The liner's whistle bellowed. Members of the deck staff rushed in every direction. George felt the engines reverse. A white-coated steward told him two small children of an Italian olive oil millionaire had been washed into the sea from the stern. A search was conducted until dark, with great difficulty; two of the ship's boats capsized. The children were not found. Sometime during the night, curiously awake and tense beside the sleeping countess, George heard the engines throbbing differently. Persia was resuming her journey because there was nothing else to do.
68
On Sunday, at his home in Lehigh Station, Jupiter Smith received Charles's telegraph message. He told his wife to keep supper warm and walked rapidly down the hill to the depot. The operator was just lowering the shutter behind the wicket. "Send this before you go, Hiram," Smith said as he reached for a blank. He penciled quickly, in block letters.
MR HAZARD EN ROUTE HOME ON CUNARD LINE.
IMPOSSIBLE TO REACH HIM BUT AM CERTAIN
HE WILL GLADLY WELCOME
MRS MAIN FOR AN INDEFINITE STAY.
REGRET CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH MAKE THIS NECESSARY.
J. SMITH ESQ.
Charles's message had conveyed the essence of the situation at Mont Royal. How Madeline Main's sister-in-law could be so harsh on a relative escaped Jupe Smith. He'd never met Ashton Main, though Constance had mentioned her several times, never in a complimentary way.
Hiram's key began to click. Smith stood silent in the dusty waiting room, feeling a familiar keen disappointment in the behavior of a majority of human beings. Just no explaining it —
As he opened the door to leave the depot, it occurred to him that perhaps someone else in the family should be informed of the appeal, in case help and encouragement of a more personal sort were needed. Self-centered Stanley couldn't be counted on to speak compassionately for the family, but another member could, now that she was reconciled with her brother, and considerably softened.
"Hiram, before you quit, send one more, will you? This one's going to Washington."
On Sunday, in the quiet of early morning, Sam Stout unlocked his Senate office. It was a lovely summer day; the office was already warm.
At his desk Stout arranged a small stack of foolscap sheets and began to answer correspondence from his constituents, most of them dull-witted farm people he held in contempt. A couple from his old House district in Muncie had sent eight Spencerian pages describing their son's qualifications for a Military Academy appointment. Stout knew nothing about the status of appointments from his home state, but he wrote "None available" and tossed the reply in a wire basket for his clerk to expand and send.
He started to read another letter but gave up almost at once. He threw his pen on the blotter and surrendered to the misery he'd been fighting through a long, wakeful night. When he'd divorced Emily to marry Jeannie, he and the young woman had agreed Sam was too old, and too busy with his career, to start a new family. Fine. He'd trusted the little bitch to keep the bargain. Last night, after a champagne supper, she'd announced that she would deliver a child seven months from now. Stout went to a separate bedroom for the night.
Not merely his personal life, but everything seemed to be failing. While giving speeches during his last swing into Indiana, he had sensed that his audience were sick of him and Republicans like him who waved the bloody shirt. Though it was just four years since Appomattox, the public was tired of divisive politics, tired of radical social programs. There were even some indications of disenchantment with the Grant administration, which had just taken office. Grant was a popular man but pitifully innocent. Stout's more cynical acquaintances said it wouldn't be long before the President's cronies were thieving and pillaging right under his nose.
It worried Stout. He'd backed Grant, though out of expediency, not principle. Now he feared he'd bet on a losing horse.
His own shallow convictions reminded him of Virgilia Hazard's stronger and more honest ones. That in turn reminded him of the physical side of their relationship. Virgilia seemed more alluring now that his wife had revealed her deceit. Perhaps he'd been wrong to toss Virgilia aside so hastily.
He snatched a sheet of foolscap and began to write. If he could pull this off, he sensed that everything else would right itself in due course. He poured passion into the phrases, and loneliness — even a difficult admission of his mistakes in the course of their relationship. He felt as cheerful as a twenty-year-old bachelor when he posted the letter early in the afternoon.
On Monday, Virgilia pulled her gray glove over the diamond ring on her left hand and picked up her portmanteau. A hack waited outside the Thirteenth Street cottage to take her to the railway station. She glanced around to be sure everything was in order. On the writing desk she noticed the insulting letter from Sam Stout. She'd forgotten it in the excitement of receiving Smith's message and her preparation to respond to it.
Virgilia's mouth set. She put the portmanteau on a chair and worked quickly with a match and wax to reseal Stout's letter. She inked lines through her own address and wrote his above it. Then she turned the envelope over and on the blank side printed NO.
She mailed it before she caught the night express for Richmond and Charleston.
On Tuesday, Willa again offered to help with the packing. Madeline had thus far put it off, as if anticipating some miracle. There would be no miracles.
"All right, we'll pack," she said, defeated. "There isn't a lot worth taking, but if we don't move it out, she'll destroy it."
She was wrapping pages from the Courier around the portrait of her mother; the brittle painting was now protected by glass and a frame. She heard the sound of a carriage and went to the door. It was Theo and his wife. The young Northerner pressed Madeline's hand in his and said he was sorry. Marie-Louise, pink-faced and healthy in her third month of pregnancy, gave freer rein to her emotions. She cried in Madeline's arms, and uttered sobbing condemnations of her father. Madeline patted her. It seemed she was always taking care of someone. She wished someone would take care of her.
Charles came in with a wooden packing box he'd hammered together to protect the portrait. He hadn't seen Marie-Louise in years, and there was a brief period of reintroduction. Charles's manner was brusque.
"Does your father know who really bought the plantation?"
Marie-Louise nodded. "The news was all over Charleston by Saturday noon. Mama said Papa spoke of it at supper that evening."
"And what did he have to say?"
She answered reluctantly. "That — that he liked his sister about as much as he liked everyone else in the family, which —" Red-faced, she blurted the rest: "Which wasn't very much any more."
Charles chewed his cigar so hard he nearly bit it in half. "Fine, Splendid."
"Mama was so mad when she told me, she said a curse word. I've never heard her curse Papa before. She said he's making so much money at the company now, he doesn't need Mont Royal, and he hasn't any feeling for the place. That's the reason he sold it." Madeline and Charles exchanged glances she didn't see. "Mama's just miserable over the whole business. I am too. Oh, Madeline, what are you going to do?"
"Pack. Wait until Friday. Leave when Ashton arrives. What else can we do?"
Willa took Charles's hand. No one answered the question.
On Wednesday, at dusk, Willa ran in from the lawn where she'd been teaching Gus a card game. "There's a carriage in the lane. A woman I've never seen before."
"Damnation." Madeline threw an old Spode saucer into the barrel, breaking off part of the edge. "I don't need strangers coming here to peer at us and cluck over our misery."