The Color Of The Soul (The Penbrook Diaries) by Tracey Bateman Page B

Henry.
    His expression changed to confusion.
“What do you mean? Don’t you see? We have to get married now. They won’t stop
us.”
    “Yes, they will.” She forced herself to
meet his gaze. Her heart nearly broke at the confusion she found there.
    Henry took her by the arm and led her
roughly to the door. “I don’t mind young Thomas using my girl.” He regarded Mr.
Hanson with a leering grin. “But if he got her with child, I’m not paying a
stud fee.”
    “Must you be so coarse?” Thomas’s father
scowled. “The boy made an unfortunate mistake.”
    A short laugh escaped Henry’s throat. “No
hard feelings. Young Thomas couldn’t help himself. These black wenches have a
way about them white men can’t resist. Especially this one. Believe me, I know from experience.”
    Bile rose to Cat’s throat as he turned
his dark gaze on her, eyes flashing with the threat of what she knew was to
come.
      “What do you mean, calling Cat a black
wench?” Indignation edged Thomas’s tone. “You dare compare her to a common--”
    “The girl is a slave.” Mr. Hanson
released a resolute sigh and clapped his hand down on Thomas’s shoulder. “She
belongs to Mr. Penbrook, Son. You know Mrs. Penbrook’s family is outspokenly
abolitionist. She insisted they raise this girl as a white. Against his better
judgment, Henry graciously allowed his wife her fancy. But when he realized the
girl was coming to meet you, he did what any respectable gentleman would do and
informed me immediately. And it’s a good thing he did before you made quite an
embarrassing error. Taking your pleasure is one thing. . .and understandable for a young man of your age. But imagine if you had
followed through with a marriage. Though it would not have been binding,
obviously, it most certainly would have humiliated your uncle and abused the
hospitality of his home. Not to mention the embarrassment your mother would
have been forced to endure.”
    Cat stared at the tops of her boots
during Mr. Hanson’s inflectionless discourse, but as silence filled the barn,
she could no more have kept her head down than she could drain the Negro blood
from her veins. She lifted her gaze to find Thomas staring at her in horrified
disbelief. Her stomach sank. Somehow she had hoped. .
.of course, it had been a foolish hope, but a dream nonetheless. She had hoped
Thomas loved her enough to overlook her one-eighth Negro blood.
    A shudder coursed through her. She rubbed
her arms. Looking down at her own pale skin, she felt tears prick her eyes.
Wasn’t she as white as any one of the men in the barn? Yet they stood, as
though better than she, accusing her, condemning her for being in love with the
wrong color of man. Did they expect her to fall in love with and marry a black
man? An ignorant slave? God forbid. There was no place
for her. She was too black to be white and too white to be black.
    *****
    I’m too white to be black and too
black to be white. I’m nothing.

 
    Andy almost dropped the journal as he read
the words he had spoken of himself countless times. From his bed, he glanced
out the window into the darkness illuminated by intermittent flashes of
lightning. Rain beat insistently against the glass, demanding attention.
Striding to the window, Andy glanced out and frowned at the water standing in
the streets. If the rain didn’t let up soon, he’d be stuck in the room another
day. Not that he minded reading the diaries, but he had hoped to visit with
Miss Penbrook as soon as possible to fill in a few details. So far, he had read
Madeline’s and Cat’s accounts of the years living in Missouri--fascinating
reading, but not much he could use in writing Miss Penbrook’s memoirs.
    Readers were interested in her travels,
her rise to fame as a poet and author of novels. They wouldn’t care about the
slave girl’s love for a white boy. Henry’s abuses might be of interest to some,
especially Negroes who screamed for civil rights for their