A Dream of Daring (35 page)

Then everyone froze:
Rachel stopped fighting. Tom’s arms loosened their grip on her. Ladybug halted
her attack. And Charlotte broke off her screams. She and Ladybug stood staring
at each other.

The ever-modest
Charlotte, she of the high-collared dresses and the obsessive concern for
propriety, possessed skin that was still as smooth and lovely as that of the
young women now gaping at her.

Another feature of hers
also matched that of the two others, one that still looked as exotic and
beguiling on her as it did on them. It was the little heart-shaped birthmark.

Chapter
29

Mortified, Charlotte
closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she was staring at the person from
whom she had hidden for nineteen years. Her face softened to show a tinge of
regret, even of motherly caring. The sadness in her eyes met the coldness in
Ladybug’s. Charlotte took a step toward her, but Ladybug moved away.

Then the mother turned to
face the other daughter from whom she had hidden the truth.

Rachel was aghast. A
hoarse whisper replaced her voice. “Mama! How can this be?”

Charlotte spoke with
resignation, almost relieved at no longer having to hold the lid on a powder
keg. “I couldn’t explain, not even to you, dear. When you were two years old
and your . . . when
she
was born”—she gestured to
Ladybug—“I saw on her the same mark that
we
had. It was scarcely the
size of a pinhead on her newborn skin, but it was there from the beginning.
After that, I wore high-necked clothing and applied powders to conceal the
mark, even around you, Rachel. And I used a doctor outside of town, in
Mortonville,” she said, naming a nearby village to the east. “I was discreet,
so no one would discover my secret marking and ever link me
to . . . her.”

The person to whom she
pointed stared at her with contempt.

“Your father and Aunt
Polly knew about her,” Charlotte added. “And also my midwife, who died a few
years later. I couldn’t let anyone else know. Not even you, Rachel.”

“
This means I was born
free!
” Ladybug almost sang the words like a hymn. According to the law,
children of mixed race were pronounced slave or free depending on the status of
their mothers.

“You’re a free person
of
color
at best. That’s
not
the same thing.” Rachel corrected her.

Free people of color were
caught in the corridor between the two great halls of slavery and freedom, and
they shifted nearer to one or the other depending on local laws and the men who
interpreted them.

The three women had not
moved to cover their exposed birthmarks: Ladybug in a plunging gown, and the
Barnwells, who were either too stunned to pull their night clothes up over
their shoulders or no longer cared because the truth was now out.

“The tombstone!” Tom
suddenly recalled. “At the Crossroads burial grounds, there’s the grave of Leanna
Barnwell, the stillborn child of Charlotte and Wiley, who was two years younger
than Rachel.” He shot a questioning glance at Ladybug.

“I’ve seen that grave,”
she said.

“That’s
you
.
You’re Leanna Barnwell.” He turned to Charlotte. “People would’ve known you
were expecting a child. You had to account for that. So you went through a mock
burial, didn’t you? Who could suspect there was no body inside a cast-iron
casket supposed to contain a lightweight infant? That casket’s empty, isn’t
it?”

“It was filled with
straw,” Charlotte admitted.

“That’s why you declined
to join Rachel when she put flowers at Leanna’s grave after Polly’s funeral.
You knew there was no child buried there.”

“Yes.”

“Rachel, this is
Sis
.”
Tom gestured to Ladybug. “This is the sister you always wanted to have, the
sister you yearned for and made your imaginary companion through childhood. You
wished she were alive. Well, she
is
. She’s
Ladybug
.”

“No! Never!” Rachel
screamed. “She can’t be my sister. Mama, if this unspeakable scandal gets out,
I’m
ruined
. I might as well be
dead
! How could you do this to
me?”

Ladybug looked as unhappy
with her newfound relatives as they were with her.

“Of course, Leanna wasn’t
the stillborn child of
Wiley
but the very-much-alive child of another
man.” Tom’s eyes sparked as more circuits connected in his mind. “That was why
the senator was in a hurry to sell Ladybug on the morning of the funeral, with
Polly’s body hardly cold. He wanted her out of there before you arrived, didn’t
he, Mrs. Barnwell?”

“Wiley talked of selling
her. He worried about my seeing her after all these years and what I might do.”
She looked solicitously at Ladybug, as if she could ease her own guilt with a
sign of her daughter’s forgiveness. “You know, one can never completely stop
the beating of a mother’s heart.”

