by Linda Daly
“You probably will end up with a scar, but I think you’ll survive.”
“Thank you, Miranda.”
Touched by the warmth in his eyes, and feeling such closeness with him, she suddenly felt very awkward being so near to him while in her nightgown and he partially clothed. Silently she withdrew from him. Feeling his hand slip away from her waist, she placed the soiled linen in his palm and she turned to leave. Reaching the door, she paused.
The sudden desire to expose a portion of her heart to him was immense and shyly she whispered, “Tad, I know the pain of being alone and feeling unloved. Most of my childhood was like that. Although I had two parents living under the same roof with me, no one seemed to notice, or for that matter cared enough about me to see how much I needed their love.”
Not wanting his pity, she quickly added. “If someday you want to talk about the pain we both endured as children, I am here for you. Before you say yes though, keep in mind that I think you are wrong regarding your father. I know you must have heard just as I did, your father and Sarah as they came up the stairs. If you want to admit it or not, your father is suffering, too. Don’t misunderstand, I’m not siding with either of you. All I’m saying is that before you write him off, please know that I think Michael is a decent man who obviously has made a terrible mistake and now wants to make amends. Feel grateful that you have such an opportunity, because I never shall.”
Not waiting for his reply, Miranda crept silently back into her own room leaving Tad alone with her words haunting him.
Nine
Awakening
In the sanctuary of her room, Miranda unlocked the torment and pain she had been harboring all her life. Hearing Tad’s pain and wanting so desperately to help him, she realized she too had demons that had to be unleashed if she were ever to find peace and true happiness. As she lay still in her bed, the sorrowful memories of her past came rushing through her mind in waves.
The image of herself as a child alone and frightened in her room hearing the frequent shouting between her father and her mother caused her immense grief. Again, she jerked just as she had as a child when the slamming of a door echoed through the walls of Glenbrook, her family home. As she lay there recalling her past, she knew that her mother’s tormented cries would follow shortly. Right on cue, the sounds of Catherine’s sobs haunted her, and a tear rolled down Miranda’s cheeks, fully understanding her mother’s anguish, and still feeling as helpless today as she had all those years earlier. “Oh Mama …”she whispered, recalling the sorrowful life her mother lived.
Day after day, week after week, the lonely little girl, not knowing how to help her mother, who was so ill, tried desperately not to make a sound, fearful she might further upset her. As an older child no more than eleven, Miranda had come to understand that her mother’s sickness was not physical, but was self-induced from drinking too much brandy.
Catherine Brown needed her “friend” to make it through the day and again at night to be able to sleep only to awake with a hangover. Recalling how sickened she had been at discovering her mother’s shameful existence, the confused and angry child needing time alone to sort out her feelings had taken a walk in the woods of their property.
Much to her shock, Miranda happened upon a sight that still sent shock waves to her very core. Rather than block out the memory as she had over the years, Miranda allowed herself to relive what she had witnessed between her father and his slave that fall afternoon that haunted her still.
The memories of that fateful day were so vivid that Miranda pulled the cotton sheet up closer to her, despite the closeness of her bedchamber. Time stood still as she drifted back to 1851, long before the war, and witnessed herself walking the back grounds of the family plantation. Absentmindedly she had kicked the fallen leaves from her path ashamed of what her mother had become, but worse, hating herself for thinking such loathsome thoughts of her mother to begin with.
Startled at hearing a woman’s laughter amongst the wind and the rustling leaves, Miranda had paused, looking up to see where the sound originated. Her heartbeat had quickened remembering how she had frozen at the spot when she saw Elmira kissing her father passionately as he leaned against a tree close to the slave’s cottage.
Never had she witnessed any man grope at a woman so fiendishly before this, and certainly not her father. The shock was unbearable, but as the couple made their way to the slave’s quarters, Miranda stupefied, followed and witnessed the two of them engage in fiery lovemaking.
Stunned and dazed, the young girl had managed to make it back to her room in the big house before being detected. The sights and sounds of what her father and Elmira had done in the slave’s bed haunted her. With every step she took, the sounds of her father’s groaning as his naked body kept rocking harder and harder against Elmira’s brown skin taunted her.
Never having seen her father naked before, and to witness him performing such an act with his slave, who kept squealing and moaning, caused the young girl to withdraw from all other sights and sounds around her.
As Miranda climbed the steps to her room, only wanting to escape, she heard the familiar crying coming from her mother’s closed room. Standing on the stairs, horrified, she suddenly understood why her mother had cried so much and her need to drink. Too ashamed to ask her mother if she had seen her father and his slave fornicate, as she had just witnessed, the young Miranda began hating her father. Not just for being intimate with his slave, but moreover, for betraying her mother in such a deplorable act that caused her to become a drunk.
Following that incident, Miranda’s curiosity increased and she would frequently sneak back to the slave’s cottage to watch her father shag his slave, despite how she hated him for what he was doing. Sickened by the sight, but unable to stop herself, the little girl would listen and watch, spying on the lovers for hours. Then one day, accidentally, she discovered Elmira’s son was Lucas’ too, making Joseph her half-brother.
