Charleston (18 page)

Beauty was Alex's first, best memory of her childhood: the beauty of the sun-struck harbor, the white sails of ships bound for exotic ports. Even the pine dust that fell in the spring, coating every surface with a fine lime-colored powder, had a fairylike charm.

She loved the sight of men casting shrimp nets from sturdy piraguas or spearing flatfish by lantern light. She loved the mockingbirds perched on the pittosporum, guarding their nests and trilling their song; the great blue herons standing still as statuary; white egrets stepping high
through marsh reeds in search of a meal; gulls diving to snatch one from the water.

She loved the steamy shade of summer; the rattle of rain on palmetto fronds. She loved the pealing bells of St. Michael's—she grew up listening to them sweetly ring the hours, or wildly ring fire alarms. Great Michael, the eighth and largest, tolled by himself to announce the fire's end. Evenings, the bells rang to warn Negroes to leave the streets in one hour. When they rang again, it signaled the City Guard to patrol for violators of the curfew. The evening bells were no more than pretty serenades until Alex discovered their purpose.

In the wake of the Vesey affair the AME church was torn down, its pastor driven from the city. New regulations further restricted the behavior of blacks. Respected men, including Alex's father, petitioned city council for a larger, stronger arsenal—a citadel, they called it—to arm an enlarged defense force. She overheard Titus whisper to his wife about a terrible new machine of punishment at the workhouse, the treadmill.

She hated having to fear black people. Evidently most adults in Charleston did. Out of this realization came questions. She took them to her friend Henry; Maudie accompanied her.

The Strongs had a two-story frame house and carpentry shop on John Street, above Boundary, near the city line. In that section of town freedmen and whites of the commercial class lived together in relative harmony. Alex found her friend astride a shaving horse in the sandy yard of the shop.

Henry plied his two-handled draw knife skillfully, shaving and shaping a square wooden rod held in a clamp in front of him. Henry's knife peeled off thin slivers to round the wood. Alex pointed to it. “What's that for?”

“Pegs, for joints in a serpentine sideboard Pa's building for a customer.”

Maudie wandered inside to visit Mr. Strong. Alex inhaled the lovely wood smell of the chip-strewn yard. “You'll make a fine carpenter when you're grown up, Henry.”

“Not sure I want that, but it's all right for now.”

“Can I ask you some things? Vesey made me think of them.” Henry bobbed his head, giving permission. “Why do we have slaves at all?”

“Because white folks want to make money but they don't want to do the hard work. Too hot most of the time.”

“Are there slaves all over the world?”

“Only certain countries.” The answer, the rich bass voice, came from Hamnet Strong, a larger, brawnier version of his son. Maudie had followed him outside.

“The American system is more cruel than most,” Hamnet said. “Families are broken up, children sold away from parents without a second thought.” Hamnet inspected the work. “That's good, Henry.”

“Thank you, Pa.”

Alex gnawed her lip. “I heard about something at the workhouse called a treadmill. Do you know what it is?”

Hamnet's normally placid face twisted into sourness. “By hearsay. It's a work-saving device. It can also punish twelve slaves at one time. That's all I'm going to tell you. Come inside, Mary's brewing tea. Henry, you may rest five minutes and join us.”

 

Either the slave troubles had always been there, and she'd never noticed, or they'd gotten worse, hence were more freely discussed.

A stranger, a man a few years older than Edgar, visited their house. He was what the town called a dandy. He wore polished Hessian boots, a waistcoat embroidered with tiny flowers, voluminous Cossack trousers tied near the ankles with black ribbons. Edgar received him in the side garden on a Sunday afternoon in September. The air was fresh after a cleansing rain that morning.

The visitor, Crittenden Lark, had flashing brown eyes and a smile so broad and white, it reminded Alex of Maudie's china doll. Edgar invited Lark to be seated on an iron bench. Alex eavesdropped from the back of the garden, where Drayton was pruning the brilliant gold and orange lantana, the West Indian perennial he loved. He'd given
Alex a saw-toothed knife to prune a nearby row of crape myrtle that had bloomed pink and watermelon-red in July.

