Page 1 of The Roses I Left Behind (The Bellevue Trilogy)

Chapter One

Resentment carries with it such a heavy burden. It eats at the heart and dares one to want more, to do nothing less than starve for its affection. There’s no escaping it. At least that’s how I felt as my carriage made its way down the tree-lined driveway of Bellevue, my family’s vast and sprawling plantation. I forced back sad, but vivid memories as the realization of my father’s sudden death hung fiercely in the crisp winter air, thoughts of him too intense to relive, too raw to be fully remembered. At least for now.

My father’s death represented many things to me: freedom, relief, sadness. Yet, it was only a matter of time before I would be face to face with all the ambiguities and expectations that lay before me, especially as a slave owner. A slave owner. The weight of it sunk in deeper as I saw Negro men and women from the fields stare as I rode by. My triumphant escape to Boston all those years ago had me falsely believing I was free of a place that had brought me more misery than joy - a place I had once called home. When I left Bellevue seventeen years ago, I had vowed to never return and yet, here I was, the sole heir to a plantation I hated and did not want.

While I was preaching the tenets of Abolitionism to a religious group in Boston, my father was dying of a heart attack. He had been ill all week but refused to be bedridden. As he made his way up the spiral steps to the bedroom, he collapsed on the stairs at the feet of a house slave. News of his death spread rapidly throughout St. Bernard and Orleans Parish, and friends and neighbors came by to bring food and offer their condolences. When I arrived, funeral preparations were already under way. A long strip ofcrapewas tied to the front door to let passersby know a death had occurred. The mansion’s drapes were drawn and the shutters closed. Mirrors were covered and the piano remained silent. Even the clocks were stopped to signify his time of death. A somber air was felt amid the elaborate floral displays.

We placed my father’s body in the mausoleum that he had built years ago when his own father, Randall Edward White, died. As if knowing this moment would come, my father had built a second, more elaborate, mausoleum for my mother and himself. Several people attended the funeral, including distant relatives, many of whom my mother and I barely knew. My father was an unusually hard man, even to those who were closest to him which made authentic relationships almost nonexistent. Besides Joseph Rozier, I couldn’t remember anyone in my father’s life that resembled anything close to a true friend and yet, I remember with startling accuracy, the frequent parties and events at Bellevue, filled with smiling faces and boisterous conversation.

As the procession of mourners made their way back to the mansion, I turned to see a veiled figure in the distance. She was wearing all black like many of the women in attendance, but there was something eerily familiar about her. I couldn’t see her face, but she carried with her an air of poise and importance. Even under the veil, I could tell she was beautiful. I stood there desperately trying to remember where I had met her. She raised her head and looked at me.

The touch of mother’s hand broke the spell. “We’re almost home,” she said, the touch of a smile on her soft face.

I kissed her forehead and put my arms around her. She felt so small and frail. As we walked in silence, the image of the veiled woman came floating back to my memory. By the time we arrived at the mansion, she was gone.

The weeks following my father’s death, mother and I continued to receive old friends and family members, so much so that we had little time to mourn in peace. As the months passed, however, the mansion became a tomb. Grief was all we had and my mother’s, in particular, was greatly felt.

Chapter Two

My return to Bellevue was met with curiosity and excitement, and I was greeted with an unprecedented amount of love and respect, especially from Fannie and Patrick. Lizzie, on the other hand, was understandably aloof and treated me with what could only be described as polite disdain. She kept her distance, the resentment from the past still prevalent and interlocked in all that she was. If it hadn’t been for me, Jeyne, her only daughter, may not have been sold. I was all too aware of that. And as the memories of that fateful day came upon me, I couldn’t help but reflect on all the bittersweet moments that led up to it and those that followed. In the deepest part of my heart, I know I wouldn’t have behaved any differently. Jeyne was who she was which meant I would have still fallen deeply and hopelessly in love with her.

“I’ll be going to the gravesite again later this afternoon,” Mother had announced at breakfast a few days later. “Would you like to join me?”

