Beverly Byrne (12 page)

He
kissed her again. They were still kissing when they heard Lil clear her throat
loudly. She was standing in the doorway staring at them. "I'm sorry,"
she murmured. "I just thought ..."

"It's
all right, Aunt Lil," Tommy told her grinning. "Amy's just agreed to
marry me. Right away."

8

THAT
AMY WASN'T A CATHOLIC PRESENTED SOME problems. She grew tired of endless,
painfully tactful conversations with Lil and Warren. "Why do we have to
have a church wedding?" she asked Tommy. "Why can't we just get
married?" Amy had her own reasons for preferring such a scheme.

"I
can't do that." Tommy kicked at a smoldering log. Outside it was bleak
February, and Lil kept a constant fire on the hearth.

"Because
of your family."

 "Not
just them. I can't do it. Don't ask me to explain."

"You
don't want to 'live in sin.' Isn't that the expression?"

"Amy,
please don't tease me about it. I wish I felt differently, but I don't."
He paused a moment, then added, "The family all want you to convert. I
told them to forget it. I said it was your business and nobody else's." He
paused again. "There is something you have to do though."

She
flipped idly through the pages of
Life
magazine, pretending she didn't
care and pretending to forget that she had planned to become a Catholic for
Luke.

"What
is it?"

"You'll
have to promise to bring up any children we have as Catholics. It's rather
awful, they make you sign a paper." He looked miserable.

Amy
turned pink at the mention of the family they might have. In Africa such things
were just a part of ordinary life; here they had a mysterious and slightly
sordid air. "I don't mind," she said.

"You're
marvelous." He smiled at her and the look of despair vanished. "We're
going to be very happy, you know."

Amy
nodded and promised herself it was true. She would be a perfect wife. That was
her part of the bargain.

The
wedding was to take place at St. Ignatius on May ninth, Amy's eighteenth birthday.
She thought it was to be the same type of ceremony as Sarah Westerman's, the
cousin who was married in February.

"No,
thank God," Tommy explained. "All that hulabaloo is called a nuptial
high mass. We can't have one because you're a heathen and I'm tainted."

"What?"
She stared at him wide-eyed.

"Because
you're not Catholic and I'm marrying outside the faith," he said.
"We're a mixed marriage, so we don't get all the frills."

Amy
would have preferred even fewer of them. Months before she had dreamed of satin
and lace and orange blossoms. Now she just wanted to get married and be done
with it. There was no chance of that. The Westerman clan rallied round, and she
had the usual assortment of prebridal parties. Not quite as many as Sarah, nor
as lavish, because Amy's engagement was during Lent, but enough of them to keep
her busy. They also netted a great many useless presents.

Lil
took charge of the trousseau arrangements and accompanied Amy to numerous
fittings. The reception was to be a wedding breakfast at the Plaza, the guests
largely family members. Only a few of the people with whom she and Tommy had
partied over Christmas were put on the list. "They're just people I
know," he said. "I don't want to ask them to my wedding."

She
was glad he had lost interest in the "smart young things." Amy was
feeling grown-up and ready to take on new responsibilities. She liked the
feeling, and the fact that Tommy now went regularly to the office of his
father's former partners.

By
April the last of the snow melted and daffodils bloomed in Central Park. Tommy
brought her an illustrated brochure of Niagara Falls, where they were to
honeymoon.

"Isn't
this all very expensive?" Amy asked.

He
looked uncomfortable. "Uncle Donald says it's all right, we can afford it."

"But
I thought you said ..."

"Let
me worry about finances. I'm the one that's supposed to be in charge of things
like that."

She
didn't mention money again.

Three
days before the ceremony Luke came home to be his brother's best man. Amy had
known it would be thus. As it turned out she saw little of him. She was busy
with last-minute trips to the dressmaker and the final ladies' luncheon Aunt
Lil gave. It wasn't until the afternoon of the wedding rehearsal that Amy had
to face Luke. It was surprisingly less painful than she expected it to be.

Luke
stood in the vestibule of the church when she arrived with Lil and the cousins
who were to be her bridesmaids. He was as tall and handsome as ever, a little
thinner, perhaps, and he wore ordinary clothes. She had thought he might be
dressed in the white habit of the Dominicans.

"Hello,
Amy. You look radiant. You know how much happiness I wish you both." He
took her hand, leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the cheek. When they
drew apart he looked at her for a moment, then turned away.

The
stiff note of congratulations he had sent when the engagement was announced had
not prepared her for the pain she now saw in his blue eyes. A small thrill of
triumph shot along her spine. After that she was sweet and charming to him, and
completely in control.

***

The
hotel at Niagara Falls had been built by the Victorians with their usual love
of opulence. The public rooms were grand, and the bedrooms spacious. The
newlywed Westermans had a suite.

Amy
felt relief when the bellhop closed the door. "Peace at last," she
said. "I'm worn out." She unpinned her hat and flung it on the sofa.
Her traveling costume was a beige suit of sheer wool, with a tight ankle-length
skirt, slit almost to the knee so she could walk. She wore a matching silk
blouse and the pearls Tommy had given her as a wedding present.

"Shall
I order some champagne?" Tommy asked.

"Not
for me. You have some if you like."

