Belle Cora: A Novel (55 page)

THEY WERE IN NEW YORK CITY
, Jeptha and Agnes, living in two downtown boarding houses, his for men, hers for women. I had to wait while my grandfather’s letter wended its way to Aunt Agatha and she wrote back. For all I knew, they would be married by then, but I had no choice. I had to wait and to suffer.

Since my meeting with Robert outside the Union Club, I had sent Sean once a day to the dressmaker’s shop, where Ann Dunlop would give him any letters that had been sent to me at that address and let me know, through Sean, if anybody had been there to see me. One evening, when the champagne had begun to flow, the maid called me away to meet Sean, who handed me a letter from my grandfather.

I took Sean up to my room and had him wait while I penned a reply, which I gave to him with a reminder of how careful he must be and what
a circuitous route he must now take when traveling between the parlor house and every other destination. Finally, I tipped him, and held out a box full of zanzibars, gibraltars, lemon drops, and peanut brittle that I kept around especially as treats for Sean. It used to be fun to watch him agonize over which kind to pick. If he always picked his favorite, he’d never have the others. Lately, in a show of arrogance, he would take a handful of them, eat one, and put the rest in his pocket. Sean was beginning to worry me. Any day now, he was going to comprehend the full value of the secrets stored in his mind.

ROBERT WAS GOING TO PICK ME UP
in a hired coach on the day of the meeting, for Agnes was his cousin, too, and he was curious to meet her. So, frightened to the bottom of my soul by the prospect of the encounter I had done so much to arrange, almost wishing it would be delayed, so that the possible wreck of all my hopes would be delayed, I went early to the dress shop. There I tried on and discarded several dresses and caps, and was ready too early, and spent an hour with nothing to do, unable to read or eat or think or stay seated or pace back and forth, until Robert called me with a shout. I came outside, where the light was very bright, and he lifted me into the coach, which was very dark inside. I had expected to meet Jeptha and Agnes at my grandfather’s house, but I soon became aware that there were other people in the vehicle, who could see me better than I could see them, because their eyes had grown accustomed to its darkness. “Who’s with you?” I asked Robert, and before I even knew what I was seeing, I began to tremble, as my eyes’ adjustment to the darkness and my mind’s accommodation of the unexpected assembled, piece by piece the face whose memory I had struggled sometimes to preserve, sometimes to erase, which I had addressed in a thousand imaginary dialogues full of rebukes and defenses. Jeptha’s face—mature now, its lines clearer—was clean-shaven, framed by long black hair. His mouth was thin, shaped like an archer’s bow, a little solemn in repose. The eyes were the most striking feature, not just the blue but their setting, which was deep, hooded, and feral. They made me feel naked, revealed, in a way that was insupportable unless I could know there was love in them.

Robert laughed at the surprise he had arranged, but Jeptha nodded to
me seriously, and said my name—“Arabella.” His voice—sonorous, lower than I remembered it—made my body vibrate like a plucked string. To cover my feelings, to show myself playful, I punched Robert in the arm, which made him laugh again. Then, with my whole self taking a running leap up to the name, I turned back and said, “Jeptha,” and I was happy that my tongue did not falter. It took a little more time for Agnes to come into focus; she gave me a polite smile which did not involve her eyes, which took stock of me very skeptically and warily.

“Dear cousin,” I said. I kissed her, and I took her hands in mine, and with a consciousness of not looking at Jeptha, but of his sober gaze resting on me, I told Robert, “We’re more like sisters than cousins. It was Agnes who first instructed me in the duties of a farm girl. Do you remember those early days, Agnes?” I asked, cocking my head as we sometimes do when we wish to express sympathy for sick people, and giving her the gentle smile that used to be her specialty.

“Of course, Arabella.”

“We were both sweet on Jeptha,” I said, and turning to Robert, I added, “It’s true! We were rivals, oh, it went on for years. And then for a time, Jeptha and I were keeping company, but that was long ago, and many joys and sorrows have intervened. I was so sorry to hear about your wife, Jeptha.”

“Thank you, Arabella,” he said. Again the voice cut right through me.

“And now Agnes has him, and I must learn resignation a second time. How lovely she’s become. I can’t wonder at his choice.”

