Ceremony of the Innocent

by Taylor Caldwell

  May, knowing her victory, nodded almost with cheerfulness and placation. “Yes, dear. And now let’s go to bed and go home tomorrow. It’s all settled, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Ellen, and helped her aunt undress. For a single moment, watching her niece, May experienced a pang. The girl looked like death itself. “Yes,” said Ellen again. “It’s all settled.”

  At peace at last, and sighing deeply, May fell instantly asleep, and Ellen stood by her bed, watching the lines of pain recede on her aunt’s face. What was her own life worth compared with her aunt’s tranquillity and Jeremy’s triumphs? Nothing. Exhaustion suddenly swept over her, exhaustion of the spirit and the mind, and the awful hollowness of prostration struck her middle and made her dizzy and weak. She was forced to collapse beside her aunt’s bed; she leaned her head against the mattress, powerless to move for a long time.

  The baroque room was filled with bowls of late roses and chrysanthemums and ferns, and the scent made Ellen retch as she half lay beside May’s bed. The rumor of traffic reached her; now it sounded like a diabolical chorus, mocking her. The satin draperies at the windows swayed a little; they had the shapes and distortions of agony. The very furniture taunted the girl creaking over and over, “You do not belong here. You are an intruder—in his life. Run away!”

  May began to snore under the influence of the narcotic. Ellen pushed herself to her feet. She mechanically rolled up her hair. She put on her flannel skirt and blouse, her hands feeling thick and clumsy. Then, without a sound, she left the room and climbed up the five flights of stairs to Jeremy’s suite, her face set and passionless and full of resolution, for all the bending of her knees under her, and for all the icy sweating of her body. It had not occurred to her to take the elevator. There was a jeering in her mind, “Beautiful daughter of Toscar!” She uttered a faint sound of self-contempt.

  C H A P T E R 11

  JEREMY PORTER WAS SITTING in his small library, in his silk night-shirt and a magnificent Chinese robe of black and gold, and sipping a nightcap, when he heard the knocking on the door. He glanced at the ormolu clock over the mantel and saw it was after eleven, and he wondered who was there. Cuthbert had left an hour ago. Rising and stretching, but wary, Jeremy went to the door and cautiously opened it on its chain. Then he exclaimed, “Ellen!”

  He removed the chain and flung the door open and reached for the girl and took her cold hands and pulled her into the room, disbelieving and excited almost unbearably. Then when she was in the room he saw her deathly pallor, her wide eyes, her roughly tumbled hair, and he felt the moisture on her palms and saw the trembling of her colorless lips.

  “What is it, love?” he asked, and drew her against him. She did not resist. She even lay against his chest like one who had been terribly wounded and must rest a little. He smoothed her hair and held her and knew that she was nearly fainting. She was heavy in his arms and her head had dropped and he could not see her face now. But his arm, about her very slender waist, could feel its vibrations, strong and uncontrollable, as she fought down her inner weeping. He became alarmed. He took her to a chair and forced her down in it, then he knelt beside her and again took her hands and held them tightly, warming them with his own. “What is it, my darling?” he demanded, and his voice aroused her from her crouch in the chair, the feeble turning aside of her head.

  She looked at him and he saw the naked anguish in her eyes. Her white face seemed polished and taut as marble, and it had the calm of despair and renunciation.

  She spoke with that calm, which was also lifeless as well as resolute. “I am going away tomorrow, Jeremy, back to Wheatfield, with my aunt.”

  He frowned, and the frown was formidable. “So?” he said. “May I ask why?”

  “Because I can’t marry you, Jeremy.”

  He stood up and lit a cigarette very slowly and carefully. She watched him, and could feel a wild tearing and splintering in herself. He was a stranger to her now, someone she had never known. She only knew that he was coldly and blackly enraged, and she shivered. Everything in the room became acute to her, and threatening, the walls of books, the little fire, the lamps, the thick carpets. The paneling gleamed at her with hostility. The ormolu clock struck and it seemed to her that it was tinkling derision.

  Then she saw that his dark eyes were fixed on her, no longer with love or desire and understanding. They were the eyes of an enemy, a prosecutor. Yet he spoke quietly enough. “You haven’t told me why.”

  She looked aside and whispered, “Because I love you.”

