* * *
HÉLÈNE WAS SENT OUT to Sullivan’s Island for the day. The Dawsons had rented a little summer house there, as did everyone they knew. Sarah had asked her to meet with the caretaker, to start getting the house ready.
Hélène came back on the last ferry. It was dark by the time she took the car up Rutledge Avenue. She got down at Bull Street. The air was cool and damp, and the streetlamp cast a glowing circle on the ground. The houses were dim, the streets empty. Night had drawn itself smoothly across the city.
Hélène’s footsteps sounded loud in the silence. As she crossed the street she saw a man standing on the sidewalk, near the corner. He was watching her. When she reached the sidewalk he stepped toward her.
“Good evening,” said the doctor.
She bowed, but kept walking, very erect.
“Good evening, mademoiselle.” He mispronounced the word. He stepped forward, blocking her way, and doffing his hat with a clumsy flourish.
“Good evening, Dr. McDow.” She stopped.
“You’re out very late,” he said.
“I have come from Sullivan’s Island,” she said with some pride. She pronounced the difficult name carefully. “Madame Dawson asks me to make some commissions there.”
“Very nice,” McDow said. “And how is the baby?” He added, “The cook’s baby.”
“He keeps very well,” Hélène said. “Thank you.” She could see his eyes in the dimness.
“Very good,” McDow said. “And how do you like it here in Charleston, mademoiselle?”
“I like it here very much.”
“How long have you been here?” he asked. “Our fair city.” He said this as though it were a joke; she didn’t know why.
“I come two year ago,” she said. “I will stay two more year.”
“Two more years,” he said. “A long time before you see France again.”
She was not from France, but didn’t correct him. People here thought France was more glamorous than Switzerland. “I have made an arrangement with the Dawsons. I will stay two more year.”
“You don’t want to go back before that?” He was smiling still, looking into her eyes, intimate, intent. “You could leave the Dawsons.”
“The Dawsons are good to me,” she said primly. “Captain Dawson is like my father. I could not leave without permission,” she added practically. “They would not give me a reference, and I would not find another position.”
“What if you came to France as my wife,” said the doctor.
“You are already married, monsieur,” Hélène said. She was excited by the word “wife.”
“Not happily married.” He stared, smiling, daring her to respond.
She wondered if he’d been drinking. There was something loose and unpredictable about him.
“You are married now.” She could feel he was attracted to her. Her body had become electric. She glowed, invisibly.
“I should have married you.” His smile spread across his face. He leaned slightly toward her.
“Non,” Hélène said. But she had seen his wife, coarse and heavy, with small eyes like a boar’s. “I must go home. It’s late. I can’t stay in the street.”
She felt herself powerful and beautiful. She felt his gaze on her. She felt his urgency. The city was hushed around them. She gave him a queenly smile and said good night. She walked away, trailing fire, a wake of glowing sparks.
She heard him following her. She opened the wrought-iron gate into the carriage drive, and as she passed through she felt him behind her. When the gate closed they were both now on Dawson property. She turned to him.
“You may not come in, monsieur le docteur.”
“When can I meet you again? I want to see you.”
“Non, non,” she said. “It’s not possible.”
Though she felt that it was possible. Her own body was aware of his.
“It’s not possible,” she said again, and turned away. He stepped closer, moving between her and the house.
“Tell me when I can see you again.” His voice was low. “Marie,” he said.
She raised her eyes, hearing her name in his mouth.
“I want to see you again.” His eyes bored into hers.
She felt the house at her back, the lighted windows where Madame or the captain might be seated. Anyone might look out and see her.
“You must go.” She put her hand on his chest to push him away. He seized her hand and pressed it against himself.
“Only if you tell me when I can see you again. I’ll meet you here tomorrow. Tell me what time.”
He repeated her name in a whisper. His fingers caressed her hand lightly, lightly. Whisky. The sense of his body was dark and powerful. His eyes shone in the darkness. Her own body was electric.
“When?” he said.
“Tomorrow,” she said. “I will meet you here tomorrow morning. At ten o’clock. When I return from school.”
“Ten o’clock,” he said.
He let go her hand and moved off. She turned and walked toward the house. Up on the third floor the light was on in the captain’s room. He stayed up very late, working. She admired this. She walked up the front steps, feeling his eyes on her.
In the morning, when she came back from school, McDow was waiting at the gate. He carried a small bouquet.
“Good morning.” His gaze was now focused. When he smiled his gums showed, pale and glossy. He held out the bunch of flowers.
She thanked him. “They are beautiful.”
“For a beautiful lady,” he said. He was quieter now, but his gaze was still locked on hers. Her whole body brightened under it. She remembered him examining the baby in her arms. His hand pressing on her breast.
She looked down at the wintry pink flowers. They were bruised, already limp. She felt queenly.
“We’ll take a little walk down the street,” he said. He wanted to touch her.
