North and South Trilogy

by John Jakes

  Mallory paid a call, stiffly informing him that Cooper had resigned after declaring his intention to leave Charleston and return to Mont Royal. Orry heard the alarming story of Cooper’s attack on the Union prisoner.

  “He’s undergone a drastic change,” Mallory said. “An abrupt and, in my opinion, reprehensible shift to favoring peace at any price.”

  Irked by the criticism, Orry said, “It was the shift to favoring war that was abrupt and reprehensible, Mr. Mallory. Maybe the brother I used to know has come back.”

  The secretary didn’t like that and promptly left. Orry wrote a letter to Cooper in care of the plantation, posting it with little hope that it would be delivered. He was glad Cooper had gone home. Yet the possible significance of his brother’s action depressed him for the same reason he was bothered by an incident the next morning.

  “Who is that woman who just applied for a pass?” He asked a departmental clerk.

  “Mrs. Manville. Came here from Baltimore in ’61 to open a sporting house. She just closed it down.”

  “She’s going back to Maryland?”

  “Yes, somehow. She’s determined, and we’ve no reason to stop her.”

  “Is she the first prostitute wanting a pass?”

  “Oh, no, Colonel. There have been a dozen since Cold Harbor.”

  That night, on Marshall Street, he said to Madeline, “The so-called scarlet women are leaving. There’s no more doubt. The curtain is starting down.”

  One personal problem continued to plague Orry: the mystery of the cabal, which had disappeared as if it never existed. Seddon had warned President Davis, Judah Benjamin, and others in the cabinet, but could do nothing more in the face of lack of evidence. Powell had vanished, or at least hadn’t shown up at the farm. Twice, at Orry’s insistence, Israel Quincy had returned to survey the place, finding nothing. From his own pocket, Orry paid a departmental clerk to go there at night to verify Merchant’s report. Again, nothing.

  Orry had seen the crated guns. And James Huntoon. And his sister. But the baffling events that followed his secret visit sometimes made him question his own sanity. Whenever he thought about the puzzle, the result was nothing but frustration. If Ashton had been part of a scheme to kill the President, she must be called to account. But how? The department lacked the manpower to watch her day and night, and he couldn’t do it himself. Whenever he expressed the frustration to Madeline, she soothed him and urged him to put the problem away as insoluble. His answer was always the same: “Impossible.”

  The situation left him angry. Angry with himself, with his sister, with her husband. His feelings finally exploded at an unexpected time and place: an evening reception at the Treasury offices given for Secretary Memminger, who had let it be known that he planned to submit his resignation as soon as he finished a couple of important tasks. He expected to be gone by July.

  Several South Carolinians in the capital worked with Treasury staff members to arrange the reception. The guest list included all those in Memminger’s department and people from his home state. Huntoon qualified on both counts. He brought Ashton.

  And Orry brought Madeline.

  The secretary’s humorless personality virtually assured a dreary party. So did its location. No spirits could be served in the Treasury Building, just a bowl of rust-colored punch of some indefinable citrus flavor. The wives of clerks and assistant secretaries had provided vegetable sandwiches, mostly carrots or pitiful slices of cucumber.

  Munching a sandwich, Orry left Madeline chatting with some ladies and drifted toward his sister. She was, inevitably, the lone woman in a group of five men. It included Huntoon, cheeks puffed big as a toad’s as he listened to a senior clerk declare, “Hang Governor Brown and his opinions. I still say recruiting colored troops is the only way we can continue to wage this war.”

  Huntoon snatched off his spectacles to show the ferocity of his conviction. “Then it’s better to surrender.”

  “Ridiculous,” another man said. “The Yankees aren’t so stiff-necked. My brother-in-law tells me nigra troops are thick as ticks around Petersburg.”

  Ashton, fetchingly gowned yet noticeably haggard—she had lost weight, Orry saw immediately—tossed her head in reply to the last comment. “What else would you expect of a mongrel nation? I agree with James. Better to lose everything than compromise. As it is, we’re close to seeing the Confederacy legislated—dictated—into disaster.”

