Most of the time Justin occupied a separate bedroom, coming to hers only when he felt the urge to rut. She was thankful he let her alone tonight. What she had heard in the pergola left her too upset to sleep. She was filled with a desire to revenge herself on her husband again. Revenge had been part of the reason she had gladly lent assistance when Nancy appealed to her about the runaway hiding in the loft of the sick house.
Presently she calmed down a little, and thoughts of Orry crept into her mind. People said he was a changed man because he had lost his arm in Mexico. They said his frame of mind was dark, embittered. Yet he had twice sent a message asking her to meet him secretly.
Still a creature of her past—still clinging to the remains of the code of right behavior that had once held absolute sway in her life—she had answered neither message. As if Justin deserved that kind of consideration. She slipped her hands downward, trying to suppress what she felt within herself. She couldn’t. She would call on Clarissa Main after dinner tomorrow. Justin wouldn’t go with her, of course; the mention of most social amenities started him yawning. When she visited the Main plantation, she would send a message of her own.
Why had she waited this long? Why had she refused to allow herself even a moment’s happiness? Her misguided fear of Orry’s youth, her own strong conscience, the secret her father had conveyed as he breathed his last—those were the most compelling reasons. None seemed to matter any longer. She prayed Orry wouldn’t be so angry over her earlier rebuffs that he refused to answer now.
In the morning, before daylight, she went to the kitchen in her robe. As she had hoped, she found Nancy there, alone, tending the plump turkeys by the light of a lamp trimmed low.
“We’re going to Mont Royal this afternoon, Nancy.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Madeline was so pleased, so full of anticipation, that she didn’t stop to ask herself why Nancy had such a grave, drawn look. “Can you deliver a message there, by the same route the others came to me?”
Nancy’s eyes opened a little wider. “A message to the gentleman?”
“That’s right. It’s to be our secret.”
“Yes’m. Surely.”
“Nancy, what’s wrong?”
The mulatto girl eyed the huge iron stove giving off savory odors. Madeline touched Nancy’s thin arm. Her skin was cold.
“Tell me.”
“It’s Clyta, ma’am. After Mr. Justin beat her last night, she lost her baby.”
“Oh, no. Oh, Nancy,” Madeline said, taking the girl in her arms to comfort her.
Tears spilled down Madeline’s face, but there were none inside her as she thought of her husband. Scum. Scum.
Orry rode hatless to Salvation Chapel, even though drab skies hinted of rain. It began to fall during the last half mile. Not a hard rain but a chilling one. Winter rain: the signal that another growing season was over and Charleston’s high social season would soon begin.
Nothing could lower Orry’s spirits this morning. He ducked beneath the last overhanging branches. The fallen foundation came into sight. Beyond, fog hid most of the marsh. He called Madeline’s name. “Here, my darling.”
The voice came from his left. As she had the first time, she’d sought shelter under the trees near the perimeter of the marsh. He sprang down and tethered his horse, then hurried to her.
He took hold of her left shoulder. She reached for his other arm, turning red as she realized her thoughtlessness. A sudden grin flashed like a beacon in the dark mass of his beard.
“You’ll get used to its not being there. I have, almost.”
The smile disappeared as he curved his arm around her. He pulled her to him, wanting to experience every soft contour, yet mindful of his own long-repressed need. She felt him through the layers of her clothing. She moved closer, uttering a small sound deep in her throat.
She rested against his chest. He stroked her hair. “I thought you never wanted to see me again.”
“Because I didn’t answer those messages? I didn’t dare.” She drew back. “I shouldn’t be here now. I love you too much.”
“Then go away with me.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere.”
There was great relief in being able to say that at last. In response, Madeline smiled and wept at the same time. She stood on tiptoe to kiss him, her palms pressed against his bristly face.
“I’d give my soul to do that. I can’t.”
“Why not? Surely you don’t think all that much of Justin.”
“I loathe him. I’ve only just discovered how much. That’s why I called on your mother on Saturday. I couldn’t stand being separated from you any longer. I want you to tell me all about Mexico.” She was stroking his face now, her fingers lingering at each place she touched. “How you got hurt. How you’re getting along—”
“I’d get along much better if we were together.”
“Orry, it’s impossible.”
“Because of Justin.”
“Not him personally. Because of what I pledged when I married him. I made a lifetime promise. If I broke it—went away with you—I’d feel guilty forever. Guilt would ruin our lives.”
“There’s no guilt in meeting me like this?”
“Of course there is. But it’s—bearable. I can convince myself that I’m still living up to the letter of the marriage agreement.”
Suspicion overcame him. She wasn’t being entirely truthful. She had some other reason for saying no. Then he decided he was only imagining that, perhaps to take some of the sting out of the refusal.
She whirled away, walking rapidly to the edge of the marsh. “You probably think I’m a wretched hypocrite.”
From behind he touched her hair, lifted it so that he could gently kiss the curve of her neck below her ear. “I think I love you, that’s all. I want you with me for the rest of our days.”
“I feel the same way, darling. But you have responsibilities, too. No matter what you say, I don’t think you could run from them and be happy.”
