by Anya Seton
Jeff threw the letter on his desk. Even if they did send for him, he wouldn't go. Nothing would induce him to involve himself again with Miranda or the dark intricacies of Dragonwyck. Doctor Francis was right and it was all a ridiculous pother. She had one qualified physician on hand to attend her, and there was doubtless nothing wrong with her anyway. She had always been a healthy farm girl, strong as a horse despite her air of fragility.
It's all nonsense, thought Jeff angrily, rolled up his sleeves and went into his surgery to open a boil on little Jimmy Coffin's neck.
Next morning at eight his bell pealed and he opened the door to see Nicholas muffled in a fur coat standing on his doorstep, and behind him a red sleigh and panting horse.
The two men looked at each other silently a moment, then Nicholas held out his hand. 'Will you come back with me, Turner?' he said almost humbly. 'We need you.'
Jeff frowned and receded from the door.
'You have a doctor up there; I could do nothing more than he will,' he answered coldly. 'Doctor Francis wrote me.'
Nicholas shook his head. 'Brown's a fool. I don't trust him. I beg of you to come—to hurry. There are certain symptoms; Brown says labor is starting.' He spoke in jerks. His face was haggard. His eyes, devoid now of all condescension or irony, were simply pleading.
Jeff had dealt with many an anxious father, but Nicholas' tension seemed excessive.
'What reason have you to think that Mrs. Van Ryn is in danger?' asked Jeff gravely.
Nicholas looked at him. 'Miranda?' he said doubtfully. 'I don't know that Miranda's in any danger. Do hurry, Turner—I beg of you.'
Jeff was startled. Was this frenzy of apprehension then only for the baby? Why did this man never seem to be motivated by a normal understandable emotion? He felt a sudden sharp pity for the girl immured there at Dragonwyck.
He sighed and reached for his greatcoat, cramming his stiff arm into the left sleeve with difficulty. 'I don't know what I can do, but I'll come with you.'
They were silent on the breakneck ride back to the Manor. Nicholas drove with headlong violence and he lashed the horse unmercifully. The runners made a hissing sound on the packed snow, the silver sleigh bells jingled with an effect of hysterical merriment which suited neither of their moods. The cold wind beat on their faces, now and again icicles fell from the overhanging trees, but Nicholas never slackened; his jaw was set, his narrowed eyes strained on the white road ahead.
Jeff sunk deeper in his greatcoat and was unpleasantly reminded of the last time on which he had hurried to Dragonwyck through the snow. My so-called skill was of no use then, he thought bitterly; it's a marvel Van Ryn still trusts to it.
As they whirled up under the porte-cochere and Nicholas yanked the trembling horse to a stop, the door flew open and Peggy stumbled out.
'Oh, Master,' she gulped, her mouth working, 'Missis is took bad and they won't let me near her. Please let me go to her.'
Nicholas pushed her roughly aside, not troubling to answer, and together the two men hurried up the stairs.
Two people hovered over the great bed on which Miranda lay moaning, Doctor Brown and the German wet nurse whom Nicholas had also imported from New York. The doctor was normally a dapper little man with an ingratiating bedside manner which had won him many influential patients. But now his pomaded locks were in disarray, his neat beard glistened with the sweat that had run down his face.
'What's the matter?' cried Nicholas, turning on him furiously.
The little doctor gave his patron a look of concealed terror. 'N-nothing wrong, Mr. Van Ryn,' he stammered. 'Labor has started but everything is quite all right, oh quite—quite.' His air of false brightness deceived no one, not even the wet nurse, who muttered, 'Ach bimmel!' under her breath and stared round-eyed at Nicholas.
'Mr. Van Ryn, would you and the nurse mind going out while I consult with Doctor Brown?' interposed Jeff with a calmness designed to quell this atmosphere of hysteria. 'I'm sure there's no need for alarm.'
As soon as the door closed, Doctor Brown mopped his face and heaved a sigh of relief. 'Thank God you're here, Turner. I can't take the responsibility alone.' He no longer cared that he might have to share his magnificent fee; he would gladly have foregone the whole fee if he could have been allowed to return with honor to his safe and placid Gramercy Square practice. 'The man's a maniac,' he added somberly. 'I think he'd kill me if anything went wrong.'
