Somerset

by Leila Meacham

  Shocked and angry at herself, bewildered, she’d escaped quickly inside before he saw her and mistakenly believed she was eager to see him. By the time she met him for tea in the small parlor, she’d set her face against him. Uninspired by his reception, Silas was no less impassive to her. There was no sign he was aware of the significance of the date. He had come to give her a list of dos and don’ts to consider in preparations for the trip and outfitting her Conestoga wagon, delivered the day before. Apparently they were not to occupy the same “camel of the prairie,” as the vehicle was called. Her father had bought her and Silas their individual wagons as a wedding present. The scandal that the married couple was not cohabiting—now fodder for every gossipmonger in South Carolina—would travel with them to Texas.

  “Well, frankly, I hope your husband has forgotten about you,” Eunice said. “There is no telling what the train will run into in Texas, even if you make it there. Elizabeth agrees. She’s frightened out of her mind for Joshua.”

  Jessica turned away from the mirror where she’d been adjusting her bonnet to prevent her mother from reading her same worry. The Charleston Courier weekly carried news of the rebellion in Texas, and yesterday they had read a report that 6,000 Mexican soldiers led by Santa Anna, Mexico’s ruthless military commander, had crossed the border of the Rio Grande to crush the Texian forces once and for all. Silas had estimated that the trip to Texas would take five months, barring disastrous delays, which would place the date of their arrival at the site of their land grant no later than the end of July. But what would they find when they got there? Burned lands? Hostile Mexican soldiers waiting to take them prisoner? Would their land grants even be honored?

  She shrugged off the flurry of worries for her more immediate concern and asked, “Where is Tippy? She’s to go with me to Queenscrown. I want her to see the look on the boy’s face when I present him his toys.”

  “For God’s sakes!” Eunice moaned. “Must Tippy share everything? This is to be a private moment between you and your stepson and Elizabeth when you meet her as her daughter-in-law. What will you do if Elizabeth invites you to stay for tea? Will you insist Tippy share that, too? Spare the girl and allow her to remain here.”

  “Tippy will take herself off to the kitchen on her own accord, Mama,” Jessica said, picking up the sack. “To spare me, she respects the place others have assigned her. I don’t want her to miss the boy’s reaction.”

  Silas felt a small start when he recognized the Wyndham coat of arms on the two-seater, single-horse trap tied before the verandah of Queenscrown. It was not a conveyance he’d think favored by the Wyndham men. It must be Eunice Wyndham come to offer an olive leaf to her old friend and her daughter’s mother-in-law after a strained stand-off between the two plantations. Or—surely not—could it be Jessica come to call?

  Silas hastily dismounted and slapped his horse’s flank. The gelding took off for the groom to look after when he reached the stables.

  The sound of voices came from the drawing room—voices threaded with laughter he had not heard in a long time. Silas peered around the door to see Jessica and her maid sitting on the floor with his son, gazing on as he stacked little blocks of colored wood on top of one another. His mother watched the activities from her chair before the fire, looking amused despite that it was not Lettie on the floor playing with her grandson.

  “A, B, C—what follows C, Joshua?” Jessica was saying.

  “D!” his son squealed delightedly. “My uncle Morris taught me!”

  Tippy, the maid, applauded with her floppy hands. “You is so smart!” she cried.

  “I know it,” Joshua said matter-of-factly. “Can we make a farm?”

  “Of course,” Jessica said.

  Silas cleared his throat and stepped forward. “May I join the party?”

  Joshua, seeing him, jumped to his feet. “Papa! Papa! Come look what Jessica and Tippy have brought me!” He grabbed his father’s hand and pulled him to the scattering of colored blocks on the floor. “There are numbers and pictures, and I can build a farm with animals and everything! See?” Joshua grabbed up a barn and a cow for his father’s inspection.

  “I see,” Silas said.

  “And, look, look!” Joshua straddled the stick horse. “I have a pony with a real head. Gee haw, horse! Gee haw!” And with a whoop and a cry he galloped off to ride the terrain of the room on his handsome-headed stallion.

