A Cry at Midnight

by Chancellor, Victoria

  "You gave yourself to him?"

  She heard the censure in his voice, despite his efforts to keep his tone low and neutral. Still, his criticism hurt. More than anything, she wanted to explain. He would never understand the morals and standards at the end of the twentieth century, though. They were 150 years apart in time--and at least that much in ethics.

  "Don't tell me you never went to bed with a woman besides your wife," she asked instead of answering him directly.

  "That's different."

  "Because you're a man."

  "Yes! And because I never seduced an innocent young woman into giving me something intended for her husband," he said, his whisper fierce, his body poised for flight.

  She bit her bottom lip and swallowed a sob. Right or wrong morally, he was going to understand the comparison. And Cleve hadn't seduced her. Their attraction had been mutual . . . hadn't it?

  "I can't explain what happened. You won't understand."

  "As usual," he added, his voice a frustrated sneer.

  "If I told you the truth, would you believe me, no matter how far-fetched, no matter how improbable my explanation seemed?"

  "I can't guarantee that I'll believe something I haven't heard yet!"

  "Jackson, I know you won't believe me," she said, gripping his unbuttoned shirt in both hands. "If I thought there was any way I could explain where I'm really from and tell you how I got here, I would in a heartbeat." She dropped her arms to her side. "Don't you understand how much it hurts me to keep all this to myself? I wish I could tell you. I wish you'd tell me that you'd understand."

  He looked at her as though he'd never seen her before. "You expect too much," he said finally.

  As she stood in that small bedroom where she'd chosen to sleep this night, Jackson walked away. She knew she'd given him too much to think about. Admitting she wasn't the innocent young miss he'd assumed she was. Telling him that she couldn't explain where she was from. Asking him to believe her no matter what.

  She was expecting him to behave as though he loved her. She hugged her arms around herself and shivered in the cool night air. Just because she'd fallen in love with him didn't mean he returned the feeling. As a matter of fact, he'd be foolish to fall in love with someone as inappropriate, as out of place, as her.

  A whimper came from the nursery. She hurried toward the sound, thankful for a distraction from her young charge. Anything to take her mind off her compounding problems.

  #

  Randi settled herself and Rose on a quilt in a rare ray of sunshine which slanted through the third floor window. Rain had stopped sometime during the night, but the ground was a muddy mess. They wouldn't be going outside yet. Rose continued to teeth, fussing and fretting while she gummed the hard biscuits Suzette provided.

  "I know you're grouchy," Randi said to the restless infant, "but you're going to have to get through this on your own. I don't have any medicine to give you. I wish I did, Sweetie."

  Rose pushed up on her hands and rocked back and forth. She'd be crawling any day now, as soon as she got her knees and elbows coordinated. Randi smiled when she imagined Rose's delight at learning to crawl, then walk. They'd have to baby-proof the room, and put a gate across the stairs.

  Her smile faded as she remembered she wouldn't be here to see Rose take her first step. She wouldn't be anywhere near Black Willow Grove. Either her plans would work and she'd return to her time, or she'd run--as far as possible from the floodwaters of the Mississippi.

  She was not going to drown in this plantation house . . . but Rose and Jackson would, if they didn't heed the warnings--hers and the ones given by a rising river and the plentiful rains.

  Nature was teasing them today, giving them a glimpse of blue skies and fluffy white clouds, tempting new green leaves to unfurl and faces to lift to heaven. But the fair weather wouldn't last. Or, if the flood came from upstream, the sun would be shining on mile after mile of flooded fields, with no human face to witness the destruction.

  Randi sighed as she picked up her sketch paper and pencil. She should be more pleased with her efforts. The room she'd drawn looked complete, as much as she could remember. Pretty good work, if she did say so herself. If this didn't get her back home, she couldn't imagine what would.

  She patted the baby absently on the back. Had she forgotten any details in the drawing ? Anything that would make her sketch so inaccurate that she couldn't get back home? Her eyes scanned the depths of the room she'd drawn, trying to recall any chair or folded quilt, small table or leather-clad trunk that she'd left out.

