The Price of Freedom (22 page)

By the time the doctor arrived
just over an hour later, Deborah had cleaned the wound on Richard’s head and
sat in the chair next to his bed watching him closely.  She was worried
that he had not regained consciousness, even when Jethro helped her to take off
his filthy shirt which reeked of smoke so that she could wipe him down as best
as she could.

Thomas led the doctor in and
waited while he performed his examination and pronounced that Richard had a
concussion and that he was to keep quiet for the next few days. He advised that
he would probably have a headache and may experience nausea or vomiting. He
gave them warning signs to watch for and told them to call him right away if
they saw any of them, otherwise he would return in two days.

When he left, Deborah went down to
the kitchen to make some chamomile tea with skullcap to ease the pain in his
head when he woke up. She wished that she could do more and felt helpless that
all she could do was wait.

The sun was beginning to go down
when Richard opened his eyes and found Deborah restlessly folding the clothes
in his drawers. He would have smiled if his head was not throbbing so much. He
searched his memory for the cause and remembered trying to calm the horse in
the fire and getting hit on the head by its rearing hoof.  He couldn’t
recall how he had got out of the track or back to the house.

“Why the sudden desire to fold all
my clothes?” he asked in a rough voice.

Deborah dropped the shirt she was
folding and sped around, relieved that Richard had woken up.

“You’re awake!  We were all
so worried about you,” she added as she crossed to the bed.  She was
concerned with his pallor and was about to ask how he felt when he murmured,
“Chamber pot,” just seconds before she pulled it from under the bed and he
emptied his stomach into it.

She gave him a cup of water to
rinse out his mouth and put the lid on the pot and left it by the door to empty
later.

“Thank you. I feel like I’ve been
kicked in the head by a horse,” he joked weakly.

Deborah was relieved that he could
still joke even though he looked so ill.  She gently stroked the hair back
from his forehead which was wrapped in a bandage.

“I made you some tea for your
headache.  I’ll just go and warm it up.  The doctor said that your
head would be aching when you woke up and that you might feel nauseous. Do you
feel dizzy?”

“No but my
throat is raw and my head hurts like the devil.”
 

“I’ll be right back,” promised
Deborah heading for the door.  She picked up the chamber pot to empty outside
and hoped that he didn’t need to use it before she came back.

She ran into Rachel in the hallway
and informed her that Richard had woken up.  It was so strange to be
speaking to her as if she was a stranger, when they had played together as
children and did so many things together.  Soon she would be free to speak
to them as an equal and not as a slave. She smiled to herself as she pictured
how horrified the mistress would be.

Richard closed his eyes against
the pain and marveled at the fact that he was still alive since he knew that a
well placed kick from a horse could kill a man. Maybe there was something that
he still had to do with his life, so he silently thanked God for sparing it.

Richard was restless.  Once
again he was confined to his room in Barbados.  The pain in his head had
lessened to a dull throbbing and he had not vomited since the first
night.  The doctor had come a little while ago and although he seemed
pleased with his progress he instructed him to rest for a few more days and not
to move around too much.

He wondered where Deborah
was.  He enjoyed having her around fussing over him and when he remembered
how annoying he’d found Hattie’s attention, he wondered why he didn’t feel the
same with Deborah.

His thoughts seemed to bring her
into the room and she quietly knocked and opened the door.  He brightened
on seeing her in one of the brightly colored skirts and blouses that he had
bought for her that day in Town. He was surprised at how much he had enjoyed
treating her to new clothes, especially since Ann’s interest in clothes had
often annoyed him.

“I was just wondering where you
were,” he told her.

“Why, were you missing me?” she
flirted with him.  Deborah did not normally talk to Richard so boldly but
she was happy that he was recovering well and that the doctor was pleased with
his progress.

“Come over here and I’ll show you
how much,” he promised huskily.

“Now behave yourself.  The
doctor said that you’re not to move around too much so you need to keep quiet.”

“I promise not to move too much.
You can do everything.”

“Richard!  You are wicked!”
He loved the fact that he could easily shock her and he took every opportunity
to do so.  She had called him Richard so maybe she no longer saw him as
her master but as her lover. He smiled at the thought.

“OK. Read to me instead.  At
least for now,” he conceded.

“You know what happened the last
time I read to you.  Your aunt was not at all pleased.”

“Well you belong to me now so she
can’t do anything about it.”  Deborah sobered up.  She kept
forgetting that she belonged to Richard and she feared that he not only owned
her but, worse yet, he was beginning to own her heart.

