Dragonwyck (33 page)

When they entered the dining-room all conversation ceased until the head waiter had ushered them to their private table. Every feminine eye sharpened to see what toilette Mrs. Van Ryn would be wearing this time. The two of them were so conspicuously handsome, so much the embodiment of the aristocratic bridal couples one read about that even the men were interested and listened tolerantly to their womenfolks' admiration.

Two weeks passed quickly, for though there was no relaxation near Nicholas, neither could there be boredom. It was in fact for dullness that she unconsciously longed, a slackening of the tension. Nicholas' comparative indifference to the marriage relation, an indifference which had lasted for weeks and which she in her innocence assumed to be normal, gave place again to violent passion.

These opposing cycles were to continue throughout her marriage, and it was not surprising that she never learned to anticipate them, nor dared receive either mood with anything but submission. Marriage, she thought, must always be like this, and if it weren't, there was no way of finding out. One would die rather than speak to anyone about such subjects.

Often there was the dark shamed pleasure, but always there was pain, and she felt that her body was to him only an instrument without personal identity. But one must submit, out of fear—for the slightest resistance increased his brutality; out of duty—a wife should always obey her husband. Under these lay like a layer of granite beneath quicksand the fundamental reason—the willing enslavement of her senses and soul.

On the first of July Nicholas told her that he was going to leave her next morning for three days, and she felt a wave of quickly suppressed relief.

'I've given orders for you to have all your meals served in the sitting-room while I'm away,' said Nicholas. 'Naturally I don't want you to appear alone in the dining-room.'

She knew it was useless to protest, but she was disappointed. She had vaguely hoped to make friends with the Benton family or even one of the nice old ladies who sat on the piazza. If only I had someone to talk to, she thought, and then reproached herself. A bride did not yearn for outsiders.

They were in their sitting-room now, having breakfasted, and her eyes turned to the window. The morning sun gilded the valley beneath; so clear was it today that behind the Berkshires appeared the shadowy peaks of the White Mountains. The glory of that view had been a constant joy, but now for three days it would be her only companion as well. It was, she thought with a faint, dismal humor, a good deal to ask of scenery.

'Come, my dear,' said Nicholas, ringing for the hotel valet, 'let's get dressed for our walk.'

This was the usual morning procedure; they had explored all the mountain paths for miles around.

Nicholas had sent his servants to Dragonwyck to help in preparing the house, knowing that the excellent hotel service would be sufficient for their needs. Miranda indeed had little use for a personal maid; she enjoyed caring for her lovely clothes herself. Her skill with the needle always gave her pleasure and she consumed many happy moments in running fresh rose and blue ribbons through her ruffled undergarments, in pinning sachets of heliotrope or verbena in the bodices of her gowns before hanging them away in the capacious closets. But there was a great deal of laundry and pressing to be done as well, petticoats to be starched, body linen daily renewed, morning caps freshened with the pinking iron, and this she could not do herself. This work was attended to by one of the two chambermaids who were assigned to their suite; silent automatons in calico aprons and mob caps who had no individuality for her except that she had noted that one of them was very young and walked with a slight limp.

It was this maid who presented herself this morning in response to an angry ring. For Miranda, on examining the freshly laundered pile of linen from the night before, had discovered that a ruffle on her best India muslin négligée had been scorched to shreds, then clumsily sewn together in a transparent effort to hide the damage.

'Do you know how this happened?' asked Miranda sharply, pointing to the gown.

There was no answer. The maid twisted her hands in her apron.

'Well?' Miranda persisted more quietly. 'Did you do it?'

The girl was painfully thin and nondescript, the pink uniform hung slack on her undernourished body, the perky mob cap was askew on lusterless brown hair. The square face with its prominent Celtic cheekbones made a dim setting for the staring, frightened eyes.

Miranda waited and at last the girl moistened her lips.

'The iron was too hot, mum—please don't tell, mum. They'll turn me away without a character.' She swallowed, her jerking hands twisted the apron into a ball. 'Oh, lady dear,' she added in a choking voice, 'I'm terrible shamed to be a-spoiling of your pretty things, but I'd niver a flatiron in me hand till I come here.'