  "Did you draw that, Miz Randi?" Suzette asked in an amazed voice from behind her.

  "Yes, I did. It's a room I remember from . . . from my home."

  "It's real pretty." Suzette leaned closer to study the sketch. "You must be rich," she whispered in awe.

  Randi looked up into Suzette's young, open face. "Why do you say that?" No one had ever confused her for someone with wealth.

  "Because your folks have so many things they've got to put them all in one room," Suzette said, as serious as could be.

  Randi chuckled. "This isn't where my parents live," she tried to explain. "This is a place I visited. It's a museum. Do you have those . . . here?"

  "I don't think so. What is it?"

  Randi thought for a moment, absently patting Rose's back. "A museum is a place where things are collected. Some of them are valuable, some are just special. They put these things in big rooms and everyone can come and look."

  Suzette peered at the sketch once more. "These beds and chairs and tables are special?"

  "Where I come from they are. They're rare. They're very old."

  "You like old things?" Suzette asked incredulously. "Why would you like old if you can have new?"

  Randi smiled, holding up the drawing and looking again at the detail. She'd seen the items dozens of times, but she'd never thought of them as special. Just things to dust and straighten. Not things that someone had once used daily and treasured. "Maybe because someone else once loved them."

  Suzette shook her head, but didn't make any more comments. Just as well, Randi thought, because she had no more answers.

  Rose began to fret. Since it was her lunchtime, Suzette took her off to the rocking chair for feeding. The gentle sound of wood on wood, the occasional scuffing noise of Suzette's thin leather slipper, provided a peaceful setting that Randi craved.

  She stretched out on the quilt, basking in the sunlight, her thoughts turned inward. She felt sad, disturbed by what she'd said to Suzette and about the facts she knew of the past.

  What if she couldn't go back? What if she had to run away instead? Where would she go? She had no money, and very few real skills or knowledge of these times.

  She took out fresh sheet of paper and began to idly doodle, something that had often helped her think when she was younger. Often, she'd talk with friends on the phone, then look down a half hour later and find an elaborate, palatial home. Or sometimes a cartoonish figure of the person they'd been talking about.

  Today she let her mind roam free, wandering through her options. If she stayed here, she might be able to get a job as a governess. She'd travel north, away from the reality of slavery and plantation life. She hadn't seen anything terrible at Black Willow Grove, but just knowing that people were kept against their will, forced to work long hours with no hope for a future, made her shudder. Besides, a war was coming that had been fought mostly down south, if she recalled correctly. She didn't want to be caught in the middle of two armies.

  She propped her chin in her hand and tried to imagine not seeing her family again. The thought was too awful to consider. They'd always been close; she couldn't imagine not walking into her mother's kitchen, or watching television with her dad. And her brother's new family . . . she'd just gotten to know Darla well. They'd planned a ladies night out in Memphis for Tanya's twenty-first birthday next month. They'd sat at Darla's table and laughed over whether they should splurge for a male
stripper. After all, Tanya, the baby of the family, should have a twenty-first birthday she'd always remember.

  Randi frowned as she realized she might not be there for her sister's birthday, just like she wouldn't see Rose's first steps or find out if Jackson survived the flood. If she ran away, she'd never know.

  If she stayed, she might die too. At the least, she'd be surrounded by water. Acres and acres of muddy brown river. She couldn't stand the image; she'd never survive the reality of smelling, watching, and eventually having to wade or swim through the flood.

  She leaned her head down and closed her eyes. When she opened them, she saw not the Mississippi, but the sheet of paper. She'd sketched Jackson, a look of longing and loneliness on his face.

  Randi closed her eyes again. She couldn't have Jackson. Even if she stayed to save them from the flood, he was not hers to love. He belonged to another culture, another time, and no matter how much she wanted him, they were as different as night and day.

