P N Elrod - Barrett 1 - Red Death

by Red Death(Lit)

  "Ha! Talk like your father, do you? He could make a pretty speech twenty-odd years ago. Does he still have that sly and easy tongue?"

  "He enjoys a good, intelligent conversation, ma'am," I said, trying to be neutral.

  That stopped her for a moment. Perhaps she was considering whether or not I was making an impertinence about our own converse. My voice and face were all innocence, though. Mother might have pounced upon it with all fours, but Aunt Fonteyn let it pass.

  "What about that sister of yours? How is Elizabeth Antoinette?"

  Elizabeth, God bless her, hated her middle name as much as I did mine. I was glad she wasn't present for she might not have been able to hold on to a bland face. "She was well when I last saw her."

  "She look much like your mother?"

  "Many have remarked on the resemblance, ma'am, and say that they are very alike."

  "In looks only, I'm sure," she sniffed, as though it were a crime rather than a blessing not to share the same temperament "The Barrett blood, no doubt. Anyone to marry her, yet?"

  "No, ma'am. Not before I left."

  "She's past twenty, isn't she?"

  "Nineteen, ma'am."

  "She'll be a spinster for life if she doesn't hurry along, but I suppose there's nothing suitable on that miserable island of yours." She made my beautiful home sound like a barren rock barely able to stand clear of a high tide.

  The tea arrived and I endured two hours and thirty-two more minutes of close questioning about my life and future and given summary judgments, all harsh, of my answers. I recall the time very well because of the presence of a clock on the mantel. Ii was clearly ticking, but I'd maintained an inner debate about whether or not the mechanism of the minute hand was defective, for the damned thing hardly seemed to move. I could have otherwise sworn that days had passed rather than hours before she finally dismissed me.

  I nearly reeled out the door, horribly stirred up inside and sweating like a blacksmith. It was a nasty, familiar feeling; one I'd thought I'd left behind with Mother. Here it seemed doubled, for it was doubly undeserved. Mother was all bitterness and reprisal for imagined slights; Aunt Fonteyn had no such delusions, yet enjoyed inflicting pain for its own sake. She was worse than Mother, for Mother's graceless treatment of people might possibly be excused by her unstable mind; Aunt Fonteyn had no such excuse for her behavior. Mother could not help herself, but my aunt was very much her own woman.

  Oliver met me in the hall with a cup of something considerably stronger than tea. Almost too strong, for the first sip left me choking.

  "Steady, now, Cousin. Give it a chance to work," he cautioned.

  His somber concern made me smile in spite of my red-faced anger. "You've done this before, have you?" I joked.

  "Far too often.

  "How do you stand it?" I asked, meaning to make it light, but it did not come out that way.

  In echo to my tone, his eyes flashed at the solidly shut door to his mother's lair. "By knowing that if God has any mercy, I'll live to dance on her grave," he whispered with a raw vehemence that made me blink. He suddenly realized it and made an effort to cover with a careless gesture at my cup. "Come, finish that off and I'll show you around the old ruin, introduce you to some of the ancestors we've got framed on the walls. They're a dull and dusty lot, but quiet company. You're duty's done until supper."

  I groaned slightly at the thought of actually sharing a meal with my aunt.

  "It won't be too bad," he said with a sympathetic assurance that suddenly reminded me of Elizabeth. "Just agree with everything she says and afterward we can go out and get properly drunk. We'll leave for Cambridge at first light. My word of honor on it."

  Oliver kept his word and we departed the next morning. Though still sickly from too much wine and another dose of Aunt Fonteyn, it was preferable to recover in a lurching coach than under that woman's roof. I don't remember much of this last part of my journey from Long Island: just being sick a few times, moping for Nora, and gaping with unhappy shock at the dreary monotony of the countryside as we got closer to our goal.

  The thoughts of Nora were the best and worst part of the ride. I had no word from her, of course, but hoped for some. Several times I entertained the happy fantasy that she might overtake us in her own coach as if in some popular ballad or perhaps she was well ahead of us and already waiting for my arrival.

  I was in love, a state that does not lend itself to logical thought. Eventually I stopped looking out the window and filled the time by speculating how long it would really take her to catch up to me.

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  Too long, I concluded, shifting restlessly in my seat.

  We arrived in Cambridge the next day, choosing to spend the night at an inn to give ourselves and the horses a rest rather than pushing on into exhaustion. Had we known how black the sheets were we'd have made other, cleaner sleeping arrangements, such as the stables. Certainly they would have had fewer fleas than the ones we endured.

  Nora had expressed a low opinion of the place that was to be my home for the next few years. True, there was little enough in the countryside to draw my interest, but the many buildings comprising the university were no less than magnificent. Oliver was very familiar with the area and I was happy to have him as guide, else I would have soon lost myself amongst the various colleges. He knew his business and with a surprising lack of confusion led me through the intricacies of where to go, which tutor to see, and finding a place to live.

