Devil Water (68 page)

Again no matter, now. Wilson had insisted on paying Fell for the suit. He showed indeed a commendable desire not to accept anything as a favor. Not a bad fellow after all. And it appeared that he had a little money, which made the match more respectable.

Evelyn watched the ceremony with thoughts far different. Sadness overpowered her, sadness and misgiving. Had she indeed done right to facilitate this marriage? Would Jenny ever bitterly regret relinquishing the side of her which she derived from her father? Would she tire of catering to Rob Wilson’s thirst for independence and his fierce pride? For after all, the money which he now controlled was really Jenny’s -- though he did not know it. And there was the business of the rings.

Jenny had taken off her Radcliffe ring this morning. It seemed that Rob had asked her to. He had bought her a wedding ring, unearthed one through the county clerk. It was of alloyed gold, two thin wires twisted together, a poor shabby little thing compared to the Radcliffe ring, which Jenny had wrapped in a piece of silk and stuffed in the toe of one of her scarlet-heeled French dancing slippers. “I’ll leave this here with the ball dress, Evie,” Jenny said. “Such finery’ll be of no use to me now! Can you put it in some chest in the attic?” The girl had spoken lightly, but Evelyn had seen the expression in her eyes as she drew off the ring, and seen the secret caress she gave the rose taffeta ball dress.

Evelyn had wanted to protest, and then checked herself. It was natural that a wedding day should mean a fresh start and no reminders of the past, and yet -- could the past ever be forgotten, did it not always lie buried somewhere like a sleeping beast, ready to spring up and sink its fangs in the defenseless heart?

Evelyn stiffened and looked up. The minister’s voice had taken on a louder tone, and he held up his hand.

“Forasmuch as Robert Wilson and Jane Radcliffe have consented together in holy wedlock, and have witnessed the same . . .”

‘Tis the last time she’ll bear the name of Radcliffe, Evelyn thought.

“I pronounce that they are Man and Wife in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen,” said Mr. Fontaine.

“Amen,” Evelyn whispered. For a few moments after the blessing she could not rouse herself to rush forward with the others, who crowded up to the altar rail, smiling and congratulating the couple. Byrd benevolently shook Rob’s hand, then said archly, “I claim the usual privilege, my dear,” and kissed Jenny with relish. Ben Harrison followed suit, so did his wife; and even his mother, carried away by the universal good-will, said, “I hope you’ll be very happy.”

Jenny smiled mechanically and curtsied. All these laughing faces weren’t real, the giggling, waving Negroes in the gallery weren’t real, nor the bare little church and its white box pews. Even Rob, when she looked sideways at him, didn’t seem real. A stranger, he was -- a big, dark stranger in an ill-fitting brown velveteen suit. They all left the church, and began to walk along the path towards Westover. “What splendid weather for the wedding, Mrs. Wilson!” said Anne Harrison, gaily.

Mrs. Wilson -- who was that? Jenny looked around to see who might have joined the company, and Rob gave a brief, constrained laugh. “ ‘Tis
you,
Jenny. I find it hard to believe it myself.”

“How silly of me,” she said, but it was as though someone else spoke for her. Rob touched her arm, and without knowing it she drew away.

They reached the house, and at once Jenny took off her bridal wreath and, having pinned up her hair, replaced the wreath with the fashionable square of Mechlin lace Lady Betty had given her.

In the dining room the wedding feast was spread out. Rob and Jenny were seated together at the head of the table. The bride-cake was iced in white curlicues. Anaka had stayed up all night making it, and grumbling constantly. Hurry, hurry, hurry -- that was Miss Evelyn for you, and you couldn’t hurry a bride-cake, which should age at least three months.

Yet the cake was good, or so the guests said -- after Jenny had cut it with a silver knife. She ate some when Rob did, though she couldn’t taste it. Besides the cake there were great silver platters heaped with food, and there was a special punch which Byrd concocted ceremoniously in front of them, pouring from odd-shaped bottles, squeezing lemons, and stirring carefully in the great china punch bowl. Then Byrd got up to propose a toast to the bride.

As they all rose, Jenny felt Rob looking down at her. She would not meet his eyes, and knew then how much she was afraid. Afraid of the moment when she would be alone with this stranger, afraid of what would then happen between the two of them, and of the surrender for which she had so often yearned. In that moment of fear she shrank inside, far off from Rob, who had become not only a stranger but an enemy. And when Byrd next proposed a toast to the King, she jumped up and cried wildly, “May
I
propose it, Mr. Byrd? May I drink to the King as
I
would like to?”

