Somerset (10 page)

J
eremy Warwick slowed his white stallion to a canter as he turned into the tree-lined, moss-draped approach to the Parthenon-looking mansion of his family home. Built of white plastered brick, the manor house of Meadowlands was a palatial, squarish structure of two and a half stories surrounded by broad double galleries supported by monumental columns rising to the roofline. Like a brilliant gemstone, even in the falling dusk, it sparkled in a setting of lush gardens and lawns sloping away to picked-over cotton fields whose expanse reached beyond the range of the human eye. Born to Meadowlands' opulent entitlements and therefore naturally taking them for granted, Jeremy had never paid much attention to the magnificence and scope of his ancestral home and family's property until today. Queenscrown was no less grand. He cantered along, viewing the Warwick mansion and endless stretches of land from a new perspective. What would a man do—what would he risk, sacrifice, forfeit—for the ownership of all of this, he wondered.

All of this
was what Silas desired, felt born to, believed he needed for survival as a man. Jeremy was of no such mind. If Morris died tomorrow and left Queenscrown to his brother, Silas would be a happy, fulfilled man. If Jeremy's father and siblings followed suit—God forbid—and he, Jeremy, were to inherit Meadowlands, he would be miserable. His reasons for going to Texas were different from Silas's. He yearned to be the master of his own source of livelihood, but in a fresh, new, vigorous environment. All Jeremy knew was farming, but he welcomed the possibility and challenge of turning his hand to some other profitable venture in the land of opportunity Texas was purported to be. He had come to find South Carolina's planter system—its customs, traditions, mores, prejudices—stifling and restrictive, as worn out as the land would one day be. Jessica Wyndham must find it so as well.

But he could understand Silas's obsessive need to possess
all of this
. He was a man of the soil—predominantly cotton-producing soil—and he was a Toliver, born to own, command, lead—not follow. Silas carried his forebears' blood, and he could no more change or compromise his conviction of his role in life than he could alter the color of his eyes.

Jeremy felt enormous pity for him. No sailor on the planet would trade fifty-foot waves for the dilemma Silas faced. He stood between a lion and a tiger. Either could eat him alive. If he chose to remain at Queenscrown with the woman he loved, he would surely emotionally expire. If he went to Texas, all the land and cotton in the world might not allay his misery at being married to the woman he did not.

Would Silas sacrifice those he loved to preserve his own life? He would leave Lettie devastated, humiliated, inconsolable. Joshua would be crushed. The little boy already thought of Lettie as his mother, and Elizabeth loved her like a daughter. If Silas jilted her to marry Jessica, he would leave South Carolina a disgraced man. He could never come home again.

And what of Jessica Wyndham? After the beautiful Lettie Sedgewick, what chance did the girl have of winning Silas's heart—that is, if she were of a mind to? From what he'd seen of the feisty Jessica—and now knowing her views on slavery—it might be hate at first kiss between her and Silas.

Jeremy shook his head in sympathy for his friend and impelled his stallion to a faster clip. Too bad he was not in the running. Not since he was twenty-one and met the girl he loved and later lost to typhoid fever had a woman so intrigued him as Jessica Wyndham. Had her father asked
him
to take his daughter off his hands, he might not have had to think about it long.

Jessica met her aunt coming up the stairs. “Aunt Elfie!” she cried as they threw themselves into each other's arms.

“Oh, my dear child, this is all my fault,” her aunt exclaimed. “If I'd just monitored your activities closer while you were in Boston…”

Jessica pulled away to look at her. “This is not your fault, Aunt Elfie. I left here with my convictions already conceived. They were simply birthed in boarding school. Do you…have any idea what my fate will be?”

“No, dear niece. Your father does not confide in me, but your mother is very worried.”

Lulu had stopped at the bottom of the staircase. “The master is waiting, Miss Jessica,” she said with a sharp look of rebuke.

“Certainly not for you,” Jessica snapped. “Go on about your business.”

“But I'm to take you to him.”

“I know the way to my father's study. Get on with you.” Jessica waited until the maid had disappeared and asked, “Aunt Elfie, have you seen Tippy? What have they done with her?”

“She's all right, child—for the time being. She's quartering with her mother and has been dispensed to the sewing room. I believe she's working on your bridesmaid's dress. Please, please, Jessica, mind your p's and q's with your father when you see him.”

“I'll try, Aunt Elfie,” Jessica said, kissing her aunt's cheek. Then she hurried down the stairs, skirt and hair flying behind her.

