Ceremony of the Innocent (25 page)

She looked at him contemplatively. “Well, that would be best, for Ellen. But as she has been so ungrateful to us, and so obstinate, she can return to my house only at a reduced wage, as a proper punishment. What else can she do? She hasn’t any money. Stupid though she is, she must realize that her place is under my care, in my house, and your care, where she will be protected. Otherwise the streets are her only alternative.” She had, for a few moments, forgotten that Ellen was to marry Jeremy. She now remembered, and frowned. “Unless your cousin marries her, and I still think it is a fraud.”

“It’s no fraud. But what a frightful life she would have with him, after he tires of her ignorance. She can hardly read or write, can she? He would discard her like—”

“An old glove,” said Mrs. Eccles. “Yes. Well, that is all she deserves. I don’t know why we worry about her, really I don’t, dear Francis. You must be very stern with her, and not talk to her with your usual solicitude and kindness. She will obey you.” Her eyes sparkled with anticipation.

Francis lifted his hands in a rare vehement gesture. “He must be out of his mind, he a rich Porter, and a servant girl! I can understand Ellen a little. She longs for luxury, for her kind, sad to say, are vulgar and avaricious and don’t understand the niceties of propriety, and want to strive to elevate themselves above their status. Yes, vulgar. I’m disappointed that Ellen has shown the vulgarity of her sort; I thought better of her.”

Mrs. Eccles suddenly thought of what Jeremy had told her of John Widdimer and the dead Mary Watson. She leaned towards her nephew again, with new mischief.

“Do you know what poor self-deceived Jeremy told me? No, no! I mustn’t tell you. I promised. But it has something to do with Philadelphia. But I gave my word.”

Now Francis actually blushed. “I know all about that, Aunt Hortense. I, too, did a little investigating. I’m afraid it is quite true. I’ve even thought of telling Ellen myself, in order to show her what fate lies in wait for servants who presume to rise above themselves.”

“It’s really true, Francis?”

“Of course it’s true.” He was impatient. “I spent several hundred dollars finding out.”

“Why?”

“Because of something my father said, a long time ago, in Preston, about a portrait of John Widdimer’s mother. I wanted to disprove it.

I confess I was taken aback when I found out it was true. However, that doesn’t negate Ellen’s position. She has inherited all the faults and failings of her class, her mother’s class, and her aunt’s. Avarice. Unrealistic hopes. Presumptions. Yes, I’m disappointed in Ellen.”

“Did you know about the nearly quarter of a million dollars John Widdimer left his ‘offspring,’ legitimate or illegitimate?”

Francis was stunned. “No, I didn’t.”

“Well, Jeremy does. He told me. But he didn’t tell Ellen. He says he never intends to.”

Francis was incredulous again. “Why not?”

Mrs. Eccles shrugged. “I don’t know, really. He did say something, but I don’t remember.”

Francis could not believe that anyone could be indifferent to money, however rich he was himself. “He intends to collect that money, Ellen’s money, for himself, after they are married!” His voice, usually gentle and restrained, took on a note of viciousness.

“Are you going to tell Ellen, when she goes back with us to Wheatfield?”

He almost wrung his hands. “No. That would only make her bold, and she would demand the money, forgetting she is only a servant, and then she would waste it in—in—riotous living, and then be impoverished again.” But he was thinking rapidly, and his thin and transparent eyelids fluttered as he stared at the carpet.

“She wouldn’t have a chance to waste it if she marries Jeremy. You Porters are very careful about money.”

Francis was thinking more intensely. He became even paler. He stared about him, his thoughts running like mice through his mind. Wildly, he came to a certain conclusion, and he moistened his lips. Ellen, and all that money! Beautiful Ellen, and that money. Any man would be anxious to marry her.

There was another knock at the door and Mrs. Eccles said impatiently, “Oh, come!”

Agnes Porter lumbered in then, extremely agitated, her bloated fat face quivering, her very pale eyes twitching. She was in total disorder, and panting, and she gave every impression of fright. The years had been cruel to her. She was enormous and shapeless, her light hair almost totally gray. Her two fatty chins had increased to three. Her pompadour wavered. Her dress, of crimson merino with many flounces and much drapery, bulged over great breast, about huge girth and vast hips. She had no contour at all except swollen formlessness. The plump Mrs. Eccles was almost svelte in comparison, and certainly in more control of herself, and neater and prettier and younger.

“Agnes!” she exclaimed. “Dear me, you are in a state! Francis, put your aunt in a chair; she is about to faint, poor dear one.”

