Dragonwyck (28 page)

When they reached Mott Street, he said: 'It's after two. Shall we dine before we go to the Museum, and what sort of an eating place would you like? The Astor House, perhaps, or Delmonico's?'

She considered a moment. 'I'd like something different, please. Lots of people laughing, and music, and do you suppose I could have fried clams and crullers?'

He laughed. 'Certainly you may.'

'But—' she added, 'could we go to the museum first—Oh, look!' she cried, interrupting herself and forgetting that it was rude to point. 'What a queer-looking man! Oh, what is he?'

Along the eastern sidewalk there shuffled a figure in black silk with a high-necked jacket. His face was yellow, his arms were folded in his loose sleeves, a small black cap surmounted a shaven head from which dangled a long tail of coarse hair.

'That's a Chinaman, my dear,' said Nicholas. There must be about a hundred Chinese living in that section. The first ones came some years ago, when a Chinese junk sailed home without them. Our country,' he added with a trace of annoyance, 'is being overrun with all types of foreigners. It'll be increasingly hard for the ruling class to govern them properly.'

'Maybe they'll all mix up together,' she said vaguely. She knew little of the torrent of Irish, Germans, and Scandinavians which poured into New York. Still less of the black stream which flowed steadily from the Congo to the Southern States.

'Oh, there's the museum!' she cried, happily gazing at the high white building on Park Row. It was decorated with American flags, and painted on its facade, one between each window, were the oval portraits of impossible animals tastefully picked out in crimson and gold.

Nicholas dismissed the coachman, paid twenty-five cents admission for each of them, and they joined the crowd of farmers, sailors, immigrants, and children who had come to be thrilled by Barnum's marvels.

Miranda rushed from exhibit to exhibit, tugging in her excitement at Nicholas' arm but grateful for his protection and the expert way in which he opened a passage for them through the jostling throng. She was charmed with the 'Educated Dogs' and the 'Industrious Fleas'; horrified by the Fat Boy, the Giants, the Albinos, and the thirty-foot boa constrictor which lay torpidly coiled around a large egg. This egg, said a sign over the cage, contained 'a fearsome juvenile sarpint,' which added to the horror.

She was impressed by the Moving Diorama of the Funeral of Napoleon Bonaparte, and the 'very particular identical' club which killed Captain Cook in the Fiji Islands. Still more awed by an old colored woman, who doddered and chattered to herself upon a high platform. 'Joyce Heth,' said the sign, 'is 161 years old. She was George Washington's nurse, and used to dandle him on her knee.'

'How wonderful!' breathed Miranda, staring with all her might at this remarkable being who had bridged the distance from the dim historical past of the country to now.

Nicholas forbore to tell her that this was the third Joyce Heth so exhibited, her two predecessors having inconsiderately died.

At last they came to the gem of the collection. At the far end of the hall separated by red velvet ropes from the lesser attractions, General Tom Thumb dressed in full military uniform lolled upon a miniature golden throne. He was no bigger than a six-months-old baby, and although he was actually a child, his tiny good-humored face was shrewd and knowing.

'Oh, isn't he sweet!' cried Miranda, adding her bit to the chorus of feminine admiration. A heavy man with a beard stood behind the tiny General's throne; he looked sharply at Miranda and then at Nicholas, bent down and whispered in the dwarf's ear.

The little creature jumped up and advancing to the edge of his platform held out his hand to Nicholas. 'Mr. Barnum is honored to see you in his museum, Mr. Van Ryn,' he piped. 'Shall I dance the Highland Fling for you?'

The crowd drew back murmuring and staring at the Van Ryns. Miranda flushed at their sudden prominence, and not knowing that the great showman made it his business to recognize anyone of the slightest importance, felt a glow of flattered vanity.

Nicholas, however, frowned; but he touched the infantile hand, answering that they would be gratified to see the Highland Fling.

When the dance was finished, Nicholas hurried Miranda away before Barnum could come around in front and accost them.

Yes, I'm ready to go. It's been splendid, but just one more exhibit, please, Nicholas.' She pointed to a red-and-white sign which said 'To the Egress' and was further embellished by an arrow which indicated a mysterious passageway. 'Oh, do let's see the Egress!' she pleaded.

