Distant Dreams (16 page)

Carolina felt hot tears sting her eyes. How could he be so callous? How could he be so harsh with her dreams? At one time he’d cared more about her desires than anyone else. What had happened to the brother she’d once known so well?

“School obviously has its flaws if it’s made you like this!” she retorted in a huff and turned to leave.

“Carolina, wait!” York came to her and quickly turned her to face him. Seeing her tears, his expression softened. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m sorry for being so ill-tempered. The university has left a sour taste in my mouth—that much is true—but I didn’t say those things to wound you so deeply.”

“Then why?” She wiped at her eyes, wishing desperately to not appear as a sniveling female in her brother’s presence.

“Because even if there were a college of credibility which would allow for your admission, what would it profit you?”

“What do you mean?”

“What could you possibly hope to gain by getting an education? You wouldn’t be allowed to use it in a place of employment. No man in his right senses is going to hire a woman to work when there are fifty unemployed men standing at his door.”

“What if that woman is smarter?”

“What if she is? Can she hoist a load of cotton? Can she keep banking ledgers and understand the needs of fellow businessmen? Can she run a shop based on anything of masculine interest and hope to be well thought of by her peers or even taken seriously by those who would criticize her nature?”

“Is it fair to penalize a woman for her gender? Can she not be allowed to expand her mind without facing public ridicule?” In her anger, the tears were resurfacing.

“Be reasonable, Carolina. What man would want a woman the entire world knew could outthink him? Even though I will concede there are women who are more intelligent than their husbands.”

“Husbands! Who said anything about husbands?”

York laughed. “I wish you could have seen your face just now. I might as well have suggested you take a dose of castor oil.”

At this Carolina couldn’t help but smile. She was a bit ashamed of her outburst. “I’m just tired of everyone trying to marry me off. I have other desires right now. It isn’t that I never want to marry—I just don’t want it right now.”

For a moment, all York could do was stare. Carolina wondered if she’d somehow managed to alienate him further.

Finally York cleared his throat. “I suppose I should tell you that I had similar words with Father in regard to my future. I told him I had no interest in running the plantation.”

Surprised by this declaration, Carolina held back her questions regarding her father’s reaction and said instead, “Then you should understand what it is to be expected to be one person, when inside, you’re someone else entirely.”

“I suppose I do.”

Carolina sighed. “I’m sure if anyone can understand me, you can. You’ve always understood me in the past, York.” She walked to the window and pulled back the curtain as she’d done earlier in her own room. “There is a whole world out there, denied to me because I am a woman.” She dropped the drapery and turned. “People cover it up, put a veil over it, and expect you to forget that it’s there. But I can’t, York. I know it’s there. Even with the drapes drawn tight and my face buried in my pillow, I know it’s there. And I know it’s calling me to be there, too. I want to learn mathematics and science. I want to study the stars in the sky and understand about the universe. I want to read about the countries of the world and the people who live there. Who they are, what they do, why they do it.” She felt her face flush. “I want to know about locomotives and the railroad. Oh, York, don’t you see? Husbands and babies will always be there for me, but an education can never be had once I’m tied to those responsibilities.”

York stared blankly at her for a moment; then his eyes seemed to brighten in understanding, and he went to Carolina and embraced her warmly. “I understand. I do understand. And, Carolina, while I’m still here at home, I’ll do whatever I can to help you. I’ll try to teach you some of the things I’ve learned, although science is not one of my strong suits.”

Carolina laughed and stepped away from him. “Neither would it seem that fighting is a subject to which you’ve taken well. Your face bears evidence of that.” Then she grinned. “Oh, York, thank you so much.” She reached a hand up to touch a bruised place above his eye. “I just needed someone to understand,” she said softly. “I just needed to know that I wasn’t alone and that somehow my dreams were attainable.”

“Well, I can’t get you into a university,” he said in voice clearly filled with emotion, “nor can I make those around you accepting of your love for the unusual. But I will do what I can, even if it is merely listening to you.”

