Receive Me Falling (34 page)

           
Leah stood before the mirror wearing
one of Mrs. Dall’s old nightgowns.
 
The
thin cotton clung to her massive abdomen, revealing the secret that Leah had
been hiding for so long.
 
Leah grabbed
for her clothes and attempted to hide her stomach in vain.
 
Lightning flashed outside the window and
strong winds blew into the room.
 
The two
girls stared into one another’s dark eyes as their hearts pounded in unison.

           
“My God, Leah.
 
Is this what you’ve been hiding?”

           
“What are you doing home?
 
I did not expect you for another hour at
least.”

           
“How did this happen?
 
Who?” stammered Catherine as she grasped a
nearby chair to steady herself.

           
Leah’s fear transformed to disgust.

           
“Are you feeling faint?
 
Can you not comprehend what swells before you?”

           
Leah threw her clothing on the floor
and stood before Catherine.

           
“I am expecting a child in three
months time—a child most likely thrust into my womb by that snake that preys
upon us beasts when the mistress of the house is not looking.”

           
Catherine began to weep as Leah
moved toward her.

           
“While you have been frolicking about
Eden with your
young love, I have been writhing in the dirt like a pig at the hands of that
repulsive man.
 
I have been vomiting and
sweating my way through endless household chores while you have been dreaming
peacefully of your sweet James.”

           
“Leah, I did not know.”

           
“You would not know! You would not
see what was before your very eyes.”

           
Catherine shook her head.

           
“You think that playing a game of
chase with some obliging slave children, bringing a few plants to an old woman,
or teaching your pitiful mate to read redeems you from your family’s sins?
 
It does nothing to erase the evil you have
inflicted upon us.”

           
“Leah, please,” sobbed Catherine as
she reached her arms out to her.

           
Leah pushed Catherine’s arms away
and ran out the door.
 
She pressed past James
who was standing in the hallway.
 
Catherine ran out of the room and collided with him.
 
She looked for a moment into his eyes, and
then pushed him aside and chased Leah down the stairs and out of the back of
the house.
 

Panic seized Catherine as she followed Leah toward
the cliff.
 
The winds scattered her
cries, the blinding rain pelted her face, and her nightgown clung to her body.
She could see the white figure running for the cliffs ahead of her and screamed
for Leah to stop.
 
James was filled with
dread as he neared the women and came to understand Leah’s purpose.

The three figures raced over the sodden grass of
the back lawn.
 
Catherine could see
Leah’s progress toward the cliff’s edge in each flash of lightning.
 
James ran with all his strength, but was
nearly struck by a falling tree branch and lost sight of the women.

With Leah just yards ahead of her, Catherine caught
up to Leah and grasped at Leah’s garment, pulling her to the ground just inches
before the drop of the cliff.
 
Catherine
clutched at Leah as she tried to crawl out of her grasp.
 
Leah pulled herself free and rose, and they
stood at the cliff’s edge, panting in the rain.

“Why can’t you let me be?” screamed Leah.

“You are as dear to me as a sister.
 
I’ve no choice.”

Leah laughed in disgust.
 
“I am your sister when it is convenient for
you.”

“I do nothing out of convenience.”

“Do you think for one moment of the hell we are
all forced to endure while you go to your balls and dinners and romps through
the garden?
 
While you are off being
wooed by your suitors I am forced to endure the legacy my mother has endured in
silence all these years.
 
I am made to
protect you from the ugly secrets of this place.”

           
“I do everything I can to help you
all Leah!
 
I am a woman, I have no
power!”

           
“You have all the power you need,
Catherine!”

           
“I try to make your life
better.
 
Are there any mistresses on this
island who do half of what I do for you?”

“Nothing you do or say can erase the raping, the
beating, and the work that goes on to ensure that you and
our
drunken, slovenly father live in blissful comfort in your
island paradise!”

           
Catherine slapped Leah across the
face.
 
There was a moment of confusion as
Leah stumbled from the blow.
 
