Distant Dreams

by Judith Pella

  James wanted to tell her that Virginia did not know his every move. Instead he offered Carolina a supportive smile. “I’m glad you enjoy the American Railroad Journal, because I purchased a subscription in your name for your birthday gift.”

  “James, you can’t be serious. A subscription costs five dollars. I certainly can’t accept a gift of that value from someone I’m not even related to.”

  James knew he sounded rather cynical when he replied, “But if your sister has her way, we’ll soon be related.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Besides, I’m your tutor and your father instructed me to purchase whatever I need in order to train you properly. I simply believe this will allow you a better understanding of what’s going on in the world regarding the railroad and other items. Now you’ll have your very own subscription and no longer be dependent upon your father or myself for a copy.”

  “James, I am grateful, but be reasonable. Look what my education caused tonight. Do you think my mother will ever allow me to continue with my studies when she learns it was I who started the fight?”

  “But you didn’t. Milford’s bad manners preceded your questionable actions. And your brother threw the first punch. Milford had no right to speak to you that way. He should have been put from the house in disgrace.”

  “Oh, Father would never hear of that,” Carolina said with a slight smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “He rather likes to argue with Burgess’s father on occasion. Though I’m sure they never exchanged blows. Anyway, this certainly wouldn’t be one of Father’s choices.”

  James smiled. “See, it’s not as bad as you figured. You can still make sport of the evening.”

  Carolina looked up at the house and James’ gaze followed. The orchestra was playing a soft sedate number and in the lighted windows, he could see people gathered in whispering groups.

  “I wish I could fall asleep for a score of years. Then I could wake up and find the world happy to accept me as I am,” Carolina remarked drolly.

  “You’ve been reading Irving’s ‘Rip Van Winkle,’ I see.”

  “Yes, and I don’t think I’d mind so very much waking up to have this nightmare well behind me.”

  “But what of the things you would miss?” James asked softly as he rose and went to her. Carolina raised her gaze to meet his.

  “Things I would miss?” She murmured the words in a barely audible tone. Her eyes were wide.

  “Your family. Friends . . .” He let the word linger in the air. The intensity of the moment was too much, and James reached out to run his finger along the fine soft curve of her jaw. “I would miss you.”

  “You would?” she asked in a voice that betrayed disbelief.

  “Of course.” He looked down at her with all the tenderness he felt. The moonlight on her face made her seem a thing of dreams. A spirited enchantress from the deepest recesses of his imagination. Without realizing it, he had taken hold of her arm and was gently drawing her close to him.

  “Why,” she whispered, “why would you miss me?”

  James’ heart raged within him. When he looked deep within her eyes, he saw an innocence there that frightened him but also thrilled him in a way he had never felt around Virginia. And he innately knew it wasn’t Carolina’s sweet beauty, nor the intoxication of the moonlight that had stirred him so. What filled his mind now was not a vision of creamy skin and peach tulle, but rather of a girl bent over a book, chewing the end of a pen, engrossed in the depths of her thoughts.

  But this was the wrong place. She was the wrong woman. He forced himself to think of Virginia and the compelling duty before him. Quickly he moved away from Carolina.

  “I’m sorry, I seem to have done it again,” she murmured, pain clearly written in her expression.

  “No, it’s not that.” James reached out, but now it was Carolina who backed away. “Wait, I need to explain—”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head and biting her lip. “No, you don’t.”

  “Carolina! James!” It was the voice of Margaret Adams.

  “Here, Mother,” Carolina called out quickly.

  Margaret appeared with Virginia close at her side. Virginia smiled brightly at James and didn’t so much as acknowledge her sister’s presence.

  “Are you all right, child?” Margaret looked Carolina over from head to toe. “You look positively ill. I couldn’t believe it when they told me you were nearly in the middle of that confrontation. Men can be so thoughtless.” She glanced up and met James’ worried look. “Thank you, James, for rescuing her. It would seem a small thing to ask men to contain their politics to other occasions, but apparently it isn’t. We are in your debt.”

  “It was my pleasure,” he assured her.

