Dragonwyck (12 page)

So he bowed to them and began: Tenants of Dragonwyck, I am more than happy to welcome you all today, on this glorious anniversary of our nation's independence, and I won't keep you long because I know you're anxious to be back at your sports and games. Whenever you feel hungry I hope that you won't hesitate to help yourselves. My servants will supply you with food and there are two sheep roasting on the spit behind the carrousel.'

'Our own sheep, very like, thanks for nothing,' murmured a feminine voice near Miranda, who looked about indignantly but could not identify the speaker. She could not tell whether Nicholas had heard or not, for he went on smoothly and, to her, very mov ingly to talk of patriotism, the beauties of their country, its superiority to all others. Tor I have traveled in many, and have a basis of comparison,' said Nicholas. He went on to assure them of his interest in their welfare, telling them that he was always ready to help with their problems 'It is surely unnecessary for me to enumerate the great advantages that you as manor-tenants have over the strutting and insecure little farmer who has an empty title to his "acres. It would never even occur to me to mention this were it not that I've heard that a few misguided men on other manors
have
seen fir to render themselves ridiculous bv masaueradine as Indians in calico nightshirts and trying to inflame the tenantry against their landlords. I know you all, your staunch integrity, your sense of fitness, too well to fear that any of you could be inveigled into any such childish mummery. So I'll say no more about it.'

He ended with a few more sentences wishing them health and happiness and directing them to enjoy themselves well at the kermiss.

There was a spatter of handclapping, one quavering cheer, 'God bless the patroon,' but for the most part they flocked silently back to the kermiss ground.

Miranda saw the suppressed dismay in Nicholas' face, and she grew warm with sympathy. She did not know that he was remembering former times when his father's speeches had produced a frenzy of cheers and foot stampings, a passionate surge of loyalty.

The manorial system was bred in Nicholas. He saw in it no inconsistency, no aspect which anyone might legitimately criticize. It annoyed him that they did not realize that the very modest rent payments which he required were only a symbol and a hereditary custom. Certainly their poultry and vegetables represented no valuable revenue, whatever they might have done in his great-grandfather's time. Nicholas, thanks to real estate holdings in the city and thanks to the pleasing way in which wealth begets wealth in a developing country, was a very rich man.

His tenants were of no financial use to him whatsoever, rather the contrary in fact; but he would have cut off his right hand rather than sell one piece of his manor, though since the Revolution there was no longer a law forbidding him to do so.

He watched them all enjoying the music and games which he had provided, glutting themselves on his beer and food. Then, turning, he met Miranda's eyes. She lowered her lashes quickly, having already learned that one did not offer sympathy to Nicholas. At once his own eyes resumed their characteristic opaque blueness and his mouth thinned to its usual line.

But he had not resented her sympathy. He smiled slowly and took her arm. 'You must be tired, Miranda, we've all been up so long. Wouldn't you like to rest awhile so that you will be fresh and very beautiful tonight?'

She did not want to rest, she wanted to join the kermiss, but she shivered a little at his unaccustomed touch, and the new caressing note in his voice. 'I'm afraid I could never be very beautiful, Cousin Nicholas,' she said, looking at him through her lashes with the first hint of coquetry she had ever used, 'but perhaps it would do me good to rest.'

Nicholas kept her arm as he helped her from the platform and he bent down and said quickly, 'I believe you're far more beautiful than you realize.'

The Count, trailing along a little behind them, heard this and thought, So—Monsieur, we are waking up a bit. Matters are progressing faster than I expected; and he yawned, for the sun was hot.

He looked at them both as they walked together, the tall slender man with his dark head and the tall slender girl with her fair one. They both moved with much the same fluid grace. They made a striking couple. It's a pity, thought the Count, that it can never be. Then he ceased to think at all. He wanted his dinner.

That evening when Miranda had completed hours of excited preparation for the party, she revolved before her mirror and her heart swelled with a new sensation of power. All of Madame Duclos' clothes had been successful, needing but a touch here and there from the girl's clever fingers, but the rose satin ball dress was a triumph.

