This Other Eden (55 page)

She
turned to Jane as though to apologize for her doubts. "I'm not quite certain
how you managed," she said, "but I assure you both Sarah and I are
very grateful."

Jane
dismissed the expression of gratitude. "I told you," she scolded lightly,
busying herself with uncorking the wine. "I had a few baubles tucked away.
Gifts from William." Her face darkened. "I didn't like the idea of
selling them, but—" The mood lifted. "After all, we can't eat pearls
and I've no place to wear them, so—"

She
leaned in toward the bottle, forcing the cork out with a loud pop. Marianne
felt her heart torn by her sister's obvious sacrifice. Someday she would make
it up to her, she vowed.

Her
attention was drawn to Sarah, standing over the spit, the roast browning
beautifully, the odor overwhelmingly good. "If you don't hurry,"
Marianne joked, "I swear we shall eat it raw."

Sarah
smiled and continued to turn the spit. "Not long now," she promised.

Jane
poured herself a glass of wine, sipped it, and obviously approved. As she
filled the remaining glasses, she said, "I have the strongest feelings of
confidence about the future. The worst that could happen has happened. From now
on the world will treat us with greater kindness."

Marianne
took the glass offered her and felt a stray doubt. She wished she could share
Jane's enthusiasm. There were still the tradesmen, the burgeoning debts. She
was tempted to ask if the sale of the "baubles" had provided enough
to pay off the creditors. But she changed her mind. There would be time for
questions later. For now, they were together again.

Sarah
joined them at the table, glass in hand. As Jane raised her glass in toast,
Marianne listened with head down. "The past is over," Jane began softly.
"Our mistreatment of one another a thing of yesterday. Understanding is
the order of the new day. Our voices shall be so sweet and tender they could
only come from heaven. And if one falters and falls, the other two exist only
to lift her up and comfort her."

Carefully
Marianne listened to her sister's voice, extraordinarily musical and sincere.
As the three lifted their glasses, Marianne kept her eyes down, for fear the
stinging tears of joy would spill over and become visible.

"Yes,"
she murmured. Unfortunately the tears pushed forward until she could no longer
contain them. Without being aware how it happened, she found herself in Jane's
arms, the two sisters clinging to each other. Marianne was aware of Sarah
sniffling behind them, but she did not want the embrace to end.

"My
goodness," Sarah grumbled. "A body would think you'd just found each
other after a long separation."

Marianne
smiled. "We have."

Jane
concurred. "We have indeed. And I vow openly in the presence of both of
you that nothing, nothing shall ever come between us again."

Then,
with a stored-up hunger which stretched over the last seven months, they fell
heartily to eating, Sarah slicing off generous ruby-red portions of beef, the
emerald green of fresh asparagus decorating each plate, tiny perfectly browned
new potatoes resting to one side.

Marianne
and Jane chatted excitedly of their childhoods, regaling old Sarah with
accounts of some of the eccentric characters who were their neighbors in
Mortemouth, one story leading to another, and on occasion both girls talking at
once, dissolving into giggles as they recalled old Pensy Morgan, whose wife
regularly kicked him out of bed. The old man took to sleeping in his fishing
boat until one night it tore loose from its mooring and old Pensy awakened in
the middle of the Bristol Channel. And Floss Woodie, who regularly put a kettle
of water on the hearth to keep the smoke ghosts away, and all the myths and
legend and folklore, the unlucky birds which both Jane and Marianne confessed,
as children, to being terrified of, the cuckoo, and the raven and, worst of
all, the magpie.

"There
was a poem," Jane exclaimed excitedly. "Remember? Designed to keep us
safe." She giggled. "Good heavens, I said it so often, I thought I'd
never forget it"

Marianne
took a deep sip of wine and sat up, ready to help. "I remember it. It
starts:

Clean
birds by seven,

unclean
by two—"

She
faltered. She glanced toward the ceiling as though for help, started the rhyme
again as Jane quickly refilled her glass. "No more," she groaned.
"I'm getting lightheaded."

Sarah
remarked with a grin, "If you ask me, you're both lightheaded."

"Nonsense,"
slurred Jane. "Just warm, that's all. Isn't that right, Marianne?"

Marianne
agreed, then closed her eyes, searching for the lost rhyme.

"Clean
birds by seven—" she began.

"Or
was it eight?" Jane interrupted, giggling.

"No,"
Marianne said sternly. Again she drank deep of the wine, then lifted her glass
as though in a premature toast to her success.

Clean
birds by seven.

Unclean
by twos.

The
dove in the heavens—

Suddenly
Jane interrupted her gleefully with the concluding line, "—is the one I
choose."

Both
girls fell back in their chairs, laughing. "Sweet Lord," Marianne
gasped. "I used to say that over and over. Yet everyplace I looked, there
were always magpies."

Nodding
in agreement, Jane grasped at her throat as though unable to breathe. "And
remember that a snake, even though chopped into pieces, cannot die before
sundown."

Marianne
leaned close, ready to contribute. "Except an adder," she corrected, "which
may be charmed to death by drawing a circle around it with an ash rod."

Sarah
shook her head. "And I thought Shropshire was superstitious."

Jane
looked at her askance. "Is it said in Shropshire that May kittens should
not be kept as they attract snakes into the house?"

