Testimony Of Two Men (92 page)

He was afraid that she might jump to her feet and run past him, as she had run that July Fourth, and so he blocked the passage with his tall body, but easily. However, she did not move. Her hands were pressed one on top of the other in her lap, and her face was still averted. But her lashes had begun to blink, as if she were about to burst out crying. Jonathan could see the quick lift of her breast under the plain yellow bodice of the frock, and then its fall.

Very slowly, so as not to frighten her, he let the curtain of wisteria drop and it immediately made a living dusk in the grotto. Jonathan approached Jenny, and again with infinite slowness he sat down on the dark clean earth and hugged his knees and watched her. She did not look at him. He saw her knee near his cheek, and he wanted more than anything else to lean his cheek against it; he could see the coarse threads of the frock and the outline of her long thigh and calf, and then the arched foot in its sturdy slipper.

“I’ve looked for you for weeks, Jenny,” he said. “But you avoided me. I wanted to know that you’ve forgiven me.”

She spoke as if to the stony earthen wall of the grotto:
“I
forgave—you.” Her voice was so quiet that he could hardly hear it.

Then he remembered something he had forgotten concerning that night. When he had thrown Jenny on her bed and then she had fought him off wildly, he had seen her great terror of the unknown about to be thrust upon her so brutally and with such violence. But with this was another terror: the terror of her own desire to surrender, the weakening of her legs under him, the sudden brief softening of the muscles of her thighs. It was then that she had arched her body in total resistance and had pushed him off, and had broken into tears.

He had been confident in these weeks that he could make Jenny love him. He was startled and overjoyed to know that

Jenny had loved him even then as she had fought him off and had struggled with him. She would not have him as he was then, fighting with her, about to take her by force. And, of course, he thought with indulgence, without benefit of clergy.

“Well,” he said, “I’m glad you’ve forgiven me. But, as I told you then, Jenny, my darling, I’ve loved you for a long time. Didn’t you know that?”

“No,” she said.

“And you didn’t believe me that night?” Her head moved farther from him and she dropped her chin on her shoulder. “No, I didn’t.”

“Do you now?”

She pushed back a heavy fold of her hanging hair and he saw her hand, tanned by the sun, long, elegantly made, like his mother’s hands.

“Won’t you tell me, Jenny?”

But she pressed her lips tightly together and he thought of a shy but stubborn child, and he smiled again.

“Jenny, I’m going away. I am never coming back.” He could smell the green life about him, and the earth, and the faint scent of the soap Jenny had been using, and the natural warm fragrance of her body and her hair. He put his hand on her foot. The foot jerked, but to his delight she did not remove it. Then his delight went away, for he saw that a few tears were running down her smooth pale cheek.

“I want you to come with me, Jenny,” he said. “I love you. I’ve loved you for years. I want you to marry me. Soon. Tomorrow if possible. I want to take you away from Hambledon, where we’ll have some peace. I want to show you the whole world. My darling.”

He had never spoken to any woman like this before, nor had he felt this tenderness mixed with desire, and gentleness and even peace. He felt the warmth of her foot under his hand and through the cotton stocking. He wanted to kiss it “Please don’t cry, Jenny. Please answer me.”

She said in a voice almost whispering, “Robert Morgan asked me to marry him yesterday,” and she raised her hand and childishly wiped away her tears with the back of it. She still would not look at him.

“Bob Morgan?” He almost laughed. “That boy! Well, I admire his taste if I don’t care for his impudence.”

She turned suddenly to him then and her cheeks flared into color, and her blue eyes flashed with anger. He had always suspected Jenny of a deep temper, and he saw it now.

“What impudence yourself!” she exclaimed. “I can tell you this, Jon, he’s an improvement on the Ferrier men!” Her voice was strong and direct and clear. He was delighted again. He squeezed her foot and very softly he let one of his fingers rise to her slender ankle and caressed it. He felt the flesh start a little under his touch; she did not snatch her foot away as he expected.