Since she did not know how to arrange her hair, Jessica had worn it loose for the four days of her confinement. Its naturally frizzy curls fell in long, ungovernable ringlets when not brushed into submission by Tippy's hand. Today, the thick russet mass had been secured away from her forehead by a barrette. She'd dressed hastily and found, too late to change, a noticeable stain on the front of her dress, and she'd been unable to fasten herself into a corset. Her waist was as thin as a blade anyway since she'd eaten little during her incarceration, but her father could surprise her by noting such things. Would her appearance anger or endear her to him?

He was standing by the mantel of the great stone fireplace, smoking a long-stemmed pipe and consulting the flames as if they held the answer to what to do with his daughter. Her mother sat in an armchair by the fire, looking lost and abandoned, and Jessica's heart twisted in remorse for the pain she continued to cause her. Her mother started to get up to go to her, but her father laid a gentle hand on her shoulder and she subsided into the silken layers of her gown.

Carson moved to his desk and set the meerschaum bowl in its holder. Jessica took that as not a good sign. Her father was a mellower man when he smoked his pipe. “Jessica,” he said, “you have shamed our family, not only us of its intimate circle, but you've disgraced us to others in the community, people who put store in your parents and brother and abide by our example. You obviously do not agree with the example we Wyndhams set, so I will give you two choices where you may indulge your abolitionist convictions and actions to the fullest—depending, of course, on whether they're tolerated.”

Eunice spoke up, her voice thin with grief. “Oh, Carson, must you? Can't we give her another chance?”

“Now, Mother, we agreed,” Carson remonstrated her gently, his own voice losing some of its force. “Our daughter cannot stay among us. She's a betrayer and a traitor not only to her family but to her heritage—those who have gone before us and to all southerners who share and support our way of life. That is,” he said, still speaking to his wife but fastening his gaze on his daughter, “unless she apologizes to her family and admits her mistake to those she's deeply offended. I'm sure they will understand she was temporarily misguided by her affection for Miss Conklin.”

“You mean apologize to Michael and the Night Riders?” Jessica asked, her frozen fear immediately dissolving in the heat of her indignation.

“Precisely.”

“Never,” Jessica said.

Her mother pressed her fingers to her forehead. “Oh, Jessie, darling…”

Jessica returned her father's hardening stare. “What are the choices of my punishment, Papa? To be burned at the stake or flayed alive?”

Carson turned his back on her, his way of saying he had had enough. Jessica read the message from the squaring of his shoulders, the deliberate withdrawal of his chair from its kneehole, the drop of his attention to papers on his desk, dismissing her. It was possible he would never look at her again, not directly. She was damned to him. He did not address her as he said, “You may recall the punishment your mother's older sister earned for disgracing the family in Boston.”

Terror, cold as a steel blade, drove into her heart. The story had become legend in her mother's family. The oldest daughter, for conducting an illicit relationship with a boy of whom her father did not approve, had been banished to a Carmelite convent in Great Britain, one of the strictest orders of nuns in the Catholic Church. Jessica had heard her mother and Aunt Elfie lament the harsh conditions under which their sister lived. The “inmates,” as they called the nuns, were permitted to speak for only two hours each day and were allowed no contact with the outside world. They lived in stark cells and took vows of poverty and toil, prayed constantly, lived on only vegetables, and fasted from Holy Cross Day in September until Easter of the following year. Once she was removed from their home, the two sisters never saw their sibling again.

“You wouldn't,” Jessica said, glancing at her mother for verification of the threat. Eunice blinked away tears and nodded slightly.

“I would,” Carson said. “As soon as I can make arrangements.” He took up a pen to scribble his name to a document. “There is an order of Carmelites located in Darlington, a market town in the northeast of England. Perhaps you will encounter your aunt there. She should be around…sixty years old now, by my estimate.” He turned the document over and affixed his signature to the next item requiring his attention. “Or…” he added casually, “you may marry Silas Toliver and go live with him in Texas. Take your pick.”

Jessica swayed from a sudden light-headedness. Was her father crazy? Silas Toliver was engaged to Lettie. They were to be married in less than six weeks. Did he not remember his daughter was to be her maid of honor? Tippy was working on her bridesmaid's dress. She glanced again at her mother, who had closed her eyes and was biting her lip as if in silent and urgent prayer, and then at the indifferent face of her father, poring over his papers.

