The Amethyst Heart Read online

  “How far apart are her contractions?”

  Pearl came and stood behind him, placing one hand on his shoulder. “About five minutes, Silas. It won’t be long.”

  “Who is this woman?”

  Silas turned to see Regina frowning. “Sorry—guess I wasn’t thinking about introductions. This is Pearl Avery, Regina. She’s trained as a nurse. I don’t know what I’d do without her.” He looked up at Pearl. “This is my fiancée, Regina Masterson, from Baltimore.”

  “Delighted to meet you,” Pearl said pleasantly, offering a hand that Regina did not take. “I’ve heard a great deal about you.”

  “And I, on the other hand, have heard nothing about you,” Regina responded coolly.

  “I wrote you about Pearl,” Silas protested. “Didn’t I?”

  “Not a word.”

  “Oh. Well, I thought I did.” He turned back to Lily. “I’ll explain it later. Lily, you doing all right?”

  “Yessuh, Massah Doctor. I jus’ be glad when he comes.”

  “I’ll bet. My best guess is that you’re a couple of weeks overdue.”

  “He a big one, ain’t he? Like his daddy.”

  Silas nodded. “I think you’re right, Lily. You sure it’s a boy?”

  “Don’t rightly know. Don’t matter to me, long as it’s healthy.”

  Lily was a big woman herself, muscular and strong from working the fields, with wide hips and powerful thighs—the kind of figure people often identified as “plainly built for childbearing.” Under other circumstances, Silas wouldn’t be worried about a successful delivery. But the baby was large—and late. Besides this, the child was Lily’s only living connection to Marcus, the man she loved, and Silas had vowed to her that, no matter what, he would help her through this.

  Regina stood rigid and stoic, saying nothing, while Lily labored for two hours. Then, just as the final contractions were coming, Celie rushed into the cabin.

  “Doctah Silas!” she gasped. “Massah Warren sent a boy down to get you.”

  “I can’t come now,” Silas muttered, his attention focused on the child about to be born.

  “He say you gotta come to the stables. Mister Tilson, he got throwed from Massah’s new stallion and his leg is broke.”

  A surge of satisfaction rose up unbidden in Silas’s heart, and he stifled a smile at the irony of the situation. Silas could never forget, as long as he lived, the image of the slave Marcus, Lily’s man, beaten to raw meat and bleeding to death from a severed artery. The overseer had killed Marcus without a moment’s remorse, and now, on the evening when Marcus’s child was being born, he needed help. Well, Tilson had it coming to him. This was payback for his cruelty.

  But that wasn’t how a doctor should react, Silas argued with himself. No matter who, no matter what the circumstances, he had a responsibility to save lives. To heal, not hurt. And what had Robert Warren told him? Whites come first. Remember who you’re working for.

  Silas remembered. How could he forget, when Warren had raised his salary contingent upon his promise to comply with his employer’s orders? Without that money, Silas could never afford to provide Regina with a life of luxury and social acceptability.

  “Massah Doctor,” Lily pleaded. “Don’ leave me now.”

  “Do you want me to tell Massah Warren I couldn’t find you?” Celie suggested.

  In that instant, Silas made his decision. Tilson wouldn’t die from a broken leg. When he had seen Lily’s baby safely delivered, he would go and set the man’s bone. He doubted that he could save his income, but maybe—just maybe—he could salvage what was left of his integrity.

  Silas shook his head. “No. Don’t lie to him. Tell him Lily’s baby is on the way, and to keep Tilson’s leg immobilized. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  Celie ran out, and Silas glanced up at Regina. Her lovely face had been transformed into a mask of disbelief, and her green eyes glittered with unspoken anger.

  Regina held the lamp high and didn’t move. Nor did she turn away from the disgusting bloody mess Silas had called a miracle. What was so miraculous about a nigra woman dropping her bawling infant onto a mattress stuffed with straw? She had seen a foal born once, a thoroughbred. That process was neater and considerably more efficient than what she was witnessing tonight.

  And besides, how could Silas decide that birthing a slave baby was more important than tending to one of his own? The man had no concept of what was proper in polite society. He was a doctor, yes, but didn’t a doctor have some choice in the matter?

