Charleston (29 page)

A sleepy waiter showed them to a table lit by candles. After they were seated Alex said, “I feel sorry for Mr. Brown, left to carry the rest of the program.”

“Don't concern yourself. I've heard him speak. He can enthrall a crowd for hours and never flag.”

“You certainly quieted that heckler. I'm grateful.”

“Rowed him up Salt River, as the saying goes. I consider it a privilege, and I have no congregation to criticize me. Indeed, it's what some of them would expect of a come-outer.”
So he's one of those,
Alex thought, startled. Drew
snapped his napkin to unfold it. On the little finger of his right hand a heavy gold signet gleamed.

The waiter presented menus. After discussing choices Drew ordered squab, roasted potatoes and succotash, and a bottle of claret. “None of that Ohio frontier whiskey they lace with molasses and red pepper. I drank some in my wild youth. I was sick for days.”

She laughed. He asked whether she missed Charleston. “Terribly,” she said. “My brother and my mother still live there.”

“Would you go back?”

“In an emergency. Never to live.”

“Your history and your music are a rare combination, Miss Bell. You're a unique witness for the cause. I must say I love ‘A Better, Brighter Morning.' As soon as you wrote it, you must have known the whole country would sing it.”

“Not the South, certainly. I really had no idea it would become so popular elsewhere.”

“Brings you a lot of money, I don't doubt.”

“Yes, but I never intended that. I've always loved making up songs. I sang it the first time I appeared in New York City, at the Broadway Tabernacle. When the song caught on, a publisher came to me and we negotiated an agreement. I live on a small portion of the proceeds and donate the rest to antislavery groups.”

“White people don't usually play the banjo. It's considered a Negro instrument.”

“A slave in Charleston taught me to play and I never thought twice about it. The banjo came to these shores with the people we brought here in chains. It's an American instrument.”

The waiter set plates on the white tablecloth. No other diners remained; most of the candles in the room had been snuffed. The isolation comforted Alex, as did the claret, and Drew's presence.

They talked in an animated way about issues related to their common cause: the future of the troublesome Republic of Texas, whose white citizens wanted admission to the Union as a slave state; the possible outcome of the court case of the Africans who had rebelled and seized the slave ship
Amistad
—they were fighting to avoid extradition to Cuba and eventual execution in Spain. Inevitably, they discussed the dangers of their work, symbolized most vividly by the death of Elijah Lovejoy, a Presbyterian pastor, in Alton, Illinois, four years earlier. A proslavery mob had shut down Lovejoy's abolitionist paper by murdering him and burning his presses.

“Have you encountered violence?” Drew asked.

“Not to any serious degree. I've been cursed and booed. In Albany someone threw a rotten cabbage. Fortunately it hit the podium, not me. I'm not naïve, Reverend. I know that our work can be dangerous. I was warned about it when I first volunteered. I accepted the risk.”

Through it all Drew's casual confession that he was a come-outer plagued her with curiosity. Come-outers were religious radicals whose disillusionment with their own churches led them to crusade independently. She wanted to know more. She began by asking how he'd become involved in abolitionism.

“Well, it didn't happen early, even though I was raised by parents who looked down on the Southern slave masters. I had no intention of becoming a preacher like my father until his brother, my uncle Nicholas, took me on a trip to Montgomery, Alabama, one summer. I was eighteen. Still at Harvard.”

“Why Alabama?”

“His wife, Aunt Bea, comes from there. Uncle Nick did business with her two brothers, owners of large cotton plantations. The arrangement assured Uncle Nick a steady supply of cotton for his spinning mill in Quincy. Uncle Nick is a hearty, happy man, completely in charge of his wife and family. To this day he seems carefree, unlike my father, who always bore the burdens of the world. I idolized Uncle Nick and Aunt Bea for a long time.”

He touched his napkin to his lips; the gold signet blazed in the candlelight. “In Montgomery my eyes were opened. I began to grasp the connection between my uncle's prosperity and the bent backs of Negroes. I saw one of Aunt
Bea's brothers inflict a horrible punishment on a fifteen-year-old slave. The boy was cat-hauled.”

