Glory over Everything: Beyond The Kitchen House(61)

“Mr. Cardon!” she shouted when she saw the knife. “No! What are you doing? Don’t harm him! Caroline needs him! She will die—it would kill her!”

“Then Caroline will die!” he shouted.

“Oh, you cannot mean that!” his wife cried out as she sank into the nearest chair.

“I mean every word I am saying,” he said. “I would rather see Caroline dead than with this nigra bastard.”

“Please!” Mrs. Cardon pleaded. “You make no sense. What are you saying?”

“Silence!” He flung me aside and went to stand over his wife. “Are you not aware that this—this thing of theirs will be colored?”

“What are you saying? What do you mean?” Mrs. Cardon asked, staring up at him.

“He’s a nigra, is what I mean.” He pulled the letter from his pocket and thrust it into her face. “Here is your proof. His mother is a nigra!”

“Surely it is a lie!” Her eyes begged me to agree.

Her enraged husband grabbed hold of her face and forced her eyes on him. “The thing will be taken before Caroline has a chance to see it. She will be told that it died. Do you understand?” he roared to his terrified wife.

“I will take the baby!” I called out, and in three long strides, the man was back at my side, the blade of his knife at my throat. “I’ve promised Caroline I’ll take her to New York. I’ll come back after she’s—”

He growled before his knee shot up between my legs, and I doubled over. “If you ever see Caroline again, I will kill you both!” He heaved me upright. “You will leave Philadelphia. You have a week—no! Five days! Salvage what you can in that time, but you will not return to Philadelphia. If you breathe a word of this to anyone, or if you are fool enough not to leave, I will kill you. You have five days. Now get out of here before I kill you now!”





CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE


1830


James


AS MY CARRIAGE sped away, my thoughts were of Caroline and how desperate she would feel to think I had abandoned her once again. However, I knew well that her father was capable of carrying out his threat if I did not leave.

“Nigra!” he had called me. I had been called that name before, and the sound of it brought terror. Fighting the wretched memories, I closed my eyes and leaned back against the seat; when I felt something moist on my waistcoat, I glanced down to see blood on my fingers. I had an aversion to blood and fought for control as I unraveled my cravat to press it against my neck wound.

I opened the carriage window to take in gulps of cold air while reminding myself that soon I would be home, where Robert would be waiting for me. He would know what to do.


AN ALARMED ROBERT took me straight to the study, where he removed the bunched-up cravat to study the wound. “It is a small cut and has stopped bleeding,” he said reassuringly. I gratefully swallowed the brandy he handed me, but it wasn’t until I drank the second one that my breathing came more naturally.

“Come.” Robert led me to my favorite wingback chair. “Sit by the fire.”

I sank down, head in hands. Everything I had worked for was gone. All of my carefully guarded secrets were exposed! I was ruined. “I don’t know what to do, Robert! I don’t know what to do.”

“I will do all I can to help you. Is it Miss Caroline?”

“Yes! Yes, she is so sick! But her father . . . I have to leave Philadelphia. I have five days.”

Robert took a step back. “You must leave?”

“Her father threatened to kill me if I did not leave.”

“For good?” he asked.

I nodded. “There’s more,” I said, staring up at him.

“More?” Uncharacteristically, he sat down.

I worked to clear my thoughts. “I need to tell you everything, Robert,” I said. “You need to know who I am!”

“You’re upset. This isn’t necessary—” he began.

“Yes, it is necessary!” I shouted. I needed him to listen. He had to know the truth. If I lost him, at least I would know where he stood. I began to speak before I lost my nerve. “When I was thirteen, I found out that my mother was a mulatto. Before then, I thought I was white. Marshall Pyke owned the plantation where I was born, and I had no idea that he was my father. My grandmother raised me to believe that I was her son and that my grandfather, who had died, was my father.”

It was as though the words released a lid from a fermented jar of memories, and those most fiercely suppressed spilled out. I was a child of six again, back at Tall Oaks.

“Marshall was an awful man, Robert. I was hiding under the bed when he pushed Miss Lavinia into the bedroom. He kept hitting her. ‘Please, no, Marshall,’ she said over and over. I put my hands over my ears, but I could still hear what else he was doing to her. I was so scared I wet myself, and after he was gone, I was too ashamed to crawl out and comfort Miss Lavinia.”

“That must have been terrible,” Robert said.

“It was!” My voice sounded strange—high and childlike—and I gripped the arms of my chair. “Only days after I found out he was my real father, he had me tied up and taken down to the quarters so I could be sold for a slave. That night there was a house fire, and Grandmother died in it. I heard her calling me for help, and I couldn’t get to her, Robert! The next morning, when I broke free, I found a gun.”