A Promise for Tomorrow (3 page)
Carolina placed her hand atop his, and for a moment James felt the warmth of her touch spread up his arm. She had always affected him this way. He closed his hand over hers and found solace in this moment of quiet comfort.
“I’m so sorry,” whispered James as he looked through the open drawing room doors and to the staircase. “I’m so sorry.”
“You mustn’t blame yourself, James. For months you have blamed yourself for everything that led your father to make the choices he did. You can’t take that burden on yourself. You didn’t force him to cheat his friends. You didn’t force him to swindle honest citizens out of their hard-earned money.”
James shook his head. “But don’t you see? He tried to tell me that things were not right. He tried to tell me that there was a crisis, but I refused to listen. I ran away like the coward I was.”
“James, I’ve listened to you blame yourself until I’m weary of hearing it.” Carolina pulled away from him with such abruptness that James could only stare openmouthed at her. She got to her feet, the pale lavender muslin gown swirling around her as she turned to face her husband. “How can you imagine that the deeds of your father—deeds begun long before you were old enough to account for your own actions, much less his—can possibly be your fault? This is a misplaced sense of honor. You aren’t to blame for his poor management and decisions, and neither are you responsible for his heart attack. Please see the sense in what I’m saying.”
James could see she had her temper up. He longed to calm her, to say the things she wanted to hear, but he couldn’t. He knew otherwise. He knew that there must have been some way he could have prevented the actions of the past. And now not only did he have to deal with his father’s illness, but he also had to consider the grief this event would impose upon his wife. “I could have done things differently,” he said softly.
“Yes,” Carolina admitted. “You could have married my sister Virginia. Is that what you wish you would have done?”
James looked stunned. “Of course not. You know better than that.”
She softened. “Then tell me, what of the past would you recreate? What would you change that might not also change the fulfillment of our dreams? Would you give up the railroad? Would you take yourself back in time and become a banker at your father’s side?”
James got up and began to pace the floor. “I don’t know what I might have done. I suppose it doesn’t matter now.”
“Exactly!” exclaimed Carolina. She moved to his side. “Paul tells us in the Bible to forget that which is behind us. You can’t change the past any more than I can.”
James eyed her cautiously. “You can’t put the past behind you. Why do you suppose it any easier for me?”
Carolina could not have looked more stunned had he slapped her. “If you are inferring that I refuse to let your father shirk responsibility for his own actions, then you are right. Everyone is called to account for his actions.”
“Including me.”
“You aren’t making any sense,” Carolina said, the anger in her voice becoming evident once again. “You didn’t cause this to happen. I’m tired of you blaming yourself. It’s almost as if you want it to be your fault. Is that it? Is this guilt a badge of merit that you somehow feel the need to possess?”
“How dare you!” James said, his own anger surfacing out of the tension. “My father lies dying upstairs, and you make insensitive accusations against my character.”
Carolina drew a deep breath and folded her hands. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m not being very sensitive. I’m angry and frustrated, but most of all, I simply do not know how to help you through this. Since the first day of our marriage, we’ve carried around all manner of trial and tribulation. This matter between ourselves and your father has weighed me down from the beginning, and it isn’t easy to have the man in my house as a constant reminder of what’s gone before.”
James cringed at yet another reference to Carolina’s possession of their home. He knew that she meant nothing by it, but nevertheless it wounded his pride, and because of this he struck out at her with words. “So there is to be no forgiveness in your heart for my father? Even though you would have me put an end to my past regrets, you cannot allow the past to be dismissed as easily when it comes to your own imagined grievances.”
“Imagined? I daresay they are hardly imagined. Why, just the fact—”
“Stop!” James declared, his hands balling into fists at his sides. “I won’t hear another listing of my father’s sins.”
“I would as soon forget them, as well, but the man lies dying in our house as a constant reminder of them.”
“Well, I must say, this is the first time you’ve referred to the mighty St. John house as being
ours
.” The words were no sooner out of his mouth than James wished he could take them back. This wasn’t how he wanted it, and he knew full well it wasn’t how Carolina wished it to be, either.
Carolina stopped cold. “What are you talking about?” Her expression was tightly pinched, as though she knew what he would say without James uttering a single word of explanation.
