North and South Trilogy Page 32

  If neighbors and acquaintances took this to be a sign of a sullen streak—merely one more of those changes wrought by his war injury—that was fine with him. The reaction had a practical benefit. People didn’t expect him to chatter about his personal life, nor did they press him about a subject he found infuriating.

  That is, no one pressed him except his father.

  Tillet was nearly fifty-five now, gout-ridden and prickly-tempered. “Damn it, boy, you’re eminently marriageable,” he said one night in the library. “Why do you refuse to search for a wife?”

  December rain pattered on the windows. Orry sighed and laid down his pen. He had been totting up figures from a ledger, one of several he had fetched from the office. Salem Jones was responsible for keeping the ledgers, something he’d been doing ever since Tillet’s health began to break down. In them were recorded the number of barrels in each shipment to Charleston.

  After the harvest, Orry had chanced to glance into the ledger for the current year. The neatly inscribed figures somehow didn’t jibe with his intuitive feel for the number of rice barrels leaving the plantation. Didn’t jibe with a vivid picture of many more barrels piled up on the pier—which needed two pilings replaced, he recalled. He had been meaning to jot a reminder to himself for weeks. He did so now, before turning to his father.

  “May I ask what brought up a question I thought we’d settled to everyone’s satisfaction?”

  “To your mother’s, perhaps. Not mine.”

  From his chair Tillet flourished the pages of Cooper’s latest letter. “Your brother is squiring eligible young ladies to all those Christmas parties and balls. Of course, if he ever grew serious about a girl, her father would probably send him packing because of his wild ideas. However, your brother’s marital status is of no interest to me. I cite him only as an example of what you should be doing. You—”

  Tillet moved slightly, winced, and gripped his outstretched leg. A moment later he finished, “You should be wed and starting a family.”

  Orry shook his head. “Too busy.”

  “But surely you feel the need for companionship. A vigorous man of your age always—”

  Orry smiled, which gave his father leave to stop. Tillet looked relieved. Orry said, “I take care of that, don’t worry.”

  Tillet smirked. “So I’ve heard from several gentlemen in the neighborhood. But women of that sort—common women or those tinctured with a drop of nigger blood—they’re good for one thing only. You can’t marry someone like that.”

  “I don’t intend to. As I’ve said many times before”—he touched his pinned-up sleeve with his pen—“I no longer consider myself fit to marry. Now I’d like to get back to work. I’ve found some damned odd discrepancies, going back as far as two and a half years.”

  Tillet harrumphed, his equivalent of permission. His son had grown a mite gruff when he said he wasn’t fit to wed. Tillet had heard the excuse often, and much as he hated to admit it, he believed there was something to it. He knew what people along the Ashley thought of Orry. They thought the war had left him a little queer in the head.

  There was ample evidence to support the contention: The way Orry went about his duties at Mont Royal, as though he were driven to prove himself the equal of any uninjured man. His clothes, always too heavy and somber for the climate and mood of the low country. His brusque manner. That damn beard, so long and thick chickadees could nest in it.

  Once, out by the entrance to the lane, Tillet had been returning from Charleston in his carriage at the same time Orry was riding away on some errand. Three of the gardeners, scything weeds, had stared at Orry when he cantered by. The slaves had exchanged looks; one had shaken his head, and another had actually shivered. Tillet had seen it and been saddened. His son had become a strange, even frightening figure to others.

  Of course the deficiencies had to be kept in perspective. Odd as Orry might be, he pleased Tillet far more than Cooper did. Cooper had jumped right into management of the little shipping line, and he was doing well at it. But he continued to express offensive, not to say downright traitorous, opinions.

  Lately there had been a lot written about several resolutions old Henry Clay planned to introduce in the Senate early next year. Clay hoped to prevent a further widening of the rift between the North and the South. The Union, thirty states strong, was delicately balanced. Fifteen states practiced slavery; the other fifteen did not. Clay wanted to throw some bones to each side. He proposed to align the new state of California on the Northern side, with the stipulation that slavery not be permitted there. Southerners would receive a pledge of noninterference with interstate slave traffic, as well as a more effective fugitive slave law.

