Onyx (15 page)

She turned away. “Will you explain to Uncle?” she asked.

“If that's what you wish.”

The Major sat huddled in front of the study fire, a shawl warming his shoulders, his chin resting on the handle of his cane. He appeared shrunken into his clothes, and it was difficult to believe he was not yet sixty. As the doctor spoke, though, years seemed to drop from him. Pushing the shawl impatiently into the wing chair, he stood.

“Impossible!”

“She denied nothing.”

“That's because she knows nothing!”

“I'd say she's three months gone.”

“By God, the girl will tell me this herself,” boomed the Major, hurling his cane toward the fire screen. The stairs shivered under his step.

Antonia, wearing a loose white peignoir, stood at the bay window, drawn yet not at all overcome with the shame that the Major had anticipated. As he closed the door she threw her head back, her hands hanging at her sides, the pose she assumed when she sang to his piano accompaniment. “Did Dr. McKenzie tell you?” she asked in a rapid voice.

The Major had been despising her for smearing herself, thus ruining the one pure thing in his life. In her presence he was overcome by a loving pity that banished lesser emotions. “Yes, he told me,” he muttered awkwardly.

“So then you understand that we need to go away, Father and I.”

“Nonsense. You'll marry Bridger.”

“That's over.” She stood rigid, and the white batiste folds of her robe seemed carved from marble. “We'll go to Newport.”

Whatever caused her to select Newport? “Bridger's very fond of you—he begged to court you. And you're fond of him. You've made that too clear.” Worrying that this might sound accusatory, the Major stepped closer to her. “My dear, under these circumstances, naturally my objections are withdrawn.”

She turned to the window.

“He's bitter that I forbade him to see you, is that it?” asked the Major. McKenzie had told him of Tom's insistence about the fees, so he guessed the younger man blamed him for the brother's injuries; however, he could never bring himself to mention the fire. “You have had some sort of quarrel about my playing the zealous guardian?”

“It wasn't about you. It was … about … me.” She buried her face in her hands, making a soft moan.

Tom more than ever with love, tenderness, pity, the Major helped her to the brass bed. When she was lying down, he said, “I'm going downstairs to write to him.”

“No!”

“Nonsense. There's no spat as important as
this
, no lover's bickering. He has every right to know. My dear, the boy's gone on you. He can be a bit brusque and sometimes he's difficult to understand, but it's quite clear he's wild for you.”

She was holding back her tears.

He patted her thin hand. “Don't worry about a thing. You'll see. As soon as he gets my letter he'll come running.”

II

The Major, though neither cruel nor callous, was a flatly selfish man. In his life he had never put another's needs above his own. Now that he was about to do so, he made a ceremony of it. First he sent for Flaherty. “Are the streets passable?” he asked somberly.

“That they are, sir.”

“Good. There's a letter I'll want delivered before luncheon.”

Alone, the Major moved his chair several times to center it precisely, lined up his stationery on the blotter, staring gravely at the crested paper before writing the time and date with large, circular motions of his arm.

My Dear Bridger
,

This is the most difficult letter I have ever been called upon to compose. First, let me apologize for treating you badly in regard to my niece. My sole extenuation is that with Antonia's arrival a bright and lovely happiness came into my life and I wished to keep it as long as possible. She is precious to me, certainly, but she must be doubly dear to you
.

And now her predicament is such that you are the one she needs
.

It is understandable that you might retain bitterness toward me. No man cares to be thought unworthy of the girl he loves. You need never see me, you may forbid her to see me. I accept in advance any terms that you set
.

Antonia is not penniless. Several years ago I settled twenty-five thousand dollars on her
. [This was not yet done; however, the Major realized that Tom would reject any currently settled dowry.]
She refuses to part from my brother, so I trust you will permit me to continue my financial obligations toward him
.

Coming to the bottom of the page, he blotted it carefully. As he read it over his mouth twisted with the pain of relinquishment—and of abasing himself. He took a fresh sheet, this time writing with swift jabs that scattered tiny dots of ink.

