by John Jakes
Clarissa arrived, striving unsuccessfully to be cheerful. She had obviously slept badly. She picked at her meal in silence, and she looked almost grateful when she had to rush off to mediate a screeching match between Orry’s sisters.
Cooper appeared. His hair was uncombed. His shirttail hung out of the waist of his rumpled trousers. He fell into the chair next to George, ignored his food, and several times muttered something in a thick voice. Only once did George make sense of what he heard:
“Can’t stay here. Can’t stay and help run a place like this. The whole system’s not only criminal, it’s stupid. Stupid and doomed.”
Soon Cooper lurched from the room. Orry raised an eyebrow. “I wonder what the devil’s wrong with him?”
It sounded like a rhetorical question, but George answered it. “I smelled wine. I hate to say it about your brother, Stick, but I think he’s drunk.”
On a direct line, the distance from Mont Royal to Salvation Chapel was no more than two miles. But the tiny, burned-out church was well hidden in the woods and could be reached only by following winding roads through forest and marsh. The ride took almost an hour. As each succeeding road grew narrower and more overgrown, Orry became increasingly sure that Madeline wouldn’t be waiting for him. She had probably found his hurriedly whispered directions too vague or, more likely, the trip too difficult for a woman traveling alone.
Salvation Chapel had closed its doors five years ago. When its pastor, a Methodist shouter, fell over dead during a particularly bombastic sermon, another could not be found to replace him. The congregation had never been large anyway: a few marginal rice planters and their families, and some black freedmen who were permitted to worship in the gallery.
The whites drifted away. The Negroes stayed. Soon the church acquired a reputation as a center of illegal assembly, a place where black people were suspected of gathering to discuss forbidden subjects. General emancipation. Rebellion. One night the church was mysteriously burned. The LaMotte brothers were rumored to have had a hand in it. The freedmen never came back. The vegetation closed in.
It was a splendid spot for a secret meeting, surrounded as it was on three sides by woodland. The fourth side afforded a breathtaking view across several miles of marsh. As Orry rode the last quarter of a mile, his emotions were in turmoil. He wasn’t overly afraid of Justin LaMotte, but he did fear that he had exposed Madeline to undue risk. He reminded himself that she probably wouldn’t be there anyway. But if she were, what did he want her to do? Commit adultery? Much as a part of him shamefully admitted that, his conscience—his concern for Madeline’s welfare—told him it was impossible.
These feelings mingled with others churned up by the trouble at Mont Royal. Orry was ashamed to have George see a sample of the cruelty that drove Northerners to condemn the South. Orry’s embarrassment made him defensive and even illogically angry with his friend. Thus he was in a state of nerves when he pushed away the last overhanging branches and walked his horse toward Salvation Chapel. The remains of blackened beams and siding had long ago fallen into the wreckage of a tabby foundation. The ruin, and the marsh beyond, lay silent, empty. His face fell.
A horse whickered. Underbrush stirred. Madeline appeared at the edge of the marsh to his left. Screened from him by some trees, she had been gazing at the sunlit vista of reeds and glittering water.
He jumped down, tied his mount, and ran to her. How lovely she looked in her smart riding habit. He grasped her shoulders, leaned forward, then pulled back suddenly, red-faced.
“I didn’t even think to ask whether it was dangerous for you to come.”
She smiled, shrugged in a self-conscious way. “Not particularly. Not today, at least. I never attract much notice when I go to see the patients in our sick house. That’s what a woman is expected to do. I told my house servants that after the visit I wanted to ride by myself for a while. They understand. They know Justin can be insufferable. Besides, he’s in Charleston with Francis till tomorrow night. I can’t stay here indefinitely, though.”
He reached out to clasp her hand. Her smile disappeared; she seemed tense. “I’m very glad you’re here,” he told her. “Would you think badly of me if I said”—he swallowed—“said that I wanted to kiss you?”
