Heaven and Hell (97 page)

To the south of Chateau Villard, apparently without a spouse, lived a suffragist named Sedgwick, whose outspoken views and tart tongue reminded Ashton of her sister--- which was enough to engender permanent dislike at their first, and only, meeting. Ashton wasn't discouraged by her inability to get along with her neighbors. The fault was theirs.

Isolation from jealous inferiors, she had long ago decided, was one of the prices of great physical beauty.

Will bought a summer cottage at Long Branch, New Jersey. He bought it sight unseen. If the seaside resort suited President and Mrs.

Grant, it was good enough for him. He bought a sixty-foot lake sailer, a splendid gleaming yacht with an auxiliary steam plant, which he anchored in a costly slip near the mouth of the Chicago River. Ashton was asked to name the yacht. She christened it Euterpe after finding the muse of music depicted in one of the seldom-opened books in their large library. Reading the book for nearly an hour made her cross and gave her a headache. She was thirty-three, but her interests had changed little since girlhood. She valued her appearance, and men, and power and money, and found everything else both extraneous and annoying.

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Will's money gained them certain entrees but not others. A choice table among the palm fronds in the Palmer House dining room was always available, no matter how many people were ahead of them. Yet older women of better background happily accepted Ashton's donations to charities such as the Chicago Foundling Center but they politely ignored her expressions of interest in joining the menu committee for the annual dinner. Ashton's application for membership in the Colonial Dames was denied.

Her husband had simpler aspirations. He found a convivial group of friends in his lodge, the International Order of Odd Fellows. He hated organizations such as the Knights of Labor and the Patrons of Husbandry, collectives that threatened the capitalist--that is, him.

Ashton's planned visit to South Carolina was delayed by an inspection trip to the furnished cottage at the Jersey shore. She found the parlor walls decorated with gaudy chromos of the Rockies and the California coast. Will greatly admired the cheap art, and said this was his kind of place.

But they were too early for the summer season, so Ashton pouted and wheedled until he took her to New York, where they saw Bryant's 6l6 HEAVEN AND HELL

Minstrels, Lydia Thompson and her British Blondes, and Mr. Booth's production of Romeo and Juliet. Tickets for this last were in such demand, Will had to pay a scalper one hundred twenty-five dollars for each. Then he fell asleep in the second act, and snored.

Ashton bought three trunks of new clothes. City streets were in such deplorable shape, a lady's skirt got soiled and water-stained within a few weeks of the first wearing. Ashton never bothered to have such garments cleaned; she threw them out. Occasionally, she saw them later on her servants, retrieved from the rag bin.

Will didn't mind. He admired his wife's opulent figure and loved to see her smartly dressed. She was welcome to all the cash he would have spent on a large wardrobe for himself. He got by on a few stiff white collars, two pairs of bright checked trousers, a favorite floral waistcoat, and a solid gold watch chain and enormous gold nugget cuff links. In an assembly of these, and without a coat, he felt supremely fashionable. The hell with what anyone thought.

"I'm going to miss you," Villers said, drawing his hand slowly between Ashton's legs.

"I won't be gone that long, darling. A week or two--"

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"Forty-eight hours without this has gotten to be too much for me."

She laughed, took his hand, pressed the palm against her left breast and wiggled pleasurably.

LeGrand Villers was a vigorous man with a thick head of curly dark blond hair. A Northerner, he had once dealt cards for a living on the Mississippi boats, and although he wasn't much in the looks department, he was extremely masculine and had a persuasive way about him.

In the two years since he'd wandered into the Fenway offices seeking temporary work to pay some gambling debts, he had risen from supply room clerk to salesman to manager of the sales force, and had seduced Ashton along the way. Villers was unequivocally the best-endowed lover Ashton had ever known. In token of this, he was represented in her Oriental box by two buttons.

Ashton's belly and thighs were splashed with sun spilling through a porthole above the bunk. Euterpe swayed gently with the lap of the river in the slip. The main stateroom had a warm, private feel this June morning. The master and the mate never sobered up and came aboard until past noon, which made the yacht an ideal place of assignation.

