Back home in Mississippi, summer would barely be over, and the first cool tinges of fall would begin to blow in on an autumn wind. But here in Canada, winter was already on its way. Olivia gazed out the hotel room window at the bright cold morning, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Go home?” she gasped between sobs. “Alex Duncan, we’ve scarcely arrived! A fine honeymoon this has turned out to be. Please—” Olivia turned in time to see the hotel room door close abruptly. Her shoulders slumped. “Actually,” she admitted ruefully, “I know he doesn’t like this either.” Her hands relaxed and she shook her head. “You are acting like a baby, Olivia. No wonder he escaped on the run! Poor man.”
She turned back to the window and shivered as she looked down the street. “Winter is coming early to Canada; since I don’t like snow, that should make me glad we’re leaving.”
The morning sun highlighted the frost outlining each needle on the evergreens. “Lace crystals,” she murmured. “October trees decorated for Christmas. And I don’t feel like Christmas.” Her tears threatened to return as she looked around the room she had called the honeymoon cottage. This regal room, with its rose silk damask, crystal mirrors, and deep carpets was far from being a cottage. Admiring again the carved and polished dark walnut furniture, the corners of her mouth began to turn up. “Admit it,” she murmured, “you’re just sick with disappointment. For the first time since you’ve met Alexander Duncan, he’s been yours exclusively. Now it’s time to face life, with all that it holds.”
****
The door behind her opened, then closed softly. For a moment she stiffened, trying to recover the emotion that had fueled her hasty words. She turned to see Alex, his blue eyes pleading. With a gasp she rushed to him. “Alex, it doesn’t matter; nothing matters except us—even a honeymoon finished before it is properly started. Just don’t leave me like that.”
“Olivia, I wasn’t leaving you. I simply couldn’t make myself heard. I decided action was best.”
“So you ran! Just like a man under fire!”
“Fire? It was those tears. That’s something most men can’t handle.” He pulled her against his frosty coat and she shivered.
“Hear me out.” He took her hands. “I didn’t intend to make you think I was angry or trying to force my will. I just made an important decision to purchase something, and I knew I must get it quickly.”
“Get what?”
He thrust the small velvet box into her hands. “I’ve been wanting to buy a gift for you. Something very special. I felt we needed it.”
“We?”
“Yes, I as much as you. Several days ago I saw this, but at the time I couldn’t decide. At first it seemed beautiful, and then I ended up feeling nearly depressed; and I didn’t want you to feel that way. Now it seems right. I’ll explain. Open it.”
Holding the tiny jeweler’s box, she went to sit in one of the blue velvet chairs in front of the windows. “Look, Alex, the sun has turned the ice crystals into shining jewels.” Her voice trailed away in a whisper as Alex took the box and opened it.
“My dear husband, it’s beautiful!” Olivia gasped. “How could it be depressing?”
She lifted the brooch out of the box. “Black onyx, covered with a filigree of gold. Alex, the design is as delicate as lace against the onyx. It shines like life itself!” She touched the row of diamonds edging the oval.
“It does seem so,” Alex murmured. His face was close to hers as she pinned the brooch to the neckline of her frock. His big finger touched the golden design. “It caught my attention when I realized how the black stone made the gold come to life. The tiny blossoms seem nearly ready to drop into your hand.”
Olivia looked up. “Alex, I noticed this in the shop when we went to have your watch repaired. I must admit that I shivered when I saw it. It attracted me, yet it nearly made me cry. Why?”
He shook his head, cleared his husky voice, and said, “I’d just been reading a passage in Isaiah. It seemed fitting. Me with my earring, you with your jewel.” He fixed his intense blue eyes on her. She saw the swift uncertainty in them before he smiled. “I’ll read it to you.”
He brought his Bible and knelt with the book in Olivia’s lap. Thumbing quickly through the worn pages, he glanced at her. “This is from Isaiah 61. ‘I will greatly rejoice in the Lord…as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels. For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.’”
“It’s beautiful Alex. But there is still a troubled shadow in your eyes, and it has something to do with home. You’ve been reading those newspapers and talking for weeks.”
“The United States is approaching a crisis,” he admitted, “and I’ve been dumping it all on you.”
She looked up at him. “Lincoln is running for president, and you think there’s not a possibility of his succeeding.”
“Livie, for us it’s one step deeper. I’m just seeing the full import of my decision long ago. But right now I don’t want to risk pulling you into all the trouble.”
“Alex, I don’t like the thought of war, or the trouble we could get into by helping the slaves. But remember, I’m in this with you because I chose to be. We took this path without knowing the outcome of our decision, but we can’t jump out when there are difficulties.”
“Half an hour ago, I thought you’d forgotten!” he grinned at her.
Sheepishly she said, “I started fussing when you mentioned going home. Well, I’m sorry. But do you really think there’s going to be deep trouble?”
“It’s impossible to believe otherwise. Caleb’s been talking to the slaves pouring into Canada. They’re angry and frightened, but they’re also strangely excited. Livie, the slaves seem to have a spiritual sensitivity we lack. They see hard times ahead, and they’re coming out of the South in masses.” He took a deep breath. “I have two major things to do.”
“Now, before the election and before winter?”
He nodded. “I have to make one more trip south, and then visit my parents.”
“Why?”
Shaking his head slowly he said, “I’ll be happy to snatch another few slaves and run them north. About my parents, I’m not so certain. It’s arrogant to think I can sway the thinking of the South, even the thinking of my own family. But I can’t live with myself unless I’ve given it another try.”
