Chesapeake Tide
Page 24
“Not that I know of.”
He spoke slowly, choosing the right words. “It’s a relatively new disease here in America and almost always restricted to certain communities. Lizzie Jones’s behavior has been completely different since she had Bailey and that was sixteen years ago. I believe that whatever she suffers from, it isn’t AIDS.”
“What do you think is the matter with her?”
Cole took the time to chew and swallow his last bite of cobbler. Then he looked at Chloe’s barely touched bowl. “Are you going to eat that?” he asked.
She picked up her bowl and set it in front of him. “Have you ever heard of cholesterol, Granddad?”
“That’s a California word, sugar. We don’t worry about cholesterol down here in the South. If it isn’t deep-fried, honey-basted or smothered in cream, we want no part of it. Look at me.” He patted his stomach. “What do you think? Am I not just as lean as I was at twenty-six?”
“Well.” Chloe looked dubious. Her sense of honesty warred with her desire to please this very beloved grandfather. “You look great for your age, but I’ve seen pictures when you were young and you were pretty thin, Granddad.”
His eyes twinkled. “I suppose that’s true. Don’t tell your grandma.”
Chloe laughed. “I won’t.”
“Are you feeling better?”
She thought a minute. “I guess so. Why doesn’t she get help?”
“I don’t know, Chloe. Have you asked Bailey?”
“He’s prickly about that subject.”
Cole nodded. “You would be, too, I expect. In that case it’s best to leave it alone.”
She sighed. “I don’t have any choice.”
Cole collected the dishes, rinsed and stacked them in the dishwasher. “Run in and say good-night to your grandma, Chloe. Little things mean a great deal to her.”
Chloe knew her grandmother better than anyone suspected. “I will, Granddad. Good night.”
Back in his study, Cole had lost his enthusiasm for his project. His mind was elsewhere, sullied with old regrets and a sense of unfinished business. What if he’d followed a different path? What if Nola Ruth Beauchamp had never sought him out that day at the beach? What if she’d walked right past and left him for a different future? His questions were pointless, of course. It couldn’t have happened any differently, not unless he’d never seen her. The way her aunt kept her holed up in that house, it would have been entirely possible. But once he’d seen her, heard her speak and known her smile, Coleson Campion Delacourte was well and truly caught.
He’d courted her for six months, calling daily at her aunt’s home. Her visit, which he learned was to be only for another month, turned into two and then three and then six. Her father, after a discreet note from his sister, stopped asking when she would be returning to New Orleans.
When Cole asked her to marry him, he had the blessing of both families. Nola Ruth was eminently suitable. She was French, Catholic and well connected. Louisiana-born, she voted the way her state had traditionally voted in every election since 1876, straight down the line on the Democratic ticket. She was beautiful, intelligent and educated, the perfect future politician’s wife. If she was somewhat reserved when they were alone together, he explained it away as embarrassment due to inexperience. A woman who moved and spoke and smiled like Nola Ruth, a woman whose sensuality was so pronounced the roof of a man’s mouth went dry just speaking to her, had hidden depths crying out to be discovered.
Every day they were together Cole delighted in her conversation, reveled in the clarity of her mind, the richness of her imagination, the complexity of her vocabulary. She was never boring, a possibility inconceivable to him. They became inseparable, attending dinners, banquets and balls up and down the James River. Everything was possible in that bright, new, anything-was-possible American era. Cole and Nola Ruth, people would say, as if the names were only complete when spoken together. He couldn’t imagine a life without her.
With utmost care, he’d selected a ring. A family heirloom wasn’t acceptable for the hand of Nola Ruth Beauchamp. He wanted something more, something large and brilliant with hidden fire. Settling on a diamond solitaire of flawless color and clarity, he had it wrapped in silver paper and made reservations at Armand’s, a favorite restaurant in Richmond. After a perfect dinner, he posed the question.
