by Anita Shreve
I paid cash on the spot on the condition that the owner and his family vacate the premises at once so that carpenters and painters and so forth could enter the house to begin the work of restoring it to its former glory. (Hard not to think of Josip Keep here, with his ladders and drop cloths). The fellow I hired to manage the restoration was charged with working overtime to complete the task by the third week in June, when Etna and I would return from our wedding trip to take up residence. It was a daunting assignment, but the man came through admirably, and though we were sometimes plagued with painters and even plumbers (the indoor plumbing being unaccountably difficult to install), I could hardly complain at the transformation he eventually wrought.
It was remarkable as well to note the transformation in myself — and though I do not think it would be quite true to say that we grow or shrink in character and spirit so as to inhabit our surroundings, I did feel that I began to take on the role of the property owner and to shed the somewhat dismal image of a schoolmaster consigned to college rooms. My humiliating collapse on stage was behind me (indeed, I was able to congratulate Arthur Hallock heartily, if not sincerely, on the day of the physical culture vote), and though I was never again to regain my former brief popularity (one could not erase altogether the image of that unmanful collapse in the Anatomy amphitheater), my colleagues seemed, for the most part, genuinely pleased about my forthcoming marriage.
But what can I say of Etna during this time? I hardly knew her true thoughts, and I felt somewhat disinclined to ferret them out, since, I confess, I was fearful lest she change her mind about the wedding. I allowed our correspondence to remain on a pleasant, even-tempered plane, and if it was a trial not to run on at length in my letters about my love for her, I comforted myself with the thought that I would soon be able to say whatever I wanted. I longed to possess Etna, a desire I sincerely hoped would be reciprocated. Whether I was hopelessly naive or simply ignorant of a young woman’s fears regarding her forthcoming physical responsibilities, I cannot say. Of course we had never spoken of such matters (although we did once discuss in great detail the notion of passion within a framework of restraint in Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter; a thrilling conversation, if I may say so, not only for its intellectual rigor, but also for its thinly veiled erotic content), but I guessed she had some knowledge of them. At the very least, I assumed she would query her sister about certain necessary aspects of the wedding night.
(However often in these pages I might appear to be opportunistic, my love for Etna Bliss was genuine. I had never before known such a feeling, nor have I since. And though I could not help my imaginings — can any man? — I had but the purest of motives in anticipation of my marriage. I wanted first and foremost to make Etna happy, whatever sacrifices that might entail on my part. I think that any man who does not feel similarly about his bride-to-be should not entertain the idea of wedlock. Marriage entered into with even the best of intentions can sometimes be both baffling and trying. To do so with baser motives beggars the imagination.)
(Not that I was immune to the pleasurable anticipation of physical love, however. No, no, to the contrary, I rather think I enjoyed the sexual act more than most, for it allowed me that rare opportunity to escape myself — to shed constricting inhibitions and enter, if for moments only, another universe entirely, one in which I ceased to be a man named Nicholas Van Tassel.)
* * *
Etna and I walked arm in arm (man and wife) back to the home of William Bliss, who had generously offered to host a wedding breakfast. I was tongue-tied during this brief journey, and Etna was as well, and had it not been for my loquacious sister Meritable, it might have been an awkward walk indeed. But Meritable, who had journeyed up from Virginia for the occasion, loved to chatter and had any number of questions and pronouncements for both of us. As she was a product of my father’s second wife, we were only half brother and sister, but the resemblance between us was unmistakable. Unfortunately, the physical characteristics of my Dutch forebears do not normally contribute to delicacy of limb or fineness of facial feature in women, and in this Meritable was very Dutch indeed. She was a stolid woman with a broad face and thickish lips similar to my own. She was prone to heaviness, so that she had to walk briskly on stout legs to keep up with Etna and me, lending her queries a breathless air. Where would we be staying the first night of our wedding trip? Had we hired a coach or would we drive ourselves? Had I looked into the matter of purchasing the oak Roycroft dining set she had seen for sale in the newspaper? Did I think that the President of the college would come to the breakfast, since she so very much wanted to meet him? My sister punctuated these queries with bits of news about her brood of seven children (prolific daughter of prolific father): Peter was turning into quite the young scholar, and Quincy, unhappily, had broken his leg. Meritable closed her eyes and uttered a short prayer when she said this, as she was likely to do whenever she mentioned any ill fortune in regard to her children (she was terrified lest she lose a son or daughter to accident or illness); and I cannot help but think these small missives sent heavenward successful, since the seven children of 1900 subsequently became eleven, all of whom are alive and well today — an unlikely, though happy, statistic.
“I like her very much,” Meritable said when we had reached the Bliss house and found ourselves alone in a hallway. Etna had gone upstairs to make herself presentable for the breakfast, though I thought her more than presentable already. I minded her leaving my side and longed for her return. Meritable put her hand on my arm. “She does not dissemble, which I admire,” my half sister said.
“Though silence in a woman can sometimes be a trial.”
