"He?" he said sardonically.
"The man I was with. The man on the boat I was with."
"Your paramour," he said tonelessly, and tried not to let her see him swallow the bitter lump that knobbed his throat.
"No!" she said strenuously. "No, he wasn't! You can believe it if you choose, but from first to last he wasn't. It was purely a working arrangement. And no one else ever was either, before him. I've learned to care for myself since I've been about in the world, and whether I've done things that were right, or done things that were wrong, I've been no man's but yours, Lou. No man's, until I married you."
He wondered why he felt so much lighter than a moment ago, and warned himself sternly he mustn't; and in spite of that, did anyway.
"Julia," he drawled reproachfully, as if in utter disbelief. "You ask me to believe that? Julia, Julia."
"Don't call me Julia," she murmured remorsefully. "That isn't my name."
"Have you a name?"
She moistened her lips. "Bonny," she admitted. "Bonny Castle."
He gave a nod of agreement that was a jeer in pantomime. "To the colonel, Bonny. To me, Julia. To Billy, something else. To the next man, something else again." He turned his face from her in disgust, then looked back again. "Is that what you were christened? Is that your baptismal name?"
"No," she said. "I was never christened. I never had a baptismal name."
"Everyone has a name, I thought."
"I never had even that. You need a mother and father to give you that. A wash basket on a doorstep can't give you that. Now do you understand?"
"Then where is it from ?"
"It's from a postal picture card," she said, and some old defiance and rancor still alive in her made her head go up higher a moment. "A postal picture card from Scotland that came to the foundling home, one day when I was twelve. I picked it up and stole a look. And on the face of it there was the prettiest scene I'd ever seen, of ivycovered walls and a blue lake. And it said 'Bonny Castle.' I didn't know what it meant, but I took that for my name. They'd called me Josie in the foundling home until then. I hated it. Anyway, it was no more my rightful name than this was. I've kept to this one ever since, so it's rightfully mine by length of usage if nothing else. What difference do a few drops of holy water sprinkled on your head make? Go on, laugh if you will," she consented bleakly.
"I no longer know how," he said in glum parenthesis. "You saw to that. How long were you there, at this institution ?"
"Until I was fifteen, I think. Or close onto it. I've never had an exact birthday, you see. That's another thing I've done without. I made one up for myself, at one time; just as the name. I chose St. Valentine's Day, because it was so festive. But then I tired of it after a while, and no longer kept up with it."
He gazed at her without speaking.
She sighed weariedly, to draw fresh breath for continuation.
"Anyway, I ran away from there when I Was fifteen. They accused me of stealing something, and they beat me for it. They'd accused me before, and they'd beaten me before. But at thirteen I knew no better than to endure it, at fifteen I no longer would. I climbed over the wall at night. Some of the other girls helped me, but they lacked the courage to come with me." And then she said with an odd, speculative sort of detachment, as though she were speaking of someone else: "That's one thing I've never been, at least: a coward."
"You've never been a coward," he assented, but as though finding small cause for satisfaction in the estimate.
"It was up in Pennsylvania," she went on. "It was bitterly cold. I remember trudging the roadside for hours, until at last a drayman gave me a ride in his wagon--"
"You're from the North?" he said. "I hadn't known. You don't speak as they do up there."
"North, South," she shrugged. "It's all one. I speak as they do wherever I've been last, until I come to a new place."
And always lies, he thought; never the truth.
"I came to Philadelphia. An old woman took me in for a while, an old witch. She found me ready to drop on the cobbles. I thought she was kind at first, but she wasn't. After she'd fed and rested me for a few days, she put me into the clothes of a younger child--! was small, you see--and took me with her to shop in the stores. She said 'Watch me,' and showed me how to filch things from the counters without being detected. I ran away from her too, finally."
"But not without having done it yourself, first." He watched her closely to see if she'd labor with the answer.
She didn't stop for breath. "Not without having done it myself, first. She would only give me food when I had."
"And then what happened?"
"I worked a little, as a scrub girl, a slavey; I worked in a bakery kitchen, helping to make the rolls; I even worked as a laundress' helper. I was homeless more often than I had a place to sleep." She averted her head for a moment, so that her neck drew into a taut line. "Mostly, I can no longer remember those days. What's more, I don't want to."
She probably sold herself on the streets, he thought, and his heart sickened at the suggestion, as though she were in actuality someone to cherish.
With an almost uncanny clairvoyance, she said just then: "There was one way I could have got along, but I wouldn't take it."
Lies, he vowed, lies; but his heart sang wildly.
"I ran in horror from a woman one night who had coaxed me into stopping in her house for a cup of tea."
"Admirable," he said drily.
"Oh, don't give me credit for goodness," she said, with a sudden little flare of candor. "Give me credit for perversity, rather. I hated every human being in the world, at times, in those days, for what I was going through; man, woman, and child. I would give no one what they wanted of me, because no one would give me what I wanted of them."
He looked downward mutely, trapped at last into credulity, however brief; this time even of the mind as well as the heart.
"Well, I'd best be brief. It's what happened on the river you want to know of, mainly. I fell in with a troupe of traveling actors, joined up with them. They didn't even play in regular theatres. They had no money to afford them. They went about and pitched tents. And from there I fell in with a man who was a professional gambler on the river boats. The girl who had been his partner before then had quitted him to marry a plantation owner--or so he told me-- and he was looking for someone to take her place. He offered me a share of his profits, if I would join with him." She waved her hand. "And it was but a different form of acting, after all. With quarters preferable to the ones I'd been used to." She stopped.
"He was the one," she told him.
"What was his name, what was he called?" he said with a sudden access of interest.
"What does it matter? His name was false, like mine was. On every trip it changed. It had to, as a precaution. Once it was McLarnin. Once it was Rideau. I doubt that I ever knew his real one, in all the time we were together. I doubt that he did himself, any more. He's gone now. Don't ask me to remember."
She's trying to protect him, he thought. "You must have called him something."
She gave a smile of sour reminiscence. "Brother dear.' So that others could hear me. That was part of my role. We traveled as brother and sister. I insisted on that. We each had our own cabin."
"And he agreed." It wasn't a question, it was a statement of disbelief.
"At first he objected. His former partner, it seems--well, that's neither here nor there. I pointed out to him that it was better even for his own purposes that way, and when I had made him see that, he agreed readily enough. Business came first with him, always. He had a sweetheart in every river town, he could forego one more. You see, I acted as the--attraction, the magnet, for him. My part was to drop my handkerchief on the deck, or collide with someone in a narrow passageway, or even lose my bearings and have to seek directions of someone. There is no harm in gentlemen striking up a respectful acquaintance with a man's unmarried sister. Whereas had I been thought his wife--or something else--they would have been deterred. Then, as propriety dictated, I would introduce my brother to them at the earliest opportunity. And the game would take place soon afterward."