Morning Song (31 page)

Of course she could always send to Mimosa for funds. Jessie had a strong feeling that Celia would pay handsomely to keep her despised stepdaughter from returning home. But it was a step that she hoped she would not have to take. Sending for funds meant that she would have to reveal her whereabouts to the folks at home. As sure as God made little green apples, someone from Mimosa would come after her—and that someone would

probably be Stuart.

268

Jessie didn't think she could face Stuart again. Not without falling into his arms and begging him to take her home. As the
River Queen
steamed farther from Mimosa, Jessie felt her resolve falter more than once. Night fell, and homesickness reared its ugly head, made far worse by the knowledge that she couldn't, ever, go home.

As sleep refused to come and Jessie tossed and turned in her bunk, the only thing that kept her from turning around and heading for home as soon as dawn broke the sky was the knowledge that in leaving Mimosa, and Stuart, she had done the right thing. The only thing.

Celia was Stuart's wife, whether any of the three parties most closely concerned was pleased with the fact or not. There was no magic solution that would make all come right. Now that the line had been breached and Stuart had become her lover, all the ingredients for disaster were in place. Add to that the child Celia expected—whether or not it was Stuart's, and the possibility that it was not was something that had occurred to Jessie early on—

and one thing became perfectly clear: there was no room for Jessie at Mimosa.

Whether or not she loved Stuart, or he loved her, didn't matter. Celia was his wife, and Celia was expecting a child that would be raised as his. The only thing that Jessie could possibly do under the circumstances was take herself out of the picture. If she had not already lain with Stuart, she would have wed Mitch without delay and thus put herself permanently beyond Stuart's reach. But she
had
lain with Stuart, given him her maidenhead as well as her love, so that option was closed to her. She would not go to Mitch as soiled goods. The only remaining 269

solution was to build a life for herself away from Mimosa, however much her heart bled to leave it.

Though what that life would be she had not, at the moment, the least idea.

Her heart ached as she tried to force it to accept the truth that, in renouncing Stuart, she renounced everyone and everything she loved: Tudi, Sissie, Rosa, Progress, Firefly and Jasper, Mimosa. .

. .

Tears stung Jessie's eyes as, one by one, the beloved faces appeared in her mind's eye. Stuart she tried not to picture at all, but in the end she lost the fight. She saw him in scores of different poses: the handsome stranger whom she had hated on sight, when he'd come to Mimosa as Celia's fiancé her first sight of him in a black temper, after she had told him that Celia was a whore; Stuart being kind to her that long-ago evening in the garden at Tulip Hill, when she'd wanted to die from sheer humiliation; how unbelievably handsome he had looked in his formal clothes at his wedding; the arrested look on his face when he had seen her in the yellow dress, his gift to her; the first time he had kissed her. The image of him as she had seen him last arose and stubbornly refused to be banished: Stuart, smiling tenderly at her when he had tucked her into bed just the night before, those sky-blue eyes that she knew she would remember until the end of her days aglow with love for her. . . . Finally the tears that had been pooling in her eyes burst forth to roll down her cheeks. For once she didn't even try to stop the flow. With a sob she turned on her stomach, buried her face in the pillow, and cried until there were no tears left. When the deluge was over, she was utterly exhausted. Her eyes burned, her nose was stopped up so that she could scarcely breathe, and still 270

her heart ached. Tears helped nothing, as she had learned long ago and should have remembered. Curling into a ball of misery, Jessie at long last fell into an exhausted sleep.

Jessie stayed in her cabin until the
River Queen
docked at Natchez early the following afternoon. Despite her soggy wretchedness of the night before, she had risen early and dressed in a gown of emerald-green broadcloth with befrilled, elbowlength white sleeves, a fitted bodice, and a full skirt trimmed with bows and ruffles about the hem. The gown bared her shoulders in the fashionable mode, yet it was still modest and well suited for travel.

She'd brushed her hair, pinned it atop her head— and sat down in the cabin's one chair. There she had remained, watching the passing river through the small square porthole that afforded her an excellent view, until the
River Queen
steamed into port and maneuvered into position between two other steamboats that made the
River Queen
look small in comparison. Finally, as ropes were thrown to men standing ready on a vast wooden wharf, and hordes of people swarmed over the wharf toward the boat, Jessie put on her hat with its huge upstanding brim and left her cabin. Surely, amidst all the excitement, no one would harass or even notice one young lady traveling on her own.