  Dictated was an obvious reference to Davis. Where had she caught the sickness of fanaticism and from whom, Orry wondered as he lounged against a desk near the group. Was it from Huntoon? No; Powell, more likely.

  She saw him and broke away while the others continued to argue. “Good evening, Orry. I saw you and your lovely wife come in. How are you?” Ashton’s tone and expression said the inquiry was obligatory, nothing more.

  “Reasonably well. You?”

  “Oh, busy with a thousand things. Did you hear that Cooper resigned from the Navy Department?” He nodded. “They say Secretary Mallory was outraged. Really, Orry—we might as well have the Sphinx for a brother. I would understand it more than I understand Cooper.”

  “He isn’t so hard to figure out.” Orry’s response was relaxed and cool. He fixed in mind that she was his quarry, not merely his blood relation. “Cooper’s always been an idealist. High-minded—”

  “Oh, yes, very high-minded—when it comes to disposing of the property of others. He shares that quality with some of our highest officials.”

  As if she hadn’t spoken, Orry finished his sentence: “—fundamentally opposed to demagogues. And deceit.”

  Ashton was clever enough to realize he had introduced an element that had no bearing on what preceded it. Warned, she immediately raised a defense—a brittle smile—and looped her left arm through his while he finished the limp sandwich. She drew him toward a quieter part of the office, where she spoke to him like a pretty, puzzled child.

  “You used the word deceit. Is that a reference I should understand?”

  “Possibly. It could apply to your associate Mr. Powell, for instance.”

  She dropped his arm as if it were spoiled meat. “Cooper told you? I suppose it’s logical that he would, the moralistic prig.”

  “This has nothing to do with Cooper. When I mentioned Powell, I wasn’t referring to your little maritime enterprise, but to the group which formerly met at the farm downriver.”

  Surprise crumpled her composure for a second, before she masked it. Standing as erect as possible so his height would add to the intimidation, he bore in. “Surely you know the place I mean. Wilton’s Bluff—where the sharpshooting rifles are stored? The .45-caliber Whitworths?”

  A laugh of desperation. “Really, Orry, I’ve never heard such raving. What on earth is it all about?”

  “It’s about your presence in that gang of conspirators. I went to the farm. I saw James there, and I saw you.”

  “Nonsense,” she snarled through her smile, then darted a step beyond him. “There’s Mr. Benjamin arriving.”

  Orry turned. The plump, suave little man was already surrounded by admirers. He seemed more interested in greeting Madeline. He strolled straight to her side.

  Ashton’s last words had been quite loud. Huntoon noticed, excused himself from the debate, and approached Orry from the left. Ashton spun back to her brother in the aisle, exclaiming, as if she felt obliged to reinforce her denial, “What you’re saying is absurd. Ludicrous.”

  “Call it what you want,” he said, shrugging. “I saw and heard enough to learn the purpose of the gatherings. God knows how you got involved in such business”—Huntoon stopped next to him, goggling with shock as the nature of the conversation sank in—“and I realize most of you have covered your tracks. But it’s only temporary. We’ll catch you.”

  Orry had underestimated his sister, never expecting a serious counterattack. She smiled charmingly.

  “Not if we catch you first, my dear. I’ve been meaning to find an oppo
rtune moment to discuss the nigger in your own woodpile. Or is it boudoir?”

  Orry’s palm was ice; his face, too. He peered around the vaulted office. The party grew noticeably quieter, some of the guests realizing a quarrel was in progress, although the only person who could hear particulars was Huntoon. He looked as if he might die within the next few seconds.

  Ashton tapped Orry’s wrist with her fan. “Let’s bargain, brother dear. You maintain a discreet silence and so will I.”

  A blood vessel appeared under the skin of Orry’s temple. “Don’t threaten me, Ashton. I want to know the whereabouts of Lamar Powell.”

  Sweet venom: “You can just go to hell.”

  Benjamin heard that, Madeline as well. She flashed a surprised, anxious look at her husband. The three women in her conversational circle noticed. Voices began to fade away in mid-sentence. Heads turned.