"Well, I admit you drive me crazy too, LeGrand." Powell had been handsomer, but not quite as virile.

"And you really don't think Will knows about us after all these months?"

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"He knows I have lovers, though we don't discuss it. He understands that I'm a young woman with, ah, needs."

"One of which seems to be a need to go to Carolina. I can't imagine why. I visited Georgia once. Just a lot of darkies and air-headed girls and mush-mouthed whelps who mumble 'yes, sir' while thinking up ways to fleece you."

"LeGrand, I ought to throw you out of my bed for that. I'm a Southerner." She'd just demonstrated it with a heavy dose of the accent she had gradually suppressed during her years of residence in the North.

She had gotten used to everything in the North but the howling white storms of the Chicago winter, which must be some kind of curse God had placed on Yankees.

"I want to see my family," she added. Her eyes were like blue black agates. "A friendly visit."

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"Friendly?" Villers toyed with her again. "I've never heard you say anything friendly about those people."

She arranged her unbound hair on each shoulder and eyed the ticking clock nearby. Only a quarter to eleven. Fine.

"Why, I've changed, LeGrand. People do change."

He snickered. "Learned to cover up how much you hate 'em, is that what you mean?"

Ashton stroked his blocky jaw. "I knew I liked you for something besides what's in your trousers. Now don't you tell my secret. Come on over here and do your duty."

A dockhand passing on the pier five minutes later noticed Euterpe showing a slight roll in the water, which was unusual for such a calm

day.

"The hack is here to take you to the depot, madam."

"Load the luggage, Ramsey."

The butler bowed and retired. Despite his clipped British speech-- the reason Will had chosen him over other applicants--Ashton considered

him just another slave. He was chained by wages instead of shackles, but that didn't entitle him to any better treatment. Part of the joy of servants, and of the vanished peculiar institution, was having other human beings in fear of your every word.

Will strolled out of the billiard room. The gold nugget links were so large his cuffs sagged. Although he'd aged, he looked much healthier and sprier than he had when Ashton met him in Santa Fe. Success sat well on him.

His lively blue eyes admired his wife a moment. Then he patted her cheek, as if she were a favorite cat.

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"Behave yourself."

Ashton felt a little jolt. She saw nothing but warmth in his glance, but his remark reminded her of his warning after she shot the senora's brother-in-law without good cause. No one but Will could inspire the
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same little thrill of fear she enjoyed inspiring in others.

"Yes, sweetheart. Always," she said.

She registered at the Mills House as Mrs. W. P. Fenway, Chicago.

The staff naturally took notice of an attractive woman traveling alone with eleven large pieces of luggage. But no one got a very clear look at her features; she was heavily veiled. There was nothing to reveal that she was a Main.

Ashton deplored the condition of lovely Charleston, which still showed many ravages of war. Darkies lounged everywhere with an air of impertinence that would have gotten them horsewhipped when she was a child. There were still some Yankees in blue uniforms to be seen.

She hired a closed carriage for a tour. The Battery brought back memories of the exciting weeks when Sumter lay besieged. She stood by the harbor while her driver waited at a discreet distance. She looked seaward, a splendid figure of a woman with her waist whaleboned to sixteen inches. She wore velvet the color of fine Burgundy, yards and yards of it in her full flaring skirt with bustle. It was hellishly hot, but the effect was worth it. Strollers enjoying the summer air wondered about the expensively dressed, rather melancholy woman gazing across the water to the Atlantic. Were her thoughts romantic? Was she sweetly musing over some lost love?

/ hate you, Billy Hazard. Everything might have been different if you'd loved me instead of my prissy little sister.

Ashton blamed not only Billy but also Orry, Cooper, and Madeline for her exile and her ghastly months of whoredom--and never mind that Lamar Powell had enchanted her with his plans for a new Confederacy of which she was to be first lady. As she considered all she'd lost because of the self-righteous behavior of her own family, she felt the old hatred renew itself. She sniffed and dabbed her eyes dry with her glove and returned to the carriage, ordering the driver to proceed slowly along East Bay.

