Black Rainbow (32 page)

"Edmund and I went to the village when we heard," Jane
said. "It was a shocking sight—nothing left but scorched foundations and blackened beams. Edmund was very upset. He has offered a sum of money to help rebuild."

"That is good of him."

"Yes."

"He was sincere when he said he had changed his mind about the shop and the union," Megan said. "And he feels a personal sense of outrage, no doubt."

"I asked about Sam," Jane continued, as if she had been interrupted in the middle of a memorized recitation. "Mrs. Miggs has taken him in. The doctor has already been to see him, and he is resting comfortably."

Abruptly she turned toward the door. "I think I will have some breakfast. There was no time earlier."

Megan wanted to hear more; but the questions she yearned to have answered were the ones she had no right to ask. "How did he look? Does he suffer much? Did he ask about me?" It was up to Jane to offer what details she chose, and Jane was undoubtedly right to cut the discussion short. So she said humbly, "Thank you, Jane."

"What for?" Jane said, and went out before Megan could answer.

Megan's affection
and gratitude toward her sister-in-law increased a hundredfold in the following days. Jane seemed intent on demonstrating that the disclosure of Megan's crime had not lessened her fondness; she was constantly with Megan, from early morning until they said good night. Her attention verged on the maternal; she fussed over Megan's food, checked on the way the maids cleaned her room, and inspected her wardrobe. There were times when Megan found the constant supervision a little oppressive,
but appreciating the delicate sensitivity that prompted it, she never protested.

She was able to repay Jane, in a small way, by supporting her against Belts, who had become a constant visitor. It was not Edmund's fault that the Yorkshireman annoyed Jane with his attentions; he scowled angrily every time Belts paid Jane one of his heavy-handed compliments. Belts was impervious to scowls or sharp answers, which were the only kind he ever received from Jane. The ruder her remark, the louder his laugh and his admiring "By Gar, I do like a lass that speaks her mind!"

One morning in early October, when they met at breakfast, Edmund was in an excellent humor. Glancing around the table, he said cheerfully, "Well, Jane, you will not have to endure Belts's attentions any longer. I have informed him he must look elsewhere. Shall I confess how I rescued you? Don't be angry; I intimated that your affections and your person were engaged elsewhere."

"I hope you didn't suggest that the lucky man is Mr. Higgins," Megan said, laughing. "Jane is as indifferent to him as she is to Mr. Belts."

Jane did not laugh. "You have sold the mill, haven't you, Edmund?"

Edmund concentrated on his creamed fish for a while before answering. "Why do you say that, Jane?"

"Let's not fence," Jane said wearily. "You tolerated Belts and forced me to tolerate him when you hoped to gain something from him. Now you have what you want, and you have dismissed him."

Edmund put down his knife and fork and met her look with one as steady. "Very well, I won't equivocate. I have sold the mill. The final papers will be signed in a week or two, after the lawyers have finished drawing them up. You can't stop it, Jane. You have a half-interest, and you will receive your share of the money, to do with as you like; but you do not have control. If you doubt me, ask Mr. Trumbull."

"I don't doubt you."

"Try to be reasonable, Jane. The mill has brought me nothing but trouble, and matters will get worse in the future; government regulations make it very difficult to run a business with profit. On the other hand, there has never been a better time for agriculture. I mean to put the money into the estate —improve cultivation methods and buy more land. I foresee a steady rise in food prices over the next ten years, and—"

"And it is the proper occupation for a gentleman."

"Is there anything wrong with that? Our father wanted his son to have advantages he lacked. I hope to give my father's grandson greater advantages than I have had."

It was an odd way of putting it, Megan thought.

Jane rose unsteadily to her feet, her napkin crumpled in her hand. She was very pale. "Excuse me. . . ."

"I will go after her," Megan said, as Jane ran from the room. "She is very distressed."

"She will have to get used to it," Edmund said, picking up his fork. "It is for her own good, after all."

After some searching Megan found Jane in her favorite part of the garden. It was no formal French or Italian arrangement, but a wonderful confusion of native blooms growing in random loveliness. Crimsoning Virginia creeper veiled a stone wall, and the Michaelmas daisies formed clumps of purple and lavender bloom. Jane sat huddled on a bench, her knees drawn up and her hands clasped.

Megan sat down beside her. "I am so sorry, Jane. I know how you hate this. Perhaps if I speak to Edmund—"

"It would do no good and you know it."