  He began to walk up and down the room, stopping occasionally to adjust a toppling book or to straighten out a paper on his desk. He was as if he had forgotten her. She felt that should she get up and leave he would not even be aware of it. Now the tearing and splintering became intolerable to endure. She compelled herself to speak louder.

  “You see, Jeremy, if I married you it would ruin you.”

  He stopped in his pacing and looked over his shoulder at her as if she were a curious object, not to be taken seriously.

  “Who told you that?” he asked. “Mrs. Eccles?”

  “No. No.” She hesitated and then began to wring her hands tightly together. He saw the writhing fingers, the whiteness of the knuckles. “It was my aunt—she made me see it was—impossible. That it would be disastrous for you. That I was selfish, and never considered you at all, and your career.” Her voice was strained and almost indifferent in intonation. “My aunt is right. I never thought of it before.”

  His face swelled, became engorged. He came closer to her.

  “And you believed that stupidity?”

  Now she came out of her apathy and said with passion, “It isn’t stupidity! What am I, compared with you? Your friends, the people who could help you, will laugh at you for marrying me, a servant, a nobody—They could harm you, Jeremy. You could marry some woman of distinction, a lady, a beautiful woman, and not I, who haven’t even any good looks to please your friends. A nobody.”

  While he still stared at her, aghast at this ingenuousness, she showed him her worn and scarred hands, as she had shown them to him in the park in Wheatfield. “Look at them, Jeremy! The hands of a drudge, a slavey. Look at my face, my hair, my—well, at my big feet, my—figure. People will laugh and wonder and ask—” Her lovely voice, with all of its mellifluous cadences, faltered. She could not bear the strange intensity she saw in his eyes, the incredulousness. He saw the immaculate innocence of her suddenly averted profile, the spasm in her throat under the cheap imitation cameo brooch.

  He drew a chair close to her and leaned forward without touching her. “Ellen,” he said, “I’ve discovered something just now about you and it isn’t flattering. You are a fool, my girl, a fool, and there’s nothing I despise so much as a fool.”

  She winced and shrank, but did not answer.

  “I thought better of you, Ellen. I thought you were intelligent, and had some reason.”

  She shook her head slowly and heavily, like a pendulum. “No, no,” she said. “I am stupid, to think I could really marry you and perhaps make you happy.”

  He was silent. He watched her closely. Then he began to smile. He stood up and took one of her hands. She tried to resist, but the warmth of his hand, the strength of it, shattered her and she began to cry, slow and soundless tears, and she dreaded the moment he would release her and take from her the comfort and security she was feeling again. She could not help it; her head dropped against his thigh and she believed she was dying.

  He looked down at her glowing hair, at the dimpled whiteness of her chin. Then he laughed a little. He pulled her almost roughly to her feet. He said, “Come in another room with me.” She followed him helplessly as he literally dragged her. He took her into his large bedroom, with the dark and shining furniture and the crimson draperies and the Aubusson rug and the silver articles on the huge dresser. There was a full-length mirror here. One lamp burned. He turned on another, and then another, until the room was vivid with
light. Then, with that new roughness he took her flimsy blouse in his hands and rudely unbuttoned it.

  She stood numbly before him, not fully understanding what he was doing. Like an imbecile, unaware of what was transpiring, she saw him expertly push the blouse from her shoulders, then drop it. His hands moved very fast and she watched them in a sort of stupor. They almost tore the corset cover, with its faded blue ribbons, from her body. Then he was contemptuously removing the belt, and let that drop, and then he stripped the flannel skirt from her waist, her legs, and then her three petticoats, one darned wool, the others coarse cotton. He bent to pull off her shoes, her black ribbed stockings and garters, and then he laughed softly and kissed her navel. She started, drew back, trembled, and a flood of fiery heat and delicious weakness fell upon her. She put one arm across her breast and one hand over her revealed sex, in the ancient gesture of a virginal woman, who was at once appallingly afraid and surrendering.

  He took her by the shoulders and pushed her with hard force before the mirror. She stared at her reflection, all her bare flesh shrinking, all her loosened hair flowing over her shoulders. She caught a strand of it and pulled it quickly over her breasts.

