North and South: The North and South Trilogy (53 page)

She seemed powerless to translate the warning into action. As they started home, she twined her fingers with his and pressed his hand against her skirt. She leaned her head to the side so that her temple touched his shoulder. Then she started murmuring like a lovesick fool:

“I’ll insist that Orry bring us back next summer. I do so want to see you again, my dear. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything more.”

C
OOPER WENT TO THE
pier to welcome the family home. He planned to extend Judith’s invitation to a family reunion at the Tradd Street house as soon as they’d recovered from traveling. He was in a fine mood. The unexpected arrival of James Huntoon spoiled it.

With the young lawyer was a tall, princely black man of about thirty. Cooper recognized him as one of the few slaves still owned by the Huntoon family. His name was Grady. He was a second-generation Ibo whose father had been brought illegally from Benin around 1810, two years after Congress outlawed the importation of blacks. Very likely Grady’s father had arrived via Havana and some deserted cove on the Florida coast. Even today Cooper heard occasional rumors of a secret slave trade operating along that route.

Ibos had never been popular as slaves because of a marked tendency to run away. The Huntoons had ensured that if Grady ever chose to run, he could be identified easily. Long ago, his four upper front teeth had been pulled. It was a common means of marking human property.

Grady gave Cooper a polite greeting, much more polite than Huntoon’s. “I brought Grady to help with your sister’s luggage,” the lawyer explained. He gestured at some poorly dressed black men nearby. “Those nigger porters are worthless. I’ve seen them deliberately drop a valise because they know the owner is white but powerless to punish a freed man.”

Cooper held his tongue. What in the world did Ashton see in this fool?

Some problem held the incoming steamer offshore an extra thirty minutes. Huntoon began damning the compromise bills. Cooper didn’t want to debate, but the lawyer annoyed him so badly he was soon in the thick of it. They argued over a state’s right to secede, an argument being heard all over the country these days.

Neither man won. The only result was bad feeling on both sides. Huntoon wished that he had the physical strength—and the courage—to give Cooper the thrashing he deserved. But the lawyer’s only combative skills were verbal, and he knew it. He had to be content with getting in the last word.

“It’s no wonder you don’t have a friend left in the ruling class of this state.”

The steamer warped to the pier. From the rail Clarissa and Brett called down and waved.

Cooper lifted an eyebrow and said to Huntoon, “Do we have a ruling class in South Carolina? I was under the impression that we did away with that sort of thing in the Revolution. What’s the next idea that will experience a rebirth? The divine right of plantation owners?”

His cool sarcasm enraged the lawyer. But Cooper got an unexpected comeuppance, with his entire family watching.

As he walked toward the gangway that Negro stevedores were lifting into place, he spied a familiar figure approaching on the crowded pier: Huntoon’s relative, Robert Rhett of the
Mercury.
With him was a visitor who had been pointed out to Cooper on the street yesterday, a Georgia politician named Bob Toombs—another strong defender of Southern rights.

Toombs and Rhett strolled arm in arm. When they saw Cooper, their smiles disappeared. Cooper said hello. Neither man replied. They swept by and went straight to Huntoon, shook his hand, and greeted him loudly so that Cooper would be sure to hear.

Ashton watched Rhett and the other man cut her brother. She had been dreading the return to Charleston because it meant Huntoon would be pestering her again. Sure enough, there he was, the poor slug. He had even brought his handsome nigger with the missing teeth.

How soft Huntoon looked in comparison to Billy Hazard. How weak, with the sunlight flashing on his spectacles. And yet, she couldn’t fail to be impressed by the warm greeting Rhett gave the young lawyer.

Her father pointed to Rhett’s companion. “That’s Bob Toombs of Georgia.” He sounded impressed. She must find out about the stranger. Lately she had begun to ponder the significance of being a Main from South Carolina. The significance of being wealthy, prominent—powerful, and a friend of the powerful. The distinction became clearer and more important when she saw what it was like to be devoid of power and dismissed because of it, as her own brother had been dismissed a moment ago.

