Firefly (60 page)

Wilhelm, determined not to be defeated again today, insisted, "I don't care what she wants!  She is going to help you pack so we can leave this town.  She has shamed me again, carrying on with this doctor and then lying when she has sworn to tell the truth.  She will come with us!"

"No, I won't.  Papa, Del and I are going to be married in just about an hour, which is what we were going to do yesterday, until you shoved your nose into business it didn't belong in."

Now it was Katharine who laughed, with sheer joy.

"Oh, this is choice!" she crowed.  "Every day you will rub his nose in it, too.  Because, Wilhelm, we are staying, right here, in Plato, with Julie and Willy and Dr. Morgan and Clara, too, if she wants to join us."

"No!  If Julie wishes to stay, I will let her.  But you are my wife, and I--"

"Ah, but I'm not your wife," Katharine slyly reminded him.  "I'm your mistress or concubine or something like that, which makes your precious son a bastard whether you admit it or not."

Julie could see Wilhelm slump.  His pride in his son was something too deep not to be wounded easily.  He turned away from Katharine and would have walked out of the room rather than let anyone observe his shame, but Julie's presence in the doorway blocked his departure.  He looked at her, his fifty-seven years suddenly showing more clearly than ever.  He had aged in the past few days, or perhaps, Julie thought, I just haven't noticed him in a while.  He looks old.

"It is all your fault," he snapped at her.  "You slut, you have destroyed my son's future."

She drew herself up defiantly until she felt as though she towered over him, his petty spirit making him shrink in her eyes.

"No, Papa, you can't do that to me any more.  I know now that I didn't have anything to do with what happened before.  It's your fault, not mine."

"Isn't that what I told you she'd say?" Katharine called.  "I must say I'm quite proud of myself.  I hoped I had raised Julie to find a good man to marry, but I must have done a better job than I thought.  My dear, you have a veritable prince in your Dr. Morgan.  Go get your things and don't be late for the wedding."

The wedding.  The very word loosed a thousand butterflies in the pit of Julie's stomach.  She had so little time and so much to do, but she had to take a few moments of that time to say what she had come back to this house to say, and a few other things as well.

"I won't be late, Mama, don't worry.  Will you come?"

"Oh, I'd love to!  And Willy, too.  He's still over at McCrory's, but I expect him home any minute.  I don't suppose you want Wilhelm here to play the father of the bride and give you away."

Julie shook her head.

"I'm not going to be a hypocrite, not in this town."  She looked at Wilhelm and uttered words she never thought she would.  "The people here trust me, far more than I trusted myself.  They stood up for me today when I almost wouldn't stand up for myself.  They love Del, and I know they would have protested if he had chosen a woman who didn't measure up against their standards.  I heard them when I came back to this house a few minutes ago, and they actually compared me to his first wife.  They didn't find me lacking in any way.

"Do you have any idea how that made me feel? These were strangers and yet they believed in me.  They knew me and liked me for what they had seen of me, when my own father believed the very worst of me though he hadn't seen a thing.  You made me feel worthless; they made me proud."

Katharine's applause broke the strained atmosphere as she walked from her corner to the foyer.

"I couldn't have said it better myself.  You see, Wilhelm, it's exactly as I told you it would be.  I'm not going to go with you to Mexico, Julie's not, and I seriously doubt if you can make Willy go either.  Will you leave without him?"

Wilhelm had no answer except the defeat in his eyes.

Katharine continued, "You can't run forever, you know.  So what if Clara writes to the marshal or the territorial governor or even the President?  What proof does she have?  Haven't you and I been living together as man and wife for the past twenty-eight years? Who's going to dispute that?"

"But, Mama, if--"

"You had your say, Julie.  You have your own life to lead, and I suggest you get yourself ready for it.  I've already made my bed and I fully intend to keep lying in it." Katharine smiled confidently.  "I married this man because I wanted security, and I don't intend to give that up.  It's a bit late for me to start thinking about romance and all that poppycock now, so I'll settle for what I've had all along.  Wilhelm and Willy and I are going to stay right here in Plato just as we are now.  There will be a nice public apology for all the trouble Wilhelm caused the doctor, and of course all the debts will be paid.  Including the bill for the dress goods at McCrory's," she emphasized.  "It's the least this
dummkopf
can do to make amends."

*   *   *

Though Morgan's parlor was small, it easily accommodated the few guests.  Simon and Ada McCrory, Ted Phillips and Winnie Upshaw, and best man Thaddeus Burton.  Judge Booth had already taken his place in front of the whitewashed beehive fireplace when Katharine and Willy knocked at the front door.  Julie, waiting at the top of the stairs, nodded her consent to Burton or he probably would not have admitted the latecomers.

The ceremony was brief, lasting something under ten minutes, yet even that seemed a small eternity to Morgan.  He didn't feel the nagging throb in his arm, only the exquisite pain of impatience.  As he slipped the simple gold band on Julie's finger, he couldn't hold in the sigh of monumental relief.

