Page 31 of The Memories of Bellevue (The Bellevue Trilogy)

He leaned across the shining mahogany surface of the desk. “Oh, but I do,” he said, his piercing blue eyes penetrating mine. “The fact that you purposely deceived me was confirmation enough. After all, I was your age once...young and utterly reckless.”

I tried to control my breathing as much as I could. For a moment – and only for a moment – I felt regret for having made love to Jeyne. On the face of it, she was a slave, a young woman destined for nothing more than a life of servitude to my family. What could I truly give her? I should have known better. It was wrong. But those thoughts quickly disappeared as the love I felt for began to swell in my chest. I wanted to be with her. Every day and forever. Yet, looking at my father, I knew that Keegan had recounted every single detail of what happened in the barn.

Chapter Nineteen

I’ll give my father this. He recreated the scene with Keegan so clearly that I could see and hear it. “e recreated

I was only havin’ a smoke, you see, when I heard this noise come from the barn,” Keegan had said. “I thought there was nigras in there and so I went in to take a look. And that’s when I heard your son. But before my brain could put two and two together I had already fired the gun. It was a stupid thing, I know, but it won’t ever happen again.”

My father had always been a good mimic, and listening to him, he seemed to be having a sort of fun enjoyment in demonstrating Keegan’s accent.

“When I asked him what sort of noise he’d heard, all he could say was, ‘Uh...like people moving about.’ He actually seemed proud of himself because he told me that someone else would have just kept on walking…that he could hear a pin drop at the Fourth of July, which was, I told him, precisely why I hired him. And I also reminded him that I hired him on the condition that he also stop drinking.”

My father grimaced before he said, “That bastard was keeping the lies up pretty good until I reminded him of all the costly mistakes he’d made, and that I thought it be best if he find employment elsewhere. And he said, ‘But I got a wife and kids! Surely, you wouldn’t fire a man for making a wee mistake.’ And I said, ‘Aweemistake? You nearly killed my son!’ And that’s when the confession came tumbling out and I heard something I thought I would never hear. He said you threatened to kill him if he said anything about you and Jeyne.”

My heart plunged to my stomach. My father remained expressionless as he told me that under the circumstances Keegan could stay, but with a provision.

“No!” I said, standing up in a rage. “You can’t do that!”

“You should have thought about that before you had them lie for you.”

“They didn’t lie for me. They wereprotectingme.”

“All the same, it will be done.” My father was resolute. Jeb and Kip were to be given thirty lashes each.

“So you’ll beat them like animals?”

My father gave me a strange look. “What else am I supposed to do with the darkies when they disobey?”

“You treat them like men.”

My father’s eyes turned hard. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were my brother’s son,” he said.

“I’d rather be an abolitionist than a vile slave owner.”

My father looked at me with cold eyes. “So, you believe your uncle to be the better man? It’s clear you don’t know him the way I do.”

“I’m sure you’ll enlighten me.”

My father’s animosity towards his younger brother was no secret, one that I suspected ran deeper than just his political beliefs.

“I’d be glad to,” my father said, his words almost light. “You see, my brother is, how can I say...less talented in the ways of...well,everything. He can’t shoot or ride a horse to save his life, and he’s completely useless when it comes to reading a plantation ledger. He wasn’t the favorite and our father let him know it. Oh, but he was loved by the slaves. They hung on his every word. He even taught some of them to read, had them thinking they were smart and somehow equal to white men. Some of them even had the nerve to run away which caused all kinds of trouble. David and my father fought bitterly about this until eventually there was no choice for him but to leave – but not before he got one of the slaves pregnant, of course.”

“And you condemn him for that?”

“No, not at all,” my father said, his tone hard as stone. “What I condemned him for was his holier than thou attitude towards the very thing that allowed him to live in luxury. Where is the honor in that? There is none. Your uncle is nothing more than an educated fool, a hypocrite who hides behind slavery and pretends to be better. At least I live my truth and use what our father gave us to maintain our legacy instead of tearing it down.”

“There’s more than one way to live,” I said.

“Is there?” my father asked with indignation. “Look around you. Slavery is here to stay. Not only that, it has made me. It has made you. Furthermore, the nigras are here for one purpose and one purpose only, and that is to work. Nothing more, nothing less. They arenotour equals. Let my brother and his Abolitionists friends up north believe that if they want to. But those beliefs have no place in this house.”

I rose to leave. “Sit down,” he said to me. “I’m not finished.” I sat back down, the blood in my veins running hot.

“Keegan has been instructed to keep his mouth shut about the incident in the barn,” he continued. “His job depends on it. I don’t have much to say about the situation in which he found you, other than you were bound to find your way to a nigra wench sooner or later. Better to do it now before you get married. But we have a family name to protect, a reputation, and I will not let it be ruined by scandal. Our guests were more than curious about the ruckus, but I managed to keep a lid on it before it got out of hand.”

I knew it was dangerous to comment further on my relationship with Jeyne so I refrained. The sense of embarrassment I had felt at the start of our conversation had left me and was replaced by pride. I loved a beautiful, young woman who loved me in return. There was no dishonor in that and no law or man was going to diminish these feelings.

“May I go now?” I asked.

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