A look of panic flashed over her face, but it was suppressed so swiftly he wondered if he had imagined it. Hastily, he added:
“If the thought upsets you, I withdraw the question.”
Her eyes warmed and her mouth softened. The corners lifted in a sweet smile. “You can’t; it’s too late. Besides”—she returned the pressure of his fingers—”I want you to kiss me. I’m just a little afraid, that’s all.”
With clumsy hunger he pulled her into his arms. Her mouth was soft and cool. He had never felt a woman’s tongue as he felt hers when her lips opened. He was ashamed of his stiffness, but she pressed tightly to him, not seeming to mind.
There was no banter now, just a long, intense moment in which their clinging, their sweet, frantic kissing of eyes and cheeks and earlobes, revealed their emotions, their longings. He had to say it aloud.
“Madeline, I love you. I have from the first.”
She laughed with tears in her eyes. Touched his face. Her words came in a torrent:
“Oh, my sweet Orry. My cavalier. I love you too; don’t you know that? Like you, I realized it the day we met, and I’ve tried to deny it ever since.” She began covering his face and mouth with kisses again.
Naturally, and without thought, his hand came up to her breast. She shuddered and pressed closer. Then she drew away. She knew, and so did he, what the consequences might be if they let their emotions overwhelm them.
They sat on the tabby foundation, watching white egrets rise from the marsh in beautiful, lifting curves. He put his arm around her. She rested against his side. They sat very still, figures in a domestic portrait.
“Did your husband—” He cleared his throat. “Did he retaliate in any way when you got home?”
“Oh, no. That little humiliation at Mont Royal was quite enough.”
Orry scowled. “Will you tell me if he ever hurts you physically?”
“He never goes that far. His cruelty’s more subtle. And much more devastating. Justin knows countless ways to wound the spirit, I’ve discovered. He knows how to rob a person of any sense of worth with just a laugh or a look. I don’t think the men of this state should fear a rebellion by their slaves. They should fear one by their wives.”
He laughed, then touched the sleeve of her riding habit. “He certainly doesn’t stint with worldly goods. How much did this cost?”
“Too much. You’re right, he isn’t stingy with anything except consideration for the feelings of others. Whatever he thinks I need, he buys. He’ll permit me to do anything I want so long as I never forget I’m a LaMotte. And a woman.”
“Things would be different if you were married to me. I wish you were.”
“Oh, I do too. So much.”
“I shouldn’t have asked you to meet me like this, but”—he looked at her, trying not to show his pain—“I had to tell you once how I felt.”
“Yes.” Her palm pressed lightly against his cheek. “So did I.” He kissed her long and passionately.
When they were resting again, a new, embittered note came into her voice. “Justin’s beginning to think I’m a failure as a woman.”
“Why?”
“I’ve borne him no children.”
“Is it because—that is—” He stopped, blushing.
“It isn’t through any lack of effort on his part,” she said, coloring a little herself. “He’s very—vigorous in his attempts at fatherhood.”
Orry’s stomach felt as if someone had run a knife through it. He sat motionless. The pain eased, but slowly. Madeline went on, “I dare to be so frank because I’ve no one with whom I can share these things. The truth is”—she faced him, grave—“I’m convinced it’s Justin’s fault that I haven’t gotten pregnant. I understand his
first wife was bar—childless too.”
“That’s true,” Orry said.
“Of course I must never suggest that he’s the one responsible.”
“He doesn’t permit you to have ideas like that, eh?”
“He doesn’t permit me to have any ideas at all.”
For the next hour they spoke of all sorts of things: His friend George. The war that would take the two of them to Mexico and, presumably, combat. Priam’s disobedience and punishment, and the resulting uproar in the family. Somehow none of it seemed very real. For a little while no universe existed except this hidden place, no force within it except their love.
At last, though, the sun started down, and the light began to change. Madeline rose. “I must go. I can’t come here again, my sweet Orry. Kiss me good-bye.”
