Dragonwyck (24 page)

Abigail slowly relaxed, allowing her love for this child to stifle the doubts which afflicted her. The ways of gentry are different, she thought, and who am I to judge them? She was silent, stroking the girl's hair, and there came to her gradually a half-guilty pride. It would be a very grand marriage.

'Your pa—' she began, still trying to adjust herself to the staggering idea.

'Pa mustn't know for a long time,' said Miranda quickly. 'No one must know.
He
said that—Nicholas.'

Frowning, Abigail turned from her daughter's appealing gaze. She saw the reason for secrecy: all of Greenwich would be scandalized if they knew Miranda's plans. And yet this hole-and-corner business—Something wrong about it, something snide, thought Abigail. But the lass loves him. She'll be a great lady. I'll not spoil her chances.

She rose briskly, smoothed down her poplin dress. 'Wash your face and see if the fresh pies are ready. I'll keep your secret, Ranny.'

Tabitha's wedding day ended in a boisterous skimelton party, a kind of local charivari. She drove beside her husband on the spring wagon to the new cottage on the adjoining farm, and no sooner had the young couple retired upstairs than the racket broke out. Twenty of Ob's friends serenaded" them with catcalls and the banging of kettles. Two of the Mead boys fired muskets into the air at great peril to the yelling bystanders. Nat and Seth, proud to be included amongst the men, and swelling with additional importance because they were brothers to the bride, marched around and around the house with a fife and drum. The noise kept up until midnight and made sleep impossible for of the near-by farmhouses.

'Tibby's got a rare send-off,' said Ephraim, kicking off his best shoes, and settling into his chair with a tired grunt. 'She and Ob are well liked, and no mistake.'

Abigail and Miranda were cleaning up the kitchen; neither answered Ephraim, who was relaxed and pleased with life. It had been a good wedding, tribute to his standing in the community.

A muffled boom rattled the window panes. It was followed by shouts and huzzahs.

'Consarned if they haven't brought the old cannon from Cos Cob,' said Ephraim, chuckling. 'Hasn't been such a skimelton in years.' He glanced at his older daughter, who with a checked apron tied over her dress was neatly washing dishes. 'Likely you'll soon be having one too, Ranny,' he said kindly.

Heaven forbid, she thought. Nicholas would be disgusted by this method of starting marriage. Would he perhaps be disgusted by her whole background, she thought, dropping the greasy dish rag in sudden panic. She looked at her father's stocking feet, which were propped comfortably on the table.

'But ye'll never get yourself a husband 'less you drop those high and mighty airs,' continued Ephraim, his good temper waning at her silence. 'Men don't like it. Ye'll be an old maid yet, if you don't mend your ways.'

'I hope not, Pa,' said Miranda. She took an empty pie tin from her mother, and the women's eyes met in a quick glance.

'You dry,' whispered Abigail, 'I'll finish the washing. You mustn't let your hands get rough.'

She gave her mother a look of fervent gratitude. There was comfort in having shared her secret. The sharing had made it real. For there were times when it seemed that she must have dreamed Dragonwyck and all that had happened to her there. Suppose Nicholas forgot her—suppose he hadn't really meant it—suppose he met someone else—

The summer days dragged by, and Miranda's fears grew. Abigail spared her many tasks, but the inexorable farm routine demanded every pair of hands, and now Tabitha was gone.

Baking, boiling, and washing, milking the cows, the care of Charity, who was a lively two-year-old, and into everything, through these chores, Miranda moved automatically, preoccupied and dully miserable. Nor was she efficient. She let the bread burn, or the fires go out. Once she scorched an entire kettle of the precious blackberries which Abigail was cooking into a winter's supply of jam.

'Land's sake, Ranny, you're no more use than Charity!' snapped her mother, exasperated, when she discovered this last tragedy.

The girl's eyes filled. 'I'm dreadful sorry, Ma. I'll pick you some more berries. I was stirring the kettle, and then somehow I got to thinking—and I forgot—'

'Take the baby for a walk, and keep out of the way, do—' Abigail took the blackened sticky kettle from her daughter. 'I'll clean it. Rather do it myself than watch you mooning and puttering. Go on out—scat!'