There was a moment of awkward silence before she refused him, politely but firmly, giving no explanation other than, Marrying me wouldn’t be in the best interests of a man with your future. Cole was brokenhearted, but he was also a Southern gentleman. Swallowing hard, he assured her that he harbored no ill feelings and encouraged her to order dessert and coffee. If he wondered why she had postponed returning to her home state for six months longer than she’d intended, or why she had allowed him to monopolize all of her time with the end result being that every gossip columnist in the capital had predicted a June wedding, he remained silent on the subject. One did not embarrass a lady simply because her affections were not engaged.
Nola Ruth returned to New Orleans and Cole buried himself in his work. An interesting case had come across his desk. Oliver Wade, a Negro railroad worker, was suing the board of education of Laurel, Mississippi, on behalf of his daughter, Susan, for the right to attend an all-white elementary school close to her home. Companion suits had already been filed and won in Topeka, Kansas, Delaware, Virginia, Illinois and Washington, D.C. But Mississippi was the heart of the South, Ku Klux Klan country. It was a case destined for the Supreme Court. Cole could feel it in his bones and he wanted in at the ground level. He was a Southerner with a two-hundred-year-old pedigree, abolitionist roots, and a reputation as the finest up-and-coming young lawyer in Washington circles. With his law firm securely behind him, Cole drove down to Mississippi.
For a man who wanted to carve out a name for himself, it was a case made in heaven. Since the Civil Rights Acts of the last decade guaranteeing blacks the right to use public accommodations, all legislation by the Supreme Court had followed the indifferent attitude of the American public. Plessy v. Ferguson, a case heard before the Court in 1896, upheld the principle of separate but equal facilities, virtually legalizing segregation. With nothing to lose, Mr. Wade, middle class, black, defensive, was willing to test the system. With his entire future resting on the outcome, Cole Delacourte, wealthy, white, powerful, was eager to give it a try.
Thurgood Marshall, a brilliant young former NAACP attorney with grandiose ideas was head counsel. He was thrilled and more than a little relieved when Cole offered his services. The press went wild. Southern Lawyer Defends Negro’s Right to Attend White Schools in Segregationist State. Delacourte Supports Integration. Southern Democrat Betrays His Roots.
Nola Ruth Beauchamp read the New Orlean’s Chronicle while sipping her morning chocolate. The Supreme Court had agreed to review what she now called Coleson’s Case. She read the article, word for word. They called him a hero in the North, a traitor in the South. Her father peering over her shoulder, caught a glimpse of the headline and shuddered. “You showed remarkable judgment over that one, my dear. He would not have done for you at all.”
Nola Ruth was nineteen years old, a young woman of astute intelligence, remarkable charm and no marriage prospects in sight. Coleson Delacourte had a brilliant future. Nola Ruth had a sordid past, too much pride to hide it and too much integrity to lie. At the time he proposed, she thought it best to end the relationship. She’d cringed at the thought of destroying his regard for her and decided to take the painless way out, offering no explanation. But that was before Wade v. Laurel, Mississippi. A man who would risk his reputation and defy his heritage might just possibly be the kind of man who could weather the storm that could arise from rumors of a less-than-perfect wife.
Folding the paper, she passed it to her father and picked up the phone. “Carrie Jean?” she said pleasantly to the woman at the switchboard, “this is Nola Ruth Beauchamp. I want to send a telegram to Mr. Coleson Delacourte at
the law offices of Hayes and Brackett in Washington, D.C. Can you call the office for me?” She waited. “That’s fine, just as long as it gets there this morning.” She laughed. “No, one line is all I need. Ask him if his proposal is still on the table. I’ll be down to pay you later.”
When she hung up and faced her father, his eyes were the cold gray of Arctic ice. “Are you mad?” he asked, aghast.
“No,” she replied briefly and firmly. “I’m in love.”
“You’ve said that before,” he reminded her.
“The circumstances are different.”
“I forbid it.”
