Charleston (20 page)

A meeting of the Fortnightly Club brought some of Edgar's like-minded friends to the Battery. These included Mr. Petigru and Mr. Grimké, fellow attorneys; banker Marburg; the stout and stentorian Judge Beaufurt Porcher, retired from the bench but still handing down opinions; Mr. Poinsett, who had given Cassandra an exotic Christmas plant with brilliant red leaves, discovered while he served as America's first minister to Mexico. It was a balmy spring evening, so the members gathered on the piazza. Despite the presence of biting midges,
5

⁵
Today we call these unpopular creatures no-see-ums. The term, supposedly of Indian origin, entered the language in the mid-1840s.

“You don't want to be a dumbbell, do you? You want to know what's going on, don't you?” Alex said no, and yes, but she really wanted to run off and practice the banjo. Edgar had forbidden it while he entertained.

Judge Porcher presented the evening program, a review and commentary on something called the
South Carolina Exposition and Protest,
printed in Columbia and endorsed by the legislature last December. “An ably reasoned document, gentlemen, though pernicious in one respect. Its author puts forth his arguments but withholds his name. Washington swirls with rumors that Jackson suspects his own vice president, Mr. Calhoun of Fort Hill and Pendleton. Doubts of Calhoun's loyalty to the Union have thus arisen, together with suspicions that he is protecting his
good name because of well-known presidential ambitions. Such dissembling sadly soils the record of a man who for so long was the Union's steadfast promoter and defender.”

A lantern on a small table lit the judge's perspiring face. “Calhoun now interposes himself between state and Federal governments. He continues to stand against internal improvements, characterizing them as schemes to benefit Northern industry at the expense of Southern agriculture. The so-called tariff of abominations is of course a particular target. On major issues Mr. Calhoun is less and less a national man, more and more a man of narrowing provincialism, not to say isolation.” The judge's vocal volume steadily increased, until Alex imagined that people could hear him in Broad Street.

“Inspired by the
Exposition and Protest,
which does not in itself advocate antigovernment violence, those less moderate are thumping strange new tubs and tooting dangerous new horns. I hear a cry of ‘disunion,' a term lately coined by Mr. Turnbull. I hear, in reference to Federal laws deemed unfair to South Carolina, a call for ‘nullification' of those laws, by the very author of that term, our esteemed governor, Mr. Hamilton. Many moderate men abhor these clamors, while hotter heads utter them as threats. I speak not of crazed nobodies, but of respected, educated men, including the governor, and the fiery Mr. Rhett, whose
Mercury
newspaper has the ear of the public.”

Sunk in his chair, Thomas Grimké muttered unhappily, “He's my cousin.”

“You may add our own Congressman Lark,” Edgar said. “God alone knows why the electorate chose that self-serving coxcomb for Congress.” Ayes and hear-hears sounded in the soft darkness. The judge seconded Edgar's comment and continued.

“The
Exposition and Protest
pushes us all that much farther down the road to a national schism. Men of sense and propriety must stand up and declare themselves in opposition, lest our beloved state go too far and lead us to the unthinkable. Those who threaten disunion do not understand the potentially sanguinary consequences of that which they so blithely promote. But
that is another topic. I entertain your questions and responses.”

The guests applauded. Crouched on the floor by the window, Alex asked Ham the meaning of
schism
. “A split, a division. What it means to the judge is trouble. Terrible trouble.”

 

On a bright and breezy April day Miss Fancher suffered a toothache and sent her pupils home at noon. An hour later a runner for Buckles & Bell brought a summons from Edgar. Would Alex come to the office and bring Maudie? Alex tossed aside her trowel, stomped out of the garden, and went to make herself presentable.

She and Maudie reached the office within the hour. At seventeen Maudie had ripened into a gorgeous young woman. Alex envied her figure. Wherever Maudie went, she attracted attention from men of both races. She was now a house servant, because Alex had insisted she no longer needed or wanted a personal slave. The two of them remained best friends.

They found Edgar and the cheerfully obese Argyll Buckles with two visitors. Edgar presented a tall, lean man with russet chin whiskers. “Mr. Anson Riddle, of Columbia, and his son, Richard.” Riddle and son sprang from their chairs. The young man's hat tumbled off his lap. He grabbed for it, but it rolled across the floor and fell against a cuspidor.

