Dragonwyck Page 7

  Her only duty consisted in trying to teach Katrine. Every morning after breakfast the two of them retired to the sunny schoolroom, where Miranda patiently repeated, 'B-A-T, bat. C-A-T, cat. R-A-T, rat. Now you spell them, dear.' The child was docile and did her best, but she was slow and her memory was poor; her attention continually wandered. She gradually grew fond of Miranda, who was always kind, but the little girl continued to prefer the company of her beloved Annetje, who fed her sweets and told her stories. So Miranda had little to do, and during the first weeks the novelty of this method of living sufficed in itself. It never occurred to her that it might be the occasional contacts with Nicholas which gave meaning and excitement to Dragonwyck. But she did know herself to be passionately grateful for an act of generosity which he had shown her.

  On the day after her arrival, Magda the housekeeper had presented herself at Miranda's door, armed with a tape measure, paper, and pencil. She would explain nothing except that Mynheer had sent her. Her lips were compressed to a thin line. She pushed and pulled the girl about roughly while she took measurements.

  A week later at dusk as she mended a rip in the despised merino, there came a tap on Miranda's door, and the housekeeper entered followed by a footman. They carried bundles, boxes, and a small cowhide trunk.

  'Some things from New York Mynheer ordered,' said Magda sourly in answer to the girl's exclamation. The woman paid no attention to Miranda's cry of excitement, but unpacked the bundles and the trunk with swift efficiency. She laid the clothes on the bed.

  There were two silk dresses, one green with black velvet trimming on the flounces, one a rose evening gown festooned with blond lace. And besides a blue cashmere morning dress, there was a pelisse, a green bonnet, two pairs of kid shoes, an ivory fan, a beaded reticule. There were also more intimate garments at which Miranda stared with dazzled confusion; a flowered muslin négligée, linen nightshifts trimmed with fine lace, petticoats, camisoles, even a pair of whalebone stays.

  'But how could Mr. Van Ryn—I mean—For sure he didn't order all these things—' cried the girl, blushing and divided between embarrassment at the nature of the garments Magda was phlegmatically spreading on the bed, and delight at their daintiness.

  Magda shot the girl a contemptuous look. 'You don't think the patroon bothers himself with such business. He sent an order to Madame Duclos in New York. Last summer we had a French orphan from New Orleans visit here. He did the same.'

  'Oh,' said Miranda. The color deepened on her cheeks. There was then an unpleasant aspect of charity to this gift, and her staunch Yankee heritage gave her an unexpected twinge. And was it quite proper to accept things like this from a gentleman—even a cousin? But what nonsense! she told herself hastily. He would be annoyed if she made a fuss or refused the clothes, he would think her countrified and silly. And the clothes were so beautiful. She smoothed the rose satin of the evening gown, entranced to discover that beneath its heavy folds there was the small bell-shaped hoop for which she had yearned.

  Madame Duclos had neglected nothing to fill Nicholas' written order. 'Send complete wardrobe for young lady, fair-haired, quite tall, and of the following measurements.'

  The modiste had also included a plush-lined box containing Guerlain's lustral water for the hair, Sirop de Boubie—'Warranted to enhance even die most delicate complexion'—orris toothpowder, rice powder, and a vial of heliotrope perfume.

  'It smells just like Ma's little garden on a summer night,' cried Miranda, sniffing the vial. 'Oh, Magda, isn't everything lovely, gorgeous!'

  The woman did not answer. She knelt before the bureau neatly folding away the lingerie. The belligerent set of her thick shoulders under the black bombazine expressed rigid disapproval.

  'Why don't you like me, Magda?' cried the girl on impulse. 'Have I done anything wrong?'

  The woman rose heavily. 'It's not my place to like or dislike, miss. Mevrouw is waiting.' She clicked the last drawer shut and walked out to go to Johanna.

