Darkness
Chapter 22

Thomas

I’m riding my horse alongside Stephen’s carriage as we approach Natchez. It feels like coming back to my childhood home, although I was technically grown when I moved here. Except that there didn’t used to be a gigantic steamboat parked at the dock. It has been months since I was here. I pull the horse alongside the carriage window and lean down to tell them, “I’m going Under-the-Hill first to buy my ticket back to New Orleans. Where shall I meet you?”

The driver reins in the horse to pause the carriage while we speak. Stephen says, “We’ll go to Samuel’s office to see if he’s available for a chat. See you there?”

“Yep,” I say, and wheel my horse around to head down the hill.

We left within a couple of hours of seeing the boat chugging upriver past Ellis Cliffs, so we are a few hours behind its arrival. It looks like all the passengers have disembarked and Gregor’s crew is in the process of offloading the cargo, and storing it in a nearby barn. I do a double take. I’m pretty sure that barn wasn’t here last time I was Under-the-Hill. Gregor works awfully fast.

I realize something else new as I approach the ticket office. They are all wearing jaunty blue vests, just the color of the steamboat’s paint, looking very spiffy in their new matching uniforms. What a clever idea.

There isn’t anyone sitting behind the desk at the ticket window, which I suppose shouldn’t surprise me. The whole crew is scurrying around toting cargo. I lean my head into the window and call, “Hello?”

In a moment Gregor’s grinning face appears, with the giant form of Captain Baker behind him. “Thomas!” he says. “How wonderful to see you! Come on in, around the side there.” He indicates a door to the side of the ticket window, and I move over to enter there.

He shakes my hand. “Up from Louisiana for a visit? Were you just at Ellis Cliffs?”

“Yep,” I tell him, “with Stephen and Margaret too. We all came back to Natchez when we saw the steamboat pass by. I’d like to buy a ticket for the next trip back to New Orleans.”

“Is that so?” he says, gesturing to his office. “Come in and have a drink and tell me about it.”

Baker grabs my hand for a shake before I can enter, and says, “I’m getting back to work, Gregor. See you at your house a bit later.”

Gregor nods and smiles at him as Baker leaves the terminal and returns to the ship.

“I’m sorry to have interrupted your conversation,” I say.

“No, we were done,” he assures me. “I was just inviting him to use our guest room. The Bakers usually stay with Rosalind and I while they are in town. Brandy?” he asks.

“Sure,” I say, settling into a chair and accepting a glass.

“So, what is waiting for you in New Orleans?” he asks, sitting and sipping his own brandy.

“Have you heard that Louisiana has been admitted as a state to the Union?” I ask.

“I have,” he says, “congratulations. I am sure your assistance with the Constitution made all the difference.”

I laugh. “Not sure about that, but I hope to make a bit of a difference now. I’m going to assist one of the candidates for the state’s new governor. Jacques Villeré. I met him at the convention and he has asked me to help him with the campaign.”

“That sounds marvelous,” he smiles, and seems to be genuinely enjoying our conversation. It’s kind of nice to get the chance to talk to him alone - normally we are surrounded by other people. Well, alone except this huge dog sitting next to his chair.

“When did you get a dog?” I ask conversationally.

“A couple of months ago,” he says. “He belonged to the Roosevelts, and they left him here with me rather than take him back to New York with them. They didn’t want him to have to suffer through a kennel on the voyage up the Atlantic coast.”

“Oh! I do think I saw this big fellow with them when I was in New Orleans last,” I say, reaching down to give him a pat on the head. “He seems pretty happy here,” I add.

Gregor looks at the dog fondly. “I think he is.” He looks back up at me, and says, “Well, let’s get that ticket sale handled. Are you staying with Stephen until the boat leaves?”

“Yes, they’re chatting with his brother, then we’ll head to Homochitto.”

He grins. “I might just have to come and pay you a visit this week then.”

I have to laugh a little. “Oh, I know who you really want to visit there, Woosh!”

He shrugs and smiles. “I don’t deny it.”

Homochitto

Stephen

I enjoyed talking to my brother today. I remember how, something like five or six months ago, the night of the big earthquake, I wasn’t sure if I was ever going to be able to face him again, much less enjoy a conversation with him. When I opened the door to his rooms that night to see if he was safe after the shaking was over, and found him there in the throes of sexual pleasure with another man, I was shocked to my core. My feeling of revulsion was overwhelming.