“I've not heard of that. What is it?”

Drew's cheerful demeanor was gone; he seemed to stare beyond her, to some dark place. He described the slave boy spread-eagled and prone, wrists and ankles tied to stakes. He described the black slave driver pulling on padded gauntlets and opening a croker sack in which a tomcat had been kept for an hour.

“The driver grabbed the tom's front paws and dragged him spitting mad out of the sack. Then he raked the writhing cat's hind legs over the boy's back ten times. The screams were indescribable. I still hear them in my dreams.” He drained his wineglass in one gulp.

“After the trip I no longer admired my uncle. And that summer I became my father's true son. Eventually a soldier in his cause.”

“But you've left your pastorate,” she said.

“Surely in part because of the loss of my wife at too young an age. Filomena had a fragile heart even as a girl. I was alone suddenly, and brooding. I felt that my church, liberal though it is, went forward too slowly in the fight against slavery. Too many of my parishioners were mired in gradualism. When I heard that Abby Kelley had left her Friends meeting in Boston and struck out on her own, something in me responded. Are you familiar with the Scriptural source of the term
come-outer
?”

Alex shook her head.

“Book of Revelation, chapter eighteen. ‘And I heard another voice from heaven saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye not be partakers of her sins.'”

“So now you stand up and disturb worship services?”

“I ask questions of the pastor and the congregation that they don't want to hear,” he said. “How, for instance, they can show compassion and tolerance for Southerners who keep concubines and at the same time rant against the sin of brothels in their own city. Unpopular questions. It isn't exactly a safe pursuit. I've been rowed up Salt River myself, by good Christians, several Sunday
mornings. I've been jailed for disturbing the peace three times.”

“And you're a confirmed immediatist.”

“The idea that slavery can be dismantled in some vague, gradual way is not only sinful, it's impractical. Ludicrous. The time for abolition was last year. Last month. Yesterday.” He thumped his fist on the table; the silver danced.

“Are you an immediatist, Miss Bell?”

“I'm not sure. Often I believe so. At other times I'm doubtful. I wonder whether demanding an instant solution only makes achieving the goal more difficult.”

“We certainly make it more difficult by introducing extraneous issues.”

His quiet remark stung her. “Ah. Is that what you meant when you said you had thoughts about what happened this evening?”

“Yes. Much as I understand your passion for the woman question, and admire your devotion to your married sisters, I believe it's harmful. Advocacy of too many ancillary issues has isolated William Lloyd Garrison, until many in the movement want nothing to do with him. Secondary issues are divisive. They slow our progress.”

“But tell me, Reverend—how can you separate issues of freedom? A woman in bondage to her husband is little different from a Negro enslaved by a white master.”

“That may be so, but tonight you saw clearly that injecting the issue dilutes the primary message. Not incidentally, it also increases the danger to yourself.”

“I have no fear or hesitation on that score. In any case I should think it's my affair.” She spoke more sharply than she intended.

He replied in kind. “I'm sorry, you're mistaken.”

“So you and I really don't stand together, do we?”

“No. I believe the cause mustn't be damaged, which is what you are doing. Slavery is America's greatest sin. No others compare. Slavery must be purged, washed away, very likely in the blood of our own citizens.”

“Then I see no way to resolve this argument. Let me
thank you for the fine dinner and excuse myself.” Under her anger lay disappointment. She'd enjoyed his company, and as a practical matter he was right. The woman issue created a schism in churches and antislavery societies. Yet she found him too extreme and dogmatic. She should have expected it of a come-outer.

The fatigued waiter shuffled to the table to say the dining room was closing. Drew paid the bill with a generous tip, then escorted her to the foot of the lobby stairs. “I'm sorry if I upset you, Miss Bell.”

“We do disagree, Reverend. But I'll always be in your debt for what you did this evening.”

“Could we continue our discussion at another time and place?”