The rocks
beneath her feet gave way, and she slid over the side of the cliff.
 
Catherine grasped at the air where Leah had
been, but she was gone.
  
Catherine couldn’t
tell her scream from Leah’s, and crawled to the cliff’s edge.
 
She was unable to locate the body amidst the
swells and rocks, unable to see through her tears and the night and the rain.
 

She felt as if she couldn’t breathe.
 
Her lungs felt as if they were collapsing.
 
As she struggled to breathe she fell to the
ground and began to crawl away from the cliff.
 
The rocks tore at her hands and knees, and she could feel the sting of
the cuts.
 
Just before she collapsed, she
met the horror-struck gaze of James as he stood before her.

19

10 February 1834

Nevis
.
 
It has been three years, but
that name still haunts me.
 
The island I
never wanted to visit.
 
The trip I never
wanted to take.
 
This is my confessional,
dear brother.
 
I am ill and fear I am not
long for this world.
 
I wanted you to
know why I have been so angry for so long.
 

           
I fell in love with a girl there,
Catherine, a plantation owner’s daughter.
 
She was a good one—intelligent, industrious, compassionate, open-minded,
beautiful.
 
She quickly learned our true
purpose for being on the island, but was not angered.
 
When I contracted malaria, I was forced to
stay at the plantation, Eden,
where she cared for me and nursed me back to health.

           
Father stayed with me, and it was
during that time that Catherine and I grew in our intimacy with one
another.
 
Catherine asked us about the Cause
and was an eager student.
 
I felt as if
she would become an abolitionist.

           
I proposed to her, Brother, and she
accepted.
 
We knew it would be difficult
with her father, but she said she would do whatever it took to join me in England
as my wife.

But as you know, it did not work out that way.

           
You see, Catherine had just received
a proposal from another man, to whom her father had given his blessing.
 
There was a dinner party at his home, hours
after she had secretly accepted my proposal, where her father learned of her
intentions.
 
A terrible scene ensued, and
Catherine left the house and ran back to Eden.
 
She did not know that I had followed her.

           
As soon as she returned, she learned
that her slave sister, a girl named Leah with whom she had grown all her life,
was carrying the child of the plantation’s overseer.
 
The girls began to quarrel, and Leah ended up
running out of the house toward a cliff on the back lawn, intent upon killing
herself.
 
Catherine was able to stop her,
but then the fight continued.
 
After Leah
told her that Catherine’s father was also her father, Catherine pushed her over
the cliff in her rage.
 
Catherine was
frantic about what she’d done, and when she saw that I had seen everything, she
passed out on the lawn.
 
I carried her
back into her home, left on a ship for England two days later, and never heard
from her again.
 

           
I would not have believed it
possible for someone as dear and sweet as my Catherine to murder another, but
it shows how evil and poisonous the slave system is.
  
It corrupts all it touches.
 
Even the most well-meaning masters and mistresses
will wield their power inappropriately, and with deadly results.
 

           
Several months ago I sent an inquiry
to a contact on the island to see what had become of Catherine and her
family.
 
According to church and local
records, she, her father, their chief overseer, and twenty-six slaves on their
plantation died in an outbreak of the bleeding fever just two months after I
left the island.
 
It is a strange thing
to think that Catherine has been gone for so long.
 
It is a strange thing that I have thought of
her in the context of the present for so long, when she has been so far in the
past.

My pain is acute. Now, not only must I mourn the
life I could have had, but I must mourn Catherine’s passing, and the knowledge
that if I had taken her home with me, she would not have died in such a way.

 
I know what
it is to love and to have it ripped senselessly away.
 
I’ve devoted my life to abolishing slavery,
and have met small successes along the way.
 
I can’t help but think of how my life would have been different if I
could erase the events of that night, the night of the fall, but it is too
painful to imagine.
 

           
May God have mercy upon her soul,
and on all of our souls.

