A Hope Beyond (40 page)
Swann, apparently unaware of her feelings, continued with business. “He tells me that you will want to take an open hand with the business matters and that I should advise you on a weekly basis of the standings of your investments and dealings. I shall be happy to come here each and every Friday afternoon and do just that. Will that meet with your approval?”
Still stunned in the realization of St. John’s actions, Carolina stared at him dumbly. Here was yet another surprise. This man had fully accepted the fact that she would be in charge of the estate. Feeling such surprise that he would address her in such a respectful and accepting manner, Carolina nodded. “It would be quite agreeable.”
Mr. Swann ran through a variety of other issues before rising to leave. He departed, having received her signature on the deed to the house as well as a dozen other papers pertaining to the St. John holdings. Carolina was stunned to learn that she now owned properties in New York and Massachusetts, as well as Baltimore, and was the sole owner of several bank accounts and investments totaling into the millions.
Stunned, Carolina could only sink to the safety of a nearby chair after seeing Mr. Swann out.
“Are you quite all right?” Mrs. Graves asked, coming in with a look of worry.
“Isadora,” Carolina said, using the name for the first time, “you will not believe what I have just witnessed.”
“Was he vicious and cruel?” the woman asked, seeming to take instant offense for whatever wrong might have been done her young mistress.
“No, on the contrary. Apparently our Mr. St. John made his wishes abundantly clear. Wishes, in fact, that he’s been making plans on for several months. Mr. Swann informed me that Mr. St. John had arranged this entire matter some months back, and he continued our meeting by treating me not only with respect, but without the least condescension. It is one of the first times I’ve not been treated as a mindless creature by a man who did not know me personally.” Then laughing she added, “For that matter, it was one of the nicest meetings I’ve ever found myself a part of.”
“Well, it’s a good thing,” Mrs. Graves responded with a hint of a smile playing upon her lips. “The poor man would never have known what hit him had you been given cause to take him to task.”
Carolina smiled and for the first time realized what real freedom she had suddenly acquired. She would answer to literally no one. She was no longer her father’s responsibility, nor was she the concern of the man she’d married. For all intents and purposes, Carolina St. John was answerable only to God. Then, as if to dispel this sudden feeling of smug control, Victoria bounded into the room and threw herself into Carolina’s lap.
“Are we going to the park today?” she asked wistfully.
Carolina laughed, then sharing a coy smile between the child and housekeeper, she shook her head. “No, I believe we shall do something even better.”
“Better than the park?” Victoria questioned. “What is it?”
“Shopping. We shall go shopping and buy up a whole closet of dresses for you and a new doll and a set of new reading books so that we might further you along on your lessons.”
Mrs. Graves smiled. “That sounds much better than going to the park, Miss Victoria.”
“And we shall take Mrs. Graves with us,” Carolina added. “She has need of a great many new things, as do I, and afterward we shall dine at one of the restaurants where they serve iced creams.”
Victoria’s eyes grew wide, as did Mrs. Graves’. “Is this a special day?” Victoria asked in awe.
“Indeed it is,” Carolina replied. “It’s our own private day of independence, and I mean for us to have a memorable time of it.”
Mustering up his courage, James stood outside the St. John house and knocked. The heat of August was heavy upon him, but not nearly so heavy as the anxiety he felt in awaiting the appearance of Carolina Adams.
He’d thought out many times just exactly how this meeting might go. His appearance would of course be a shock, but after the initial effects wore off, he hoped that Carolina might allow him a chance to explain himself. Explain the feelings that had grown in his heart ever since the night of her sixteenth birthday—feelings that had caused him to forget his promises and his father’s wishes and reject marriage to a woman he didn’t love.
“Yes?” an elderly woman said, staring at James as though he might well be an uninvited peddler.
“I am James Baldwin,” he answered, procuring a calling card. “I’d like to speak with Miss Carolina Adams.”
The old woman took his card and ushered him into the foyer. “Wait here while I let her know.”