“Oh, I don't think so. I never know where I'll be from month to month.”

“May I have your address, then? We could exchange ideas in writing.”

“No, I think not.”

“Because we disagree?”

Without hesitating she said, “Yes.” It wasn't the only reason. Further intercourse would be disloyal to Henry. She held out her hand. “Good evening.”

She saw disappointment on his face as she turned away. She felt him watching while she ascended the stairs. In her room she lay awake for an hour, recalling details of their exchange and regretting its bad outcome.

In 1841 former congressman Crittenden Lark was fifty-two and showing it. Reckless living had enlarged his nose and his belly. To look more youthful he'd adopted the fashionable tonsure of the old Roman emperors: hair combed over the forehead and curled into ringlets on top. A brown paste applied regularly hid his gray hair.

The Larks still were not considered part of Charleston's elite. They remained solid members of the city's commercial class. They occupied a handsome residence converted from two adjoining Federal houses, and kept a summer cottage on the Ashley. Lark had successfully invested the money amassed in his privateering days. He had little need to work as that term was commonly understood, but he lived with dissatisfaction. “Enough money” was a concept foreign to him.

Over the years he'd quietly bought tracts of cotton land northwest of Charleston, where the Low Country rose gradually toward the sandy midlands. He'd profited handsomely during years of peak prices. More recently he'd picked up two thousand acres in the Mississippi delta, and joined a syndicate organizing to move into Texas.

Sophie Lark no longer had any interest in the physical side of marriage. On rare occasions when he attempted to enjoy her favors she made her distaste evident. He supposed she felt the same way about all men. He left her alone most of the time and found his pleasure elsewhere, chiefly with nubile young Negresses from the household. Whores cost money; slaves cost nothing.

Both of the Lark children were unmarried. Snoo, whose mother was Sophie, was beautiful and stunningly proportioned. She attracted young men Lark considered predators in pursuit of her money. He bullied her into rejecting them. Snoo's older half-brother, Folsey, ran with a wild crowd that included Gibbes Bell. At nineteen he'd gotten a white girl in trouble. The girl's father demanded $200 and “perpetual care” for his grandchild. Lark preferred to deal with such threats through third parties. He hired two Bay Street toughs to waylay and beat the man until he could barely crawl. Father, daughter, and Folsey's unborn brat left the city and were not heard of again.

Despite these vicissitudes Crittenden Lark considered his life one of personal accomplishment. He had no desire for social position, as Sophie did. Only one page in his mental account book plagued him. It showed the payment owed by the Bells for the murder of William Lark.

Several times Crittenden had thought of moving against Hampton Bell. The right opportunity never presented itself. Ham Bell's sister was another irritant, a strident voice railing against the South. Her name appeared regularly in the national press and millions sang her antislavery ballads, though not locally. Alex and her brother were never out of Crittenden Lark's thoughts for long.

 

After complicated legal maneuvers and a nine-hour defense oration by seventy-five-year-old John Quincy Adams, the
Amistad
rebels won their victory in the Supreme Court. Justice Story freed them. Abolitionists raised money for their return voyage to West Africa in 1841. Charleston gentlemen, including Lark, went into a rage when they read that a star speaker at one of the New York fund-raisers was “that damned woman,” Alexandra Bell.

A few months later inspection of some potentially lucrative cotton acreage in Georgia took Crittenden Lark away for a week. When he returned, his friend Simms Bell invited him to the saloon bar of the Planter's Hotel and
there informed him that Sophie Lark had been seen at an inn near Orangeburg, accompanied by a planter named Randolph Routledge III.

“They stayed the night. I'm told it isn't the first time,” Simms concluded dolefully.

So it wasn't every man who repulsed Sophie. Lark cursed her for deceiving and humiliating him.

That same evening, with a thunderstorm flinging hail on the roof, Lark stalked into his dining room, where Sophie sat with her genealogic materials. Before she could speak, he grabbed her by the hair and yanked her head up.

“Time for the truth, you bitch. How long has it been going on?”

