“Send Lucian to my office, Emily. Get my bag and stethoscope.” Charles snapped his fingers at his sister. “Belinda, wake up now. Get a cold cloth for his head; no, make it two.”
Belinda rallied and returned with the wet cloths. She laid them on Will’s forehead and his throat. She took his hand in hers, her fingers shaking, unable to hold still. She knelt beside him and laid her head against his chest.
“Belinda, raise up now,” Charles said, tugging at her. “You’re in my way. I need to listen to his heart.”
Emily handed him his bag. She put her arms around Belinda, pulling her away to give Charles room. Charles listened intently at Will’s bared chest.
“His heart is weak and erratic.” Charles rummaged in the bag. “I’m giving him some digitalis to strengthen the beat. He should be fine.”
“His heart?” Belinda shook free of Emily. She whirled toward Will, then Charles, grasping at his shirt. Her skirts tangled in Charles’s way and he stumbled. He took her by the arm and moved her aside.
Charles put the tincture of digitalis to Will’s lips. His pallor had increased and some of the tincture spilled from the corner of his mouth when Charles inserted the dropper.
“Goddammit. Give me another dose,” Charles said. “Hold his chin back, Emily. Steady, for God’s sake. All right. Good, now.”
Belinda, whimpering, mopped Will’s pallid face with the damp cloths. She flapped them in the air to cool them from his heated skin, over and over. Will reached out for her. She dropped the cloth somewhat askew across his forehead.
“Belinda, are you sick?” Will asked. “Your face is blue. Yours too, Charles. Leave me be. See about Belinda.”
In dead silence, Charles and Emily looked at one another.
“We’ve eaten something tainted. Oh, Belinda—” Will reached for her, but plunged on his side to the floor unconscious. Belinda screamed.
“Damn it, Belinda. Hush now. You’re in my way.” Charles pulled her aside. “Ginny, send for my mother. Here, Emily, help me get him to a bed.”
Emily stumbled as she tried to lift Will’s shoulders. She could barely manage herself and her pregnancy. But together she and Charles lifted Will’s shoulders and half dragged him to the back bedroom. With a last heaving effort, they situated him at a sideways slant on the bed, his legs hanging at a grotesque angle to the rest of his body. Charles lifted Will’s legs and swiveled him onto the bed. Charles did not look at his wife.
Will stirred, turned on his side, raised to his elbow, and vomited onto the braided rag rug. At the bedside Charles held Will’s head until the retching passed. Will lay back, exhausted, staring at Emily where she stood at the foot of the bed. He gave her a wan smile.
Rushing in, Belinda threw herself between Charles and Emily. She stepped in the vomit and, gagging, reeled back, wincing as Charles gripped her arm and pulled her away. Ginny rattled in with a bucket of water, rags, and a mop. She stooped and threw the soiled, braided rug aside. When Ginny finished cleaning and took the rug away, Charles pulled a chair beside the bed and motioned for Belinda to sit. Will opened his eyes and held out his hand to her.
“Why, Belinda, you are an angel,” Will said. “A golden yellow angel. Your hair is glowing!” He raised his head slightly, looking at Charles and Emily. “Why, you are all of you angels, glowing all of you. I haven’t died and gone to heaven, have I?” He lay back. “No, we wouldn’t all have died at once.” Will turned his head to the window. “But maybe this is heaven. Everything is glowing. Even the trees and the grass.” Will rolled his head back toward the door. “And you, Father. Even you are glowing.”
Judge Matthews stood at the threshold, and behind him, Adeline. He entered the room, leaving Adeline in the doorway. He studied the faces of each of them gathered around the bed before approaching his son. Will opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again. The judge took his son’s hand. No one spoke. Judge Matthews brushed Will’s forehead and motioned Charles from the room.
Down the hall out of earshot, Judge Matthews asked, “What’s happening, Charles?”
“It’s his heart, I’m afraid.” Charles did not hedge as to the seriousness of Will’s condition, but insisted that all would be well. He was adamant that the tincture of digitalis would strengthen Will’s heart rhythm. From the open door, Emily listened to her husband, wanting to trust his skill, but she could see that her father was far from assured.
“If he fails to improve, I am sending Lucian for my friend, Dr. Ester, in Winona. You wouldn’t mind some experienced assistance, would you, Charles?”
