North and South: The North and South Trilogy (60 page)

“If you’re so concerned about my tender years, why is your hand always groping every which way like I’m some old hen?”

“Can’t help myself,” he said, sidling to the end of the pianoforte, where he could rest on his elbow and gaze down at her. His unexpectedly serious expression made her squirm. “You know I’m crazy about you, Brett. You and I are going to be married one of these days.”

“Don’t count on it,” she replied, jumping up. “Why, you won’t even bring me the presents I ask for.”

”Now listen, blast it—I don’t know anybody who sells the
National Era
in Charleston. And if somebody did, I wouldn’t be caught dead buying an abolitionist rag.”

“But Forbes—all the papers and periodicals are discussing Mrs. Stowe’s serial. I want to read part of it.” Even Orry had expressed interest in the new novel.

“Read,” Forbes parroted with a contemptuous wave. “Girls aren’t supposed to read. Oh, I guess
Godey’s
is safe enough, and some of Mr. Timrod’s verse is harmless. But if God had wanted women educated, he’d have let them go to places like Harvard. They can’t get in, so I guess that tells you.”

“That’s an idiotic statement. Idiotic and backward.”

“The devil it is. Uncle Justin suffers something fierce because Aunt Maddie reads so much. You should see some of the trash she orders from New York. Sends him into a perfect rage.”

“Your whole family’s good at raging when you don’t like something. Good night, Forbes,” she said with finality, and swept out of the room.

Thunderstruck, he gaped at the empty doorway. “Brett? Wait, damn it. I didn’t mean—”

No use. Her footsteps were already fading on the stairs.

He whacked his right fist into his left palm, then glanced up to see Ashton in the hall with Huntoon. The couple had been in the library for the last hour, occupied with a book of pencil mazes.

Ashton’s beau had few chances to score a point against someone as physical as Forbes. This opportunity was too good to resist.

“Cussing, friend? Tsk, tsk. That’s no way to court a young lady. Most especially, it’s no way to court her family. What you should do—” Huntoon gulped and swallowed the rest of his advice as Forbes stormed toward him:

“You make any more comments, I’ll punch that pig bladder you call your face.” He grabbed Huntoon’s shirt ruffle. “There’ll be blood all over your nice clothes. I ’spect the sight of it would make you faint.”

He jerked, tearing the ruffle. Then he picked up his hat, stick, and gloves and stomped out into the mild February night. “Nigger, fetch my horse!”

The bellow made Ashton shiver with disgust. “He’s nothing but an animal.”

“Absolutely,” Huntoon agreed, fingering the torn ruffle. “I don’t know how your sister tolerates him.”

Ashton glanced at Huntoon’s glistening cheeks and suppressed a shudder of loathing. Smiling sweetly, she took his arm.

“She has no ambition. She chases one worthless boy after another.”

Including the one I still want.

Forbes and Brett soon patched up their quarrel. It was largely Brett’s doing. She decided that nothing Forbes said should be taken seriously.

Huntoon visited Mont Royal at least twice a week that winter. Somehow, the attention never made Ashton happy. Someone else was on her mind. One afternoon she raced her sister to the wicker basket that held the day’s mail. She beat her and snatched up a wax-sealed letter. “Why, here’s another one from Billy! That’s two this month. He’s getting ever so much better.”

Brett reached for the letter. It was impossible to miss the jealousy in her sister’s eyes. “Ashton, that’s mine.”

The older girl laughed and raised the letter over her head. “What’ll you give me for it?”

“If you keep teasing me, I’ll give you a black eye.”

“My. We’re sounding more and more like Mr. LaMotte all the time.” She flung the letter on the floor. “Does Billy know about him?”

Brett’s voice trembled. “You go to the devil.”

The older girl was stunned. Ashton had never heard her sister use any word that even approached profanity. Perhaps she’d gone too far. She couldn’t help it. She was miserable, and Huntoon’s visits only exacerbated the feeling. He always tried to draw her into some secluded corner and paw her. On those occasions when she chose to resist, he responded with a hurt whine:

“Why do you treat me this way, Ashton?”

“Because we aren’t married yet. Just because you and Orry agreed on a dowry and I said I’d become your wife in due time, that doesn’t give you any right to take liberties.”