It was gloomy outside and I had no desire to go anywhere. “I said my goodbyes to him years ago,” I replied. “Will he care for them now that he’s dead and six feet under?”

Tears immediately sprung to my mother’s eyes causing me to regret the words the minute they left my mouth.

“I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”

“I understand,” she said in a measured tone. “Regret and guilt are true bedfellows at times such as this. Hopefully you’ll find it in your heart to forgive.”

There was a mix of emotions crowding my mind as I considered her words. Was there any room in my soul for forgiveness? The answer was a difficult one to come by. Time and distance had yet to completely soften the edges. Of course, I was no longer that teenage boy who left Bellevue but a 34-year-old man who had already seen his fair share of an ugly world. Sharp pangs of frustration filled my heart and I wished, despite it all, that I could bring back some of those tumultuous, yet volatile years with my father. I loved him, even admired him for a time but I didn’t know him. I saw the outlines but never the full picture. In truth, my father had a cloud of secrecy around him, a wall that he never quite let down. My father was, and always will be, a mystery to me.

Despite the deep resentment I felt in my heart towards him, my father’s absence began to affect me in unpredictable ways and bore down heavy on my conscious. Not only that, I was struggling in my attempts to readjust to Southern life. In the north, I was a free spirit, living in a part of the country where slavery was often discussed but not fully understood. I shared life with my cousin and Uncle David in their brick, colonial house on the outskirts of Boston, a city ruled by such wealthy colonial families like the Lowells and Cabots and inhabited by a multitude of Irish and Italian immigrants. Life seemed simpler then.

Being with my uncle offered me much in the way of ease and comfort. It was liberating. Uncle David was so unlike my father that it was almost difficult to see them as brothers. Uncle David was everything my father was not: honest, loyal, and fair. Having left Bellevue at quite a young age, Uncle David found his way to Massachusetts and became a lawyer after many hard years of study. He offered his services to the rich and poor, alike, making him an admired and highly respected figure in the community. I admired this generosity and worked hard to emulate him. The thirteen years spent under his guidance were the best years of my life. I missed Uncle David and Haydon terribly and had little time to write to them during those initial months managing the plantation.

Since my return to Bellevue, simplicity had escaped me and I often felt disconnected from things. I was a slaveholder, living in a state that was as stifling and confining as the institution that ruled it. As the sole heir, everything concerning Bellevue was left up to me to manage. I hated it, but there were no siblings to shoulder the burdens of the day-to-day affairs. There was a new overseer, Daniel O’Reilly, but he was forgetful and apathetic. Mother had managed to do her part and purchase ordinary things such as soap, candles, cloth, shoes and hats for the slaves, but only she could do so much. Many of these items used to be made on the plantation but now it was cheaper to buy order them in bulk. The assessment of Bellevue’s inventory consumed me for the first few weeks and I felt as if the weight of the world was upon my shoulders.

In truth, Bellevue could only be called home because it was where I was born and not because I had any real sentiment towards it. The North was where I belonged.

Chapter Three

As the days passed and became one, the startling reality of maintaining a five-thousand-acre estate began to settle in. Everything on the plantation belonged to me now, including all the unpleasantries. I rode through the expansive fields on my horse, Beauty, and frowned as I watched the slaves pick cotton, their backs hunched over at excruciating angles. Day and after day the negroes worked, piling the cotton up in heavy bales while O’Reilly, the overseer, watched. To him, the collection must have seemed slow, but I forbid him to use any form of violence when it came to the slaves.

“How am I supposed to do my job if I ain’t allowed to use the whip?” O'Reilly said, in the

deepest Irish brogue I had ever heard.

“I’m sure they’ll listen to you if you talk to them like men.”

He lifted his chin in defiance. “Them niggas ain’t men.”

“Are you refusing my request?”

“With all due respect, Mr. White, you don’t reason with niggas,” he said through crooked, gritty teeth. “You beat ‘em. It’s simple as that. They ain’t gonna pick fast if you don’t.”

“Is that right?”

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