Somerset (38 page)

I
n 1876, Rutherford B. Hayes, a Republican, was elected president of the United States in the most disputed presidential election in the nineteenth century. The popular vote favored Hayes' opponent, Samuel Tilden, a Democrat and governor of New York. Three electoral votes were undecided. Political analysts of the day believed a deal was struck under the table that put Hayes in the White House. The Southern Democrats on the commission to decide the fate of the election agreed to give Hayes the electoral vote in exchange for the Republicans removing federal troops out of the South and bringing an end to Reconstruction. The deal led to the Compromise of 1877, an unwritten agreement in which the national government would allow the former Confederate states to govern themselves without northern interference in their political affairs.

The result was that the freed Negro was left unprotected in the South and at the mercy of the Jim Crow laws. These were federal and state statutes designed to segregate the black man from white society, deprive him of his civil liberties, and return him to his prewar social status. The sharecropping system as it was meant to work for the former slave indentured him further to his one-time master. The landowner's manipulation was simple: On credit, he supplied his tenant with the necessary “furnishings” of a mule, plow, seed, house, and supplies to get started, with the contractual agreement that the cost of these expenses would be deducted from his share of the crop at sale time. More often than not, according to the white landowner's figures, the illiterate black tenant's debt exceeded his profit, and he was forced to stay on his land for another repeat of the cycle that would leave him forever in hock to his landlord. Escape from this sort of tyranny was nearly impossible. Workers who ran away from their legal obligations were hunted down by local sheriffs or groups hired for that purpose and returned to the landowner until their debt was paid.

The blacks' rebuttal to this reinstatement of white domination was the mass “Black Exodus of 1879,” in which twenty thousand Negroes left the cotton-producing regions of the former Confederacy for the promise of free land in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Colorado. Among them were Jasper's two sons and their families.

“But, why?” Thomas asked in disbelief when Rand, the elder of the two sons, had approached him with news of their imminent departure. “Haven't you been treated fairly?”

“Never better, Mister Thomas, and me and my family and my brother's family, too, is mighty grateful to you. Because of your fair dealin', we got the money to go and get us a good start. We got the education to make sure nobody cheats us, and we owe that to you, too. It ain't nothin' against you that we is goin' but for the hope of havin' our own land which we'd never have as long as we stay on Somerset.”

Thomas had heard an unmistakable note in Rand's voice reminding him that if he'd agreed to sell him and his brother, Willie, the land they tilled (the request made numerous times), they would not be leaving. The look in Rand's eye said it was still not too late to make the deal.

“I wish I could see my way clear to sell you those acres you've rented all these years, Rand, but Toliver land has never been for sale and never will be. It was a promise I made my father, and one I hold as well.”

“So you've made clear enough through the years,” Rand said. “Willie and I will see to the plantin', stay for the christenin' of Amy's daughter, then we be on our way. Might make it to Kansas in time to get in a crop of wheat 'fore winter.”

Rand had arrived to say good-bye. They had gathered in front of his family's old home that Thomas had taken over as a plantation office when it had been vacated at Jasper's death. Vernon, fourteen, stood beside his father. In his son's presence, Thomas made a point to set the example he hoped the boy would follow when he was master of the plantation. His son knew he was heartsick at losing two of the hardest-working, most loyal and trustworthy families on the place, but he couldn't allow himself to be surly about it. Rand and his brother and their families were free to go. Rand stuck out his hand, and Thomas shook it.

“I'm sure you've heard stories of the scalawags that ask for money in advance to take you to the promised land, then not show up at the time of departure,” Thomas said. “Be aware of them, and you know that if things don't work out in Kansas, you can always come back. Same terms as before.”

“I know that, Mister Thomas.” Rand returned his old, sweat-stained hat to his head. He looked at Vernon. “My boys said to tell you good-bye, Master Vernon. They'da come, but it was too hard for 'em.”

Thomas saw that his son had difficulty swallowing. “I'll…miss them,” Vernon said. “I can't imagine going fishing without them.”

“Neither can they.” Rand turned to Thomas. “Well, so long from all of us, Mister Thomas, and tell Petunia we'll write.”

Neither Thomas nor Vernon spoke as they watched Jasper's firstborn son ride away. He and his brother, Willie, had lived all their lives on the plantation. Thomas had grown up with them as Vernon had with their sons. Jasper had come to Texas with the Tolivers and become an integral part of the history of Somerset. His remains were buried in a place of honor in the cemetery on land he'd helped its patriarch to clear.