Her voice would have frozen the words in a better man’s mouth. “We both seem to be repeating ourselves this morning.”
Unwisely, her father brought up the subject he’d forever closed. “What will he do when you tell him about your previous indiscretion?”
She smiled and lifted her sweater from the back of her chair. “I have no idea, but when I find out I’ll be sure to let you know.”
She received her answer that very morning, a single word on yellow paper, “Yes.”
The next afternoon she flew to Washington. Cole met her at the airport, taking her small white-gloved hands in his large ones. “I may not win this one, Nola. Will you be happy with a simple country lawyer?”
“That depends.”
He frowned. It wasn’t the answer he expected. “If you have doubts, I won’t rush you,” he said slowly. “It’s a lifetime we’re deciding here.”
Her tears were already forming. She didn’t deserve him. “You don’t have to worry about me, darling. But there is something I have to tell you. If you decide you can’t marry me, if you have any reservations at all, tell me now.”
“That won’t happen,” he said firmly.
She laid her finger against his lips. “Just let me talk and don’t interrupt.”
“Where would you like to go?”
She thought a minute. “The Lincoln Memorial might be an appropriate place.”
He threw back his head and laughed. “We were meant for each other, Nola Ruth. What are the odds of two Southerners choosing the Lincoln Memorial to exchange confidences?”
“A million to one,” she replied promptly.
They climbed the sunlit steps leading to the massive statue of Abraham Lincoln. There, in the privacy of hushed darkness, she began. “I may not be capable of having children.”
Cole expelled a sigh of relief. “Is that all? If you want children, we can adopt.”
“It’s not that simple.”
He waited.
Nola Ruth bit her lip and forced out the words. “I had a baby, Cole, when I was seventeen years old. I gave her up.”
He was stunned. “Why would you do such a thing? Wouldn’t the father marry you?”
“He did marry me.”
This was worse, much worse. Cole wasn’t what anyone would call a practicing Catholic, but he would no more have changed his religion than he would deny his parentage. Nola Ruth would not be allowed to marry in the church. He looked at her downcast face. Tears welled up in her eyes. Cursing himself for his insensitivity, he led her into a darkened corner and pulled her into his arms. “Don’t cry, darling. Just tell me. We’ll get through it, no matter what.”
And so she told him, leaving nothing out. She spoke of the intoxicating sexual pull that had drawn her down such a path. She described the illicit meetings, the mind-stealing power of their lovemaking, her family’s disapproval, the makeshift wedding in the sleazy parlor of the justice of the peace in Nicholson, Mississippi, their humiliating discovery by her father, and the silent ride back to New Orleans. With her face pressed against his shoulder, her sobs muffled by the expensive wool of his coat, she told of the weeks that followed. Cold, lonely weeks spent in the isolation of her room, never once visited by either parent, boredom interrupted only by delivered meals, weeks where she waited for word from the man who’d promised to love her forever.
Finally, her father demanded her presence in the library. There, he told her that she would spend the rest of her confinement with her aunt Eugenie in Marshyhope Creek. She would spend the entire time inside the house so as not embarrass her aunt. Arrangements had been made to take the child. She would return home when the ordeal was over. It had all happened according to plan, except for returning home. Not able to even think of going back to New Orleans, she’d stayed on in Marshyhope Creek and, later, met Cole.
When she finished, Cole’s hands were clenched and his mouth was tight with rage. “Do you know what happened to the father of your child?” he asked.
She looked up at him, her eyes burning with intensity. “What do you think happens to a black man in the deep South who has the effrontery to marry a white woman, Cole?”
When he spoke, his voice had a quality she had never heard before. “Nola,” he said humbly, “if you’ll have me, I promise to treat you with the utmost respect for the rest of our lives.”
