The Passions of Emma (62 page)
For a long while she just watched the seafoam breaking over the rocks, over Willie’s grave.
If you were here, Willie, she thought, I would ask you: Are you sorry you did it this way? In the very last instant, when the water had closed over your head like a crib lid, and your lungs were bursting with the pain, did you wish you’d chosen another way?
For a long time she had thought his choice had been her fault, hers and Mama’s, and because of what had happened that night. But she knew differently now.
It had been her first kiss, that night.
He was a friend of Willie’s, from the university, coming for a visit during that last week of May. His name was Michael, a boy so handsome Emma had thought he could pose for the angel in a church painting. She was only sixteen, watching him during dinner
that night, staring at the fullness of his lips as he talked, drank, ate, and wondering what it would be like to be kissed by such a boy. To be kissed by any boy.
that night, staring at the fullness of his lips as he talked, drank, ate, and wondering what it would be like to be kissed by such a boy. To be kissed by any boy.
Had he sensed, somehow, what it was she wanted? Apparently he had, for she had found herself out in the garden with Michael’s arms around her waist, and those full and magical lips on hers.
He’d just started to do an extraordinary thing—he’d just started to push his tongue into her mouth—when Willie came upon them.
“You whore!” Willie had shouted. But he hadn’t been looking at her when he’d said it. His eyes, full of utter hurt and betrayal, had been on the boy.
And then standing behind him, staring at all three of them as if they were a tableau vivant arranged in the garden for show, Emma saw their mama.
Emma had fled into the house in tears. But much later that night, her aching, bewildered heart had driven her to Willie’s room, to apologize for her shameful behavior, certainly. But maybe even then she had wanted him to explain what had been behind that look in his eyes.
But their mama had gotten there ahead of her. The door hadn’t shut properly and Emma had heard her saying, in a voice thick with anger and disgust, “How
could
you bring him to this house?”
could
you bring him to this house?”
Willie had murmured back something that Emma couldn’t hear.
“It is an affliction that can and must be overcome. You can begin to overcome it by looking at once to the performance of your duty as the Tremayne son and heir. By this summer’s end I expect you to have found the woman who will be your wife and bear your children. And you will not go near that boy, or any other of his ilk, ever again.”
But he hadn’t gone back to Yale or met the girl he would marry that summer. Instead, Willie Tremayne had chosen that night to sail his boat out into a storm and drown.
Perhaps, Emma thought now, he had hoped that if he could destroy his body no one would notice how his soul had come unstrung.
Once, when they were children playing in the woods at Hope Farm, they had come upon a trap that held the jagged, bloody remnants of a red-furred foot. With its own teeth, the fox had severed flesh and sinew to be free.
Willie had cried over the fox and what he had done. But Emma had thought, looking at the severed foot, that she was seeing something beautiful.
“Willie . . .” Emma said now, looking down into the tide-eddied depths of the bay where he rested. And if not in peace, she thought, at least he rested.
The breeze was blowing stronger, eating at the mist. The sun seemed to be floating on the water. She started to toss the rose from her wedding bouquet onto the rocks, but the sight of her hand stopped her.
She wore two things on that hand. The sapphire and diamond ring, given to her by the man she was going to marry. And a tiny scar, given to her by the man she loved.
Sometimes, she thought, the price you had to pay for doing what you wanted, for being what you wanted, for being what you
were
. . . sometimes the price you paid was terrible.
were
. . . sometimes the price you paid was terrible.
But not paying it was always worse.
The train belched a cloud of wet steam over the Franklin Street Depot. It was the 10:05 for Providence, which connected with the 11:47 for New York.
Shay McKenna was squatting on the station platform, trying to pry his daughter’s arms loose from a lamppost. Her strength amazed him—he didn’t see how he was going to get her on that train without breaking some bones.
“Merry, darlin’, if you don’t let go,” he said, “I’m going to spank your fanny.”
“Faith,” Father O’Reilly exclaimed to the heavens. “That threat,
surely, is bound to get results—being as how you’ve never raised a hand to the lass in all her young life.”
surely, is bound to get results—being as how you’ve never raised a hand to the lass in all her young life.”
“There’s always a first time.” Shay tried to give Merry an intimidating glare. He had known it to work on men in the prizefighting ring. She didn’t even blink.
He twisted around on his haunches to look over at his other daughter, who was sitting on a steamer trunk, holding little Jacko on her lap. “Why is she doing this?”
Noreen lifted her shoulders high in a big shrug. The movement jiggled Little Jacko, who gurgled a laugh. “I don’t know, Da. She isn’t humming.”
Shay took off his hat, thrust his fingers through his hair, then slammed the hat back on his head. There was always another train tomorrow. But, bloody hell, he was the father here.
He stood up, then pointed a stiff finger at the red fringed ball that topped his daughter’s tam-o’-shanter. “Now you look here—”
“Emmmmmmmma,” Merry said.
Shay stared down at her for the length of two heartbeats, then decided he hadn’t heard her right.
“Miss Emma,” Father O’Reilly said, “is at The Birches, even as we speak, darlin’ child, and marrying the wrong fellow.”
“Donagh,” Shay said.
“Meanwhile, your da is busy crucifying himself on the cross of his own good intentions.”