He tried to redirect the conversation, to give them both breathing space. “I’d be happy if my father came to his senses. Did you know he exhibited the body of Priam, the runaway, as an example to our people?”
“No, I didn’t.” She rubbed her arms, not looking at him. “That’s vile.”
“Unnecessary, certainly. Our people understood the meaning of Priam’s death long before they saw his corpse lying in ice. Sometimes I think my father’s already senile. Or maybe the damned abolitionists drive him to it. He’s a proud man. He can be defiant.”
“It seems to be a local characteristic,” she said with a wry smile.
He found it impossible to go on speaking as if they were acquaintances meeting in a parlor. The physical hunger was too strong, almost painful. He faced her, gazing down into her eyes.
“No more talk. What I want is you. Come—please—”
He took her hand and with unmistakable meaning drew her toward a level place where the leaves and pine needles looked dry.
“No, Orry.” When she wrenched free, anger brimmed in his eyes.
She flung herself against him, her arms around his chest. “Don’t you see we mustn’t go that far? Ever? If we do, the guilt will be almost as bad as if we had run away.”
Roughly now, he handled her hair, kissed her eyes and the moist, warm corners of her mouth. “You want to make love, you can’t deny it.” He slipped his arm below her waist, astonished at his own boldness. But fevers were consuming him, and it seemed perfectly natural to pull her hips against his and kiss her again. “You can’t.”
“No. I ache for you to hold me that way. But we mustn’t.”
He released her. “I don’t understand you.”
A strand of glossy black hair had fallen across her forehead. She dashed it back, then smiled again, sadly.
“How can you expect to when I don’t completely understand myself? What person ever does? I only know that a small amount of guilt is bearab
le, but more is not.”
Orry’s face grew bleak again. The tension he had communicated through their embrace was diminishing. “If we can’t live together or love each other properly, what’s left?”
“We can—” She drew a breath, facing down his scorn. Her voice strengthened. “We can still meet here occasionally. Talk. Hold each other for a little while. It would make my life endurable, at least.”
“It’s still infidelity, Madeline.”
“But not adultery.”
“I thought they meant the same thing.”
“Not to me.”
“Well, it’s a subtle distinction. I doubt it’s one outsiders would appreciate.”
“I can’t help it. Is love ever comprehensible to others?”
He pressed his lips together and, with a sharp shake of his head, strode off toward the marsh, out from under the trees into the light rain. She was proposing an affair but under rules of her own design.
He walked as far as he could, stopping when the ground grew mushy beneath his boots. His long strides left reeds trampled behind him. He turned, rain collecting in his beard. “Those are hard terms. I want you too much. I’m not sure I can stand constant temptation.”
“Isn’t a little love better than none?”
He almost blurted a no. She walked toward him slowly, the rain ruining her clothes and flattening her hair against her head. Even bedraggled, she was the loveliest woman in creation. He couldn’t deny her, even though her terms were nearly as painful as the situation that prompted them.
She stood close to him, gazing into his eyes. “Isn’t it, Orry?”
He smiled but without real joy. “Yes.”
She let out a small cry and once more crushed against him. He put his arm around her, his smile hollow. “God, I wish you’d been raised a slut instead of a decent woman.”
“Sometimes I do too.”
The shared laughter eased their unhappiness. They returned to the trees and sat talking for almost an hour. He pointed out that the more often they met the greater became the risk of discovery. She said she willingly accepted that risk. They kissed and embraced again.
Before she started home, they made plans in a few breathless sentences for their next rendezvous. Orry thought he must be mad to agree to such an arrangement. Denial of their mutual hunger brought excruciating physical and mental tension. He knew the tension would grow worse as they continued to meet.
And yet, as he stood by the chapel foundation and watched her ride away, his mood changed. Although the tension remained, in some curious way the self-denial began to enhance and deepen his longing and his love.
16
ALL THE WAY NORTH, George was haunted by the image of Priam’s eyes. He still saw it now, as he sat with his chin in his palm and gazed out the coach window at the Delaware River.
Snow fell in the dreary twilight, melting the moment it struck the ground or the glass. He was worn out from the long trip with its seemingly endless succession of changes from one line to another. A meal in a depot dining room had upset his stomach, and for the last hundred miles he had sweltered because other passengers insisted the conductor keep throwing wood into the stove at the head of the car.
At least he would be in Lehigh Station tomorrow. He planned to stop overnight at the Haverford House, where the Hazards always stayed in Philadelphia. In the morning he would catch the local and, once home, begin the delicate job of preparing his family for his marriage to a Catholic.
The memory of Priam returned. It led to thoughts of his relationship with Orry—and, by extension, Orry’s family. George could find something to like about every one of them, even feckless Cousin Charles, but that liking generated a familiar confusion and a good deal of guilt. By a combination of circumstances and choice, the Mains were deeply involved in Negro slavery.
The train slowed, chugging past shanties and dilapidated buildings before it pulled into the station. The roof over the platforms shut out most of the daylight. Instead of snowflakes, sparks from the engine swirled past the window. Passengers rose, gathering their belongings. Their reflections shimmered in the sooty glass. But George saw Priam.
