Glory Over Everything (24 page)

Her eyes grew wide. “Mr. Cardon? Oh! No! No! He must never know!”

“I agree,” I said, “but we will speak of that later. Now please take me to Caroline.”

She stayed sitting and shook her head as though arguing with herself. “If he ever finds out . . . he will kill both of us!”

“He won't find out,” I said.

She studied me for a brief moment before she pushed herself to her feet. “Come,” she said, “but you must be gone before Mr. Cardon arrives tomorrow afternoon.”

“Yes,” I said.

The decision made, she moved quickly up the massive staircase and down the vast hallway, the dark red walls lined with massive gold frames outlining portraits of family ancestors. At the door to Caroline's room, Mrs. Cardon straightened her shoulders and filled her lungs. “We must stay calm,” she said as though to herself before she opened the door. A young Negro maid came forward, silencing us with a finger at her lips. I stood back, waiting for direction from Mrs. Cardon, for under ordinary circumstances, I would not have been given entrance to this room.

When she saw that Caroline was sleeping, Mrs. Cardon directed me to take a seat. The maid, while bringing over a chair, bumped into the bedpost and jarred Caroline awake.

The circles under my beloved's eyes were as violet as the color of the room, and the pink in her face had been replaced by alabaster white. On seeing me, she struggled to sit, but her swollen stomach made her movements difficult. Forgetting all else, I rushed to her bed. She grasped hold of me as she might a savior. “James,” she cried. “Oh, James! You've come!”

I held her to me and forced soothing words past the pain in my throat. How could I have failed her so? What a coward I had been!

I heard Mrs. Cardon's muffled sobs before she left the room, and I set Caroline back against the pillows. “Hush,” I soothed, “hush, darling. I am here now, and I will stay.”

“Oh, James, do you promise?” she asked. “Do you promise?”

“I will not leave you again,” I said. “Rest now.”

“What about Father?”

“I will speak with him, and then I will make arrangements. After the baby comes, we will go to New York, where no one will know us.”

“Yes.” She sighed, resting her head back. She gave a weak smile and closed her eyes. “Yes. We'll go to New York,” she whispered.

T
HOUGH SHE SLEPT,
Caroline clung tightly to my hand, and as I sat with her, I came to terms with what I needed to do. One thing was certain: I would not leave her side again.

When Mrs. Cardon brought in a tray, Caroline tried to eat to please me, but the food came up soon after, and the episode left her exhausted. When she slept again, I went to her mother, who sat dozing in a chair. “Why don't you get some sleep while I keep watch. I will call you if she needs you,” I offered.

Mrs. Cardon, who appeared dazed from exhaustion, agreed to rest. When she appeared again before daybreak, she looked more herself, and when she saw that Caroline was sleeping, she directed me to a bedroom down the lengthy hallway.

“I'll send a maid with some coffee and rolls in a few hours, and you can visit with Caroline before you leave,” she whispered. I nodded and, not wanting to upset her, didn't tell her of my intentions to stay and meet with Mr. Cardon.

Wall lamps flickered and lit my way along the long dark hallway. The room I had been directed to was vast, though the chill had been taken from the air by a satisfying fire in the fireplace. I sat on the massive bed to review my plans. First I would cancel my trip and stay with Caroline until our child was born. After seeing what I meant to Caroline, I now believed her love was strong enough, and that if a choice needed to be made, she would choose me, regardless of my ancestry. When Caroline was well enough for travel, I would take my new family up to New York City, where we would begin anew. Robert, I hoped, would come with us, and as for Pan, I would hire someone who knew the South well enough to retrieve him. Then Pan, too, if he chose, could join us in our new home.

Exhausted but satisfied with these plans, I removed my jacket, waistcoat, and boots and lay back on the bed. I had been awake since five o'clock the previous morning, and because I knew what was in store for me on Mr. Cardon's arrival, I closed my eyes to rest.

I fell into a deep sleep, until I heard a rap on the door and then smelled fresh coffee when the maid entered with a tray. She added new logs to the fire, and as they cracked and sizzled, I forced myself awake. I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and rubbed my face as thoughts of the upcoming day rushed in. When I looked up, the maid turned back from the fireplace. We stared at each other in shock. Then Delia ran from the room.

