by Anya Seton
Nicholas, however, frowned; but he touched the infantile hand, answering that they would be gratified to see the Highland Fling.
When the dance was finished, Nicholas hurried Miranda away before Barnum could come around in front and accost them.
Yes, I'm ready to go. It's been splendid, but just one more exhibit, please, Nicholas.' She pointed to a red-and-white sign which said 'To the Egress' and was further embellished by an arrow which indicated a mysterious passageway. 'Oh, do let's see the Egress!' she pleaded.
He looked down at her serious, expectant face. 'Certainly, my dear. It's of all things what I most want to see.'
Delighted with his enthusiasm, and still unsated, she pressed ahead eagerly as they entered the dark hall which presently turned into a flight of stairs that ended in a door. This door precipitated them onto Ann Street.
Blinking in the sunlight, she looked around her. 'Where's the egress?' she asked, puzzled.
He gave one of his rare laughs and indicated the door. 'You just passed through it. That's Barnum's way of getting rid of the stupid crowds.'
You might have told me, she thought. Might have prevented me from making a fool of myself too. The trivial incident hurt her. If one really loved a person, one protected them from humiliation, one did not laugh. But he does love me, she thought fiercely. He is doing all rhis today just to please me.
And, indeed, Nicholas lived up to his bargain as he would always fulfill any program upon which he himself had decided.
They walked to Franklin Street and dined at Contoit's 'New York Gardens' at a small wooden table under a chestnut tree. A German band provided the noise for which Miranda had longed; she had her fill of fried clams and crullers and her first taste of beer. This plebeian fluid made her feel both sleepy and contented. The sleepiness passed, but the contentment sharpened into bliss, for it seemed that they had barely begun their rounds of diversion.
They picked up the carriage and drove to Palmo's Opera House to see the black-faced minstrel show. With absorbed attention she followed the jokes which flew from the end men to 'Mr. Bones'; her small slippered foot tapped time to 'Doo-dah, Doo-dah. Gwine to run all night. Gwine to run all day.—Bet my money on de bobtail nag—Somebody bet on the bay.'
And after that there was still Niblo's. Here they had ices and wine, before strolling through a gallery of paintings, and attending the Ravels' marvelous pantomime of Hades, complete with devils, ghosts, and skeleton deaths. Besides the theater and the picture gallery, Niblo's amusement palace offered an exhibition of exotic and indigenous plants.
'Here's something you'll really enjoy, Nicholas!' cried Miranda as they passed the entrance of the Botanical Hall. 'Though I guess they haven't anything as fine as you grow in Dragonwyck greenhouses. Look, there are orchids and camellias and oleanders.'
He was silent so long that she thought he hadn't heard her. She looked up inquiringly and saw that he was staring not into the perfumed dampness of the hall but at her. The coldness that she dreaded had suddenly appeared in his eyes, but they held as well a faint ironic questioning.
'Don't you want to see the flowers?' she asked nervously.
'Not particularly,' he answered. He drew out his gold watch. 'We'll be late for the pantomime if we don't hurry.'
He doesn't want to be reminded of Dragonwyck yet, she thought. The memories are still too painful. A jealous misery stirred in her. Since the moment of their meeting at the Wells farm neither of them had ever mentioned Johanna's name. Can it be, she thought with sudden anguish, that he misses her? No, it isn't possible. It isn't.
Is it because I'm so young and so ignorant of men that I never know what he is really feeling? she wondered as they drove home up Broadway. It was late; moonlight silvered the brownstone houses and the Gothic splendor of the newly completed Grace Church. It eclipsed the disheartened flicker from the gas street lamps. Few sounds disturbed the quiet—an occasional snatch of song or laughter from the shuttered houses, the steady clop-clop of their horses' hoofs on the cobblestones.
'Have you enjoyed yourself, Miranda?' he asked as the carriage turned east on Eighth Street.
'Oh, yes—' she cried. 'It's been wonderful!' And moved by an impulse of loving gratitude, she slipped her hand into his. His fingers remained slack and unresponsive, her hand lay unwelcomed.
