Candle in the Darkness - Lynn N. Austin [51]
“My, you’re beautiful,” he said, pulling back to gaze at me. “You look so much like your mother.” His love for me shone in his eyes, and I remembered the loving way he used to look at my mother, the tender way he’d treated her. I always knew that his love for her was very deep, which was why his grief after she’d died had been so profound.
As I looked into my daddy’s eyes I wondered how I ever could have believed that he’d been unfaithful to her. The idea seemed preposterous now. Daddy never paid any attention at all to Tessie. He and Grady looked nothing alike. It simply wasn’t true. I must have been out of my mind.
At dinner that night, Daddy told my aunt and uncle that he planned to take me home right away. Uncle Philip laid down his silverware and stared at Daddy.
“This seems a bit sudden, doesn’t it, George? Caroline has put down roots during the two years she’s spent with us. She’s flourished here. Do you really think it’s wise to uproot her so suddenly like this?”
“Please understand that I’m very grateful for all that you’ve done for her,” Daddy said, spreading his hands. “You’ve helped her—and me—through a very difficult time in our lives. But we’re both past that now. She’s my daughter. She belongs in her own home, in Richmond.”
“Is it safe to go back there?” Aunt Martha asked. “I mean, with all the awful goings-on at that place . . . Harper’s Ferry. . . ?”
Daddy frowned. “Of course it’s safe. That was the work of fanatical outsiders, not native Virginians. Living in peace with our Negroes is a long-established way of life for us—you know that, Martha. Take your sister’s servant, Ruby, for instance. You’re aware of the bond of loyalty and love that existed between her and my wife. Can you honestly imagine our Ruby taking part in such a rebellion? It’s the troublemakers from the North who threaten to upset that balance.”
“We are not all fanatics like John Brown,” Uncle Philip said, “any more than all slave owners are like Simon Legree.”
Their voices had been gradually growing louder, harsher. Daddy took a moment to stop and carefully cut his meat. When he looked up at Uncle Philip again, I heard cold anger in his tone. “I’ve read some of the headlines that appeared in your Northern newspapers after this incident. The entire South is horrified that you would express sympathy and praise for a fanatic who tried to cause a slave insurrection. How can any thinking man endorse such an outrage?”
“So, that’s why you’ve come for her, then.”
“Yes. I don’t want my only child influenced by that ungodly way of thinking. You’re calling that maniac Brown a hero!”
“I’ve never called him that, George.”
Daddy raised his hand in apology. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to accuse any of you. But if even one person in the North defends that man, then it’s time Caroline came home.”
“Why not wait a bit and see what happens?” Aunt Martha said. “Maybe this will all blow over.”
Daddy leaned back in his chair and gravely shook his head. “To the people in the North, John Brown is a hero. To the South, he’s a murderous villain. Our differences are much too great, Martha. The dividing line between us is too clearly drawn. This won’t blow over.”
“You may be right,” Uncle Philip said quietly. “But there is something we’re all forgetting to consider—what would Caroline herself like to do?”
My uncle knew all about the anti-slavery meetings I’d been attending for the past year. He knew from the fervor of Rev. Greene’s sermons what attitudes I’d been exposed to at those meetings. He turned to me.
“What would you like to do, Caroline?”
If it hadn’t been for Nathaniel’s courageous sermon, I may have drawn back at the thought of facing the darkness of slavery again. But then I recalled the verse he’d read from Isaiah: “If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke . . . thy darkness will be as the noon day.” I was tired of simply listening to anti-slavery speeches, tired of merely supporting a cause. My own words came back to haunt me—Tessie and Eli were not a cause, they were people.
I looked up at my daddy and said, “I want to go home.