They embraced and caressed and spoke their feelings for a few tremulous minutes. Then he helped her mount. As she guided her horse around the ruined foundation, sitting sidesaddle gracefully, she looked back, then reined in.
“When you’re back from Mexico, I’m sure we’ll see each other occasionally. At parties, weddings. And whenever I look just at you, you’ll know exactly how I feel. Oh, Orry, I love you so!”
It was a declaration of joy and a cry of pain. She rode out of sight, and he started homeward twenty minutes later. He almost wished the meeting had never taken place. It had only ripped open a great inner wound that had scarred over once but now would never heal.
10
AFTER SUPPER THAT NIGHT, George and Orry strolled down to the boat landing while George smoked a cigar. Orry hadn’t explained his absence, and he was obviously on edge. That and the events of yesterday put George in a testy mood as well.
They sat on a couple of old kegs, watching the Ashley reflect the first evening stars. Suddenly a door banged up at the house. They saw Clarissa rush down the lane leading to the slave community.
“She looks upset,” George said.
“I expect Priam’s taken a bad turn. Brett told me Mother went to the sick house twice this afternoon.”
George let smoke trail from his nose and mouth. “She’s very conscientious about caring for your slaves, isn’t she?”
“With good reason. They don’t know how to care for themselves. They’re like children.”
“Maybe that’s because they’re not permitted to be anything else.”
“Oh, come on. Let’s not debate.”
“Debating’s for politicians. I was merely expressing an opinion.”
“I trust you’re finished,” Orry snapped.
Orry’s tone told George that it would be wise for him to say nothing more. Somehow he couldn’t do that. His conscience was deviling him—an unexpected occurrence—and he wouldn’t be content or honest if he failed to express what was on his mind. He spoke quietly but with firmness:
“No, not quite. Your family’s wonderful, Orry. Gracious. Kind. Very enlightened in many ways. The same can be said of most of your neighbors. The ones I’ve met, anyway. But slavery, now—well, I agree with your brother. Slavery’s like a lump of food that can’t be swallowed, no matter how hard you try.”
“I thought you never worried about such things.”
“I never did. Until yesterday.” George tapped ash from his cigar. “What did they do to that slave?”
Orry kept his eyes on the star-flecked river. “I don’t know. Whatever it was, it was necessary.”
“But that’s what I can’t swallow. It shouldn’t be necessary for one human being to hurt another. If the system makes it necessary or condones it, the system is wrong.”
Orry stood, glowering. George was stunned by the sharpness in his friend’s voice.
“Let me tell you something about Southerners. Southerners get tired of Yankees self-righteously criticizing everything that goes on down here. Cooper had some tales to tell about the sordid living conditions of workers from the Hazard mill. Is economic slavery any less reprehensible than what you complain about?”
George, too, was on his feet. “Wait a minute. Those mill workers—”
“No, you wait. The North should clean up its own house before it starts pointing fingers. If there are problems in the South, Southerners will solve them.”
“Doesn’t appear to me that you’re solving anything, my friend. And you get damn smug and feisty if anyone suggests you get cracking.”
“We get feisty when Yankees suggest it. We get angry as hell. The North’s been interfering in the affairs of the South for thirty years. If that continues, it can lead to only one thing.”
“A separate slaveholding government? Your Southern cronies at West Point were always trotting out that threat. Well, go ahead. Secede!”
“No, I’m not threatening that,” Orry countered. “But I do promise trouble, and plenty of it, to any outsider who insists on telling South Carolinians how to think and behave.”
“Does the term outsider include me?”
“You’re damn right,” Orry said, and walked away up the pier.
George considered packing up and leaving that night. But he didn’t. He knew Orry was deeply troubled, and he suspected the reason had nothing to do with the subject of their argument. Still, the quarrel disturbed him. It gave him a new and somber insight into the nature of the slave question.