James stood faithfully, hat in hand, while the woman took herself down a short, narrow hallway. He heard her whispering, then the scuffing sound of a chair being pushed across the floor, and finally the stunning vision of Carolina appearing in the hallway.
She was radiant and far more beautiful than he’d remembered— and he remembered a great deal. This was a grown-up Carolina, stately and elegant in her afternoon dress of green watered silk. Her hair, swept up in ringlets of chocolate brown, beckoned his touch, but the shocked look of disbelief in her dark eyes quickly took away any thought of boldness. He suddenly felt very shy and very inadequate to the task at hand.
“James,” she barely whispered the name. She came to stand within three feet of him before she stopped and shook her head. “I can’t believe you are here.”
James smiled weakly. “Me either. It took long enough to get my courage up.”
Carolina looked at him in disbelief. “Your courage for what?”
James fidgeted with the rim of his hat and cast his gaze to the floor. “I’ve long wanted to speak to you on several matters of extreme importance.” The speech was long rehearsed, only now his throat was suddenly dry and his words no longer sounded quite so smart.
“Well, why don’t you come in,” she said, glancing backward to where Mrs. Graves stood silently as if to guard her mistress. “Mrs. Graves, would you be so kind as to have Cook furnish us with tea?”
The housekeeper nodded before turning a corner at the end of the hallway and disappearing.
Carolina opened the sliding doors to the left of the foyer and motioned James to follow. “We can talk in here.”
She swept ahead of him, and James felt as though he’d fallen into the deepest of dreams. She bore herself in such regal fashion that James felt quite overwhelmed. Why had he come? This whole thing might well make fools out of both of them.
Carolina took a seat and waited for James to once again take up the conversation. He studied her for a moment, unable to find the right words. He tried to envision the lovely creature he’d last seen so long ago at the Gadsby Hotel. She had looked perfectly grown-up then, or so he had thought. However, it was easy to see that she had been still a girl then compared to the
woman
she now truly was.
“I know this is a surprise,” he said softly. Watching her carefully for any signs of distress or discomfort, he continued. “I learned from your father that you were living here in Baltimore. I, too, live in Baltimore when I am not tramping west with the B&O.”
“I see,” she replied, but the look on her face betrayed her utter confusion with his appearance.
“Carolina . . .” He paused, then made himself continue. “May I call you by your given name?”
Carolina smiled and her eyes lit up in such a way that James instantly felt his heart in his throat. “Of course, James. We are old friends.”
The words sounded strained, but James took advantage of their truth. “That we are, and that is partly why I am here today. You see, there are things that I feel should have been said a long time ago. Things that have rewritten the course of my life, and now, well, I feel a reckoning time has come.”
“Is this about Virginia?” Carolina asked.
“When I broke our engagement—” James began but was stopped by Carolina’s stunned gasp.
“You?” Carolina breathed. “But I thought Virginia dismissed you. Although it makes sense now why she always blamed me for the breakup by encouraging your love of the railroad.”
“She had no right to blame you,” James protested.
“I realized that and told her so. Your love of the railroad was something that would have resurfaced sooner or later. My encouragement might have brought it about sooner than expected, but better that than to see my sister married several years and then have it come back to life.”
“I must tell you,” James said, “that I broke the engagement because I could not marry a woman I did not love. You see, there were other things.”
Carolina eyed him suspiciously. “Other things? Such as?”
James bit at his lower lip and drew a heavy breath. “It isn’t easy for me, and seeing you like this so . . . well . . . so grown up and . . .” he stammered, unable to go on.
“And?”
“And I have to explain what really has happened and—”
“Mama!” Victoria St. John called as she came bursting into the room. She paused for a moment to smile shyly at James before bounding into Carolina’s arms.
James felt his breath catch. “Mama?” he asked, seeing the tender scene before him as an intrusion upon his own feelings.
Carolina nodded. “You mentioned having spoken with my father; I assumed that you knew.”
“I knew that you were acting as nanny to the daughter of Blake St. John.”
Carolina smiled and stroked Victoria’s head. “I married Mr. St. John last month and became mother to Victoria.”
