Box Set: The ArringtonTrilogy (24 page)

I hesitated for a moment and simply watched
as he rummaged through some of the trunks. What was he looking for?
I wondered to myself. After all, most if not all of the items in
the attic were junk. Old broken pieces of furniture were scattered
here and there, along with trunks that contained worn clothing.
Some of the boxes were filled with Eugenia’s belongings from her
first marriage. I once read through the letters and other personal
items that had belonged to her deceased husband. His name was Sir
George Bernard Norton. Apparently, he was a prominent attorney back
in England and had ties to England’s royal family. Eugenia kept all
his clients’ legal documents, none of which I understood a word of.
In the box were also some of his personal articles, such as
spectacles, and cufflinks.

Patrick appeared to be searching for
something in particular. I stayed as motionless as possible,
watching him tear through everything, but when I caught sight of a
spider crawling down the sleeve of my dress, I screeched in
terror.

“Who’s there?” he called, startled.

I decided to try and hurry out before he knew
it was me spying on him. I crouched down and ducked, then crept
along the shadows as he scanned the room, looking for whoever was
interrupting his private affairs.

“I know someone is here.”

I stopped and held my breath.

A storm cloud cast complete darkness over the
winter sky, and a violent rumble of thunder shook the mansion. I
listened as Patrick shuffled in my direction and slammed into
something. Then came another boom of thunder and crackle of
lightening. The attic lit up, and there stood Patrick before me.
His face flashed before my eyes, and I gasped in fright. The pile
of letters in his hands fell to the floor.

We stood before one another as the rain began
to pelt like bullets onto the roof.

“Why do you torment me?” he whispered between
the thunderclaps.

“I’m sorry . . . I was only . . .”

Patrick took hold of me and began to stroke
my face with his free hand. His lips brushed against my ear. He
asked despairingly, “Do you have any idea what you mean to me?”

I closed my eyes, feeling overcome by his
angst.

“I think about you night and day. I have
always needed you.”

His lips traveled to the nape of my neck.
Tingles traveled to every inch of my body, and my mind began to
struggle with uncertainty.

“Patrick,” I uttered and tried to push him
back. His grip became tighter as he pressed into me. “Help me
understand.”

The storm outside intensified as Patrick’s
personal storm appeared to rage inside him. Soon his hands were
eagerly and freely roaming the outside of my dress, and his lips
muffled my pleas for answers.

“Oh, Charlotte,” he moaned and held me close.
“I have missed you so.”

In the moment, Patrick saw me as no one but
Charlotte, just as I had aimed to accomplish. Little had I guessed
how much he had loved her. I couldn’t have imagined the extent of
his feelings before willfully tormenting him.

In the midst of receiving his hungry kisses,
I became enraptured with my own body’s excitement. It was much more
intense than the first time he kissed me.

The rain turned to hail, and the wind whipped
and howled through the eaves of the mansion, stifling my cries of
happiness and confusion. I wanted Patrick to want me any way he
could, even if it was because he believed I was someone else. But
it hurt to watch him deny who I really was, even if that reality
meant we couldn’t, or shouldn’t, be together.

“Patrick, wait. Listen to me,” I begged and
took hold of his hands. I risked snapping him out of his dream and
having him regret our passionate moment, but it felt deceitful to
continue hurting him, all for the sake of my own happiness. “I’m
Amelia, not Charlotte. I’m sorry you think I’m my mother. I
shouldn’t have pretended to be. I know you will regret this, so
please stop.”

Patrick blinked his eyes in doubt and
frowned, shaking his head. “Don’t push me away. I need you. I have
waited forever. The pain in my heart has never gone away.”

He bent down to scoop up the letters.

“Are those my mummy’s letters?” I nervously
asked. I hadn’t ever come upon letters written to her.

He didn’t answer. Instead he slumped down and
began to sob, sadly holding the letters on his lap. I knelt down to
reach for one when he snapped and snatched the letters away from
me.

“Go away! Just leave me alone!”

“We both miss her. I’m sorry for stirring up
painful memories,” I cried. “I didn’t mean to hurt you; I simply
wanted to become closer to you, through her.”

