This is it, isn’t it! he shouted to Tzara, who could not, of course, hear.
The Joyful Wedding
Many were the impassioned cross-Atlantic wires, and the tear-splotched letters in reply; many were the tasteful, modest gifts Lord Dunraven sent to his shy beloved (on Michaelmas eve an antique ring with a single pink pearl, on Christmas Day a Japanese shawl shot through with bright purples and greens, on Twelfth Night a tiny German music box inlaid with tortoiseshell and hammered silver—which poor Garnet felt she could not accept, and yet could not bring herself to return for fear of hurting her suitor’s feelings). When Lord Dunraven returned to America shortly after the New Year, and was, of course, a houseguest of the Bellefleurs, there were many weeks of letters delivered by hand to Garnet, in Mrs. Pym’s house in Bushkill’s Ferry, and weeks of ostensibly secret meetings in that house (with Della, of course, close by in an adjoining room, as a kind of chaperone), weeks of sleepless nights, increasingly impassioned pleas from Lord Dunraven’s side, gradually weakening defenses from Garnet’s: until at last, to everyone’s astonishment, not least to Lord Dunraven’s own, Garnet agreed to be his bride.
“I cannot say—I cannot know—if I will ever come to feel such love for you, as you declare you feel for me,” Garnet wept in his arms, “but—but—if you truly do not think me unworthy—if you truly do not hold me in secret contempt for having given my heart and soul to another man—and ah! how unwisely— If it’s as you declare, that my hand in marriage will make you happy, will save you from despair, then—then—then I cannot refuse you, for you are, Lord Dunraven, as everyone exclaims, the kindest of men—the most generous, the most considerate—”
Garnet’s words brought to Lord Dunraven’s ruddy face an even deeper blush, and for a moment it appeared that he did not comprehend—did not dare comprehend the import of what he heard. But then, whispering only, “Ah, my dear! my beloved Garnet!” he tightened his embrace and pressed upon her anxious lips a warm, passionate, husbandly kiss.
GARNET HECHT, THE parentless servant girl, the step-granddaughter of old Jonathan Hecht, impoverished, barely educated, and, since the shame of her affair with Gideon Bellefleur and the birth of her illegitimate child, a figure of contemptuous pity in the Lake Noir area—Garnet Hecht to be Lord Dunraven’s bride! To be the bride of that finest of gentlemen, and to live on his country estate in England for the rest of her life!
It was really, as everyone said, most extraordinary.
Extraordinary, said Leah. Our unhappy little Garnet to be Lady Dunraven.
Of course there was a great deal of excited talk. And yet, oddly, very little of it was mean-spirited. For it seemed quite clear to the Bellefleurs, even to Leah, that Garnet had resisted Lord Dunraven’s proposals; she had attempted to break off communication with him more than once; it was certainly not the case that she had seduced him, and cajoled him into marriage. She had, they felt, behaved honorably. Though Garnet was not a Bellefleur she had exhibited a Bellefleur’s integrity—it was a pity, really, that they couldn’t claim her for one of their own.
Grandmother Cornelia offered to throw the castle open for the wedding: for it looked as if, if Morna were actually going to marry Governor Horehound’s son (and that courtship was a stormy one), the wedding party would be held at the governor’s mansion, and not at Bellefleur Manor. And it was not to be until June, if indeed it took place at all. “You really must allow us,” grandmother Cornelia told the shy couple, “to do all we can. The renovations in the west wing are nearly complete—we’ve made over the entire third floor into a particularly lovely guest suite and of course it would make an ideal bridal suite—so spacious, so private—”
But in the end Della insisted, and of course no one dared oppose her, that the wedding party be held at her house. Garnet and Lord Dunraven would be married at the Anglican church in Bushkill’s Ferry, and there would be, afterward, a small gathering at her house. “Garnet has been, as everyone knows, the dearest of daughters to me,” Della said, her lips twisting as if she were trying not to cry, “and I will miss her—I will miss her terribly. But I want only her happiness. And this marriage has come to her from heaven. It has come to her from what must be called heaven.”