“I don't know what you—”

He yanked again. Lightning glazed the windows; raindrops glittered. He seized her throat and choked. “You'd better tell me before I hurt you seriously.”

“A year,” she gasped. “I've known him for a year.”

“Where did you meet him?”

“At a church bazaar, when I went up to Orangeburg to see about repairs at Pa's farm. His mother introduced us. Let me go.”

“Not until you tell me why you did it.”

“Because he's a gentleman. Because he has what you'll never have,” Sophie cried. “A proper pedigree. I'm going to marry him. I'm going to be respected.”

“The hell,” Lark screamed, just as loudly. He released her so he could bunch his fist and break her jaw. Desperately afraid, she was quicker. She sank her teeth into his hand.

Lark howled and lunged at her, but she evaded him. She threw pens, the inkhorn, two leather-bound books. While he retreated, she picked up her chair and broke it over his head. He reeled into a corner and leaned there groggily. She ran.

He shouted obscenities at terrified slaves when they looked in. Thunder shook the house as he ran up the curving staircase. Sophie wasn't in her bedroom. He questioned a frightened house girl.

“She wen' out with a little trunk she carried her'sef.
Must been packed a'ready.” Furious, he punished the messenger by throwing her bodily down the stairs.

He went to bed unattended. Snoo had traipsed off to visit a former school chum in Moncks Corner. Folsey was, as usual, out with his worthless companions. Next morning Lark didn't shave or dress. At noon, still in his evening robe embroidered with tiny golden peacocks, he sat over a cold cup of coffee, hatching revenge plots. A manservant tiptoed in to announce Simms Bell.

“Bad news,” Simms said. “Your wife's fled to the house of Routledge's mother in Orangeburg. Eli Prickett presented himself at my door an hour ago with that information.”

“Why the devil's Prickett telling you anything?”

“Because he's acting as Routledge's second. Routledge has challenged you under Rule Ten of the code.”

The color left Lark's face. He'd never fought a duel, though he owned a pair of beautiful pistols for that purpose. Most gentlemen did. Sophie had bought them for him in Washington, after he slurred the reputation of another congressman who didn't vote as Lark thought he should.

Thank God for seconds. Their primary obligation was to effect a reconciliation. “Tell Prickett I apologize. Doesn't the code say an apology forestalls a duel?”

“Not when Rule Ten is invoked. Under that rule an insult to a lady who is under a gentleman's protection is considered a greater offense than if the insult is given directly to the gentleman. Is it true that you did bodily harm to Sophie?”

“I Goddamn well tried. She Goddamn well deserved it. Look what the slut did to me.” He showed his bandaged hand.

“Because you resorted to force, there's no possibility of a reconciliation. Eli Prickett made that clear.”

Crittenden Lark's ruling passion had always been self-preservation, which some called cowardice. As far back as 1812 when he sailed as supercargo on his own privateer, he exercised the owner's prerogative and hid belowdecks at
times of danger. No one, including his hired captain, dared chide him, or even speak of it. Lark's instinct for survival dictated his careful, roundabout way of dealing with those who wronged or opposed him. He said to Simms, “I won't fight.”

“Do you want to be posted? Force Routledge to distribute a circular telling everyone you refused? You know the papers always print such material. It would ruin you forever.”

A fierce pain tortured Lark's belly. Simms was right. Despite clerics and editors ranting against it and municipal ordinances that prohibited its employment, the 1777 Code Duello from Ireland was venerated and frequently invoked. In 1838 the state's own governor had penned a revised version for South Carolina gentry.

“Oh, God, all right,” Lark said. “Will you act as my second?”

“That's why Prickett came to me. He presumed I might.”

They discussed details. As the challenged party Lark had the right to choose weapons and the location. Obviously they would fight with pistols; men no longer settled affairs of honor with swords. Routledge would set the terms of the actual engagement.

