Dragonwyck (7 page)

They both ignored Miranda while they greeted their master, but from the woman's thick back and round averted head Miranda felt hostility.

"Where's Mrs. Van Ryn?' asked Nicholas, allowing the butler to take his cape and hat.

'In the Green Drawing-Room, my lord.' The butler was a Yorkshireman who had accompanied Nicholas back from England years ago and with the special snobbery of the British servant had always addressed his master by this title, insisting that in any civilized country the owner of such lands and name and estate would have been a peer. Nicholas, agreeing with him, had not objected, though the matter was indifferent to him. A Van Ryn had no need of title or distinction borrowed from Europe.

'This way, then, Miranda,' said Nicholas, ushering her down the hall to a doorway on the left. "You shall now have the pleasure of meeting my wife.'

Was there a peculiar intonation in his voice or did she imagine it? She had no time to wonder, for they entered the Green Drawing-Room.

Johanna Van Ryn sat by die window embroidering. She started and her gold thimble rattled on the floor as Miranda and Nicholas walked in.

She looked up at her husband and the dull colorless eyes came to life with longing and a mute appeal. 'You're back!' she whispered.

Nicholas picked up the thimble and placed it on the tabouret be side a half-eaten cruller. He bowed to his wife and taking her extended hand, which was loaded with rings, barely touched it with his lips. Yes, I'm back as you see. And here is Miranda.'

Johanna's eyes dropped and she gave a nearly inaudible sigh. 'Welcome to Dragonwyck, child,' she said, not looking at the girl. 'I trust you'll be happy. Nicholas, did you bring me the pastries?'

Miranda stared at the figure in the rocking chair. Johanna was enormously fat, the plump pale fat that makes monstrous dimples at elbows and knuckles. On her face, which was round and white as one of the crockery plates in the kitchen at home, there were two unskillfully applied spots of what even Miranda, who had never seen any, recognized as rouge. The scanty flaxen hair was tightly drawn back and covered with a coquettish lace cap embellished with blue ribbons none too fresh. There were delicate laces covering her bosom and on them were scattered small brown crumbs whose origin was no farther to seek than the cruller on the tabouret.

Miranda, suddenly remembering her manners, said: 'It's most kind of you, ma'am, to let me come here. Please to accept Ma and Pa's respects.'

Johanna nodded. 'I'm sure they're most worthy people, and I'm sure you'll be a good girl. Nicholas, did you get those pastries?'

Her husband stood looking down at her a moment without answering, then he spoke pleasantly. "I did, my dear. Will you have them here now, or can you wait until supper time?'

"Did you get the Napoleons, the honey puffs, and the mocha bon-bons?'

'All of them.'

She contracted her tow-colored eyebrows. "Well, I think I'll have the bon-bons now. Tell Tompkins to have the others served at dinner. Be sure he keeps them well chilled so the cream won't melt.'

Nicholas bowed slightly. 'It shall be done, my love.'

How sweet he is to her, thought Miranda. I suppose he was awfully in love with her and hasn't noticed that she's so fat and untidy. Farther than that she did not go in her thoughts, for she was determined to like Johanna.

'One of the servants will show you to your room,' said Johanna, at last realizing that the girl was still standing there, 'and after a while you'd best go and find Katrine. I never can keep track of that child. You might read a story to her.'

'I think we can hardly ask our guest to occupy herself with a child tonight,' said Nicholas. 'She must be tired.'

Johanna shrugged her massive shoulders, and thrusting out an incredibly small foot in a purple velvet slipper began to rock slowly back and forth.

'Oh, to be sure, you must rest if you're tired, my dear. You'll feel better after a good supper. You may eat it in the nursery.'

'Oh, I think not,' said Nicholas again. 'Our cousin would hardly eat in the nursery. It will be a pleasure to have her with us.'

Johanna pursed her mouth. As you like, Nicholas. Only do hurry and tell Tompkins about those pastries or they'll be quite ruined.'

Miranda listened to all this with dismay. She didn't know what a nursery was exactly, but it was plain enough that Johanna expected to consider her as a kind of upper servant. She was correspondingly grateful to Nicholas for his attitude. But neither this nor the luxurious magnificence of the bedroom in which she presently found herself obliterated a spasm of homesickness and a yearning to return to the dearly familiar and simple farmhouse. It seemed a week since she had bade her father good-bye that morning and a month at least since she had seen Abigail's shrewd, affectionate face.

