She didn’t answer, and he sighed. “Rachel, this is more now than a matter of love, it’s family honor. Tante told me that Tom offered you shameful affront. If some of your reluctance to marry is because you feel dishonored, know this makes me want to wed you more than ever.”
Feeling exposed, she tried to sound indignant. “Harry, I believe you’d marry me out of obligation even if you didn’t like me!”
“No, my love. I’d give another girl money or whatever recourse was possible. You’re different.”
“Yes, I am.” She pulled away and looked straight into his eyes though it was hard to do. “I wasn’t a virgin, Harry, before Tom. Etienne was my lover.”
Except for a widening of the pupils of his eyes, Harry showed no reaction, though he didn’t speak for a moment. Then he said, “That could easily happen when you were constant companions and cut off from regular society. The lad was not much your elder though it’s a shame he took advantage—”
“He didn’t! He begged me to marry him.”
“Oh!” Harry looked relieved. “You simply hadn’t gotten to a minister.”
“We were never getting to a minister,” she said with defiance, “I didn’t wish to marry.”
“Rachel!”
She hunched her shoulders. “I knew you wouldn’t like why,” she said grimly, “even if you could overlook what.”
His mouth twitched. Clasping her hands, he said gravely, “May I inquire why you are so prejudiced against the state most young ladies see as their life’s goal?”
She told him at considerable length, judging that he’d asked for it. “Mmm,” he mused, when she finished. “You really are a rather noble savage, Rachel, thanks to Bradford’s dosing you with Rousseau. But you’ll grant your life and its circumstances have changed drastically since you declined Etienne’s suit.”
She didn’t answer. That was all too painfully true.
“You’ll have all the freedom consistent with safety,” he promised. “We can renovate Tristesse and spend some time there. But you can’t return to your childhood, Rachel. You have to start over. Start with me.”
What he said was undeniable. And she did care for him more than for anyone else in the world. If he still wanted her, knowing all that he did—Yet there was one thing more.
“I—I’m afraid I can’t be a wife to you, Harry. Since—Tom, I can’t help it, I really lose my head, just panic. I don’t know if I’ll ever get over that.”
He tilted up her chin. “Soldiers recover from battle, women from childbirth, and you’ll someday want me to make love to you.” He laughed teasingly. “Better not wait too long, though. I may forget how.”
He was so good, so sane, so strong and easy-tempered he utterly confounded her sad, proud heart. With a sobbing laugh, she carried his big brown hand to her lips. She owed him everything. In every way she could, she would make him happy.
Harry had searched for Tom all that day till it was apparent he’d gone to earth and wouldn’t be quickly discovered. When the sheriff’s party took up the hunt, Harry left Gloryoak men combing the area and hurried back to Rachel. A stableboy, drowsing in the shade, had seen her ride off into the woods on Bess. Harry had guessed her strategy and ridden straight down the road, pulling into the trees and waiting until he heard Bess.
No trace of Tom was found. He had won a considerable sum at cards in Jefferson the night before he came home, so he presumably had money. Reward posters were sent out for him, but though the sheriff investigated a number of leads, they led nowhere. Rachel hoped he would never be heard of again. Now that Harry knew his brother had forced her, he was likely to kill Tom himself, especially since he wouldn’t want Rachel’s violation to figure in a trial.
The wedding was held in the ballroom early in August, presided over by the Presbyterian minister who had buried Etienne. Rachel had demurred at white but Harry had insisted, so the gown was richly glowing satin with imported lace inserts and thousands of tiny seed pearls. Tante and four grandmothers had needed the better part of two weeks to make it. It was so exquisite Rachel felt transfigured when she slipped into it.
All the gentry and substantial folk for miles around had been invited, Dr. Martin and Ferris Pettigrew, Harry’s lawyer. No one was scandalized enough by whispers about Rachel’s strange upbringing and her riding into town with a murdered man across her saddle to miss the event. Rachel’s pupils and their grannies who had made her gown were there. After the brief, poignant ceremony, several attractive young matrons laughingly told Rachel that she had the husband they had hoped for until they’d met “the really right men,” their present spouses. The McLeod sisters of Belleforest, the nearest plantation, hadn’t found husbands and were obviously chagrined.
