A Dream of Daring Page 35

  “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.”

  Charlotte’s eyes returned to Ladybug. “As the years passed, Polly would whisper to me about how beautiful and smart you were. I thought of how Daniel would have adored you!” She smiled at the stunning beauty who was her daughter. “You would have been his little princess.”

  The girl nodded, her contempt softened by the story of her parents’ love.

  “So I arranged for your care as best I could. Then I spent my life with Wiley.” She looked at the others, her smile vanishing. “If only you knew how unbearable he was after Leanna’s birth! I tried to atone, but there was nothing I could do.” She turned to her other daughter. “So I tried to ensure that your life would be better than mine, Rachel. I tried to subdue your wayward ways. Oh, yes, you were spirited too. That’s why I had to get you back here from Philadelphia, from your dangerous fascination with a suitor who I feared was quick on passion but slow on a marriage proposal.” She glanced disapprovingly at Tom, then turned back to Rachel. “And your work in the theater? My God, that had to end! I wouldn’t allow you to become as headstrong as I was.”

  At the mention of Philadelphia, Rachel and Tom looked at each other, with a heated resentment on her face and only a detached sadness on his.

  “Thank goodness, I rescued you, Rachel. But you still managed to defy me with your daring dresses that revealed the birthmark. I see now that it was that telltale little mark that got us into trouble after all! It’s like a branding, a way for fate to punish me for trying to change something more powerful than myself, something that mustn’t be throttled, something that destroys its foes.”

  “What’s that, Mrs. Barnwell?” asked Tom.

  “The soul of the South.”

  Charlotte’s eyes took on that glassy look again, as if she was once more slipping away from reality and into a dream-like state.

  “All I got for my efforts to redeem myself was Wiley’s scorn. My devilish deed constantly lived in his reproachful eyes. It wasn’t just Daniel and Leanna who were punished. I was too, because I dared to reach for . . . what . . . couldn’t . . . be.” Her story ended with a shudder and a bent head.

  As everyone digested the tale, the only sound was Charlotte’s weeping.

  Tom was the first to speak, his voice softened by her pain. “Mrs. Barnwell, it seems so sad that you spent your life with a man you didn’t love. Before you married, you could have run away to the North with Daniel. Back then the laws were more lax, and Daniel would have had a good chance of escaping recapture by your father. With his carpenter’s trade, you two could have lived well. You could have found a tolerant community and made a life together with the man you really loved. Wouldn’t you have been a lot happier then?”

  “Oh, my, yes! But of course, that wasn’t possible.”

  “But you weren’t a slave. What stopped you? It wasn’t a bullet or a chain or a whip.”

  “Condemnation. Being disowned by your family, rejected by your friends, and shunned by the whole town! That’s worse than a bullet. Can’t you understand that?”

  “You mean, it was just the displeasure inside someone’s mind that stopped you from living the life you wanted? Just someone’s ignorant, unkind feelings toward you? Isn’t that all it really amounts to, Mrs. Barnwell, this soul of the South that scares you so?”

  “You make it sound so bland. Public scandal is real and frightening!”

  “You were free, but you let your life be controlled by others. You stifled your own spirit and will, the way a . . . slave . . . has to do.”

  Rachel intervened. “Stop it! Stop it, Tom!”

  “You pretend to have this grand existence,” Tom said, glancing at the stately room, “while inside, you’re . . . chained.” He whispered, more to himself than to the others, “Who’s the real slave?”

  Rachel shot an angry finger at his face. “You keep throwing your haughty contempt for our lives at us.” She taunted him, though he looked unmoved by her accusations. “I thought you’d be a man like my father. But you’ll never be the man he was. My father was respected and admired wherever he went. But what are you? An outcast and a slave-lover.” The jabbing finger moved toward her sister, who stared at her in quiet contempt. “You’re carrying on with her? You chose her over me? I’ve never been so humiliated and degraded in my life!”

  “You threw away our life together in Philly. For what? You sold our happiness for a life of dresses and parties, and you didn’t care at whose expense they came. Now you bathe in your father’s false claims to glory and you carry out the life he carved out for you. Do you think that’s attractive to me?”

