Mark blinked; then as the memory came back, he nodded. “I guess I do remember, Claude. I don’t know what Father did to you, but he made an ‘impression’ on me that day!”
Noah’s lips curved in a slight grin as laughter went around the room. “Not enough of one, I reckon,” he said when it died down. “Maybe I should have used a bigger stick.”
Charlotte was dismayed at the look that washed over Mark’s face, knowing how he had resented all of Noah’s attempts to curb his wild ways. But Stephen said quickly, “Not as big as the one you used on me, I hope, when I sneaked off to see the circus at Richmond.” He smiled gently, adding, “I thought it was worth a licking to see my first elephant. Well, I guess the only thing I can say about the thrashing you gave me was that I was willing to quit a long time before you were!”
Mark relaxed as the others laughed at Stephen. He knew that it was the only thrashing Stephen had ever gotten, and he knew his older brother had spoken up to take the attention from him. He felt out of place, as always, in the family. But recently he had felt some vague dread … and though it was never quite clear in his mind, it had caused him to respond to his parents’ urging to come home for the gathering. They all have roots, he thought, looking around at his prosperous family. All except me.
He looked at his father and saw that age had eaten away at him. The fine, erect figure was bent and stooped, and even the fierce determination that had been part of Noah Rocklin’s being could not hide the pain that grabbed him from time to time. Mark was a good gambler, which meant he could hide his emotions well, but the first glimpse of his father’s ravaged face and withered frame had broken that control. His father had seen his reaction, but neither of them could bring himself to mention the illness that was cutting the life out of Noah Rocklin.
“I wanted to see you all alone, before the supper tonight,” Noah said suddenly, his voice cutting like a knife across the small talk of the children. He let his eyes run around the room, pausing on each of them as if weighing them in a balance, then added, “It’s been a long time since we’ve been in the same room.”
“Too long,” Marianne said quickly. She patted Mason’s arm, saying, “It’s not as far from Washington as all that, Mason!” She had always been close to this brother—and to his wife, Jane, before her death. “You just wait, dear brother, and see what plans I have for you!”
“I suspect it will be the same plan you use every time I come, Marianne,” Mason said, humor in his blue eyes.
“Why, I never—!”
“Your plan,” Mason interrupted her, “is to parade every lady looking for a husband in front of me.” Marianne sputtered indignantly, but he reached over and put his hand over her mouth. “Do you have a new crop this time? Or is it the same old bunch?”
Stephen laughed at Marianne as she broke away from Mason’s grasp, and he said, “She’s got one new one, Mason. A very rich widow from Savannah is here, shopping around Richmond for a husband. A Mrs. Sterling. Trot her out, Marianne,” he urged, “and have her bring her stock reports.”
“Stephen, you are awful—and you, too, Mason!” Marianne said sharply. “Mrs. Sterling is not shopping for a husband!”
As the joking went on, Noah looked up suddenly, catching Jacob’s eye. The old man was watching him carefully, and he let himself wink. They had been together for a long time, and Jake knew how much Noah needed this sort of thing. He let the talk between his children run on, taking little part but studying them all. From time to time he would respond when one of them asked a question, and he felt Charlotte’s warmth as the hour rolled on.
Finally he said, “I guess you all know that I never was a man to mince words—and it’s too late to begin now.” A silence fell across the room, and he let it stand for what seemed like a long time.
“It’s good to see you all here, but I’m thinking this may be the last time all of us are together.” He felt Charlotte’s hand suddenly grow tense as it lay on his arm, and he put his other hand over hers. His words had driven all the joy from the room, and now he smiled, a strange smile that touched his dark eyes.
“I hope I’ve brought you all up to face the truth. I’ve failed in so many ways ….” He paused then, dropped his head as he tried to find the right words. “Well, I’ve always been a stubborn man, but I’d like you to know that the one regret I have about coming to the end is that I could never say to you the things I wanted to say. So—let me say now that despite all our bickering and fighting, I’ve always loved you.”
