Even if I’d tried to prevent Nina’s display at church that day, she would’ve pointed out that I, too, had spurned the Anglicans. Well, I had, but I’d done so to embrace the Presbyterians, whereas Nina would’ve spurned the Presbyterians, too, given half a chance. She hated them for what she called their “gall and wormwood.”
If there was a wedge between my sister and me, it was religion.
Over the last several years, it seemed my entire life had been possessed of swings between asceticism and indulgence. I’d banished society in the aftermath of Burke Williams, yes, but I’d been a chronic backslider, succumbing every season to some party or ball, which had left me empty and sickened, which had then sent me crawling back to God. Nina had often found me on my knees, weeping as I prayed, begging forgiveness, engaged in one of my excruciating bouts of self-contempt. “Why must you be like this?” she would shout.
Why, indeed.
Mr. Williams had been shaken from the lap of Charleston like a soiled napkin. He was married now to his cousin, keeping shop in his uncle’s dry goods store in Columbia. I’d put him behind me long ago, but I hadn’t been able to make peace with living here in this house till the end of my days. I had Nina, but not for much longer. As charismatic and beautiful as she was, she would be wooed by a dozen men and leave me here with Mother. It was the ubiquitous truth at the center of everything, and it had driven me to my backsliding. But there could be no more of that—at twenty-six I would be too old for the coming season. It was truly over, and I felt lost and miserable, galled and wormwood-ed, and there was nothing to be done about it.
Here in the drawing room, Reverend Gadsden looked reluctant and uncomfortable. He kept pursing and unpursing his lips. Nina sat erect beside me, as if to say, All right, let the castigation begin, but under the cover of our skirts, she reached for my hand.
“I’m here today because your mother asked me to reason with you. You gave us all a shock yesterday. It’s a grave thing to reject the church and her sacraments and salvation . . .”
He went on with his jabber, while Nina’s hand sweated into mine.
She saw my private agonies, but I saw hers, too. There was a place inside of her where it had all broken. The screams she’d heard coming from the Work House still inhabited her, and she would wake some nights, shouting into the dark. She put up an invincible show, but underneath I knew her to be bruised and vulnerable. After Mother’s scathing reprimands, she would vanish into her room for hours, emerging with her eyes bloodshot from weeping.
The reverend’s kind but tedious speech had been floating in and out of my awareness. “I must point out,” I heard him say, “that you are placing your soul in jeopardy.”
Nina spoke for the first time. “Pardon me, Reverend Sir, but the threat of hell will not move me.”
Mother sank her eyes closed. “Oh, Angelina, for the love of God.”
Nina had used the word hell. Even I was a little shocked by it. The rector sat back with resignation. He was done.
Naturally, Mother was not. “Your father lies gravely ill. Surely you know it’s his wish that you be confirmed into the church. It could well be his last wish. Would you deny him that?”
Nina squeezed my hand, struggling to hold on to herself.
“. . . Should she deny her conscience or her father?” I said.
Mother drew back as if I’d slapped her. “Are you going to sit there and encourage your sister’s disobedience?”
“I’m encouraging her to be true to her own scruples.”
“Her scruples?” The skin at Mother’s neck splotched like beetroot. She turned to the reverend. “As you see, Angelina is completely under Sarah’s sway. What Sarah thinks, Angelina thinks. What Sarah scruples, she scruples. It’s my own fault—I chose Sarah to be her godmother, and to this day, she leads the child astray.”