"I
don't need it," he said, taking her hand. "I'm drunk with you."

Amy
smiled, then pulled away. "It's nearly six. Why don't we change and go
down for an early dinner?"

They
ate at a table overlooking gardens filled with soft spring dusk. Birds sang an
evensong chorale and, the scent of early honeysuckle came through the open
window.

It
grew darker, and a waiter lit the candles on their table and brought the
sauternes Tommy had ordered to go with dessert. Amy drank thirstily. She had
drunk a lot of wine at dinner, despite refusing the earlier offer of champagne.
Her glance darted around the dining room. Tommy strained to say funny things
about all the other guests. Both their minds were filled with the previous
night.

Their
wedding night at the Plaza had been a fumbling saga of embarrassment and
ineptitude that resulted in a perfunctory, and barely successful, deflowering.
Tommy had been quite drunk, Amy overwrought and nervous.

The
results were probably predictable, but no one had warned them. Now they both
dreaded a repeat performance.

After
dinner they strolled through the lobby and ventured into the garden, but it had
turned chilly and Amy noticed that Tommy's limp was bad, so they stayed out
only a short time. In the lobby a large placard announced a concert of chamber
music to be held in the Washington Suite. Tommy asked if she wanted to go. She
shook her head. There was nothing left to do but go upstairs.

The
second night of their marriage began with Amy emerging from the bathroom in a
pale blue lace peignoir and Tommy sitting on the side of the bed in striped
pajamas stiff with newness. "I wish you didn't look so different," he
said.

"What
do you mean?"

"I
keep looking at you and thinking," 'that's my wife.' You don't seem the
same Amy any more. It scares me."

"I'm
the same. So are you. Nothing's any different."

"Yes,
it is." He groaned and reached out and pulled her down beside him.
"You're so damned beautiful," he said. "I almost wish you were
ugly. I wish you looked like Aunt Lil's maid."

Amy
giggled at the thought of herself as the ugly, thick-set Maureen, with a mole
and hairs growing out of her chin. Tommy giggled too. When he kissed her both
their mouths were open.

His
tongue probed hers. She ran her hands along his arms to his shoulders and
noticed again how strong he was. He moved his hand to her breast and fumbled
with the buttons of the peignoir. When he opened it her nightdress was still
between them. He tried to get his hand inside the fabric.

"You'll
tear it," she murmured.

"Take
it off then. Please. I won't look."

She
stood and removed the things she was wearing and folded them carefully over the
back of a chair. Then she scurried under the quilt.

"Ready?"
he asked.

"Yes.
"

He
took off his pajamas and crawled into the bed. Before last night she had
sometimes wondered if he wore his invalid shoe when he slept. Now she knew he
didn't, and that when he lay beside her his short leg was undetectable.

The
night before they had barely managed to feel each other's bodies. Now he
stroked her hip and trailed his fingers over her midriff to cup her breast. Amy
felt the nipple tighten and swell, the way it did when she was cold.

"Touch
me too," he whispered. "I want you to." She put her hand on his
back. He kissed her neck and her shoulder and dropped his mouth to her breast.
He moved again, and he was lying almost on top of her, pinning her to the soft
mattress. Tommy's body was compact and steellike, and the hardest thing of all
was the appendage he was thrusting between her legs.

Amy
knew it was wrong of her to resist. He was her husband and this was his right.
She let her thighs relax and open. There was a moment's fumbling, and she
wondered if it was going to be like last night after all. But it wasn't. This
time he quickly penetrated, and she felt a bit of soreness, but nothing like
the pain of the first time. His motion grew more intense and more rapid. She
lay very still and waited, because she didn't know what else to do. It took
about half a minute before he groaned loudly and rolled off her.

After
a short time he turned to her again and kissed her cheek. "That was
better, wasn't it? I was ashamed of myself last night. I'd had too much to
drink. Are you all right? Did I hurt you?"

"No,
I'm fine."

"So
am I. I'm marvelous," he said, chuckling as if at some private joke.
"Good night, memsahib darling." He kissed her again and fell asleep
with one hand holding her breast.

They
moved into the house on Eighty-third Street. Aunt Lil had insisted that Amy
must have a maid and a cook, and engaged them. There was nothing for Amy to do
but hang up her clothes.

She
put them in the dressing room she still thought of as Cecily Westerman's, and
tried to find places for the wedding presents. In the end she packed most of
those away. The practical things were redundant in the well-equipped house, and
the objets d'art only seemed to spoil the perfect decor.

By
unspoken mutual consent both she and Tommy were determined to prove themselves
mature. They lived quietly and Tommy was always anxious to go to bed early.
Once there he would possess her with quick and apparently satisfying enthusiasm,
then fall asleep.

Tommy
rose before her in the morning. Delia, the black maid, brought coffee at seven,
and Amy could hear her husband straining at his exercises in the dressing room.
He lifted weights and chinned himself on a metal bar, and the sound of his
exertions was the beginning of her day.

Tommy
left the house at nine and returned at dinner time, but he never mentioned
anything that happened at the office. Once she suggested that they invite the
firm's partners to dinner, but Tommy vetoed the idea. Amy spent a lot of time
reading
Life or Ladies' Home Journal
or the
Saturday Evening Post.