A messenger rushed the letters to a packet leaving that night. Huger then sent a note to the Crescent Bank informing Morris Marburg that he would keep the “incendiary publications” locked up until receiving advice from Washington on how to resolve the conflict between civic order and the postmaster’s sworn duty. Marburg arrived within the hour, demanding release of his shipment.
“Sir, I can’t honor that request,” Huger said. “I cannot circulate material clearly meant to establish anarchy and misrule.”
They argued. Huger held firm. Marburg stormed out, confronting a crowd on the Exchange steps. He saw respectable men such as Simms Bell and Congressman Lark mixed with dramshop riffraff. Damn the customs men for talking freely. Marburg shouldered past, ignoring threats and foul language.
Inside, Huger was gray with worry. “Fetch me the shotgun in my office.” A clerk ran. With the weapon in the crook of his arm Huger stepped outside, greeted by more jeers and cursing. A respected Protestant cleric spoke from the step just below.
“We demand surrender of the incendiary publications, Postmaster.”
“No, Reverend, not until and unless Washington sends instructions to that effect.”
“That could take days.”
A ruffian shouted, “Damn if we’ll wait. You don’t give ’em up, we’ll take ’em.”
Huger showed the crowd both shotgun barrels. “Then I will defend them, and you will suffer. Don’t force that.”
Simms and others counseled restraint. The crowd dispersed, though not happily. As darkness fell, the exhausted Huger locked the Post Office and went home.
Sometime before dawn windows were broken, the building entered, the offending pouch pulled from its shelf. Nothing else was touched. That same night a dozen men slipped through the moonlit street leading to Marburg’s residence.
At two the next day Ham came home from St. Michael’s Alley for dinner. He flung down a copy of the Southern Patriot. “Your friend Miss Grimké’s pamphlets were removed from the Post Office last night. The consensus of our good citizens is that it was wrong for the pamphlets to be taken clandestinely, because Huger should have surrendered them on demand, in broad daylight. Furthermore, around midnight the Marburg house was mobbed. Windows were broken, burning rags tossed in. Morris fired shots until the men ran.”
“Oh, it’s my fault,” Alex exclaimed. “I took Angelina’s first draft to Naomi. I must go to them.”
“That isn’t wise. The Marburgs are unhurt. Morris hired men to stand guard on his property. There’s to be some kind of rally tonight, to destroy the pamphlets. The situation’s very nearly out of hand. You should stay off the streets.”
Ham was more forceful than she’d ever heard him. She thought of defying him, then reluctantly did as he said.
Fueled with refuse and broken furniture, the bonfire on the civic parade ground reddened low-hanging clouds. A riotous crowd of several hundred had gathered. Men raised poles carrying cloth and straw effigies bearing crude signs. WM L GARRISON. ABOLISHINIST FANATIK. GRIMKÉ WHORE. The female effigy had yarn hair, a stuffed bosom, a skirt. Men set the effigies afire. Bitter smoke ascended. The clouds turned scarlet.
In the shadow of a building Henry looked on. Hamnet had argued against his venturing into the streets alone. Henry’s curiosity won out. He was careful to stick to dark thoroughfares, alleys, now this heavily shadowed area well back from the center of the demonstration. He felt he could outrun anyone who spotted him.
Men capered around the fire, war-whooping like Indians. They threw rocks at the burning effigies. A squad of city guardsmen watched passively. Volunteer firemen stood by in case sparks carried. A few Negroes huddled at the far edge of the parade ground. Curfew had rung; no one seemed to care.
Men pitched bundles into the fire, inciting the crowd to clap and cheer. A small white-haired man ran up, dived between two rioters, tried to retrieve some of the tracts. Men surrounded him, knocked him down. They stamped on his spine, pounded his head with fists and rocks. They left him prone, white hair bloodied all across the back of his head.
Henry’s face was stony. No black man who hoped to pursue a decent life belonged in Charleston. Alex was right, they should steal away, together or separately, meet in New York, then spend a few sweet days or weeks together before he abandoned her. He knew he had to do that, for her sake. He’d go to her tomorrow, tell her he was ready to leave.