As she threaded her way through the crowd thronging the upper deck, Jessie realized that she was hungry. Perhaps she might disembark briefly and purchase something to eat from one of the quayside carts of the type she had seen in Vicks-burg. The
River
Queen
had a dining room, but Jessie had not yet summoned up the courage to visit it. The intricacies of ordering a meal in a public dining room, coupled with the fact that she would have to eat alone, were something that she felt inadequate to deal with, at 271

least for the present. Although she would have to, of course, sooner or later. She would have to learn to do many things for and by herself.

"Hey, missy, need somebody to show ya the sights?" The speaker was a man, fortyish, wearing the gaudiest waistcoat Jessie had ever seen. It was of silk, with bold red-and-white stripes, and nearly succeeded in distracting her attention from the ingratiating grin on his florid countenance as he approached her. Averting her face as soon as she could tear her eyes away from the ridiculous waistcoat, Jessie hurried along the deck without replying. When she reached the gangplank she looked over her shoulder and was relieved to see that she was not being followed. The gangplank was used for both boarding and disembarking, while another gangplank at the stern of the boat was used for cargo. There was a crush of people moving in both directions on the passenger gangplank, so progress toward the dock was necessarily slow. Jessie found herself squashed between a stout, well-dressed elderly lady carrying a parasol, who was hard of hearing, judging from the volume of the remarks shouted at her by her less-well-dressed female companion; and a flashy couple who had eyes for no one but each other as they inched their way toward the quay arm in arm.

"It ain't safe for a young lady such as yerself to sashay around Natchez by her lonesome. Harley Bowen, at your service." Jessie was horrified as the man in the gaudy waistcoat squeezed around the flashy couple to pop up beside her with a triumphant smile. Hoping that if she ignored him he would take the hint and leave her alone, she quickly turned away.

272

"You're a real looker, aren't you, sweetheart? But you don't need to put on that cold face with Harley Bowen. Ain't never been a female yet that wasn’t safe with me."

Jessie cast him a desperate glance out of the corner of her eye. She had no reason to be frightened of the man, not out here surrounded by people, but dealing with a fellow of his stamp was something she'd never had occasion to do. Still hoping that if she ignored him he would give up and go away, she lifted her chin and fixed her eyes firmly on the ebb and flow of the crowd along the wharf.

"There's some places under the hill that I'd sure like to show you."

Jessie's feet moved slowly forward along with everyone else's as she tried to affect both deafness and blindness to the dreadful creature who pestered her. The
River Queen
was only one of the many steamboats tied up along the dock, she saw. A great deal of the hustle and bustle at quayside was caused by boisterous dockhands loading cotton. The iron wheels of the cotton wagons rolling over the uneven boards of the wharf resulted in a constant clatter. The dockhands' frequently profane shouts to one another added to the din. Vendors hawking their wares from portable carts, and friends and relatives of arriving passengers pushing through the crowds to call to their loved ones, combined with the rest to create general bedlam. From a large paddle wheeler just docking farther down came a sudden burst of gay calliope music. Jessie had to fight the urge to put her hands over her ears.

"So what do you say, pretty thing?" Harley Bowen persisted, and had the audacity to actually put a hand on her elbow. That brought Jessie's head jerking around. "Take your hand off me," she hissed, tired of pondering the correct way to deal with 273

the situation. Ladylike reticence had never been one of her virtues, and she saw no reason to practice it on the lout beside her!

Harley Bowen's nearly lashless gray eyes widened as she turned on him. Instead of dropping, his hand tightened on her arm. "Oh-ho! Hoity-toity, ain't we? Be careful of your tone, missy. I ain't a man to tolerate no snot-nosed females."

"Take your hand off my arm!"

"Are you having problems, dear?" The primly dressed companion of the hard-of-hearing lady looked around to inquire. Gray-haired beneath a hat that resembled a flattened pancake, and much thinner than the lady she accompanied, this woman was clearly not the sort to stand much nonsense. Glancing at her, Jessie was reminded of the Latow children's stern governess. Jessie half expected her to smack Mr. Bowen's encroaching hand.