Miranda put the scorched gown on the bed. 'Should you be doing the pressing if you don't know how?'

'No, mum.' The girl hung her head, she looked up at Miranda through black lashes, a faint impression of the irrepressible Irish twinkle appeared. 'But they don't know that, mum. Sure and I had to be telling a bk of a fib to get this job, the blessed saints forgive me.'

To her own surprise, Miranda felt attracted by the girl; she was appealing and might be pretty if she didn't look so much like a starved kitten.

'Is the job so important to you, then—what is your name, by the way?' she asked.

'Peggy O'Malley, mum, and I'm fresh off the boat last month. Sure and I'm as green as the shamrocks that grow in the fields at home, but as to the job, mum—' she sobered again, the light went out of her eyes. 'It's all I have in the wor-rld, my job. And not so easy to get for me.'

Miranda suddenly remembered the limp. No, it wouldn't be easy for a raw Irish immigrant to find another situation, especially when there were such hordes of husky, able-bodied ones to choose from.

'I'll mend the ruffle, Peggy, and you'll be more careful, won't you?'

The girl seized Miranda's hand and kissed it. The saints bless your kind heart, mum. I'll try ivery iron on me own skin before I touch it to anything of yours.' She bobbed a curtsy and hurried away down the hall. Miranda watched the girl's pathetic effort to control the twist of the right leg and pity awoke a new train of thought.

When she and Nicholas had taken the path toward North Mountain and the Artists' Rock, she brought up the subject. What happens to all these Irish who keep coming into the country? I mean, is there anything for them to do but go into service?'

Nicholas was amused. 'Since when do you concern yourself with social problems, my love? Why, they can go to the manufactories, I suppose.'

'But the working conditions are awful there!' she cried, remembering a farm girl who had left Greenwich to go and work in a weaving mill near Hartford. The girl had come back six months later with consumption, and a horrifying account of working in darkness and filth, sixteen hours a day with no time for rest.

'No doubt,' said Nicholas.

She would have pursued the topic, for her imagination was caught by that girl, who even younger than herself struggled alone in a strange land to force a living from a country which would be hospitable only if she allowed herself to be exploited.

But shouts and screams of laughter assailed them from around a bend in the path. The irrepressible Benton family from Boston flocked into view. The children in pantalettes and round straw sailors swarmed over the rocks like monkeys, snatching at wild flowers and shrieking. The smallest, a five-year-old boy in a pinafore, shrieked as loud as the others, but his scramblings were impeded by a small Spaniel puppy which he hugged to his chest.

The parents, in stout boots and dust coats, followed more sedately, but they made nearly as much noise as their offspring. 'Willie!' screamed Mrs. Benton to her youngest, 'come away from that tree, there's poison ivy.' 'Samantha—see the pretty butterfly! Girls, put your gloves on again at once, you'll get warts! Willie, put doggie down; you'll hurt him squeezing him like that.' As Willie reluctantly obeyed, Mrs. Benton discovered the Van Ryns. 'Oh,' she cried to her husband in the same piercing tone, 'here come the honeymooners. How romantic!'

Nicholas made an exclamation of annoyance. 'Let's turn back,' he said to Miranda, ignoring the fact that they were already surrounded by Bentons. The lady bore down on them beaming, determined not to miss this excellent opportunity for meeting the unapproachable couple. She had held out her hand and begun,

'Isn't this a superb day for a stroll—Mr. Van—' when everyone was electrified by a blood-curdling yell from Willie. Its anguish quieted the other children who ran up.

'Oh, what is it, dearie?' cried Mrs. Benton, frantically feeling her child for injuries.

'Doggie, gone—' sobbed the little boy, pointing at the cliff beside the path. Everyone peered over the brink. There was a sheer drop of twenty feet and then a ledge. On this ledge lay a small brownish blob, and a faint whimpering noise came from it.

All the children began to cry; Willie buried his face in his mother's bosom. The puppy's doom seemed certain.

Mr. Benton tugged at his side whiskers and blew his nose. 'Poor creature,' he said. 'Hush, children. We'll get another doggie.'