“Certainly,” said Byrd smiling. “On this day your wish is law!”

“Then here’s my toast!” Jenny cried, lifting her glass.

“God bless the King, the Church’s true Defender,
God bless -- no harm in blessing -- the Pretender,
But who is that Pretender -- who that King,
God bless us all, is quite another thing!”

There was a small startled silence, which Ben Harrison broke by saying, “Damme, that’s an odd toast, it don’t make much sense to me. Howevah -- ” and he drained his glass. The others rather dubiously followed suit. Byrd, who knew this for a famous Jacobite toast, hesitated and then shrugged. Let the girl enjoy herself today, if this were how she wanted to. She’d soon get over her nonsense in the wilderness, and by the look of him her new husband would soon change her views too. He was frowning and he hadn’t touched his glass.

Jenny sat down, very flushed, and Rob said to her gravely from the corner of his mouth, “Jenny, why did you do that?”

“No reason,” she said. “I felt like it. Oh, Mr. Byrd, did you say that we’d have dancing? Is there someone to play? Oh, I so dearly love to dance!”

“Why, yes,” said Byrd, who liked dancing himself. “We can make up a set, and Job shall play his fiddle if he’s not too drunk in the Quarters. I sent them all some rum.”

“
I
don’t know how to dance, sir,” said Rob, “but I could play the pipes for you. The Northumbrian pipes. I’ve played for many a wedding in the North Country.”

“Oh, no -- ” Jenny whispered involuntarily. “Not the pipes.”

“Why not?” said Rob loud enough for all to hear. “You used to like the pipes, and it would please me to play for my host,” he bowed slightly to Byrd, “and my late master.” He bowed to Harrison.

“Oh,
do
play!” cried Anne Harrison, who could not bring herself to call him either “Sir” or “Mr. Wilson” and made up for it by excessive enthusiasm. “I’m suah we’d all
vastly
like to heah the pipes whatevah they are!”

Rob bowed again and walked out of the dining room in quest of his pipes. The others trooped into the parlor, where Mr. Fontaine edged near Evelyn, while the servants rolled up the rug and shifted chairs. “What ails the little bride?” he said low in her ear. “She’s acting rather frantic.”

“She’s frightened,” said Evelyn. “It may be that if one longs for a thing very hard, and despairs, and then suddenly gets it -- one is frightened. I’ve never had the chance to find out.”

The minister bent closer. “Ah, Miss Evelyn, is there something
you
want very much?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Is it also a man?”

“Yes.”

“And you cannot have him?”

“No. At least not yet. Someday, I think -- I don’t know.” Her hand went to the locket in her bosom, he noticed the gesture and understood. He sighed deeply, and said, “We can at least be friends, you and I.”

“Oh yes,” she said fervently. “I need a friend.” She turned as Rob came in, the small-pipes strapped around his waist and arm.

Anne Harrison and Mrs. Byrd went up to him curiously, exclaiming and questioning. Rob barely answered them; he walked straight to Jenny, who had gone as white as her dress.

“Shall I play ‘The Oak and the Ash and the Bonny Ivy-tree’?” he said to her.

She would not meet his stern, sad gaze. “No, no,” she cried.
“No!
I want to
dance!”

Evelyn interposed quickly to Rob, “Do you know ‘Sir Roger de Coverley’? Here they call it the ‘Virginia Reel’ “

“I believe I do,” said Rob. He set the drones and lifted the chanter.

At first all except Jenny were so startled by the strange sounds which came out that they could not help laughing. Rob took no notice and played on, accenting the rhythm, until Byrd bowed to Jenny, saying,
“Now,
I recognize the tune -- ” and led her to the head of the set. The young Harrisons followed; then Evelyn and the minister, and little Mina, who was jumping up and down in her desire to join, was good-naturedly partnered by Mrs. Byrd.

Rob played several reels for them, and presently a minuet, which Byrd and Jenny executed with graceful precision. Jenny glanced once at Rob when he started the minuet. Where could he have learned it? Anywhere, she thought -- in all those years when they had not seen each other. The fear she was covering grew sharper. What madness was it that had made her feel she knew this man at all? Dear God --she thought while her body moved of itself through the stately measures. And Rob loomed there by the mantelpiece, as impassive and impersonal as the portraits on the parlor wall of Lord Orrery and the Duke of Argyle.

