Too Much Too Soon (15 page)

The second
please
was underlined twice, and the signature was exed around with kisses.

Joscelyn sighed, wishing with all her heart that she could be drowsing under the grapefruit tree, or standing on Hollywood Boulevard with
Curt and Honora while people cheered at movie stars.

She replaced the letter and key in their separate hidey-holes.

The windows were paler rectangles now, and over the sound of the rain she heard the faint hum of a vacuum cleaner.

She fell back asleep.

*   *   *

At three fifteen Crystal was still upstairs, ignoring the combined prodding of Mrs. Ekberg and Madame McCloskey that they should be at the church. So it was beside the point that Langley had not yet arrived. Joscelyn squirmed impatiently on the landing window seat, which had the house’s best view of rainswept Clay Street. A Yellow cab drove slowly down the hill and she pressed her nose against the window, her breath steaming on the glass. The taxi turned in and was hidden by the roof of the porte cochere. Holding her dress above her bony knees, Joscelyn raced down the stairs, on the bottom step colliding with a caterer. Muttering her apologies, she flung open the side door.

“Daddy—finally!”

Langley removed his top hat, bowing low to her. “How like a princess,” he said.

Although her mirror informed her she looked totally ridiculous, the paternal compliment delighted her. “Oh, Daddy,” she said irritably. “At this late hour I can’t bear anything cute.”

“The words sprang from here,” he said, tapping the left side of his chest. “Where’s the
bride in her finery?”

Joscelyn rolled her eyes toward the upper floors. “Crystal ready on time?”

“What a day for a wedding.” Langley took off his rain-spotted, twenty-five-year-old Burberry raincoat and draped it over a hall chair. His rented gray striped trousers and cutaway coat fit his long, slight body to perfection: he had always worn clothes well.

Joscelyn said admiringly, “Is that a morning suit?”

His smile faded and the slackness below his jaw showed. “Mourning with a
u.
There’s no way around it, the Sylvanders have gone to the dogs. My poor Portuguese running off like a scullery maid.” (He had forgiven his older daughter her sins, and letters traveled frequently between northern and southern California.) “Crystal marrying a man as old as her pater. Joscelyn, this is what I deserve for putting my career first and coming over here. If we were home in England the Sylvanders never would have gone so common.”

“Elizabeth Barrett Browning eloped, and numberless princesses have married aged kings.”

He kissed her cheek, giving her a whiff of medicinal mouthwash. So he’d been drinking. “Nevertheless,” he said, “I need something to buck me up.”

“There’s coffee in the kitchen.”

“Joss, this is the day I bury my dreams,” he said, his mouth twisting.

She went to the butler’s pantry. A dozen or so enormous copper washtubs were filled with
ice and bottles of Moët et Chandon champagne.

Langley was on his second glass when Madame McCloskey trotted downstairs, her face agitated below her enormous, bobbling cerise hat.

“We’re
en retard
—we should be already at zee church a half hour ago!” she cried heatedly. “And Crystal, she has locked herself in zee bathroom.”

*   *   *

Crystal gripped the Limoges washbowl. The pearl-trimmed sweetheart neckline of her white velvet wedding gown revealed the sumptuous curves of her breasts, which rose and fell convulsively, as if she were sobbing. Yet there were no tears in her vivid blue eyes.

The intervening months since the hot September evening when she had agreed to marry Gideon had proved the logic of her decision in an unequivocally material manner—the five-carat emerald cut diamond which glittered on her right hand to leave her ring finger free for the diamond and platinum wedding band, the diamond and emerald watch bracelet, the Silver Blue mink stroller.

Her hands tensed yet tighter on the antique porcelain sink as she rocked backward and forward in an unsuccessful attempt to halt the dry sobs.

I can’t stand his smell.

The thought burst inside her mind like a rocket.

He smells of age.

How can I sleep the rest of my nights with a
man who has the mousy odor of old people?

There was a series of raps on the door.

“Crystal?” It was Joscelyn. “Crys?”

At her sister’s voice, Crystal’s heaves lessened.

“Let me in?” Joscelyn pleaded. “I want to help.”

Crystal darted to the door, loosing the old-fashioned bolt, shooting it home again as her sister slid inside.