Charles’s face flushed, but his expressions remained unreadable. “Whatever you wish, Judge,” he said. “See what you can do with Belinda, Mama. I’ll be in my office. Send someone to get me if there is any change.”
In the mid-afternoon Charles returned to check his patient. He decided to administer another dose of digitalis. Adeline held out a restraining hand and cocked her head for him to follow her into the hallway.
“How sure are you of his condition, son?” she said.
“His heart is failing. Of that I am sure.”
“And how sure of the wisdom of more digitalis?”
“As I said, Mama, his heart is failing. What else should I do?”
“Too much can cause the heart to fail. He’s already hallucinating. I know you know that.”
“And too little is too little, Mama. You know that, too.”
Adeline rubbed the back of her neck. “If he should die, I don’t want there to be any doubts. I need to know you are sure.”
“There is no such thing as sure, Mama. You should know that by now. But yes, if there were such a thing as sure, I would tell you I am sure.”
Adeline stood staring at his back as Charles returned to the bedroom. She leaned against the wall, her face in her hand.
* * *
Ginny came in the late afternoon to check. Will saw her as yet another haloed angel, come to rescue him from death. His condition remained unchanged until early evening. Judge Matthews beckoned Charles to the parlor, where bric-a-brac and the offending newspaper lay scattered on the floor.
“Will is possibly dying, Judge. I hope we have another twenty-four hours to save him. The digitalis is all I have to strengthen his heart, which appears incapable of circulating the blood. It needs to be strengthened as much and as rapidly as possible.”
“Might his heart be overstimulated and beating too rapidly, Charles? Too much digitalis, perhaps.”
The silence between them became almost tangible.
“I’m sending for Dr. Ester in the morning.”
The two men studied one another and shifted their weight. Judge Matthews went to the window and pulled aside the curtain, dropped it, reached down, and picked up the newspaper. He laid its headline up on the table. Charles dug the heel of his boot into the Oriental rug and spoke.
“Judge, I was with Will before this episode, at the time it began, and in all that has transpired since then. Do you not trust that I have a close and accurate reading of the necessary treatment?”
Judge Matthews took a step toward Charles.
“If you wish me to stop treatment, Judge Matthews, I will—on your orders. But I will also tell you bluntly, sir, that I believe the only hope for his recovery lies in continued stimulation of the heart. It is your decision, sir.”
The judge stepped around Charles as he walked to the door, where he stopped and spoke with his back to Charles.
“You will stop the digitalis now.”
Charles stood, swaying from side to side. He slammed his palm against the door before following.
As Charles entered the bedroom, Adeline took his arm and spoke quietly to her son. He appeared to reply, then shook his head. Belinda was distraught and frantic with weeping. Charles lifted her to her feet and held her against his chest. When she had gathered herself, Charles spoke gently to her.
“We are stopping the digitalis, Belinda.”
“Why? He’s no better, Charles
.”
“This is my decision, Belinda,” Judge Matthews said. “There is every possibility that the problem may be too much digitalis.”
Belinda’s face paled and she looked from Charles to the judge and back.
“How can you do that?” She advanced on Judge Matthews, her fists clenched. “You would let him die. You would. I won’t have it. I am his wife. I am the one to say.”
Will stirred, opening his eyes, and Belinda turned toward the bed. She ran to him and took his hand. He muttered something unintelligible and she lowered her ear. Judge Matthews came close and leaned toward his son. Adeline watched in silence.
“Let them save me,” Will said feebly.
“Do what you have to do,” Belinda said to her brother. She glared at Judge Matthews. “How could you?” she said.
Charles reached for his bag. He motioned to Emily to hold Will’s head steady as he emptied another dropper of the tincture into his mouth.
* * *
Will died in the night, toward dawn, not long before he should have risen to start a new day. Belinda lay across him, her tangled hair spread like dark wings across his chest. Charles pressed two fingers against the side of Will’s neck, laid his stethoscope aside, looked up, and shook his head.
Emily rose and went to her father. The warm light from the hearth made his hollow face more stark, his eyes gleaming like the live coals in the grate. She laid her cheek against his chest, her hands trembling on his shoulders. Without looking in her father’s face, Emily returned to the bedside. She did not touch Charles as she knelt beside the bed to take Will’s cold hand. It struck her how sudden, how stark the difference between life and not life. Like that.