Her whimsical behavior was a continuing source of puzzlement to him. Frequently, she seemed to enjoy his advances, although she never permitted them to go too far. On other occasions she rejected them with an almost prudish fervor—which was mightily contusing when he thought of the old rumors linking her with a male member of the Smith family.

“Sometimes it gives me the right,” he complained.

“Well, not just now. I don’t feel like arguing about it, either.”

Huntoon’s face mottled. “Is that the way you intend to act after we’re married?”

“You’ll just have to wait and see.”

Then she realized she had angered him. In her eagerness to keep him aware of who had the upper hand in the relationship, she had gone too far. She gave him a hasty kiss. “Calm down, James. You know I want to marry you. And after I do, you’re going to have a most distinguished career.”

“According to plans which you have already mapped out.”

Now he went too far. White and rigid, she drew away. “My dear, you sound peevish. If you’ve changed your mind about the things we discussed—”

There she stopped. It was precisely the right strategy. He seized her hand, panicking.

“No, no. I haven’t changed my mind about anything. I want you to have a role in mapping our future. I’m not like those bullheaded LaMottes. I believe a man’s wife should be his partner. Especially if the man intends to enter public life.”

“I’m happy you plan on doing that, James. You already have important friends. You’ll make many more. The LaMottes will spend their lives rattling dice and racing horses, and they’ll die forgotten. But not Mr. and Mrs. James Huntoon of South Carolina!”

He laughed, though somewhat nervously. “Ashton, you’re just wonderful. I’ll wager that if I wanted to do so—if I weren’t the architect of my own destiny—I could place myself entirely in your hands, let you make every decision, and my success would still be assured.”

Still?
Did the fatuous creature believe he could rise in spectacular fashion by himself? He might achieve some minor fame, but without her he would never be truly eminent. He would learn that soon enough.

“You’re right, my dear.” She gave him a warm smile. Then she kissed him, opening her mouth after their lips touched.

He had come too near the truth for comfort. She’d marry him, but it would be a marriage conducted entirely on her terms. The poor fool suspected that and had already surrendered himself. But if he dwelled on the surrender too much, it could sour things.

Thank heaven she knew how to divert him. While they kissed, she laid her palm against the inside of his trouser leg, then began to move it in a small, languorous circle.

Spring approached. One March evening, Orry retired to the library with a letter from Billy which he read three times. Even after the third reading, he was not certain of his reaction.

He sat staring into space, the letter dangling from his hand. Shadows lengthened. The stand with his uniform and sword stood in the corner farthest from his chair, barely visible. Just before dark he heard a horse in the lane. Moments later Charles bounded in, his fawn breeches and fine linen shirt sweat-stained. He was grinning.

“Where have you been?” Orry asked, though he could guess.

“Riding Minx on the river road.”

“Racing her, you mean. Did you win?”

Charles flopped in a deep chair and kicked a leg over the arm. “Yes, sir. I beat Forbes, and Clinch Smith, too. Minx left both their animals half a mile behind. I won twenty dollars.”

He displayed a couple of gold pieces. Clinking them in his hand, he leaped up. “I’m starved. You ought to light a lamp. This room’s dark as a cave.”

The advice was probably useless, Charles thought. When Orry fell into one of his moods, he sometimes sat for hours in the pitch-black library. The house men usually discovered him in his chair at sunrise, snoring. There were always an empty glass and a whiskey jug somewhere close by.

Orry had never completely recovered from his war injury; Charles and everyone else at Mont Royal understood that. But perhaps memories of Mexico and its aftermath weren’t to blame tonight. Perhaps there was another reason for Orry’s melancholy state. It dangled in his long, thin fingers.

Charles pointed to the letter. “Is that bad news of some sort?”

“I don’t think so. It’s from Billy.” Orry extended his hand, an invitation for Charles to take the sheet of paper.

Puzzled by Orry’s words, Charles lit a lamp and read the brief, stilted letter from his friend. Before traveling to the Military Academy in June, Billy wanted to return to Mont Royal and, in accordance with custom, formally request permission to pay court to Brett.

“This is wonderful,” Charles exclaimed at the end. He sobered abruptly. “Would there be any problem about Billy coming here—with the Huntoons, I mean?”

“No. I’ve long since paid them thirteen hundred and fifty dollars for Grady, just to forestall trouble.”

Charles let out a low whistle and sank back into his chair. “I had no idea.”