Miranda obediently took the baby's hand. Charity gave a crow of delight. 'Pick f'owers, Ranny!' she commanded, tugging at her sister. 'Make w'eath for baby.'

Abigail watched the two wander across the north pasture. The girl's heartsick, she thought. It's a wonder he wouldn't write to her. All these months, she's been pining.

She attacked the kettle vigorously, her lips compressed. Abigail too was beginning to have doubts.

By the end of September, Miranda could stand the silence no longer. She could not eat, she slept badly. Her talismans, the ring and the note from Nicholas which she had received on the morning of her departure from Dragonwyck, no longer served to reassure her. It was true that she had intuitively accepted the fact that he might not write her.

And she knew as surely that there had been a tacit interdiction against her writing to him. Yet why not? thought Miranda feverishly. What could be more natural —a few words thanking him for his kindness to her, asking about his health. A letter that anyone might read without suspicion.

One morning when the men were working in the fields, and Abigail had gone down the road to see Tabitha, Miranda stole into the front room and sat down at her father's cherry desk.

She made four drafts, and finally copied the last one onto a sheet of lined paper, from the back of Ephraim's ledger. There was no other paper.

Stanwich Road, Greenwich,
Sept 25th, 1845.

Dear Cousin Nicholas:

It seems eternity [she scraped this out with a penknife and substituted a long time'] since I left Dragonwyck.

I trust that you are in good health, and Katrine as well. My thoughts ever turn to you—[she stopped, hastily added an
r
] your kindness and hospitality. Please [she erased that] I would esteem it a great favor to hear if you are quite well.

She laid the pen down and gazed with miserable eyes out of the window into the rustling elm leaves. How to sign it? Not 'sincerely,' not 'affectionately.' There was no word that she dared write.

She picked up the pen, and put down 'Miranda,' carefully embellished with the flourishes she had learned at the Academy.

She folded the sheet, sealed and addressed it. That afternoon, she walked three miles to the Horseneck Post Office, had the letter franked, and walked back again through fields of goldenrod and up the shady Stanwich Road, and her heart was lighter.

Surely he would understand, would read between the lines and send her a word of reassurance.

But weeks passed and there was no answer.

The girl's going into a decline, thought Abigail, watching her daughter anxiously. I wish she'd never gone to Dragonwyck, or heard of that Nicholas. She was always over-romantic, and to my everlasting shame I guess I encouraged her. 'Eat your vittles, Ranny,' she would urge with irritation born of worry. You look like a picked crow.'

'Aye,' agreed Ephraim on one occasion, wiping his mouth and examining his daughter. 'What ails you these days, child? You wear a face long enough to eat oats out of a churn.' He had been better pleased with her lately. She was quiet and biddable. It had occurred to him that she seemed a bit mopish, but girls were unstable, moody creatures, full of silly whims.

'Well,' he continued, with an idea of cheering her, 'next week's Harvest Festival in Peck's barn. I hear they've got a fiddler coming from Stamford. It'll liven you up. Likely catch yourself a beau.'

Miranda said nothing, sat as she so often did now, her lids dropped, staring vaguely at the table.

Her father frowned and opened his mouth to speak when Nat created a diversion. 'Looky—' he cried, peering through the kitchen window—'there's a stranger on a roan horse just turned through our gate!'

Miranda started. Against all reason, wild hope set her heart to pounding. She crowded with the others to the window. They all watched the approaching horseman: strangers were an event.

'It can't be a peddler,' said Nat. 'He has no pack.'

The roan horse walked slowly, its head drooping. The rider was concealed by his woolen cape and battered beaver hat.

'Someone who's lost his way,' suggested Abigail. A thought struck her, the same that had come to Miranda. She glanced at the girl, and saw from the hopeless disappointment in her face that at any rate this was not Nicholas.

'I'll see what he wants,' said Ephraim, going out the door. At that moment the stranger raised his head, and Miranda gave a cry of surprise.

'Why, it's Doctor Turner!' She stared at the powerful shoulders, the square, smiling face, hating him because he came from up-river, because he reminded her poignantly of Dragonwyck, and yet was not Nicholas. He might have news, though, she thought with rising excitement. Of course he would have news.

She ran down the steps as Jeff alighted.

