North and South: The North and South Trilogy (36 page)

Her performance deeply offended him, not only on intellectual grounds but on personal ones. It was true that Virgilia was a grown woman in charge of her own life. Nevertheless, to see his sister or any other female display herself so shamelessly made him cringe. No matter what its veneer of propriety, her speech had been an outpouring of sexual passion. It had permitted her to say things no woman—no man, for that matter—would have dared to say in public in another context.

What dismayed him most was his feeling that Virgilia had reveled in the experience—and not solely for the moralistic reasons she proclaimed.

But even if he put aside the personal considerations, the shouts and halloos within the hall continued to upset him. They showed him a dimension of the slavery quarrel whose existence he had never before suspected. No matter how worthy Virgilia’s cause, she had somehow twisted it; an appeal for justice was transformed into a sordid, even frightening call for a savage holy war. There were warriors aplenty inside. He could still hear them howling for Southern blood.

On the train he had decided that all the sin lay on the Southern side, the side of the slave owners, and all the destructive pride as well. Tonight had taught him a fearful lesson. He was wrong.

In an hour he had changed his view of Northern abolitionists, for Virgilia had surely taken her cue from other members of the movement. How many of them were more interested in confrontation than in resolution of the problem? How many preached hate instead of common sense? He didn’t condone slavery or excuse the Mains because of what he had witnessed tonight. But for the first time he believed there might be some cause for the Mains’ resentment—just as they claimed.

Could the friendship of men from different regions, a camaraderie born in shared hardships, endure such terrible pressures? Was there enough good will in humankind and the nation to overcome the kind of mindless passions he had seen unleashed by his sister?

He shivered as wind-driven snow flew at him beneath the marquee of the auditorium. The storm was intensifying, hiding the nearby lights of the town. He began to perceive a future much grimmer than any he had heretofore imagined. He had a brief, dark vision of the country, hammered by the slave question until it shattered like brittle cast iron.

Difficult times surely lay ahead. Constance would help sustain him during those times, and he hoped his love would do the same for her. But as for the nation surviving the hammering—finding the flexibility and compassion necessary to resolve the issue—he just didn’t know about that.

Until this moment, he supposed, he had lived with illusion or ignorance. Now, huddled against the wall beneath the marquee and unable to light his cigar in the rising wind, he was staring at reality.

It terrified him.

A Lehigh Canal boat carried George on the last stage of his journey. The canal followed the course of the river through the valley, from Mauch Chunk down to Easton. The Grand Valley of the Lehigh had been home to four generations of Hazards. George’s great-grandfather had left a job at a forge in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, then the leading ironworking region of the colonies, to strike out on his own in Pennsylvania.

The valley had no huge natural deposits similar to the bog ore of Jersey. Nor was there as much flux as the Pine Barrens men took from nearby salt bays in the form of clay and oyster shells. But George’s great-grandfather did find great stands of timber for conversion to charcoal. He found water power. Most important of all, he found opportunity.

For years his was the only furnace on the river. Ore had to be brought over the mountains in leather bags carried by pack horses, but that didn’t deter him. The same transportation system had served furnaces in Jersey for a long time.

Competitors said he was crazy not to move to the Schuylkill River valley, but George’s great-grandfather paid no attention and persevered. In the valley of the Lehigh he was his own master, succeeding or failing solely on the basis of his own decisions.

During the Revolution the Hazards threw everything into the war effort and almost went to the wall financially. Luckily the rebels won, and the continuity of the line was not abruptly ended by a hang rope. But unqualified success continued to prove elusive.

Year after year the Hazards were forced to ship their iron down the river to the Delaware in antiquated Durham boats that were forever incurring damage on the rocks of the Lehigh rapids. Then, in 1829, the canal opened. A local man, Josiah White, had developed it principally to ship anthracite coal that had been discovered in the region. But the canal boats brought prosperity to almost every business in the valley, and Hazard Iron was no exception. For a century, products of the ironworks had provided the family with a steady if unremarkable income. Suddenly, thanks to the canal, many more markets were within reach, and in one generation, that of George’s father, the Hazards were rich.

