'Lordy.'
Constance had telegraphed ahead. A groom was there with a carriage. She didn't miss the brief change in his expression when he realized Brown and the children were her companions.
The rig rattled up the inclined street. The two little girls squealed and hugged Brown as the wind ruffled their hair and clothes. Pinckney Herbert waved from the door of his store, but the faces of some other citizens, notably a discharged Hazard's employee named Lute Fessenden, showed hostility. Giving the youngsters a murderous stare, Fessenden whispered to a companion as the carriage passed.
Western light poured over the mansion at the summit. Brett was waiting on the veranda, together with a woman Constance didn't recognize until they were in the driveway. The carnage stopped; Constance alighted and ran up the steps. 'Virgilia? How lovely you look! I can't believe my eyes.'
'It's the handiwork of our sister-in-law,' Virgilia said, nodding toward Brett. She spoke as if the change were unimportant, but a vivacity in her expression gave her away.
Constance marveled. Virgilia's dress of rust-colored silk with lace cuffs flattered her figure, which loss of a great deal of weight had reshaped into voluptuous, billowy curves. Her hair, neatly bunned at the back of her head, gleamed with a cleanliness Constance had never seen before. There was color in Virgilia's cheeks, but rouge and powder had been applied subtly and expertly; they rendered her old scars nearly invisible. Virgilia would never qualify as a pretty woman, but she had become a handsome one.
'I'm neglecting my duties,' Constance said. She performed introductions, and in a few sentences explained why she had brought Scipio Brown and the children to Belvedere.
Brett was polite to Brown, but cool; nor had he missed her accent. Constance watched Virgilia's eye draw a languorous line from Brown's face to his chest. He quickly busied himself with the children, kneeling and fussing over them. Seeing Brown embarrassed was a new experience for Constance. Recalling Virgilia's fondness for Negro men, she realized George's sister had not changed in certain fundamental respects.
The visitors were taken into the house, fed, and settled for the night. Next morning, while Virgilia looked after the children and vainly tried to draw Leander into conversation, Constance and Brown drove to the main gate of Hazard's and up to the remote site of the shed that had functioned for a time as a stop on the underground railroad to Canada.
Brown poked around inside, then came out. 'With some fixing, it will be perfect.' They discussed specifics while they drove back down to the gate. Workers respectfully stepped out of the way of the carriage, but most registered silent disapproval of a black man appearing in public with the owner's wife.
By noon they had spoken with Wotherspoon, and he had dispatched men to knock out one wall of the shed and patch and whitewash the other three. Late in the day, Constance and Brown went to check on progress. The head of the painting crew, a middle-aged fellow named Abraham Fouts, had worked for Hazard's fifteen years. Always friendly, this afternoon he merely gave Constance a nod and no greeting. That night, while the adults and children ate supper, someone threw a stone through the front window.
Leander spun toward the noise, tense as a cat whose whiskers touched something threatening in the dark. Virgilia rose in wrath. To the surprise of George's wife, it was Brown who sounded a note of tolerance.
'Some of that's to be expected when a man like me comes into a house like this — and through the front door.'
'That's true, Mr. Brown,' Brett responded. It was not said unkindly, but it produced an angry glance from the visitor. Tired all at once, Constance realized she had overlooked a potential problem here. Brown couldn't be expected to like Southerners any more than a South Carolina native could readily accept a black at the dinner table.
Up early, she drove alone to the shed, arriving simultaneously with Abraham Fouts and his crew of four. Fouts and a second man suppressed smirks at the sight of big, crude letters someone had slashed onto the side of the shed with black paint: WE ARE FOR THE WAR BUT WE AINT FOR THE NIGGER.
Saddened and angry, Constance hoisted her skirts and stormed to the wall. She rubbed her thumb across the last letters as if to sripe them out. They were dry. 'Mr. Fouts, please paint over this obscenity till it can't be seen. If the message or anything like it appears again, you will do the same thing, and keep doing it until the nastiness stops or this building collapses under a hundred coats of whitewash.'
The pale man poked nervously at his upper lip. 'They's a lot of talk about this place among the men, Miz Hazard. They say it's gonna be some kind of home for nigger babies. They don't like that.'
'What they like is immaterial to me. My husband owns this property, and I'll do whatever I please with it.'
Goaded by glances from the others, Fouts stuck out his chin. 'Your husband, he might not —'
'My husband knows and approves of what I plan to do. If you care to keep working for Hazard's, get busy.'
Fouts dug a toe in the dirt, but another man was bolder. 'We ain't 'customed to takin' orders from a female, even if she is the wife of the boss.'
'Fine.' Constance was melting with anger and uncertainty but didn't dare show it. 'I'm sure there are any number of manufactories where it isn't necessary. Collect your pay from Mr. Wotherspoon.'
The stunned man raised his hand. 'Wait a minute, I —'
'You're done here.' She pointed to the man's hand, stained between thumb and index finger. 'I see you used some black paint last night. How courageous of you to state your views under cover of darkness.' Her voice broke as she took swift steps forward. 'Get out of here and collect your pay.'
The man ran. Anxiety replaced her fear; she had certainly exceeded the authority George had granted her. Well, it was too late to worry. Besides, Brown's shelter would never be secure unless she made sure of it.
'I regret this incident, Mr. Fouts, but I stand fast. Do you want to whitewash the building or quit?' She saw three men with carpenter's tools trudging up the hill; she would have to ask the same of them.
'I'll work,' Fouts grumbled. 'But for a bunch of nigras? It ain't right.'
Returning to Belvedere, she tried to purge herself of her rage. The North was no pristine fount of morality — a fact that had infuriated Southerners subjected to abolitionist rhetoric for three decades and more. Fouts no doubt believed with perfect sincerity that the Negro was inferior to the white man; George said Lincoln had been known to express the same view. She could understand that Fouts was a product of the times, comfortable and safe in sharing the opinions of a majority.
But condone those views or join that majority — or let it intimidate her? The devil she would. She was the wife of George Hazard. She was the daughter of Patrick Flynn.
'Abominable,' Virgilia said when Constance told her about the painted message. 'If we had proper leadership in Washington, things would be different. I believe they will be soon.'
'Why is that?' Brett asked from across the table laden with a huge lamb roast and five other dishes, comprising the typically gargantuan midday meal. Rosalie, Margaret, and Leander didn't eat; they devoured. Even Brown couldn't seem to get enough.
'The President's a weakling.' Virgilia handed down the pronouncement in much the same tone that had caused so much trouble in the past. 'Look at the way he responded to Fremont's manumission order in Missouri. He cowers and caters to the slave masters of Kentucky and the other border states —'
'He does that for military reasons, I'm told.'
Virgilia paid no attention to Constance. '— but Thad Stevens and some others show signs of wanting to bring him to heel. With the right Republicans in control, Lincoln will get what he richly deserves. So will the rebs.'
'Please excuse me,' Brett said, and left the room.
After the meal, Constance gathered her nerve to speak to Virgilia in private. 'I wish you wouldn't make — pronouncements in front of Brett. You said she extended herself to help you, that she's responsible for the wonderful change, and —'
'Yes, she helped me, but that has nothing to do with the truth or —' She took a breath, finally comprehending that Constance was furious with her.
Virgilia's new vision of herself, her increased confidence, had begun to change her perceptions in a number of other ways. Sometimes it was necessary to be tactful with opponents. She forced a sigh. 'You're perfectly right.
