Somerset
Page 52
“You may,” Jessica said, thumbing through the pages whose contents had been distilled from the hundreds of journals and diaries she’d edited for the book. “A very handsome volume indeed and just in time for Christmas. Will you see to the delivery of the rest of my order to my home in Howbutker?”
“With pleasure, Mrs. Toliver. This book was a commission of great pride and enjoyment for us here at Hawks. As a Texan, I’m grateful you took the time and effort and trouble to leave us such a legacy.”
“I hope the founders’ families will share your appreciation,” Jessica said. “Roses is my Christmas present to them.”
Clutching her copy of the book, she wished the man happy holidays and walked out onto the sidewalk suddenly feeling a little crestfallen. Her project had turned out exactly as she’d hoped—better, even. The quality of the publication and the attention to detail showed that it had been in the hands of those who cared. A good firm, Hawks Publishing. But now that she’d completed her year’s mission, she felt like a balloon with its air expelled. What did one do with a deflated balloon?
Jessica wished for Jeremy’s company. He’d lighten her mood. He would take her to the Townsmen to celebrate, and she might even get a little tipsy on champagne, but he wouldn’t mind. She would have asked him to come with her on the train to Houston, but she hadn’t wanted to spoil the surprise of her present to him.
It was just as well, Jessica thought, searching the street for a hansom cab to take her to the railway station. She needed to get back to Howbutker anyway. Thomas worried so about her when she was off alone, and she wished to cause him no further distress. He had pleaded with her to wait until a time he could escort her, but that would have been too late for her purpose. It was the middle of November 1900. She would comfort herself with the thrill of accomplishment on the train journey home. It had been no small feat she’d achieved, Jacqueline would have said in praise.
Jacqueline.
Besides Jeremy and Tippy, her last best friend was gone. The pain of Jacqueline’s loss pierced through her every morning upon awakening, and Jessica knew from her grief at Silas’s death what Thomas must feel upon opening his eyes. Thank God for Mary. That beautiful baby had saved her son from drowning in sorrow.
Darla had arranged for his granddaughter to be made more available to him since Jessica’s little talk with her in the morning room. She set aside a period in the evening called “Granddaddy Thomas time” when Mary was placed in his arms to be rocked to sleep, and Miles sat at his knee to tell him about his day. Thomas’s recitation of “Mary Had a Little Lamb” led to the whole household, including Darla, referring to the baby as Mary Lamb.
Vernon credited the loosening of the maternal reins to his wife’s sensitivity to his father’s loss. Jessica couldn’t tell whether Darla’s charity was due to her husband’s appreciation for her thoughtfulness or was simply another strategy to dupe him, but her motives didn’t matter. She was nicer to live with. Darla relaxed other rules regarding the children, especially Mary, who had been permitted little contact with people outside of her parents. She turned the child’s daily care over to Sassie, who adored her, and did not shoo Miles’ friends, Percy Warwick and Ollie DuMont, away from the crib when they came to visit. Percy especially seemed enchanted by the black-haired little sister of his friend. He brought her toys and made funny faces to make her laugh and oftentimes Miles had to call him away to join him and his friends at play. Vernon had lost his bid to have Mary call him “Daddy,” but through no design of Darla’s. Mary had emulated her brother’s reference to him and gurgled “pa-pa,” which Vernon interpreted as baby language for “Papa.”
The temperature had dropped into the thirties while Jessica had been conducting her business, and she pulled the collar of her coat closer. Rain was threatening. She’d gone off without her umbrella, and naturally, no cab was in sight. She walked to the intersection, where a taxi was more likely to be had, but the rain caught her en route. She was drenched by the time she waved down a cabbie and got another dousing when she was let off at the train station. The conductor, a man of long acquaintance with her family, brought her a towel and a blanket and a cup of hot cocoa to stave off the shivers, but the morning after her arrival on Houston Avenue, Jessica awoke to a chest filled with congestion.
“It’s nothing,” she told a worried Thomas and Amy. “I’ve got lungs tough as a war horse’s.”
They believed her. To their recollection, Jessica had never had a cold. The box of her self-published books arrived by train the next evening. The station master was kind enough to have his son deliver them, and during the early hours of the next morning, to the accompaniment of a deep cough, Jessica set to work.
