Savage Flames

Chapter Six

I saw and loved.

—Edward Gibbon

It’s been two weeks now,” Lavinia said as she sat on her bed, resting her back against the headboard. She was in a robe, for she never knew when Hiram might decide to come and check on her, to see if she felt strong enough today to leave her room and join him at the dining table for dinner.

“Do you think it’s been long enough, Mama?” Dorey asked as she worked on her embroidery. “Aren’t you tired of being in this room? Surely Uncle Hiram has lost interest in his idea of making you his wife.”

“In just two weeks?” Lavinia said, laughing. “He won’t forget it until he has one foot in hell. I

would gladly go there so that I could push him in the rest of the way.”

“Mama, he asks me too often about you,” Dorey said, resting her embroidery work on her lap. “It’s making me nervous. I have to tell him one lie after another. I’m getting quite uncomfortable making up so many stories.”

“I’m sorry to be the one to make you lie,” Lavinia said. She sighed heavily. “But there is no other way. I despise the very ground Hiram walks on. I would die if he so much as touched me. And if I were his wife, I would be…duty bound… to allow him to do more than that.”

“I will tell him the necessary lies until the day I die if it keeps you from having to endure something as horrible as that,” Dorey said. She shuddered. “So don’t worry, Mama. I’m sure God understands why these lies are necessary.”

“It’s only a game, and it shouldn’t have to be necessary for much longer,” Lavinia said. She slid from the bed. She ran her fingers through her long, golden hair, slipped her feet into soft slippers, then went to a window and threw open the shutters so that the morning sunlight could filter in and brighten the room.

As usual, she gazed at the old oak tree where she often saw the Indian sitting and looking, it seemed, directly up at her window. She hadn’t seen the panther for a few days and wondered why.

“Mama, Twila seems happy being here in the house with us,” Dorey said.

Her daughter’s voice drew Lavinia’s eyes from the tree, but she never seemed now to be able to put the handsome Indian from her mind. Lavinia turned just as Dorey got up from her chair and came to join her by the window.

“I’m so glad that Twila is doing alright even though her parents are no longer there for her tolove and spend the evenings with. The evenings were the only time they had together, you know,” Lavinia said. She took Dorey by the hand and led her to the bed, where they both sat on the edge as they continued to talk.

“Hiram pushed them so hard even after Virgil begged him not to be so cruel to the slaves,” she murmured. “Your father was too soft-spoken. He allowed Hiram to walk all over him, and it was Hiram who got his way for the most part. Now? With Virgil not here to keep an eye on what’s going on, I would hate to see how Hiram is treating the slaves.”

“At least Twila doesn’t have to take such abuse,” Dorey said. “Uncle Hiram hasn’t so much as laid a hand on her since she moved into our house. He knows how much you and I love her. And surely he must feel some guilt over how he treated her parents …killing her mother in cold blood. Mama, we should have gone to the authorities and turned him in, but even they have no pity for slaves or how they are abused by their owners. It would have been time wasted.”

“Dorey, I’ve been wanting to talk to you about something very private,” Lavinia suddenly said. She looked intently into her daughter’s smoky-violet eyes. “It seems only right that you should know, especially now, since your Uncle Hiram is causing us both such distress, wanting me to marry him. One day you will meet a man and want to marry him. I want you to know that there is more than one reason to marry a man.”

“What do you mean?” Dorey asked. She looked in wonder into her mother’s eyes. “What other reason can there be besides loving the man you marry?”

“There are such things as arranged marriages,” Lavinia said, her voice tense.

“Arranged…?” Dorey said. She arched an eyebrow. “What do you mean…arranged?”

“Dorey, that is why your father and I were married, not out of love,” Lavinia murmured. “You see, my parents and his were best friends. Both families were wealthy in their own right. They wanted to combine this wealth. They saw a marriage between myself and your father as the best way, because they knew how much we cared for one another already. But what we felt wasn’t true love. We just cared for one another as friends who admired each other.”

“So it was because of money that you and Papa married?” Dorey asked, her eyes widening in surprise. “But you seemed so devoted …so loving. Surely you were in love.”

“There are many ways to love a man,” Lavinia said. She suddenly felt awkward, and somewhat trapped, for she had never discussed anything like this with her daughter before.

Yet she knew this had to be done. One day her daughter would meet a man and fall head over heels in love with him. Lavinia wanted Dorey to feel comfortable with such a love as that.

“And you just didn’t love Papa in a way that made you feel passionate about him?” Dorey asked, causing Lavinia to gasp. She had never dreamed that her daughter even knew the word “passionate.”

“And how do you know about such things as…passion?” Lavinia asked guardedly, taking both of her daughter’s hands.

“Mama, you know how much I love books and that I am an avid reader,” Dorey said, blushing slightly. “I love going through the books in our library. That word ‘passion’ appears often when relationships are written about in books.”

“My word, have you been reading romantic novels?” Lavinia asked, pulling her hands away from Dorey’s and placing them on her daughter’s cheeks. “I wasn’t certain they were called that, but yes, I have read books that describe the love between men and women,” Dorey said, blushing. “But this love never goes beyond kissing in the books I read, Mama, and holding hands.”

“I should go to our library and check the books more carefully,” Lavinia said, laughing absently.