           
           
           
           
           
           
           
           
           
           
           
           
           
           
           
           
           
           
           
           
           
           
           
Yours,

           
           
           
           
           
           
           
James
  

20

Catherine
stared into the fire with a quilt wrapped around her soaked, shivering
form.
 
The wood popped as the flames
danced in the drafts.
 
Tears leaked from
Catherine’s eyes down her face and neck.
 
The storm calmed itself and the thunder rumbled far out at sea.
 

           
James sat with his head in his hands
across the room.
 
He glanced at Catherine
at intervals, but looked away as quickly as his eyes met the back of her
head.
 
Albert stood behind James in the
corner of the room, studying the dejected scene before him.
 
Cecil sat haggard and drunk in a chair
opposite Catherine.
 
Finally Albert broke
the silence.

           
“I must suggest that we all
retire.
 
This has been a difficult night
that will be followed by many cheerless days.”

           
James removed his hands from his face
and looked at Catherine.

           
“I think that it would also be best
if James and I return to the Bath Hotel tomorrow for the remainder of our stay,”
said Albert.
 
“We have imposed ourselves
too long at Eden.”

           
“I agree.
 
That would be best for us all,” mumbled
Cecil.

           
Catherine turned so James was able
to see her profile outlined by the fire.

           
“That is an excellent suggestion,
Father,” said James.
 
“It will be better
to get closer to Charlestown, anyway, seeing as
I will be departing Nevis on Tuesday at
noon
.”

           
Catherine glanced at James and back
to the fire.

           
“But our ship does not leave until
Saturday,” replied Albert.
 
“We must stay
to see our task completed.”

           
“You may stay, Father, but I will be
going.
 
Several other businessmen are
traveling on Tuesday at
noon
,
so I will accompany them.”

           
“Do not be rash, James.
 
Saturday is the day we have set to go and
Saturday is the day we will go.”

           
“I am a grown man, and can make my
own decisions.
 
I cannot stay on this
godforsaken island one moment longer than necessary.”

           
“You cannot go—“

           
“I cannot stay!” shouted James.

           
Albert became quiet as James left
the room and he shortly followed James, leaving Cecil and Catherine alone.
 
When Catherine turned to look at her father,
he was gone.

Catherine
paced through the halls of Eden
all night long.
 
She tortured herself
with the knowledge that she had nearly driven Leah to suicide, and that she
ultimately caused Leah to fall to her death.
 
The state of her mind grew worse throughout the night.
 
Her hands trembled and she could not drive
Leah’s words from her head.
 

           
Cecil had fathered Leah while
Catherine’s mother was still alive. When had Leah learned that she and
Catherine were sisters?
 
How long had
Esther forced Leah to hide it from Catherine?
 
The image of Esther’s sad face as she closed the shutters to Cecil’s
room with his hands gripping her shoulders flashed before Catherine.
 
She shook her head and tried to suppress the
image.
 

           
And Phinneas had been raping
Leah.
 
That was why he wouldn’t allow
Leah and Toby to marry.
 
He wanted her for
himself.
 
Catherine’s hatred of Phinneas surged
through her.
 
She shook with rage and
despair at the thought of that disgusting creature forcing himself upon Leah,
but her sense of helplessness increased upon the realization that she could not
go to her father about such a matter.
 
He
engaged in the same atrocious behavior.

           
And James surely wanted nothing to do
with Catherine after witnessing her dispute with Leah.
 
He was determined to leave the island even
sooner than his father to escape from Catherine.
 
She would be left on Nevis
with the pathetic shell of a man her father had become and his overseeing predator.
 

           
Catherine sobbed through the
night.
 
She mourned her sister, her
father, and James.
 
She finally collapsed
into her bed as the dawn began to push its way over the horizon, and through
the lingering clouds.
 

By
the time Catherine had awakened the next day, James and Albert were gone.
 
The house was silent and Catherine could not
find a soul inside of Eden.
 
She stepped out onto the back lawn and looked
back at the house.
 
