The next day he asked Kitty to marry him, and she accepted.
Throughout the great house serving men and maids hurried here and there; there were so many preparations to be made, for the wedding must take place at Haredon. The squire was not a man to stick to conventions and the bride’s home was not a grand enough setting for his wedding. Where would the guests be lodged? Where would the food be prepared? He was determined on a great feast. The neighbours should remember his wedding to the end of their days. It was the greatest day in his life; it should be a red letter one in theirs. He himself planned meals with the cook; he discussed beef and lamb and venison, cakes and pies, and wine and mead and ale. He was in a rare humour those days before his wedding. He felt his servants warm to him; he entered into an easy familiarity with them; already he was becoming their squire, their father and their friend. Only Jennifer did not come within the range of his friendship; he avoided her, and she had the good sense to keep out of his way. The servants said she brooded in her room, planning evil, for there was something of the witch in Jennifer Jay.
She did sit alone in her room, cursing her fate, looking into her mirror at the lines round her eyes and the thickening of her neck. She cursed the squire, cursed herself for her folly, cursed Kitty, and longed for the power to wreck this marriage. It was ironical that her best loved dream had been the marriage of the squire. This was like a nightmare, for he was marrying the wrong bride. As soon as he had seen that girl Kitty he had wanted her; she reminded him of her mother, sentimental fool that he was. Once she, Jennifer, thought of trading on that sentimentality, turning it to her own advantage, but now it had defeated her and here she was, living under his roof, the nursery maid who had been elevated to mistress and then reduced again to nursery maid. And possibly worse to come; because it was very likely that malicious people would whisper to the squire’s bride of the place Jennifer had once occupied, and she, naturally enough, would send the nursery-maid-mistress packing very quickly. That was obvious; obvious to the squire, obvious to Jennifer, obvious to the lowliest serving maid in the place. They were laughing at her now, she knew, and she was fearful for herself and sick with envy of Kitty whose future seemed now so secure.
She need not have felt envious, for Kitty was far from happy. The day before the wedding she and Aunt Harriet, with Dolly and Peg, had set out for Haredon, and as Kitty went up the avenue in the carriage the squire had sent for them, as she entered the big house and was greeted by the squire and his elderly cousin, she felt as though she were entering a prison from which she would never escape. The exhilaration she had experienced when she had accepted the squire’s proposal of marriage as a way out of her trouble was giving place to melancholy. For what would happen when he discovered the truth? The squire would never turn his wife out of his house, whatever her misdemeanour; but his wrath would be terrible. She thought continually of her mother. She was superstitious, and she fervently believed that her mother had shown her this way out of her trouble, for the-suggestion that marriage with the squire would help her out of her difficulty had come to her suddenly, just as though it had been whispered into her ear by someone watching over her.
The wedding-day came a hot September day with an early mist that promised more heat. Peg and Dolly dressed her. They squealed with delight over her beauty, and they wiped surreptitious tears from their eyes, for they knew that she did not love the squire; because she was beautiful as a princess and had shown them the first real kindness they had ever known, they wished everything to be perfect for her. And when, just before it was time to go downstairs and leave for the church, Peg threw herself on to the bed and began to sob bitterly, Kitty was very distressed.
She must not do this, she said. It was an evil omen. And why, she asked anxiously, did Peg cry? Peg murmured incoherently that there was something sad about weddings, beautiful though they were. But when Kitty put her hands on the girl’s shoulders and looked into her eyes, she knew that Peg was not crying because of all weddings, but only because of this wedding. And Kitty who had gone out each evening to meet her lover in that knowledge of the fearful things that could happen to women, and though she said nothing she was thinking of the who had loved the groom; and perhaps too she was thinking Kitty who had gone out each evening to meet her lover in wood.
She knows! thought Kitty in panic. How long before others know?
The heat in the church was stifling, and the smell of September flowers seemed to overpower her with their sweetness, During the ceremony she was aware of the squire as a pair of hands powerful hands that frightened her, for their strength was great indeed. She thought of Darrell’s hands, long and slender … clever, kindly hands, and wondered if they were roughened now after weeks at sea. What was happening to Barrel!? Terrible things? Cruel things? But not more terrible, Darrell, she thought, than this cruel thing which has happened to me. And if he returned, what then?
“Wherever you are, Darrell,” she murmured to herself, ‘whatever happens, if you need me I will come to you.”
The ceremony was over. People crowded about them. The squire was blustering, full of good humour, exuberantly slapping people on the back; having a joke here, a laugh there. His hands longed to caress her, but there was in him a newly born tenderness which subdued his roughness just a little; it was an attempt to please her which was somehow pathetic, because obviously he had rarely thought of pleasing, but chiefly of being pleased.
She wondered then, if she confessed everything to him, whether he would be kind and tender and promise to look after her until Darrell came back. She laughed at herself. The gentleness in him was a frail plant soon to be hidden and stifled, by the thick growth of other more natural emotions.
He whispered into her ear: “Cheer up, my dear. You’re not going to the scaffold I Did you think you were?”
She forced herself to laugh.
“No! Why should I? Is it a custom in Devon to hang one’s bride?”
He guffawed with pleasure; laughter came easily to him when he was happy as easily as rage came when he was irritated.
“Maybe,” he said.
“But I promise, if you please me, you shall be allowed to live.”
“Thank you kindly, sir! You are indeed a bounteous squire and husband.”
His great hand well-nigh crushed hers.
“A squire I have been for years. Kitty, but I feel I have never been a husband until now.”
His face was close; there was moisture on his lips. She laughed; laughed at herself for imagining she could hold him off, could explain that he was not to touch her but to let her live in his house until Darrell came to her.
She sat beside him at the table. The smell of the food sickened her, and the warmth of his body as he bent close to her nauseated her. He drank a good deal; he filled her glass. He kissed her ear. and she could feel his teeth against her skin.
And the day passed into evening. The squire led her in the dance, and the musicians played gaily in the gallery round the hall. There was more drinking and singing and dancing, but the squire never left her side the whole evening. But the evening could not last for ever; she felt as though she were holding back the night with frantic hands while the squire beckoned it impatiently.