For a moment he hardly recognized her. Her golden hair was braided and pinned tight around her head; she wore pink challis and an apron. She was too thin and pale, so that her long hazel eyes now looked enormous in her sharpened face. Her lips trembled as she smiled at him.

'Oh, Doctor Turner—' she cried impulsively—'have you—did you—?' She broke off, conscious that Ephraim was staring at her.

Jeff took her hand in his, hardly hearing what she said. He thought that eagerness, that glad crying of his name, were for him, that she was happy to see him. Warmth flowed over him. In her simple clothes, she seemed to him far more beautiful than she had in the fashionable silks and ringlets she had worn at Dragonwyck. He was touched by hollows in her cheeks, and the shadows beneath her lovely eyes.

'And who may this gentleman be, Ranny?' inquired Ephraim sternly.

Jeff dropped her hand and grinned in some confusion. 'I'm Jefferson Turner from Hudson, Mr. Wells. Perhaps Miranda has mentioned me.'

'She has not, sir,' said Ephraim. He too misinterpreted his daughter's behavior. This young man must be the reason for the girl's pinings and sighings. But though he liked Jeff on sight, as people usually did, he had no intention of unbending until he had been given a full explanation.

Jeff was soon established at the table, while Abigail plied him with roast pork and pie. Miranda saw that her own questions must wait until her father's had been satisfied, and she moved from the stove to the table and back to the stove again in a fever of impatience.

It seemed that Jeff had made a trip to New York. 'For there's a fine doctor there, Doctor John Francis. He has a new treatment for cholera. The old whaler "Nellie B"—put into Hudson in July and she brought us some cholera from India. We only had five cases, praise be, but I lost two of them.' He put down his knife., and his face sobered.

'I hope they were good Christians, and died in the faith of our Lord,' said Ephraim. Jeff nodded. 'Oh, their souls are safe enough; it's the welfare of their bodies that concerns me.'

Young man—' said Ephraim, 'that remark smacks of levity. The body is but dust and ashes. Still—' he went on, because he was interested, and despite a possible laxity of principle, the young doctor seemed a fine, upstanding man, 'did you find a new medicine for the cholera in the city?'

"Tis nothing in the world but clay—' said Jeff ruefully. 'Chinese clay. Doctor Francis has tried it and it works well.'

'To eat, you mean?' put in Nat. All three boys were listening intently, delighted with this break in their lives. Only Miranda paid no attention. What did she care for cholera and its treatment when her whole being was centered on one subject? The meal seemed to her interminable. Even after everyone had finished eating, Ephraim ignored the lengthening shadows outside and sat on at table talking to the guest. And this in spite of the filled wagon in the yard and the team ready harnessed to drive a load of late potatoes to the dock.

Jeff explained the uses of clay in cholera, and he told them of his trip from Hudson. He had come by horseback because he wished to stop along the way in Poughkeepsie and Fishkill and White Plains to see friends and confer with other doctors.

'This morning I was in Rye,' he said, smiling, 'and finding myself so near Greenwich, I thought to come and see Miranda.' This was not entirely true. He had meant from the beginning to call on the Wellses. But he did not himself clearly understand why he had wanted to see her again, and the fact embarrassed him.

'I'm glad you came,' said Ephraim heartily. 'You'll stay with us tonight, of course. You can share Tom's bed.—Ranny,' he turned to the silent girl, 'you might walk about a bit with the doctor. Show him the orchard; I'm certain they don't grow apple trees like that where he comes from.' Ephraim had made up his mind. No doubt the young fellow had come a-courting. He would have preferred one of the neighbor boys, but Jeff had passed muster. I'll not be harsh with the girl, thought Ephraim; she might have done far worse.

So with her father's approval, and followed by a puzzled look from her mother, Miranda and Jeff went for a walk in the apple orchard.

You're not looking very well, Miranda,' said Jeff gently. 'I think I must give you a tonic.'

She walked fast, anxious to get out of hearing of the house. She brushed his remark aside, and climbed swiftly over the stone fence. He followed, and when they stood on the bumpy ground amongst a few worm-eaten russets, she turned to him with urgency.

'Tell me, have you been to Dragonwyck? Have you seen Mr. Van Ryn?'

So, he thought, surprised to see how much he minded, that breathless eagerness of greeting was not for me at all. She is still obsessed with the lord of the manor.