Winnie had brought a cake, and Ted Phillips contributed a bottle of champagne with which to toast the newlyweds.  Willy whined because Katharine wouldn't allow him even a taste of the bubbly wine, but her stern rebuke, the first she had ever given him, shocked him into sullen silence.  Tipsy more from an over-abundance of emotion than from a single glass of champagne, Julie couldn't stifle a little giggle at her brother's discomfiture and had to promise Del a complete explanation later.  Perhaps much later.

He could not take his eyes from her, and though he had dutifully followed her instructions to put his arm back in a sling after the ceremony, his other hand kept straying to touch her: her cheek, her hand where the ring from McCrory's store shone brightly, her hair that had served as a bridal veil, all shimmery and silky down her back.  She wore no satin and white lace, just the blue blouse and black skirt she had made with her own hands.  Yet she was so beautiful.  And she was his.

It was Thaddeus Burton who finally shooed the guests home.  He complained that if his leg, injured a month ago, still hurt, then Morgan's arm must be that much worse and he ought to get his rest.  It was a good excuse, though far from accurate.  The McCrorys left first, followed almost immediately by Ted Phillips.  Winnie stayed just long enough to clean the dishes and then she, too, departed.

"I'd like to talk to Julie alone for a few minutes," Katharine told Thaddeus when he gave her a look that hinted she was overstaying her welcome.  "I won't be long."

Again Julie had to assure him it was all right, and then she led her mother into the empty dining room.  Willy, still pouting, remained in the parlor to drown his pique with another piece of cake.

"Oh, Julie, you look so lovely!" Katharine breathed happily.  "And so happy.  It's all going to work out the way it should, I just know it now.  And to start it out right, I have something to return to you."

She held out her hand closed in a loose fist and dropped its contents onto Julie's upturned palm.  She didn't have to see to know that it was a certain gold double eagle.

"Wilhelm had it hidden, along with some other money, in a box he kept in the privy, of all places," Katharine explained.  "When I asked him just how he was planning to finance a journey to Mexico, he finally confessed he had been saving all along.  He said it was for Clara, but I told him that Clara had already got more than her share and I was taking charge of the rest."

"And he let you?"

Katharine laughed.

"For once he's right.  He really doesn't have any other choice this time.  He either does what I tell him to or I will tell everyone the whole truth about him."

"But wouldn't that ruin your reputation as well?"

"Mine?  Oh, no, dear, because I would be the 'wronged woman', married under false pretenses, and so on.  I've thought it all out very carefully, and frankly, I think I'm too clever for him."  She curled both hands around Julie's and leaned forward to kiss her daughter's cheek.  "Do come and visit me now and then, dear.  I would like a chance to really make up for the past nine years, if it's at all possible."

"Oh, Mama, I don't know what to say.  Yes, I'll visit, though you know I'll be busy helping Del with his practice, just like before."

"Of course.  But maybe a cup of tea on Tuesday morning?"

Julie smiled and wrapped her arms around her mother.

"I promise."

Katharine sighed deeply and said, "I was so afraid you wouldn't.  I was so afraid that after all this you would hate me as you hate Wilhelm, and with good reason."

"No, I don't hate you, and I don't think I even hate him.  I won't dismiss his actions by saying that the end justifies the means, but I can admit that I wouldn't have Del if it hadn't been for all the trouble Papa caused.  I won't thank him for it, but I won't hate him, either."

Katharine embraced her daughter once more, then collected her son and left.  Willy began a tantrum on the porch and received a sound whack on his unsuspecting bottom.

*   *   *

"Would you really have left Plato the other night?" Del asked, carefully shrugging out of his coat.  Julie took it from him and hung it in the wardrobe.

"Does it matter now?"

The green eyes with their broad streaks of black and fine dusting of gold shimmered in the lamplight as she turned to him.  Julie remembered them as the first thing she had noticed about the man that afternoon last June.  They would be with her always.

"Hell, yes," he whispered.  "It matters."

She walked to him and pushed his hand away from the buttons he was struggling to undo one-handed.

"If you had sent me home, if you hadn't
B
if we hadn't done what we did, then yes, I would have left.  I could not have stayed here knowing you didn't want me."

Her fingers brushed his skin, sending little shocks along each nerve.

"Even though Hans had threatened to kill me if I touched you?"

A shudder went through her and she lay one hand flat on his chest, on the hard, untouched muscle beneath the curling dark hair.  He quivered slightly at her touch and covered the hand with his, then gently pushed it down toward his waist, then lower still.

"I didn't mean to risk your life," she whispered as tears came to her eyes.  "I wasn't even thinking about that.  All I knew was that I loved you and I had to know if you loved me, too."

"Oh, Julie, don't cry.  Do you think I didn't know all that?  I never once forgot his damned threat."

She looked up at him, her hand still resting on the throbbing warmth, and he smiled.

"You didn't?  And you went ahead anyway?  But why?"

"You mean it isn't obvious?  Because I loved you, Firefly.  More than anything."