Somerset

by Leila Meacham

  Those positions, along with others vacated by the commander’s sweep, were filled with northern carpetbaggers, termed so because most arrived carrying all they possessed in fabric bags. These persons swooped in to buy destitute farms and plantations and cattle ranches at a fraction of the cost they would have had to pay for the same property and labor in northern states. The county warily and resentfully waited to see what control they would exert over the residents in their new positions of power.

  An epidemic of yellow fever added to East Texas’s miseries the year of 1867 and a new foliage-eating pest called the army worm came to harass cotton farmers. Suffocating in the heat with windows closed to keep out mosquitoes, Jessica thought of Secretary of State William Seward’s purchase of Alaska from Russia that added 586,412 cold square miles to United States territory and wondered if it were possible to grow cotton there. The children were fretful, Thomas worried and irritable, Jessica weary from her depressing work in a charity hospital set up for Civil War veterans. Priscilla, on the other hand, appeared to have risen above it all, content on the cloud of her improved relations with her husband that gave her sway to exert more authority over the household.

  “Whatever are you doing, Jessica?”

  Jessica turned at the peremptory voice. Priscilla stood in the doorway of the pantry where Jessica had been counting the dwindling supply of staples still scarce after the war.

  “Why…” Jessica said, annoyed that she had to explain herself, “I believe you can see for yourself that I’m checking the larder for the food goods we have left.”

  “Isn’t that my job?”

  “It is if you would do it.”

  “I’ve been busy with the children.”

  “Which is why I’m doing it.”

  Such exchanges were not uncommon between them. Gone was the infatuated, intimidated girl who had come to them wide-eyed at the elegance and refinement of her in-laws—and before the arrival of Major Andrew Duncan and the freeing of certain inhibitions, from which Thomas had benefited.

  But October brought cooler weather and the announcement that Priscilla was again pregnant. A surprise visitor awaited Jessica the afternoon of her birthday. She was summoned to the parlor to find a spindle-limbed black woman of her age wearing one of the new princess gowns that eschewed crinolines and cages and gave her bantam, ungainly figure somewhat of a shape. The woman responded to Jessica’s open-mouthed astonishment with a wide grin. “You didn’t think I’d miss your fiftieth birthday, did you?” Tippy said.

  Chapter Seventy-One

  The DuMonts had been responsible for arranging the surprise visit and feted the two women in a birthday bash in their château-like mansion that recalled celebrations of the prewar decade. The attire of the guests was noticeably less fashionable and worse for wear, and the hoopless, softly bustled gowns of Camellia Warwick, Bess DuMont, and Tippy stood out like bright carousel ponies on a weathered merry-go-round.

  “The war has taken its toll,” Tippy commented later of the guests and the reduced number from Houston Avenue in attendance at the party.

  “As Silas predicted,” Jessica said.

  “I noticed the Davises were missing. Did they not come because I was one of the honorees?”

  “They did not come because they’re ashamed and extremely bitter over their diminished circumstances. I can understand and sympathize with their feelings to a point. They lost their son Jake in the war, such a sweet and good boy. Thomas and the boys miss him still. But Lorimer is responsible for his other losses. He fought Silas’s prediction that the Confederacy would lose to the North tooth and toenail and continued to buy land and slaves—on credit—when all reason said to wait for the war’s outcome. When he couldn’t meet his mortgage payments, all his property passed into control of a commission house in Galveston, including his home on Houston Avenue. The army general in charge of the district has leased it for himself and his officers, a further bitter pill for the Davises to swallow. They are not alone in their grief. Countless other prominent plantation families throughout East Texas have suffered the same fate.”

  Tippy shook her head sadly. “But Somerset has survived.”

  Jessica shrugged. “Silas saw to its survival for the sake of Thomas, and Thomas will see to it for the sake of his son. At three, Vernon already appears to be of the same weft and warp as his father. He begs to go with him when he leaves in the morning, but who knows but that the boy prefers his father’s company to a house full of women?”

