Ever After (32 page)

Therefore the look she gave Sedgwick was truly piteous and he thought with astonishment, “Why, she’s scared to death of me,” and his kind heart acted before his head and he took her by the shoulders—she held herself like a princess, anyway—and said, “Well, my dear—it’s not a den of lions you’ve come to.” And while he kissed her cheek he heard her whisper, “Thank you, sir.” Then it was Phoebe’s turn, and Phoebe said, “Oh, Fitz, she’s
beautiful
!” and they could all laugh at that, and presently Gwen found herself alone with Fitz in the room he had slept in all his life, and he was saying, “There, it wasn’t so bad, was it!”

She turned in his arms to look at the late afternoon sun streaming in the double window above the April garden—white curtains, chintz-covered armchairs, rich old rugs on a dark polished floor, gay flowered wall-paper, a spacious four-poster bed with a frilled tester and hand-made counterpane—Fitz’s bedroom seemed to emphasize and epitomize more than anything else the gulf between his secure, dignified background and the sordid surroundings of her own scant nineteen years.

“Fitz, I don’t belong here. I had no idea it was so beautiful. I’m sure to do something to make you ashamed. How long do we have to stay?”

“Why, honey, what on earth ails you like this? You belong where I am. We’ll go back to New York the first of the week, but I—sort of wanted you to like it here.”

“Oh, I
do
, it isn’t that, but—”

“Well, then,” he said matter-of-factly. “How about takin’ off your hat and hangin’ up a few things and makin’ yourself at home?
Last time I slept here I didn’t know there was such a person as you in the world. Gives me kind of a funny feeling.”

The hard clasp of his arms reassured her again, and she raised her face to his kiss. Maybe she was from the wrong part of town, maybe she had slept in bureau drawers and trunk tills in the corner of cheap railway boarding-house rooms on tour with her parents who snored exhaustedly in the one bed, and meanwhile Fitz was growing up in this elegant serenity. Maybe she wasn’t what the family wanted for him, but she was what
he
wanted, and she loved him more than
anyone
possibly could who had always been accustomed to his gentle ways, and when they were alone together she never had any doubts at all….

“Mm-hm,” he murmured, as though she had spoken, holding her. “That’s the way I feel too, but I reckon we’ve got to start thinking about changin’ for dinner pretty soon.”

She sighed. More family, and dinner at the Day house across the way. Cabot Murray was arriving from Washington this evening, with his discerning eyes that looked right into her and his embarrassing familiarity with all the things no one else knew about her—for sure. He had told her to stick by Fitz because she would be good for him, but now he would think she had taken advantage of that conversation in the library. And she knew that one did not take advantage of Cabot Murray with impunity.

“Fitz, do you think my dress will be all right tonight?”

“Sure. Aunt Eden bought it, didn’t she?”

“Yes, but—for me to sing in.”

“You’re goin’ to sing to ’em tonight, honey, after dinner.”

Gwen gave it up. It was still hard for her to understand that families dining alone together at home should put on their best for each other.

“And now,” Fitz was saying as he rang a bell by the mantelpiece, “you’ll have to get a going-over by Mammy. She raised me, and she owns me, so you mustn’t mind anything she says. She’ll help you unpack and change your dress, and if there’s anything you want just say so and she’ll fix it.”

Gwen stood still in the middle of the room staring while Fitz was enfolded and exclaimed over by a small wizened coloured woman in a starched white turban. She saw that he bent and kissed the withered black cheek, and that he submitted patiently, even gaily, to being patted and stroked by the gnarled black hands, seeming almost as happy at the reunion as his old nurse was. Past surprise, docile and smiling and silent, Gwen allowed herself to be hugged in her turn and gave her cheek to be kissed, noticing that Mammy smelled only of soap and that real tears shone in the wrinkles round her eyes.

Then the old woman stood holding both her hands and peering up
at her with wise, twinkling eyes that queried her inmost feelings until Gwen felt naked in her conscience and thanked her stars that it was clean, and her love for Fitz flamed up into her face in a scarlet blush, denying that she had married him for any other reason. Mammy nodded, and patted the hands she held, and her smile was a benediction.

“Dat’s good,” she nodded. “Dat’s mah lamb. He be all right now he got you.”

Fitz came and put an arm around each of them, linking them to himself.

