I stopped in front of him.
“What about the fire?” I demanded.
His shoulders slumped. “I wanted to keep you close, to stay in the mansion. I didn’t intend for anyone to get hurt. I didn’t know the girl was in there.”
He lunged for me and gathered me in his arms. “Don’t you see? I couldn’t stand for you to be far from me. For the first time I felt a true connection with another human being—you. Without fear, without remorse. You loved me as I am. I couldn’t risk losing you.”
I didn’t return his embrace. I removed myself from his arms as I would shed a coat or a wrap, and I sat in my chair again.
“Christian,” I said quietly. “You don’t know or have any respect for who you are. I can’t be expected to make up that deficit for you.”
He fell to his knees and grasped my hands. “We talked about sin once, remember? You said a man shouldn’t have to pay for one sin over and over. I have atoned. I have freed my father’s slaves and provided them a way of making a living if they choose it. Why can’t I have my life now?”
“But their living can’t be maintained without you.”
“They are not free if I must be their caretaker. And neither am I free.”
“I pity you, but I can’t enter this jail with you.” I moved away from him and opened the door.
“You love me,” he insisted.
“God help me, I do.” I pushed my forehead against the door so I wouldn’t have to look at him. “And I shall suffer a good while because of it. I’m tired now. Please go.”
He crossed the threshold and turned. “What are you going to do, Jeannette?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then do one thing for me. Consider a life away from here. Please, Jeannette. We’ve been through too much to lose each other now.”
I nodded.
“You will think about it?”
“Goodbye.”
“I love you.”
I pushed the door closed behind him.
I was too exhausted to undress. I lay on the bed, fully clothed, and closed my eyes. The darkness that overcame me seemed palpable—thick enough to float on. I was Ophelia on the Miami River, drifting away. There was an ease about it, an effortless drifting in which my clothing didn’t weigh me down or make me feel cold and wet. I longed to open my eyes and see sky and green branches passing overhead, but there was only darkness. And that was all I was—loneliness and darkness. As my awareness returned, I remembered the wordless prayer I had uttered last year. I could summon aid again. It would be one grasp at light. I had to believe God would not forsake me in this. I uttered a simple bit of scripture, remembered from years ago:
“Be not far from me; for trouble is near; for there is none to help.”
That was what I needed: Help. Divine help and loving aid. I had to believe it would come. And because I believed it, I felt calmer. I fell into a deep and nourishing sleep.
Chapter 15
This was what our love made me, I decided: someone capable of great love and compassion. I knew from Papa what it was to be loved. Christian taught me that I could return it and grow from it. It gave me a new kind of strength and certainty. And clarity. I awoke the next morning with a clear idea of what I was going to do—what I had to do if I was going to go on being this person who had grown from our love. I would have to go on and be this strong self and do it without him.
The only thing I could do was walk away from him. And it would be easier if I allowed myself to love him even as I was leaving him. Trying to stop loving him would be like trying to pretend I was fully white. I’d have to twist myself up too badly for it to work. If I’d sat there in my room and tried to make myself stop loving him before I left, then I would have had to sit there forever. My love wouldn’t break like that. Instead I let it be. I figured I could breathe like that, move like that.
So I whispered “I love you” even as I packed my few belongings in a small black case. I whispered “I love you” as I slipped each finger into my gloves. I said “I love you,” letting the words float up the staircase into the air of Fortitude Mansion, where he might find them later when he woke.
I slipped outside and started walking. I told myself to think like I was planting love into the soil with each step, because that was what would make the next step possible. I just kept walking, and with those steps he was soon behind me, and I began my journey into another new world.
I walked to the village as though it were any other school day. I was wondering what would be the best way to go without being seen or having the children make too much of a fuss. But then I saw Poney coming toward me, heading in the other direction with the wagon of supplies. I waved him to stop. “Poney, may I ride with you?”
He shook his head. “Oh, Miss Bébinn, I’m going far. Taking these supplies to the Union soldiers in western Virginia.”
“Yes, I know. I need to go far, far away.”
He looked down at me, his face clouded with doubt. He shifted his feet and pushed his hat back on his head. “Mr. Colchester ain’t gonna like that.”
I put my hand on the wheel closest to me. “That’s why you can’t tell him, or anyone else, where I’ve gone.”
He didn’t move to help me into the wagon, so I put my bag on the floor and pulled myself up onto the seat next to him.
“Just keep on going like you were, Poney. It’ll be fine. Just go.”
We thought it was thunder in the distance. An odd breeze blew about us, changing direction one way to another. Poney whistled to the horses to settle them, and we moved into what seemed like a summer storm. It was cloudy, but I couldn’t see any dark masses of rain. Maybe it was around the bend or across a field. Maybe the storm was on the other side of a hill in the distance. We kept going.
Suddenly Poney and I looked at each other. The ground now shook fiercely, like a giant was pounding it with his fists. He slapped the reins, and we went faster. I thought I glimpsed movement off to my right—someone, maybe many someones, running. A tremendous boom split the air, and I grasped the sides of my head, pressing my bonnet to my ears. Then a series of shots volleyed through the trees. We were riding into danger, but there was no way to tell which way to go to get out of it. A sidetrack veered off to the right, and Poney took it, still urging the horses on. It took us alongside a field, off the main road, but still the ground rumbled beneath us.
Then a sound like a rattle being shaken over us. A small piece of wood from the side of the wagon splintered and struck me on the right side. On my left—Poney fell against me.
“Poney!”
He grasped his left side and sank down to the floor. The reins slipped from his hands, and I grabbed them. I stood to reposition myself and put my weight behind the horses. I pushed them on. Poney groaned.
I was turning us when I saw a man in gray running toward me, his musket in one hand. With the other he was trying to grab the bridle of one of the horses. I pulled up the horses and pulled the pistol from my pocket. I stood and fired. Miss Maude would have scolded me. I didn’t aim for his leg. He had a weapon, and he was trying to control the cart. I had to aim high.
The shot got him in the shoulder. He fell backward and seemed shocked. That was his arrogance, I suppose. I got the horses moving, and in a moment Poney and I were past him.