by Anya Seton
At four o'clock, just as the first gray streaks of dawn showed over the distant ridge of Palmer Hill, Miranda clambered up onto the wagon seat beside Ephraim. Tom, who must accompany them to drive the ox-team back, settled himself on a bag of potatoes in the rear, Ephraim shouted to the oxen and they started, with no more drama than that.
Miranda waved to the diminishing figure of her mother, barely discernible in the dim light, and thought of a hundred things she might have said to her. 'Ma, I'll write often. If you need me, I'll come home at once. Don't work too hard, will you, Ma, dear? And take care of yourself—please.'
She had said none of these things, nor had Abigail said much except, 'Behave yourself now. Make yourself useful to Mr. and Mrs. Van Ryn. Say your prayers every night and morning.'
Miranda swallowed, the familiar countryside blurred. The wagon rumbled up and down the stony hills on the Catrock road, the brakes squeaked as they slid down the last steep pitch into the Mianus River valley. Many other farm wagons were clustered on the turnpike below the Dumpling Pond Bridge. Isaac Taylor in the wagon next theirs greeted Ephraim cordially and then peered in astonishment at Miranda.
'You folks going somewhere?' he asked. 'Mighty early in the day to see a young lady all togged out in finery.'
Ephraim nodded. 'Ranny and Pre off to New York with the boat. She's going to visit some of her ma's relations up the Hudson.'
Isaac whistled. 'You don't say. Mind you don't get lost in the big city. Last time I was there in thirty-nine, what with all them horsecars and cabs and hacks and the twisting streets and the hawkers wanting to sell you something I got plumb confused. Was mighry glad to get home again. You never been there, have you, Ephraim?'
'No,' answered Ephraim stiffly, his eyes on the potatoes and bushel baskets of onions Tom was loading onto the boat.
'Well, they got a lot of slickers down there,' continued Isaac. 'There was one fellow with a gold watch chain and a satin suit tried to sell me the City Hall, hundred dollars down and the rest monthly. I told him I wasn't born yesterday and he'd have to be a lot smarter than that to diddle a Connecticut Yankee.'
'I guess we'll manage all right,' said Ephraim. 'With the Lord's help. Come on, Ranny, get on board. Looks like they're getting ready to sail.'
She hurried down from the wagon and across the plank to the market boat. There seemed to be no place to sit, so she made her way to the stern through the piled vegetables, dusted off a sack of potatoes, and settled gingerly on that.
Tom emerged from the hold and came over to her. 'Good-bye, sis,' he said, holding out his hand. 'Good luck.' He hesitated a moment and reddened. 'I sure wish I was going too, like to see the city.'
'Oh, I wish you were, Tommy—' cried Miranda warmly. 'Come on, why don't you?'
Tom shook his head. 'Got to get back and hoe up the north field. Can't everybody go junketing off at once.'
'I guess not,' answered Miranda. Tom was so responsible. He never forgot a duty or left one undone. I suppose I am selfish and flighty, she thought unhappily. But nevertheless her spirits began to revive. This was adventure and travel and change. Even Ephraim, she saw, as the boat got under way and slid down the river toward the Sound, was beginning to enjoy himself. His stern face had relaxed, he actually smiled as he chatted with the captain.
In the Sound they picked up a strong southeasterly breeze. The Dora J. skimmed past Port Chester, Rye, New Rochelle, with a skittishness belied by her squat sturdy hull. Miranda had much trouble keeping her precious bonnet on, the wind caught its scoop brim until the confining ribbons beneath her chin nearly strangled her. When a shower of salt spray descended on her head, she finally untied the bonnet and examined the red roses anxiously. They were a trifle limp, so she protected them under a fold of her skirt and allowed the wind and spray to make havoc of her smooth braids. It wasn't at all proper to sit hatless in a public place, but after all there was no one on board but the sailors and her father, and she hoped they wouldn't notice or think her a trifle free in her manner.