“Oh,” he said, “I have no doubt that almost any man would be an improvement on us. We’re a bad lot, as the English would say. Harald’s an idiot, and I have the worst disposition in town, as you’ve probably discovered yourself. We are no gems on the matrimonial market, and there I agree with you. I wonder how you will endure being my wife. I really pity you.” Now his whole hand was about her ankle. He wondered how much higher he could dare to raise it. It was a delicious thought. Then he was aware that she was very still, and he looked up and saw she had a tremulous, bemused expression, as if all her awareness was directed to the ankle which he held. He watched her closely. Then he leaned his cheek against her knee. It stiffened, jerked, but she did not draw away, and his hand slid upward to the slim round calf, warm and firm and smooth.

A deep heavy flush swept into the girl’s face. Her eyelids trembled, then dropped slightly. She began to cry again, soundlessly. Very slowly Jon rose to his knees, looking into her quivering face, then took her into his arms, hesitated, and pressed his lips into the hollow of her throat. Her head fell back helplessly. He felt the sudden bounding of her pulse against his mouth.

“Jenny, Jenny,” he whispered. Her body was young and soft in his arms. He dropped his head and pressed it against her breast. She stirred once, then was still. He felt her rapt and virginal passion. She was not afraid, though she had begun to shiver. The duskiness of the cavelike grotto appeared to enlarge to him, to be filled with unbearable excitement, pleasure and happiness, and to be waiting. The quiet was not disturbed except for the distant sound of the cicadas, the faint whispering of the trees, and everything was heightened to the senses, the fragrance of earth and leaves and young flesh.

Jonathan thought, in the intensity of his now rising desire, that there were worse places in which to take a beloved woman, who was surrendering. He kissed her bare throat again. His hand fumbled at the buttons on her bodice, little plain white buttons, which he saw as large as plates. He unfastened one, two, three, and then she caught his hand and her own was strong.

“No,” she said. She burst out crying, not cries of fear or protest, but sounds of desolation.

He immediately stopped. He held her as gently as before, and then he pulled her head to his shoulder and let her cry. What else had he expected of this inexperienced girl? He was terrified that he had ruined everything and had confirmed her previous bad opinion of him. “Jenny, my darling,” he said. “I’m sorry. But I love you more than my life, Jenny. I won’t annoy you again or disturb you. Until we’re married. Jenny?”

“I can’t marry you!” she cried, and his shirt was wet with her tears. “I want to, but I can’t!”

“Why not?” He was elated.

“I’ve done something terrible to you!” ’

He paused. He laughed a little. He held her more tightly. “For God’s sake, Jenny! What ‘terrible’ thing could you do to me, a child like you?”

She rolled her head despairingly on his shoulder. “I can’t tell you, Jon. Please go away. Forget you ever saw me. Go a long way away.”

At this point an alien voice intruded, full of amusement and contempt.

“I hate to end this touching, pastoral scene,” said Harald Ferrier at the entrance to the grotto. “There is nothing so lovely as true love, is there? And what a scene! All the elements of dramatic seduction, immaculate surrender, tremolos of dulcet tones, manly force, blandishments—everything.
I
should have been a playwright. I’d make my fortune.”

Jenny literally leaped in Jonathan’s arms, and he let her go and got to his feet, his furious temper rising, his dark face thick with blood. He saw his brother leaning negligently against the entrance to the grotto and smiling his broad and amiable smile. Harald winked.

It was that lascivious wink, that indulgent smile, which made Jonathan feel acute embarrassment as well as rage, and a sort of juvenile shame. “What the hell are you doing here?” he shouted.

Harald raised his ruddy eyebrows and beamed. “Why,” he said, as if surprised, “I believe I live here. At least, I thought I did. Don’t I?”

“Spying on us!” shouted Jonathan, feeling foolish.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Perhaps I should have waited for the final scene, but
I
confess I’m a little too prudish for that. There would have been a final scene?” He looked at Jenny, crouched on the stone, her head turned away. “I’m surprised at you, Jenny,” he said in a mock reproving tone. “A nice girl like you.” He regarded his brother again in a friendly way and his eyebrows cocked humorously. “Quite a dog, you, Jon. No girl is safe with you, not even an untouched morsel like Jenny. I really should be very outraged. After all, I am her natural guardian. At the very least you should have observed etiquette and asked for her hand, and not have tried —er—to take it robustly, if
I
may put it in a euphemious form?”

