Читать книгу The Sojourner - Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings - Страница 9

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The Linden house on their wedding day was as ready for Nellie as Ase could make it. It was at least immaculately clean. He had engaged a girl, Hulda Svenson, of a new-come Swedish family, for the past two weeks. She had given the first week to cleaning and preparing the log cabin. Amelia, trapped in her own angry decision, had moved there, taking the best pieces of furniture from the house. She had settled down in self-imposed martyrdom, slyly pleased with what she considered her new weapon. Her treacherous younger son and his scheming bride had put her out of her own home. Benjamin would be outraged by their treatment of her when he returned.

Ase brushed his black felt hat and looked about. The wood-boxes were freshly filled. Hulda had cooked and baked generously, had laid the dining-room table with a white linen cloth and the best china and silver, for two. She had brought a table bouquet of fern and geraniums from her mother’s house plants. The windows shone, the cleanliness emphasized the bleakness. The sitting-room was bare without the cherry secretary and the walnut center table. He dared not leave strong fires, but the dampered stove and range would hold considerable heat for an hour or two. He put on the broadcloth greatcoat that had once been Ben’s and was too short of sleeve for him. The March day was raw and he would be more comfortable in the old buffalo coat, but its shabbiness seemed unsuitable. He walked to the cabin and knocked on the door. Amelia opened it a crack.

She said, “You’re wasting your time. I haven’t changed my mind. I’m not going. I want everyone to know exactly where I stand. Go on.”

She closed the door. He turned away. He drove in the light buggy against a blustering wind toward his marriage. There were no more than half a dozen carriages hitched at the Wilson place. The guests were Nellie’s relatives and closest friends. Tim McCarthy waited for him at the door. His presence was comforting. Ase was unable to shake off the feeling that he was an outsider. The Wilsons wore an unwonted solemnity. Nellie was their treasure and the wrong bridegroom had come for her. He had an instant of panic when it seemed that he was indeed taking what did not belong to him. Ben should be here in his place. He should have been the one to go and Ben to stay.

He saw Nellie with her father by the fireplace banked with house plants. He had expected to see her in bridal gown and veil. She wore a dove-gray silk suit, the only bridal touch her flowered toque with a wisp of veiling. She was matronly and collected. The costume, he supposed, was tactful. The preacher motioned. The ritual drew him into its formal pattern.

“Do you, Asahel, take this woman—”

His blood hummed in his ears. Her hand was warm in his.

“I do.”

With all his heart, oh, with all his heart. McCarthy handed him the ring.

“With this ring I thee wed.”

It was a gift from Tim. It had been his mother’s and generations before her had shone on the hand of an Irish chieftain’s bride. It was wide, of hand-beaten reddish gold, massive with some mystic, forgotten design. Nellie eyed it with delight. She gave him a quick look of surprise and pleasure. She lifted her face for the nuptial kiss. In the rear of the room Tim broke into a soft tune on his fiddle. The Wilsons crowded around.

The noon wedding breakfast was hearty. There was hard cider for the men and elderberry-blossom wine for the ladies. The house was like a bee hive with chatter, metallic with the clatter of silver and dishes. Nellie moved here and there, exhibiting her ring, accepting the guarded congratulations. The marriage had astonished them all. Ase ate and drank patiently, shook hands, watching for a sign from Nellie to be away from the confusion. She left the room to give instructions to her brothers for her vast pile of belongings. They would bring these to her the following morning by wagon. There were chests of china and linens, trunks of clothing, trays of ferns and flowering winter plants, boxes of preserves and jellies and vegetables and fruits of her own canning. The family had given her a cherry highboy and table to replace those Amelia had taken to the cabin. Her dog Shep was to be brought, and her mother cat with the last litter of kittens. Shep leaped against her, aware of impending change. She beckoned to Ase.

“This crazy dog will just follow me anyway, Ase. We might as well take him with us.”

He nodded.

She said, “Come on, let’s get away.”

They ran from the shower of rice and old shoes. McCarthy stood with the buggy at the door, holding the stallion’s head. Ase handed Nellie in and turned to shake hands with his friend.

“You can come to the house now, Tim.”

“Praise be. The barn’s no place for fiddling. I’ll wait a decent time of days before rapping on your door.”

He leaned close and drew Ase down to whisper in his ear.

“I’d not be telling the Nellie about the ring. ’Twould spoil it for her to know it came from the McCarthys.”

He winked and waved them off. Dan reared and set out at a fast trot for his home stable, threatening to bolt for it. Ase needed both hands to control him. The March slush flew from the wheels. Bare tree limbs lashed against a gray sky. Nellie was silent. He lifted her down at the Linden door. He was obliged to let her enter the house alone, for Dan was plunging. When he came through the woodshed into the kitchen, carrying her valise, she was putting wood in the range. Shep had found a proper dog’s corner behind the wood box. He beat his feathered tail on the floor in contented acceptance. Wherever Nellie was, Ase thought, was home for both of them. He took the wood from her, filled the range and opened the damper. He put his arms around her and laid his cheek against hers. The moment was too profound for passion. She patted his arm and drew away.

