Perish from the Earth

by Jonathan F. Putnam

  “What are you suggesting? That Mr. Roman sent Pemberton to kill Jones and make it look like Bingham committed the crime? It seems farfetched.”

  “I don’t see why. When Roman learned his daughter had formed an understanding with Bingham, he must have been furious—”

  “But Bingham told you and Lincoln he’d accepted him,” protested Martha. “Subject to conditions, but accepted nonetheless.”

  Our horses picked their way through a swampy lowland and then resumed their canter. “Maybe Bingham was lying to us,” I said. “Or maybe Roman merely pretended to be accepting to appease his daughter. Either way, Roman’s determined to prevent Bingham from marrying Tessie. And he sends Pemberton to make sure he couldn’t.”

  “He could have had Pemberton kill Bingham, if he’s truly devious,” suggested Martha. “But maybe he feared it would have been too obvious to Tessie, so instead he ordered Pemberton to kill Jones in circumstances making Bingham look guilty.”

  I shook my head. “Anything’s possible, I suppose. We’re pretty far into conjecture at this point.”

  The sun was playing with the edge of the tree line now, its rays flickering in our eyes as we rode like the beat of a hummingbird’s wings. I pulled my straw hat low to shield my eyes. I hoped we would reach the Roman estate before the daylight was completely lost.

  “Are you going to confront Pemberton when we reach Roman Hall?” Martha asked a little while later. She was riding sidesaddle with grace and precision, the faint breeze ruffling her skirts.

  “He’ll never admit anything. Besides, he’s just the henchman. We need Tessie and her father if we’re to find evidence helpful to Bingham. We’ve got to bring back actual proof Lincoln can use in court.”

  We rode through a forest of longleaf pine, the skinny trunks, tall and erect, growing closely together. At some point, we crossed an invisible line and entered into the sovereign state of Mississippi. The pine forest gradually ebbed, giving way to an alluvial plain. We could almost feel the land tilting toward the surrounding waters—the great river nearby to our west and the great gulf that still lay four hundred miles to our south. Twilight began its descent. The sound of our horses’ hooves became richer, mellower, as they beat through the dark, silty river soil deposited since ancient times.

  Finally, two long rows of adolescent oak trees loomed ahead of us on the other side of a gently flowing creek. We led our horses carefully through the rocky stream bed and began riding up the alley between the trees, at the far end of which we could barely make out a grand, columned plantation house. As we neared, we saw the shadowy figure of a groom—no doubt roused by the hoof-beats cutting through the gloaming—waiting to greet us.

  “Remember, we have only two days before we must be back on the river,” I said. “Two days to convince Tessie to come away with us. Though I’m not sure how we’re going to persuade Jacques Roman to allow us to leave with his precious daughter. After all, we suspect he had one of her prior suitors killed and another implicated for the murder.”

  Martha clicked her tongue dismissively. “It’s obvious, isn’t it?” she said. “Colonel Ferguson had it right. You’re going to have to court Tessie Roman.”

  CHAPTER 20

  As the liveried Negro groom led our horses to the stable, we contemplated the imposing house in front of us. It had been designed to project wealth and power, constructed in the style reminiscent of the buildings of ancient Greece, with a front portico comprising six two-story fluted columns.

  “We’ll tell Jacques Roman that we’re Jones’s cousins, brother and sister,” I murmured to Martha. “We’re touring the region, looking for a suitable place where I can organize an estate with your housekeeping. Jones suggested we’d be well-received here. We haven’t any notion of his fate.”

  I pounded on the ebony-wood front door.

  The door was opened by a liveried house slave, and I affected my best Jones-family pose. Soon thereafter, we found ourselves in the smoking room of Jacques Roman. Severe portraits of distinguished ancestors looked down from the richly papered walls. The cotton baron himself was the room’s only other living occupant.

  “I am glad to hear young Jones spoke highly of Roman Hall,” the house master said in a nasal voice when I had finished explaining our unexpected arrival. He was of medium build, with a high forehead and a voluminous, curiously rounded beard that ignored his chin and instead clung to the underside of his jaw like the bushy strap of a baby’s bonnet.