“Just leave me, Amelia,” he said flatly.

Devastated, I flew out from the attic,
knocking down objects in my wake, though the relentless thunder
masked the loud crashes. I was a stupid fool to play such grown up
games. I cursed myself. I wasn’t the woman I wanted to be and
thought I was.

I stood before my mirror and violently tore
my hairstyle apart. It was only the frantic knocking on my door,
followed by Mammy’s voice, that made me stop abruptly.

“Miss Amelia, something terrible happened. We
got a telegram. Here, read it!”

I quickly scanned the telegram, then looked
at Mammy and said through my hoarse, cried-out voice, “We must send
for Daddy and Eugenia.”

“Mr. Stone and Hamilton will go. The rains
are heavy, but they got to come home.”

Outside, the relentless rain left muddy pools
on the ground. The wagon became stuck several times, and it took
Patrick, Warren, and Hamilton working for an hour in the pouring
rain to free the wheels from the thick mud and be on their way to
Atlanta.

“It will take them twice as long in this
weather,” Patrick yelled over the wind.

Mammy ushered me inside. “You get out of your
wet clothes before you catch the death of you,” she insisted. “I
will bring you up boiling water for a bath.”

Both Patrick and I were soaked to the bone,
beaten by the rain and our heavy-hearted feelings for one
another.

Mammy went to fire up the stove.

“This is just so sad.”

Patrick didn’t respond. He stood dripping
wet, just standing there in the grand foyer looking forlorn. With
his uniform weighed down against his body and his hair pasted
against his face, I waited for him to say something. Anything. But
Patrick refused to say one word to me. To my dismay, he wouldn’t
look at me, talk to me, or acknowledge my presence. In the two
nights and three days it took Daddy, Eugenia, and Hamilton to
return, Patrick continued to disregard me. At breakfast, at supper,
passing one another in the halls of the ominous mansion, he held a
cold, stone-like face, and his eyes refrained from meeting
mine.

It was ever so noticeable when Hattie and
Jacob Thomas joined us inside. When chores weren’t being carried
out, Patrick was either talking with Hattie or playing with Jacob
Thomas.

I never knew Patrick to talk so much. Hattie
enjoyed the attention, and she followed him around like a lost
puppy dog.

I watched them the evening as they sat in the
parlor before Daddy and Eugenia were due back. I listened as Hattie
willingly answered many of Patrick’s questions. “Momma came here to
the plantation when I was very young. She instantly became like a
mother to Amelia, since she had none of her own. Momma loves Amelia
as much as she loves me,” Hattie said, “and Amelia and I are just
like sisters.”

“And your brother? How old is he?” Patrick
lit up his pipe and leaned into the settee, listing attentively as
Hattie gave nearly all of the details away to Patrick, with the
exception of the most intimate details of Daddy’s relationship with
Mammy, from Daddy’s love for Mammy to Jacob Thomas’s birth and
everything in between, including Mammy’s marriage to Hamilton.

When they were finished conversing, after
Patrick heard everything he apparently wanted to hear, he excused
himself and thanked Hattie for her company. “You are a remarkable
young lady. Thank you for such good conversation, Miss Hattie.”

I hid myself behind the door so Patrick
wouldn’t see me as he left, and I waited until Hattie came upstairs
to look for Jacob Thomas, who was playing in my room.

With my blood boiling, I stood waiting for
her to enter the room. Jacob Thomas was happily playing with a
handful of marbles by my feet and didn’t look up when Hattie opened
the door.

“Hello, Hattie,” I said with an icy tone.

“Amelia, I didn’t know you were in here. Have
you been with Jacob this entire time?” she asked, not meeting my
eyes.

“No.” I didn’t move aside when she went to
lift him up.

“I want to play more, Hattie,” Jacob Thomas
cried.

“We have to get washed up, Jacob. Don’t sass
me,” Hattie ordered.

Jacob was struggling to be put back down. I
stepped back and lashed out at Hattie.

“What were you doing talking with Patrick? He
doesn’t have time to converse with you all the time, Hattie. He has
endless chores to carry out.”

“I haven’t been conversing with him all the
time,” she replied. She put Jacob Thomas down and spun around. “I
only answer the questions he asks. I have my own chores to take
care of, you know.”

