San Antone. V. J. Banis

Two

      She had been a mere fifteen when her parents died, in an outbreak of cholera; first her mother, and only two weeks later her father. “He simply couldn’t live without her,” many had said, and Joanna had been left mistress of Eaton Hall.

      Uncle Horace, her father’s brother and now her guardian, had made his position clear from the very first. “You’ll have to marry,” he said. “Eaton Hall needs a master.”

      At first she had demurred, resisted. She knew more about running a plantation than most women did, more than many men, in fact.

      Her upbringing had been unique. Few of the men she knew, and virtually none of the women, had what could be remotely described as an education. True, on the wealthier plantations, there were tutors who graced the young aristocrats in French and the social niceties. The men learned to hunt, and to run their plantations, often badly. The women learned to flirt, to sew and embroider, and to gossip.

      For entertainment, they made house visits. They came uninvited, unannounced. Family. Friends. Sometimes actual strangers, with no more claim on hospitality than a mutual acquaintance. Wagons were packed with trunks and boxes, slaves dangled their feet over the rear or walked behind in the dust of the road. The distances and the awkwardness of travel made short visits inappropriate. They came to stay, and stay they did; for weeks, often for months. Most southerners welcomed the break in routine. Joanna, however, never minded solitude; indeed, since the death of her parents, in whose company she had delighted, she had come to prefer it.

      Her father had wanted a boy, and without stinting on affection toward his only daughter, he good-naturedly chafed her for failing to match his expectations. He had raised her in many ways as he would have raised a son: She had been taught to read and write at an early age; more than that, to think, “Else,” he said, “you might as well be gaggling about with the other women.” She could ride, and she had learned much of running a place like Eaton Hall from accompanying him when he was about the business of it.

      She might have turned out one of those mannish women who make others uncomfortable and look ill at ease with themselves; but her mother had been so lovely and loving, such a gay, laughing creature, that Joanna’s femininity had developed unimpaired. They were considered a peculiar family, of course, but none of them had minded.

      And then, Joanna had found herself an orphan, and mistress of a great plantation. Having been raised to think for herself, she had thought she would manage on her own, and had put off her uncle and his suggestions of marriage.

      She had soon been dissuaded of the notion. It was not that she lacked ability; no one took her seriously. Perhaps if she had been older, a little more sure of herself...or perhaps that wouldn’t have mattered, perhaps the problems she encountered were indigenous to the southern way of life.

      She ordered things from stores and they did not come, or the wrong thing altogether was sent: “I thought this was probably what you really wanted” was the excuse. She issued orders to her overseer; he looked at her with a condescending smile and did exactly as he chose. She fired him; he stayed on, running things his own way in defiance of her. She went to the sheriff; he smiled, too, and suggested she consult her uncle.

      Which, finally, she had to do, or see Eaton Hall fairly sink into the ground on which it stood. He uncle’s position was still the same: Eaton Hall needed a master. She must marry.

      Lewis Harte had been handsome; the second son of a nearby plantation, neither grand nor shabby. She had looked over the men her uncle suggested, had been looked over in return. She had married Lewis.

      It was unfair of her, really, to blame Lewis. It was doubtful if marriage to any of the other swains who had sought her hand would have satisfied her any better. She had looked at them again since, wondering if she’d chosen badly; gradually it had come to seem to her that there wasn’t much to choose among them.

      The truth was, even if one of them had been different, the lifestyle common to them all, the way of life demanded of “the southern gentleman,” forced them to fit a common mold. Would any of them, after all, have welcomed her early efforts to help run things, to “correct” what she saw as Lewis’s mistakes?

      It was doubtful. Probably any one of them would have been just as resentful as Lewis had been at being informed by a mere woman how to manage a plantation—resentful and increasingly stubborn.

      Of course it had been a mistake on her part. If she had been more subtle.... But she hadn’t been raised that way; she had been taught all her life to value her own intelligence, her knowledge, for the special thing it was.

      Even her uncle, to whom she had turned expecting support, had been unconditional in his opinion that she was in the wrong: Eaton Hall was no longer hers; it had become her husband’s, to do with as he saw fit. She had become her husband’s property, hardly more than his slave.

      Against that, she had stormed, she had railed, she had wept and pouted—she had done everything a foolish and immature girl could do to spoil what might have been a good marriage.

      That 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?”