Somerset (25 page)

I
was reminded of Thomas Jefferson's words in 1782 in his
Notes on Virginia
when I read that abominable tripe,” Jessica said, speaking to Tippy of the Compromise of 1850 when her friend finished reading its articles reprinted in the
Democratic Telegraph and Register
of Houston.

Tippy reached to take a sandwich from the plate Jessica offered. “And they were?”

“Jefferson said, ‘Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.'”

“Amen to that,” Tippy said. “It's only a matter of a few years before the South feels the whip of that justice for enslaving the black man. All this compromise does is to buy time until war is declared between the North and the South. It's inevitable. The North will never abide by the Fugitive Slave Act, and the South will never tolerate its disobedience to it.”

“God help us,” Jessica said, attacked by the icy fear that knotted her stomach when she thought of the conflict in relation to her son and only child. Thomas was thirteen. In a few years he would be of conscription age.

“Oh, forgive me for blabbing so, Jessica,” Tippy said, her look of distress reflecting the one on Jessica's face. “I forget what war would mean to you and Silas personally.”

“Whether spoken or not, the truth is what it is, and I must live with it,” Jessica said, pouring them another cup of Assam Gold from the rosewood Regency tea table. The tea, like the table and most of the furniture chosen for the elegant rooms of the Toliver mansion, were imported from England.

“We must have in our home those things that reflect our roots,” Silas had said when the subject of furniture was discussed with Henry Howard, the renowned architect Carson had sent from Louisiana to design the Tolivers' manor home. Silas had not asked Tippy to be involved in its selection, but she mightily approved the choices the architect had made, especially for the morning room where she and Jessica often sat for afternoon tea.

“Perhaps by a miracle, my apprehensions will never be realized,” Jessica said. “Silas maintains there will be no war. Our industry is too important to the North, he says. Their factories are too dependent on southern cotton to spin into cloth for their profitable foreign markets.”

“What does Sarah say in her letters?”

Jessica sipped her tea, warm to her cold lips. “That the Abolitionist Movement cannot be stopped. In her view, war is coming. Her nephew Paul will be in the thick of it. He's graduated West Point and has been commissioned a second lieutenant in the United States Army.”

Tippy stirred the sugar in her cup. “Lorimer Davis and his men came to my house looking for his escaped slave,” she said. “He was sure the poor man would head to my place.”

Jessica set down her teacup in horror. “How dare he! Did he abuse you?”

“Wrecked my house. Henri was out at Somerset with your husband and Mister Jeremy, or he'd have put a stop to it.”

“I will certainly report this to Silas—”

“No, Jessica…please.” Tippy put up a beseeching hand. “Let it lie. I didn't even tell Henri. I've restored order to my home, and all is well.”

Furious, Jessica declared, “Oh, if I were only a man, I'd—”

Footsteps—boot heels on the polished walnut floors of the entrance hall—alerted them to Silas's arrival, and Tippy immediately changed the subject. “Henry Howard did a splendid job designing this house,” she said. “When I went with Henri to New Orleans to help him dismantle his father's emporium—God rest the man's soul—I saw your architect's work in Baroness Pontalba's town houses in the French Quarter. Mr. Howard designed cast-iron railings for each verandah with the baroness's initials forged in the centers of them.”

Jessica bit her lip. It saddened her to no end that Tippy did not feel at liberty to speak freely in her best friend's house before her husband. Tippy had never won Silas's heart, though he tolerated with great politeness her coming and going from his house—and by the front door. He'd never expressed it, but Silas's reserve toward Tippy suggested he could not accept the place his wife had accorded her in their home.

As usual, Jessica cooperated with Tippy's diplomacy. “How interesting,” she said, as Silas entered the morning room.

“What's interesting?” he said.

Jessica turned to greet him and felt the leap of sensual pleasure still surprising after fifteen years of marriage and the differences they'd tolerated but never overcome. At forty-four, Silas was handsomer and more virile than ever. His lord-of-the-manor clothes suited his striking Toliver looks and tall, commanding figure. Along with Jeremy and Henri, he had spent the afternoon with other city council members in a meeting to apprise the owner of a proposed bank about Howbutker's architectural requirements for commercial buildings. There were numerous such meetings now that Howbutker was one of the largest and most prosperous towns in the state. At the urging of Silas, the first city-planning commission had pushed through a proposition in 1839 stating that public and commercial buildings be built in the Greek Revivalist style traditional to the South.

“I'll leave it to Jessica to explain,” Tippy said, rising, as she always did in Silas's presence, a prelude to her immediate departure.

“Tippy came by to bring me a new invention called a safety pin,” Jessica said, opening a box on a side table to show Silas its contents. “Henri managed to get a shipment, and naturally, Tippy had to share a few with me.” She held up a fastening device made of wire, twisted in a circle at one end to form a spring and capped on the other with a metal hood to provide a clasp and protection from the sharp point.

“Very clever,” Silas said when Jessica demonstrated its use. “Must you go so soon, Tippy?”