  Margaret nodded and put an arm around Carolina’s shoulders. “Come along, Carolina. Your father has calmed things down, and there’s still the birthday cake to cut.”

  “Oh, I don’t think I could. I never want to face any of them again,” Carolina said, greatly ashamed that she was near tears again.

  “And that is exactly why you must face them. A good hostess learns to deal with such inopportune moments as graciously as possible.” Margaret pulled her in one direction while Carolina cast a panicked expression over her shoulder at James and Virginia.

  James watched Carolina leave, wishing silently that he could do something to prevent her from having to return to the party. He knew how she hated being paraded before the onlookers. He’d felt that same sense of dread, and now she would have to deal with the embarrassment of facing those people and pretending nothing was amiss.

  He was practically unaware of Virginia until she hiccuped and giggled. Turning in surprise, he met her saucy expression.

  “We’re alone,” she said. She seemed different, not quite her usual reserved self. She twirled in the moonlight, causing her skirt to bloom out around her. “We should dance here under the stars.”

  “The dance is over, Virginia. It’s time for the cake. Don’t you want to go upstairs and celebrate with your sister?”

  “No! Carolina is a ninny, and her party is no fun.” She hiccuped again.

  “Virginia, are you all right?”

  She swayed a bit. “I’m dizzy, but that’s to be expected.” James reached out to take hold of her arm, but instead, she threw herself into a full embrace. “I’m in love and that makes me dizzy.”

  James caught the unmistakable odor of liquor on her breath. No wonder his mint julep had failed to appear. “Virginia, you are quite tipsy!”

  She looked up at him with childlike innocence. “Just drunk on your love.” She snuggled against him and swayed back and forth. “Dance with me and tell me how you love me. Tell me again how my eyes are like starlight and pledge your undying devotion.”

  James glanced around nervously for fear someone might have overheard. His mind was still on the pain-filled expression with which Carolina bid him farewell. He had hurt her feelings, clear and simple. It wasn’t that he said anything out of line, but his actions were inexcusable. Tomorrow he would have to find a way to apologize without demeaning her.

  Virginia whirled around in circle after circle, laughing like a child. She reminded him of Maryland in full display of antics. And like Maryland, Virginia was seeking attention.

  “Virginia,” he said softly, trying to get her to stop moving. “You mustn’t do this. Settle down or someone will see you.”

  “Let them,” she said, and boldly leaning up on tiptoes she planted a lopsided kiss half on his lips and half on his chin. “There, I hope they all saw that.”

  “Virginia!”

  His pleas were ignored as she fell into his arms. When he looked down to speak, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him again. Only this time, the kiss was long, deep, and perfectly placed. James couldn’t help but respond.

  Yet even as he returned her kiss, he thought about how he had felt moments ago with Carolina. What could it have meant? Surely nothing more than . .
. he didn’t know, and he was afraid to find out. Carolina was a child, but also a woman who stirred his heart. Virginia stirred him, too, but in another way altogether. He was a grown man, yet his emotions were as flighty as a boy’s.

  “Virginia,” he said with a sigh, knowing he was lost to the emotion he felt inside. Vaguely he knew Virginia was merely a convenient receptacle for the passions burning inside him. But he was glad of her presence and her advances, for they forced him to remember who he was and what was expected of him. It was not that hard at all for him to return her ardor. To do anything else was stupid, and not a little silly, too.

  “You do love me, don’t you?” she asked in a little-girl whimper.

  “Of course I do,” he replied hoarsely.

  She kissed him again, only this time more awkwardly. James took her face in his hands to better slant her mouth to his. The kiss stirred his blood, and his mind was a mass of confusing, conflicting thoughts.

  “And you will marry me, won’t you?” she whispered when his lips left hers for the third time.

  “Of course,” he murmured without the meaning of what he’d just said fully registering in his mind.

  Virginia pulled back and James opened his eyes in a dreamlike state. Still his mind refused reasonable thought. There was nothing beyond this moment. There was no one else in the world but this one woman. There couldn’t be.

