by John Jakes
Hawes didn’t say anything. But he agreed, and he knew why he was able to endure the torture of instructing hundreds of inept boys who would never be able to ride anything more frisky than a camp chair. He endured it in the hope of finding one outstanding pupil. This year it had happened.
Both officers watched Charles jump the last bale with a huge smile on his face. For a moment, horse and rider seemed to hang in the sultry sky, centaurlike.
36
ORRY AND HIS SISTERS arrived at the hotel on a Friday in September. They were in time for the evening parade. When Brett saw Billy, she clapped her hands in delight. He wore new chevrons.
He had been appointed company first sergeant, she later found out. He had just missed being named to the highest rank in the second class, sergeant major. He had saved the news as a surprise.
Ashton noticed her sister’s pleased expression. Animosity boiled up within her—as well as an unexpected reaction to the sight of Billy Hazard. The surge of longing disgusted her. She suppressed it by force of will. He had abandoned her, and he would pay.
But she didn’t want him on guard against her, now or in the future. Her face, bathed in sunshine, remained composed and sweetly smiling. A moment later she realized that two gentlemen from the hotel were watching her. That made her feel much better. Her drab little sister didn’t get so much as a smidgen of attention. Not that kind, anyway.
Billy Hazard wasn’t the only man on earth. Right in front of her, marching and counter-marching in precise formation, there were several hundred of them. Surely a few would be willing to help her enjoy this vacation—probably her last fling. James was pressing her for a wedding date.
She watched the trim, strong legs of the marching cadets. The tip of her tongue ran across her upper lip. Her loins felt warm and moist. She knew she was going to have a wonderful time at West Point.
For Orry, the parade was a highly emotional experience. It was good to hear the drumming again, mingled with the bugles and the fifes. The flags flying against the backdrop of hillsides splashed with the first yellow and crimson of autumn brought vivid memories and thoughts of loss. And when he spied Charles marching among the taller cadets in a flank company, he felt intense pride.
Next day, Billy invited Orry and the girls to observe his fencing class. Ashton said she had a headache and remained on the porch of the hotel. Brett and her brother spent an hour seated on a hard bench, watching Billy and a dozen other cadets working out with various pieces of fencing equipment: hickory broadswords for the beginners, foils, or, in the case of Billy and his opponent, practice sabers.
The sword master, de Jaman, hovered near the visitors. Billy confused his opponent with a composed attack of feints, beats, and binds. “That young chap, he has a natural talent for this sport,” the Frenchman said with the enthusiasm of a doting parent. “But, then, cadets who excel at scholarship usually do. Swordplay is above all cerebral.”
“True,” Orry said, recalling that he hadn’t been very good at it.
Billy’s match ended with a simple lunge that drove the protective button of his saber straight into the target on his opponent’s padded vest. After the hit, he saluted his opponent, jerked off his mask, and turned to grin at Brett. She was on her feet, applauding.
Orry smiled broadly. Then he noticed the face of the opponent. A pronounced purplish half-circle showed beneath the boy’s right eye. “How did he get that bruise?” Orry asked when Billy joined them.
Billy forced a smile. “I understand he had a discussion with one of his roommates.”
“What kind of discussion?” Brett wanted to know.
“Something to do with Senator Douglas, I believe. My opponent’s from Alabama, you see—” He let the sentence trail off.
Disturbed, Orry said, “Does much of that sort of thing happen here?”
“Oh, no, very little,” Billy answered too quickly. His eyes met Orry’s. Each saw that the other recognized the lie.
That evening Orry hiked off to Buttermilk Falls for what he termed his first legal visit to Benny Haven’s. With Orry’s permission, Billy took Brett to Flirtation Walk.
Shadowy couples glided by on the darkening path. Through the leaves of the overhanging trees, the last sunlight illuminated clouds high in the eastern sky. Below, on the river, the firefly lights of the Albany night boat moved slowly by.
Brett had put on her prettiest lace canezou and lace mittens—not much in vogue up North, she had been noticing. Billy thought her the loveliest creature he had ever seen:
“Mademoiselle, vous êtes absolument ravissante.”
