Texas Angel, 2-in-1 (2 page)
Then, taking a deep, determined breath, she headed for the door and the fate that awaited her.
T
HEY WERE WAITING FOR HER IN THE DRAWING ROOM
. Mother Hearne was seated on the satin divan, dressed in matronly brown taffeta. She looked the picture of southern virtue and womanhood. She was an attractive woman with light brown hair, a long aristocratic nose, and cold blue eyes. Elise tried to avoid those eyes as she entered the room but felt them fixed firmly upon her, laden with reproach.
Kendell was standing by the hearth. His eyes, blue like his mother’s but not cold at all, were now purposefully averted from his wife. Elise, too, avoided looking at him, not wanting to witness again the tortured pain she was certain still resided there. He was a genteel man, and it had been that quality more than his rather plain and nondescript looks that had won Elise’s heart. Some interpreted his soft-spoken, kindly nature as weakness. Indeed, he was not an aggressive, forceful man. But Elise refused to believe he was truly weak. Still, she had been barely eighteen when they had married, so in love and blind to reality. Now she feared that particular reality was about to be her undoing.
It was William Hearne who spoke first. “Elise, please be seated.” His tone was stern but not harsh.
Elise didn’t want to sit, but neither did she want to begin this interview by disobeying her father-in-law. She thus sat on the very edge of a ladder.back chair, positioned so that she had a direct view of William when she looked straight ahead, but little of her husband or mother-in-law. Father Hearne seemed the safest refuge for the moment.
He was seated by a small table that held a decanter and glasses. In his hand he held a glass of bourbon, his drink of preference.
With his free hand, Hearne held up the envelope Elise had seen earlier. “You are familiar with this?”
She nodded.
“What have you to say for yourself?”
“It is a lie,” she replied, silently cursing the fact that she could not make her voice sound convincing.
“I do not deny the malicious intent of these papers,” Hearne said. “They could well damage my political aspirations. I do not want to believe them.”
“Then don’t,” Elise answered desperately. “Burn them, and the entire matter will soon be forgotten. Why give place to those who would deal in dirty politics?”
“This goes far beyond politics,” Daphne said. “We cannot blithely ignore this thing. The very name of our family could be blackened forever.”
That was a poor choice of words, and everyone knew it. A heavy silence fell upon the little group. Elise stared at her hands folded primly in her lap.
Finally William spoke. “Do you know of the painting mentioned in the letter?”
“No. There are no paintings of my mother. My parents were never so wealthy that they could afford such extravagances.”
“Yet the painting was in your father’s possession before it was forfeited in a game of chance.”
Ah, Papa! Elise had always known her father’s gambling habit would come to no good. The letter in William’s hand told how Dorian Tous.saint had paid off a debt with the deed to his modest property in New Orleans. Somehow the painting had been left behind in the house, which was careless even for Papa. It was, in the words of the letter, “A very touching family portrait” of Dorian Toussaint and a woman of tan complexion holding a very young infant. Elise herself had never seen it and, until the arrival of the letter, had not known of its existence. Papa had been so careful to keep his wife’s true identity a secret. But he was old now, and his mind was often muddled by strong spirits.
William went on as if his daughter-in-law had not read the letter herself. “The house and its contents came into the possession of Maurice Thomson. Your father’s likeness in the painting is easily identifiable and undeniable. But Mr. Thomson also recognized the woman seated in front of your father. She was obviously his wife.”
Even in her present distress, Elise found herself wondering about the woman in the painting and longed for a chance to see it. Her mother had died when she was only a few months old, so Elise had never known her. What did she look like? Was she as beautiful as her father always said? She must have been for him to have risked so much to marry her.
Suddenly an inspiration struck Elise. “Who is to say the woman in the painting is my mother?”
“Your mother’s name was Claire, was it not? That name is inscribed with your father’s name on the back of the portrait. But Mr. Thomson is sending it to us that we may judge for ourselves.”
“That is most kind of him,” Elise replied dryly.