“You’re not such an eyesore yourself,” Robert consoled me.

“It’s true,” said Agnes. “I wonder that you haven’t married by now, Arabella.”

“There’s still time, I’m sure,” said Robert.

“After all, you’re such a good mother,” Agnes observed, and paused, and added, “I mean to that little orphan child, what is his name?”

“Frank.”

“Frank, whom you brought to Anne and Melanchthon.” To the others in the close interior of the coach, she continued, “My mother wrote a long letter to me about it. She said that the infant had become greatly attached to Arabella—he called her Mama, and cried bitterly to be parted from her.”

“I had the care of the little fellow for almost a year,” I explained. “I must say I miss him, too.”

“What was the name of that society?” Agnes inquired.

“The one that arranged for the adoption?”

“Yes.”

“The Female Reform Society.”

“What good work they must do. I should like to meet with their officers and learn more about it all.”

“Do you think you’ll be able to make time for it? You have so many preparations to make, for the wedding.”

She put her hand on Jeptha’s. “It will be a plain ceremony.” Addressing Robert and Jeptha, she said, “The ladies at my boarding house have heard of the Female Reform Society, whose members are famous for preaching outside of saloons and houses of ill repute, but none of them had heard that they also found homes for orphans. It should be more widely known. Not everyone thinks it is right for women to thrust themselves into such work, which puts them into low company, but I expect it is all right for women of strong character, with male supervision. Is there, by the way?”

“We consult with learned reverends.”

“While I’m still in New York, you will introduce me to the officers of this fine institution?”

“I’d be happy to.”

Through all this, Jeptha did not say a word, but as we stepped out of the coach, he took Agnes aside and spoke to her. She cast her eyes down, and it seemed to me that she had been rebuked; and in her display of contrition I observed more variety and subtlety than I remembered: a daunting advance in skill.

HAD HE CHANGED
?
HOW COULD HE NOT
? I watched him furtively. I looked at whoever was speaking, and since he was the center of attention, often enough it was him. When he was behind me, I watched him with the back of my neck, and if he happened to be elsewhere in the house, my spirit haunted those other rooms. He had told Anne that he had wronged me. What did that mean?

Sometimes, stealing glimpses of him this way, I thought that I had
changed too much, and it was impossible that we should ever be together again. Then there were moments when the intervening years fell away like a fever dream, and it was 1843 again.

Only my grandmother and grandfather and my brother Edward were added to the company when we got to the house, and we talked in the drawing room, and ate ham in the dining room. I told my grandfather that Jeptha was a fine judge of character, and to prove it, look at his choice of a bride, she was so
good
. I said to Agnes, “Remember the time when, to save me a licking, as you thought, you replaced my mending with yours, so soon after Lewis and I arrived in Livy? And Aunt Agatha praised my sewing, but I noticed it wasn’t mine and told her, like a fool.”

I had told this story to Jeptha long ago, so it was meant as a reminder of the kind of woman his betrothed was.

My grandmother expressed surprise that Agnes’s intervention had been necessary. She remembered my sewing as being very creditable for a girl my age.

“It’s a lovely story, Arabella, but I’m sure I would remember such an incident had it actually occurred,” commented Agnes. “Are you quite sure you aren’t embellishing the past? You always had such a rich imagination; you always told such amazing tales.” To the table: “She was such an exotic creature to us. We never knew what she would say next. We didn’t have the imagination to guess.”

You would think that after all I’d been through I would feel stronger than my cousin Agnes, who had had a much less eventful life, but I did not. Perhaps fewer things had happened to her because she was too smart to let them happen. She loosed fewer arrows, but more of them hit the mark.

I observed, “It is strange how differently people can remember things, for I remember myself as clumsy. I remember you as the subtle one.”

“You seemed to think so then, too. I wonder if it was because we were too simple for you—you could not believe we meant no more than what we said.”

“Am I wrong to consider that a subtle remark, Agnes?”

This received polite, relieved chuckles from the company, which must have been puzzled by our evident antagonism. A little after that, Jeptha,
who had retreated into a wary silence while Agnes and I fenced, whispered to her. For the rest of the day, no matter what I said, she did not rise to the bait and did all she could to show me that we could put aside our childhood rivalry and now she intended to be my good friend.

