Chapter Eleven #5
The theater, the Rev. Mr. Howard finally told his wife, may have been wicked once upon a time, but they’d do well to remember times were changing.
And just look at the tall cowboy and his shy bride.
That lovely couple was no more theatrical than their own calico cat was.
Thus reassured, after a hasty consultation the Howards stepped out into their parlor: Mrs. Howard to man the pianoforte and the Rev.
Mr. Howard to raise his good book, and theater or not, they were ready to begin.
Royal looked elegant in his new black suit, and Peggy was a vision in her white gown, or so all the guests whispered.
Royal made his answers in a deep, mellow voice that would have done credit to any Shakespearean king.
Peggy’s soft replies were so sweet that every actress hearing them marked them down in her memory should she ever have to do an ingenue again.
Before anyone had time to get up a really good show of tears, it was done, and Royal was kissing Peggy, his wife.
“I wish you wouldn’t cry, Hannah,” Peggy said tearfully when Hannah gave her congratulations, and at the same time, her good-byes.
Because although they’d all been invited to the wedding breakfast, the reverend’s schedule had conflicted with the New York train’s, and they’d no time for anything but farewells now.
“It’s only because I’m so happy for you,” Hannah lied. “Oh, I’ll miss you,” she added in truth.
“Not for long, Miz Hannah,” Royal said, grinning.
“I’m taking Peggy East for our honeymoon.
Well, it’s the best way to pick up her kin,” he said as Peggy gazed up at him with surprise and dawning joy, “and some things for the house. We’ll be there in a week or so…
if you agree, darling,” he added very softly into Peggy’s ear.
“Oh, but that’s everything wonderful!’ Peggy cried.
As did Hannah. If for different reasons—one of them being the look on Peggy and Royal’s faces, another being for the way she felt so alone when they turned to greet other well-wishers.
“I was thinking of traveling East then, as well,” Gray said at her side, startling her.
“Oh. Is it a western custom to take friends on a honeymoon?” she asked.
He smiled. “There’s a limit to friendship, even out here. But it’s a big city. And one I know. So I thought I might smooth things for them before they arrive. Would you care to help me do it?” he asked lightly.
“Oh. Oh, of course,” she said, but before she could explain that was absolutely all she could do, there were more things to say to Peggy, and then Kyle consulted his watch, and they knew they had to be gone.
Royal, Peggy, and Gray went with them to the station, which as Kyle said, was a nice original change of pace from the usual, where the guests go to see the honeymooners off.
There was a flurry of hurried final farewells and kisses.
Although Gray had the time and the excuse for more, his kiss, very properly, only grazed Hannah’s proffered cheek.
She’d only a second to note his amusement with her too tardily concealed pang of disappointment, before she had to board.
Then she’d only another moment to quickly scan the platform as the train pulled out.
But the platform wasn’t a stage, so Blayne Darling wasn’t there, of course.
The train moved on and she waved at Peggy, Royal, and Gray until she could no longer see them, and was glad she was going so fast they couldn’t see exactly who it was she stared at until he was completely out of sight.
It wasn’t really bad for her until that night. When she lay in her berth and, like an accountant, thought of all she’d gained on this trip, and then realized that she’d left it all behind her just where she’d found it, in the West.
It was a wakeful night. Kyle lay back in his berth and thought of figures.
He’d made enough profit to begin something new in New York, and he’d a few ideas along those lines.
Thinking along other, equally entrancing lines, he remembered his assistant, the new Hannah, the one who now had no distractions to distract her from him.
He’d just have to think of some new distractions for her, he thought, smiling to himself as the train bore him home, because he knew he was a man of endless resources, and not a few ideas.
They left a clear cold night behind them in the mountains.
But Royal and Peggy had little need of the hotel’s feather comforters now.
There’d been awkwardness between them for only a moment, when after a long day of talking and planning, they’d finally come into their hotel room, alone, together.
Then she’d stepped into his arms, or he into hers.
And then they discovered that shyness could be banished with laughter, and that laughter could pave the way for love.
Then he discovered that Gray had been right, even as she found Hannah’s advice perfectly true.
That was before they forgot all else but each other.
Because in time, he forgot Gray’s excellent advice and forgot to act as though her body was his own, instead of only a miracle and his chiefest desire, he was so dazzled by the wonder of it.
She remembered to forget she was a lady, just as Hannah had suggested, before she forgot the meaning of any words but “yes” and “Oh!” Then they were lost in the newness of the oldest act of mankind.
When they became one in act as well as name, he grieved that he’d brought her even a moment of pain with his love, although she’d wounded him more by suffering it.
Then they discovered how to console one another.
Finally, only a day and a half night into their marriage, they needed no more advice, from anyone.
Because having pleased each other and finding how much that pleased themselves, they were both experts at physical love.
They’d never been anything else but expert at the spiritual sort.
As they clung to each other’s naked bodies and found ever new comforts there.
Royal’s adviser lay back alone in his hotel bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering if he’d ever sleep easy again.
He, who’d never been afraid of any man, beast or fate he’d ever faced, had found something at last that he feared.
Because he’d just realized how alone he was in the night.
He began to wonder if it would always be so, and worried for the plans he’d so blithely made before this revelation.
There was more to being a man than his educations.
East or West, had prepared him for, and he perceived it was a thing that all a man’s cleverness, strength, and courage mightn’t be enough to win for him.
Because he began to see that a man needed more than himself in order to be a complete man.
He needed just one particular woman, but he needed her to love him in return.
And though he realized he’d finally found the one, he knew the other was what mightn’t come easy—or at all.
And so that night he also made the acquaintance of some of fear’s old comrades: doubt, envy, and worry, and had the whole of the rest of the night to do it in, too.
Peggy’s wise counselor, miles away in a train that screamed in the night as it streamed farther away from Gray, finally gave up. And having always known how alone she was, knew how alone she’d be again, and wept into her pillow for all her bitter wisdom.