North and South: The North and South Trilogy (96 page)

He blew out the library lamp and sat in the dark. Darkness seemed appropriate to the disintegration taking place all around him. Was there light in the land any longer?

He sat for hours, imagining the warlike sound of ghostly drums.

“Our boys are leaving the Academy right and left,” Justin LaMotte exclaimed. “Capital!” He tossed the newspaper on a wicker table and ladled mint punch from a silver bowl. He passed the cup to Francis, then filled one for himself.

The brothers had just returned from a muster of the Ashley Guards. They resembled a pair of male birds in their cream-colored trousers and dark yellow coats with blue facings. Neither man was as yet equipped with a sword, but each had ordered one from a military armorer in New York City; fine Solingen blades were unobtainable in South Carolina.

“Do you think we’ll be at war soon?” Francis asked, taking a chair. The veranda was pleasant in the December twilight.

Justin beamed. “Within a year, I’d guess. In the event of hostilities, I plan to raise a personal regiment and then offer it—”

He didn’t finish the sentence. A frown creased his forehead as he watched the figure come gliding down the veranda.

“My dear, good evening. Would you care for punch?”

Madeline’s gown was as black as her hair. Her skin was dead white. Her eyes showed extreme dilation. “No.” She smiled in a tentative way. “Thank you.” She passed into the house.

Francis clucked approvingly. “Handsome woman. She’s looking a bit peaked, but she certainly has been calmer the past year or so. The change in her disposition never fails to astonish me. Remarkable.”

“Yes, isn’t it?” Justin sighed. “What a providential blessing. More punch?”

Madeline could no longer recall a time when her world had not had soft edges. She drifted through days that were little more than a series of blurs. She was unconcerned about people or events. Occasionally she remembered Orry with a vague sense of yearning, but she had long ago abandoned hope of encountering him again.

Once in a while, and with little or no warning, she enjoyed short periods of seeming normality. Her head was clearer, her senses sharper, her will stronger. At those times she was angry with herself because she no longer discussed public issues with her husband, nor did she dispute any of his statements, no matter how offensive or outrageous. She had surrendered. When she occasionally realized it, despair overwhelmed her.

She hadn’t the energy to struggle against that despair or even wonder about its source. What good was struggle? What good was hope? The world was dominated by cruel madmen. Two of them sat chuckling over mint punch in her own house this very moment.

After she left the veranda, one of her periods of lucidity came on. She wandered to and fro in her dusky sitting room, reciting snatches of poetry that came to mind from heaven knew where and recalling Orry’s gentle dark eyes, the sound of his voice reading to her.

She must see him again. The moment she decided that, she smiled for the first time in days.

She uncovered the dishes on the tray brought to her room as usual. How delicious the thick, syrupy dressing on the plate of greens tasted. She loved it, now ordered it every day. She ate with relish, finishing everything, and hummed as she began to imagine her forthcoming reunion at the chapel called—

Called—

She couldn’t remember its name. Gradually exhaustion claimed her again. Sinking back into cloudy indifference, she groped her way to the bed. Tears brimmed in her eyes—why, she didn’t know. She murmured Orry’s name once as she lowered herself to the bed. Fully clothed, she slept through the night.

In the morning she discovered that the tray had been cleared away and her sitting room brightened with a bouquet of hothouse flowers. She mused and fussed over them like a child with a toy, never once thinking of Orry.

“A
VISITOR?” ORRY SAID
as he followed the house man to the head of the stairs. “I’m not expecting—God above, is it really you, George?”

“I think so,” said the bedraggled traveler with the equally bedraggled smile. “Knock the cinders out of my hair and wash the dirt off my face, and we’ll know for sure.”

Orry rushed down the stairs. “Cuffey, take those carpetbags right up to the guest bedroom. George, have you had dinner? We’ll be eating in half an hour. Why didn’t you let us know you were coming?”

“I didn’t know it myself until a few days ago. That’s when I made up my mind. Besides”—with nervous movements he fished for a cigar—“I thought that if I wrote saying I wanted to come, you might not reply. You haven’t answered any of my other letters.”