  “The boy is like him,” Tippy said in her familiar, prophetic voice.

  Jessica felt the hairs rise on her forearms. She and Tippy were enjoying the fall sunshine on the front verandah where they had so often chatted, mindless of the neighbors’ outrage over one of their own being seen sipping tea with a Negro. Jessica sniffed at their disdain. Those who’d managed to hold on to their homes on Houston Avenue, with the exceptions of the DuMonts and Warwicks, should feel so financially privileged and socially connected as Tippy. Isabel, as she was now called, had become one of the most sought-after fashion designers in America. Her dress and accessory creations, designed for the garment manufacturing firm in New York where she’d first been employed, had been an instant hit and led to other, even more lucrative offers of positions in the world of haute couture. To be called haute couture (translated by Tippy to mean “high sewing”), a fashion house had to belong to the Syndical Chamber for Haute Couture in Paris, regulated by the French Department of Industry. Tippy designed for the only establishment in America that could claim membership in that august body. Her clients included the female members of the Astor and Vanderbilt and Morgan families, and she had become friends with Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of the notable Godey’s Lady’s Book and an important and influential arbiter of American taste.

  “I don’t know that I wanted to hear that,” Jessica said, passing over the cream.

  “That Vernon is like his father? Why not?”

  Jessica stirred her tea. How to answer Tippy? Her quandary was the same as when she returned to her journal after a long absence and did not know where to begin, but, unlike the blank pages, Tippy would listen and respond. Her oldest and only woman confidante would be leaving in the morning, taking the train to New Orleans and on to New York accompanied by Jeremy, who had business in the city. Jessica had only a few remaining hours to take advantage of her counsel.

  “Thomas followed in his father’s footsteps and married a woman he did not love on behalf of Somerset,” Jessica said.

  Tippy’s eyebrows rose in concert. Like her hair, they were gray, thin, and wispy. “Thomas appears to be as fortunate in that respect as Silas was in marrying you,” she said.

  “Oh, he’s grown to care for Priscilla enough.”

  Jessica heard a thump from inside the house near the parlor windows where they sat. The servants were moving furniture to clean the rugs. “Have you finished your tea?” she asked.

  Tippy peered into the contents of her cup. “Does it matter?”

  “No. Let’s take a stroll about the garden. The Lancasters and Yorks are showing their best right now.”

  Away from the house and the ears of the servants, Jessica told of the arrival of handsome and charismatic Major Duncan at a time when her son and daughter-in-law’s marriage was at a low ebb. “It was obvious to everyone but Thomas that he was taken with her,” she said, “and I’m afraid my daughter-in-law, attention-starved that she was, succumbed to his…interest.”

  “Did Thomas find out?”

  “No, thank God. It was right after the war. He had lost his father and was taken up with many concerns.”

  Tippy drew Jessica to a stop. “So what is the problem, Jessica? Their marriage seems none the worse, and from what you’ve said of Priscilla’s frigidity, Major Duncan may have done Thomas a favor.”

  “Oh, I’m not condemning the girl for her affair, if she had one, and it’s not my son I’m thinking of.”

  “Who then?”

  “R
egina Elizabeth.”

  Comprehension flashed in the dark depths of Tippy’s immense eyes like a trout breaking water. “You mean—”

  “I do.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “I’m not sure.” They were at the garden gate. Jessica unlocked it and they entered. “Major Duncan and Priscilla may have simply had an intense flirtation. He may have only made her feel good about herself, freed her fears about sex. I doubt that was all there was to it, but it’s possible. Priscilla is an impressionable girl. But what if, by some quixotic quirk of fate, Thomas finds out about them? God have mercy! It would be worse than the house crashing around our ears. Thomas would never feel the same about the child. Tippy”—Jessica turned to her imploringly—“you know about these things. You’re from the stars. Will we ever know for sure Regina is a Toliver?”