'Nonsense!' said Jeff, moving to the bed.
'My dear chap—you don't know,' whispered Doctor Brown, glancing nervously at the door where Nicholas had gone out. 'I tried to resign from the case and he locked me in my room. He watches me all the time, glaring with those icy blue eyes; sometimes I think he's mesmerizing me.'
'Rubbish,' said Jeff, concealing a smile. He held up his hand for silence because Miranda gave a long shuddering moan and opened her eyes.
Doctor Brown had been giving her laudanum; she had been wandering alone in a dark world of fantasy where from time to time the shadows gathered force and welded themselves into shafts of white-hot pain. Her pupils focused slowly on the face which bent near her.
'Jeff?' she whispered on a little questioning note like a surprised child. 'You're in Mexico, aren'r you?'
'No,' he answered, smiling. He smoothed the matted waves of golden hah from her wet temples. 'I'm here with you.'
From miles and miles away the pain sent again its first tingle of warning; in that shadow world there was no room for anything but acceptance, and the pain. She groped blindly for Jeff's hand, deriving from its strong comforting grip the first reassurance she had had. The demon flung itself on her quivering body, wrestling, grinding, tossing, until, once more slaked, it threw her aside.
Doctor Brown said, astonished, 'I didn't know you knew Mrs. Van Ryn.'
'Yes,' answered Jeff briefly. He profited by the interval of peace to make a quick examination. Everything was entirely normal and going well. He saw no reason at all for concern and told his colleague so.
The little doctor brightened. 'Glad to hear you think so. Must be the atmosphere of this gloomy place gave me the jim-jams.—Don't know, though. I think there's been something queer about the foetal heart beat. Awfully hard to catch through the stethoscope.'
'It often is,' retorted Jeff. He now thoroughly agreed with Doctor Francis and Nicholas that the man was a fool, and that his nervousness had obscured his judgment.
At four o'clock of the following morning, Valentine's Day, Miranda was delivered of a son. The baby was well formed and handsome, as he could hardly help but be, having sprung from exceptionally good-looking parents. He had a good deal of dark hair and straight brows like his father, and at the corner of his mouth appeared a tiny mole like Miranda's. His arrival was greeted with wild rejoicing. The Dragonwyck church bells clanged welcome, as signal to the tenants that there would be rum punch and beer served all day from the kitchens. The servants poured themselves mug after mug, unchecked by any discipline.
Peggy crept away to her room to offer a prayer of thanksgiving to the Blessed Virgin. She had been reinstated in the sick-room for the last hours of labor as soon as Jeff had understood from Miranda that she wanted her little maid.
As for Nicholas, he refused to leave the cradle in the nursery where the baby lay nestled in silk and lace, but stood motionless gazing down at its little face.
It was Jeff who stayed with Miranda. She was floating in the drowsy peace that follows childbirth. In this state of confused joy no one seemed very real, but she was faintly conscious of hurt that Nicholas had not come to her after her ordeal; more sharply conscious of gratitude to Jeff. He had been the rock to which she clung through it all, his quiet, soothing voice the only comfort. To the passionate gratitude which most women feel toward the physicians who deliver them, Miranda added something more. Though she was not to suspect it for a long time, it was during those hours after her baby's birth that Miranda first felt love for Jeff. She knew now only that she was at peace and happy
.
But for him there was neither happiness or peace. He had known from that moment in which she blindly reached for his hand that there would never again be question of marrying Faith or anyone else.
This disquieting revelation he pushed aside to be dealt with later. There was a more important fact to be faced right now, and he sat rigid by Miranda's bed trying to determine what to do.
Doctor Brown's nervous forebodings had after all had a basis, though the man was too stupid to realize it, and was getting pleasurably drunk in his room on Nicholas' best brandy.