  Jessica had gotten to her feet. Tippy, too, had hopped up. The maid folded her hands before her apron and stepped back from the group into the dusky shadows of the room, her head down.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Toliver,” Jessica said, adjusting the folds of her dress. “I hope you do not mind the intrusion into your home.”

  “It is a visit most welcome, Miss Wyndham.”

  “The toys were an idea I had that Tippy made possible as a means to introduce myself to your son.”

  “A very gracious gesture, Miss Wyndham.”

  Joshua reined his pony in beside them. “Jessica. Her name is Jessica, Papa. She and Tippy are going with us to Texas.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Silas said, his eyes holding Jessica’s.

  Elizabeth rose from her chair. “Let us be off to the kitchen to see about tea, Tippy, and perhaps you can show our cook how to cut the sandwiches in those designs that were served at Miss Jessica’s birthday party.”

  “I be happy to,” Tippy said.

  Joshua was back on the floor engrossed with the blocks, his horse temporarily hitched. “Thank you,” Silas said to Jessica, taking her by the elbow and drawing her from his son’s play. “I…didn’t quite know how to arrange a meeting between you and Joshua. It should have happened sooner. Forgive my irresolution.”

  Jessica waved away his apology. “Perfectly understandable, Mr. Toliver. Your son is adorable. I believe we’ll become very good friends.”

  “Does he know you’re…my wife?”

  “I thought it less confusing for him not to know yet. Our…situation will easily conceal the fact until the time is suitable to disclose it to him.”

  “Very wise…Jessica.”

  She smiled slightly, a flickering light quickly extinguished, but not too soon for Silas to see its benefit to her face. “Silas…” Jessica said his name musingly. “I’ll have to get used to calling you that.”

  “It will not be as hard as hearing yourself referred to as Mrs. Toliver.”

  “Not any more so than believing I am,” Jessica said, and Silas understood the cause of her blush. She had wandered into marital territory in which they might never venture. The possibility—probability—of their never sharing a bed was fine by him. He had his heir to Somerset.

  “I’m glad you came over,” he said. “I was meaning to come by tomorrow with information which should make you very happy.”

  A leap of panic flashed in her dark eyes. “You’re not canceling the trip, are you?”

  Curious, surprised by her reaction, he asked, “Would that make you happy?”

  She looked perplexed, but only momentarily. Silas saw her quick mind make short work of her confusion. “I dare say that would put us in a pickle neither of us would prefer, so by logic that news would not make me happy. I was silly to ask such a question.”

  “I can’t imagine you ever being silly, Jessica. The information is this: Our route will take us to New Orleans, and I propose that you stay comfortably there in a hotel with Joshua until I can get the lay of the land in Texas. Of course your maid will remain with you. When all is well, I will send for you. You will like the Winthorp. I’ve stayed there before. It is in the Garden District and run by an English couple who understand the niceties of southern hospitality. I’ll give you the address to leave with your mother and friends in case they wish to mail you letters there.”

  Silas had expected to see her blow out a breath of relief. Instead, her small, freckled face tightened. “Of course I will stay behind for Joshua’s sake,” she said, her voice thick with what sounded like
disappointment. “I’m sure you’re worried about the danger to him.” She raised her chin to a lofty angle and turned away from him. “It really is time we were getting home. If you’ll be kind enough to direct me to the kitchen, I’ll go fetch Tippy.”

  Silas was astonished to see that he had somehow wounded her. Her hurt feelings were as easy to perceive as the bright blocks scattered on the floor. Lord have mercy, what had he said to injure her so? At a loss, flustered, he inquired, “Are you all packed and ready for departure? Remember that three-quarters of your wagon is to be reserved for supplies.”