  He stood off from her a little, and surveyed that white perfection of her tall young body, and the roseate shadows in every curve and hollow. She was far more delightful and lovely than he had suspected, and now he was filled with tenderness.

  “Sweet love,” he said. “Look at yourself. Haven’t you ever looked at yourself before? Are you blind? Wouldn’t any man want that, you idiot?”

  And now she blushed and was abject with shame at her nakedness, and could not look either at her reflection or at Jeremy. She stiffly bent, trying to hide herself, and began to pick up her clothes. But he unceremoniously kicked them from under her hand. She cried out faintly, and squatted on the rug, covering herself with her arms. She was suddenly terrified of both herself and Jeremy.

  He looked at her for a moment or two. Then he lifted her to her feet, pulled her across the room, and threw her upon the damask-covered large bed with its carved posts. His face was congested, thickened, and the sight of it frightened her while it excited her, and she did not know why she was excited and why the touch of his hands burned her and thrilled her. He rolled her aside to pull the bedspread from under her and lifted her long legs to release it, and he pushed her into the soft puffiness of the pillows and the creamy blankets. She closed her eyes, shivering and mute, cowering under her long hair and desperately trying to cover herself with it.

  “Look at me!” he said, and she could not recognize his voice, because he was panting in quick gasps. She opened her shut eyes and saw him above her, as naked as she was herself. Her ears began to ring, her flesh to quiver.

  “Ellen! Do you love me? Do you trust me?”

  She could only look at him with stretched and fearful eyes and he saw the answer in them, timid and helpless, yet surging.

  “My wife,” he said. “My dear, stupid, ridiculous wife. My dear little fool.”

  The lamps were still lighted, but to Ellen the room darkened, became hot and thunderous, without light or form. She fumbled upwards and took Jeremy in her round arms and drew him down upon her. There was a sudden stab of startling pain, which was also blissful, and a murmuring in her ears, incoherent, and she surrendered, overpowered by an incomprehensible joy, and an alien passion.

  Mrs. Eccles comfortably ate her breakfast, happy because of the contented sensation in her stomach and belly, the gurglings of sensual satisfaction. She could give, and usually did, her whole attention to the voluptuousness of eating, beyond any other hunger of her body. Except for money, she loved excellent food the most, and this was excellent. Her doctor had warned her of her gallbladder, and so she had been prudent, ordering only stewed prunes and figs (for “elimination”), a small order of broiled kidneys and bacon, two eggs, a basket of heavily buttered muffins, a delicate little broiled fish, marmalade, plum jam and guava jelly, and a large silver pot of hot chocolate “with just a teensy dab of whipped cream,” and plenty of sugar. There was also a small flagon of brandy, for “stimulation of the circulation.” Sipping the brandy luxuriously, and daintily wiping up the last crumbs of the sixth muffin and jam with an arched index finger (admonishing), she leaned back in her velvet chair and gave herself up to tranquillity as her stomach slowly began its arduous task of almost lewd digestion. So as not to hinder this very valuable labor she had not put on her whaleboned corset, and her plump figure sprawled peacefully under her embroidered morning robe of deep-blue silk.

  She pondered on the pot of chocolate. It was very “healthy,” chocolate. She mused whether she should order another pot. Her full face was flushed and pleased, and she forgot Ellen and the miserable creature, May Watson as she argued lovingly with herself. After all, it had been a very ascetic breakfast. She was about to pull the bell rope, while she smiled with affectionate admonition and shook her head slightly, when she heard a sharp knocking at the door. Ah, the waiter was here; she would give her order and she gave herself up again to that affectionate reproof. “Come in,” she almost sang. (No whipped cream; on that she was sternly determined. The chocolate was rich enough.)

  The door opened, but it was not the waiter. It was Francis Porter. Mrs. Eccles sat up abruptly, with some consternation and surprise and dismay.

  “Good morning, Aunt Hortense,” he said, and gave her a slight smile. He was clean of face and hands, but his clothing showed the stains of recent travel. “Did I surprise you?”

  “Oh. Francis,” she said. It was one thing to plot naughty mischief, out of high spirits and malice. It was another to confront the result, and she felt a stab of resentment at this unexpected appearance. What in God’s name was Francis doing here?