“Let me change my clothes, Ase. I’ve already got some smut on this silk.”

He and Hulda had prepared Amelia’s front downstairs bedroom but Nellie would have none of it.

“I can play her game, too. We keep her room just as it is, all ready for her, for everybody to see. She’ll draw in her claws after a while.”

She chose the large bedroom above it that had been Ase’s father’s. It had a matching open fireplace and was well furnished with hand-made black walnut and cherry pieces, including a large four-poster bed with a hard horsehair mattress. Her own feather bed would supplement. She would need another dresser for her own belongings. She sent him downstairs. He built up the fire in the sitting-room stove. Nellie appeared shortly, pert and pretty in fresh blue and white ruffled gingham. Her hair was still pinned on top of her head in the matronly fashion that had so dismayed him. He felt for the pins with clumsy fingers and the loosened curls fell around her face to her shoulders. She laughed.

“I was trying my best to be Mrs. Linden and you’ve spoiled it.”

He wanted to explain that she was little Nellie Wilson still to him, and ever would be. He could only stand and drink in the sight of her. The clock struck five of the afternoon.

She said, “You’ll have to change your clothes to do the chores.”

He was unwilling to sit at their bridal supper in common shirt and jeans. He kept a pair of overalls at the barn and he would be careful. It was dangerous to leave her for a moment, he might well only have dreamed her presence, might return to find her gone.

He said, “Wait for me.”

He took the milk bucket and went to the barn.

Nellie had the milk pans ready for his return. She had set a few of Hulda’s foods on the dining-room table. She was frowning.

“Who set the table, Ase? It’s laid for two. What do we do about your mother? Take a tray to her?”

“Hulda took her everything this morning.”

“Good for Hulda. Ready in a minute then.”

She held her finger to the light, the red-gold of her ring showing burnished.

She said, “Never thought you’d have anything so handsome for me. Where’d you find it?”

He spoke the truth proudly.

“It was a gift from Tim McCarthy. It belonged to his mother.”

“Oh.”

As he watched, the gold seemed to turn to brass.

Nellie said, “A pity. I thought maybe it was valuable.”

She took warmed foods from the oven. The hanging lamp shed soft light and shadow over the white napery. He kissed her gravely before they sat down. He said a silent grace of thanks for her, presiding over their table. The wind blew in gusts down the chimney, a pleasant intruder, like the dog, who waited politely from the kitchen threshold for his own plate. Ase helped Nellie with the supper dishes and put them away in the cupboard. She would need a day or so, she said, to find where things belonged, not that she was likely to keep them as they were. She went upstairs ahead of him. He turned Shep out of doors for a few minutes, brought a piece of old carpet from the woodshed for a bed for him by the range, filled the wood box, wound the clock, and went with a lighted candle to the bedroom. Nellie had put a match to the fire laid on the hearth. It was blazing and when he had undressed he blew out the candle.

She drew back the bed covers for him. There were lace and blue ribbons at the throat of her night-dress. Her eyes were bright in the firelight. Her breathing was fast. He was trembling but there was no uncertainty in his strong arms and limbs. She met him avidly. The miracle mounted on pulsing wings, soared over spaceless peaks and throbbed away into the distance with silver feathers fluttering. A hard beating recalled him, like a drum. It was his heart. She was limp, her heart pounding, too, and he held her tight, never to let her go, Nellie, his love, his own.

She said, “Well!”

The word had an odd note, as though she were agreeably surprised. He stroked her soft hair. Her skin was silky as her wedding suit. Her throat under his lips was like the down of milkweed. His power surged again, he drew the night-dress from her shoulder and kissed its roundness. She did not respond. The firelight flickered high and he saw that her eyes were closed. She was sound asleep. For an instant he felt abandoned in a lonely valley. But she was such a little thing—. She looked more child than woman, her cheeks flushed, her curls tousled on the pillow. She was tired, he thought, as a child is tired. He held her carefully, his arm cramping under her.

She roused toward midnight and came to him again. The great wings bore him higher than before. Her response was that of some famished creature finding food. When he released her, she was panting.

He said, “Oh Nellie—.”

Her breathing slowed. He reached for her, to draw her close. She moved his hand from her breast.

“I can’t sleep that way.”

She turned on her side, away from him. She reached behind her and touched his hand in reassurance.

“ ’Night, now.”

He lay stiffly. She was not asleep. She gave a little sigh that was neither of repletion nor of drowsiness. It struck ice to him, as though a window had blown wide in a bitter gale. He had fed her hunger. He would always be able to feed it. He knew with a sense of desolation that the bread he offered, though it nourish her, was without salt or leavening.