  The one time he’d seen her since their marriage, he had strongly advised her not to bring anything along she could live without. Later, when they were established, things could be shipped to their settlement upriver from the Gulf of Mexico, he’d told her. As a leader of the wagon train, he had met many times with his group and preached keeping their conveyances as light as possible. Guidebooks, newspaper articles, and letters from those who had already made the five-month journey told of settlers having to discard nonessential items to lighten loads because of various problems with terrain or in case of emergency. The trails west were littered with abandoned items—furniture, clothes, bedding, books, equipment, musical instruments—that travelers coming after them found and picked up for their own use. He had left Jessica a list of suggested substitutes for heavier and less practical items, such as candles in lieu of oil and a few sets of sturdy, warm clothing rather than trunks full of silk and satin finery. Silas was sure that half of Jessica’s elegant possessions would be left in the wake of the wagon train.

  “I am ready, Mr. Toliver,” Jessica said crisply. “You may rest your concerns about that, and I am relieved that news of that dreadful despot bent on humbling the Texians has not dampened your will to go. At this point, I am ready to say to Plantation Alley, Willow Grove, my family, and the whole state of South Carolina what Mr. David Crockett said to his constituents when he was defeated for reelection to Congress: ‘You may all go to hell. I am going to Texas.’”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  A pall fell over the three leading manor houses of Plantation Alley. In each household, owners and servants moved quieter, talked in soberer voices as the final days approached for the departure of the wagon train. The youngest member of each family, nurtured and thought of as “the baby” from infancy, was about to set forth into unknown territory rife with danger and hardship. God only knew when, or if, they were likely to be seen again. At Meadowlands, Jeremy’s favorite foods began to appear on the table, picked at by his father and brothers, energetic, talkative men grown uncharacteristically taciturn and short-tempered.

  Jessica released Tippy to be with her mother in her quarters at night. In the bed they shared, Willie May lay on her side next to Tippy’s back and stroked her daughter’s hair. It puffed around her head as fine as gossamer and thin as cobwebs. An ear stuck out like a conch shell washed up on the shore, and sometimes Willie May pressed hers to it, as if expecting to hear the sound of the sea. Most nights she lay awake until early dawn listening to her daughter’s breathing, storing its rhythm in memory, worrying about the defect of her child’s missing lung as tears trickled into the neck of her night shift.

  At Queenscrown, Elizabeth’s cold manner toward her younger son thawed. She knocked on his room door one evening when he and Jeremy were visiting. Before Silas could open it, she bustled in to interrupt the men, who, as she’d expected, were discussing the forthcoming journey. “Oh, good. I’ve caught you in time, Jeremy,” she said as they hastily rose. “May I sit? I have a proposal.”

  “Oh, Mother, not again,” Silas moaned as he and Jeremy retook their seats.

  “I’ve not come riding that old horse, Silas,” Elizabeth said. She sat down and folded her hands before her in the manner of a schoolmarm about to deliver a lecture. She had not seen Jeremy to speak to in some time. Elizabeth noticed that he did not ask how her roses grew. He knew very well her garden contained nothing but thorns. It was about that subject that she had come to speak.

  “I wish to propose that each of you carry the roses of your ancestors to your new land as your forebears carefully brought them from England to be replanted in South Carolina. They are a symbol of your heritage, and I…” Tears welled; Elizabeth’s voice trembled. “I could not bear to think you will have nothing tangible by which to remember your family. You boys will have your memories, but your children…Joshua and the children I will never see…will have nothing.” She whipped a handkerchief from the pocket of her dress and dabbed at her eyes while the two men looked on in helpless embarrassment. “Your mother would advise you the same, Jeremy, God rest her sweet soul. She so prized her Yorkist roses as I do my Lancasters.”

  Elizabeth had expected an objection from Silas—space was scarce in the wagons—but to her surprise, he nodded agreement. “A splendid idea, Mother. I should have thought of the roses myself. I was planning on asking for the portrait of the Duke of Somerset to take with me.”

  “We’ll have to ask Morris, but I’m sure he’ll agree,” Elizabeth said. “He doesn’t place the stock in his forebears as you do.”

  Jeremy had risen to his feet again. He took Elizabeth’s hand and bowed over the network of blue veins. “I agree with Silas,” he said. “A wonderful thought. I’ll have our gardener see to it. He’s a master at tending the roses now that my mother has gone.”