She withdrew her hand and averted her head. The passing gas lamps blurred and ran together. Why did he act that way? Why wouldn't he respond to her simple, natural gesture?
A flash of bitter insight answered her. Nicholas was neither simple nor natural; these qualities were as absent from his treatment of her as they were absent from his complex personality.
She had not, as yet, enough introspection to realize that part of his fascination for her had arisen from his unpredictability, and her conception of him as a mysterious being from a superior world who had miraculously condescended to desire her. Nor did she realize how tightly she was enmeshed by his physical attraction, a bondage woven not only from the magnetism of his body but from the very fear and pain he caused her.
'You're crying, Miranda?' he asked in a tone of amusement. 'Kindly spare the coachman your sorrows anyway. It's a singular way to end what you assure me has been a happy day.'
She pressed her handkerchief against her mouth, controlled the shaking of her shoulders.
The carriage drew up to their stoop; she stumbled out before it had fairly stopped, frantic to get away, to be alone, locked into a room—alone. Her foot missed the carriage step and she fell to the gravel on her right ankle. She gave a sharp cry and Nicholas was beside her on the instant. He picked her up in his arms, carried her into the house and upstairs.
The ankle was not badly wrenched, and as the pain abated she watched her husband with amazement. For it was Nicholas who bathed and bound it for her, touching the swollen foot as tenderly as would a woman. He refused to call the maid and himself undressed her. He ordered port wine and held the glass, watching her anxiously while she sipped it.
When he had made her comfortable in bed with her foot on a pillow, he lay down beside her and drew her head to his shoulder. He held her without passion, as though she were a child.
How can he be so cruel to me at times—and then like this? she thought. And again her awakening perceptions gave her the answer. He would hurt her himself, take pleasure in doing so, but he would not allow her to be injured by anyone or anything else.
A week later a few select members of New York society received engraved cards bidding them to a soirée and supper at the Nicholas Van Ryns' on Thursday, May the twenty-eighth, at seven o'clock.
Miranda's debut was not to be a large affair and Nicholas had hand-picked the list: Schermerhorns, Brevoorts, and the Hamilton Fishes to represent the 'Knickerbocker' aristocracy. Old Philip Hone and his wife, because Mr. Hone who had once been Mayor of New York, was amusing, and went everywhere. After some hesitation all the Astors had been invited: the senile John Jacob, the William B.'s and their son John Jacob, Junior, with his fiancée, Miss Gibbes. That the Astors were the richest family in the country influenced Nicholas not at all, and certainly did not outweigh their lowly German background. But he approved the fine new mansion on Lafayette Place and young John Jacob's cool gravity. Moreover, his fiancée, Charlotte Gibbes, came from an excellent Southern family.
Any other host of Nicholas' standing would have stopped there or rounded out the list with a few more of the élite, the Aspin-walls perhaps or the Verplancks, but he was indifferent to the high boundaries which separated the sections of New York society, knowing that any gathering was enlivened by a touch of the exotic; accordingly he asked Madame Teresa Albanese, who had been singing at Castle Garden, Mrs. Elizabeth Ellet, a sharp-tongued poetess from the Ladies' Literati Group, and Herman Melville, a young sailor who had just published a book called 'Typee' which was startling the reading world not only by the originality of its vivid prose but by its titivating descriptions of naked Polynesian maidens.
Fo
r days Miranda had been worrying about the party which was to present her publicly as Mrs. Nicholas Van Ryn. Her nervousness overshadowed President Polk's declaration of war against Mexico. After all, everyone had expected the war, and whatever was happening was so far away in places with outlandish names, Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma. In this she reflected Nicholas' own lack of interest.
'I believe that we have no particular moral right to declare war,' he said, 'but I daresay we'll win and the country will be much enlarged. At any rate there'll be another slave state for the South.'
'Won't the North mind?' asked Miranda, remembering the Abolitionist torchlight parade that she had watched from her window.
'Very likely,' he answered, shrugging. 'I don't doubt that the North and South will be at each other's throats some day.'
'You mean they'll fight each other?' she asked, startled. 'Oh, but they couldn't, it's the same country. Why can't things go on as they are?'
