by John Jakes
Gently she closed her fingers on his. She was delighted by the audacious things she’d done on this voyage. When she began the trip in Boston, she’d had no thought of doing any of them. Surely this delicious new freedom was another sign that she had finally found a man she could love all her life.
Cooper, too, had found a partner. A decent, bright woman who was, to him, surpassingly beautiful. A woman who shared his own quirky, iconoclastic turn of mind, and many of his beliefs, and a few of his doubts. With her, if she’d have him, he could weather the stormy times that were surely coming. In the house on Tradd Street, this very night, he would propose.
The decision returned a look of calm to his face. Holding hands and heedless of the stares of some scandalized passengers, Cooper and Judith stood gazing into each other’s eyes as Fort Sumter loomed off the bow and slowly fell behind.
23
TENSION AND QUARRELING PLAGUED the Hazards that spring. The servants bet small sums on who would be speaking to whom by the time the family left for Newport. Some wagered they wouldn’t go at all.
George discovered Stanley had made another donation to Cameron, this time in the amount of two thousand dollars. “You promised to stop that sort of thing!” He punctuated the accusation by pounding the desk so hard a window rattled. Stanley edged to the other side of the office before answering. George was small, but Stanley lived in fear of him. He lived in greater fear of Isabel, however.
“I never meant I’d stop permanently. If you thought that, you misunderstood. Besides, Simon urgently needed—”
“Oh, it’s Simon now. Pals! What post are you buying? What’s the price?” Stanley reddened. George prowled back and forth like a wild animal. “Our costs rise every day, and you piss our money away on political hacks and private rail cars.”
On his own, Stanley had contracted for an eight-wheel passenger car, complete with sitting room, sleeping compartments, and a galley. The unusual car, one of only a handful in the nation, was being rushed to completion in Delaware. Stanley had been pushed into the purchase by his wife, who had repeatedly said she would not ride the public cars to Rhode Island.
“Surely we can discuss this without resorting to vulgarity, George.”
“Discuss, hell. It’s too late to do anything about the car, but I won’t have you giving Cameron another penny.”
“While I control the bank account, I’ll do as I please. Speak to Mother if you don’t like it.”
He didn’t have the nerve to look at his younger brother as he played that trump. George angrily subsided, as Stanley expected he would. George might threaten to go to Maude, but Stanley had figured out that his pride would never permit him to do it. With a smug smile, Stanley strolled out. The door banged shut, a defiant coda to the conversation.
Swearing, George sat down. He tried to calm himself but failed. Stanley had him, and they both knew it. He refused to run to Maude, yet the situation as it stood was intolerable. He didn’t know what to do. He picked up an inkwell and hurled it against the wall.
“Childish,” he grumbled a minute later. But it had made him feel a lot better, even though his problem remained unsolved and the flying ink had ruined his shirt.
Stanley described the argument to Isabel. Naturally George was the villain, Stanley the hero.
She took revenge with a new campaign against her in-laws. With a false smile of concern, she began “wondering”—aloud—about the nature of the religious upbringing little William and Patricia would receive. She dredged up the usual scare tales about sinister Roman priests who exerted an evil influence on parishioners and, by extension, their children. But her special target was George. For several weeks his apparent lack of any faith became a popular topic among the better-class women of Lehigh Station.
No, George didn’t worship as a Catholic, Isabel said to them, but neither did he set foot in his own church, the Methodist. Weren’t his poor children in danger of growing up godless? People who previously hadn’t worried about that question, or George’s character, found themselves talking of little else.
Some of the gossip reached Constance, then George. It saddened her and infuriated him. It was no comfort to receive a letter from Orry and learn that there was discord in the Main family, too. Cooper had announced his forthcoming marriage to a Unitarian girl with abolitionist leanings. Tillet could hardly contain his displeasure. Orry hoped the Newport trip would ease the tensions, at least for a little while.