The huge clock in one corner ticked loudly in the silence. “Well, why it’s hard for a man to say that to his children, I can’t say. Maybe it isn’t for some men. I hope all of you will learn to say it often to your own children. Don’t put it off. It’s something they need to hear.”
Marianne said gently, tears in her eyes, “You’ve said it, Father.”
Noah nodded but seemed sad. “It’s easier to say to girls, I think. Harder to say to boys—and hardest of all to say to the boys who have become men.”
Stephen said, “I think we all knew you loved us, Father.”
“Did you?” Noah asked, looking up quickly at his oldest son as if for reassurance. “Still, it needs to be said.” He shook his head firmly, then went on. “Well, I’m not dead yet, but this world is a pretty deadly place, and any of us can go at any time. So I wanted to talk to you, just you, without your children. Not a sermon, but not far from one either ….”
He began to speak, and it was not like anything any of them had ever heard from Noah Rocklin—not even Charlotte.
He was not a man given to long speeches, nor to talking about himself. But he did speak of himself, and it was of the dream he had cherished all his life. He told them how he’d begun even as a boy in Wales to dream of a place where he could grow and prosper and have his roots go down deep into the soil. The dream was to make a place that would last, a place of family where they could be free to build a world for the future.
As he spoke, each of his listeners sat silent, amazed. This was the part of Noah Rocklin that none of them had ever known—except for Charlotte. Never before had he put into words the dream that had brought him across the sea, but now that he was dying, the words seemed to come like a spring breaking free from a dam.
Finally he stopped talking, looked around the room, and said, “Don’t ever grieve over me. I’ve had a long life and a good one. I’ve had the best woman I’ve ever seen”—here he squeezed Charlotte’s hand—“a good place to work, good friends. God has been good to me!”
Then he shook his head, adding, “But a man can do only so much to make his world. I’ve done the best I know how to make one for you—for all of you. But some things are too big for any man. This country is changing, and I’m afraid of what those changes will do to all of you.”
“Why, this is a new country, Father,” Thomas said. “It’s growing. Changes are to be expected.”
Noah shook his head, saying at once, “I knew a man who was with Washington at Valley Forge, Thomas. That was a terrible time. He told me about the bloody footprints in the snow made by men with no shoes. But they were fighting an enemy from across the sea. Oh, Washington’s men were Englishmen, I know, but this was America, the New World, and my friend said that it was that dream that kept them going.”
“That’s right, Father,” Stephen agreed. “Men can stand almost anything if they’ve got the right cause.”
Noah studied his hands, saying nothing, then looked up. “That’s the change I’ve been seeing these last few years, Stephen,” he said in a voice that was suddenly fragile and weak.
“You mean the problem over slavery?” Mason asked.
“It’s not just slavery, son,” Noah said. “That’s the red flag that the abolitionists wave to get the crowd to shouting. But there’s something lurking up ahead. It’s not very big right now,” he said slowly, then paused and seemed lost in thought. “It’s like the story in the old Bible, when the prophet was praying for rain. I disrem
ember where it is—”
“First Kings, the eighteenth chapter,” Charlotte said promptly. Getting out of her chair, she went to a small table and picked up a worn, black Bible. She thumbed through it until she found the place, then read, “‘And he said to his servant, Go up now, look toward the sea. And he went up and looked, and said, There is nothing. And he said, Go again seven times. And it came to pass at the seventh time, that he said, Behold, there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man’s hand—’”
“That’s it!” Noah exclaimed. “Something is coming to America. It’s small now, but getting bigger every day. I saw it coming ten years ago. You remember, don’t you, the debate in the Senate between Hayne and Webster?”
He referred to a head-on collision in 1830 over the matter of the tariff. But the issue went beyond that and became an arena when states’ rights were thrown against national power. Robert Y. Hayne, a young, eloquent senator from South Carolina who was coached by John Calhoun, spoke in favor of the rights of individual states to govern themselves. Daniel Webster rose the next day, and his reply—which took two afternoons!—was a remarkable speech that Northerners had quoted and revered for years.