Carolina nodded and leaned on tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “Now I know why you were always my favorite.”

“Because I spoil you?” York teased.

“No,” she stated quite seriously. “Because you don’t run away when I show you the innermost reaches of my soul.”

16

Shattered Dream

James Baldwin refused the meal set before him in spite of the look of concern that crossed his mother’s face. “I’m not hungry,” he stated firmly. “Please just go away and let me sleep.”

“But James,” Edith begged, “you must regain your strength. The doctor said—”

“I don’t care! Just go!” He immediately regretted his sharp words when his mother’s face fell in complete dejection. “I’m just tired, Mother,” he said softly, adding a weary sigh as if to further convince his mother of his lie. “Please . . .” But he let the word fade away without stating what it was he desired. He couldn’t very well speak words he didn’t know, and right now he had no idea what it was he wanted.

Edith took the tray and turned at the door. “If you need something for the pain . . .”

“No, nothing. I just need to rest,” James replied. In truth, the pain was nearly driving him mad, but the ghoulish dreams induced by the doctor’s potions were worse by far. It wasn’t until his mother had closed the door behind her that James allowed himself to grimace.

His right leg, splinted and swathed in bandages, was still swollen and the source of much of his discomfort. The doctor had commented on the nasty break, at first even voicing the possibility that James would lose the leg altogether. Pounding his fist against the mattress, James tried desperately to ignore the throbbing which radiated upward from the leg into his groin.

“Better to have let me die than live as a one-legged man,” he muttered. He could only wait and watch in complete helplessness while time decided his fate, as it had that of Phineas Davis.

Phineas. The very thought of his friend seemed to block out the other harsh realities around him. James could still see the look of surprise on his friend’s face when the engine had derailed. Eddie had later come to tell him that a portion of the iron rail had broken away just enough to cause the track to shift. When the engine’s wheels had struck this portion of track, the thing just naturally derailed. Given their speed and Phineas’s precarious perch, the fatal action had resulted in his being thrust headfirst into the iron engine. His neck had snapped and death was instantaneous. The engineer and fireman had been thrown clear, and besides James’ injuries, no one else had been hurt.

“Why?” James murmured to the empty room. “Why did he have to die? Why not me also? How can I face life like this?” The very real possibility that he might never walk again, at least not without a peg or a crutch, was nearly more than James could take.

Closing his eyes, James could see it all again—it haunted him day and night. His nightmares were full of the images of crashing engines and shattered bodies. Over and over again that locomotive would be cruising down the track with laughing men aboard—oh, how that laughter pricked at him! Then, in a mere heartbeat, the laughter turned to screams and agony and the grinding of metal upon metal. James grew terrified of sleep, but waking brought little improvement. As bad as the horrible dreams were, nothing could possibly hurt more than reliving the moment when he’d known for certain that Phineas was dead.

It should have been me
, he thought, and not for the first time. Life had seemed so perfect. He was going to work for Phineas and the B&O Railroad. He would have designed great engines with his mentor. Now he wondered if he could even look at another locomotive without the image of death and destruction preying upon his mind.

Looking around him, James saw the trappings of a lifetime of ease. Everything in this room was a part of him, and yet he had never felt as alienated from all that he’d once known as he did now. Dark burgundy wallpaper with tiny gold stripes and gold fleur-de-lis designs were joined midway by walnut wainscoting. James had always remembered it a warm and inviting place, but now it seemed to be a dark and brooding room.

Lead toy soldiers still stood on the fireplace mantel, symbols of happy carefree days when James had been a boy. On one side of the hearth shelves of books lined the wall, and he could see several of his childhood favorites still there. In the opposite corner a small writing desk, long outgrown by the occupant, looked as though it were simply awaiting the child who’d left it so many years ago.

Had he really been gone from home so very long? There had been visits during the five years of school up north; why, then, had he not noticed how very juvenile this room had remained? Suddenly he felt out of place. How many times had his father told him to behave like a man instead of a child? Yet now he felt like a man—an old world-weary man.