They were married the following week at St. Jude’s, the small Catholic chapel in Frenchman’s Cove. According to Father Raymond there was no impediment to a marriage in the church as long as Nola Ruth made a full confession. Her aunt Eugenie was the only attending member of the Beauchamp family. The Delacourtes were weak with relief. Despite Cole’s notoriety, he had chosen well, a Southern woman of good family, from his own class and religion. They knew nothing, of course, of Nola’s indiscretion.
Meanwhile, Cole’s star burned brightly. He gained national approval for his role in Wade v. Laurel, Mississippi. Case after public case came his way. There wasn’t a national newspaper or magazine that didn’t carry his picture at least once a week. James Farmer, leader of the Congress of Racial Equality, requested his services, as did Floyd McKissick and a young minister named Jesse Jackson, who headed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. His defense of civil rights leaders shook his popularity with those who would have preferred that he limit his practice to whites who could afford his services.
Public opinion did not concern Cole. He won cases, hundreds of them. That was enough, that and the interesting prospect of rising to Attorney General of the United States. Cole Delacourte was ambitious. If waiving his fees and if saving the skins of men with a cause was the price he had to pay, he would pay it.
Nola Ruth was the perfect wife. While she disagreed with his taking pro bono cases, in public she supported him unconditionally, never complaining of late nights or long, empty weekends when his work kept him in Washington, while she remained in Marshyhope Creek awaiting the birth of their eagerly anticipated first child.
Nola was a wonderful mother. The lessons she’d learned growing up in the Beauchamp household were put to good use. Years of silent disapproval and icy reprimands were thrown out the window. Libba was surrounded with all the glowing warmth and welcome stored inside Nola Ruth’s sensitive heart.
Coleson Delacourte, Catholic, a generational Democrat, well-known attorney and civil rights advocate, was borne along on the tidal wave of change and opportunity that had begun in the early sixties, with a handsome, young, Catholic idealist who had occupied the Oval Office and promised a new beginning for America. For Cole, those years were a dream come true until that dream was shattered with dramatic and shuddering finality.
At first, the path of his career mirrored the dead president’s policies. Cole believed that his successor would carry out Kennedy’s plans. But Johnson couldn’t get past Vietnam. His obsession for victory divided Congress and, eventually, the country. It put Cole and the man who would determine his future on opposite sides of the fence. Cole couldn’t support Vietnam. It was a hopeless struggle and the death toll was terrifying.
Faces on the television screen haunted his sleep. They were boys’ faces, mostly black, like the faces he’d grown up with. The South was unfairly represented in Vietnam. Injustice disturbed him, and this war, more than anything else, more than the accepted segregation still prevalent everywhere he looked, was unjust.
Two days after his conversation with the president, the first letter came, typewritten on a manual machine with a faulty “y.” Cole was more than a little shaken. Who could possibly have known about Nola Ruth’s former psuedo-marriage? No demands accompanied the letter. He decided to ignore it. Three days later, another came. This time the words were handwritten, in block print, and accompanied with a photo of seventeen-year-old Nola Ruth Beauchamp standing beside a handsome, light-skinned black man, Anton Devereaux.
Cole stared curiously at the picture of his wife. He had never seen a photo of her as a young girl. When the Beauchamps refused to attend their wedding, Nola Ruth had written them off. She knew nothing of their lives and they knew nothing of hers, save what was written about her famous husband in the newspapers.
A candid photo rarely captured the essence of a person, but this one revealed something that captured Cole’s interest. The young woman with the huge dark eyes and rounded cheeks was on the brink of laughter. She sparkled with a brimming, youthful vitality that Cole didn’t recognize. His Nola was always pleasant and cultured and extremely accommodating, but she never sparkled.
He’d first noticed the lack in family pictures taken beside Libba. Side by side, his two women were incredibly alike in figure and feature, but Libba glowed from within with a radiance that her mother couldn’t compete with. The young woman whose hand clutched Anton Devereaux’s arm so possessively had that same bright, inexplicable quality. Whatever had happened to Nola back in New Orleans had forever taken the luster from her face.