The tide was with them and the trip passed quickly. At half-past eight she saw the New York skyline, and nearly fell over the rail in her excitement. How very tall the buildings were! some of them actually had four stories. And how many church spires there were! Sunshine glittered off the far-flung jumble of slate and shingled roofs, confused distant noises clamored from the shore. The river swarmed suddenly with ships; dories, ketches, market boats, schooners, and an occasional steam packet all apparently bearing down on the Dora J. Miranda several times braced herself for what seemed an inevitable collision, but nothing happened. They forged steadily ahead, rounding Corlear's Hook to make fast finally at a dock on South Street.
Miranda hastily put on her bonnet as Ephraim came aft to her.
'Looks like we're here,' he said. There was a lack of certainty in his manner, and as they stepped off the boat into a bustle and uproar the like of which Miranda had never imagined, she was both surprised and comforted to know that her father was for once a bit unsure of himself.
They stood a moment on South Street while the traffic whirled by them; heavy drays whose horses' great hoofs clattered on the cobblestones, private carriages and hacks, milk wagons and bakers' wagons, a dustman and a scissors-grinder man with his little bell.
People jostled them, a small boy strolled by, took a long, impudent look at them, then turning his eyes to heaven said, 'Lord love us if I don't think there's something green around here.' He lowered his eyes and fixed them on Ephraim. 'Don't you see nothing green?' asked the urchin chattily.
Ephraim frowned. 'Why no, my lad, I guess I don't know what you mean.'
'Whee, crickey,' said the boy. 'It's greener than I thought for and it's got hayseeds on it!' He contorted his grimy visage into a prodigious wink, burst into hoots of laughter, and strolled away.
Miranda flushed. 'I guess he meant us,' she said in a small voice.
'Little limb of Satan,' Ephraim growled. He pulled the Van Ryn letter angrily from his pocket and consulted it. 'He says to go to the Astor House. We better get started.'
But after they had twice asked their way and received conflicting impatient directions, Miranda was relieved when a cab drew up beside diem, and the driver said: 'You people strangers, ain't you? You want I should take you somewheres?'
'Oh, yes, Pa, please,' said Miranda.
'How much to go to the Astor House?' asked Ephraim cautiously.
The broad Irish face on the box looked concerned. 'Oh, yez wouldn't be wanting to stop there, would ye, now? That's a high-falutin' place where they charge a dollar to turn around, let alone what they want for room and vittles. I'll take yez to me brother Paddy's foine little tavern on Morris Street. They'll treat you grand.'
'I said the Astor House,' said Ephraim icily.
The cabby shrugged his shoulders. 'Then that'll be a shilling.'
'What!' roared Ephraim. 'Be on your way, then, you conscienceless ruffian!' and Miranda could not but agree with him, tired and bewildered as she was.
Isaac Taylor was right, the city was full of slickers. But how did people know right off like that that they came from the country?
It took them almost an hour to reach the Astor House because they got lost three times. But when they finally trudged up Broadway, each clutching a wicker basket, and saw between Vesey and Barclay Streets the great pile of granite that was the hotel, Miranda had the answer to her question. It wasn't only the wicker baskets, it was their clothes. No one wore a shallow round beaver like her father's, no one had a fringe of beard under the chin, or long coattails or such wide trousers. And as for the fashionable ladies who were out on Broadway for the morning shopping, their satins and cashmeres, their ruffled and plumed bonnets, no more resembled Miranda's attire than a peacock resembles a wren.
Though most women love clothes there are not many with a real flair for them, an understanding of line and color, a swift instinctive certainty as to what will be becoming, or an ability to measure and apply the f
irst vague indications of fashion change. Yet Miranda was one of these—though her faculty had had small scope in Greenwich—and now she suffered accordingly. She followed her father up the wide steps of the Astor House and wished passionately that she might fade into eternal invisibility before she faced the grand new cousin.
Everything about her was wrong. Fashionable ladies did not wear fichus, or brown merino, nobody had darned cotton gloves, and alas, though the Misses Lane had done their best, the bonnet was worst of all. It was too deep and too high. Its pink ribbons and red roses were ridiculous. It looked cheap, tawdry, and just what it was, an adapted provincial imitation of a French style of four years ago.
'Stop sidling along behind me like that,' commanded Ephraim sharply. 'Hold your head up and don't act like a scared rabbit. Ye're entering one of the marts of Mammon, and you'd better hold yourself like a God-fearing girl with nothing on her conscience.'