“I think Etna feels shy today,” I said.
“Of course she does,” Meritable said, smoothing the voluminous skirts of her dress and kicking a clod of caked mud from her boot. (Boots nearly as large as my own, I noted.) Then she added, as if explanation enough, “It is her wedding day.”
“I count myself lucky,” I said.
“She is tall.”
“Stately, I think.”
“Yes. And not too young, I am happy to see. But in the matter of children, you will want to begin straight away. There is no time to lose.”
I was silent.
“You’ll begin tonight, no doubt,” she said wickedly, and there might even have been a wink. “I hope you’re not journeying far.”
“Not too far.”
“A child conceived on the wedding night will be clever and charitable,” Meritable said with the assurance of a countrywoman.
“I promise you I shall do my best,” I said, and she laughed — a throaty laugh that threatened to sink beyond the realm of good taste.
“Nicholas, you are sometimes very pompous.”
Perhaps it was the talk of sexual matters, or simply that I felt bereft without my new bride on my arm, but I excused myself and climbed the stairs, hoping to surprise Etna and kiss her quickly out of sight of her family and the other guests. I found my wife in her aunt’s bedroom.
She was standing at the mirror in an attitude of perfect immobility. Another woman’s hands might have fluttered all about herself, correcting imagined flaws, enhancing precious charms — pinching her cheeks or refastening her hair, for example — but Etna was completely still. So intent was her commune with her image that at first she did not notice my presence. But it was not vanity that made her oblivious to her spy; no, it was something else, something far more dispiriting.
The golden eyes to which I had attributed so much beauty had taken on a look of despair. The luster had gone out of her skin, and her lips, that lovely mouth I wanted nothing more than to kiss, seemed almost bloodless. It was as if I were seeing Etna as she might be forty or fifty years hence: as an old woman who had learned to live without joy.
Do I sound excessively melodramatic? I wish I did. I had to bite my own lips to keep from calling out, and perhaps some sound escaped me, for Etna started and swiveled in my direction. For one second,
before she could compose herself, I experienced the full force of that despair: bottomless, black, and irreparable. And though she managed a smile and put (for my benefit) some warmth into those golden eyes, and, further, seemed at great pains to demonstrate a modicum of fondness for me, my own joy teetered and momentarily collapsed, and it was some moments before it could pick itself up again.
Etna crossed the room.
“Husband,” she said. Whether this word had emerged deliberately or not, I do not know, but I later thought it a remarkably brilliant choice; what other greeting was so guaranteed to please?
“Wife,” I said in kind, though something inside me was still off-balance and wavering like a dislodged ladder.
Etna put her hand upon my arm. Instinctively, my fingers closed over hers.
“The guests are arriving,” I said.
“I will go down with you.”
“The Reverend Mr. Wilford did a creditable job.”
“It was a lovely ceremony.”
“Your uncle seems pleased.”
“I like your sister. She has no pretensions.”
“We shall stay for an hour and then go,” I said.
“Yes,” she said, linking her arm in mine.
“Etna,” I said hoarsely — joy tentatively on its feet now and daring to stretch its limbs.
(I should explain here the abrupt change in ink. Immediately upon finishing that last sentence, I began to feel wretched. I sat back in my compartment, resting just a moment — perhaps I was experiencing some motion sickness, I thought — but then, as the distinct nausea I was experiencing grew worse, I remembered the crab croquettes we diners had had just hours before on the train. They had had a peculiar smell, and I had thought of bypassing them altogether, but, unfortunately, hunger had defeated common sense. I quickly succumbed to a violent fit of nausea; in fact, I was so ill the train was forced to make an unscheduled stop in Richmond, where a doctor was brought on board to attend to me. Fearing food poisoning, though vociferously denying it, the train personnel have been solicitous of my well-being. They have given me another berth, a more luxurious one with leather upholstery and a mahogany table and even gold-plated fixtures in the hidden bathtub, which the conductor tells me was once used by Woodrow Wilson during his campaign for the presidency. Unfortunately, at some point during my illness, or perhaps during the move to my rolling parlor, my pen was lost — or stolen — and I am now using one given to me by the conductor. I am saddened to have lost that cherished writing instrument, one that Etna gave me when I turned forty. I am also, oddly enough, missing my previous compartment, which suited my temperament and seemed conducive to solitude and memory. Will luxury alter my narrative? I sincerely hope it will not.)