'Because men are fools,' said Nicholas, and changed the subject. 'By the way, the little Count de Grenier is back in New York. He arrived on the Celtic yesterday and sent me a note. I've asked him to the soirée. His wife didn't come with him this time.'
'Oh?' she said, diverted, remembering the plump Frenchman and his gaiety and compliments at Dragonwyck. How long ago it seemed! The night of the Fourth-of-July Ball! The Coryantis Waltz with Nicholas. That was when I first knew that I loved him, she thought, and there was pain in the memory. She had been happy that night for a while, but there had been humiliation too—from the Van Rensselaer girls—from Johanna.
'Nicholas,' she said abruptly, 'when are we going to Dragonwyck?' Her heart beat fast as she waited for his answer. Yet why should she be frightened of so natural a question? The Manor House was his real home, as it was now hers.
'Why, it won't be ready until the end of June,' he said. 'The workmen are there now, painting and making certain changes. I think we'll leave here in a fortnight and go to the Mountain House at Catskill to escape the heat before we go to Dragonwyck.'
She gave a sigh of relief. How silly she'd been! Imagining that he avoided not only the mention of Dragonwyck's name but any thought of living there. She was completely wrong, as she so often seemed to be with Nicholas. It's like Ma used to say, she thought ruefully; I've a head stuffed full of silly fancies.
She went upstairs to her writing desk and wrote a long, rapturous letter to her mother, detailing her happiness and Nicholas' virtues as a husband.
When Abigail received this letter three days later and first read it, she was reassured. She passed it on to Ephraim.
'Seems contented as a pig in clover. I told you to stop fretting about her,' he commented, handing the letter back.
But Abigail, again running her eyes over the flowing script, frowned. 'I don't know, though; she says almost too much. Seems like she was trying to convince herself as well as me.'
'Land o' Goshen, Abby!' snapped Ephraim, stamping to the door. 'If the Good Lord handed you a golden crown you'd worry for fear maybe it was plated. Ranny's happy and she says so. What more d'ye want?'
'Nothing, I guess,' said Abigail, sighing. She plunged her fingers into the soft feathers of the goose she was plucking when Miranda's letter arrived.
On the afternoon of the party, Miranda lay in the darkened bedroom and tried to rest. The hairdresser had come and gone and she dared not move her head for fear of disturbing his handiwork. Everything was ready, thanks to Nicholas and the staff of experienced servants, who neither needed nor welcomed her timid suggestions. 'Don't fash yoursel,' madam,' said Mrs. MacNab, the Scotch housekeeper, when Miranda asked if the ices had yet arrived from the caterers. 'The Maistcr's given strict orders, and Sandy and me'll tak' care of ever-r-a thing.'
They treated her like a charming but useless child, and Miranda overcame annoyance with the realization that she was in truth completely inexperienced.
It would be fun to meet people, she thought with rising excitement, shutting her eyes determinedly, though sleep was impossible. Except on the day of their expedition, and on occasions when she had gone to services at Saint Mark's Church around the corner, she had during these weeks seen no one but the servants—and of course, Nicholas.
Not that, she told herself hastily, she wanted anyone but Nicholas. It wasn't that she was lonely, but sometimes she longed for a friend. Another woman with whom she might discuss silly things like clothes or embroidery stitches. With another woman one could laugh and say the first words that popped into one's head. Instead of being on guard, and anxious.
There was a knock on her door and Mrs. MacNab came in holding a letter. 'Just came for you, madam.'
From Ma! thought Miranda eagerly. Bur it wasn't from Abigail. The handwriting was unfamiliar and the postmark was Hudson, New York.
She broke the seal and looked at the signature. 'Jefferson Turner.' How strange that he should write to her! She had seldom thought of him since the week that he had stayed on the farm, and so compelling had been her preoccupation with Nicholas at that time that aside from gratitude for his help in saving Charity he had made little impression on her except as an instrument for delivering Nicholas' message.
My dear Miranda [said the letter]:
I have recently heard of your marriage. I confess it was a great surprise. I hope you'll be very happy.
When you come up-river, I shall not be here to congratulate you because I've joined the army and leave at once for Mexico. I don't know what sort of a soldier I'll make but I guess they need doctors anyway.
