Chapter Twenty-Four
“Jessie, do you think this is a good idea?” Eunice asked, the question carrying a note of reproach as she watched her daughter pack a number of small, brightly colored, hand-carved blocks into a sack. “Your husband should be the one arranging this first visit with his son.”
“If I depended upon my husband to introduce me to the boy, I might have to wait until we’re in Texas. Cowardliness is not fast overcome.”
“In that opinion I believe you’ve wronged Silas, Jessie. He’s probably thinking of his son, who is still pining for Lettie, and Elizabeth, who had hoped she would become his stepmother. Perhaps he’s waiting for the appropriate time to introduce you to Joshua.”
“And just when would be the appropriate time, Mama? In one week when we leave for Texas? How awkward would that be for the boy?”
Jessica slipped the last colored block into the sack. The blocks made up a set of twenty-six with letters of the alphabet drawn on one side, numbers on the other, and farm animals, fences, pastures, sheds, and equipment on the others, all exquisitely painted by Tippy. Jessica had gotten the idea of them as an introduction gift to her stepson one night when she was lying awake wondering how she could manage, not to replace Lettie in Joshua’s affections, but at least to make friends with him. She knew nothing about child rearing and had never experienced a second’s maternal longing to produce a child. She’d gone to Tippy with the idea.
“I want something to be a learning tool as well as a toy,” she’d said, and Tippy’s imagination had immediately taken off in collaboration with Willowshire’s talented carpenter to produce the result Jessica would be transporting to Queenscrown today. Along with it was a stick horse whose head had been carved and painted as a facsimile of her beloved Jingle Bell whom she’d been told she must leave behind.
“Besides,” Jessica added, “my husband has forgotten about me.” She’d seen Silas only once after they’d said “I do.” Two weeks later, the first of February, the day he was to have married Lettie, he’d sent word by one of the servants to expect him that afternoon, and she’d stood on the upstairs gallery to watch for his approach up the lane. She’d expected to view him with disdain, but her heart had flown to her throat when he came into sight on his high-prancing gelding, the handsomest man she’d ever seen—her husband—and among the oldest, too, Jessica reminded herself, and an advocate of slavery to boot, she must remember.
Shocked and angry at herself, bewildered, she’d escaped quickly inside before he saw her and mistakenly believed she was eager to see him. By the time she met him for tea in the small parlor, she’d set her face against him. Uninspired by his reception, Silas was no less impassive to her. There was no sign he was aware of the significance of the date. He had come to give her a list of dos and don’ts to consider in preparations for the trip and outfitting her Conestoga wagon, delivered the day before. Apparently they were not to occupy the same “camel of the prairie,” as the vehicle was called. Her father had bought her and Silas their individual wagons as a wedding present. The scandal that the married couple was not cohabiting—now fodder for every gossipmonger in South Carolina—would travel with them to Texas.
“Well, frankly, I hope your husband has forgotten about you,” Eunice said. “There is no telling what the train will run into in Texas, even if you make it there. Elizabeth agrees. She’s frightened out of her mind for Joshua.”
Jessica turned away from the mirror where she’d been adjusting her bonnet to prevent her mother from reading her same worry. The Charleston Courier weekly carried news of the rebellion in Texas, and yesterday they had read a report that 6,000 Mexican soldiers led by Santa Anna, Mexico’s ruthless military commander, had crossed the border of the Rio Grande to crush the Texian forces once and for all. Silas had estimated that the trip to Texas would take five months, barring disastrous delays, which would place the date of their arrival at the site of their land grant no later than the end of July. But what would they find when they got there? Burned lands? Hostile Mexican soldiers waiting to take them prisoner? Would their land grants even be honored?
She shrugged off the flurry of worries for her more immediate concern and asked, “Where is Tippy? She’s to go with me to Queenscrown. I want her to see the look on the boy’s face when I present him his toys.”
“For God’s sakes!” Eunice moaned. “Must Tippy share everything? This is to be a private moment between you and your stepson and Elizabeth when you meet her as her daughter-in-law. What will you do if Elizabeth invites you to stay for tea? Will you insist Tippy share that, too? Spare the girl and allow her to remain here.”
“Tippy will take herself off to the kitchen on her own accord, Mama,” Jessica said, picking up the sack. “To spare me, she respects the place others have assigned her. I don’t want her to miss the boy’s reaction.”
Silas felt a small start when he recognized the Wyndham coat of arms on the two-seater, single-horse trap tied before the verandah of Queenscrown. It was not a conveyance he’d think favored by the Wyndham men. It must be Eunice Wyndham come to offer an olive leaf to her old friend and her daughter’s mother-in-law after a strained stand-off between the two plantations. Or—surely not—could it be Jessica come to call?
Silas hastily dismounted and slapped his horse’s flank. The gelding took off for the groom to look after when he reached the stables.
The sound of voices came from the drawing room—voices threaded with laughter he had not heard in a long time. Silas peered around the door to see Jessica and her maid sitting on the floor with his son, gazing on as he stacked little blocks of colored wood on top of one another. His mother watched the activities from her chair before the fire, looking amused despite that it was not Lettie on the floor playing with her grandson.
“A, B, C—what follows C, Joshua?” Jessica was saying.
“D!” his son squealed delightedly. “My uncle Morris taught me!”
Tippy, the maid, applauded with her floppy hands. “You is so smart!” she cried.
“I know it,” Joshua said matter-of-factly. “Can we make a farm?”
“Of course,” Jessica said.
Silas cleared his throat and stepped forward. “May I join the party?”
