Candle in the Darkness (61 page)

“I’m sorry for coming to the front door this morning,” he said. “I never meant to get you into trouble. I didn’t know. . .”

“That I’d been caught spying?”

“There wasn’t any record of your arrest . . . I checked.”

“That’s because Richmond fell and the war ended before they had a chance to punish me for my crimes.”

“I’m sorry. I only wanted to make sure that you were all right and to see if there was anything you needed. I’m stationed here in Richmond for the time being. I can make sure that you receive food rations, that you’re protected. The army wants to show you their appreciation for all your help . . . and so do I.”

Caroline folded her arms across her chest, hugging herself. “The best way to help me is to stay far away and leave me alone. If you hang around here, bringing me food and doing special favors for me, it will only make things worse.”

“You sound so bitter, Caroline. I thought you wanted to see the Union restored and the slaves freed.”

“I did.”

“Then why. . . ?” He stopped himself. Gently, carefully, he unfolded her arms and took her left hand in his. He rubbed the empty place on her finger where the ruby ring had once been.

“What happened, Caroline?”

She bit her lip, unable to answer.

“Forgive me for hurting you, but I need to know. Your fianceé. . . ?”

“Charles survived the war,” she finally managed to say. “But he can’t forgive me for helping you.”

“How did he find out?”

“I told him.”

“I’m sorry . . . I’m so sorry. I wouldn’t blame you if you hated me, since I was the one who got you involved—”

“I don’t blame you or hate you,” she said wearily. “I could have refused to help you. I knew what I was getting into. And deep down I guess I always knew I was risking my future with Charles.”

They stood in silence for a long moment as crickets chirped and a carriage rattled past on the street out front. Caroline wanted Robert to leave, and yet she didn’t. His voice was warm, his presence comforting somehow. He was the first visitor she had talked to since her father had left on his voyage three weeks ago. And she was so very tired of being alone.

“I know my timing is probably all wrong,” Robert said quietly, “and that I’m being very insensitive, but I have to say this. I love you, Caroline. I never stopped loving you from the time we first danced together in Philadelphia. My love grew even stronger when you visited me in prison for all those months. And when you helped me escape.”

“Robert . . . please, don’t . . .”

“I would take good care of you, Caroline. We could move away from here if you wanted to, and go home to Philadelphia. Or we could start all over again someplace new, wherever you choose. I know you don’t love me yet, but maybe in time . . . they say love can sometimes grow from fondness and friendship if you give it a chance.”

Sweet, gentle Robert. He was offering to rescue her, willing to play the role he had played in Philadelphia and be her island of safety, her refuge. But was it fair to use him this way? He had always been her dear friend. Might love grow from that friendship?

She was about to answer, to tell him that it was still too soon to make such an important decision about her future, when Robert spoke first.

“I don’t need an answer now. I’ll wait, Caroline. I’ll wait forever if I have to. In the meantime, may I visit you again?”

She felt the ache of loneliness and nodded.

“Thank you.” He lifted her hand and kissed it tenderly. He rested his cheek against it for a moment, then kissed it again. She remembered Charles once kissing her hand the same way. She watched Robert walk through the gate, mount his horse, and ride away.

She was still standing outside the drawing room doors, gazing at the star-filled sky through her tears, when Tessie walked quietly across the yard to stand by her side.

“Is Isaac asleep already?” Caroline asked her.

“No, but his daddy’s gonna put him to bed tonight,” she said, smiling slightly. “He in there telling him stories.”

For some reason, Caroline remembered the morning in the train station when she had asked Charles to tell Josiah that he was going to be a father.
“Josiah is never going to be a father in the sense that you mean,”
Charles had said. But now he was. She wished that Charles could see how happy Josiah was for the first time in his life. She wondered what Charles would say if he could see him rocking his son to sleep.

All of her servants were happy. Six months ago, on Christmas Day, they had shared their dreams for the future, dreams that were being wonderfully fulfilled. Josiah was back home. Eli had his church. Esther had food to cook again. Luella had married her sweetheart, Gus. And as improbable as Gilbert’s dream had seemed, he was now on his way to Bermuda with Daddy and might even find himself a wife. Caroline’s own wish that her father and her cousin Jonathan would return home safely had been miraculously fulfilled. And Caroline loved her work as a teacher. Why, then, did she still feel so restless and unhappy?

“You all right, honey?” Tessie asked.

“Robert was just here.”

“I know. . . . You all right?”

“He told me that he loves me. He asked me to marry him. He said he would take me away from Richmond if I wanted to go. We could live in Philadelphia . . . anywhere, he said.”

“That what you wanting to do?” Tessie asked. “Get away from here and all the memories?”

“I don’t know, Tessie. I don’t know what I want. I hoped that by now my love for Charles would start to fade. That I would be able to stop thinking about him, stop hoping that he would come back someday. I’m so tired of hurting, so tired of living without him.”

“Do you think Robert could ever take Massa Charles’ place in your heart?”

“When I saw him standing out here in the darkness tonight, his face was in the shadows . . . and for one terrible, wonderful moment I thought he was Charles.” She paused, biting her lip.

“If it had been him,” Tessie asked, “would you still marry him?”

“Yes—a thousand times, yes. But it will never happen.” A single tear rolled down her cheek. “You told me that love only comes around once in most people’s lives . . . that we don’t get a second chance. Remember, Tessie?”

