“Please, Eugenia, please stop!” I cried. “In whom we have redemption through his blood, even then forgiveness of sins!”
Out of breath she panted, clutching her chest.
“It’s too late,” she muttered. “Your sins will never be forgiven. Not even God can save you now.”
Eugenia quoted from the letter. The last line she had purposely left out before.
“. . . and lastly, with my parting words, I divulge to you that Amelia is with child.”
Warren betrayed me! Not only did he disclose my condition, but knew she would believe it was Patrick’s baby.
“Undress.”
I began to sob.
“Take off your clothes!”
Between sobs I couldn’t contain, I undressed and stood before Eugenia. There was no fooling Eugenia as I had Warren. Any woman could tell how far along I was.
I had never seen Eugenia at a loss for words. She just shook her head in incredulity, almost unable to comprehend what she was seeing.
“How did I allow this to happen?” she finally asked. “This is the biggest disgrace, the most shameful act yet. You are carrying your brother’s child. This creature will be born with horns and a tail. It will be a deformed, hideous beast!”
“No, no. It’s Warren’s child. I swear it!” I lied. “Patrick and I never consummated our love. Warren took me, more than once! He has been lying to you, Eugenia. His hasn’t had amnesia all these months. He told me so. And he has been stealing from you and Daddy!”
“You stifle your mouth! I don’t believe you! I can’t listen to this anymore. I have to do something. If Thomas returns and learns of this disgrace, he will be mortified. I can’t allow this devil child to be born!”
She didn’t believe for one moment that it could be Warren’s baby. I grabbed hold of Eugenia, begging for mercy, crying and pleading for her not to harm my unborn baby.
“Let go of me!” she barked and slapped me away.
“I will marry Warren!” I shouted as reached for the door. “He will take me away. He believes it is his baby. He came to me, forced himself on me. He didn’t realize I was already with child. This way you will never have to see me again. You won’t be shamed. Please Eugenia! I will do anything.”
I could see I was getting through to her as she stood in deep thought.
“Perhaps that is the solution to this appalling dilemma. I will have Hamilton search him out. Hopefully it’s not too late; hopefully he hasn’t gone off to war. For your own sake, you’d better hope not.”
Over the period of searching high and low for Warren Stone throughout the entire state of Georgia, Eugenia did all she could to try to end the life of my unborn baby .
She made dangerous concoctions of different herbs, all supposedly a remedy for ending an unwanted pregnancy. She also had me drink brewer’s yeast and pennyroyal tea day after day, yet nothing happened. Eugenia was becoming frustrated. Hamilton had not returned with Warren, and my baby inside me grew and began to flutter around. To keep Eugenia from demanding a more brutal method of ending my condition, I lied to her and told her the baby had stopped moving, and I was having terrible cramping pains.
A slow smirk appeared when I convinced her the baby was dying. “Good. My prayers have been answered after all. It will be only a matter of time now. That thing inside you should come out dead soon. Hamilton will return with Warren and you will marry him.”
“Why would I marry him if I am no longer carrying a baby?” I groaned.
“Because I don’t want the likes of you here anymore. I want you gone for good. Then when Thomas returns, we can start our lives over, without you to taint the prospect of a good future. The South shall win the war, we will be freed from the Union and thrive. We will acquire new slaves and rebuild what took years to attain. The plantation will prosper, and all our riches will be replenished.”
Eugenia took a breath and smiled. I was sitting in my chair, my hands covering my belly, hoping she wouldn’t examine me again as she did every day, now that she believed the baby was dead.
“As soon as the bleeding commences, call for Abigail. Have her take it to the woods and dig a deep grave. Then the devil can come get it.”
Her words gave me chills, and I was thankful when she left. Now I only had to come up with a plan with Mammy. We had to conspire and make Eugenia believe I was no longer carrying the child of Patrick Arrington.
~ ~ ~
~ Thirty ~
“I ain’t doing it, Miss Amelia,” Mammy said. “It ain’t right.”
