Part 7 (2/2)
”Is Mother all right?” I finally asked.
”The doctor says so.”
I was afraid to ask about the baby.
Neither of us ate much of the supper Esther had made, but I saw Ruby carry up a huge tray of food for the doctor. The baby still hadn't come when it was time for me to go to bed. I slept poorly, listening to Mother's moans in the night.
The next morning, Tessie came to sit beside me on the bed, gently stroking my hair. ”You mama had a little boy baby last night,” she said softly. ”But he all blue, just like the others. He in heaven now, with the angels.”
”What about Mother?”
”She okay.”
”Is she . . . is she going to die?”
”No, the doctor say she ain't gonna die. But I think she want to.”
The doctor was wrong. Before nightfall, my mother was dead.
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Mother's older sister, Martha, came down from Philadelphia by train for the funeral. Aunt Anne and Uncle William drove into town from Hilltop. Jonathan, who now attended the College of William and Mary, arrived by paddle steamer from Williamsburg. He wrapped his arm around my waist to hold me up as I stood beside Mother's open grave in Hollywood Cemetery. The gaping hole in the ground, the bare tree branches, the black mourners' clothes all looked stark against the frozen white ground. I had just turned sixteen, and my first grown-up dress, with long sleeves and proper hoops, was a black mourning gown.
That night after everyone else had gone to sleep, I slipped from my bed and went down the hall to my mother's room. Ruby sat all alone on the edge of Mother's neatly made bed, a single candle on the dressing table casting an eerie light. Ruby looked up as I entered, and I saw that she'd been crying.
”Ruby . . .” My voice sounded loud in the quiet night. ”Ruby, there's something I need to know.”
”You as pretty as she always was,” Ruby murmured as I stepped closer. I cleared the knot of fear from my throat.
”The doctor said my mother was fine after the baby was born . . . but Mother died.”
Ruby said nothing. I didn't want to ask the question out loud, but she wasn't going to make this easy for me.
”How . . . how did my mother die?”
Ruby shook her head as if she wanted both me and my question to go away. I knelt on the floor in front of her, face to face, taking her hands in mine.
”I came here to see Mother the day the baby was born. She didn't have a fever. She wasn't sick. . . .” I waited. ”Please tell me, Ruby.”
”Seem like . . . seem like maybe your mama make a mistake,” she said in a tiny voice. ”She not sleeping much, you know . . . and maybe she want to sleep. Laudanum pill always help her sleep, but maybe . . . maybe she take too many this time . . . by accident.”
”Is that what you think, Ruby? That it was an accident?”
She closed her eyes. By the light of the single candle, I watched the tears roll down her cheeks. When she opened her eyes again, she smiled. ”I glad they bury her little baby with her. Now he won't be all alone in that cold ground. Your mama so worried about that. Said a child need its mama.” She squeezed my hands tightly, her eyes pleading, begging me to understand. ”Your mama didn't want to leave her child all alone, Missy Caroline.”
I wanted to understand, but I couldn't. I was her child, too. I needed my mother. And she had left me all alone.
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My father seemed to age twenty years overnight. He wouldn't eat, couldn't sleep, and spent most of the time in his library, where Gilbert endlessly refilled his gla.s.s. Daddy and Uncle William had shouted at each other in loud voices the night before my uncle returned to Hilltop, but I didn't hear what they'd said. When it was time for Aunt Martha to return to Philadelphia, she and Daddy called me into the library one night. The sight of his griefravaged face brought tears to my eyes.
”I have business overseas, Caroline,” Daddy said without preamble. ”I'm sailing at the end of this week. Aunt Martha has offered to take you to Philadelphia to live with her for a while.”
I couldn't find the words to tell him that I didn't want anything to change, that too many things had changed already. I felt this new loss as if it had already taken place. ”I want to stay here, Daddy,” I said desperately. ”With you.”
”I can't stay, Caroline.” He glanced up at me, then quickly looked away. I knew I reminded him of Mother. I saw the resemblance myself in the mirror every morning. ”I'll be gone for several months,” he continued. ”Your Aunt Martha doesn't think you should stay here alone.”
”I won't be alone. I have Tessie and Eli and Esther. . . .”
”That's not an option,” Daddy said harshly. ”If you stay in Richmond you will have to board at school.”
His words filled me with dread. I'd lost my mother, and now I was losing my daddy and my home, too. Aunt Martha came to me, slipping her arm around my shoulders, taking my hand in hers.
”Boarding schools are terribly lonely places, Caroline. After all you've been through, don't you think it might be better if you lived in a home for a while, with your family? I have two girls of my own who are about your age. They'll be company for you.”
”The only other choice,” Daddy said, ”is to stay with my brother at Hilltop.”
I didn't care for any of those choices. I knew I would hate boarding school-the cold gray hallways and barren rooms, standing in line for everything. I had no friends there-the other girls weren't like me at all. Nor could I go back to Hilltop with an aunt and uncle who thought I belonged in an asylum. My cousin Jonathan was away at college, and I didn't think I could stand being at Hilltop without him, living in the plantation house with papered walls and rich food on the table while the slaves lived in drafty cabins with dirt floors and cornshuck beds. I would never get used to seeing beautiful children like Caleb and Nellie hungry and sick, knowing their mothers were praying that they would die. That left Philadelphia as my only option-and I had no idea what to expect if I went there. Aunt Martha was as plump and plain as one of Esther's biscuits. She had none of my mother's beauty nor her s.h.i.+fting moods. She seemed kind.
She gently squeezed my hand. ”Come to Philadelphia with me, Caroline.”
”How long would I have to stay?”
”As long as you'd like. You can enroll in school with my girls.”
”Could I come home again if I didn't like it there?”
”You'd have to agree to give it a reasonable amount of time,” my father said. ”It's not easy traveling back and forth at the drop of a hat. Especially after making all the arrangements for school.”
”Why don't we say . . . at least until the school term ends in June,” Aunt Martha said. ”That's only four months away. Then we can see how you feel about staying longer.”
In the end I agreed to go. I didn't seem to have much choice. Aunt Martha wanted to leave by the end of the week, which didn't give Tessie much time to pack our things.
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”I've never ridden on a train before, have you?” I asked Tessie the night before we were scheduled to leave.
”No, I sure ain't never been on any train.” Her voice sounded m.u.f.fled, coming from inside the huge steamer trunk she was bending over.
”Are you excited, Tessie?”
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