Lark spoke rapidly, as if to prevent interruption or disagreement. “Our families don't have the most cordial of relationships, Mr. Bell. We all know why. But you are a man of standing in Charleston, and the moment calls for putting aside old grievances. We must unite to deal with the growing nigger threat. I've come at the request of my good friend, your cousin Mr. Simms Bell, to invite you to join a new citizens' protective association. It's a private group seeking more forceful regulation of the slave population by all available means.”

“Do you include extralegal means?”

“Construe it as you will, sir.”

“Then I'm afraid I must decline.”

The young dandy's smile froze. “That position could be harmful to your business.”

“I'll stand the risk.”

“Are you suggesting you're not in favor of regulating slaves?”

Alex pushed a strand of blond hair off her sweaty forehead. She glanced at Drayton. His head was bowed; his blue-black cheek shone in a random ray of sun. He never looked up.

“I suggest nothing of the kind,” Edgar said. “I am simply in favor of enforcing existing codes. I must bid you good day, Mr. Lark, I'm extremely busy.”

Crittenden Lark jammed his hat on his head and marched to the street gate. His murderous expression made Alex shiver.

 

Another thing Alex hated was obeying rules. There were so many, chief among them dos and don'ts handed down twenty times a day at Miss Ladylou Fancher's Academy for Young Ladies. Edgar and Cassandra enrolled Alex in the school for the first time that autumn.

Miss Ladylou Fancher weighed at least 250 pounds. She wore too much scent and never appeared without a
ferronière,
a fashionable white satin headband with a large
pearl located in the middle of her forehead. Miss Fancher taught fundamentals of grammar, French, needlework, and music. When she disciplined her pupils, she peered at them through a long-handled quizzing glass.

Alex soon became a favorite target because of her resistance to practicing the harpsichord. In preparation for Miss Fancher's lessons Papa had bought a fine single-manual spinet, walnut, made in London. The spinet collected dust in a back corner of the downstairs hall. Alex was supposed to practice an hour a day, but she had to be pushed. She hated the pieces Miss Fancher forced on her—dull music by Corelli and Pescatore and other dead, deservedly forgotten composers.

Not that she disliked music. Soon after the Vesey trouble Maudie took her to Drayton's small brick slave house next to the stable at the rear of the property. There she proudly showed Alex a curious instrument made of a large calabash, one side cut off so as to be level with a long wooden neck attached to it. Over the opening of the calabash stretched a tanned skin, like a drumhead. Three strings ran from pegs at the top of the neck, down across the skin to the bottom of the gourd. Alex could only ask, “What is it?”

“A banja. Papa brought it from Barbados. You should hear him play.”

“Well, I'd like to, if you'll ever give me the opportunity,” Alex said, lapsing into the huffiness she heard all the time from the older girls at Miss Fancher's.

“I'll ask him,” Maudie promised. At week's end Drayton invited Alex to the cottage in the evening. He picked up the banja, began to pluck the strings and hum. The infectious plink-plunk made her smile. In the music she heard the rhythm of bare feet in a merry dance.

“Oh, Drayton, that's wonderful,” she exclaimed. “I wish I had a banja.”

“I think they sell them ready-made up North. Mr. President Jefferson in Virginia, he knows the banja.” Drayton began a new tune. Just then Edgar was returning from Bell's Bridge, having stabled his horse. At the open window where a muslin curtain had been tied back
for air, he paused to listen. Drayton and the children never noticed.

As Alex slipped into bed, Cassandra knocked softly. She asked Maudie to leave, then sat on the edge of the bed.

“I didn't hear you practice this afternoon”—Alex pulled the coverlet over her face—“and yet your father observed you lolling about with Drayton and Maudie, listening to him play that silly gourd with strings.”

“His banja.”