* * *
THOMAS’S OFFICE WAS on the ground floor of his house. One door led to Rutledge Avenue, the other, facing it across the room, led to the inside staircase. There was no waiting room, only a tiny vestibule. Two windows looked into the side garden. In between them stood a settee, on which he examined his patients. In the middle of the room was a round table. In the corner was a tall slant-front secretary. The upper part was full of medical books. Below was a cupboard where he kept a bottle.
That day he went down to his office and wrote a letter to his brother, Arthur. Arthur was younger, and still living in Rock Creek, where they’d grown up. He was a security guard for an express company, something like that. Thomas told him to come to Charleston. He said he had a proposition, and gave him the name of a rooming house.
That night, as they were getting ready to go to bed, Thomas told Katie he was going to sleep in his dressing room. He felt restless, he said, and he didn’t want to keep her awake.
“You won’t keep me awake.” Katie reached up to take down her hair. The sleeves of her dressing gown slid back, showing the heavy flesh of her upper arms. Her skin was pink and mottled. She turned to look at him.
“No, I’d wake you up,” he said. “I’m not going to sleep here.”
He kept a bottle in his dressing room, too. Sometimes he sat in the dark, looking out the window and drinking.
Sometimes Julia spent the night at their house, up on the third floor in the guest room. When everything was quiet Thomas went up to her. He’d told Julia he wanted to leave Katie. He’d told her that with his arms wrapped around her naked body.
That night Julia wasn’t there, but Thomas wasn’t thinking about her. He was thinking about Hélène. He went into his dressing room, which was small, with a window that looked over the garden. He looked out it at an angle, toward the Dawsons’ house. He thought he knew which was her bedroom. He saw someone moving behind the filmy curtains, until the heavy ones were drawn for the night. Then he could only see a narrow slit at the top, where light leaked into the darkness. He stared at that until
it went out, and then he stared into the darkness. He’d set the bottle on the floor between his feet.
23.
Murdered by a Mob.
In November last John Lee Goode, a young white lad, the son of a well-known farmer in York County, was murdered under circumstances of peculiar brutality … The finding of the coroner’s jury was that Goode was killed because he had accidentally detected his murderers in the perpetration of a robbery. The negroes who committed the crime, it was also proved, were bound together by a solemn oath to rob and plunder, and “to murder all persons who might detect them in their lawlessness.” They were formed into a lodge … It was ascertained by the preliminary investigation of the case that other murders had been freely discussed and planned. Before the coroner had concluded his work twenty-six negroes were arrested and lodged in jail at Yorkville for complicity …
At the time of these occurrences The News and Courier protested against lynching or violence of any kind, upon the ground that the crime could be fully and promptly established in a Court of justice, and that outraged society should condemn the wrong and punish sternly the wrong-doers, through those channels by which alone society can effectively speak and act. It was believed and hoped that all the proceedings would be in conformity with law …
Yesterday morning, however, without awaiting the action of the law, the jail at Yorkville was forcibly entered by sixty men, who seized the prisoners, and having taken them outside the corporate limits of the town, strung them up by their necks and left the corpses of the five miserable wretches dangling in the air.
The murder of young Goode was bad enough, but the lynching of his murderers was worse. It is a shame to the State that such a tragedy could take place anywhere within her borders. It is an offence against the law and an outrage against the peace and good order of society. No apologies or excuses can be urged for the perpetration of this later and greater crime. It is the darkest of the deeds of blood which stand out in great red clots upon the pages of our recent history. It is a sign, moreover, which shows how rapidly we are drifting into a condition of lawlessness, and, unless something be done to check our progress, the time will soon come when each man’s hand “will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him.” We owe it to ourselves and our children, to the majesty of outraged law and to every private and public interest, that no stone shall be left unturned to discover and punish the perpetrators of the monstrous crime which was committed at Yorkville yesterday. All the machinery of the Court should be set in motion, and all the power of the State should be exhausted in the effort to hunt down those who have sacrificed the lives of five helpless and defenceless prisoners to an insane desire for vengeance.
It will not do to dismiss the matter with the verdict of the coroner’s jury that the deceased came to their deaths at the hands of persons unknown to the jury. There were sixty men in the squad of lynchers who broke down the door of the cell … They were seen by the sheriff of the county. They were not disguised. They went about their horrible work without any attempt to conceal their identity. It is not possible that they could have escaped observation, and it is due to the law they have violated that they shall be indicted for murder and punished. They may call themselves lynchers, but they are, in fact and in deed, wholesale murderers, and as such they should be treated.
—THE NEWS AND COURIER, APRIL 6, 1887
February 3, 1889. Charleston
RUDOLPH SIEGLING’S OFFICE overlooked Broad Street. It was just down the street from both The News and Courier and the Bank of Charleston. Siegling was president of both boards, and could step around easily from office to office.
When Dawson had written him to say he’d call, he’d hesitated over the greeting. Siegling was a friend and colleague—he’d been on the newspaper board for years, and the president since 1882. Usually Dawson wrote “My dear Siegling.” But just now this seemed too intimate, too casual. He’d written “Dear General.”
Siegling stood as Dawson came in. He had heavy dark side-whiskers and a short upper lip. He was thickset, with a broad chest and very powerful arms.