Virgilia left for ten days in Philadelphia, where she was to address another rally. Maude had long ago stopped pleading with her about the need for a chaperone. Virgilia did as she pleased.
Five days later, as packing for the Newport trip commenced, one of Isabel’s friends called on her. The woman, Grace Truitt, had just returned from Philadelphia. One evening she and her husband had gone to the Chestnut Street Theater to see a revival of The People’s Lawyer, a perennially popular play featuring one of those Yankee rustics who outwitted supposedly smarter people; the shrewd rustic had been a standard character in American comedy for years.
“Your sister-in-law occupied a box with a handsome escort named Toby Johnson,” the visitor said.
“I don’t know the gentleman.”
“It would be surprising if you did, but everyone in Philadelphia has heard or read about him. Virgilia and Mr. Johnson appeared together at the abolitionist rally.” Grace Truitt paused, relishing the next. “On that occasion Mr. Johnson recounted his experiences in North Carolina before his escape.”
“Escape? Good heavens, you don’t mean he’s—African?”
“Brown as a nut,” said the other, nodding. “They flaunted themselves at the theater. Kept touching each other and exchanging glances which—well—” The woman dabbed her glistening upper lip. “One could only term them amorous. I hate to bring you such tragic news, but I felt you should know.”
Isabel looked sick. “Was there much reaction to their presence at the theater?”
“I should say there was. Several couples left in protest before the curtain rose. At the first interval someone flung a bag of trash into the box. A vulgar action, to be sure; still, Virgilia and her companion sat there bold as brass and ignored it.”
Isabel clutched the woman’s hand. “Please keep this to yourself, Grace. I’ll inform the family at the proper moment, when Virgilia gets home.”
“You can depend on my discretion.”
But it was an idle promise.
Maude sent a cart and driver down to the village to meet Virgilia’s boat. A block from the canal, two loungers saw her riding in the cart with her luggage. One of the men found a stone.
“Don’t bring your nigger lover to Lehigh Station!”
He flung the stone with more emotion than accuracy. Virgilia saw it sail harmlessly by. The cart driver gave his passenger a stunned look. She ignored it and glared at the loungers. By evening, when George and his family trooped to Stanley’s for supper, the incident had become the talk of both houses.
Before the first course was served, Maude said, “Virgilia, I heard about a nasty incident in the village today. What caused it?”
She shrugged. “My friendship with Toby Johnson, I suppose. I attended the theater with him in Philadelphia. Gossip travels fast. Perhaps some small-minded person from Lehigh Station actually saw me.”
It angered Isabel that her revelation had been spoiled. At least she could emphasize the enormity of Virgilia’s misdeed:
“In case someone is unaware, Johnson is a Negro.”
That wasn’t news to George; he and Constance had discussed the incident an hour ago. He chewed furiously on his cigar stub because Virgilia’s expression said she was relishing the family’s discomfort. He was no longer surprised by such behavior, but it still angered him.
Virgilia’s chin lifted defiantly. “Toby Johnson is a fine man, and I shall see him as often as I like.”
Billy looked titillated; everyone else was upset. Stanley sputtered, unable to speak coherently. M
aude studied her daughter with an air of grieved resignation. George spoke for the group.
“We have no quarrel with your cause, Virgilia. But you carry it too far. I don’t say that merely because the man’s black—”
Her look withered him. “Of course you do, George. Don’t be a hypocrite.”
“All right—perhaps his color is part of it. But I expect I could get over that, or reconcile myself to it, if it weren’t for your attitude. I don’t think you really care for this man.”
“How dare you presume to say what I really—?”
“Virgilia, shut up and let me finish. I think what you really want is to draw attention to yourself. Thumb your nose at the world because you believe—mistakenly—that it’s harmed you. In the process, you’re shaming your mother and dishonoring this family. Certain things just aren’t done by decent women, whether the man is black, white, or purple.”
Virgilia balled her napkin and tossed it away. “What a dreadful prig you’ve become.” Maude uttered a soft cry and averted her face.