Willie raised his swollen face, his eyes dilated with horror. 'You got to get him, Papa, you can't just leave him there. He's
crying.
I hear him.'

'It's impossible, Willie,' answered the father, peering down the cliff, and made brusque by his own distress. 'No one can get him.'

'I'll get the dog,' said Nicholas.

All the children stopped crying, and stared with their mouths open.

'It's very good of you to offer, sir,' said Mr. Benton, 'but I couldn't let you risk your life for a puppy. Besides, it's quite impossible.'

Nicholas raised his eyebrows. 'I never undertake to do anything that I can't carry out.' He took off his coat. 'Kindly give me your two coats.'

Confused, the two Bentons silently took off their long dust coats. Nicholas knotted them together with his, fastened one end to the root of a sapling.

'Nicholas, don't—please don't,' whispered Miranda.

He paid not the slightest attention to her. His mouth was set, his black brows drawn together, but his eyes held a glint of excited exultation. She had seen that expression before—on her first trip up the Hudson when the boats had raced each other, and the night when he had confronted the anti-renters.

The combined coats reached far down the cliff, and as Nicholas started down them hand over hand, Mrs. Benton gave a shriek and shut her eyes. 'He'll be killed—'

Miranda's heart hammered against her ribs as she watched, but she had no real doubt that Nicholas could do it. She knew so intimately the reserves of power that dwelt in that taut body, his ability to control his muscles by the force of his will. She realized, as the terrified Bentons never could, that his apparently miraculous descent of that cliff-side was possible because he had no fear and, unhampered by that, his quick eye and quicker brain could discover and use foot- and hand-holds in the rock's irregular surface. In sixty seconds he had reached the ledge and tucked the puppy into the bosom of his frilled shirt.

In two more minutes he stood again beside them on the path, his breathing scarcely quickened.

'That was m-marvelous, sir,' stammered Mr. Benton. 'I don't know how to thank you.'

The children clustered around, gazing at Nicholas with awed hero-worshiping eyes. He put the puppy on the pine needles, where it gave a little whimper and feebly licked at his hand. 'I daresay it will live; the bush down there broke its fall.' He put on his coat.

While Willie cradled his puppy, crooning to it and kissing the furry ears, Mrs. Benton joined her husband's paean of gratitude and admiration, but Nicholas would not stop to listen. He smiled briefly, and taking Miranda's arm hurried her down the path to the hotel.

'I'm so proud of you,' she whispered, when they had rounded a corner and the Bentons were left behind. 'Oh, Nicholas darling—I didn't think you—' In the aftermath of the excitement she felt sobs rising in her throat. She would not have thought it in his nature to risk his life for a puppy and a small boy's misery. He was then not as indifferent to sentiment as he professed to be.

'Won't you stop hurrying and let me tell you how brave and wonderful you were,' she said coaxingly, for Nicholas had not turned his head and continued to stride down the path. He did pause now.

'Miranda, my dear one, I applaud your wifely flutterings, but let's not wallow in syrup.'

Her hand dropped from his arm. For a moment she knew doubt, but only for a moment, then her consuming desire to believe in his essential goodness reassured her. Men were always embarrassed by reference to their brave deeds; to minimize them even with anger was natural.

'All right,' she said, smiling up at him, 'I won't say another word. But just the same it was a grand thing to do.' Never had she loved him so much.

Her conviction that she had found a secret softness in his character sustained her through Nicholas' cold refusal to recognize the Bentons, who had naturally expected that the morning's episode would establish acquaintance with the Van Ryns. It sustained her too through his indifference to the recovery of the puppy he had saved.

On the following morning at seven, Nicholas left the hotel by stage for Catskill Landing and the boat to Dragonwyck. After he had gone she moved restlessly around their rooms, unable to settle down to the few activities which Nicholas had permitted her. She might go out for a walk at eleven, but otherwise he expected her to remain in their suite. Young Mrs. Van Ryn must not wander unescorted around the public rooms of a hotel.

Well, there were letters to write home, plenty of books to read, and a copy of
Godey's
in which to study the latest fashions. There was her embroidery tambour on which she was creating a masterpiece of garden flowers in colored silk. And there was the view to admire. Enough diversions surely for three days.