Candle in the Darkness - Lynn N. Austin [197]
Twenty little Negro children sat in a circle at Caroline’s feet in her drawing room, listening in wide-eyed wonder as she read Longfellow’s poem, The Song of Hiawatha, to them. When she first began teaching these young students, it had brought back memories of Hilltop and of her afternoons beneath the pear tree with the little slave children gathered around her. Caroline enjoyed teaching her adult students very much, but these little ones had become as dear to her as her very own children.
She finished the poem and looked up at them. One small boy raised his hand. “Yes, Jesse? What is it?”
“Someone here to see you.” He pointed behind her. Caroline turned around.
Charles stood in the doorway.
Her heart felt as though it was being squeezed so tightly she wasn’t sure she could bear the pain. His eyes—so wide and expressive, so deeply blue—gazed down at her with a softness she thought she’d never see in them again.
“I can come back at a better time,” he said.
“No . . . give me a minute.” Her voice shook as she quietly told her class to take out their slates and practice writing their names. The slates had been a present from Robert. He had used his army connections to help stock her school with supplies.
“Please work quietly until I come back,” she said.
Charles followed her through the drawing room doors into the backyard. The June day was warm and very humid, a foretaste of the summer that fast approached.
“You’re a wonderful teacher,” he said. “I was watching you.”
Caroline couldn’t answer, couldn’t speak past the knot of emotion in her throat. She didn’t know why Charles had come, but she knew now that she would have to tell Robert that she could never marry him. It wouldn’t be fair to spend her life with one man when she still loved another so deeply. Even after all this time, all the sorrow and pain.
“I came to give this back to you,” he said. He took his battered army haversack off his shoulder and pulled out a ragged pile of papers—her papers, the story she had written on torn sheets of wallpaper.
“How did you get that?”
“Josiah gave it to me.”
He looked away from her, gazing into the distance at things she couldn’t see. Caroline was afraid to hope that he had come back into her life to stay. She silently prayed the only words that mattered anymore—Thy will be done—trusting in God’s love, knowing that His will was the very best thing for her life.
“After reading this,” Charles said, “I realized how different we are. Those differences should have been obvious from the first day we met. Even now, I look at that roomful of Negro children in there, and I know I don’t see them the way you do.”
He paused, then turned to face her again. “I wish I could see them your way. I’ve lost everything but my blindness, it seems— I’ve lost the war, my father, most of my friends, my wealth. The mill is gone and I have no money to rebuild it, no future. But Josiah said I hadn’t lost you. He said you still love me. And I don’t think it would hurt to see you as much as it does unless I still loved you, too.
“Listen now,” he said softly. “Am I too late, Caroline? Could you ever forgive me and start all over again?”
She moved into his arms as if she and Charles had never argued or parted. He clung to her, holding her tightly in return. “I love you, Charles,” she told him.
Behind Caroline was her schoolroom full of bright, eager students. God had given them to her as a gift, to show her that the sacrifices she’d made did have meaning. His purposes for her life would be partly fulfilled in them, and in those children’s futures. And now He was giving her still another gift, giving Charles back to her.
“Thank you, Lord,” she whispered as she held him in her arms. “Thank you.”
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