The Amethyst Heart Page 9

  Silas balked at this intrusion into his privacy. But Warren was his employer, and he didn’t know how to avoid answering without offending the man. “Well, of course,” he stammered. “I am a physician, after all. I’ve delivered babies, and—”

  “I’m not talking about professional experience,” Warren interrupted. “I’m talking man to man here. You know what it takes to please a woman?”

  Silas felt a hot flush creep up his neck and into his cheeks. “Colonel Warren, forgive me, but I’m not very comfortable with this line of con­versation—”

  “What it takes to please a woman is—” Warren paused dramatically. “Money!” He threw back his head and laughed uproariously at his own joke. “Money, my boy! Elegance. The good life. And looks to me like you’ve got yourself a girl who appreciates fine things.”

  “Yes sir, I suppose I do,” Silas responded miserably.

  Warren slammed a bony fist down on the table next to his chair, nearly upsetting the marble ashtray. His thin face held an expression that could only be interpreted as victory. And Silas didn’t have to wait long to find out what Warren’s triumph was all about.

  “I’ll make you a deal, son.” The master laid his cigar on the side of the ashtray and sat up straight. “You’re going to need a lot more than you’ve got right now to keep that little Baltimore belle of yours happy. Am I right?”

  “I guess so, sir.”

  “You got yourself a nice house, and that’s a good start, but trust me, it’s not enough.”

  “It’s not?”

  “Of course not. Olivia’s got big plans for your little girl, now that she’s here. Balls and parties and hobnobbing with every plantation family within a hundred-mile radius. Our own children are grown and gone, but now that Olivia’s got somebody to mother, she’ll make the most of it, mark my words. You’ll need money for ball gowns—custom-made by the best dressmakers in Memphis, probably—and a nice carriage of your own, and a thousand other things. Where do you plan to get the finances to support that kind of life?”

  “I—I don’t know, sir. I hadn’t really thought about it.”

  Warren leaned back in his chair. “Figures. I suppose you thought your Miss Regina would be perfectly content to move to Mississippi and become”—he turned up his lip in a sneer—“a doctor’s wife.”

  “What’s wrong with being a doctor’s wife?” Silas blurted out.

  “Nothing, boy, nothing at all.” He gave a sly wink. “It’s just not the same as being a master’s wife.”

  For all the fury that was churning inside Silas, he knew that what Warren said was true. He had seen the look on Regina’s face when she got her first glimpse of Rivermont. The house he had built for her, nice as it was, would pale in comparison. It had no hand-loomed rugs from England, no custom-crafted mahogany furniture. His pathetic savings would barely purchase the basics. And he hadn’t even considered the expense of parties and balls and gowns—all the things he knew instinctively that Regina would insist upon.

  “So here’s the deal,” Warren went on. “I’m prepared to double your salary.”

  Silas shook his head in disbelief. He couldn’t have heard correctly. “What?”

  “That’s right.” Warren gave a benevolent nod.

  “And what must I do in return for this generous gesture?” Silas realized that his voice was laced with sarcasm, but he couldn’t help himself. After almost a year, he knew Warren too well. The man never offered anything without strings attached.

  “Not much,” the master hedged. “All I ask is that you remember who you’re working for. Fulfill the original terms of your contract. Concentrate on the plantation owners and their families, and stay out of the slave cabins. If I want you to treat a slave, I’ll tell you who and when and under what circumstances. Understand?”

  Silas didn’t answer. Shortly after Marcus had died, his woman, Lily, had discovered she was with child. She was due to deliver any day now, and although she was a healthy, robust woman, Silas knew the birth could be difficult for her. He had promised her he would be there when her time came, along with Middie and Pearl Avery, and that no matter what, he wouldn’t let anything happen to the baby.

  “Noble?” Colonel Warren prompted. “Did you hear me?”

  Silas forced himself to look at the master. “Yes, sir. I heard. I’m just not sure I can comply with your conditions.”

  “Why the blazes not?”

  Silas took a deep breath. “Remember Marcus, the slave Otis Tilson claimed was a runaway? Tilson beat him to a pulp, cut off his foot, and let him bleed to death?”

