In 1830, Joseph received a rare letter from Cathy. Its contents made him realize just how long he’d been away. Five years. Long enough for his sister to become a young woman of sixteen. A young woman whose hot blood had dictated her future.
Joseph, I am married. His full name is Peregrine McAllister, though I call him Perry. He is your age and a Scot. He’s also a good Catholic, but Papa likes him anyway. Papa has been wonderful. He never said “No”; he only said “Wait.” Mama and Grandmama are the ones who turned up their noses. “He’s beneath you,” they said.
We gave them no choice.
Here some of the letter was cut away, but Joseph surmised that Cathy had allowed her lover to compromise her.
Now that Perry has married me, Mama and Grandmama are usually civil, though they still think I deserve someone finer. But we know better, don’t we, brother?
I told him, Joseph, and Perry says it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t understand that it would matter to anyone of quality. But I don’t want to be someone’s mistress. I want to be a wife—even if that means being a mother too. Perry says he loves me, and he makes me feel beautiful, at least for a little while. I’m not like you, Joseph. I’m weak.
For now, we’ll share Grandmama’s house. Don’t tell anyone else yet, but in a few years, when he’s saved enough money, Perry and I plan to leave Charleston. He wants to own land even if that meansgoing westward. I want to go where we’ll be safe, where no one knows Papa.
There was a postscript in Hélène’s hand that made Joseph smile.
Don’t worry, dear brother: I shan’t get married untilyoucan marry me!
The next summer,Cathy wrote again to tell Joseph he was an uncle.
We had him baptized David Joseph, since you’ll never have a son, and so you’ll remember him when you offer Mass. Mama and Papa say he looks just like you when you were a baby, only fatter. I am simply grateful he does not resemble Papa’s mother.
Sweating and alone beneath an olive tree, Joseph closed his eyes against the words:“since you’ll never have a son…”He thought he understood some small shard of what Christ felt in the Garden of Gethsemane. A part of Joseph envied Cathy and her husband. A part of him wanted to beg his Heavenly Father to take this bitter chalice from him.
What was his sacrifice next to their Savior’s? Joseph made himself pray as Christ had: “Not my will, but Yours be done.”
The month after Joseph’s twenty-first birthday, Bishop England came on his visitad limina, to kneel before the tombs of Saint Peter and Saint Paul and report the state of his diocese to the Holy Father. Joseph had not seen his Bishop for eight years, and at first he hardly recognized him. But the smile that reached all the way to Bishop England’s eyes was unmistakable.
Once, he had seemed like a giant. Now, Joseph found himselflooking down on this great man, at least literally. His Lordship was no longer as vital as Joseph remembered him, heavier in body, his dark hair gone grey. He must be forty-seven, but he looked even older, as if he were carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders—or at least, the weight of three American states.
They turned onto the Ponte Sant’Angelo, lined with Bernini’s angelic statues. Each bore an Instrument of Christ’s Passion. “Have you already met with the Holy Father, my lord?” Joseph asked.
Bishop England nodded, keeping his eyes downcast. “Yesterday. I wanted to draw the attention of His Holiness toward the American souls we have been neglecting: the souls of the negroes and Indians. His first step in addressing the problem is one I had not anticipated.” His Lordship stopped beneath the statue of the angel with the scourge. “The Holy Father has appointed me Apostolic Delegate to Haiti.”
“Haiti?” Joseph felt as though he’d uttered a curse. “Does His Holiness not understand that you are Bishop to three states full of slaveholders?” The mere word “Haiti” inspired terror and hatred in Southerners. In their eyes, the island contained only fiends, fallen too far to ever be redeemed. Its name might as well have been Hades.
His Lordship looked ahead to the angel with the great Crown of Thorns. “My current flock will distrust me because I go to serve former slaves who freed themselves through violence—and those former slaves will distrust me because I have not condemned the slavery in my diocese. If the Haitians were to discover that I myself own a man…” Bishop England met Joseph’s eyes and added in explanation: “His name is Castalio. His former master left him to me in his will. And this is how it happens, you see? The heirs of slaveholders are born into a trap—a burden carried from generation to generation.” His Lordship started forward again. “Slavery is ‘the greatest moral evil that can desolate the civilized world’—I wrote that for a pamphlet published in Ireland last year. But in the United States, we Catholics walk a razor’s edge of resentment already. If I were to condemn slavery from a Charleston pulpit, I would be hanged in effigy if not in fact, and all the gains I have made for our Church these thirteen years would come to nothing.”
“Can you decline this mission to Haiti?”
Bishop England shook his head. “The question is one of nearly a million souls and of the generations to succeed them.”
“But surely someone else could go.”
As they passed, Bishop England glanced to the other side of the bridge, where an angel held the Cross against the sky. “What if Christ had given such an answer when God the Father asked Him to sacrifice His life for us?”
Ashamed, Joseph fell silent.
“I would be comforted if I could take with me an assistant I trust, an assistant who is fluent in French…and perhaps conversant in Creole?” Bishop England peered hopefully at Joseph.
Nowheinterrupted their progress; Joseph could only stand gaping. To go willingly toward that scene of slaughter, which Great-Grandmother Marguerite had invoked so many times in his childhood…
“I know—you must complete your studies. But I imagine this mission will continue for a number of years. If you feel called to minister to Haiti, son, I would welcome you at my side.”
They’d nearly reached the end of the bridge. Joseph stared at the angel above them now, the one who held the sponge of vinegar. “I-Is it safe?”
His Lordship leaned against the marble balustrade. “The President has invited us—anhomme de couleurnamed Jean-Pierre Boyer.”
“President, or dictator?”
