I went in my cloak to keep watch on him that night. There were no ladies at the Dower House, nor on the night that followed. It appeared he really intended to go through with it.
The Wellingford chapel was a small one, large enough for the family and servants only, served by a resident priest who said daily masses and took care of christenings and burials. Also, three monks had been taken in from the abbey when it was destroyed, and it was they who rang the bells for the holy office. The chapel was set in a graveyard, and there were Wellingfords buried all around and beneath it, the whole place smelling a bit of sanctity and dust and rot, as well as of incense and tallow.
I did not go openly. I went in my cloak, ready to flee if something appeared amiss, and I stood on the porch for a time, looking in at the people. The priest was there, looking grumpy. So were various members of the family, irritably glancing around to catch a glimpse of the putative bride. Ned was there, jumpy as a cat, darting glances at the door every second or two. The priest gave up his unpleasant look to yawn. Ordinarily, Ned and I would have pledged our respective properties and exchanged rings in the church porch. I had no property to exchange, or at least none I was willing to use as dowry. Ned would have to take me as I stood.
I put the cloak down in the porch and walked slowly down the center aisle. Everyone stared at me and murmured. I pretended not to notice the admiring looks cast my way by some of the gentlemen and even a few of the ladies. I had done what I could to look well. There were summer flowers twined in my hair. I had returned to Westfaire for yet another dress, the pink one I had worn at the banquet the night before Papa had intended to marry Weasel-Rabbit. When the priest asked my name, I told him in a clear and carrying voice that all might hear: “Beauty, daughter of Elladine of Ylles and the Duke of Westfaire, under an enchantment which can only be broken by marrying an uninquisitive man.”
Ned looked into my eyes and swore to honor and keep me. He whispered in my ear that he would be uninquisitive. He would not ask questions. He trembled when he took my hand. I looked at his chin and pledged to render him my duty, wondering betime what Father Raymond would have said about all this. Father Raymond had had definite opinions about the sacrament of marriage, and I concluded he would have been disappointed in me, taken all in all. The priest babbled a great deal of comfortable Latin and we took the sacrament together. Ned kissed me, delicately, as though I might break. I curtseyed to his older brother, to Janet, to his younger brother, to other members of the family. Janet gave me a hug, rather quickly, as though she were afraid the enchantment might rub off on her. We left the chapel and walked across to the manor house where the kitchens had been steaming since noon, preparing a feast.
“We didn’t have time to prepare anything elegant,” said Janet. “Or to think of a proper gift.”
“I was given a proper gift,” I said in what I fondly hoped were mysterious tones. “A young boy, seeing me approaching the chapel, told me he would give me his dearest possession as a gift for my wedding. The gift is a cat called Grumpkin, he is in the stables, and I would like him brought here.”
Someone went for Grumpkin, coming back later rather the worse for wear with my poor cat in a sack. I cursed myself for stupidity in letting anyone else go in my place and turned him loose, giving him a saucer of cut up fowl on the floor at my feet.
“We couldn’t find the boy, ma’am,” I heard one of the servants saying to Janet.
“He told me he was leaving,” I said, my words carrying over the clatter of the diners. “Going away. Never to be seen in these parts again.”
It was true, then, so far as I knew. What need had the wife of Edward Wellingford for Havoc, the miller’s son.
* * *
Remembering what I had seen in the Dower House as a voyeur, I made no effort to compete in innovation or athleticism with the women Edward had consorted with in the past. It was no lie to pretend virginity. It was no lie to pretend shyness. I felt them both. When, on the third or fourth night after the wedding, Edward made love to me at last—I having held him off till then out of a genuine feeling of revulsion which I managed to overcome at last only by much purposeful wine-bibing—I felt nothing much except discomfort and relief when it was over. Jaybee had evidently unsuited me for the enjoyments of the flesh, though thereafter, knowing what to expect from Edward, it became easier. I knew it was supposed to be a pleasant experience. Out of curiosity if nothing else, I had read in the twentieth how a woman can assure that it is pleasant, but I felt no impetus toward talking with Edward about it or doing what in the twentieth would have been called “working at our relationship.” It would have been a lie. I did not want to work at the relationship because I did not love him. I came quite to like him as the days went by, but I did not discern in myself even so much affection toward him as I had often