  “We’re ever so sorry to have arrived without notice and so late in the evening too,” said Martha, blushing for effect. “Our mother would be aghast. It’s all my fault. We were hoping to make it to Memphis today, but I was so admiring of the scenery in your county that I made us ride too slowly. It was getting dark, and my brother insisted we find a place to lodge for the night. And then we remembered what John W. had written about the unmatched kindness he’d enjoyed here.”

  “Mrs. Roman gets the credit,” Roman said. A hard look flashed through his coal-black eyes, and I felt I knew what Colonel Ferguson meant about the perils of facing Jacques Roman across a negotiating table. “I fear you’ll have to wait until morning to experience it yourself. Mrs. Roman is off in town this evening, along with our eldest children. I’m on my own, and I’ve been told I’m not very good company.” His glare told me there was no need to bother trying to contradict him.

  The cotton baron shook a polished silver bell, and another uniformed house servant, an older woman he referred to as Winney, appeared a few seconds later. At Roman’s direction, she led us away to a guest room in which to spend the night.

  The next morning, I awoke long before Martha. I slipped out of bed, dressed, and made my way down a grand staircase. I wandered around the sprawling first floor of the mansion and, after a few false starts, eventually located the breakfast room.

  A young man about my age was seated at a vast mahogany table, his face buried in the pages of a newspaper. When I cleared my throat, he looked up, and I saw a younger copy of Jacques Roman, right down to the curiously rounded beard.

  “Who are you?” he asked in a challenge that was not altogether unwelcoming.

  “Joshua Fry—er, Joshua Fry Jones,” I said. “I think you will have met my cousin, John W. Jones, when he stayed here a few weeks ago. Your father was kind enough to give my sister and me a place to stay last night when we showed up unannounced.”

  “Join me.” He pointed toward an empty chair opposite him. “Will your sister be down presently, or would she prefer to be served in her room?”

  “The latter, I’m sure.”

  Ignoring the silver bell on the middle of the table, the younger Roman bellowed, “Winney!” The same house servant as last night appeared, and he directed her to bring me a plate of breakfast and to take one up to my sister when she rose.

  “Thank you kindly, Mr. Roman,” I said.

  “There’s only one ‘Mr. Roman’ in Tunica County, and it’s not me,” he said with a smile. “Call me Telesphore. What are you and your sister doing in our parts?”

  I explained about our search for the site of a new plantation.

  “You’re not planning to enter into competition with my father, are you?”

  “Certainly not. In Tennessee, we’ve always found cooperation among the largest planters, in setting the market and dictating the terms of sale, to be the more sensible policy.”

  Telesphore nodded and resumed his study of the newspaper. After a few minutes, he looked up and said, “I’d be happy to show you around myself if you desire. You look a fair fellow. Hardier than your cousin, I’d say. Maybe we’ll even find time to go looking for some fox squirrels. You a good shot?”

  “There’s none better in Nashville.”

  “I’ll take it as a challenge,” he said with a laugh. “I accept.”

  “Who’s this?” came a feminine voice from the doorway.

  I looked up and my breath caught. A living, breathing embodiment of Bingham’s drawing of Tessie
stood before me. She had a soft, oval face framed by light brown hair, which had been dressed into elaborate curls. Her dress was velvet and red, low on her neck and gathered around her shoulders and bust. The artist had, I thought at once, greatly understated the beauty of his subject.

  “It’s another Jones,” said Telesphore with good humor. “This one’s Joshua Fry Jones. I like him better than the last one already.”

  “You don’t look anything like your brother,” Tessie said with disarming directness.

  “Not a brother but a cousin,” I said, rising to make a formal bow. “Cousin in the second degree, actually. But we’re close, and he wrote to tell me what a pleasant time he had when he stayed at Roman Hall on his way home to Ames Manor from the cotton brokers in New Orleans.” I hoped fervently that my familiarity with Jones’s itinerary would cover for the lack of family resemblance Tessie had spotted at once.