  With a curious detachment, she watched Silas as he worked. And gradually the truth dawned on her: he had chosen! He loved what he was doing. He would actually rather be in a slave cabin pulling a little pickaninny out of a big black mammy than in the Warrens’ Rivermont mansion setting the white overseer’s broken leg.

  She had accused him, point-blank, of being an abolitionist, and he had never responded to the charge. But no matter what he said, she could see the truth for herself. It was in his eyes, the way he looked at the nigra woman who sweated and strained on the mat. It was in his hands, the way he touched her with comfort and encouragement. It was in his voice, as he urged her to push or hold back, as he spoke to her in low, compassionate tones.

  “More light!” he called out. Regina held the lamp a little closer and watched as a nappy-headed infant pushed its way out into the world. It was a girl.

  Regina gave an involuntary shudder as Silas lifted the baby up and cuddled it against his chest. He was getting his best shirt all messy; those stains would never come out.

  And then, something totally unexpected happened. The white woman, Pearl Avery, reached out to take the infant and wrap it in a blanket. Her hands touched Silas’s, and she froze for a moment, looking up at him. In the yellow gleam of the lamplight, Regina saw the naked truth.

  It wasn’t possible—she must be imagining things. After all, who was this Pearl Avery? More man than woman, to all appearances, in her dungarees and boots and chambray shirt. She wasn’t attractive, and she certainly did not possess a single ounce of breeding or gentility.

  Still, Regina couldn’t deny what she had witnessed, the look she had seen in Silas’s eyes.

  Her fiancé was in love with another woman.

  “Do you mean to say that he stayed with that slave woman when Robert had expressly ordered him to come here?”

  Regina nodded. Silas was out in the stables, setting Otis Tilson’s broken leg, and in the meantime, over tea and finger sandwiches, she had told Olivia everything—or almost everything. “Yes, just as I said. He forced me to go with him to the slave cabins. I resisted, of course, but now I’m glad I went. I saw it all, with my own eyes.”

  “It must have been horrible for you.” Olivia patted Regina’s hand and poured more tea.

  “It was.” Regina closed her eyes and shuddered. “The smell! I can hardly believe I survived it without fainting. And the blood and mess—”

  “There, there, dear,” Olivia cooed. “You’re here now, back where you belong.”

  “But Silas doesn’t belong here.”

  “Whatever do you mean, child?”

  “I mean,” Regina answered fiercely, “that he likes it! He’d rather be with the slaves. He even told me at dinner tonight that he was thinking about buying freedom for some of the nigras.”

  “He said what?”

  “We were talking about how many servants we would need for the house. I was encouraging him to take Colonel Warren up on his offer of the land, to begin developing a plantation of his own. But he said he would never own a single slave as long as he lived, and that if we needed servants, he’d buy their freedom and then pay them a wage, as employees.”

  “Good heavens, no!” Olivia put a hand to her heart and fanned herself with a linen napkin. “Does he know what he’s saying?”

  Regina took a sip of her tea and set the cup down with a shaky hand. “Apparently he’s serious about it. If you could have seen the way he acted toni
ght, as if those nigras were—I don’t know . . . his family.”

  “He can’t go around freeing slaves and then paying them—not in Mississippi! It’s preposterous. We’d have an uprising on our hands.”

  “That’s what I told him.” Regina nodded. “I insisted it was a crazy idea—completely insane. But after what I witnessed tonight, I don’t think it’s just a notion he’s recently gotten into his head. I think—”

  “Think what, dear?” Olivia prompted.

  “I think he may be—” Regina took a deep breath. “I think he may be an abolitionist.”

  “No!” Olivia Warren’s expression of horror mirrored the feelings that were churning inside Regina herself. “Oh, my poor dear! Whatever are you going to do?”

  Regina hesitated. She had known the truth the moment she had set foot in that hodgepodge of a house Silas was so proud of, the second she had gotten her first glance at the pitiful old amethyst brooch she now wore at her neckline. But she had yet to say the words. Slowly she unclasped the brooch and laid it on the table. “I’m going back to Baltimore.”

