Night of the Candles (30 page)

“Of what?”

“Of a man in torment,” he said drawing her to him with a sigh and laying his cheek against her hair. “Dearest Amanda, would you consider me unfeeling … if I told you I was thinking of marrying again?”

“Marrying?”

“You, if you will have me after we have known each other longer, and in more settled surroundings. After time has let the memory of these past days fade.”

“Jason?” She lifted her head.

“Yes?”

“Are you sure? Are you sure what you feel isn’t guilt and some kind of … continuation of your love for Amelia? Are you quite certain that, because of the strange things that happened, the times when Amelia seemed to … to make herself felt, you are not seeing her in me?”

“Amelia,” he said, instead of answering. “Why do you think she came? Remorse perhaps, the desire to right the tragic wrong that had been done, or was it mere revenge?”

“I would prefer to think the first,” she whispered.

“So would I. Tell me this too, then. Is she gone? Is this Amanda or Amelia I hold in my arms?”

She drew back, her eyes grave. “I am Amanda.”

“And there is no trace of Amelia, no trace of what she might have felt for me?”

“No, Jason. I promise you.”

“Then listen to me while I promise you that what I feel is for you alone. For you, Amanda. I love you for your beauty, but also for your integrity; for the sweetness of your smile, but also for the honesty that shines in your eyes. You are a woman, not a child, someone to love and to cherish, not to worship blindly. You are everything I wanted in a wife when I married Amelia. You have the character that complements the beauty of your face. Oh yes, Amanda,” he said, “I’m sure. You have my word. But because I want you to be as certain as I am I will wait a year…”

He smiled slowly, gathering her close against him, tipping her chin, his eyes on her smooth warm lips waiting for his kiss. “A year to come to know each other, a year to forget, to talk and to laugh and to draw close. Perhaps in that time we can discover some way to prove what we feel.”

“Perhaps,” she said, her lashes veiling her eyes before she looked up fearlessly, “perhaps we could begin … now.”

And so they were married a year and two months later, at Christmas, 1872. Their wedding was small, held in the little chapel that had been built by the Monteignes so long ago.

Amanda wore white satin with pink rosettes draping the fabric, Jason wore gray with a pink rose in his buttonhole. Attending the wedding was Nathaniel with his wife of six months clinging to his arm, a young thing with fine, fluffy, blond hair. Sophia was there also, her head high and a bright smile on her face. She was accompanied by a florid gentleman with salt and pepper mustachios, and the expansive chest and humor of a successful town merchant. The ceremony was simple and very quiet, so quiet that as the vows were exchanged the sound of a seam ripping in a glove was audible in the back of the church. Sophia carried one glove of white kid in her hand as she left.

Theo was not among the guests. His burns had healed but his depression had deepened, strengthening his determination to end his life. During that past summer he had nearly succeeded in cutting his throat with his own straight-edge razor. The doctors, wise at last, diagnosed his condition as extreme melancholia, and Sophia was forced to commit him to the insane ward of the charity hospital in New Orleans. There he seemed to improve for a time, until he received a visit from a large Germanic woman in a nurse’s apron, as she was described later, who came upon him sitting by himself in the common room. She appeared more than a little tipsy, they said, weaving back and forth; blubbering into her hands like a penitent might in the confessional.

When she was gone Theo sat still for a long time, then suddenly erupted, raving that he had killed them both, the woman he loved, and his own unborn child. In the strength of berserk grief he managed to break away from the attendants and ran out into the maze of busy streets. He was found next morning, floating in the river.

A wedding trip was undertaken, a fairly long one to the fashionable resort of Saratoga Springs in the East. But Jason and Amanda did not linger long. Monteigne was waiting.

Amanda spent her first year of married life redecorating the house. Theo’s old room on the front was redone as a master bedroom of muted colors of brown and old rose, a popular scheme just then. It did not matter that the room was not one of a suite. She and Jason never slept apart in all the years of their married life.

Amelia’s old room, stripped bare of her things … Jason did not say what he had done with them and Amanda did not ask … was done last. In shades of yellow with white, it made a sunny room, perfect for a nursery, though to Amanda a trace of violet perfume always seemed to linger in the vast armoire.

Amanda was never troubled again by the strange metamorphosis that had caused her to act and speak like her cousin. She and Jason did not mention it. Least said, soonest mended — Amanda always reminded herself of the wisdom of the old saying when the thought of doing so occurred. Perhaps Jason did the same.

Their lives moved on, passing by with steady measured ticking of the clock in the entrance hall. Their children arrived, the plantation nourished under Jason’s management and the advent of better times.

When they had been married five years, Jason commissioned a family portrait during one of their visits to New Orleans. For the sitting Amanda wore gold satin, the new pompadour hairstyle, and of course, the collar of Harmonia. Jason stood behind her, distinguished, with just a touch of gray at the temples, an easy, relaxed manner about him. Their son, Aaron, beside him, looked such a copy of his father that Amanda always had to smile. The baby in her arms had been extremely good, his eyes solemn with the importance of the occasion, his long gown streaming down across her skirts to the floor.

But a troubled expression often came into her eyes when she gazed at the child who leaned against her knee. It was a little girl, a tiny princess with long auburn curls and purple pansy eyes. Such knowing eyes the artist had painted for her daughter, Amelina, though she was a gay and laughing child, a truly lovable little girl. Still, she could be stubborn. For this portrait she had insisted on wearing her favorite dress, a white dimity strewn with violets.