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She watched Merrit, who also was little aware of the lovely country through which they passed with its heavy shade trees and small rural communities. They saw few men working in the fields, and those they did see were white. Merrit could think only of Breeland. She did not interrupt his thoughts, but she watched him with tense anxiety, her face almost bloodless. Hester knew that in spite of her own horror and exhaustion, the girl was trying to imagine herself into his sense of confusion and shame because of the way the battle had turned. His beloved Union not only had lost but had done so with dishonor. He must feel his beliefs threatened. What was there one could say to a man suffering such pain? Wisely, she did not try.
Hester looked also at Philo Trace. She judged him to be almost ten years older than Breeland, and in the harsh sunlight, tired and grimed with dust and gun smoke still, the lines of his face were deeper than Breeland’s and there were far more of them from nose to mouth and around the eyes. It was a more mobile face, more marked by character, both laughter and pain. There was not the same smoothness to it, the intense control. It was a private face, but there was no timidity in it.
There was something in Breeland’s features that frightened her. It was not a presence so much as an absence, something human and vulnerable she could not see or reach. Was it that which Merrit admired? Or was it simply not there yet because he was younger? Time and experience would write it in the future.
Or did Hester imagine it all because she knew he had killed Daniel Alberton for the guns as coldly as if he were … she had been going to think “an animal.” But she could not have killed an animal without horror.
They rode in silence except for the necessary words for convenience and understanding. There was nothing else to say; no one seemed to wish to bridge the gulf between them. With Monk there was no need to speak. She knew they felt similarly, and the lack of words between them was companionable.
Nearer Richmond, they passed large plantations, and it was here that they saw black men laboring in the fields, backs bent, working in teams like patient animals. White men kept control, walking up and down, watching. Once she saw an overseer raise a long whip and bring it down across a black man’s shoulders with a sharp crack. He staggered, but made no cry.
Hester felt sick. It was a very slight thing-it might happen dozens of times a day somewhere or other-but it was a sign of something deeply alien to all she accepted. Suddenly this was a different land. She was among people who practiced a way of life she could never tolerate, and she found herself staring at Philo Trace with new thoughts. She had liked him. He was gentle; he had humor and kindness, imagination, a love of beauty, and a generosity of spirit. How could he fight so hard to maintain a culture that did this?
She saw the flush on his cheeks under her gaze.
“There are four million slaves in the South,” he said quietly. “If they revolt it will become a slaughterhouse.”
Breeland turned and stared at him with unutterable contempt. He did not bother to speak. Merrit’s expression mirrored his exactly.
The color in Trace’s cheeks deepened.
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“America is a rich country,” he went on steadily, refusing to be silenced. “Towns are springing up all over, especially in the North. There’s industry and prosperity-”
“Not if you are a colored person!” Merrit snapped.
Trace did not look at her.
A brief, contemptuous smile curled her lips.
“We export all kinds of things,” Trace went on. “Manufactured goods from the North where industrialists grow rich-”
“Not on slave labor!” Breeland spoke at last. “We profit on what we make with our own hands!”
“Out of cotton,” Trace said quietly. “More than half our nation’s exports are cotton. Did you know that? Cotton grown in the South … and that doesn’t count sugar, rice and tobacco. Who do you think plants, tends and picks the tobacco for your cigars, Breeland?”
Breeland drew in his breath sharply as if to speak, then let it out again.
Trace turned away and looked across the lovely, gentle countryside. There was grief and guilt in his face, a love for something that was beautiful, and terrible, and that he feared to lose. Perhaps he also expected to lose it, if not for everyone, at least for himself.
They went by train, first from Richmond down through Weldon and Goldsboro to the coastal port of Wilmington in North Carolina. From there they went inland again to Florence and finally to Charleston in South Carolina, where, just over three months before, the first shot of the war had been fired to start the bombardment of Fort Sumter.
Monk and Hester remained with Breeland and Merrit while Trace went to make arrangements for passage to England. The trip south had been tense and exhausting. Breeland had made no attempt to escape, nor had Merrit tried to help him, but Hester and Monk were both aware that only extreme watchfulness could assure that it did not happen. It was necessary for them to take turns in keeping awake, with a loaded pistol always to hand.
Once Breeland glanced at Hester with a look of disdain in his eyes, until he considered her face more carefully, and the contempt was replaced with the knowledge that she had seen more death than he had. He was no longer certain that she would not shoot … perhaps not to kill, but certainly to cause extreme and disabling pain. After that he made no attempt to escape from her vigil.
There was much talk in Charleston of the blockade that Mr. Lincoln had declared along the entire coastline of the South, right from Virginia around to Texas. They speculated as to whether it would succeed, and there was talk of gun-running through the Bahamas or other such neutral islands.
But on the second day Trace returned to say he had found passage, and they would leave with the tide the following evening.
The journey back across the Atlantic took only thirteen days, and they seemed to have a fair wind almost all the way. In every physical aspect, it was a pleasure to walk on the deck in the sun with a blue sky around them and a vivid blue sea in every direction, unbroken to the horizon. Merrit was barely recognizable as the girl she had been before the battle and its loss. The determination was still there and the passion, but a joy in her had been destroyed, at least for a time. The heroism of reality had been nothing like that of her dreams. If she had also seen a vulnerability in Breeland, even a flaw, she was too loyal to betray it even in the meeting of a glance.
Emotionally, however, it was quite different.
When Breeland had recovered from his exhaustion of body and the pain in his shoulder was considerably eased, he demanded to speak with Monk. The cabin arrangements had been made so that Trace could keep a reasonable watch upon Breeland. No more was necessary, since escape was obviously impossible. Breeland refused to say anything except if Monk should see him alone.
Monk would have refused him, but his own curiosity was piqued, and he was moved in spite of himself by an urgency in Breeland, as if what he wished to impart was not merely the expected justification of his actions or an offer of some bargain in exchange for his freedom.
