Candle in the Darkness - Lynn N. Austin [193]
“I don’t need an answer now. I’ll wait, Caroline. I’ll wait forever if I have to. In the meantime, may I visit you again?”
She felt the ache of loneliness and nodded.
“Thank you.” He lifted her hand and kissed it tenderly. He rested his cheek against it for a moment, then kissed it again. She remembered Charles once kissing her hand the same way. She watched Robert walk through the gate, mount his horse, and ride away.
She was still standing outside the drawing room doors, gazing at the star-filled sky through her tears, when Tessie walked quietly across the yard to stand by her side.
“Is Isaac asleep already?” Caroline asked her.
“No, but his daddy’s gonna put him to bed tonight,” she said, smiling slightly. “He in there telling him stories.”
For some reason, Caroline remembered the morning in the train station when she had asked Charles to tell Josiah that he was going to be a father. “Josiah is never going to be a father in the sense that you mean,” Charles had said. But now he was. She wished that Charles could see how happy Josiah was for the first time in his life. She wondered what Charles would say if he could see him rocking his son to sleep.
All of her servants were happy. Six months ago, on Christmas Day, they had shared their dreams for the future, dreams that were being wonderfully fulfilled. Josiah was back home. Eli had his church. Esther had food to cook again. Luella had married her sweetheart, Gus. And as improbable as Gilbert’s dream had seemed, he was now on his way to Bermuda with Daddy and might even find himself a wife. Caroline’s own wish that her father and her cousin Jonathan would return home safely had been miraculously fulfilled. And Caroline loved her work as a teacher. Why, then, did she still feel so restless and unhappy?
“You all right, honey?” Tessie asked.
“Robert was just here.”
“I know. . . . You all right?”
“He told me that he loves me. He asked me to marry him. He said he would take me away from Richmond if I wanted to go. We could live in Philadelphia . . . anywhere, he said.”
“That what you wanting to do?” Tessie asked. “Get away from here and all the memories?”
“I don’t know, Tessie. I don’t know what I want. I hoped that by now my love for Charles would start to fade. That I would be able to stop thinking about him, stop hoping that he would come back someday. I’m so tired of hurting, so tired of living without him.”
“Do you think Robert could ever take Massa Charles’ place in your heart?”
“When I saw him standing out here in the darkness tonight, his face was in the shadows . . . and for one terrible, wonderful moment I thought he was Charles.” She paused, biting her lip.
“If it had been him,” Tessie asked, “would you still marry him?”
“Yes—a thousand times, yes. But it will never happen.” A single tear rolled down her cheek. “You told me that love only comes around once in most people’s lives . . . that we don’t get a second chance. Remember, Tessie?”
“Seem like a long time ago, honey. Back when you still writing all those letters to Massa Robert at West Point.”
“Tonight, after I’d talked to Robert for a while, I really didn’t want him to leave. It was so nice to have him here. So nice to have . . . a friend to talk to. I’m fond of Robert. He says our friendship could grow into love if I gave it a chance. Do you think he’s right, Tessie? Do you think if we moved away from Richmond and started all over again someplace else that I would learn to love him someday? I know he would be good to me. . . .”
Tessie’s brow furrowed with concern. “Do you have to decide right away?”
“No. Robert said he would wait. I told him he could come back and visit me again.”
“Please, take your time, Missy. It’s too soon for you to decide to stay or go. Give your heart a chance to heal.”
Caroline looked up at the stars again. They looked blurry through her tears. “I honestly don’t think it ever will heal,” she murmured.
Tessie climbed the ladder to the loft above the kitchen where she and Josiah slept. Moonlight, filtering through the