I had hired a carriage to take Etna and me north and east to an inn in the White Mountains. As will happen in the spring in New Hampshire, the day turned abruptly cooler. Etna and I rode side by side but had few words between us. Shortly after we left, she fell into what appeared to be a deep slumber from which even the jolts of the muddy ruts couldn’t rouse her. Her head listed onto my shoulder, and I was quite happy to be, for the duration of the journey, her bulwark. I slipped my arm around my bride, and though she was not conscious, I imagined her at least content. We stopped only once, for nourishment. Our driver, familiar with the route and mindful of the fact that we were hours wed, took us to a small inn. As I recall, Etna ate little, while I, nearly ravenous, devoured my lamb chops. There were several other diners in the restaurant, and their boisterous spirits provided a welcome buffer, allowing Etna and me to eat in relative silence. Though I was rendered nearly mute with anticipation of the night to come, I considered blurting to the assembled crowd the fact of our marriage just hours before. Each time I glanced at Etna — at her thoughtful face with those seemingly foreign cheekbones (surely there must be some Indian in her, I thought) — I felt buoyant, nearly giddy, not unlike a man who has unexpectedly come into a large sum of money as a result of a game of chance.
As we left the inn, I noted a trinket shop across the street. I helped Etna into the carriage and asked her to wait for me. I wanted something — some tangible gift — to give to my new wife, to mark the day. I was dismayed, however, to find that the shop contained only secondhand items. I fingered a veil of lace and discovered a moth-eaten hole; I looked at a silver-backed brush that might have done but for a small stain in the bone of the handle; I had high hopes for a Florentine writing case until I lifted the lid and saw it was connected by only one hinge. I was ready to abandon my idea altogether when I moved a worn velvet hat from a display case and saw, beneath the glass, a matching set of items such as a woman might carry in a purse: a small mirror, a pillbox, a case for calling cards. Each was made of gold with an intricate mother-of-pearl cover. The shapes were pleasing — the round mirror, the oval pillbox, the rectangular card case — and the objects seemed like treasures a child would find tucked away in a grandmother’s jewelry box. The set had some age, and I exaggerated what flaws I could find (the silver backing of the mirror was beginning to flake) to get the price down, though in the end I needn’t have bothered. The shopkeeper seemed not to know their value. I paid for the set, had it wrapped, and brought it to the carriage.
“But I have nothing for you,” Etna said when I put the package in her lap.
“Of course not,” I answered. “This was merely a whim. Well, more than a whim. I wanted you to have something to mark this wonderful day.”
I held my breath as she untied the package. It was the purest gift I had ever given. I felt, as she let the silk ribbon slip through her fingers, that the best of me was now available to her. I had never wanted so to please another human being as I did then. All of hope, I believe, was contained within those folds of tissue.
She opened each small case in turn and then ran the tips of her fingers over the mother-of-pearl inlay. “Thank you, Nicholas,” she said. “They are very beautiful.”
“Love me,” was all that I could manage.
I cannot now recall why I chose the Mountain Inn for our honeymoon. I suspect it had something to do with my finances, nearly exhausted as they were by the renovations to the house. Surely one might otherwise have gone to Paris? Or even to Italy? Yet I had selected a lonely inn perched upon a granite summit in the heart of the White Mountains, which, at that time of year, was still host to inhospitable winter. (I can’t think how I’d have known about the hotel. I must have booked it on the recommendation of a colleague. Was Moxon to blame?) Even now, just the visual image of that monstrous inn causes something inside of me to empty out with despair.
It was immediately clear that we were not expected, that the person to whom I had written and from whom I had received a reply was nowhere in evidence. Nevertheless, said the young fellow who finally answered the door, a room could be made up. He would not turn us away, he said, his phrasing having the unfortunate effect of making us feel like unwanted refugees. I was more annoyed than I wished to be; I could barely restrain myself from upbraiding the man. Etna was embarrassed, I think, and tried to soothe my ruffled temper. “It doesn’t matter,” she kept saying. “It doesn’t matter.”
“But it does,” I said, too sharply to her, for she turned her head and did not comment again.
We were shown to a room on the second floor. The view was, most assuredly, impressive, as had been promised, but it was a feature I was too distraught and cold to notice just then. A gust of wind had blown the ashes from a previous fire in the hearth across the floorboards, and one could see from the doorway the sag of the bedsprings. The chamber was frigid and smelled of mildew.
“This is all you have?” I asked.
“It’s not really the season, sir, is it?”
“Can you make a fire?” I asked the boy.
“I will,” the boy said.
“And what about a meal?”
“You’ll be wanting a meal, then?”
“Of course we’ll be wanting a meal. Many of them, in fact.”
“Many of them, sir?”
“Damn you, this is our wedding trip!”
Etna put a restraining hand on my arm. The boy smiled, which I took for insolence.
“Never you mind,” I said sharply. “You see to that fire.”
A marriage, I now think, should never begin with a wedding trip, for the excursion places upon the couple, who may be nearly strangers to each other, too great a burden of expectation. Except for those persons for whom physical pleasure is paramount and who are content never to venture from the bed (and who do not care whether or not this is ever noticed by the innkeeper or other guests), the enforced togetherness — the endless hours of togetherness — sets up the assumption of continuous happiness, in reality an impossibility. Better that newly betrothed couples should plunge into the responsibilities of the quotidian, coming together at odd moments during the day (and of course during the night) than have to maintain the pretense of wedded rapture.
