The skies threatened rain, which would have added greatly to our misery, for the road was rough and sloppy in places from another rain two days earlier. Charleston was on the horizon: Richard said that more than once, but in fact we now headed into the deepest forest on the trip and I saw nothing on the horizon but more of the same. There was a river crossing before we came out into land that telegraphed an approach to the sea. Richard spent the time talking earnestly to the ferryboat owner, about what I could only guess. “That was the east branch of the Cooper River,” he said when our coach was under way again. “We are almost there.”
I was ready to believe this, so delighted was I to be out of the dark and dreary forest. “Our luck is changing,” I said: “It didn’t rain after all.” Richard smiled, noncommittally, as if it didn’t matter to him either way. We had to cross again at the Wando River, with its broad expanses of marshlands, and now I saw the unmistakable signs of the sea: sloughs and creeks thick with sea oats, and there was a salty tang in the air. But night was coming and I feared we would still not arrive until tomorrow, an awful prospect. The sunset was spectacular, lighting up the cloud-streaked horizon as we put in at Mount Pleasant.
We managed to catch the ferry to the city. I stood out on the deck and watched the lights draw closer, but Burton seemed restless, circling, looking out to sea, making his notes in light almost too dim to see. He spent his time on the port deck, watching the dark, empty hulk of Fort Sumter, and aft, where he could see Fort Moultrie and the lights of the lonely federal garrison stationed there.
We got in at eight o’clock. “No more backwoods inns for us, Charlie,” Richard said merrily. “Now we go first-cabin.”
He instructed our driver to take us to the best hotel and soon we were on Meeting Street in front of an elegant blockwide, four-story building, gas-lit, with a marvelous facade. I had studied Greek architecture briefly in college, and immediately I loved that hotel and its magnificent colonnade: fourteen great white Corinthian pillars that reached from the second-floor balcony to the roof. The Charleston Hotel. That night I slept the sleep of the dead.
* * *
All the next day we were like tourists, walking the streets, talking to people we met, probing the babble of the marketplace not far from our door, strolling along the Battery. The Battery is a walled promenade around the tip of the city with a green behind it and some of the town’s finest old houses in the background. The view of the harbor is spectacular. One elderly gentleman offered the pompous opinion that this was where the Cooper and Ashley rivers met to form the Atlantic Ocean. We should all have shared a hearty laugh except that the old bird seemed absolutely serious and might have been offended. Richard listened politely but I knew he was far more interested in the geography than in any local silliness advancing this city, as lovely as it was, as the center of the Western world. From any point on the Battery we could see Fort Sumter, that brick fortress sitting on its man-made shoal in the mouth of the harbor. On both sides the land curved in tight, with Fort Moultrie on Sullivan’s Island to our left and Fort Johnson on James Island to the right, giving Sumter the appearance of a cork in a bottle. “Exactly right,” Burton said when I put it that way. “It’s a cork in a bottle.”
“When it’s finished it will make the city pretty much impregnable,” I said.
“If they finish it. And if they get the guns mounted, and if all three forts are controlled by the same side.”
“A lot of ifs.”
“Indeed. And if the wrong side had it, speaking from their viewpoint, its guns could easily be turned on the city it was built to protect.”
The fort was just a speck from there and I doubted that even the most powerful guns could reach that far. But Richard looked askance and said, “You don’t know much about modern warfare, my friend,” and I had to admit the truth of that.
We walked around the point and back again. The sun was warm and bright, a blessed relief from the miseries of the road, and again I was so delighted I had come. I was in the company of an extraordinary man and he liked me: what else mattered? But then as I stood watching the waterbound fortress, Richard moved away, and when I looked around for him he was standing off at a distance, scribbling in that damned notebook. All my suspicion came back in a gush. What was he doing? If he wanted to spy, why bring me along? That part made no sense. But my doubt magnified and doubled again, and abruptly I walked up to him, quickly enough that I could see he was not making notes but a sketch of some kind.
“What are you doing there?” I asked, making the question sound as much as possible like idle curiosity.
“Just drawing a picture.” He snapped his book shut. “To remember the day.”
Again this was so plausible that it had to be real. Unless it wasn’t.
We walked up East Bay, turned in to Chalmers Street, and saw a slave auction. The building had a platform on its second story where the Negroes were paraded and sold. Richard, who must have seen other such events in his travels around the world, still stood mesmerized for an hour as a family of blacks was broken apart and sent off with their separate masters. The pain in the mother’s face was heartbreaking and I was angry and indignant on her behalf. “You must write about this,” I said, but Richard only watched and kept his thoughts to himself. “These men are beasts,” I said, none too quietly, and Richard gave me a withering look and said, “Try to remember, Charlie, you are in their country now.”
We moved on. On East Bay near Queen Street we saw a photographer’s studio—barney stuyvessant, the sign said—and I asked if we might get a real picture made. “Something that will capture this day.”
Burton’s inclination was to dismiss this as silly, but before he could seriously object I went inside and made the arrangements. I didn’t want a trumped-up studio shot; something on the street would be much better, a picture that captured some semblance of the city and her architecture. Burton did protest then—he wanted no part of it—but the photographer was so young and eager for the business that his equipment was already out on the sidewalk, and I so clearly wanted it done that he stood still for it at last. The photographer fussed over the light: it was high noon and the sun was harsh, and Burton was such a reluctant subject that the young man knew he couldn’t keep us waiting long. He tried to chase away two little colored boys but Burton insisted they be left alone, and he gave each of them a penny. At last the photographer stood us on the walk near a palmetto tree, with the old Exchange Building rising dramatically behind us: Richard smiled and draped his arm over my shoulder, and there we were. The picture we took that day long ago was perfect, and remains one of my dearest possessions.
We lunched at the hotel, and I finally broached the dreaded subject. “You must know Lord Palmerston well.” I said this innocently, I thought, but Richard looked hard in my eyes: there was no fooling him, and his answer was vague. “We’ve met a few times in social gatherings.”
I pushed the point. “What do you think of him?”
“A colorful man. Not one you’d want to trifle with or have as an enemy. Rather like Calhoun was, I would imagine, like some of your fire-eating Southerners of today when he’s opposed.” A long moment passed while he leveled me with those eyes. “Why do you ask?”
Another long moment, and I saw that there could be no lying or evasion. “Richard,” I said, looking straight at him.