Galveston Read online

  Galveston

  A Novel

  Suzanne Morris

  for J.C.

  and my parents

  and for WILLIAM GOYEN,

  without whose help the publication of this book

  would yet be but a dream

  THE AUTHOR WISHES TO EXPRESS SPECIAL THANKS TO:

  MR. LARRY WYGANT, Archivist; Mr. Bob Dalehite, former Archivist; and Miss Ruth Kelly, former Assistant Archivist, Rosenberg Public Library, Galveston, for their ever willing assistance in my quest for authenticity in the background of this book;

  MRS. CAROL THORNTON of Houston, who served as typist for much of the manuscript, and whose long-standing friendship I count among my greatest blessings;

  MRS. REGA KRAMER MCCARTY of Tacoma, Washington, my teacher and close friend, whose guidance and encouragement have helped immeasurably in all my writing endeavors;

  MR. LARRY COOK of Houston, whose help in photographing me at various Galveston sites was invaluable in making the task an easy one;

  MRS. KAREN GIESEN, for her special assistance;

  and MR. FRANK PAGE of Houston, my father and photographer, whose accompaniment on numerous trips to the island over the years has helped to enhance my intrigue with Galveston as it is today and as it might have been.…

  CONTENTS

  Claire

  March 1, 1877–April 4, 1886

  Part I and Part II

  Serena

  June 1, 1899–September 8, 1899

  Willa

  December 20, 1920–December 26, 1920

  GALVESTON

  Claire

  March 1, 1877–April 4, 1886

  PART I

  Chapter 1

  Nightfall.

  The breeze glides gently across the porch and winds around me, then passes on. The only sound I hear is the squeezing wicker of my rocking chair, and I am alone.

  Now let me tell you how it was this morning, how inevitable the tragedy which occurred next door and how innocent I remain of causing it, regardless of how well it seems to suit my purposes.

  To begin, I’ve never loved my husband, Charles Becker, not in the way a man expects love from his wife. Yet I’ve stood by him both in success and failure. Surely this is fair exchange for all the deep desire and affection I might have showered upon him had I adored him as he thought I did, from the start.

  In fact I married Charles for every good reason except love. And to be fair, my decision was influenced by my mother, who thought him fine and brilliant, and by my cousin Betsey, who considered him a responsible man. Yet I pride myself on honesty, so it must be said that would his brother Damon have taken me away with him, I’d have gone and never looked back at Charles. Yet Damon Becker presumed to trifle with my affections, mistaking me for a woman of no account, so what better way to show him the error he made than by marrying his brother?

  So it happened that we made the match everyone back home in Grady had come to expect and Charles, known for his tall, erect figure, his distinguished looks and Vandyke beard, was said by many to seem a little less solemn, his smile to be a good deal broader across his well-turned face, and his hazel eyes a bit brighter now that he’d finally won the woman he’d loved for years.

  It was little more than a year later that he took me far away from Grady and brought me here to Galveston: the city of stairs.

  Now, most people who know Galveston will remark on the coolness of its Gulf breeze, the length of its sandy beaches, the state of its port. I shall always think of the blood rising to my head as I climb the stairs, and the sinister sinking feeling which comes over me as I descend them.

  I won’t argue the steep stairs elevate us from danger of high water; I only wish to point out that high water is scarcely the only danger to be found on Galveston Island. There is danger in the stairs themselves, for instance.

  There are ten leading from our outside walk to our front door and twelve at the yellow, white-shuttered Episcopal rectory next door, and I watched from our parlor window as Janet and Rubin Garret carried the last of their household goods up those stairs on the day they moved in, the first day of May in 1877. All I knew of the Garrets then was what I had heard others say—she was from a wealthy Virginia family; he was a man of the cloth, newly established at St. Christopher’s Church several blocks away.

  What struck me as I watched them move in was that he looked no more like a priest than she did a parson’s wife. His frame was husky, shoulders and arms too massive to seem at home behind a pulpit, his complexion tanned, and his hair light as fresh honey: bleached by the sun, I suspected. She was tall—not more than three or four inches shorter than he—but reedlike and wispy, with tendrils of blond hair streaming down her long, narrow, fragile-looking face, and somehow I couldn’t imagine her presiding over church receptions and planning fall bazaars.

  When all the boxes had been lifted up the stairs, the two of them disappeared through the front door, opening off the side of the verandah. I wanted another look—it was curiosity, nothing more—so I waited at my window hoping they’d come out again.

  One minute passed, maybe two, then suddenly she appeared at the window directly across from mine. She gave me a quick, surprised look, said something over her shoulder, and pulled down the shade.

  I looked away, embarrassed at being caught prying, but thinking at the same time how strange she’d looked just then, encased in shadows, her eyes wide and sorrowful, the skin stretched taut over the bones of her face. Had I not known better, and were I of a superstitious mind, I might have believed Janet Garret a ghost.

  Later that day, when Charles came home he remarked all the shutters were drawn over there, and so they remained for the next four days, as though the Garrets wished to barricade themselves against all intrusion, even the polite overtures of friendship by their neighbors.

