San Antone. V. J. Banis

knowledge of Eaton Hall had confirmed that suspicion long ago.

      “It is unladylike of you to concern yourself with such questions,” her uncle said, and looked away from her angry gaze.

      “Well, then, uncle, I promise you, when I die on some trackless waste because of this folly, I will do so in a ladylike manner, so as to embarrass no one.”

      She swept from the room, ignoring even his “goodbye,” but when she was on the street outside and had walked off a little of her annoyance, she was ashamed at having been so sharp with him. It was hardly her uncle’s fault that society viewed women in such a light. He was more tolerant than most; another lawyer might have refused any discussion at all at the first hint of her reason for consulting him.

      Back at Eaton Hall, she thought of her father. There are always choices. Her father had told her that. But he wasn’t here now to enumerate them for her. Very well, then, what were her choices? So far as she could see, there was no question of whether she was to accompany her husband to Texas. In a sense, she supposed she could be grateful to her uncle for making it clear that there simply were no alternatives. So, granting that she would be taken to Texas regardless of her feelings in the matter—what choices then were left to her? She could continue to rail against it. Fight with Lewis, frighten the children, make things difficult—in short, she could go as a victim. Or, she could make the best of it. “Nothing is a complete disaster if you can learn from it, build upon it.” That, too, had been her father’s advice.

      Build upon it. How long had she chafed at the limitations of her life here in South Carolina, the vacuity, the boredom of conventions that were an ingrained part of “the southern life-style”?

      She was a misfit. She had been all her life. When her parents had been alive, it hadn’t mattered particularly, but since then her life had seemed barren and without any prospect of improvement.

      She found herself suddenly wondering if people were so rigidly bound, so hemmed in, in Texas. Here, in South Carolina, in a world inbred with all the wealth and trappings of genteel society, she found life empty.

      What if, in that emptiness of the western wilderness, people grew to fill the space?

      “Now,” she chided herself, “I’m resorting to wishful thinking.”

      Someone—she couldn’t recall who—had said that hell was anywhere one didn’t belong. Well, she had long known she didn’t belong here, without having the slightest notion of where she might belong. It would be funny, wouldn’t it, if Lewis turned out to be right, if Texas were where she belonged after all.

      She went along the marble-tiled hallway and flung open the doors that gave onto the library. She began to study the shelves thoughtfully, taking down a volume here, a volume there—any book that she thought might tell her something about this new state of Texas.

      Chapter Three

      Lewis had not forgotten his scheme, nor changed his mind about it. On the contrary, he had acted with a resolution and dispatch rare for him.

      Carts, drays, wagons—every possible type of vehicle that could be used for transporting their belongings—were purchased or ordered built, and an incredible herd of horses and oxen to pull them rounded up in makeshift stables at Eaton Hall.

      Within a fortnight, Joanna had watched their fine china, their elegant crystal and porcelain carefully packed into barrels filled with sawdust. Chandeliers were taken down and packed, furniture was crated. Even the elaborately carved mantelpieces, the doors, the inlaid floors went, until there was nothing left but the empty shell of what had once been their splendid home.

      As nearly as possible, Eaton Hall was to be lifted up from one place and set down in another, virtually intact.

      Such a move was not accomplished overnight. It was nearly a year later that Joanna stood on the deck of the schooner Nancy and watched a cutter approaching from the port of Galveston. The city itself, on its sandy island, lay in the distance, shimmering in the afternoon heat.

      The immense caravan that had been assembled to transport their home and furnishings was traveling overland under the management of their overseer, Campbell. The family, with their personal belongings and the household slaves, had made the trip by sea, sailing from Charleston through the Florida keys and up the Gulf of Mexico.

      A long trip. Joanna, eager to be on land again, was impatient with the delays. The children, even the enthusiastic Jay Jay, had grown quarrelsome. The slaves, when they weren’t moaning and retching from seasickness, sang hymns and prayed loudly for safe delivery.

      As for Lewis, he had astonished Joanna with the industry he had displayed in arranging their move. He had remained sober for weeks at a time and, charged with the thrill of his vision, had seemed altogether a changed man.

      It had made Joanna view what lay before them with more optimism. Perhaps after all a new life, a new land were the cure not only for her husband’s dissolution but for their marriage as well, and she had primed herself to put the best face on things. She had begun to think perhaps she had judged him unfairly.

      The transformation in him had lasted until they were at sea. Inactivity had undone it. Bored and restless, he had soon begun relieving his impatience in drink. It was no time at all before he was making nightly visits to the open deck where the slaves slept. In the past week, that had been very nearly the only effort he made to rouse himself from the hammock in which he slept and drank.

      There was a bumping and scraping as the cutter came alongside. From the quarterdeck, Joanna watched a trio of men come aboard. Two of them had the air of bureaucracy about them: the harbormaster and the customs officer, she supposed; the captain had explained that they would be coming aboard.

      It was the third man, however, who captured her attention, and not only because he was in the uniform of the U.S. Army.

      He was tall, so tall that he dwarfed the others. He removed his hat to run his fingers through a shock of dark, wavy hair. The hat’s brim had thrown his face in shadow; now Joanna could see the sharply chiseled features, high cheekbones, ridged brows.

      He spoke to the ship’s captain, then turned in her direction.

      Even at the distance, Joanna felt the intensity of his gaze, though it was on her for only a moment.

      He spoke to the captain again; then the two of them came toward her.

      “Mrs. Harte, may I present Lieutenant Webb Price of the United States Army,” the captain introduced them.

      “Lieutenant Price,” Joanna murmured. She glanced once into eyes of an astonishingly soft blue shade, and then quickly away, looking over the rail at the water below—as if she hadn’t been seeing it for weeks on end.

      “Is your husband about, Mrs. Harte?” the lieutenant asked.

      Joanna saw the captain’s lips tighten involuntarily in a gesture of disapproval. Lewis’s behavior had hardly escaped the notice of the crew, and it was evident to her, if not to Lewis, what they thought of it.

      “He’s in our cabin,” Joanna said. “I can fetch him for you, if you like.”

      “That won’t be necessary. I’ll send one of the sailors,” the captain said. He barked an order that sent one of the crew scurrying below, then turned back to Joanna. “Lieutenant Price will be providing you with an escort to San Antonio.”

      “Really? That’s very generous of you, lieutenant.” She allowed herself a smile; the lieutenant did not return it.

      “Your husband has influential friends,” he said. His tone made it clear that the generosity of the gesture had not been his idea.

      Though she had known nothing about a planned escort, Joanna was not surprised. The Hartes had been a prominent fixture in South Carolina society for several generations. With Lewis, the name had lost some of the respect in which it had once been held, but not all; even with the tensions that had mounted steadily these last few years between the North and the South, Lewis could still wield a certain amount of influence