Heaven and Hell (80 page)

congressmen and senators who favored strong protective tariffs for the iron and steel industry. He requested approval from George.

There was a rather sad letter from Patricia, written in September, asking what he wanted for Christmas. He could think of nothing. His children had sailed to Europe in the summer, but their visit during the month of July had seemed interminable to him, and, he supposed, to them, since he was uninterested in sightseeing. They had done that for
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a week, then spent the remainder of the visit playing lawn tennis tor hours every day.

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Jupiter Smith, who packed the weekly mail pouch, had included three copies of Mr. Greeley's New York Tribune, with items of financial news marked. There was also an elaborately inscribed invitation to a Republican fete celebrating Grant's inaugural in March, and another to the inauguration itself. George threw both into the fire.

He clipped one of his Cuban cigars, which cost him nearly seven dollars each to import, though he no longer kept track of such things.

He wasn't an extravagant man in most respects, and if money for small creature comforts ever ran out, he would shrug and then decide what to do.

He lit the cigar and stood by the window. Below the charmingly tiered city he saw another steamer, returning in the late afternoon. From the heights of Jorat it was a mere speck, like himself.

He thought of Orry's widow, a handsome and intelligent woman.

He hoped Madeline was weathering the political turmoil in the South.

He was not moved to write and inquire. He thought of his son, and of William's decision to read law; George continued to have no strong reaction one way or another. He thought of Sam Grant, an acquaintance from cadet days, and wondered whether he would be a good president, since he had no practical experience. He would probably try to run the government like a military headquarters. Could that be done? With a twinge of shame, he realized that when questions arose about the future of his country, he really didn't care about the answers.

On the lake, the steamer was gone. George remained by the window for some time, smoking and staring at the bright water. He had found there was great comfort in saying nothing, doing nothing, reacting to nothing. Or, as little of each as was possible in order to live.

That way, though one became a creature of monotony, one never got hurt.

Mr. Lee from Savannah brought the final plans. There is now enough money again. Work will begin after New Year's. Orry, how it breaks my heart that you are not here to see. . . .

. . . Theo back again, out of uniform. There is something nervously distracted about him. About M-L, too. . . .

The lovers embraced in the sharp evening air, safe from observation
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in the heavy underbrush that had grown up where the formal garden once stood. Marie-Louise almost swooned when Theo's tongue slipped into her mouth. She was frightened but didn't pull away. She locked her hands behind his neck and swayed backward, so that the weight of 506 HEAVEN AND HELL

his heavy wool coat and his body pressed her in a deliciously sinful way. Theo's lips moved over her cheek, her throat. His hand rode up and down on the side of her skirt.

"Marie-Louise, I can't wait any longer. I love you."

"I love you too, Theo. I'm as impatient as you."

"I've found the means. Let's tell her."

"Tonight?"

"Why not? She'll help us."

"I don't know. It's such a big step."

Earnestly, with great affection, he took her right hand between his.

"I've cast my lot in South Carolina. And with you. If you're just as sure, there's no reason to wait."

"I'm sure. I'm frightened, though."

"I'll speak for both of us. All you need do is hold fast to my hand."

Marie-Louise felt as if she were dropping through a great dark space toward--what? Something she could only imagine. It would be bliss, or it would be disaster. She swayed and Theo caught her with one hand, a little amused by her girlish romanticism, yet in love with it, too. She whispered, "All right, let's tell her."

He whooped and whirled her around by the waist. A moment later they were hurrying up the dark lawn toward the lighted whitewashed house.

"Resign your commission?" Madeline said, astonished.

"Yes. I notified my superiors yesterday that it was my intention."

While Theo spoke, Marie-Louise stayed half hidden behind him.

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She held his left hand as though it were a lifeline. The young couple had burst into the house while Madeline was spreading the architect's drawings on the floor to point out details of the new great house to Prudence. In the corner lay some fresh-cut pine boughs intended for Christmas decoration.

