The Amethyst Heart Page 8

  “He’ll get his color soon enough,” Silas assured her. “It takes a few days.”

  “Tha’s right,” Middie confirmed, coming to kneel at Celie’s side. “You done real good, chile.”

  Pearl got up and went to join Silas at the rough-hewn table. “He would have died,” she whispered. “Maybe both of them, if it hadn’t been for you.”

  “I couldn’t have done it without your help.”

  “Sure you could have. The point is, I couldn’t have done it at all.”

  “I prayed,” Silas admitted. “For the first time in ages, I really prayed.”

  Pearl ran a hand through her hair and patted his shoulder. “We all did. And, wonder of wonders, God answered.”

  Torches lit the slave cemetery with a wavering, eerie light and cast dancing shadows over the rustic grave markers. A sliver of moon sat high in the sky, and a stiff breeze stirred the cedars that stood in a circle around the clearing.

  Silas stood next to Pearl Avery and tried to focus. It was difficult, with her so close. The warmth of her shoulder, touching his arm, penetrated through his jacket and kept him conscious of her nearness.

  Shepherd, the slave preacher, was talking about resurrection, about the freedom that could come either through liberation or through death. In his low, singsong cadence, he continued:

  “The Good Book says that all who live in righteousness will stand in the presence of the Lord.”

  “Yes, amen!”

  “And those who put their faith in God will nevah be disappointed.”

  “Say on!”

  “I say, those who put their faith in God will nevah be put to shame!”

  “That’s right!”

  “Those who put their faith in God will RISE to eternal life!”

  “Amen!”

  “Those who put their faith in God will forevah be FREE!”

  As if on cue, someone began singing: “Soon I will be done with the troubles of the world, the troubles of the world, the troubles of the world. Soon I will be done with the troubles of the world, goin’ home to live with God. . . .”

  The unfinished pine box was lowered into the hole, and Lily, still limping gingerly on her wounded foot, moved forward to drop a handful of dirt into the grave. Tears streaked her face and shone in the torchlight, but she held her head high and nodded with dignity to those who had come to mourn with her.

  At last Booker stepped forward, holding his newborn son in his arms. He stood at the foot of the grave and held the child up for all to see. “Life and death is in the hands of the Lord,” he declared sagely. “One brother was goin’ out, even as another was comin’ in.”

  “Hallelujah!” someone shouted. Silas thought it was Middie.

  Booker pulled back the blanket and held the naked infant in his two big hands. He extended his arms and lifted the child over his head. The baby flailed his fists in the dim light.

  “His name,” Booker said in a solemn voice, “will be Enoch. The one who done walked with God.”

  “Enoch,” everyone repeated.

  “May he have his mama’s goodness and his daddy’s strength,” Booker went on. “And may he live to see the day when all folks will be free at last.”

  “Free at last,” the crowd echoed. “Free at last.”

  Silas watched, and felt tears sting his eyes. When he looked down, Pearl Avery was holding his hand.

  10

  The Baltimore Belle

  March 1854

  Silas Noble stood in the foyer of the house and looked to the left, into the old cabin room with its stone fireplace and low-slung beams, and to the right, into the front parlor with its high ceilings, double French doors, and gleaming oak floors.

  It had taken eleven months, but it was finished. And it was all his.

  His and Regina’s.

  Today she would arrive by train from Baltimore, and he would present her with this lovely new home and the amethyst and pearl brooch given to him by his grandmother on his twenty-first birthday. Their engagement would be sealed, their wedding date set.

  Silas’s eyes moistened as he remembered Grandmama Noble. She had been the only person in the entire family who had understood his calling to become a doctor. The day he turned twenty-one, she had called him into her room and held out a hand to him.

  “Silas,” she had said in a quavering voice, “I won’t be around much longer, but before I go—”

  “Don’t say that, Grandmama!” he protested. “You’re not going to die. You’re not!”

