San Antone. V. J. Banis

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СКАЧАТЬ think there’s a great deal we need to discuss,” Lieutenant Price was saying. “If the captain will let us use his cabin?”

      “Of course,” the captain said; he hesitated briefly. “Perhaps you’d care to join us, Mrs. Harte?”

      It was none too subtle, and barely short of a slap at Lewis’s competence. She would have liked very much to join them. The truth was, ignorant as she was of conditions in Texas, she was likely to be the one to have to cope with them. She knew what happened when Lewis faced disappointment, unexpected difficulties; she’d seen him run his tongue over his lips just then, as if they were parched.

      But she’d seen something else as well, in his eyes, something unfamiliar and yet immediately recognizable; it had been a long time since her husband had asked anything without demanding it.

      And a woman did owe her husband loyalty, didn’t she? The more so, surely, if she could not love him.

      Unbidden, an image of the lieutenant’s blue eyes, like a splash of water on a warm day, came to her; she had avoided meeting them since that first, worrisome glance.

      “I think not,” she said aloud. “I prefer to leave those matters in my husband’s hands. I’ll just go get the children ready. We will be going ashore soon, won’t we, captain?”

      “In about an hour.” His tone was curt.

      Joanna watched them go, Lewis already talking in a voice a shade too hearty, clapping the lieutenant on the back as if they were old friends.

      Rugged journey. Texas weather. Dangers. It occurred to her that she was going to become, after all, one of those “pioneer women” she had admired so much. Traveling by covered wagon across a harsh wilderness, with three children to worry about....

      No, she amended, trying not to succumb to the despair that suddenly threatened to engulf her—four children. And one of them was a drunkard.

      Chapter Four

      Galveston had the look of a southern city—shuttered windows and long verandas; walled gardens and oleander blossoms. Joanna noticed as they drove that many of the houses were raised up off the ground—like elegant dowagers, veiled in trellises, comically standing on stilts.

      “Galveston Island is subject to floods and violent storms,” Lieutenant Price explained when she mentioned this fact. “Even with the stilts, the first floors are sometimes flooded.”

      “Is this the season for such storms?”

      “Yes, but you needn’t worry. Broadway, where you’re going, is somewhat elevated over the rest of the island.”

      She suspected, when she saw the street on which the Montgomerys lived, that he meant “elevated” in social status as well as the island’s topography. The houses here were large and grand. She found herself thinking, Nouveau riche, and then contritely reminded herself that the city was only about twenty years old. Charleston, by contrast, was nearly two hundred. All those years made a difference; time, certainly, to master bad habits.

      Alice Montgomery was an airy dumpling of a woman with pale eyes that seemed perpetually misted with about-to-be-shed tears, and a small mouth permanently fixed in a hesitant smile.

      Her husband, Clifford, appeared altogether too large and brutish to have wed her. The way he looked Joanna over reminded her of Vincent Mallory; indeed, it was Mr. Mallory who had arranged for them to stay with his acquaintances here.

      “We’re so happy to have you with us,” Mrs. Montgomery said, showing Joanna and the children to their rooms; she had been chattering nonstop since they had arrived, an effort, Joanna suspected, to mask her shyness. Lewis and Clifford Montgomery had retired to the latter’s study to discuss “business”—liquor business, Joanna supposed. Lieutenant Price had delivered them here and gone his own way.

      “We get so few visitors of the right sort,” her hostess was saying.

      “What sort is that?” Joanna asked, and was at once sorry for the gibe; Alice Montgomery seemed to consider the question seriously.

      “Why, you see, this is a seaport,” she explained in earnest. “All kinds of ships put in, people you couldn’t possibly invite into your home, if you follow my meaning. Ladies aren’t even permitted in the wharf area unescorted—for their own safety. But of course, there’s no problem up here—that class doesn’t come this far.”

      “Except during the floods, I imagine,” Joanna said.

      “Oh, no, not even then; it wouldn’t be right. Here, this is your room. I gave you one overlooking the garden, and it gets the breeze from the Gulf; the weather’s been mighty warmish. Your daughter will be right here, right next door to you, and your sons across the hall, or we can switch them about if you’d rather. Such lovely children—they must give you a great deal of pleasure. Your nigras will be just fine now, in the sheds. Except for your own maids, of course, and the children’s mammy; we’ll put down pallets in the attic for them. I know you’ll want them close at hand when you need them—it’s so hard getting strange darkies to do things the way you’re used to having them done. But I do just want to say one thing: I want you to treat ours as your own while you’re here. If there’s anything you want, you just let them know, and if they don’t hop to it, don’t you be shy of telling me. Mr. Montgomery likes a smooth-running house. Course, I expect you’re used to that, coming from Eaton Hall. Mr. Mallory’s told me how lovely it is.”

      She took a deep breath, smiling, and waited for her guest to respond to all this.

      “It was,” Joanna said, but the past tense seemed to slip by the other woman unnoticed. “I do hope we won’t be too much trouble while we’re here.”

      “I can’t dream how.”

      “Well, it is difficult, with a houseful of people—just finding time to be alone, a chance to relax....”

      “Oh, I don’t care if I ever have a moment alone—I hate being all by myself. And I never relax—it makes me too nervous. I can’t tell you, Miz Harte, how I’m looking forward to hearing all about Charleston. It’s been ten years....” Alice Montgomery made an uncharacteristic pause and sighed. “I expect you’ll find us hopelessly out of fashion here in Galveston.”

      “And San Antonio?” Joanna asked on an impulse. “Have you journeyed there?”

      The teary eyes blinked with astonishment. “San Antonio? Oh, my, no, no one does—oh, I am sorry, I didn’t mean—”

      “It’s all right,” Joanna assured her. “I expect you’re entirely correct.”

      * * * *

      In fact, as it turned out, quite a few people were apparently planning to make the trip with them.

      “Word gets around when there’s a party going,” Lieutenant Price explained. “People who have some reason to make the trip arrange to make it together. Safety in numbers. And the company helps the time pass more pleasantly.”

      It would be several weeks before they were ready to go. Not only must a wagon be built and a team purchased, but supplies had to be laid in, some of them especially ordered and brought to Galveston on one of the many ships that sailed into the harbor.

      Provisioning СКАЧАТЬ