Slavery had to end. His stop in South Carolina had convinced him. The goal wouldn’t be easily reached. Too many obstacles stood in the way. Tradition. Pride. Economic dependence on the system. The disproportionately large influence of the small number of families who owned most of the slaves. Even the Bible. Just before George had left the plantation, Tillet had quoted Scripture to justify sending a patrol after Priam. The runaway had clearly disobeyed the charge in the third chapter of Colossians: “Servants, obey in all things your master…”
Dismantling the peculiar institution would require flexibility, good will, and, most of all, determination to see it done. George saw none of those things at Mont Royal.
He turned the problem the other way around for a moment, considering his friendship with Orry as something that had to be preserved. There, too, serious difficulties loomed. When he had pleaded for Priam’s freedom, Orry’s warning had been clear. He mustn’t interfere again if he expected the friendship to continue.
Yet how strong was friendship? Could it banish disagreement over a fundamental issue of human liberty—as if the issue and the disagreement didn’t exist? Could friendship even survive in an atmosphere of growing sectional tension?
Orry said it would—if the slavery issue was ignored. But old Calhoun, sick and embittered, had indirectly suggested that it could not when he declared that separation was the sole remaining answer.
If a solution was to be found, George believed the burden for finding it rested largely on people such as the Mains. If the South was not solely responsible for creating the problem, the South had preserved it and the South must take steps to solve it. George held the North blameless and free of responsibility in the whole matter. At least that was his opinion as he trudged up the platform with his valise.
Fortunately the Haverford House was able to accommodate him without a reservation. He was signing the ledger when the unctuous clerk began, “I believe we have another guest from—”
“George, is that you?”
The voice behind him overlapped the clerk’s. “—your family.” He turned, then grinned at the young woman hurrying toward him, diamonds of melted snow shining on her muff and the fur trim of her hat.
“Virgilia. Good Lord. I didn’t expect to see you.”
She was flushed with excitement, and for a moment her squarish face looked almost pretty. In his absence her waist had grown thicker, he noticed.
“I booked a room because I’m staying in the city tonight,” she said in a breathless way.
“By yourself? Whatever for?”
“I’m giving my first address at a public meeting sponsored by the society.”
He shook his head. “I’m lost. What society?”
“The anti-slavery society, of course. Oh, George, I’m so nervous—I’ve spent weeks writing and memorizing the speech.” She caught his hands in hers; how cold and hard her fingers felt. Almost like a man’s. “I completely forgot you were due back today or tomorrow. You must come and hear me! All the tickets were gone weeks ago, but I’m sure we can squeeze you into a box.”
“I’ll be happy to come. I’m not going home till morning.”
“Oh, that’s glorious. Do you want to eat first? I can’t, I’m too wrought-up. George, I’ve finally found a cause to which I can devote all my energy.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” he said as they walked to the staircase behind the hotel porter who had picked up George’s luggage. You found a cause because you couldn’t find a beau.
Silently he chastised himself for the unkindness. He and Virgilia had never been close, but she was still his sister. He was tired and perhaps a little put off by her enthusiasm.
“It’s a very worthy cause, too, though I doubt Orry Main would think so. Honestly, I don’t know how you can associate with such people.”
“
Orry’s my friend. Let’s leave him out of our discussions, shall we?”
“But that’s impossible. He owns Negro slaves.”
George held back a harsh retort and thought about begging off for the rest of the evening. Later he wished he had.
The hall held about two thousand people. Every seat was filled. Men and women were standing in the side aisles and at the rear. There were children present and a few well-dressed blacks. Lamps throughout the hall shed a smoky, sulfurous light.
George was squeezed into a chair at the back of the second-tier box at stage right. Three men and three women sat in front of him, all in formal attire. When he introduced himself, their greeting was brief and reserved. He suspected they were members of Philadelphia society.
Although it was quite cold outside—the temperature had plummeted while he was eating dinner—the press of human bodies in heavy clothing made the auditorium hot and put a sheen of sweat on every face. Even before the start of the formal program the audience was in a frenzy, stomping and clapping during the singing of several hymns.
George squinted at the handbill given him when he entered the box. He sighed. The program was divided into nine sections. A long evening.
Loud applause greeted the half-dozen speakers when they appeared from the wings. Virgilia looked poised and calm as she walked to the row of chairs set in front of a vivid red velvet drop. She took the third chair from the left and looked up at her brother. He nodded and smiled. The chairman, a Methodist clergyman, approached the podium and rapped the gavel for order. The program opened with a singing group, the Hutchinson Family of New Hampshire. They were received with loud applause as they took their positions to the right of the podium.
Hutchinson Senior introduced the group as “members of the tribe of Jesse and friends of equal rights.” This produced more cheering, clapping, and stomping. The group was apparently well known in anti-slavery circles, though George had never heard of them. He was surprised and a bit dismayed by the fervor of the audience. He hadn’t realized Pennsylvania abolitionists could be so emotional. It added to his understanding of the issue responsible for this gathering.