There she surveyed the house where she'd lived with poor Huntoon.

She felt no emotion except contempt.

On narrow Tradd Street, passing the gate of Cooper's residence, she recoiled against the carriage cushions as a woman came out. Cooper's plain-as-bread wife, older but still sharp-nosed and flat-bosomed. Ashton averted her face despite the veil. She called for the driver to go faster. There wasn't a shred of doubt--she hated them all.

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During the next few days she learned some surprising things. For one, Orry had never made it home from the war. After ordering Ashton and Huntoon out of Richmond for their role in the Powell conspiracy, he'd gone on duty on the Petersburg lines, where some Yankee had shot him.

Ashton briefly examined her reactions to that. She felt neither sorrow nor remorse, only more anger at her gaunt one-armed brother. His death cheated her of an important opportunity for reprisal, and she didn't like it.

Madeline was living alone, prosperous but despised because of her scalawag ways. Ashton heard about the Klan outrage at Mont Royal and the new house under construction, and then, from a tipsy journalist with whom she flirted, she learned something else which truly excited her. Everyone in town knew it. Mont Royal was heavily mortgaged.

"A pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Fenway," said Leverett Dawkins, enthroned in his special office chair. "How might the Palmetto Bank be of service this morning?"

Ashton sat with perfect posture on the edge of his visitor's chair.

The careful way she drew her shoulders back emphasized the line of her full bosom, something the banker did not miss. She watched his eyes slide upward to her face--the poor fool obviously thought his attention had gone undetected--and she knew she had the advantage. She was familiar with Dawkins's name but she had never met him; therefore he would never associate her with the Main family.

Outwardly composed but inwardly straining, she said, "I want to inquire about property in the district. I have old family ties in South Carolina. I treasure the Charleston area and I would like to have a home here."

"I see. Go on, please."

"When I was driving on the Ashley River road the day before yesterday, I saw a lovely plantation that captured my heart. I've been back twice since then to observe it, and my feeling remains the same. I hoped you would be able to tell me something about the property."

"To which plantation do you refer, ma'am?"

"I was told the name of it is Mont Royal."

"Ah, the Main plantation," he said, leaning back. "The owner is Mr. Cooper Main of this city."

Hearing her brother's name startled and confused Ashton. Fortunately
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her heavy black veil hid her momentary disarray. She recovered, saying smoothly, "I thought a woman controlled the place--"

"You're referring to the owner's sister-in-law, Mrs. Orry Main."

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Ashton noted a certain distaste when he said that. "Yes. She lives there by arrangement with Mr. Main. She's a sort of resident manager, responsible for the operation of Mont Royal. But Mr. Main holds the title."

Carefully: "Might the plantation be available for sale?"

He thought it over. He considered what he knew of Cooper's feelings about the Negro school, and his hatred of Madeline Main's complicity in the marriage of his daughter to the Yankee. Dawkins's visitor raised a new and most interesting possibility, one in which he saw a dual advantage. Profit, and ridding the bank of a relationship that had grown irksome.

"There is a substantial mortgage on Mont Royal," he said. "Held by this institution."

She already knew that, but didn't let on. "Oh, what luck! Do you suppose the owner, this Mister, ah--"

"Main," he prompted.

"Would he sell if the mortgage could be paid off as part of the transaction?"

"Naturally I can't speak for him, but it's always a possibility. If you would be interested in making an offer, the bank would be happy to act as your representative. For a fee, of course."

"Of course. I'd insist on it. And upon some other conditions as well. My husband, Mr. Fenway, is a wealthy man. In fact he's richer than Midas. Do you know Fenway's Piano Company?"

"Who does not? Is that your husband? Well, well."

"If Mr. Main found out who was trying to buy his plantation, he might inflate the price unreasonably."

"We can make sure that doesn't happen. If we act in your behalf, you can maintain complete anonymity until the sale is consummated."

That pleased her, he saw. "You mentioned conditions in the plural--"

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