San Antone. V. J. Banis

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СКАЧАТЬ damage had never been repaired, though in time a sort of truce had settled over things. She tended to household matters. She educated her children as best she could and, eventually, those of her slaves who wanted to learn. Lewis ran the plantation or, more and more, let it run itself. Sometimes she suspected he let it grow shabby to spite her, but she no longer provoked him by voicing such suspicions. The distance between her bedroom and his, once only a few feet, grew longer, until it seemed an impossible journey for either of them to make.

      Instead, he planned a journey to Texas.

      “It’s his decision to make,” her uncle had informed her that morning. “There’s nothing to prevent his selling Eaton Hall if he chooses.”

      “Aside from the fact that it is my home, what about me? What about our children? I am your niece, they are the grandchildren of your brother.”

      “He is the master of Eaton Hall. He is your husband. He is the father of your children.”

      “Then there is nothing I can do to prevent his carrying out this scheme of his?”

      “Nothing.”

      She was thoughtful for a moment. Then, “I shall simply not go.”

      He looked surprised at this. “And what do you propose to do instead, with no home, no means of support, no husband? You can’t imagine Lewis would divorce you, and even if he did so, what man would marry a divorced woman? You would be a fallen creature.”

      “You would not refuse to take us in, surely?”

      “Indeed, I should be obligated to refuse, both legally and morally. Furthermore, your husband would be entirely within his rights to call me out, and I am too old to fight duels.” He saw the defeated slump of her shoulders, and spoke in a more kindly tone. “I think you do your husband an injustice.”

      Her head snapped up. “I?”

      “He’s not the first to think of such a move; you yourself have admitted as much. What do you know about this Texas? I’ll wager, very little. And the land grant he’s certified, a half a million acres, it hardly seems he means to slight his obligations to his family.”

      “If we live to reach this San Antonio. You can’t deny that between here and there lie grave dangers.”

      “I’m sure your husband has considered them.”

      “And in any case,” she said, standing, “it is customary for men to stick together in these matters.”

      “Not only customary, but essential, if things are to be run rightly. I think a woman might wisely depend upon men to handle such things, as they are beyond her ken.”

      His disapproval of her attitude was evident, but at the moment she was too angry, and too disappointed, to be temperate.

      “As my husband has handled the plantation I handed over to him by marrying? Tell me the truth, is it not worth less today than when he began to manage it?”

      His quick blush told her that her charge was true, but her own intimate knowledge of Eaton Hall had confirmed that suspicion long ago.

      “It is unladylike of you to concern yourself with such questions,” her uncle said, and looked away from her angry gaze.

      “Well, then, uncle, I promise you, when I die on some trackless waste because of this folly, I will do so in a ladylike manner, so as to embarrass no one.”

      She swept from the room, ignoring even his “goodbye,” but when she was on the street outside and had walked off a little of her annoyance, she was ashamed at having been so sharp with him. It was hardly her uncle’s fault that society viewed women in such a light. He was more tolerant than most; another lawyer might have refused any discussion at all at the first hint of her reason for consulting him.

      Back at Eaton Hall, she thought of her father. There are always choices. Her father had told her that. But he wasn’t here now to enumerate them for her. Very well, then, what were her choices? So far as she could see, there was no question of whether she was to accompany her husband to Texas. In a sense, she supposed she could be grateful to her uncle for making it clear that there simply were no alternatives. So, granting that she would be taken to Texas regardless of her feelings in the matter—what choices then were left to her? She could continue to rail against it. Fight with Lewis, frighten the children, make things difficult—in short, she could go as a victim. Or, she could make the best of it. “Nothing is a complete disaster if you can learn from it, build upon it.” That, too, had been her father’s advice.

      Build upon it. How long had she chafed at the limitations of her life here in South Carolina, the vacuity, the boredom of conventions that were an ingrained part of “the southern life-style”?

      She was a misfit. She had been all her life. When her parents had been alive, it hadn’t mattered particularly, but since then her life had seemed barren and without any prospect of improvement.

      She found herself suddenly wondering if people were so rigidly bound, so hemmed in, in Texas. Here, in South Carolina, in a world inbred with all the wealth and trappings of genteel society, she found life empty.

      What if, in that emptiness of the western wilderness, people grew to fill the space?

      “Now,” she chided herself, “I’m resorting to wishful thinking.”

      Someone—she couldn’t recall who—had said that hell was anywhere one didn’t belong. Well, she had long known she didn’t belong here, without having the slightest notion of where she might belong. It would be funny, wouldn’t it, if Lewis turned out to be right, if Texas were where she belonged after all.

      She went along the marble-tiled hallway and flung open the doors that gave onto the library. She began to study the shelves thoughtfully, taking down a volume here, a volume there—any book that she thought might tell her something about this new state of Texas.

      Chapter Three

      Lewis had not forgotten his scheme, nor changed his mind about it. On the contrary, he had acted with a resolution and dispatch rare for him.

      Carts, drays, wagons—every possible type of vehicle that could be used for transporting their belongings—were purchased or ordered built, and an incredible herd of horses and oxen to pull them rounded up in makeshift stables at Eaton Hall.

      Within a fortnight, Joanna had watched their fine china, their elegant crystal and porcelain carefully packed into barrels filled with sawdust. Chandeliers were taken down and packed, furniture was crated. Even the elaborately carved mantelpieces, the doors, the inlaid floors went, until there was nothing left but the empty shell of what had once been their splendid home.

      As nearly as possible, Eaton Hall was to be lifted up from one place and set down in another, virtually intact.

      Such a move was not accomplished overnight. It was nearly a year later that Joanna stood on the deck of the schooner Nancy and watched a cutter approaching from the port of Galveston. The city itself, on its sandy island, lay in the distance, shimmering in the afternoon heat.

      The immense caravan that had been assembled to transport their home and furnishings was traveling overland under the management of their overseer, Campbell. The family, with their personal belongings and the household slaves, СКАЧАТЬ