  “Of course I remember.” Warren nodded. “That buck was the best horse handler I’ve ever seen. I’ll probably never find anybody to replace him.”

  Silas stifled his rage. “His woman, Lily, turned up pregnant shortly after his death. She’s due to deliver soon, and I promised I’d help her.”

  Warren bit his lip and thought for a moment. “If it’s a boy, and he grows up to be like his daddy, he’d be some fine asset around here.”

  “Yes sir, he would.” Silas hated himself for agreeing with Warren, who was talking about the baby as if it were a new foal sired by his prized stallion. But if that line of argument would persuade the Colonel, he was willing to take it.

  “I’ll tell you what,” Warren said at last. “When Marcus’s nigra woman goes into labor, you have my permission to take care of her, unless—and I repeat, unless—you’re needed elsewhere. And from now on, you’ll go where you’re told and treat the people I instruct you to treat. No arguments. Got it?”

  Silas nodded mutely.

  “Good.” Robert Warren went to his desk and retrieved a small strongbox. He drew out a wad of bills and handed them to Silas. “The first installment of your new salary,” he said. “Plus a little wedding gift.”

  With a trembling hand, Silas reached out and took the cash.

  A memory flashed across his mind—an image from his days in medical school, when after classes he would make his way into the less savory parts of Baltimore to treat the sick at the charity clinic. All along his route, scantily clad ladies of the night stood posed in doorways, urging the men on the street to come in and sample their wares.

  Back then, Silas had wondered what could possibly motivate a woman to prostitute herself, to do something so shameful just for the sake of money.

  Now, with Warren’s payoff searing his palm like a live coal, he knew.

  11

  A Matter of Conscience

  Silas stood facing Regina in the downstairs bedroom, which adjoined the parlor. He had waited to show her this room last—it was already furnished, if sparsely, with a wide bed and an elaborately carved dresser crafted from solid oak.

  “Booker built the dresser and bed with his own hands,” he explained, running a palm over the satiny finish. “He did a wonderful job, don’t you think? He’s quite the artist.”

  When Regina didn’t respond, Silas pressed on. “Celie and Lily made the mattress and quilted the comforter. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

  And it was. A wedding ring quilt, with interlocking circles in soft pastel hues on a background of unbleached muslin. Each stitch tight and even. The two of them had labored for weeks, Silas knew, quilting by lamplight long into the night. Where they got the fabric, he had no idea, but here and there he recognized snippets of some of the house slaves’ better clothes, and a hand-me-down or two from Olivia Warren herself.

  A labor of joy. A wedding gift from people who loved Silas and valued his presence in their midst.

  Still Regina offered no response.

  Silas couldn’t take the suspense a moment longer. “Well, darling, what do you think? If you could have seen it before—”

  Regina managed a wan smile and sank down onto the bed. “I think—” she began, then paused. “I think you’ve done rather well, considering what you had to work with.”

  The words dropped like lead pellets into Silas’s heart. He swallowed, hard, to push back th
e choking lump in his throat, but before he could say anything, she spoke again.

  “It isn’t Rivermont, of course, but it is very nice, all things considered. I know a seamstress back in Baltimore who makes lovely cutwork duvets and draperies—” One long fingernail pulled at a knotty place in the muslin. “I’m sure she could fashion something more appropriate than a . . . a slave patchwork.” Her nostrils flared just slightly, as if she had caught a whiff of something distasteful.

  Silas fought to stem the rising tide of his emotions. He knew, of course, that his fiancée was accustomed to the finer things in life, and the master’s big house would be exactly the kind of place that would appeal to her refined sensibilities. But once he had seen the magic Booker had worked in transforming the original log cabin into this large and impressive home, he had been so sure that Regina would be elated. It appeared to him now that he had grossly overestimated her response.

  Make certain you choose wisely.

