Somerset Page 2

  “Mama, where is Tippy? I’ve looked everywhere for her and can’t find her. What have you done with her?”

  Eunice tucked a flowingly inscribed nameplate into a glass rosebud card holder and stepped back to examine the effect. “Should I set out the fly catchers?” she asked. “I bought a lovely pair in crystal when your father and I were in Washington. They do have the most dreadful flies there—worse than here. Is it too early in the season for them, you think?”

  “Mama, where is Tippy?”

  Eunice gave her daughter her attention. “Goodness, child. Why are you still in your robe?”

  Jessica spun toward the doorway.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To the kitchen. I’m sure that’s where you’ve exiled her.”

  “Jessie, stop right there. Do you hear me?” Eunice’s voice rose in alarm. She picked up the fan she’d brought into the room and waved it rapidly before her face. Jessica halted and turned around. The three maids, dressed in gray dresses overlaid with white aprons, had gone still, the room silent. “I am so glad your father took Lady Barbara and Lord Henry riding this morning,” Eunice said, fanning. “I will be spared the embarrassment of my daughter running to the kitchen to fetch a maid when a tug on the bellpull would do.”

  “I want to see Tippy, Mama.”

  “She’s busy designing your birthday cake.”

  “Then I’ll go help her.”

  Eunice cast a horrified look behind her at the stock-still maids, their eyes bulging and the whites stark with shock and curiosity. “That will be all,” she snapped. “Go make yourself useful to Willie May.”

  The maids rushed by Jessica in a blur of gray and white. Eunice moved quickly to pull her daughter into the room, then closed the french doors behind them. Once shuttered in, she said, “Do not take that tone with me, young lady, especially in the presence of the servants. You’re in enough trouble after that scene on the dock yesterday.”

  “I simply gave the man a slap on the shoulder with my fan.”

  “You were defending a Negro against a white man!”

  “The man was abusing an overburdened porter. I would have slapped him if the porter had been white as the driven snow.”

  Eunice’s tight, angry face crumpled like a soggy teacake. “I declare, child, what are we to do with you? We’ve all been so excited about your coming home. You can’t imagine how eager your brother was to see you. He insisted on going with me to pick you up from the ship, but you embarrassed Michael terribly yesterday, perhaps beyond reclaim.”

  “Michael should have been the one to give the man a wallop.”

  Eunice fanned faster. “I knew we shouldn’t have sent you to school in Boston—into that hotbed of abolitionists.”

  “No, Mother, a breeding ground for freedom lovers.”

  “Oh, Jessie!” Depleted as always from these arguments with a daughter for whom she’d rip out her heart, Eunice fell with her fan into one of the loggia chairs and sighed hopelessly. “What did they do to you in that school?”

  “They confirmed what I’ve always believed. All human beings are created equal, and no one has the right to enslave another.”

  “Sssh!” Eunice whispered fiercely, darting a look through the glassed french doors for listening ears. “Listen to me, my willful daughter. You have no idea what’s been going on around here in your absence. If you did, you’d realize what’s wrong with such feelings, how dangerous such talk could be for Tippy.”

  “What’s…been going on around here?”

  “Not on our plantation, but others. Slave rebellions, all unsuccessful, but too close to home for your father’s comfort. Planters are on edge and quick to punish any slave—unmercifully, I might add—or”—she drilled Jessica with a look—“anyone who gives the faintest impression they do not agree with the Southern cause.”

  “Cause? Abolition is a cause. Slavery is a dogma.”

  Eunice discontinued fanning. It did little to induce air into lungs that felt about to burst. “See, that’s the kind of thing I’m talking about. I’m warning you, Jessie, that while your father indulges your every wish, he will not tolerate such views in this house or your flagrant friendship with a Negro servant.” She shook her head in self-recrimination. “I should never have permitted you and Tippy to become close when you were children, but you had no one else to play with. She was the only choice of a companion for you. I should never have listened to my sister’s pleas to send you to boarding school to be near her in Boston, and, most assuredly, I should never have allowed Tippy to go with you.

