Ever After (2 page)

Sedgwick was alone and rose to meet her with both hands
extended
in welcome—placed her tenderly in the visitor’s chair facing his desk, lowered the blind an inch lest the light strike into her eyes, and returned to her side to receive her gloves and handbag before she could be put to the trouble of laying them down herself. It was always that way when she came to the office. Whatever he was doing stopped. Everything was set aside in order that she might find herself the centre of the universe, empress of his world.

They were double first cousins—her father and his mother both Days, her mother and his father both Spragues—and they had grown up together. Once, a long time before the war, they had been in love and were forbidden to marry because of their close relationship. Faithfully they had kept their resolution never to speak of it again. They didn’t have to. His face, when she came unexpectedly upon his sight—her smile, when they looked at each other as they did now in their wordless satisfaction at being
together
—that was enough. She had never grudged him his peaceful marriage with the sister of Eden’s Yankee husband, his well-run home, his son and daughter. She had made up her mind long before it happened that he must marry some day and not go maimed and lacking all his life for love of herself. And as for her, she had
never left Williamsburg, and no man had ever crossed her horizon who could disturb the deep serenity of her lifelong devotion to Sedgwick. Since the first blinding shock of rebellion that day so long ago when she was sixteen, there had been no repining and no bitterness. After all, they saw each other nearly every day, and Melicent was her dear friend, the very person she had hoped he would marry since marry he must, and the children were almost like her own….

Her life on those terms had made her a mysteriously enchanting creature, a girl playing at womanhood even while her hair turned grey—a girl untouched and virginal and yet awakened and chastened by love. It was impossible to think of Susannah Day as a spinster, or to realize that she was now passing imperceptibly from her forties into her fifties, still slender, with a rounded high bosom and that misplaced dimple in her ready smile. And the books she wrote and published every two or three years were mature and knowing and warm-blooded, and had kept the simple Household running in comparative comfort during the long years of her father’s invalidism.

She held fast to her handbag as Sedgwick’s hands closed on it, delaying to extract Eden’s letter and give it to him.

“You’d better read it yourself,” she told him. “It’s all about Bracken.” And she added as his expressive eyebrows rose—“They’ll be here in time for Christmas.
That
part’s all right.”

She sat watching him while he read, telling over again to herself the familiar sum of things she loved best about him; his fine head bent now above Eden’s letter, the thick straight hair greying at the edges and left long to the top of his collar in the back; the old-fashioned black stock he still wore with such an air; his crisp white linen and brushed broadcloth frock coat—people had begun to call him Colonel now when he travelled, but he had been only a captain of cavalry when Lee surrendered at
Appomattox
. His long hands held the letter lightly, flipping over its pages—he always moved so neatly. Watching his hands today, Sue was hardly aware that at the back of her memory lay a rainswept night in ’62 when she had passed along rows of wounded, bandaged men on stretchers, here in Williamsburg, sure that she would be able to pick out Sedgwick even though his face be covered and unrecognizable, if she could just see his hands….

At last Sedgwick folded the letter tidily and replaced it in its envelope and laid it on top of Sue’s handbag which was on the corner of the desk. Her eyes waited on his face. As usual, he began where she might least expect his attention to focus.

“
Am
I irresistible to women?” he queried, with a sidelong look, his brows askew.

“Oh, Sedgie!
Inevitably!
” Her dimple showed.

“You mean you had noticed it yourself?” he inquired in feigned surprise, leaning towards her across the desk with wistful eyes on her ever-changing face.

“A long time ago,” she answered steadily. It was the nearest allusion they had made for years to the tragedy of their youth, and her gaze as it met his was smiling and sweet.

“Still?” he asked briefly, and—

“Always,” she nodded.

He sat a moment, looking down at his clasped hands on the desk in front of him.

“It oughtn’t to be like that,” he said finally. “I’ve gone on—I married little saint Melicent, I’ve got my children—”

“I’ve got them too, Sedgie,” she reminded him. “And that was the way it had to be. You see, I’m still thanking God you weren’t killed in the war. I’ve had all these years since then to see you—and tell you things—I’ve been very happy, Sedgie, really I have.”

“I believe by some miracle you have been,” he said, and raised another point in Eden’s letter which it had not occurred to her to discuss. “Now, about your going abroad in the spring,” he began. “I think you ought to, you know.”

