"You foul-mouthed beast," she whispered, tearfully looking straight ahead. For once he was too thunderstruck to take the slightest pleasure.
Isabel wouldn't speak to him thereafter. She shook her head to offers of food or wine and refused his limp invitation to waltz. She did follow along when President and Mrs. Grant appeared and Stanley, lemminglike, rushed with dozens of others to present himself. Damnably, Stout and his wife were with the Grants.
Eventually Stanley and Isabel got their turn. Stanley mumbled their names, which Stout repeated. Isabel stared at her husband in a hostile way while the President shook Stanley's hand.
"Ah, yes, Mr. Hazard. The Pennsylvania Hazards. I know your brother George. You were a liaison officer with the Freedmen's Bureau, were you not?"
"Yes, Mr. President, until the end of '67. At that time I retired to oversee my business investments. I must say, sir, your program for the economy is very sound."
"Thank you, sir," Grant said, and turned to greet the next couple.
Isabel was even angrier than before. "You lying wretch. You didn't meet him this morning."
"No. They wouldn't let me into Wade's rooms."
"You've humiliated me sufficiently for one evening, Stanley." She had also seen, and been seen by, everyone important. "Take me home."
Stanley was the first of the Committee of Managers to depart.
Grant noticed. To his wife Julia he said, "Very likable, that Hazard fellow. Strikes me as a man of intelligence and substance."
Senator Stout overheard. If Mr. Grant believes that, we have a naive dolt in our highest office. God save the republic.
Marie-Louise and Theo have at last settled in a tiny cottage on Sullivan's Island, found for them by the man who hired Theo for a better job than Mont Royal could offer. The man is another Yankee carpetbagger.
The city is considerably restored, but much more remains to be done. Gullible travelers alighting at the pier are still asked, "Would you like to see Mr. Calhoun's monument?" If they say yes, the cynic points to the city.
Theo's employer has been part of the slow rebuilding process. He arrived in the autumn of '65, saw a need, and set up a firm to construct new sidewalks with sturdy curbs to protect them from vehicle damage. His crews also fill and repair numerous bog holes, and the shell craters left by the Swamp Angel, etc. The glories and excitements of lavish balls, secession conclaves, and romantic farewells have given way to road-mending and other mundane matters.
The Yankee road-mender is prospering. He has developed large city contracts locally, and in Georgetown and Florence. Theo replaced the Yankee's first foreman, who ran off to Brazil with a mulatto girl. Theo works 12-14 hours a day, 6 days per week, supervising black work gangs, and declares that he and M-L are now quite happy. They were not earlier. Upon returning from Sav., and following Cooper's rebuff of them, they lived for some weeks in a poor cabin in the palmetto scrubs here on the plantation. The only thing that made it possible for them to survive was the job I provided. Theo was an excellent supervisor, and I hated to lose him, but I could not refuse his request to leave.
The young couple's relations with C. are not improved, however. C. will not receive them, or in any way recognize their presence in the city. Judith must visit her daughter secretly, the way she visits me. I appreciate that the war damaged many lives. But there is a point where pity yields to impatience. Cooper's new politics, and his treatment of his family, put him beyond sympathy. Beyond mine, anyway. ...
... Sim's boy Grant, a young man now, was caught by the Klan near the crossroads last night. He and two friends were held captive for an hour, forced into what the robed men called a jigging contest. The three danced at gunpoint with pails of water balanced on their heads. It all sounds so childish. Yet Grant came home wild-eyed and demoralized. At least he was not harmed. Last week, Joseph Steptoe was whipped by some of the same men. Bleeding copiously, he was wrapped in a sheet smeared with salted lard and left at the roadside. He and his wife vanished from their cabin near the Episcopal chapel next day; not seen since. Joseph S. was a corporal of the district's colored militia. Grant is a member too.
I do not know how a band of men can be ludicrous and menacing at the same time, but that is the puzzling nature of this "Klan."
To C'ston, to see Theo and M-L, and once more plead with Dawkins. ...
"No," the obese man said. Amid the correspondence and sheets on his desk, Madeline saw a cheaply printed paperbound book, Your Sister Sally. She had seen a copy before. An import from Mississippi, the book contained exaggerated descriptions of the ruin and rapine whites could look forward to under a black-dominated legislature. Gettys sold copies at his store.
"Leverett," she said with forced composure. "Mont Royal is earning money. Even rebuilding the house, I have enough to pay off substantially more of the mortgage every year. I hate to see so much interest flow out unnecessarily."
The office was dark wood and deep green plush; Dawkins's special chair was upholstered with the material. "I reiterate the bank's stated policy. No prepayment." He licked his lips. "If you refuse to be flexible, so do we."
"Flexible." Madeline gave it a bitter ring. "You mean close the school. You were a liberal man once. What are you so opposed —?"
"Because these nigger schools are not schools at all. They're centers for political action. All Conservatives oppose them." Conservative was the new label of the anti-Republican coalition of Democrats and former Whigs.
"Wade Hampton's running a school on his plantation. He's an avowed Conservative."
"Yes, but tainted by certain unfortunate views. There is no point in discussing General Hampton. He is a unique case."
He means untouchable. Which I am not.
"Leverett, I wish I could understand. Why are you so completely averse to giving people a decent education?"
"Not people. Nigras. The idea is poisoning South Carolina. First we got those Yankee women teaching down at St. Helena. Then your free school. Now we have public ones. As a result, not only do we have vengeful inferiors trying to govern us, but we have a crushing financial burden in the form of obnoxious school taxes."
"So it comes down to money. To greed."
"Justice! Fairness! The provision in the state constitution calling for public schools was none of my doing. None of Mr. Cooper Main's, either, I might say. We dined together at my home only last week, and I know his state of mind. And the various circumstances responsible for it," he added, flashing her a sharp look. She supposed the banker was referring to Marie-Louise's marriage.
"Your brother-in-law and I are in complete agreement about the schools," Dawkins continued. "Since they were forced upon us by the Federal government, let the Federal government pay for them."
"I get no government money, Leverett."
"But I understand you get many visits from Yankee clerics and bureaucrats who think your school is a model of Radical action. I am surprised the Kuklux have not returned. I don't advocate violence, but you will have only yourself to blame when they do."
... Such remains the prospect for the future. Sometimes I beg God to deliver me from everything connected with "the Reconstruction!!"
57
"Pretty?" Bent said. "Pretty, Gus?" He reached across to his left ear and shook the teardrop earring.