  Is it because Johanna doesn't like me that her maid is so unfriendly? thought Miranda, puzzled and rebuffed. But she was not yet sure of Johanna's dislike, that broad flabby face seldom showed any emotion at all, and on the rare occasions when she spoke to the girl it was with her usual vague amiability. She's like a turnip, a fat white turnip, thought Miranda, and forgot Johanna in the excitement of dressing herself in the green silk gown. It fitted perfectly, the bodice taut across the small high breasts and slender waist, the skirt full and gracefully billowing over the hoop which she had transferred from the ball dress. If her skin and her hair had been pretty above the muddy merino, now against the clear leaf-green silk they were startling. The color enhanced her blondness as it brought out new lights in her hazel eyes.

  Perhaps, with luck she might find Nicholas alone downstairs and thank him for his thoughtful kindness. There was still half an hour before supper time. She hurried downstairs and the rustle of silk that accompanied her gave her new assurance. She held her head high and swayed her hips a little so as to increase that luxurious swish.

  She found Nicholas in the conservatory examining a slipper orchid which he had just had brought in from the greenhouse. He turned and surveyed her as she approached through the dining-room.

  But the girl's really beautiful! he thought, astonished. She has the body of a dancer.

  'Cousin Nicholas—' she said shyly, I don't know how to thank you. All these grand clothes—they—you've made me so happy.'

  'I'm gratified that it takes so little to make you happy, Miranda.'

  Usually she was daunted by his tone of repressive irony, but this evening she had more courage. She smiled, thinking that men never liked to be thanked—at least Pa and Tom didn't; and she moved close beside him and touched the striped green orchid.

  'How queer a little flower it is!' she said. 'Is it doing well here?'

  As she bent her head over the marble urn which held the orchid, a faint perfume floated to him from the massed golden braids at the nape of her white neck. He raised his hand, then let it drop to his side. 'The orchid does well enough. Shall we sit down awhile until Mrs. Van Ryn comes?' He indicated the filigree iron bench against the south wall where there were massed oleanders and hibiscus. Beside the bench, water trickled from a lion's mouth into an alabaster basin, thus evoking in the steamy room the cool fresh sound of the forest.

  It occurred to her that at last she had a moment alone with him in which to ask about Zélie. She had seen nothing of the old woman since the inexplicable midnight interview and time had erased the impression of eeriness, but she was curious.

  She brought out her timid question and Nicholas turned sharply. 'You've seen Zélie? Where?'

  She gave a brief account, suppressing some of Zélie's more fantastic utterances, which now sounded extremely silly.

  'Did she frighten you?' asked Nicholas, frowning.

  'A bit, though I don't know why now. There was a lot about somebody laughing and the Red Room and me bringing—bringing badness. I know it's all nonsense,' she added hastily, hoping he wouldn't laugh at her.

  He was not amused, he was annoyed. 'She's really getting impossible with her claptrap. I'd no idea she'd ever venture upstairs. I shall speak to her.'

  'But who is she?' said Miranda, persisting in the face of his evident wish to close the subject.

  Nicholas stood up and she saw with dismay that her insistence had spoiled the rare moment of intimacy.

  'The old hag must be ninety; it's time she died and her stupid tales with her.'

  She was astonished at the venom in his tone, but he went on more quietly with controlled irritation. 'My great-grandfather Pieter Van Ryn married a New Orleans belle in seventeen-fifty-two. Her name was Azilde Marie de la Courbet. He brought her back here, and with her, her body slave, Titine. Zélie is the daughter of the black Titine and a Mohican Indian. She's always lived" here at Dragonwyck.'

  'She talks so queerly—' ventured the girl after a moment, feeling that what she had heard
was no explanation at all.

  'She speaks with the Creole patois she learned from her mother, I suppose.'

  'I didn't mean that, I mean the things she says—spooky things. And I remember now. It was Azilde she said would laugh again.'

  Nicholas shrugged. 'There's some ridiculous legend kept alive by Zélie. Azilde was not happy here; after the birth of her son she—' He paused. 'She died, and that's all the basis for the arrant foolishness invented by Zélie involving a ghost and a curse. Now shall we talk of something more sensible? Did you read those Essays by Addison that I suggested?'

  'Not yet,' she confessed, looking up at him contritely. 'I'm still reading "Ivanhoe." Oh, but it's a grand story, Cousin Nicholas!'

