Last night the family had gathered to sign the contracts. Devonny, both her parents (no matter how many divorces he might have, Hiram’s first wife was still Devonny’s mother) and their lawyers, and Lord Winden and his lawyers met in the drawing room. Once the signatures were on the papers, the wedding could proceed.
It had been so strange to see Mama in the town house that had belonged to three other wives since. How Mama gaped at the magnificent rooms, as if more interested in the interior decorations that other wives had added or changed than in her own daughter. Oh, Mama! Devonny had thought, yearning to be alone with her parent.
Father had not permitted mother and daughter to talk alone.
Instead, he said he would talk to Devonny alone. She had been touched. This was, after all, the last time father and child would be together alone before she was a married woman. She had even smiled at him as they entered his study, as he shut the door behind him, thinking that now, at last, would come the words of encouragement, love and understanding.
“You’re up to something, aren’t you?” he said harshly. He jabbed the bowl of his lit pipe into her stomach. Father could not possibly know Flossie was going to elope right during the wedding. If he had figured that out, he would have gone to Mr. and Mrs. Van Stead.
“You want a scene,” said her father. “You want to toss your pretty hair and refuse to sign the financial documents.” He pinned her to the wall, the enormous shelf of his belly right against her. “If you do anything to delay, Devonny, if by one syllable you make Lord Winden feel unwanted, what is the punishment I explained you would receive?”
“I will never be wed, sir.” A terrible cold isolated life, waiting in a back room, invited nowhere. No children, no love, no life, no hope. It made Lord Winden look desirable indeed.
“You will smile as you sign. You will kiss your fiancé on the cheek, and ask to hold his hand.”
“Yes, Father.”
And then he smiled. Devonny could never see that smile without remembering when Father read a letter from the asylum describing Strat’s whippings. Father’s smile had been so broad it lifted his entire mustache, like a shot rodent. “I have discovered the identity of the blackmailer.”
What relief! The dreaded smile was not for her. “Who is it? Who is responsible? Is there time to stop him?”
Her father did not answer these questions. He said, “I need to know what you think I should do to this person.”
Never had her father asked Devonny’s opinion on anything. She was amazed and proud. But she had no answer. How could anybody be punished without publicity? How could the writer of that evil letter be sent to prison without a trial? Without reporters and scandal?
Was Father toying with her? Did he mean to call the wedding off? Did he, against all evidence, have her best interests at heart? Would there still be some way to back out of this ceremony? Send Lord Winden on his way? But no. Father would never tolerate the furor, the humiliation, the appalling laughter should the wedding be called off.
What an irony, to be safe from the threat and not be able to extricate herself from its consequences.
“I can destroy this person,” said her father softly. “Total isolation, so that the writer of this letter sees neither friend nor foe once more. The writer will live for years, all in silence, all in solitude. No window. No hope. Abandoned by all, hidden from all. Life reduced to waiting for a tray of cold food silently delivered by an unseen hand.”
If I have to pay so high a price, thought Devonny, so should the evil blackmailer. “Yes, Father! Do that!”
And her father had smiled his terrible rat-and-mongrel-eating smile, and she knew that somehow, in some dreadful way, she had been tricked. But into what? For what?
And now … the wedding.
The church was laced with flowers: ropes of flowers, towers of flowers. The organ played magnificently. The boys’ choir, robed in scarlet, sang sweetly. But the bride’s heart sank.
“You look lovely, Mama,” she said, although it was not true. Her mother flinched as if struck and turned away. Poor Mama!
Devonny’s father entered.
The presence of a man changed the girls. Eyes dropped and voices lowered. Women might prepare for a great event, but a man would control it.
“Aurelia,” said her father sharply to her mother.
“Yes, Hiram.”
“The groomsman will seat you now.”
“Yes, Hiram.”
The bride and her mother silently touched cheeks, and then the first Mrs. Stratton took the arm of the head usher. She would traverse the aisle to Handel’s Water Music, stately but joyful. Devonny hoped her mother could think of this as a happy event.