So the wedding and the party would be held across the lake. But the date presented a problem. For Lord Dunraven naturally wished to be married as quickly as possible (he had waited so long, so very long, for his beloved’s consent, and he was not a young man; and he was anxious, as well, to return to his homeland), but Jonathan Hecht was now critically ill, and it was feared he might die at any time. Dr. Jensen held out no hope. And, indeed, the cadaverous old man looked deathly. Cornelia and Della discussed the situation for hours. If they went ahead and planned the wedding for early March, as Lord Dunraven seemed to want, it was probable that Jonathan would just have died—and the wedding would have to be postponed. But if they waited for Jonathan to die—that was, of course, out of the question, in execrable taste. The most strategic thing would be to have the wedding immediately, but this too was out of the question—the haste would only provoke unseemly gossip, and ruin plans for a meaningful celebration.
In the end they scheduled the wedding for the first Saturday in March, before the start of Lent.
AND SO IT took place on that day, without a single difficulty. There were fears that at the last minute Garnet might change her mind—for she did continue to worry about the propriety of the marriage, and whether she deserved Lord Dunraven’s love: but she held fast to her decision, and exchanged her wedding vows in a clear, firm voice. Never had a bride, everyone exclaimed afterward, looked so exquisitely beautiful. And never had a wedding been so joyful.
The little church was tastefully decorated with lilies, white roses, and white and pink carnations; the bridegroom, his silvery-gray hair brushed back smartly from his temples, had never looked more handsome; and the bride—ah, the bride: her slender hips and small, high breasts were shown to advantage in a simple white dress with a smocked bodice, and she wore, on her thick honey-blond hair, which was parted in the center of her head to fall in two gentle curving wings over her temples, a veil of Flemish lace that had been Della’s bridal veil. She carried herself proudly—there was no fear, as some of the less charitable Bellefleurs said, that she would slink guiltily up the aisle, or burst into tears at the crucial moment. Her skin appeared creamy, and flawless (the subtle ravages of the past two years had quite disappeared); her neck was nobly columnar; the erect grace of her carriage suggested that she was, even at this time, Lady Dunraven. The only testimony of her nervousness was the trembling of her bridal bouquet of white and pink carnations.
Quite apart from the beauty of the bride, and the love that showed so clearly on the bridegroom’s face, the wedding was remarkable for another reason: not only had old Jonathan Hecht managed not to die and disrupt the plans, he had, through what must have been a preternatural effort, forced himself up out of his sickbed, and, in the wheelchair he had not been able to use for five or six years, he attended the wedding—and gave the bride away.
“What a feat! What a surprise!” grandfather Noel said, gripping the old man’s arm afterward. “You go your own way, don’t you, eh?—like all of us!”
Noel was the liveliest, and the loudest, of the wedding guests. He declared he didn’t mind making a fool of himself, and went about kissing the women, and insisting upon dancing with the bride, almost as if she were his daughter. “Lady Dunraven, is it? Lady Dunraven? Yes? Right?” he said, winking, and hugging the blushing young woman until Cornelia came to take him away. “You go your own way like all of us! I see that now! I’m beginning to see that now!” he crowed.
And so Garnet and Lord Dunraven were wed at last, and soon sailed for England, where they were to live out the rest of their lives in contentment: for the joyful wedding did prognosticate a joyful marriage. The following January they were to send a wire, never received, announcing the birth of a son; but in general, after they left for England, co
mmunications between them and the Bellefleurs were but feebly maintained. “It’s true, it’s true,” Della said with a sad smile, “we all must go our own way.”
AND YET:
A scant two days before the wedding Garnet sought out her lover Gideon, and spoke passionately with him, in secret, for three-quarters of an hour.
She wanted, she said, simply to say goodbye to him. For, as he must know, she would be married on Saturday, and would leave for England shortly afterward. Her life was taking a turn she could not have anticipated. “Between us . . . between you and me . . . so much has passed,” she said with difficulty, “that it is almost as if . . . almost as if we had been married, and had suffered together the loss of our child. And so . . . And so I wanted to say goodbye to you, in private.”
