Dragonwyck (25 page)

'Dragonwyck's closed,' he said; 'has been since June. Mr. Van Ryn is traveling, down South somewhere. Didn't you know?'

She shook her head, trying to hide her face from him. But he had seen the tears start to her eyes.

'I did see him once in September, at poor Boughton's new trial,' he said unwillingly. He had not meant to tell her this, nor of the message Nicholas had given him for her, for he had persuaded himself that she would have forgotten Nicholas, now that she was back home. And he profoundly believed that it would be better for her if she had. But in the face of her anguish, he could not deny her.

'How was he?' she asked breathlessly. 'Oh, please, please tell me.'

'He seemed very well. I only saw him for a minute.'

He sighed, remembering the crowded little Hudson courtroom where Smirh Boughton had stood his second trial for sedition against the Manor lords, the first one having ended in disagreement.

This time things had gone as badly as possible. The steely-eyed Circuit Judge John Edmonds had presided. Boughton's lawyer, Ambrose Jordan, had lost his temper, had actually provoked a fist fight with John Van Buren, who represented the manors. From the beginning, Jeff had had small hope of the outcome, but the verdict was even worse than he had feared. Smith Boughton had been sentenced to life in Clinton Prison.

They had been sorry after that, some of those who had persecuted the little doctor. There had been tears in the courtroom; Mrs. Van Rensselaer had fainted. Jeff had watched them all with hatred—the well-fed, smug lot of them ensconced in the white-panneled gallery, so avid for their dubious rights, so terrified of one small, white-faced man who had dared to threaten their wealth and power.

Nicholas had been amongst those in the gallery, conspicuous in his black suit. He had watched the proceedings impassively, his handsome head turned a little, his blue eyes showing little interest.

As soon as the verdict had been pronounced, he had risen and left the gallery. Jeff too had quitted the courtroom, moved by an impulsive and quite impossible wish to go to his friend. The guard soon disabused him, no one might now see the prisoner; and he had been walking sadly down the courthouse steps, when he felt a touch on his arm.

It was Nicholas, who said, 'Good day, Doctor Turner. This must be a bad time for you.'

'At any rate, it's a pleasant one for you,' said Jeff, starting to walk on.

'The verdict is just but harsh,' said Nicholas calmly. 'Were I he, I would kill myself. He'd be far better dead than in prison.'

I really believe he means that, Jeff had thought, and he had answered: 'I don't agree with you, Mr. Van Ryn. Life is precious, and what's more the sentence may be commuted some day. Now if you'll excuse me —I leave soon for a trip to New York and I've much to do.'

'Indeed?' asked Nicholas politely.

'When I'm thereabouts, I may call on Miss Wells,' added Jeff, more from curiosity as to what Nicholas would say than anything else.

He had said nothing for a moment and the peculiar shut expression had appeared in his eyes. 'If you do see her,' he said at last, 'you might tell her that I shall come down-river in April.'

'Certainly,' said Jeff, thinking it a very trivial message. He had continued to think so up to this moment, and now he wondered.

When he delivered the message to Miranda, he no longer wondered. She was transfigured by a blaze of joy.

'Did he say that?' she cried. 'Oh, thank you, thank you, Jeff.' She was unconscious of her use of his name, half-laughing and half-crying in her relief. It was all right then. Nicholas hadn't answered her letter because Dragonwyck was shut and he was traveling. But he would be with her in April as he had promised.

She no longer doubted or even wondered why he did not write her. He had his reasons, he was different anyway from all other men. He had given her his word, she had been shameful to need the confirmation. But oh, it was sweet to have it.

She smiled at Jeff, including him now in her joy.

You're easily pleased,' said he crossly. It was plain enough now that she hoped to see Nicholas in April—six months off—and on this distant meeting she must be building a foolish romantic structure—the little goose. The real facts never occurred to him. He knew that Miranda had been but three days in that shrouded house of mourning, and he had heard how during that time the widower had shut himself into the tower study with his grief.

'Miranda,' he said on impulse, 'why do you make yourself unhappy, always hankering after things you haven't got? Can't you be content here at home? This farm is beautiful—'

'Beautiful!' she repeated in amazement, looking around her.

