A report from a reliable source had informed Orry of Israel Quincy and two other plug-uglies jailing and beating three suspected members. Orry's letter of protest had gone unanswered. A personal visit to Winder's office led to nothing but another nasty exchange with Quincy. The suspects had been released from Castle Thunder solely because Winder decided they knew nothing about the peace society.
Orry thought of Dick Ewell, West Point class of '40, who had lost a leg at Brawner's Farm last August but still led troops in the field. At Fair Oaks in the spring, Oliver Howard, '54, had lost an arm, but the Union high command didn't shunt him to a desk. Perhaps it was time he asked for a transfer to the war's cutting edge.
He worked his way slowly to the entrance hall, where he discovered Judah Benjamin with three admiring women. The Secretary of State hailed him cheerfully, as if the recent widely known unpleasantness had never happened. Benjamin had been nabbed when Winder's detectives swarmed into a Main Street gambling establishment. The raid, meant to net deserters, yielded only some chagrined civilians, including a cabinet member.
"How are you, Orry?" Benjamin asked, shaking his hand.
"I'll be better once Madeline's here. She's on the way at last."
"Capital. We must have dinner as soon as she arrives."
"Yes, certainly," Orry muttered, nodding and passing on. A realization had jolted him. After Madeline had struggled for over a year to reach Richmond, it would be damned unfair of him to request a transfer the moment she arrived. She would understand, but it would be unfair. Maybe he would stick it out a few more months. He mustn't blame anyone but himself for failures in dealing with the provost's men. He would try harder.
Passing by the foot of the great staircase, he stiffened at the sight of three people entering the mansion: his sister, beautifully dressed and pink-faced from the cold; Huntoon; and a third man, in the baggy trousers, fine sack coat, and round, flat-crowned hat that identified so many of his breed.
"Good afternoon, Ashton — James," Orry said as the stranger took off his hat. He hadn't seen either one of them in months.
Huntoon mumbled while looking elsewhere. With a wintry smile, Ashton said, "How delightful to see you," and rushed on to Benjamin. They didn't bother to present the handsome, sleepy-eyed chap with them, but Orry didn't care. To judge by his clothing, the man was one of those who infested the Confederacy like parasites: a speculator. Ashton and her husband were keeping peculiar company.
He jammed his hat on his head and left the White House in a foul mood.
65
At last, Madeline's heart sang, at last — the miracle day. For more than a year, it had seemed a day that would never arrive.
Now, on the same New Year's afternoon that found her husband at the Richmond White House, she closed the last ledger, locked the last trunk, checked the strip of green tickets a tenth time, and took her final tour of the house and grounds. She knew the rail trip to Richmond would be long, dirty, and uncomfortable. She didn't care. She would have detoured through the nether regions with Satan as her seatmate if only it would bring her to Orry.
Her tour done, she knocked at Clarissa's door. The spacious, well-furnished room inevitably inspired sadness within Madeline. Today was no different. Clarissa sat at the tilt-top table beside the window, the table at which she had once designed her intricate family trees, one version after another. The mild sunshine fell on a block of paper that bore a charcoal drawing of a cardinal, sketchy and barely recognizable, like child's work.
"Good afternoon." Clarissa smiled politely but failed to recognize her daughter-in-law. Small signs of the seizure remained: a slight droop at the outer corner of her right eye, a certain slowness of speech and occasional thickness of a word. Otherwise she was recovered, though she seldom used her right hand. It lay in her lap, motionless as the bird on paper.
"Clarissa, I am leaving for Richmond shortly. I'll see your son there."
"My son. Oh, yes. How nice." Her eyes, sun-washed, were blank.
"The house people and Mr. Meek will look after your needs, but I wanted to tell you I was going."
"That's kind of you. I have enjoyed your visit."
Tearful all at once, seeing in the older woman her own mortality, her own probable decay into old age, Madeline flung her arms around Clarissa and hugged her. The precipitous act surprised and alarmed Orry's mother; her white brows shot up, the left one a little higher than the right.
The melancholy light of January, the odors of musty clothes pervading the room — the awareness that a whole year of her life with Orry had slipped away — brought the tears more strongly. I am behaving like an idiot at the very moment I should be happiest, Madeline thought as she hid her face from the smiling, quiet woman. She rushed out.
Downstairs, she spoke briefly with Jane, whom she had put in charge of the house people last summer, agreeing to pay her wages. Then she proceeded down the winding walk toward the small building that by turns had been Tillet's, Orry's, and hers. It was now occupied by the overseer.
Sun shafts pierced down through the Spanish moss, lighting the base of a tree where a slave lounged, snapping a piece of bark into small pieces. He gave her an insolent stare. She stopped on the walk.
"Have you nothing to do, Cuffey?"
"No, ma'am."
"I'll ask Andy to remedy that." She swept on. Andy would not be reluctant to discipline Cuffey; the men loathed each other. Cuffey's presence made Madeline uneasy about leaving.
Last May, Hunter, the general in charge of Yankee enclaves on the coast, had issued a military order emancipating blacks in South Carolina. By the time Lincoln annulled it, word had spread, and the tide of runaways was already flowing from up-country plantations. Madeline's letters to Richmond reported each loss at Mont Royal — the total now stood at nineteen — and at Christmastime, Orry had written that he was glad his father hadn't lived to see the defection. Tillet had believed, perhaps with some justification, that his nigras loved him for caring for them and would never repay that love with flight. In Tillet's lifetime, only one had betrayed him that way; Orry had often told the story of how it had nearly undone his father mentally.
Last year, following the proclamation, Cuffey had been one of the first to go. Philemon Meek had already conceived a great dislike of the slave — most of the slaves despised him, too and had devoted extra effort to pursuit and recapture. Meek, Andy, and three other blacks had found Cuffey unconscious in a marsh, his legs under water. He had a high fever and might have drowned if he had slipped a little farther.
Meek returned Cuffey to Mont Royal in irons. He grew angry when Madeline refused to sanction additional punishment. Recapture and his sickness during flight were enough, she said.
It bothered her that Cuffey had not attempted a second escape. He was attracted to Jane, but Jane couldn't tolerate him, and that was evident. Did Cuffey stay on because he had some labyrinthine plan to harm the plantation after she departed?
Near the office, she glanced back. Cuffey was gone. She immediately changed direction, found Andy and spoke to him. Ten minutes later she knocked at the office door and walked in. Philemon Meek laid his Bible aside — he studied it for short periods every day — and removed his half glasses. How lucky they had been to find him, Madeline thought. Meek was safely past the upper limit of the second conscription act passed in September and should be able to remain at Mont Royal indefinitely — unless, of course, Jeff Davis got desperate enough to draft grandfathers.
"Are you ready, Miss Madeline? I'll call Aristotle to load the luggage."