  “You threw away a life we could’ve had together here at home to cast your lot with our enemies.”

  “Are science and progress the enemies you detest with such vigor?”

  Tom caught a glimpse of Ladybug staring at him. In one breathless hour they had discovered a trove of information about each other that they hadn’t uncovered in their previous three months together. He paused to dwell on the face of the woman who understood how he felt.

  Then he turned back to Rachel. “The glow you had in Philly—the spirit and the innocence—are gone. The only lust you have now is for malice. When you let others smother your own inclinations, then who’s the slave and who’s the master?”

  “You bastard!” Rachel was livid.

  She snapped her arm back to strike him, but Ladybug caught it and forced it down. “Don’t touch him!”

  The sisters sneered at each other. Their mother watched in silence.

  Tom observed the complex mix of emotions coloring Charlotte’s face when she looked at Ladybug. He sensed sadness, regret . . . a latent affection. Could he reach her? Was it too late? He grabbed her arms and made a fervent plea. “Mrs. Barnwell, you have an extraordinary chance here to save your forgotten daughter. You have a chance to do something that Daniel would’ve desperately wanted you to do—and what I believe you really want to do too.”

  “Whatever would that be?”

  “It’s in your power to throw the sheriff off Ladybug’s track. She had no intention of harming your husband, and she didn’t commit murder!”

  The sympathy on Charlotte’s face gave Tom hope.

  “When the sheriff gets to Baton Rouge, Fowler will tell him that he sold Wiley Barnwell’s slave to a man in Greenbriar who talks like a Yankee. That will set the sheriff on my trail. He’ll return to town and go to Indigo Springs. There he’ll find out that I came here, and that I took with me a slave who matches Ladybug’s description. So the sheriff will be coming here. Probably before nightfall. He’ll come to arrest your daughter for an action she can explain and justify, but she won’t get a fair hearing to clear herself.”

  “What would you have me do, Tom?” asked Charlotte.

  “You can stall the sheriff and buy time while Ladybug escapes. You can tell him we went east to Mortonville. You can say we were treated by your nurse last night, but today we saw that our burns from the fire had worsened. So you sent us to Mortonville to see the doctor there, who’s your personal physician and trusted friend. After that, you can tell the sheriff, I was planning to return to Indigo Springs.”

  The women listened as Tom formulated his plan.

  “You can say that I didn’t appear to know the slave with me was Ladybug, or the man I bought her from was Fowler. You can act surprised when the sheriff tells you that. You can tell him I mentioned buying the slave when she was mistreated by a stranger that I encountered in Greenbriar. I
t’ll confirm what Fowler told the sheriff—that he didn’t get my name or give me his or the girl’s—so Duran won’t question it. You can emphasize that you don’t believe we’re running away, so if the sheriff will simply go back to Indigo Springs and wait for me, I’ll show up with the girl. You can be a real good actress, Mrs. Barnwell, just like Rachel. Won’t you play this one great role for Leanna?” He searched Charlotte’s eyes for a sign of self-assertion. “You can either feed her to the wolves of this town or you can throw the sheriff off her track while I help her escape. Choose, Mrs. Barnwell.”

  “Well . . . I . . . Oh, my!” Charlotte looked frightened. “Rachel, dear, oh, what should I do?” she said helplessly. She lifted her arms, trying to reach out to Rachel, but Tom blocked her.

  Ladybug walked to her mother. “I never willfully harmed anyone in my life, Mrs. Barnwell. I never attacked anyone who didn’t attack me first. I just want a chance to leave here. It’s what I’ve yearned for my whole life. Whenever I saw your husband in past years at the Crossroads, he always made it clear that he detested me. On the day of Polly’s funeral, he knowingly sold me to a monster. Your husband wasn’t very kind to me, or to you, Mrs. Barnwell.”

  “How about it?” Tom added. “In the name of the man you loved and your daughter who wants to live. You gave up your own happiness. Now will you let Leanna try for hers?”