Devonny said, “A kiss, dear Flossie.”
There was a shifting of gowns, a pressing up against one another, to give Flossie room to reach Devonny. She and Flossie touched cheeks. Her own was blazing hot. The pink of her complexion would please the guests. Flossie’s cheek was cold and afraid. Slowly the girls released each other and stepped back. Would they see each other again in this life? Would their husbands permit it?
The bridesmaids lined up. There was not room to form a straight line, so they curled among each other, giggling and excited.
Maud, as maid of honor, tucked the veil over Devonny’s face, careful to crush none of the flowers in Devonny’s hair arrangement.
It was safe behind the veil. No one could see into her eyes and know what she felt, or what she and Flossie had planned.
Devonny had a surprising memory of the months in California, when she had flirted with Randal. She remembered the sun, how it never failed; the boys, how relaxed and full of laughter. In California, there was a sense of time, time to do whatever came up, time to laugh and talk and be.
I am out of time, thought Devonny.
Tod Lockwood did not normally read books. He obeyed his teachers and turned in his assignments, and this did mean reading. Whole pages. Now and then a complete book. His sister had given him a book for a good-bye present when she left for Norway. “You are boring, Tod. You need to widen your horizons. So I’ve bought you a travel guide.” Tod hadn’t even glanced at the title. He was just grateful that a sister who understood him so poorly was leaving the country.
Months later, he happened upon the book, and here it was a travel guide to The World’s Most Dangerous Places. Tod was hooked. So far he’d studied up on visiting Chechnya (where everybody was busy slaughtering each other) and Algeria (where wacko fundamentalists and war veterans liked to cut throats), and now he was deep into Colombia (a must-see, explained the author, for anybody planning a vacation in hell).
He found himself deeply restless, as if he could have gone to all those dangerous places, but had opted to stay home.
He kept walking away from the book, as if from his failed self, and walking back to stare at the title.
He had traveled to a dangerous place, and by a dangerous route. And what had he done in the presence of danger? He had pretended it wasn’t happening. Brushed off the girl who needed him; him specifically; not just anybody! Him, Annie’s brother!
He felt loose inside, as if his heart and lungs and guts were going their own way, leaving him to gasp and writhe.
He felt Devonny’s fear, and heard his own stupid words. Over and over he saw himself stepping away from her, going back to his dumb designer water when he was needed in another world.
Her father glowed with pride. A man must create a strong son and a beautiful daughter. Well, the strong son had been a bad son, and now was either a missing son or a dead son, but Devonny had turned out to be a beautiful and obedient daughter.
He did not embrace her. She could not recall ever being hugged by her father. He jutted his elbow toward her, and she tucked her gloved hand around his arm and surrendered to her fate.
The music ceased. The preludes were over; now it remained only to move the bridal party to the altar.
There was a moment of total expectant silence.
> Nobody had seen the wedding gown. Most guests had not seen the groom, and a view of a titled Englishman was always delightful. Now, in this silence, the rector and Hugh-David would be emerging from the sacristy to wait for Devonny near the altar.
In the curving bridesmaid line, Flossie was closest to the side door and the cloakroom. Devonny must permit no one to see Flossie step back into the vestibule. “Oh, Father,” she said, looking up at his big drooping walrus mustache, his grossly fat neck, as wedged into its starched collar as she was into her corset. Do I love my father? she thought. I don’t think so. How could anybody love him? And yet—I want to please him. I want to have a family full of love. “How I wish Strat were here,” she said. “I miss him so.”
He softened. (Hiram Stratton in a soft moment!) “I, too, Devonny. Now be my brave girl. This is best for all of us.”
The trumpets began. Their climbing chords of celebration filled the great stone chamber, and then were joined by the massive organ. Even Devonny was thrilled. The stone lace of Grace Church, the chilly beauty of its gothic peaks and arches, spoke to her soul.
