A Southern Girl (47 page)

“I returned to Alger,” she continues. “I showed him the passage and asked if this could be what he had remembered, obviously inaccurately. He nodded and said that yes, he had read Beauregard’s biography, that he had forgotten about the St. Simeon slight, but that he was reasonably sure the man he was thinking about had been invited, not excluded. That was what made it memorable. So I went back to work.”

Gradually, word by word, gesture by gesture, Margarite’s hoax is being revealed as something genuine, although whether goodwill lies behind the honest effort I cannot yet say. I am like a cynic who comes to a play, a tragedy, fully braced for the dramatic artifices by which an accomplished actress will draw me into her fictional predicament, only to discover, or be convinced, that her distress is real, but unwilling to depart from my role as skeptic for fear of being made the fool. The truth is on the stage, the lie among the audience. Or is it?

“But,” she continues, “Beauregard, being from New Orleans and therefore a foreigner as far as Charlestonians were concerned, inspired me to consider other prominent visitors, and that is where I struck gold.” She leaves the hearth and walks to a shelf, from which she takes an old book, handing it to me with an expression of triumph.

I open it to the title page:
The Life and Times of the Marquis de Lafayette.
The author is French, and the translation is by one Maurice Poultet.

“Go to the bookmark,” she instructs.

On page 341, there appears the following:

Nowhere along his grand farewell tour of America did Lafayette encounter more raw, raucous congeniality than in Charleston, the port
city in the state of South Carolina. Lavishly praised, wondrously feted, Lafayette was touched beyond words according to Mr. Timothy Ford, one of his many hosts during his stay in the city its natives call ‘Holy.’ Parades preceded receptions followed by dinners, more speeches, honorary titles and gifts of the finest silver and china available anywhere, inundating the aging Frenchman with riches to the point of embarrassment. If, as he had heard, Charleston’s Tory sympathies at the outset of the war were stronger than those held in Richmond or Philadelphia, they had, by 1824, dissipated beyond recognition, supplanted by a nationalism unrivalled during the old man’s tour.

In that his stay coincided with an annual gala held by the Society of St. Simeon, he was accorded an invitation delivered personally with great fanfare by Mr. Joseph Keenan, president. Lafayette attended the ball, reporting to his hosts at that time a ‘glorious evening of formal dancing, lovely ladies and memorable spirits,’ although, as he later learned, his invitation was attended by no small amount of internal dissension within the Society and harsh words among some members owing to an exclusivity rigidly enforced.

“Holy Pete,” I say, looking up to find her waiting expectantly.

“Fascinating, isn’t it? When I read the part about internal dissension and harsh words I almost fell out of my chair. Nothing has changed since 1824.”

“Except they issued him the invitation,” I remind her. “Wouldn’t you love to have been a fly on the wall of that meeting?”

“In a way, I became one.”

“How?” I am increasingly impressed by her diligence.

“Another book, this one an autobiography of Randolph Manigault. I found it among all those dusty tomes in the Historical Society library. Since I now knew the year, my search was narrowed to men active in St. Simeon at that time. He turned out to be one of the few who published his memoirs.”

I close the book, resting it in my lap. “Are you about to tell me he was present during the harsh words?”

Margarite beams. “I am. If you’ll put another log on our fire I’ll get Daniel to fix me another drink. Would you like one?”

“Maybe later.” I have finished my chore before she returns with her glass.

“Where was I?” she asks.

“About to give me Manigault’s account of the meeting.”

“Oh, yes. It must have been fierce, this meeting. Invitations had gone out weeks before, of course, long before Lafayette’s arrival. A few members voiced opposition to issuing a late invitation as socially unacceptable, but this appears from Manigault’s account to have been a minor flap. The majority—there were nine people there for the debate although he doesn’t identify the others—felt that because no one knew Lafayette’s schedule with any certainty before his arrival, the hasty invitation was excusable.”

“So that was the easy part,” I say.

“Compared to what followed, a virtual walk in the park. Apparently, the lines were drawn early, with each side represented by a powerful man whom, as I said, Manigault does not name. The majority cited Lafayette’s service to America, the toll the war took on his personal fortune, and one other very practical fact: On the night of the ball, everyone who was anyone in Charleston, including Lafayette’s hosts, would be attending, leaving an unexplained void in his schedule. The spokesman for the majority pointed up the risk of Lafayette finding out where everyone was and taking offense at being excluded, for which you could hardly blame him. This observation seems to have carried a lot of weight.”

“I can guess where the cons were coming from,” I say dryly.

“Their leader—I’m determined to find out who he was—made every argument I heard when Allie’s request was being considered. He talked about heritage of blood, about homogeneous societies, about the privileges that are reserved for those who bear the responsibilities of leadership, a slant on noblesse oblige.”

“I can hear him now,” I say, and I can. “All to no avail.”

“He won a small victory,” she corrects, “important to Allie’s cause. He insisted after the vote that because Lafayette was about to become the first exception in the Society’s history, a rule be passed embracing it. He therefore proposed what Manigault calls the Lafayette exemption and,” she says after a meaningful pause, “it passed.”

“I’ll be damned,” I say. “Does Manigault record the exemption?”

She does not answer but instead reaches into the zippered pocket of her running suit, extracting a folded piece of paper. “I knew you’d need this so I copied it verbatim. It says, ‘Special invitations to the annual gala may be extended from time to time by a majority vote to foreigners of royal descent or distinguished birth.’”

“That seems like odd phrasing,” I say.

“Not if you read Manigault’s account. I tried to check the book out, incidentally, but you know the library’s policy on reserves. The leader of the cons, whomever he was, feared that a single exemption, adopted for a celebrated individual without criteria or guidelines, would inevitably lead to exemptions, first for lesser notables than Lafayette, and then for people who were merely friends of committee members, notable for little else.”