Joshua, seeing him, jumped to his feet. “Papa! Papa! Come look what Jessica and Tippy have brought me!” He grabbed his father’s hand and pulled him to the scattering of colored blocks on the floor. “There are numbers and pictures, and I can build a farm with animals and everything! See?” Joshua grabbed up a barn and a cow for his father’s inspection.
“I see,” Silas said.
“And, look, look!” Joshua straddled the stick horse. “I have a pony with a real head. Gee haw, horse! Gee haw!” And with a whoop and a cry he galloped off to ride the terrain of the room on his handsome-headed stallion.
Jessica had gotten to her feet. Tippy, too, had hopped up. The maid folded her hands before her apron and stepped back from the group into the dusky shadows of the room, her head down.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Toliver,” Jessica said, adjusting the folds of her dress. “I hope you do not mind the intrusion into your home.”
“It is a visit most welcome, Miss Wyndham.”
“The toys were an idea I had that Tippy made possible as a means to introduce myself to your son.”
“A very gracious gesture, Miss Wyndham.”
Joshua reined his pony in beside them. “Jessica. Her name is Jessica, Papa. She and Tippy are going with us to Texas.”
“So I’ve heard,” Silas said, his eyes holding Jessica’s.
Elizabeth rose from her chair. “Let us be off to the kitchen to see about tea, Tippy, and perhaps you can show our cook how to cut the sandwiches in those designs that were served at Miss Jessica’s birthday party.”
“I be happy to,” Tippy said.
Joshua was back on the floor engrossed with the blocks, his horse temporarily hitched. “Thank you,” Silas said to Jessica, taking her by the elbow and drawing her from his son’s play. “I…didn’t quite know how to arrange a meeting between you and Joshua. It should have happened sooner. Forgive my irresolution.”
Jessica waved away his apology. “Perfectly understandable, Mr. Toliver. Your son is adorable. I believe we’ll become very good friends.”
“Does he know you’re…my wife?”
“I thought it less confusing for him not to know yet. Our…situation will easily conceal the fact until the time is suitable to disclose it to him.”
“Very wise…Jessica.”
She smiled slightly, a flickering light quickly extinguished, but not too soon for Silas to see its benefit to her face. “Silas…” Jessica said his name musingly. “I’ll have to get used to calling you that.”
“It will not be as hard as hearing yourself referred to as Mrs. Toliver.”
“Not any more so than believing I am,” Jessica said, and Silas understood the cause of her blush. She had wandered into marital territory in which they might never venture. The possibility—probability—of their never sharing a bed was fine by him. He had his heir to Somerset.
“I’m glad you came over,” he said. “I was meaning to come by tomorrow with information which should make you very happy.”
A leap of panic flashed in her dark eyes. “You’re not canceling the trip, are you?”
Curious, surprised by her reaction, he asked, “Would that make you happy?”
She looked perplexed, but only momentarily. Silas saw her quick mind make short work of her confusion. “I dare say that would put us in a pickle neither of us would prefer, so by logic that news would not make me happy. I was silly to ask such a question.”
“I can’t imagine you ever being silly, Jessica. The information is this: Our route will take us to New Orleans, and I propose that you stay comfortably there in a hotel with Joshua until I can get the lay of the land in Texas. Of course your maid will remain with you. When all is well, I will send for you. You will like the Winthorp. I’ve stayed there before. It is in the Garden District and run by an English couple who understand the niceties of southern hospitality. I’ll give you the address to leave with your mother and friends in case they wish to mail you letters there.”
Silas had expected to see her blow out a breath of relief. Instead, her small, freckled face tightened. “Of course I will stay behind for Joshua’s sake,” she said, her voice thick with what sounded like disappointment. “I’m sure you’re worried about the danger to him.” She raised her chin to a lofty angle and turned away from him. “It really is time we were getting home. If you’ll be kind enough to direct me to the kitchen, I’ll go fetch Tippy.”
Silas was astonished to see that he had somehow wounded her. Her hurt feelings were as easy to perceive as the bright blocks scattered on the floor. Lord have mercy, what had he said to injure her so? At a loss, flustered, he inquired, “Are you all packed and ready for departure? Remember that three-quarters of your wagon is to be reserved for supplies.”
The one time he’d seen her since their marriage, he had strongly advised her not to bring anything along she could live without. Later, when they were established, things could be shipped to their settlement upriver from the Gulf of Mexico, he’d told her. As a leader of the wagon train, he had met many times with his group and preached keeping their conveyances as light as possible. Guidebooks, newspaper articles, and letters from those who had already made the five-month journey told of settlers having to discard nonessential items to lighten loads because of various problems with terrain or in case of emergency. The trails west were littered with abandoned items—furniture, clothes, bedding, books, equipment, musical instruments—that travelers coming after them found and picked up for their own use. He had left Jessica a list of suggested substitutes for heavier and less practical items, such as candles in lieu of oil and a few sets of sturdy, warm clothing rather than trunks full of silk and satin finery. Silas was sure that half of Jessica’s elegant possessions would be left in the wake of the wagon train.
“I am ready, Mr. Toliver,” Jessica said crisply. “You may rest your concerns about that, and I am relieved that news of that dreadful despot bent on humbling the Texians has not dampened your will to go. At this point, I am ready to say to Plantation Alley, Willow Grove, my family, and the whole state of South Carolina what Mr. David Crockett said to his constituents when he was defeated for reelection to Congress: ‘You may all go to hell. I am going to Texas.’”