“I fear so, Mr. Toliver,” Tippy said, the polite exchange an accustomed hail-and-farewell between them. They rarely exchanged more than a few words.

Jessica saw her to the door, and when she returned to the morning room, Silas had picked up the newspaper, left open at the page she and Tippy had been sharing. “You don't need to explain,” he said. “This tells the gist of your conversation.”

“May I pour you a cup?” Jessica said, ignoring the pointed observation, and spread the skirt of her watered-silk day dress to sit again at the tea table. The stiffly starched petticoats of former years had been replaced with lighter-weight crinolines that Jessica found easier to manage.

Silas took her hand and drew her back to her feet. “You may take me upstairs,” he said, his meaning clear.

“What? In the middle of the afternoon?”

“Thomas won't be home until late evening. He and Jeremy Jr. and Armand are out at Somerset helping Jasper and his men gather up the pigs for penning. Jasper will see they don't get into trouble. Besides”—Silas drew her closer—“I read the look in your eyes when I came into the room.”

“What look?” Jessica said innocently, her breath lost in the racing of her heart. “I've no idea what you're talking about.”

“Yes, you do, but I'll be happy to translate it through demonstration,” he said, playing the sexual game they'd begun long ago at the Winthorp Hotel.

Before he led her toward the stairway, Jessica's glance fell on
COMPROMISE
in the blazing headlines of the newspaper. Compromise had preserved their marriage. Mutual tempering of their convictions allowed them to make love in the afternoon, and Silas could still take her to mountaintops beyond the clouds. But he and she were basically a country divided. Would war come between them when war finally came?

“I
'm sorry to disturb your reading, Miss Jessica, but Mr. Handley is downstairs,” Maddie said, addressing her mistress in the sitting room of the master suite where Jessica read most afternoons. “He says it's important that he speak with you.”

“Oh, by all means, I'll go down, Maddie,” Jessica said, delighted. She had missed the accessibility of her son's former tutor since he had moved from his apartment above the carriage house to a room in a boarding hotel nearer the school. “Prepare a tea tray, if you will, and perhaps I can entice him to stay awhile.”

What absolutely perfect timing, Jessica thought, marking her place in the English translation of Marcus Aurelius's
Meditations
, recently mailed to her by Sarah Conklin. There was no better person with whom to discuss the Roman emperor's philosophical views than Guy Handley. What a humane and wise leader the ruler was—the last great emperor of Rome, remembered for his social reforms and laws that gave women and slaves more rights and protections. Those in the halls of power in the United States—whether it be Washington, D.C., or small burgs like Howbutker—could take a few cues from
him
in their thinking: “Let opinion be taken away, and no man will think himself wronged. If no man think himself wronged, then there is no more any such thing as wrong.”

Now wasn't
that
food for minds to chew on in leaders who believed that dissenters should be muzzled, if not strung up from the nearest tree!

Descending the stairs, Jessica suddenly halted. Why would Guy Handley be calling on her on a weekday when school was still in session? Oh, God. It wasn't about Thomas, was it?

She hurried with quicker steps into the drawing room. Guy Handley stood before the fireplace, staring into the fire that had been stoked to full blaze to disperse the chill of the November afternoon. He was still in his overcoat, and his walking stick and hat were on a table within quick reach for departure. He did not mean to stay, then.

“Is it Thomas?” Jessica asked from the doorway.

Guy Handley turned quickly, and Jessica pressed her hand to the base of her throat at the sight of his expression. It was the kind of wooden look that presaged bad news. The former tutor of Houston Avenue stepped forward and put up a mollifying hand. “No—no,” he said. “I apologize for my appearance giving a false impression.”

“Where is Thomas?”

“Still in school with my other pupils. I left my assistant in charge. I have come on another matter, and time is of the most importance.”

Jessica sank with relief into the nearest chair. She had brought the book of meditations with her and placed it on a table. “What matter?” she asked, short of breath.

“Jessica…I need your help.”

He had never called her by her first name and wouldn't do so now, Jessica thought, if he were not in some sort of desperate straits.

“You have it if I can give it,” she said.

“I—” He looked around at the open entrance into the hall and crossed to draw closed the heavy double doors.

“Good heavens, Guy,” Jessica said softly. “What is it?”

“I want you to help me arrange the escape of a slave.”

Her lips parted in shock. It was a few seconds before her breath returned. “Lorimer Davis's runaway,” she said.

“Yes. Mr. Davis sold the man's wife to a planter in Houston, and he ran away in hopes of finding her. I've hidden him in a storage shed at the school, but he cannot stay cooped up there. I know I'm taking a terrible risk coming to you, and if you do not agree to help me, all I can hope for is that you do not raise the alarm.”

“You're an abolitionist.”

“I am.”

“I
knew
it!” Jessica said, thumping the arm of the chair in triumph. “Are you a member of the Underground Railroad?”

“Yes.”

Jessica got to her feet and held out her hand. “Shake. I'm an abolitionist, too. What do you want me to do?”