“Thomson makes a strong claim,” William continued, pointedly ignoring her words. “He says the woman named Claire Toussaint was once named Jewel and was his property. He claims your mother was a runaway slave.”
It was the first time anyone had dared to speak the word
slave
out loud. It had the force of a blow, and Elise winced at the sound of it. Her reserve, which she had been clutching as desperately as a drowning person grasps a floating log, began to crumble.
How much longer could she deny it? The letter was true! All of it. Her mother had been a quadroon woman and a slave. Papa had told Elise the entire story but had waited until her wedding day to do so. She had known nothing until that day. She had been raised a white female among the gentry, though her father was bankrupt more often than not. He had fallen in love with Claire in New Orleans and had helped her escape to Pennsylvania, where they married and where Elise was born. Papa said Claire could pass for white by claiming to be of French extraction, and she did so until her untimely death. It had then been an easy matter for him to continue the ruse. Elise looked as white as Mother Hearne herself except for her hair, which was the color of a lump of coal, and her rich chocolate brown eyes. Papa said her eyes were just like her mother’s. And if so, the portrait would surely reveal that the woman in it was indeed Elise’s mother.
“It’s true, isn’t it?” Mother Hearne said, full of accusation. Her eyes were narrow and incisive, showing no hint of a willingness to forgive. “Don’t deny it, girl! I see it in your face. You have deceived us—you . . . you nigger!”
“Mother!” exclaimed Kendell, rousing as if from a stupor. Poor Kendell. His face was ashen, his lips trembling as he fought to hold his composure.
Elise’s own emotion broke at last, and tears spilled from her eyes. “Please . . .” Denials were no use now, not after seeing her husband’s agony. She owed him the truth. “Forgive me. . . .” Her sobs made further speech difficult.
“No . . . it can’t be. . . .” Kendell murmured.
“You must let me explain,” Elise managed to say.
“There can be no acceptable explanation,” Daphne said. “You have disgraced this family. We will never be able to hold up our heads in society again. Our son has married the child of a slave—she is a slave herself for that matter. Our granddaughter is—” But as Daphne spoke, the full import of what she was saying hit her, and she was stricken momentarily to silence. “I . . . I think I shall faint. . . .”
“I didn’t know,” Elise blurted through her tears. “That is”—she focused imploring eyes upon her husband—“my father told me the morning of our wedding. I was confused and afraid.”
“And you think that is reason enough to have deceived us?” William challenged.
“I didn’t know what to do. . . .”
“We will never believe another word you say!” cried Daphne, who had not fainted and in fact had never fainted in her life. “You knew what shame such a thing would bring upon your husband and his family. That is why you kept it a secret.”
“I thought love would be enough—”
“Don’t speak that word. It is a foul obscenity from your lips. You know nothing of it. I doubt you are capable of love. I feared when you married—and I am certain of it now—that you married Kendell for money and security only.”
“It’s not true!”
“You lying wench.”
“Kendell, you know I love you.”
Kendell looked away from Elise, and she knew in that dreadful moment she would find no mercy, no forgiveness from him. If her husband turned away from her, all was hopeless. What would happen now? The question echoed in her mind, but she could not voice it. She was not surprised that it was the level-headed, shrewd William who broached the subject.
“Before we called you,” he said, “Kendell, Mrs. Hearne, and I discussed what we ought to do if these allegations were true. This is not easy for any of us. In the last year we have accepted you as part of our family. Indeed, we have grown fond of you—” A loud harrumph from Daphne clearly indicated what she thought of that statement. Casting his wife a quick glance before giving a lame shrug, William went on. “Well, anyway, you have taken on our name and given birth to our blood. We have accepted you and lavished upon you all the finest comforts, yet you have repaid us with the most heinous of deceptions. There can be no way for life to continue as it was. There is no way our son can continue in a marriage to one such as you.”
A sob escaped Elise’s lips before she could rein it back.
“The state of South Carolina,” William continued, ignoring Elise’s display of emotion, “does not recognize divorce. At twenty-two, our son’s life is ruined because of you. He can never marry again. . . .”