There was a bountiful feast, several kinds of punch and a great silver bowl of syllabub. The best musicians from three counties played for the dancing and Gloryoak rejoiced, Tante Estelle said, more than in all the years she could remember there.
“Now, when you and Mr. Harry have some young ones, won’t that just frost the cake!” she said.
Rachel’s smile faded. She was beginning to understand the world well enough to know that if she showed no signs of having a child within a year, women would start gossiping, wondering what was wrong, condoling with Harry.
She held her shoulders and chin erect, brushing the softly gleaming pearls on her bodice. She certainly couldn’t live as she intended and be much worried about what other people said. What most mattered was to please Harry.
He seemed suited, spending with her as much of every day as he could, often laughing in amusement or delight. And she was suited, too, much better than she would have believed possible in a life so different from the one she had planned. In some ways Harry filled the void left there by her father, for he discussed everything with her, from crops and his fear of the rising secessionist fever to Livingstone’s explorations in Africa and Edward FitzGerald’s beautiful translation of the Rubáiyát, which Harry liked so well and always seemed to be quoting.
Bess grazed contentedly in the pasture while Rachel fared out on Lady, now hers as a wedding gift. Since she had never ridden much, she quickly got used to a sidesaddle and found the nuisance a small price for the exhilaration of skimming through fields or loping down a lane. Riding the high-mettled but affectionate mare was challenging exercise and compensated considerably for roaming the bayous and lake.
Free now to indulge Rachel, Harry seemed to find continual pleasure in giving her everything he thought she might enjoy or need. After making the wedding dress, Tante Estelle was relieved of sewing, and the best seamstress in Jefferson came to stay at Gloryoak with her sewing machine, while she designed, fitted and made two riding habits, one a severely tailored bottle-green broadcloth, the other of ivory-beige pongee, exceedingly fetching with its nipped-in waist and flowing lines. When Rachel protested that she had too many dresses, Harry pointed out that fall and winter were approaching so she’d best prepare.
The result was half a dozen poplin and woolen gowns and evening dresses of pearl-colored silk piped with pearl satin, rich plum silk ornamented with medallions of black lace, and a triple-flounced purple cashmere. Mrs. Mapes labeled some of the plainer dresses “walking” or “carriage” gowns, but Rachel didn’t worry about such distinctions. She was delighted with them all and enchanted with the nightgowns of linen cambric and Valenciennes lace, the linen drawers and embroidered chemises of cambric muslin and flannel.
Mrs. Mapes wanted to make corset covers instead of the last but since Harry refused to have Rachel lace even if she wished to, Rachel preferred the simple, pretty chemises. Then there was a merino cloak of dark gray lined with cherry silk, one of fawn-colored cashmere trimmed in velvet and a dark-green velvet lined with gold satin.
Mrs. Mapes’ sister was a milliner who created a variety of bonnets from white chip and blond straw for the rest of the summer to silk, velvet and wool for winter. Harry’s bootmaker laid aside his other orders to make her everything
from dancing shoes to riding boots. With all this activity, few days passed without some new present which led Rachel to vow guiltily that she would never buy another article of clothing.
They made a trip to Tristesse to collect Bradford’s books and the few mementoes of Rachel’s mother. Selah, before the wedding, had been sent to take the cow to Tante Aurore and help her fetch any of the furnishings of kitchen things she could use. The house was nearly stripped of the small much-used articles that had made it home.
Rachel’s pirogue was gone, too, so it was a rather melancholy trip. The men cleared vines and spreading bushes away from the small graveyard on the knoll, and Harry knelt with her there. by her parents’ graves and that of Désirée, his father’s mistress.
“We could put a wrought-iron fence around the plots,” Harry suggested. “Would you favor headstones?”
“Headstones seem so hard and cold.”
“Well, then,” he said after a few minutes’ thought, “why not a large stone container where you could plant flowers and sweet herbs but where the names could still be engraved?”
