That Camden Summer (39 page)

So they moved the date up to October fourteenth, and Gabriel got busy with the addition. The bedroom wing was weatherproof but still shy of being finished when their wedding day arrived.

Roberta awakened early, rolling her face to the window where a perfect roseate dawn was ascending into a sky of flawless, unbroken blue.

We must live right, she thought. It's going to be a perfect day for a wedding. Nevertheless, she curled deeper into her rumpled double bed, staring at the color outside, realizing that tonight she'd be sharing a bed with Gabe. She suppressed a shudder at the thought, then pressed a hand to her trembling stomach.

Roberta Jewett, you love Gabe, and he is not Elfred, and you're being silly, so just get these ridiculous fears out of your mind and act like an eager bride.

it How could a person want something and fear too?

Sometimes the day seemed to crawl, sometimes fly toward four o'clock. When she was dressing,

AM)

with the girls traipsing in and out of her bedroom, asking for last-minute items, exclaiming over her dress and her hair, seeking approval of their own, her nerves were as on edge as if she were seventeen and a virgin.

The girls all had new dresses, and though they all looked adorable, Rebecca, in a very adult ankle-length dress of apricot satin looked quite breathtaking. And so grown-up! -)Roberta thought.

Shortly before four Lydia called, "Gabe and Isobel are here!" and she heard them knock below. She'd never have believed she'd have butterflies in her stomach from meeting a man at the door, but on her wedding day, she did.

When she saw him standing on the porch, spit-shined and wearing a spiffy new black wool suit, the toes of his new boots gleaming like onyx, she thought, Why, I love him more than I loved George. Certainly I know him better. I would never in a million years have anything to fear from him.

She could tell immediately that he was far from calm. His freshly shaved cheeks were as rosy as the dawn had been, and he didn't seem to know where to hang his hands.

He said, "Hello, Roberta."

And she said, "Hello, Gabriel," very formally. Then they both laughed nervously as she pushed open the screen door.

Isobel said, "Gosh, Roberta, you look so pretty! "

Belatedly, he said, "Yes ... yes, you certainly do."

Ani

She was decked out in ivory, an Austriandraped dress that fell in layers from beneath her breast and showed her high-top shoes. Her hair was swept up in back around a white silk rose, much as she wore it with her nurse's cap.

"And you look very elegant. You bought a new suit. "

He cleared his throat and glanced down briefly, his chin catching on his high white collar and thick, black, knotted tie. "Ah . - . yes.5

Not even when they'd first met had they been so formal and stiff with each other. Yet, ridiculous as it seemed, neither of them could stem their nervousness, which made the children whisper among themselves.

"I thought we'd wait outside on the porch," Roberta said.

"Oh, certainly!" Gabe replied, as if he'd done something wrong by stepping into the living room.

Some guests began arriving: Seth, who would stand up for Gabe; Aurelia and their children; Gabe's mother, Maude, whom Roberta had met on two occasions and with whom she'd forged an uneasy peace; the DuMosses and their children; Mrs. Roberson and Miss Werm; Eleanor Balfour from the regional nursing office and Terrence Hall, who clerked for the Farley boys.

And, of course, Myra.

Grace was conspicuously absent, though Roberta really hadn't expected her to attend: Grace was living in her insular sphere, pretending as she always had that the rest of the world dn')

was misguided and her marriage was made in heaven.

Elfred wasn't at the wedding either, of course. Word around town had it that his business wasn't doing particularly well. He had been overheard saying he was going to be forced to take out a second mortgage on his house.

The minister from the Congregational church suggested they get started.

Because it was to be a very informal wedding, there was no wedding march, only a shuffling and placing of the wedding party up on the porch, with the children trailing down the steps.

While the mothers of the bride and groom were watching the wedding party assemble., Maude remarked, "Your daughter looks quite lovely today."

Myra's mouth formed a doughnut of disapproval. "I told Roberta not to wear white, but she's never listened to me. Grace told me that's just what Roberta would do, and sure enough, look at her! A woman never wears white on her second wedding!"

"I'd call that ivory."

