Louis Valentine knows something bad has happened to his father. I haven't found the words to explain.
My father once said there was bad blood in the Butlers, a Butler curse.
I believe the curse was lovelessness.
I married my husband John to escape my fathers tyranny and I devalued Johns simple goodness until it was too late. Goodness works slowly, dear Melanie, and adds to our store in tiny increments. As a girl, I was enchanted by Andrew — the bravest rider, best dancer, the boldest fighter, the man who could commit himself utterly to whatever he did! Did I hope his desperate courage would rub off on me? Whether the penitentiary or defeat destroyed him, I cannot say. But gallant Andrew has transformed himself into a terrifying grotesque.
What will I do now, dearest Melanie? Unlike Scarlett, I have neither the inclination nor ability for business.
I was reared to bear babies, love a man, and keep a home. I seem to have inherited my mothers reclusive nature and don't leave 46 Church Street for days at a time.
My brother Julian was ejected from the legislature with the Carpetbaggers he'd attached himself to. He has found work as a clerk.
Ladies I worked with at the Free Market have started a school for girls: the Charleston Female Seminary. They have invited me to teach. I can speak a little French and am exquisitely sensitive to proprieties (if only from flaunting them). I suppose I would be a good-enough teacher.
I will bury my mother, and when Rhett comes, I will not — I Will Not — ask him what to do!
I have married one good man and one rakehell. I do not think I will marry again, but if I did I'd want someone who needed me.
I thank God for our friendship.
Always your, Rosemary
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
The Bottle Trees
Andrew Ravanel thought he'd seen the bearded nigger before. He'd been sold at John Huger's sale, the sale where Andrew tried to buy Cassius. Wasn't he a wheelwright? A carpenter? The bearded nigger said, "Guilty.”
The tall nigger said, "Guilty.”
The nigger in the yellow vest said, "Guilty.”
The bald nigger said, "Guilty.”
Andrew scratched the back of his neck. It was hot for so early in the year. So many people crammed into the Charleston courtroom, it was bound to be hot.
The scrawny nigger said, "Guilty." There wasn't any meat on that boy.
He wouldn't make a half-task hand.
The four-eyed nigger said, "Guilty." What did a nigger need glasses for? They couldn't read. It was ironic: twelve niggers pronouncing judgment on a Colonel of the Confederate States of America. The wizened nigger said, "Guilty." Why did some of them shrivel up like dried-apple dolls? "Guilty." Lord, that nigger was fat. How could anybody say they hadn't been treated right? If this nigger'd been a hog, he'd have been ripe for slaughter. Get some real hams off that boy.
"Guilty.”
"Guilty.”
Andrew turned to nod at a couple of good old boys, who pretended they didn't know him.
"Guilty.”
Six months ago, you bet they would have known him. Andrew caught Rosemary's eye. She looked as fresh as if she'd just stepped out of the bath.
"Guilty.”
Guilty of what? Guilty of resisting the oppressor's government? The Federal judge rapped his gavel. "Mr. Ravanel. The jury has found you guilty of four counts of intentional manslaughter. Do you have anything to say to this court?”
They called Judge Boyd "Pit Bull" Boyd. He surely looked like one.
"Colonel Ravanel, Your Honor," Andrew said.
"Colonel Ravanel. This court is willing to entertain evidence of your repentance, some acknowledgment of your terrible deeds, before passing sentence. As your attorney will warn you, Colonel Ravanel, without repentance, it will go hard on you. Sentencing hearing will be in this courtroom tomorrow, ten o'clock. Do I have your word of honor as a gentleman you won't run?”
Andrew smiled, thinking, My word of honor, Pit Bull? But before he could speak, Andrew's lawyer, William Ellsworth, popped up. "You have my word, Judge Boyd. My client will be here.”
"Then, Andrew Ravanel, you will remain free on bond to prepare an entreaty that will move our hearts. Tomorrow at ten." The judge's gavel fell.
Being convicted felt no different than unconvicted. He was no better or worse.
When Ellsworth tried to precede him, Andrew pushed ahead through a throng of glaring negroes, and whites' sly winks.
Rosemary was in the lobby, where Custer's soldiers kept the crowd at bay. "Andrew, I'm sorry.”
Why was Rosemary sorry? No jury of black apes had convicted her of anything. She hadn't been insulted by a Yankee judge in front of all Charleston.
"Can I come home?" Andrew said.
Rosemary frowned. "No," she said.
Before the War, this courthouse lobby would have been scrubbed every day. Before the War, Low Country planters came here to settle boundary disputes and contracts. Andrew's shoulders drooped. He'd been fighting so long, so very long. There was nothing left. "Give my best to the boy.”
lo your son.
"Yes, to Valentine.”
Andrew's lawyer hustled him out a side door into a closed carriage.
Ellsworth lit his pipe. It took him three tries to get it going. "You hadn't a chance," he said.
"Oh, I don't know," Andrew said lightly. "I was hoping some jurors remembered me from before the War.”
The lawyer puffed furiously. "I did my best. I got the charges reduced from murder. I got you released on bond.”
Andrew slid his window open.
Late-morning sun fluttered into the carriage as they turned onto King Street past the post office. They edged around a beer wagon. Two men rolled barrels down a ramp. Behind their iron fences, the city's gardens flourished. The scents of decay and rebirth made the air shimmer.
"You must prepare a plea. Convince Judge Boyd you've seen the error of your ways.”
"What does it matter?”
His lawyer's face was sour as an unripe pippin. "Judge Boyd has considerable sentencing leeway. He's gone easy on Klansmen who repented. President Grant doesn't want martyrs.”
Andrew's mind drifted on the lawyer's sea of ifs, buts, and maybes.
"We cannot contest what you did...”
A Unionist nonentity before the war, Ellsworth had been a reluctant advocate, torn between his desire to be counted among the Old Gentry while never condoning nor appearing to condone the Klan. That same gentry had been glad when the Klan frightened Republicans out of the legislature, provided they didn't have to know how the frightening was done.
Andrew said, "Can't make a cake without breaking niggers.”
"What? What's that you say?”
Andrew Ravanel hadn't been afraid to get his hands dirty. Josie Watling, Archie Flytte — maybe they didn't scrape off their boots before they walked into the drawing room, maybe they didn't care where they spat, but they weren't afraid to get their hands dirty. Andrew's palms itched. " What ... ?”
Ellsworth asked.
"I said," Andrew repeated, "here we are.”
Ellsworth's office was three doors down from the Unionist lawyer Louis Petigru's. Petigru hadn't survived the war. While he was alive, everybody had reviled Petigru for his Unionist views. They praised him after the man was safely dead. That's how things were.
Andrew stepped down from the carriage.