  Virginia smiled in a drunken smirk. She swayed a bit, steadied herself against the nearby bench and laughed. “You won’t tell them, will you?”

  “Tell them what?” James asked breathlessly. The effects of her womanly charms upon him had taken its toll.

  “That I proposed and you accepted. You mustn’t, you know. ’Tisn’t proper,” she slurred the words and swayed. Plopping down hard on the bench, her gown pouffed out around her, making a whooshing sound. “Get down on your knees and propose proper-like. Then you can speak with my father tomorrow.”

  James stared at her mutely for a moment. Propose? Had he really accepted her proposal of marriage? He ran through the words in his mind and realized suddenly that he had responded to her kiss by agreeing to become her husband.

  “James?”

  He shook his head as if he could shake away the scene. “What?”

  “Please do it properly,” she said, holding her arms out to him.

  Without knowing what else to do, James went forward and, as if in a dream, knelt in front of her. She smiled with delight, and her face revealed all the happiness she felt. That and the intoxication of the mint julep. Perhaps, he thought, she won’t even remember this tomorrow. Yet within his heart, James knew there was no way around this. He’d taken advantage of her drunken state, and now he was paying the price.

  Still, he thought, it wasn’t such an awful price. Virginia’s beauty was enough to charm any man, and she had a genuine affection for him. Remembering her warmth and responsiveness in his arms, James felt his heart beat faster. Virginia leaned forward in anticipation, and James made up his mind. His father expected it. Joseph Adams expected it. And clearly, Virginia expected it.

  And Carolina . . . ? Surely she could not expect otherwise herself.

  Thus he easily convinced himself that he could learn to be happy married to a woman like Virginia. I’m certain of it, he reasoned. And without another thought to the future or the past, James opened his mouth and very properly asked Virginia to become his wife.

  Upstairs in the Adams’ ballroom, Carolina stared at her guests with a fixed expression of joyful tranquility. She felt neither emotion, but her mother said it was imperative she show her guests how congenial she could be. The Milfords, of course, were long since absent. Whether they left of their own accord or had been asked to go, Carolina didn’t know and didn’t care. From now on, the name Milford would be a painful reminder of her indiscretion.

  She received her friends and neighbors with all the proper verbiage expected of southern women and opened their gifts to compliment and thank each person as though the article in hand was exactly what was missing in her life. Crystal decanters, silver and brass candlestick holders, and fine bone china quickly amassed and filled the gift table. It was quite an abundance of treasure, and Carolina knew, without the subtle and not quite so subtle comments of her guests, that this was to be her bridal dowry.

  The only gift she could imagine being remotely useful to her right away was James’ subscription to the American Railroad Journal.

  James.

  He hadn’t even bothered to reappear for cake. How terribly ashamed of her he must be. How very childish she must have seemed in his eyes. First, causing the fight at her own coming-out party and then pressing him for feelings that he couldn’t possibly pretend existed. Oh, she wanted to be swallowed up by the earth and die. Humiliation was a dreadful companion.

  Yet through it all, she had to remain the perfect smiling hostess. The recipient of unwanted attention.

  “Yes, Mrs. Winstead, I am quite certain I have never seen a lovelier set of gilded mirrors.”

  “No, Mrs. Barclay, I haven’t any tablecloths as lovely as this.”

  She raved on and on about the gifts and the wonder of becoming an adult and even allowed her mother and friends to anticipate which of her male guests might make a perfect match for her. When finally the clock struck one and the party guests were ushered to their rooms or carriages, Carolina hurried to the solace of her room and slammed the door behind her.

  Hot tears of misery coursed down her cheeks as she grabbed at her hair, pulling out pins and ribbon with a vengeance. “He didn’t even come back!” she declared to the silence of her room and threw herself across the bed in order to have a long and proper cry. Coming of age was a grief she could have lived without.

  37

  The Morning After

  It seemed to Carolina that scarcely had her head touched the pillow when light was suddenly flooding her room to announce the day. Miriam was humming a lively tune and seemed undisturbed by the fact Carolina was hesitant to stir.