  “How is Mr. Jones?” asked Tessie. “Pray, ignore my brother—we had ever so much fun when he visited.”

  “Back to the employ of his brother and the old man, I imagine.” I sneaked a look at Telesphore, but he did not show any particular interest in Jones’s whereabouts or well-being. “Got to make sure the fields are turned over for next year’s planting.”

  The slave woman arrived with my food, and after placing a plate before me, she helped Tessie settle her skirts at her place at the table.

  “I’m surprised you recall Jones’s visit at all,” Telesphore said to his sister once the slave had departed, “since the fair Mr. Bingham was on the plantation grounds at the same time.” Telesphore turned to me and added, “A traveling artist, whom Tessie thinks is going to make her his wife.” He raised his eyebrows in exaggerated disbelief.

  “Do you know Mr. Bingham as well?” Tessie asked me earnestly.

  “I’ve never met the man. But if you’re referring to the famous portraitist from St. Louis, of course I’ve heard of him. Pretty much everyone within a week’s steaming of his St. Louis studio has, I should think.”

  Tessie clapped her hands together with delight. “See!” she said to her brother. “I told you it’s so.” Addressing me, she added, “You’ve got to repeat that to my father when he returns this evening. He’s been prejudiced against George from the start. For no good reason.”

  “Not having any money or any prospects of obtaining money is a very good reason to oppose a potential match with his eldest daughter,” Telesphore said. “Famous artist or not.”

  “I can’t believe you’re taking his side,” replied Tessie, turning away from her brother with a huff.

  As I ate my pork and boiled eggs, I contemplated that Tessie would need little persuading to aid Bingham’s cause when we told her of his straits. I felt a pang of jealousy at Bingham’s good fortune.

  “You and your sister will have to join the party we’re having at Roman Hall this evening,” said Tessie a little while later, when she’d been restored to good humor.

  “We’d be delighted, if it’s not too much trouble.” I had seen a suitable fancy coat in the bags Martha had packed for me, and I silently gave thanks for her farsightedness.

  “Of course it’s not too much trouble. Mother loves opening our house to our neighbors, and Father tolerates it for her sake. We’re expecting several dozen persons this evening. Certainly not the grandest affair we see, but it should be an amusing occasion.”

  “There’ll be plenty of amusements for you and me, Jones,” said Telesphore with a wink.

  Later in the day, Telesphore took me riding to several possible building sites for my would-be estate. He was a cheerful and manly companion. In the course of our ride, I learned a few things of interest: that Telesphore’s highest aspiration was to carry on his father’s work at Roman Hall; that Jacques Roman had told his son he would not, under any circumstances, countenance Tessie’s marriage to “the damn draftsman,” meaning the artist Bingham; and that Jacques was keen for Tessie’s betrothal to a proper suitor if, as Telesphore put it, “the terms of exchange satisfied.”

  This last lesson was at the forefront of my mind as I returned to our bedroom to dress for the party. With the aid of a female servant, Martha was finishing encasing herself in a pink chiffon gown with billowing sleeves and skirts and a cinched waist.

  “How have you spent your day?” I asked.

  “Becoming fast friends with Tessie. We have a lot in common, it turns out, except for the fact that she’s the eldest daughter of her father and I’m the second youngest of mine. There’s a lot more attention in her situation.”

  “You’ve put in a good word for me, I hope.”

  Martha appraised her costume in the looking glass and dismissed the servant with a gracious thank you. “As good as I could without stretching the truth beyond recognition.” Once the door had shut behind the servant, she added, “Although I doubt you’ll be able to give Mr. Bingham much of a run.”

  After I had finished changing out of my riding clothes and into my fancy coat, we headed out arm in arm. “Follow me,” Martha said, leading us away from the main staircase and down a side hall. We came to a stop in front of a painting hung at the top of winding back stairs. A candle on a bureau twenty feet away provided the sole illumination.

  “This is the only place her father would let her hang it,” said Martha.

