys.
John Thomas got down equally athletically, although with less flair, he thought, a little smile hovering. He walked beside Frederick up one side of the tall steps and was eventually on the porch. The door opened, and the family came out onto the checkered portico, looking, somehow, excessively wealthy, which they were. Mr. Ravenel was a force, Mrs. Ravenel all that was charming in Southern ladies, and of course, the daughter of the house, of whom Frederick was secretly so fond.
“My boy,” the elder Mr. Ravenel said, smiling and extending his hand. “We had thought you might stay in Europe.”
“No, even Maryland was too far away for me, Father,” he said, smiling and kissing his mother’s cheek. “You look well, Mother.”
“I am, my dear,” she said, smiling gracefully and fondly upon him. “You are changed since I saw you last,” she added, scanning his face.
“A man changes a great deal from twenty-two to twenty-three,” young Mr. Ravenel said, laughing. “Haley can attest: he has a year on me.” Turning to his sister, Frederick said, taking the hands she was extending, “Well, old girl, how have you been?”
“Oh, Frederick! I have missed you. I was thinking last night that perhaps I had not, but I see now that I have.”
“If only a little,” her brother supplied for her, anticipating her next words.
“How are you, young man?” Mr. Ravenel was saying to John Thomas at the end of this exchange.
“Well, sir,” he answered, giving a smile which Mrs. Ravenel found to be charming. He was an exceedingly handsome young man, in her opinion. Young ladies might not notice it, but there was something in him that more experienced ladies noticed almost immediately. One’s eyes might scan over his straight, sandy hair and eyes of a blue which might be found in any person one happened to meet on the street. But one took a second look at his firm jawline, his thin upper lip which could quirk into a one-sided, casual smile, and the sparkle of intelligence in those common eyes. His cheekbones, too, were high, and his aquiline nose made a pleasing picture. “Mrs. Ravenel, Miss Ravenel,” he said, nodding to them. “Thank you for welcoming me to your home.”
“My dear boy, you are more than welcome to stay as long as you wish,” Mrs. Ravenel said in her honey-voice, truly meaning it. “I’ll tell Cook to set dinner back thirty minutes so you will have time to change out of your travel clothes,” she said to both of the young men.
“Yes, ma’am,” Frederick said, knowing when they had been commanded even if his friend did not yet. “Come along, Haley,” he said, preceding him through the door onto the wooden floor. “I daresay you’ll take the downstairs chamber, unless they have you in one of the flankers—no, here is John Tilman waiting to show you. How are you, John?” he asked the man who was waiting with regal patience.
John Thomas followed him through the doorway, but just then caught sight, for the first time, of Miss Ravenel’s face. He had turned toward the great room, but stopped, looking over his shoulder, lips parted. Miss Ravenel was looking directly at him, a smile in her eyes.
Santarella, October 1859
Chapter Four
The dining room at Santarella was colonial in style with weathered
blue paneling all around and matching fireplaces on either end of the room. Above one of them was the Ravenel family coat of arms, painted by a master in days of yore.
It was not there that the family and their guest dined, but rather, in the formal parlor where a large round table provided for more intimate conversation, although elegance still abounded. The room was hexagonal in shape, the same blue paneling all around, along with portraits of Ravenels past suspended from long chains and ribbons.
They were served by two footmen, who were bringing dishes from the access door to the kitchen, which was nearby in one of the flankers. Shannon sat to her father’s left, her mother on her left. She glanced up from time to time, though she was rather quiet, since she had decided to heed her mother’s advice to hold her tongue, for purposes of her own.
“How is the economy in Massachusetts, Mr. Haley?” Mr. Ravenel asked.
Mr. Haley was polite, and respectful, but the older gentleman’s voice and cool smile did not seem to daunt him. “I could not say, sir,” he said, long fingers around the stem of his wine glass. “My father never talks business in his letters, and my elder brother doesn’t write to me, or to anyone. I believe there has been a little trouble with the tariffs, or so my sister tells me.”
“How old is your brother?” Mr. Ravenel asked him, studying him with cool interest, and a slight smile. A rice king, surveying a guest at his leisure. Two footmen entered, bearing pitchers with which they replenished the glasses.
“Twenty-seven, sir,” Mr. Haley said, glancing at the Negro as he filled his glass before restoring his attention to the older gentleman.
“Your father intends him for the family business, then.”
“Yes, he does.”
Frederick had begun to grow a little flushed, perhaps embarrassed at the interrogation. And something in the set of Mr. Haley’s shoulders suggested he preferred the family business to remain just that.