Something touched him between the shoulders.
“Hello, nigger.”
Henry twisted to the left, glimpsed a beaky nose. Another man slapped the back of his head. “Don’t turn around ’less you’re told.” There were at least four of them.
The beaky man said, “You come along quiet now, Mr. Henry Strong. You refuse, this little old Kentucky pistol”—he dug it into Henry’s back—“liable to blow a hole clean through you. Crowd like this wouldn’t give a damn. Most likely they’d celebrate.”
“What do you want with me?”
“Why, just a little talk is all, Mr. Henry Strong. A little conversation about you and white women, someplace where we won’t be disturbed.”
A third man said, “Turn real slow. No, the other way. Cross your hands on your shoulders so we see ’em.”
Henry’s heart pounded. His mouth felt like dust. He marched into the dark with the four white men following. The female effigy disintegrated in sparks and flying bits of cloth. Alex, he thought, never forget I loved you.
Alex’s bedroom smelled of smoke when she woke next day. The servants fairly tiptoed, saying nothing. Maudie averted her eyes when Alex came downstairs. Ham had already left the house. She ignored his warning, slipped out the back way.
Merchants on East Bay had shuttered their shops. Some had nailed boards over the windows. Men reeled from side alleys, drunk despite the early hour. One caught her arm, whispered lewd words in her ear. She kicked his shin, wrenched free, ran on.
At Bell’s Bridge only one dilapidated packet boat, Savannah Miss, was tied up. Four black seamen played cards under an awning. A mate smoked his pipe and whittled. All of them stared as she knocked at the office door.
Otto Abendschein blinked his way into the sun carrying a Hawken rifle. “Not a good day to be out, Miss Alex. Bad men on the street again.”
“Any trouble here?”
“Fortunately, no. At breakfast at Jones’s Hotel I heard that a special committee is meeting to assess the situation. Feeling is high. The authorities fear riots and lynchings. Best you go back home.”
“Soon, Otto, I promise. Take care.”
Moving toward King Street, she encountered more drunken men. One carried a rope tied into a noose. The few Negroes she saw were moving quickly, furtively, as though afraid to be noticed.
Marburg’s shop window had been smashed. Black scorch marks showed around the edge. Books had been slashed or ripped apart. A funeral wreath hung on the door.
She ran across to a jewelry shop. The owner’s pistol lay on a shelf behind the display counter.
“Mr. Rosen, what happened at Marburg’s?”
“Poor Mr. Watkiss, they say he tried to rescue some of the abolition literature from the mob. They killed him.”
Alex held the counter to steady herself. She heard distant shots, barely managed to offer thanks to the nervous jeweler. She ran out and turned south.
At Broad Street a pack of white boys chased two smaller colored boys westward, throwing rocks and shouting epithets. Alex hurried east to the Crescent Bank. Glass crackled under her shoes; a green canvas was spiked to the window of Morris Marburg’s office. Obviously it had been broken. Two iron pipes jammed across the door frame prevented entrance. A sign said CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.
At four o’clock the streets drowsed in afternoon heat. Birds sought shade, their songs muted. Alex worked in the garden, constantly swatting at gnats and mosquitoes. Since her experience that morning she’d eaten nothing and worked frantically, trimming and chopping the pink and watermelon-red crape myrtle as she did ever
y July. Finished with that, she’d tried to shape a row of yaupon. After butchering two of the small green hollies she gave up. She sat on a bench, listlessly studying her hands.
Old Drayton, her friend and mentor, was removing the finish from the joggling board on the piazza. His sanding paper rasped. Usually garrulous, he worked silently. Maudie was in the house, scrubbing floors that didn’t need it.
Two horsemen appeared outside the gate. One stayed in the saddle. The other handed over his reins, dismounted, jingled the bell. Alex raised her head, pushed back straggling hair. My God, what did he want?
Gibbes was smartly dressed as always. She was filthy, her cheeks dirt streaked, her hands blistered. She walked to the gate.