'Yes, Pa,' and Miranda stiffened her spine trying hopelessly to look like the haughty young lady in green satin who swept by them into a waiting barouche.
They entered the lobby and she gave a gasp. They seemed to be swimming over a vast sea of red plush carpeting. She had a confused impression of thousands of mirrors which reflected thousands of gilded gas jets, of marble columns interspersed with hordes of people. No one paid the slightest attention to them, and again they wavered uncertainly, until Ephraim discovered a marble desk at the far end of the lobby. Behind this stood a bored young man drumming his fingers.
'Must be the tavern-keeper,' muttered Ephraim. He lumbered across the carpet with Miranda in his wake.
The bored young man looked them up and down, lifted one black eyebrow, and said, 'Well, my good man, what can I do for you?'
'We're to meet a Mr. Nicholas Van Ryn here,' said Ephraim. 'Perhaps you could tell—' He stopped in an amazement shared by Miranda.
The bored young man was galvanized. He bowed, he smiled not once but in a rapid succession of ever more ingratiating smirks, he rang bells, he beckoned to underlings who materialized from behind the pillars. 'But, of course!' he cried. You are Mr. and Miss Wells. Mr. Van Ryn wrote me. All is in readiness for you. I beg that you will come with me, I will conduct you to your apartment. Mr. Van Ryn will arrive this afternoon. He directed that you were to have anything you wished. Anything,' he added with an impressive emphasis which suggested that if they expressed a preference for the British crown jewels or an African lion, it would not daunt him.
Miranda was dazed. She and Ephraim both made a quick reflexive gesture as two of the bellboys seized the precious baskets. 'I'il carry 'em!' cried Ephraim, but they were already out of sight. Miranda and her father found themselves herded up a tremendous staircase, down a brightly lit corridor, and into a large parlor crammed with rosewood furniture. 'Your bedchamber to the right,' said the clerk to Ephraim, throwing open a door with a flourish, 'and the young lady's in there.'
'You mean we're supposed to use these three rooms just for us?' said Ephraim in bewilderment. 'Seems like a sinful waste.'
The clerk looked pained. 'Mr. Van Ryn was very anxious that you should be comfortable, sir. I trust that you will be.'
'I guess so,' Ephraim answered. 'Much obliged to you, young man.'
When the door finally closed behind the clerk and bellboys, Ephraim sat down heavily on the settee. 'This Mr. Van Ryn must be very rich and very wasteful. What do people want with all this flummery anyway?' He stared resentfully at the blue plush curtains, the five carved chairs, the desk, the center table, the flowered rug, then through the opened doors at the four-posted beds, dressing-tables, black walnut armoires, and footstools. 'All any sensible body needs is a table, a chair, and a bed.'
His daughter did not answer; she stood wide-eyed in the middle of the room. Through the open windows came the steady clatter of the traffic. She took the bonnet off and flung it into a chair, she walked to the windows and looked out for a minute while her hand caressed the lush blue curtain fringes. She turned and examined the glass and gilt knobs that held the tie-backs. She leaned over and pressed her finger into the pile of the festooned red-and-gray carpet. When she straightened her eyes were dreamy.
'I've read about it, but I didn't know people lived like this, really,' she said half to herself. 'I think it's wonderful.'
Ephraim made an impatient sound and stood up. 'Miranda, you're a very light-minded female. You've always given too much weight to material things. I doubt very much that this excursion into Babylon is good for you. I've a mind to tell Mr. Van Ryn ye cannot go.'
'Oh, you couldn't do that, Pa!' she cried. 'You've given your word.'
Ephraim's mouth tightened and he turned away. He had never in his life broken his word and he would not do so now, but he was uneasy. He had little sympathy with Miranda, still she was his daughter and he was worried about her soul. All the frivolity and worldly tendencies which imperiled it he had tried to eradicate, with but dubious success, he knew very well. It looked now as though she were going into an environment where her worst nature would be fostered by luxury and the general atmosphere of ease and softness that he abhorred.
He walked into his room and shutting the door fell to his knees in prayer for Miranda.
