by Belva Plain
Not long afterward they had driven to his village. It had a cobbled High Street, a chemist’s and tobacconist’s and an ancient church.
“There’s where the Lambs are christened, married and buried. That’s the lich-gate. They used to rest the bier there, but now we trim it with white flowers for brides. There’s the riding club where I keep three horses. It’s only a stone’s throw from home, and it’s just as easy to stable them there. Do you ride? Yes? Oh, there’s nothing like riding just after dawn when everyone but birds and roosters is still asleep!”
So they had rounded the corner of the lane and come upon the house, drowsing in hazy, filtered light. There it lay, sturdy, secure and most of all so brightly cheerful. It seemed like a place Fern had always known. It seemed as if there could be no deeper joy than to stay here with this gentle, loving man, in this golden peace.
Promptly then, cablegrams went out to Father and Jessie at home. Letters went back and forth across the ocean. Lists were written and arrangements made. Aunt Milly rejoiced. Alex’s mother rejoiced. An engagement solitaire was bought at Asprey’s.
Fern sent instructions home. Father must bring the photograph of Mother in her room. They must crate and ship her books and all her paintings. They were to bring the sterling which had been put aside for her, Tiffany’s Audubon Birds. (“Animals, naturally,” Jessie had remarked, with her usual tart humor, which happened to be accurate, for Fern had also asked them to bring along her collection of dog etchings as well as the two spaniels, who would have to remain for six whole months in quarantine.)
The wedding was held at Lamb House. Just as Alex had said, the lich-gate had been trimmed with white flowers. They had ridden back from the church in a carriage, also decked with flowers. Neddie had worn a powder-blue velvet suit and had his picture taken with the bride and groom, while old ladies wiped their tears.
Everyone in the village had been invited. There was champagne for all in the great courtyard square and there was dancing indoors under the enormous chandeliers. The dining hall was illuminated by silver candelabra as tall as a man. The vermeil dinner service, taken from the vault for the occasion, glittered between bowls of old Carfax’s prize roses in bridal pink and cream.
“Positively medieval,” Jessie remarked. “I didn’t think they still did this sort of thing.” Then more softly, she said, “But it was beautiful, Fern, and I shall want all your photos to remember it by.”
The honeymoon was a voyage to India. For Fern Meig, who had never been anywhere and had so longed to go “beyond,” the very thought had been intoxicating. In the eyes and ears of her mind she saw and smelled enchantment: red lacquer, gold thread, frangipani and patchouli, jasmine, burn and blaze.
Unfortunately, Alex had been seasick most of the time. She had felt sorry for him, not only on account of his physical misery, but because she saw he was humiliated.
Then at the end of the sixth week, she too became a victim, but for a different reason: she was pregnant. It must have happened almost immediately, on the night they spent ashore at Gibraltar, visiting some friends of Alex’s father. That, and the few other nights they had slept on land, had been the only normal ones on the trip. So it had been rather a queer honeymoon! Poor Alex! Thank good ness, though, for his sense of humor, he had finally been able to make a rueful joke of it.
Now, with Emmy not yet old enough to walk, she was pregnant again, and still having spells of nausea, so that on many nights she had to disappoint him. But he was considerate and patient Not all men were, she knew.
He was patient in other ways, as well. He had taught her how to run the unfamiliar household. He had taught her about bills and bank accounts, things difficult enough to master in a strange currency, especially hard for her who had never handled money at all. He’d been so good about all that! And so good about her work: True to his promise he had arranged for the best classes in the city, in particular an outstanding class in oils with Antonescu. For the first time she had been able to feel she was learning.
“Well, how are you doing?” Alex came around the house and laid a hand on her shoulder.
“Painting or stomach, do you mean?”
“Both.”
“Stomach’s queasy unless I remember to keep a sweet cracker in my pocket.”
“Biscuit.”
“Well, someday I will remember to call a cracker a biscuit, I promise. How was the ride?”