George had grown up with the canal. The shouts of the boatmen and the occasional bray of a balky towpath mule were essential parts of his boyhood experience. Now men said the canal era was already passing. It had lasted scarcely thirty years, another dizzying proof of how fast the new, machine-driven world was changing. Evidently William Hazard had believed the predictions about canals. Otherwise he wouldn’t have gone into the production of rails.

The boat stopped for half an hour at the expanding town of Bethlehem, which had been settled by members of the Moravian church from Bohemia. A few miles beyond Bethlehem, the skyline of the South Mountains began to take on a familiar aspect. It was a blustery, dark day. All the other passengers stayed below, but George stood on the roof promenade of the main cabin, reveling in the sights of home.

Under racing gray clouds, the low, rounded peaks looked almost black. The mountain laurel that covered them was dormant now. But in the spring, on all the hillsides, there would be pink and white flowers by the thousands. And the blooms would be found in every room of the Hazard house. George’s mother had a special, almost religious regard for the mountain laurel. She said the shrub was like the Hazard family. It often took root in rocky, unpromising ground, but it survived and thrived where other plants could not. She had transmitted that special feeling to George, much as his father had passed along his beliefs about the power of iron.

The canal boat proceeded around a long bend, gradually bringing into view the small town of Lehigh Station and, adjacent to it on the upstream side, the sprawl of Hazard Iron.

Nearest the river in the town stood several crowded blocks of poor cottages. This was the section inhabited by the growing population of Irishmen, Welshmen, and Hungarians who migrated up the river to fill the new jobs created by Hazard’s expanding product line. More and more cast iron was being used for construction in the large cities. There was a mania for cast-iron pillars and elaborate cast-iron cornices; even complete fronts of buildings were being manufactured. And of course Hazard’s now produced rails.

On the hillsides above the workers’ hovels rose the larger frame or brick residences of the town’s mercantile community, as well as homes belonging to foremen and supervisors at the ironworks. And highest of all, on a huge parcel of ground terraced out of the mountain, there stood the house in which George had been born.

He loved the house because it was home, but he despised its actual appearance. The first part of it had been built a hundred years ago; that section had long ago vanished within various remodelings, each of a different architectural period or style. The house had thirty or forty rooms, but it had no unity, no name, and in his opinion no character.

The dominant features of the Hazard Iron complex were the three furnaces, truncated cones of stone forty feet high. From the top of each, a wooden bridge crossed to the side of the mountain. Two of the furnaces were in operation. George could see the cumbersome movement of the bellows pumping in hot blasts of air and hear the noisy steam engines that powered the bellows. The furnaces spewed smoke, blackening the already murky sky. Charcoal was a dirty fuel and an outdated one.

On the bridge of the third furnace, workmen pushing handcarts crossed from the mountainside. They dumped the contents of the carts down the charging hole, then returned to the other end of the bridge for the next load. Surely some better method of moving ore, fuel, and flux could be devised. A system of steam-driven conveyors, maybe. His brother Stanley would probably want every other furnace in the state to install such a system before he would consider making it a permanent improvement.

The wrought-iron finery looked busy too. George had forgotten how big Hazard’s had become—especially with the addition of a good-sized building he hadn’t seen before. It adjoined the plate-rolling mill. It was the rail mill, he assumed.

Hazard Iron was a noisy, bustling, unclean operation. Its great slag heaps and charcoal piles disfigured the landscape. The smoke was an abomination, and the heat and din could be infernal. But it became more apparent each day that America was running and growing because of iron and the men who knew how to produce it. The business had gotten into the marrow of George’s bones, and it took this homecoming to make him realize it.

How would Constance take to it? Would she be happy here, married to an ironmaster and living in an unfamiliar place? He vowed to do everything possible to make her happy, but how she got along in Lehigh Station was not entirely up to him. That worried him.