But somehow, I no longer feel that way. Squeamish, maybe, but I just try not to think about what they might do together with each other in private. I saw enough in those few seconds, and don’t want to know any more. What I have learned, though, is that he truly loves the man. He insists that he loves Ben as much as I love Margaret. She even told me the same thing, trying to make me understand that we should support Samuel, and be pleased that he has found love. So I try to just focus on the fact that my beloved little brother is happy, and enjoying a love of his own. He is a wonderful person, and we were as close as twins growing up. I love him dearly. He deserves the same joy that I find in Margaret, even if the way he has found it is unorthodox.

And, of course, dangerous. It isn’t legal, what he is doing, and I will always worry about him finding himself in trouble with the law over it. However, it reassures me that he and Ben both act with extreme caution, are thoroughly discreet, and that I have never heard any rumors or gossip or speculation about them. Even though they share lodgings together in town, the same rooms that Thomas and I used to share before we moved away. I’m pretty sure that Gregor set that up deliberately for them. Obviously he knows about their love, for why else would he have made a big production about insisting in public that Samuel rent a room to Ben, so that the Slavsons would have their houseman living conveniently nearby?

At any rate, Samuel is happy, and our relationship has become fairly easy again. Almost back to normal. It is a vast relief to be able to talk to him without sensing a strain.

When Margaret and Thomas and I get back to Homochitto, it is dinner time, and the staff serves a nice meal, then Thomas is shown into the guest room. He is tired after a long day, and simply says good night to me, rather than lingering together with me to talk. We have several days to visit, we’ll talk tomorrow.

I’m tired too, but I don’t join Margaret upstairs quite yet. Her maid is helping her get ready for bed, and I go into my study to look over some ledgers there. Tomorrow I will need to talk to the overseer and inspect the fields. I want to see Marcus as well, and update the records I am keeping about his progress with the mineral water. It is a fascinating experiment, and it makes me very happy to be conducting it in conjunction with my brother. What a joy that he is a doctor too.

I also wonder how the garden is coming along. I’ll have to see Moses tomorrow and talk to him about that as well. My plan to speak with him is accelerated, though, when there is a soft knock on the open door of my study, and Moses pokes his head inside.

“Oh, hello Moses,” I say. “I was just thinking about you. I didn’t expect to see you until tomorrow.”

“I would like to speak with you about something,” he says softly in his deep voice.

“All right, come in.”

He enters, closing the door behind him, and I indicate the chair across from my desk. He sits, and I wait to see what he has to say. We haven’t met in my study before, we usually talk outside on the grounds. He regards me in silence for a moment, and it seems to me that he is slightly anxious, but mostly has an air of firm resolve. I wonder what this is about?

He doesn’t beat about the bush. “I want to ask your permission to marry Dalila,” he says, rather quickly, as though he wanted to just get that statement out of the way as soon as possible.

Oh. I suppose I should have expected this. The whole reason he is here is because he loves Dalila. And like with Samuel and Ben, I have grown to realize that their love is strong, and real, just like mine for Margaret. I have been quite enlightened by the people having unusual relationships all around me. But how on earth is this to be possible? A freeman cannot marry a slave, any more than my brother could marry another man. It’s just not done. I know of no legal mechanism for this.

I feel my forehead furrow, not necessarily in anger or annoyance, but more in puzzlement. I don’t say anything, not sure exactly how to express my doubts.

He seems to understand, though. “I know that our situation is difficult,” he says, “and I want to try to find a way for it to work.” His jaw clenches, and although his voice is mild as he continues, I can see a glint of anger in his eyes. “I know she is your slave, and that she will continue to be your slave, even after she marries me.” He takes a deep breath, lets it out, and adds, “And I understand everything that it means. We would not be free to leave the plantation, and she would continue working as you direct.”

My eyes widen, and I nod. He clearly has given this a great deal of thought.

“Are you willing to consider it?” he asks me, directly.

I sigh. “I suppose,” I tell him. “As long as Margaret is not inconvenienced by it, and as long as she is willing to agree. Dalila is her maid. It is really Margaret’s decision.” He nods, and we both know that Margaret will agree. Her heart is so kind, and she wants her maid to be happy.

“Thank you,” he says, his voice full of profound relief and gratitude.

I think of something else. “Um, where would you…?” He is sleeping in the shed. That wouldn’t be suitable to have Dalila in there. And, I suppose, her child too. I wonder if now he would agree to move into one of the slave cabins. But apparently he has considered this too.

“With your permission,” he says, “I would like to build a small cabin on the grounds, probably near to where the overseer’s house is. It would be at my expense, and it would belong to you. But Dalila and I would live in it, with our family.”

Well, that is completely reasonable. More reasonable than anything I could have suggested. So I nod, and reach across the desk to shake his hand. “That sounds fine, Moses. I guess congratulations are in order.”

He clasps my hand, a smile finally making its way onto his broad face, and repeats, “Thank you.”

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