Somerset

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by Leila Meacham


  “You may,” Jessica said, thumbing through the pages whose contents had been distilled from the hundreds of journals and diaries she’d edited for the book. “A very handsome volume indeed and just in time for Christmas. Will you see to the delivery of the rest of my order to my home in Howbutker?”

  “With pleasure, Mrs. Toliver. This book was a commission of great pride and enjoyment for us here at Hawks. As a Texan, I’m grateful you took the time and effort and trouble to leave us such a legacy.”

  “I hope the founders’ families will share your appreciation,” Jessica said. “Roses is my Christmas present to them.”

  Clutching her copy of the book, she wished the man happy holidays and walked out onto the sidewalk suddenly feeling a little crestfallen. Her project had turned out exactly as she’d hoped—better, even. The quality of the publication and the attention to detail showed that it had been in the hands of those who cared. A good firm, Hawks Publishing. But now that she’d completed her year’s mission, she felt like a balloon with its air expelled. What did one do with a deflated balloon?

  Jessica wished for Jeremy’s company. He’d lighten her mood. He would take her to the Townsmen to celebrate, and she might even get a little tipsy on champagne, but he wouldn’t mind. She would have asked him to come with her on the train to Houston, but she hadn’t wanted to spoil the surprise of her present to him.

  It was just as well, Jessica thought, searching the street for a hansom cab to take her to the railway station. She needed to get back to Howbutker anyway. Thomas worried so about her when she was off alone, and she wished to cause him no further distress. He had pleaded with her to wait until a time he could escort her, but that would have been too late for her purpose. It was the middle of November 1900. She would comfort herself with the thrill of accomplishment on the train journey home. It had been no small feat she’d achieved, Jacqueline would have said in praise.

  Jacqueline.

  Besides Jeremy and Tippy, her last best friend was gone. The pain of Jacqueline’s loss pierced through her every morning upon awakening, and Jessica knew from her grief at Silas’s death what Thomas must feel upon opening his eyes. Thank God for Mary. That beautiful baby had saved her son from drowning in sorrow.

  Darla had arranged for his granddaughter to be made more available to him since Jessica’s little talk with her in the morning room. She set aside a period in the evening called “Granddaddy Thomas time” when Mary was placed in his arms to be rocked to sleep, and Miles sat at his knee to tell him about his day. Thomas’s recitation of “Mary Had a Little Lamb” led to the whole household, including Darla, referring to the baby as Mary Lamb.

  Vernon credited the loosening of the maternal reins to his wife’s sensitivity to his father’s loss. Jessica couldn’t tell whether Darla’s charity was due to her husband’s appreciation for her thoughtfulness or was simply another strategy to dupe him, but her motives didn’t matter. She was nicer to live with. Darla relaxed other rules regarding the children, especially Mary, who had been permitted little contact with people outside of her parents. She turned the child’s daily care over to Sassie, who adored her, and did not shoo Miles’ friends, Percy Warwick and Ollie DuMont, away from the crib when they came to visit. Percy especially seemed enchanted by the black-haired little sister of his friend. He brought her toys and made funny faces to make her laugh and oftentimes Miles had to call him away to join him and his friends at play. Vernon had lost his bid to have Mary call him “Daddy,” but through no design of Darla’s. Mary had emulated her brother’s reference to him and gurgled “pa-pa,” which Vernon interpreted as baby language for “Papa.”

  The temperature had dropped into the thirties while Jessica had been conducting her business, and she pulled the collar of her coat closer. Rain was threatening. She’d gone off without her umbrella, and naturally, no cab was in sight. She walked to the intersection, where a taxi was more likely to be had, but the rain caught her en route. She was drenched by the time she waved down a cabbie and got another dousing when she was let off at the train station. The conductor, a man of long acquaintance with her family, brought her a towel and a blanket and a cup of hot cocoa to stave off the shivers, but the morning after her arrival on Houston Avenue, Jessica awoke to a chest filled with congestion.

  “It’s nothing,” she told a worried Thomas and Amy. “I’ve got lungs tough as a war horse’s.”

  They believed her. To their recollection, Jessica had never had a cold. The box of her self-published books arrived by train the next evening. The station master was kind enough to have his son deliver them, and during the early hours of the next morning, to the accompaniment of a deep cough, Jessica set to work.