“Could you not have sold them the land they worked so they would stay, Daddy?” Vernon, blinking rapidly, asked in a wistful voice.

Thomas raised the boy's chin to look at him. Vernon was nearly shoulder height to him now, but it would not be long before they stood eye to eye. “There are some things too important to put personal feelings above, son. Somerset is one of them. This land belongs to the Tolivers, and not a single acre of it is for sale at any price, for any reason. We are its sole masters. We share its control with no other man. You must remember that.”

“I will, Daddy.”

Thomas nodded. He had no doubt the boy would remember. His son was so much like him at fourteen. Vernon loved the plantation and had taken an interest in it from the time he toddled down the cotton rows hand in hand with his father. David, his eleven-year-old son—their scamp—had as well. Thomas had been blessed with two sons who had taken to learning the business of running a plantation like hounds to the hunt. David would have been here today, but he'd been permitted to play this Saturday morning in a baseball game, the new sport of the nineteenth century. Both understood what was expected of a Toliver. Thomas would have no son of his living off the bounty of his family's labor without contributing to it. No offspring of his would enjoy the prominence of the name without deserving the right to bear it.

His daughter, too, understood her role as a member of a family that lived by the expectations of its heritage and traditions. Thomas automatically smiled, thinking of Regina. Sons were from the gods, but daughters were from the angels. This morning, she had said to him, “Daddy, Petunia and Amy are very sad.”

She had been the first of his children to call him Daddy. It had begun with
da-da
, and the boys had gone with their sister's later form of address. Regina often led the way in how things were said and done in the Toliver household. Of all of the Tolivers he had known, she represented the truest definition of nobility. Kind of heart, strong in spirit, generous and gracious, she held the clearest title to the real meaning of royalty.

“I know, precious,” he'd said.

“Petunia's brothers and their families are leaving Somerset. Can't you do something to make them stay?”

“I cannot. Their departure is their decision.”

It was one of the rare times he had ever refused his daughter anything, and her disappointment cut him like a knife. For the fraction of a moment, he had actually considered reconsidering—anything to take that pained look from her sweet, freckled face. Instead he had drawn her to his lap. At twelve, she was enough of a little girl still to sit on his knees in the fortress of his arms. Most fathers would have offered a sop, a gift to compensate for the denied request, but that would not work with Regina. No concession could divert her from her original desire. She could not be bought.

“They leave for what they think is a better place,” he explained.

Her brow creased. “Than Somerset?”

“Yes.”

“There is no better place than Somerset,” she said.

He had hugged her. “I hope Petunia's brothers will not find that out in Kansas.”

Whenever a blue spell overcame him, like today, Thomas thought of his family, and his mood lifted. He was a very blessed man indeed to have an efficient wife and loving mother at home, the memory of a devoted father, and three delightful children to call him Daddy. Sometimes his heart swelled with such love and pride he thought it would burst.

“Why are you smiling, Daddy?” There was a note of disapproval in Vernon's voice. His tears had barely dried, and his father was smiling.

Thomas placed his arm around his son's shoulders as they turned to go into the cabin. “I was thinking how fortunate I am to be the father of three fine children,” he said.

“Heirs to Somerset. Isn't that what we are?”

“You've learned your lessons well, my son. Yes, heirs to Somerset. I wish my father had lived to see there is no curse on the land.”

“A curse?”

Thomas wished he had not spoken. Vernon was like a dog with a bone when he wanted to learn more about something. “A jinx,” Thomas explained. “Supposedly cast by a supernatural power to inflict harm on someone or something as punishment for their wrongdoing.”

“Your father did something wrong?”

“Not at all. He made…certain sacrifices to assure the establishment of Somerset.”

“What were they?”

“I don't recall.”

“What kind of punishment did he believe the curse inflicted?”