“You needn’t keep such a
weak thing beating on my account, Mrs. Barnwell.” Ladybug spoke with the
detachment of a judge hearing a case about someone else’s mother.

Tom continued. “So when
Nash noticed the birthmark on Ladybug, that cinched the matter for your
husband. It pushed him over the edge to do what he was tempted to do anyway.”

“I’m sure.”

“At the funeral, when I
heard the senator tell you that he took care of
more
than he had
expected to do that morning, I wondered what he meant. You knew what he meant,
didn’t you, Mrs. Barnwell? You knew that he had disposed of your daughter.
Isn’t that so?”

“Yes.” Charlotte lowered
her head guiltily. Then, as if a mother’s shame were battling with a wife’s
supposed duty, with the latter winning for the moment, she raised her head more
boldly. “Wiley didn’t discuss the matter with me. He didn’t consult me, but why
would he? It was his right to do what he did.”

“It was his right to sell
your daughter—born a
free
woman—to a cruel man who abused her?”

Charlotte looked
dismayed. Tom had a pesky way of unsettling her conscience. “Polly treated her
well, and I can’t help what Wiley did. But she couldn’t
ever
be free.
That was
always
out of the question.”

“Only because you
couldn’t admit to being her mother.”

“How could I admit to
such a thing, Tom? Do you think Wiley could hold political office after such a
scandal? Do you think I could be received in a single household here? Do you
think Rachel could grow up here and find a husband? It would’ve destroyed our
lives.”

“So instead you destroyed
her
life.”

“You’re heartless, you
are! The colonel’s son, and you have no pity!”

“So that’s why you never
visited Polly. It was always Polly who visited you, wasn’t it, Mrs. Barnwell?”

Charlotte looked away evasively.

“You said the air at the
Crossroads didn’t agree with you, but what didn’t agree with you was having to
come face-to-face with the daughter you abandoned to slavery,” Tom charged. “By
your laws, she was born free. You condemned her to bondage!”

“I let her
live
! I
saved her from Wiley! Do you realize what a
feat
that was?”

Ladybug, who had stepped
away from the others, detaching physically and emotionally from her newly
discovered family, now approached her mother. “I’d like to know, if you’ll tell
me, who is my father?”

“A wonderful man!” A glow
appeared on Charlotte’s face. “You remind me so much of him, with those
flashing eyes . . . and the spirit!”

Charlotte glanced out the
window and off in the distance, reminiscing about someone who brought a smile
to her lips. The worry lines seemed to vanish from her face as she suddenly
looked younger and more vibrant. “He was a slave child who was my age, living
on my father’s plantation. We played together as children; we were inseparable,
actually. I secretly taught him to read and write, and I brought him books he
liked to read, especially ones about building and architecture. He drew
sketches of beautiful palaces and placed me in them. He was so playful and made
me laugh! When he was old enough for a man’s labor, he became my father’s
carpenter, and when I married Wiley, he came with me to the Barnwell
household.”

She sighed with
contentment at her recollection.

“Every loving sentiment
that the town thought Wiley felt toward me really came from Leanna’s father. He
adored me. He built this house for me. The plans and the majesty of it were his
idea. He made it a joy for me to live in,” she said fondly. “He was more than a
carpenter. In another place and time, he would’ve been an architect. He took so
much care in picking just the right site for Ruby Manor and designing all the
rooms to suit me. He placed my music parlor where I’d have beautiful vistas and
my bedroom where I’d have cool breezes. Wiley just approved the plans and paid
the expenses. He didn’t dwell on me the way Leanna’s father did.”

Charlotte pointed out the
window to the brilliant red streak along the grounds outside.

“And it was Leanna’s
father who created the border of roses to surround me with my favorite flower.
He went to great lengths to get the heartiest stocks with the most vibrant
color and fragrance, and he supervised every detail of the
planting . . . all for me. By the time I moved in, the
roses were already blooming. In years to come, the little bushes grew to the
massive display you see today. I awake every morning to the sight and fragrance
of those stunning blossoms because he planned everything that way.”

She put her hands up over
her heart.

“He was the prime mover
of this manor . . . and of my affections. Ruby Manor wasn’t
a testament to Wiley’s love, as the town thought. It was a testament to another
man’s love for me, a romantic man who always kept my pleasure and comfort
foremost in his mind.” She sighed wistfully. “That was Daniel.”

“Daniel?” Tom said. “That
name means something. . . .”