She laughed and took hold of his arm. “That must be a compliment. It sounds too pretty to be anything else. What does it mean?”
They had paused beside one of the benches set into a nook along the path. Nervously, he took her mittened hands in his.
“It means I finally found a practical use for all those hours and hours of French.”
She laughed again. Put at ease, he bent forward and planted a gentle kiss on her lips.
“It means I think you’re beautiful.”
The kiss flustered her, even though it was what she had been craving. She couldn’t think of a thing to say. She feared that if she used the word love in any way, he might laugh. Out of desperation, she rose on tiptoe, slipped her arm around his neck and kissed him again, fiercely this time. They sank down on the bench, holding hands in the dark.
“Lord, I’m glad you’re here, Brett. I thought this moment would never arrive. I thought my leave would never end.”
“Surely you enjoyed going home.”
“Oh, yes, in a way. I was glad to see Lehigh Station again, but not nearly as glad as I thought I’d be. Everyone was there but the one person who matters most. The days dragged, and by the end I couldn’t wait to pack and go. George understood, but my mother didn’t. I think my boredom hurt her feelings. I was sorry about that. I tried to conceal how I felt, but I—I couldn’t stop missing you.”
After a moment’s silence, she murmured, “I’ve been missing you, too, Billy.” He clasped her hands more tightly between his. “You can’t imagine how lonesome I was all year. I lived for the days that brought a new letter from you. I don’t see how you ever have time to be lonesome here. The schedule you keep is just ferocious. I’ve very much enjoyed meeting your friends, but I saw some of them give me queer looks the first time I said something.”
“They were charmed by your accent.”
“Charmed, or disgusted?” A couple of cadets—Yankees, she presumed—had cast decidedly unfriendly glances her way.
He didn’t reply. He was aware of the rudeness, even outright hostility, some of the Northern boys directed at the occasional female visitor from the South. The difference in his background and Brett’s presented some practical problems for the future, problems he didn’t want to face but could not indefinitely ignore.
This wasn’t the time to discuss them, though. He shifted his sword belt out of the way and reached into his pocket. From it he pulled the scrap of black velvet snipped from his furlough cap. He twisted it in his fingers as he explained the tradition connected with it, concluding:
“But I couldn’t give it to my best girl when I went home this summer. She was in South Carolina.”
He pressed the velvet band into her palm. She touched the wreath of gold embroidery, whispered, “Thank you.”
“I hope”—he swallowed—“I hope you’ll be my best girl always.”
“I want to be, Billy. Forever.”
A cadet and a companion passing in the dark overheard that. Being acquaintances and not lovers, they laughed in a cynical way. Billy and Brett didn’t hear. They were sitting with their arms around each other, kissing.
Presently they strolled back to the top of the bluff. Billy had never experienced such a perfect night or such a certainty that the future would be equally perfect.
Figures loomed in the dark—a cadet lieutenant with a girl on his arm. The cadet, from Michigan,
had never been particularly friendly. Now, as he and his companion went on toward Flirtation Walk, he spoke so that Brett would hear.
“That’s the one. Do you suppose a Southern girl with a Yankee beau gives lessons in the mistreatment of niggers? You know, just in case he marries into the family?”
The girl tittered. Billy started after them. Brett pulled him back.
“Don’t. It isn’t worth it.”
The couple passed out of sight. Billy fumed, then offered his own apology for the cadet lieutenant’s behavior. Brett assured him she had seen worse. But the earlier mood was shattered. The insulting remark reminded him that if he married her, each of them would face the wrath of bigots in their own part of the country.
Of course his brother George had dealt with that kind of hatred when he brought Constance from Texas. He had dealt with it and overcome it. If one Hazard could do it, so could he.
“Law, what is this smelly old place?” Ashton whispered as the Yankee first classman again attempted to insert the key in the lock. The darkness made it difficult.