  “However”—Eunice arched a reproachful eyebrow at Jessica—​“I was under the delusion you would have the good sense to break your ties with her once you were home.” Wearily, Eunice pressed a hand to her forehead. “I’d hoped you’d understand you must let her go, accept that Tippy has her place, and you have yours.”

  “Mama…” Jessica knelt at her mother’s knees, the fullness of her robe billowing about her, bringing to Eunice’s mind the red-haired, brown-eyed doll comprised of only a comely torso and bouffant skirt Jessica had preferred as a child. But there the likeness of her daughter to the doll ended. Eunice did not understand it. Her daughter’s features were regular, her teeth straight, her flaming hair and large, expressive eyes a dark, lovely brown, but they did not save her fair, freckled face from being—not homely, but plain. Her husband would have liked her to be beautiful but ordinary in her interests like the daughters of their friends, concerned only with clothes and parties and flirtations, delighted to be the spoiled only daughter of one of the richest men in the South. But from birth, Jessica had eschewed the role to which she’d been born. Was it because she sensed that her father’s indulgence was compensation for his disappointment in her? Jessica thought too much, questioned, challenged, rebelled. Carson would have found her spirit attractive in a beautiful daughter, but it was merely annoying in one so plain. Sometimes Eunice thought Jessica should have been born a male.

  “I do understand,” Jessica said, “but I cannot accept. I would never put Tippy in a jeopardous position, but I can’t—I won’t—treat her as inferior to me. She’s brilliant and creative in ways that I could never be. She’s kinder and wiser and possesses every quality I admire and need in a friend. I do not wish to cause you and Papa embarrassment, but I will give my friend the respect she deserves. I will not treat her as a slave.”

  Eunice pressed her hands to her cheeks. “Oh, my God…If your father were to hear you…”

  “He would be very disappointed in me, I’m sure.”

  “He would feel more than disappointment. There’s a side to your father you’ve never seen. I will not be able to prevent the consequences if you continue to flaunt your affection for Tippy. You must think of her, for goodness’ sake.”

  Gently, Jessica pried away her mother’s hands from her cheeks and held them. “Don’t worry, Mama. I promise not to stir up family distress by sharing my views on slavery in this house. The South is what it is, and one voice will not change it, but please allow Tippy to be my maid. You know she has the use of only one lung, which suffers from pleurisy, and she can’t breathe in the heat of the kitchen.”

  “I will so long as you abide by your promise, child. If you don’t, your father will send her to the fields, and she’ll be berthed in the slave quarters. He loves you dearly, but you must believe me that he will.” Eunice removed her hands and pushed her daughter’s fiery hair back from her face. “We missed you so when you were away,” she said gently. “That’s why we had you come home before the semester was through, but I declare, my blood has not run easy since you’ve been back. At luncheon and the party, there will be talk of the abolitionist movement. Promise me you’ll hold your tongue if your opinion is asked?”

  Jessica stuck out her tongue and held it with two fingers. “Ah pomice to uld ma ung.”

  “Silly girl,” Eunice said, a grin sliding across her face that did not quite relieve the anxiety in her eyes. “Now l
et me up. I have work to do.”

  “You’ll send Tippy to my room? No one in the world can dress my hair like Tippy, and imagine how I’d look if she didn’t manage my wardrobe.”

  “If you’ll remember that your father likes to surprise you unannounced. Make sure your hair and clothes are all you and Tippy are discussing should he appear. If he gets involved, it will be cotton bolls Tippy will be tending rather than ribbons and laces.”

  “I’ll remember.” Jessica stood and spun around in her satin dressing gown, skirt twirling from a delicate, narrow waist. “Eighteen tomorrow. When did I get to be so old?”

  “It’s a birthday that should set you to thinking of marriage,” Eunice said.

  “Maybe thinking, but not doing. What man would wish to marry a firebrand like me?”

  Who indeed? thought Eunice with a sigh.