  'My dear child, you're an incorrigible romantic, and may I suggest that the English language contains many more appropriate adjectives than "grand," of which you seem to be immoderately fond?'

  The embarrassed color flew to her face, as it always did when he reproved her, but she saw with startled joy that this reproof was different, for there was no censure in his tone, rather an unexpected lightness as though he teased her, and there was warmth in his piercingly blue gaze as he looked down at her.

  'Tompkins announced supper, Nicholas.' Johanna, panting a little from the effort of having searched throughout the lower floor, stood in the conservatory archway.

  As though the flat and breathy voice had been a rock thrown into a still pool, the warmth and the shared instant of subtle expectancy shattered.

  'I'm extremely sorry to have kept you waiting, my love,' said Nicholas, in a tone conveying nothing but courteous apology. 'Miranda and I were discussing literature. Her new dress becomes her, doesn't it? Madame Duclos has done well.'

  Johanna turned and looked at the girl in the green silk dress. The fingers on which a half-dozen magnificent rings made deep channels through the fat twined themselves tight together. The pale eyes slid back to Nicholas. 'The gown seems to suit her very well,' said Johanna.

  During the first weeks of Miranda's stay at Dragonwyck there had been an occasional guest—Mr. and Mrs. Newbold en route from New York to Saratoga, the portly Mr. Solomon Bronck, who looked after Nicholas' valuable real estate holdings on Manhattan. But these had stayed only for a night or a meal and Miranda had scarcely seen them.

  Now there was to be a Fourth of July celebration at Dragonwyck, festivities of dazzling magnitude, a banquet and ball on the night of the Fourth and a garden party the following day. All of the guest rooms were to be occupied by people whose names meant nothing to Miranda, but she speculated about them with excited interest, particularly the guests of honor, the de Greniers, a real French count and countess for whom the Florentine suite in the north wing was being prepared.

  Despite the inevitable extra work and the days of preparation, no confusion or signs of bustle were in evidence. Tompkins and Magda directed their underlings, a few extra servants were hired from the village, there was a subdued hum from the basement kitchens where labor continued far into each night; but that was all that anyone could have detected. And yet it was Nicholas who by means of an occasional order or a brief tour of inspection coordinated all the elaborate machinery which would produce the dreamily gracious atmosphere, the lavishness, that imbued Dragonwyck. He was entirely guiltless of the vulgarity of wishing to impress his guests. It was simply his desire for perfection for creating from the raw stuff of life, rather than on canvas or on paper, a finished artistic effect.

  On the afternoon of the third of July the dayboat stopped at Dragonwyck and landed the de Greniers. They were a disappointment to Miranda. A French nobleman, fresh from the court of Louis-Philippe, would be tall and languid and haughty like Nicholas perhaps, only more so. And the Countess—here Miranda's imagination had run wild, and she endowed the lady with a white wig, satin panniers, and a mournful high-born beauty which were patterned on a dimly remembered picture of Marie-Antoinette.

  The reality was a shock. The Count was plump and nearly bald. He was shorter than Miranda herself, and though he had fierce little black mustachios, they were the only impressive thing about him. His round face wore a perpetual expression of amusement. Life was to him a diverting panorama which he richly enjoyed. His speech—and he spoke good English, having spent five years in London—bubbled with wit and, to Miranda's mind, an astounding frankness. This frankness she would have considered shocking vulgarity in anyone but a count.

  'But then, you see,' remarked die little Frenchman while they sat at supper, 'mes chers amis, I am not an aristocrat de l'ancien régime. We are parvenus! The good Louis-Philippe has rewarded my family for some little services rendered. Our only connection with the Bourbons is perhaps a certain pretty little milkmaid who caught the Old Louis' eye one day in the Midi. She caught more than his eye—parbleu!' And the Count chuckled.

  Miranda looked down at her plate. Surely the Count didn't mean—but what could he mean exactly?

  The Countess was a dumpy little woman in black who spoke no English and listened to her husband with a tolerant smile.

