by John Jakes
He let out a long breath. “I keep thinking he was hunting the presidency, not the Sioux. I wish I could say I liked the poor son of a bitch now he’s dead.”
She heard the confusion in his voice, the echo of bad memories. He saw her outstretched hands glimmer in the light. “I love you, Charles Main. Come here, let me hold you.”
He was halfway to the bed when Gus screamed.
Wildly, he crashed the bedroom door back, lunged across the parlor and into the smaller bedroom. Gus was fighting the sheet, rolling to and fro, crying, “Don’t do that, don’t do that.”
“Gus, it’s Pa. You’re all right. You’re all right!” He gathered the boy in his arms and pressed him close. He stroked his hair. It was damp from sweat.
Presently Charles sat back, and Gus stared at him with a bewildered air. The scar looked black in the moonlight. Charles silently cursed all the Bents and Custers of the world.
Gus’s huge, terrified eyes focused. “Pa.”
Charles’s shoulders sagged. The tension left him. “Yes,” he said.
Virgilia’s was the only white face in the small, plain restaurant. She and Scipio and Jane had come there for a farewell breakfast. Eggs, fried fish, corn bread—all deliriously hot. The other tables held some people who evidently came from the neighborhood, and there was one waiter, the cook’s son.
“I’m very glad we had this chance to meet,” Virgilia said as she finished.
Jane said, “I am too. I wish my husband could have seen the exhibition.” There was no self-pity in the statement, merely a solemn declaration.
“I don’t know as I’d wish that,” Scipio said.
“Why not?” Virgilia asked.
“I’m not so sure we have much to celebrate.” He folded his supple hands together and rested them on the old tablecloth. “The war ended eleven years ago. That isn’t a long time, but sometimes I think everything the war accomplished is already gone. Yesterday I saw some signs in a building downtown. Two signs, on different doors. White only. Colored only.”
Jane sighed. “We don’t have signs like that in South Carolina yet, but we might as well. The Klan keeps screaming ‘nigger, nigger,’ the white people protest the school taxes, we can’t ride the public transportation again, the Hampton Red Shirts are out, the Democrats will win this fall, the last soldiers will leave—the war isn’t won at all. You’re right. Everything did look bright a few years ago, and now it’s almost wiped away. I think we’re sinking right back to 1860.”
Scipio said, “I agree.”
Jane covered her eyes a moment, then shook her head. “Sometimes I get so tired of struggling.”
“But we mustn’t give up,” Virgilia said. “If we don’t win in our lifetime, we’ll win a hundred years from now. If I didn’t believe it, I couldn’t live another day.”
Outside, Jane and Virgilia embraced, and Jane set off for the downtown hotel she and Madeline would be leaving today. Virgilia linked her arm with her husband’s and they walked in an easy, pensive silence toward their rooms three blocks away. A baby cried in a shanty. A yellow dog with sores on his back scratched himself at the edge of a mud hole. It began to rain.
Some white boys, age ten or eleven and probably from a nearby neighborhood of immigrant Irish, skulked after them, and suddenly flung rocks and shouted, “Nigger-loving whore.” Scipio ran them off with no trouble. He was startled to see his wife crying when he strode back to her.
He started to ask the reason. She shook her head, smiled at him, and took his arm again. They continued along the lane between the hovels and tilted tenements, and Virgilia thought of living near here with Grady, so many years ago. Like Jane, she was disheartened.
She tightened her hand on Scipio’s arm, drawing strength from the contact. They walked on. The rain fell harder.
George had rehearsed the little speech for days. In the confusion of leave-takings at the depot, he found himself as tongue-tied as a boy. The moment he drew Madeline away from Jane, he forgot every word he’d memorized.
Color rose in his cheeks. “I hope you won’t think me improper—”
“Yes, George?” She regarded him with genteel calm, waiting. He almost stammered.
“I would loathe myself if I dishonored Orry’s memory in any way—”
“I’m sure you would never do that, George.”