“And this is my daughter, Alexandra, and Maudie, one of our house girls.”

Richard Riddle mumbled, “How do you do?” Alex had never seen such an unpromising youth. As tall as his father, he was a weed that had grown too fast. His dull brown coatee fit badly; two inches of linen hung out at the cuffs. He had a prominent Adam's apple and a horrid skin problem. His eyes were his only attractive feature; large and brown, speckled with gold, they reminded her of a cat's.

“Mr. Riddle owns a freight company,” Edgar explained. “His Conestoga wagons haul cotton for several planters in the midlands. He is searching for a factor to represent the
group, and Bell's Bridge is under consideration. While we discuss the matter, would you and Maudie entertain Richard? Maudie will chaperone them,” he assured Mr. Riddle. “Please return by half past four, Alex.” Alex felt put upon. The floor creaked under Argyll Buckles as he showed them the door.

“What would you like to do, Mr. Riddle?” Alex said in the anteroom. “I can show you the town. Or we could go for a sail, out to the new fort.”

“Either would be fine.” Alex rolled her eyes. Had she said they could stand on their heads for an hour, he'd probably find that fine too.

“A sail, then. The boat's at Bell's Bridge. Follow me.” She marched out.

Maudie caught up, whispering. “Not room for three in the skiff.”

“I'm sure you'll find someone to talk to while we're gone.” Maudie grinned and covered her mouth. A certain young stevedore with skin like black ivory had taken notice of Maudie recently.

Bell's Bridge swarmed with men loading cotton bales onto a Liverpool steamer. A slave helped Alex down the slippery stairs to the little blue-bottomed skiff, then the visitor. “Have you sailed before?” Alex asked.

“I'm afraid not.”

“Then please sit there and follow orders.”

She gauged the tide and the offshore wind, then hoisted her skirts to step over Richard. She cast off the bowline, clambered back to the stern, and cast off there. As the tide bore them away from the stairs, she called thanks to the black man and raised the sail. She handed the boom line to Richard. “Keep that taut and cleat it when I tell you.”

“Cleat it?”

“That's a cleat, there, on the gunwale.” She stifled a comment about the lumpy mess he made of tying the line.

The sail snapped, caught the wind, and filled. They sped into the channel. Alex pushed her flying hair out of her eyes and kicked off her shoes. Richard looked startled. “I suggest you put your hat under the thwart unless you want
it to cross the Atlantic,” she said. He didn't understand
thwart
. “What you're sitting on.”

“Oh.”

Alex was a good sailor. She maneuvered the skiff between larger vessels coming and going. Soon they were skimming across the harbor, making for three barges anchored at the site of the new fort. The day was so fair and invigorating, the water so gloriously bright with silver sparkles, Alex's mood soon improved.

“They've been planning the fort for two years, but they've only just gotten started.”

“Does it have a name?”

“It'll be called Sumter, after the general.”

“Why does Charleston need another fort?”

“To defend the harbor, I suppose.”

“Against who?”

“I'm sure I don't know. Papa's friend Judge Porcher says politicians never explain, they just spend money. If they're forced to explain, it's mostly lies. May I ask your age, Mr. Riddle?”

“Seventeen. Won't you call me Richard?”

“All right, Richard.”

“Is it impertinent to ask how old you are?”

“Fifteen.”

He struggled for a compliment. “Really. You're very…tall.”

“Yes, and I don't like it. Put your head down, we're coming about.” She did it so quickly, she nearly brained him with the boom.

She brought them close to the barges. Two surveyors stood ankle deep on the shoal, using a theodolite on a tripod. Negro workmen transferred granite blocks from the barge to the start of a foundation wall. Three white men, noncommissioned army artificers, bossed the work gang. Richard listened carefully to Alex's comments about the work but made none of his own. When she thought it time to leave, they sailed back in silence. His poor blotchy skin oozed and glistened in the sunshine. She felt sorry for him. Boys and girls had to suffer that while maturing, though girls had other burdens as well. Fortunately Alex was
sturdy, never forced to halt her activities and rush to bed with cramps once a month.

After tying up she put on her shoes and searched for Maudie, whom she found behind a rampart of cotton bales, chatting and laughing with her handsome malingering stevedore. On the way to the law office Maudie remained a respectful two steps behind Alex and the visitor.

