Chapters (153)
- Beulah Land
- Dedication
- PART ONE
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- PART TWO
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- PART THREE
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
- PART FOUR
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
- PART FIVE
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- PART SIX
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- PART SEVEN
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- Copyright
- Books by Lonnie Coleman published by Classica Libris (digital editions)
Felix smiled tiredly and took her hand. “Nor I of your aunt. Some people—well, it doesn’t take them right. I don’t know why, but we mustn’t blame them.” After a brief pause he nodded his head vigorously. “Then it is the black man’s doing, and you must have the doctor out immediately. No one need know, not even Leon, if you prefer not to tell him. Every doctor understands it. No white woman can be allowed to bear a colored baby. Surely you know that?”
“Uncle, I cannot believe it will be colored. How could that one violent time—? I’m sure it will be white.”
His mouth opened in surprise. “The artist?” She did not answer. “Now, be still, don’t pull away.”
“Was there whispering when he was here?” she wanted to know.
“Not that I heard. But when I saw the portrait, my dear, for just a moment I did wonder. I have a wicked mind, or at any rate I’m not as innocent as the remainder of this household.”
“You are not shocked?”
“No.” He frowned.
“But you condemn me.”
He thought about it before he answered. “I don’t think I do—not in the personal way, I mean to say. If the fact of it makes me uneasy, I think it has to do with Beulah Land rather than you. But never mind that. Whoever the father, you must do as I suggest. Have the doctor out and get rid of it. At once, and no more thinking about it.”
Without making a sound, she began to cry. “I want my child.”
He held both of her hands close against his body to comfort her. “No, Sarah.”
“It will be mine, only mine.”
“It will be heir to Beulah Land, and no Kendrick. You are not a common farmer’s wife who can mix in a little outside blood with her own brood without anyone’s thinking the worse of her for it. Whatever child you have will one day inherit this place. I was born here. I grew up here. I shall die here. It’s home, and more than home. One of the reasons I have always loved you, Sarah, is that I knew from the very beginning, before you married and came here to live, that you felt the way I did about it. You are not a private woman who belongs to herself. You belong to Beulah Land.”
She stopped crying and sat still. The tears began to dry on her face without her attending them. They did not look at each other, and neither of them spoke for a long time. At last she rose from her chair. “I shall send for Dr. Platt,” she said and went out of the room walking like an old woman.