“I would like to ask—that is, would you ever consider—I mean to say—Madeline, autumn in the Lehigh Valley is a lovely time of year. Would you ever consider visiting me at Belvedere and letting me show you the, ah—” He strangled the next word like a lovesick country swain: “Foliage?”
She was touched and amused.
“Yes, I would certainly consider it. I think I would enjoy it.”
He paled from relief. “Wonderful. You must bring Jane if you want a companion. Would coming this fall suit you at all?”
Her eyes warmed. “Yes, George. A visit this fall would be lovely.”
71
AUTUMN WIND SWEPT THE valley. Sunset spread orange light over the roofs of Lehigh Station, the chimneys of Hazard’s, the winding river, the laurel-covered heights. Madeline’s dark hair, so carefully arranged before the stroll, tossed back and forth around her shoulders.
George kept his hands in the pockets of his gray trousers. He wore a small white rose in his black lapel, in her honor. She and Jane had arrived on the train that morning.
“I’m very glad you came,” he said with obvious difficulty. “I don’t find it easy or pleasant to be alone all the time.”
“That’s exactly how I feel.” She could think of nothing less inane than that. His presence, his masculinity, disturbed her in an unexpected way. She liked him and felt guilty about it.
They climbed the worn path. The laurel seethed in the wind. “I remember coming up here with Constance the night before I went to Washington at the start of the war. I thought I’d be home in ninety days.” He smiled wryly. “God, we were such innocents. I had no idea what we were really embarking upon.”
“No one had any idea.”
“It was the most monumental experience of our lives.”
“Now things seem a little ordinary by comparison, don’t they?”
He avoided her eye. “Yes. They seem unfamiliar, too. Because Constance is gone. And Orry.”
She nodded. “I do miss him terribly.”
They climbed higher. George’s face was red as a truant’s when he blurted, “I’m really glad we had the reunion in July.”
“Indeed. What you said at that marvelous supper was exactly right. Our families should stay close.”
After a long pause:
“I would enjoy seeing your new house, Madeline.”
“You’re welcome at Mont Royal any time.”
The wind rushed over the summits of the mountains. Lamps and gaslights shone down in the town, misty yellow, misty blue. On the western horizon, the light was dimming, as if a hidden foundry was banking its fire. Suddenly George stumbled.
“Oh, good heavens,” Madeline exclaimed, clutching his shoulder while he righted himself. She was conscious of his size. He was a full head shorter, but a vigorous figure of a man—although now, again, he had the sheepish look of an adolescent.
She felt none too mature herself. Her stomach felt fluttery. She’d known this moment would come ever since she noticed him watching her in Philadelphia.
“Madeline, I’m a plain-spoken man. I have—great personal regard for you—and not merely because you’re the widow of my best friend. I do not—I do not want to press you. But I very much want to ask—would you be outraged if I were to suggest that you and I—in due time, perhaps—”
He couldn’t finish. She brushed a windblown strand of hair from her temple. “I would welcome what I believe you have in mind, George. So long as there is no confusion about my past. My parentage.”
“None,” he said, his voice very strong suddenly. “It doesn’t matter a damn.”
“Good.”
He c
leared his throat yet again, lifted himself on tiptoe, and leaned forward. He gave her cheek a chaste kiss.
She touched his arm a moment, then let her hand fall. He understood the assent, and broke out in a great smile.
In near-darkness, they climbed higher. He said he wanted to show her the crater left by the meteorite that fell in the spring of ’61, like a harbinger of God’s wrath. “I haven’t seen it in a year or more. Nothing grows there. The earth’s poisoned.”
They rounded a bend in the path and saw a deep emerald bowl in the mountain. “This isn’t it—” she began.
“Yes, it is,” he said, his voice hushed.
“How lovely.”
In the crater, on the sloping sides, the concave bottom, a carpet of summer grass caught the wind and moved gently, gently, as the night came down.