“Please, Mammy, there is no other way. Eugenia will resort to extreme measures to kill this baby. Even if that means killing me,” I cried.
Mammy knew I was right and reluctantly agreed. For my own safety.
“Tonight, Mammy. Bring cloths and a knife. And don’t tell a soul about this, not even Hattie. Promise me.”
I made Mammy swear.
“I don’t like this. Don’t like this one bit.”
“Just go. Come back when you hear my pretend screams of agony. I’ll begin just before Eugenia retires for the night.”
“What you gonna do after that? Your baby still be on the way,” she asked, full of worry.
“The dresses will hide me until I figure out what to do. I have no other choice.”
I nervously paced the room for hours, able to think of nothing else but the propaganda Mammy and I were soon to undertake. I then pulled out my journal and began to write to pass the time. I made up the story of my child’s conception, for when I died, the fabrication would live on, just the way I devised.
The story told of how after Patrick ran off, Warren couldn’t help himself any longer, which in part was the dreadful truth. He’d lusted after me all along, and he was obsessed with my beauty and enthralled with my voluptuous body. I had Warren take me out of the attic, promising me an innocent walk in the fresh night air. I didn’t want anyone to know I had been slipped sleeping powders and that he took me as I slept. I thought nothing untoward of his request, and I accepted. I was grateful for the reprieve from my prison cell of a room.
At first Warren was kind and talked of sweet nothings. He revealed that he loved me and wanted to marry me. It was only when I refused that, without warning, he grabbed me and threw me down. He took my innocence by the river’s edge, under the willow, in the darkness of the night. He muted my screams with his lips pressed onto mine, and he held my arms down while he finished his sinful deed. Once he learned of my condition, that I was carrying his baby, Warren ran off, knowing what he had done was wrong and vile and regretting it.
I placed the cap on the inkwell, making that the last entry in my journal, for soon enough I would begin a new life. No doubt Warren would be found and brought back to me. Then, in only a short time, I would be dead. Then all my troubles and my anguished life would finally be over.
My screams of terror and cries for Mammy to come help me were all too real. I dropped to the floor, seizing my stomach.
“Mammy! Hurry!”
I slit both my thighs under my dress two inches long with a letter opener, allowing blood to flow down my ankles and into a puddle onto the floor.
The door was quickly unlocked, and it burst open.
“Get Mammy,” I screeched.
Eugenia turned pale when she saw all the blood, and she flew out to find Mammy. Mammy came in moments later and told Eugenia to go. “This sure is gonna to be gruesome, Mrs. Arrington. You ain’t gonna want to see this.”
Eugenia nodded, ran out, and slammed the door shut. I stayed down on the floor while Mammy stood over me as I let out angst-ridden howls, begged God to take me away now and end my torture, knowing Eugenia was right outside the door listening to every bit of it.
I tugged onto Mammy’s skirt, indicating that she needed to add something.
“Miss Amelia, you need to push.”
“I can’t. It hurts too much!”
I thought back to the night Mammy brought Jacob Thomas into the world and prete
nded I was her. She was in so much pain then, it was all too scary for me to witness.
“The baby is coming!” Mammy said aloud. I nodded, and whispered for her to continue. “Push down harder. It’s almost here!”
I let out a long, primitive, ear-piercing scream, and then went silent. Mammy quickly took one of my small old rag dolls and wrapped it in a blood-tinged cloth, then opened the door.
“I need to get this buried right away!”
Eugenia appeared sickened, just looking at the cloth.
“What was it?” she warily asked.
Mammy looked over to me, then back at Eugenia and replied in a dry, tight voice, “A monster child. Born dead.”
I pretended to moan in pain as I lay feebly on the floor in my own blood.
Eugenia struggled for breath and covered her mouth, trying to hold back her sickness, but to no avail. She ran off to heave, leaving me to hurry and bandage up my self-inflicted wounds. Later Mammy came back from the woods and stitched my legs up.