The orchard where they stood was on higher ground than the farmhouse, which nestled like a white dove beneath hemlocks and the tall protecting elms. The fields, checkered by stone walls, undulated gently toward the sapphire strip of the distant Sound. A late October haze, faintly lavender, filtered the clear air and intensified the perfume of burning leaves. Maples on the Cat Rock Hills blazed red and gold, colors repeated even more strongly by a riot of sumach and goldenrod against the gray wall of the little burying ground. In the adjoining pasture Buttercup's bell tinkled rhythmically, as Seth guided her toward the barn and the evening milking.

'I suppose the country's pretty enough,' said Miranda vaguely, 'but it has no refinement, no elegance; and as for the farm—it's nothing but work.' She looked down at her hands. Despite her care they had reddened a little; two of her almond-shaped fingernails were broken off short.

'Work's not such a bad thing,' answered Jeff. 'There's joy in getting things done, in being useful. It makes a pattern. Bread that is worked for is sweeter far—' He shut his mouth, seeing that her eyes held the look of passive endurance which descends on a congregation toward the end of a tedious sermon.

'D'you think for one minute—' he shouted, suddenly angry, 'that your precious Van Ryn with his estates and his carriages and his idleness is as happy a man as I am, or your own father?'

He was pleased to see that he had startled her, but otherwise he produced no effect. She gave him an indulgent smile, and said softly, as though she did not want to hurt his feelings, 'I should never think of comparing you or Pa to Mr. Van Ryn in any way.'

'Miranda, you're—' he began, and then he laughed. There was no reaching her. 'Come and show me the rest of the farm, I'm interested in it even if you're not.' And taking her arm he helped her back over the stone wall.

Jeff stayed several days at the Wells farm, because on the night of his arrival the baby developed a virulent sore throat. Some hours later, the dreaded white spots appeared and the terrified Abigail, who had lost one child from this cause, did not need Jeff to tell her that Charity had diphtheria.

She did not need Jeff for diagnosis, but she needed him badly when the suffocating membrane threatened to close the little throat, and only his promptness in making and inserting a hollow reed to the trachea saved the child. Jeff and Abigail worked together for three days and nights, sponging, poulticing, and making inhalations of turpentine.

Miranda, who had never had the disease, was banished from the sickroom, despite her protests.

When it was all over, and Charity with the elasticity of childhood had started on a quick recovery, the family embarrassed Jeff by its gratitude. 'I'll never forget what you've done—never,' sobbed Abigail, exhausted by strain and relief.

And that night at family worship, Ephraim abandoned the chapters which should have been read in favor of the Good Samaritan. In his prayer he thanked the Lord devoutly 'for that Thou hast sent us one to succor us in our hour of need.'

Ephraim accepted Jeff's refusal of any payment for his services, because of the conviction that the young doctor would soon be his son-in-law. He was therefore amazed when Jeff mounted his horse one morning, and after warm farewells to each one of them, departed for Hudson without having asked permission to woo Miranda.

'I can't make it out,' Ephraim told Abigail that night in the conjugal bed. 'I made sure he'd speak for the lass, and she brightened up like a spring morning directly he got here.'

His wife sighed, turning restlessly on her pillow. She knew, now, why Miranda had brightened and that it had nothing to do with Jeff. Would that it
were
Jeff the girl loved. She and Ephraim were of one mind in that. But Abigail was loyal to her daughter—and there was that betrothal ring—Ranny had given her word elsewhere even if she had not, as she so patently had, given her love as well.

'I can't understand the young people nowadays,' Ephraim growled. 'Flighty, don't know their own minds.' A new thought struck him. 'Very like Jeffs gone home to make arrangements there before he speaks. He'll be back again. That's what it is.'

'Perhaps,' said Abigail faintly. She knew better than to upset her husband before it was necessary.

NICHOLAS ARRIVED IN GREENWICH ON THE SECOND of April, exactly one year from the day on which he had last seen Miranda. Lie went to Weed's Tavern on Main Street, found the accommodation offered him cramped and noisy, for his rooms fronted on the Boston Post Road, where market wagons, carriages, and stages continually clattered by; so he had his coachman make inquiries, got back in the coach, and traveled through spring mud up the North Street to Stanwich, where he took over the second floor of a little inn.

