Heaven and Hell by John Jakes

is a wounded land, Madeline. Just look around the city."
    "Yes, I have. Well, you're very generous to help with the mortgages, Leverett."
    "Please don't consider it charity. The plantation is valuable--one of the finest in the district. The owner, your brother-in-law, is an es Lost Causes 61
    teemed member of the community. And you, as the manager, are an excellent risk as well. An eminently responsible citizen."
    He means, she thought sadly, I am not a troublemaker. How responsible would he think her if he knew the nature of her next call?
    ¦ So we will not proceed as fast as I Hoped.
    Took myself next to the Freedmen's Bureau, on Meeting. A pugnacious little man with a harsh accent met me, calling himself Brevet Colonel Orpha C. Munro, of "Vuh-mont. ' His official title hardly less grand than "caliph" or "pasha' '--is sub-assistant commissioner, Charleston District.
    I made my request. He said he felt sure' the bureau could obtain a teacher. He will notify me. I left with tHe feeling of having done some criminal deed.
    Noting the time, I sent Andy off by himself and walked to Tradd Street to call on Judith before my meeting with Cooper.
    Judith surprised me by saying he was home, and had been since returning to dine at noon.
    "Instead of going back to the company, I stayed here to work on these," Cooper said. At his feet on the dry brown g:rass of the walled garden lay pencil sketches of a pier for the Carolina S hipping Company From the house came a hesitant version of the central theme from Mozart's Twenty-first Concerto, in C, played on a piano badly out of tune.
    Cooper turned to his wife. "May we have some tea, or a reasonable substitute?" Judith smiled and retired. "Now . Madeline, what prompts this unexpected and pleasant visit?"
    She sat down on a rusting bench of black-painted iron. "I want to start a school at Mont Royal."
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    In the act of bending to gather the penciled sheets, Cooper jerked his head up and stared. His dark hair hung over his pale forehead. His .
    sunken eyes were wary. "What kind of school, pray'?"'
    "One to teach reading and arithmetic to anyone v*. ho wants to learn.
    The freed Negroes in the district desperately need a few basic skills if they're to survive."
    "No." Cooper crushed all the sketches and threw the ball under an azalea bush. His color was high. "No. I can't allow you to do it."
    Equally emotional, she said, "I am not asking your permission, merely doing you the courtesy of telling you my intentions."
    A flat-bosomed young girl poked her head from a tall window on ne piazza one story above. "Papa, why are you shouting? Why Aunt Madeline, good afternoon."
    62 HEAVEN AND HELL
    "Good afternoon, Marie-Louise."
    Cooper's daughter was thirteen. She would never be a beauty, and indeed might be homely in maturity. She seemed aware of her deficiencies and worked hard to overcome them with tomboy energy and a great deal of smiling. People liked her; Madeline adored her.
    "Go inside and keep practicing," Cooper snapped.
    Marie-Louise gulped and retreated. The Mozart began again, with nearly as many wrong notes as right ones.
    "Madeline, allow me to remind you that feelings against the nigras, and anyone who champions them, are running high. It would be folly to exacerbate those feelings. You must not open a school."
    "Cooper, again, it isn't your decision." She tried to be gentle with him, but the message was unavoidably harsh. "You gave me management of the plantation, in writing. So I intend to go ahead. I will have a school."
    He paced, glowering. This was a new, distinctly unfriendly Cooper Main, a side of him she'd never seen. The silence lengthened. Madeline tried to patch over the difficulty. "I had hoped you'd be on my side.
    Education of black people is no longer against the law, after all."
    "But it's unpopular--" He hesitated, then burst out, "If you goad people, they'll no longer exercise any restraint."
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    "Restraint in regard to what?"
    "You! Everyone looks the