“I’ll go down to Master Thomas’
library and see what I can find. 
As long as it isn’t
Richard
Ligon’s
‘Observations upon the shape of
Negroes’.
You made me read that on purpose, didn’t you?” She accused
him.

“I could not resist.  You
should have seen your face when you saw what I’d asked you to read. And I have
to admit that his observations were very accurate,” he said lowering his gaze
to the subject matter.

“I would throw something at you
but you have not recovered fully as yet. I’m going to find a book. 
Maybe Macbeth or something equally sinister.”

Richard smiled as she left the
room. He couldn’t imagine ever getting bored with her.  She was constantly
changing and the fact that she was a slave in no way demeaned her, no matter
what she thought.  If she was like this as a slave, what would she be like
when she was free?  Unfortunately he would not be around to see it. He
planned to leave at the end of June which would give him two clear months in
Barbados and he intended to make the most of that time.

Thomas managed to take some time
from the harvest to stop by Richard’s room to see how he was doing.  He was
glad that he seemed well on the way to recovery.  He still felt guilty
that Richard had been injured on the plantation and he was thankful that his
life had been spared.

That reminded him of his promise
to God that he would give up Sarah if he spared Richard’s life.  He would
call his lawyer as soon as he had a break from the harvest and start putting
things in place to have the manumission papers prepared.  He would set her
free but that didn’t mean he couldn’t continue to visit her.  He would buy
her a property in Town where she could live and have a shop of some kind.

His conscience pricked slightly
that he was not in fact giving up Sarah, he was just moving her to a different
location and he would not own her anymore. God knew that he couldn’t live without
her altogether; she had become a very important part of his life. To give her
up altogether would be like losing a limb.

“I’m certainly glad to see you
looking so much better,” Thomas greeted Richard.

“I have the best nurse,” Richard
said.  “Deborah has been at my beck and call and she hasn’t complained
once.  I’m only sorry that she’s taking the doctor’s orders of no movement
very seriously. What’s the point of having
her
this
close to me if I can’t do anything about it?”  He complained.

Thomas laughed at his disgusted
expression. “Does that mean you haven’t got her out of your system yet?”

“I haven’t had enough
opportunities to do so to tell the truth, but I can’t see it happening,” he
admitted. “I decided today that I will go back to Carolina at the end of June
so hopefully I’ll be cured by then.”

“I will be very sorry to see you
go.  When you were unconscious in the cart, you looked so close to death
that I made a pact with God that if he spared your life I would give up Sarah.”

Richard didn’t know what to say
because he knew how much Sarah meant to his uncle.

“He did his part, I will do mine,
so I’ll get my lawyer to work on manumission papers soon and I will set her
free when you free Deborah.  I’ll buy a property in town for her and give
her enough money for the two of them to start a business of some sort.”

“Thank you for your petition on my
behalf. I’m glad to hear that you’ll be freeing Sarah because I was worried
about what Deborah would do without her, but to tell the truth I haven’t
thought much beyond the next two months and how she would survive. I find it
hard to think rationally with that woman around,” he laughed at himself.

“So all is well?” Thomas inquired.

“Very well.
 
She’s everything I imagined she would be.  She told me about William,” he
broached the subject carefully, “but she is over that.  Well over it,” he
added with a satisfied smile.

“I am glad,” Thomas said
seriously. “That’s why I was so careful to protect her from the men who wanted
to buy her, but I knew that I could trust you to be good to her.  I
wouldn’t have sold her to anyone else.”

Richard was humbled and before he
could even find the words to express what his uncle’s words meant to him he
continued: “You have become even closer to me than my own son.  If you
ever consider staying in Barbados I want you to know that you would have a
place here. I’m not getting any younger and I could use a good manager for the
plantation.”

Richard was astounded at Thomas’
offer and was embarrassed to feel a lump in his throat that his uncle, after
only knowing him for a month would trust him to that extent when his father did
not. 

“I’m very honored by your offer,
sir but my future is in Carolina.”

“If you ever change your mind, let
me know.”  Richard nodded, still overcome with emotion.

Deborah knocked softly on the door
and opened it when Richard invited her to come in.  She stopped as she saw
Thomas sitting in the chair by his bed but they both gestured her to come
closer. Richard patted the bed next to him but Deborah was not so bold as to
sit next to him on the bed with Master Thomas present and chose to remain
standing.  She had to remind herself that he was no longer her master but
seventeen years was hard to undo.

“Is this young man treating you
well?” Thomas asked her, searching her face.