“Please!” Elise begged. “We can go far away from here where no one knows us. We can have a life together. We could be happy—”
“Do you think our son wants to spend his life with a nigger, raising little pickaninnies?” Daphne scoffed. “You foolish woman!”
“Mrs. Hearne,” William said, “I don’t believe Elise yet fully understands the implications of her plight. Even if we were to permit Kendell to stay with you, even if he wanted to do so, it is not our decision to make. Your mother was the property of Maurice Thomson. She was never a free woman but always a fugitive slave. That means she and her offspring are Thomson’s property. You are Thomson’s slave.”
“No!” screamed Elise.
“If Kendell would help you run away, he would be a felon himself. But he would never do that because he has too much respect for the system in which he was nurtured.” William gulped down the bourbon he had ignored until now. “Thomson’s lawyer will be here in a few days to verify his claims and to collect his . . . property.”
“You can’t do this!” Elise jumped from her seat and threw herself at her father-in-laws feet. “I beg you. Think of your granddaughter . . . for her sake, please don’t do this!”
“You belong with your own kind,” William said coldly.
Elise then went to her husband and fell on her knees before him. “Kendell! You could not be so cruel. Our baby . . . what will become of her . . . of me? Has your love grown cold so quickly? I know you must still care. Have mercy on us!”
He turned his back on her. And in that moment, there on her knees before a rich white planter, she truly felt who she was—a despised slave, and nothing more.
A
BILLOWING CLOUD OF DUST ENVELOPED
the wagon, blurring the eyes of the passengers, choking their throats, and dampening their spirits. Benjamin Sinclair, seated next to the driver of the wagon, was thirty-three years old, tall, lean, and, despite his well-muscled body, appeared unsuited to travel upon a trail in the wilds of America. His handsome, clean-shaven face, though covered with grit now, had an intelligent, scholarly look that fit more with his gentlemanly garb of corduroy trousers, black serge coat, waistcoat, and silk cravat than with his surroundings. His blond, baby-fine hair further softened the initial impressions his physique might lead one to form of this man. Only his eyes, a vibrant blue, almost turquoise, hinted of a fire, an inner grit matching that of the wilderness trail.
At the moment, however, even that fire was dimmed. He longed for the sights and sounds of civilization after so many weeks of travel through the wilderness. Then he silently scolded himself for dwelling too much upon temporal comforts, placing them above that of his holy calling.
He had known from the beginning that his mission to the wasteland of Texas would not be easy.
Unfortunately, the endless days upon the trail—the hardships, the fear of molestation by Indians, wild animals, or highwaymen—had dimmed his vision. Moreover, it had been difficult watching his family suffer. Benjamin had not the funds to purchase steamboat fare, so they made their way on the hard trail. The trip had taken its toll on his wife, Rebekah, who was several months advanced with child. She had eaten little food and was now so weak she could barely sit upright in the back of the wagon where she was wedged in with the children, their belongings, and a load of supplies their guide had brought.
Benjamin wondered many times during the long days of travel if he had made the right decision, if he truly had heard the voice of God calling him to minister to the heathen wilds of Texas. When he wasn’t occupied with the labors of survival, he was on his knees beseeching God’s reaffirmation of his call.
“Are we almost there?” a whining voice called out.
Benjamin turned in his seat next to the driver to meet the questioning gaze of his twelve-year-old son. “Be still, Micah,” Benjamin said.
“Your complaints will not hurry this wagon along.”
“Another hour or so will get us to Natchez,” interjected the driver.
Benjamin shot the man a cross glance. Tom Fife, their guide, had been an unsavory companion for the last week, but Benjamin tried to be patient. After all, the man had rescued them when their previous guide had left them stranded on the banks of a swollen river far from their destination. The scoundrel had stolen their horses, leaving them only a wagon with a broken axle. Fife, driving a wagon drawn by two huge mules and loaded with furs and other trade goods, happened along and showed them a better crossing. He then offered them passage and agreed to guide them to Natchez. It had been a hard blow to leave his costly wagon behind, but Benjamin thanked God that at least their belongings could fit onto Fife’s conveyance.