by Anya Seton
The bailiff had after all decided to remain, and it was he who collected the rents from those whose titles were not yet cleared; these rents he now forwarded direct to the Van Ryn agent in New York. The situation was pleasing, for since the patroon no longer bothered to check or supervise there were many agreeable opportunities for Duyckman to feather his own nest.
Jeff, knowing these things, looked at the mossy millstones, the machinery already corroded with rust, and sighed. The tenants had won but a Pyrrhic and inconclusive victory after all. They were ground, as the grains of wheat used to be ground between these millstones, by the ponderous slowness of the new laws, and by Nicholas' refusal to co-operate.
Jeff blew on his fingers and stamped his feet to warm them. The cold made his old shoulder wound ache, though that and the thin line of scar on his cheek were the only mementoes still left him of the Mexican campaign.
His life had been full and interesting of late. He had been tremendously excited by the new use of ether as an anesthetic. The famous operation at the Massachusetts General which publicly introduced it had taken place while Jeff was still in Mexico, and it was not until the following year that he journeyed to Boston to learn the technique of administering this miracle-worker. Since then he had used ir enthusiastically, and discovered complete joy in surgery now that one no longer had to inflict agony on the patient.
Yes, the past two years had been pleasant enough. He had refused either to mourn or pine for Miranda, and by all accounts she had been involved with her husband in a giddy social whirl, so he had put her out of his mind.
He had, however, not married Faith, and that young lady, finally vanquished, settled down with a solid young lawyer who seemed to satisfy her very well. Jeff resigned himself to bachelorhood, though resignation was too strong a word for a circumstance to which he seldom gave a thought. And his was no monkish life. On his occasional holidays he could relax as well as the next man, could hugely enjoy a pint of good Barbados rum, and there had been a lusty adventure or two in Boston and New York.
When, last night, the brawny young blacksmith had delivered Miranda's note, Jeff had first read it with no reaction but astonished dismay. This summons to a secret rendezvous seemed to him melodramatic and ridiculous. When he re-read the note, he saw in the jerky writing and incoherent sentences signs of mental strain bordering on hysteria. He who never refused anyone who needed him could hardly deny Miranda, but he did feel a strong reluctance to subjecting himself again to the upsetting emotions which she invoked.
Still, here he was, cold, hungry for his breakfast, and certainly in no romantic mood.
He saw her slender gray figure come toward him through the bare tree-trunks. Despite her hurry and the tingling of her chilled feet, she moved with her own particular grace. He went to meet her, and she stretched out her left hand to him in a gesture half greeting, half supplication. 'Jeff—thank you for coming. I had to see you—talk to someone—it's about Nicholas.'
It would be, he thought grimly. But he smiled at her and drew her out of the wind into the shelter of the mill. He had forgotten how lovely she was. The last time he had seen her she had been ravaged by childbirth, but now under the ruffled gray hood her face was smooth and girlish, the skin as fine as porcelain. It was only her eyes that had aged; their hazel depths now showed disillusionment and anxiety.
'What is it, Miranda? Tell me,' he said quietly, seeing that now that she was here she scarcely knew what to say. She cast involuntary frightened glances in the direction of the Manor House, and the hand which clutched the cape tight around her chest, trembled.
She moistened her lips. 'I don't know why I came,' she said distractedly. 'There really isn't much to tell. It seems different now.'
He gave her a keen look. She obviously needed rest and a sedative. As both were impossible, he substituted the only remedy at hand. He unrolled his saddle blanket and spread it over one of the wheat bins. On the stone pavement near her, he hurriedly built a small fire. When the aromatic smoke began to curl toward the rafters, he sat down on the bin beside her.
'It feels good,' she said gratefully. She spread her hands out to the blaze.
'Hello,' said Jeff, 'what's happened to that wrist?' He noted her quick flush and motion of concealment while he examined the mottled swelling, which now extended from forearm to knuckles. 'I doubt that there's anything broken, but it's a nasty wrench. Cold cloths, arnica, and rest it needs when you get back.' He pulled a large cotton handkerchief from his pocket and fashioned it deftly into a sling. 'How did it happen, Miranda?'
She turned away from him. Here in this quiet old mill beside the fire, that scene in the tower became unreal, and the shock which had driven her to summon Jeff merged into an aching weariness. His presence brought her comfort and security at the same time that it seemed to banish her last weeks with Nicholas into the world of distorted fancy. She longed to lean her head against that powerful shoulder in the worn greatcoat, to shut her eyes and rest.
But Jeff persisted. He knew very well that it was not for the treatment of her wrist that she had summoned him by means of that frantic little note. He saw that both her nervous condition and her loyalty to Nicholas were now inhibiting her, and her manner convinced him that her injury had been caused by Nicholas.
'You've had a disagreement with your husband?' he asked gently. 'Tell me, my dear. You asked for my help, and now you must trust me. Think of me as a physician only, and one used to hearing all sorts of strange things.'
She nodded slowly. 'I know.' She bent forward gazing into the fire. 'He's been different lately. I guess he's always been, but—ever since the theater riot in May. I don't suppose you heard—he was hurt. But it isn't that—'
'My dear girl,' said Jeff patiently, smiling a little. 'You must begin at the beginning. Is your husband sick? Is it perhaps that he's taken to drinking too much?'