A shrug. “I felt somewhat responsible for their loss, and I wanted George to be able to pay other visits to Mont Royal without a fuss. No one knows about the payment except the Huntoons and my father. Keep it to yourself.”

“Of course.”

“The replacement cost of a prime buck goes up every year,” Orry continued. “Francis LaMotte predicts it’ll be two thousand dollars by the end of the decade. Last week the
Mercury
printed an editorial saying the African slave trade should be legalized again. I’ve seen several articles demanding the same thing—well, never mind. We were speaking of Billy.”

Charles waved the letter. “Does Brett know about this?”

“Not yet.”

“You’ll tell Billy he may come, won’t you? And you will give him permission to court her?”

“I’m not sure of the answer to either question. Billy’s a fine young man, but he plans to be an Army officer.”

“So do I. I’ll be going to West Point a year from this summer, remember? Good Lord, Orry—you arranged it. You encouraged me!”

“I know, I know,” Orry said quickly. “And I’m glad you’re going. On the other hand, since we had our first discussions about the Academy, the situation in the country has changed. For the worse. In the event of trouble, I presume your first loyalty would be to your home state. Billy, however, is a Yankee.”

Softly: “Do you believe there’s trouble coming?”

“Sometimes, yes. I just don’t know what kind. Or how far it might go.”

“But why should it make any difference? The Hazards and the Mains are good friends in spite of what Virgilia did. In spite of everything. If you didn’t believe that—want that—you wouldn’t have paid off the Huntoons.”

“I suppose you’re right. At the same time, I wouldn’t want to send Brett down a road that would lead to unhappiness.”

Charles’s manner grew frosty then. “I should think it was her choice.”

“It’s mine, too. Now that my father can barely manage to get out of bed, I’m the head of this family.”

They argued for another ten minutes, with Charles citing all the reasons Orry had to grant Billy’s request. In truth, they were Orry’s reasons as well. He was playing the devil’s advocate tonight. He thought he must.

On the other hand, perhaps he was being unduly pessimistic. Although there were indeed many reasons for anticipating sectional strife, there were others that argued for a different outcome. Southerners still played a vital role in the life of the nation. General Scott, a Virginian, remained the commanding general, and Orry had read recently that Robert Lee, already a good possibility to succeed Scott, would very likely be the next West Point superintendent. In the Army’s officer corps, most of the outstanding men hailed from the South.

Cooper claimed he saw signs of a new interest in industrialization throughout the region. True enough, slave-grown cotton was still king; annual production was measured in the billions of pounds. But owners of Southern railways were busily expanding and improving their lines.
Mont Royal
had more offers of cargo than she could handle. Cooper had returned from Britain with new enthusiasm for the future of Southern commerce in general, and his packet line in particular. Perhaps the new ways would gradually replace the old, and men of good will would push the Rhetts and Huntoons aside, and resolve differences—

Somehow, though, Orry remained unpersuaded.

“Orry?”

He looked up from his reverie. “What?”

“You will say yes to both questions, won’t you? You’ll let Billy visit, and give him permission to court her?”

“I’ll give Brett this letter and think about it. That’s the best I can do for the time being.”

Disappointed, Charles stalked out.

“He forbade me to read the novel,” Madeline exclaimed. “He snatched it out of my hands and ordered it burned—as if I were a child!”

She walked toward the edge of the marsh. Orry remained seated on the tabby foundation, tapping the book he had brought to the rendezvous. The book contained a strange new kind of verse by a Northern newspaperman named Whitman. Cooper was lavish in his praise of the rambling poems, claiming they captured the rhythm of the machine age. Orry found them hard going, although the rhythm was certainly there. To him it was the hammer of a drum.

“I’ll ask George to ship me a copy,” Orry said. “Though why you want to read rabble-rousing trash is beyond me.”

She whirled to him. “Don’t start talking like Justin, for heaven’s sake. Mrs. Stowe’s novel is the success of the hour.”

She was right about that. George had written that his entire family had read the sentimental story of slaves and slaveholders, first in serial form and again in its regular two-volume edition, just recently published. Despite all the attention the novel was receiving, however, Orry was frankly not interested in
Life Among the Lowly,
as Mrs. Stowe’s book was subtitled. He witnessed life among the lowly every day and needed no enumeration of its severities. They nagged on his conscience a good deal of late.