Power had always been the key to Ashton’s relationship with Brett. Ashton knew very well that she had a deep, only partially understood need to be the person in charge. Now, abruptly, she saw her need in relation to the wider world. There, too, she wanted to be the one who gave the orders, and she wanted to be recognized as such.

What came over her there at the rail was not merely a realization of this new goal but an awareness that her behavior had better be more calculated if she was to reach it. Huntoon had important connections. She must react to that fact, no matter how she felt about him personally. Billy was the summer, but Huntoon was the future.

So when the Mains left the steamer, she contrived to take her father’s arm because she knew he’d go straight to Rhett and the others. He did. When she reached Huntoon, she greeted him with a bold kiss on the cheek.

“James! I’ve missed you so.”

“You have? That’s marvelous.”

It’s a lie, too.
But she merely thought that.

She was pleased with herself for showing all of them where her interest and her loyalty lay. Let Brett run to Cooper and hug him, as she was doing now. Brett made no difference; she’d never amount to a row of beans anyway. Ashton waved casually at her brother from a distance.

At Belvedere one evening in early October, Constance said to George, “Dear, do you recall that shed at the back of the factory property?”

He pushed aside the sheet on which he had been writing. He was developing a plan for quick expansion of the rail mill. In September the Federal government had for the first time granted public lands to railroads, to stimulate construction of new routes. George paid a sizable monthly retainer to a Washington lawyer whose duties included alerting his client to decisions affecting the iron trade. When reporting on the grants, the lawyer had also predicted that many similar ones would eventually be made throughout the West and South. To George that signaled a boom market in rails for the next ten, possibly twenty years.

He realized Constance had been quiet a long time before she asked the question. Something important was on her mind.

The parlor and the house were still. A gilt clock ticked. After ten already. He rose and stretched. “The shed where we formerly stored tools,” he said with a nod. “What about it?”

“Would you be willing to let me use it?”

“You? Whatever for?”

She didn’t give a direct answer. “I wouldn’t use it often. But I would want you to know what might happen there.”

“Good Lord, I’ve never heard such mystery. What’s going on?”

He was smiling, but she was frowning, as if worried about his reaction. She hurried to him.

“Let me show you. Come with me.”

“Where ?”

“To the shed.”

“Right now?”

“Yes. Please.”

Curiosity and the seriousness of her expression led to quick consent. A few minutes later they were climbing a sloping road at the back of the factory property. The air was cold, the sky cloudless. The shed stood out clearly in the starlight.

George stopped suddenly, pointing. A gleam of yellow showed between pieces of siding that didn’t quite meet.

“Someone’s in there.”

“Yes, I know.” She took his hand. “It’s perfectly safe. Come on.”

“You know?” he queried, pulled along. “Will you kindly explain what this is all—”

“Mr. Belzer?” she whispered at the shed door. “It’s Constance. You must move the lantern. It can be seen from outside.”

The light in the gap faded. Belzer was a storekeeper from the village, a Quaker. What in God’s name was he doing here? The door opened, and George saw the frail, nervous merchant. Beyond him, wrapped in old blankets, he spied a second figure, one whose appearance shocked him and explained everything.

The young man wrapped in the blanket was probably not yet twenty, but fright and emaciation made him look twice that. He had amber-brown skin.

“We didn’t have any other place to conceal him,” Belzer said to George. “He came to my house early this morning. But it’s no longer safe for me to keep—travelers. Too many know of my involvement. This afternoon hiding the boy became imperative. An agent of the new district commissioner arrived in Lehigh Station.”

Belzer referred to the Federal fugitive-slave commissioner. President Fillmore had signed the bill on September 18, and the machinery for enforcement was rapidly being put in place.

The runaway sniffled, then sneezed twice. George turned to his wife, still feeling stunned. “How long have you been involved in this work?”

“Mr. Belzer approached me in the spring. I’ve been helping ever since.”

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“Don’t be angry, George. I wasn’t sure how you’d react.”

“You know my feelings about slavery. But evading or obstructing the new law is a serious offense. If you’re caught, you could go to prison.”