“Seem like a long time ago, honey. Back when you still writing all those letters to Massa Robert at West Point.”

“Tonight, after I’d talked to Robert for a while, I really didn’t want him to leave. It was so nice to have him here. So nice to have . . . a friend to talk to. I’m fond of Robert. He says our friendship could grow into love if I gave it a chance. Do you think he’s right, Tessie? Do you think if we moved away from Richmond and started all over again someplace else that I would learn to love him someday? I know he would be good to me. . . .”

Tessie’s brow furrowed with concern. “Do you have to decide right away?”

“No. Robert said he would wait. I told him he could come back and visit me again.”

“Please, take your time, Missy. It’s too soon for you to decide to stay or go. Give your heart a chance to heal.”

Caroline looked up at the stars again. They looked blurry through her tears. “I honestly don’t think it ever will heal,” she murmured.

Tessie climbed the ladder to the loft above the kitchen where she and Josiah slept. Moonlight, filtering through the leaves outside, made the room dim, but she could see her husband leaning with his back against the wall, holding their sleeping son in his arms.

“You can go on and lay him down now,” she said. “He’s asleep.”

“I know. I like holding him.”

Tessie’s heart swelled with love as she looked at Josiah. She cupped his face in both her hands to kiss him and felt the hard muscles in his jaw, the stubble of beard on his cheeks. She had waited for so many years for them to be together this way, and now they finally were. But when she thought of the emptiness in Missy Caroline’s heart, tears came to her eyes.

“What’s wrong, Tessie?” Josiah asked. “You thinking about Grady again?”

“No, my Grady coming home someday. I know he is.” She sat down on the floor beside Josiah, leaning against his muscled shoulder. “I keep thinking about Missy Caroline. She always looking out for you and me, all these years . . . always fighting so we can be together. Now we are—and she lost the man she love because she helping us. That ain’t right, Jo.”

“I know. But there ain’t nothing we can do.”

“She talking tonight about going off with Massa Robert. She ask me what I think. I think it’s a mistake because she don’t love him. But it breaks my heart to see her so lonely. Ain’t no other man in Richmond gonna marry her after what she done.”

“There ain’t enough men left in Richmond to marry all the girls who still alone. I watched them all die, Tessie, one right after the other.”

“When you was away at war with Massa Charles . . . he ever talk about Missy?”

“All the time. Seem like he loved Missy more than anything else in the world.”

“Do you think he still does?”

“I don’t know. I ain’t seen him since the night I carried him to the hospital.”

Tessie lifted Isaac from Josiah’s arms and laid him on the bed, patting his bottom for a moment until he fell back asleep. Then she took his place in Josiah’s arms. “Will you take me to see Massa Charles tomorrow?” she asked.

“Why? What good that gonna do?”

“I don’t know. I just want to talk to him, ask him if he still loves her. I got to try, Jo . . . for Missy’s sake. She fought for us, now I got to try and fight for her.”

“That make you happy, Tessie?”

“Yes,” she nodded. “Yes, it will.”

“Then I’ll go,” Josiah said. “I’ll talk to him.”

Charles stood among the ashes of his burned-out mill and swallowed the bile that had risen in his throat. All that remained of the huge brick building was a blackened shell. Gaping holes, like empty eye sockets, showed where the windows had once been. He kicked uselessly at the rubble beneath his feet. The loss of the flour mill had killed Charles’ father. And deep in his heart, Charles wished that the skeletal walls would fall in on him, burying him among the ruins.

He had come down this morning to see if maybe the gears that turned the mill wheels were still good, to see if there was any hope of salvaging something, of rebuilding. But it took hope to rebuild, and Charles’ hope had died with the Confederacy.

An enormous ceiling beam lay across the floor, blocking his path. He bent to lift the charred wood, but he still hadn’t recovered the full use of his arm and shoulder. The beam wouldn’t budge. He kicked at it in frustration.

“Need help with that?”

Charles whirled around. Jonathan’s former slave, Josiah, stood a few feet away. Charles’ first reaction was to refuse his help. He felt bitter toward the burly Negro without knowing exactly why. But Josiah was already bending to grip the beam. Charles grabbed the other end. Josiah moved it as though it weighed nothing.

“Thanks,” Charles said. There was an awkward silence. “What are you doing down here?”

Josiah’s expression stiffened. “I’m a free man. Guess I can go wherever I want, talk to whoever I want.” Then he seemed to catch himself, and his features softened. “It’s time we had a talk about the night you was shot.”

Charles ran his hand over his face. He hated being indebted to any man—especially this one, the son of Caroline’s beloved servant. He didn’t want to be reminded of her. He wanted to forget.

“I’m glad you came,” he finally said. “Listen now. I never had a chance to thank you for taking me to the hospital. I didn’t remember how I got there at first. And by the time my memories of that night started to come back, you were gone.”

Charles hated remembering that day, how the Yankees had streamed over the embankment, punching a hole through the Rebel lines, moving relentlessly forward, shouting in victory. He had lain on the bottom of the filthy trench between two dead men, unable to move, feeling the warmth of his own blood pumping from his wounds and soaking his clothes, shocked that death had come for him at last. His last thoughts were of Caroline. He’d wanted to take her picture out of his pocket, look at it one last time before he died. . . .