"Well, it's white enough to be disgraceful!" Maude shot a surprised glance at this woman who was about to become her son's motherin-law, and decided he'd need all the kind, thoughtful mothering he could get from his own mother if he was to be saddled with Myra Halburton on his wife's side.

The ceremony was ordinary by any standards, except for the fact that the bride accompanied

her daughters on a piano rolled up to the living room door while the trio sang 'Oh Promise Me' in three-part harmony; and Rebecca recited an Indian verse.

When she turned at the porch rail, she discovered that her Spear cousins, who had been ordered to stay home by their mother, had appeared across the street and were watching the proceedings from there. Rebecca stood proud and tall and let her resonant alto carry clear out to where they stood.

"As unto the bow the cord is, So unto the man is woman,

Though she bends him she obeys him, Though she draws him, yet she follows, Useless each without the other!"

Ethan Ogier, who had ridden up on his bicycle, stood beside the Spear girls and whispered reverently, "Wow, doesn't Becky look pretty today?" And in his sixteen-year-old heart he vowed, I'm going to marry her someday.

On the porch, Reverend Davis asked the groom, "Do you take this woman?" and when Gabe answered "I do," four girls mouthed the words along with him. They did the same when Roberta gave her response. And when Gabriel kissed his bride the three youngest girls flashed smiles back and forth at one another while Becky sent a prolonged gaze across the street to Ethan.

The kiss was brief and self-conscious on Gabriel's part. He had come some distance

toward being comfortable with demonstrations of affection, but kissing before an audience definitely rattled him. When he lifted his head-, Roberta saw that his face was ripe as a peach, and she thought how peculiar that they should have survived the first stages of courting with relative ease, only to become uneasy with each other on their wedding day.

All the girls swarmed around and gave him kisses on his cheek, too, which added several degrees of heat to his cheeks. And the guests came forward, too, with hugs and congratulations, and separated the bride and groom for a while.

The wedding feast was all finger food, passed around by the four new stepsisters, who had helped their mother make it. Among the cold sandwiches were fudge and snow-white divinity (no spoons required this time) and Gabe's favorite sour cream cookies, which his mother had volunteered to make.

Roberta found Becky midway through the soiree and suggested, "Why don't you take a tray of sweets and offer them to your friends across the street. That way they don't have to break any rules."

Becky looked up at her mom and got mistyeyed. "Know what, Mrs. Farley?" she said. "I've got absolutely the best mother in the world."

As Roberta kissed Becky's cheek Gabe strolled over and stopped beside them. V.7hen Becky headed away with the tray he asked quietly, "What are all the tears about?"

Roberta watched Becky go and said, "Oh,

At) A

Gabe, I'm so happy. We're going to make such a wonderful family."

He dropped an arm over her shoulders and they stood side by side as Becky reached the group across the street. Marcelyn glanced over and saw them watching ... and waved.

Gabe and Roberta waved back.

"Poor Grace," Roberta said. "She will stick with that man till death do them part, and never know what kind of happiness she missed."

Gabe could think of only one reply: He gently kissed his wife's temple.

Roberta smiled up at him. "Well, look at you," she said, pleased by his very prim kiss, "the man who was so afraid to show affection."

"I wish it were evening," he replied. "I'd show you a lot more."

She quickly glanced away, and he wondered how many times she had said no to him since they'd been engaged. She'd even insisted on no honeymoon, her excuse being that she'd had her job for only six months and didn't want to ask for any time off. Also, she argued, the girls shouldn't be left alone, though he didn't see why either Maude or Myra couldn't stay with them for a week.

"No," Roberta had said again.

So he'd left the business to Seth and tried his best to get the addition finished by tonight. And this was it ... it was shortly after 6 P.m.

and their guests were leaving ... and the girls were going off to sleep at Gabe's house with Grandma Maude ... and the new bedroom wasn3t quite finished but it had a new bed,

and the bathroom had a claw-foot tub and a real water heater run by electricity ... and Gabe had no idea how to approach the next couple of hours.

The yard emptied.

