Glory over Everything: Beyond The Kitchen House(62)

“You don’t have to continue,” Robert said, but I silenced him with a wave of my hand.

“Before I shot him, I wanted him to look at me, and I called out to him, ‘Father! Father!’ When he looked at me, I pulled the trigger. He just blew apart. And then, oh God, bits of him stuck to me!” I felt again the damp bloodstain on my chest and gave a shuddering sob.

“Come now. That is in the past. It’s best we leave it there,” Robert said, rising and coming over to me. “Come, stand up and we’ll take off your waistcoat. I’ll clean it later.”

His help brought me back, and by the time I sat again, I felt more myself.

“Would you care for some tea?” he asked.

“Did you hear what I said? I killed my father.”

“I understand,” he said. “There are circumstances that might drive us to do things that appear wrong, but who is to judge? You were fighting for your life.”

“Do you think so? Do you believe that?”

“I do,” he said.

“I was! I was fighting for my life.”

“And you were only thirteen.”

“But now I’ve ruined everything. Caroline’s father . . .” With that, I told of the debacle at Stonehill and of Mr. Cardon’s ultimatum. “I had to leave Caroline behind. I had no choice,” I said. “And now I have to leave here. I don’t know where to go, and how can I leave without Caroline?”

“Who is to say that Miss Caroline won’t join you after she is well?”

I looked at him. Was that possible? It was at least a ray of hope. “And will you come with me?” I asked, though I dreaded his answer.

“Whatever you decide, I will be there to assist you.”

“Even now?” I asked. “With everything you know?”

“I’d already guessed at your burden,” he said.

I stared over at him. “How did you know?”

He met my eyes. “I recognized in you the struggle I have within myself.”

I looked at him with new eyes. Of course! Why had I not seen it before? “Are you half white?” I asked.

“I am,” he said. “I am also half Negro.”

“You speak of this as though you carry no shame,” I said.

“There is no shame in who I am,” he said. “There is only shame in how I came to be, and that is not my burden to carry.”

“So you don’t blame me for—”

“Your road is one I might easily have taken, given your coloring. Your choices are not for me to judge.”

I might have stood to embrace the man, so grateful was I to him. Instead I offered him the only words that came. “Thank you, Robert, for being my friend.”


EARLY THE NEXT morning a sealed envelope arrived. Inside was a card with only two boldly printed words: “Day One.” There was no question that Mr. Cardon meant to carry out his threat. A message from the museum came later in the day to inform me that my funding for the excursion was withdrawn. I doubted not Mr. Cardon’s involvement.

Though I was desperate to get word to Caroline, I could think of no safe way to reach her. I had no choice but to leave and get myself settled elsewhere. In a few months I would send funds and a carriage in hopes that Caroline and the child would come to me.

It was Robert’s suggestion that he stay on until the house was sold. After the sale, he would release the staff and join me. New York seemed the most likely destination.


WE MOVED QUICKLY and purchased a small house nearby in Robert’s name. There we stored some of the best furniture, the portraits of the Burtons, and the finest of the china and silver.

Mr. Cardon’s envelopes continued to mark the days, but on the morning of day four, the usual morning message did not arrive. In the late afternoon, a black-edged note came from Mrs. Cardon, stating that both Caroline and the child had died.

I took the note into my darkened study, where I sat throughout the night, holding tight to the printed words, too shocked to make sense of it.


THE FOLLOWING MORNING, day five, I was still in my study, staring about the oak-paneled room, now stripped bare but for the dark blue draperies shielding the sun and the worn leather chair in which I sat. I could not believe that Caroline was gone. Surely it was a lie. But it had come from Mrs. Cardon. I wanted to go to Stonehill to see for myself, but I remembered only too well Mr. Cardon’s threat, and I dared not chance it.

There came a quick rap on the door, and from behind Robert, Henry rushed in. “I jus’ found him! Pan down in the Car’linas! I’s right! They sell him for a slave! But I found him! He at a place in the Car’linas,” he said excitedly. “Place called Southwood.”

Caught up in my own tragedy, I had forgotten about Pan. “Henry, I’m not—” I began, but in his wild enthusiasm, he cut in.

“I find out where my Pan is at! He at a place called Southwood in North Car’lina, up from a place they call Edenton. Here,” he said, handing me a brown piece of paper with a hand-drawn map. “They show you here.”

I roused myself enough to study the piece of paper and recognized a clearly drawn map of the North Carolina coastline. How had Henry obtained it?

“Henry, I’ve had a man working on this for weeks, and he’s come up with nothing. How do you know that this is not someone taking advantage of you?” I asked. “For the right amount of money, some people will tell you anything you want to hear.”