Orry reddened. “I’ve been extremely busy. The harvest—and things are in turmoil in the state, as you know—”

“I can testify to that, all right. When I climbed off the train in Charleston, I almost believed I was on foreign soil.”

“Any day now you could be right,” Orry said after a humorless laugh. “Tell me, is that feeling widespread in the North?”

“I’d say it’s nearly universal.”

Orry shook his head, though he wasn’t surprised by what his friend had said; the special convention called by Governor Pickens had already convened at the Baptist Church in Columbia. Everyone expected the delegates to vote for secession.

George cleared his throat to break the silence. “Will you pour me a drink? Then let’s talk.”

Orry brightened a little. “Certainly. This way.”

He took George to the library. He was overjoyed to see his friend again, but the recent tension between them created a kind of emotional dam that kept him from saying so. He did break out his best whiskey. As he filled a glass for each of them, George remarked that he had visited with Cooper for a couple of hours.

“But I didn’t come primarily to see him,” George continued, sprawling in a chair. He pulled off one shoe and rubbed his stockinged foot.

Drink in hand, Orry stood with his back to the shuttered window. Pale winter light touched his shoulders and the back of his head. “Why, then?” he asked.

Can’t he go at least halfway? George thought in a silent burst of frustration. He overcame it by remembering the unhappiness that had finally pushed him into the long journey to this room. He looked at the tall, forbidding man by the window and replied:

“For two purposes. The first is to try to save our friendship.”

A crashing silence then. Taken aback, Orry couldn’t find words. George leaned forward, the slope of his shoulders and the thrust of his chin reinforcing the intensity of his voice.

“That friendship is important to me, Orry. Next to Constance and my children, it’s the thing I value most in this world. No, wait—hear me out. I offered my apology in writing, but I never felt it was adequate. I gather you didn’t either. So I came here to speak to you face to face. Don’t let the hotspurs down here, or radicals like my sister, wreck our good feelings for each other.”

“Have you heard from Virgilia?”

George shook his head. “She’s still in hiding. Frankly, I don’t care. I shouldn’t have taken her part that damnable day. I lost my temper.”

Wanting to ease the moment, Orry murmured, “I would say there was bad temper on both sides.”

“I didn’t come to lay blame, just to ask your forgiveness. It’s plain that South Carolina intends to leave the Union, though I’m afraid the act is a bad miscalculation. Some accommodation on slavery has always been possible, but if I read Washington’s mood aright, none is possible when it comes to disunion. In any case, where this state leads, others are likely to follow, and that can only have dire consequences. The country’s like a huge ship on a shoal, unable to free herself and slowly being ground to bits. The Hazards and the Mains have been close for years. I don’t want that friendship ground to bits.”

Once more Orry faced his visitor. The emotional dam crumbled. It was a relief to say what he felt:

“Nor I. I’m glad you came, George. It gives me a chance to apologize too. Let’s wipe the slate clean.”

George walked to his friend. “As clean as we can in these times.”

Like brothers, they embraced in a great bear hug.

It wasn’t long before they sat talking easily, as they had in earlier days. George grew reflective. “I really do fear a confrontation if South Carolina secedes. Not merely a political one, either.”

Orry nodded. “Possession of the Federal forts has become a hot issue.”

“I realized that when I came through Charleston. Someone’s got to find a way out of this mess before the lunatics on both sides drag us into war.”

“Is there a solution?”

“Lincoln and some others have proposed one. End slavery but compensate the South for the loss. Compensate the South if it takes every last ounce of gold in the treasury. It isn’t ideal, perhaps, or morally clean, but at least it might avoid armed conflict.”

Orry looked doubtful. “You haven’t listened to Ashton’s husband. He’s typical of many leaders of this state. He doesn’t want to avoid it.”

“The son of a bitch would want to if he’d ever seen a battlefield.”

“Granted. But he hasn’t.” Orry sighed. “Sometimes I believe you’re right about slavery.” His mouth quirked in a wry way. “Do you realize what a radical admission that is for a South Carolina boy? My attitude aside—I am well acquainted with the families who raise crops along this river. There isn’t enough money in the whole Federal Treasury to persuade them to give up slavery, and that goes for those on the other rice rivers and for the cotton planters up-country, too. No man except a saint would agree to dismantle the machine that creates his wealth. Why, my neighbors would let God strike them dead first.”

