Chapter Eighty-One
The last day of 1883, Jessica removed a notepad from the stack of journals in the upper cabinet of her secretary, adjusted the wick of her kerosene lamp against the gathering twilight, and headed her final entry of the year.
DECEMBER 31, 1883
A light has been extinguished in the Toliver household that all our Christmas candles have not relieved. What a sad holiday season this year—worse, even, than when Silas died. Silas had lived; David had not. The shock of my grandson’s death still stuns, and our grief will linger a long, long time—forever for his parents. Parents do not get over the death of a child. How I yearn to comfort my son and his wife, but there is no solace I can give. I excused myself when the minister came with his Bible. I did not wish to hear his hollow words. Thomas’s face was as gray, Priscilla’s as blank-eyed, Vernon’s as tear-stained when the preacher left as when he came. Regina had escaped to Tyler’s arms where she’s spent most of her time since her brother’s funeral. Henri and Bess and Jeremy’s wordless presence has been consoling. They know. They have been where Thomas and Priscilla are now. Thomas mourns for Vernon also. He remembers the loss of his brother, Joshua.
Adding to the household sadness is the distance I see quivering between Thomas and Priscilla like heat on pavement in the hottest days of summer. My son is puzzled by her angry withdrawal. Their grief should be uniting them. I, too, am perplexed. It is as if Priscilla blames Thomas for the death of their son, that somehow she has found out about the Toliver curse and believes it responsible for what has happened. But how could she know unless…
Jessica laid down her pen and stared unseeing out the dusk-filled window. Like the sudden lunge of the snake that had killed her grandson, an unthinkable possibility leaped into her mind. Dear God! Had Priscilla read her diaries? From what other source could she have learned about the curse? The knowledge could not have come through Thomas. He had been kept ignorant of the foolishness that had haunted his father. But would the girl be that unprincipled, that ignoble? Was Jessica imagining things? Was she misjudging her daughter-in-law?
Another cause could account for Priscilla’s animosity toward her husband. The night of Regina’s birthday party his wife had seen the attraction between Thomas and Jacqueline Chastain. To Jessica’s knowledge—and it would not have escaped her—Thomas had not acted upon his fascination, but ever since, Jessica was convinced that Priscilla had become the milliner’s enemy. The situation had not appeared so at first. Priscilla began buying all her hats from the Millinery Shop, so many that Thomas had remarked on her extravagance at supper one night.
“I’m delighted you are giving Mrs. Chastain the business, Priscilla, but must you support it as if you’re the only customer in Howbutker?” he’d said.
“I’m trying to be a pied piper by leading all my friends to her door,” Priscilla had replied.
But Jessica noticed that Priscilla never wore the hats, and word had come to her by way of Bess that someone had written letters circulating around the county that defamed the morals of the widow who owned the millinery shop. They claimed Jacqueline had seduced her husband and warned women that as long as “the wanton” was in town, their husbands were in jeopardy of her wiles.
“Who would do such a thing?” Bess said. “One wonders, of course, if there is truth to the letters even though Mrs. Chastain does not seem the sort, but who knows? She is very beautiful and unattached.”
Jessica had had an idea who. A letter had not come to her, a further implication that Priscilla’s hand had held the pen. Her daughter-in-law had bought the hats to throw suspicion off herself. Bess had destroyed her copy of the malicious swill, so Jessica could not compare the writer’s signature to Priscilla’s. Jessica had been in a quandary of indecision. If her daughter-in-law was innocent of such evil, confronting her could drive a wedge between them that would never be removed. And if the girl was guilty, Thomas would be unable to live under the same roof with her, and what would that alienation do to the children? Jessica believed she had no choice but to remain silent and hope the perpetrator’s scheme would have no effect on the prosperity of Mrs. Chastain’s shop.
But if Priscilla were guilty of that sort of skullduggery, how far a leap was it to steal into her mother-in-law’s room, unlock the cabinet in her secretary, and read her private journals? The idea of it was so chilling that Jessica rose abruptly and began to pace. Good Lord, the buried secrets the girl would have unearthed! And why had she read them in the first place? Surely her interest in her husband’s lineage was not that strong!
In her mind, Jessica sorted through the information her daughter-in-law was now privy to if she’d read the diaries. The sum and private nature of the content appalled her to the bone, not the least of which was Jessica’s suspicion that the girl had had relations with Andrew Duncan and believed him to be the father of Regina.
Jessica forced herself to remain calm. She could still be imagining demons that didn’t exist. Priscilla had never hinted of the information she’d learned by so much as a sidelong glance. She’d never used it to her advantage against Jessica, whom she’d come to dislike, but then, why would she and risk discovery? What had led her to embark on such a perilous mission as reading her mother-in-law’s diaries? She would have known that discovery would lead to her disgrace—and Thomas’s complete rejection—if caught. What had caused her to put her marriage, and her zealously enjoyed position, in jeopardy?
Jessica strolled to the window overlooking the drive leading to the carriage house. Sometimes in the early hours, she thought she could still hear the clip-clop of Major Duncan’s horse carrying him to his quarters late at night. Suddenly the answer to the puzzle popped into her head. Of course. The major! Red-haired, freckle-faced Andrew Duncan was the reason Priscilla had read her diaries.
Jessica wondered why it had taken so long for the light to dawn. Somehow, she had given Priscilla cause to wonder if her mother-in-law suspected her affair with the major, so she had gone to the only logical source for confirmation and found it.
Jessica plopped down in a chair, her mind spinning. Now what? Exposing the woman to Thomas was out of the question. Merciful heavens, the devastation that would unleash! There would be the scandal of Priscilla’s adultery, the question of Regina’s paternity, marital estrangement—all on top of David’s death. Besides, Jessica had no proof her son’s wife had read her diaries. Priscilla could—and would—deny everything, and Jessica must consider the children. Once again, she would have to let these particular sleeping dogs lie. There were other dogs Jessica feared her grandson’s death may have roused since Priscilla had now learned of the Toliver curse.
One by one Jessica began removing the journals from her secretary and placing them in chronological order in pillowcases. When they were filled, she locked the bundles in her wardrobe and concealed the key in the finial of her bed post. If Priscilla came visiting and found them gone, she would know soon enough that her unforgivable deed had been discovered.