She threw herself on the bed and indulged in bitter tears which were not quenched by the realization that she had wanted to come to Dragonwyck and here she was, that she had yearned for luxury and elegance and now she had it to an extent a thousand times beyond her dreams. She felt defenseless and out of place, frightened of the servants, unable to like Johanna, appalled by the size and grandeur of the house, which she had barely glimpsed as Nicholas led her upstairs. Nor did she altogether like Nicholas. Pie gave her a strange sensation that was half pleasurable and half a shrinking discomfort.

I wish I hadn't come, she thought, and in the thinking knew that it wasn't true. She had been impelled toward Dragonwyck from the first moment of hearing about it, and now that she was here it still seemed to be pulling her closer, as though there were a magnet hidden in its gray stone turrets.

She sat up and dried her eyes and looked around the room. The bedroom at the Astor House had been only a pallid introduction to this. Her three windows faced south and commanded the whole sweep of the river downstream, while in the distance rose the Catskills, hazy in the dusk. She was on the second floor, on which there were six large bedchambers, as she later discovered, and hers the middle one on the south side. It was furnished with massive black walnut pieces in the Gothic style and its draperies were of peacock blue brocade as was the tester of the four-posted bed The rug was an Aubusson specially woven for the room in a pattern of golden wheat sheaves garlanded with blue and green The washbowl and ewer even the doorknobs, were made of engraved silver. Miranda's youth and her temperament combined to raise her spirits, and to her other discoveries was now added an excited wonder. Imagine a bathroom across the hall with a silver tub' Imagine above all the small private closet which opened from her room and was obviously for her exclusive use' She thought of the embarrassing and chilly trips across the yard to the outhouse behind the bushes at home, and felt for them all there an impatient pity. How little they knew of real refinement. They hadn't even sense enough to want a different way of living. Except Ma, she thought with swift love; how dearly I'd like to have her here too!

She unpacked the wicker basket and hung her three calico dresses in the painted Dutch Kas, where they looked lost and bedraggled. She longed to change the brown merino, which now seemed to her incredibly ugly, but there was nothing to change into. The calicos would be worse.

Supper was a silent meal. The food, served by Tompkins and a young footman, was delicious, but Miranda had no appetite. The profusion of strangely shaped spoons and forks dismayed her, and so did the wineglasses which stood beside her plate. From one of these she took a sip because the Van Ryns did, feeling very defiant and wicked as she thought of her father, but the stuff tasted sour, and she pushed the glass stealthily away.

Nicholas, at the head of the table, scarcely spoke except to make conventional inquiry as to her comfort. It seemed impossible that he could have been the entertaining companion of the first part of today's journey.

As for Johanna, she concentrated on her food and her only remarks had to do with that subject. The roast was overdone, but the potato cakes were tolerable. Annetje must remember not to get the jellies so hard. When she had mopped up the last bite of honey puff, Johanna looked up at Miranda. 'Where's Katrine?' she asked.

'I don't know, ma'am, I'm sorry. I've not seen her yet,' answered the girl nervously, wondering if she had already failed in a duty.

Johanna frowned. 'That child—she's always down with the servants. Now that you're here I hope you can keep her upstairs where she belongs. That's why I wanted a companion for her.'

'I'll try hard, ma'am.'

Johanna gave Miranda a dissatisfied look. 'You're not quite the type I expected, but I suppose you'll do your best. You seem very sweet,' she added with a vague smile and a quick glance at Nicholas, who was peeling himself a nectarine and had not looked up.

Johanna heaved herself up from her chair and waddled on her tiny feet into the adjoining room.

'Send Miss Katrine in to us, Tompkins,' ordered Nicholas, rising and motioning Miranda to follow his wife, who had already en-sconed herself in an armed rocker by the central table.

This was one of the many rooms that Miranda had not yet seen. It was called the Red Room from the color of its carpet and plush curtains, and it was comparatively small because it was part of the original house and Nicholas had left it alone. Around its fireplace ran still the old blue and white Dutch tiles representing the story of Adam and Eve and the Fall, and the furniture was simple for Dragonwyck; besides the center table with its fringed red velvet cover there were only three chairs, a horsehair sofa, and in the corner an old and shabby harpsichord.

