Hannah's welcome home was a display of joy and pleasure but only from the servants in the house.
"Oh! Mrs. Chamberlain welcome home! We have missed you so much. Praise the Lord that you are back with us."
Everyone whirling around, barking commands, taking her hat and gloves and putting down her carpet bag, someone else running to make her a cup of tea.
They looked at her with astonishment. As if she had been resurrected from the dead. She looked exhausted. Then came the news......
"Mr. Chamberlain no good ma'am, no good at all, no good at all, dat fo-sure." Mammy the cook told her. "Afta' you gone and he tinks you dead, afta the funer'l he collapse, and stay in his bed, eva since dat day. Doc James say he can do notin' fo' him. He not many days fo' dis earf ma'am. Ye sir, det gonna takes him real soon. He plum wore out, is what he is, plum wore out." She bowed her head and shook it slowly from side to side.
Hannah was in a panic over the news. She patted Mammy on the arm and thanked her for informing her. She ran up the grand staircase of their plantation home to the landing and then down the long hall to her husband's room. She stood at the doorway just looking in trying to compose herself. There was a nurse in the room with him. He lay there in his four poster bed looking very small and very pale. She feared he was dead already. She did not want to shock him. The nurse nodded that she could come near to him.
"Just for a few minutes." The nurse whispered, not knowing it was his wife.
Hannah nodded in acknowledgement. She then sat in the chair beside his bed.
"Benjamin? It is me, Hannah. Can you hear me Dear?" Hannah spoke quietly and softly.
Her husband opened his eyes weakly fluttering and looked at her. "Hannah..... is that you, Darlin' come back from the dead? I buried you a year ago. Now you are back?" He coughed after he spoke those words.
"Yes, my Dear, I am back." Hannah held his hand. She respected her husband but there was no love on her part. He on the other hand adored her. Although many thought him to be ogreish, she tolerated him and he indulged her. She was his little Princess.
After her funeral he collapsed and never recovered.
"All is well now. I am back." She said in pity for him. But her heart was breaking elsewhere.
"My Darlin', my Darlin'." He started whimpering like a little puppy.
"It's all right. Shhhh... now, now." She patted his hand to comfort him. The nurse stepped forward and gave him a sleeping draught, to calm his nerves. "You sleep now, I will be back later." Hannah stood up and kissed his forehead.
She went to her room.
Everything looked so strange. She did not recognize a thing. The maid Betzy stood at the doorway. "We never touch notin' Miss. Chamber-lane. We keeps every tang jus da ways you lef it."
"Thank you Betzy. That is very kind." Not looking at Betzy, in hardly a whisper Hannah said in a haze, as she ran her fingers gently over everything. Her vanity with all her perfume bottles, pearl and diamond necklaces, rings. Then she ran her fingers over the drapery. The soft silk underneath her finger tips.
All this luxury and softness and elegance, all forgotten in that 'other world' that she had travelled to. Then to her canopy bed covered in silks and the finest Egyptian cotton. She slowly lay on the bed crosswise, pulled a throw over herself. She then started to weep and did not stop until sleep captured her hours later.
The housekeeper brought a tray to her bed the next morning. Tea and crumpets, homemade jam, soft boiled eggs. Everything the way that she had it every morning since she married and before her voyage.