  If Tillet had been required to isolate the foremost cause of his animosity toward the North, he would instantly have named the fugitive slave issue. The fourth article of the Constitution specifically stated that a man had the right to recover any slave who ran away. It also said that laws in force in a state that did not practice slavery had no effect on this right. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 had been written to implement the Constitution. And ever since, the high-minded hypocrites up North had sought ways to water down or completely circumvent the law of the land.

  Tillet opposed Clay’s compromises. So did a great many Southern leaders, including Senator Jeff Davis of Mississippi and Senator John Calhoun. Clay did have the famous and influential Senator Webster on his side. But he was opposed by various abolitionist hatchet men, Senator Seward of New York being perhaps the most extreme. For once Tillet was grateful to that crowd.

  Cooper believed the much-debated compromises were reasonable and badly needed. In Tillet’s opinion, what was badly needed was a horsewhipping for Cooper.

  While those thoughts were passing through Tillet’s mind, Orry was recalling his father’s remark about people in the neighborhood knowing he carried on with women. He was delighted to hear that. It meant his plan had worked. Over the past year he had taken a succession of mistresses, the latest a mulatto seamstress he had met on a visit to Charleston. He took pains to keep this activity discreet, but not secret.

  The women gave him the one thing that Madeline, by the terms of their agreement, could not. But he wouldn’t have entered into the affairs just to fulfill that need, although Tillet obviously thought otherwise. Orry took up with various women so that people would notice and would therefore be less likely to connect each occasional unexplained absence from Mont Royal with Madeline’s absences from Resolute on the same day. Protecting her from suspicion was almost as important as seeing her regularly.

  Pleased that the deception was successful, Orry went back to the ledgers. He had stumbled onto something with a decidedly fishy odor, and he concentrated on it for the next half hour while Tillet dozed into a gleeful dream-fantasy in which a mob stoned Senator Seward.

  A sound like a pistol shot jerked Tillet awake; Orry had closed a ledger with a snap. He stood with the book clutched in his hand.

  Tillet rubbed his eyes. “What’s wrong?”

  “Plenty. We’ve been harboring a thief. He’s repaid your trust and kindness with deceit. I never liked the bastard. I’m going to get rid of him right now.”

  “Who?” Tillet said, still sleepy and confused.

  At the door Orry turned. “Jones.”

  “But—I hired him. You can’t just throw him out.”

  “I beg to differ sir,” Orry said in a voice so low and hard that the older man could barely hear it above the sound of the rain. “I’m in charge of this plantation now. You’ll agree with my decision when I show you the proof. But even if you don’t, Jones is through.”

  Orry stared at his father. Not angrily, just steadily. The beard, the eyes, the tall, gaunt frame, and the empty sleeve—they had a queer effect on Tillet all at once. He felt he was arguing with a stranger, and a frightening one at that.

  “Whatever you say,” he murmured. His son gave a crisp little nod and went out.

  Orry walked to
the overseer’s house with the ledgers clutched under his arm and an old cloak belling behind him. Rain collected in his hair and beard. He took long, swift strides and was so intent on his errand that he didn’t notice Cousin Charles lounging on the dark porch of one of the slave cabins.

  Jones was asleep. Orry roused him with shouts, then confronted him in the kitchen of his immaculate house. The surprise visit had upset the overseer. Sweat shone on his bald head, and there were dark patches of it on his nightshirt. He had brought his quirt and hickory truncheon from the bedroom. Evidently he slept with them.

  “It was a simple scheme, wasn’t it?” Orry said. He hurled the ledgers onto the kitchen table. A look of panic spread on Jones’s face. “In the permanent record of each shipment you put a short total. As many as a dozen barrels less than the number actually loaded on the boat. But our factors pay us for the number of barrels received. Since you kept the books on those transactions too, all you had to do was record a sum that matched the short total in the shipping ledger and pocket the excess. Last time I was in Charleston, I examined the factor’s records. They prove that, over and over, the factors paid us more than you showed us receiving.”