  “I’ll come over and personally oversee the digging up. The roots must be wrapped carefully in burlap and kept moist,” Elizabeth said.

  “I’d be most grateful,” Jeremy said. “Good night, Silas. I’ll see my way out.”

  Alone together for the first time since Silas had declared his intention to marry Jessica, mother and son regarded each other, the merrily crackling fire mocking their awkward silence. After a moment, Elizabeth said, “I’m not going to see you and Joshua off, Silas. I simply can’t. You understand?”

  “I do, Mother.”

  “You go without my blessing, you know that, but you will always have my love.”

  “I know, Mother.”

  “But you go with your father’s blessing. I couldn’t let you leave without telling you that.”

  Silas’s gaze flickered skeptically. His mouth arched in derision. “You’ve had some communication with Papa from the grave?” But at the flare of pain he saw in his mother’s expression, he added more gently, “Or is this some new knowledge from your mother’s heart?”

  “From neither,” Elizabeth said. “By leaving you out of his will, your father all but pushed you on your way to pursue the dream you’ve had since you were a boy. He knew you’d never stay here to obey your brother’s commands, and that’s why he left you with no choice but to leave. What he didn’t know was the lengths to which you’d go to do so.”

  Elizabeth got up while Silas, his brow drawn, reflected on this new information. “It is hard for you to believe your father loved you, Silas, but he did. I can only hope his machinations will not result in fate taking an unkind view of yours. Ill-begotten gains always have a way of costing more than they’re worth.”

  Elizabeth turned with a sway of dark wool toward the door. “Good night, my son. Oh, and by the way…you may have wondered where Morris has gotten himself off to.”

  Silas, disconcerted, said, “I’ve been too busy with last-minute preparations to concern myself with Morris’s whereabouts.”

  Elizabeth’s lips twitched. “It seems he, too, cannot bear to say good-bye. He loves Joshua as his own, you know. He’s with the only person who can comfort him in his coming loss. They share a mutual pain. Morris has gone to Savannah…to be with Lettie.”

  “Tippy, do you think it’s possible to love a man you don’t respect or like?”

  “How would I know about such things, Miss Jessie? I’se had no experience lovin’ nobody but you and my mama.”

  “Because you were born a celestial being that ended up in your mama’s womb, and you know everything.”

>   They had almost reached the Yard, a half-mile from the Main House, on this the next-to-the-last day before they might never see Willowshire again. The sun was warm, the air balmy for this date in February, perfect for a final stroll over the grounds and through the plantation compound to bid farewell to the only home they’d ever known.

  “Well, then, seems to me it’s possible, like a wildflower growin’ out of rock. Can’t make no sense of it. Nothin’ there to feed it.” Tippy eyed Jessica quizzically. “Youse speaking of Mistah Silas?”

  “I’m speaking of Mister Silas,” Jessica admitted, blushing. “And there most certainly isn’t anything there to feed it. I have no idea where this…ridiculous feeling has sprung from. My…​husband traded the most wonderful and lovely woman in the world—my beloved friend—for a piece of land, Tippy. How could I not hate him for that alone?”

  “I’se don’t know, Miss Jessie, but some wildflowers, they impossible to kill. Youse might think you pull ’em up by de roots, but they be back next year.”

  Jessica hated it when her friend spoke in the dialect of the field Negro, but they were within earshot of the open doors of the slave cabins, and Tippy was determined to give her mistress’s father no further cause to find disfavor with his daughter. When they left here, though, Tippy would never have to talk beneath the level of her literacy again, no matter what Mr. Silas Toliver dictated. Before Jessica could deliver this assurance, her attention was diverted by a restless gathering in the Yard. Something had drawn the slaves to a point of interest in its center.

  “What do you suppose the commotion is all about?” Jessica wondered aloud, and then, as the group parted at her approach, she saw.

  “You cannot let her go, Carson. You simply can’t. She’s our daughter, our only daughter.” Eunice’s emphasis was clear. Jessica would have had a sister, but she had died minutes after birth.