  The last was the easiest, for I was to share rooms in a house with Oliver and Tony Warburton, taking over one previously occupied by a friend who had passed his examines at the last term and left. With hope pulsing through my brain, I immediately wrote a loving note to Nora with my new address and posted it off to London. Cambridge wasn't very large, but I wanted to take no chance on our missing one another.

  One day succeeded the next and I was kept extremely busy, for there were a thousand new things to learn before the start of the term. Between them, Oliver and Warburton had a number of friends who drifted in and out of the rooms to talk, share a drink, or even take a nap. Not surprisingly, many of them were also studying medicine, though there were a few reading law like myself. A sharp contrast to the placid pace I'd known on Long Island, I embraced the variety of this new life fully and strove to enjoy every moment.

  But Nora was always in my head, and though fully occupied, the hours were far too long. I worried, fretted, and kept a lookout for her all the time that I was awake and dreamed about her when I was not. Each time I saw a coach and four-and there weren't that many in Cambridge-my heart jumped into my mouth, only to drop back into place with disappointment when it turned out not to be hers.

  One drizzling evening almost a week later Oliver and I were returning from a dinner with some other scholars. A coach was

  waiting on the street outside our house. I recognized it instantly, swiftly discounted the recognition, for I'd grown used to having my expectations dashed, then threw aside my doubts once I saw the driver's livery. I rushed forward, leaving Oliver flat-footed in the thin mist and calling an annoyed question after me. I never did answer him.

  The coachman knew me-fortunate, since I had forgotten his face-and had a folded bit of paper ready to hand over as I approached. It was an invitation. I gave it only a quick glance, enough to pick out the key words, before hauling myself into the coach, too impatient to wait for the footman's assistance.

  Oliver trotted up, his mouth wide and eyes popping. I waved the paper at him. "She's here!" I cried from the window as we pulled away. He did not find it necessary to ask who and waved back with his walking stick to wish me luck. Just before I withdrew inside, I caught a glimpse of a man emerging from our house. Warburton. He paused to stare for a moment, then turned to Oliver for information. It looked like my poor cousin would be caught in the middle of things, after all.

  Heartlessly, I left him to it. Any guilt I might have felt in assuming the place Warburton desired for himself simp
ly did not exist. I was going to see Nora and that's all that mattered.

  She lived surprisingly close and I speculated that she'd arranged it so on purpose, for surely she could have afforded something more fashionable elsewhere. Not that the house we stopped at was a hovel. It proved comfortable enough once 1 was ushered inside, but it was decidedly smaller than her London residence, and still bore signs that the unpacking was still in progress.

  "Why, Mr. Barrett! How nice to see you again!" Mrs. Poole rustled down a steep stairway. "You're looking very well. Does the academic life suit you?"

  Though I wanted to see Nora more than anyone or anything else, I was moved to patience by the sincere goodness of the woman's manner. "I believe so, ma'am, but I have not yet taken up my studies."

  "1 am sure that you will do well once you start. Nora tells me that you have a fine mind."

  In the short time we'd spent together, Nora and I had hardly concerned ourselves with intellectual pursuits. I searched Mrs. Poole's face for the least hint of a false note or derisive humor

  and found none. She was about the same age as my mother and aunt, but there was a universe of difference between their temperaments. She guided me to a room just off the entry and saw that I was comfortable. A fire blazed away against the damp, and hot tea, cakes, and brandy were at hand. Candles burned in every sconce and in the many holders scattered throughout the room. I could not help but be reminded of that first night. My heart began to pound.

  Mrs. Poole excused herself with a fond smile. She was hardly out of the room before Nora swept in.

  My memory had played tricks with me in her absence. The face and form I'd carried in my head differed slightly from the reality. I'd made her taller and set her eyes closer together, forgotten the fine texture of her skin, the graceful shape of her arms. Seeing her now was like meeting her for the first time all over again and feeling anew the enchanting shock as time stopped for me. My heart strained against the pause as though it alone could start everything up once more. It needed help, though, and that could come only from Nora.

  Her eyes alight, she rushed toward me. All the clocks in the world resumed their ticking even as the blood began to swiftly pulse within my whirling brain.

  The next few minutes were a blur of light, of joy, of holding her fast while trying to whisper out my love in broken words. Broken, for I was constantly interrupted as she pressed her mouth upon mine. I finally gave up talking altogether for a while, which really was the best course of action to take, considering.

  "I was afraid you'd forgotten me," I said, finally breaking away to breathe.

  "Never. It took more time than I'd expected to ready even-thing for the journey."

  "Can you stay?"

  "For as long as I like." She smoothed my hair back with her fingers. "It shall be a very long time, I think."

  My heart began to soar.

  Further talk was postponed. We were too hungry for one another to wait and climbed the stairs to go straight to ha room. As before, Mrs. Poole and the servants were nowhere to be seen.