Shay gave the priest a hard, tight smile. “Would you mind terribly removing that cross and collar of yours, boyo, so’s I can give you a taste of me fists.”
Donagh produced a gritty little smile of his own. “I’ve always thought I could take you, laddie, champion or no. And I won’t be needing to take off a thing to do it.”
“Donagh, will you think on it a bloody minute,” Shay said, his rough voice breaking rougher. “In the bit of time she’s known me, I’ve been a houndsman and a fisherman and worked the onion
fields, and none of them being what you might call positions of social and financial prominence.”
fields, and none of them being what you might call positions of social and financial prominence.”
“And so? Some men build things, other men build dreams. And then other men lie around on their fat arses, belching and farting and talking Irish politics. There’s no accounting for some women’s tastes.”
“She has this thing called a trust fund. With a million dollars just sitting there in it.”
“Isn’t it the lucky man you are, then? I always do say if a man is going to marry, he might as well marry money.”
“I’m an Irishman.”
“Now there you could’ve fooled me. The Irishmen I know, they’ve guts in their bellies . . . Ah, Sweet Mary. We’ve had this talk before, and it’s grown tired of it I have. You could’ve gone to New York any day these last two months.”
“Now wait—”
“If you’ve lingered till now, it’s because you’ve been hoping she’ll come to you and say, ‘Seamus McKenna, lad, sure and if you’re the fine, grand man I’ve been meanin’ to spend the whole of my life with.’ Only the way I’m remembering it, she’s done that once already and you were the stupid bladder worm who told her you’d be having none of it.”
“That’s not—”
“Now, no one’s asking for my advice, you mind, but if I was to be asked, I’d be saying it’s your turn to do the proposing, and that’s the last I’m saying on the subject.”
“If you’d let me finish a bloody sentence—”
The train’s whistle tooted. The two men looked together at the big white face of the clock on the station’s tower.
“Rather than be finishing your sentences, Seamus, you’d do better to save your breath for running fast,” Donagh said. “If you’re going to make it to the wedding on time.”
Shay’s weight shifted from foot to foot, as if his legs had already
set off, before his heart and mind had found the courage for it. “But what if . . .”
set off, before his heart and mind had found the courage for it. “But what if . . .”
“Then all you’ve done is missed your train.” Donagh gave his shoulder a little shove. “Go on, man, go. Meanwhile, the rest of us’ll walk on down to Hardy’s and get ourselves some ice cream sodas.”
Donagh watched the man run. Seamus McKenna ran as if he were going to catch a train to heaven. And perhaps he is, Donagh thought. Perhaps he is.
Shay’s daughters, he saw, were exchanging big, fat, self-satisfied smiles.
Donagh’s head fell back, and he looked up at the sky, blinking away tears. “Ah, Bria, lass. You always did find a way to get your heart’s desire.”
Emma looked at herself in the cheval glass. She saw what she’d expected to see: Miss Emma Tremayne in a bridal gown encrusted with lace and seed pearls. The long, sweeping peau de soie train spread around her like a bell. A tulle veil, fastened to her hair with orange blossoms, obscured her face.
But she could sense a strange, faint ripening of happiness deep inside her chest, in the area around her heart. She wasn’t sure how she had come to this moment. It had begun on that day Bria McKenna had brought the dead child to the last fox hunt of the season, and it was ending here, on her wedding day. Ending here with the choice she now had to make.
With the choice she had made.
Somehow she had lost her way there for a while, and she’d let it go for far too long. She’d almost let it go too late.
The house was quiet as she went down the great oaken staircase. Mama and Maddie were in their rooms dressing, and Papa was in the library. The rose-covered arbor and the yellow-striped tent and
the tubs of champagne were all ready and waiting in the garden, but the guests wouldn’t be arriving for another hour yet. She knew that Geoffrey was here, though, for she’d seen his landau arrive.
the tubs of champagne were all ready and waiting in the garden, but the guests wouldn’t be arriving for another hour yet. She knew that Geoffrey was here, though, for she’d seen his landau arrive.
Fortunately for them both, she found him alone, standing on the promontory that overlooked the bay.
“Geoffrey?” she said as she came up to him, as breathless as if she’d been running.
He turned and smiled, a full, sweet child’s grin, and it hurt to see it, for his smile was the thing she’d always liked most about him.
“Emma! What are you doing out here? You’re not supposed to let me see you in your gown before the wedding. It’s bad luck.”
“Geoffrey,” she said again. “This is so hard for me to say. I should have said it sooner, done it sooner, and I’m sorry, so sorry . . . but I can’t marry you.”
His smile started to slip. She saw him struggle to get it back. “Emma, now is no time to be funning with me.”
“You were going to make me unhappy, and I don’t want to be unhappy. That’s a selfish thing to say, I know, and the only thing I can offer in my defense is that I would have made you just as unhappy.”
He was looking at her now in silence, as though dazed with an inarticulate pain, and she thought she must have to say more, then; she must have to explain more.
“This life of yours, Geoffrey . . . I don’t want to live it.”
Something broke over him suddenly, a terrible pain, and in his eyes were a fathomless hurt and an emptiness. And defeat. And she thought, then, that somewhere deep inside him he had been expecting that this was coming.
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