“She’s a Yankee gal, Mammy. Makes her feel kind of strange down here. We’ve got to find ways to show her she’s come home.”

“She know dat,” said Mammy, holding Gwen’s hands. “In her heart, reckon she know, fast enough. She get used to our ways in no time. Dark hair an’ a red mouth—dat’s de kin’ ob wife foh mah boy. He safe wid you, missy, I kin tell!”

It was the thing Gwen so wanted them all to know—that Fitz would be safe, that she would love him always. This old black witch had seen it, and perhaps the others would too, in time.

“I’ll do my best, Mammy,” she said, as solemnly as she had spoken her marriage vows.

Later they all walked through the warm April dusk to Ransom Day’s house, which shone with lights, and there was Fitz’s cousin Sue saying, “Welcome to Williamsburg, honey,” with both hands
outstretched
. Then Gwen was presented to a very old gentleman who, with an apology, did not rise from his easy chair by the fire; and this was Grandfather Day who, Fitz had told her, had been on General Lee’s staff during the war. Gwen, having a deep,
unselfconscious
reverence for old age, said rather breathlessly, “I never knew a grandfather before. I have been looking forward to you, sir.” And she bent down swiftly and kissed the fragile hand he held out to her.

The family was touched, but at the same time her impulsive words raised new questions in their minds. No grandfathers? No
people
? But what sort of upbringing had she had?

Fitz’s Aunt Eden came next, with a warm kiss, and his cousin Virginia, whose merry brown eyes were curious but friendly, and her sister Marietta who had married the Princeton professor; Cousin Dabney Day was next, the one who had lost a leg in ’64, but you’d never know—a great handsome man still, bringing forward his wife Charlotte, who was as pretty as could be; and their daughter Belle, with two babies and a husband, and her brother Miles, whose birthday it would be tomorrow, a tall, grave, charming boy—all kissing kin, they told her, gallantly exercising the privilege, while Fitz never let go her hand for fear she was nervous, as he led her from one to
another and spoke their names so that she could fit them into the family pattern he had painstakingly explained to her on the train coming down. And he noticed as the ordeal went on that her fingers were cold and damp in his, and clung convulsively, and he thought, Stage-fright—like when she sings—I suppose it does look like rather a mob when you’re not used to it. And the Family in its collective mind was thinking, She’s dressed all right, anyway, nothing flashy—Fitz has got himself a beauty, at least—I do believe she’s got red on her mouth—lovely eyes—she’s shy, poor thing, I never thought an actress would be shy—well, it could have been much worse—wait till Cabot comes, he knows more about her—what will Cabot say, when he finds her here as Fitz’s wife….

They were all unconsciously reserving judgment until after Cabot gave them their cue, quite forgetting that once Cabot himself had been an outsider, viewed with dismay and apprehension when Eden had insisted on adding him to the family, back in the days of the war. Now they counted on Eden’s Yankee husband to resolve most of their problems and difficulties—a virile, knowledgeable, up-to-date man he was, with worldly experience where they, in this timeless backwater, had none—a hard man to hoodwink, unlike
simple-minded
Fitz, a man who must have formed his own opinion of this actress girl, and who would have strong views on her place among them. She had, of course, gone to his house in New York, but only, they understood from Eden, as a paid entertainer, not as a guest. They were sure they could tell by Cabot’s attitude when he arrived exactly what sort of person she was. And Bracken’s too, in a lesser degree. Bracken knew what was what.

They had finished dinner before Cabot came, and Gwen had sung them some of Fitz’s songs, standing straight and slender and brave against the piano while he played. The family watched and listened wonderingly. She was actually going to sing these songs on the stage, in a theatre, within a few weeks’ time. Marrying Fitz had not stopped her being an actress. She was going to go right on singing for money, as his wife. They had somehow supposed that she would retire from the stage. And what about Fitz’s home, what about his babies? Had he thought about that? Didn’t he
mind
having an actress wife, who would have to spend all her evenings away from home, in the theatre, being stared at and admired by thousands of people who had paid to see her? And could he keep other men from—well, from making advances, to a woman who was on the stage? And yet—even the least perceptive of them had noticed by the time dinner was over that Fitz was different, and not one of them but recognized the change as an improvement. Where he had been listless and lazy and indifferent, remote, on guard, defensive, uncommunicative, and exasperating, now he was lively, confident, mature,
one of them as he had never been before, with some of the true Sprague sparkle and dash. Fitz had found himself, up North.