“Delafield’s Pepperbox,” the cadet said in a slurry voice. He had obviously drunk a lot before spiriting her out of the hotel, but she didn’t mind. He would probably give her a better time because of it. He was a rather thick-witted sort, but very big through the shoulders. She presumed the bigness was duplicated elsewhere.
“It’s the ordnance laboratory,” he went on, finally getting the door open. Odors of pitch, paste, and brimstone assailed her. “First classmen get to work down here. We mix up powder, take Congreve rockets apart—”
“How did you get a key?”
“Bought it from a cadet who graduated last June. Aren’t you coming in? I thought you said you wanted to—”
He wasn’t sufficiently drunk to be able to finish the sentence.
“I did say that, but I didn’t know you’d bring me to someplace that smelled this bad.”
She hesitated in the doorway. Above her, one of the building’s castellated turrets hid some of the autumn stars. The building was secluded below the northern rim of the Plain.
From the dark interior, the hard-breathing cadet tugged her hand. “Come in and I’ll give you a souvenir. Every girl who stays at the hotel wants a West Point souvenir.”
He lurched to her, leaned against the door frame, and fingered one of the gilt buttons on his coat. She had inspected them closely before. They said Cadet at the top, U.S.M.A. at the bottom, and had an eagle and shield in the center.
Still she hesitated. The stink of the laboratory was overpowering. But so was the need that had been rising in her for weeks.
“You mean that if I come in there with you, you’ll give me a button?”
He flicked a nail against one of them. “Just take your pick.”
“Well—all right.” A slow smile. “But those weren’t the buttons I had in mind,” she added as she put her hand below his waist.
Later, in the dark, he whispered, “How do you feel?”
“Like I didn’t get nearly enough, sweet.”
An audible gulp. “I have a couple of friends. I could fetch them. They’d be mighty grateful. By the time I get back, I’ll be ready to go to the well once more myself.”
Ashton lay resting, her forearm across her eyes.
“Fetch them, dear. Fetch as many as you like, but don’t keep me waiting too long. Just be sure every boy you bring is willing to present me with a souvenir.”
“I tell you I saw it,” said a New Jersey cadet whom Billy knew fairly well. It was three days after the Mains had left for New York. With his index finger, the cadet marked a two-inch width of space in the air. “A cardboard box about this big. Inside she had a button from everyone she entertained.”
“How many buttons?”
“Seven.”
Billy stared, obviously nonplussed. “In an hour and a half?”
“Or a little less.”
“Were any of them from her part of the country?”
“Not a one. Appears that some Yankees can get over a prejudice against Southrons mighty fast.”
“Seven. I can’t believe it. When Bison hears, he’ll start issuing challenges right and left.”
“Defending fair womanhood—that sort of thing?”
“Sure,” Billy said. “She’s his cousin.”
The other cadet blurted, “Look, no one forced her. Fact is, I’d say it was the other way ’round. Anyway—I don’t think Bison will find out.”
“Why not?”
“The lady claimed she’d be back for another visit inside of six months, but she said if any of the seven mentioned her name in the meantime—her name or anything else about the evening—she’d hear of it and there’d be hell to pay.”
“What kind of hell? Did she get specific?”
“No. And maybe nobody believed her, but they’re sure acting like they did. Guess it’s because they’d all like to see her again,” he added with a smile that was smug, yet curiously nervous, too. “Or maybe ’cause they don’t want a close view of Main’s bowie knife.”
Billy suspected Ashton had gulled the seven cadets. He knew of no plans for the sisters to return. Then he realized he had failed to see the obvious—which was right in front of him in the other cadet’s smirk.
“Wait a minute. If everyone’s keeping quiet, how do you know all this?”
The smile widened, lewd now, but the undercurrent of nervousness remained. “I was number seven in line. Here’s the best part: she didn’t want coat buttons from all of us who—ah—took advantage of her generosity.”
Billy felt queasy. “What did she want?”
“Fly buttons.”
He turned pale. All he could say was, “Why are you telling me?”
“Friendly gesture.” That rang false, but Billy kept quiet. “Besides, I saw you sparking the other sister and figured you’d like to know. You drew the better of the pair—from an honorable gentleman’s standpoint, anyway.” He winked. Billy barely saw that and didn’t respond in an amused fashion.