Near the alley leading to the office the young man cleared his throat. “Let me thank you for that interesting trip. I enjoyed your company. I wish”—it took him a moment to bring out the rest—“I do wish I could call on you.”

“Well, I don't live in the midlands, and I don't expect to visit, so I guess you can't.”

He smiled in a shy way. “You surely don't talk like ordinary girls, Miss Bell.”

“Because I'm not like ordinary girls. I can introduce you to plenty of those.”

“No, thank you. I'd rather have your company.”

“If you were around me a lot, you probably wouldn't like me. I have only one male friend, and he's a Negro.”

“Reckon he knows a good thing, whatever the color.”

For once she didn't know how to reply. She stepped into the alley ahead of him, experiencing a curious mix of annoyance and pleasure.

They found Riddle, Edgar, and Argyll Buckles concluding their discussion. Edgar promised a written proposal in a few days. After Richard enthusiastically described the sail to his father, Alex said good-bye to the visitors. When Richard shook her hand, he gave her a piercing look with those luminous, flecked eyes. It made her spine tingle oddly.

As she and Maudie trooped homeward along East Bay, Maudie said, “Looked to me like you didn't care for that boy too much.”

“Funny thing is, right at the end, I did. Well, he's gone.” She tossed her head, her unpinned hair flying. “There are other fish in the sea.”

“That's true, but I recollect you never go fishing. Fact is, you hate fishing.”

“You're too smart for your own good, Maudie.”

Maudie laughed and they walked on.

The midland cotton planters rejected Edgar's proposed fees as too costly. Anson Riddle and son disappeared from the lives of the Bells. In a few weeks Alex forgot her visitor.

The Bell family's box pew at St. Michael's was third from the front on the left side of the aisle as you faced the altar. Here the family had worshiped since Tom Bell's time.

Somehow the parvenu Crittenden Lark managed to buy a pew across the aisle and one row back. On a Sunday of clouds and drizzle the congressman appeared in his finery—high collar, canary vest, garishly checked fawn trousers, violet-blue coat—with his wife, Sophie, and his son by a previous marriage, Folsey, who was a friend of Gibbes Bell.

Sophie was Lark's second wife. His first, deceased, had been a von Schreck, of good social standing. That couldn't be said of the former Sophie See, a voluptuous creature whom Lark obviously had not married for her brains or pedigree. Sophie's father raised pigs near Orangeburg. When Sophie snared Lark, she put her low origins behind her and pretended to be wellborn. She still had not convinced the Charleston elite, who joked about it, but never in Crittenden Lark's presence, fearing his temper. Whenever the Larks attended church, Alex fancied she felt a burning on her neck, as though the heat of their animosity was a physical thing.

After the service Edgar and his family slipped out a side door to the churchyard, where they bowed their heads
over Joanna's grave and the empty casket beneath Edward's stone. Edgar knelt on the wet grass, tearful.

The family left by the churchyard's beautiful iron gates, each with a great funeral urn worked into the design. On the street Alex saw Congressman Lark standing on the step of his black landau, waiting for someone. “I have something to say to you, Edgar,” Lark called.

Cassandra squeezed Alex's hand. Edgar confronted Lark calmly. On the carriage step Lark had an advantage of height. “I understand from a friend that you lately referred to me as a coxcomb.”

Edgar didn't resort to lies or evasion. He gazed at Lark steadily. “And so?”

“If I hear of it again, I'll forget my congressional oath to uphold the law and demand satisfaction. Nothing would make me happier. The Lark family has a long memory. Keep it in mind next time you're inclined to babble.”

He flung himself into the landau, where Alex glimpsed the venomous faces of Mrs. Lark and Folsey. The congressman rapped the carriage roof, the team lunged forward, and the wheels threw off a fan of brown water from a puddle. Cassandra exclaimed and leapt back, soaked and muddied from waist to forehead. Alex's father looked mad enough to kill. Almost as mad as the congressman.

 

“Papa, what's the tariff?”

Edgar looked up from the ledger, his face carved into planes of light and shadow by the hanging lantern. He'd gone to Bell's Bridge to examine the books first thing that morning; Cassandra said shipments had fallen dangerously low. When St. Michael's rang two o'clock, Cassandra dispatched Alex with a dinner sack of cold chicken, cold roasted sweet potatoes, an orange, and Edgar's favorite, benne-seed cookies. Alex hated to see her father sitting in the gloomy little office with the burlap curtain drawn over the only window. He looked haggard.