He was glad that some business of the anti-slavery society had kept Virgilia in the city so that he could come home alone and slip gradually into his old life, with all its joys. And its sorrows. His father was gone. He felt guilty because, for a little while, overwhelmed by familiar sights, he had actually forgotten his father. He needed to make amends, and say good-bye.

A spectacular sunset lit the marble obelisk with the words William Hazard carved in its base. George uncovered his eyes, gave a last adjustment to the black wreath he had laid, and rose.

He dusted his knees as his mother approached. She had come with him to the graveyard in the hard, bright light of the winter afternoon. But she had remained several yards away while he silently said his farewell.

They walked down a precipitous path toward the waiting carriage. George had been home only a few hours, but Maude Hazard was already bubbling with plans for the wedding.

“It’s a tragedy your father couldn’t have lived long enough to meet Constance,” she said.

“Do you think he would have approved of her?”

Maude sighed, her breath pluming. “Probably not. But we’ll make her welcome. I promise.”

“Will Stanley make her welcome?” His tone expressed skepticism.

“George”—she faced him— “you already know that some will hate you for the step you’ve taken. The Irish are a despised lot, though I don’t quite understand why. You, however, are obviously very realistic, and I admire that. I admire you for your willingness to face up to the hate you may encounter.”

“I hadn’t thought of it in those terms, Mother. I love Constance.”

“I know, but there is still a great deal of un-Christian hate in the world. Love will somehow defeat it. It will and, if we’re all to survive, it must.”

He thought of Elkanah Bent, Tillet Main, and his own sister. He could believe in
must.
But
will?
He had great doubts about that.

Human beings may be inconsistent,

but human
nature
is true to herself.

She has uttered her testimony

against slavery with a shriek ever

since the monster was begotten; and

till it perishes amidst the execrations

of the universe, she will traverse

the world on its track, dealing her

bolts upon its head, and dashing

against it her condemning brand.

THEODORE DWIGHT WELD
,

American Slavery As It Is
1839

G
EORGE WAS CEREMONIOUSLY WELCOMED
home with a Christmas party. It gave him a chance to observe all the changes that had taken place in the family in a relatively short time. Some he found quite surprising.

His brother Billy, for example, looked and acted grown-up at twelve. His face had filled out, taking on the broad, sturdy appearance common to adult males of the family—Stanley excepted. Billy’s brown hair was darker than George’s, his blue eyes less pale and forbidding. He had an appealing smile, but there was no sign of it while he asked sober, intelligent questions about the war. Who was the better general, Taylor or Scott? How did the American and Mexican armies compare? What did George think of Santa Anna?

Billy couldn’t be as serious as he seemed, George thought. But then, he recalled being pretty serious about some of the scrapes he’d gotten into when he was Billy’s age. Some of them had involved young women. Was Billy similarly entangled? If so, George disapproved.

Then he laughed at himself. He had changed along with the rest of the Hazards.

Virgilia chattered constantly about the anti-slavery movement, which she referred to as her work. She had become not only fanatical about it but self-important. Naturally George didn’t say that aloud, but neither did he conceal his anger when he told everyone that Orry would be his best man and Virgilia replied by saying, “Oh, yes—your slave-owner friend. Well, George, be warned. I shan’t smile and fawn over someone like that.”

It threatened to be a wretched wedding. Virgilia was apparently determined to spoil Orry’s visit; and Stanley’s new wife made several cool and sarcastic references to Constance Flynn’s religion, as well as to the site of the ceremony—the tiny and unprepossessing Catholic chapel down by the canal.

Stanley had married a little more than a year ago, while George was on his way to Mexico. Isabel Truscott Hazard was twenty-eight, two years older than her husband. She came of a family that claimed its founder had been a colleague and friend of William Penn’s. Although she had been occupied with a pregnancy during most of her first year in Lehigh Station, her husband’s last name and her own ambitious nature had established her as a social leader of the community.