  'You have here a most magnifique establishment, mon cher', said the Count to Nicholas. A luxury one would hardly expect in such a new country, and your cuisine, madame—' Here he looked at Johanna, his shrewd eyes traveling over her immense bulk in blue silk. Your cuisine—' he went on, bunching his fingers together and kissing them gustily, 'is superb!'

  Johanna put down her fork. 'Is it true, Count, that you eat frogs' legs and snails in your country?' she asked seriously, and as he nodded, she said, 'How extraordinary!'

  'No more extraordinary, my love, than the sheep's brains and fish eggs of which we are so fond,' said Nicholas.

  The Count looked around. Tiens, he said to himself. Here is something interesting. The man is too polite to his wife; there is a repressed violence about him beneath his calm. Silent for a minute while the crawfish mousse was removed and the pheasant patty passed, the Count sipped his excellent Romanée-Conti and surveyed the party with lively speculation.

  At the head of the table was this Nicholas Van Ryn whom he had met briefly in Paris years ago, and whose invitation he had been delighted to accept, for it was entertaining to see all aspects of life in the strange new country. Already he had had his fill in New York of the hysterical lionizing vouchsafed to all visiting foreigners with a title. He had expected more of the same here. But he saw at once that he had misjudged the Van Ryns.

  The man was a grand seigneur, as self-contained as a Talleyrand or a de Lamballe, nor were his possessions and manner of living apparently inferior to these. And yet the man was not a nobleman. The mere possession of hereditary landed estates could hardly produce a nobleman in this country that shouted so loudly and so belligerently of its perfect democracy. He is then a type of anachronism, perhaps, thought the Count. For a minute he watched Nicholas, who was conversing with die Countess in careful accurate French. Decidedly the man was good-looking, and must appeal to women except that there was a coldness about him, there was no fire, no sentiment. Still there might be passion—there was sensuality in that full, compressed mouth.

  By a natural sequence of thought the Count once more examined Johanna. But die woman was a cow! She would give no satisfaction at all in bed. Van Ryn then must have a mistress, though already the Count had learned that these matters were regarded differently in America. They had prudish conventions here; their English or in this case Dutch blood was sluggish, lacking in amorous vehemence.

  'Miranda,' said Nicholas suddenly, 'after supper will you fetch for the Countess that volume of Mr. Cooper's which I believe you were reading? She wants to see it.'

  The girl raised her eyes. 'Certainly, Cousin Nicholas.'

  Sapristi, said the Count to himself, here is someone I've overlooked! He had accepted Johanna's offhand introduction, gathering that the girl was some sort of governess, and scarcely more than a child herself. She sat in the shadows at the far end of the table, and had not up to this point said a word. The three words dia
t she had now said were not revealing, but the unconscious expression of her eyes as she looked at Nicholas was. But she's really charming, cette petite, thought the Count, craning very discreetly so as to see over the massed centerpiece of roses, and she is well on the way to falling in love with Cousin Nicholas.

  She does not know it yet, nor does anyone else. How bizarre these people are! The fat one had better look out. He chuckled inwardly, wiped his mouth, and said chattily: 'I am all on the qui vive to take part in your great Fourth of July celebration tomorrow. What is the day's program, monsieur?'

  Nicholas turned to his guest with his instant polite attention. 'Why, in the morning we have a party for my tenants, and I fear you must endure listening to a speech from me since it's a tradition with us.'

  He smiled, and the Count said: A patriotic speech? It will be a pleasure.'

  Nicholas continued: 'In the late afternoon there will be a banquet, followed by a small ball. We've asked some of our neighbors to meet you.'

  'Also a pleasure, monsieur, and I am passionné for dancing. I bounce about like a little gutta-percha ball, but I do my best. You also must be fond of dancing, mademoiselle.' He deliberately addressed Miranda, who started and changed color.

  'I —I don't know,' she said, confused by the sudden notice. 'I'm afraid I can't dance well, I don't know the polka or the waltz. I don't believe I'll be at the ball.'

  She looked uncertainly at Johanna, who said: 'I thought Miranda should stay with Katrine; the child will be upset with so much noise and people in the house.'