“That would be perfect! Harry, how is it that you always know exactly how to do things?”
He smiled, held her hand to his face. “I’m afraid I don’t, my sweet. But at least I’ve gained the wisdom to wait.”
As he was waiting for her? They had not yet spent a night together. He came to her bed each evening for an hour or so while they talked and he held her in his arms but he rode his passion with a tight rein, getting up and having a cigar when he began to tremble and his kisses grew ardent.
Rachel knew this torment couldn’t go on. She felt a cruel cheat, all the more because he was so unfailingly kind. He had given her everything, married her when he knew Tom had raped her, and Etienne been freely given the body which, in spite of all her willpower and disgusted self-scolding, grew stiff and shrinking when Harry’s protective affection turned to ardor.
The night they got home from Tristesse, she returned Harry’s kisses, stroked his shoulders, tried to stay soft and relaxed, telling herself this was Harry, her husband, the man she loved, her friend whom she wanted to make happy. It worked till his tremulous hands touched her breast. She went rigid though she kept her arms about him.
Immediately he broke away. “No, Rachel! Not that way!”
“But, Harry, please! If you just go ahead, maybe I could get over it. I want to, I hate this! Please, Harry.”
“I can’t,” he said simply, with a strained little laugh. “When you stiffen like that, darling, I remember Tom—God, my own brother! And even if I wanted to take you then, almost with force, I can’t.” When she would have argued further he laid his fingers on her lips. “No use, love. Your fear unmans me.”
He reached for his dressing gown, turned back to touch Rachel’s head as she sobbed against the pillows. “Sweetheart, don’t take on like that. We’ve years and years ahead of us, years I won’t chance tainting because I desire you so. I’m sure in time, when your body learns along with your mind that I won’t hurt you, all will be well with us.”
“If—if I drank some wine—”
“Rachel, Rachel!” he chided. “Don’t try so hard. When you’re finally mine, I want to be proud of the way it happened.” With that he kissed her half-buried cheek and left her.
Rachel continued with her school, and an empty cabin was being equipped with desks and chairs, a large plasterboard coated with black paint, a globe, and several large colored maps. The class had increased. On the occasion of the wedding, Harry had given their liberty to a score of men and women who were, so he let it be circulated for the benefit of critics, close to paying out their freedom anyhow.
Two of the men departed to find work in cities, but though the others stayed at Gloryoak, most of them wanted to learn a little reading and writing and ciphering. Tante Estelle and Selah instructed this group two nights a week. Rachel sometimes gave a geography lesson and Harry spoke several times on such applied economics as interest, credit and savings, but he told Rachel firmly that they must not be too involved with the freedmen’s school.
“People can see the advantages of educating young slaves so they can perform more varied tasks, keep accounts and so on,” he explained. “And one might educate a freedman or two for the same reason. But we’d be thought seditionists for sure if we personally taught the school.”
“But Harry, who cares what such bigots think?”
“I do, love. Because if war breaks out, as I fear it may, and shortly, reason will fly out the window. I shall have to fight, of course, and I don’t want to leave you among hostile neighbors.”
The calm way he spoke about the likeliness of fratricidal civil war sent cold chills through Rachel. “If there is a war, what will your brother Matthew do?” she asked faintly. “Since he’s in the army, won’t his allegiance be to the United States?”
“That’s what he’ll have to decide,” shrugged Harry. “I can’t guess, myself Matt’s a strange one. I used to worry over his hotheadedness, but he seems to have toned down considerably.”
Matthew had been Bradford’s favorite and was, Rachel suspected, Tante Estelle’s. Since leaving for West Point ten years ago, he’d been home only for short visits, but everyone who knew him recalled him as vividly as if they had seen him only yesterday.
“Have you written to him about our marriage?” Rachel asked.
“Yes, but even though the Butterfield Overland Mail Route has vastly improved service, once letters from here reach a Butterfield station in west Texas, it still takes weeks for an exchange, even if Matthew isn’t in the field after Apaches.”