“Marvelous. After this baby we’ll go every morning when I’m home. And when I’m in London you should go with Daisy or Nora or somebody. I took your mare out just now for exercise. I’m rather too heavy for her, though.”
There wasn’t an ounce of extra weight on Alex. He glows, she thought; from his boots to his bright hair and outdoor skin, he shines as if he had been gilded.
“We’ll make a rider out of Neddie, too. You should have seen him on his pony this afternoon.”
“He wasn’t scared at all? He’s only four, Alex!”
“That’s the time to start. And he loves it.” Alex examined her picture, “You know, you’ve got the perspective on the hill just right! Do you realize, incidentally, that you don’t imitate anymore? You’re developing a style of your own.”
“Maybe. Antonescu says I still pay too much attention to detail, though. It should sweep more, it should feel more careless. I understand what he means, but it’s not easy to do it.”
A bicycle bell tinkled up the drive. In a moment Mrs. MacHugh from the village would appear around the curving shrubbery, bringing the afternoon mail.
“I’ll get it,” Alex said.
It was past time for a letter from home. Of late, Fern had been troubled by thoughts of home. Aunt Milly had written that Father had seemed unusually tired on her last visit to Cyprus. There’d been a history of heart trouble among the men in the family. If Father were to die, what would become of Jessie? And Fern had a vivid recollection of her sister sitting with the cards spread out for an elaborate game of solitaire; the little face, surrounded by arabesques of curls and lavish folds of scarf, was proud and lonely.
She stood abruptly and walked to the front of the house, where Mrs. MacHugh, having just handed the mail to Alex, was turning the bicycle back down the drive.
“Letter from America! Two of them! Looks like one from your father and one from Jessie. The rest—just advertisements and an invitation from the Mercers.”
She sat down on the step to read. The note from Jessie filled just one page.
“I shall be in England a week after you receive this.” In England? But how? But why? “Read Father’s letter. He will explain it all. He can do a better job of writing than I can just now.”
Prick of pin, quiver of apprehensive chill as when a running cloud covers the sun. Tiny shudder as when a jangling note is struck on the piano. She opened her father’s letter and read it quickly through. Then she read it again.
“Oh no!” she cried.
“Oh no what? What’s wrong?”
Fern laughed. The sound was harsh and queer.
“What is it?” Alex repeated.
She gave him the letter, then leaned back against the doorpost, fighting a sudden heaving of nausea.
“Well,” he said, “this is news, isn’t it?”
“I don’t believe it!” she cried.
“Why? Is it all that strange?”
“For goodness sake, don’t you think it is?”
“Well, I suppose one mightn’t actually expect Jessie to marry, and yet she—”
Fern sat up. The wave of sickness had subsided.
“I think it’s—I think it’s disgusting!”
“I don’t understand. Do you know the man, by the way?”
“Yes, he’s a doctor, as you read. A country doctor, It’s—farm country, hills, something like Scotland. Yes, it looks something like Scotland,” she said irrelevantly.
“But do you know him? What is he like?”
Fern swallowed, as if a lump of some tough substance stuck in her throat.
“It’s hard to describe him.” She shook her head, frowning. “He is a very intelligent man with a wide-ranging mind. A quiet man with a lot of restless energy. But that’s contradictory and complex—”
“We’re all contradictory, some of us more than others. Anyway, if he and Jessie love one another, I don’t see why you call that disgusting.”
“She may be in love with him. I’ve no doubt she is. But as for him, well, could you be in love with Jessie?”
“I’m not, so I can’t answer for myself. That doesn’t mean some other man couldn’t be. And I did like her a lot, you know. I thought she had wit and heart.”
“He can’t love her! It’s impossible.”
“You don’t know his feelings, Fern. You really ought to be glad for them. For Jessie.”
“Did you read the whole thing? They’re taking a flat in London. Hell be working here for the next three years.”
“So then he won’t be a country doctor, after all, will he? They’ll have a whole other life.”
“Yes, a whole other life.”