“Godamighty. Seven fly buttons. We’ve got to keep it from Bison.”
The cadet’s smile was gone. “That’s the real reason I came to see you, Hazard. I meant what I said about Bison and that hideout knife of his. Not many men scare me, but he does. He scares all seven of us. There’ll be no bragging, no talk at all. Count on that.”
Later, after the initial shock passed and Billy was again alone, he realized the cadet was right about one thing: he’d been incredibly lucky to escape a liaison with Brett’s sister. He didn’t know what to call her, but there was certainly something wrong with her. He was thankful that she was no longer interested in him. During the entire visit she had barely spoken to him, and had acted as if he didn’t exist. She had forgotten about him, thank the Lord.
37
VIRGILIA PULLED THE TATTERED shawl over her shoulders and pinned it. Then she resumed stirring the cornmeal gruel on the small iron stove. One of the stove’s legs was gone, replaced by a stack of broken bricks.
A November storm was piling a cosmetic layer of white on the tin roofs of nearby hovels. Snow filled the ruts in the lane of frozen mud outside the door. Cutting wind rattled the oiled-paper windows and brought snowflakes through gaps in the wall near a tacked-up engraving of Frederick Douglass.
Grady sat at a rickety table. His faded blue flannel shirt was buttoned at the throat. He had lost about thirty pounds and no longer looked fit. When he smiled—not often these days—he showed perfect upper teeth, hand-cut and wired in place. Only a slight yellow cast betrayed their artificiality.
Opposite Grady was a visitor—a slim, fastidious Negro with light brown skin, curly gray hair, and an intense quality in his brown eyes. The man’s name was Lemuel Tubbs. He had displayed a pronounced limp when he walked in.
The cup of thin coffee Virgilia had set before Tubbs was untasted. He didn’t enjoy visiting the slums in the midst of a blizzard, but duty required it. He was speaking earnestly to G
rady;
“An account of your experiences would lend authenticity to our next public meeting and increase its impact. Nothing is more powerful in persuading the public of the evils of slavery than the narratives of those who have endured it.”
“A public meeting, you say.” Grady thought aloud. “I don’t know, Mr. Tubbs. There’s still the problem of South Carolina slave catchers reading about it.”
“I appreciate the concern,” Tubbs replied in a sympathetic way. “Only you can make the decision, of course.”
He hesitated before raising a difficult final point. “If the decision should be affirmative, however, we would impose one restriction. We want the strongest possible condemnation of slavery, but there should be no appeals for violent uprisings in the South. That sort of talk alarms and alienates some whites whom we desperately need for the furtherance of our cause. To be blunt, it scares them out of donating money.”
“So you water down the truth?” Virgilia asked. “You prostitute yourself and your organization for a few pieces of silver?”
A frown chased across the visitor’s face; for the first time his eyes betrayed a hint of anger. “I would hardly put it in those terms, Miss Hazard.” She still went by that name in anti-slavery circles, preferring it to Mrs. Grady.
The truth was, the leaders of the movement in Philadelphia were sharply divided on the question of accepting help from Virgilia and her lover, because their extreme opinions tended to create problems. As a matter of fact, so did their mere presence. Part of the leadership wanted nothing whatever to do with them; the other faction, of which Tubbs was the foremost representative, was willing to use Grady provided he would submit himself to a measure of control. Reluctantly, Tubbs decided he’d better emphasize that again.
“In dealing with power blocs, certain compromises are always necessary if you hope to achieve—”
“Mr. Tubbs,” Grady interrupted, “I think you’d better leave. We aren’t interested in making an appearance under your terms.”
Tubbs labored to control his voice and his temper. “I wish you wouldn’t be so hasty. Perhaps you’ll reconsider if I add this. I believe you can be very useful to the cause of abolition—but not everyone in our society shares that view. It took a long time to persuade some of our members to agree to tender this invitation.” A glance at Virgilia. “I doubt it will be repeated.”
