Trying to hide her excitement, Madeline scanned the finely written pages of tortured language made even more obscure by occasional Latin. She thought she understood the general sense of it.
"Ask your clerk to add a sentence about the agreed mining wage and I'll sign."
"We understand that a second signature will be needed."
"No. I have the authority to sign for Cooper Main."
With a trembling hand, she did.
Orry, Orry — joy beyond belief. We are reprieved! To celebrate, I called everyone to the house tonight for saffroned rice. Jane brought a jar of sweet berry wine she was saving, and while the full moon rose, we laughed and sang Gullah hymns and danced like pagans. Sim's music, blown from the neck of an empty jug, outsang the greatest orchestra. We only wished Andy were here, but he is in the midst of his important work I longed for you.
The river is shining like white fire as I write this. I have seldom felt it so warm in January. Perhaps our winter of despair is finally over. Best of all, if there are indeed riches in the ground of Mont Royal, then I can make the dream live. I can build the house again.
She was wakened by the sound of a horse coming up the lane from the river road. She wrapped her old gown around herself and rushed out to identify the visitor. Unbelievably, it was Cooper, jumping down from a lathered bay. A foot-thick carpet of mist lay all about them.
"It was all over Charleston by ten last night, Madeline. We're laughingstocks."
Sleepily, she muttered, "What are you talking about?"
"Your damned contract with Beaufort Phosphate. Apparently you're the last person in the district to find out who's behind the company."
"Local men, the lawyer said."
"The scalawag lied. He's the only South Carolinian involved. The principal share owner is a goddamned Radical senator, Samuel Stout. You've sold us out to a man who flogs with one hand and bleeds us with the other."
... I could do nothing to appease him. He rained invective on me, refused my offer of food, treated Prudence rudely, and ordered me to withhold my signature from the formal contract, legal consequences notwithstanding. I said I would sign a pact with the Devil if he would save the Main lands and give our freedmen food. He cursed me and leaped on his weary horse and rode away. Although he stands to profit by my error, I fear he now hates me more than ever.
February, 1868. Convention expected to last nearly 60 days. Andy S. sends all but $1 of his $11 delegate per diem to his wife. He works nights at the Mills House and pays token rent to a black family for sleeping space in their shanty. Jane showed me his latest letter, simply phrased but a model of clear English. What a wondrous thing is a human mind when it is free to grow. ...
Andy Sherman felt he had never stretched his mind, or learned so much, except for the time during the war when Jane was his teacher. Every morning as he dressed for his delegate work, he ached from hours spent on his knees polishing hotel floors or carrying jars of night soil out to the carts. Somehow a few hours of sleep sustained him, as did the one full meal a day that he allowed himself. He was nourished by the convention and the work he was doing there.
When he didn't understand a word, a phrase, an idea, he asked questions of the chair or fellow subcommittee members. When something was explained and he grasped it, he felt like a carefree boy waking on a summer morning.
Certain delegates, acting from timidity or expedience, tried to modify the great cornerstone of the emerging constitution, suffrage. They tried to add a qualifying poll tax of one dollar, and a literacy provision: any man coming of age after 1875 without the ability to read and write would be denied the vote.
In hot arguments against the amendments, Andy heard Union League doctrine recited by some of the black delegates. Some, but not many; a majority of the blacks were still too overawed by their white counterparts, or simply too shy and uncertain to speak up. He tried to persuade a couple of them to take part. He was answered with apologetic evasions.
He discussed the problem with Cardozo, whose quick mind and impressive oratorical skills he continued to admire. "You're right, Sherman. As a race we are too reticent. Only education will alleviate that. Given the history of this state, however, I don't believe an adequate public school system can be in operation by 1875. I will vote against the amendment."
Andy spoke against it — his first time on his feet in the convention. Nervously, but with conviction, he read the little statement he'd phrased and rephrased on scraps of paper until it satisfied him. "Gentlemen, I believe the right to vote must belong to the wise and the ignorant alike, to the vicious as well as the virtuous, else universal suffrage as an idea means nothing."
Ransier was the first on his feet to applaud.
The provision was rejected, 107-2. The poll tax, which Cardozo scathingly branded the first step to returning power to the "aristocratic element," went down 81-21.
Work has begun! The whole Ashley district is swarming with laborers, promoters, men from the new processing plants that have sprung up. After nearly three years of chaos and poverty the district is once again energetic and hopeful. Our improved prospects dictate a visit to Charleston soon — in preparation for relieving the burden of our debt. ...
The blacks of Mont Royal were as protective of Madeline as if she were a child. They continued to insist that someone drive her to the city. She relented, and chose Fred.
On a crisp February morning, they stopped the wagon shortly after turning onto the river road. In the cleared field behind the fence a gang of thirty black men swung shovels. Flagged stakes outlined a trench six hundred yards wide by one thousand yards long, to be dug around the field to drain it,
Six men were dragging a huge timber with ropes to smooth a path down the center of the field. On that path, horse carts would eventually haul away mined rock. Edisto Topper had informed Madeline that most of Mont Royal would soon be covered by similar fields.
Here was the first. She was studying it proudly when a bright flash, as from a reflecting mirror, caught her attention. She turned and saw a mounted man about a quarter-mile down the road in the direction of Summerton. From his pudginess, and the light flashing from his spectacles, she recognized Gettys.
For a moment or so the storekeeper sat very still, as if watching her. Then, with a contemptuous flick of his rein, he turned and trotted away toward Summerton.
Madeline shivered. Somehow the day was spoiled.
It got worse. At the Palmetto Bank on Broad Street, a bald clerk, Mr. Crow, informed her that Mr. Dawkins would be unavailable all day.
"But I wrote him that I was coming. It's important that I speak to him," she said.
Crow remained cool. "In what regard?"
"I want to arrange to pay off my mortgage sooner than the bank requires. Mont Royal's being mined for phosphates. We should be receiving substantial income. I wrote Leverett all about this."
"Mr. Dawkins received your letter." Crow emphasized the mister, implicit criticism of her familiarity. "I was instructed to tell you that the directors of this bank are not disposed to prepayment. It's our prerogative under terms of the mortgage to insist that you continue regular quarterly payments."
"For how long."
"The full term."
"That's years. If it's a matter of the interest, I'll gladly pay that, too."