“Yes, I know its name. Your father says it's a slave instrument, from Africa. I will not have my daughter listening to that kind of music.”

“But, Mama—”

“That's the last I want to hear of Drayton's banja or your interest in it.”

She gave Alex a cool, reserved kiss on the cheek. “Sometimes I do wonder what kind of child I'm raising. Your father thinks you may have inherited some of your grandfather Edward's wild blood. You're not like other girls your age. You must learn to be, else you'll be miserable, a social outcast, all your life. I only say that because I love you.”

Cassandra hugged her daughter and glided to the door. Before she called Maudie back, she shook her finger. “No more banja.”

Which of course only propelled Alex to greater interest and, eventually, lessons from Drayton in secret.

 

The final thing Alex devoutly hated, though she never dared repeat it to anyone but Henry, was a girl at Miss Fancher's. Two years older than Alex, the girl was overbearing. She mingled her scorn with a condescending pity all the more galling because it was plainly insincere. Alex would have bloodied Ouida's nose or kicked her shins but for the fact that it would bring punishment at home. Ouida was the daughter of Uncle Simms and Aunt Bethel, the granddaughter of Great-Aunt Lydia. She was Alex's second cousin. There was no avoiding her.

Ouida Bell was a Christmas baby. As she grew, she came to resent the birthday of Jesus. It took precedence over hers, robbed her of attention and gifts.

Ouida was a plump and pretty child whose round face resembled that of Maudie's doll. The prettiness concealed more than a few animosities. The person she hated most was her younger cousin Alex. The reasons were so numerous, it sometimes dizzied her head.

Alex's eyes were a vivid hydrangea-blue. Ouida's were blue, but pale. In the wrong light they were almost colorless.

Alex was smarter than Ouida, although Mama said that counted for nothing when it was time to marry, indeed could work against a girl.

Alex wasn't nearly as well off or well dressed as Ouida, Mama assured her. Yet Ouida's little brother, Gibbes, two years younger than Alex, mooned over her like a lovesick swain.

Alex was more popular at Miss Fancher's. Whenever the headmistress stepped out for a bit, Alex shamelessly unbuckled her hideous high-lows, lifted her skirts to show her pantalets, and danced barefoot like the lowest of street boys. The other girls clustered around, clapped, and tried to imitate her while Ouida hung back, ignored.

Alex loved to work in her garden, dirtying herself like a field hand. She seemed to do everything a girl shouldn't, while Ouida behaved as well-bred young ladies of Charleston were taught. Even so, Ouida couldn't escape the feeling that she, not Alex, was the inferior.

Ouida didn't give a fig for things her father talked about at home: the “banditry” of Massachusetts shoe manufacturers from whom he bought slave shoes by the barrel, or a despised Kentucky politician named Clay who was promoting an import tariff, whatever that was. Simms was always praising the accomplishments of his Yale classmate, John Calhoun, secretary of war under President Monroe and now mentioned as a possible running mate for Gen. Andy Jackson. Ouida heard these things, and more, and promptly forgot them.

Ouida's deportment was appropriate to every occasion. At a family levee at Sword Gate the night before the St. Cecilia Ball, during the madness of Race Week, she overheard a male guest say, “Have you seen Beau Pratt's new girl Phoebe? Quite a leg on her.” Hearing the word
leg
uttered in mixed company, Ouida fell on a fragile taboret and broke it as she went into the required swoon. Bethel revived her with an ammonia-scented handkerchief. The offending gentleman sent a bouquet and a note apologizing for his “lewd and unseemly language.”

At Prosperity Hall, Ouida learned to accept the presence of mulatto babies who appeared suddenly, as though dropped from the clouds. One time she mentioned such a new arrival to her mother. Bethel, sipping Madeira, replied with appropriate bitterness, “You will learn someday that a plantation wife is the chief slave in her husband's harem. Never tell anyone I told you.”

 

Despite Virtue's rebellious nature he was promoted to footman before his sixteenth birthday. Lydia objected. “You should sell that troublemaker,” she told Simms.