Jeff had instantly noted the bluish tinge in the baby's skin, the clubbing of the tips of the tiny fingers. As soon as he had dared leave Miranda he had placed the wooden tube of his stethoscope on the little chest and found his worst fears confirmed. The heart beat was spasmodic and so feeble that it seemed each sighing breath the infant drew must be its last.
I may be wrong, thought Jeff grimly, I've been wrong before. But he knew he was not. The baby's heart was defective; it might live an hour, it might live a month, but longer than that was an impossibility.
Miranda shouldn't know until she's rested, but I've got to tell Van Ryn, he thought, and I'd rather be hung, drawn, and quartered.
He walked down the hall to the nursery and found Nicholas still standing beside the cradle, while the wet nurse sat and rocked in the corner of the room and suckled her own baby.
Jeff took a deep breath. Mr. Van Ryn—' he said gently, 'I've got to tell you. The baby's not well. He has a bad heart condition.'
He waited, but by not so much as the quiver of a muscle did Nicholas indicate that he had heard. What's the matter with the man? thought Jeff, angry because this strained immobility made him nervous in spite of himself. He had a quick presentiment and peered into the cradle, but the baby still breathed.
So Jeff tried again. 'It sometimes happens like this. I can't tell you how sorry I am. At least your wife has come through beautifully and—' he paused, went on with stony disregard of his own revulsion. 'Someday there can be other babies.'
Nicholas raised his head in a quick darting motion and the young doctor instinctively stepped back. There was menace in that poised body, and Jeff felt a sharp, atavistic fear.
'My son is entirely well,' said Nicholas softly. 'I appreciate your services and they shall be suitably recompensed. You may go now.'
A hot anger rose in Jeff, the site of his head wound began to throb. You won't believe me, will you!' he cried roughly. You never believe anything you don't want to believe, do you!' He clamped his mouth shut, struggling for control. The baby gave a weak, gasping cry, pitifully unlike the usual cry of the newborn. Jeff bent quickly over the cradle, sensing as he did so the defensive gesture from the other man as though Nicholas would ward him off.
'Listen, Van Ryn,' said Jeff, all anger gone, for suddenly he saw pathos in this stubborn guardianship of a hopeless cause, 'you've got to face it. This baby won't live. It's a miracle he wasn't stillborn.' And far better if he had been, he added mentally. 'The heart is malformed, probably a constricted aorta. No amount of care or nursing will help. It's nobody's fault, nothing could have prevented it. It's just a tragic accident.' He had chosen his words carefully, striving to break through that impenetrable wall which was reared against him. He saw with despair that he had made not the slightest impression.
'You have great confidence in your opinion, Doctor Turner,' said Nicholas politely enough, 'but in this case I have none.' He left the cradle and walked to the window. 'The sleigh is waiting below to take you back.'
Silence fell on the room, broken only by the lusty gurgles of the other healthy baby at the wet nurse's breast, and the creak of her rocking chair.
'At least,' Jeff cried, 'let me prepare Miranda. Whatever you may wish to believe, it's damnable cruelty not to warn her.'
Nicholas turned from the window. 'There's no reason whatever for you to see Mrs. Van Ryn again. Good day, sir.' He ushered Jeff to the head of the stairs and stood there, so that there was no possibility of communicating either with Miranda or Doctor Brown. Propelled by the force of Nicholas' will, Jeff descended the stairs. After all, a physician thus summarily dismissed can neither plead nor argue. Had it not been for Miranda he would have angrily washed his hands of the whole matter. Brown would doubtless accommodate Nicholas with the desired opinion on the baby's condition before he too was sent away. And then Miranda would be alone.
I can't leave her like this, he thought, alone to face tragedy, alone with that madman. Even as he thought 'madman' his scientific training rejected the term as inaccurate. Nicholas was not conventionally insane. He was in fuller control of his faculties than most men ever could hope to be. Not mad but something far more dangerous, a powerful soul obeying nothing but its own desires and moving in a realm outside the normal. But this was no time for analysis; Jeff could do nothing about Nicholas. He stood irresolutely in the lower hall, until the sight of a servant scuttling past gave him an idea.