Deeply moved, Gideon took the young woman’s hand and brought it to his lips. He murmured something about her pretty engagement ring—the small pink pearl in the antique setting—which he had not seen before.
“Yes,” Garnet said vaguely, “yes, it’s very pretty—Lord Dunraven is so fine a man, I scarcely—I scarcely—” and, staring at her lover’s gaunt, melancholy face (for he too had suffered, perhaps more cruelly than she), she lost the thread of her words.
After a pause Gideon released her hand. He wished her happiness in her marriage, and in her new homeland. Was it likely she would ever return to America?
Garnet didn’t think so. Lord Dunraven frequently expressed a wish to “settle down,” after the draining turbulence of the past year; for he was, evidently, accustomed to a far quieter life. “He is by nature a gentle person,” Garnet said. “Unlike . . . unlike you. And your family.”
“A fine man,” Gideon said slowly. “Who deserves happiness.”
“Yes, a fine man. An exceptionally . . . fine man,” Garnet said in a hollow voice.
They stood for a while in silence. In another part of the house a piano’s treble notes were struck merrily, and children shouted with laughter; there was a comfortable odor of wood smoke from one of the fireplaces; the door to this room, not firmly closed, was nudged open by one of the cats—by Mahalaleel himself, resplendent in his thick ruffed winter coat. He mewed inquisitively and trotted forward, quite as if he and Gideon were on friendly terms. His tawny eyes, in the lamplight, glowed with a covert intelligence, and his enormous silver plume of a tail was carried high.
“Well—” Garnet said. She paused, blinking rapidly. “I had only meant to— I thought, since between now and Saturday—”
Gideon nodded gravely. “Yes, there is a great deal to be done, I should imagine. You’ll be very busy.”
“Mrs. Pym tells me—she tells me you’ve bought an airport, in Invemere, is it? And you’re learning to fly a plane—”
“Yes,” Gideon said.
“But isn’t—isn’t that sort of thing dangerous?”
“Dangerous?” Gideon said. He had stooped to rub the great cat’s head, and seemed distracted. “But—but a man must challenge himself, you know. Only in motion is there life.”
“And your wife doesn’t object?” Garnet said in a small, quavering, reckless voice.
“My wife?” Gideon said strangely.
“Yes. She doesn’t object? For of course it must be—it must be dangerous.”
Gideon laughed, straightening. Garnet could not interpret his tone.
“Only in motion is there life,” Garnet said. “I will remember that.”
She turned upon her lover a bright, melancholy smile, which so dazzled him that he looked away.
“I suppose,” Garnet whispered, “we must leave each other now. I suppose—”
Mahalaleel rubbed against her legs, mewing in his throaty, guttural voice, but when Garnet stooped to pet him he eased away, and leapt onto the back of a chair, and then onto the mantel. A crystal vase wobbled and nearly fell, brushed by the cat’s tail.
“I suppose we must,” Gideon said.
His manner was subdued, almost somber. Did he want to weep, did he want to cry aloud, as she did? In recent months he had taken on the look of a mourner. But despite his thin, lined cheeks, and his shadowed eyes, and the almost cruel turn of his lips, he was still an extremely handsome man. With a pang of gratified alarm Garnet saw that she was doomed to carry this man’s image with her, in the secrecy of her heart, for the rest of her life.
“If, at the very last moment,” she said suddenly, her heart kicking in her chest, “if—even on the church steps— Or, after the ceremony, when we are about to drive away— If, you know, you made a sign to me— Only just raise your hand as if you were— As if it were accidental— Ah, even at the very last moment, Gideon, you know I would return to you!”
Now the restless cat leapt from the mantel to a table, and, in so doing, did knock the vase down; and caused it to break in a dozen large, wickedly curved pieces.