  “You can’t!” Olivia wailed. “The wedding is in one week. And I’ve grown so fond of you! What will I do without you at Rivermont?”

  “I’m sorry,” Regina responded. “You’ve gone to so much trouble to make me feel welcome here, and I do apologize for the inconvenience. I’ll miss you, too, but—”

  “But what? Isn’t there some way we can make this right? Surely your influence will help Silas see the error of his ways—”

  “The error of what ways?”

  Regina looked up to see Silas standing in the doorway. She didn’t know how long he had been standing there, but the expression on his face told her that he had heard enough to be angry.

  “Talking about anyone I know?” Silas walked over to the table and poured himself a cup of tea. He picked up two sandwiches and settled himself in the chair across from Regina. “I’ve set Tilson’s leg. He’ll live.”

  “You sound disappointed.”

  “And you sound as if you’ve been unburdening yourself to the Master’s wife.” He shook his head. “What did you tell her?”

  “She told me,” Olivia said, “that you disobeyed a direct order from my husband, and that you’ve been talking like an abolitionist.”

  Silas heaved a deep sigh but said nothing.

  “Now, Silas,” the woman went on, “I think we need to have ourselves a little chat. I have considerable influence with my husband, and I do believe I could convince him to give you another chance, if only—”

  Silas held up a hand to silence her. His mind flashed back over his dinner conversation with Regina, how she wanted him to be a plantation owner in his own right, with a big mansion and hundreds of slaves. But he could never convince himself to do it—not in three lifetimes. Not for Regina Masterson. Not for anybody.

  It was time for him to stand up for who he was—as a man, and as a physician. No one, not even the Master who paid his salary, was going to tell him whom he could and could not help. He stood to lose everything—his job, his income, the woman he was engaged to marry. His family back home in Baltimore would probably never speak to him again. But he would not lose himself.

  “No,” he said finally. “I don’t want another chance. I want to be given the liberty to treat those people who most need my medical services, no matter who they are.”

  “And that’s your final word on the matter?”

  Silas turned to see Robert Warren enter the room. Every muscle in the man’s wiry body was taut, as if for a fight. His eyes glittered with fury.

  “Yes sir.” Silas stood to face him. “If I do any less, I’ll be denying my oath as a physician.”

  Warren’s jaw clenched. “We have had this discussion before, have we not? And you have repeatedly disobeyed my orders. I have no choice but to—”

  The master stopped abruptly as a white-coated slave entered the room, followed by a flushed and breathless Pearl Avery.

  “Who is this woman, and what is she doing in my house?” Warren demanded.

  “Forgive me, Colonel Warren. I didn’t mean to barge in. But Silas—ah, Dr. Noble—is needed at the slave quarters.”

  “And you are—?”

  Silas stepped forward and put a hand on Pearl’s elbow. “This is Pearl Avery, Colonel Warren. She—”

  “Avery? Harmon Avery’s daughter, from the mill?”

  “Yes sir. She’s also a nurse, and she has been assisting me—”

  “From what I’ve seen, she’s been doing quite a bit more than assist­ing,” Regina blurted out. “Just look at her! I can see it in her eyes, and in his.” She let out a gasp and reached for Olivia’s hand. “He may be engaged to me, but he’s in love with her!”

  Pearl took a step back, and Silas watched as a bright red flush crept into her cheeks. He could feel heat climbing up his own neck, and he tore his gaze from hers.

  “That’s nonsense!” he protested. “We just enjoy working together, that’s all. Pearl has been invaluable to me, and—”

  Suddenly words failed him, and Silas stopped mid-sentence. No matter how he tried to deny it, there was something between him and Pearl. Something special. The way she looked at him—the way she was looking at him now, with a softness in her eyes. The way he felt charged with vitality whenever her hand brushed his. Every time he left her, an empty space opened up in his heart, a space not even Regina’s presence could fill.

  Then he looked at Regina, and he saw what he had refused to see before this moment: a spoiled child, whose constant selfish demands would drain him, divert him from his purpose. She hadn’t the faintest understanding of his call to medicine and his desire to heal, nor did she make any effort to understand. And life with her, for all her beauty and elegance, would be a constant battle of wills.