Thomas hesitated. Yellow fever was rampant in Louisiana and sure to hop over the border into East Texas, but all the windows in the family home on Houston Avenue had recently been covered with the new metal mesh coverings called screens to deter the influx of disease-carrying mosquitoes. There was always a danger of cholera returning and other afflictions and accidents that could claim the lives of his children in the blink of an eye, but not by the hand of an imprecation uttered by his father's angry mother almost half a century ago. Yet, superstitiously, Thomas felt a reluctance to voice aloud his father's fear that her malediction related to the procreation and preservation of Toliver heirs. Silas Toliver had worried for nothing. Yes, he had lost his first son, but Joshua, God love his sweet soul, was no real heir to Somerset. Silas Toliver's true heir was alive and well, and his grandsons would carry the name of Toliver and the plantation into the next generation.

“It's a waste of time to talk about nonsense,” Thomas said to his son. “There is no such thing as a curse.”

J
eremy glanced around the parlor-cum-ballroom at the group gathered to welcome home Philippe DuMont. The forty-two-year-old bachelor son of Henri and Bess DuMont had returned home for a brief period before reporting to his new job at the Pinkerton Detective Agency in New York after an eleven-year stint with the Texas Rangers, the state's mounted fighting force organized during the Texas Revolution to guard its frontier. There were twenty-two of assorted ages assembled, all from the DuMont, Toliver, and Warwick families. The number and size of the grandchildren had grown too large to be seated at Bess's dining room table, so for the homecoming meal earlier, to many cheeky comments, the youngsters had once again been assigned to the “children's table.” The third generation of Toliver offspring consisted of Vernon, aged fifteen; Regina, thirteen; and David, twelve. Those of the DuMont clan were Armand's sons, Abel, sixteen; and Jean, thirteen. The Warwicks' number was composed of Jeremy Jr.'s namesake, Jeremy III, sixteen; and Brandon, thirteen, and Stephen's boys, Richard, sixteen; and Joel, fifteen.

Bess had desired a larger party for her son's homecoming, but Philippe had roundly rejected the idea, disarming his vehement refusal with a chuck of his mother's chin that, as always, so she'd told Camellia with a laugh, had charmed away her disappointment.

They were all very fond of Philippe, but he'd never quite been one of them. Tall, rangy, rugged, totally lacking the elegance of his father's and brother's frames, Philippe had turned out to be if not the black sheep of the families, then the surprise mongrel in a litter of purebreds. From the growth of his first peach fuzz, they'd all observed in Henri's second son a militant nature enigmatically softened by a tenderness toward the fragile and helpless. They'd been amused by his obsessive protection of his little sister, Nanette, and his assignment of himself as discreet guardian of Jeremy's asthmatic son, Robert. Fool with Robert and the hapless malefactor had the fists of tall, strong, fearless Philippe to contend with. Jeremy had loved him for that. The death of Nanette had shadowed the last of Philippe's boyhood years, and the senseless killing of Robert had added to a growing rage against any who would harm the weak. With his brother, Armand, Philippe had returned home after the war to help his father run the DuMont Department Store, the expectation being that the two would assume Henri's position when he retired.

In less than a month, Philippe had left to join the Texas Rangers. He was not cut out to work behind a dry goods counter, he said, or to live in a fine home with servants to polish his boots and turn his bed. He was born to wear buckskin, eat his meals by a campfire, and live under the stars. Besides, Texas needed men like him to defend its frontier against the Comanche and Kiowa and Apache still attacking defenseless wagon trains and homesteads, scalping the men, raping the women, and carrying off children into captivity.

Much to the heartbreak of Bess and the chagrin of Henri, Philippe did not return home in 1870 when the Rangers were replaced by a union peace-keeping force called the Texas State Police. His organization disbanded, Philippe headed north to the Panhandle and sold his services as a gun arm for ranchers trying to defend their land from takeover by the cattle barons.

The election of Governor Richard Coke in 1873 saw the end of the abusive Texas State Police and the reinstatement of the Texas Rangers. Philippe immediately rejoined and added to the myths bred from the capture and killing of notorious criminals and the defeat and removal of the Indians from the plains of Texas.

This last was the cause of the hitch of Jessica's eyebrow as Philippe recounted the Rangers' part in the surrender of Comanche chief Quanah Parker that marked the end of the Texas Indian Wars. Jeremy had observed that Jessica's brows spoke a language of their own. Their twitch, contraction, range of upward movement provided insight into her thoughts. This evening, the infinitesimal arch of one of them indicated disgust at the U.S. Army's destruction of the Comanche villages and the shooting of 3,000 of the Indians' horses, their most prized possessions. No matter the brutality against the settlers and buffalo hunters that Philippe thought justified the slaughter, by the perk of Jessica's eyebrow Jeremy knew her heart was still on the side of the Indians and for all people displaced by the white man's greed and would be to her final day.