  As if nature wanted to emphasize her point, the shaft of sunlight disappeared. The nursery seemed instantly less vibrant, less alive. Even the gently rocking sound that had been so comforting fell silent. Rose was asleep in Suzette's arms, and Randi lay on the quilt with the sketch of the man who was breaking her heart without knowing, without ever believing, how or why.

  #

  Randi escaped the house full of people the next day by convincing Lebeau that she needed to go to Franklin's plantation to check on George's broken arm. The butler hadn't wanted her to leave Black Willow Grove; he frowned and said he'd have to check with Master Jackson. She'd stood her ground, though, and they'd left the plantation without Jackson showing himself.

  She supposed he didn't want to see her, loose woman that she was. Well, she couldn't help how he felt, and she wouldn't apologize for what she'd done. By the time she and Cleve had progressed to a physical relationship, she'd thought she was in love. Cleve had been so much fun, so clever. Only later did she realize that most of what he'd said and done had been an act.

  Whatever his faults, they weren't her concern any longer. At one time she'd thought they'd have a very special bond between them forever, but circumstances had changed. She didn't hate Cleve; she'd simply accepted his faults and moved on with he life.

  Moving on from Jackson, Rose, and all the other people she'd met in the past would be entirely different. She wouldn't be able to forget them, no matter how long she lived. And she'd always imagine what might have been, if they'd lived under different circumstances. In the same century, for example. If they shared the same values, or wanted the same things in life.

  How in the world could she be so attracted to a man she had absolutely nothing in common with?

  "Whoa," Lebeau called to the team, pulling the buggy to a halt in front of the plantation house.

  He stepped down into the mud that now made up the driveway of Franklin's home. This place was closer to the river. Randi smelled the muddy water, felt it seep into her body. For a moment, as she looked across a narrow field toward the newly mended levee, she panicked. Sucking in lungsful of oxygen, she grabbed on to the buggy seat and told herself that she was in no immediate danger. No raging torrent on the other side of the earthen dam threatened to take her under. She felt with all her heart and soul that today was not her day to die. Still, she couldn't help shuddering as she re-lived the feeling of helplessness she'd experienced as a child.

  "Miss Randi?"

  She blinked, looking away from the line of trees swaying gently in the breeze. "Sorry. I was just . . . thinking."

  He frowned. "Are you feeling poorly?"

  "No, nothing like that. Let's see if Mr. Franklin is home."

  Lebeau helped her down. Fortunately, where he'd "parked" the buggy was close enough to the house that only her soles got damp walking the few steps to the porch. She'd given up on trying to force her feet into the uncomfortable shoes and had gone back to her Keds.

  She wondered if she'd be the one to ask about George. Probably. Lebeau and the rest of the servants she'd met seemed reluctant to speak to the plantation owners. She'd never get used to that color-coded deference, even if she did have to stay here.

  "Is Mr. Franklin at home?" she asked the black woman who answered the door?

  "Yes, ma'am. Please, come in."

  Lebeau followed her into the house, keeping his distance, holding his hat in hand. She wouldn't have thought this of him after their first meeting, but she welcomed his silent presence. She didn't feel quite so alone, knowing he was there. Knowing he was one more link to Jackson and Black Willow Grove.

  Within a few minutes, she'd met with the blustering planter, who'd seemed genuinely confused about why she wanted to check the bandages on the man she'd helped the doctor treat two days ago. But he granted permission for her to see to the wound, as long as she didn't keep the others from their chores.

  She promised she'd be good, then headed back to the buggy. Lebeau drove her around back to the slave quarters, where Franklin had told her the man was working with the "grannies." She wondered what in the world a strong guy like him was doing the older women.

  She found out minutes later when they pulled up to a whitewashed building that was a littler larger than the other cabins, which she assumed were the houses where the slaves lived. Two elderly women sat on the front steps watching over a dozen children. They raced around the muddy yard, grinning and yelling like children everywhere. They looked dirty but happy. The scene reminded her of schoolyard scenarios in her own time, except for the homemade, rough-spun garments the kids wore.