Emily was the first to speak. “I will make coffee,” she said. “And we will need to eat. We will need our strength.” She stood in the center of the room. Charles was staring out the window into the gray dawn. Emily studied her husband. She slipped behind him and started toward the door. Charles caught hold of her arm as she passed.
“I am sorry, Emily.” His voice was hoarse.
She nodded, walked past Adeline, and left the room.
* * *
Will was buried beside his first wife, Fran, and their unnamed baby boy, just below his mother on the incline of the family plot. The church had been almost full. A throng of assembled friends and slaves accompanied the family to the grave. Belinda, supported on one side by Hammond and on the other by Adeline, wept throughout. Judge Matthews had no words of his own, but his voice resonated with a scripture known by heart:
For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God. . . .
As the casket lowered, Judge Matthews crumbled a handful of earth and let it fall into the depths of his son’s grave. He brushed at his hand, but Emily grasped it as it was and led him toward the waiting buggy, leaving Charles to walk alone.
* * *
In the ensuing days of grief, Rosa Claire Slate was born at three o’clock in the morning on April 18, 1860. Only Ginny and Adeline were in attendance. They laid the newborn on Emily’s bare skin to deliver the afterbirth and cut the umbilical cord. Nothing could have prepared Emily for the warmth that pervaded her from this tiny body. Charles was away, on a call, he had told his mother. Emily fretted and complained at his absence, but by the time she handed him their first child, Emily had forgotten her fears and the pain of the birth. This infant girl enthralled her, captured her in an elation and warmth that pervaded life. This love amazed her. She was not prepared for it, had not expected it. Her rapture did not extend itself to Charles. Rosa Claire was some months old before Emily’s awareness included an unfocused wariness of her husband. He had not saved Will. He had broken with her father. He had been somewhere not with her when Rosa Claire entered the world. He had not shared this moment with her. Nor was he part of the ripening love she shared with this child. Will’s death had set them apart and she had no way to find the bridge, if one existed.
CHAPTER 13
The Indian summer heat rose off the fields in waves of liquid mirage. Benjamin shielded his eyes against the midday sun and pulled at the prickly rope. The bell clanged out across the place, summoning the slaves near the house to dinner. Bent figures straightened in a rippling surge across the fields, speckled with leftover bolls of cotton like the dirty remains of a rare Southern snow. A group of field hands trudged toward the main house. They mopped their brows, with nodded greetings to those passing in the other direction, carrying loads of food to the outer fields. A few stopped briefly, exchanging news or a hearty laugh before trudging on.
On the summer kitchen porch, Ginny set whiteware and a pile of utensils on the table. She was proud of the dinnerware on the long table, spotless from her scrubbing. Mismatched glasses stood on a side table, beside two white pitchers of fresh water. All these things were something of a rarity, indeed a luxury, among Southern slaveholders. She shook her head to think how many here had never eaten at a proper table before the judge purchased them.
The laborers lined up at the well to wash, the women wiping their faces with the corners of their aprons, the men shaking their hands dry in the air. Benjamin mounted the steps and took his place at the head of the table. The others followed, adults leading, followed by the older adolescents. The judge did not work children. No one made room for Samantha, who remained aloof and had not yet made a place for herself among the slaves.
Ginny set a skillet of crisp cornbread at each end of the table. Samantha laid a plate of freshly molded butter beside Benjamin. She did not speak, but she knew he was looking. She felt his gaze on her as she retreated to the far end of the table and pulled an extra chair to the corner. As she sat, she glared at two or three of the women. Then she raised her eyes to meet Benjamin’s. He nodded. Benjamin raised his glass and took a long draft, still gazing at her. Beside him, Nathan glanced back and forth between the two of them.
“Thank you, Samantha,” Benjamin said. “You serve a right fine dish of butter.”
A soft smile turned up the corners of Samantha’s rounded lips. Nathan, watching, let out a hoot. The others at the table looked askance, but Nathan laughed on. Samantha lowered her head, shook it side to side until she, too, burst into laughter.