Jonathan wanted to kill him on the spot. He also hated him. He also felt ridiculous, a little contemptible, and wholly sheepish.

“Button your frock, Jenny, my dear,” said Harald in a paternal tone. “Quite extreme, the way it is gaping open. You should be more careful when you dress. And do drop the hem of your frock. Young ladies are not supposed, I believe, to expose themselves almost to the thigh—in broad daylight, too. But that happens during a romp, I have heard.”

Jonathan’s fists clenched. The heavy blood was still in his face. Then he looked at his brother’s eyes and saw that they were not smiling in the least, and that their usual handsome hazel had turned an ugly dark brown, and were glinting.

Harald laughed softly. He stared fully at Jonathan. “Let’s end this comedy, shall we? It distresses me to catch frolickers in an—indiscreet—moment. But I heard voices and I was looking for you, Jon. I was told you were still on the island.
I
was resting in the castle, and it was believed I was in Hambledon. So, I was searching for you. It was not my intention to force my company on you and Jenny. Had you both been talking nicely and politely in genteel fashion, conversing as is customary when a gentleman calls upon a lady, or perhaps have been drinking tea—Jenny, did you forget the teacups? —I should have withdrawn to a distance, made some commotion, called to let you know of my approach. But there was something in the sounds I heard—scuffling? kissing?— that alarmed me.” He spread out his hands pleadingly. “So, what else could I do but to hurry to save Jenny’s honor, which was apparently in the direst danger, or rescue her from —what do the ladies call it—‘a fate worse than death?’ Jenny, you should be very grateful.”

The poor girl had buttoned her frock and dropped the hem

of her frock and now sat rigidly and very still on the stone, her hair fallen partly over her face.

“Now that you’ve had your little moment of fun,” said Jonathan, restraining himself from hitting his brother only by the greatest effort, “suppose you let us alone.”

“To continue the seduction of an innocent and helpless girl?” Harald recoiled in a parady of horror. He grinned, showing all his large fine teeth, and struck himself on the chest dramatically, “Not I, the protector of my stepdaughter!”

Again Jonathan saw the ugliness in his brother’s eyes above that wide smile and he thought, He hates me as I hate him. He would kill me as easily as I could kill him. Now, this is a pretty situation.

“You don’t need to protect Jenny,” said Jonathan. “We are going to be married, practically immediately.”

“Before or after?” asked Harald.

“Oh, go to hell,” said Jonathan. He looked at Jenny, who was too silent, too stricken. “Jenny? I’ll have my mother invite you to stay with her until we are married. You will come, won’t you, Jenny?”

Harald shook his head sadly. “No,
I
am afraid she will not, Jon. I truly am afraid not.”

Jonathan ignored him. For some perverse reason he now’ wanted to laugh explosively. He wanted to comfort Jenny, too, and make her laugh. “Tomorrow, Jenny?” he asked.

“Ah, no, dear brother,” said Harald, when Jenny did not answer. “Jenny has her reasons, don’t you, my dear? A very upright and valid reason, too. Jenny is all honor, or at least she was until about half an hour or so ago. You see, Jon,” said Harald, assuming a mournful air, “Jenny thought you were a murderer until quite recently, when I enlightened her out of the deep charity of my heart.”

“What!” said Jonathan. “You’re lying, of course.”

“Not at all! Ask Jenny herself. She believed that you murdered her mother. Tut, tut! All these murders you are accused of! Bluebeard was a tyro in comparison. What a reputation you have! And what a black face you have, Grandpa, all at once.”

Jonathan was looking at him with a daunting expression, but Harald was enjoying himself too much to be overly alarmed. However, he did step back a little. “Why don’t you ask Jenny yourself?”

Jenny was now sitting upright on the stone. She had pushed back her hair. Her face was very white in the green gloom of the grotto.