“We’re not talking about me but about you and your behavior,” George retorted. “We won’t put up with it.”
She rose and fixed him with cold eyes. “You’ll have to, brother dear. I am an adult. Who I sleep with is my affair.”
Embarrassed, Constance turned toward Billy. George and Stanley stared at each other, for once united by shock and anger. Isabel drew gulping breaths. Virgilia swept out of the room.
Maude put her hand in front of her face to hide sudden tears.
Next day William broke out in a rash. George and Constance feared measles. Dr. Hopple said it wasn’t measles, but the boy nevertheless developed a fever. Constance stayed up all night to tend him. George stayed up worrying about her and about the mess caused by his sister. He was in a bad mood when the family left the next afternoon in two carriages; a third followed with a small mountain of luggage. At Philadelphia the Hazards would board the private rail car which would take them to a siding near the Newport ferry dock.
George felt nervous about leaving the business for eight weeks. He had prepared pages and pages of instructions for his supervisors and foremen, and he planned on at least one return trip to Lehigh Station during the summer. Still, the family needed him more than Hazard Iron did. Something had to be done to restore peace and keep Virgilia from disrupting it for the next month or so.
Isabel constantly sniped at Virgilia behind her back. The object of this attention acted as if nothing had happened. Virgilia chattered about the passing scenery, the weather—everything but the subject that had precipitated the argument. She was blithely, even arrogantly, cheerful.
During their one-night layover in Philadelphia, she disappeared all night with no explanation. That evening Maude took to her bed before the sun went down. But next morning she seemed better, as if she were determined to accept the situation, deplorable as it was. She went on a shopping trip with toddling William, who was feeling fine again.
They boarded the private car at four in the afternoon.
On each side of the car, five-inch-high gilt letters spelled out Pride of Hazard. Above the legend a gilt eagle spread its wings. The interior was equally opulent. Everyone exclaimed over the etched-glass window borders, the gleaming brass fixtures, the wainscoting of rosewood inlay with deep red damask covering the walls above.
Stanley had spared no expense. The upholstery was the finest plush, the washbasins the finest marble. George had to admit the car was beautiful, but he didn’t dare ask the final cost. He wanted to be at home, seated and slightly drunk, when he saw the bill.
A Negro chef had been hired for the summer. He was already in the galley, preparing sole for supper. Virgilia conversed with the chef for a good ten minutes. “As if he’s her equal,” Isabel sneered to Constance behind her hand. “Something must be done.”
Constance ignored her. Virgilia emerged from the galley and disappeared into her sleeping compartment with a copy of The Liberator.
The boys, William, Laban, and Levi, ran up and down the car, climbing over the furniture, rattling compartment door handles, and creating a cacophony on the pump organ tucked against the bulkhead at one end of the sleeping section. At a quarter to five the car was switched onto the New York fast express, which pulled out a few minutes later.
The family dined on filet of sole and drank expensive French wine while the express rushed north through the dreary New Jersey flatlands. Virgilia was not present; she had taken a tray into her compartment.
“She’ll probably invite her dusky friend to Newport,” Isabel said in a thickened voice. She had consumed a good deal of claret, disdaining the white wine served to all the others. “We should take action.”
George noticed a flare in his wife’s eyes. But Constance kept her temper, saying, “Perhaps we should just have patience. If she’s involved herself with Johnson merely to assert her independence, it won’t last.”
Unsatisfied, Isabel whined, “What do we do in the meantime? Suffer humiliation? Social ostracism? I tell you we must take action.”
“You keep saying that,” Maude snapped. “What do you suggest?”
Isabel opened her mouth, closed it, stood up with nervous movements.
“Excuse me, I believe I heard the children.”
She rushed off to their compartment. George reached under the fine linen tablecloth, found his wife’s hand, and, giving her a resigned look, squeezed it. Then he poured another glass of Chardonnay and drank it in several long gulps.