  “Ashton,” Orry warned, his voice raw with anger.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you, dear,” she trilled. “How did you manage to conceal the truth so artfully all this time? You certainly hid it from me, you sly fox. But a certain Captain Bellingham showed me indisputable proof. A portrait, which I believe formerly hung in New Orleans—”

  Bellingham? Portrait? The first meant nothing, but the second brought a sudden memory, hard as a blow. Madeline’s father, Fabray, had told her before he died that a painting of her mother existed, though she had never seen it.

  Sensing victory in the making, Ashton grew increasingly animated. Rising on tiptoe, she grasped Orry’s forearm and whispered, “You see, I do know all about her. There’s more than a touch of the tar brush on your lovely wife. You were a fool to accuse me.” She dug her nails into his gray sleeve, then let go.

  Whirling and raising her skirts, Ashton ran down the aisle to Madeline, Benjamin, and the circle of women, speaking gaily as a belle prattling of a beau, a hairstyle, an aunt’s favorite recipe for conserve:

  “Darling, do tell us the truth. When my brother married you, did he know your mother was a New Orleans quadroon?” Benjamin, who had been holding Madeline’s hand in both of his, let go. “Employed in a house of ill repute?”

  A woman on Madeline’s right sidled away from her, frowning. A second woman began to scratch a facial mole nervously. Madeline threw Orry another look. Her dark eyes brimmed with tears. He had never seen her lose control that way. He wanted to run to her and, at the same time, murder his sister on the spot.

  “Come, sweet,” Ashton persisted. “Confide in us. Wasn’t your mother a nigra prostitute?”

  Orry seized Huntoon’s shoulder. “Get her out of here before I do her bodily harm.”

  With all the strength of the right arm he had built up to compensate when he lost the left one, he flung Huntoon down the aisle. Huntoon’s spectacles fell off. He nearly stepped on them. Ashton was spitting mad; she had been holding the stage and he had taken it away.

  Spectacles replaced but not straight, Huntoon lurched up to her. “We’re leaving.”

  “No. I am not ready to—”

  “We are leaving. “ His near-scream piled a new shock on all the others. He pushed Ashton. When she complained, he did it again. That told her Huntoon was hysterical, dangerously so. Refusing him, she could lose all she had gained. She gave Orry a swift, cold smile, flung her shoulder forward to release herself from Huntoon’s hand, and walked out.

  He hurried after her, frantically rubbing thumbs against the tips of his fingers. “Good evening—excuse us—good evening.” And he was gone down the stairs.

  Away toward Petersburg, artillery fire began. The office chandelier swayed. Memminger watched Orry with bleak, speculative eyes while Benjamin, once more suave and smiling, comforted Madeline.

  “I have never witnessed such shameful behavior. You have my sympathy. I naturally assume that boorish young woman’s accusation isn’t true—”

  Madeline was trembling. Orry strode up the aisle, disgusted by the transformation taking place in Benjamin. The secretary slid from his role of friend to that of government representative by adding two words:

  “Is it?”

  Orry had never loved or admired his wife more than when she said, “Mr. Secretary, does the law require that I answer your discourteous question?”

  “The law? Of course not.” Benjamin’s eyes resembled those of a stalking cat. “And I certainly meant no discourtesy. Still, refusal may be construed by some as an admission—”

  The woman with the mole huffed, “I for one would like to hear an answer. It would be disgraceful if a member of our own War Department was married to a colored woman.”

  “Damn you and damn your bigotry, too,” Madeline exclaimed. The woman stepped away as if stung. Orry reached his wife, somehow managing to bridle all the chaotic, conflicting emotions—surprise, anxiety, wrath, simple confusion—the past few minutes had generated. Quiet and strong, he touched her.

  “This way, darling. It’s time we went home, too.” Gently, he slipped his arm around her. He could tell she was about to collapse.

  Somehow they got past the frowsy wives in last year’s gowns, the overdressed clerks, Memminger, the assistant comptroller slack-jawed at the punch bowl. A hot, grit-laden wind blew through Capitol Square, whirling paper and other debris. The dust was so thick, the edges of buildings blurred.