Megan bowed her head in acknowledgment. After a moment Jane went on, "Have you ever thought, Megan, that we are little better than the unfortunate slaves in America? We have no more control over our lives than they. They cannot go where they like; neither can we. They are bred like cattle, to the mate their master chooses; so are most of us. If they are abused, they have no appeal. Neither do we."

"Surely you exaggerate, Jane."

"I do; I admit it. There is a difference between outright, honest slavery and the kind of ownership men have over women. Not all women suffer the injustices I have mentioned, but if they have freedom of choice it is a freedom bestowed on them by the men who own them—a privilege, not a right. And how limited those privileges are! All professions and trades are closed to us, except the lowest and most degrading—heaven help you, you know more of that than I. We have no possessions, not even the clothing on our backs—they belong to the man who owns us."

Megan couldn't see the justice of Jane's complaints; the abuses she described did not apply to her, for she had money of her own. And any man, including Edmund, who attempted to force Jane into marriage would be sorry he tried! She attributed Jane's wild exaggeration to distress, and gently put her arm around the narrow, shaking shoulder. "My dear, do come inside; it is chilly, and you are cold."

"I am not cold. I am afraid."

"Of what, dear Jane? Surely not of men; you resent Edmund now, but one day you will fall in love and marry—"

"Marry." Jane spat the word out. "Do you realize, Megan, that if Edmund beat you or imprisoned you or struck you, there is not a court in the land that would defend you from him?"

"Jane, you are talking so wildly! You would never marry a man like that—and Edmund would never beat me. He is not that sort of person."

"No, you are right. He is not that sort of person." A violent shudder passed through Jane's body.

"I insist you come in, Jane. You are having a chill. Come with me to see little Eddie, he will make you smile again."

Jane allowed Megan to raise her to her feet. "Yes, little Eddie. Does Edmund spent much time with him, Megan?"

"Men don't care for babies of that age," Megan said lightly. "As soon as he can sit a horse and hold a cricket bat, his papa will take a greater interest in him."

Jane stood staring at her with such a peculiar expression that Megan felt herself flushing. "I know what you are thinking, Jane. I have vowed to conceal nothing from you, so I will answer the question you are too considerate to ask. /
don't know.
I cannot possibly be certain. Oh, it sounds so dreadful!"

"It doesn't matter," Jane said. "Not to
me."

Megan noticed the stress on the last word. "It is what I would expect you to say. Please come now."

Jane followed, unresisting. She muttered something under her breath.

"Two places at the same time?" Megan repeated. "What are you worrying about now?"

"The same thing," Jane said. "Twice over. Oh, pay no attention to my mumbling, Megan."

The final
papers for the sale of the mill were to be signed at the end of October, and Edmund decided that the occasion should be celebrated by a house party. He did not describe it that way to Jane. Instead he suggested that since Belts must be present, other guests might make him easier to bear.

"Ask anyone you like," Jane said. "It is a matter of complete indifference to me."

Megan almost wished Jane would express her feelings in her old way, by stamping and shouting. Jane's rages were soon over, and she usually seemed the better for them. This new Jane, silent, pale, and haggard, was painful to see, and some of Jane's remarks were so strange that Megan actually began to fear for her sanity. On one occasion she broke into a speech about Eddie's increasing beauty, intelligence, and strength to ask abruptly, "Do you believe in prayer, Megan?"

"Why, yes, of course," Megan said, startled.

"To whom do you pray? No, that was a silly question. To God and our Saviour, I suppose—and Mary, do you still pray to her?"

"Sometimes," Megan admitted.

"And the saints?"

Megan decided to humor her. "I used to. It is sometimes easier to confess one's human failings to an intermediary who once was human, than to a great impersonal Being so far away—"

"A male Being," Jane interrupted, with such disgust that Megan didn't know whether to smile or be shocked at her blasphemy.

"Perhaps that is why Our Lady is favored by Catholics," she said. "And the female saints—I remember deciding when I was very small that I would choose Saint Agnes as my patron, because of her lamb."

Jane brushed this frivolous comment aside. "Do you believe our prayers are answered?"

"How serious you are today, Jane."

"I believe they may be. If we ask for the right thing—and if we address our petitions to the appropriate Power."

"Jane, what is troubling you? I am worried about you."