On that particular day, much to her horror, she overheard her father threaten Elmira that if she did not obey him, he would sell Joseph, even though he was his son. The following day, just as her father had threatened, the slave-trader came to Glenbrook. After Elmira screamed and pleaded with Lucas, the frightened slave was allowed to remain.
Even now, years later, Miranda still could see the look of panic on Joseph’s face as he had run for safety deep into the woods of the plantation. And the profound hatred she had felt for her father, for causing such pain. Unable to fathom that any man would sell off his own son, Miranda began to defy Lucas anyway she could.
Knowing that Lucas was opposed to Abolitionists, hearing him repeatedly rant with business associates from his study at how they needed to be stopped, Miranda secretly sought out those her father despised.
Over a period of years, she had formed a close friendship with Constance Hildebrandt, a friend from school, who Miranda discovered was an Abolitionist. By the time she was in her teens, Miranda had not only won the trust of fellow Northern Sympathizers, but was actively involved in the Underground Railroad.
Such undertakings gave the young woman immense joy knowing that of all the things her father hated in the world, those who helped runners was at the top of his list. Even following the misfortune of Joseph and her father’s accident, Miranda continued with her pursuits intending to free her half-brother while she still had the chance. Especially after hearing her distraught brother’s description of the events of the accident that had left his mother unbalanced and his father severely injured.
As she comforted her brother, she discovered Joseph was certain that Jeb Pickley was involved in some way, explaining the overseer’s strange behavior leaving Elmira’s cottage just before Joseph had discovered Elmira and Lucas. Drawing the same conclusion, Miranda then listened to Joseph explain that Lucas, before his accident, had promised his son he would be freed that very afternoon.
Realizing Joseph was probably never going to have his freedom, especially with his f
ather so gravely ill, Miranda decided she would grant him this herself. On their way to the safe house she had used dozens of times before assisting other runners, they had been seen by a Confederate and took refuge in a shed.
While hiding Joseph and Jessie in the abandoned old barn, Miranda’s heart stopped, hearing gun shots outside. When Elise had come inside looking for help, in the dim light the three of them had thought it was the Confederate soldier. Joseph, trying to be brave and defuse the situation had called out in sheer panic that he had a gun. Tragically, it was Joseph’s last words, as Elise, frightened herself, shot and killed him where he stood.
The sight of his dull lifeless eyes staring up at her, still haunted her to this day. Miranda still found it ironic that on that afternoon as she wept over his slain body, she was not able to explain her loss. Instead she grieved in silence, knowing she had been able to free others, but not her own kin. Numb, hating herself, her father, but most of all the life she had led, which ultimately caused her own brother’s death, a part of Miranda died along with Joseph.
Even following her mother and Elmira’s death, when she sat alone in her room and heard her father agonize in his room, she remained lethargic. A part of her wanted to go to him and ease his pain, while another took solace in knowing he deserved the pain he was experiencing and so much more for betraying her mother’s love, by loving another.
At last, Miranda allowed herself to grieve, releasing the bottled up pain she had held within her for years. As she wept, she mourned the loss of her mother, her half-brother, but more importantly her loss of innocence and the ability to trust men.
As she continued to cry, the thought crossed her mind that perhaps Felicity was right. Maybe she wasn’t allowing herself to love. Fearing that love could hurt her just as it had her mother, and remembering the vile acts of love her father and Elmira had committed, she conceded that perhaps she had.
With no more tears to shed, and facing the fact she had rejected love to enter her life, it was natural that her thoughts went to Tad. Have I been opposed to Tad simply from not being able to trust any man? Or, was it because of his secretive nature that reminded me of Father? Deep in her heart, she knew the answer. From the moment she had met him, she had perceived Tad as a man who displayed a particular side of his character to society, while living the remainder of his life as he pleased, with no regard for those around him. Precisely like her father.
Her opinion changed though, hearing Tad this evening express the pain he had harbored against his own father. Suddenly Tad was no longer the enemy, but rather someone she could relate to. She understood what it was like to never disclose your deepest most intimate thoughts and pain one harbored, and her heart went out to him. That was precisely why she had gone to him following the incident with Michael—not thinking of the consequences—but reacting to her own pain.
With her past finally put to rest, her final thoughts before drifting off to sleep were, Oh Tad, how sad and lonely it has been for you … And for me …
~
In a boardinghouse across town, Lucas Brown had trouble sleeping. Just as he did most nights. No matter how tired he was, as soon as his head lay on the pillow, visions of the past haunted him, like phantoms in the night. Catherine, Elmira and his son Joseph, floated in and out of his dreams calling him from their graves until he awoke shaken by their memories.
The nightmares were always the same. Catherine off in a distance watching him with haunting, hate-filled eyes, just as she had the day she discovered him and his beloved Elmira in bed after an afternoon of passion. The phantom of Elmira in an eerie haze standing over an open grave where her son Joseph would be laid to rest was the most unsettling to him. Every night Elmira appeared to him wearing a torn dress, her hair matted just as it was on the day Pickley raped her.