  “How did she find out?”

  “God knows. She said something about a Captain Bellingham. I’ve never heard of him. The rank could mean army, navy, or it could be self-bestowed. I’ll start a search of the records, though they’ve gotten so jumbled we don’t know the names of half of those currently in the services. But you can be sure I’ll try. I’d like to find the bastard.”

  “I didn’t have to answer the secretary. He had no right to ask!”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “Will it hurt your position in the department?”

  “Of course not,” he lied.

  “Was it the same as an admission when I refused to answer?”

  When he remained silent, she seized him and shook him, her hairpins unfastening, her dark locks streaming and tossing as she cried into the wind, “Was it, Orry? The truth. The truth!”

  The wind howled in the silence.

  “Yes. I’m afraid it was.”

  107

  THOUGH HER MONEY WAS running out, Virgilia asked for one of the better rooms at Willard’s. “We do have less expensive ones,” the reception clerk said. “With smaller beds.”

  “No, thank you. I require a large bed.”

  To conserve her cash, she avoided the dining room that night. Hunger and nerves made it hard for her to fall asleep, but eventually she did. Next morning she ate no breakfast. About ten, she set out along the wrong side of the avenue, weaving through a throng of Negroes, peddlers, clerks, and the wounded soldiers who were a permanent part of the Washington scenery. Ahead, she observed that the scaffolding had finally been removed from the Capitol dome. The statue of Armed Freedom crowning the dome gleamed in the June sunshine.

  The morning was warm, her clothing too heavy. She was awash with perspiration by the time she climbed all the steps, entered the Capitol, and slipped into the House gallery. After some searching, she located Sam Stout at his desk on the floor, lanky legs stretched out while he sorted documents.

  Would he come, she wondered as she slipped out again. If he didn’t, she was lost.

  She left the sealed envelope at his office. On the face, she had inscribed his name and the words Confidential/To Be Opened Only by Addressee. Nervous, she strolled on the shabby mall for half an hour. Wandering cows chewed what little grass grew there; pigs rooted in the many mudholes. Finally she returned to Willard’s and threw herself on the bed, flinging a forearm over her eyes. But she couldn’t doze, couldn’t even relax.

  At noon she bought two day-old rolls from a street vendor. One served as her midday meal in her room. At three, she undressed and bathed. After drying off, she chose a dark skirt and snug linen blouse with puffed sl
eeves, buttons down the front, and a stylish tie she could fasten in a bow. She fussed with her hair for three-quarters of an hour, then ate the second roll.

  Last night she had bought a Star, which she now tried to read. She had trouble concentrating. The official front-page War Department dispatch, dealing with Petersburg and signed by Stanton, might have been printed in Chinese. She was repeatedly distracted by visions of the vindictive Mrs. Neal whispering to government officials.

  Sounds in the next room drew her attention: a creaking bed, a woman’s strident cry, repeated rhythmically. Virgilia’s room seemed hot as a furnace. She dabbed her lip with a handkerchief, which she had tucked into the cuff of her blouse. The cuff was damp.

  She picked a roll crumb off the bedspread, pulled and patted until it was perfectly smooth. She paced to the window to look at the wagon and horse traffic on the avenue but never saw it.

  In the note, she had asked him to come at seven. At half past nine she was seated by a small table near the gas mantle, slowly rubbing her forehead with her left hand. Despair had eaten away her hope and her energy. She had been an idiot to suppose that—

  “What?” she said, her head jerking up. Her heart started racing. She rose, hastily pushed her wrinkled blouse into her waistband, tightening the linen over her breast. She ran to the door, patting her hair.

  “Yes?”

  “Hurry and let me in. I don’t want to be seen.”

  Weakened by the sound of the rich, deep voice, she fumbled with the door. She finally got it open.

  He hadn’t changed. His brows were still black hooks on his white face. His wavy hair, dressed carefully with fragrant oil, glistened as he made that unnecessary stooping movement that always accompanied his passage through a doorway; he liked to emphasize his height.

  “I do apologize for my tardiness,” he said as she closed the door.