'No,' she said with sudden quiet. 'He smokes opium.'
'Smokes opium!' Jeff repeated, so much startled that for a second he wanted to laugh. He might have known that Nicholas' temperament would demand nothing as usual as liquor.
'It's not serious, men?' she asked, watching his face anxiously.
He sobered at once. 'I don't know much about opium, Miranda. A country doctor has no experience of such drugs, nor many city ones either, I guess. But tell me everything and I hope I can help you.'
She began haltingly, hunting for words. She briefly described the shooting at Astor Place and Nicholas' constant gloom and sulkiness afterward. She attributed this gloom to remorse. She told of his sequestrations in the tower room, and of her own discovery yesterday. But of the hour which she had spent locked in with Nicholas she gave no details. It was only from the expression of her lowered eyes that Jeff drew an inkling of what had passed.
He rose and busied himself in building up the fire, determined not to let his personal emotions intrude. He had offered his help to her as a physician, and this objective advice she should get. He walked to the glassless window and staring down at the mill stream, which purled and rollicked beneath a coating of ice, he shut out all thought of Miranda and tried to consider Nicholas dispassionately.
Had Jeff been born a hundred years later, he would have used to himself the cant phraseology of an, as yet, unrecognized science. But he needed no props beyond his own analytical perception and knowledge of human character to understand that the taking of opium represented to Nicholas—whatever he might choose to call it—escape from intolerable circumstances. And that in different degree his cycles of furious activity and his cycles of withdrawal from life represented the same desire for escape.
But what he's trying so hard to get away from, I don't know, thought Jeff, except that whenever his all-conquering ego butts up against something unpleasant he can't change, like the baby's death and the rent laws, he pretends they haven't happened.
He turned suddenly and looked at Miranda. 'Why don't you leave Dragonwyck for a while? Go home and visit?' he said brusquely.
'Why not?' he asked angrily. Won't he let you?'
'No, he wouldn't let me. But I don't want to. I couldn't leave him. He—he needs me.'
'Rot!' snapped Jeff. 'I know enough to know that you can't do anything with a drug addict unless he wants to be cured. You can take away his opium, but he'll get more. He'll degrade you too. Do you want another wrist like that one—or worse?'
She slid off the wheat bin and stood up, looking at him coldly. 'You've always misjudged him,' she said. 'It's because he feels remorse for shooting that boy that he's this way now. I couldn't desert him, he needs help. Underneadi he's really fine and good.'
Does she really believe that? thought Jeff, stupefied. You didn't feel that way when you wrote me that note—when you came here this morning!' he cried in exasperation. He wanted to shake her, he wanted to kiss her pathetic swollen arm.
'Yes, I did,' she said, lifting her chin stubbornly.
To his own dismay he suddenly leaned over and kissed her hard on the lips.
There was a silence. She put her hand to her mouth with a startled gesture. 'Jeff—' she whispered, staring at him.
'Sorry,' he said. 'But you needn't look quite so flabbergasted. Female intuition can't amount to much if you hadn't some idea of the way I feel about you.'
She shook her head slowly. 'No, I don't think I did.' Her first astonishment gave place to a more poignant emotion. She thought of the baby's birth and the strength she had drawn from Jeff. She thought of her talk with Doctor Francis in Poe's kitchen and the unexpected pleasure that had come to her at the mention of Jeff's name.
Seeing her troubled frown, he grinned with the humor that never deserted him for long. 'Don't let it worry you. I'm not a lovesick young calf nor am I going to force on you any indecent proposals. I don't as a matter of fact know just why my affections should have so inconveniently centered themselves on you.' He stopped, considering whether that were true. Part of her attraction for him was physical, of course; the slender body with its lovely grace of movement, the bright hair, the provocative set of her hazel eyes beneath straight brown brows—but other women had had for him as strong a physical appeal. It was her essential innocence and helplessness that had drawn him, that and paradoxically enough her blind concentration on Nicholas. In the beginning perhaps this had given her the glamour of the unattainable, constituted an unconscious challenge. But now it was more than that. The sweetness of her lips beneath his kiss had focused his love once and for all. And even while he spoke to her half-teasingly, he felt a heavy weight of longing and sadness.
'I must go, Jeff,' she said quietly, and she gave him an uncertain little smile, at the same time casting a frightened look in the direction of the manor.
'And I haven't helped you after all.' He frowned, kicking at the fire to dissipate the still glowing embers. 'I'll find out all I can about opium. I'll write you.'
'Oh, no, please. He'd see the letter. It doesn't matter. I'll manage. Probably it won't happen again.'
Probably it will, thought Jeff. But he could do nothing. He thought that she regretted having summoned him. He had failed her, not only in practical advice, but in that kiss which had changed their relationship. By his impulsive action he had thrown her back on herself again.