MADELINE’S JOURNAL
November, 1876. Much confusion as to who has won the election, both in S.C and in the nation. I have little head for it. The bigotry in the state revolts me, and especially when it taints someone named Main. Cooper boasted to Judith that he not only belonged to a Hampton rifle club but was one of those Democrats of extreme view who want all Negroes completely out of the political process. How different he is from the Cooper I first met …
Politics not the real reason for my distraction. George is pressing his suit Another letter today…
… Awake most of night I will marry him. I hope I am right …
…G coming south for Christmas. Some discussion in his latest letter of an engagement announcement. I do not love him; I like and admire him. I have told him that exactly. He is not put off. It may be that I can come to love him, though not in the same fierce way I loved you, my dearest …
Since I will start a new life with G, and this book is meant for you, I will write only a few more thoughts.
G. and I will divide the year between Mont Royal and Pennsylvania. Inevitably, there will be difficulties. We have both pledged earnestly to work to smooth them out …
George stepped away from the house and across the drive to the place where the lawn began to slope toward the Ashley. He let his gaze rise slowly up the clean white vertical of the column nearest the double doors. Two and a half stories the column soared, blending and mingling with the dazzle of the Christmas morning sky.
Inside the house, Madeline’s servants laughed and chattered, preparing the midday feast. The servants were black men and women, all on a regular wage. But it was not that, or the inevitable Spanish moss, or the egret lazily ascending above the tree line that reminded George he was in a different country, so to speak. The windows reminded him: shutters back, sashes raised to let in the mild air. Back home, Belvedere would be closed up against the chill.
Madeline watched his pleased reaction, which in turn brought a smile to her face. George sighed and returned to her where she waited by the tall doors. He took her hand.
“It’s a magnificent house. Orry would be proud. But it really does belong to him. I can’t live in it, even for part of the year. I just wouldn’t feel right.”
“I’m sorry, George. I can’t say I’m surprised. Well, no harm—I built it in his memory, and there’s enough money to keep it in the family. Perhaps when Theo’s better established, he and Marie-Louise and their children will move down. In any case, because I thought you might feel as you do, last Thursday I inspected a snug town house in Charleston. I put down a deposit to hold it until the first of the year. If it suits you, it will suit me.”
“Oh, I’m confident it will suit me.” He stretched to kiss her cheek. “Merry Christmas, my dear.”
… I feel too guilty to write more; must end. Know that you are not forgotten, my dear one. I will love you always.
Madeline
72
MADELINE CLOSED THE JOURNAL. She found a length of white satin ribbon and tied the book like a package, finishing it with a small bow. She climbed the right side of the great double staircase that reached down from above like welcoming arms, and then climbed a smaller stair to the entrance to one of the vast spaces beneath the roof beams. She lit a lamp taken from a small tripod table and carried it into the attic. Near one of the wide brick chimneys that bracketed the ends of the house was a small red leather trunk with round brass studs and a brass key in the brass lock plate. She opened the lid. There lay eleven more ribbon-bound copybooks like the one she was carrying. She laid the new one in, regarded the books for a thoughtful moment, then closed the lid and turned the key. She left the attic, extinguished the lamp, carried the key down to her writing desk, and prepared a paper tag. She inscribed the tag in ink, to identify the key, and tied it on with good twine. Then she put the key in a small drawer of the desk, for whatever posterity there might be. It was New Year’s morning, 1877.
73
“TO CARRY THE ELECTION peacefully if we can, forcibly if we must.” That was the published intent of the Mississippi, or Shotgun, Plan originated in 1874. By forcing all white voters into the Democratic party through social pressure or threats of violence, and by intimidating blacks to keep them from voting at all, Mississippi had been redeemed.
In 1876, South Carolina sought redemption with the same methods.
That year, nationally, the Republicans faced a difficult election fight. Many in the party wanted to disassociate it from the carpetbagger governments still in control in Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina. Bayonet rule in the South was perceived as a failure by a majority of the American public. It had become a huge liability.
South Carolina’s carpetbag governor, Daniel Henry Chamberlain of New England, was a cold, polished man who had previously been state attorney general. Somewhat more honest than the governor before him, he was nevertheless a Republican. So the Hampton rifle clubs rode against him, and against his supporters.