  “Everyone dies, son,” she countered with a smile. “The only question is when, and how.” She had fixed him with a fierce and tender gaze. “Make sure that when it’s your time, you go out gracefully, and with integrity. Don’t spend your last moments wondering about what might have been.”

  Silas had been too young—perhaps he was still too young—to understand fully what she was saying. But he had nodded and waited for her to continue.

  “I want you to have this,” she said, extending a small velvet box. “It was mine, given to me by your grandfather on the day we married. When you marry, it will be your gift to your bride.”

  Silas took the box and opened it to find a heart-shaped amethyst brooch surrounded by small pearls. The gemstone glinted a deep purple in the lamplight.

  “Amethyst for sincerity,” Grandmama murmured. “Pearls for purity.” She motioned to him. “Look on the back.”

  Silas looked. In cramped, tiny lettering were engraved three words: Sincerity, Purity, Nobility. For generations past, it had been the motto of the Noble family. Silas turned the brooch over in his hand. “Is it valu­able?” he blurted out, then immediately regretted the question.

  But Grandmama did not rebuke him. “As priceless as the one who wears it is to the one who gives it,” she answered cryptically. She latched onto his sleeve and pulled him close, showing surprising strength for one so ill. “Make certain you choose wisely,” she whispered.

  Grandmama had not lived to see her only grandson turn twenty-two. And now, more than four years after her death, Silas wondered, just for a moment, if his grandmother would approve of his choice.

  Of course she would, he reprimanded himself. Regina came from a fine Baltimore lineage, a family of impeccable breeding and taste. She was gracious and cultured and elegant. She would make the perfect wife.

  And she would make Noble House into a beautiful home. A lovely, peaceful place to live together and raise their children.

  For months he had been anticipating this day with a strange feeling in his gut. It had to be excitement, he reasoned. Excitement, and perhaps just a little touch of fear. All new bridegrooms got cold feet, or so he had been told. This was a major change in his life, a watershed moment. Once he and Regina were married, nothing would ever be the same.

  But of course, it would be better. Silas would have stability in his life with the woman he loved. He would have children, a meaningful career, a place in society.

  Silas let his mind dwell for a moment on Regina—the beautiful, refined girl he had fallen in love with nearly three years ago, long before he had completed his medical training and come to work at Rivermont. His life—and his thinking—had changed so radically since then. For all his initial confusion and inner torment, everything had fallen into place the night he delivered Booker and Celie’s son, little Enoch. He knew he belonged here. He just wasn’t completely sure Regina would understand his place of belonging.

  He stepped down into the log cabin room—still his favorite room in the large planter house. The rest of the place was formal in design, the kind of home where Regina would hold teas and dinner parties and ladies’ sewing circles. But this was his room, with its masculine oak furnishings and big roll-top desk.

  Silas went to the desk, seated himself in the swivel chair, and drew out a packet of Regina’s letters. He untied the ribbon, sorted the letters by date, and began to read back through the correspondence she had sent to him in the past year.

  Most of
the letters were full of news from Baltimore—the coming-out of her debutante friends, the balls, the dresses, the celebrations, the financial success achieved by his old friends from college. Chatty letters, containing little information of any personal nature, and even less response to the ones he had written to her.

  He had told her all about his life here—about the slaves, about Booker and Celie and their infant son Enoch, about the Warrens and the other plantation owners, about Olivia and her mounting excitement at the prospect of Regina’s arrival. She had responded to that one, now that he thought about it—asking a multitude of questions about the society scene in Cambridge, questions he hadn’t the faintest idea how to answer.

  But she made no mention whatsoever of his philosophical musings about the humanity of slaves, or his understanding of his calling as a physician. She had only commented that she hoped the nigras knew what they were doing in building the house, and she would be glad when it was finished and Silas would be freed from this harebrained agreement to doctor the slave families.

  She just doesn’t comprehend what my life here is all about, Silas rationalized to himself. When she gets here, meets these people, and sees in person how much good I’m doing, she’ll be proud of me and supportive of my work.