At first Miranda decided that it was more homelike and cosy than the rest of the house. She sat timidly in the corner by the harpsichord, Johanna rocked while jabbing with a clumsy hand at the white lawn handkerchief she was embroidering. Nicholas with his back to the unlit fire buried himself in the morning
Tribune
which he had brought from New York. Ten candles lit the room and in their soft light the reflected reds glowed warmly. It was a reassuring domestic scene, but as she sat there an indefinable discomfort crept over Miranda, and at the same time she shivered from a sudden sensation of cold. Dare I ask them to light the fire, she thought, and knew that she did not. The June night was warm, and she could see Johanna's forehead and upper lip glistening.

Miranda shifted uneasily in her seat, and the formless discomfort mounted within her until between one second and the next it ceased to be discomfort, and she knew it for blind unreasoning fear. Fear of what? She moistened her lips and looked about her. There was nothing but the comfortable room. Nicholas turned a page of his newspaper, and the small rustle mingled with the rhythmic creak of his wife's rocker; both these sounds seemed to Miranda to come from a vast and chilly distance. She clasped and unclasped her hands, struggling with a violent urge to run headlong from the room.

The door opened and a little girl walked in dragging her feet. At once the fear and the feeling of cold vanished.

'Oh, there you are, pet,' said Johanna vaguely. You're a naughty girl to stay away so much.'

Nicholas took the child's arm and led her over to Miranda. 'This is your new cousin, Katrine.'

The child put her finger in her mouth and gaped at Miranda, who smiled and held out her hand. Katrine would someday be a replica of her mother. She was a plump and stolid child now, with the same scanty tow-colored hair and small colorless eyes like pebbles.

'Shake hands with your cousin,' said Nicholas sharply, and Katrine slowly obeyed.

"We'll be friends, won't we, dear?' said Miranda, trying to draw the child toward her, but the chunky little body resisted.

'Yes, Cousin M'randa,' answered Katrine without interest. 'Can I go find my kitty now, Mama?' she added, scuffling her slippers and twisting a corner of her plaid skirt.

'Oh, I suppose so—' began Johanna fretfully, but the child did not wait for more. She gave her father a quick, apprehensive glance, and seeing that he was not going to stop her she darted from the room away from the mother who was always discontented and ineffectual, and the father who frightened her, back to the simple delights of the kitchen and Annetje's welcoming presence.

Nicholas' eyes followed his daughter, and Miranda saw that the dull, unprepossessing child was a disappointment to him, though how bitter a one to a man of his nature she could not guess.

Johanna sighed and bent over the monogram she was embroidering, Nicholas' monogram, Miranda now saw, and saw also that the letters were botched and straggling.

'I can't think,' said Johanna, 'why Trine's always wanting to run to the servants. She can't get those tastes from my side, or yours either, Nicholas, except possibly the Gaansevants; they were certainly common people.'

Miranda looked up startled. Johanna must be aware that she was insulting her guest, whose only connection with the Van Ryns was through these same Gaansevants, but one look reassured her. Johanna was simply following a familiar train of thought and was perfectly insensitive to any overtones or ramifications which it might develop.

'No one could possibly doubt that your ancestry is of the bluest and most aristocratic, my love.' And again Miranda was struck by the extraordinary sweetness of Nicholas' tone.

Johanna smiled. 'My papa,' she said to Miranda, 'always used to say that he despaired of finding a suitable match for his girls in view of the sad way the country had gone lately. There are so few of the fine river families left. But he was pleased when I married Nicholas. He thought that a Van Ryn would do very well, though he would perhaps have preferred a Livingston or Van Rensselaer.'

'I'm profoundly grateful that he found me acceptable,' said Nicholas. 'Miranda, do you play the pianoforte? We might have some music.'

She shook her head. 'I'm sorry.'

'Well, anyway, come and turn the pages for me.'

She looked at the harpsichord, but Nicholas shook his head. 'No one ever touches that old instrument. It belonged to my great-grandmother, Azilde de la Courbet.'