Folsey Lark somewhat reluctantly agreed to join Simms as a second. Simms informed Eli Prickett that the contesting parties would meet at seven o'clock in the morning on the first Monday in March. The site Lark chose was a five-acre plot on the Ashley River, a mile north of his summer home. He'd bought it with the thought of developing it for two or three similar cottages. Deeply shadowed by water oaks, volunteer pines, and thick stands of wild palmetto between, the heart of the property was hidden from traffic on the river road.

On the appointed day Simms, Folsey, and Lark set out in Lark's carriage at half past five. Folsey held a brass-chased wooden box on his knee: the big .70-caliber smoothbore flintlock pistols with hair triggers, until this day never fired in anger.

They arrived to find a light fog drifting over the dueling
ground. The chill of Carolina winter still reddened the face and stiffened the joints. Lark continually flexed his fingers as he stepped from the carriage. Last night he'd received an insulting note from Sophie. She intended to marry Routledge after he disposed of Lark, which she deemed a certainty.

The fog muted colors of the deserted woodland. The opponents stood a good distance apart while Simms and Folsey let Routledge's seconds inspect the weapons. Then Simms carefully loaded them in sight of all.

Lark squinted at his challenger. He was certainly thin as a stick and homely as a hog. Was he a better lover? What the hell difference did it make? He had a pedigree. No doubt Sophie had already notified Iola von Schreck.

How he wished he could go at Routledge as he'd gone at Edgar Bell before the nullification elections, using a hired assailant. Of course the man had failed, but that wasn't the point. Lark was never involved.

The seconds summoned the contestants. Simms Bell said, “We have agreed that you will walk away from each other while Mr. Prickett counts aloud up to ten. On the tenth count you may fire at your pleasure. Is that satisfactory and understood?”

The adversaries nodded, never speaking or making eye contact. The fog was lifting, tinted by pale lemon-colored light. An unseen horseman cantered by on the road as the duelists took positions back to back. Routledge's second called out, “Ready.
One
.”

Lark began to whimper. Folsey turned away in shame. As the count proceeded, Lark's fear became unbearable. When he heard
“Nine,”
he spun around and fired. There was a snap, a spurt of sparks—a misfire. It counted as his shot. Routledge calmly aimed his pistol. Moaning, Lark bolted toward the river.

Routledge's ball stopped him, hurled him down with a gaping wound in his side. When the seconds examined him, they agreed that the wound was probably fatal.

 

Lark lingered a full day and a night. At half past eight on the morning of the second day, he sent for Folsey. The young man appeared in his father's draped and darkened bedroom wearing soiled linen and smelling powerfully of gin.

Even in his last extremities Lark remained a dandy. He wore a French-style bed coat, bright red velvet, decorated with gold braid, as was the brimless cap of purple velvet. A gold tassel dangled from the cap.

He motioned his son to a bedside chair. Even that minimal exertion produced excruciating pain. “Where is your sister?”

“Sleeping, sir. The doctor's dosed her full of laudanum. She's almost lost her mind over this.”

“Women are that way.” He hated to ask the next question, but he burned to know. “Have you had any messages from your mother?”

“No, sir.”

“She is not permitted to attend my funeral, understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

Lark coughed. His stale breath flickered the flame of the candle, the only light in the hot, sour room. “Folsey, give me your hand.”

Dry as paper, his fingers clasped his son's. “Listen closely, this is very important to me. In my life there is one great endeavor in which I failed. Sometimes I was too busy. Sometimes the opportunity was missing. You must pick up the burden. I want you to swear that you will.”

Folsey gulped, nodded.

“You must avenge our family. Hampton Bell mocks and opposes all that is sacred and vital to the preservation of Charleston. His sluttish sister up North promotes nigger rebellion and nigger equality. Both for what they are, and for what Edward Bell did to my father, the surviving family must be punished. You must carry out the punishment, even if it takes years.”

“Pa, I will if I can.”

“I must have more than a
perhaps
. I must have your as
surance. I've asked little of you in your lifetime. You're a clever boy but you do nothing with it. You will inherit a sizable fortune. In return I require a promise that will travel with you until it's fulfilled.”