Please remember me to your family when you write. I hope all will go well with you. God bless you.
It had taken Jeff a long time to write that letter. He never would have written it but for the war, and the consequent knowledge that he was very unlikely to return. If a Mexican bullet didn't do the job, yellow fever or dysentery almost certainly would.
He had understated the matter when he wrote that Miranda's marriage was a surprise. He had been thunderstruck, then this emotion had given way to blinding anger, a veritable fury at Nicholas. The fury had been enlightening, and when he calmed down he faced its origin squarely. Jealousy, and a feeling for Miranda which would not in the least tolerate the thought of her as another man's wife.
Ephraim had not been far wrong when he had told Abigail that Jeff would return to Greenwich, for that had been in his mind. All along, Jeff realized now, he had been marking time, waiting for Miranda to recover from her obsession. And yet this feeling had stolen upon him so gradually that he had been unaware of it.
'Why in the name of all that's foolish do I want that girl?' he asked himself derisively when the news of her marriage shocked him into the knowledge that he did want her—badly. But being Jeff he wasted no time in moping. He translated his feelings into action. He would have enlisted in any case, not being troubled by any hairsplittings as to President Polk's exact motives. The country was at war, and he was needed. That was enough for Jeff. But a decided unwillingness to see Miranda ensconced at Dragonwyck as Nicholas' wife speeded up his decision.
Then he wrote to her.
Miranda, knowing nothing of this, was puzzled and touched by his letter. There had been antagonism between them from the first. Even during his stay at the farm she had thought that he disliked her. Now it seemed that he did not.
She was still staring at the sheet of paper when Nicholas opened her door and looked in. 'You're not resting?' he said disapprovingly. He walked over to the bed. 'What are you reading?'
'A letter from Doctor Turner,' she answered. There was a pause. Nicholas stretched out his hand. 'Let me see it.'
She gave it to him, a trifle surprised. He never showed any interest in her letters from home. She watched him while he read and was puzzled to see tenseness vanish from his face, and in his eyes a fleeting impression of—what?—satisfaction—relief—she couldn't be sure.
He handed back the letter. 'I find his tone rather familiar. Since when does he know you well enough to invoke
the blessings of deity upon you?'
'He spent a week with us at the farm last fall, you know,' she answered nervously. Nicholas' question had held the frequent note of irony; she wasn't sure whether he was really displeased or not. And if he were displeased at her receiving a letter from another man, why had there been that undoubted flicker of relief?
'I didn't know he stayed a week,' said Nicholas without particular emphasis. 'But he's a pleasant young man and a patriotic one, I see. No doubt you enjoyed his company—?' There was no mistaking the sarcastic inflection this time.
She turned her head wearily, settling back on the pillow. 'No—' she said, 'I thought only of you.'
The little Count de Grenier arrived first at the soirée. He had grown stouter during the year he had been back at Lyons directing the silk business, of which certain matters of export had required this new trip to New York. His plum satin suit and embroidered vest fitted him like the casing on a sausage, but his black eyes were as lively and curious as ever, his waxed mustaches quivered with the same zest.
He had been very much interested by the change in the Van Ryn ménage, and was impatient to see Miranda in her new rôle. When she came, preceding Nicholas down the stairs, moving with her own peculiar grace and hesitating a minute on the threshold to master her nervousness, his Gallic heart was overcome.
'But she's veritably beautiful!' he thought, jumping up to kiss her hand. 'She's incredibly changed.'
He saw at once as no man but a Frenchman would have that part of the change came from outward adornment; the cleverly cut white satin gown with black Chantilly lace ruffles, the touch of coral salve on the lips, the increased blondness of her hair, which she owed to the hairdresser's camomile rinse. And then, of course, the Van Ryn diamonds sparkling on her bosom! It was the first time that she had worn any of the jewels which had been presented to her by Nicholas; she had done so tonight only because of his express command. Her resistance had died away when she saw how becoming were the newly cleaned and dazzling diamonds, but the great ruby pendant, the pendant Johanna had worn on the night of the ball, she felt that she could never touch. She had never even lifted it from the jewel case.