“I remember what Webster said,” Stephen said suddenly. “He said, ‘Liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable!’”
Thomas suddenly lifted his head, disagreement in his tone. “If a state has the right to join the Union, she has the right to leave it,” he said harshly. The two men had fought this battle many times. “You wouldn’t think the Union was so great if you’d stayed here in the South, Stephen,” he added. “The North is using our sweat to get rich. We grow the cotton; they pay us a pittance. Then they make it into clothing, and when we buy it back, it’s for a king’s ransom!”
It was not a new argument, and as usual, what was said for the next few minutes was not pleasant. Stephen and Mason, having gone North, felt that the changes of the South were not entirely unjust, but that the issues should be solved in Congress. Thomas and Claude Bristol disagreed. Mark said nothing but watched with sadness in his eyes.
“That’s enough!” Noah said finally. He looked around the room, a bleak expression in his eyes. “You see how it is? If my own family is ready to come to blows over states’ rights, how much chance is there that Congress can do better?”
“But you surely don’t think it will come to a breakup of the Union, sir?” Claude Bristol asked.
“I think it might,” Noah answered. “That’s why I asked you all to come today. We may never meet again, as I said, and if we don’t, I would like for you all to remember one thing.” He paused, seeking the right words, then finally said, “If this small cloud that I see does get larger, and if there is ever a time when this country is torn apart—I want you all to remember that no matter how terrible the thing gets, you are all of one blood. And I don’t mean just you five Rocklins and your children. I mean all of us who are Americans are of one blood. That’s what Valley Forge was all about.”
Noah turned away slightly so that his profile was caught in a shaft of clear white sunshine. The light was so bright that millions of motes danced wildly around the head of the old man, creating a profile that was almost spectral in appearance. This, those gathered around the table all felt strongly, was their source in the earth. Their very muscles and sinews came from the pair that sat quietly in the sunlight.
Finally Noah whispered, “May the God of all peace grant you His wisdom. For I know in my bones that you will need it in the days that are coming!”
Then he did something that none of them ever forgot—not ever! The head of the Rocklin family had been a nominal Christian during the latter days of his life, not given to much formal expression of his faith. But now he got to his feet and picked up his cane. With faltering steps, he moved around the desk and came to stand before Stephen. Slowly he put out his free hand until it rested on the head of his firstborn. He stood there, and Stephen bowed his head. They were like a statue, the two of them, so still did they become. Noah’s lips were moving, but they could not hear what he said. Stephen only knew that his eyes were suddenly filled with hot tears, and then he heard his father say, “God bless you, my boy!”
Noah moved unhurriedly around the group, and when he had repeated the simple action with each of his children, he moved to the door. Jacob opened it silently, waited for Noah to pass through it, then closed it quietly.
They all heard the sound of the cane tapping down the hall, and as it faded, each of them felt a stab of fear—there had been something in the nature of a farewell in the scene. No one wanted to speak. Finally Charlotte got up and left the room, pausing only to say quietly, “God bless you all. Your father and I love each one of you very much.” Then she walked out, and the rest of them followed without saying a word. The only sound in the room then was the ticking of the old clock and the cry of a whippoorwill somewhere off in the distance.
CHAPTER 3
THE NEW PREACHER
Dorrie, here’s the seating arrangement for the dinner.”
Dorrie, on her way from the dining room to the kitchen, paused long enough to take the list from Charlotte. She studied the paper, then nodded. “Yes, ma’am, I’ll tend to it.” A frown came to her face, and she shook her head, adding, “It ain’t gonna make Marse Clay happy.”
“Why not?”
“‘Cause you got him sitting across the table from Miz Melanie—and you got Marse Gideon sittin’ right next to her, dat’s why.”
“Oh, don’t be foolish, Dorrie,” Charlotte snapped. “He’s close enough to talk to her, and that’s all that’s necessary.”
“He won’t like it none, Miz Charlotte,” Dorrie argued. “And I don’t think you got the rest of it right, neither.”