"Or,"
contributed Marianne, "that if blankets are washed in May, one runs the
risk of washing away one of the family?"

"Or,"
Jane said, her eyes growing wide, "that if one waits in a church porch at
midnight on Midsummer's eve and then peeps through the keyhole of the church
door, all those who are to die in the course of the year will be seen walking
into the church through the opposite doorway?"

Sarah
shivered. "Lord have mercy!"

Both
girls burst out in renewed laughter at Sarah's alarm. "Now you know,"
Jane gasped, "why we behave as we do."

Graciously
Sarah played the simpleton, although again she scolded lightly. "It's not
the tales as much as the wine, if you ask me."

As
Jane reached forward to refill all glasses, Marianne tried to object

"Oh,
please no," she begged. "I've never consumed so much."

"Then
it's time you did," said Jane, filling the glass anyway. "No harm in
it. Our heads have been heavy for too long. It's time they enjoyed a moment of
lightness."

Because
Marianne did not want to spoil the party, and because in truth she was enjoying
herself, she lifted the filled glass and drank heartily, welcoming the tingling
sensation in her throat, the pleasurable lassitude extending down into her
limbs. "I may never be able to get up from this chair," she slurred,
her head bobbing disjointedly.

Jane
appeared to be in the same condition, although she stood, weaving a bit, and
suggested to Sarah, "Coffee and strawberries in the drawing room? Let's
make it a true party, like those we used to have."

Sarah
nodded. Jane extended a hand to Marianne. "Come," she urged.

"On
your feet. We'll walk together and sing as we go."

Marianne
pushed back from the table, tried to stand, failed, then tried again. Not until
Jane slipped a supportive arm around her waist was the simple feat of standing
accomplished. "There," Jane commended. "Now, again how did the
poem go?"

Everywhere
Marianne looked she saw two of everything—two Janes, two cluttered tables, two
approaching doorways. She discovered that she could manipulate better with her
eyes closed. Thus she leaned heavily against Jane and began to recite
full-voiced, though slightly slurred,

"Clean
birds by seven,

Unclean
by twos,

The
dove in the heavens,

Is
the one I choose."

Jane
took up the refrain, giving it a little melody as she chanted. Bobbling and weaving,
the two girls made it through the dining room and across the entrance hall
where the clock was striking a quarter to nine.

At
the drawing room door, Marianne stopped. It was good seeing the attractive room
opened and well lit instead of shrouded in dust covers. "Oh, Jane,"
she murmured, "what a lovely evening it is."

Jane
smiled and led her to the comfortable chair opposite the couch and next to the
table where William's Orrery rested. Marianne looked in wonderment at the tiny
golden sun circling the earth. Apparently Jane had thought of everything. The
miraculous machine had been wound and was working perfectly. As she settled
into the chair, she repeated, "What a marvelous evening!"

"It
is," Jane concurred, sitting opposite her on the couch. "And just the
beginning of many that we'll share. Ours is no ordinary fate. Together, I
promise, we'll know greater heights."

Marianne
blinked at the sudden somberness in her sister's voice. She found the words
peculiar, "Ours is no ordinary fate." She leaned forward, ready to
pursue the subject, when Sarah appeared with a tray ladened with coffee and
cups and a bowl of fresh strawberries.

"No
room," groaned Jane at the sight of the fruit. She pushed backward against
the couch as though to loosen her bodice.

"Then
coffee," ordered Sarah, "for both of you."

Jane
looked saddened. "You really are a spoil sport, Sarah. Let us enjoy
ourselves."

But
Sarah insisted that they both take a demitasse of black coffee. Marianne
attempted to sit up straight, trying to demonstrate that she was not
inebriated, merely relaxed and happy. She took the small cup and sipped, her
eyes moving back to the Orrery, to memories of her first night in this room.

Quickly
she looked about for fear her memories would cast a gloom on Jane's festive
mood. But at that moment, Jane too seemed pensive. Marianne saw her turn
stiffly and glance toward the window.

The
clock struck nine. The sound seemed to provoke in Jane an even greater
agitation. She sat rigidly up on the edge of the couch, her eyes glancing
continuously over her shoulder.

Marianne
could not bear to see such distress. "What is it?" she asked softly.

Jane
made a discernible effort to control herself. She laughed and reached for her
coffee cup. "It's this room," she said with a shudder. "I'm
accustomed to seeing it filled with people. It seems unnatural empty." She
bowed her head over her cup.

The
three women sat in silence. A light, warm, August breeze blew in through the
open window, causing the lamps to dance in eerie shadow across the corridor
walls. Marianne felt it clearly, the tension expanding. Jane started to her
feet once, then apparently changed her mind. Her head swiveled constantly about
at each small noise.

Marianne
searched her mind for words of comfort and found nothing but the most mundane
thoughts. The wine was still at work in her system. She closed her eyes. In a
minute she would speak. In a minute she would leave her chair and go and sit
close beside Jane and take her hand and reassure her with sisterly affection.

It
was while her eyes were closed, her head resting, that she heard the first
small disturbance, scarcely more than the crack of a floorboard, coming from
the passageway outside the door. At first she did not look up, and the only
sound was the delicate chink of Sarah's spoon against the bowl of strawberries,
that, and the sound of her own breathing.