“My book won’t be done,” she said at once.

“Well, leave it undone. You won’t need the money, Eden will see to all that.”

“D-don’t you think it—seems a good deal—”

“My dear child, Cabot is rolling in the stuff! We’re all so used to being poor down here, it is beyond our conception that a man may have, not just enough, but more than enough! Cabot has steel mills and Cabot has a flourishing newspaper, don’t forget! No doubt Eden’s dress allowance would pay all my expenses for a year. You will go with her, won’t you, Sue?”

“You’re awfully anxious to be rid of me, all of a sudden,” she complained.

“It’s as Eden says—you must see something of the world while you are still young enough to enjoy it.”

“This is my world,” said Sue. “Here in Williamsburg.”

He shook his head.

“It’s not enough,” he said.

“It’s all you’ve had, Sedgie.”

“To my regret.”

“You mean
you
wanted to go abroad?”

He shifted impatiently in his chair.

“If this is our day for telling the truth to each other, I haven’t been a country lawyer by choice, all my life,” he confessed. “I always coveted Dabney’s year at the Legation before the war. Later
I envied Cabot his vagabond existence as a reporter, before he married Eden.”

“Why, Sedgie, I never dreamed—”

“I particularly wanted to go to England, you always knew that.”

“Well, yes, in a way, we all talked about it, but—”

“Suppose you go to England for me, in the spring.”

“But, Sedgie, I—”

“Go down to Gloucestershire and see the old family place—the place our great-grandfather St. John came from, the house the plantation here was named for—Farthingale. Find out who is living there now and what it looks like. I’ve often wondered. Besides, you might get a new book out of it, you never know.”

“Yes,” she said thoughtfully. “I might.”

“You will go, then?”

“Well, I—I’ll talk to Father. I’ll see how he is when the time comes. Sedgie—what about Bracken?”

“Oh, Bracken, poor devil, he’s in for a bad time. But I’m not surprised, are you?”

“Except for one thing.”

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Well—women don’t, as a rule, leave men who are irresistible.” Sedgwick made a small rude noise.

“Don’t you see the answer to that?”

“What answer? Eden doesn’t say—”

“She doesn’t say anything about a financial settlement, does she?”

“I d-didn’t think there was one.”

“And if there wasn’t one, what is the expensive Lisl going to live on after she is no longer under Bracken’s roof? Not her precious diamonds!”

“But I still don’t see—”

“Why, Miss Innocence, it’s plain as the nose on your funny little face, if Eden can’t see it for herself! Lisl has found somebody who can buy her more diamonds than Bracken ever can, and Bracken is resigning in his favour!”

Sue gazed at him in awe.

“What it is to be a lawyer!” she marvelled. “Is
that
what he is so afraid they’ll find out?”

“Bracken can be as close-mouthed as he likes, but I’ll bet Cabot knows the other fellow’s name and even the amount of his income!” His eyes sharpened, his lazy pose drew together, his lips slipped into a sardonic smile. “I wonder,” he murmured.

“What?”

“Nothing.” But their eyes met, and now Sue was not far behind him.

“Oh, Sedgie, you don’t think Cabot would ever—”

“Cabot tried to buy her off in the beginning.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Nobody was supposed to,” he admitted. “But that’s where Bracken’s being so irresistible came in. She wouldn’t let go of him for any sum Cabot offered. He’s always hated her very—bootlaces, and I was just thinking, if Cabot found a way to sic her on to some sucker with a diamond mine, as it were, that would be another way of buying her off, wouldn’t it!”

“But Cabot would never deliberately break up the marriage—”

“The marriage was already broken up, long since. It was only a question of getting rid of her.”

“But if she won’t divorce him—” Sue began.

“Ah, but he can divorce her if he can prove infidelity! Cabot may be counting on something like that.”

“Do you think Eden suspects?”

“Darling Eden. You can never be sure what she knows and what she misses. Anyway, I shouldn’t have mentioned it. Don’t dwell on it, will you. As for Bracken—he’ll want handling for a while.”