  Chapter Four

  Tippy drew the brush from Jessica’s forehead down to the end of a long, waxed lock. She had repeated the movement over and over until Jessica’s naturally frizzy hair shone like springy streamers of russet satin on her shoulders. Shortly, Tippy would fashion it into an evening coiffure inspired by the Romantic Era in England called the Madonna. The style called for parting the hair in the middle with ringlets at the crown of the head and sides of the face. A gown of cream brocade hung from a wire dress form shaped to the measurements of Jessica’s figure. The frock featured the latest fashion details designed to show off creamy shoulders, small waists, and slim ankles.

  “It’s a perfect style for you,” Miss Smithfield, the seamstress who had sewn the dress, had pronounced in her shop in Boston, but it had been Tippy who had designed it and selected the fabric. Accessories were laid out: square-toed slippers in matching satin, elbow-length gloves, a small evening bag in green to complement the emerald brooch Jessica’s father had presented to her in honor of her birthday.

  When sitting straight before the mirror, Tippy directly behind her, Jessica could see only the wispy puff of her maid’s hair (another oddity since it was not wiry like other members of her race and its light brown shade was in contrast to her dark skin), the flare of her ears, and the sharp points of her constantly moving elbows. Hardly taller than a fireplace broom and wafer thin, Tippy had been bestowed with remarkably large ears, hands, and feet that made her look grotesque to those who did not know her or appreciate her talents.

  “Whatever was the good Lord thinking to stick all that extra yardage on my girl’s skinny little face and body and then not have enough to make her a second lung?” Willie May was often heard to lament.

  Jessica wondered as well. She thought Tippy the oddest-put-together human being she’d ever seen, but she’d found her diminutive frame and disproportionate features enchanting since they were children. With her agile mind and creative imagination, Tippy reminded Jessica of the mischievous sprite in her favorite storybook. Jessica had fancied her a chocolate elf dropped in from another world whose oversized ears and hands and feet, delicate as a fairy’s, could morph into wings and carry her back to the realm from which she came. She had worried about Tippy’s fragility since she was old enough to understand her friend had been born without an important working part, and Jessica might wake up one morning and find the angels had come for her playmate. Looking at Tippy’s swiftly working hands, picturing them picking cotton under the broiling sun, a heavy ducking sack slung from her thin shoulders, was enough to make Jessica nauseated, but her father wouldn’t do that to Tippy. Jessica was sure of it. He knew his daughter would never forgive him, but he could—and would—separate them. She must remember that.

  “I don’t have anything to wish for anymore,” Jessica said. “Isn’t that awful, Tippy? To be eighteen and out of wishes.”

  “I wouldn’t know nothin’ ’bout wishes no mo’ ’cept now I’se home, to hope for sugahcane syrup to go on mah co’nbread,” Tippy said.

  Jessica turned from the mirror to frown at Tippy and lowered her voice. “Must you speak like an ignorant field hand when you’re with me, Tippy?”

  “Yessum, I do, les’ I forget where I’m at. It’s safer for us bof.”

  Jessica turned back around to her vanity. “I’m sorry now that I didn’t leave you in Boston with Miss Smithfield at her dressmaker shop. You would have made a fine living with your needle and thread. There you’d have had many wishes, and they’d have all come true.”

  Tippy placed her mouth close to Jessica’s ear and spoke literately, “Your daddy would have sent men for me, but I wouldn’t have stayed anyway. I wouldn’t let you come home without me.”

  Jessica listened for her father’s footsteps in the hall. He wouldn’t enter without knocking, especially now that she was grown, but he still allowed little time to answer. Yesterday morning when Tippy was allowed to return to Jessica’s room from the kitchen, Jessica had told her of her mother’s warning, one that Tippy had already heard from Willie May. “They want to separate us because we’re so close,” Jessica had explained, “and Mama has threatened you’ll be sent to the fields if I don’t cooperate. We have to pretend that you’re my maid and I’m your mistress.”

  “That won’t be hard to do,” Tippy had said. “I am a maid, and you are my mistress.”

  “In name only.”

  They agreed they had to be very careful. Willie May had laid it out to Tippy. No more calling Jessica “Jessie” without the Miss attached followed by a little curtsy. No more shared giggles and secrets. No more lazy sessions reading to each other. No more show of friendship. “And,” Willie May had added with a stern eye at Tippy, “no more speaking like a white lady or parading your learning for master and slave to see.”