  It wasn’t the first time Silas had tried to convince himself that everything would be perfect once Regina arrived. Nor was it the first time he came away unconvinced.

  “Daisy!” Olivia squealed at the top of her lungs. “Get up here, right now!”

  Robert Warren went to the foot of the stairs and peered up at his wife. “Olivia? Is everything all right?”

  “I should say not!” she shouted down to him. “Miss Regina will be here at any moment, and her room is not ready! Daisy was supposed to put fresh calla lilies and roses in the vase, and the pitiful bouquet she brought in is all wilted and brown around the edges. DAISY!”

  The diminutive slave girl almost bowled Robert over as she raced around him and up the stairs. “’Scuse me, Massah,” she gasped. “I’s comin’, Miss ’Livia!”

  Robert heaved a long-suffering sigh and went back to balancing his accounts. He would be glad when Miss Regina, the belle of Baltimore, finally did get here and get settled. Maybe his wife would calm down a bit, not be so frantic to have everything just so. And maybe Regina’s presence would knock some sense into that addlebrained doctor.

  More than six months ago he had been ready to fire Noble and be done with him. The man couldn’t seem to get through his thick skull that his job was to tend the plantation families, not the nigras. Robert had to admit, albeit reluctantly, that everybody who needed the physician’s attention had eventually been treated, but Noble still had his priorities all out of whack. The young man apparently didn’t understand—or didn’t want to—that his white patients came first, and the slaves got any time that was left over. Noble seemed to have it set in his mind that the most serious cases should be treated first, whether that was a little pickaninny baby, a dying field hand, or the plantation owner himself.

  And Noble had made a formidable enemy when he had refused to lance Tilson’s boil the night that big buck Marcus died. The overseer had been gunning for the doctor ever since, calling the man all manner of uncomplimentary names and pestering Warren to “fire the nigger-lover.”

  But Robert hadn’t fired him—not yet, anyway—and the main reason was Olivia.

  “Please don’t let him go,” his wife had pleaded. “His fiancée will be here soon, and he’ll straighten out, you’ll see. A good woman, an aristocratic woman, will make all the difference in setting things right.”

  Warren had his doubts, but he had agreed, for Olivia’s sake, not to take any action against Noble for the time being. Olivia had her heart set on having another genteel female at Rivermont, someone of her own social status, someone she could take under her wing and introduce to the rest of Cambridge society.

  And who knows? he thought. Maybe it will work out. He couldn’t deny that Noble was a good physician. If he could just find a way to get the man’s attitudes in line. . . .

  Silas stood next to Booker on the depot platform and watched as the train squealed to a halt in a cloud of steam. He craned his neck, searching for Regina as the passengers began to disembark.

  Then he saw her, emerging like an angelic vision from the smoke, an apparition of loveliness and grace. The sunlight reflected from her auburn hair, done up on top of her head with wisps escaping around her face and neck. Her satin dress, the same color green as her eyes, rustled as she walked toward him. Booker leaned in close and whispered, “Is that her, Massah Doctor? I declare, she is one fine—”

  Booker stopped suddenly and lowered his eyes. Of course, Silas thought. It was totally inappropriate for a slave man to notice, much less comment on, the charms of a white woman. He clapped Booker on the back. “Don’t worry about it, Booker,” he said under his breath. “And yes, she is a fine woman.”

  Booker grinned and stepped to one side as Regina approached and held out her arms toward Silas. In one hand she carried a small train case, in the other a satin parasol that matched her dress. Any kind of embrace—even a handshake—was impossible under such conditions, so Silas leaned forward to receive a phantom kiss, first on the right cheek, then on the left.

  “Silas, darling!” she cooed, stepping back to look him over. “My soul, you look absolutely . . . rugged.” She set the train case on the platform and reached a lace-gloved hand to stroke his face. “You’re so tan! And that beard!” She slapped him playfully on the cheek. “Well, that will have to go, now won’t it?”