“Really? Then why is it you seem to have so
much time to sit with him in the parlor day after day?”

Hattie’s face turned into a serious scowl.
“So, you were spying on us?”

“No,” I stammered. “I have seen you by
coincidence, as I have passed the rooms doing my own chores.”

“What is it about me speaking with Patrick
disturbs you so? It is harmless conversation, that’s all.”

“What does he want to know? And why does he
ask you and not me?”

Hattie seemed confused with my sudden
outburst. “I don’t know. Why don’t you ask him?”

I didn’t want to reveal that he wasn’t
speaking to me - or any other details of our intense and peculiar
relationship. I couldn’t share that intimate secret with
anyone.

“Do you find him handsome?” I asked, easing
my tone.

Hattie thought for a moment, then answered,
“Yes, he is handsome.”

My eyes narrowed onto her. My anger couldn’t
be contained. “He is not available to you, Hattie. The thought of
it is completely absurd, you know. After all he is an officer in
the Confederate Navy, years older than you, and no doubt he already
has a woman in his life.”

“What exactly are you saying?”

“I am telling you, Hattie Arrington, to stay
away from my brother!”

“Your brother? Isn’t he my brother as well?
Aren’t we sisters? Aren’t I just as much as an Arrington as
you?”

When I didn’t reply, her eyes went from
tear-filled to burning with animosity. “I see now. I see the way it
is. You see me as an ordinary slave after all.”

Hattie didn’t understand. It had nothing to
do with slavery or the color of her skin. But I couldn’t confess I
was jealous of her and reveal my true feelings for Patrick. So I
didn’t deny it.

Hattie stormed out, unable to contain her
anger. I felt horrible, but I remained frozen in place, both
physically and emotionally. I let her run off, believing the one
thing that was the farthest from the truth.

In my life to come, whether wittingly or by
fate, truths and lies would become one and the same.

~ ~ ~

Eugenia and Daddy returned late that evening
and moans of sorrow filled nearly every inch of Sutton Hall. The
twins, Violet and Beatrice, had contracted cholera and died within
hours of one another. Their nanny was on her way back to America,
voyaging over the dangerous wartime seas to return with their
bodies to be buried in Savannah in our family cemetery at Sutton
Hall.

Day after day, Eugenia cried as the cold
winter rains lingered. Daddy did all he could do to console Eugenia
on his own, then when his efforts became useless, he came to me for
help.

“I can’t begin to make her feel better. I’m
at my wits’ end and don’t know what to do,” he said wearily.

He hadn’t slept for days, worried about
Eugenia and stressed about returning to his regiment at the end of
the week. The doctor had given Daddy a clean bill of health for his
return. Under Daddy’s sad eyes were deep, dark circles, and his
brow was permanently creased. Daddy and I barely knew one another
now. My childhood days of looking for him to call to me to walk
along the river and talk, or nights waiting for him to come up and
tuck me in and leave tender sweet kisses on my cheek, whispering
that I was the most special girl in the world were long gone. I
didn’t idolize Daddy as I had then. I now saw him as a weak, feeble
man who had succumbed to the influence of a woman, and not for her
beauty, but for her strong-willed intention to rule her kingdom
with an iron fist.

We had prayed that day, all of us, for hours
on end. We prayed for God to take the little girls under his wing
and care for them and allow their father to tend to them until
Eugenia’s time to be called up into heaven. Patrick read verses of
the Bible aloud, and I sang hymns. Eugenia clutched photographs of
her girls and sat motionless with her eyes clamped shut. She prayed
with us until the sun went down and retired to her room without
supper.

“She needs someone to console her. Please go
to her. Comfort her,” Daddy pleaded.

I gulped hard, reluctant to think of
comforting a stone-cold woman such as Eugenia. I knew she was
suffering greatly, but I didn’t believe she would want me near to
her. And I didn’t aim to please Daddy, for he did nothing at all to
please me.

“Daddy, I don’t think it’s a good idea.
Eugenia doesn’t like me at all.”

Daddy shook his head in denial and said, “She
loves you like one of her own daughters.”