by Lyn Cote
“Leaving New Orleans?” Jewell looked and sounded stunned.
“I’m sure I wish you well in Texas. And I have brought you a token to remember me by.” He pulled a small red velvet box from his coat pocket and handed it to Jewell. Smoothly he lifted her free hand to his lips. And then he disappeared. Taking a large income, acres of bottom land, and nearly one hundred slaves away with him. Ringing the death knell to more than Dorritt’s hope of emancipation.
Dorritt and her sister didn’t move. Then Jewell turned slowly and stared at Dorritt. “What has happened?” Jewell’s voice was low, harsh, and accusatory.
Dorritt had known how precarious their finances were ever since the bank Panic of 1819. But she was saved from answering by her stepfather hustling into the room.
“Why did André leave so suddenly?” Mr. Kilbride asked, for once looking surprised, troubled.
Jewell didn’t move; she merely held the velvet box in her open palm.
“That’s odd,” her mother said, entering the room at her husband’s elbow. “Surely he couldn’t have proposed and given you the ring in those few moments.”
Jewell still said nothing.
Dorritt actually pitied her. “André came to bid us farewell.” The words flowed from her lips as if she memorized them to recite, “We will be sorely missed but he wishes us well in Texas.”
Dorritt’s words brought Jewell out of her trance. “Texas!” she threw the word at her father. “Never!”
Her stepfather turned his glare to Dorritt. “He said Texas? How could he know?” He frowned and then said, “I feared that. His father must have overheard me when I was discussing the new settlement….” Then he cursed softly.
Dorritt could only stare, feeling disconnected from them, from their emotions. Her own shock had broken her silence. She’d expected that news of their financial troubles would come to light. She even planned how to use it to escape her unhappy situation. But Texas? She found she could no longer keep up the charade of behaving as if she didn’t know how bad things were. “I knew we were close to ruin, but Texas? Why Texas?”
“You know how our finances stand,” he said, sounding angry at her. “I tried but couldn’t recoup our losses gaming over the last months, and instead of winning big, I lost money at the races. Everything went against me.” Mr. Kilbride took a menacing step toward her as if he were going to slap her.
Dorritt stared him down.
“We’re ruined?” Jewell blurted out. “We can’t be. We own this plantation and slaves and…This is insane.”
Mr. Kilbride took a hasty turn around the room. He halted in front of the fireplace. He pounded one hand into the other. “Since neither of you could do your duty to your parents and marry well, we’ll be leaving for Texas in ten days. I’ve done all I can to save our fortune, but the Panic of 1819 put us into deep debt. And there’s no way out. When a man needs a run of luck, it never comes.”
Dorritt knew that this was part of the truth. They had along with almost everyone else lost money in the Panic. But her stepfather’s penchant for gambling deep was what had ruined them. How could he have fooled himself into thinking that wagering would put them into the black? This accusation crawled up and pushed against her throat, clamoring to be voiced. She walked away and looked out through the white sheers.
“This is all your fault!” Mr. Kilbride declared.
The injustice of this made Dorritt whirl around. “I—”
But Mr. Kilbride shook his finger in Jewell’s face, not hers. “If you hadn’t kept André dancing on your string so long, he would have proposed a month or two ago. Texas is all your fault.”
Jewell visibly shook with fury. She threw the velvet box at her father’s chest. It bounced off him, landing on the floor. “Why didn’t you tell me we were in danger?”
Their mother stooped, picked up the velvet box, and opened it. “André gave you a lovely silver locket.” This inconsequential comment was so out of tune with everyone else in the room that they all swung to look at her. “He didn’t have to come at all or give you a parting gift, dearest.” With a tremulous smile, their mother showed the locket nestled in the velvet.
Dorritt closed her eyes. Her mother strolled through life in a vague haze.
Jewell ignored their mother. “Father, we can’t leave New Orleans.”
“Stephen Austin has struck a bargain with the Spanish Crown to let Americans immigrate to the Texas territory. We will be given free land. And I have won a small herd of mustangs and longhorns we’ll pick up in Nacogdoches in a little over a month. Then we head to the Brazos River.”