As soon as he was settled, and the flustered innkeeper, who seldom had guests nowadays, had unpacked for him, Nicholas ordered a glass of Madeira. Then he opened his writing case and began a note.

An hour later a stable boy delivered this note at the Wells Farm. It was addressed to Ephraim, who was sluicing his head and face at the pump preparatory to eating suppet. He stamped into the kitchen, where Miranda and Abigail were laying the table. He held the note out in his wet fingers. 'I'll be consarned if this don't beat all!' he cried. 'Your fine Cousin Nicholas is stopping in Stanwich, and he's coming to see me on a matter of the "greatest importance."'

Miranda took one look at the well-remembered handwriting. The kitchen stove, her mother and father, spun slowly around her. She clutched the edge of the table and shut her eyes. Then quite suddenly she was calm. The long uncertainty was over. There would be trouble now, Pa would be difficult; but she knew that Nicholas could handle him, could do anything in the world that he wished to.

'What in tunket could
he
want?' grumbled Ephraim, running a comb through his beard. 'Ranny—' he turned to his daughter, but Miranda had slipped upstairs. The green silk dress, long unworn, was ready. She took it from the lavender-scented bag where it had hung, waiting.

She parted her hair and brushed it around her finger into curls on either side her face and rolled the rest into a heavy coil on the nape of her neck. She touched the heliotrope Cologne to her wrists and forehead, and when she stood fully dressed, she untied the silk cord and, drawing the betrothal ring from its hiding place, she kissed it and put it on her finger.

There was the sound of carriage wheels outside when she got downstairs. As she entered the kitchen, they heard a knock on the front door, the one that was never used.

Ephraim went to open it and all the family crowded after him into the chilly front room. He unbolted the door and Nicholas walked in. He bowed to Ephraim, paused by the threshold, his head nearly touching the low ceiling, while he searched the other faces which he did not know. Then he saw Miranda, who had held back, her heart pounding, her hands shaking, now that the moment had actually arrived.

Nicholas' face lighted, his eyes burned into hers as though he asked her a question which needed no answer except the expression on her face. He moved swiftly across the room and before the gaping boys and thunderstruck Ephraim, took Miranda's hand and raised it to his lips.

'What's the meaning of this, sir!' shouted Ephraim.

Nicholas released the girl's hand and turned to confront the astonished father. 'May I speak to you alone, Mr. Wells?' His tone plainly indicated that he was in a hurry to have done with a boring task. He made a gesture of dismissal to the others and they obeyed it at once; not even Abigail thought to look at Ephraim to see whether he also wished them to go. The door of the front room shut behind them.

'Well—' whistled young Nat, sinking into a kitchen chair and staring at his sister. 'So that's your Mr. Van Ryn! You're a deep one, Ranny.'

She stood proudly amongst them, her head thrown back, a little smile on her lips. Her whole body seemed to glow and bloom.

The boys gazed at her as though they'd never seen her before. Her mother glanced at her and felt a sharp dismay. This Nicholas was all that Miranda had said and more. She had never seen a man so handsome, nor one who seemed more masterful. There had been tenderness and the proper homage in his greeting of Miranda. You couldn't ask more of a husband than that he should be masterful and tender, especially when wealth and position went with it.

What's the matter with me, then? thought Abigail. She opened the oven door and turned the loaves. Come what might, the baking had to be done. The bread was doing well. She shut the oven and seizing a knife began to pare apples with vicious jabs. After the second apple she laid the knife aside. Might as well face it. From the instant that he had walked through the door into their house, Abigail had felt a queer revulsion, not quite fear but akin to fear. No reason for it, she told herself—but the feeling of recoil and apprehension remained.

'Get to your chores, boys—' she addressed her sons briskly. 'This matter doesn't concern you.'

They rose, pausing as they heard their father's voice raised in angry protest, and the calm slow tones which answered. Reluctantly they filed out, Tom to the evening milking, Seth and Nat to the woodpile. On the way
they
covertly examined the shining carriage, the sleek, beautifully matched horses, and the coachman, who entirely ignored the boys.

In the kitchen the two women drew closer. Miranda took her mother's hand and held it tight; a shiver ran through the girl's body as the parlor door burst open and Ephraim shouted, 'Miranda, come here!'