Bridger, she had no idea what was wrong with her. None. She is utterly bewildered. Frankly, her appearance terrifies me. Please come as soon as possible. She needs you desperately. I am begging you
—
come the minute you receive this
.

Humbly
,

Andrew Stuart

(Major, Michigan Cavalry)

He folded the letter into an envelope, lighting a round taper to melt the wax. He was pressing down his signet ring as Flaherty knocked.

III

Antonia lay on the bed, her eyes open. Since the argument with Tom she had been unable to sleep more than an hour or two a night, and this lack both sharpened and dulled her thought processes. The idea of a baby she could not grasp. To her the tiny pod that Dr. McKenzie somehow discerned was beyond comprehension.

As usual she was going over the argument. A healthy brain in recollection simultaneously grapples myriad impressions. Antonia's mind was not in a normal state. Her memory of the scene was pinned as if by a thrown dagger to that moment when he had said,
You sicken me
.…

She grimaced. She could hear her heart beating and dragging a little in the beat.

Tom, in his own misery, had found Antonia's most vulnerable spot.

Already she had worried about the physical dimension of her love. From her reading she had learned the prevalent attitude that only low, debased women enjoyed love's carnal aspects (a bride's surrender of virginity was novelistically euphemized as the “great white sacrifice”), and now with cringing self-loathing she would count the ways that she had touched him and let him touch her, kissed and been kissed in secret parts of the body, and had involuntarily cried his name as ecstasy shook her. Worse yet, these humiliating reminiscences still caused faint twinges of desire in her pelvis.

No wonder I sicken him
, she thought. Suddenly she jerked up on her elbow as though awakening from a nightmare.
The letter
, she thought.
If he comes when he gets Uncle's letter, it means he loves me enough to overlook how I am. If he comes, it means he's not utterly repulsed
. In her precarious mental state the logic was irrefutable.

Energy pulsed through her. She began dressing. She had difficulty drawing on her white silk stockings, and did not notice her camisole was inside out. She forgot her underpetticoat. Her hands shook as she put up her hair, the comb dropped, hairpins showered. She let the glossy black mass hang over her shoulders.

If he comes
, she thought,
if he comes
.

She ran downstairs, her eyes glittering with the fevered excitement of a gambler placing his last chip on the roulette table.

IV

Tom struck the match, the little blue head flared, and he passed the flame inside the stove to touch crumpled paper and kindling. Hugh watched, blinking rapidly until Tom closed the black iron door on the fire.

The right side of Hugh's face was a clear pink, smooth as a baby's bottom and as hairless. This morning after the bandaging had been hurtfully peeled off, Dr. McKenzie had reassured him that the discoloration would fade, the lashes and brows would grow in, as would the incipient beard.

The left side, however, was shades darker. A hard shell of discoloration spreading from below his jawbone to his hairline and from his ear (which was now a knob) to his well-chiseled nose. The scar tissue was ropy, drawing up the mouth. This damage was permanent.

Tom asked, “Hungry?”

“Not very,” Hugh said.

“Want me to heat Mrs. Trelinack's stew for lunch?”

“Eggs are enough.”

“Ham?” Tom asked.

“No thanks.”

A knock sounded. Hugh stared around, terrified.

Tom was opening the window to take the food from the screened box on the ledge. “Get that, Hugh, will you.” But Hugh was scuttling into the narrow bedroom, closing the door after him.

Tom answered.

Flaherty held out an envelope. Tom snatched it. He was hoping—praying would be a more correct terminology—that Antonia had written to him.

He lived in constant horror at the lying obscenities he had shouted at her. Several times he had boarded the Woodward Avenue trolley, only to jump off at the next stop. After her rejection he could not be first to break the silence. Despairing and hopeful at the same time, he waited for her to give some sign, however infinitesimal, so that he could apologize.

Recognizing the Major's bold writing, his eyes narrowed.

“The Major wants yer reply,” Flaherty said. “Shall I be waiting here?”

“Downstairs.” Tom slammed the door. His clippers were on the table, and using one blade, he cut the envelope, jerking out the triple-folded paper.