She hoped he wouldn’t think she had married Harry for his money, and she wondered if Harry had told him about Tom. That news, any of it, would be terribly hard to send a third brother. Rachel suspected Harrv would give the barest facts and leave details to their next meeting.
“Is Matthew like you?” she asked her husband.
He raised a quizzical eyebrow. “Would that commend him to you, my dear, or be a handicap?”
“He can’t be as good,” she said, refusing to be baited.
Harry gave her a long searching look. “I hope that doesn’t mean dull. Though I suppose I feel dull when I compare myself with Matt! He was always out there ahead of everyone else. Riding, shooting, cutting a shine for the ladies. But he had a tender heart, and I never knew him to do a mean or underhanded thing. He’s literally given the coat off his back to someone having hard luck, and he almost drowned keeping Selah afloat when they got caught out in a storm on Caddo years ago.”
Presented with such a contradictory picture, Rachel laughed and said, “You have me thoroughly intimidated!”
“No need. He’ll be utterly your servant.”
His other brother had certainly not been. To cover this thought, which Harry, from his stricken look, must be having, too, Rachel shook her head in mock despair. “Perhaps my best gambit will be to look as if I’m drowning or as if I need his coat.”
Harry chuckled. “Don’t you dare, minx! It’s my privilege to see that you’re undrowned and well-coated. I asked Matt to do all he can short of mutiny to get Christmas leave. We’ll make a merry season of it, love.” She knew he was thinking this might be the last peaceful Christmas for years, that if Lincoln was elected that fall the country might plunge swiftly into war.
“Oh, a very merry season,” she teased, trying to lift his spirits. “We’ll invite all the belles, but you remember they’re for Matt and not for you!”
“I have my belle,” he said, and brought her into his lap. She snuggled against him and for a few close moments they were warm and happy till that strained trembling began in his arms and she knew he ached for her.
Matt rode home to Gloryoak in October, after the black gum had turned dark red, just as the sweet gum was blazing yellow. The dogwood bore red berries and red leaves, the sumac was flaming, and the great oak was the brilliant orange that would later sere to brown. Rachel was cutting
late roses from the garden by the sundial. She glanced up at the music of hoofs, shielding her eyes to gaze at the big gray horse cantering swiftly up the long walnut-bordered lane. His rider matched him in size and grace, moving easily with his mount’s deceptively smooth gait.
Rachel could not look away. There was something vaguely hauntingly familiar about this man, though she was sure she’d never seen him before. He had eyes the strange shade of skies when a blue norther was blowing in, cheeks so lean they seemed gashed beneath long slanting cheekbones, and a hard mouth that shaped to a smile of pleased surprise as he swept off a broad-brimmed felt hat to reveal thick curly hair that looked black till she saw the red in it.
She’d never seen him before. No woman could have forgotten him. Even in her innocence, Rachel sensed that. But there was something—
“Ma’am?” He swung down from the saddle and bowed, his manner belying his rough clothes. “May I hope that Gloryoak has acquired such a beauty?”
“I’m Mrs. Harry Bourne,” she said, wondering why she pronounced the name with a qualm.
His eyes glinted. “Why then,” he said, laughter welling from his bronzed throat, “I claim brotherly privilege!”
He trailed the stallion’s reins. Before she realized his intent, he swept her to him.
His mouth stifled her scream just as his broad shoulders and chest frustrated her hands. Pressed to him like that, the sharp bite of rose thorns against her arm and breast filled her with panic. She was being crushed like the flowers. His mouth, caressing at first, had gone cruel at her struggles, forcing, her lips apart so she felt exposed, vulnerable. Terror flooded her mind. She gave a convulsive shudder, felt the ground sliding away, her arms going limp …
“Here, now, for God’s sake, ma’am!”
She opened her eyes and found herself propped on a garden bench, supported by one of the arms that had lately been her prison. “I cry pardon if I kissed the bride a trifle roughly, but I can’t believe any woman faints at a kiss these days!”
A Woman Clothed in Sun Page 6