Page 51 of The Heart’s Charge

Jonah met Eliza’s gaze and softened his heart. “Tell me about him.”

CHAPTER

TWENTY-ONE

Eliza bit her lip. Her family situation was . . . complicated. Uncomfortable. Both to talk about and to accept. Even for her. How could she expect Jonah to understand?

Slowly, she lifted her chin and claimed her identity. Illegitimate. Mulatto. Female. All classifications the world looked down upon. Yet she was the person God created her to be. His fingers had formed her in her mother’s womb. With purpose. She was fearfully and wonderfully made, and she would not hide.

“My father was far from perfect, but he wasn’t evil.” Eliza held Jonah’s gaze until he looked away to check their position on the road. “His wife passed away in the winter of 1861. She’d always been frail and spent more time abed than in company, but he mourned her loss. Mama hated seeing the man of science she respected retreat into a hollow shell. He started making mistakes at the shop, mixing up orders and forgetting ingredients. Mama worried his patients would suffer and couldn’t in good conscience sit idly by and let things deteriorate without doing something to intervene.”

Jonah craned his neck and raised a brow, a light of teasing in his eyes. “Hard to imagine an interfering female in your family tree.”

Eliza’s lips twitched. “Yes, well, we Southerlands aren’t afraid to have opinions.”

“So I’ve noticed.” His tone offered no censure, only admiration. A fact that sent warmth through her midsection and up into her cheeks.

Good heavens. Was she actually blushing?

Clearing her throat, Eliza returned to her story. “Mama refused to let him languish away. She became downright impertinent. Throwing open draperies when he said he preferred them closed. Taking food to his study when he neglected to come to the table and not leaving until he ate to her satisfaction. She watched every move he made in the workshop and challenged him when she spotted an error.

“Respect blossomed in that workshop. A respect that grew into something . . . more.”

Eliza repositioned herself on the wagon bench, uncomfortable speaking of her parents’ immorality. No matter how many times her mother tried to justify their relationship with talk of love and how it was only because of society’s intolerance that they’d never wed, the truth was still the truth. Her mother had given herself to a man without the benefit of marriage vows, and her father had not had the courage to defy convention and marry her mother, even in secret. He could have taken her to New York or Vermont, states with no anti-miscegenation laws. He’d had sufficient wealth to pay someone off and ensure secrecy. Even if he never acknowledged the marriage publicly, she and Mama would have had the comfort of the truth. The blessing of legitimacy in the eyes of God, if not in the eyes of society. But her parents had chosen to walk a different path.

“When he was a young man, Papa fell ill with the mumps, and the physicians told him he was sterile. After having no children with his first wife, the last thing he expected was to beget a child on my mother.” Eliza tried to pretend she hadn’t noticed the tightening of Jonah’s mouth or the clenching of his jaw. “But Mama discovered the truth mere weeks before Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in January 1863. Papa was so obsessed with the idea of having fathered a child, any child, that when my mother demanded he draw up freedom papers on the day I was born, just in case the South found a way to win the war, he didn’t argue. When the Union prevailed and the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified, she informed him that the two of us would stay with him only if he agreed to her terms.”

The muscles in Jonah’s face relaxed a bit. The corner of his mouth even twitched. “Somehow I don’t find that hard to imagine.”

Eliza smiled. Her mother’s fearlessness in standing up for herself and for her child was the trait Eliza most strove to emulate. Reckless when necessary, but always intelligent. Never haphazard. Risks were always assessed but seldom allowed to stand in the way of progress.

“She had three conditions for staying. First, he could never marry or have relations with another woman. Second, he had to settle the equivalent of a dowry upon me, placing the funds in an account that only she and I could access, to ensure that should something happen to one or both of my parents, I would not be left destitute. And third—and to my mother, the most important—he had to commit, in writing, that he would educate me at the same level he would a legitimate son and heir. My mother believed education to be the true road to equality. Not only between races, but between genders as well.

“My father proved true to his word on all three counts. He allowed me to attend the local freedmen school and even tutored me himself some evenings once I was old enough to study the sciences. He took such pride in my scholastic accomplishments, sure it was his bloodline that enabled my success, never realizing that it was Mama who taught me my letters well before I started school. Mama who snuck books to me and encouraged me to read at every opportunity. Mama who helped me with my sums and quizzed me in history.

“He never took another wife. And when he and I were together, he treated me as his daughter. Playing with me. Reading with me.” One memory in particular rose to settle softly on her heart. “I learned to dance by standing on his shoes.” She sought out Jonah’s gaze. “It was only natural for me to call him Papa.”

The fond memory faded, replaced by others wrapped not in velvet but in stinging nettles. Her gaze fell to her lap, where her fingers gripped her book far too tightly. “However, whenever we were out in public or when visitors came to the house, Mama and I addressed him as sir or Mr. Farmington. I remember Mama coaching me over and over when I was a girl about what to call him, depending on where we were or who was around. I was always so careful. Until the day Mrs. Bellows called at the house with her daughter. Widow Bellows hoped to make a match with my father. He’d done his best to avoid her company, but when she showed up at his door, hospitality had to be offered. Mama ordered me to stay in the kitchen, away from the guests, but my curiosity got the better of me.

“Remembering I had left my doll in the parlor, I decided to fetch it. I wouldn’t say a word. Just creep in, retrieve my doll, and leave. I yearned to see the woman and little girl who wanted to steal my papa away.”

How foolish she’d been. How impetuous. She’d never blindly followed a whim since that day.

Jonah turned at her silence, his voice gentle as he prodded, “What happened?”

Moisture pooled in Eliza’s eyes at the tenderness in his voice. She ruthlessly blinked it away. “The doll wasn’t where I’d left it. Nelda Bellows, the widow’s daughter, had found it and was playing with it on the rug next to the hearth. She had it cradled in her arms and was murmuring a quiet lullaby.

“Seeing that doll in her arms, I realized for the first time how wrong everything was. That doll, my doll, looked nothing like me and everything like Nelda. I used to think the doll’s brown hair and eyes were like mine, but they weren’t. Not really. My frizzy spiral curls were nothing like the silky tresses of the doll, curling only at the ends. My brown eyes were two shades too dark. And my skin, while a good deal lighter than Mama’s, looked more like dead leaves than the snowy perfection of the doll’s white porcelain face. Nelda’s face was white. Her hair long and silky. Even her blue dress matched the doll. All I could think in that moment was that she was the daughter my father must have wanted. Why else would he buy a doll with white skin and silky hair?” Eliza shook her head. “It never occurred to me that china dolls only came in one color.”

“What’d you do?”

Not one to let maudlin emotions control her, Eliza straightened her shoulders and raised her brows in mock haughtiness. “I marched directly over to Nelda, held out my hand, and demanded she give me my doll. At once.”

“At once, huh?” His tone lightened, as she’d intended, but the sympathy in his gaze lingered, as if he could guess how the story would end.

“Indeed. And when she refused to do so, I stomped over to where my father was taking tea with Mrs. Bellows and said, ‘Make her give me my doll, Papa.’ Mrs. Bellows gasped. Papa’s face reddened. Then his hand shot out and cuffed me across the mouth. It was the first time he’d ever struck me. I ran from the room, devastated. Not because he had hit me, but because I’d realized he was ashamed of me. Ashamed of my very existence. I never forgot myself in company again.”

Jonah said nothing, but his hand covered hers. Its warmth soothed and strengthened, helping her pack away the painful memory.