“How do, Alex. May I come in? I won’t be long. The gentleman yonder’s my good friend Archie Lescock Third.” The beaky horseman tipped his beaver hat. Alex recognized him from the street fight. Did he recognize her?
She opened the gate. Gibbes walked to a patch of shade.
“I regret that I bring you some sad tidings.”
“If it’s about William Watkiss, I’ve heard.”
“Why, yes, that’s tragic. But it concerns a colored man I believe you know. Mr. Hamnet Strong’s boy.”
Her legs started to shake. “What of him?”
“Some wild fellows must have got hold of him last night. What he was doing out past curfew I surely don’t know. This morning his body floated to the foot of Gadsden’s old wharf.”
“Oh, God, no.”
“Whoever did it was mighty cruel. They mutilated him so he was, ah, no longer manly. Decency forbids me from saying any more.”
“Where did you hear this?”
“Saloon bar of the Planter’s, not an hour ago.”
Pain blinded her. She feared she’d throw up. Don’t, that’s weakness, it’s what he’d like to see.
A sudden rush of suspicion then. Somehow he’d found out. Who told him? Who put him on the scent? Ouida?
“Gibbes, please leave before I call you a damned murderer.”
“Why, cousin, whatever do you—?”
“You did it, didn’t you? You and your friends. That man out there—was he with you?”
“I’m sure I don’t know what—”
“You killed Henry Strong because of me. You came here to boast.”
Calmly, Gibbes said, “I’m really afraid I must plead innocent to the charge, which is purely the most fantastical thing I’ve ever heard. Don’t forget, cousin, Henry Strong was a free person of color. Many consider those people a disruptive and dangerous element. Furthermore, I heard that Henry Strong took liberties with white girls.” Gibbes’s face was sorrowful, almost maudlin.
“Plain to see you’re distraught,” he went on. “Very understandable. I’ll take my leave. I only wanted to break the news gently. Seems I failed. My sincere regrets.”
He grasped her right hand, kissed the grimy knuckles. Alex jerked away.
“God forgive you, Gibbes. I never will.”
“That so?” His eye slid down her front. “It’s my earnest hope that you’ll change your mind someday. Good afternoon.”
He set his hat on his head, tapped it, walked briskly to the street. He took his reins from his friend and mounted. Alex clutched the gate. She shook so hard, she feared she’d fall. After the horsemen passed from sight she heard laughter in the afternoon stillness.
45
Decision
Tropical rain fell on Henry’s burial. The Brown Fellowship Society, to which the Strongs belonged, had paid for the casket. Morris Marburg contributed the headstone. A hundred mourners, white and colored, huddled under umbrellas while the colored pastor preached and prayed at the grave. Marcelle’s first child fussed and had to be led away.
Rain dripped from Alex’s black straw bonnet. Wind from the harbor blew against her face. She took no comfort from the pastor’s assurances of heaven for Henry. Bitterness ran in her like a poisoned river.
For a week conditions in Charleston teetered toward anarchy. A much larger shipment of antislavery tracts arrived. Huger found individual copies addressed to every religious leader in the city, including the rabbi of Beth Elohim. He confiscated the shipment, but word of its arrival spread. Angry men took to the streets again.
Blacks were chased and beaten. Masters sent slaves to the workhouse without provocation. The frightened authorities surrendered control of Charleston to an unruly town meeting. The meeting appointed an extralegal committee of five, led by Robert Hayne; the committee adopted a resolution calling for Northern states to outlaw abolitionist societies, another demanding that Congress forbid delivery of any mail Southern legislatures deemed “inflammatory and seditious, calculated to create an idea that possession of slave property is in any way wrongful or immoral.”
Postmaster General Kendall in Washington replied to Huger’s letter. While a local postmaster had no authority to interfere with the mails, “extenuating circumstances” justified violation of that rule. Kendall’s statement reduced tensions. The authorities took charge again, although armed “committees of vigilance” met incoming packets and accompanied mailbags to the Post Office.
Only one relative of William Watkiss could be found, an aunt in North Carolina too infirm to travel. Less than a dozen people gathered for his interment in a cemetery plot paid for by the Marburgs. The sun shone brilliantly. Alex thought that if a merciful God existed, He had turned His face away from her city.