At his own request, the heavy burgundy draperies had been pulled tightly shut to keep out the sunlight, and even the flames in the hearth had died out for need of attention. Still, he could see well enough from the bedside lamp that this room belonged to a boy with dreams and hopes for adulthood. The man he now was did not belong here. In fact, he was imposing upon the fond memories once witnessed in this room.

The heavy knock on the door snapped James’ thoughts back to the dreary present. “Come in,” he called resolutely.

Leland Baldwin entered the room with an expression of sheer determination. “James, your mother said you weren’t eating. You can’t hope to recover if you don’t care for your needs.” He held the same tray Edith had offered only moments ago.

“I have no appetite,” he replied, hoping the words would send his father away.

“Nonsense,” Leland said, placing the tray on his son’s lap. “You have to eat.”

James barely held his temper in check. His eyes narrowed and his voice dropped to a low gravelly tone. “I am not hungry.”

Leland stared at his son for a moment before replying. “Eat. That is an order.”

With lightning reflexes that James had not even known he possessed, he thrust the tray from his lap, spilling it with a loud clatter and crash onto the floor. “Order all you want!” he yelled. “You’ve ordered my way in most every detail of life. Will you order me to live as well? Will you order the pain to cease? While you’re at it, order the dead back to life, and I will honor you all of my days!”

Leland paled a bit and his jowls trembled when he spoke. “It is understandable that you mourn the loss of your friend. Your mother and I have experienced our own sorrows in wondering what it might have been like had that person laid to rest been you instead.”

“I wish it had been.” Even as he spat the words, James knew his father didn’t deserve them. But he had so much anger inside him, it had to be released somehow.

“You don’t mean that,” Leland replied.

James thought he detected anger in his father’s tone. “I do mean it. I have no desire to live as a cripple.”

“Then you might as well wish your mother dead as well!” Leland bellowed. “Is that what you want? Do you want us dead from grief too painful to bear? Think on this, James Edward Baldwin. Would you have your mother endure the sorrow you now know? You think it bad, and granted it is a hard thing to bear, losing a friend, but you scarcely knew the man. Imagine a mother losing her child—her only child. It would kill her.”

James was taken aback by his father’s harsh tone. He’d received nothing but compassion and concern from both parents since the accident two weeks past. The thought of anyone, much less his mother, bearing up under the anguish which flooded his soul and the phantoms which haunted his nightmares caused James to reconsider his behavior.

He stared up at the ceiling in an unsuccessful attempt to hide his emotions. There was such a thin line between his anger and his despair. “I did not expect life to be so . . . fragile.” His voice caught on the words, but he continued. “I thought youth to be excluded from this very private club of sorrows.” James gave up trying to hide the tears that came to his eyes. “He was there with me alive and well, laughing and offering me the job of my dreams, and in the next moment he was gone. That’s all. Nothing more remains of Phineas Davis except the locomotive engines that claimed his very life. And nothing more remains of my dream.” Much to his consternation, it was this thought that grieved him as much, if not even more, than the loss of his friend.

Leland nodded sympathetically, and James thought the man looked rather awkward. His father knew well how to deal out anger and rebukes, but sympathy and tenderness were subjects of which he knew little. Still, he was showing an effort, and James thought him kind to do so.

“Railroading is a dangerous business,” Leland said, clearly uncertain how to deal with his son’s introspection. “I’ve always said it was a great risk. Maybe now you’ll consider coming to work for me.”

James looked at his father for a moment, then turned his eyes to the fireplace. The coals barely hinted a glow of life. “That’s me,” he said, motioning toward the hearth. “I’m dying out inside. Losing heat, the very thing that keeps me alive. It would be a simple thing to rekindle the flame. A little puff of air here, a bit of fuel there, and maybe with just the right amount of care, the warmth would return to burn again.”

Leland’s puzzled expression told James he hadn’t a clue of the matter on which his son spoke. “I can have Nellie stoke up the fire,” Leland told James, going to the door to call the servant girl.