“Mother, he's stronger than any other man in the house. He can be very useful if he takes a mind to it.”

“Have you looked into his eyes? He's dangerous.”

“He took his punishment for the black armband without protest. His spine's a mass of scars from it. He's been obedient ever since.”

“Just wait. Niggers are secretive. They harbor grudges for years, then they turn on you. You are too gentle with them.”

Simms didn't prolong an argument he couldn't win. He kissed Lydia's powdered forehead and said, “I promise to keep an eye on him, don't you fret.”

“But I do, because you're so weak.” He stepped back, flushing. “Where's that shiftless wench with my medicine? I always have my afternoon medicine at three. It's five minutes past.”

Simms welcomed the excuse to leave the room in pursuit of the medicine and the errant slave.

 

Lydia dealt harshly with all the house blacks but reserved special attention for Virtue. When one of his looks offended her—she called it a glare—she ordered him to the pantry, to stand on one leg for an hour, holding his other foot. A Charleston acquaintance had told her it was an excruciating punishment.

A few weeks later Virtue removed a crystal goblet from the dinner table carelessly, dropping and shattering it. When dinner ended at half past three, Lydia had him repeat the hour of punishment, with an improvement she'd discovered. A rope went around Virtue's neck; the other end was tied to the foot he held. Any relaxation or lowering of the foot tightened the noose. Lydia smiled at his expression of pain and fury.

 

In the summer of 1824, before the presidential election, Simms traveled up to Pendleton, near Greenville. John Calhoun had invited him to have dinner and spend the night with the Calhoun family at their new home, Clergy Hall.

Calhoun's honored guest was Thomas Cooper, president of South Carolina College at Columbia. “A man who clearly understands what the North's up to,” Simms said to his wife before he left. “Cooper questions the value of our so-called union, because Clay and his crowd want tariffs that will sacrifice the South to Northern interests. We can't abide it.”

The day after Simms's departure brought a white sky, oppressive humidity, and distant thunder. Ouida, now eleven, found herself abandoned in the great plantation house. Mama lay abed with a feminine complaint and was not to be disturbed. Gibbes had gone off riding with a slave boy. Ouida went in search of her grandmother. She felt no great affection for the old woman but catered to her because it was expected. Despite eccentricities and a violent temper Lydia was an important figure in the family.

Lydia's quarters consisted of a combination bedroom and sitting room on the second floor. A large inner closet overflowed with her dresses, some of them twenty years old. Ouida had no more than a vague understanding of old age. She thought her grandmother about fifty; actually she was sixty-five.

She tapped softly at the hall door. No answer. She was about to repeat the knock when she heard Lydia pleading with someone in a loud voice, in a way that alarmed Ouida.

She opened the door, crept into the gloomy bedchamber. Heavy velvet drapes showed only a sliver of gray between. Lydia's shrill voice issued from the dark closet. “Go away, go away.”

Ouida called, “Grandmother? Do you need help?”

Lydia kept ranting: “Don't torment me, Edward.”

Edward? Who was that? Could it be the relative who had drowned in the Ashley River years ago?

“I never meant to harm you. I was angry, because I loved you and you refused me. Why do you stand there accusing me? Why don't you speak? I'll go mad if you don't leave me alone.”

Ouida didn't want to face Lydia during one of her spells, so she turned to steal out. Her toe caught the edge of the carpet. She fell against the door, slamming it. “Who's there?”

Lydia rushed from the closet. Her appearance terrified Ouida. Her gray hair was a tangle. She wore a chemise that served as her summer night dress, and knee-length white stockings, without slippers. Over the chemise was a striped banyan, an informal morning coat with flared skirts; the front bore many spots and stains. Patches of Lydia's face powder were cracked by lines from tears or sweat.

“You wicked girl. How long have you been spying? What did you hear?”

“Nothing, Grandma, I didn't hear any—”

Lydia's hand flew; the slap sounded like a shot.