The first bridesmaid, Muriel, moved out of the parlor and down the great aisle. She was trembling. Her basket of flowers quivered. The guests turned to stare, but they did not stand. They would stand only for Devonny.
Esther, the second bridesmaid, followed.
Then Constanza, the third.
Now the girls could straighten their line, while the seamstresses knelt to fluff crinolines and tug at hems. No one looked at anything except the aisle down which she would walk.
Devonny felt the motion of Flossie leaving.
She squeezed her father’s arm to keep his attention on her, and to her amazement, he patted her hand, as if he loved her.
Perhaps he does, she thought. Perhaps Hugh-David will too, one day, and perhaps I will love them. I must believe that.
The fourth bridesmaid took her first step, and at the same moment, the side door gently closed.
Devonny Aurelia Victoria Stratton prayed for the future of Mrs. Gianni Annello.
The fifth bridesmaid.
The sixth.
Flossie must have her coat on by now, the faded shapeless one she had stashed in the back hall. Her bouquet would be tossed on a shelf, pins yanked from her hair, ribbons stuffed in her pocket, big old scarf tied over her head. She wouldn’t waste time buttoning the coat, just pull it around herself, and surely by now she was out of the church and among the crowd.
Her father said casually, “By the way, in the morning I shall begin the punishment of the writer of that letter.”
How unfair of Father, how crude, to mention the blackmail now!
“Your mother wrote that letter,” said her father, smiling. His big yellow teeth moved like a horse grinding over its bit. “She thought if you were married to a titled Englishman, you would send for her; she would go to live in England, and have a wonderful life after all, and see the Queen, and have fine clothing again.”
The seventh bridesmaid left.
“But she is mistaken,” said Hiram Stratton. “She will be sealed in the attic. I expect she will survive for two or three decades. With no sun, no air, no visits, no sounds, no friends, no daughter. But food, of course. I want to sustain life, so that she may continue to suffer.”
The eighth bridesmaid.
Devonny swayed, and her father’s ham-sized hand supported her. “No one crosses me,” he said softly. “I am glad that you agreed on the punishment.”
The ninth bridesmaid.
“Mother wrote the letter?” whispered Devonny. But yes, she could see it now. The handwriting was Mother’s, and the beautiful paper. Oh, the desperation! the poverty! the joylessness! that had made this seem rational to Mama. Mama, in the dark shabby cold house in Brooklyn, whispering to herself, scratching out a letter, planning her new life, believing it would come true.
The tenth bridesmaid.
“No, Father,” she breathed through the veil, standing on tiptoe to get close to his ear. “Let Mother go. It doesn’t matter. I am proud to be wed as you choose. I shall be the best of wives. I promise that I shall do exactly as I am told, forever. I shall always behave! Please do not punish Mama!”
“Your mother made her choices and she will suffer her consequences.”
“She didn’t choose to be divorced, Father! She didn’t choose to live in poverty.”
The rector’s wife and the florist and the seamstresses closed in on them. “So sweet,” said the rector’s wife, patting Devonny’s bare shoulder, “to see you and your dear papa sharing these last minutes.”
The flower girls—Ethel’s three-year-old twins, gold hair in ringlets—were readied. They carried baskets of rose petals to strew so that Devonny would walk on flowers. The little girls were giggling and afraid and thrilled.
Oh, Strat! Come save me! Oh, somebody! Please save me! Save Mama, save me from knowing what my own mother did, save me from this marriage, don’t let me know the truth about my parents, don’t let me find out what marriage is from this man who can’t even be bothered to invite anybody, please please save me.
“Here we are!” beamed the rector’s wife. “Last in line!”
I am last in line, thought Devonny. I am quite literally last in line. Everyone else comes ahead of me.
Lord Hugh-David Winden loved clothing, and had chosen his as carefully as any woman in the church. Gordon and Miles stood with him, while the ushers (people Hiram Stratton knew; nobody who mattered) formed a long swallow-tailed row behind them.