Over dinner, Jeptha was gently interrogated on the subjects of California, gold, politics, and street preaching. Edward, who, like Lewis, was itching to go to the gold fields, was rude enough to ask Jeptha if he wouldn’t be tempted to imitate all those sailors who, it was said, had abandoned their ships and the soldiers who had abandoned their posts. Didn’t he think he would be tempted, once he was there and heard of all the fortunes being made?

“I think you are really asking if I can keep a promise,” said Jeptha.

“I meant no offense by it,” Edward rejoined.

“On the contrary, I consider it a fair question. Money has been raised to send a man to California to preach God’s word in the lap of temptation, and the man you send should be able to keep a promise.” He paused, but everyone knew that we were about to hear a sample of his preaching, and no one interrupted. “When a man cannot keep a promise, it is a weakness. We shouldn’t blame him for it, any more than we blame a man for having a frail body; but we must not burden him with our trust, any more than we would burden a frail man with a heavy hogshead. It would not only be foolish, it would be cruel to the man, who would blame himself for failing.” He looked around the table, at the assorted sound, middle-aged men of the California Missionary Committee. “If it is thought that I may not be able to keep a promise, you ought to wait, for the next ship and the next, if need be, until you have found someone suitable to the task. You owe it to this great cause. However, I believe I
can
keep my promise. I judge this not because I feel called to preach the Gospel, though I do, or because of my conviction that the gold fields will pauperize many more men than they’ll enrich, but simply because I have always kept promises in the past. Others, whose letters I have as references, will attest to my disposition in this vital matter of keeping promises. Of course, a man’s character can change. Almost anything in this world may change. Against that, we must go to the only perfectly reliable source of strength and pray for His help.”

“Hear, hear,” said Robert, who occupied the seat next to mine, and there were general murmurs of approval.

“If I get to California, I promise not to be pauperized, but to be enriched,” said Edward.

My grandfather looked at Edward a little nervously, not wanting the parson to disapprove of his grandson. Jeptha responded with an easy grin, “In that case, I’ll come to you for a donation,” and Edward smiled, and there was a sprinkling of laughter around the table.

THAT EVENING, USING SEAN AS A MESSENGER
, I sent Jeptha a note, asking him to meet me the next day; and a message came back saying he would. I arranged to meet him at Jefferson Market, a place frequented by wives and servants rather than by gentlemen of fashion, and I could tell Jeptha that I had chosen it for its eight-story watchtower, which was visible from a great distance. I would walk to it in the company of Monique and Ann Dunlop: thus I would not offend propriety by walking alone, and when they left me with Jeptha, neither of them would be walking alone, either.

They came to my room at 259 Mercer, where Antonia, my lady’s maid, dressed my hair before a mirror, her face as grim as if she were a squire dressing a knight, but with more anxious choices than there are to trouble knights and squires: first with a bun in the back, in the fashion of the day, and then, thinking it over, with a bun on top, in the manner of the 1830s, as Agnes wore it, and then, after I had more time to think, with no bun at all but braided, the braids wrapped into a crown, and with spiral ringlets dangling from the sides. Then we agonized over whether to festoon my hair with pearls, which Monique and Ann—their studious faces at angles in the mirror over my face—both insisted were so perfectly in the mode that they could not but compel any man’s admiration. But I wanted a particular man and could not afford to look rich, and so I decided against them, and punctuated it instead with a plain black comb. To the bewilderment of my companions, I spent an inordinate amount of time over the choice of gloves. I remembered how Jeptha had been about my hands when we were in Livy—how often his eyes had been drawn to them, and how sometimes he had taken my wrist captive and stroked his own cheek with my right hand, and then he had kissed my palms, one and then the other. My dress was of figured gauze over satin, with a low corsage and sleeves very short and perfectly plain and tight, ornamented with double rows of ribbon bows, and with a third row of
very small bows around the skirt, a short distance below the waist. We went through several cardinal pelerines and settled on one of watered silk trimmed with lace. As an afterthought, I had Antonia undress me and remove two petticoats, to the horror of my advisers. But I insisted: “I’m not going to a ball, just to Jefferson Market, and I’m trying to win the heart of a Baptist preacher. I have to seem practical.”