I
WAS STUNNED.
Finally, I drew on my boots, splashed water on my face, and combed my hair. There was a light rap on the door, and thinking it was she who had returned, I drew on my jacket before I called for her to enter. But it was the manservant who had met me at the door on my arrival.

“Mr. Cardon is in his study,” he announced. “He insists you come with me now.”

“Mr. Cardon! Is here now?”

“Yes. His arrival was earlier than expected.”

“Might I see Mrs. Cardon first? Would you send word to her?”

“Mrs. Cardon is not to be disturbed. You are to come directly to the study. Please, sir, follow me.”

I
KNEW MY
life was in danger seconds after I entered the room. Behind me, Mr. Cardon's carriage driver, a large Negro man, moved to the doorway to block my exit. Caroline's father sat at his desk, one arm resting next to a pistol. He was fingering a glass paperweight, and on my entry, he stood and hurled it at me. I jumped to the side in time to avoid it, and the glass shattered when it struck the marble fireplace.

“Let me explain—” I began.

He strode across the room and, with the back of his hand, struck me across the face. “Explain! Explain! You want to explain how you seduced my daughter? My daughter!” he said. “Dear God!” His face twisted with hatred. “You nigras are all the same! You will not leave the white women alone!”

I had no words. How could he know?

“Explain this!” He went back to his desk and from it thrust out a letter that I recognized as my own. “Is it yours?” he bellowed.

This felt like a nightmare with no escape. “It is,” I admitted.

“So it is true. You are a damned nigra!”

“It is claimed that my mother is part Negro,” I said, still floundering with the truth.

“Part! Part!” he began to yell. “There is no such thing as part! Nigra is nigra!” Without warning, he stuffed the letter in his pocket and reached back for a knife. Lunging at me, he grabbed hold of my shirt collar, twisting it to cut off my breathing. The tip of the pointed knife pricked into the skin behind my ear. “I'll scalp you like a red Indian!” he growled. My legs went weak. I doubted not that he was about to do so when Mrs. Cardon burst into the room.

“Mr. Cardon!” she shouted when she saw the knife. “No! What are you doing? Don't harm him! Caroline needs him! She will die—it would kill her!”

“Then Caroline will die!” he shouted.

“Oh, you cannot mean that!” his wife cried out as she sank into the nearest chair.

“I mean every word I am saying,” he said. “I would rather see Caroline dead than with this nigra bastard.”

“Please!” Mrs. Cardon pleaded. “You make no sense. What are you saying?”

“Silence!” He flung me aside and went to stand over his wife. “Are you not aware that this—this thing of theirs will be colored?”

“What are you saying? What do you mean?” Mrs. Cardon asked, staring up at him.

“He's a nigra, is what I mean.” He pulled the letter from his pocket and thrust it into her face. “Here is your proof. His mother is a nigra!”

“Surely it is a lie!” Her eyes begged me to agree.

Her enraged husband grabbed hold of her face and forced her eyes on him. “The thing will be taken before Caroline has a chance to see it. She will be told that it died. Do you understand?” he roared to his terrified wife.

“I will take the baby!” I called out, and in three long strides, the man was back at my side, the blade of his knife at my throat. “I've promised Caroline I'll take her to New York. I'll come back after she's—”

He growled before his knee shot up between my legs, and I doubled over. “If you ever see Caroline again, I will kill you both!” He heaved me upright. “You will leave Philadelphia. You have a week—no! Five days! Salvage what you can in that time, but you will not return to Philadelphia. If you breathe a word of this to anyone, or if you are fool enough not to leave, I will kill you. You have five days. Now get out of here before I kill you now!”

A
S MY CARRIAGE
sped away, my thoughts were of Caroline and how desperate she would feel to think I had abandoned her once again. However, I knew well that her father was capable of carrying out his threat if I did not leave.