  The bed was different, but the silk sheets and feather pillows

  LZL

  were there, along with her portrait and dozens of candles. I helped her from her clothes, my hands clumsy as I tried to recall how I'd done it before. Nora chuckled at my puzzlement, but encouraged me as well. My turn to laugh came when she tried to undo the buttons of my breeches. I had grown decidedly inspired while undressing her, and they'd become rather a tight fit. She was having trouble finding enough slack to accomplish her task.

  'There!" she crowed finally. "Isn't that much better?"

  My back to the bed, I teetered unsteadily on one leg as she worked to pull my breeches down. "Indeed, but I think that things might be improved if we..." Giving in to a second's loss of balance, I toppled onto the mattress, dragging her laughing with me. The bedclothes and pillows seemed to billow around us like clouds.

  My heart was flying.

  And thus began my real education at Cambridge.

  Nora taught me much about love and she was ever interested in helping me explore and develop my own talents. While others might revile her experience, I reveled in it. She filled my life, my thoughts, the food I ate, and the air I breathed, but once the term started I did have to face the necessity of more mundane learning. But for her gentle urging to begin the work, then finish what I'd started, I might have abandoned the university completely to spend all my time with her.

  My activities were-to my mind-unevenly divided between study, socializing with my friends, and Nora. I wanted to be with her constantly, but yielded to her sweet insistence that she had to have some hours apart for herself and her own friends. Soon we settled into a pattern that suited us both. I visited her several evenings a week as my studies permitted. Unless I had to get up early the next day, I would stay quite late, and occasionally the whole night. Her only irritating custom was to always wake first and leave me to sleep in. Irritating to me, for I would have liked to have the opportunity to make love to her once more before departing. I chided her on it, for at the very least she could stay to breakfast with me.

  "I am not at my best in the morning, Jonathan," she replied. "So do not ask me to remain with you."

  "The afternoons, then," I said.

  "No." She was firm, but kind about it. "Your days are your own as are mine. This has always been my way. I love you dearly, but please do not ask me to change myself. That is the one thing I will not do for you."

  Put in that context, I could hardly refuse her, though it troubled me at the time.

  Of her other friends I saw little. If I arrived too early, I either waited in the street or Mrs. Poole would chat with me until they left. I could not help but notice that many of them were fellow students, Tony Warburton being in their number. They were young, of course, invariably handsome, fit, and moneyed. None ever stayed very long, hardly more than ten minutes as if they had only dropped in to pay their respects before moving on to some other errand. They paid scant attention to me or even to one another, which struck me as odd until I decided they were only complying with Nora's request for discretion. Certainly whenever we met elsewhere her name did not come up in conversation.

  I had no jealousy for them and though they were aware of me, sensed none directed at myself. Tony Warburton was Ik exception to this, though much of what I observed may have been in my own imaginings. Now and then I would feel a pinch of guilt in the vitals, and doubtless the feeling would spill over onto my face in his presence. In turn, I was prone to interpret any odd look or comment from him as part of the resentment he should have felt for my taking the special place in Noflfl heart he'd ardently hoped to achieve for himself. As the weeks passed I wondered whether I should talk to him about her, bat when I raised the subject with Nora, she resolutely discouraged it, telling me not to worry.

  Warburton's manner toward me was otherwise open and friendly as when we were introduced, but some points of his personality had altered enough so that even Oliver had to

  comment.

  "He's not as preoccupied over women these days, have yoc noticed? Used to fall in love at regular intervals, y'know."

  "He has been studying hard," I said.

  "And drinking, too."

  That I had not noticed. "We all drink, Oliver."

  "Yes, but he's been doing more than the rest of us."

  "He never seems the worse for it."

  "He holds it well enough, but I know him better than you. I think his mind is yet fixed on Miss Jones. He didn't make much of a row when she refused him, which he's never failed to do before."

  "Perhaps because he's still friends with her," I murmured.

  "I've known that to hurt more than help. Sometimes it's best to make a clean break or else one or the other party ends up pining away for things that cannot be."

  "If he loves her I can agree with you, but he's said and done nothing to indicate that."

  "Not while you're around, anyway."
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  "He's spoken to you?"

  "Not exactly, but he puts on a damnably grim face when he knows you're going over for a visit. He sulks awhile, then gets drunk."

  "He hides it well."

  "Doesn't he just? You don't notice because he's always passed out by the time you get back. He's always all right in the morning-except for a bad head."

  "Should I do anything about him, you think?"

  "Don't know, old lad. Just thought I'd mention it, is all."

  This is a warning, I thought.

  After that he refrained from further talk on the subject. More than once he'd stated that what went on between me and Nora and Nora and his friend was none of his business and seemed content to let it remain so. I respected this and did not attempt to draw him farther out, but now that I'd been made aware of them, I did note the small changes in Warburton, and thought about them frequently afterward. Again, when I spoke of him to Nora, she told me not to be troubled.