  Choose wisely, his grandmother’s voice whispered in his heart.

  “Is this true?” Warren demanded, his eyes fixed with disdain on Pearl Avery, still clad in her dungarees and boots. “Are you in love with this—this—?”

  Silas sighed. “I don’t know. But I do know I don’t have time for this discussion right now.” He turned back to Pearl. “What’s the problem?”

  “Celie’s boy Enoch. He turned a pot of coffee over on himself. Celie’s tending to him, but he needs a doctor.”

  “All right, let’s go.” Silas grabbed his bag from the doorway.

  “If you leave now, Noble, you’ll never set foot in this house again,” Warren snarled. “You’ll never collect another dime of salary. And I’ll expect you off my land by nightfall.”

  Silas turned. “I believe, Colonel Warren, that I hold the deed to my house and land.”

  “Maybe so, but you’ll never work in this county again.”

  Silas lifted one eyebrow. “I’ll still have plenty of patients.”

  “You’d throw away our whole life?” Regina howled. “You’d give up everything to tend those—those nigras?”

  Silas looked at her and saw in her eyes not regret, or even pain, but pure rage. She didn’t love him; she was only upset that he had not surrendered to her will. “I’m afraid so, my dear,” he answered. “And I’m afraid it’s something you’ll never understand as long as you live.”

  Regina picked up the amethyst heart from the table and hurled it at him. “Then keep your pathetic old brooch. And that house the slaves built for you. I’ll have no part of it!”

  The brooch clattered against the wall, and he reached out his hand and scooped it up. “That’s probably for the best,” he sighed. “Good-bye, Regina. I’m certain the Warrens will see you to the station. Give my regards to everyone in Baltimore.”

  12

  Strange Guidance

  As the buckboard bounced along the road toward the slave cabins, Silas stared straight ahead and avoided looking at Pearl, who sat behind him in the bed of the wagon. A tangle of emotions wrapped around his heart—concern for little Enoch, guilt over breaking his promises to Regina, fear of
what might happen to him and his practice now that he could no longer depend upon Robert Warren’s financial support.

  He had gotten himself into a real mess this time. His beautiful, aristocratic fiancée was on her way back to Baltimore, armed no doubt with a trunkful of stories about what a despicable cad Silas Noble had turned out to be. His parents would be furious; this marriage to Regina was the single redeeming factor in what they considered an otherwise unremarkable, even embarrassing life. The Noble name would never recover from this blow, and he’d never be able to show his face in Baltimore again.

  In addition, his benefactor had turned against him. He had a house and land, but no money with which to support himself, and a raft of patients who needed his services but couldn’t pay the first dime. One moment, one decision made out of conscience, had suddenly thrust him into a situation that would most likely lead to his downfall.

  But it wasn’t just one decision, Silas reasoned. It was the culmination of months of self-evaluation and transformation. He was no longer the same man he had been when he left Baltimore to come to Cambridge County, Mississippi. He had seen the dark reality of slavery for himself, and he had formed a strong bond with Booker and Celie, Marcus and Lily, and the others. They had become his family. He had wept with them, rejoiced with them. With Pearl at his side, he had tended their wounds, delivered their children, buried their dead. He had made a place for himself here, and he couldn’t imagine leaving. What would he do without them? What would he do without Pearl?

  Regina had made the accusation, and he had denied it. But now he wasn’t so sure. Could it be that he was in love with Pearl, and she with him? Regina said she could see the truth in his eyes. And he had to admit that he felt something for Pearl. Whenever he looked at her, whenever she was near, he had sensed—what? Wholeness. Completion. Peace. He had called it admiration, appreciation. It couldn’t be more than that . . . could it?

  Still, the moment Regina declared her intention to go back to Baltimore, one overwhelming sensation had risen up in his heart: relief. Despite the questions and confusion that filled his mind at this moment, he was experiencing a curious sense of liberty—as if, for the first time in his life, he had stood up and taken charge of his own destiny.