James felt as though his entire world had come apart. He likened it to falling from the train the day it had derailed and killed Phineas Davis. He was falling and falling, and the slow motion in which the painful event seemed to play itself out was no different than the setting before him now. He couldn’t let her know how devastated he was by this news. He had to pretend that the suddenness of it was all that had caused his silence.
“What a surprise,” he said, forcing himself to concentrate.
“Yes, for all of us,” Carolina murmured and turned to her daughter. “Victoria, this is Mr. James Baldwin. He is the man I told you once tutored me in my studies.”
Victoria smiled at James and scooted off Carolina’s lap in order to curtsy. “I am pleased to meet you, sir.”
James stood rather awkwardly and bowed. “Your servant, Mistress Victoria.”
“Victoria, please go on upstairs and busy yourself with your reading. I must speak with Mr. Baldwin for a time.”
The little girl was obviously disappointed, but her respect for Carolina won out, and after offering her mother a quick peck on the cheek and another curtsy to James, she hurried off through the double doors and up the stairs.
“I am sorry for the interruption, but we have the house very much to ourselves, and Victoria tends to believe it her right to concern herself with all matters of life.”
“I seem to remember that same attitude in yet another young woman,” James said softly.
With a smile that broke through the years, Carolina nodded. “Guilty as charged. Now you were saying that you wished to explain something.”
James shook his head. “It really isn’t all that important. I simply wanted to find you and see how you were faring. It was shameless of me to have waited this long. I am surprised that the university has not figured in to your new life.”
“No, but that desire no longer drives me as it once did. Lucy Alexander, now Lucy Adams and happily married to my brother York, once told me that the most important lessons in life could be had for free and without benefit of a classroom. She helped me to realize that the limitations set out by the people of this world needn’t be a reason for a full-scale war. There are other ways to undermine the strategy of the enemy and win the battle.”
“Must there be an enemy?”
“Of course not, but in the case of women being educated, I believe there are a great many enemies afoot. But seriously, hearing such things is not why you came today. It’s been a long time, James.”
“Yes.” He felt his throat tighten again. He was too late. His pride and his lack of self-esteem had caused him to wait too long, and now Carolina, his Carolina, was married to another man.
Mrs. Graves arrived with a serving cart laden with treats and two silver pots containing both tea and coffee. “Thank you, Mrs. Graves. I’ll serve.”
Mrs. Graves eyed James for a moment before bobbing a slight curtsy and departing. Carolina was already pouring coffee for him when he looked back at her.
“Thank you.” He seemed unable to say anything more.
“So, have you been with the B&O all this time?” Carolina asked, pouring her tea.
“Yes. I’ve worked along the main stem from Harper’s Ferry west.”
“And do you still anticipate opening to Cumberland this year?”
James felt relieved at having the conversation turn to the railroad. “Yes. If all goes well the line is planned to open in November.”
“How wonderful!” she declared with the same spark of enthusiasm he had remembered from her childhood. “I am positively thrilled and can hardly wait to take a ride upon the rails.”
“You have business in Cumberland?” he asked without thinking.
“Good grief, no,” she laughed. “But I do have business with the B&O. Mr. St. John gifted me with a wedding present of B&O Railroad stock subscriptions, and I intend to continue purchasing more in the future.”
“Your husband gave you railroad stocks for a wedding gift?”
“Yes, well, you might say that ours is a most unconventional marriage,” she said, and for a moment James thought she sounded sad.
“Where is Mr. St. John? I thought I might at least meet him.”
“No, you won’t meet him,” she replied flatly without further explanation. “Now tell me more about the westward line. Has there been great difficulty of late? I’ve hardly had time to read up on the news.”
“We’re making good progress. There’s always personnel troubles and things like the weather, supply shortages, and theft, but for the most part we are doing well.”
“I am glad. Perhaps we shall yet see the thing built to the Ohio in our lifetime.”
He smiled. “Of that there is no doubt.”
“Unlike the P&GF,” she said, taking a long sip of tea. “I fear that our railroad may never be realized.”