“Gone?” Hugh called.

“Yes.”

Hugh opened the door. “Who was it?”

“Stuart's coachman, with this. The Major wants an answer.”

“Then he'll be back? The coachman?”

Tom saw the anxiety on the right side of his brother's face, the warped grimace on the left. “It's all right, Hugh. He's outside.”

Hugh came back into the room. “Aren't you going to read it?”

“Why? There's only one answer for the old bastard.”

Using his clippers, he cut the unfolded linen paper in half.

Hugh laughed sharply. “Right,” he said.

Tom cut again, shoving the unread pieces inside the envelope.

“That should give him the general gist,” Tom said.

Two children watched awed from a window as their neighbor left tracks in the fresh snow to thrust something at the liveried coachman in the lacquered carriage.

V

Antonia pushed the courses of her lunch around various plates, talking animatedly. When they returned to the study, she continued the same meaningless conversation. Hooves and pneumatic tires crunched over the snow and she fell silent, bending her head so that the mass of straight, shining black hair shadowed her haggard face.

Flaherty knocked.

The Major, seeing his own envelope, said hastily, “Thank you, Flaherty. That'll be all.” Closing the door, he said to Antonia, “Another bit of that wearisome insurance business. What a relief it'll be when that's behind me.” He slipped the envelope in a desk pigeonhole.

Antonia retrieved it. He moved to take it from her, but the glitter in her eyes made him hesitate.

“You wrote Tom's name,” she said, pulling out a scrap.

“Oh, my God,” said the Major. “My dear, let me throw that away.”

She stared at him. Afraid to touch her, he watched her nervous fingers piece together the sheet. As she bent over, reading, her hands arched up. A long ago memory came to the Major: Wounded at Gettysburg, he had been carried to a crowded hospital tent, and the young lieutenant next to him had arched his hands this same way, clawing the earth in his death agonies.

Antonia looked up, a frown etching her forehead.

“Uncle, when we were talking about Father and me leaving, did I say Rheims or Canterbury?” she asked in a rapid, high-pitched voice.

“Newport,” he said.

“Newport?” She circled the desk and paced up and back on the Shirvan rug. “How odd. How very odd. There's no cathedral in Newport. That's his interest. Gothic cathedrals. Uncle, here he has nothing to occupy his mind. Now if we were in Europe … He was so enthusiastic about the choir screen at Chartres—he spent two full days examining the carving. Once he's involved again, it's only a matter of time until he's fully recovered. He planned a visit to Turkey—or was it Russia? What's today?”

“Wednesday.”

“We'll take the train Friday morning. That gives me this afternoon and tomorrow to pack and book steamship tickets. Uncle, can Nurse Girardin stay in her room until she finds another position? I'm sure it won't take her long. She's very qualified. You've been so wonderful to us that I hate to keep imposing, but you don't mind, do you? We'll go to Chartres first. The trunks can follow us. I'll be able to handle everything until Father recovers.”

“Antonia, my dear, do stop walking around. Sit here, on the couch,” he said, his voice breaking.

“Not to Paris, though. That would remind him of his illness.”

“Your condition—”

“Condition? Dr. McKenzie said something about a baby, didn't he? But he was mistaken. That man's an incompetent! I'm sorry, Uncle. I know he's your friend. But it's true. Look at how he's bungled Father's case. Altering his habits, keeping him housebound. No wonder Father's not himself! What do you think?”

“Well …”

“And don't you agree that my taking him to Europe is best?”

“We'll discuss it with Dr. McKen—”

“That quack!”

“So that he can consult with Dr. Abler in Chicago,” soothed the Major, turning, hoping she would not notice the tears in his eyes. “I'll telephone him right away.”

By three fifteen, when McKenzie arrived, Antonia's voice was hoarse from planning itineraries. The doctor maneuvered her upstairs. Her overwrought, overtired brain fought his laudanum, and he ended up giving her a far larger dose than he considered safe for anyone, much less a pregnant woman. When, finally, she slept, the two men discussed the feasibility of travel.