"Nothing." Jane forced a smile. "Perhaps I will turn Catholic and find a saint who will listen to me. Saint Arca would be suitable; she must have been a local girl, and would understand my problems."

"It would be wise to find out who the lady was, and what her attributes are. You wouldn't want to adopt the patron of thieves or beggars."

"That is a point worth considering," Jane murmured.

The day
before the guests were to arrive Edmund was much occupied. He took pride in his talent for entertaining, but on this occasion he was determined that every arrangement should be as perfect as possible. Megan thought she understood; this was the first demonstration of his new status as a landowner and gentleman of leisure, with the hated stigma of the mill at last removed.

Sir William and Lady Gilbert were to be among the party— "For I know they are favorites of yours," Edmund said, addressing Jane and Megan impartially. "I had great difficulty persuading Sir William; at this time of year he goes out shooting almost every day, and he was reluctant to give up his sport. I had to promise we would allow him a chance at our partridges and pheasants. Now don't glower at me, Jane; you know I don't favor blood sports. I hope you will give Sir William a demonstration of your skill at archery. When I mentioned it to him, he scoffed, not only at the sport itself, but at the idea that a lady could excel."

"We will prove him wrong, won't we, Jane?" Megan said.

Jane appeared unenthusiastic; but Sir William's jovial teasing the following afternoon roused her to accept the challenge. When the party assembled at the butts she performed with such skill as to win the admiration of all beholders. One of Sir William's daughters, a young lady who had just attained the dignity of putting her hair up and her skirts down, clapped her hands in delight and expressed her intention of taking up the sport. Edmund kindly showed her how to hold the bow; after several failures she managed to get an arrow into the target.

"There, Papa," she said, with a laughing glance at Sir William. "You see I can do it; when you arrange a practice ground for me at the Abbey, I will work at it every day."

"Well, well," Sir William grumbled. "I suppose I might; it is a nice ladylike kind of game."

"If you think it is so simple, why don't you try a shot?" Edmund said, offering Sir William his bow.

The unsuspecting old gentleman squared his shoulders and stepped confidently up to the line. After pinching his thumb in the bowstring and seeing several arrows drop ignominiously at his feet, he flung the bow aside and declared it was a silly occupation for a grown man.

Edmund went on baiting him all that evening. It was good-natured, but Sir William's vanity had been sorely offended by his failure, and his temper began to heat up under the pricks. "What's the point of it, Edmund, tell me that?" he demanded. "Punching holes in bales of straw—"

"Why, sir, what a way to speak of the noble art that won the battles of Crecy and Agincourt and fed our ancestors for centuries before the invention of gunpowder. I grant that to take a deer by means of bow and arrow requires more skill than shooting—"

"Oh, does it?" The old gentleman was red as a turkeycock. "Would you care to arrange a test?"

"I was about to suggest it," Edmund said, smiling.

"And a little wager, eh?"

"By all means."

To the amusement of the other guests the two solemnly proceeded to set up the conditions of the wager. The first to make a kill would proceed to the house, where the others, the judges, would be waiting. Wagers were laid; the ladies favored Edmund, and the gentlemen, to a man, declared Sir William must win. Belts refused to risk "good brass" on the enterprise, which he declared was all nonsense anyway.

Everyone assembled next morning for an elaborate breakfast. It was during the meal that somehow or other a fault in the conditions of the wager was discovered.

"We ought to have a more precise method of noting the moment of the kill," Edmund said. "In my case the judges won't even hear a shot, and if I am some distance away, so that it takes me longer to retrace my steps—"

"Are you implying that I would lie about the time?" Sir William demanded fiercely.

"My dear Sir William, quite the contrary. I am suggesting a signal to mark the precise moment."

One of the gentlemen facetiously suggested smoke signals, in the American Indian style. After some debate it was decided that the winner would fire two shots in rapid succession, to be followed, after a specified interval, by a third.

"That means I must carry a gun," Edmund objected. "I insist on a bearer, then. Jane, Megan—will one of you act as my squire?"

Several of the other ladies clamored to join the party, but Edmund laughingly declined. "This is a serious wager, ladies, not a walking party. I will have only skilled assistants, who understand the art of toxophily."

"You know Jane's feelings," Megan said, with an affectionate glance at Jane, whose countenance displayed a glum sobriety quite at variance with the cheerfulness of the others. "She cannot bear to see anything hurt. So if my services are acceptable, Edmund ..."