Alex got up and drew Fern to her feet.
“Let’s go in. I need to shower and change. Then I want tea. Yes, you ought to be glad for them,” he repeated, climbing the stairs.
Fern lay down on the bed. Water rushed in the bath room shower, fogging the mirror on the open door so that she saw herself in a blur. Lying there in the middle of the enormous bed she looked forlorn and she felt ashamed. Why should she begrudge Jessie this miraculous deliverance?
Whenever she thought of her sister she saw her small and huddled, sometimes even crying with a lump on her forehead that was Fern’s fault. Jessie was a measurement, a symbol of deprivation and unfair disadvantage.
Her thoughts went to Martin. “A quiet man,” she had told Alex a few minutes ago, “with a lot of restless energy.” She might have added more: a sensitive man, perceptive, tense, reserved, intellectual, kind, proud, ambitious—yet not one of these words, even the word “ambitious,” made clear how he could have married Jessie.
She was bitterly angry.
“After they’re settled in,” Alex said, rubbing himself dry, “we’ll give a party for them.” His eyes crinkled with friendliness. He liked parties. “We’ll have a little band and string lights in the trees. Welcome to England and all that What do you think?”
“Lie down here with me,” she said.
“I thought you didn’t feel like—”
“I only meant, hold me. We don’t have to make love unless you want to.”
He drew her head down to his shoulder. “You don’t feel well. I can wait. There’s more between us than only that, I should hope.”
Yes. And she thought: I do wonder what all the mystery is for? One gets the idea that it is the purpose of everything, this entrance of the man into the woman, when actually it is such a quick thing, not at all like the fuss that’s made over it. What’s really best is to be held and loved, to wake up in the night and not be alone. To be cared for as Alex cares. He’s done so much for me. I’ve grown so much with the things he’s taught me.
Her hands went to the rounded hill below her ribs. The baby fluttered for the first time. Its new life, thumping, had knocked at the door. How wrong of her to feel anger or anything but thankfulness and—and gladness! She had everything. Everything!
“Have a nap,” Alex said. “We’ve an hour before tea.”
The sky suddenly had gone dark and chilly. A gust of rain battered the windows. He drew the coverlet about them both, while her head still rested in the curve of his shoulder. So warmed, her tremors eased.
Ah, foolish, she thought. Alex is right, it is no business of ours! As long as we’re here together, with Ned and Emmy and whoever it is that’s stretching and turning inside me now, why should I care what other people do?
In a few minutes, she drifted into the sweetest sleep.
Chapter 9
Martin stepped outside into a fragrant morning; the air was damp on the skin. Here in England June still had the feel of spring. It was a long walk to St. Bartholomew’s, but he enjoyed starting his workday at the hospital with the vigor and well-being that came after exercise. And with this sensation of well-being he crossed through the park and turned down the Mall.
It had been, beyond expectation, a good year. He smiled, still warmed by the hour he had spent since he had got up, in the pleasant flat above the square of chestnut trees and sycamores. Jessie and he had breakfasted at the bow window that overlooked all the bird-filled greenery. His last sight before leaving was of her puttering over some last-moment touch on the little room which had been readied for the baby who was due right now—perhaps even today!
He hadn’t really planned to have a child this soon. But apparently Jessie had! She would be an excellent mother, he reflected. He hadn’t thought much about that until now, but on these solitary walks all sorts of thoughts streamed through one’s head.… Yes, she would be excellent, with all that energy, remarkable energy for so small a body. Well organized, too; everything was planned out beforehand so that the actual doing seemed always to be easy. He marveled at this ability of Jessie’s to manage things, and could imagine her directing in her capable, cheerful way a household of children. Cheerful. That was Jessie. If you had to think of a single adjective that above all else described her, cheerful would surely do as well as any.