The hair brooch looked well enough on the blond lace which filled in the low
décolletage,
though Miranda no longer thought the brooch as elegant as she once had. Before she pinned it to the lace she gazed at the interrwined strands and felt a faint pang of homesickness. But they all seemed so far away, and a letter yesterday from Abigail had told her that they were well. Miranda had tried to feel interested in the news contained in her mother's stiff, inarticulate sentences—Buttercup had calved, lightning had struck the old elm by the well the Ladies' Missionary Society was to hold a quilting party. These things were remote and unimportant It seemed to Miranda that there was no connection at all between the girl who lived in the little farmhouse and this dazzling creature in rose satin who was going to a. banquet—and a ball.

How lucky I am! she thought, vainly powdering her cheeks, which were unfashionably flushed with excitement. The excitement was increased when a footman knocked on her door and presented her with a bouquet of flowers specially ordered by the patroon: rose-buds, tiny mauve orchids, and maidenhair fern. How like him! she thought joyfully. She had been longing for some ornament to put in her hair.

She fastened a nosegay on either side her face above the ringlets, and sewed the rest to a velvet band for a bracelet; then, sure that she could hold her own with any fashionable lady, she gave a last tug to the precious hoop, lifted her shoulders, and undulated into the hallway. The sliding doors between the Green and Italian drawing-rooms had been opened; both of these great chambers, the library, and even the small Red Room were filled with people moving to and fro meeting each other chatting a moment and passing on to other groups.

Johanna, enthroned in a gold chair near the entrance to the Green Drawing-Room, was behaving with unusual animation. A tall man with ginger-colored whiskers bent over her flatteringly while she flirted her fan and smiled and talked with an archness Miranda would have thought impossible. The Lady of the Manor was overpowering in yellow brocade especially chosen to set off the most splendid of the Van Ryn jewels, a ruby pendant set in a sunburst of seed pearls and diamonds. They were all admiring this jewel, the man with the ginger whiskers and several other ladies and gentlemen who came up to pay court to the hostess. Miranda, standing helplessly in the doorway not knowing what to do, heard them all begging for the history of the stone which had come from India to Amsterdam in the seventeenth century, and complimenting the wearer ori its becomingness. Indeed Johanna did look unusually well tonight impressive rather than gross Once she turned her head and her eyes rested for moment on the unhappy girl in the doorway who was suffering the painful embarrassment' of the young and uncertain amongst strangers. Johanna neither beckoned her over nor gave any sign of greeting, before turning back to her friends.

Miranda's cheeks grew hotter. Did Johanna mean her to stand all night on the edge of things, an outsider? And with the hurt resentment came envy. For all her physical handicaps, Johanna's position was forever assured, she was a Van Tappen and a Van Ryn, she was Lady of the Manor and on her breast was the beautiful jeweled heirloom that proclaimed the security of her title. The girl looked down at the hair brooch and the cluster of flowers on her own wrist. A passing couple stared curiously as they rustled by to greet the hostess; she thought she heard an acid murmur of comment.

She backed from the doorway with a confused notion of flight, then stopped as Nicholas crossed the hall from the Red Room. Fot a second they looked at each other silently. In a dark blue suit relieved by cascading white ruffles and stock, he was more strikingly handsome than he had ever been, and in that second under his unsmiling gaze her misery vanished.

His eyes were inscrutable as he said quietly: "The flowers become you, Miranda, as I thought they would. Come, I want to present you to my friends.' He paid no attention to her nervous protest, 'Oh, no, please, I wouldn't know what to say—' but taking her arm ushered her through the drawing-rooms, pausing at each group. 'This is my cousin, Miss Miranda Wells.'

The faces, some kindly, some indifferent, some appraising and faintly hostile, were a blur through which the names floated disembodied. There were a great many Van Rensselaers, Livingstons, Schuylers, and more which she did not hear at all. The only two who penetrated the blur were Mr. Martin Van Buren, the ex-President, a bald elderly gentleman in plum satin, and his son John, who turned out to be the tall man with the ginger whiskers to whom Johanna had been talking.

These she curtsied to with respectful awe. Her shyness had lessened by the time they had been the rounds, but then Nicholas settled her with a group of young ladies by the fireplace and left her. And without his support she was again at a loss. The three young women with whom he had left her all seemed to be Van Rensselaers; they made a few coldly civil remarks, then sped back to an unintelligible conversation about dear Cornelia's wedding.

