“Lucius! Lucius!”
Lucius shushed the little throng and reached into his carriage. He pulled out a broad-rimmed hat and a big cane and walked at a brisk pace to where Bennett stood. The slave’s miniature entourage followed right behind, not yelling any longer but giggling the whole way.
“Here you are, sir,” said Lucius as he handed Bennett the hat and cane.
“Thank you, Lucius.”
The two men looked at each other in silence. Bennett could see that Lucius was anxious at the apparent snub his crowd of young admirers had just delivered.
“It must be good to see your family again,” said the master.
“Yessir,” replied the slave. “Sorry, sir.”
“Don’t worry about it, Lucius. I can see a couple of your grandchildren here. Hello, Maggie,” he said, bending over to look at a small girl clutching Lucius’s leg. She took a step back. Bennett smiled and straightened up. “They ought to be happy at the sight of their grandfather!” he laughed, turning to the adult slaves who had just watched all of this. “And look, Lucius: over there is Portia. How this fine granddaughter of yours has become a lovely woman!”
Portia blushed. “Good evening, Mr. Bennett,” she said.
“Good evening, everybody!”
A buzz of activity erupted around the plantation master. A handful of slaves started to tend to the carriage and its horses, a couple more unloaded boxes and trunks, and a few others inquired about the ride. Lucius dashed into the house. As this was going on, a white man came into view from the far side of the manor. He barked orders from a hundred feet away in a booming voice, making it impossible to hear anything but his bellowing:
“Get those bags off and inside right away! Unhitch those horses! I want them cleaned tonight! Make sure there’s a table setting for Mr. Hughes!” The slaves were already attentive, but they seemed to move even more quickly at the sound of this loud man.
“Where did you ever find such an overseer, Langston?” asked Hughes. “I think they can hear him all the way to Charleston.”
“This place would not function without him,” laughed Bennett. “Hello, Mr. Tate.”
“Hello, sir. Welcome back. We missed you a few days ago.”
“Thank you, Mr. Tate. I longed to return too. But I could not ignore the recent events in Charleston.”
“Did you see the bombardment?”
“The whole city did. The entire population must have descended upon the Battery, even before dawn. Hughes and I managed to avoid the crowd by rising above it-we watched for two days through a spyglass on my rooftop. Nobody could actually hear the barrage because a strong wind was blowing out to sea. But we saw the wisps of smoke rise from Fort Moultrie and Morris Island and knew that Sumter was getting pounded. Every puff from our cannons won a cheer from the Battery. Around eight o’clock on Saturday morning, we could see a huge fire at Sumter, with enormous clouds of smoke billowing upward. This gave everybody a thrill. We thought Sumter would surrender at any moment. But the men inside continued to hang on for a few hours more. They must have been covered with soot, and I still wonder how they breathed.”
Bennett leaned on his cane and waved his arm about as he told the story, and Tate listened intently. Several of the slaves paused to hear the tale as well. The only person nearby not to give Bennett his full attention was Hughes, who could not take his eyes off Portia. She was short and fit, with bright eyes and caramel-colored skin that suggested race mixing somewhere in her background. Hughes guessed Portia was about eighteen years old. She was quite pretty-actually, she was beautiful-and he found himself desiring her. He quit looking, though, when he noticed the burly slave beside her. The big man’s arms were as thick as Hughes’s own neck. He stared directly at Hughes. It felt like a challenge. Hughes resented that. He refused to let a slave get in the way of anything he wanted.
As Bennett described Charleston’s jubilation when Sumter finally did surrender-ringing church bells, hot-blooded speeches, and bonfires lighting the sky through the night-Hughes gradually maneuvered himself beside Portia. Her concentration was fixed on the story, and she did not notice him approach. He leaned over and placed his lips next to her ear. “Mr. Bennett was correct,” he whispered. “You are a lovely girl.”
Portia trembled at the words. She looked at Hughes, who gave her a rakish smile. She frowned and took a step toward that big slave. “Joe,” she whispered, though she hardly needed to get his attention. She tried to focus on Bennett again but kept casting nervous glances in the direction of Hughes, who would not stop staring at her.
By now Bennett had returned to the subject of the federal troops trapped for weeks in Sumter and how they must have suffered, especially on the second day of the attack. “It is hard not to admire an enemy like that,” said Bennett. “But it is easy to feel contempt for the man who would force them through it. This Abraham Lincoln is a beast, Tate. He was not within his rights to keep the fort. I didn’t think he could sink further in my estimation, but he did when he made those poor men defend a cause as hopeless as Sumter’s. There was nothing they could do. Their effort went to waste, except that it must have satisfied Lincoln to let them endure pain and privation so that he could frustrate South Carolina, however briefly.”
Bennett’s face reddened as his excitement turned to anger. “Curse that man! He will stop at nothing to confound us. Look around you, Tate,” he said, gesturing to his house, his fields, and finally a few of his slaves. “All of what we have here will be gone if this man has his way. He is a danger to our lives and everything we hold dear. There is no other word for it: Lincoln is evil!”
Suddenly Bennett quit his harangue. The sermon had exhausted him. He breathed heavily. His forehead glistened with sweat. He removed his hat and rubbed his face with a handkerchief. Tate and the slaves wondered whether he was done and did not move. The old man replaced his hat and looked at the porch of his manor, where Lucius now stood. He had come back outside just as Bennett was concluding his outburst.
“Mr. Bennett,” called Lucius. “Dinner is ready for you and Mr. Hughes.”
“Well, Mr. Hughes, shall we venture in?” asked Bennett.
“Let’s do that,” said Hughes. He made eye contact one more time with Portia and winked at her. She looked away. Then Hughes locked arms with Bennett and helped the old man climb the steps of his home. At the top, he turned and spoke. “Mr. Tate, please be good enough to see that my carriage gets off.” He went inside without waiting for a response.
Tate began shouting orders again. His first one went to the huge slave near Portia. “Get a move on, Big Joe. Start unloading that carriage.” The slaves who had halted their work to listen to Bennett returned to their labors. Portia was the only one not to budge. It was almost as if she did not hear Tate. She just stared at the ground.
Lucius saw her. After Bennett and Hughes entered the house, he moved down the steps and touched her chin. She looked up at her grandfather.
“What’s the matter, Portia?”
“It’s nothin’. I just been a little tired.”
“I hope it ain’t more than that.” Lucius slipped into an informal dialect that he tried to avoid around Bennett.
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”
She took a step toward the house, where she knew she was needed. But Lucius clasped her elbow. She stopped and gave him a questioning look.
“Portia, we need to talk about something very important.”
Lucius glanced quickly in all directions to make sure they could not be overheard. Then he leaned forward. “Meet me by the stables later tonight, after Mr. Bennett has gone to bed.”
A woman seated beside a window was the first to see it. “There’s a secession flag flying over the Virginia capitol!” she said. This prompted a general commotion on the train. Passengers scrambled for a view. Atop a hill sat a white building that was designed by Thomas Jefferson and looked like a Roman temple. Above it flew a red, white, and blue flag, but not the federal one. In the fading daylight, they could see that it had three stripes, with a handful of stars displayed on a blue field.