Jenny would have danced on all night, if possible. But Byrd stopped them, and mopped his forehead with his handkerchief. “Enough,” he said. “I’m not as young as I was, and you, Cousin Anne, are somewhat imprudent in your condition. My wife also.”

The set broke up. Ben, with a view to being agreeable and thanking the player, said to Rob, “Damme, man -- if I’d known you’d a talent like this, I’d nevah have sold you!” And he laughed, nudging Rob in the ribs. “But as it is we can all guess you’ve had your fill of pipin’, eh? There’s bettah things to do on a weddin’ night!”

Anne Harrison giggled, while Byrd said indulgently, “Quite so, Cousin Ben, quite so. Another glass of punch all around, and then we’ll escort the bridal pair upstairs!”

“Undress ‘em!” agreed Ben exuberantly. “And put em’ to bed. D’you remembah, Anne, the teasin’
ive
took on our weddin’ night -- that knavish brothah of yours!”

“I think,” said Evelyn sharply, “we could dispense with these bawdy old customs. I assure you they’re no longer kept up amongst the quality in England.” She had seen the terror in Jenny’s eyes and the dark withheld angry look in Rob’s.

Evelyn’s rather scornful voice dampened Ben. He shrugged and ladled himself some more punch. “Then we might as well go home,” he said. “You ready, Mothah?”

Madam Harrison asserted that she had been ready for some time. The three Harrisons departed in their coach. Mr. Fontaine took his leave, Mina was sent to bed, Mrs. Byrd retired, and Evelyn, greatly troubled, said a hurried good night to the bridal pair and escaped from them to lock herself in her room and try to calm her apprehensions.

Byrd, however, was determined to do the hospitable thing. Guests were always escorted to their rooms, and tonight, whatever his merits, Wilson had become a guest. The small spare room had been readied. The four-poster bed had this morning been draped with white ruffled muslin. New fresh pink dimity curtains were hung over the little dormer window.

Byrd ushered the two upstairs, and as he waved them through the spare-room door, he began a sly and sprightly remark which seemed appropriate to the occasion, but the utter silence of the two disconcerted him. So he merely wished them good night, and received no answer.

As the door shut Jenny retreated to the window wall, and stood pressed with her back against it, her fingers twisting together.

Rob remained by the door, his heavy eyebrows drawn together above his hazel eyes, his mouth set into another bar below them.

“I have no wish at all to touch you,” he said in a cold dry voice. “So you needn’t look like that.”

She swallowed, and moistened her lips. This was not what she had expected to hear. Her heart pounded in such shaking beats that it tore at her chest. Without her knowledge her twisting fingers paused on the new ring, the unaccustomed little ring, and she glanced down at it.

“Aye,” said Rob, deadly quiet. “Already you miss the ring you wore before, don’t you! Mr. Radcliffe would think this a vile match, to be sure, and who’s to blame him!”

Jenny’s hands fell abruptly apart; she pressed her palms behind her, flat against the wall. She looked at Rob at last. His head near touched the ceiling, the space between them in this little room was not ten feet, yet it might have been the width of the Atlantic -- of the world.

“You can get an annulment,” said Rob. “It will be quite easy, under all the circumstances. I’ll leave you now and inform Mr. Byrd, so there’ll be no chance of misunderstanding later.” He put his hand on the doorknob.

Jenny gasped. Her fear of him dissolved, and in its place rushed in a different kind of panic. “Wait!” she whispered. “Robbie, ye canna leave me
again!
Robbie, we’re wed now.”

She spoke in the lilt of her childhood, and despite himself he paused. “We’re wed for the nonce,” he said. “And ye knew it for a mistake, e’en i’ the church -- d’ye think me such a dolt I didna feel it?”

“It was the strangeness --” she said in a strangled voice. “I couldna help the feel o’ strangeness. Rob, I
wish
to be your wife -- you know well I ever wished it.” As he continued to stand hesitant yet unbending by the door with his hand on the knob, she added, almost inaudibly, “You don’t want me, then? Yet there’ve been times when you wanted me.”

He made a fierce impatient sound. “Any man may want to bed a pretty lass!”

“You’re cruel,” she whispered. “Cruel!”

His hand dropped from the knob, and he turned on her violently. “D’ye think my lust so strong that I’d take you like this, when you’ve been shrinking from me like a lamb that sees the butcher knife at its throat! For the matter o’ that d’ye think I’d take you for the first time in another man’s house, in a stifling cubbyhole filled wi’ gewgaws and fripperies someone else provided!” He reached out and tore one of the white ruffles off the bed’s canopy.