  Tippy frowned as she reflected on the question. “I believe that in time all hidden things are revealed, Jessie, so yes, someday you’ll know, but I hope it won’t be too late for you to love her.”

  Startled, Jessica said, “What makes you say that? Of course I love the child.”

  “Not like you would if you knew for sure she carried your son’s blood.”

  Jessica turned away, shamefaced. “You always could see what others could not. Oh, God, Tippy. I’m so disgusted with myself, but I…When I look at her, I see the freckles and red hair of Major Duncan. I grew to dislike him. He took advantage of the situation and Priscilla let him. Even though I understand how and why it happened and no one seems the worse for it, I can’t help but see the child as the fruit of their deceit.”

  “You’re a mother, Jessie. You believe Priscilla, understandably or not, was unfaithful to your son, and that would naturally color your feelings for her and the child, but look at how you love Amy, Petunia’s daughter. She’s not of your blood or even your race.”

  “That is true, Tippy, but loving the child of a friend is not the same as loving a child of family. Regina is adorable, and I would never hold her mother’s indiscretion against her, but I simply cannot feel for her the bond of blood I feel with Vernon.”

  “You truly believe Regina is not Thomas’s, don’t you?”

  “I can’t shake the certainty of it, and you know I’ve never been one to give the benefit of the doubt where I believe there is none.”

  Tippy shook her head sadly. “A pity, my dear, for Regina will love you the most and seek your approval above all others.”

  Jessica looked over the red and white roses in her garden, their bobbing heads brilliant in the autumn sun. Would there ever come a time she would be forced to lay a red rose at her granddaughter’s feet? Regina, at six months, was already showing signs of Tippy’s prediction. Like the housecat that sought Jessica’s company when she felt no particular affinity for felines, it was to her grandmother that Regina held out her arms from the crib and parlor floor, in Jessica’s lap she stopped crying when no one else could console her.

  “Thomas loves his son,” Jessica said, “but he worships his daughter, and so does Vernon. I don’t want to think about their pain or Regina’s if what I believe to be the truth is ever discovered.” She closed her eyes. “But for Somerset, Thomas would never have married Priscilla. I’ve always worried that there will be a reckoning for that decision somewhere along the way. I so hope it will not be Regina who’ll bear the brunt of it.”

  “No reckoning befell Silas for marrying you, Jessica.”

  Jessica’s mirthless laugh cut the crisp air like a knife. “Oh, but it did, Tippy. Oh, but it did.”

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  A soft tap on her door roused Jessica from her journal. Amy, bringing her midmorning tea, she thought. The child was seventeen and had become indispensable to the household. Jessica had offered to send her to Oberlin College in Ohio, the first institution of higher learning to admit women and blacks, but Amy had refused. Her place was here, she said. She enjoyed her life and living “among books and flowers and those I love and need to see after,” but Jessica suspected a love interest involved. Amy was “stepping out” with the DuMonts’ groundskeeper, and a wedding looked certain in the future. A waste, Jessica had thought, feeling guilty that she had helped create the bond Amy refused to break. She especially felt bad that Amy believed her one of those who needed seeing after.

  Amy’s and her mother’s devotion to Jessica were among the numerous festering points with which her daughter-in-law had had to contend with the passing of the years, and Jessica’s position in the household had subtly altered. More and more, she had begun staying in her room until later in the morning.

  The date heading the new page in her diary stared back at her. November 7, 1873. Where had all the years gone? Her son was thirty-six, Vernon eight, and David, her newest grandson, five. Regina was…six, Jessica recalled. She set down her pen.

  “Come in, Amy.”

  No response. Puzzled, Jessica got up from her desk. Perhaps Amy needed help with the tea tray. The little pale, freckled face that greeted her when Jessica opened the door was Regina’s, a precedent. Her granddaughter had never come to her room before.