His disquiet was increased later by the girl's behavior. Mr. Van Ryn, it seemed, had no limit to his forethought—or from Ephraim's viewpoint, foolish extravagance. He had ordered dinner for them. It arrived on trays borne by two black waiters just as Ephraim and Miranda were preparing to eat the bread and sausages and slices of pie that Abigail had packed in Ephraim's basket.
The dinner was colossal and composed entirely of items that neither of them recognized. Nor were they helped any by the gilded menu which was presented to them by one of the negroes.
It was written in gibberish—French, the waiter said in response to Miranda's timid question. She thereupon seized the menu and repeated the outlandish words to herself. 'Gigot d'agneau roti,' murmured Miranda, pronouncing every letter carefully. 'I wonder what that is. Tournedos de volaille. Compote de fruits glacés.' She darted from one dish to another, sampling each. 'Oh, but isn't it all tasty! And so many different things!'
Ephraim pushed back his plate, and pulled Abigail's sausages from the basket. 'Lot of disgusting messes, if you ask me. Good food ruined by a mort of gluey gravies and sauces. Can't tell what you're eating. Don't touch that!' he thundered suddenly as Miranda put her spoon in a mixture of frozen fruits. 'It has spirits in it. I can smell it!'
The fruit had indeed been soaked in rum. Miranda put her spoon down. 'But Pa,' she said wistfully, 'it looks so good. Couldn't I just try to see? One bite couldn't really be intoxicating, could it?'
'Miranda!' cried Ephraim, shocked. 'Would you ever touch liquor in any form just because it looked good?'—
"No, Pa. I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking, I guess.'
'Child, child,' said Ephraim not unkindly. 'How many sins you commit through thoughtlessness. You must wrestle with your spirit like Jacob wrestled with the angel. Here, I have something for you.'
He fished in his basket and brought out a small leather-bound Bible, quite new. 'It might be hard sometimes for you to read in the Van Ryn's Bible. I want you to keep this with you in your room. Study in it every day. I've marked some passages for you.'
'Oh, thank you, Pa!' she cried, touched. With the exception of the hair brooch, and that had been Abigail's idea, it was the only present she had ever received from her father. Ephraim had written her name on the fly leaf:
Miranda Wells, June, 1844, from her Father.
'Read me the Ninety-First Psalm now,' ordered Ephraim.
'Now!' protested Miranda unhappily. She was in a fever to look out the window at the fascinating street, to examine her sumptuous bedroom again, to rip some of the trimming off the unfortunate bonnet, and perhaps something could be done about the fichu; it might be turned under, made less conspicuous. Moreover the early afternoon in a hotel room seemed a strange time and place for Bible reading.
'Now,' he said inflexibly. 'I want to hear you read.' He sat straighter in his chair, folded his large gnarled hands, and waited.
When she came to the tenth verse, he stopped her and repeated it himself in his measured voice '"There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling." —I pray that may be so, Miranda, in the new life you're going to.'
Oh, pshaw, she thought impatiently. What evil could possibly befall me in a rich old gentleman's house on the Hudson? Pa makes too much fuss about all this, he's not—not—She did not know the word she looked for: 'sophisticated' perhaps would have best covered her meaning. Nor did she realize that this was the first time in her life that she had been consciously critical of her father. She finished the psalm and jumped up before Ephrain? should order her to go on. 'Pa, I must red up a bit before Mr. Van Ryn comes,' and she fled into her room.
By five o'clock Miranda had done what she could to improve her costume. The fichu had been turned under to form a collar. The roses were gone from the bonnet, and she had loosened into ringlets the tight honey-colored braids which had been coiled on either side her face, giving thanks as she did so that her hair curled naturally.
And still Mr. Van Ryn had not arrived.
'I think,' said Ephraim, giving the curls a disapproving frown, 'we'd better go downstairs and ask that oily jack-a-napes at the counter if maybe he knows when his high mightiness is coming.'
The lobby was even fuller than before, and the noise, compounded of chatter and laughter and the constant swish of taffetas, seemed to Miranda to be a roar. The air was loaded with tobacco smoke, the fragrance of rose and verbena water, and hair pomatum.