  Silas felt himself beginning to blush. The beard had initially been a concession to convenience—it took so much time to shave every morning, and he was always cutting himself in his rush to get out to the slave cabins or up to the big house. In the end, he had just let it go, and by the time it had grown in completely, he found that he liked it. It made him feel more masculine, more powerful, as if he had finally taken control of his own destiny. He had never felt that way, not once, while he lived in Baltimore.

  Now, with Regina standing here in front of him, all those old memories came flooding back. He saw, as clearly as if he were there again, how she and all her girlfriends governed the men in their lives—their fathers, their brothers, their beaus. They didn’t try to hide it, either; they constantly joked about how men didn’t know what was good for them and needed a feminine hand to keep them in tow. On one occasion, even though he had worked an eighteen-hour shift at the hospital and they were already late, Regina had sent him home to change, complaining that she simply could not be seen with a man so inappropriately attired for the opera.

  Silas ran a hand through his beard and smiled down at his fiancée. “No,” he said softly. “I think I’ll keep it. It suits me.”

  Her green eyes went icy, and she forced a smile. “We’ll see about that,” she answered with a chilly laugh. “Shall we go?”

  Silas was just about to introduce her to Booker when she picked up her train case from the platform and shoved it in the slave’s direction. “My other things are there.” She pointed to a wheeled cart piled high with trunks and boxes. Without even so much as a glance at Booker’s face, she pivoted around and stalked toward the waiting carriage, her high boots making a definitive clicking sound across the boards.

  Booker caught Silas’s eye and grinned. “Looks like we shoulda brung the buckboard ’stead of the carriage.”

  On the drive to Rivermont, Regina oohed and ahhed over the beauty of the landscape. The azaleas were on the verge of blooming, and all along the river, dogwoods and redbuds blossomed profusely, and daffodils lined the banks with yellow and white.

  “You didn’t tell me it was so lovely here,” she gushed, gripping Silas’s arm as they sat together in the rocking carriage. “Who planted all these flowers and trees?”

  “Well, uh, nobody,” Silas stammered. “They’re all wild.” He recovered himself and squeezed her hand. “But wait until y
ou see Rivermont. Miss Olivia—that’s Colonel Robert Warren’s wife—has fabulous gardens. She grows roses and calla lilies and hyacinths—”

  “We are going to Rivermont first, aren’t we?” Regina interrupted. “I’m very anxious to meet the Warrens.”

  Silas frowned. His plan was to take his fiancée to their new home, to show off what he had done for her, and to present her, in a proper and formal manner, with the amethyst brooch that felt as if it were burning a hole in his jacket pocket. “You will be staying with them, of course, until the wedding. We’re both invited for dinner tonight. But I thought that first we might stop by our house. I want you to see—”

  “Oh, there’s plenty of time for that.” She dismissed him with a wave of her hand. “I’d rather see Rivermont and meet Colonel and Mrs. Warren.”

  Silas reached past the opposite seat, piled with trunks and suitcases, and tapped Booker on the shoulder. “Change of plans, Booker. Take us to the big house first.”

  Booker turned his head and rolled his eyes. “Yessuh, Massah Doctor. Whatever you say.”

  Regina was clearly impressed with the opulence and grandeur of Rivermont. After Olivia had given her the tour, the two women settled themselves in the parlor with coffee and pie, chattering like squirrels, while Silas and the master retreated to Warren’s study and tried to make uncomfortable small talk.

  “Well, Noble,” Warren finally said after several aborted attempts at conversation, “I guess your life is about to change significantly.”

  “Yes, sir, I suppose so.” Silas shifted restlessly in his chair.

  “Nothing like a good woman to keep a man on the straight and narrow.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Warren lit a fat cigar and leaned back in his chair. “You got any experience with women, Noble?”

  Silas jerked to attention. “Excuse me?”

  “Any experience. You know. . . .“ The older man grinned salaciously and waved one hand.