“I’m not going to Texas,” Jewell declared, her hands fisted.
“You don’t think I want to go, do you?” her father shot back. “Texas was my backup plan. I hoped you’d marry André and that the widower would take Dorritt off my hands. Then I’d take what was left from selling Belle Vista and with the generosity of my sons-in-law, your mother and I would have lived comfortably in the city.” Mr. Kilbride glared and then turned to Dorritt. “We leave in ten days. See to it.” He marched out the door.
Jewell stomped one of her feet. “I won’t. I won’t.”
Numb with shock, Dorritt watched her sister’s impotent rage. It was as if Jewell were expressing Dorritt’s anger as well as hers. Their mother went to Jewell and tried to comfort her. Jewell snatched the velvet box with the locket from her mother’s hand, dashed it to the floor, and stomped on it. Then she turned her fury onto Dorritt’s sampler, ripping it from the tambour frame and throwing it to the floor too. “André loved me. He did.”
“I’m sure he did.” Their mother patted Jewell’s shoulder. “Depend on it, his parents made him cry off. They are filled with their own consequence.”
And they knew that if André offered for you, Jewell, that he’d end up supporting your parents too. And I was to marry the widower. Dorritt knew her stepfather well enough to believe this. She wondered if any of this even crossed her mother’s mind. Dorritt had hoped her stepfather’s plan would work but would set her free too. If André had married Jewell and Belle Vista had been sold, Mr. Kilbride woudn’t need Dorritt to run the plantation that should have been his job. And Dorritt had hoped Mr. Wilkinson could be persuaded to bankroll the school for young ladies she’d hoped to open. And then she would have been set free.
But now what? Texas? Dorritt tried to think what to do in light of this. Their mother was holding a sobbing Jewell in her arms and stroking her back. “There, there. Someone will love you and marry you for yourself.”
Someone will love you and marry you for yourself. Dorritt went over to her chair, stooped and picked up her mishandled embroidery. She wondered if it even occurred to her mother to ask her if Wilkinson had indeed proposed to her. Of course not. Wilkinson proposing hadn’t meant as much to her stepfather because Wilkinson was not wealthy enough or foolish enough to support all the Kilbrides. He was only important if he would take Dorritt off Mr. Kilbride’s hands. Mother would never say to her, “Someone will love you and marry you for yourself.”
We leave in ten days. See to it. It had not been a request. There had been no discussion of how to take care of this overwhelming task. See to it. And he marched out. What would he do in ten days if nothing had been done? What if she just sat down and worked on her sampler for ten days? And did nothing?
Ignoring Dorritt completely, their mother led Jewell out the door, still supplying sympathy and comfort. Dorritt rose and stepped out the French doors. The garden was a riot of lush green, pink, and red. She looked up at the blue sky overhead, feeling herself shrinking from what lay ahead. “Oh, Father of the fatherless,” she murmured, “bless me.”
She’d been only a small girl in Virginia when her father had died. The pastor at the funeral had comforted her with the promise that God was the Father to the fatherless. Now she curled her hands around her embroidery as if clinging physically to Him. Her stomach rolled and clenched. Only one person would understand, comfort her. And Dor
ritt needed to tell her what had happened. She marched over the cobblestone path, around the house to the detached kitchen. She entered, and in a sudden passion, moved to toss her sampler into the low fire.
Her maid, Reva, who was helping the cook shuck corn, grabbed Dorritt’s wrist just in time and took the sampler. “What you doing? You been working on those azaleas for months.”
Dorritt faced her. “We’re leaving for Texas in ten days. I won’t have time for embroidery.” She ignored the loud shocked reaction that this announcement brought, and letting go of the cloth, Dorritt rushed back outside.
Still holding the embroidery, Reva hurried out behind her. “Miss Dorritt.”
Dorritt didn’t reply, just rushed farther along the cobblestone path, past the smokehouse and by the chicken yard to their private place. There she and Reva were shielded from the house by a windbreak of popple trees near the stream that flowed through a marsh into the Delta. A vast low marshland, it was the place they always went to talk where no one could overhear. Her only true friend, Reva had been with her since they were babies.