She sat ignored and forlorn until Tompkins, red with importance, announced to Johanna that dinner was served. At once a pleasant-faced young man of about twenty-five came up bowing. 'Miss Wells?' he said. 'I believe I'm to have the pleasure. I'm Harman Van Rensselaer.'

She smiled timidly and took his arm, wondering what in the world one said to a dinner partner for hours and hours, and praying that he wouldn't guess that she had never been to a real party in her life.

But she need not have worried. Harman was a lively young man, fond of talk, and the evident admiration that she saw in his eyes restored her confidence.

You're a stranger to the up-river country, are you not, Miss Wells?' he began. 'I hope you like it here.'

'Oh, yes,' she said. 'Though I've seen little of your country yet. I suppose you come from up around Albany?'

Harman shook his head. 'No, I belong to the Claverack branch of Van Rensselaers.'

He laughed as she looked blank. 'All this must be confusing for you. Those across the table are the Ford Crailo Rensselaers from the upper manor—some of them, that is. The man in black seated beside the Widow Mary Livingston is Stephen Van Rensselaer, the present patroon. Yonder is his son Stephen and there are two of his daughters, Cornelia and Catherine. I've seven sisters myself, but you won't have to try and identify them, for only two are here.'

She smiled. 'I'm afraid I'm stupid about it. There do seem to be so many Livingstons and Van Rensselaers.'

'The gentleman on your right is neither, at any rate,' said Harman. You know who he is, of course.'

Miranda stole a look at the heavy middle-aged man who sat beside her, gravely eating brandied eels in aspic. She shook her head.

'Why, that's Fenimore Cooper, the author. He and his wife often come down from Cooperstown. They're visiting the Schuylers.'

'Oh, of course,' said Miranda hastily, wishing she had had time to read The Last of the Mohicans,' which Nicholas had recommended.

When it came time to talk to Mr. Cooper, she found him taciturn. He seemed far more interested in the exotic creations which flowed unendingly from the kitchens than he did in her timid remarks. Until, in a desperate angling for conversation, Harman being engaged with his left-hand neighbor, she brought forth something about the kermiss that morning, and the farmers.

Cooper immediately put down his fork. 'Did Van Ryn have any trouble collecting his rents?' he asked, so sternly that Miranda was taken aback.

'Why yes, he did — in one case,' she faltered.

'Disgusting!' The author raised his hand and banged it down on the damask. Glasses tinkled, and Miranda jumped. She had no idea what it was that the suddenly excited gentleman found so disgusting, but she soon found out. Mr. Cooper turned his back on her and cutting peremptorily across the conversation at his end of the table, he addressed the Van Rensselaer patroon. "This monstrous thing is spreading, Stephen. Van Ryn's having trouble too.'

Everyone stopped eating and looked up "astonished. Stephen Van Rensselaer's placid face showed dismay, not so much at the news, which was no news to him, but at die introduction of an unpleasant subject amongst ladies in a social gathering. 'I'm sorry to hear it,' he said, and turned back to Mary Livingston, making some trivial remark about the weather. The good lady's forceful face beneath the white widow's cap expressed her perfect understanding of his tact, and she made haste to answer him as lightly.

But Cooper would not be checked. Though there was not upon his own land any such system of tenantry, he had perhaps often regretted diat there was not. He never forgot that his wife was a De Lancey, once of Scarsdale Manor, and in any case his inclination and convictions had made him a thoroughgoing Tory.

He turned vehemently to Nicholas and all but shouted across the half-dozen people between them: 'I suppose you know, Van Ryn, about Smith Boughton, this tuppenny little doctor who has moved into Columbia County and skulks about preaching rebellion and defiance of the law. By God, were I one of you landowners, I'd track down the rogue and string him up to the nearest tree!'

Nicholas also found this vehemence in poor taste, though he agreed with the sentiments. 'No doubt you're right, sir, though I hardly think the fellow is of sufficient importance to trouble us; and after all, the law is entirely on our side. We need not resort to violence.'