  Then one evening Rubin Garret came to call, and as we talked I sensed a quiet power in his voice, as though he possessed a great reservoir of emotions kept carefully checked. His eyes were full of fun, mischievous almost, yet had a quality of magnetism that kept my gaze fixed on them constantly.

  Shortly he cleared his throat and shifted in the chair. “You must come over and meet my wife, Janet,” he said.

  “We’d like to, but we noticed the shutters have been drawn and thought she might be ill,” Charles said.

  Rubin hesitated a moment, then answered, “No, not ill, but she’s been in low spirits since we’ve been here. I think it’s hard on her, having to get to know new people, but she agreed that moving here was a good thing. Have you been here long?”

  Charles explained we’d come two months earlier, and that he was gradually taking over the practice of an attorney named J. P. McBride, who wanted to retire within the next couple of years. “Galveston offers so much opportunity,” he said with a wide sweep of his arm, then his voice dropped, “and of course our little son died just a few months ago … Claire and I felt we could forget more easily in a new place.”

  “I won’t ever forget,” I said.

  “I hope he didn’t suffer,” said Rubin, turning to me.

  “Not that we know of. He just died one day. Three doctors looked at him afterward … all three said suffocation; none could tell us why. He was all I—we—”

  Rubin looked uncomfortable, and dug a finger inside his tight white clerical collar. “A true test of faith, losing a child,” he said. “We don’t have any children yet, but I hope someday we will. And perhaps the Lord will bless you with others.”

  He rose abruptly to leave, yet lingered at the door, clasping my hand in his. “And please, do call on my wife. She’d be delighted to have you,” he said. My hand was still enveloped in his, like a pussycat in a warm blanket, as he continued. “She’s a person of many interests,
you know, paints and even writes a little poetry though she doesn’t think it’s any good and won’t show it to anyone.”

  “Does she paint portraits?” Charles asked. “I’ve wanted one of Claire for the wall of my study.”

  “Oh, I’d think she would find Mrs. Becker an interesting subject. I’ve always found people with widow’s peak so striking … almost mysterious, as though they know something no one else does.” He looked embarrassed then, as if he felt he’d said too much, and released my hand.

  “We might visit sometime at your church,” I said.

  “Oh, you’re Episcopal?”

  “No, but we’ve visited Trinity downtown and liked it … we were thinking of changing from Congregational.”

  He smiled. “Fine church, Trinity … bigger than ours, of course, but I like to think St. Christopher’s will catch up one day. Well, maybe I’ll see you soon.”

  After he had left, Charles said, “Why did you tell him that? The service at Trinity was foreign to both of us.”

  “Look at it this way. Rubin Garret’s church is close by, so we might as well go there as any place.”

  He shrugged, then said, “You know, there’s something about that man that reminds me of Damon.”

  My heart quickened as I looked away without replying. His comparison was so logical it plunged through me like a double-edged sword.

  Chapter 2

  I’d known Damon Becker long before I’d met Charles. Back in Grady I kept a fine palomino stallion from the time I was eighteen until I was twenty-one, when he contracted a disease and had to be destroyed. I loved Sandy, and kept his golden coat so shiny the sun all but glinted off him as we rode the paths of the countryside surrounding the town.

  One torrid afternoon when I was about twenty, I was riding Sandy along the edge of an open field that ran parallel with a dense thicket. I gave Sandy his lead and let the wind blow my hair and cool my face. I was soon lost in pleasant thoughts of everything in general and nothing in particular.

  I sensed my stallion’s temperament was in harmony with mine as he galloped swiftly along, enjoying as I did the freedom, the openness ahead. I wasn’t watching as I should have been, had taken the dangerous luxury of closing my eyes for moments at a time as we surged forward, yard after yard …

  All at once Sandy gave a furious neigh and reared up until his body stood vertical to the ground beneath, throwing me off his back and into a bush. It happened so fast I wasn’t at first aware of what had caused his fright. Then I saw—an immense black hound, teeth vicious as a wolverine’s.

  In an instant Sandy had bolted away across the field, and the dog turned his eye on me and crouched low to plunge. As I lay back, helplessly snarled in the bush, all I could see were his gaping mouth, his red tongue and white teeth: the teeth were branded on my mind as I thrust an arm to my face and closed my eyes, knowing death awaited me.…

  A powerful gunshot split the air. I opened my eyes to see the animal pitch high above, like a fish thrusting up from the surface of the pond. His body bowed, he gave a pitiful whimpering sound and hit the ground with a dull thud not two feet from me.

  My breath came in gulps as I looked across through the glare of the sun to the open field beyond. And there, astride a horse black as midnight, sat a man I had never seen before.

  He was some hundred feet away and replaced his rifle before he gave a spur to his horse and came unhurriedly to where I still lay, too frightened to move. He did not get off his horse, but leaned down and offered me a hand. His hair was auburn, his face smooth and young; his eyes were smiling even as he said, almost mockingly, “You look fit enough.”

  I couldn’t take my eyes off his face as I stood, unsteadily, below him. “You saved my life,” I stammered. “I’m so grateful … I could hardly believe … you seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. It happened so fast.”

  “Your horse is over by the thicket. I’ll go and fetch him.”

  I nodded.