The flowers that filled the great sanctuary had been sped by train from the American South. How delightful to know that he, too, would be able to afford train-loads of hothouse flowers.
He felt a surprising surge of emotion as the bridesmaids appeared. How slowly they approached, trumpet music their only escort. The girls were beautiful, even the plain ones.
Devonny. A strange but beautiful name, just as American girls were strange but beautiful.
Americans believed they could create themselves. Always the singing lesson, the dancing lesson, the drawing lesson. Always studying foreign languages and history. If you tried hard enough, said the American girl, you could achieve anything. It was a matter of will.
Devonny had plenty of will.
He was eager to see how Devonny managed his mother. Lord Winden’s mother was overwhelming, especially to Lord Winden. A wife like Devonny might actually be an ally; together, he and his new wife might … No. These things rarely happened. The marriages he knew were full of trauma. Men and wives led separate lives.
He counted bridesmaids.
To his amazement, Hugh-David could hardly wait to see his bride. What will the gown look like? he thought. Will she be the vision I’m expecting? Will she be hidden by a veil? Will she be weeping? Will she smile?
Gordon whispered in his ear. “She’s so embarrassingly American, Hugh. You shall have to perform radical surgery on her.”
Hugh-David allowed a slight smile to decorate his formal expression. Gordon had witnessed Devonny beating him at tennis, riding her bicycle with a split skirt, and even, when she fell off the bike, jumping up in disgust and shrieking a swear word. Gordon had been horrified and amused, muttering that Hugh-David would have to be very careful, lest the girl turn into her father: fat, stomping and vulgar. But Hugh-David had found her immensely attractive. Not ladylike. But attractive.
He knew he had been a tiny bit mean to Devonny, but it was essential, with a headstrong young girl, to be sure she knew whose world she was entering. His.
It was his hunt, his shoot, his yacht, his party, his estate.
He would be kind to her during the voyage, but he would structure their lives so that she learned to obey.
One bridesmaid to go.
Then the flower girls.
Then the bride. His bride. His new property.
In the space where pink ruffled skirts and white baskets of flowers had been, Devonny began to see something very odd.<
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An angel was joining them.
Devonny could see the angel quite clearly, and just as the Bible said, the angel was a beautiful man.
He did not have flesh, just form. She could make out his outlines, but not his body. He was kneeling, which seemed fine for an angel.
Her father was not looking.
Devonny whispered to the angel, “Am I to die? Is that to be my fate?”
Now the angel did not look like an angel at all, but more like a devil, strangely familiar. Devonny narrowed her eyes, trying to focus on him.
Her father said, “Come, Devonny.”
She could not move. He put his large heavy hand on her waist, half circling it, and, with the church ladies, launched her forward. The gown followed, the train weighing so much it was like towing furniture.
The angel stood up.
It was no angel. It was Tod Lockwood.
Her father continued to walk, in the slow awkward shift of body they called “the hesitation step.” His great weight pulled her along.
Tod had come for her, as his sister, Annie, had once come for Strat.
Flossie yanked the crinoline down, stepped out of it, smashed the enormous stiff undergarment beneath her feet and crammed it behind some old pew, pulled silk and ribbons out of her hair and chucked them into the umbrella stand. Flinging her arms into her old coat, she turned the circular handle of the old wooden door and eased herself out onto the street.
This was the back of the church; the crowds were massed out front for the best view. If people turned, all they would see was a woman in an ill-fitting coat, tying an old scarf over her messy hair. Flossie walked away. The bridesmaid skirt was a little too long, and she kept catching her slippers on it. Around the corner, on a park bench, she sat down to rip the lowest ruffle right off. There. Now she wouldn’t fall.
She stuffed the pink satin strip into a pocket of the coat and ran on. The delicate slippers were not designed for pavement, and began to tear apart in only a few blocks.