Word came from Mr. Manigault in Charles Town that there’d been some kind of accident up on our Waccamaw plantation. Starrat was dead. A gunshot to the head as he slept.
I gasped as I read it. Not from grief but from the shocking nature of the death. His sins must have finally caught up with him.
In the note, Mr. Manigault asked me if I had anyone else in mind to appoint to the position. Surprised we even had a say in the matter given that we had defaulted on the property, I simply replied that he could appoint whomever he wished. Perhaps there were no buyers for it yet. No mention was made of an inquiry. I laid down my quill and tossed a sprinkle of sand across the ink to blot it.
A gunshot.
I stood suddenly and marched across the study to the gun cabinet, flinging the door open.
There the gun sat, idle and untouched. I closed the door again and returned to my desk. And I couldn’t help but breathe easier knowing that Starrat was no longer inflicting himself upon this earth.
By the end of September, the indigo crop was waist-high.
In the early mornings, on days when I was not teaching Quash, I’d stand at the edge of the fields and dare myself to try again. Some of the indigo plants, ironically the ones closest to Ben’s cabin, looked as if they would be the first to bloom. I stubbornly watched them day after day. The indigo elements trapped inside the leaves, now at their most potent, were calling to me like the most deafening siren’s song. So loud, I felt I should physically cover my ears.
Whenever Quash caught me contemplating the indigo, he would stop whatever he was doing and watch me. Waiting for something.
I’d glare when I saw him, and he’d simply nod once.
Even if I could be successful with making indigo this time, my lot was cast. We were to return to Antigua. My brother George was on his way finally, not to take over the estates I’d been keeping for him and my father, but to rescue the womenfolk from my disastrous failures. So why would I even bother? It would break my heart further to finally succeed only to have to leave it all behind.
In October, I received news that Mrs. Pinckney had taken a turn for the worse. My heart ached for Charles. How distraught he must be. I made arrangements to visit Belmont as soon as possible.
Mrs. Pinckney lay before me, her head nestled on lovingly propped pillows, her skin so pale as to be almost blue. But that was not the most worrisome. All along her skin, on her hands, her arms, now her forehead and cheeks, dark dots and pools marred the pale perfection of her skin.
The doctor had said she was perhaps bleeding beneath her skin, as if she’d been stabbed by tiny swords hundreds and thousands of times, yet without the surface wounds to show for it. It was terrifying. Charles lay exhausted upon a settee next to the dying fire. I’d sent him there immediately upon my arrival to get some rest. Gaunt and haggard, his eyes were so full of heartbreak I almost couldn’t stomach looking at him. It was a blow to my own heart to see him broken in such grief and helplessness to aid his wife.
Mrs. Pinckney stirred, her parched and cracked lips opening slightly.
I leaned forward. “Mrs. Pinckney?” I whispered so as not to wake her husband.
Her eyes flickered open to slits and took several moments to focus on me, and she tried to smile. “Eliza,” she managed. Her voice was thready and rough.
My eyes filled in spite of myself, and I swiped at them hastily and attempted to return the smile through my worry. “Yes. It’s me. I made Charles rest.” I squeezed her hand gently. Even the slightest pressure Charles said would cause the bleeding to worsen.
She winced though I’d barely applied strength.
“I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “I—I’m glad you’re here. I …” Her throat made a parched snapping sound as she tried to swallow.
There was a bowl of broth on the side table. I brought a small spoon of it to her lips, hoping it would help. She took it gratefully.
“Charles said you … your indigo came back,” she managed weakly.
I nodded. “Indeed. For what it’s worth. But my brother George is set to fetch us back to Antigua. We’ll be leaving as soon as winter ebbs and we can find safe passage.” My heart felt like stone as I recounted our plans. Mother, of course, was beside herself with joy. To see George, for one thing, but another that she’d finally be getting her wish to return to Antigua. And then she’d have her sights on England. A plan I was not averse to. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that it was unlikely as tensions had risen yet further and now there was talk that the English and French would soon declare against each other.
“No. You must try.”
“Try?”