The situation in the state was explosive. In July, during the racial rioting at Hamburg, whites executed five black captives. In August, Calbraith Butler, Charles Main’s old commander in the Hampton Legion and a militant Straightout Democrat, led armed men to a Republican rally for Chamberlain in Edgefield. There he took the platform, demanded time to speak, heaped abuse on Chamberlain and his party, and left the rally in a shambles.
Violence escalated. Negro Democrats leaving a meeting in Charleston were attacked by Negro Republicans and fought a pitched battle on King Street. Another race riot convulsed Ellenton, in Aiken County. Roving bands of blacks, disgruntled about low wages in the Combahee River rice fields, burned a mill and gin house near Beaufort and tore up track to derail a train bound for Port Royal.
Because of such incidents, extra troops were poured into South Carolina. Thousands of deputy marshals arrived to watch the polls and keep the elections honest. On October 17, in the wake of further pleas for help, President Grant sent a proclamation through General Thomas H. Ruger, ordering all South Carolina rifle clubs to disband. Most merely changed their names.
November 7. Election Day. Despite the presence of soldiers and marshals, men known to be residents of Georgia and North Carolina were seen at South Carolina polling places near the borders. Bands of horsemen galloped from hamlet to hamlet, voting in each. In notorious Edgefield County, where whites voted at the Court House, blacks with the courage to vote were sent to a tiny schoolhouse that couldn’t accommodate them all before the polls closed. A few courageous blacks marched to the Court House to protest and demand their rights. Armed men organized by M. W. Gary, the district’s foremost proponent of the Mississippi Plan, turned them back.
The shadow of fraud fell across the state and the country.
Disputed vote tallies in Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina put the outcome of the presidential election in doubt. Democrat Samuel Tilden needed but one electoral vote to win. Rutherford B. Hayes needed nineteen. In the three disputed states, recounts would be necessary.
At first it seemed that South Carolina had given both parties a victory. Hayes had won his race by a narrow margin, with an equally narrow win g
oing to Governor Hampton and his slate of Democratic legislators.
Then the recount began. South Carolina’s Board of Canvassers was Republican, and these officials denied enough Democratic votes to ratify Hayes’s election while overturning the victories of Hampton and his slate. Governor Chamberlain was given another term, and the Republicans a majority in the General Assembly. The Democrats shouted fraud.
Chamberlain’s hold on the governorship was feeble. Late in November, Grant ordered troops into the State House to sustain his power.
Democratic legislators arriving at the General Assembly were turned away by Republican speaker E. W. M. Mackey. The Democrats organized in Carolina Hall and elected William Wallace as their speaker.
On December 7, Governor Daniel Chamberlain was inaugurated.
On December 14, in a separate ceremony, Governor Wade Hampton was inaugurated.
Observers didn’t know whether they were watching a tragedy or a comedy. There was a four-day period in which both Republican and Democratic legislators met in the General Assembly. Both speakers entertained motions and conducted debates. There were simultaneous roll calls and simultaneous votes. Neither group would recognize the presence of the other. But much like the Union and Confederate soldiers who had confronted one another in the entrenchments at Petersburg, some of the opponents grew friendly. When the Republicans neglected to pay their gas bill and the company turned off the supply to the hall, the Democrats paid what was due.
The strain of operating two legislatures in one chamber, not to speak of the confusion, proved too great. The Wallace assembly returned to Carolina Hall. Then the courts judged Hampton and the Wallace legislature to be the legal claimants, but Chamberlain refused to give up the State House. Armed troops continued to enforce his authority.
Congress created a special election commission—five senators, five representatives, five Supreme Court justices—to arbitrate the disputed national returns. On February 9, 1877, the commission endorsed the official Florida tally favoring Hayes. On February 16, the commission endorsed the Louisiana tally favoring Hayes. On February 28, it endorsed the South Carolina tally favoring Hayes.