He looked down at her serious, expectant face. 'Certainly, my dear. It's of all things what I most want to see.'

Delighted with his enthusiasm, and still unsated, she pressed ahead eagerly as they entered the dark hall which presently turned into a flight of stairs that ended in a door. This door precipitated them onto Ann Street.

Blinking in the sunlight, she looked around her. 'Where's the egress?' she asked, puzzled.

He gave one of his rare laughs and indicated the door. 'You just passed through it. That's Barnum's way of getting rid of the stupid crowds.'

You might have told me, she thought. Might have prevented me from making a fool of myself too. The trivial incident hurt her. If one really loved a person, one protected them from humiliation, one did not laugh. But he does love me, she thought fiercely. He is doing all rhis today just to please me.

And, indeed, Nicholas lived up to his bargain as he would always fulfill any program upon which he himself had decided.

They walked to Franklin Street and dined at Contoit's 'New York Gardens' at a small wooden table under a chestnut tree. A German band provided the noise for which Miranda had longed; she had her fill of fried clams and crullers and her first taste of beer. This plebeian fluid made her feel both sleepy and contented. The sleepiness passed, but the contentment sharpened into bliss, for it seemed that they had barely begun their rounds of diversion.

They picked up the carriage and drove to Palmo's Opera House to see the black-faced minstrel show. With absorbed attention she followed the jokes which flew from the end men to 'Mr. Bones'; her small slippered foot tapped time to 'Doo-dah, Doo-dah. Gwine to run all night. Gwine to run all day.—Bet my money on de bobtail nag—Somebody bet on the bay.'

And after that there was still Niblo's. Here they had ices and wine, before strolling through a gallery of paintings, and attending the Ravels' marvelous pantomime of Hades, complete with devils, ghosts, and skeleton deaths. Besides the theater and the picture gallery, Niblo's amusement palace offered an exhibition of exotic and indigenous plants.

'Here's something you'll really enjoy, Nicholas!' cried Miranda as they passed the entrance of the Botanical Hall. 'Though I guess they haven't anything as fine as you grow in Dragonwyck greenhouses. Look, there are orchids and camellias and oleanders.'

He was silent so long that she thought he hadn't heard her. She looked up inquiringly and saw that he was staring not into the perfumed dampness of the hall but at her. The coldness that she dreaded had suddenly appeared in his eyes, but they held as well a faint ironic questioning.

'Don't you want to see the flowers?' she asked nervously.

'Not particularly,' he answered. He drew out his gold watch. 'We'll be late for the pantomime if we don't hurry.'

He doesn't want to be reminded of Dragonwyck yet, she thought. The memories are still too painful. A jealous misery stirred in her. Since the moment of their meeting at the Wells farm neither of them had ever mentioned Johanna's name. Can it be, she thought with sudden anguish, that he misses her? No, it isn't possible. It isn't.

Is it because I'm so young and so ignorant of men that I never know what he is really feeling? she wondered as they drove home up Broadway. It was late; moonlight silvered the brownstone houses and the Gothic splendor of the newly completed Grace Church. It eclipsed the disheartened flicker from the gas street lamps. Few sounds disturbed the quiet—an occasional snatch of song or laughter from the shuttered houses, the steady clop-clop of their horses' hoofs on the cobblestones.

'Have you enjoyed yourself, Miranda?' he asked as the carriage turned east on Eighth Street.

'Oh, yes—' she cried. 'It's been wonderful!' And moved by an impulse of loving gratitude, she slipped her hand into his. His fingers remained slack and unresponsive, her hand lay unwelcomed.

She withdrew her hand and averted her head. The passing gas lamps blurred and ran together. Why did he act that way? Why wouldn't he respond to her simple, natural gesture?

A flash of bitter insight answered her. Nicholas was neither simple nor natural; these qualities were as absent from his treatment of her as they were absent from his complex personality.

She had not, as yet, enough introspection to realize that part of his fascination for her had arisen from his unpredictability, and her conception of him as a mysterious being from a superior world who had miraculously condescended to desire her. Nor did she realize how tightly she was enmeshed by his physical attraction, a bondage woven not only from the magnetism of his body but from the very fear and pain he caused her.

'You're crying, Miranda?' he asked in a tone of amusement. 'Kindly spare the coachman your sorrows anyway. It's a singular way to end what you assure me has been a happy day.'