“Did you really bury the doll?” I asked between winces.
“I did,” she replied, concentrating on her sewing. “Don’t know how long Mrs. Arrington’s gonna believe it.”
“As soon as Warren returns, I will run off with him and stay far from Eugenia.”
Mammy began to work on my other leg. I lay as still as possible. The night grew hot; the room was uncomfortable and stuffy. Mammy was drizzled in sweat, exhausted from the ordeal, yet she carried on with only concern for my welfare. I watched her long fingers thread the needle and puncture my skin.
“Ouch!”
“I’m sorry, Miss Amelia. I’m gonna get done trying not to give you too much pain.”
“I wish things were different. I wish we could go back in time and have our family back. Just like it used to be when it was only you, Daddy, Hattie, and I. And when Cordelia, Abraham, and Helen were still alive. I miss those days, Mammy.”
“Those days are long gone now. No sense in wishing for things that never gonna happen. You gone and grown up, got a baby of your own on the way. Life ain’t never gonna be the same.” She signed heavily.
A lump formed in my tight throat. Mammy was right. I was grown up enough to have been married and conceive a baby. I had experienced different kinds of love. I shared a virtuous love with Perry, shared an immoral love with Patrick, and fought off the irreverent love of Warren. Nothing about my life could ever be the same. There were no longer going to be anymore wistful, youthful days playing by the woods with the other plantation children or cooling off by the shallow edge of the river in the sweltering Georgia summers. I no longer daydreamed about my life ending like in fairytales. Reality was a slap in the face. I hadn’t anything to look forward to any longer. Not even the fluttering of the baby inside me, the child that was created out of my love for Perry, was enough to give me any happiness.
I began to fall into a depression. There was little to encourage me to rise out of bed and face the day. Since the supposed death of the baby I was carrying, Eugenia had my belongings moved back to my room, announcing that my punishment was concluded. “You have done your duty and flushed that evil spawn from you. You are free to leave the attic. However, since Hamilton had no luck finding Warren, I will allow you a few more weeks before I ban you from this mansion. Decide what you will do, where you will go, for you are no longer welcome at Sutton Hall.”
I didn’t care to respond and remained curled up in my bed, falling back asleep. It didn’t matter that I belonged to Sutton Hall just as much as she did, or that I believed that Daddy would never want me to be forsaken.
Mammy tried to look after me and tend to my needs; however, I shunned her efforts.
“Come outside and get some fresh air. Mrs. Arrington is going into Savannah today. It will be safe to get up.”
“I don’t care to. I only want to sleep,” I insisted.
* * *
Violent storms, by both Mother Nature and man, raged in the South, yet I remained undaunted. Mammy tried to tell me how close the Union was getting, how Eugenia was frantic with worry, but all I could do was lie in bed, contemplating my own demise. What happened to the South didn’t matter to me. Why would it? I was only going to be alive another four months. My days were counting down, and I became more and aware of my ill-fated future as my belly grew and grew.
Mammy was becoming perturbed with me as I refused to care for myself. I hardly bathed or brushed my hair, and I practically starved myself.
“You got to eat now. You looking peaked. Now open your mouth and take in some soup. Got good vegetables in it.”
“I’m not hungry,” I snapped.
“You got to feed that baby inside you!”
“Leave me be,” I said and closed my eyes again.
“You are a stubborn girl for sure. Don’t know what I’m gonna do with you,” she said and left fuming.
In the distance, throughout the day, I could hear the rumbling of thunder. The mansion was dark and chilled, and I was content hiding away under my quilt, sleeping through the rain that came in the evening, unaware that for hours Hattie had been sitting next to me beside my bed, watching me sleep and waiting patiently for me to wake.
“What are you doing here?” I asked as I blinked the sleep away from my eyes.
Hattie was worn, her eyes full of worry. She took hold of my limp hand and held it in her own, the way I had held hers on days before when she was sick in bed. It no longer mattered that we’d had a falling out and hadn’t spoken in so long. The moment she came to me, all was forgiven. Hattie was a sister to me and wasn’t about to overlook my predicament. Hattie loved me.