Sounding winded, Reva halted beside her. “Didn’t that André propose to Miss Jewell?”
“No.” Dorritt quivered from shock that was turning into anger.
“Why not? And what you talking about Texas for?”
Dorritt tried to calm herself. Reva was counting on her. “We’re ruined. André bid us a fond farewell. And we’re going to Texas where there is free land.”
Reva gawked at her. “Texas? I can’t believe it.”
“Believe it.” Dorritt’s throat was filling up, making it harder to speak.
“What’re we going to do?” Reva asked, and gripped Dorritt’s elbow.
Dorritt blinked her eyes to hold in tears. “I’ll think of something.”
“The widower came today too,” Reva probed politely.
Dorritt gave a sharp, mirthless laugh. “He proposed because I’m thrifty and would make a good mother for his little orphans. He promised to be a kind and indulgent husband.”
“Oh.” Reva sounded uncertain.
Dorritt finally looked into Reva’s pretty face, the color of coffee with cream and with large nearly black eyes. “You think I should have accepted him?”
“Well, we would get away from your stepdaddy and we wouldn’t be going to Texas.”
Resentment swelling inside her, Dorritt folded her arms. “I’d hoped Mr. Wilkinson would back me financially to start our finishing school. I’ve told him that repeatedly, but it wasn’t what he wanted to hear so he ignored me.” Just like men do. They only hear what they want to and a woman is easy to disregard. “It would have freed both of us. I would have shamed Mr. Kilbride into giving you to me as a gift. And if André had married Jewell, my stepfather would have. Then we’d have been free. Or as free as two unmarried women in New Orleans can be.”
Reva patted her shoulder. “Could you be happy with Mr. Wilkinson? He not a bad man.”
Dorritt looked down, her chin quivered with the insult he’d given her. “I won’t be a convenience to any man. I can’t, won’t, marry unless I trust a man and love him. And that will never happen.” She looked to Reva. “I can leave a stepfather, but I can’t leave a husband.”
Dorritt admitted that she truly longed to be loved by a man, just like Jewell. If only the widower had said anything about his feelings for her. But no. He’d had some respect for her talents, that was all. Will there ever be a love like that in any man’s heart for me? “No,” she whispered, “I will never marry.”
With her usual practicality, Reva asked, “But how’re we going to leave your stepdaddy in Texas?”
“I’ll think of a way.” Dorritt began to gather her scattered wits, pulling herself together. “I am a well-educated lady of good family. That is respected anywhere. We’ll stay together, Reva. I promise you.”
Reva looked down. “If Mr. Kilbride is ruined, he might sell me.”
Dorritt constricted inside, so tight, so painful. “If it comes to that,” she forced out the words, “your going on the block, I’ll accept Mr. Wilkinson’s offer and ask him to buy you as my maid.” Dorritt took Reva’s hand. “We won’t be parted. I promise.”
Reva squeezed Dorritt’s hand. “I hear there no slavery in Texas.”
“Yes, I know.” Dorritt tried to take a deep breath, but couldn’t yet.
“Maybe I go to Texas and find freedom. We find freedom.”
Dorritt pulled Reva’s hand closer and gazed out over the vast green marshland in front of them. Could they be free in Texas? She stared at the summer sky, still pure blue and cloudless. Sometimes it seemed as though God waited just behind the sky, the blue curtain. She murmured her favorite verses from Psalm 37, the ones that gave her and Reva strength in hard times.
Trust in the Lord, and do good; so thou shall dwell in the land….
Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give you the desires of thine heart.
Dorritt blinked back tears. Father, no one but Reva knows me or sees me or loves me but You.
Leaving New Orleans for Texas terrified her. Suddenly, she felt so much apprehension and excitement it was as if she were standing on the edge of a cliff about to step off. She whispered, “Maybe we can be free in Texas.”
Her whisper was swallowed up by the squawk of a snowy egret. It lifted off its spindly legs and flew low over the water first and then higher, higher.
And then she saw it. If the ungainly egret could fly…maybe they could be free in Texas. Somehow…some way.
Dorritt took a deep breath and stepped off the cliff.