  Jones gulped and pressed his truncheon against his pot belly, as if seized by pain. “You can’t prove I’m responsible for the discrepancy.”

  “Maybe not in a court, though I think I could make a strong case. Until I came home from Mexico, no one handled those records except you and my father, who regrettably grew weak, and a little too trusting. I hardly suppose my father would cheat himself.”

  “No matter what you say, you still won’t be able to prove—”

  “Stop prattling about proof. I don’t need the verdict of a jury in order to discharge you. It’s my decision, and I’ve made it.”

  “It’s unfair,” Jones exclaimed. “I’ve given everything to this plantation.”

  Orry’s face looked ugly in the lamplight. Points of fire showed in his eyes. “You’ve taken a lot as well.”

  “I’m not a young man, Mr. Main. I beg you to give me another chan—”

  “No.”

  “It will take me”—Jones laid the quirt down—“at least a week to gather my belongings.”

  “You’ll vacate this house by daylight. I’ll order the drivers to burn anything that’s still here in the morning.”

  “Goddamn you,” Jones cried, the shadow of his upraised hickory truncheon flying across the wall and then the ceiling. As he started to hit Orry’s forehead, Orry turned sideways, the better to use his right hand. He seized Jones’s wrist and held the truncheon above them.

  “I’m not one of the slaves, Mr. Jones. If you raise your voice or your hand to me once more, I’ll see that you travel downriver on a stretcher.”

  Shaking, he tore the truncheon from Jones’s hand and jammed it under his arm. With a swift, scooping motion he picked up the ledgers and strode toward the door. He barely saw Cousin Charles, who was leaning against one of the foundation’s tabby pillars, an excited, almost worshipful expression on his face.

  “What’s going on?” Charles asked. “Did Jones do something wrong?”

  The rain had turned to light mist. Orry walked down from the porch, the thud of his boots muffling his brusque answer. Cousin Charles thought Orry hadn’t bothered to reply. The excited look on his face was replaced by one of resentment.

  Cousin Charles lay naked beside Semiramis. Her smooth, warm skin radiated the faintly sweaty odor of their recent lovemaking.

  In the darkness the girl heard an ominous sound begin. Thunk, thunk. Each blow was preceded by a violent movement of Cousin Charles’s body. With his bowie knife he was repeatedly stabbing the plank wall to the right of the pallet.

  He always fooled with that big knife when he was angry. Surely he wasn’t angry with her. They had blended together just fine, as they always did—though, come to think of it, his thrusts had been unusually deep and rough.

  Semiramis stretched her arms above her head but experienced no feeling of sleepiness. Charles continued to whack the wall with the knife. It was nearly an hour since he had crept in to tell her he had met Mr. Orry. Now the slave community was buzzing with news that Salem Jones had been ordered to leave. Lamps burned throughout the overseer’s fancy house. He was packing right now. From out of the misty dark, Semiramis heard laughter and little snatches of happy conversation. Folks were awake and joyous. For weeks to come the whole place would have a feeling of jubilee.

  The news about Jones had had that effect on Semiramis, too. She had been in a splendid, receptive mood by the time the strapping fourteen-year-old mounted her. Charles never failed to satisfy her, but tonight her pleasure had been heightened because of Jones, and because the boy had come back to her again. She had been the first to show him what men and women did together, and no matter how many white girls he fooled with, he always came back. Lately, so she had heard, he had been sniffing around one of the Smith girls. Sue Marie Smith, that was her name. A pretty little thing, but too polite for a cub as lusty as this one.

  Thunk. The wall vibrated. She took his free hand and pulled it over on top of her bristly mound. He jerked it back.

  “Lord,” she said with a small, forced laugh. “Who you so mad at?”

  “Orry. He looks through me like I was a window. He doesn’t know I’m alive. Or care.”

  Thunk.