To her final day. Jeremy hoped that was a long time in coming. He was losing Camellia. The pulmonary disease that would have eventually claimed the life of his second son was taking his little flower's.

“Quanah Parker…” Bess murmured. “Isn't he the son of Cynthia Ann Parker captured by the Comanche when she was a little girl?”

“Yes,” Henri said. “She was kidnapped in 1836 at nine years of age and recaptured in 1860—”

“By the Rangers under Captain Sul Ross,” Philippe cut in on a note of pride.

Jeremy, Jessica, and Henri looked at one another, their gazes reflecting the memory of a time only they had shared. “
Mon dieu
,” Henri said softly, “has it been forty-four years since the John Parker massacre and that little girl went missing?”

“And we were headed right into the teeth of it,” Jeremy said.

“Oh, tell us about it, Grandpa,” Brandon, the younger son of Jeremy Jr., begged.

“Some other time,” Jeremy said. “You've had enough of a history lesson for one night, and I have to go check on your grandmother.” He got up from his chair to the sound of a creak in a leg joint. Jessica had risen also, her quiet demeanor suggesting that her mind was still occupied with Philippe's description of the last battle in the campaign against the Indians six years ago. Jeremy wished Philippe had not been so graphic. The children would relive his account of the massacre in their nightmares.

“Shall I see you home, Jess? It's such a dark night,” Jeremy said in the lofty hall of the DuMont château as servants helped them into their warm outerwear. It was February of 1880.

“That would be lovely, Jeremy. I'll let Thomas know. He and Priscilla will want to stay a while longer to visit with Philippe.”

They said little on the stroll down the avenue to the Toliver mansion, each weighed by the years of memories Philippe's mention of Quanah Parker had evoked, the sadness of Camellia's illness. Finally, Jeremy said, “I feel every one of my seventy-four years, Jess.”

Jessica linked her arm through his. “They don't get any lighter, do they?”

“Or easier, for all our comforts. The only defense against the effects of time is to stay busy.”

“And you are certainly that,” Jessica said. It had taken forty years, but with the coming of the railroads, Jeremy was beginning to see his faith in timber as a major industry in Texas justified and the Warwick Lumber Company its standard-bearer. By 1878, when more track had been laid in Texas than in the whole country combined, the company's vast acreage of prime virgin pine and mighty stands of hardwoods had stood ready for harvesting and shipment by rail to markets throughout the state. To meet the demands of the railroads for cross ties, boxcars, and depots and the surge of orders from commercial builders and real estate developers in the new towns being founded and counties organized, the company had begun building additional sawmills and facilities for their workers, all overseen by Jeremy and his two sons, Jeremy Jr. and Stephen.

“I sometimes think about slowing down, spending more time with Camellia,” Jeremy had said to Jessica a year ago during one of their gazebo visits. “She wants me to take her to Europe, you know. I could step aside, leave the lumber business to the boys to run, and concentrate on my other companies, but we're on the eve of a great dawn, and I want to feel its sun on my face when it breaks.”

Jessica wondered if Jeremy remembered those words and regretted putting his business interests before the desires of his wife now that time was running out for her to feel the sun on her face.

Jeremy must have read her thoughts. “She's been a wonderful wife, Jess.”

Jessica heard a sob deep in his throat. “Yes, she has, Jeremy.” Their breaths wreathed out before them, frosty puffs of vapor swallowed by the dark night. The temperature warranted her wearing the warm seal cape her family had given her for Christmas and Jeremy his camel hair coat with its rich lapels of sheared lamb. The crystal air carried the promise of snow by morning.

“Better than I've been a husband.”

“Camellia wouldn't agree.”

“No, she wouldn't, but I know.”

Jessica placed a hand on his lapel. They had reached the front steps of her verandah. “Then let her die without knowing, Jeremy.”

A sliver of moonlight caught the flash of surprise in his eyes. “You know?” he said.

“I know.”

“But that doesn't mean we can't always be the best of friends.”

“We'll always be the best of friends, Jeremy.”

He bent his head and kissed the cold contour of her cheek. “Good night, Jess.”

“Good night, Jeremy.”