Edgar laid down his quill and folded his inky hands. “Why do you ask?”

“I hear about it all the time. It's in the air like the gnats in July. Miss Fancher talks about it, though she can't explain it. I don't understand why everyone's on fire about it.”

He thought a moment. “A tariff is a special tax imposed when imported goods arrive in this country. It adds to the price of the import. If I'm a New York factory owner manufacturing the same goods, I can sell mine more cheaply. A high import duty protects my market and my profits. But if no one makes those goods here, and we in South Carolina need them, we pay a higher price because of the import duty. Calhoun believes the game is rigged in favor of Northern businessmen. It's a complicated question.”

“But must I think about it?”

He rubbed a thumb over his face, leaving an ink smudge. “Not at your age. The politicians are happy to do it. Some of their ideas may be useful. Some may prove dangerous. The concept of nullifying an unpopular law, for instance. Mr. Calhoun is the foremost exponent, though he prefers to call it a state veto. He contends it's a peaceful way to settle sectional issues such as the tariff. Hotheads like our governor take it to dangerous extremes. Their position is no tariff or no Union.”

He saw her attention stray to a tiny spider motionless on a corner of his desk. He rattled the sack. “Have another cookie and we'll discuss this another time.”

“No, that's all right, I understand,” she exclaimed, though she didn't. She kissed and hugged him and ran out with the cookie.

 

Images of Virtue and Lydia troubled her dreams. Even at home slavery seemed ever present, like some invisible taint in the air.

She told Henry. He suggested she talk with someone outside her family. Edgar openly opposed radical action to protect the institution, but he kept slaves, and that was true of most of his liberal friends such as Judge Porcher. Thus the only person Alex could think of was Thomas Grimké's sister Angelina.

She addressed a note to Miss Grimké, whom she'd seen about town but never met. She carried the note to the Grimké town house on Church Street herself. A sense of disloyalty plagued her. She knew she was taking a rash step, but conscience compelled it.

A week passed before she received a reply to the note. Cleverly, it was delivered to Miss Fancher's. Classmates shrieked that Alex had a beau. “Oh, one or two,” she said in a flip way. Her heart beat fast, but it had nothing to do with romance.

Miss Grimké would be pleased to visit with her. She suggested a time and place.

 

The Quaker meetinghouse on King Street at Queen was as plain as the people who worshiped there. Miss Grimké answered when Alex knocked at the piazza door. “Welcome, Miss Bell. Come sit, be comfortable, and share your concerns. We needn't speak in the formal, Biblical way of the Quakers.” Alex was grateful and immediately at ease.

She guessed Angelina Grimké to be about twenty-five. Delicately built, she nevertheless gave an impression of strength. Dark curls framed a face few would call pretty, but Alex found it so, perhaps because Miss Grimké's blue eyes conveyed great warmth. She wore Quaker garb: a simple gray dress without ornament; a white lawn fichu draped over her shoulders and pinned at her bosom. She led Alex to a semicircle of hard chairs. They sat with one chair between, the better to see each other.

Alex began by mentioning her family. Miss Grimké said, “I am acquainted with your parents. People of fine reputation. My brother, Thomas, regards your father highly. Let us speed to the point. Your missive hinted at disquiet in your soul.”

“It's the slaves. I see what's done to them. How they're forced to live, with no one caring, or even protesting. My father's a good, decent man, but he will never treat Negroes as equals. He says they're inferior.”

“My dear brother believes that. His only remedy is re
colonization in Africa. He belongs to a society that promotes it. I find it no answer at all, merely a lesser injustice. In some respects women, too, are enslaved. When my sister, Sarah, was a girl, she loved learning. She longed to emulate our brother, Thomas, and train for the law. When she spoke of it, she was ridiculed. What she desired was not possible for a woman. Not allowed. Women are prisoners of men's rules and men's laws.”

“How did you come to such views in Charleston, Miss Grimké?”

“By taking a long, slow, often painful journey. Sarah took it first, quite by chance. Our father fell ill. She went with him to Philadelphia to consult a certain physician. Nothing could be done for him, and he grew weak. Sarah tended him for several months at the New Jersey shore, until he succumbed. By then Sarah had seen differences between Charleston and the North, and they tore her soul. She joined the Society of Friends. Her life changed. When she returned to visit, she quietly began my own conversion.”