"Well ..." Jessie was reluctant to involve a stranger in her difficulties, but she was growing less confident by the second of her ability to deal with the situation on her own. The hand on her elbow tightened.

"Mind your own business, old woman," Harley Bowen snarled.

"Indeed! An innocent young lady being molested is the business of any God-fearing citizen, sirrah!"

The stout woman turned to look as her companion bristled and exchanged glares with Mr. Bowen.

"What is the matter, Cornelia? You know how I dislike loud voices." The words were trumpeted.

"This . . . gentleman—and I use the term advisedly!—is pestering this young lady, Martha." Cornelia voiced the 274

disclosure in tones loud enough to make Jessie want to sink through the floor—or, in this case, gangplank.

"Is he? ' Martha looked interested as her gaze swept from Mr. Bowen to Jessie, who was trying without success to pull her elbow from his hold. They had almost reached the end of the gangplank, Jessie saw with relief. Once she was free of this crush of people, perhaps she could rid herself of Mr. Bowen without causing the dreadful scene she feared was imminent.

But what if she couldn't?

"Who asked you to stick your spoon in, you old lard bucket?" Martha's hearing was apparently good enough to catch that. Her mouth popped open and her eyes bulged with outrage. Before Jessie or Mr. Bowen or anyone else had any inkling of what she meant to do, Martha brought her parasol down with a crack on Mr. Bowen's head.

"Oh! Help! Bitch!" Mr. Bowen howled, throwing his arms up to ward off the blows that proceeded to rain down upon his head. Staggering backward, he knocked against the flashy couple. The lady stumbled and fell against the rope railing.

"Henry! Help!"

"Why, you . . . !" The lady's gentleman friend caught her with one hand and turned on Mr. Bowen menacingly at almost the same moment.

"I'll teach you to call people names!" With her befrilled parasol, Martha was the very image of an avenging fury.

"Get him, Martha!" Cornelia was practically jumping up and down as she egged Martha on.

Just as the altercation seemed; about to explode into a free-forall, Jessie reached the end of the gangplank and the combatants spewed out upon the wharf, propelled by the people behind them. 275

Caught up in the ebb and flow of emerging humanity, Jessie felt her arm grabbed again.

But Mr. Bowen, face purple with rage as he advanced on Martha, who was regarding him like a prize fighter ready to take on all comers, was in front of her. Surely she was not being accosted by another—?

Jessie looked around. As she identified her assailant, her face paled even as her heartbeat quickened.

"What the bloody hell is going on here?" Stuart demanded.

XXXVII

Loath as she was to admit it even to herself, Jessie's first reaction when she saw Stuart was pure, unadulterated joy. Her heart pounded, her lips curved into a smile, and it was all she could do not to throw herself into his arms. He looked very much the gentleman planter in a tall black top hat, a black frock coat, and a buff-colored pair of the new, fashionable trousers that were beginning to replace breeches for everyday wear. The bright afternoon sunlight picked up blue glints in the black hair that curled beneath his hat. Long hours in the fields had darkened the color of his skin to a deep bronze, making his eyes seem more vividly blue than ever in contrast. Tall, broad-shouldered, and narrow-hipped, he was so handsome that even Martha stopped ranting to goggle at him. Jessie barely managed to restrain herself from throwing her arms around his neck, but in a very few minutes all the reasons why she must not be glad to see him flooded back.

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With Stuart's arrival on the scene, the squabble almost resolved itself. Taking one look at the size and style of the gentleman who clearly had prior claim to the object of his fancy, Mr. Bowen took himself off. The flashy couple followed suit. Deprived of her prey, Martha was prepared to accept

Stuart's thanks for her intervention on Jessie's behalf when the disjointed tale was explained to him. Cornelia, with a monitory sniff, looked Stuart up and down. Unlike Martha, she was not to be bamboozled by a handsome face and good manners, and said so.

"Will you be all right with this one, dear?" Cornelia asked Jessie, ignoring the fact that Stuart was standing right beside her, his hand still curled around Jessie's arm.