Onyx

by Briskin, Jacqueline;

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “I’ve been so worried,” she said, setting down the packages: a tissue-wrapped oblong that was probably a book, four hothouse peaches nestling in a basket, a jar of tawny jelled broth. “How is he?”

  “Asleep. I just brought him from the hospital.”

  “Dr. McKenzie told me.”

  “Have you been ill?”

  She shook her head. “No. Very worried.”

  Antonia looked so pale that Tom did not know how to put his demand. Instead he said, “Thank you for the letters.” Each day one or more notes had come from her. “I’m not much at writing, but hearing from you sure helped.”

  “Tom …” Hesitating, she fingered the basket. “There’s my seed pearls from my mother, and my gold bar pin. You could get something for them to help start the new racer.”

  “There’s not going to be another.”

  “But you said entering sweepstakes would attract buyers.”

  “I’m finished with that,” he said firmly. “No more automobiles.”

  “You’ve had a setback, a horrible one, but—”

  “It brought me to my senses.”

  “You sold all you built.”

  “To rich people. Luxurious toys wasn’t what I had in mind.”

  “Tom, please don’t be like this. You’re such a shining, shining man.”

  “I’ve thrown away my silver armor,” he said. “How do you like it?”

  Her brows raised in perplexity. “What?”

  “The flat.”

  She glanced at the curtainless window, the sink piled with dishes, the cheap, squat stove, then said ruefully, “Anybody would know that bachelors live here.”

  Of course she would not see it in the light of poverty. Antonia’s eyes never pigeonholed the gradations between rich and poor. “Henry Ford’s quit. He put in a word with his supervisor at the Edison, and I have his old job. Chief engineer. It pays well.” In a louder tone that sounded wretchedly forced to him, he said, “We can be married.”

  A joyous smile animated her drawn face. “Tom, I think about that all the time.”

  “Tomorrow morning we’ll go across to Windsor and find a justice of the peace.”

  “Tomorrow? Canada?”

  “You aren’t of age, and here they ask for a birth certificate. Over there they don’t.”

  “Father’s been coughing all week, and—”

  “Antonia, your father’s never going to be himself again,” Tom said with as much gentleness as he could. “I need you so much now.”

  “And I need you,” she whispered.

  “I figure it’ll take me four months to pay off Hugh’s bills, then we’ll be able to rent a house, hire a foreign woman, bring your father to live with us. He won’t even realize you’re gone.”

  “Tom, Father’s not a lump of wood. He knows, he understands.” She looked down at the basket. “Uncle’s ill. Losing the factory’s a terrible blow to him. He’s broken.”

  “Doctor McKenzie told me that Hugh’ll be scarred.”

  “Oh, Tom.” Her eyes glazed with tears.

  “The left side of his face. God knows what he’ll look like. That’s your poor, broken uncle’s work.”

  “You’ve heard about that stupid investigation.” She was on her feet. “It’s as if he’s lost a child, Tom.”

  “He didn’t lose that child, he sold it for a quarter of a million dollars.”

  “He was home when the fire started.”

  “Did I say he lit the match? He owned an unprofitable factory and he needed money, so Hugh was squashed like an ant at a picnic!” Rage quivered through Tom, and to regain his control he bit down on his lip, hard.

  “Tom,” she said, reaching toward him. “Why are we arguing?”

  “I was talking about us, about our being married.” Tom was torn by the strongest desire to hold her, to bury himself in her slim, ardent body, to reassure himself that she, indeed, loved him, yet in his craze of anger and doubts it seemed perfectly reasonable that he not permit himself to take her outstretched hand. He rapped his knuckles on marble. “The question is, are you coming to Windsor with me tomorrow?”

  The fragile jaw raised in that gallant, obstinate determination to hold tight to all that was dear to her. “Tom, I love you more than anything in the world. But Uncle, when I needed him, he came to me, all the way to Paris. He brought Father and me here, he’s been so generous—even though it’s turned out he really couldn’t afford it. He’s truly shattered. For a little while I must stay with him. This is the very first time I can help him.”