“Without a policy the floodgates would open. I can see that.”

“A better choice, they decided, and this seems to have been almost unanimous, would be a policy that would appear to encompass others besides Lafayette but in fact would not, absent the most unusual circumstances.”

“Incredible,” I say, taking the paper from her and turning toward the light. “I wonder if anyone has come within this exception since Lafayette?”

“That,” she says smiling, “I’ll leave you to research. Now, given what we’ve learned, I need to ask a question. How much do you know about Allie’s birth?”

“Less than ‘the biologicals’, as Allie calls them,” I deadpan. One response seems as good as another to a question plumbing an imponderable, not that I haven’t plumbed it over the years. Life’s disasters have a way of rushing at you, nailing you violently against a high wall with your feet flailing helplessly and your senses crazed. But the miracles steal upon you softly with padded steps, opening before you like a flower. I look again at the wording of the Lafayette exemption as Margarite sits patiently by. “We know little,” I confess. “Remarkably little.”

She calmly accepts this. “I assumed as much, in that I had never heard it mentioned. Do you suppose there is any way to find out?”

“I doubt it. So much time, records probably destroyed—it would be almost impossible. We had such scant information when we got her.”

“Maybe they knew more than they shared.”

“It’s possible,” I admit.

“The important thing is that a documented precedent exists. It seems better than nothing, although perhaps that’s simply wishful thinking on my part.”

I stare at her, the actor in the audience baffled. All thoughts of calling her hand have fled, yet doubt lingers. Her research has been arduous and fruitful, miles beyond the sop I anticipated. That the uncovered loophole is tiny, an eyelet where an adit is demanded, cannot be charged to Margarite. Still, the very scantiness of the hole confirms the stoutness of the dike; in two-hundred-plus years a single exception has been documented, and that in favor of a universally acclaimed war hero and not without controversy. If anything, the odds have shown themselves lengthened.

“Margarite, I’ve got to hand it to you. What you’ve come up with may not be enough but it beats what I was able to do. Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me. My guilt over this entire thing was motivation enough. And I don’t intend to stop here. I’m going to pull out every stop I can between now and the Ball, so don’t give up hope. Those shall we say ‘less foresighted’ members of my Board will hear more from me.”

Driving home, I am more perplexed than ever, vacillating evenly between tracking down Alger Hart to verify her account and welcoming her back into the void inside me since sniffing betrayal. I am both heartened and discouraged, buoyed and deflated. But whatever my outlook, the inescapable reality looms just weeks ahead: Allie will be excluded unless I act.

I pull the car to the curb of South Battery and turn off the engine. The night is fair and mild and the breeze at the top of the seawall clears my head. A quarter moon is rising over the ocean, slivering the top of whitecaps like shards of china. Perhaps, I think, I am making too much of this Ball business. Sarah said it best when she reminded me that from Allie’s first day with us, even before she arrived, we knew she would face limits. In fact, she has faced damn few, and this the biggest. But why fight it? Is one evening of her life going to alter the path of success she has so nimbly trod? Is there a single sinew in her well-toned body that will snap at this rejection? Not a chance, I reassure. I’ll tell her so in just those words. And Natalie Berman too.

Natalie. What is it about her that simultaneously repels and attracts? This is her business only to the extent she has made it so, yet something in me seeks to justify itself in her eyes. I owe her nothing, less than nothing
in light of the trouble she has made, but how much better I would feel if she acquiesced in the wisdom of surrender to the inevitable. She won’t, I tell myself leaning over the railing, feeling the chill of the metal penetrate my shirt and forearms. Her type never sees a controversy they wouldn’t be better off in the center of. So why worry about her?

I think back to Allie’s retreat from Elizabeth’s grave, my banging on her door, and the chill between us since. Suppose she refuses to accept this limit like she has disdained so many others? I have long suspected she holds Elizabeth’s penchant for war more dear than mine for peace. I know, as surely as I stand here gazing toward the coast of North Africa, that I cannot risk her further disappointment in me. Natalie Berman may curse me to her content, but Allie must love and respect me as she always has and kiss me on the head when she leaves.

I turn, leap from the seawall to the pavement, and rush back to my car. At home, I look for the file from Open Arms. I haven’t seen it in years, but locate it among some old financial records. From the Open Arms letterhead, I get the number for its headquarters in Minneapolis. I don’t expect anyone to answer at this time of night, but I can at least leave a message. Someone does answer, mistaking me for a telemarketer until I explain. I’ve reached the Gunderson residence and no, they’ve never heard of the agency. I call information. No listing. Open Arms has apparently closed its doors. Then, I remember Mr. Quan’s brother, the only contact I can think of in Seoul. There is but one alternative to Natalie Berman and her scorched earth, and that is the slender reed just held out by Margarite. It may collapse of its own weight, but I will lean on it until it does. At least it is something. I drive off.

Mr. Quan is seated at his usual place near the back when I enter. He hails me over, but appears to sense in my stride or the stiffness of my greeting a business purpose to this visit. In his apartment, I relate Margarite’s research and my failure to contact a working number for Open Arms. I explain the need to find the Korean Children’s Home.

“There’s no address in the file.”

He takes out a pen, jots down the name, and says, “I will call my brother. He will find it. You require only an address?”

“I’d love to know if they have files going as far back as 1978.”

“I will tell him my best customer and a future employee must know. He will understand a need like that.”

I thank him and return home. It is not much, but it is something, I tell myself as I climb the stairs to render to Allie a report of my evening.

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