Gabe and Roberta stood on the front porch steps listening to the autumn silence. Beyond the rooftops the sea looked like a Plate of sky-blue enamel broken by the distant, jutting islands that burned up out of the water like small fires. Vibrant orange and blue - the entire vista - with occasional spires of evergreens poking through, and white boats coming home at day's end.

Nearer, the ferns around Sebastian Breckenridge's anchor had turned rusty and curled back toward earth, in the direction from which they'd come. The iris leaves had long since yellowed, and the bridal wreath bordering the yard had been touched by frost and hung like an orange waterfall. A line of meditative gulls trimmed the ridgepole of a rooftop below, and as Roberta and Gabe watched, one of the birds broke rank and took wing, followed by others, who flocked over their own front yard to cock their heads and deliver their tuneless squawk to the man and woman standing on the steps.

"I remember when you built this porch," Roberta said.

"Six months ago." "Is that all?"

"Whoa, did you hate me."

Roberta chuckled. "I did, didn't I?" "Remember the day you first saw the house?

A fl K'

A 0'7

You came in the bedroom and found me making off-color jokes about you being a divorced woman. Lord, was I wrong."

He had been watching her, waiting for her head to turn so he could read her eyes. She turned, and if there was anxiety within her, she hid it well.

They stood there on the edge of evening, Gabe wondering how she felt about making love before dark, Roberta afraid that at the last minute she'd ruin their wedding night over something that was none of his doing.

"Are you tired?" he asked. "Yes ... I am. "

"Want to go in?"

In answer she turned and her footsteps slurred across the hollow porch floor. The screen door opened lazily, then closed them inside, followed by the inner door with its scarred dentil trim below the curtained window.

They crossed the living room without haste and stood in the kitchen doorway - Gabe's right shoulder curving behind her left one

inspecting the room, which the girls had left cleaner than it had ever been. On the table sat a plate of candy and Caroline's philodendron plant.

Watching Roberta's eyes pause on it, Gabe asked, "Do you mind?"

"No, of course not. Isobel asked me if she could bring it over. Actually, it dresses up the room ... and you know I'm not very good at doing that myself. There are things Isobel can teach me."

Ank

He had never met another human being like Roberta, so unsusceptible to jealousy, so open to change_, to discovery. She had accepted not only Gabe and Isobel, but a third person as well, for Caroline was an integral part of their past, and she understood this. Jealousy was foreign to Roberta, for she was so comfortable with herself that there was no need for it in her life. She saw her shortcomings as clearly as she saw her strengths, and neither denigrated herself for the one nor lauded herself for the other. She simply lived life day to day by her own code of happiness first.

"Roberta?" he said.

She turned from the philodendron to him. "Hm?"

"I love you. I've been standing here realizing just how much."

"Why, Gabe," she said as he curled her into his embrace.

She would have said I love you too, but he kissed her with a tenderness so exquisite that it made her heart hurt. Kissed her and kept his hands only on her back. When the kiss ended he embraced her full length, so hard it hurt her ribs, and kept her flush against his body without moving, her chin caught on his shoulder and her breasts firmly cushioned against his chest.

With his lips closed he pulled in a deep breath, then exhaled unsteadily, and she knew the next step was up to her.

She leaned back, hands coming to rest on his chest, and said, "If you don't mind, I think I'll use the new bathtub."

Ann

"I don't mind," he said, releasing her. While she went inside and closed the bathroom

door, he removed his shoes, his tie, his collar and jacket.

The water ran. And stopped. And blipped as if a foot went in. And blupped in a lower tone as if a body went in.

He sat on a chair in their new bedroom, staring at the new wooden finish work he hadn't had time to varnish yet, at the bed she'd made up with all new bedding, everything white.

Some soft splashing sounded, the burble of a cloth being wrung out.

He rose and turned the chenille spread and the blankets down and thought about getting in, then changed his mind and returned to the chair, leaving the bedding downturned and waiting.

The water began draining ... then silence. He waited where he was.

Finally the door opened, emitting a billow of moist air and the flowery scent of powder. She stood in the doorway closing two buttons on the yoke of a blue cotton nightgown, neither prim nor promiscuous. Her hair was brushed and her feet were bare. And her eyes came straight to his.