  “Then you aren’t coming?”

  “Uncle—”

  “A straight yes or no!”

  “He just sits around all day, and Father’s—”

  “One syllable! Is that so difficult?”

  “Tom, please, you’re everything to me—”

  “Damn you, are you coming with me?”

  “Until things have settled down, I can’t.” Her sigh quivered. “No …”

  The breath was knocked from him. He heard his own gasp before his lunatic jealousy raged forth. “So you’re staying with that degenerate who corrupted you?”

  “Tom!” She sank back into the chair. “At the start, you thought that. Such a silly mistake.”

  “Was it a mistake?”

  She looked out the window at the mean, unpainted shacks straggling across what was once the garden. “You of all people should know,” she whispered through appallingly white lips.

  He needed to annihilate her as completely as her rejection had annihilated him. “All the proof I’ve had puts it the other way,” he said with a dissonant laugh. “Oh, I admit that the first time you put on a fine act of innocence—but after that! Oh, Antonia, after that! I’ve never been able to afford your class of woman. I’ve never been sucked and kissed by such a skilled whore.” As he spoke memory assailed him, and he actually saw her luminous whiteness in the green shadows, saw her face ablaze with love, felt the exalting joy she communicated with her tender, wandering kisses. Oh, God, God, he thought, and wanted to grovel and beg her forgiveness. Yet he also accepted that she was staying with his worst enemy. Her choice was, for him, irreconcilable. “You’ll go far. The most sought-after commodity in the world is a whore who doesn’t look it, yet practices every kind of whore trick!”

  She had been passing her small needlepoint purse from hand to hand, but now she clasped it tight. “The way I acted … that was part of love, part of loving you.…” Her whisper held a plea. “Tom, wasn’t it the same for you?”

  She was crying, and he was close to tears himself. “I had one hell of a good time!”

  She moved toward the door. He grabbed the soup jar, attempting to force it into her hands. “Here. We don’t take charity.” The glass fell, shattering loudly, and beef-odored jelly drabbled down her skirt, staining it darker beige. He moved back.

  “You sicken me,” he said thickly.

  A cloud was covering the sun, and in the shadows her huge wet eyes shone darkly; those fathomless eyes seemed to mourn all the inexplicable cruelties and sorrows of time and the world.

  She turned away, letting herself out the door.

  Tom leaned against unvarnished pine, listening to her light footsteps. He could scarcely breathe.

  “Tom?”

  At Hugh’s call he went slowly to the sink, dashing cold water onto his face before going to the slit of a bedroom. Lashless blue eyes looked from between bandages. “I never thought you were the type to pull wings from hummingbirds.”

  “So you’ve been eavesdropping.”

  “Your shouting woke me up. He must have forced her, the Major.”

  “Like hell. She was an innocent, a total innocent. She didn’t even understand what we were doing.”

  “Then how could you have said those things to her?”

  “I enjoy pulling wings off hummingbirds,” Tom snarled, and dropped onto his own pallet, burying his face in the gray-stripe
d ticking, his shoulders heaving with rusty gasps.

  Hugh could not remember his brother weeping, not even when they had buried their mother then their father in that desolate prairie yard. The awful sound grated against his gauze-covered ears, and he longed to comfort Tom, but he was seventeen, embarrassed by this outpouring of grief, weak from the morning’s exertion, and besides, he was accustomed to Tom caring for him.

  CHAPTER 7

  The day that Dr. McKenzie removed Hugh’s bandages, October 15, an unprecedented early snow fell: the doctor, worried about getting through the streets, started immediately on his house calls.

  While he examined Mr. Dalzell, Antonia waited outside. “Your father’s a little improved today,” he said when he emerged from the sickroom.

  “That’s wonderful,” she said. The gloom of the hall hid her expression. “Doctor, how is Hugh Bridger?”

  “The left side of his face is badly scarred.”

  She put her hand on the dark wainscoting.

  “Are you all right, child?”

  “A bit dizzy, that’s all.”

  “You’re looking peaked and have lost weight. You seem under the weather. Come, let me take a look at you.”