'Good-bye,' she whispered, not looking at him. And she was gone, running through the trees. It never occurred to him that she had longed to throw herself into his arms. And that the frantic pace at which she ran back toward the house, slipping on the thawing ground, was not caused by eagerness to return to her husband, nor yet fear of discovery. It was from Jeff that she ran, and the yearning which he had aroused in her. Upon her mouth she felt Jeff's kiss as though it were a red stain, and this moved her by revulsion to a guilty loyalty to Nicholas.
She had need of this loyalty when he came downstairs that afternoon. He walked into her room without knocking, stood looking down at her silently, his eyes narrowed. She sat by the window idly turning the pages of Godey's, since the injured right hand prevented her usual embroidery. She had hidden the sling under a lace shawl.
'You look unusually well, my dear. Your cheeks are quite rosy. Is it rouge, perhaps? Or might it be that you've been for a walk in the crisp November air?'
She shrank to wariness. Could he possibly have seen her as she crossed the lawn on her way back to the house?
'Why, yes,' she answered steadily. 'I did go for a walk early this morning. I didn't sleep very well. I thought the air would do me good.'
'That was sensible,' he said, and she saw that the subject of her walk had been a chance shot. He had some other purpose in mind.
'Just how is your health these days, my love?' He leaned forward, smiling with the exaggerated courtesy that always meant trouble. 'It interests me.'
Hot color spread over her face. His meaning was unmistakable, but she chose to ignore it, seeking refuge in a casual answer. 'It's good of you to be concerned, Nicholas, but I believe I'm very well.' She rose quickly. 'Will you come and have some food now? I'm sure you must need it.' His dark skin was ringed with yellow, his face was drawn and haggard. A muscle twitched beneath his eye.
He did not move. 'It would be a pity if you were barren, wouldn't it' he said.
It's the opium, the drug, she thought. He's not well. It's nearly three days since he's eaten, and I can see that he's suffering.
She pulled herself together and tried to smile, saying as lightly as she could: 'That's a matter of the Lord's will, dear. And after all, we have each other. Surely you didn't marry me just for that.'
In the silence that followed, her last nervous sentence seemed to her to fall into space from whence it sped back into her consciousness like a gunshot.
'You didn't, did you, Nicholas?' she whispered. 'You loved me, me for myself. I know you did, you do. Underneath.—Don't look at me like that,' she added violently.
His unwavering gaze did not alter. 'Like what, my love?' he asked softly.
'The way you used to look at—' She bit her lips. 'Come downstairs, Nicholas. You must eat something.' She slipped her left hand through his arm, and the lace shawl fell to the floor, disclosing the sling.
He picked up the shawl, placing it carefully around her shoulders again. She saw his eyes flicker as they rested a moment on her wrist. He said nothing, but across his face there passed a fleeting uncertainty. He followed her to the dining-room, and bore with her efforts to make him eat and drink, concealing from her and denying to himself the revulsion of his outraged body.
They stayed at Dragonwyck that winter. It was Nicholas' wish, but Miranda was quite willing. She had no desire to be reminded of the Astor Place riot. The theaters and gaieties which had once seemed so attractive no longer appealed to her, and the whole of New York was for her overshadowed by the horror of their last weeks there.
She assumed that it was for this reason that Nicholas also preferred the calm of the Manor House. During those winter months their lives once more approximated the usual routine of country gentry. Nicholas did not go again to the tower room. He busied himself about the estate, planning a new road, reinforcing the dock, building a new barn for the prize-winning Jerseys he had recently bought. He resumed his long-lapsed interest in the greenhouses and harassed the gardeners, who had grown slack and perfunctory.
Before Christmas the MacNabs left, having saved enough money to buy themselves a farm in Michigan where their Scotch relatives awaited them, and Miranda, freed from their long dominance, gladly took over the household reins herself. She was no longer an ignorant girl, and the butler and housekeeper who replaced the MacNabs obeyed her orders as a matter of course. She was therefore busy from morning until night with domestic tasks which befitted the L
ady of the Manor.
Nicholas displayed none of his temperamental peculiarities; he was courteous as always and showed to Miranda a rather remote consideration. He subjected her neither to the cold indifference nor the fierce lusts which she had suffered in the past.
And Miranda, profoundly grateful for this, lived determinedly on the surface, convincing herself that now at last they were settling into a normal, placid married life.
20
IT WAS ON FRIDAY THE TWENTY-FOURTH OF MAY that Miranda made her discovery.
She awakened that morning to an unusual sense of joy and freedom which she attributed to the lovely spring weather, unwilling to admit that Nicholas' absence from Dragonwyck might be the true cause.
During the last week the dark, restless mood had come back on him again, and two days ago he had suddenly announced that he was going to make a short business trip to New York. He had not invited her to go with him. She had grown so used to his constant company that for the first hours of his absence she felt blank and at a loss. But this sensation soon gave way to delicious ease and a holiday spirit. It was delightful to occupy the big bed alone, to eat when one wanted to, to walk or read or shut oneself into the bathroom and soak for hours in the great silver tub.
On this morning of the twenty-fourth, she awoke filled with energy and a desire to do something amusing. When Peggy came in with the morning tea, she found her mistress sitting up in bed looking very young and gay.
'Good morning, Peggy!' she called blithely. 'Isn't it a glorious day! I can smell it—buds and nice fresh sunshine.'