“Silas Toliver is engaged,” Jessica said, “or have you forgotten? How can you offer him as a choice for me—that is, if he would have me?”

“He'll break the engagement for the price I've offered him,” Carson said, “and believe me, he will have you. He has ten more days to agree to it. I have no doubt of his answer.”

“Good Lord, Papa! What have you done?”

Her mother rose in a rustle of silk. “Silas is a good man, Jessie,” she said, her tone pleading. “He'll take care of you. Your father will see that you want for nothing. If you go to that awful place in England, we'll never see you again.”

“But Silas is
engaged
!”

“An easily fixed situation,” Carson said.

The horror of her father's manipulation—what he had bullied into place—had begun to dawn. “What about Lettie? If Silas doesn't marry her, she'll be
destroyed
!”

“A fatality of your stupidity and Silas's desperation. She'll get over it.”

“I won't choose either one,” Jessica said. “I'll run away first—go live with Aunt Elfie in Boston.”

“No, you won't, my dear daughter, for if you do, I will sell Tippy and her mother—separately. You must believe me, I will. I cannot have you in Boston where you will continue to work against the interests of your family and the South.”

Eunice gave a little moan and put her hands over her ears—in shame, Jessica perceived.

“Papa, I thought you loved me,” she said quietly.

He looked at her, perhaps for the last time fully. “I do, my dear, more than you will ever know or could possibly comprehend from my actions, and that's the tragedy of it. Now go to your room and think about your choices. Your mother will send Tippy to you to do something about your dreadful appearance. We must look our best for our last family Christmas together.”

I
n the days allotted him before making his decision, Silas observed life at Queenscrown through the eyes of an outside observer, all scales removed from his vision. It was not a difficult challenge. His greatest strength lay in his willingness—and courage—to face the truth, seeing it not as he'd like, but as it was. He did not fall into the trap of believing that, given time and the right circumstances, one day things would be different. A man could waste his life waiting for his fortunes to turn around. In arriving at decisions, Silas weighed the circumstances as they were currently, considered their chances of change, and determined his course.

Thus, he set his attention to observe, in unbiased focus, the people and circumstances that would mark his days for the rest of his life if he remained at Queenscrown and worked as his brother's land manager. Lettie he saw as a wife who would accept her portion without complaint. She would probably continue her teaching duties now that Sarah Conklin would not be returning, a fact he knew and she did not. Her small income would add to his salary, allow her a new frock now and then, perhaps weekend trips to Charleston to dine and take in a play at the Grand Theater. She would never be the mistress of Queenscrown. His mother was the undisputed ruler of the domestic domain, and while they were exceptionally fond of each other, there were bound to be differences in running the household, raising Joshua, and officiating at social events. He saw an erosion of their affection as inevitable, and even a slight discord between two women in a household could make the rest of the occupants miserable. And what if Morris married? Then Lettie would take third chair behind his mother and the new mistress of Queenscrown. Morris's children would take precedence over Joshua. Joshua and his future siblings would be seen as the children of a dependent relative. Silas could take over the land manager's quarters, now occupied by the head overseer, but how could he, a Toliver and a descendant of the aristocratic scion of Queenscrown, tolerate living in a yeoman's cottage?

Silas saw himself becoming ever more frustrated over Morris's handling of the estate. His brother saw winter as a time to relax, but there was plenty that needed doing as the old year ended to keep a plantation running smoothly. There were farm implements and tack equipment to repair, fences and buildings to mend, silos and storage bins to clean, gardens to spade, fields to turn and fertilize…An endless list awaited crucial attention that as land manager Silas would have seen to, but Morris, taking his argument from Ecclesiastes, would have enforced his belief that there was a time for everything and winter was the season to rest and celebrate the birth of Christ. “We've gathered in the sheaves, Silas. Let us rejoice and be glad in our endeavors.” Silas perceived that his brother's laxity with the slaves and overseers and slowness in determining the improvements needed for the coming year would in time drive him mad.

As usual, Lettie saw the sunny side of his dark situation and managed to mitigate his disgruntlements. “Darling, at least we'll have a roof over our heads for the year, sit at one of the best tables in Plantation Alley, and have few expenses. We can save our money to add to the sale of the Conestogas and set sail for Texas March after next.”