  “Good morning, Granmama,” she said, staring up at Jessica out of eyes large with uncertainty of her welcome.

  The look pierced Jessica’s heart. What was there about her, what did she do or say for the little girl to doubt her grandmother’s pleasure in her company? “Good morning, Regina. What brings you to my door this morning?”

  “I…came to bring you a present.”

  “A present?” Jessica said in a tone to convey happy surprise. “Well, come in and let’s see what you have brought.” She smiled and offered her hand, and the little girl slipped hers into it. It was a delicate, finely modeled hand. No one in the family quite had the hands of Regina. “You’re just in time for tea. Amy will be bringing it shortly. We’ll put a lot of milk and sugar in it so your mother won’t object to the caffeine.”

  “That would be very good,” Regina said.

  Amused—the child had begun parroting her phrases—Jessica suggested, “Shall we sit at the tea table to get the light from the window?”

  “That would be very good,” Regina said, placing the handkerchief-wrapped gift on the table. She took her seat, carefully arranging the elaborately ruffled skirt of her silken dress, her back held straight. Her mother already had the child in stays and dressed her in the latest selection of children’s wear from the recently renamed DuMont Department Store. “Would you like to open your present?” Regina asked.

  “I would.” Jessica unfolded the lacy square of cloth to find a pack of Adams No. 1 chewing gum. The concoction had just last year come on the market and had, of all people, the notorious General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna to thank for its discovery. Newspaper articles described the popular new treat as having come about when the former dictator, living in exile in New Jersey, sold a supply of chicle he’d brought from Mexico to Thomas Adams, an inventor, as a substitute for rubber. The inventor noticed that Santa Anna liked to chew chicle, a natural latex gum substance found in evergreen trees in Central America. Having failed in his efforts to harden the material for use in items requiring rubber, Thomas Adams one day chewed a wad of his stock, found he liked it, and boiled a batch to create the marketable phenomenon Jessica held in her hand.

  “Oh my, what a treat!” she said, feigning pleasure at sight of the black, flavorless “stretch and snap” preparation that had become all the rage.

  “I bought it for you from Monsieur DuMont’s store with my pocket money,” Regina said proudly.

  “How thoughtful of you to think of me,” Jessica said, hoping the child did not expect her to chew the beastly stuff in her presence. She heard the rattle of china in the corridor—Amy at last with the tea. Jessica would invite her to stay. Unlike Petunia, Amy doted on the little girl, and the tea would give her and her granddaughter something to talk about, to do.

  Regina’s eyes strayed curiously toward Jessica’s desk. “Are you writ
ing a book?” she asked shyly.

  “Sort of. It’s a diary.”

  “What is a diary, may I ask?”

  “You may. It’s a record of happenings in a person’s life.”

  “Happenings?”

  “Events that occur in one’s daily existence and in those of family and friends and in the household and town and one’s personal feelings about them. It’s a written record of memories.”

  “Do you write about Mama and Daddy?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Vernon and David?”

  Jessica hesitated. She knew where this conversation was leading. “Yes,” she said.

  Tentatively, her look shy, the little girl asked, “Do you ever write about me?”

  “Yes,” Jessica answered truthfully. “Often.”

  The child’s face lit up. “Really? What do you write?”

  “That you are a very sweet and tender child with perfect manners and deportment that you’ve certainly not inherited from the Tolivers.”

  Regina laughed gleefully, showing fine small teeth and a little pink tongue. “But Daddy says I am you, straight and true,” she said, sobering slightly. “And I want to be like you.”

  Jessica was stumped for a response. Gratefully, she greeted Amy, bearing the tea tray. “I have a visitor for tea,” Jessica said and was about to ask Amy to join them when the look on Regina’s face—a plea—stopped her. Don’t ask her to stay, it begged, as if the child had read her intent. “Would you please bring us one more cup?” Jessica said. “And add some cookies, too. Regina and I are going to have a tea party.”