On summer days a ray of light from a window at the stair landing illuminated Joanna’s portrait at a certain hour. Alex stood in the light one morning, gazing at the picture and gathering courage. She’d brushed her hair, scrubbed her face, put on a clean dress and shoes.
Alex tapped at her mother’s door. Cassandra was awake, though still in bed; she seldom came down before noon. Popular novels like Mrs. Sedgwick’s The Linwoods and Mr. Paulding’s Westward Ho! crowded a marble table at the bedside. Alex bought books for her mother, but she’d learned not to ask if Cassandra had enjoyed them. Open windows brought in the smell of mudflats off the Battery.
Drowsily Cassandra said, “Good morning, dear. How nice you look.”
“Thank you, Mama. I’ve come because I have something important to tell you.”
Cassandra pointed to the Hepplewhite chair Hamnet Strong had imitated beautifully. Alex drew it to the bed, arranged her skirt. Her mother’s face was gaunt, colorless as parchment. Dark blue veins ridged the backs of her hands.
“I’m twenty years old now, Mama. I must do something with my life. That’s impossible here.”
“You mean in this house?”
“Charleston. I’ve already discussed my decision with Ham. He doesn’t approve, but he knows he can’t change my mind.”
“And what is this decision?”
“I’m leaving. I want to live in a civilized city. Philadelphia, or New York, or Boston.”
Cassandra compressed her colorless lips, her only reaction. “Why, child?”
“Principally because of what happened to Henry.”
“Yes, a terrible tragedy. Such a fine boy.”
“Henry was my best friend. He had ambition. He wanted to become an actor, and he was willing to leave South Carolina forever to do it. I’m sure white men killed him. I can’t prove it, but I think they did it because we were friends. Because someone saw us together and…speculated.”
“Speculated that it was more than friendship? Was it?”
“I told you, we were friends. I won’t stay in a place where they’ll murder and mutilate someone because of friendship.”
“Alex, Charleston’s your home. You know nothing about those Northern cities. They’re huge. Overrun with foreigners, and lowlifes.”
“Could Yankee lowlifes be worse than the men who killed Henry?”
Frustrated, Cassandra snapped at her. “How will you pay for a steamer ticket? Have you saved money?”
“Since I’ve never had to work, how could I? Another lack in the lives o
f young ladies of Charleston.”
“I hear such bitterness in your voice.”
“Truth, Mama. A commodity not valued locally. Ham will advance the price of the ticket. I’ll repay him as soon as I can.”
Cassandra collected herself for a new attack. “Then tell me how you’ll survive in the North.”
“I’m not without education, thanks to you and Papa. I can teach music. I can be a governess. I’ll find my way.”
Cassandra studied her daughter’s determined expression. “You have always done that. You’re like your grandmother Joanna in that respect.”
Alex clasped her mother’s bony hands. “Only one thing worries me. Your health. Ham’s promised to take complete charge, together with Dr. Hayward.”
“Oh, I’ll be fine. I plan to live a good many years. I’m touched that you’d worry, but that’s what you’ve done since you were little.” She slipped into a reverie. “You were a scrawny baby, have I ever told you?”
“No,” Alex said, though she had, often.
“I nursed you for nearly a year. Every time, your little hands would reach for me, touch me, as though you worried that the milk would run out. If you’re determined to leave, only promise me you’ll worry about yourself, no one else, until you’re safely settled.”
“I will.”
“And promise to write faithfully. I’ll worry constantly if you don’t.”
Alex hugged her. “I promise. You rest now. I love you, Mama.”
“I love you. I think I would like to sleep a while.”
As Alex left, Cassandra’s eyes closed. She turned her head and buried her cheek in her pillow, crying silently.
In between August downpours Alex went to St. Michael’s Alley to confer with her brother. She had to wait while James Petigru went over a brief with Ham. Petigru greeted Alex warmly as he returned to his office at the end of a row of desks where clerks labored. Whale-oil lamps relieved the gloom of the dark-paneled office only a little.