“The indigo,” she croaked. “You must … try.”
“Hush, do not fret on my behalf.”
She closed her eyes, her brow creasing as if she attempted to muster more energy.
“I should leave you to rest.”
“The letters,” Mrs. Pinckney whispered.
“Pardon?” I asked, not sure I’d heard correctly.
“Can you read the letters to me?”
I frowned. “What letters?”
“Yours,” she said. “The ones you wrote these last few years. I saved them.”
“To you?”
She attempted to smile again. “To Miss Bartlett.”
My stomach lurched, and a lump burned its way up to my throat. My letters to Miss Bartlett that had been intended for her husband? “Why?” I managed.
“Please.” She sighed, her eyes closing with another grimace. “Please read them.”
I looked around me. The room, done in the palest of greens, held a small writing desk in one corner. Though I could see nothing upon it. Charles twitched and shifted in his sleep. My eyes scanned the room, over the mantel, around the walls, and back to the bed.
There.
There was a stack of letters tied together with a strip of thin leather on the table on the opposite side of the bed. I rose, my belly heavy with an odd sense of guilt, and went to retrieve them. Sure enough I recognized my own hand.
Resuming my place, I untied the bundle.
Unsure what to do since Mrs. Pinckney seemed to be sleeping again, I hesitated.
“Go on,” she said thinly.
I swallowed and retrieved the first one.
“My dear Miss Bartlett,” I began.
At the end of each when I thought she was asleep once more, Mrs. Pinckney would bade me continue.
I read about the comet, about my business, my plans, and my schemes. I read about teaching the Negro children and two mockingbirds that had nested beside my window. I even, my nerves lodged high in my throat making reading almost impossible, read about how I’d been lacing my stays and listening to the mockingbirds and been moved to poetry, having penned a few amateur lines. How I could have written to Miss Bartlett about my state of undress, knowing Mr. Pinckney would be reading my words, caused shame to beat its way through me. My cheeks burned, my heart hurt, and a feeling not unlike seasickness hurtled around within me.
Mrs. Pinckney lay still, her face again in peaceful repose.
I stopped reading aloud, swallowing hard. But my eyes were drawn down to the pages and I kept on, this time absorbing the words silently and incredulously. I could see my grief at the loss of the first batch of indigo, and my loss of Ben, burning through beneath my words. And I saw also how I’d used the letters to work through my grief and find my way back to the living. But I hadn’t stopped then. I’d begun to shamelessly flirt, and impress, and invite coquettish banter about philosophy, and people, and books, and poetry.
And law.
I’d begun learning about the one thing Charles knew best. The law.
I found myself gasping aloud in horror, my hand across my mouth.
“It’s all right,” Mrs. Pinckney spoke from the bed, causing me to startle. Her eyes were open, wider now, and watching me.
I shook my head. I opened my mouth, but I had no words.
“It is.” She nodded. “That’s why I wanted you to read them. I wanted you to understand. I knew you didn’t. Your heart is so pure.”
“I—I don’t understand.”
“I’m dying, Eliza.”
I shook my head more frantically. My throat ached and tears burned. Unable to hold them back, I squeezed my eyes closed and felt them slide down my cheeks. “No. No, you’re not.”
“I am,” she said gently. “It may be weeks. It may be days. But I know that I am. Charles refuses to accept it.”
My gaze couldn’t help darting in the direction of his sleeping form. He was utterly still, and I wondered if he was awake and listening.
Mrs. Pinckney let out a long sighing breath.
I reached for her hand as carefully as I could. It was cool to the touch. I laid my forehead upon it, in supplication to one of my dearest friends. In apology. In pity. In helplessness to do anything to ease her suffering.
“Forgive me,” I said.
“There’s nothing to forgive.” Her hand fluttered in mine, holding on to me. “He won’t ask you,” she said. “He won’t want to dishonor me. When the time comes, you’ll have to ask him.”
I lifted my head, wiping my eyes with my free hand. I was confused. “I don’t understand.”
“Yes. Yes, you do,” she said and smiled. “Don’t make him wait to find happiness again.”