After considering all angles, Silas decided to hold to that star in the east and let it be his guiding light. Lettie's arguments, parroting Morris's, made good sense. Wars and unrest in the new territories would not deter the westward movement. The Conestogas
would
sell, he was sure of it, and there were advantages to the delay. For one, he'd have time to approach the federal army about the sale of his wagons, and for another, the revolution in Texas would most likely be over by the time they arrived. Though he could hardly bear the thought of Jeremy leaving for the promised land without him, by going ahead, his friend could send back firsthand knowledge of the obstacles they would face, allowing him to leave South Carolina forewarned and prepared. Meanwhile, having Lettie by his side and in his bed would make the year tolerable.

By the evening of Christmas Day, he'd made up his mind to stay at Queenscrown and wondered how he could ever for a moment have considered Carson Wyndham's offer. How could he have been so selfish even to think of denying Joshua the maternal affections of a woman who already thought of him as her son? Watching the boy with Lettie (it was to her he ran to show off his presents, not his father), he wished he'd never shared the man's insult with Jeremy but kept it to himself. He felt burned to the bones from the shame of it. How dare Carson Wyndham believe Silas Toliver could be bought? He would not deign to give the man an answer.

His mind relatively at ease, for Lettie's sake, Silas concentrated on enjoying the rest of the holiday season. In the interim between Christmas and New Year's Day, a constant round of parties, many held in honor of their coming nuptials, left him with little time or desire to brood over the change in his plans for the new year. The Wyndhams—for reasons known only to a few and speculated on by everyone else—had withdrawn Willowshire from the manor homes open to callers, but there was much visiting among the other mansions of Plantation Alley, and planters took turns hosting fish fries, log-rollings, barn dances, and corn shuckings in which their slaves participated.

Silas looked forward to the day when he would host such occasions at his own plantation of Somerset in Texas.

The first arctic cold front the second night into the new year of 1836 put an end to the fine weather and high spirits. The sudden freeze was not immediately felt through the thin walls of the cabins in the slave village of Queenscrown, nor did the night seem terribly deep and dark. As a matter of fact, the overseer was awakened by a strange glow dancing on the wall of his bedroom. He leaped to the window and threw open the shutter through which the light had filtered.
“Oh, my God!”
he yelled, jolting awake his sleeping wife. Out in the field by one of the barns, columns of flame-infused smoke spiraled upwards into the cold, black night. The white masts of the fleet of Conestoga ships were on fire.

In the library at Willowshire, Carson Wyndham sat before a softly glowing fire. It was two o'clock in the morning. He wore a smoking jacket against the chill and puffed on a cigar as he stared meditatively into the flames. The visitor he was expecting arrived fifteen minutes later than anticipated, his approach to the great doors of the library soft so as not to disturb the household and awaken listening ears.

Carson glanced at the man, who closed the door quietly behind him. “It is done?” he asked.

“It is done, Papa.”

“You made sure no one saw you and there was no one around?”

“I did.”

“We must assure your sister's welfare and possible happiness despite her belief we wish the contrary.”

Michael Wyndham sat down next to the fire and tiredly drew off his boots. “You are sure Jessica will choose to marry Silas Toliver?”

“Given her choices, I am in no doubt. We must get her out of here before what happened to Miss Conklin happens to her. The Wyndham name can keep in check a lake from overflowing its boundaries, but not a river.”

“You believe there's a chance Silas Toliver can make her happy?”

“As happy as any man could make your sister, I suspect. Silas is a remarkably handsome fellow. What woman could resist him?”

“I wonder who will wed Lettie Sedgewick with Silas out of the picture?”

“Why not you? She's certainly comely enough. Intelligent, but smart enough not to show it.”

Michael shook his head. “She's too tame for me.”

“Ah,” his father said. “Sarah Conklin was more to your liking, I take it.”

“I found her very desirable. Too bad she was on the wrong side.” He shifted his position. “Did you know she never once cried out until the end? I ordered her punishment stopped then. “All I wanted was to hear her cry.”

“But she never gave you the name of her conspirator?”

“No. A brave and loyal woman.”

“No braver or more loyal than your sister. She could have lied about her part and saved herself—and her family—this tragic turn of events.”

An embarrassed silence fell between them. Carson removed his cigar, his eyes narrowing upon his son behind the screen of smoke. “Did you enjoy flogging a woman, Michael?”

Michael pursed his lip as if having to think about the question. “I thought I would,” he said, “but afterwards, despite her crime, I felt…sorry that I'd had to do what had to be done.”

“Good,” his father said, returning the cigar to his mouth. “If you said you'd enjoyed the lashing, I would have disowned you, too.”