  “I’ve laid out yor gown, Miz Carolina. Yo best be up and around so’s I can arrange yor hair a’fore breakfast.”

  Carolina opened her eyes a bit wider. With the thought of a full table of overnight guests, she moaned. “I don’t want any breakfast.” There was absolutely no way she could endure the stares and questions of those who’d stayed on at Oakbridge. They’d all been properly polite and void of questions the night before, but today would be quite another story.

  “Ah, Missy, yo oughtn’t worry bout dat party none. Folks know wasn’t none of yor doin’,” Miriam comforted, hands on hips. “I is gwanna help Miz Virginia with her hair whilst yo get yorself up and around.”

  Carolina sighed and resigned herself to the fact that the day would go no further until she acknowledged it in full. Scooting up against the wooden headboard, she stretched. This was a good enough sign for Miriam, and the slave took herself from the room in short order.

  Thoughts of the party came immediately to Carolina’s mind, causing her cheeks to grow hot. Mother had been right about one thing, she thought. Politics were a surefire way to ruin a social gathering. Still, upon reflection, it wasn’t the ball’s more subdued ending that caused Carolina to moan in misery. That right belonged clearly to her behavior toward James Baldwin.

  “What a fool I was,” she said aloud with a groan. “My head was full of moonlight, and my heart was full of stupid little-girl ideals.”

  She remembered the way James had looked positively grief stricken when she’d pushed him for an answer about missing her. “Of course, I couldn’t recognize his attempts at polite conversation. It was only his desire to take my mind off of the fight and my own sorry state.”

  How could she face her family this morning? She couldn’t bear the idea of sitting through breakfast with everyone discussing the events of her party. Nothing was working out the way she’d hoped. Nothing at all. To most, the party would go down in county history as the night a woman dared to interfere in
a gentlemen’s discussion. But to James it would always be the night that Carolina overstepped the bounds of propriety. She could well imagine appearing at church to find the genteel folk of society whispering her name with cold disdain, but that didn’t bother her nearly as much as thoughts of James’ disapproval.

  He hadn’t even bothered to return for the cake, she thought and fought to keep the tears from welling in her eyes. Neither he nor Virginia had reappeared in the ballroom, and even though the party had concluded amiably, their absence had signaled a kind of comeuppance in Carolina’s mind.

  Pulling the cover over her head, Carolina uttered another dejected moan. Surely she could just stay in her room until the gossip died down. But while Carolina realized that avoiding the public could be quite easily attained by hiding within the walls of Oakbridge, there was clearly no way she could hide from James Baldwin.

  “He must know how I feel,” she said and drew the covers around her tight. “I can’t bear to face him. I just can’t. Not after I put my heart on my sleeve like that.”

  “Miz Carolina! Am I gwanna have to git Hannah to help me?”

  “I’m coming, Miriam.” She threw back the cover and dragged out of bed as though headed for her execution. “Couldn’t I just take my breakfast here in my room?”

  “No, ma’am,” Miriam said, shaking her head adamantly. “Not with a houseful of folks. ’Sides, there’s sumptin ’portant yo Papa wants to be discussin’.”

  Carolina rolled her eyes, and her shoulders dropped dejectedly.

  “No doubt,” was all she could manage to whisper.

  Twenty minutes later, dressed and made socially presentable, Carolina purposefully had Miriam leave her hair in a simple gathering of curls at the back of her neck. She didn’t desire to appear the grand lady today. There was no need to draw attention to herself in a manner that would only remind everyone of her immaturity and her inability to keep her mouth shut.

  Gingerly, she peered into the dining room before entering. They were all gathered, apparently awaiting her appearance. Julia Cooper and her husband were engaged in conversation with James and Virginia, while Margaret was giving last-minute instructions to one of the servants. There were over half a dozen other families represented at the table. The Wilmingtons, Swans, Baldwins, Sinclairs, and Barrymores took up one side of the table, with Carolina’s family, the Coopers—senior and junior—the Winsteads, and Barclays taking up the opposite side. With a determined breath, she stepped into the room.