Candle in the Darkness - Lynn N. Austin [46]
He smiled at me, the way a proud teacher will smile at his prize pupil. “I can see that you have a great deal of passion for the cause, Miss Fletcher.”
His words struck me like a slap in the face. I suddenly realized what was missing in so much of the abolitionists’ rhetoric and in so many of their hearts.
“Rev. Greene,” I said in a trembling voice, “the Negroes are not a cause. They are people!”
Chapter Eight
October 1859
When my cousin Rosalie turned nineteen, she decided she must get married at once or risk being labeled an old maid. After a great deal of fuss and deliberation, she finally made her choice—the oldest son of a wealthy Philadelphia banking family. Her wedding was the premier social event of the season.
Cousin Robert arrived home from West Point and served as my escort. He had lost a good deal of his baby fat after one year at the academy, and he now sported a shadow of soft, dark fuzz on his upper lip that was supposed to be a mustache. But he still made an unconvincing soldier, even in uniform. Now he looked like a mournful Spanish poet dressed up for a costume ball. He walked and stood with his shoulders hunched, hanging his head as if he was about to apologize for some grave error. Julia made fun of him behind his back, but I was grateful for his arm to cling to at the wedding. He helped me thwart unwelcome advances from several of the groom’s relatives.
Rosalie’s wedding was the kind every girl dreams of—a gown like a fairy-tale princess’s, a church fragrant with jasmine and roses, a glittering champagne reception, a wedding trip to Saratoga with a brand-new trousseau. Julia and I couldn’t help being envious. When it was all over that night, our bedroom seemed very quiet and empty without Rosalie. Julia and I had the mirrored dressing table all to ourselves, but neither one of us could bear to sit there in Rosalie’s place.
After we were both in bed with the lights out, I heard Julia sniffling. “Are you crying?” I asked.
“No!”
But when I tiptoed across the room and climbed into bed with her, I knew that she had been. “There must be a leak in the roof, then,” I said. “Your pillow is all wet.”
Julia’s tears turned to giggles. We lay in the dark for a while, whispering about the day’s events. Then Julia said, “Rosalie was so caught up in the wedding, I’ll bet she never once remembered that she’d have to share a bed with a man tonight, dressed in only her chemise.”
“Julia!” I was shocked. She laughed.
“Well, it’s part of life, isn’t it? And it’s certainly part of marriage. Where do you think babies come from?”
“You shouldn’t talk about such things. It isn’t proper.”
“Phooey! Who cares about being proper? Do you think Rosalie is in love with her new husband?”
“I never heard her say that she loves him. Just that she thought he’d make a good husband.”
Julia sighed dramatically. “I could never marry a man I wasn’t in love with, could you, Caroline? It would be awful to share a bed with him otherwise.”
“I wish you would stop talking about . . . that.”
“What? Sharing a bed with my husband?” She laughed at me again. “I sometimes pretend that my pillow is Nathaniel Greene and I hug it tightly all night. Who do you pretend yours is?”
“I . . . I’ve never done that.”
“Haven’t you ever been in love, Carrie?”
Hadn’t I? I recalled the excitement of my infatuation with my cousin Jonathan years ago, how I’d wanted to spend every minute with him, how I’d thrilled to his touch. But I had long since outgrown those feelings. And I had felt nothing close to them since— certainly not with Robert, nor with any of the other men I’d danced with. I’d once heard love in Tessie’s joyful laughter when she was with