Agnes Porter was gripping her hands together; she had burst into tears. She looked about her as if she did not know where she was. She said no greeting; her hands now flung themselves out as if she were drowning.

“Dear God, dear God!” she groaned. “Where is my son?”

“Oh, sit down, Agnes, do, and control yourself,” said Mrs. Eccles, avid again for misfortune and drama. “Sit down, and tell us. Jeremy has probably gone to his office. After all, it is nearly eleven o’clock.”

Mrs. Porter slumped into a chair Francis had pushed against the back of her knees. “No, no, he hasn’t gone to his office.” Her voice rose in hysteria; her eyes bulged at Mrs. Eccles, and then at Francis, frantically. “I called there, after I went to his rooms and found him gone. I—I wanted to talk to him about that slut—I couldn’t believe it when Francis sent me a telegram—I couldn’t believe it! My son, and a streetwalker, everybody in Preston knew she was a streetwalker, a bad creature, and ugly as sin, and lewd. Everybody knew it; she used to, she used to meet men in the woods and fields at night—everybody knew it. I have to talk to my son, my poor son. What did she do to him, Did he get her—”

“In a delicate condition?” asked Mrs. Eccles. “It could be. I know that she had been meeting him regularly, in the little park across from my house. Oh, they said they had just met, for the first time in four years, but I knew it was a lie, all the time. She’d been meeting him regularly. I know that. Men! But then, men will be men, and servants will be servants, wanting to better themselves any way they can. I don’t blame Jeremy. I blame Ellen. I was like a mother to her.”

“She can have her brat on the streets!” shouted Mrs. Porter, now beside herself. “That’s where she belongs, the filthy thing, and that’s where I’ll send her! I’ll see that she goes to the prison farm, too, for her crimes.”

Francis said with some sternness, “It was your son who seduced poor Ellen.”

She doubled her fist savagely and struck him on the arm, and the blow was so fierce that he staggered back and began to rub his arm through his black sleeve.

“Oh, you!” she exclaimed through clenched and exposed teeth, like a fat aged lioness. “I wouldn’t put it past you that you didn’t sleep with her yourself!”

“Let’s not be vulgar,” said Mrs. Eccles, thoroughly enjoying herself. “I know Francis. He wouldn’t condescend to—well, that was very nasty of you, Agnes—to a servant like Ellen. He’s more fastidious, though he was very kind to her.”

“Kind! Oh, I know all about that! Fastidious! No. He’s as bad as the other men she was meeting in Preston. But not my son, Jerry, not my son! He’s just trying to be an honorable man.”

“Honorable!” said Francis. “He doesn’t know what the word is.”

Agnes surged forward furiously in her chair and again would have attacked him had not Mrs. Eccles said with hard severity, “Agnes, control yourself. You are acting like a low washerwoman. Let’s be calm. Let’s discuss this reasonably. We must come to a proper solution. Francis and I have been discussing it. What do you mean, Jeremy wasn’t in his office? You called, you said?”

“I did! From my room. And his employees said he hadn’t been there this morning, and had called to say he wouldn’t be.” Agnes was panting and groaning and flexing her hands. “Where is he? I went to his rooms—I talked to his man, that Cuthbert. And he said that Jeremy had left two hours ago. Where is my son? Is he with that dreadful creature?” She paused a moment. “That Cuthbert! He’s very sly. I swear he was grinning under his nose. He knows something.”

“Jeremy and Ellen have run away together,” said Mrs. Eccles, with satisfaction. “That’s it. He persuaded her, or she persuaded him. So they’re not getting married, after all, so calm yourself, dear Agnes. He’ll have his way with her, then pack her off, and so be grateful and relieved.”

Agnes subsided, still weeping, but her face was calmer. “You believe that, Hortense? You think it’s so?”

Mrs. Eccles nodded energetically. “I do believe it.”

“I don’t,” said Francis. “Ellen’s with her aunt, isn’t she? Her aunt wouldn’t let her leave, in a strange city, with a strange man.”

“May Watson?” said Agnes incredulously. “She’s as bad as Ellen, if not worse. She’s that girl’s mother, not her aunt. Everybody knew that. Illegitimate scum, that girl. Everybody knew it.” She glared at Francis, and said in a hushed voice, “Yes, you’re as bad as all the rest of the men she had in Preston, and she was only fourteen then. You ought to hide your head in shame, Francis Porter, associating with sluts like that. But your father is a very coarse man, not a gentleman at all. What’s born in the bone comes out in the flesh.” She was not the only one who spoke in cliches.

Francis shrugged, and turned away and went to a window, where he looked out. He felt sick, shaken.