“Dawson, come in,” he said. “Sorry about the smell. They’re trying to get rid of the ants. They’re invading us, apparently.” He waved his hand. “So we’re using some vile substance to make them leave. I may go before they do.”
Dawson sat down. He felt an odd impulse to draw the chair close to the desk, like a supplicant. He pushed the chair slightly away, leaning back.
Siegling slid him the humidor, flipping it open onto the banked cigars, dark and fragrant. They each took one. Dawson took out his gold cutter and snipped the end. Siegling held the flame to his cigar and Dawson drew a long breath as the tip turned brilliant. Armed with these fiery tokens of manhood and friendship, they leaned back in their chairs.
“I saw you at the opera house last week,” said Siegling. “What did you think of Signor Campanini?”
Music was a language they both spoke. Siegling’s whole family was musical; his father had made instruments and been a music publisher, and his sister Marie was a composer. Siegling knew every piece of music Dawson had ever heard. Charleston had an opera house but no company, and it depended on traveling troupes.
“I enjoyed it,” Dawson said. “Particularly the Faust.”
“We rarely get Faust,” said Siegling. “Americans like Puccini better than Gounod.”
“I wish we’d get a full opera. I’ve heard those arias so often I no longer remember what they’re from. And they make no sense: Casta diva, followed by the Toreador’s Song, then something from La sonnambula. I’ve lost all sense of story.”
“The story of La sonnambula,” said Siegling, “is so absurd you’re better off not remembering it.”
“Like most operas,” said Dawson. “Ridiculous stories set to glorious music.”
“I saw a great Così last year in New York,” Siegling said. “At the new opera house. D’you think we’ll ever have our own company?”
For a moment Dawson didn’t answer.
It would be a great thing. For a moment he let himself imagine an opening night, the tenor drawing breath, turning toward the woman in red satin, her back to him, the sound of his voice rising into the filmy air, the hushed house. But it was unobtainable. To reach it meant creating a bonfire, rallying, gathering names, writing letters, meeting with wealthy men, powerful women, persuading, urging, declaring. He would be the flame, his energy the fuel. He’d done all this before, raised funds for the cathedral, rallied support after the earthquake, organized the festival week. He’d raised money, stoked enthusiasm, made a bonfire. Now it seemed beyond him.
“It would be difficult,” Dawson said. He tapped the cigar, dropping a weightless gray disk into the ashtray. “Filling the house every night, all season. I’m not sure we’d get the support.” He waited for Siegling to protest, urging Dawson to start the drumbeat, certain he could do it.
“You’re right,” said Siegling. “So we’ll have to be content with the arias. Trips to New York.” He drew a long breath, making the tip glow. “And how are things at the paper?”
Dawson nodded. “Quite well.” The English use of the word.
“What about the World?”
Dawson shook his head. “We’re going to wear them out. We have the stamina. They have nothing.” One of the World’s backers, Huger, sat on the board of the bank. Dawson couldn’t be as candid as he’d have liked.
“And how is it working?”
“The main problem is persuading the public that real news is more valuable than scandal. But I have faith in the public.”
Siegling snorted. “Why?”
“That’s how we succeeded in the first place,” Dawson said. “The ideal of excellence. It’s always worked.”
“But not now.” Siegling tapped his cigar.
“That remains to be seen,” Dawson said. “We’ve had to cut back on reporters, so we’ve had less to offer. We need more reporters. It’s a vicious circle.”
> Siegling nodded. “Exactly so.”
A law firm was quieter than a newspaper; the building around them was soundless. Siegling drew another long breath. When he exhaled the blue stream dissolved into the air.
Dawson cleared his throat, which had gone oddly tight. “I’ll need another loan. To pay for running expenses. We can’t cut any more on content, we’ll lose subscribers.”
Siegling looked at his cigar and tapped it again.
“We can’t let the paper fail,” Dawson said.
“We had this conversation last fall,” Siegling said.
“The News and Courier is an institution,” Dawson said.
Siegling looked at him.
“It’s known all over the country. People look to it.”
“But do they subscribe to it?”
“We can’t let this happen.” This was like trying to run through deep water; the weight was more than he could manage. “We can’t let a great paper be destroyed. They’re not better, you know. It’s trash.” Heat rose through his neck.
“Dawson,” Siegling said. “I’ve said yes once. I want to help. But I’m not going to go on sending supplies to a sinking ship.”
“It’s not sinking.” The word enraged him. “It’s not sinking.” He stood up. “The World will fail. It will sink. There’s nothing at its center. It has no mission, no substance. It can’t succeed.”
Siegling shook his head. “The News and Courier has been losing money and subscribers for the last year. I can’t support those losses indefinitely. I have a responsibility to the shareholders here at the bank.”
“You’re president of the board of the newspaper,” Dawson said. “You have a responsibility to the shareholders there.”
“I’m sorry,” Siegling said.
Dawson stared at him. “You refuse.” He could feel something gathering in him, heat rising through his body, his belly, his chest and shoulders. His neck grew larger.
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