Chapter Seventeen
Silas could not sleep or eat. He went for hard rides at dawn, long walks at midnight. In the still, frosty hours, while Plantation Alley slept, he pondered, worried, prayed about what he should do. He was four days into the two-week period he’d been granted to make a decision, and he was as far away from reaching it as he was the moment when Carson Wyndham had proposed the solution to both their problems.
His mother fretted over him. “Cassandra made your favorite pie, Silas. Why aren’t you eating it?”
His fiancée had grown pale from worry. “I know when something is deeply disturbing you, my love. What is it? Please tell me.”
Jeremy, who knew him better than a brother, said, “Something’s taking a bite out of your soul, my friend. I’m listening, if you want to talk about it.”
And his brother—obtuse, leaden, impercipient—observed, “Silas, whatever is amiss with you started the minute Carson Wyndham walked out of the drawing room. What did he do—offer his daughter’s hand in marriage?”
Morris had laughed at his joke, but Silas, unsmiling, had turned away lest his brother read the truth in his eyes.
The Conestogas were still for sale on the field next to the barn, their number now increased by two. His prospective renters had also withdrawn from the wagon train, a development that had caused Jeremy to send a note saying he believed he’d determined the source of the problem gnawing at him and would like to meet with him to discuss it. His friend was waiting in the drawing room at Queenscrown when Silas, finished with his managerial duties, joined him before the fire. It was two days before Christmas, and the house was redolent with the savory aromas of cooking and the smell of evergreens. At this point, hoping for a miracle, Silas had not told Jeremy he might have to pull out from the wagon train himself.
“I believe I understand what’s been troubling you, Silas,” Jeremy said. “It’s money, isn’t it? You’re out of funds for the trip.”
Frustrated, Silas ran a hand through the thicket of his black hair. “I’m afraid so, Jeremy,” he admitted. “I haven’t told you because I believed I could secure a loan, and with the money from the rent and sale of the Conestogas, I’d have enough to get us to Texas and provide a start, but neither has come through. I can’t take Lettie to Texas with empty pockets.”
Looking distressed, Jeremy leaned forward. “I don’t even want to think of going to Texas without you, Silas. This is a dream we’ve been hatching for years. Our plans are under way. Put your pride aside and let my family loan you the money.”
“No, Jeremy.” Silas shook his head emphatically. “Thank you for your offer, but I absolutely refuse it. Being in debt to one’s best friend is no way to start out an enterprise together. You know that as well as I do. If our situations were reversed, would you allow me to help you?”
Jeremy averted his gaze to the fire. “No, I suppose not. You’d let me give my life for you, as you would for me, but heaven forbid we owe each other money. This…tacit agreement between the Warwicks and Tolivers started way back in England at the end of the War of the Roses, you know, when the Lancasters and Yorks decided to share the key to the kingdom as long as it didn’t open the other’s coffers.”
“It is our legacy, Jeremy. Neither a lender or borrower be.”
Jeremy glanced at him worriedly. “So what are you going to do? Is there any hope at all? I assume Carson Wyndham turned you down, and that’s what his visit was all about a few weeks ago—why you looked as if you’d been given a death sentence.”
“I may as well have been,” Silas said, getting up to stroll to one of the tall windows of the drawing room. He could not sit long these days, neither could he stand, or lie down. His nerves would not permit it. Did he dare tell Jeremy of Carson Wyndham’s offer? What would Jeremy think of his best friend for even considering it? They each had the highest respect for the other’s character and integrity. Though they sometimes differed in their view of things, no dispute had ever come between them, even when they embarked on joint ventures ripe for disagreement. As boys, together they’d built canoes, rafts, and tree houses; concocted schemes to earn spending money; planned hiking, hunting, and fishing trips. As men, they’d invested an equal share of money, care, and training in a racehorse, shared the affections of the same girls, and made a committee of two in deciding everything from how best to remove a tree from the road to building a bridge serving their neighboring plantations.
Let Silas and Jeremy decide how to handle it, was the directive from both fathers of the men and now Morris, when a project concerning the juxtaposed estates was involved, deferring to “the boys.”
But if Silas accepted Carson’s proposal, would Jeremy even want him to accompany him to Texas? Would he want a leader of the wagon train by his side who had betrayed the one he loved to fulfill the dream they shared? If he agreed to Carson’s terms, would Jeremy understand that, given the man Silas knew himself to be, he had done what he believed was right for all?
“Then there’s no hope at all?” Jeremy repeated, the question soft with sadness and regret. “You’ve tried every avenue?”
Silas stared out the window. The flames from the fireplace leaped around his reflection in the glass, aptly showing a man in hell. He turned abruptly to the drinks table. “There is one avenue open to me,” he said, lifting the top of a whiskey decanter. It was only four o’clock in the afternoon. Jeremy’s brow raised slightly.
“And that is?” his friend asked, shaking his head no to Silas’s offer of a drink.
Silas poured himself a glass and sat down before the fire. “You were right about Sarah Conklin,” he said. “There was more to her than appeared. Michael Wyndham discovered her to be a conductor in the Underground Railroad. She’s been sent packing and will not be returning to her teaching post in Willow Grove. I have yet to tell Lettie.”
“Good heavens!” Jeremy exclaimed. “How did Michael find out?”
Silas explained what he knew. He had an idea Carson had left out certain unsavory details of the story.
“The poor girl,” Jeremy said. “I hope Michael and his men did not get rough with her.”
“Carson didn’t say.”
“Does Jessica know?”
Silas lifted his glass to his lips. “She knows. She was part of the deception.”
Jeremy sat straighter. “What?”
Silas finished the story of Jessica’s involvement. “Her father is very angry with her,” he said in conclusion. “So angry, in fact, that he wants to get her out of his sight. That’s what he came to see me about the other day. He wants my help.”
“You? How can you help?”
“He wants me to marry his daughter and take her to Texas.”
Jeremy’s paralytic look reminded Silas of the time, long ago, when they’d been fishing on opposite sides of the lake. Across the water, Jeremy had regarded him with the same stupefied stare, and Silas shortly discovered what had caught his attention on his side of the lake. A bear had arrived to fish upstream, so intense on his task that it failed to notice Silas. Jeremy’s harrowed gaze reflected his two choices. Should he climb a cypress where he’d be safe but captive or chance life and limb by making a dash for freedom? Silas had taken the risk and escaped into the trees beyond the bear’s reach. He felt himself in a similar position now. Should he stay were he was, secure but bound, or seek liberation at the risk of great loss? At the lake that day, Jeremy had not abandoned him. Would he stick by Silas now if he should decide to take Carson’s offer?
“I’m shocked,” his friend said simply.
“So I see. Care for that whiskey now?”
As Silas poured his drink, Jeremy asked, “What did you tell him?”
Silas noted gratefully that his friend did not say, as anyone else would: You told him no, of course.
“I told him I’d think about it,” Silas said. “I’m telling you now, Jeremy, for whatever you might think of me after today, that I am thinking about it. Carson Wyndham offered me that avenue you asked about.”