  He entered the room and closed the door behind him, and she regarded him almost with dislike as her resentment increased. How like a priggish professor he looked! Strange she had never noticed that before. He wore pince-nez now, and his blond hair was thinner and brushed severely, and his mouth had a tight and intolerant expression. His thin nose was sharper than in his youth, the tip like a needle, and the well-defined earlier flush on his high cheekbones had dimmed. He was much paler; his skin had a bleached look, rigid and unbending. All at once Mrs. Eccles was not fond of him. He really looked very prim.

  He gave her a dry kiss on her red cheek, to which she did not respond. Alarm took her now. What would Jeremy, that dear boy, say to this, when he learned that Francis had come here apparently in response to her mischievous telegram? Much as she loved Francis it was in her nature to disconcert, when she could, even those for whom she felt fondness. It elated her. Now she felt quite cross and moved restively in her chair.

  “What on earth are you doing here, Francis?” she asked in a petulant voice.

  He himself was surprised. Her eyes were regarding him with displeasure.

  “But you sent me a telegram, Aunt Hortense! What did you expect me to do? You telegraphed me that my cousin Jeremy had induced poor Ellen to come here with him, for marriage—marriage! Of course, he doesn’t intend to marry her! You must know that. I thought you did. I thought that was why you sent me the telegram, so that I would come here and prevent the—the—ravishment of an innocent servant girl at the hands of a seducing brute. And take her, with you, back to Wheatfield.”

  She was almost glowering at him. “I reckon you misunderstood, Francis. Would I be here, as Ellen’s chaperone, if that was what he wanted? Her aunt is here, too. I—I just thought you ought to know, seeing you sent her to me. I felt like a mother towards her. I just thought you should know. Not that I approve of any marriage between Jeremy Porter—he’s your cousin, after all—and a servant. I just thought you should know, as you’ve been so kind to her.”

  “You honestly think he intends to marry her?” Francis was astounded and incredulous.

  She shrugged her plump shoulders, lifted her hands, and dropped them. “I’m not a man. How could I know what goes on i
n a man’s mind? At least, that’s what he told me he has in mind. But perhaps”—and she was quickly animated—“he will fraudulently marry her. You understand? One of his friends pretending to be a minister or a justice of the peace. Or something.”

  She laughed and shook an arch finger at him. “You men! But that’s all that girl deserves, impudently trying to rise out of her class. Not that I don’t pity her, and her ultimate fate, which will probably be the streets, as your Aunt Agnes Porter wrote me over and over.”

  Francis considered. “Where is this famous marriage supposed to take place?” His light voice was harsh and bitter.

  She waved a negligent hand. “In City Hall, four days from now, when she has a decent trousseau. Then they are going to Europe for the honeymoon.”

  Francis stood up, put his slight hands into his trousers pockets, and began to pace the room, his “professor’s” head bent, his facial muscles twitching. “If it is City Hall, and you and her aunt are to be there, and officials, then it won’t be fraudulent. May is clever enough to demand both a license and what she would call ‘marriage lines.’ No, if it is City Hall, it will be actual.”

  “Oh,” said Hortense Eccles, with disappointment. “Well, if you came in response to my telegram, what do you intend to do about it?”

  “Stop the marriage, of course.” He stood before her tensely. “I’ve brought his mother with me. I thought that best. He might listen to her.”

  “To Agnes Porter? Why, he hasn’t seen her in a year, and she’s brokenhearted. She writes me he is avoiding his parents! He won’t listen to her.”

  “We’re registered here in this hotel. We arrived only an hour ago, together. Perhaps Ellen will listen to me. I’m sure she will. She knows how I have cared for her welfare over these years and did what I could for her. I thought she was a sensible girl, in spite of her innocence and ignorance and her native simplicity. And her lack of worldliness. After all, her background—” He shook his head. “I don’t think it will be hard for me to convince her that she is doing a very wrong and stupid thing—rising out of her rank—as she probably thinks she is doing. Or he is deceiving her. I know him well, and his cruelty and his hardheartedness, and his contempt for the unfortunate. And Ellen is a very unfortunate girl, and deluded. I intend to persuade her to return to your house in Wheatfield where she properly belongs. And May, now that she is incapacitated, must go to the county infirmary. I will make Ellen see these sensible things.”