"I reached my decision on the basis of two circumstances," Theo continued, with a formality that would have made her smile if his plan was not potentially so disruptive. "First, you said you might find temporary work for me here."

"Yes. I think you'd make an excellent manager for Mont Royal's mill and mining operations. But I never had any intention of precipitating--"

"You

didn't," he broke in. "I'm resigning chiefly because of the other circumstance." He stepped forward, blurting, "Last week--"

"Theo." She pointed. "Forgive me, but you're standing on the new Mont Royal."

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"Oh, no! I'm so sorry--" He jumped back, let go of Marie Louise's hand and knelt to smooth the wrinkle his boot heel had left on the drawing. Prudence smiled. Madeline chided herself for fussiness; it was another sign of age.

"There. Is that all right?"

"Yes. No harm done. You mentioned a second circumstance affecting your decision."

He gulped and leaped: "I've located an Army chaplain in Savannah who is willing to marry us."

Marie-Louise didn't breathe. She grasped Theo's hand again and held it tightly. The four lamps around the room shed an uncompromising light on Madeline's lovely but lined face. "Even though Marie Louise isn't of legal age?" she asked.

He nodded, tugging at his cravat and then his mustache. "Yes.

The chaplain--well, he doesn't like rebs very much. I told him Mr.

Main was in the Confederate Navy Department and that's all it took.

Madeline sat back, frowning. "You put me in a very hard position.

I can't condone such defiance of Cooper. And Judith."

"We're not asking that you condone it--" Theo began.

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"Only that you give us a day or two," Marie-Louise pleaded.

"Just don't tell Papa until we're back. Theo will do it then."

"That will still make me a party to deceiving him."

"Say that you knew nothing about it," Theo responded.

"Marie-Louise disappeared and I knew nothing about it?" He blushed, recognizing the foolishness of it. "No. I'd have to be prepared to assume my share of blame." She was silent a moment. "I don't think I want that."

Marie-Louise rushed to her, almost in tears. "If Theo speaks to Papa first, you know Papa will say no. He'll go on saying it till hell freezes."

"Marie-Louise," Theo said, stunned. Refined girls didn't say such things.

"Well, it's true. If you won't let us go, Aunt Madeline, we'll never be able to marry. Never."

Prudence went to comfort her; the young teacher was growing fatter, and tended to waddle. Madeline reflected on the situation, wondering why, now that the Klan seemed to have retreated to silence, and construction was about to start, this new problem had to be brought to her.

She wanted to stand by her refusal and spare herself another scene with Cooper. Then she remembered Orry describing what he'd put Brett and Billy through before the war, when he was uncertain about the Wisdom of a Carolina girl marrying a Northern officer. He'd withheld 508 HEAVEN AND HELL

his permission and kept them in torment when hardly anything else could have stopped them.

She studied the lovers. Did she have the right to deny them? Marie- Louise was right; Cooper would be unreasonable. But who was she to

judge whether their love was genuine, mature, worthy of the permanent bond of marriage? Had her first burst of love for Orry been mature? No, far from it.

"Well, I'll probably rue it. But I am an incurable sentimentalist.

I'll grant you the forty-eight hours." Prudence clapped. "You may also have use of my elegant wagon for your bridal carriage," she added, wryly.

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It's done. How they glowed with anticipation as they drove away! I hope their love will sustain Theo when he goes, as he must, to face his father-in-law. I will ride out the inevitable storm somehow. Cooper's regard for me could sink no lower under any circumstances. . . .

. . . Next day. At noon, two of our black men unloaded the first wagons of construction lumber. The lumber sits where I can see it as I pen this, neat stacks of yellow pine, rough-hewn and finished in our own mill. Perhaps we can celebrate next Christmas in the new house.

Oh, the world is set right again! . . .

"I'll not have a Yankee soldier for a son-in-law," Cooper shouted at his wife after the young man spoke his rehearsed speech, took Cooper's abuse and left, disappointed and noticeably pale. "I'll get the authorities on him. There is some legal way to undo it."

"There's no practical way," Judith said. "Your daughter spent two nights with him in Savannah."