  Grandmama’s words echoed in his memory, but Silas pushed them aside. He couldn’t let his initial disappointment rule his future. Regina was here, and that was what mattered. Olivia Warren was already in the middle of planning a large wedding for the end of April—in the formal gardens, with every plantation family within fifty miles in attendance. And besides, once Regina had the opportunity to choose the furnishings, surely she would be pleased with her new home. It was best to just let her have her head and do what she wanted with the place.

  Silas took her hand and led her into the parlor, where they sat together on the single love seat. “Regina,” he said quietly, “I’m sure this isn’t quite what you expected or wanted, but I’ve left most of it unfurnished so that you could choose whatever you like, whatever will make this house feel like home to you.” He thought of his unexpected raise in salary, and the sour taste of bile filled his throat. “I’ve got some savings set aside, and—”

  Regina wasn’t listening. Her eyes wandered around the room, as if already she were imagining a rug here, a settee there.

  Somewhere in the back of his mind, he heard Grandmama whisper again: Choose wisely.

  Then suddenly Silas remembered: the brooch! He reached into his pocket and drew out the gray velvet box. “I asked you to marry me before I left Baltimore,” he whispered, looking into her sea-green eyes. “But I had no token to give you.” He extracted the brooch from its casing and held it out to her. The heart-shaped amethyst glowed a deep purple, as if it beat with a living pulse. “This brooch has been in my family for generations,” he said in a low voice. “My grandmother gave it to me to present to the woman I would marry.”

  Regina looked down at the brooch and then up at him. “Why, isn’t that a pretty little bauble,” she said, with a smile that did not reach her eyes. “Is it quite valuable, do you think?”

  Silas winced. “Grandmama said it was as priceless as the one who wears it is to the one who gives it.”

  Regina gave him a blank stare. “How sweet. And you’re sweet, too.” She patted his arm and gave him a perfunctory kiss on the cheek. “Thank you, Silas.” Then she stroked a hand across his beard. “You will shave that off before the wedding, won’t you, darling?”

  Lily’s cousin Jute set a steaming tureen of soup on the table in front of Silas and smiled at him. “Chicken an’ rice,” she said, then dipped a curtsy in Regina’s direction. “Hope you likes it, ma’am.” She backed out of the dining room and paused in the doorway. “I be in the kitchen if ya’ll needs anything.”

  Silas ladled the soup into a bowl and passed it to Regina, then served up a second one for himself. He slid the tureen aside, picked up his soup spoon, and dug in. It was wonderful—a thick, hearty chicken stock laced with big chunks of meat and the wild mushrooms that grew down by the river.

  Regina pushed hers around for a moment and finally sipped daintily at the broth. “Hasn’t anyone taught that nigra girl how to wait a proper table?” she complained. “A slave is supposed to serve the food, not just slap it down in front of the master.”

  Silas felt himself grimace. Regina had been here more than a fortnight, and in all that time he had barely had a moment alone with her. She was spending every day up at the big house with Olivia Warren, planning the wedding, ordering furniture and draperies and rugs, and every evening Silas had been forced to endure the Warrens’ company at elaborate dinners. At last, thanks to Lily and Jute, he had managed to get her alone for a quiet meal in their own house. Couldn’t they just have a few minutes of pleasant conversation?

  “I’m not a master,” Silas countered. “And Jute is not a house servant. She’s a field hand who’s already worked ten hours today chopping cotton. She prepared this nice dinner for us as a gift.”

  Regina ignored the part about Jute’s hard work and generous offering. “You’re the master of your own home,” she retorted. “And why couldn’t you be a master—a real one, I mean? Olivia says Colonel Warren would sell you a hundred acres of good cotton land adjacent to the oak grove, and even help you build slave quarters—”

  His self-control failed him, and Silas watched as his hand formed into a fist and slammed down on the table, rattling the silverware. “I am not now, nor will I ever, be a master! I am a doctor, a physician, whose lifework is to heal people, not enslave them!”

  Regina gazed at him in surprise, but she didn’t appear a bit disconcerted. “Now, Silas,” she soothed, “you know perfectly well that when we’re married—it’s only a week away now, can you imagine?—we will have to have a few slaves, whether you want to continue this obsession with medicine or not. We’ll need a cook, and a driver, and someone to clean the house—” Her dainty brow furrowed into an expression of disdain. “Surely you don’t expect me to do all that?”

