“I laughed at him, Miss Bébinn. I said it was ridiculous to think such a thing could happen to me, and there would be many to step in to recover me should such an event ever occur. He looked at me and said, ‘How can you say that, Colchester, when you have been a witness to it your whole life?’ He asked me where I thought the people on our plantation had come from, and I was ashamed that I couldn’t answer him. I tried to say that we didn’t treat our slaves badly, but of course that was such a shallow argument. We were holding human beings in bondage. He said to me, ‘When you die, Christian, will that be your argument to God? That you enslaved his creation but treated them well?’
“I wanted to be angry. I wanted to rail at him for upsetting my peace of mind. For four nights I didn’t sleep because our conversation ate at me so badly. Something came to me. It was like seeing a bit of candlelight in the darkness. I realized my professor had brought me awareness to sin so large that I thought it might consume me. But in that awareness was a chance for me to save my soul.
“My father, you might imagine, wasn’t pleased to have his educated son come home and tell him how to run his plantation, with the insane notion of freeing his entire labor force. He said I was unfaithful to the family, that the Yankees had turned me against him. That I was ungrateful for the life that the plantation had afforded us. He kept asking how the plantation would run without the slaves. I told him I didn’t see why we couldn’t pay people. Did we really need to make the level of profit that kept us in luxury?
“It tore a rift between us, so much so that my father changed his will to act against me if I did not handle my inheritance in the way he saw fit. I didn’t know he’d done this. When he died, I thought I would be free to do as I liked. Unfortunately, his will bound me in ways that I find disheartening. I have done what I could. As you know, I founded Lower Knoll by selling my father’s plantation and freeing the slaves with the offer to come here and have their own community. I knew how hard life was for freed slaves, how they could be kidnapped and sold again into bondage. That’s why I thought of creating Lower Knoll.
“But I refuse to be solely tied to it. I don’t want to create another form of plantation where it only appears that the people are free. And I also want to be able to find my own life, to figure out where I’m supposed to be in the world.”
“I can understand that,” I said.
“Can you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Of course. You’ve had to seek out your place, too, haven’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
Mr. Colchester stopped the carriage at Fortitude’s front door. He got out, and when he turned to help me down, I found myself with a vantage point of looking down on him. He offered me his hand, but I didn’t take it right away.
“Sir, if I may say so . . .” I paused.
“Yes, what is it?” He looked up at me and took off his hat. My eyes went to his brow, tracing the length of his forehead. His expression was so open.
“You have more places where you can be. You have money. You have land. And forgive me for saying so, but you’re a white man. This country is made for you because men like you made it. Someone like me? I’m not even supposed to be here, let alone have the freedom to live like I want. It’s not the same; that’s all I’m trying to say. We’re not the same.”
I was going to take his hand and step out of the carriage then, but he wasn’t offering it. He stood there staring up at me, and I figured I might have offended him. I looked away. Stephen held the horses and waited for me. After a few more moments Mr. Colchester gave me his hand.
“I’m glad you have found a place here,” he said. “Thank you for listening to my rambling.”
He stared at me a little longer as we walked into the mansion. Before we parted, he said, “I hope my story will help you think compassionately if I ever seem—strange.”
He entered the library and left me standing alone in the hall. Whether he realized it or not, this was a time when he seemed strange.
I did consider his story, many times. I thought about it in bed as I waited for sleep. I considered it as I walked to the school each day. And soon I had more to consider, because he seemed to enjoy speaking with me in the evenings and presenting me with some philosophical question or his view of the world. I couldn’t tell whether he wanted me to affirm his thoughts, and I didn’t feel equipped to do it. But I liked that he found me worthy of his confidence. He seemed more relaxed with me than when I’d first met him. I even allowed myself to wonder, in the most secret part of my heart, whether I was capable of affecting his humor and his character. Did I tame him?
Sometimes he asked me to speak of Louisiana, and though I still carefully kept from him the precise location of my upbringing there, I enjoyed remembering the sugarcane fields, the fronds of Spanish moss that hung low into the swamps, and the air thick with water in the storm season. He seemed to appreciate it all, and this drew me to him. He felt like family to me, a sensation I had not felt for any soul in so many years.
And my life took on a new color, new vivacity. I no longer dwelled on what I had lost, and the stone from Catalpa Valley, which I still kept safe in a bureau drawer in my room, held less of my thoughts. I could begin to think of Lower Knoll, and even Fortitude Mansion, as my home. Work on my cottage proceeded slowly in the spring of ’60, owing to the men being focused so much on the factory and a war that seemed more certain every day. I considered myself quite settled in my room on the second floor, but that summer Poney began what he had offered to do months earlier: finish the cottage himself. He worked slowly, yet he made steady progress.
Gradually, ever so gradually, Mr. Colchester grew in my heart. I felt gratitude for his accomplishments and for his care of the Lower Knoll village. I was proud of him, unaccountably so, when I perceived he had attained some new level of maturity. He drank less, and even Missus Livingston acknowledged his apparent stability. He was not perfect, of course. What human could be? He could still be sarcastic and impatient, especially when he perceived he might not get his way. But I put it down to general moodiness. Again, excusable. Missus Livingston had known him to be different. Now, in my presence, he had improved. Could I be the reason?
These were my thoughts on a late afternoon in January 1861. There had been no school that day owing to my preparations to move into the cottage. For Poney had finished it just before Christmas, and after abiding by Missus Livingston’s request that I stay in the mansion for the holiday, I packed my belongings. Poney would come with a cart in the morning to take my few things to Lower Knoll. But that afternoon, seeking solitude, I wrapped a heavy cloak about me and walked to the schoolhouse. There I swept the floor, wiped chalk dust from the children’s slates, and put in order the books that had been hastily discarded before the holiday. The room grew dark while I worked as dusk fell on the brief winter day. When I finally left, I encountered the last of the sunset glowing near the edge of the wood.
The sight made my fingers suddenly grow cold as they tried to tie my cloak. That wasn’t west—the light was not in the western sky.
Fire!
My cottage was on fire.