  “Mmm. You must hate him ’bout as much as I hate his poppa for showing off my brother like a chicken thief. I guess I was wrong about Mr. Orry.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I kind of had the idea you liked him.”

  Cousin Charles snickered. “Would you like somebody who thought you were worthless? Just dirt?”

  So many white faces shunted through her mind she couldn’t keep track of all of them. “No, sweet boy, I surely wouldn’t.”

  “Then don’t expect me to, either.”

  Thunk. That time he struck so hard the blade hummed.

  “I think you were glad to discharge Jones,” Madeline said the next time she met Orry at the chapel.

  “The devil! I didn’t engineer it, you know.”

  “Don’t bristle so, darling. Of course you didn’t. But my point stands.”

  She laid a cool palm against his cheek. “I know you by now. You already have too much work, yet you keep taking on more. Jones could have been let go in a week, or a month. But you were eager to add his work to your own immediately.” She kissed him gently. “You look worn out. You’re not indestructible, you know.”

  He felt as if she had shone a great light down into a pit within him, a pit where he hid thoughts and feelings of which he was ashamed. Her perception angered him. But, as always, he could never be angry with her for long. Perhaps—the insight came suddenly—perhaps love existed in its truest, deepest form when one partner saw into the soul of the other and never shrank from what was discovered there.

  He managed a weary laugh. “I reckon you’ve found my secret. Hard work and these visits are the only things that keep me sane.”

  She looked beyond the smile to the pain in his eyes. She heard the desperate truth of his statement. She held him close, saying nothing.

  20

  ON JANUARY 29, 1850, Senator Clay introduced his eight resolutions in Congress.

  They had already been hotly argued at Resolute. Two of Justin’s uncles, both prosperous tradesmen in Columbia, had been ostracized by the low-country LaMottes because the two had sat at Justin’s table and said the South should never be too hidebound to compromise. Especially since the national balance of power continued to swing away from the region; in the House only 90 of 234 members represented slave states.

  For days Justin ranted about the heresy his uncles had propounded. Madeline’s husband couldn’t tolerate opinions that ran counter to traditional thinking, his thinking. It was one of the reasons she often dreamed about running away.

  Several things deterred her. She continued to believe that such a course would
be dishonorable. More practically, if she fled, she would have to go alone; she couldn’t ask Orry to share her disgrace. But that meant she’d never see him again. This way at least she saw him every week or so.

  Another reason, nearly as compelling, had emerged gradually over the past couple of years. When Madeline had first arrived at Resolute, she had been a city girl. The intricacies of plantation life were foreign to her. But she was determined to master them. And even though she quickly became disillusioned with her marriage, her determination was undiminished. If anything it increased, for she soon saw that Resolute needed a moderating influence. Someone to work quietly to protect the interests of the blacks wherever possible and to make their unconscionable bondage a bit less harsh.

  She conspired with the kitchen help to funnel extra food to the slave community. She took small sums of money from her household accounts and saved them until she had enough to buy better clothing or additional medicines for the sick house. She learned to diagnose common ailments and to treat them with simple traditional remedies, all of which was part of her duty as Justin’s wife, and tried to mitigate unusually severe punishments her husband meted out, which was not.

  After his quarrels with his uncles, for example, he was itching to find someone to kick—and not just figuratively. He picked on Tom, a fourteen-year-old house boy. The boy had neglected to polish some of the hallway brasswork to Justin’s satisfaction.

  In response to Justin’s questions, the terrified boy offered only mumbled answers. This led Justin to accuse Tom of being uppity. He issued orders that the boy be given twenty blows of the whip. Madeline protested; she always protested his cruelties. As usual, Justin ignored her. He walked away, passing off a snide remark about feminine sensibilities. A few minutes later, Madeline hurried to the slave community to locate the black driver responsible for carrying out the sentence.

  It was a delicate business. If she countermanded Justin’s order, she would place the driver in jeopardy. All she could do was ask the driver, a huge ebony man named Samuel, to lighten the strokes as much as he could without incurring punishment himself.