'Will you send Peggy to me at once!' said Jeff in a low voice. 'Mrs. Van Ryn's maid.'
While he waited he glanced uneasily at the stairs, afraid that Nicholas might descend to see why the sleigh had not yet gone. None of the morning sunlight penetrated into this huge hall; here it was always gloom. It seemed to him that the fading nymphs and satyrs on the wallpaper leered at him through the shadows and that the carved black chairs were pointing at him hostilely. Don't wonder this place gave Brown the 'jim-jams,' he thought; it's about as cosy as a mausoleum.
He heard the door to the servants' wing open and a light shuffling step. Peggy limped quickly up to him. 'Yes, sir. Did you be wanting of me?'
Jeff nodded gravely. Yes. There's no one but you can help.'
He told her, and the brown eyes filled with tears. 'Ah, the poor sweet mistress—'tis cruel hard. I was thinking the wee one didn't be acting right from the start.'
'You'll take care of her, Peggy, and help her to bear it.'
The girl swallowed. 'I love her,' she said simply, and seeing Jeff's change of expression, the corners of her mouth lifted. 'And I'm thinking you do too, Doctor dear,' she added softly. 'Now don't be furrowing your brow at me. I couldn't help but be using my eyes in those grim hours of the past night—and 'tis little enough of love there is in this strange great house.'
Yes, thought Jeff, chilled, that's true, perhaps. But Miranda had chosen this strange great house, had fervently desired the man who owned it. So far as Jeff knew she had never regretted her choice. Nicholas was of the type to fascinate a woman; they were ever attracted by ruthlessness and power, particularly when these were invested in a handsome physical covering. Motivated by his sense of justice and loathing of his own jealousy, Jeff leaned backward to believe that Miranda was happy, would be happy once the baby's tragedy was out of the way and Nicholas had accepted the inevitable. Even Nicholas could not deny death.
He picked up his bag and smiled at Peggy. 'I'm glad she has you anyway. If you're ever in Hudson, come and let me have a look at that leg; there might possibly be something to be done.'
'Tis kind he is, kind and good, thought Peggy passionately as she hurried through the baize door before anyone spied her in the front hall, not like him upstairs, with his eyes as cold as the winter sky.
There was no need for Peggy to prepare Miranda. She knew from the first instant that she held her baby in her arms. She had slept in exhaustion for twelve hours, and then the wet nurse came in to her bearing a tiny bundle.
'I nicht can make him to suck, gnädige frau,' the woman said sadly and laid the bundle beside Miranda, who raised herself on her elbow and parted the blankets. She gazed down for a long time, then her head dropped back on the pillow. She shut her eyes. 'Go away, please,' she said to the nurse.
When Peggy stole in later, she found them like that. Miranda with her eyes closed and slow tears sliding down into the baby's fuzzy hair where his head nestled against his mother's cheek.
'Och, darlint, don't—' cried Peggy,
and knelt beside the bed. 'Sure and he'll be happier in heaven, the precious lambkin. 'Tis the Blessed Mother herself will keep him safe for you till you come.'
Miranda stirred and opened her eyes. 'He must be baptized at once. Get Dominie Huysmann,' she said faintly.
It was over this matter of the hurried christening that Miranda first discovered Nicholas' refusal to admit that anything was wrong with his son.
It was only after she shattered herself with anguished tears that he consented to let the Dominie go through the form as a foolish concession. Later in a month or two it would be done properly in church with the traditional ceremony and all the countryside as witnesses, Nicholas stated, and Miranda said nothing. Her heavy heart was lightened a little when the baby had been duly named 'Adriaen Pieter Van Ryn' and the horrified pastor had scurried back to his wife, who soon spread the sad news far and wide along the river.
The baby lived for six days, and during that time and despite Nicholas' angry protests, Miranda kept her son with her, allowing no one else to touch him but Peggy. She refused to admit the wet nurse, and it was from her own breasts that he drew a tiny amount of nourishment. But he had not the strength to suckle properly, and on a stormy Friday night he gave a little cry and ceased finding the strength to breathe.