  The DuMont Department Store was to introduce in December the lovely innovation of wrapping Christmas gifts in red and green tissue paper rather than in the brown parcel packaging ordinarily used. Jessica had purchased her order for the tissue early, and paper and ribbon were on hand to wrap and label copies of Roses for the head of each household of the founding families of Howbutker. There was one for Thomas, Jeremy Sr., and his sons, Jeremy Jr. and Stephen; and Armand and Abel and his bachelor brother, Jean. Two copies were reserved for the city library and state archives housed in Austin, and Jessica would mail one to Tippy.

  “Amy,” Jessica said, back in bed and burning with fever, “I want you to see to it that that stack of gifts over there”—she indicated the chair piled with her red-and-green handiwork—“gets under the tree when the families gather for Christmas Eve.”

  “Why, Miss Jessica,” Amy said, “you goin’ be doin’ that yourself jus’ the way you like.”

  “No, Amy, I won’t.” Jessica thought of Tippy, born with only one “air bag” so she called it, still going strong at eighty-three. But then, Tippy had been born in the heart of a star and lived under celestial protection all of her life.

  In her last days, delirious, her lungs full of infection beyond the scope of the times to cure, Jessica’s mind floated back to the past. She saw Silas again standing beneath the dark green leaves and waxy white blossoms of the magnolia tree in the courtyard of the Winthorp Hotel on the eve of saying good-bye. Joshua stood beside her wearing an oversized buckskin jacket. Those gathered round her bed wondered at her small, distant smile. Jeremy took her hand and held it to his heart. “She sees someone,” he said.

  Acknowledgments

  The suggestion that I write a prequel to Roses came from my husband. I had been beset by readers of my first novel asking if I planned to write a sequel to the story, but I had no inclination to continue the war of the roses. That narrative was done. However, when I heard my husband say that he’d like to know how the Warwicks, Tolivers, and DuMonts came to Texas, that idea intrigued me. How did those families get to Texas?

  And so, to find an answer to the question, I began my research that took me along the road the family patriarchs must have traveled before Texas was even born. It has been an interesting and exciting journey. To those who went along with me, my thanks. You know who you are, but I will name some of you anyway. There is no particular order in which you offered the comfort of your support, interest, and encouragement, so I will begin with my husband, Arthur Richard Meacham III, who provided all three in abundance. Joining him were my dearest companions, Ann Ferguson Zeigler and Janice J. Thomson, without whom I’d write in a vacuum and my writing days would be lonely. Always, of course, I am thankful for my agent David McCormick, of McCormick and Williams Literary Agency, and Deb Futter, editor-in-chief of Grand Central Publishing, and her assistant, Dianne Choie, who are simply among the kindest and most helpful and knowledgeable in the business. Thanks, too, to my publisher, Jamie Raab, who I understand read the manuscript by flashlight in the midst of Hurricane Sandy and gave the go-ahead to publish. Also, I’d like to acknowledge Leslie Falk of McCormick and Williams whom I’ve never met but has always been a gentle and constant wind at my back. My gratitude, Leslie.

  And to the fans and readers of m
y literary efforts everywhere, thank you one and all. I am in your debt.

  Also by Leila Meacham

  Roses

  Tumbleweeds

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Welcome

  Dedication

  Lineage of the Tolivers

  Lineage of the Warwicks

  Lineage of the Dumonts

  Jasper's Lineage

  Part OneChapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Part Two: 1836–1859Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Part Three: 1860–1879Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Chapter Seventy

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  Part Four: 1880–1900Chapter Seventy-Five

  Chapter Seventy-Six

  Chapter Seventy-Seven

  Chapter Seventy-Eight

  Chapter Seventy-Nine

  Chapter Eighty

  Chapter Eighty-One

  Chapter Eighty-Two

  Chapter Eighty-Three

  Chapter Eighty-Four

  Chapter Eighty-Five

  Chapter Eighty-Six

  Chapter Eighty-Seven

  Chapter Eighty-Eight

  Chapter Eighty-Nine

  Chapter Ninety

  Chapter Ninety-One

  Chapter Ninety-Two

  Chapter Ninety-Three

  Chapter Ninety-Four

  Chapter Ninety-Five

  Chapter Ninety-Six

  Chapter Ninety-Seven

  Chapter Ninety-Eight

  Chapter Ninety-Nine

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Leila Meacham

  Newsletters

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2014 by Leila Meacham

  Cover design by Anne Twomey

  Cover photograph by Sacco and Watt

  Cover illustration by Alan Ayers

  Handlettering by Jessica Hische

  Cover copyright © 2014 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Grand Central Publishing

  Hachette Book Group

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  New York, NY 10017

  HachetteBookGroup.com

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  First ebook edition: February 2014

  Grand Central Publishing is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

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  ISBN 978-1-4555-4737-1

  E3

 

 

 


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