“You were a member of the established church?”

“Which left many of my questions unanswered, or failed to address them altogether. Simple questions. Why, for example, was a poor slave not given netting in mosquito season, so that he might sleep comfortably, as his master did? In hope of enlightenment I converted to the Presbyterian faith. I taught a Bible class. One of my pupils was a child of a superintendent at the workhouse. I went there to grade her papers. I saw the sinful cruelties of the place. Men and women laboring like beasts on the treadmill.”

“I have heard of that machine.”

“I hope your eyes will never be afflicted with the sight, but it's well that you know of it.” With a shiver of dread Alex laced her hands in her lap.

Miss Grimké's gaze fixed on some distant point. “In the small building behind the workhouse the treadmill grinds corn. The treadmill is a large vertical wooden drum with steps. Six Negroes tread it at one time. Six more Negroes wait on a bench. Every half minute a bell rings. The man or woman on the left of the wheel steps off, the others shift
position, and a new person steps on at the right. Those waiting on the bench likewise shift to the left with each change. Thus no one rests during the entire eight hours of their punishment. The edges of the steps knock their legs and only the most agile can avoid eventual injury as they get on and off. If they lag or falter, a black driver with a cowhide whips them. The treadmill is an instrument of the devil.”

Alex couldn't speak. She dabbed her brow with a white kerchief. Even Miss Grimké seemed agitated as she resumed.

“I found my Presbyterian pastor, Reverend McDowell, a wise and enlightened man who loathed slavery as I do. He was powerless to do anything about it within the framework of the local church. Two years ago, dissatisfied again, I felt a call to become a Quaker. It is a faith that promotes equality and justice. It is the only sect permitting women to be ministers. I have never regretted my decision, not even when members of my own family questioned my sanity.”

She reached across the empty chair to press Alex's hand. “This you must know above all. No matter how visible and flagrant the sins of slavery, one person can do nothing. Reverend McDowell concluded as much, and I concur. That is why I shall do what sister Sarah did and escape.”

“Leave Charleston?”

“Both for my own well-being and to bear witness. There is a wonderful book by a Quaker gentleman who lived more than a half century ago in New Jersey. John Woolman was his name. One line he wrote seared itself into my mind. John Woolman said, ‘Conduct is more convincing than language.' That is why I am going.”

“You really believe there's no help for the slaves?”

“Not in this city or this state. I say it with a heavy heart. Charleston is my home, and many of its people are dear to me despite everything.”

“Then what am I to do, Miss Grimké? I have the same doubts as you. What am I to do?” Uncontrollably, she burst into tears.

Angelina Grimké slid to the empty chair and comforted her. “I'm sorry if I upset you. Your question can only be answered in the lonely depths of conscience, and I would not wish that painful examination on any living soul, unless it is freely undertaken.”

Alex gulped and wiped her eyes. She heard a clock ticking somewhere. The familiar sound calmed her. She apologized for crying. Miss Grimké dismissed it. Alex stood.

“I have taken too much time.” The truth was, she was so upset by what she'd heard, she could stand no more.

Miss Grimké helped her to the door. “I believe you have a good heart, Alexandra. It will lead you to answers for your questions. Come again if your struggle inclines you to do so. I will not remove to the North for some time yet.”

“Yes, thank you, I will.” Alex had no intention of returning. She'd approached Miss Grimké in hopes of damping fires of doubt. Instead, she'd been thrown into a pit where they burned hotter.

She stumbled to the street, blinded by sunlight and unbidden tears. What if someone saw her coming from the meetinghouse? Well, what could she do about it? Something in her almost wished it would happen.

She went to bed before sunset. Cassandra came in to touch her forehead and ask if she were ill. Alex said no, though she feared she had a disease without a cure. She lay awake listening to a nightjar in the garden, and to Angelina Grimké's voice.
Conduct is more convincing than language.

Passage of time lessened the shock of her experience. She was able to recall what Miss Grimké had said without reacting emotionally. She went by herself to Marburg's shop, taking a bit of her hoarded Christmas money. She asked the clerk whom she knew to order a copy of John Woolman's book, making him promise to tell no one.