  She protested, but he led her into the blue-wallpapered room with the curve of windows that overlooked the snowy back garden. After she undressed down to her prettily embroidered chemise, he examined her, asking questions that became more and more clinical. It was not long before he came to a conclusion and confronted her with his diagnosis.

  In his experience girls caught this way tearfully denied it or blamed the man. Antonia lay back in the pillows, her enormous dark eyes fixed on him.

  Closing his satchel, he asked, “Didn’t you guess?”

  She shook her head.

  Grasping the worked-brass footrail of her bed, he said in a stern voice, “You mustn’t stay in the sickroom so much. The air is unhealthy. Take proper meals. You’re far too thin. Nap after lunch. And—” He was about so say no monkey business, meaning no crochet hooks, knitting needles, no salts, packing with pepper, or seeking out kitchen-based midwives, but those huge bruised eyes stopped him short. “I suppose my first prescription should be for you to marry your young man.”

  She turned away. “Will you explain to Uncle?” she asked.

  “If that’s what you wish.”

  The Major sat huddled in front of the study fire, a shawl warming his shoulders, his chin resting on the handle of his cane. He appeared shrunken into his clothes, and it was difficult to believe he was not yet sixty. As the doctor spoke, though, years seemed to drop from him. Pushing the shawl impatiently into the wing chair, he stood.

  “Impossible!”

  “She denied nothing.”

  “That’s because she knows nothing!”

  “I’d say she’s three months gone.”

  “By God, the girl will tell me this herself,” boomed the Major, hurling his cane toward the fire screen. The stairs shivered under his step.

  Antonia, wearing a loose white peignoir, stood at the bay window, drawn yet not at all overcome with the shame that the Major had anticipated. As he closed the door she threw her head back, her hands hanging at her sides, the pose she assumed when she sang to his piano accompaniment. “Did Dr. McKenzie tell you?” she asked in a rapid voice.

  The Major had been despising her for smearing herself, thus ruining the one pure thing in his life. In her presence he was overcome by a loving pity that banished lesser emotions. “Yes, he told me,” he muttered awkwardly.

  “So then you understand that we need to go away, Father and I.”

  “Nonsense. You’ll marry Bridger.”

  “That’s over.” She stood rigid, and the white batiste folds of her robe seemed carved from marble. “We’ll go to Newport.”

  Whatever caused her to select Newport? “Bridger’s very fond of you—he begged to court you. And you’re fond of him. You’ve made that too clear.” Worrying that this might sound accusatory, the Major stepped closer to her. “My dear, under these circumstances, naturally my objections are withdrawn.”

  She turned to the window.

  “He’s bitter that I forbade him to see you, is that it?” asked the Major. McKenzie had told him of Tom’s insistence about the fees, so he guessed the younger man blamed him for the brother’s injuries; however, he could never bring himself to mention the fire. “You have had some sort of quarrel about my playing the zealous guardian?”

  “It wasn’t about you. It was … about … me.” She buried her face in her hands, making a soft moan.

  Tom more than ever with love, tenderness, pity, the Major helped her to the brass bed. When she was lying down, he said, “I’m going downstairs to write to him.”

  “No!”

  “Nonsense. There’s no spat as important as this, no lover’s bickering. He has every right to know. My dear, the boy’s gone on you. He can be a bit brusque and sometimes he’s difficult to understand, but it’s quite clear he’s wild for you.”

  She was holding back her tears.

  He patted her thin hand. “Don’t worry about a thing. You’ll see. As soon as he gets my letter he’ll come running.”

  II

  The Major, though neither cruel nor callous, was a flatly selfish man. In his life he had never put another’s needs above his own. Now that he was about to do so, he made a ceremony of it. First he sent for Flaherty. “Are the streets passable?” he asked somberly.

  “That they are, sir.”

  “Good. There’s a letter I’ll want delivered before luncheon.”

  Alone, the Major moved his chair several times to center it precisely, lined up his stationery on the blotter, staring gravely at the crested paper before writing the time and date with large, circular motions of his arm.