“I’m very much ashamed of myself,” she admitted. “When you began talking about leaving, I wanted so badly just to hold you close and push away other people. Alex, when I watched you leave, I felt as if my words had ripped apart something precious.”
“Olivia, you know I’d rather hear your disappointment and anger than to have you hide your feelings. I’m disappointed too.”
“We’ve been here less than a month. It will be at least another month before Bertie and Caleb’s baby is born.”
He winced. “I know we should stay. I can’t give you any reason for going, except for a bunch of newspaper articles and a vague feeling.”
“Like black storm clouds on the horizon?” She fingered the brooch and watched him take a deep breath. “Alex, I have seen you like this often enough in the past two years to realize your hunches come from the Lord.”
“The war is moving closer.” He slid to the edge of his chair and took her hands. “Olivia—”
“Now will you tell me why you bought that expensive brooch?”
“It’s not enough to say I love you?”
“No. You were reading Isaiah 61. Verse one is an important verse for you. ‘He hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.’ Did those words have anything to do with it?”
“Olivia, I honestly acted without facing all the deep implications. Maybe I felt you needed something to remind you—”
“Of the promises I had made. Perhaps,” she said slowly. “And now you’re thinking about war.” Getting up, she walked to the window. “War,” she murmured. “Perhaps what we’ve done makes us responsible for this frightening possibility.”
“Helping the slaves escape, you mean?”
“That, and other things as well. I keep thinking about Matthew and Crystal. Their hurt is still mine. How my heart aches for them! Oh, Alex, for us love is the most wonderful thing that could have happened. But for my dear foolish brother and his precious wife, it turned out to be devastating.”
“Only because of their choices,” Alex said.
“Alex, you make it seem as casual as ordering dinner from a menu! Yes, Crystal made a terrible choice; she loved Matthew too much to risk admitting her father was a slave.”
“And when the truth came out,” Alex added heavily, “your brother acted just as any Southern gentlemen would act. He walked out of the whole situation. Olivia, my dear, I’m still convinced that love is more durable than those two people believe.”
“But it’s too late now. We don’t know where they are. I wish she would write! And I’ve been wondering if Matthew will fight for the South.”
There was a tap on the door and Alex turned. “Must be our breakfast,” he said as he went to the door. It was Caleb, and just behind him was the waiter with his loaded cart.
Caleb studied their faces as the waiter set the table in front of the windows. The door closed behind the man, and Olivia said, “Caleb, come have breakfast with us. Even if you have eaten, I know your appetite is hardly satisfied.”
Caleb grinned as he waited for Olivia to move to the table. “Alex ordered like he expected me.” There was a hint of curiosity in his eyes as Olivia handed him the plate of sausage.
“I wish you had brought Bertie with you.”
“She’s feeling poorly these days. That baby’s going to be a big one,” he chuckled. He gave Olivia another quick glance. “We’re disappointed you won’t be here when he comes.”
“Girls can be big, too,” Olivia said with a grin.
Caleb’s eyes twinkled. “Not that big. ’Sides, I figured out Alex had serious talk in mind when he told me you two were going back right away, and maybe you wanted to say something to me.”
As she poured the coffee, Olivia watched Alex’s sober expression. “We were still discussing it when you came. We will be returning as quickly as possible. Naturally we’re both disappointed with having to leave now, before the baby.”
Caleb drank his coffee and looked at Alex. “You thinking there’s going to be a fight?”
Alex winced. “I try to not let myself think that way. But I must admit there’s a strong possibility. In the past several weeks, the newspapers coming out of the South have produced a constant stream of rhetoric denouncing Lincoln and stressing states’ rights.”
Alex tapped the newspaper lying on the table. “Offhand, I’d say the rumbles coming out of the South indicate a crisis. Some are saying Lincoln’s election will be the final straw. I don’t like to think that. But clearly it’s a political struggle, North against South, Republican against Democrat.”
Caleb had forgotten his breakfast. Finally he looked at Alex. “If it gets down to a fight,” he said softly, “it won’t seem right if us slaves don’t do our part.”
“Remember the Fugitive Slave Law,” Alex muttered, picking up his coffee. “I figured you’d feel this way—you and all the others. But sit tight, or you’ll all end up back down the river.”
Caleb shook his head as Alex spoke. “You do us a wrong to refuse to let us fight. You know how we want to be accepted as—”
“Citizens, honorable and responsible,” Alex finished. “You’ll get your chance later, when the fuss is over. In addition to the risk to you all, there’s the added factor of it being unnecessary. At most it will be a military skirmish, a show of strength, and then a settlement.” He shook his head. “Both sides will compromise. The abolitionists will protest and the Southern Democrats will make Congress very uncomfortable for a time. And then we’ll be back to where we were before.”
Caleb finished his muffin, no longer conscious of what he ate. Slowly he wiped his fingers on the napkin. “Seems like a mule pulling a plow around in circles. Doesn’t get the field plowed, and he’s right back in the same spot. Maybe it’d be better to get the job over with.”
“You’re talking about war,” Alex said, astonished. “Are you saying you think it will develop into something more than a skirmish?”
Caleb looked down at his plate. Finally he lifted his head and looked Alex in the eye. “You thinking a man like Lincoln won’t push freedom for the slaves? Might be he won’t, but the slaves don’t feel that way. There’s this feeling Mistuh Lincoln won’t let us down. You think the South would let their slaves go without a big fight?”