Joscelyn surveyed the bride. The sad blotchiness of the perfect English complexion, the puffy redness of the blue eyes, the mussed strands of bright, freshly set hair. All her life Joscelyn had longed for the moment when exquisite, unflappable Crystal got her comeuppance, but now, seeing her sister shrunk within her custom-designed wedding gown, she was overwhelmed by suffocating pity.

She held out her arms and Crystal took a step. The two Sylvander sisters hugged, the emotional charge of the embrace smoothing the sandpaper abrasiveness that lay between them.

“I can’t Joss, I can’t,” Crystal gasped. “I don’t know what’s wrong, but I just can’t go through with it . . . .”

“Shhh.”

“. . . If only Honora were here, she’d tell me . . . .”

Joscelyn patted the bent, shuddering shoulders. “Don’t Crys.”

“Honora’d say, ‘If you don’t love Gideon you sh-shouldn’t marry him.’ What do . . . you think?”

“I’m ten, Crys.” Joscelyn continued her patting and pressed her kiss on the moist, perfumed cheek. “But if you don’t want to marry Gideon, it’s not too late. Don’t worry about the other things.” Another kiss. “I’m on your side.”

Crystal moved away, crouching on the curved rim of the claw-footed tub, burying her face in her hands. “Maybe it’s right to do what she did, run off for love, and give herself . . .”

Joscelyn, hovering ineffectually beside the desolate, quaking bride, forgot the pleas of her beloved oldest sister. “Crys, you’re wrong about their not being married. They are. And you’d hate having no money and living in a one-room flat with a bed that lets down from the wall.”

Crystal looked at her sharply with those dry, terrible eyes. “How do you know about everything?”

“She sent me a letter. She’s deliriously happy, but it sounded quite tacky to me.”

Crystal’s heart beat arrhythmically and the skin of her chest seemed to tingle. She got jerkily to her feet.

Prenuptial hysteria was replaced by sibling jealousy, a far deeper, more ancient wound.
So she’s written to Joscelyn!
Crystal pulled aside a net curtain and watched rain beat against the mullions. When she spoke her voice was calm and cold. “She is
not
married.”

“They are,” Joscelyn said, modulating her combativeness for fear she might set Crystal off again.

“Why do you think Gideon’s so furious? He’s
had a detective on them. No marriage is registered for Honora Sylvander and Curt Ivory. That letter she sent you was a total lie,” Crystal was a shade pale but otherwise had recovered. “God, wasn’t that a case of bride’s nerves.”

“Maybe you should postpone—”

“Why? I’m not sneaking into any one-room love nest.” Crystal took a Kleenex from a box, delicately patting under her eyes to remove the faintest trace of brown mascara. She pinched color into her cheeks, smoothed her hair, adjusted her sweetheart neckline. The swift, miraculous transformation from pathetic child to exquisitely spendid bride! “Come on, let’s toot.”

*   *   *

A red canvas awning reached from the open door of the chapel of the not-yet-completed cathedral to the curb, and a small crowd, mainly women, stood under this protection, watching intently as Juan handed Joscelyn and Langley from the Cadillac, moving closer as the veiled bride emerged. It was four twenty-five.

Imogene Burdetts, the maid of honor in powder blue velvet and a smart turban, met them in the vestibule.

“Crystal, darling! You’re a dream!” she cried. “I’ve passed the word that it’s very
you
to be late, so the mob’s been waiting like lambs. I must say though, poor Gideon’s been a
mite
pale.”

The organ, which had been wandering above
the surflike roar of church-discreet voices, slowed to the portentous notes of the wedding march from
Lohengrin.
Madam McCloskey nodded to Joscelyn, who clasped her bouquet so tightly that the baby’s breath trembled and began her slow pace down the aisle.

*   *   *

Back at the flower-fragrant mansion, the guests inched forward to the receiving line. Langley rapidly downed Moët et Chandon, and Madame McCloskey helped him upstairs, where he passed out to snore gustily on Honora’s onetime bed. Joscelyn spilled a cheese puff down her gown and was excused. One of the ushers swept Imogene to the bar. Guests continued to clap Gideon’s thick shoulders and kiss the second Mrs. Talbott’s exquisitely pink cheeks.

At six thirty sharp, two of the caterer’s footmen wheeled the five-tiered cake into the dining room. Joscelyn, her bridesmaid’s gown redolent with the Energine vigorously applied by Madame McCloskey, watched Crystal cut the first slice.

Which was the real face of her sister? This gorgeous, happy glow or that gasping mask of misery?

