The Bride's House (44 page)

“But I never wrote him about Joe. I knew I had to, but I kept putting it off. I feel so awful, Mother. There’s nobody to mourn him. He’ll be forgotten.”

“No, we’ll make sure he won’t be.”

Later that day, Pearl wrote about Peter, included his name and where he was killed. The column began, “America’s freedom is bought at the cost of its young men. One of those men is Peter Fanshaw, an airman, who gave his life to protect our way of life.” It was a column about how the blood of America’s young protected the country’s freedom. The column was picked up all over the country and later included in anthologies. It was considered one of best things that Pearl Dumas Curry ever wrote.

CHAPTER 18

T
HE DAYS WERE SHORTER NOW
, the nights cooler. The lilac blooms on the bushes had turned brown, and the poppies and yellow roses were dead. The wild asters were dots of purple among the grasses. Susan had hiked up Guanella Pass by herself, had followed the road, then turned off into a meadow of aspen trees. The leaves were still green, but they would change color soon.

She threw herself down under an aspen and began to cry great racking sobs of unhappiness. She couldn’t stop. She lay on her stomach, her hands clutching at the dried grasses until the tears stopped and she gulped for air. Then she sat up and beat her fists against her stomach, as if to dislodge the life that was growing there. She stayed in that place for a long time, until the wind came up and she began to shiver. It was almost dark when she stumbled down the road and made her way back to the Bride’s House.

“Your father just telephoned with his flight information. He gets here a week from Tuesday,” her mother called. “I’ve been so busy I didn’t fix much of a supper.” She came out of the study and went into the parlor, where Susan was slumped in a chair, her hair windblown, her eyes red. “You’re dirty. Did you fall?” Pearl asked after she switched on a lamp and saw Susan’s tearstained face. She sat down on the love seat next to her daughter. “Are you hurt?”

Susan put her hands over her face and turned away. How could she tell her mother? Pearl had such high standards. She was known as a literary icon of morality. She’d be ashamed of a daughter who was having a—what did they call it in Georgetown?—an off-child.

“What is it?” Pearl asked. She slid over on the love seat and took Susan’s hands from her face. “Did you hurt yourself?”

Susan shook her head.

“Is it something else?” Pearl thought a moment. “Did you and Joe have an argument?”

“It’s me, Mother.”

“What?”

“I’m pregnant,” Susan blurted out the words and stared at her mother, not knowing how Pearl would react. She might walk out of the room, tight-lipped, or she’d get angry in the controlled way she had, her voice cold as ice, telling Susan what a disappointment she was. Or she might humiliate her by calling Frank and telling him, letting him know his daughter was no better than a tramp.

Pearl sat there a moment, digesting the news, her face as serene as always, covering her feelings. Then she reached out and put her hand on Susan’s arm. “We’ll just have to change the plans and move up the wedding,” she said softly. “You’ll be married right away, something quiet, before Joe’s school starts. It’s not a calamity. You’re not the first bride to change her wedding date.”

Susan shook her head. “You don’t understand, Mother.”

“Of course I understand. You can still have a lovely ceremony, something dignified. I never liked big weddings anyway.”

“That’s not it, Mother.”

Pearl frowned. “Not what?”

Susan took a deep breath and looked away. “The baby isn’t Joe’s. It’s Peter’s.”

*   *   *

The two of them did not say much after that. Susan cried, and her mother held her. Pearl asked if Susan were sure, if there were a possibility the baby was Joe’s, but Susan said she had never slept with Joe, only Peter. “I couldn’t even seduce Joe,” she cried. He’d know the baby wasn’t his. And she couldn’t marry Peter, because he was dead.

Susan closed her eyes then. She had never been so weary. She stood and walked to the staircase, stopping with her foot on the bottom step. “The Bride’s House,” she said bitterly, wincing at the words. “I was the only one of the three of us who was going to be married here. Now look what I’ve done. You and Grandmother”—she nodded toward the picture of Nealie in the parlor—“you both must be ashamed of the unholy mess I’ve made.”

“You mustn’t say that,” Pearl told her, but Susan didn’t hear her. She held on to the rail, pulling herself up the stairs, then went into her room, collapsing onto the bed and falling into a deep sleep. She didn’t wake when Pearl went up a few minutes later to put a quilt over her. Susan slept as if she’d been drugged, although when she awoke, she was still tired. The memory of the day before wrapped around her like a swirl of wet leaves, and she dreaded what she had to do. For her sake as well as Joe’s, she would not drag things out. She got out of bed and sat down at her dressing table, taking out a sheet of paper.

At first, she thought she would simply write a note saying she was going away because she’d made a mistake and didn’t want to get married. But Joe was too decent for that. She couldn’t make him believe she’d dumped him. He deserved the truth, although it would bring pain to them both. She picked up her fountain pen and wrote slowly:

Dear Joe,

I am pregnant with Peter’s baby. Under the circumstances, we can’t get married. I’m sorry, because I love you. I hope you can forgive me.

Love,

Susan

She dressed and went downstairs then and found her mother, who had not slept at all. She had made coffee and cinnamon rolls, the ones Susan had loved as a girl, made them from a recipe in Lidie Travers’s handwritten cookbook, which was held together with a rubber band. Susan sat down at the table, breaking apart a bun but not eating it, letting the scent of cinnamon hang in the air. “I wrote Joe a note,” she said, handing the paper to Pearl, who read it and set it on the kitchen table.

“You’re going to write him?” Pearl asked.

“I have to let him know.”

“In a note? Don’t you think he deserves to be told in person?”

Susan thought that over, then picked up the note and crumpled it, dropping it onto the table. “You’re right. I have to tell him.” She put her arms on the table to cushion her head, trying not to cry again.

