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Mother stared at Elizabeth. “You can’t expect them to do everything, now can you?”
“Why not? We bought them. They’re our property and we can do whatever we want.”
A chill filled the air. “So it seems,” Mary said with an edge to her voice.
“What I meant Miss Mary, is that it has been unusually cold,” Elizabeth said, attempting to shift the conversation. “Don’t work too hard. Mother wrote to me the other day complaining of weather. This is the worst time of year for her, I’m afraid. It always has been. And to top it off, father’s cousin Louisa is visiting from Alabama...carrying on about her discomfort and dislike for everything. Nothing seems to make her happy. She curses and slaps every slave who comes into her path and mother is beside herself. It’s hard to please someone who doesn’t want to be pleased.”
Mother raised her eyebrows. “Your mother should put an immediate end to that disorder.”
“Indeed,” I added. “That’s needless abuse and it’s uncalled for.”
“I don’t know about that,” Elizabeth said. “Father’s slaves can be quite contrite, especially the ones in the big house. They prance around like they own it.”
“In some ways they do,” I said matter-of-factly. “They built it.”
“And why don’t we set them free while we’re at it?”
“Why not?”
Elizabeth gave me a startled look and set down her cup of tea. “All this talk of abolition is what youusedto teach, Thomas. You’re in the south now and not every darkie desires to be free and live in the North.”
“How do you know? Have you asked them?
“I don’t need to,” she said in a haughty voice. “I can see for myself. The slaves here are quite content. Besides, this is all they know.”
“You make it sound as if their lives are full of leisure.”
“They’re expected to work like all men,” she insisted. “And what would they do with freedom?”
“The same thing you’re doing with it,” I reminded her. “Have you ever been north?”
Elizabeth’s face reddened. “I don’t need to go north to know that niggers were born to work.”
Mary slammed her glass down. “Enough! There will be more talk of this at the table. Do you understand?”
I laid my napkin on the table. “Yes, Mother.”
Mother rose and beckoned Lizzie to come help her and strode off, leaving Elizabeth and I sitting at the table alone, in silence. Neither one us looked at the other. It was clear a tipping point had been reached, and all I could do was wonder what happened to cause such a swift and dramatic change?
Over the course of months, the façade Elizabeth and I had tried to maintain as a couple was slowly crumbling down around us. Elizabeth’s sweetness and charm began to fade along with my patience. We began to argue about everything, from her extravagant spending to my moodiness, even how well I treated the slaves. Things begin to shift and neither one of us was prepared for what came next.
Chapter Sixteen
Mary sat alone in one of the spare guestrooms located in the southwest corner of the mansion with a small pile of worn journals balanced carefully on her knees. It was late afternoon and she had been sitting for almost an hour looking through William’s old belongings - letters, scrapbooks and an assortment of trinkets and keepsakes from his foreign travels. Mary was starting to get tired. The morning had already proven to be too long. Perhaps it was the dreariness of the day that was making her feeling listless and weary. The sun that had tried to greet them with such warmth and civility hours before was now replaced with a heavy and relentless storm. Or perhaps it was the tense exchange between Thomas and Elizabeth that weighed heavily on her mind. They had been arguing with more frequency than before and it was concerning, leaving Mary to wonder about their future.
The wind howled and twisted, blowing sheets of wild rain around the mansion, extinguishing every inch of natural light. Mary wished for the sun to return if only to interrupt the onslaught that was now drowning the precious land. She looked absently out the window while a lantern burned in the corner of the room and wondered what had prompted her to dig up William's old things after all these years. She hadn’t wanted to before. Not that she was afraid of the past. She just hadn't felt the need to relive the memories, good or bad. But something had called her to the guestroom and she couldn’t ignore it. She had always believed in signs and she was not about to question why this one had come now.
Mary was becoming more fatigued with each minute and decided that a nap would serve her well. She rose from the chair and went to return the letters to the trunk. She started to place them inside when something caught her eye. She was surprised, startled, in fact, that she hadn’t noticed the item before. It was a small pencil sketch of Thomas as a little boy. Mary guessed him to be about four years old. She looked at the drawing curiously knowing she had never seen it before. She held it up to the soft light of the candle and began to smile.
William’s talent for art was unmatched, and there would be times he would be intensely focused on it, so much so, that there would be times when he would shut himself off in his drawing room for hours. He drew whatever was in front of him - landscapes, wild animals, and sometimes portraits. He was particularly fond of drawing sketches of Thomas, and this picture, in particular, was complete with deep, intricate detail.
When Thomas was first born in, William saw it as a blessing direct from God. In the first three years of their marriage, Mary and William had tried several times to have children. The two miscarriages were devastating, but they kept trying. Finally, Thomas was born. He was their miracle baby and they devoted themselves to him entirely. He was their perfect child and beautiful in every way. His hair was dark and long and his deep, brown eyes were hypnotic and drew all those in who saw him. And as the years passed, Thomas became even more handsome and striking in appearance. He was charming and smart and incredibly quick-witted. They loved Thomas with every fiber of their being, and he, in turn, returned the love, clinging to Mary and William’s every limb. He was an obedient child and soaked up all the advice he was given.
But then things begin to change. As Thomas neared his teen years, he became quiet and withdrawn and talked less. Almost overnight, he seemed to turn away from them, and begin reserving his feelings and empathies towards the slaves, especially to Jeb and Jeyne. The closer Thomas got to them, the more William resented it. Thomas resisted this and an unspoken resentment begin to build between them, tumbling out in a rage the day that Jeyne was sold.
Mary was about to place the sketch back in the trunk when she noticed another item, a bulky parcel wrapped in brown paper at the bottom of the trunk. As she reached for the paper, it fell apart in her hands before she could get a solid grip on it. Numerous letters fell at her feet. Mary bent down to pick them up, and in doing so, noticed one of the letters was addressed to her. Curious, she looked at the envelope a little more closely. Something about the handwriting looked familiar. She began to sift through the other letters and drew in her breath as she saw that they were all addressed to her. The first letter was already opened and she began to read it in earnest. As she read the first few lines, she clasped her hand over her mouth.
“Dear Miss Mary, I address this letter to you in hopes that it will reach Thomas. I fear that Master William has been intercepting my letters to him. Hopefully, by addressing these letters to you, they will find their way to him...”
