In spite of all this evidence, when Marguerite suggested they take the children to the hangings, the Saint-Clairs reacted as if she were mad.
“Hélène is five years old!” Jeanne cried.
Marguerite could only hope the girl was old enough to remember.
“If René were here, he’d never permit it,” Gérard pointed out. Which was precisely why Margueritemusttake the children—before they became liberal like their father.
Jeanne concluded with a shake of her head: “You’ll give them nightmares!”
None of them knew anything about nightmares.
Marguerite had been right about the cook: she was trouble. She wore mourning for the criminals, in defiance of the special ordinance. Too soft to do it themselves, the Saint-Clairs sent her to the nearby Work House to receive her thirty-nine lashes. Marguerite stood on the upper piazza so she could hear the negress’s screams.
Since the one cook served both their households and the other slaves were useless in the kitchen, this left Marguerite and Jeanne to puzzle out meals in the sweltering outbuilding. One morning toward the end of July, young Joseph appeared in a daze.
Marguerite scowled, glancing up from the receipt book.“What’s the matter now?”
The boy hovered on the threshold. “I was at Grandpapa’s shop. Men came and took Jemmy.”
“Tookwho?”
Beside her, Jeanne stopped kneading. “The boy we hired from Mrs. Clement, to help with the cleaning and deliveries.” She spoke low, as if to herself. “They must think he knows something.”
Marguerite raised her chin, vindicated at last. “Or thathewas one of the conspirators.”
Joseph blinked at her. “He was so polite.”
“They do that tofoolyou!” Was Marguerite the only person in this city who understood negroes?
“I’m glad Mama isn’t here,” Joseph murmured, drifting away like a lost buoy. “This would make her worry.”
Fifty-three negroes were actually released. Jemmy Clement was not among them. He would hang alongside twenty-one more slaves. Gérard had lost only Jemmy’s rent for the rest of the year and the use of his cook for a few days. Marguerite wished the cut had been deeper. Perhaps Gérard had not learned his lesson; but she would ensure that the children did.
As soon as the Saint-Clairs left for their clock shop that morning, Marguerite hurried Joseph, Catherine, and Hélène into their grandparents’ open landau. She wanted to secure a good spot, though it would mean missing the procession of the condemned from the Work House. She smacked the floor of the carriage with her cane. “Drive!” she commanded the coachman, who was, of course, a slave. For insurance, she carried the pistol in her reticule.
As the horses carried them northward, people turned at the sound of the landau, peering at them from sidewalks, piazzas, and windows, expecting the criminals. Then the buildings thinned, thefields began, and finally they reached the crumbling walls called the Lines. These had been erected during the War of 1812 as a fortification to protect Charleston from the British. But even then, the greatest enemy had been within.
Their carriage was not the first to arrive. Without anything yet to watch, already an audience was gathering. The people around them displayed the usual spectrum of skin, from alabaster to pitch and everything in-between. The Saint-Clairs would soon realize their foolishness; they would have no customers today. All of Charleston would behere.
With twenty-two negroes to execute in one day, Marguerite had expected the city to hang a few at a time. Instead, Charleston chose spectacle. For gallows, long benches had been constructed just in front of the Lines, with the old wall used to support scaffolding above. From these beams dangled all twenty-two waiting nooses. Their coachman found a place so close, the wall’s shadow fell across them—a welcome respite, as the late July sun began to climb.
Marguerite returned her attention to the children, only to discover that they were signing to each other. “Stop that!” She slapped Joseph’s hand, since he sat beside her. “You know I don’t understand what those mean! What isthis?” Marguerite mimicked his last gesture, tapping her chin with her crooked index finger.
The boy glowered at his shoes and mumbled: “Nothing.”
Marguerite glared at the girls, but they offered no translation either. “I’vetoldyou not to do that in public—you look like idiots. Speak properly! English is bad enough.” She sighed and changed the subject. “You know they’re hanging your grandfather’s shop boy today?”
The children did not respond. Even their hands were still.
“Will you point him out to me?”
Hélène’s chin trembled. “Jemmy wouldn’t have hurtus, right, Cathy?”
“Of course not,” Catherine told her. “We’re too little.”
“Don’t lie to her!” Marguerite ordered. “They’ve been planning to murder you since you were a baby!”
In spite of the heat, the girls huddled together on the seat across from her.