  He smiled. “You’ll be all right, here?”

  I nodded again.

  He was back with Sandy in minutes, or seconds, what was time to me? “Your horse is all right,” he said. “No wounds on his ankles that I could see. You’d better get home now. Have you got your wind back?”

  “I’ll be all right,” I said, lifting myself into my own saddle again. “I’ll never be able to thank you enough—Mister …?”

  “Damon Becker, at your service any time. The dog was mad,” he said, looking down at the stilled animal, “that or starved into a frenzy. Look at those ribs.

  “Ah well, it’s over now, and I must be going.”

  I sat on Sandy and watched him gallop off, disappointed he had not offered to accompany me back into town—surely any gentleman would have done that much. In a short time he had disappeared around the other side of the thicket. I touched Sandy gently and led him back toward town, but on the way I began to wonder what it was Damon Becker was doing: I pulled in the reins and led Sandy off to the left, so that we could circle around to the other side of the thicket. I felt half foolish, half brazen, but burned with an overpowering curiosity.

  We had gone a half circle around the thicket’s edge when I saw two horses—one was Damon’s stallion—grazing nearby. I got down off Sandy and crept forward a little ways, knowing I was half mad to dare so and would probably be caught. Maybe he’d robbed a bank and was burying the money with his partner in the shadows of the trees, I thought … that or some other important secret business.…

  I stopped about twenty feet from where the horses were grazing. There were noises coming from within the thicket. I listened hard. It was laughter: liquid, giggling throaty sounds, coming from a woman, in concert with low, cooing masculine noises. I could hear, above all, the crackling of fallen leaves.

  I stalked back to Sandy and whipped him hard all the way home.

  Damon had gone off to sea shortly after that day, though I didn’t learn this until a year or so later, when I met Charles.

  Charles was an up-and-coming attorney in the town, and my cousin Betsey was his client. One day I noticed a letter signed by him lying open on a table in her house, and the last name struck a chord in my memory.

  “Becker,” I remarked, spying the letter.

  “Yes, seems to be a fine man,” said Betsey, then looked at me thoughtfully. “I don’t believe he’s married. How would you like to meet him?”

  “Of course, why not?” I told her, though I didn’t mention my curiosity about the man lay only in his last name.

  And so Cousin Betsey invited Charles and me to dine one night with her and her young daughter Ruth, and I asked him across the table, “Are you related to a man named Damon Becker?”

  “Why yes, I am,” he said, surprised. “He’s my older brother. Do you know him?”

  “I met him once, some time ago. In fact, he saved me from the attack of a mad dog. I don’t think I’ll ever forget him.”

  “Well, Damon hasn’t been around for—let’s see—better than a year and a half now. He went to sea. If you’d known him well, you wouldn’t be surprised he chose that sort of life.”

  “He did seem adventurous, all right,” I replied.

  Charles asked to see me again after that evening, and soon had won over my ailing mother and Betsey. I didn’t dislike Charles. He was kind and good, as attentive to me as a man could be, and handsome in his way. Yet his looks reminded me just enough of his brother to make me wish I could meet up with Damon again, and I’d often ask Charles if he’d had a letter from him saying when he planned to make a visit home.

  “He doesn’t come to Grady very often,” Charles told me. “The town bores him. He was home once after his first voyage, and hardly stayed long enough to get the smell of seawater out of his clothes. Damon and I aren’t close, as you can probably tell,” he pointed out.

  “I did suspect that,” I said, thinking that Charles was a Damon with his features all smoothed out, the rough edges of his personality ground into mellow rims
, and coated with a layer of diplomacy.

  By the time Damon returned again, a full three years since the afternoon I’d met him, Charles had begged for my hand in marriage several times. Yet I’d put him off. I’d grown fond of him as one would of a good and steady friend, but the lack of fire in his eyes, the lack of forcefulness in his nature, left me limp and without desire to spend the rest of my life with him.

  There was a party held for Damon when he came home and I begged Charles to take me, “so I can thank him properly for what he did for me so long ago.”

  “All right,” he agreed, “though I’m not crazy about what Damon does at a party and you probably won’t be either after you’ve been there for a while.”

  “Maybe not,” I said, and arranged to have a new dress made.

  What surprised me most, when the party night came and we assembled in a hall decorated with green bunting and “Welcome Home” banners, was that Damon was far bigger than I remembered, and far more handsome. He had grown a lush red beard during his time away and acquired a deep tan and blazing cheeks. He stood in one corner, telling sea stories, the crowd surrounding him engaged in awed silence followed by rollicking laughter. His voice carried across to where Charles and I stood, in another corner, Charles speaking legal chitchat with an attorney friend.

  I tried to hear the stories coming from behind, while appearing attentive to the conversation taking place in front of me, and finally I urged Charles away and made him take me to meet Damon once again.

  My heart thumped a rhythm to the screech of the fiddle sounding out a square dance tune as we walked nearer and nearer to where he stood. “This is Claire Haines,” said Charles to his brother. “I understand you two have met before.”

  “Oh, have we?” said Damon, staring at me for a moment.

  “You saved me from a mad dog once, three years back. I never got a chance to say a proper thank-you.”