There was no avoiding the issue now, James thought, and gave her the only answer he could. “This place has never been a part of me. It is your house. Yours and Victoria’s, and I am but an outsider.”
“That’s nonsense. You are my husband.”
“And St. John was your husband before me.”
“Not in any true sense,” Carolina protested. “You know that very well.”
James relaxed his hands and walked to the window to collect his thoughts. “I don’t want to argue anymore. My father is dying, and whether you like it or not, he is going to die here under our care. He deserves better than your anger.”
“Perhaps he is getting exactly what he deserves,” Carolina said coldly.
James turned, barely able to contain the harsh words he might have hurled back in defense of a man who could not defend himself. He understood his wife’s anger but not her cruelty. It wasn’t like her, in any case, to be harsh and unfeeling. It was no doubt the shock and weight of yet another burden upon her shoulders. Still, he couldn’t open his mouth without feeding off the tension in her eyes. Without another word, he walked from the room, pausing only long enough in the foyer to take up his top hat before exiting the house.
Carolina felt a deep, penetrating shame for the way she’d conducted herself with James. It was bad enough to harbor months of resentment toward her father-in-law, but even worse to suggest he deserved his affliction.
Falling on her knees, as she had so often done in this drawing room, Carolina began to sob uncontrollably.
Oh, God
, she prayed,
I
feel so hopeless and tired. I thought marriage to James would be the awakening
of all my dreams, and yet I find so many problems to contend with. I love
him so much. But if I indeed love him, how can I hurt him in anger the way
I did just now?
“Carolina?” a voice called from behind her. It was Mrs. Graves, ever faithful to look out for her mistress.
“Why am I so cruel?” Carolina questioned, tears still streaming from her dark eyes. “Why can’t I just keep my mouth shut and force my feelings into their proper place?”
Mrs. Graves smiled and came to sit on the sofa beside Carolina’s kneeling form. “You aren’t a cruel woman, Carolina. I’ve never known you to be that.”
“Then you did not witness the horrible things I just said to my husband. Oh, but, Isadora,” she said, calling the woman by her first name as she was wont to do in times of intimate friendship, “I was simply terrible. And all because I still feel such anger toward Leland Baldwin. I cannot bear the thought of caring for that man. And I can’t help but wonder why God would force him upon me like this. I’ve tried to be fair about Leland and this horrible mess he created. I’ve used Blake’s money to see the Potomac and Great Falls Railroad investments met. I’ve done what I could to help James repair the damages elsewhere, as well. What more can I possibly do?”
Mrs. Graves smiled in a motherly fashion that made Carolina only ache for the presence of her own mother. But Margaret Adams was confined to a mental hospital in Boston, and while there was hope for her recovery, she wasn’t here to offer Carolina the wisdom she might once have offered. But Mrs. Graves was here, and more than once Carolina had sought this gentle woman as a substitute mother.
“I think you know what is to be done,” Isadora Graves said softly.
“If you’re going to suggest I forgive him,” Carolina replied, “don’t bother. I just don’t think I can. I’m sure my father would agree and totally understand. Leland nearly ruined him. My father has often said that a man is nothing more or less than his name. His name should stand as a representation of the honor and integrity that lend themselves to the character of the man. Leland would have taken that away from my father.”
“Leland Baldwin could no more take away your father’s integrity than he could change the color of his eyes. Shame on you for believing that your father is no more than what another man deems him to be.”
Carolina sniffed back tears and dabbed at her eyes with the edge of her lace cuff. “I suppose you are right. It’s just that . . . oh, I wish I could feel differently about this. I know James needs me to forgive his father and to let the past be, but it is so hard.”
“I know, deary,” Mrs. Graves comforted. “But in time it will get better. You mustn’t harbor anger against a dying man. Pray about it and search your heart. Think about what Jesus himself would do in the same position.”
Carolina nodded. “Jesus would forgive him and welcome him back into the fold.”
Mrs. Graves nodded. “We’re to live by His example, are we not?”
Carolina stood up and smoothed the skirt of her gown. “It won’t be easy.”
“The Christian road seldom is,” Mrs. Graves replied. “But ’tis the only way to know true peace and happiness.”