She pressed her handkerchief against her mouth, controlled the shaking of her shoulders.

The carriage drew up to their stoop; she stumbled out before it had fairly stopped, frantic to get away, to be alone, locked into a room—alone. Her foot missed the carriage step and she fell to the gravel on her right ankle. She gave a sharp cry and Nicholas was beside her on the instant. He picked her up in his arms, carried her into the house and upstairs.

The ankle was not badly wrenched, and as the pain abated she watched her husband with amazement. For it was Nicholas who bathed and bound it for her, touching the swollen foot as tenderly as would a woman. He refused to call the maid and himself undressed her. He ordered port wine and held the glass, watching her anxiously while she sipped it.

When he had made her comfortable in bed with her foot on a pillow, he lay down beside her and drew her head to his shoulder. He held her without passion, as though she were a child.

How can he be so cruel to me at times—and then like this? she thought. And again her awakening perceptions gave her the answer. He would hurt her himself, take pleasure in doing so, but he would not allow her to be injured by anyone or anything else.

A week later a few select members of New York society received engraved cards bidding them to a soirée and supper at the Nicholas Van Ryns' on Thursday, May the twenty-eighth, at seven o'clock.

Miranda's debut was not to be a large affair and Nicholas had hand-picked the list: Schermerhorns, Brevoorts, and the Hamilton Fishes to represent the 'Knickerbocker' aristocracy. Old Philip Hone and his wife, because Mr. Hone who had once been Mayor of New York, was amusing, and went everywhere. After some hesitation all the Astors had been invited: the senile John Jacob, the William B.'s and their son John Jacob, Junior, with his fiancée, Miss Gibbes. That the Astors were the richest family in the country influenced Nicholas not at all, and certainly did not outweigh their lowly German background. But he approved the fine new mansion on Lafayette Place and young John Jacob's cool gravity. Moreover, his fiancée, Charlotte Gibbes, came from an excellent Southern family.

Any other host of Nicholas' standing would have stopped there or rounded out the list with a few more of the élite, the Aspin-walls perhaps or the Verplancks, but he was indifferent to the high boundaries which separated the sections of New York society, knowing that any gathering was enlivened by a touch of the exotic; accordingly he asked Madame Teresa Albanese, who had been singing at Castle Garden, Mrs. Elizabeth Ellet, a sharp-tongued poetess from the Ladies' Literati Group, and Herman Melville, a young sailor who had just published a book called 'Typee' which was startling the reading world not only by the originality of its vivid prose but by its titivating descriptions of naked Polynesian maidens.

For days Miranda had been worrying about the party which was to present her publicly as Mrs. Nicholas Van Ryn. Her nervousness overshadowed President Polk's declaration of war against Mexico. After all, everyone had expected the war, and whatever was happening was so far away in places with outlandish names, Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma. In this she reflected Nicholas' own lack of interest.

'I believe that we have no particular moral right to declare war,' he said, 'but I daresay we'll win and the country will be much enlarged. At any rate there'll be another slave state for the South.'

'Won't the North mind?' asked Miranda, remembering the Abolitionist torchlight parade that she had watched from her window.

'Very likely,' he answered, shrugging. 'I don't doubt that the North and South will be at each other's throats some day.'

'You mean they'll fight each other?' she asked, startled. 'Oh, but they couldn't, it's the same country. Why can't things go on as they are?'

'Because men are fools,' said Nicholas, and changed the subject. 'By the way, the little Count de Grenier is back in New York. He arrived on the Celtic yesterday and sent me a note. I've asked him to the soirée. His wife didn't come with him this time.'

'Oh?' she said, diverted, remembering the plump Frenchman and his gaiety and compliments at Dragonwyck. How long ago it seemed! The night of the Fourth-of-July Ball! The Coryantis Waltz with Nicholas. That was when I first knew that I loved him, she thought, and there was pain in the memory. She had been happy that night for a while, but there had been humiliation too—from the Van Rensselaer girls—from Johanna.

'Nicholas,' she said abruptly, 'when are we going to Dragonwyck?' Her heart beat fast as she waited for his answer. Yet why should she be frightened of so natural a question? The Manor House was his real home, as it was now hers.