“Marry her!” said Mrs. Porter, infuriated again, but smiling wildly. “So that’s what she thought, did she? Well, she knows better now, thank God. But how could he bring himself even to touch her? My son.”

Mrs. Eccles spoke soothingly. “Well, it’s over now. Jeremy, poor darling, will get what he wants, and that girl will be sadder and wiser. Not that I’ll take her back after this. It would be a scandal.” She thought of John Widdimer’s will, and was dismayed. Jeremy would tell Ellen of the money, and Ellen would never come back to the Eccles house. It was the least Jeremy would do for the miserable young thing—telling her of the money. It would be a gentlemanly gesture, after he had had “his way with her.” She was the best cook and housemaid I ever had, thought Mrs. Eccles with fresh resentment. I’d have taken her back, yes, I would. It would have been only Christian. Now she was angry with Jeremy, who had deprived her.

The door was violently thrown open, and May Watson, despite her crippling arthritis, scuttled into the room, moaning, her thin bent body trembling. She hardly saw Mrs. Porter and Francis. She cried to Mrs. Eccles, hobbling towards her, “Is Ellen here? Is my niece here with you, Mrs. Eccles?”

Mrs. Eccles smiled widely, and looked with significance at Agnes. “No, May. She isn’t. She hasn’t been here at all. Where in the world could she be?” She raised her eyebrows knowingly, but managed a concerned expression.

Francis turned alertly from the window; Agnes Porter was breathing heavily through her mouth, blinking her eyes, and relief flooded her. She nodded her head silently. It was all over, thank God. Hortense had been right. It was all over. She felt weak and faint with her relief, and subsided fatly in her chair.

May was crying again, her voice cracked and broken. “Her bed hasn’t been slept in. She undressed last night; I saw her. I took my pill—she promised to go back home, to Wheatfield, today.” May pushed back her thin white hair, distraught. “And then I woke up, just a little while ago. Her bed hasn’t been slept in. Just the sheets and blankets turned back, like the maid did. Her skirt and blouse—they’re gone. And her coat and hat. Oh, my God! Where is my Ellen? Where is Mr. Jeremy? Does he know she’s gone? My girl, alone on the streets, with white slavers every where. My poor child. Oh, tell me! Where can she be?”

Francis said in a hard voice, “May, Mr. Jeremy has gone, too. Nobody knows where he is, no one in his office, and not his houseman. He says. He’s taken Ellen somewhere. He’s ruined Ellen. You should have watched her every moment. And you, too, Aunt Hortense. You were supposed to be her chaperone.”

“I couldn’t sleep with the damned girl!” said Mrs. Eccles with anger. “Who cares where he’s taken her? Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say. Who cares what happens to her?” She turned to Mrs. Porter. “Agnes, you were right about her all the time. But don’t worry about Jerry. He’ll be back—alone, as I told you.”

“He’s taken Ellen away?” groaned May Watson. “My Ellen? She’s run away with him? But he wanted to marry her!”

Mrs. Eccles laughed with delicate cruelty. “Yes, I know what he said. I know what she thought. We were all so foolish, believing it. We were children! And all the time the naughty boy had this planned.” She wagged her head, obviously amused. “The naughty boy. Well, Ellen has got just what she deserved, and don’t look at me like that, Francis. Jeremy and Ellen!”

A man spoke from the door. “Are you all talking about me? About us?”

They stared at the doorway. Jeremy and Ellen stood there, Jeremy smiling wolfishly, and Ellen beside him, Ellen as beautiful and as stately as a spring morning in a new gray woolen suit with a short sable cape, Ellen with a plumed hat of velvet, and with gray leather gloves and a sable muff, and dainty French shoes and silk stockings.

“You scoundrel,” said Francis, and then he knew, with total knowledge, and total anguish and total frail passion, that he loved Ellen Watson and had always loved her, from the moment he had seen her kneeling and ecstatically examining a little daisy on the street in Preston. He wanted to kill Jeremy Porter, as he had wanted to kill him before, but now with an intensity and rage he had never known in all his contained life.

“Jeremy!” screamed Mrs. Porter in a frenzy. She tried to push herself out of her chair, but her bulk held her back, and a vague terror.

May hobbled towards her niece, holding out her shaking hands, her face pitiable, her features working. Ellen saw her come, and she took one of those pathetic hands and smiled like an angel, and she held her aunt’s fingers tightly. A sweet perfume came from her, compounded of joy and expensive scent. The diamond Jeremy had given her blazed from her glove, and below it was a circlet, plain and new. May did not see that, however.