into Father’s chair. The clock in the main passage clicked, magnifying, and I felt the shadows gathering inside of me again, worse this time. Since returning, I’d slipped further into melancholy each day. It was the same trough of darkness I’d fallen into when I was twelve and the life had gone out of everything. Mother had summoned Dr. Geddings back then, and I feared she might do so again. Every day, I forced myself to come down for tea. I endured the visitations from her friends. I kept up my attendance at church, at Bible study, at alms meetings. I sat with Mother in the mornings, hoops of embroidery on our laps, willing the needle through the cloth. She’d given me the task of household records, and each week I sorted through the supplies, writing inventories and procurement lists. The house, the slaves, Charleston, Mother, the Presbyterians—they were the woof and warp of everything.
Nina had pulled away. She was angry at me for remaining in Philadelphia after Father died. “You don’t know what it was like alone here,” she’d cried. “Mother instructed me constantly in the error of my ways, everything from church to slavery to my rebellious nature. It was horrible!”
I’d been the buffer between her and Mother, and my remaining away for so long had left her exposed. “I’m sorry,” I told her.
“You only wrote to me once!” Her beautiful face was contorted with hurt and resentment. “Once.”
It was true. I’d been so enamored with my freedom up there, I hadn’t bothered. “I’m sorry,” I said again.
I knew in time she would forgive the selfish months I’d abandoned her, but I sensed the estrangement came from more than that. At fifteen, she needed to break away, to come out from my shadow, to understand who she was separate from me. My retreat to Philadelphia was only the excuse she needed to declare her independence.
As she fled to her room the day of our confrontation, she shouted, “Mother was right, I have no mind of my own. Only yours!”
We passed now like strangers. I let her be, but it added to my despair.
I stared at the trunks of books on the library floor, remembering the pangs I’d once had for a profession, for some purpose. The world had been such a beckoning place once.
Sabe still had not returned. I got up from my chair and rummaged nostalgically among the books, coming upon The Sacred Biography of Jeanne d’Arc of France. I couldn’t say how many times I’d read that wondrous little volume of Saint Joan’s bravery before Father had banned me from his library. Opening it now, I gazed at a sketch of her coat of arms—two fleurs de lis. I’d forgotten it was there, and it made sudden sense to me why I’d latched onto the fleur de lis button when I was eleven. I slipped the book beneath my shawl.
That night, unable to sleep, I heard the clock downstairs bong two, then three. The rain began soon after, beating without mercy against the piazza and the windows. I climbed from the covers and lit the lantern. I would write to Israel. I would tell him how melancholy swallowed me at times, how I almost felt the grave would be a refuge. I would write yet another letter I wouldn’t mail. Perhaps it would relieve me.
I pulled open the desk drawer and watched the light tumble inside it. There, as I’d left it, was my Bible and my Blackstone commentary, my stationery, ink, pen, ruler, and sealing wax, yet I didn’t see the bundle of letters. I drew the lamp closer and reached my hand into the empty corners. The black ribbon was there, curled like a malicious afterthought. My letters to Israel were gone.
I wanted to scream at her. The need took hold of me with blinding violence, and I flung open my door and rushed down the stairs, clinging to the rail as my feet seemed to sweep out from under me.
I battered her door with my fist, then rattled the knob. It was locked. “. . . How dare you take them!” I shrieked. “How dare you. Open the door. Open it!”
I couldn’t imagine what she’d thought on reading my intimate implorings to a stranger in the North. A Quaker. A man with a wife. Did she think I’d remained in Philadelphia for him?
Behind the door, I heard her call to Minta, who slept on the floor near her bed. I pounded again. “.