Two
Natchitoches, Louisiana
September 1821
From inside the inn on the outskirts of the village, Quinn heard the arrival of a large party—human voices, horses neighing, oxen bellowing. He ambled to the doorway to see who’d come—stranger, friend, or foe. Looking across the small clearing within the piney woods, he saw a black gig with unusually stout wheels, two Conestoga wagons drawn by oxen, a thoroughbred stallion, a young colt and pregnant mare, a mule, a few cows, chickens, and goats, and nearly a dozen slaves—men, women, and children. Then he froze in place.
Why would she be here? He’d immediately recognized the tall lady from her slender form and the way she walked. And her voice. It was low like the call of a mourning dove, though richer and stronger. He stepped outside to see her better. Her slight hesitation and stiffness announced that she was bone weary. But she still walked very straight, not giving in. He liked the way she moved. Tall, assured, with no wasted movement. And he’d not forgotten her milk-white skin and corn-silk hair.
With sudden hot anger, Quinn also recognized the barrel-chested Kilbride. Fortunately Kilbride completely ignored Quinn and walked past him, leading two other women, one younger and one older, who must be Kilbride’s wife, into the inn. What was the tall lady’s connection to Kilbride? Another daughter? He took a deep breath. He shouldn’t be surprised at Kilbride showing up here. After all, they were headed for the same place at the same time. But seeing the plump bald weasel in the flesh brought it all back. It still galled Quinn.
Dorritt ached all over. From many miles away, she had noticed the smoke from different chimneys and had hoped for an inn they could reach before dark. When they had approached the clearing just before sundown, she nearly embraced the innkeeper in the stable yard. He was one of those wiry gray-haired men who could have been anywhere from forty to seventy. His weather-beaten face hid his thoughts, opinions of his guests. With a few sparse words, he told her that there was a loft where visitors could sleep with their own bedding and that there was still some squirrel stew left.
Dismissed, Dorritt glanced around the clearing once more and spied a Westerner, dressed all in fringed buckskin with moccasins on his feet. He wore a leather hat pulled down low on his forehead and a tail of sun-bleached dark hair trailed down his left shoulder. He wasn’t a man to ignore. And he is watching me. She stopped, suddenly winded, and th
en shook herself mentally. In the past on the streets and wharves of New Orleans, she had seen Westerners, both traders and explorers. Why did this man make her uncomfortable? Perhaps it was his unwavering attention. It made the hair on the back of her neck prickle. She couldn’t decide if he was being rude or merely inquisitive. But what did it matter, anyway?
She turned away and walked toward the two Conestoga wagons and the gig Jewell had insisted on driving against everyone’s prediction that it wouldn’t make it to Texas. Dorritt approached the two ox drivers, both seasoned slaves. “You know what to do,” she murmured to them. Nodding politely, they went about unhitching the oxen. Trying to ignore the Westerner’s gaze as it lingered upon her, Dorritt turned to the cook, who was already getting out dried meat and sea biscuits, and thanked her.
Reva came up, holding one of the slave babies. Dorritt turned to her and said, “Please take the family bedding to the loft inside the inn. Then would you get the orphan children fed and settled down in the stable or in the wagons?” Reva nodded and bustled away. One of the younger boys, tall for fourteen years, Amos, volunteered to set possum traps for tomorrow’s meals. Dorritt patted his bare shoulder, thanking him.
Dorritt sighed. Standing still had been a mistake. Her fatigue nearly paralyzed her. After ten days of sorting, selling, buying, and packing and over a week on the road, she longed to just sink down and go to sleep right here and right now. Instead, she turned and faced the man who had not ceased to track her every movement. She walked briskly toward the inn door even as her muscles complained. As she passed the Westerner, he pulled at the front of his hat, a somewhat polite gesture. I will ignore him, she told herself, her traitorous pulse dancing through her veins. Still, she glanced at him. A mistake—he was a handsome man, a very handsome man.
Quinn stayed where he was and went over what he had just observed. The tall lady had been doing everything that Kilbride should have seen to. That was odd. Quinn had watched parties of Americans before, and the men—not the women—always took care of the animals and servants. The women always walked inside inns and sat down. Or if there were no inn, they began preparing a meal and tending to children.