  But she couldn't forget that these were slave children, destined to spend the next ten or fifteen years under a doomed system. They'd be adults before they were free, and then what would happen to them?

  "Miss Randi?"

  Lebeau again startled her out of her morbid thoughts. "Sorry. Do you see George?" She shaded her eyes against the noontime sun.

  "Stay here with the buggy. I'll go ask about him."

  She did as he suggested, watching the children play until the "grannies" called them in for lunch. With a sigh, Randi thought of her nieces and nephew, missing them so much. Without the laughter of the children, the atmosphere of the slave quarters seemed eerily quiet. They were all out working, in the fields or the house, and their cabins stood as a row of silent reminders on the Southern way of life.

  She'd never thought of herself as part of the plantation culture because her relatives had come to Tennessee after the war, working for other farmers, probably in the same capacity as these slaves. Her grandfather had leased land and grown cotton; her father had gotten off the farm to become a welder, then a supervisor at small plant that produced iron and steel frames. None of her relatives had been wealthy people, but none of them had been owned by someone else, either. She wanted to believe she had a lot in common with the workers, but knew that one difference made comparisons impossible.

  Lebeau came around the side of the building with George, his arm still bandaged and splinted. She just hoped they'd successfully disinfected the cut the other night. What she wouldn't give for some hydrogen peroxide, sterile gauze, and antibiotic ointment.

  After Lebeau helped her down from the buggy seat, she turned to George and smiled. "How are you feeling?"

  "I . . . I'm fine, Miss Randi."

  "Mr. Franklin seemed confused to see me, and I suppose you are too. I just wanted to come by and check your wound."

  "My wife treated it and changed the bandage," he said proudly. "She's a good healer." A little more shyly, he added, "My wife said those were fine stitches you set into my tough old hide. I thank you very much for that."

  "You're very welcome. And if your wife is familiar with folk medicine, she probably knows more than that quack who was here the other night," Randi said, not trying too hard to hide her disappointment over both the man's skills and his attitude. What these people needed was a good ER!

  She thought the saw the worker smile, but she wasn't sure
. "Okay, then," she said. "Do you mind if I take a look?"

  "No, Miz Randi, but you don't have to do that," he said, almost apologetic.

  "I'd feel bad if your wound got infected and I didn't try to help."

  He shrugged, obviously uncomfortable with her attention. Lebeau stood back, watching silently as she unwound the cotton fabric from the area of the splints where the wound was located. Being careful with the break, she removed the softer cotton pad from the lacerated cut--and gasped.

  "What in the world is that on your arm?"

  The man looked down. "Tobacco. My wife soaks the leaf in run. She says it helps to heal a cut."

  Tobacco? What an odd remedy. She peeled back the dampened piece, surprised to see the flesh appear smooth and healing nicely. "Whatever your wife is using appears to be working, but I wouldn't keep it on too long. I'd say your arm was going to be safe from infection, as long as it stays clean. Just don't get it wet with any water from the river or anywhere that hasn't been boiled."

  He nodded. Randi rebound the injury, checked to make sure the splint was tight, and told him to be careful.

  "Mas'r Franklin has me paintin' the meetin' house," he explained. "The work's not hard."

  "I'll be back in a few days so I can check the stitches again. They should stay in for a week. If I don't get back, have her removed them with scissors she's held over a flame."

  The man thanked her, and she and Lebeau set off for Black Willow Grove.

  No matter where she went--back to her own time or north, away from the flood and this way of life--at least she knew she'd helped one person's life. Now if she could only get Jackson to listen to her. If only she could save Rose from a terrible, tragic fate.

  Chapter Seventeen

  A messenger arrived late in the day from Randolph, advising Jackson that a packet had arrived from upriver. They'd had a difficult time docking due to high water and strong currents, but according to the messenger, had room for passengers who wanted to continue downriver to New Orleans.