When her long slender arms stretched out before her with blood dripping from her wrists into the empty grave, Elmira would then lift her bruised face and begin pleading with him. “Lucas … Lucas, help me!”
As the nightmare continued, Catherine then would appear to float closer to the blurred vision of Elmira with a menacing wicked smile, dragging something behind her. As she draws nearer, Lucas can make out that what his wife’s ghost was dragging behind her is a man in chains.
Seeing the body was his son Joseph, Lucas becomes distraught and tries to come to them, but he never manages to reach them. Only the sounds of his son’s pleas fill his tortured mind. Father, free me.
Lucas wakes shaking, drenched in perspiration, out of breath as if he had been running after the phantoms that haunt him.
Night after night, the nightmare plagues him. And every night after the specters have begged for his help, he cries out in the agony of his tortured mind. I’ve killed them. It should have been me! Oh dear God why couldn’t it have been me instead?
Knowing if he remained in bed, the same would occur, Lucas pulled himself from his slumber and dressed for the day ahead. As the sun began to rise in the east, he walked to the sitting area of his rented room. After lighting the lantern, he pulled out a letter he had recently received from Charles Mason. As he read his correspondence describing how Glenbrook was getting on, Charles again asked if the stone cottage could be converted to a playhouse for the younger girls at the school.
Repeatedly, Lucas had avoided answering this question in the past, unable to think of allowing anyone inside its four walls as if it was sacred ground. With heavy heart, Lucas decided that possibly if laughter rang out from the cottage again, maybe his tormented mind could somehow find some peace at last.
Before he had a chance to change his mind, he quickly drafted a letter giving permission to Charles to do whatever he felt necessary with the stone cottage, as well as the remaining property of Glenbrook. Finishing the letter by including information regarding the political shambles of the capital, Lucas wished he had more encouraging words to offer.
Sitting pensively, Lucas thought of the turbulent times the nation was now facing. The Republican Party was split as to what should be done now that the war was over. Some still agreed as Lincoln did—that this was the time to rebuild, and by lending help to the crippled south allowing them to heal from their wounds, would only make for a stronger Union. While others debated adamantly that it was the Rebels who began this war by secession, and they should bleed even further, to crush their spirit so they can never rise up again to take action against its motherland. After all, wasn’t it because of them that the blood of innocent men lay on the battlegrounds? Forgetting that the Confederates too shed blood for what they believed in, and lost everything in the process, Lucas explained how he would address this very issue at a political luncheon where he was to be guest speaker next month.
Having no rights himself to vote any longer, Lucas could only hope that his voice would be heard to avoid any further hardships being placed against his beloved south. His intentions were to point out that such Democratic groups as the Ku Klux Klan, or so dubbed “White Camellia”, would only become stronger as hatred filled the hearts of the white male as they were forced into suppression.
Pausing, Lucas wondered to himself just how the hell he was going to manage such a feat. Knowing that as the hatred grew in the hearts of men toward the Negro, the Republican Party claimed they were obliged to protect them, but they were in far graver danger now than when they had been in bondage.
Such a thought caused him to deliberate just how he could come across as not issuing a threat, but that of a concerned Christian male pointing out human nature. A great leap, considering he had been a staunch believer in slavery all his life, until he had come to understand what torment being shackled in bondage was actually like. He had become a slave to his past, with no freedoms, no chance of ever regaining the freedom to escape from the life he had created.
And although Lucas knew his torment could never be compared to what true humiliation it was to be a slave—with no respect or dignity—as those had been forced to live, Lucas felt he could sympa
thize with the ones who had suffered for generations, since he now suffered in silent agony, having been stripped of all he had once felt he had been entitled to and valued most in the world.
After all, was he not a politician who could not vote? Just as he was a man who dared never to love again—never allowing himself to forget the pain that he had inflicted on two women he loved—a love that eventually caused their demise.
His condemnation for his actions was so immense, Lucas refused to allow himself the pleasure of returning to the land he loved, despite yearning for the Shenandoah Valley with every breath he took. As a means to repent for the sins he had once committed, Lucas continued to deprive himself of his beloved Glenbrook, exiling himself from the one thing he needed most to feel any peace again.
“Peace,” Lucas whispered to himself. “Is that possible now for anyone?” Having no answer, he directed his attention back to his correspondence. Deciding not to include his concerns for the south, Lucas signed off instead, promising that this month’s allotment would be increased for refurbishing the cottage and any other repairs needed at Glenbrook. Hearing the other residents stir, Lucas hastily freshened up as the sun rose.
~
Back at the Honeycutt’s mansion, Miranda awakened to the sweet smell of lilacs. Opening her eyes, she glanced over to the nightstand beside her where a vase full of the freshly cut sprigs of the flowers sat, with a note in front of them.
Leaning over to read the note, she smiled. Thank you, my angel of mercy, Tad. Absentmindedly Miranda brushed the note between her fingertips, while gazing at her favorite flowers.
Oh Tad you remembered … What an incredibly tender and romantic thing to do!