Around midnight in the New York rail yards, the Pride of Hazard was uncoupled from the Philadelphia train and put on another bound for Providence. The car was coupled immediately behind those containing freight and baggage, and just ahead of the public coaches. This placed it at the midpoint of the train.
About that same time, along the Connecticut shore near the hamlet of West Haven, a switchman who had earlier had a big fight with his lady friend resorted to a bottle to drown his anger. He drank so much so fast he forgot to reset a switch after a local headed for New York came off a siding parallel to the main line. The local had backed onto the siding and waited there until a Boston-bound express went by.
The switchman walked unsteadily in the direction of New Haven. Had he been a reliable man and sober, he would have worried about the switch’s being out of position. Any train approaching from New York and traveling faster than five miles an hour would shunt onto the siding, which was short, and crash through a barricade at the end. Beyond the barricade lay a wide, dark gully.
Constance wriggled in her husband’s arms. There really wasn’t room for two, but she hated the discomfort and confinement of her own berth and had moved down to lie with him for a little while.
“Before I become a regular traveler on overnight trains, some genius will have to invent a better sleeping arrangement,” she murmured against his neck.
“Cozy, though, isn’t it?” The moment he said it there was an abrupt lurch. “Did you notice that? Felt like we switched onto another track.”
The driver of the eight-wheel Winans locomotive was terrified. He had seen the position of the switch arm a few seconds too late. The engine had been unexpectedly slewed onto the siding, and even as he pulled the cord to signal for help, he knew the brakemen would be unable to turn their wheels and halt the train in time.
In the spill of light from the oil-fired headlamp, he saw the barricade looming. “Jump, Fred,” he screamed at his foreman, who was already stepping off the foot plate into the dark.
So this was how it would end for him, the driver thought. A name in a newspaper account of another accident. So many of them were happening that preachers and politicians said no more railroads should be built.
He yanked the signal cord again. It broke in his hand. By the light of the firebox he saw the frayed end, and that was all he saw. The locomotive burst through the barricade at thirty miles an hour and shot up a slight incline and out over the gully like an immense projectile, dragging th
e rest of the train behind it.
24
“CONSTANCE, GET THE CHILDREN. Something’s—”
George never finished the unnecessary warning. She knew something was wrong because of the way the car jerked, then began a slow roll onto its left side.
There was a strange sensation of floating. She fought her way up the suddenly inclined floor toward the door separating the compartment from that of the children. The locomotive fell toward the far edge of the gully. Seconds before the shattering crash, she realized the private car and possibly the whole train had left the rails.
She tore the connecting door open. The first thing she saw was the sooty chimney of a lamp she had left burning. The car was all wood and lacquer. They would be roasted to death if they weren’t crushed.
It seemed to last forever, that slow, lazy rollover through space. Iron howled as couplings tore apart. The freight car directly ahead landed in the gully, and the Hazard car came crashing down on top of it, roof first. On the rim of the gully the locomotive’s boiler burst, the explosion creating a huge cloud of fiery steam and shredded metal. The cloud bloomed upward and outward like some flower from a madman’s garden.
Human screams counterpointed the shriek of iron. The Hazard car collapsed onto its inverted roof. The second-class coach immediately behind glanced off the side and sagged into the gully next to the pile of cars on which the Hazards’ was resting. Below her, Constance heard injured men cry out in the dark: employees of the line working in the baggage cars had been trapped down at the very bottom.
“William? Patricia? Stay with Mother. Hold onto me. We’ll be all right.”
The children were sobbing. So were dozens of other passengers, in every car—a whole choir of the terrified trying to be heard above the breaking of wood, the shattering of glass, the swift crackle of flames. Where was George? In her terror she had lost track of him. She thought he had left their compartment through the door leading to the corridor.
The lamps were out in the Hazard car, but there was light. Firelight. She saw it bathing George’s face as he reentered their compartment, walking on the ceiling which had become the floor. He rushed to the connecting door.