  “Oh, my, my, my!” Having to make a crucial choice paralyzed Charlotte.

  Tom pressed her. “Mrs. Barnwell, you’re out of your husband’s grasp now. You can think and act on your own. For once, you can be master of yourself!”

  “No, she can’t!” said Rachel. Three sets of eyes turned to her. “Mama, if that bastard child is ever linked to you, this town will crucify us both! She’s wanted for murder. What if you did help her escape, and she got captured anyway? She’ll try to get a real trial like free folks do. She’ll show the birthmark and insist she’s your daughter!”

  “Lord have mercy!” Charlotte gasped.

  “I’ll be ruined, Mama. Do you want to save one daughter by destroying the other?”

  “This is ghastly, just ghastly!” Charlotte wrenched her hair as if she were going mad.

  Tom stared bitterly at Rachel, who had now become his formidable competitor in a contest for a prize named Charlotte.

  Then he dug his fingers into Charlotte’s arms, his voice as rough as his hands. “If you won’t help your daughter escape because it’s right, then help her because it’ll avoid a trial and a scandal for you!”

  Charlotte’s body went limp in Tom’s grip; it seemed as weak and spent as her will.

  “Rachel’s right. If Ladybug is caught, she’ll have to prove she’s a free woman—your daughter—to get a better shake at justice. That means you’ll be ordered by the court to show your birthmark, and Leanna’s grave site will be dug up to show there’s no one buried there. You’ll have a scandal that’ll rock this old town, Mrs. Barnwell. You’ll be exposed as Ladybug’s mother. You’ll be disgraced. You’ll never be able to show your face in public again!” Tom was merciless.

  “Good Lord! Whatever will I do!” Charlotte trembled. “There’ll be a trial! And a scandal—”

  “Not if we think like Papa, there won’t be.” Everyone turned to Rachel, whose voice was rich with malice.

  Tom had always thought Rachel resembled her mother. But at that moment he recognized in her shrewd voice and calculating smile something that was pure Wiley Barnwell.

  “The murderess could be . . . taken care of . . . before any court hears the case. If Nash helps us on that score, Mama, he might be rewarded,” she said coyly, “with a blushing bride and with the Crossroads as a wedding present.”

  “Are you crazy?” Tom was taken aback, for Rachel made her proposal with coldhearted calculation.

  “If we’re unable to . . . take care of . . . the matter beforehand,” Rachel continued, “ then the case of a slave murdering a senator will be heard by a tribunal of Papa’s friends. Her story about the birthmark will never come out. It’ll be a case of a slave killing a master and nothing more. Open and shut.” Rachel strutted around the room like a queen addressing her court. “Why Tom, you look like a wounded puppy. What do you think politics is for, if not to . . . massage the law from time to time?”

  “Your father’s friends can’t massage Sheriff Duran. Ladybug’s real identity will come out,” Tom insisted.

  Rachel didn’t seem worried. “We’ll go abroad, Mama and me. You see, Mama hasn’t been feeling well lately. The ordeal over my father’s death has weakened her. So she and I simply won’t be available when the case is tried. Papa’s lawyer will argue that Ladybug made up the story, and the judge will order the tribunal to proceed.”

  “Ladybug can show proof of her ties to you and your mother by comparing her birthmark to yours,” said Tom.

  “Not if Mother and I aren’t here to make the comparison.” Rachel pulled her clothing back up over her shoulders, then did the same to her mother’s, hiding the little markings that had caused such a ruckus. She said coyly, “What birthmark?”

  “The empty casket will be dug up.”

  “Will it? On the grounds of lies from a desperate slave? Papa’s attorney will stop it.”

  “You can’t stop Duran. He’ll pursue justice.”

  Rachel laughed like a card player who held all the aces. “Didn’t I speak plain enough for you, Tom? The judges and slave owners that will hear the case are our friends. Why, Mama, remember the times we’ve had Judge Jackson and Judge Holland and their families here for dinner?” she asked cunningly. “That silly sheriff—why, I reckon he can be run out of office too.”