Never before had she
felt so intimidated by its soaring height, its empty, shrine-like rooms, and
its dark shadows.
 
It no longer looked
grand and welcoming to her.
 
It looked
gloomy and mysterious, and ghosts whispered around every corner.
 

Catherine went back into the house and tried to
find her father in the dining room, the parlor, and the billiard room.
 
She finally found him in his office.
 
The room was darkened by the closed shutters,
and Cecil sat unshaven and confused amidst a sea of papers that he shuffled
from pile to pile.
 
He did not look up as
Catherine entered, but instead poured himself a drink from the nearly-empty
bottle before him.
 
Catherine looked with
disgust at her father as he swallowed great mouthfuls of liquor and mumbled to
himself.
 
Dark circles hung below his
eyes and he appeared wild and unkempt.

“I need to speak with you, Father.”

Cecil looked up at Catherine as if he was seeing
her for the first time.

“Not now Catherine. I am attending to some
important business.”

“Nothing you are doing is more important than the
present conversation.”

He stopped moving his papers and stared at her.

“You now know that Leah was with child,” said
Catherine.

Cecil looked back down at his desk.

“Leah was pregnant because Phinneas had been
forcing himself upon her.”

He remained silent

“Leah told me some terrible things before she
died.
 
She accused you of fathering
her.
 
Is that true?”

Cecil looked up at Catherine with glassy,
tear-filled eyes.
 
Catherine’s mouth
began to quiver but she kept her tears from falling.

“Is it true?”

Cecil looked away from Catherine and brought his
glass to his lips.
 
Catherine moved
forward and slapped the glass from his hand, shattering it against the
wall.
 
Cecil looked with shock at his
daughter.

“My entire life I have worshipped a man who did
nothing but lie to me, and abuse those lower than himself, and make money off
of miserable, wretched, helpless creatures.
 
How am I to go on living in such a world?” cried Catherine.

Cecil began to cry and buried his head in his
hands, but he still did not respond to her accusations.
 
Catherine stared with revulsion at her
father.
 
She backed out of the office and
left him crying in the dark.
 
When
Catherine stepped into the hallway, she met Thomas and straightened herself.
 

“Could I trouble you to take me to Charlestown tomorrow
morning?” she asked.

           
“Certainly, Miss Catherine.
 
What time will you need the carriage.”

           
“No later than
ten o’clock
.
 
I need to get to Charlestown
by
noon
.”

           
“I will be ready at ten, Miss
Catherine.”

           
“Thank you, Thomas.”
 
Catherine leaned up and kissed Thomas on the
cheek.
 
He touched the place she had
kissed, and watched her climb the stairs.

           
Catherine moved toward her room, but
then turned and went to her mother’s bedroom.
 
She closed the door and dropped onto the bed.
 
Her thoughts returned to her quarrel with
Leah the night before, and she began to cry.
 
How could she ever face Esther again?
 
Or Mary?
 
Or anyone?
 
It was an accident.
 
She knew they all thought Leah had committed
suicide, but what did James think?
 
His
eyes had accused her last night, and he was leaving the next day.
 
She thought that she had to go to him
tomorrow, and explain what had happened.
 
Then he would take her with him to England, and they would be married,
and she could escape the hell that had become her home.
 

The
winds howled and moaned outside of the Great House as Catherine tossed and
turned in a fitful sleep.
 
Another storm
was picking up on the island, and moving closer to Eden.
 
As
midnight
approached Catherine looked with wild, frightened eyes out of the curtains
blowing open around her bed.
 
She heard
whispers and groans all around her.
 
The
floorboards creaked as if something treaded over them. A tremendous flash of lightning
followed by a deafening boom of thunder illuminated the pale, wild, and soaking
wet face of Leah staring right at her.
 
Catherine
screamed and covered her face.
 
Shaking
violently, Catherine removed the spread from her eyes inch by inch, and was
relieved to see that the apparition was gone.