  It did not take much imagination to suppose that the portrait of Tessie had been executed by a painter with an unusual interest in his subject. She leaned against a high-backed divan with her head resting against her left arm, staring out with an unabashed boldness. Her eyes sparkled and her lips were slightly parted, as if she were about to make a witty remark to the viewer—or in actuality, I thought, to the painter himself. Around her neck was a pendant with an enormous diamond.

  “She borrowed it from her mother for the sitting,” Martha said as she saw me gazing at the jewel. In a lower voice she added, “And she told me there’re drawings where that’s about all she’s wearing—drawings hidden away in her room.”

  A gaggle of small children came rushing up the back stairs and scampered past us, pursued by a harried-looking Negro nurse.

  “How many younger siblings do Tessie and Telesphore have?” I asked.

  “Seven, I think.” Martha counted the heads careening away from us down the hall. “That’s four. Perhaps the other three were allowed to stay downstairs for the start of the party.”

  We proceeded down the back stairs to find the party in full cry. The ballroom on the ground floor of the estate was decorated with autumn tree branches and wild flowers. The room was lit by flaming eucalyptus torches. Several dozen people milled about in festive dress: swirling gowns of pastel shades for the ladies and young women and smart black frockcoats for the men.

  Jacques Roman and his wife stood by the doorway, greeting each person as they entered. The lord of the manor wore a crimson sash and a put-upon smile; his wife, a small woman with a matronly velvet gown and a thread-lace hair covering, welcomed each newcomer with enthusiasm. She gave Martha a familiar kiss on the cheek, and when I presented myself, she made an elegant curtsy.

  “The renown of your gracious hospitality has spread far and wide, madam,” I said as I bowed low.

  “I understand you’re a cousin of the other Mr. Jones we had the pleasure to receive recently,” she returned. “We had the favor of his company during a most entertaining weekend.”

  Martha was pulling me toward the interior of the ballroom, but I realized at once this was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. I squeezed my sister’s hand and indicated she should go on without me.

  “That’s precisely what he told me,” I said to Mrs. Roman. “He wrote that there was even a riverboat captain at the gathering he had the pleasure to attend.”

  “A memorable gentleman,” Mrs. Roman said. “His tales of life on the waters kept the other ladies thoroughly amused.” Almost imperceptibly, she wrinkled her nose. “Though afterward, Mr. Roman and I each thought the other must have invited him. Isn�
��t that so, dear?” She turned to her husband, but he was engaged in conversation with another guest and seemed to be paying us no attention.

  “How so?” I asked.

  “Because neither of us had laid eyes on him or even heard his name before that weekend. Now if you’ll excuse me . . .” Mrs. Roman motioned toward a newly arrived guest, and I took my cue and moved along, my heart beating faster.

  Pound had told me he’d been invited as a long-standing acquaintance of Jacques Roman. Why had he lied to me? And why had he shown up, unannounced and uninvited, to a weekend party at Roman Hall?

  As I moved into the ballroom to find Martha in order to share this new revelation, I ran headlong into her. The stricken look on her face stopped me short.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Nanny Mae is here. Look!”

  Indeed, at that very moment, I saw the old woman coming toward us from across the ballroom. There was a determined look on her face and an Odd Fellow on her arm: Colonel Ferguson. The very two persons in the entire state who knew our true identities. I had time for a single gulp.

  “I hoped I’d find you here, Speeds!” Ferguson shouted heartily as they came up. He was wearing a fine gold chain featuring three interlocking links, with the initials F, L, and T, each inside a link. “And I understand you’re already acquainted with my companion for the evening.” He patted Nanny Mae’s hand; she looked at Martha and me with a frosty gaze.

  I racked my brain for a story that would match what each of them knew about us and our intentions.

  “Good evening, Colonel, Nanny Mae. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised to find both of you here, at such an august gathering.” I dropped my voice. “But I must humbly beg you to refer to me and my sister as Mr. and Miss Jones for the evening. In truth, we are here on a matter of confidential business, one concerning our father. I fear his position might be compromised were Jacques Roman to know our true identities.”