"Madeline's to blame."

"No one's to blame. Young people fall in love."

"Not my only child, not with carpetbagging carrion." Saying that he'd spend the night in his office at the shipping company, he stormed out.

About one in the morning, a knock woke Judith. She found Cooper on the stoop. Two acquaintances had brought him home from the Mills House saloon bar, where he'd drunk bourbon whiskey most of the evening.

He had then made insulting remarks to an Army major and probably would have attacked him if all the whiskey hadn't come heaving up suddenly.

The apologetic gentlemen carried Judith's limp and reeking husband upstairs. She followed with the lamp. She saw the gentlemen out.

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then undressed and washed Cooper, and sat by him until he woke, about half past two. His first words, after a few groans, stunned her:

"Let her lie in that dirty bed she's made with the Yankee. I'll not open the doors to this house to her, ever again."

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She burst out crying, angry tears. "Cooper, this is too much. You're carrying your stupid partisanship to ridiculous lengths. I refuse to be separated from my own child. I'll see her whenever I wish."

"Not here," he yelled. "I'll give orders to the servants, and you'd better not defy them. I no longef have a daughter."

He flung the cover off and skidded across the polished floor to be sick in a basin. Judith bent her head in misery.

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He sat in the chair at the rear of the third box, stage right. He chose the seat to avoid the spill of the stage lights. He didn't want her to see him until the moment he chose.

She lay on a divan upstage. The pillow used to smother her had fallen on the floor. Once he detected an unprofessional flicker of her eyelids. Her silver-blond hair, full to her shoulders, shone with the lovely luster he remembered. He felt no affection for her. His left hand, palm down, worked along his left thigh, as if the motion somehow could restore the severed muscle that had left him unable to leap nimbly in stage duels or perform romantic roles convincingly.

"Then you must speak of one that lov'd not wisely but too well--"

Trump's blackamoor make-up ran from the heat of the stage. It ran in distinct streaks, so that his face resembled zebra skin. Though he ranted to excess, the observer thought he did a generally creditable job.

In fact, for a provincial effort, the production was quite good. Good, that is, in every respect but the performance of Trump's Desdemona.

She was clearly having an off night.

The man in the box found himself unexpectedly entertaining the thought that Trump's Othello might be a passable importation for a three week slot still open at the New Knickerbocker. With a new leading lady--Mrs. Parker would be in no shape to perform, ever again. He slipped his hand into his left pocket and reassuringly felt what New York toughs called a dock rat's drinking jewelry. Horseshoe nails, bent into finger rings.

"/ took by th' throat the circumcised dog, and smote him--thus."

Sam Trump impaled himself on the prop dagger, staggering this way, then the other, his hand clenched aloft to indicate mortal pain.

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Mr. Trueblood, playing Lodovico, cheated down in order to regain the stage and cried, "O bloody period!"

Almost over; four speeches more. Then the important part of the evening's drama would commence.

"... no way but this," Sam cried, and fell on Willa with unusual vigor. It knocked the breath out of her, hurt her ribs and almost made her eyes fly open. She shifted under his sweaty weight, hissing through closed lips:

"Sam, your knee--"

"Killing myself, to die upon a kiss." His head and torso rose and slumped a second time. Sam did love to prolong his stage deaths.

She heard Lodovico corner the Spartan dog, Iago, and threaten him with torture for his plotting. "... Myself will straight abroad, and, to the state, this heavy act with heavy heart relate."

The interval before the curtain thumped down seemed endless. Sam inadvertently kneed Willa's stomach as he struggled to his feet, the blackface dripping from his chin. "Are you ill, my dear? It was not good tonight." He jumped away without waiting for her answer. "Places for the call. Places!"

She bowed from her spot in line, again glimpsing the house, scarcely a third full. Very poor, even for the month of January. The curtain fell.

Sam looked hopefully toward the curtain puller, anticipating a second call, but the applause was already gone. The actors walked offstage without saying much to each other. Everyone knew they'd been down.