“Momma told me about your condition,” she began. “I knew something was wrong, Amelia. Don’t be mad at Momma for telling me. She swore to you, but I just know you need me now. I can’t believe you’re going to be a mother.”
I slipped my hand out and covered my face, ashamed and full of regret.
“I knew you loved Patrick. I just never thought . . .”
I stopped her before she had the chance to say any more. “What’s done is done. It doesn’t matter. Patrick is long gone, and I shall be as well. Eugenia is demanding I leave Sutton Hall. She is searching for Warren Stone to take me away,” I sobbed.
“The war is closing in. Maybe it is a good plan to leave Savannah. Run off with Warren, marry him. After all, he loves you. I just know he does. I’ve seen the way he looked at you - the same way Patrick did.”
“Oh, Hattie, if it were only that simple.”
I slowly lifted the quilt and exposed my large belly. I took her hand and placed it on top so she could feel the baby moving inside me. Hattie’s eyes widened, and I studied her expression as it faded from astonished to distressed. Hattie sensed my fears; she of all people knew of my mummy’s own fate.
“Stay with me, keep by my side until the end. I want you and Jacob Thomas with me every waking hour. Come to see me, and we’ll steal away like we did when we were little. I want my very last days here at Sutton Hall and on this earth to be filled with memories of you and my brother. I am sorry for being such a terrible sister to you, for letting you feel worthless. I love you with all my heart!”
Hattie came and held me. I nuzzled in her protective arms, longing to be comforted.
“I will be here for you,” Hattie crooned while stroking my hair. “I love you too, Amelia. We will see through these troubled times. Together.”
~ ~ ~
~ Thirty-one ~
I could have never imagined it was possible to go back in time, but Hattie, Jacob Thomas, and I found a way. In our own make-believe world in our minds we were able to abandon the present and journey back to the past. The burdensome war, the lost hope, the dreadful days ahead - all those things, we disregarded, in order to allow only happy times into what was left of our lives.
The oppressive summer days approached, and even as my belly grew, I managed to forget I was with child.
Hattie, Jacob Thomas, and I stole awa
y every chance we could get, and instead of being frightened by the challenges, we relished in them. Once again, Eugenia no longer took interest in my daily existence, since she believed I was withdrawn and hidden away in my rooms, plagued with misery over the loss of my baby, so we were able to steal out of the mansion, escaping to the woods where we were free.
I never felt so alive and happy as when the three of us splashed and frolicked in the waterhole every afternoon. We laughed and laughed, sang our favorite childhood songs, and played hide and seek, just as we used to. It was the first time Jacob Thomas was old enough to participate in such fun, and I couldn’t imagine life without him.
He had grown from a baby to a little boy in the blink of an eye. He was tall for his age, and his mannerisms were mature.
Jacob was astute and wanted to know about my belly, yet the moment he saw the look of anguish in my eyes when he asked, he quickly said in his wispy voice, “Sing me a song, Amelia.”
I leaned back into the trunk of a tall pine tree and placed him on my lap.
“What would you like me to sing to you today, Jacob?”
Hattie was quietly lying nearby drying herself in a small spot where the sun filtered through the trees.
“‘Go Tell it on the Mountain,’” he requested.
I smiled, gently caressed his soft cheek, and gladly granted his request. “Go, tell it on the mountain, Over the hills and everywhere, Go tell it on the mountain, That Jesus Christ is born.”
The birds above fluttered from branch to branch, swooping in. The squirrels stopped gathering their nuts, while the air became still, as if the wind selfishly refused to share my melody. Jacob Thomas gazed up at me with adoring eyes and said, “You sing so pretty.”
I cupped his small face in my hands, and trying not to cry from joy, I said to him, “God made my voice pretty for you, Jacob Thomas, and no other.”
Box Set: The ArringtonTrilogy Page 25