  “Do you realize what you’re saying?” Tom was incredulous. “You want to sabotage the law—to make it kill for you, in order to soothe your vengeful feelings. Is that the kind of person you’ve become?” Tom looked at the woman who was now a stranger to him. “Don’t you see that your father could have been killed in an act of self-defense?”

  “All the evidence points to this creature as the only remaining suspect. A slave killing a master is never self-defense. No circumstance could ever excuse it. Do you think there’ll be any planter on that tribunal who won’t feel the same way?” Rachel’s smile mocked him. “Do you think the verdict on the wench is going to be anything but guilty? . . . Not to mention the verdict on anyone who tries to help her flee.”

  “You have to do the right thing. Not for her sake, but for yours.” He looked at her grimly. “You’re crossing a line, Rachel—”

  “Really?” She laughed derisively.

  “There’ll be nothing left of you if you have your sister killed for nothing more than to satisfy your own jealousy and malice.”

  She waved her hand contemptuously. “Why, Tom, sometimes your . . . purity . . . amazes me.”

  “You can’t get away with your evil scheme. You can’t treat the law as if it were your personal plaything, to twist and turn to suit your ends while it destroys other people’s lives. You can’t hold yourself above the law.”

  “Oh no? What do you think politics is for?” Her eyes were sinister. “Why do you think Papa spent so much time planting his seeds in that field? So we could be treated just like anybody else?”

  Her remark left Tom speechless. Suddenly, he understood the nature of something that had disturbed him since his return to Greenbriar, something that was never captured in the untroubled painting of itself that Greenbriar presented to the world. Beneath the calm waters on the canvas, he felt the town’s undertow, the pernicious current that swallowed so many victims: the forced shutdown of a factory, the uncontested assault of a helpless woman on the town’s main street, the laws against contrary ideas and practices, the school he had to keep a secret, the schemes to sabotage his invention, and above all, the many whom the town, like a reckless mother, had abandoned to bondage. It was people like Wiley Barnwell who sought to control the town’s current, to drive it this way or that to suit their purposes, and to drown a
nything that got in their way. But how did they get away with this? Now, he realized the answer. They had to snare the law, to pull it away from the clear stream of justice and into the murky swamp of power. Rachel understood and approved of this abduction and was now joining the ranks of people like her father.

  Tom glanced at the slender figure in the ballroom gown with the untamable hair of a huntress. He would not let the town’s current carry her away.

  He turned to the disoriented mother to make a final plea. “Mrs. Barnwell, this is your chance to assert your own will. Rachel lives in your home and off your money, so you have the upper hand. You can shut Rachel up. You can threaten to cut her off. You can show her you’re calling the shots. Tell her you insist on stalling the sheriff and giving your other daughter a chance to escape. To atone for Daniel’s death and his daughter’s bondage, you have to act now. You have to stand up to Rachel!”

  Charlotte looked as if something had snapped in her mind to disengage her from a reality she could not handle. Her face took on a distant, detached look. “Wiley protected us,” she said dreamily. “Wiley always made our choices. He knew what to do.”

  “I’ll take care of you now, Mama,” said Rachel soothingly. “I’ll take Papa’s place.”

  “Yes, dear. You do what your daddy would have done. You take care of us now, dear.”

  The woman who had lost her will conceded to the daughter who had lost her character.

  “You just let me handle this. Papa’s gone, but you’re not to worry. I’ll take care of everything now.”

  “All right,” said Charlotte pleasantly. She glanced at Ladybug as if she no longer recognized her.

  Ladybug quietly looked on, witnessing the final collapse of the two women who formed her family.

  Tom turned to her. “We’d better go,” he said sadly to the daughter who was being abandoned for a second time.

  She nodded.

  Just as Ladybug’s eyes lingered for a moment in sadness, disappointment, and final farewell on the woman who was her mother, Tom caught sight of something outside the French doors. He tried not to react, but Rachel, who was watching him and who knew every nuance of his face, sensed something was amiss. She followed his glance . . . and smiled.