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

the tears from escaping and trickling down her face and onto her
neck. “Why must you humiliate me so?” Madeline despised her weakness. “Could
you not have picked another woman and remained discreet?”
    “Things are as they are,
Dearest.” He stood over her for a long pause, then turned and stalked to the
door. “Do not expect my return to your room this evening. I’ll send Tessa to
tend you.”
    Madeline barely noticed when
Tessa quietly entered the room and placed a wet cloth on her head. The coolness
brought some measure of relief, and the pain slowly faded into a merciful
sleep.
    Baby Henry’s lusty cries
from the nursery across the hall awoke her sometime later. She opened her eyes,
relieved that the pain in her head had dulled to a minor ache. The moon was low
in the sky, so she knew it was nearing dawn.
    With a sigh, she pushed
aside the covers and went to the nursery. Cat’s cot was empty. Cringing,
Madeline couldn’t help the vivid image that sprang to her mind. She knew Cat
had been sent for and could be found in Henry’s bedroom.
    Fighting tears, for herself,
for Cat, she reached into the crib. The baby grabbed her finger and brought it
to his mouth. “It’s all right, Sweetums,” she cooed. “We’ll get you out of
those wet clothes and you’ll be more comfortable.”
    Baby Henry stopped wailing
at the sound of a sympathetic voice, but as soon as the cool air hit his wet
bottom, he screwed up his face and let out a howl loud enough to raise the
roof.
    “Well, now. Aren’t you the
angry little fellow?” Madeline smiled at the baby’s indignant hollering. But
she didn’t know what she would do if Cat didn’t arrive soon to feed her son.
    When the baby was properly dry
and comfortable, Madeline scooped him up and snuggled him close. She stroked
his silken head and breathed deeply of his fresh baby scent, accepting comfort
from the warmth of his little body. He sighed softly, his head resting against
her shoulder. Then, as though realizing this wasn’t the comfort he sought, he
bobbed around her neck. Not finding the source of his much-needed meal, he let
out a blood-curdling scream.
      She bounced him and walked him back and
forth across the nursery floor until finally, Cat hurried in, disheveled, her
dress torn at the collar. “I’m sorry, Miss Maddy.”
    Madeline observed the
slightly swollen lip and the purple bruise on her right cheek, and her heart
nearly stopped. Henry had become a monster. She handed over the baby and slipped
her arm about Cat’s shoulders. “It’s all right. He’s hungry, but not starving
to death.”
    With a nod, Cat moved to her
cot.
    The baby’s cries stopped the
instant he was put to his mother’s breast. Madeline smiled as he suckled and
cooed, euphoric in Cat’s arms. “He’s a dear, isn’t he?”
    A light glimmered in Cat’s
eyes. “He’s perfect. I never thought I’d. . .” She
broke off her sentence, but kept her loving gaze on baby Henry’s face.
    “Oh, Cat. I’m so sorry you’ve
had to give him up to me, though I love him dearly.”
      “It’s all right. He’s better off being
raised as a white boy.”
    “I’ll make sure he knows who
his real mother is.”
    A frown creased Cat’s brow.
“He mustn’t know. Not until after he’s received his proper inheritance.” She
took Madeline’s hand. “Please, Miss Maddy. Promise me we will never speak of
this again. Henry is your son. Yours and the master’s. He’s a white boy and will grow to be a white man.”
    “It’s so unfair.”
    “But Henry Jr. will be
luckier than most boys. He’ll be loved by two mothers .
Please. It’s how I want it to be.”
    As Madeline returned her
steady gaze, a bond formed between them. A bond that went
beyond mother and daughter, mistress and slave. They were two women
united in motherhood of one small boy and the commitment to make him greater
than either could have accomplished alone.

 
    1948

 
    Andy closed the journal and
gave a short