After a time, Pearl went to the window. “The leaves will be early this year. The aspen usually don’t turn until the last week of September. I love the colors, but when I was young, they always brought me a bittersweet feeling, because they portended winter.” She stared out the window a little longer, then sighed and turned around. “Don’t tell Joe just yet. There are some things I want you to see and to think about. I’ve set them out on the desk in the study. Come with me.” Pearl picked up the cups and the percolator.

Susan followed her mother into the other room and saw that the wallpaper beside the desk had been cut away, revealing a hole in the wall that she hadn’t known was there. On Charlie’s desk was an open strongbox, empty now, its contents spread out in some sort of order. Pearl sat down behind the desk, while Susan took the chair in front of it, curious, although she couldn’t imagine what the papers had to do with her situation. Why would her mother pick this time to tell her family secrets?

Pearl studied her daughter for a moment, then asked, “First, do you know what you want to do? There are doctors we can talk to, maybe in Europe.”

“You mean an abortion? Is that what you think I should do?”

“It’s not what
I
think. It’s what
you
want.”

“There are homes. I could say I’m spending the next two terms studying abroad,” Susan said, her voice laced with irony. “That wouldn’t fool anybody.”

“You could still marry Joe.”

“And have him find out a month later I was going to have a baby? He can count, Mother. He’d know it wasn’t his. I know you mean well, but you don’t understand.” Susan glanced up at the portrait of Nealie. “Neither of you.”

“You’re wrong. We understand better than you think. That’s why I opened your grandfather’s strongbox.” Pearl pushed aside her cup. “He hid this here,” she said, indicating the box and the hole in the wall. “I saw it once. I think he intended that. Last January, when I came back to Georgetown to settle his estate, I took it out, and what I found inside stunned me. I’m still shocked. I wanted to destroy everything in it, but I couldn’t. He’d kept these things for such a long time. Besides, I’d thought maybe someday long after I was gone, you’d find them. But now is a better time for you to read them.”

Pearl picked up two documents and handed them to Susan. “These are your grandparents’ marriage certificate and my birth certificate. Look at the dates.”

Susan took the papers and read the names scrawled on them. Then she studied the dates and looked up. “Grandmother was pregnant when she got married?” She felt a sudden connection with the woman who looked down at her from the portrait.

“Pregnant brides aren’t exactly a phenomenon of your generation.” Pearl smiled a little. “Not only was she expecting, but she did not marry my father.”

“What?” Susan stared at Pearl. “Are you saying that Grandfather wasn’t your father?”

“I didn’t know until after he was dead. I’m still trying to cope with it.” Pearl raised her chin and looked out the window for a moment. “Read this.” She handed Susan an envelope that bore a New York City postmark and the year 1881. It was addressed to Charles Dumas. Susan removed the handwritten note.

Charlie, your terms are acceptable. I won’t see her ever again, and the child may be considered yours, but I think it will be anyway if you marry her. Enclosed is the bank draft, and I have made arrangements to purchase the house and transfer the title. It will be done by November 25 at the latest. I want her to have it. God knows, I wish it had been different. I love the girl. At least, tell her I kept my promise to take care of her.

Will

“Who’s Will?”

Pearl held up her hand. “I think there were other letters between the two of them, but they must have been destroyed. This answers your question.” She handed Susan a rolled-up deed, which was brown spotted with age, the gold ribbon that had held it tarnished to a brass color.

Susan unrolled the document, spreading it out on the desk and holding it down with ore samples. It was the deed to the Bride’s House, and at first glance, she saw nothing unusual about it. The document with its ornate handwriting was pretty enough to be framed. There was the legal description, the date, November 23, 1881, and the name Nealie Bent.

“Grandmother owned the house?” Susan asked.

“It looks like it. I wonder if she knew,” Pearl mused.

No price was listed on the deed, and it was almost as if the house had been given to Nealie, not sold to her. Susan studied the document but saw no other significance in it. She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

“Look at the seller’s name.”

Susan’s eyes swept across the page until she found it—William K. Spaulding. “Will Spaulding? Father’s partner? My godfather? He sold Grandmother the Bride’s House?” Susan remembered Will Spaulding as a kind man who had given her a ruby ring and a fur muff one Christmas, when she was very young. He had died shortly after that, leaving her a generous trust fund.

“Gave it to her is more likely.” Pearl handed Susan another letter, running her hand over it as if reluctant to part with it. “This explains everything.” A single word was written in a shaky hand on the envelope: “Will.”

When Susan opened it, an uncashed money order for $500 made out to Nealie Bent dropped out. The handwriting in the letter was messy, and Susan read each word out loud.

Dear Will

They say Im going to pass on and won’t live out the day so I take pen in hand to tell you so youll know. I wisht youd come back. I kept looking for you Will. Charlies a good husband and he bought me the brides house. He never blamed me about having your baby. He acts like shes his, so you dont have to worry about her. I named her Pearl. Sometime maybe when you come back you can see her but you won’t see me because Ill be dead. I love you even though you didnt keep your promise. I forgive you.

Nealie

Susan dropped the letter onto the desk and stared at her mother, who had tears glistening in her eyes. “Will Spaulding was your father?”

Pearl nodded. “I had no idea until after both of them were dead, of course. But I believe it’s true. I see him in you.” Pearl swallowed hard. “I don’t recall ever meeting him when I was a child, but when your father introduced me to him after we married, he seemed familiar. So maybe I did.”

“He paid Grandfather to marry Grandmother?”

“I don’t know if that’s really the case or if Papa simply figured out he could get money out of Will for something he wanted to do anyway, which was to marry my mother. He always did drive a hard bargain. I do know Will was sorry later on that he hadn’t married her himself. He once told your father he’d had a chance to marry a girl he loved and didn’t and had regretted it ever since. That’s why he encouraged your father to marry me.”