  My Dear Bridger,

  This is the most difficult letter I have ever been called upon to compose. First, let me apologize for treating you badly in regard to my niece. My sole extenuation is that with Antonia’s arrival a bright and lovely happiness came into my life and I wished to keep it as long as possible. She is precious to me, certainly, but she must be doubly dear to you.

  And now her predicament is such that you are the one she needs.

  It is understandable that you might retain bitterness toward me. No man cares to be thought unworthy of the girl he loves. You need never see me, you may forbid her to see me. I accept in advance any terms that you set.

  Antonia is not penniless. Several years ago I settled twenty-five thousand dollars on her. [This was not yet done; however, the Major realized that Tom would reject any currently settled dowry.] She refuses to part from my brother, so I trust you will permit me to continue my financial obligations toward him.

  Coming to the bottom of the page, he blotted it carefully. As he read it over his mouth twisted with the pain of relinquishment—and of abasing himself. He took a fresh sheet, this time writing with swift jabs that scattered tiny dots of ink.

  Bridger, she had no idea what was wrong with her. None. She is utterly bewildered. Frankly, her appearance terrifies me. Please come as soon as possible. She needs you desperately. I am begging you—come the minute you receive this.

  Humbly,

  Andrew Stuart

  (Major, Michigan Cavalry)

  He folded the letter into an envelope, lighting a round taper to melt the wax. He was pressing down his signet ring as Flaherty knocked.

  III

  Antonia lay on the bed, her eyes open. Since the argument with Tom she had been unable to sleep more than an hour or two a night, and this lack both sharpened and dulled her thought processes. The idea of a baby she could not grasp. To her the tiny pod that Dr. McKenzie somehow discerned was beyond comprehension.

  As usual she was going over the argument. A healthy brain in recollection simultaneously grapples myriad impressions. Antonia’s mind was not in a normal state. Her memory of the scene was pinned as if by a thrown dagger to that moment when he had said, You sic
ken me.…

  She grimaced. She could hear her heart beating and dragging a little in the beat.

  Tom, in his own misery, had found Antonia’s most vulnerable spot.

  Already she had worried about the physical dimension of her love. From her reading she had learned the prevalent attitude that only low, debased women enjoyed love’s carnal aspects (a bride’s surrender of virginity was novelistically euphemized as the “great white sacrifice”), and now with cringing self-loathing she would count the ways that she had touched him and let him touch her, kissed and been kissed in secret parts of the body, and had involuntarily cried his name as ecstasy shook her. Worse yet, these humiliating reminiscences still caused faint twinges of desire in her pelvis.

  No wonder I sicken him, she thought. Suddenly she jerked up on her elbow as though awakening from a nightmare. The letter, she thought. If he comes when he gets Uncle’s letter, it means he loves me enough to overlook how I am. If he comes, it means he’s not utterly repulsed. In her precarious mental state the logic was irrefutable.

  Energy pulsed through her. She began dressing. She had difficulty drawing on her white silk stockings, and did not notice her camisole was inside out. She forgot her underpetticoat. Her hands shook as she put up her hair, the comb dropped, hairpins showered. She let the glossy black mass hang over her shoulders.

  If he comes, she thought, if he comes.

  She ran downstairs, her eyes glittering with the fevered excitement of a gambler placing his last chip on the roulette table.

  IV

  Tom struck the match, the little blue head flared, and he passed the flame inside the stove to touch crumpled paper and kindling. Hugh watched, blinking rapidly until Tom closed the black iron door on the fire.

  The right side of Hugh’s face was a clear pink, smooth as a baby’s bottom and as hairless. This morning after the bandaging had been hurtfully peeled off, Dr. McKenzie had reassured him that the discoloration would fade, the lashes and brows would grow in, as would the incipient beard.

  The left side, however, was shades darker. A hard shell of discoloration spreading from below his jawbone to his hairline and from his ear (which was now a knob) to his well-chiseled nose. The scar tissue was ropy, drawing up the mouth. This damage was permanent.