Constance indicated the shivering boy. “And where will he go if he’s caught? Right back to North Carolina. Back to God knows what brutal punishment.”

“Why did you decide to involve yourself?”

“Because the slave owners now have all the advantages. The Federal commissioners are supposed to judge cases impartially. Yet the new law pays them ten dollars for every slave they return, and five for each one they don’t. Impartial? It’s a farce.”

“It was a compromise,” George replied.

Belzer sounded almost antagonistic as he said, “You may call it whatever you like, Mr. Hazard, but the new law remains an offense to God and the conscience of this land. Constance, I’m sorry if I caused trouble between you and your husband. I believe we misjudged him. I will try to locate another place for Abner.”

Stung, George blurted, “Wait. “The others looked at him. “I didn’t say no, did I?”

Hope replaced anger in his wife’s eyes. She ran to him. “All we need are some staples and extra blankets, a padlock for the door, and one or two ‘no trespassing’ signs to warn people away. If I spend money for anything beyond that, I’ll tell you. Otherwise, you needn’t worry about what goes on here.”

“Not worry about an underground railroad station on my own property? I disagree.” He gnawed his lower lip. “Why on earth do you want to use this particular place?”

Belzer answered. “It’s isolated, and it can be approached through the woods farther up the hill. The—ah—passengers can arrive and leave for Canada virtually undetected.”

For perhaps fifteen seconds George stared at the sniffling, undernourished runaway. He knew he had no choice.

“All right, but I must impose some conditions for everyone’s protection and—”

He didn’t have a chance to finish: Constance flung her arms around him and began kissing him while Belzer murmured reassurances to Abner, who grinned and then doubled over in a fit of sneezing.

George was proud of what Constance had done. They took Maude into their confidence. All three agreed that no one else in the family should be told about the station. Stanley and Isabel would object because Stanley wanted no involvement with controversy. Lately he was spending only two or three days a week at home. The rest of the time he was courting new friends in Harrisburg or Philadelphia.

A power struggle had developed within the state Democratic party. It pitted Stanley’s friend Cameron against the acknowledged head of the party, Buck Buchanan of Lancaster. After serving as Polk’s secretary of state, Buchanan had wanted the 1848 presidential nomination. He blamed Cameron’s machinations for his failure to get it. The men were now disavowing each other publicly. Stanley had cast his lot with Cameron, which George thought foolish.

But who could be sure in a period in which party loyalties, and the parties themselves, seemed to change overnight? Recently a new political entity had emerged, the Free Soil party. This militant group was a coalition of anti-cotton Whigs, former members of the Liberty party, and some Barn Burners, the name given to hard-line, anti-slavery Democrats. In George’s opinion the Free Soilers seemed dedicated to throwing out the baby with the bath water. They said that if the price of national expansion was acceptance of slavery in new territories, they would stand foursquare against creation of those territories. Virgilia attended every Free Soil caucus within the state; every one, that is, at which women were permitted in the gallery. She wrote lengthy memorials demanding that women be allowed to sit on the main floor as participants.

She was another from whom the three conspirators wanted to conceal the existence of the underground railroad station. She would approve of it, of course, but she might also talk too freely. There were many men working at Hazard’s who remained anti-Negro, and violently so. Freed blacks would threaten such men by competing for their jobs. George wished that kind of hatred didn’t exist at the ironworks, but he also knew no government could legislate it out of existence because it was rooted in fear; illogical. Nor could it be quickly overcome with appeals to conscience. It would take a generation or so and plenty of education to do away with such attitudes permanently.

“I don’t imagine it would be wise to tell your Southern friends, either,” Constance said.

George frowned. “You say that as if there’s something not quite decent about them. I assumed they were your friends, too.”

“Oh, of course,” she said hastily. “It’s just that I’m not as close to the Mains as you are. If I had to choose between pleasing Orry and helping Joel Belzer, my choice might not be to your liking.”

She wasn’t trying to bait or annoy him, he realized; she was speaking honestly. Still, the words rankled within him. Maude noted the fact and examined her hands.