She saw him almost sway from gratitude as he shook her hand. “Will you hide the man—his name is Ezekiel—in my old apartment above the carriage house until I can make arrangements to get him to safety?” Guy asked.

“You think he'll be safe there?”

“I can't think of any place where the patrols would less likely look.”

Jessica's mind raced. She thought back to that day at Willowshire when she and Willie May had hidden Jasper in the gazebo. Her father's men had searched every outbuilding without once considering that a slave would choose a hiding place so close to the Big House. From the vantage point of the carriage house, the runaway could look out a front window up the avenue directly onto the verandah of Lorimer Davis's town house. What a delicious irony.

“You're right,” she said, taking back her hand. “I'll do it. You have no conveyance for transporting him. I propose that I pick up the man in my brougham once school is adjourned and bring him here.”

Guy shook his head, his dire expression dispelled by an awed smile. “You're an amazing woman, Jessica Toliver. I knew I could trust you. That was my proposal as well, but what about Thomas? He'll be coming here after school.”

“Only long enough to change clothes and saddle his horse,” Jessica said, “then he and Jeremy Jr. and Armand are riding out to Somerset to help with the hog killing. My son and his father will not be home until early evening.”

“What about the servants?”

“They can be trusted to say nothing to Silas and certainly not to Thomas if they should by chance discover Ezekiel. They're aware of a slave on the loose, and I heard Maddie at her prayers this morning asking God for his successful deliverance.” There were no Lulus in this household, Jessica thought. She'd made sure of that.

“Splendid,” Guy said. He picked up his hat and walking stick. “I must get back. I don't dare leave the man long in case someone should stumble upon him. Jessica…Mrs. Toliver…how can I ever thank you? With hope and luck, Ezekiel will be your guest for only a few days.”

“You know, of course, what will happen to you if you're found out? They'll horsewhip you out of town.”

“I know, but that pales in comparison to what they'll do to Ezekiel.”

“You're a brave man, Guy Handley, and please call me Jessica,” Jessica said.

Immediately after he left, Jessica sent Maddie off to Bess DuMont's house with a note asking for herbs not grown in the Tolivers' garden.

“What is anise?” Maddie asked, her frown puzzled. “How am I to use it?”

“It tastes like licorice, and I'm going to mix it in cookie dough.”

“
You
, Miss Jessica? You ain't baked in years.”

“Well, it's time I put my hand in a bowl again,” she said, trying to curb her impatience.

The other servants had been assigned tasks to keep them in rooms at the front of the house and Jeremiah dispatched to do some weeding in the side garden out of sight of his mistress carrying blankets and a chamber pot to the carriage house.

When Thomas came home from school, hungry as usual, Jessica shooed him away from the untouched tea tray Maddie had prepared for Guy Handley, saying she'd wrap up the cake and sandwiches to take with him to Somerset.

“You should get out to the plantation while there's still enough light to be of use to your father,” she said, a change in attitude that drew an odd look from her son. Thomas was accustomed to his mother prolonging their time together at every opportunity, but he seemed satisfied that she had calls to make. Earlier, Jessica had put together a hamper of food “to take to shut-ins,” she'd explained to Maddie. The slave would be given the hamper to be spirited with him up the stairs and it would have to suffice until Jessica could find a safe time to replenish it. Thanks to Henry Howard, the architect, an extra set of stairs to the apartment had been built inside the carriage house to use in inclement weather, and the slave could easily and secretly slip from the brougham and disappear up into the deep darkness.

Jeremiah had her one-horse closed carriage hooked up and ready for her by the time Thomas and his friends cantered off down the boulevard. Guy had been watching for her and directed the horse to the door of the storage shed in back of the school. Their purpose was accomplished in less than a minute, but for the benefit of any person recognizing Jessica's personal conveyance parked in such an odd location, Guy unloaded a number of gardening tools he'd ostensibly asked to borrow.

Back on Houston Avenue, Jessica released her passenger to hurry up the stairs but did not accompany him. Jeremiah would be coming out to unhook the horse. Jessica hoped he did not smell the slave's strong musky scent mixed with sweat and fear that may have trailed after him.

“You'll find everything you need up there,” Jessica had whispered to the runaway shortly before they arrived.

“I'm thankful to you, missus.”

“Remember. No sound. Not a single one. No sneeze, cough, or movement, and no light. The barn is next to the carriage house, and my husband and son will be stabling their horses there at nightfall and coming and going during the day.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

She had met the man only on the few occasions the Davises entertained at their plantation home but knew his wife as Stephanie's personal maid in their house on Houston Avenue. “I'm sorry about your wife,” Jessica said. “Perhaps…perhaps she will be well treated.”

“The man was mean who bought her.
Oh, Della…!
” the man moaned.

How could Ezekiel have possibly hoped to rescue her, Jessica wondered, sickened to hear echoed in his anguish the enslaved black man's plight everywhere. That night as she lay beside her sleeping husband, her heart still pumping in her throat for the safety of the hapless occupant in the carriage house, Ezekiel's lamentation haunted her until dawn.