The DuMont Department Store was to introduce in December the lovely innovation of wrapping Christmas gifts in red and green tissue paper rather than in the brown parcel packaging ordinarily used. Jessica had purchased her order for the tissue early, and paper and ribbon were on hand to wrap and label copies of Roses for the head of each household of the founding families of Howbutker. There was one for Thomas, Jeremy Sr., and his sons, Jeremy Jr. and Stephen; and Armand and Abel and his bachelor brother, Jean. Two copies were reserved for the city library and state archives housed in Austin, and Jessica would mail one to Tippy.
“Amy,” Jessica said, back in bed and burning with fever, “I want you to see to it that that stack of gifts over there”—she indicated the chair piled with her red-and-green handiwork—“gets under the tree when the families gather for Christmas Eve.”
“Why, Miss Jessica,” Amy said, “you goin’ be doin’ that yourself jus’ the way you like.”
“No, Amy, I won’t.” Jessica thought of Tippy, born with only one “air bag” so she called it, still going strong at eighty-three. But then, Tippy had been born in the heart of a star and lived under celestial protection all of her life.
In her last days, delirious, her lungs full of infection beyond the scope of the times to cure, Jessica’s mind floated back to the past. She saw Silas again standing beneath the dark green leaves and waxy white blossoms of the magnolia tree in the courtyard of the Winthorp Hotel on the eve of saying good-bye. Joshua stood beside her wearing an oversized buckskin jacket. Those gathered round her bed wondered at her small, distant smile. Jeremy took her hand and held it to his heart. “She sees someone,” he said.
Acknowledgments
The suggestion that I write a prequel to Roses came from my husband. I had been beset by readers of my first novel asking if I planned to write a sequel to the story, but I had no inclination to continue the war of the roses. That narrative was done. However, when I heard my husband say that he’d like to know how the Warwicks, Tolivers, and DuMonts came to Texas, that idea intrigued me. How did those families get to Texas?
And so, to find an answer to the question, I began my research that took me along the road the family patriarchs must have traveled before Texas was even born. It has been an interesting and exciting journey. To those who went along with me, my thanks. You know who you are, but I will name some of you anyway. There is no particular order in which you offered the comfort of your support, interest, and encouragement, so I will begin with my husband, Arthur Richard Meacham III, who provided all three in abundance. Joining him were my dearest companions, Ann Ferguson Zeigler and Janice J. Thomson, without whom I’d write in a vacuum and my writing days would be lonely. Always, of course, I am thankful for my agent David McCormick, of McCormick and Williams Literary Agency, and Deb Futter, editor-in-chief of Grand Central Publishing, and her assistant, Dianne Choie, who are simply among the kindest and most helpful and knowledgeable in the business. Thanks, too, to my publisher, Jamie Raab, who I understand read the manuscript by flashlight in the midst of Hurricane Sandy and gave the go-ahead to publish. Also, I’d like to acknowledge Leslie Falk of McCormick and Williams whom I’ve never met but has always been a gentle and constant wind at my back. My gratitude, Leslie.
And to the fans and readers of m
y literary efforts everywhere, thank you one and all. I am in your debt.
Also by Leila Meacham
Roses
Tumbleweeds
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Dedication
Lineage of the Tolivers
Lineage of the Warwicks
Lineage of the Dumonts
Jasper's Lineage
Part OneChapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Part Two: 1836–1859Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Part Three: 1860–1879Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Chapter Seventy
Chapter Seventy-One
Chapter Seventy-Two
Chapter Seventy-Three
Chapter Seventy-Four
Part Four: 1880–1900Chapter Seventy-Five
Chapter Seventy-Six
Chapter Seventy-Seven
Chapter Seventy-Eight
Chapter Seventy-Nine
Chapter Eighty
Chapter Eighty-One
Chapter Eighty-Two
Chapter Eighty-Three
Chapter Eighty-Four
Chapter Eighty-Five
Chapter Eighty-Six
Chapter Eighty-Seven
Chapter Eighty-Eight
Chapter Eighty-Nine
Chapter Ninety
Chapter Ninety-One
Chapter Ninety-Two
Chapter Ninety-Three
Chapter Ninety-Four
Chapter Ninety-Five
Chapter Ninety-Six
Chapter Ninety-Seven
Chapter Ninety-Eight
Chapter Ninety-Nine
Acknowledgments
Also by Leila Meacham
Newsletters
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Leila Meacham
Cover design by Anne Twomey
Cover photograph by Sacco and Watt
Cover illustration by Alan Ayers
Handlettering by Jessica Hische
Cover copyright © 2014 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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First ebook edition: February 2014
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ISBN 978-1-4555-4737-1
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