Melicent, who knew that his music was better than it had ever been, and Sedgwick, who liked his new air of authority and peace of mind, exchanged glances more than once. Whatever it was, it had done him good. She had been right, to suggest that Fitz should go to New York with Cabot. She had saved him from himself, when nobody else knew what to do. But it was Sue who had talked him into going. Sedgwick’s eyes sought her out across the room while Gwen sang, and she looked back at him, the dimple showing at the corner of her mouth, and nodded. Fitz was going to be all right now.

It was late evening before Cabot came, and they had almost given him up. They all converged on him, laughing and crowding for their turn to be kissed, until at last with Eden in one arm and
Virginia
in the other he turned and saw Gwen by the piano. She, like the rest of them, had been awaiting his verdict, and she stood looking back at him tensely, her head a little down, her red mouth tightly closed, her brows drawn level. There was an instant’s pause, for his surprise. Then he left his womenfolk and came towards her across the carpet.

“Now, don’t tell me, let me guess,” he said quietly as he came. “My crazy loon of a nephew has had the luck to marry you!”

His towering height and broad shoulders hid her from the rest of the room and only Fitz saw the way both her hands went out to him, the way her eyes filled with grateful tears as she whispered, “You aren’t angry? I was afraid—” But they all saw Cabot take her into his bear’s hug and heard him say, “God bless you, my dear, I’m delighted! Maybe now he’ll amount to something!”

They all breathed easier after that. Until they heard Cabot’s news, that is.

He had apparently been stopping at telegraph offices all the way down, and he told them quite simply, with no flourishes, that war with Spain was now only a matter of hours. Earlier in the week Congress had passed resolutions demanding that Spain’s rule in Cuba must cease, with noon of Saturday the twenty-third as the dead-line for Spain’s acceptance of the ultimatum. The document had been sent to President McKinley, who had deliberated a whole day and finally signed it and sent a copy to the Spanish Minister in Washington. That evening Señor Polo y Bernabé had asked for his passports.

Eden was first to speak in the silence that followed Cabot’s words.

“Oh, Lordy, not
again
!” she sighed. “It makes me feel lost and lonely and childish, the way I felt last time, after they fired on Fort Sumter!”

And Sue asked timidly, with a glance at Sedgwick, who surely wouldn’t have to go this time.

“Will we send an army to Cuba, Cabot?”

“If they don’t clear out peaceably, and they probably won’t. There will be a call for volunteers, of course. We haven’t enough regulars even if we called them all in from the West. Roosevelt talks of a regiment of volunteer cavalry, the pick of the country. If only I were ten years younger…”

“Where’s Bracken, Cabot?” Eden asked quietly.

“Coming up by way of Hampton Roads. I expected to find him already here. He’ll show up any minute now, I should think. What I’d give to be in his shoes! He’ll see all the fun, I’ll put him ashore with the first troops to land in Cuba, he’s had about enough of that dispatch boat, I gather!”

“I suppose it’s better than having him in the army,” Eden reflected, and Cabot glanced at her uneasily, well aware that bullets make no distinction between a Special Correspondent and a soldier.

A big tray of coffee, hot chocolate, and whisky was brought in by Pharaoh, and the maids followed with another of cheeses and a third of sweets. Belle’s babies and Grandfather Day had long since gone to bed and Virginia and Phoebe had begun to yawn when Bracken arrived, wearing riding clothes and a broad hat, with a yellow silk handkerchief knotted around the open throat of his dark blue flannel shirt. They all fell upon him, the warmth and excitement of their welcome complicated by their desire for more news. Bracken had it. But first he must kiss Gwen resoundingly and remark that Fitz had certainly not lowered the family standard of good looks when he chose a wife. Then he relaxed his long, weary body into a chair and waited for the hot coffee his mother prepared with loving care.

“Well, children, the balloon is going up,” he told them, his eyes very brilliant in his tanned face, as his gaze locked intimately with his father’s. “The Fleet is on its way from Key West this very minute to blockade Havana. A flying squadron will base at Hampton Roads to patrol the Atlantic Coast and head off the Spanish Fleet if they try to come at us up here.”