“God knows this house could use a good dose of both,” Carolina answered with a brief glance around. Her gaze fell to the stairs that would take her to the room where Leland lay. He would no doubt need some manner of attention after such a length of time alone, but try as she might, Carolina couldn’t bring herself to confront him just yet.
“Would you sit with him for a time?” she asked Mrs. Graves.
“Certainly.”
Carolina sighed in relief. “Thank you. I have a great deal to think about.”
As Joseph Adams studied the latest correspondence from his wife’s doctor in Boston, his heart was filled with hope. It seemed that Margaret was particularly fond of a matronly Christian nurse who had a miraculously calming effect on her patient. The doctor had, at last, given Joseph permission to make his first visit since Margaret’s confining. Joseph wanted to run out the door and catch the next train north, but his more practical nature told him it was impossible. Nevertheless, he would make his preparations. The planting was done, the spring flooding that had caused problems in the lowlands of Oakbridge was now a thing of the past, and his son-in-law Hampton Cabot seemed more than capable of dealing with the management of the plantation. Even if he did manage things with a heavier hand than Joseph would like, Hampton’s presence would enable Joseph to leave Oakbridge for several weeks.
Steeped heavily in thought of what arrangements he might make, Joseph folded the papers and put them back in their envelope. He gazed around him at the high-walled rows of books. The library was his favorite room at Oakbridge. It had also been his daughter Carolina’s favorite room. How quiet the house seemed without her. Indeed, how silent the house had grown in the absence of many of his children. Mary and Penny had both died from yellow fever. York, his oldest and the true heir to Oakbridge, had shrugged his duties as a planter and had acquired instead a love of politics. He seemed content acting as a congressional aide to his father-in-law in Philadelphia. Together with his beautiful wife, Lucy Alexander Adams, they had two handsome children, Amy and Andrew, affectionately called Andy. And York had written that in the spring Lucy would bear yet another heir to the Adams line.
Joseph’s only other son, Maine, was now preaching the gospel to Indian tribes in the far western reaches of the continent. Georgia, the youngest living member of the family, was happily married to a man twenty years her senior. She and the Major, as her husband, retired Major Douglas Barclay, was called, operated a horse farm south of Washington City, where they bred the finest livestock around. Carolina was happily married to James Baldwin and living in Baltimore with Victoria, her adopted daughter. And that only left Virginia, his eldest daughter.
Thoughts of Virginia brought a frown to his face. Virginia had eloped with Hampton Cabot on the eve of the morning when Carolina was to have answered his marriage proposal to her. There was bad blood between the sisters, and it grieved Joseph in a way that he could not shake. He longed for the days when his family might once again be united but knew it would never again be the same as when they were all small. Still, watching Virginia slip deeper and deeper into the grim hold of depression gave Joseph little time to worry about what would never be. Instead, he found himself desperate to ease the tensions of the future. Tensions that might yet be dispelled and eliminated.
There was so much he wanted for his family. So much that Joseph feared would never come about or be possible. He had hoped his sons might take an interest in the plantation, but neither one had been so inclined, and thus the responsibility had fallen to his son-in-law Hampton. Hampton had proven himself a worthy commission merchant for the family. Even when the banking crisis and depression of the late 1830s had destroyed many a family fortune, Hampton had used his foresight to protect the Adamses from suffering too much damage. It was for this reason alone that Joseph considered Hampton the logical choice to run Oakbridge, but there were residing conflicts that of late were making him think otherwise.
Hampton was often cruel to the slaves, something Joseph could not stomach. Joseph had long maintained that his slaves were not to be beaten, but Hampton often chose to ignore this standard. More than once, Joseph had been informed of whippings, and even brandings, that had been given at Hampton’s insistence. And just as often as the stories reached Joseph’s ear, he had admonished Hampton to cease such activities. Hampton had offered a pretense of acceptance in the early days of his training, but now after so much time had gone by, Hampton often ignored Joseph’s warnings, knowing that Joseph needed him to assist with Oakbridge just as much as he needed the slaves. It was a constant source of worry. He hated to admit it, but he did need Hampton now with his attention so diverted by family problems, especially that of Margaret’s condition. He needed to be free to go to her whenever called to do so.