“I rather expect He will,” George said through a transparent blue cloud of cigar smoke. “The hotheads on both sides want blood. But there ought to be another way!”

Silence again. Neither man knew what that way might be.

Orry felt calmer and happier than he had in months. Tension that had built up for so long, the product of outside events as well as of the inner failings of each of them, had suddenly been relieved. He was in a receptive mood when George brought up the second purpose of his trip.

“I want to discuss my brother and your sister. They want to marry. Why won’t you allow it?”

“Seems to me Brett is doing whatever she pleases these days.”

“Blast it, Orry, don’t go stubborn on me.”

Guiltily, Orry reddened and glanced away. George pressed on. “She hasn’t defied you to the point of marrying without your permission. And I can’t fathom why you’re withholding it.”

“You can’t? We discussed the reason. Trouble’s coming, possibly war.”

“All the more reason for them to have some happiness while they can.”

“But you know where Billy’s loyalty lies. With the Army and the government in Washington. And rightfully so. Brett, on the other hand—”

“Goddamn it,” George exclaimed, “you’re letting the hatreds of a bunch of fanatics and political trimmers ruin their lives. It isn’t fair. What’s more, it isn’t necessary. Billy and Brett are young. That gives them strength—resilience. Of course there’ll be pressure on them. But I know this, Orry. Together, my brother and your sister will weather the future a lot better than the rest of us. They’re in love—and they happen to come from two families that care deeply about one another.”

The words reverberated in the book-lined room. George walked to the cabinet containing the whiskey. His spirits plummeted, his hope evaporated. Orry was frowning.

For the third time stillness lay heavy in the room. Then, at last:

“All right.”

George pulled the cigar stub from his mouth. He was afraid his ears had tricked him.

“Did you say—?”

“All right,” Orry repeated. “I always thought you were too reckless. But most of the time you were also right. I suppose Brett and Billy deserve a chance. Let’s give it to them.”

George whooped and did a little jig. Then he rushed to the door and tore it open. “Call one of your servants. Send him down to Charleston right away. Take the poor girl out of her misery.”

Orry left. He wrote a pass for Cuffey. He was surprised at how good he felt: like a boy again, filled with an uncomplicated joy he hadn’t experienced in years.

Back in the library, George adopted a mockingly serious attitude and congratulated his friend on his sagacity. They listened to the clop of Cuffey’s horse departing, then fell to exchanging news. George talked of Constance and their children; Orry described Madeline’s puzzling withdrawal, her apparent failing health. Then George raised the subject of the
Star of Carolina.

“As I told you, I spoke to Cooper. I admit I’m having some difficulty adjusting to the possibility of a two-million-dollar loss.”

“Cooper could repay every cent if everything was liquidated. I think he hates to do that because it’s an admission of defeat.”

“Even though he himself says the ship can’t be finished? Well”—George shrugged—“I guess I admire that. Or I would if my investment was smaller. What a stinking mess we’ve all made of this world.”

“That’s always the complaint of old men,” Orry murmured.

“Do you mean to say we’re old men?”

“I don’t know about you. I am.”

“Guess I am too. Repulsive thought.” George chewed on his cigar. “Stick, let’s get drunk.”

Orry glowed, hearing the nickname again. If things could never be just as they had been in those first, mint-bright years at the Academy, at least the two of them could pretend. Why shouldn’t old men find comfort in games? The world was sinking into darkness.

“Stump, allow me,” he said, first to reach the whiskey. “I have become an expert on drunkenness.”

They both laughed, pretending it was a joke.

T
HE AFTERNOON GEORGE ARRIVED
at Mont Royal, the delegates to the secession convention traveled by train from Columbia to Charleston. The threat of smallpox in the capital had prompted the move. Thus Huntoon came home sooner than Ashton expected. But, like most other residents of the city, she was thrilled that the momentous deliberations would soon take place at Institute Hall. She was likewise overjoyed that her husband was personally involved in them. He would surely rise to power in the new nation, and she would rise with him.