  The girls had hooked thumbs—their ritual to seal an agreement. Hearing only silence from the hall, Jessica said with a smile, “I’ll make sure you get all the sugarcane syrup you want, even if I have to smuggle it up here.”

  “No, no, Jessie—Miss Jessie. Don’t show me any—no—​favoritism. It’s too dangerous.”

  Jessica sighed. “I’m so disgusted with the way things are. The South shames me. My family shames me—”

  “Sssh, you mustn’t speak like that. You mustn’t even think like that.”

  “I can’t help it.”

  “That new teacher comin’ from the No’th…I know what she be up to, Miss Jessie. Please don’t let her get you into no trouble. I’se beggin’ you—”

  “Jessie! It’s Papa. I’m coming in!”

  The strong voice of the man Jessica both loved and feared boomed through the door. Only a few seconds passed before it flew open and Carson Wyndham strode in, the strike of his knee-high boots hard on the wood floor and their shine dazzling. A short, fit, ginger-haired man of powerful build and brusque manner, he inspired the impression that throngs would part at his appearance and woe to him who did not step from his path.

  Tippy, reacting quickly, cocked her head at Jessica’s startled reflection in the mirror and said loudly, as if continuing a dialogue Carson Wyndham’s entrance had interrupted, “…Yoah hair is so pretty jus’ like dis. A cryin’ shame to put it up.”

  “I agree,” Carson said, coming to stand by his daughter’s dressing table to inspect the subject of discussion. “Why the devil does a woman feel she has to torture her hair into twists and turns and God knows what all when it’s so much more attractive hanging unfettered as the good Lord intended?” He fingered the delicate mesh of the head covering that hung from a finial of the mirror. Jessica had worn it at luncheon yesterday, her loose hair filling the gold-filigreed, pouch-like bag. “I liked this…whatever it’s called, on you, Jessie. Why aren’t you wearing it this evening?”

  “Oh, Papa, a lady can’t wear a hair net with a party gown.”

  It was the kind of riposte her father liked to hear from his daughter—mindless and feminine and vain. He favored her with a smile. “I suppose not. Do you like your brooch?”

  “I love it. Thank you again, Papa.”

  He had presented it to her at t
he luncheon attended by her parents’ closest friends. The affair was to be part of her birthday celebration, but it had really been held to show off her father’s distant relatives from England, Lord Henry and Lady Barbara, the Duke and Duchess of Strathmore. Had it not been for the delightful company of Lettie Sedgewick, her only contemporary there besides her brother, Jessica thought she would have died of boredom if not from sheer disgust. Conversation had deferred to His Lordship and his opinionated wife and was all about the deplorable rise of the British middle class, the audacious attempt of farm laborers in Dorset to form a trade union, and grouse hunting. Their listeners and servile admirers, except for Lettie, had hung on every imperious word, interrupted only when Michael proposed a toast to honor his sister’s homecoming.

  There was much Jessica liked about Lettie Sedgewick. Jessica had looked forward to resuming her association with her former tutor when she returned from Boston, sharing what she had learned in school and exchanging ideas, but Lettie was now engaged to Silas Toliver, a widower Jessica remembered as strik­ingly handsome who had plans to start his own plantation in Texas. Jessica recalled that Silas’s first wife had died in delivering the little boy who would soon become Lettie’s stepson. Lettie was the highly intelligent daughter of a Presbyterian minister, well versed in language arts. The Wyndhams, members of her father’s church, had engaged her to teach Jessica penmanship and classical literature to supplement her public school instruction before leaving for boarding school. Lettie had gone on to earn a teacher’s certificate at a college in Nashville and now taught in the public school in the small town of her father’s church, Willow Grove. The community was described as a stone’s throw either way between Charleston and the parallel rows of plantations known as Plantation Alley, where the most prominent sugar and cotton estates were located. Silas, like Jeremy Warwick, had not been included in the luncheon party because they did not know Jessica well. They would be attending the ball.