“Yes, even if he’s stopped loving her, it must be so
humiliating
to a man when his wife leaves him!” Sue ruminated. “Even if he hated her, it must be a blow to his
pride
—”

“Don’t envy lawyers for their wisdom, my dear,” he said with a smile. “You have put your finger on Bracken’s trouble. It’s the insult to his manhood he’s feeling now. What a trollop that woman is! It always stuck out of her a mile. Bracken was a fool, anyone could see what she was! Why did he have to marry her, anyway, he could have had her, if he’d tried, enough to cure him, right there in Washington!”

“
Sedgie
, how you talk! Perhaps she was too clever for that.”

“No doubt she was. And no doubt this fellow with the diamond mine, whoever he is, lacks Bracken’s chivalrous feelings. If he were proposing marriage, we’d hear about a divorce fast enough!”

Sue looked horrified.

“Oh, Sedgie, this is awful! I didn’t
realize
! Can’t you do something?”

“Honey, I’m not a wizard, though I’ve often wished I were. In a case like this, Cabot’s bankroll can probably do more than the Law. He may have something up his sleeve, it’s hard to beat Cabot for ever.”

“I dread having to tell Father,” she reflected.

“It won’t be any surprise to him either,” said Sedgwick
philosophically
. “He’s seen her. He knows. Tell me what you’ve been doing.” They hadn’t had a talk since the day before yesterday and
were in arrears. Their eyes held without effort or urgency, drawing comfort and serenity from each other. Their lost dream had died peacefully in his careful hands a long time ago, leaving behind it only an abiding need, disciplined and docile now, but never
icebound
. They were infinitely contented together, that was all. Nearly all. “Tell me things,” he said affectionately.

“Well—let’s see.” It was an old game they had got very good at. “Mammy and I have been turning out the rooms to get ready for the guests. And I’m trying to finish my chapter before everybody arrives and catches me at the wrong place. And I’m fixing over my black velvet to wear at the party. I reckon that’s about all. At breakfast we were counting up the ones who were coming this year and the ones who—won’t be here. One list is very short and the other one is lengthening. Sedgie, have you heard from Sally?”

“Not a line? Our Sally done flew de coop, Sue.”

“For ever?”

“It looks like it.”

They both paused to consider his sister Sally, the beauty of the family, who had married and buried three elderly husbands in quick succession and gone to live on their combined bequests in a large, gaudy villa on the French Riviera. Once when Eden was abroad she had gone to see Sally and confessed to Sedgwick afterwards that she had been a little scandalized. The house was full of foreigners and small yapping dogs, said Eden, and Sally had begun to speak English with a French accent, and—Sally painted her face. There was more, which Sue as an unmarried woman was not supposed to suspect.

“I was wondering what her Christmas gifts this year would be,” Sue said. At Christmas time and for birthdays and coming-of-age parties, Sally’s presents were magnificent and unexpected and seldom arrived on time. For Bracken’s twenty-first birthday she had sent a cheque with instructions that it was to buy him the best
Virginia-bred
saddle-horse to be found. For Fitz’s coming-of-age she had sent a Swiss watch of such splendour that he wasn’t allowed to wear it on weekdays. For the girls she usually sent gowns from Worth or Paquin, too elaborate to be of any use. Sue had a special interest in Sally’s presents this year, because for the first time she had
interfered
by giving a hint. She was wishing now that she hadn’t. Sedgwick might not be pleased.

“Just because she’s so stinkin’ rich, Sally thinks she needn’t bother to write anything but cheques any more,” Sedgwick said rather huffily.

It was nearly lunch-time, and when Sue rose to go Sedgwick said he would walk along with her. She stood waiting in the dingy hall while he turned to lock the door behind him. There was the sound
of running feet on the stairs and a small coloured boy came into view at headlong speed. When he saw them he halted on the top step, holding to the newel-post and gasping for breath.

“Oh, Marse Sedgwick—Miss Melicent say please you come home dis minute, suh!”

“Something wrong at home?”

“No, suh. Essept Miss Sally’s Chris’mas gif’ fo’ Marse Fitz done come.”

“Well, what is it?”

“A pinano, suh.”

“
Piano!
”

“Bigges’ ole pinano you all eveh did see!” His eyes rolled to include Susannah, his small arms flung wide to include all space. “Miss Melicent say no room in de parloh—no room in de po’ch—no room in de kerridge-house, even, foh any sech pinano. She say eff’n you all move out, bag an’ baggage, de pinano kin come in, no ways else.”