  Silas hadn’t really thought about it, but now that she had brought up the subject, he knew that deep in his heart he did not have any expectation that his beautiful Regina would give herself to household drudgery. “We’ll get you the help you need,” he conceded. “But they will be employees, not slaves, and they will be paid a fair wage.”

  “You can’t be serious!”

  “I’m perfectly serious. Why not?”

  “Because it will ruin everything, that’s why not! Think about it, Silas. What’s going to happen if you begin to pay Negroes for doing what they’ve already been purchased to do? It can only result in chaos, and in dissatisfaction for everyone. And how, pray tell, do you intend going about acquiring such ’employees,’ as you call them?”

  Silas scratched his beard and waited, and at last the answer came to him. “I suppose I’ll buy their freedom.”

  “You’ll buy their freedom? And then pay them wages?”

  “Yes.” Silas smiled at the brilliance of the plan. “That’s exactly what I’ll do.”

  “It’s insane.”

  “No,” he countered, “it’s humane. Negroes are not animals, Regina. They’re human beings with hearts and souls, with minds and gifts and dreams.”

  She stared at him. “Silas Noble, you’re a—a—an abolitionist!”

  Silas was about to respond when he heard a noise behind him. He turned to see Jute, standing in the doorway with a platter of roast pork and sweet potatoes in her hands. “Beg pardon, Massah Doctor,” she said as she set the food on the table. “I come to take the soup away and bring the entry.”

  “Entrée,” Regina corrected icily.

  “Yes’m.” Jute tested the word: “Ahn-tray.” She gathered up the soup bowls and tureen, and then stood in front of Silas with her head down.

  “Is there something else, Jute?”

  “Yessuh.” She nodded. “I jus’ want you to know that I’d be right proud to serve you and your missus in this fine house.”

  “She was eavesdropping!” Regina hissed.

  Jute’s eyes went wide. “No ma’am! I mean, I didn’t plan to hear ya’ll talking. It jus’ happened, accidental-like.”

  “It’s all right, Jute. And thanks for the offer. I’ll keep that in min
d.”

  “My freedom wouldn’t cost much, Massah Doctor. I ain’t much good as a field hand. And I be real loyal to you and your lady. Yessuh. Real loyal.”

  When Jute had disappeared into the kitchen, Regina turned on Silas with an expression of triumph. “You see? What did I tell you? You’ll have nigras lining up from here to Memphis trying to get you to buy their freedom. What does that tell you?”

  Silas bit his lower lip. “It tells me,” he said quietly, “that no human being is content being a slave.”

  Regina pulled on Silas’s arm. “Stop this immediately!” she demanded. “I have no intention of going in there!”

  Silas looked at her. The door to the cabin stood open, and inside he could see the slave midwife and Pearl Avery preparing Lily for delivery.

  “Come on.” He jerked Regina inside and shut the door behind her. “You’ll be amazed. The experience of birth is nothing short of a miracle.”

  Silas believed his own words. Every time a new life came into the world, every time a helpless infant slid into his hands squalling and squirming and so vitally alive, he felt as if he had been born again himself. Delivering babies had made him a believer—in God, in hope, in the future.

  “I’m going to need your help, Regina,” he said. “I can’t do this without you.”

  The truth was, he didn’t need her assistance. If she hadn’t been there, someone else would have volunteered to hold the lamp, to hand him equipment from his medical bag. But he had other reasons for wanting his fiancée present at the birth of Lily’s baby. She needed to see, firsthand, why his “obsession with medicine,” as she called it, was so important to him. It was time for her to experience what it meant to be a doctor’s wife. And he hoped, deep in the recesses of his soul, that participating in this birth might change her mind about the humanity of Negroes.

  “I—I can’t.”

  “Yes, you can. Stand here beside me and hold the light.”

  With obvious reluctance, she obeyed, and waited silently, her eyes averted, while Silas examined Lily.