As the contagious merriment died down, the talk around the table turned to the weather, the morning’s work, and which fishing hole seemed most likely for a good mess of crappie. Benjamin caught Samantha glancing his direction and smiled down into his bowl of peas and cornbread, soaked in pot liquor, the melted butter floating in golden puddles on the surface. When he finished, Benjamin excused himself. As he passed Samantha’s chair, his hand brushed her shoulder. She did not look up, but stilled as if a butterfly had landed in her hair.
* * *
“Afternoon, Mason. What can I help you with today?” Judge Matthews stood and extended his hand across the desk as the sheriff entered his office “Tangled in a legal knot?”
“No, sir. Though if the struggle over Kansas gets much worse, we’re all likely to be tangled in worse than legal knots. World is headed toward bloodshed.”
Judge Matthews pulled a sheet of paper over a book on his desk, but not quickly enough to keep it from the sheriff’s keen eye: The Impending Crisis of the South. The subtitle following was long and unwieldy, but Mason knew it instantly. He had read Hilton Helper’s treatise on the moral failure of a slaveholding society. He found Helper’s economic arguments more rational than his moral ones: that slavery inhibited the progress of the South and worked to the detriment of the non-slaveholding Southerners. He needed little convincing that on a moral basis slavery was an abomination, and yet he found himself obliged to uphold laws that were an offense to him. Why he stayed in office was a constant struggle for him. But he had little land, did not know commerce or any trade, for that matter, and most of his work was upholding the law as he
construed it. And like Judge Matthews, he found he could intervene and ameliorate where possible with injustice at the individual level.
“Might get yourself in a knot with that book, Judge. You know they’re locking folks up just for its possession. You might ought to be more careful.”
“I know, Mason, but seeing as you are the sheriff and I’m the judge, I don’t reckon there is too much danger here in chambers. Do you?”
“No, sir.” Mason chuckled. “But you might want to be careful who else sees it. Folks are mighty scared of that book, and you know scared folks is dangerous folks.” Mason bit his lip. “Well, enough about all that. Mainly I came by to see how you are since Will’s death.”
Judge Matthews averted his face, then sat down and motioned Mason to do the same. The judge swiveled in his chair to stare out the window.
“I idolized that boy, Mason,” he said at last, back still turned.
“He was your firstborn, Judge. Your primary heir.” The sheriff sat back and crossed his knees. “How is Belinda holding up?”
The judge hesitated. “Not well, Mason, not well at all. She’s erratic at best, you know. So is Jeremiah. The curse of inheritance at work.”
“Yes, sir. All that girl’s life, seems to me. Never quite level-headed, that one. Been knowing her a good part of her life and never could tell what she might do or say next.”
“More true now.” The judge cleared his throat. “Speaking of heirs, Mason, I have made a grave mistake.”
“Hard to imagine, Judge.”
“No, I have. Distracted by these slavery issues. Spending my mental energies on all this damned secession malarkey. And how to get around the law to free my Negroes.”
“Yes, sir, I am aware how close you came to losing your office.” Mason shifted and crossed the other leg. “You calling that a mistake?”
“Well, likely it is, Mason. Likely to answer for that choice when I meet my Maker. Priorities and such. Kinds of mistakes we will all answer gravely for in this country, but not what I was referring to.” The judge stood, came around, propped himself on his desk. “I made an agreement with Will about the land and inheritance. All verbal. I was distracted. Had my mind on all this conflict. Distraught about Kansas and where this country’s headed. Bloody Kansas. Rightly termed. On our way to being the bloody States.” He waved his hand in an impotent gesture, as if to rid himself of something vile. “Kansas and that damned Hamilton. Can’t get myself past it even after all this time. Going on two years now. The Marais des Cygnes massacre. Hell of a peaceful name for such despicable violence. One of the dead in that massacre was an old childhood friend of mine.” The judge pushed away from his desk and paced across the office. “What kind of man captures peaceable Free-State men who knew him? Trusted him and went with him willingly, for God’s sake—takes them down in some damn ravine and starts shooting. Portends of what’s to come, I’m afraid, and—” The judge stopped, shook his head. “Well, I digress. Distracted. You see.” He tugged at his beard and scratched his cheek. “I never expected to outlive my son, Mason. Foolish, foolish. People outlive their children all the time.”
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