He could understand that casual acquaintances or natural opponents such as politicians might fall out over slavery. But if it could threaten the relationship of good friends, it was a deep and potent issue indeed.
The next few days passed in an atmosphere of tension and forced politeness. The friends didn’t patch up their differences until the night before they were scheduled to leave for Charleston. It was Orry who took the initiative after several rounds of drinks.
“Look, we’re supposed to be fighting Mexicans, not each other.”
“Absolutely right,” George responded with vast relief. “I’m sorry I stuck my nose into your affairs.”
“I’m sorry I tried to chop it off.”
They renewed and repledged their friendship with another drink. But the memory of that quarrel, and its cause, remained with each of them.
A coastal steamer carried them around Florida into the Gulf. The sea was rough. During the first few days, George spent a lot of time hanging over the rail. When the steamer put into New Orleans to reprovision, he was grateful to stagger onto dry land for a few hours.
He and Orry strolled the levee and the old quarter, then drank bitter black coffee in a café. George had bought three papers, and after ordering a second coffee, he caught up on the news. In late September General Taylor had invested and captured Monterrey and was an even greater hero as a consequence. Politicians were saying Taylor would be the next Whig candidate for President, unless his superior, General Scott, also a Whig, had ambitions of his own. In the far West, Americans were rapidly overcoming Spanish California, which the United States had already annexed by proclamation.
Sometimes George found it hard to believe that his country and Mexico were at war; little more than twenty years ago, the Mexican government had invited Yankee colonization of the state of Coahuila y Texas and had granted concessions to the American empresario Moses Austin so that he could secure the wanted settlers.
Of course that had taken place in what amounted to the last hours of Spain’s long rule in Mexico. The country soon won its independence, and that seemed to be the start of all the trouble. The Constitution of 1824 was repeatedly subverted by revolution. Governments rose and fell with dizzying speed.
The year 1836 brought the short, brutal struggle for Texas independence. Early in March of that year, the Texans defending the Alamo mission were massacred. Little more than a month later, Sam Houston’s men won the war and the republic’s freedom at San Jacinto. Mexican resentment had simmered ever since.
One name that had been associated with Mexican-American relations for the past two decades was back in the news once again, George discovered. General Antonio López de Santa Anna
had voluntarily returned from exile in Cuba with his retinue and his seventeen-year-old wife. Presumably he was about to take command of the Mexican army, and not for the first time.
Tough, wily Santa Anna, now fifty-two, had fought for so many sides and factions, it was almost necessary to consult some kind of printed program to understand his career. He had served Spain as a young army officer, then joined the rebellion against the mother country. He had been, at various times, Mexico’s military chief, president, and dictator. He had won the sanguinary victory at the Alamo, then lost at San Jacinto, where he had been ingloriously captured while attempting to escape disguised in a dirty smock and carpet slippers.
At Tampico, defending his country against an attempted Spanish reconquest, the self-styled Napoleon of the West had lost a leg. The leg had subsequently been enshrined and displayed in Mexico City when he was in power, then dragged through the streets by mobs when his fortunes changed. You certainly had to admit the man was a survivor, George said to himself. Santa Anna went with the prevailing winds, and nothing exemplified this better than the current border dispute.
As a defeated general, Santa Anna had personally signed the 1836 peace treaty acknowledging the Rio Grande as the Texas boundary. Now he was declaring that although his name had indeed gone onto the document, he was the only one who had signed; the Mexican government, in other words, had not. Hence, Mexico had every right to repudiate the treaty and fight for the disputed territory—under Santa Anna’s command, naturally.
When George tried to discuss some of this with Orry he found his friend uninterested. He wondered about the reason for Orry’s long face until he remembered that Madeline LaMotte came from New Orleans. George immediately said he would just as soon go back on board and write a long-delayed letter home.
Orry said he’d be happy to go. His spirits improved the minute they turned their backs on the city.