AS THE NEWLYWEDS were about to climb into the Bellefleur limousine, as they waved goodbye to the assembled well-wishers on the steps of Della’s house, Gideon, standing at the rear, in his long heavy muskrat coat (for the March winds were ferociously cold), a matching fur hat atop his head, felt a sudden itching in his ear—and, without thinking, raised his hand to scratch it—began to raise his hand, to scratch it—and then froze. For he saw how the bride stared at him.
She was waving farewell giddily. Her pretty little white-gloved hands flew about, and her lovely hair was being blown by the wind, when, suddenly, seeing him about to make a gesture, she paused—paused and stared—stared at him with an expression in which hope, terror, and incredulity were mingled.
But Gideon had not scratched his ear. Wisely, prudently, he lowered his hand. He could tolerate the itching in his ear, he reasoned, despite its violence, until the limousine was well out of sight on the Falls road.
The Skin-Drum
How strange! Whyever did he do it? Whyever did he sink into such cynicism, such despair? Imagine, the great Raphael Bellefleur willing himself to be, immediately following his death (which of course he had brought about by fairly starving himself, and taking not a one of the drugs prescribed for him by Wystan Sheeler), skinned, and his hide treated, and stretched across a Civil War cavalry drum that was to be, according to the terms of his will, kept “forever and at all times” on the first floor landing of the circular stairs leading up from the Great Hall of Bellefleur Manor! The man who had built the castle was to be preserved within it, in a matter of speaking, made into a drum, and the drum was to be (again, according to the will, though this clause was never obeyed) sounded each day to announce meals, the arrival of guests, and other special events. . . . What perversity, people said, laughing and shuddering. But then, you know, he wasn’t even insane: he didn’t have that excuse.
Properly played, the Skin-Drum of great-great-grandfather Raphael gave out a smart, brisk, magisterial tattoo which had the power to penetrate every corner of the castle. Hearing it (for sometimes the children played with it, risking severe punishment) the family shivered and stared off into space. That, they could not help but think, even those Bellefleurs who scorned superstitions, is old Raphael, living still.
THE SKIN-DRUM WAS often disappointing, at first. For when the children showed it to their cousins or friends they frequently withheld the most significant information about it: that it was made of the hide of a human being. So it presented itself as a Civil War drum, in quite good condition, with brass fittings, and faded red velvet ribbons, not strikingly different from drums the children might have seen elsewhere. Here, why don’t you play it, one of the Bellefleur children might say, handing over the sticks—see what it sounds like.
One of the visitors (in fact it was Dave Cinquefoil, a few days before the mysterious death of the Doan boy) seized the drumsticks and, holding the drum awkwardly between his knees, as if he were riding a horse, hammered wildly away, giggling, and became so intoxicated with the sound (for it almost seemed, judging from the rat-tat-tat he was producing, that the boy had a natural talent for the drum) that he
found it difficult to stop. Grinning, giggling, gasping for breath, he sat on the landing and drummed away with the sticks, his hands and arms moving so quickly they were hardly more than blurs, his face wet with perspiration and his eyes glittering, while the Bellefleur boys tried to stop him, appalled at the racket, for they hadn’t, certainly, thought their cousin would have such an enthusiasm for the thing! From everywhere in the castle people appeared, holding their ears—even the shyest of the servants—even the youngest of the children—and still, and still, Dave hadn’t wanted to stop—until finally Albert wrenched the sticks away from him, shouting, frightened, For Christ’s sake that’s enough!
Afterward, they told Dave that the drum was actually made out of the skin of their great-great-grandfather Raphael—who was of course Dave’s great-great-grandfather as well. He had stared at them, his mouth slack, and smiled a queer loose smile, and said, finally, wiping his face, that he had guessed it: maybe he’d heard the story from his own parents, maybe he’d heard about it at the castle, but he didn’t think so, he really thought he’d guessed it, while playing the thing. Not Raphael Bellefleur’s exact identity, of course. But that the drum was fashioned out of a human being’s hide, and that the person had been a Bellefleur. Yes, Dave said, laughing uneasily, I guessed it right away. He was the one who made me keep going.
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