Suddenly he recalled the day they had moved into the flat; it was a furnished sublet, drably decorated; it had been raining that afternoon and the drabness, combined with the pelting rain, had depressed him so that he’d almost wanted to turn around and walk out—he who never really cared that much about possessions or the appearances of things! But what wonders Jessie had done with those rooms! She’d filled them with flowers, inexpensive daisies in bright blue glass bowls. She’d hung travel posters on the walls, delightful scenes of golden places: the Fountains of Vaucluse and Venice and Segovia. She’d become a devotee of the flea markets: one day she’d come home lugging a tarnished, wretched old pot that turned out to be a splendid silver tea kettle. She’d been so pleased with herself! She knew how to enjoy the hours, Jessie did, and knew how to stretch her mind. She’d stretched his mind, too, leading him through every gallery and museum in the city. They had gone to Elizabethan plays and the ballet and of course to the opera that he loved so well, and rummaged through old bookshops.
In the fall they’d gone to Paris; there had been a neurological conference at the Salpetriere; they’d walked their feet off down every alley and into every corner. Christmas week had been celebrated in Rome. They had seen palms growing in Cornwall. They had traveled to Ulster and visited the stony village where Martin’s father had been born and a long line before him had died. Martin had been immensely moved by its loneliness and dignity. Yes, it had been a remarkable year and he had Jessie to thank for it.
Not that he hadn’t had some trepidation at the beginning! Once having passed the first shock and splendor of the opportunity with Braidburn, he had come to the awareness that in England he would see Mary again; the thought had plagued him all the way across the Atlantic Ocean. He had felt—he hadn’t known quite what it was he had felt, other than a decided discomfort and a wish that he might somehow avoid the whole business, which was, of course, impossible.
They had been driven straight to Lamb House. It had been one of those gray-green English afternoons, halfway between rain and heavy mist The sky had been filled with noisy birds, starlings and rooks; the country looked soft, he had thought.
“I like this kind of day. I’ve grown used to it,” Mary had said, answering some comment about the weather.
Queer that he should remember such a slight remark!
She had been standing in the doorway when they drove up. The boy Neddie had been on one side and a tiny girl, just able to stand, had been on the other. And he had wondered whether she was aware of the picture she made, blooming with her two children and her pregnancy.
Yes, he remembered that day. They ha
d gone walking about the grounds. Naturally, Jessie had described Lamb House beforehand, but no description could have done justice to it in Martin’s mind. He had had no frame of reference for such a place.
Intending nothing, truly intending nothing by the trivial words, he had remarked, “This is a long way from Cyprus, isn’t it?”
And with unmistakable anger, Mary had repeated, “Yes, isn’t it?”
Surely she couldn’t have been jealous of Jessie? After all, she hadn’t wanted him for herself! So it had come to Martin’s mind that she must be resentful over the marriage because she thought him some sort of fortune hunter. This idea had stung him, and still would have done so if he allowed it to. For he was, after all, living on another man’s money, wasn’t he? And living well. Perhaps, then, he did look like a—a fortune hunter?
But not for long! Jessie’s father would be repaid for everything. They would live better yet on what he, Martin, would provide. His wife and children would depend on no one else but him.
Fortune hunter! And what of Mary’s motives? Ah, but that was unfair! Alex was a man to be desired by women, a kindly, generous, intelligent man who happened to have wealth. Martin himself could surely have been bitter at the sight of him, not because he had any remnant of desire for Mary—she had rejected him and that was the end of that!—but because of normal resentment toward the winner. Instead he had come to like Alex. You couldn’t help but like him.
Occasionally, still, he could remember his first anguish over Mary, how painfully and slowly it had ebbed into anger and how the anger had finally seeped away into nothing. Oh, there was some small disturbance yet—embarrassment, that was all. He was still and probably always would be so damned touchy! A regular prickly pear, he was.
But he was forcing himself to get over this embarrassment Mary too had evidently got over it, or over whatever it was that had made her so cold when he and Jessie had first arrived. Perhaps she saw now that he was working hard, and would get somewhere in the world and was in the meantime making a good life for Jessie.