She seized Ouida's shoulders, shook her. Ouida nearly gagged at the smell of the old woman's breath.

“That's right, you heard nothing. You saw nothing. You weren't here. Tell me that.”
Slap
. “Tell me.”

Gasping and tearful, Ouida said, “I wasn't here. I saw and heard nothing.”

“Swear to that, God strike you dead if you lie.”

“I swear, Grandma. Please don't hurt me any mo—”

Slap
. “Pay attention. If you ever whisper a word of this to your mother or father, or anyone, I'll do to you what I do to a nigger who misbehaves. I'll punish you.”

“I won't tell. I'm so sorry, I thought you were in danger. I thought someone was in there with—”

“No one was in there. You imagined it.” A roll of thunder rattled windows. She flung the door open, pushed Ouida into the hall. Weeping into her hands, Ouida ran to her room. She locked the door and threw herself on the bed.

She didn't see her grandmother until breakfast next morning. She hardly dared look at her. The old woman chatted and laughed with Bethel, who'd come down in a quilted robe. Lydia glanced at Ouida every now and then, her eyes like tiny stones, devoid of emotion or even recognition.

Gradually, the pain of the awful scene receded. Ouida pushed the memory down deep inside her. There it festered, refusing to die.

Her poor grandmother saw things that didn't exist. She was “nervously distraught”—Ouida's mother used that term to describe women who had hysterics, a condition mysteriously related to childbearing. Perhaps the medicine Lydia took affected her badly. Still, she couldn't seriously harm anyone. Ouida convinced herself of that in desperate defense of her peace of mind.

 

In 1825 the Marquis de Lafayette, hero of the Revolution, visited Charleston on his triumphant tour of the nation for which he'd fought. The city honored him with banquets and balls, military parades and fireworks. Presented to the marquis, Ouida knew she should be impressed but she found him just a melon-faced little old man.

John Quincy Adams was the new president. Failing to gain a majority in the electoral college, he'd been elected by a vote in the House of Representatives. John Calhoun had won the vice presidency with a clear majority; South Carolina continued to have a strong voice in national affairs. As they said in Charleston, Mr. Calhoun was a big toad in the Washington puddle.

That autumn Lydia told Simms she'd overheard Virtue calling her a filthy name. Although the young slave denied it, Lydia insisted Simms punish him by cropping his ear. “And give him no spirits beforehand to make it easy.” Virtue disappeared from the household for a month. Simms announced plans to sell him.

The holidays intervened. Ouida was maturing; Bethel said she deserved a party to celebrate her thirteenth birthday. They would hold it at Sword Gate, decorate lavishly, hire musicians, prepare luxurious buffets of food and drink, in short, give a party that reflected not only Ouida's approaching womanhood but also the family's wealth and social eminence.

“Invite cousin Alex and her family,” Ouida begged her mother.

“I thought you disliked Alex. You say so often enough.”

“I only say it when I'm feeling cross.” Bethel understood; the word
cross
referred to symptoms of a certain unpleasant, and unmentionable, feminine burden Ouida had begun to experience. “I do so want her to come, Mama.”

Eight-year-old Gibbes noisily seconded the idea. Bethel agreed, though without enthusiasm. Ouida hugged her. “Oh, thank you, Mama.” Ouida's intention was to buy and wear the most lavish dress her parents would allow, thereby showing Alex she was dowdy by comparison. When Cassandra accepted the party invitation on behalf of herself, Edgar, and the children, Ouida was elated.

Christmas was a season dreaded in Charleston and the Low Country. Masters were more lenient then; slaves had more leisure, thus more time to succumb to evil impulses. While the world celebrated the birth of the Prince of Peace, whites were on guard against poison, arson, murder.

Virtue had returned to his duties in early December. His left ear was gone, leaving a gnarly black rim of scar tissue around the canal opening. Simms insisted he hide it with a white scarf. It was imperative that he not upset guests at the party, which fell on Friday, two days before Christmas.