Charlotte had turned to leave but wheeled and stared at Dorrie. The two of them had ruled Gracefield so long that there were few disagreements, but Charlotte had learned to listen to the black woman, for she was shrewd. “Well, what’s wrong with the seating?” she demanded.
Dorrie held out the paper and began pointing out various guests and their positions. She could read as well as Charlotte and had taught Zander and their children. Her brow wrinkled with discontent as she pointed at the paper.
“Well, in the first place, you and Mistuh Noah is at one end of the table—and Mistuh Benton is away down at the other end. Now dat don’t make no sense, Miz Charlotte! Mistuh Benton, he lak to talk to Mistuh Noah, and he kain’t do dat way off down on t’other end!” She nodded emphatically, adding, “You and Mistuh Noah ought to be right across from the Bentons.”
“Oh, Dorrie, we always put the honored guests at the other end of the table from where Noah and I sit! Besides, I’ve put Marianne and Claude down there to talk to them.”
“Well, it doan make no sense,” Dorrie said acidly. “And looky whut you done with the rest of it. You done got Marse Stephen and all his folks from up North on one side of de table, and on de other side you got all our own people.”
Charlotte stared at the paper, then lifted her eyes to Dorrie, saying with considerable irritation, “They’ll want to sit together!”
“Doan care whut dey wants! I says we needs to mix ‘em all up! I ‘spect dat oldest boy feel cut off enough, without lining him and his family up ‘cross from de folks here like dey was all some kinda show!”
Staring down at the diagram, Charlotte saw what Dorrie meant. She and Noah were at the north end of the huge rectangular table, and to Noah’s left she had placed the visitors: Stephen and Ruth; then their daughter, Laura, and her husband, Amos Steele; and past them she had put Mason and Gideon. All from the North, Charlotte thought, and all set off as though they’re nothing but guests.
Across from them, at Charlotte’s right, sat the people tied to Gracefield: Thomas and Susanna; Amy and her husband, Brad; Marianne and her husband, Claude; then Mark and Clay. Across from Clay sat Melanie, right next to Gideon. Except for the new minister, Jeremiah Irons, who was seated between Mason and Gide
on, one side of the table obviously represented the Northern branch of the Rocklins, the other the Southern.
“Never mind, Dorrie,” Charlotte said wearily. “Just put the cards down. After we eat, we can go to the drawing room and they can talk to anyone they please.”
“Whut about dat niece, Miz Ellen? You ain’t got her down, but she’ll be here, won’t she?”
Charlotte hesitated, then said, “She won’t be here. Mrs. Benton said that Ellen was going to a dance in Richmond with Taylor Dewitt.”
“Dat girl has got a wicked pair of eyes, ain’t she now? Gonna have all de men folks fighting duels ovah her!”
“Oh, she’s just a child, Dorrie!” Charlotte said impatiently.
“Chile, my foot!” Dorrie sniffed. “She ain’t got nothing but men on her mind!”
“Dorrie, don’t meddle!”
Dorrie sniffed but said no more. Hustling back into the kitchen, she spent the next two hours harrying the cooks, the maids, and Zander. Jacob, who was to serve as a second butler, was above Dorrie’s control. He sat in a straight-backed chair, smoking a corncob pipe and waiting patiently. When Dorrie had everything under control, she paused and fixed two cups of tea, then set one down before Jacob. He nodded, and he sipped the amber liquid as she related her grievance with the mistress over the seating. Finally she shook her head, her lips pursed together in displeasure, saying, “Miz Charlotte’s gettin’ old, Jacob. Time wuz when she could of fixed things better!”
Jacob closed his eyes, leaned back in the chair, and allowed a puff of blue smoke to escape his lips. He was tired, very tired, and the visitors from Washington had depressed him. The Rocklins were the only family he’d ever known, and he had grieved over the division that had come when Stephen and Mason had gone to live in the North.
“She’s mighty tired, I reckon,” he said finally. “So am I. But I don’t see no way to make things bettah by swappin’ folks around at the dinner table.”
Three Books in One: A Covenant of Love, Gate of His Enemies, and Where Honor Dwells Page 4