An hour later, Juan brought around the Cadillac. Tomorrow the couple would board the
Lurline
for a honeymoon cruise to Hawaii, but their first night would be spent in the bridal suite of the Fairmont Hotel. The night was cold and wet: nobody ventured out to throw the traditional rice. Besides, the guests were successful contractors, engineers, or politicians
with wives on the boards of every charity in San Francisco, a crowd too staunchly middle aged for such foolishness.

Only Joscelyn slipped a little white box of wedding cake under her pillow to ensure a glimpse of her future husband. So much for superstition. She dreamed, as she did most nights, of Honora—and Curt Ivory.

Crystal stared down at the flowered carpet of the suite’s sitting room, listening as Gideon, in the little foyer, tipped the bellboy. She had the jitters. Nothing like this afternoon’s carnivorous attack, but certainly mild trepidations. She didn’t know exactly what to expect tonight. She clasped her fingers, reassuring herself that Gideon, a widower, was an expert, and could be counted on to be tender of her in his own, awkwardly fond way.

The outer door closed, and he came over to help her off with her mink. “I’ve ordered a bite of supper,” he said.

“Fine. Today went off very well, didn’t you think?”

“After the late start. I’ll have to learn patience, won’t I, Mrs. Talbott?”

The peculiar warmth in his smile increased her restlessness, and she moved into the bedroom, unsnapping her brand new overnight case—the matching suitcases and steamer
trunk were at the
Lurline
’s dock. He followed, watching her hang her sheer, white silk negligee set in the empty closet. Again his smile disturbed her and she took her cosmetic bag into the bathroom.

It seemed ages until a young, stout-bellied waiter wheeled in a cart that became a square table. He moved chairs, flourished silver lids from medium rare filets and steaming baked potatoes. He popped open a bottle of champagne. “Compliments of the Fairmont.”

The rain had ceased, and as they ate, the sound of silverware and Gideon’s chewing resonated like great chords. Crystal sipped the bubbly and forked up a nibble or two of potato.

“No appetite?” he asked. “Dear?”

The mild endearment hung like a ghost between them.

“I had too many hors d’oeuvres,” she lied. “You know something, Gideon. I’ve never stayed in a real hotel before. If we went away for the summer holidays, we rented houses. Once a place in Bognor—that’s a seaside resort—and another time a farm cottage near Great Missenden. And the first couple of days we were in San Francisco we stayed in a sort of boarding house . . . .” Her spate of words trailed off.

Gideon was crumpling his napkin on the table, his hand tensed so that the heavy brown hairs stood out like antennae on the knuckles. “It’s time,” he muttered. “Time.”

He strode into the bedroom.

Crystal bore her trousseau lingerie into the
bathroom, turning on the heater, yet as she perfumed her naked self she was shivering. The hand-stitched silk chilled her yet more.

Determined not to show her nervousness, she emerged, and leaned against the doorjamb, a humorously intended parody of a thirties’ film siren.

Gideon lay on top of the blanket, his arms crossed behind his neck, the top of his pajamas unbuttoned to show a mat of dark brown hair that was thicker down the central line. His heavy brows beetled together as he stared at her, and the crotch of his paisley pajama bottoms tented up, the fly parting to show ominous, shadowy darkness. For an instant she thought of pleading illness. Crystal’s heart, however, kept a meticulous set of books. Now was the time to pay for the blue-white diamond, the mutation mink, the parties, the respect that would be given to Mrs. Gideon Talbott.

“Are you ready for lights out?” she asked.

“No. Take off those things.”

“Here? My negligee?”

“And the nightdress.”

“Don’t you want to unwrap me in bed?”

“I said take off your clothes.” The terse command lacked every trace of his goofy adoration when he kissed her goodnight.

Slowly she untied the embroidered satin ribbons, letting the negligee rustle to the carpet so that her small, pedicured feet seemed embedded in snow.

“Finish,” he said hoarsely.

Her fingers on the straps of her gown
clenched, incapable of movement.

“Take off the nightdress, Crystal,” he ordered hoarsely.

This time she managed to slip the fabric down over the lush globes of her breasts, past the curves of her hips, halting at the pale pubic fuzz before letting it drop to the floor with the negligee.

She had anticipated hosannas for her beauty, but her bridegroom neither moved nor spoke.

She scorned cowardice. “That’s enough peeking,” she said in an unwavering voice, and stepped across the trousseau finery.