The daughters turned to
him as he pondered the matter. Charlotte offered no help.

“I know!” he said. “When
I looked back in Polly’s plantation journals to find a record of Ladybug’s
birth, I didn’t find any mention of her, but right about that same time Polly
noted that some of her slaves went to Ruby Manor to attend
the . . . funeral”—he looked incredulous—“of a slave named
Daniel
who had . . . 
drowned
.”

The last word gave
Charlotte a start. Tom and Ladybug looked at each other grimly, forming the
same conclusion.

“Daniel’s death wasn’t an
accident, was it, Mrs. Barnwell?”

Charlotte’s fearful eyes
met Tom’s probing ones.

“Your husband drowned
him, didn’t he?”

Rachel looked dismayed.
Charlotte looked grieved. Ladybug and Tom looked repulsed. But none of them
looked surprised at the charge against Barnwell.

“Dear God, Tom, you don’t
understand.” Charlotte’s reproach had the tone of a plea for mercy. “You have
this wild devotion to your ideals, and you’re oblivious to how things really
are! It makes you cruel!”

“I’m cruel for mentioning
it, but your husband wasn’t cruel for doing it? For drowning your lover? That
was the price Daniel paid for Ladybug, wasn’t it?”

Charlotte wept softly,
covering her face with her hands, as if the pain was fresh and piercing.

“I saved the child!” she
whispered, composing herself. “It wasn’t Daniel’s fault. I provoked him. Back
then I had
passion
. It’s funny, because now I can’t even remember what
that felt like. But then, oh, I had an overwhelming
passion . . . for romance, for a man who cherished me, for
him,
Daniel
. I provoked him . . . and that led to
his . . .” The agony on her face was evidence that she too had
paid a price.

“Daniel was everything
Wiley was not. Daniel was full of life, whereas Wiley was cold and aloof.
Daniel looked at me in a way that Wiley never did, as if I were the sun rising
in his world. He was so gentle, affectionate, and caring. Wiley was none of those
things. Wiley ignored me. He showed so little affection. You see, Wiley didn’t
love people. Instead, he . . . controlled them. He wanted a
wife to host his parties, to look beautiful on his arm, and to say the right
things to suit his political ambitions. My father pushed me into the marriage.
Wiley was a successful planter and a budding town leader—everything
my
father
wanted! But Daniel was what
I
wanted. I was young and
spirited. So I did the only daring thing I’ve ever done in my life. And I was
unbelievably happy in Daniel’s arms!”

Ladybug listened intently
to the story of the love that had conceived her.

“It didn’t last long. I
was terrified and broke it up. I didn’t think my trysts with Daniel had led to
anything. Then when Leanna was born, it was obvious I was wrong. Polly was with
me when I gave birth. Wiley walked in on us. He took one look at Leanna in my
arms, and he knew who the father was. The way Daniel and I looked at each
other, even a dull man like Wiley could sense the sparks between us that he
himself was incapable of feeling.

“I tried to explain to
Wiley how lonely I was, how ignored I felt, how attracted I was to someone
else. Is that so bad, to be attracted? I told him it was completely my fault.
But he would have none of it! He told himself I was forced. And in his mind,
that justified
anything
. He stormed out
and . . . the next day the slaves found Daniel’s body.”

Charlotte wiped away a
tear.

“When Wiley left to go
after Daniel, I knew he would come back for Leanna. I had the midwife go out
and pick the roses. I told her no stems, no thorns, just the softest blossoms.
I wanted a basketful of them. She brought me the flowers as I lay in bed with
you in my arms,” she said, looking at Ladybug as she spoke. “I wrapped you in
the roses your father had so lovingly planted for me. And I gave you to Polly.
She agreed to raise you; she loved you from the start.” Charlotte smiled at the
image of the bundle in her arms. “You were such a sweet baby. You made no
sound. You seemed to like lying in your perfumed blanket of flowers. That was
how Polly sneaked you out into her coach.

“When Wiley came back, I
mustered all my courage, a
mother’s
courage, and I told him the baby was
with Polly and I would
not
let him have her. It was the first and only
time I ever stood up to Wiley. I was prepared for a fierce fight, which I was
willing to wage for you,” she said to Ladybug. She seemed to want credit for
her act from a daughter whose face was unreadable. “Wiley backed down. He
didn’t go after you.” She turned to the others. “But he made me swear never to
go to Polly’s home to see the baby. And Polly was never to bring her here. I
swore.”