“Nigra!” he had called me. I had been called that name before, and the sound of it brought terror. Fighting the wretched memories, I closed my eyes and leaned back against the seat; when I felt something moist on my waistcoat, I glanced down to see blood on my fingers. I had an aversion to blood and fought for control as I unraveled my cravat to press it against my neck wound.

I opened the carriage window to take in gulps of cold air while reminding myself that soon I would be home, where Robert would be waiting for me. He would know what to do.

A
N ALARMED
R
OBERT
took me straight to the study, where he removed the bunched-up cravat to study the wound. “It is a small cut and has stopped bleeding,” he said reassuringly. I gratefully swallowed the brandy he handed me, but it wasn't until I drank the second one that my breathing came more naturally.

“Come.” Robert led me to my favorite wingback chair. “Sit by the fire.”

I sank down, head in hands. Everything I had worked for was gone. All of my carefully guarded secrets were exposed! I was ruined. “I don't know what to do, Robert! I don't know what to do.”

“I will do all I can to help you. Is it Miss Caroline?”

“Yes! Yes, she is so sick! But her father . . . I have to leave Philadelphia. I have five days.”

Robert took a step back. “You must leave?”

“Her father threatened to kill me if I did not leave.”

“For good?” he asked.

I nodded. “There's more,” I said, staring up at him.

“More?” Uncharacteristically, he sat down.

I worked to clear my thoughts. “I need to tell you everything, Robert,” I said. “You need to know who I am!”

“You're upset. This isn't necessary—” he began.

“Yes, it is necessary!” I shouted. I needed him to listen. He had to know the truth. If I lost him, at least I would know where he stood. I began to speak before I lost my nerve. “When I was thirteen, I found out that my mother was a mulatto. Before then, I thought I was white. Marshall Pyke owned the plantation where I was born, and I had no idea that he was my father. My grandmother raised me to believe that I was her son and that my grandfather, who had died, was my father.”

It was as though the words released a lid from a fermented jar of memories, and those most fiercely suppressed spilled out. I was a child of six again, back at Tall Oaks.

“Marshall was an awful man, Robert. I was hiding under the bed when he pushed Miss Lavinia into the bedroom. He kept hitting her. ‘Please, no, Marshall,' she said over and over. I put my hands over my ears, but I could still hear what else he was doing to her. I was so scared I wet myself, and after he was gone, I was too ashamed to crawl out and comfort Miss Lavinia.”

“That must have been terrible,” Robert said.

“It was!” My voice sounded strange—high and childlike—and I gripped the arms of my chair. “Only days after I found out he was my real father, he had me tied up and taken down to the quarters so I could be sold for a slave. That night there was a house fire, and Grandmother died in it. I heard her calling me for help, and I couldn't get to her, Robert! The next morning, when I broke free, I found a gun.”

“You don't have to continue,” Robert said, but I silenced him with a wave of my hand.

“Before I shot him, I wanted him to look at me, and I called out to him, ‘Father! Father!' When he looked at me, I pulled the trigger. He just blew apart. And then, oh God, bits of him stuck to me!” I felt again the damp bloodstain on my chest and gave a shuddering sob.

“Come now. That is in the past. It's best we leave it there,” Robert said, rising and coming over to me. “Come, stand up and we'll take off your waistcoat. I'll clean it later.”

His help brought me back, and by the time I sat again, I felt more myself.

“Would you care for some tea?” he asked.

“Did you hear what I said? I killed my father.”

“I understand,” he said. “There are circumstances that might drive us to do things that appear wrong, but who is to judge? You were fighting for your life.”

“Do you think so? Do you believe that?”

“I do,” he said.

“I was! I was fighting for my life.”

“And you were only thirteen.”

“But now I've ruined everything. Caroline's father . . .” With that, I told of the debacle at Stonehill and of Mr. Cardon's ultimatum. “I had to leave Caroline behind. I had no choice,” I said. “And now I have to leave here. I don't know where to go, and how can I leave without Caroline?”

“Who is to say that Miss Caroline won't join you after she is well?”

I looked at him. Was that possible? It was at least a ray of hope. “And will you come with me?” I asked, though I dreaded his answer.