Since Ambrose had gone abroad I had not used the carriage but had ridden down to church on Gypsy, causing, I believe, some small amount of talk, I know not why.
This Sunday, in honor of my visitor, I gave orders for the carriage to come as of old custom, and my cousin Rachel, prepared for the event by Seecombe when he took her breakfast, descended to the hall upon the stroke of ten.
A kind of ease had come upon me since the night before, and it seemed to me, as I looked upon her, that I could in future say to her what I pleased.
Nothing need hold me back, neither anxiety, nor resentment, nor even common courtesy.
“A word of warning,” I said, after I had wished her a good morning.
“All eyes will be upon you in the church.
Even the laggards, who sometimes make excuse to stay in bed, will not remain at home today.
They will be standing in the aisles, maybe on tiptoe.”
“You terrify me,” she said.
“I shall not go at all.”
“That would be disgrace,” I said, “for which neither you nor I would ever be forgiven.”
She looked at me with solemn eyes.
“I am not sure,” she said, “that I know how to behave.
I was bred a Catholic.”
“Keep it to yourself,” I told her.
“Papists, in this part of the world, are fit only for hellfire.
Or so they tell me.
Watch everything I do.
I won’t mislead you.”
The carriage came to the door.
Wellington, with brushed hat and trim cockade, the groom beside him, was swollen with importance like a pouter pigeon.
Seecombe, in starched clean stock and his Sunday coat, stood at the front door with no less dignity.
It was the occasion of a lifetime.
I handed my cousin Rachel into the carriage and took my place beside her.
She had a dark mantle around her shoulders, and the veil from her hat concealed her face.
“The people will want to see your face,” I said to her.
“Then they must want,” she answered.
“You don’t understand,” I said.
“Nothing like this has happened in their lives.
Not for nearly thirty years.
The old people remember my aunt, I suppose, and my mother, but for the younger ones there has never been a Mrs. Ashley come to church before.
Besides, you must enlighten their ignorance.
They know you come from what they term outlandish parts.
For all they know Italians may be black.”
“Will you please be quiet?” she whispered.
“I can tell from Wellington’s back there, up on the box, that he can hear what you are saying.”
“I shall not be quiet,” I said, “the matter is of grave importance.
I know how rumor spreads.
All the countryside will go back to Sunday dinner shaking their heads and saying Mrs. Ashley is a negress.”
“I will lift my veil in church, but not before,” she said, “when I am kneeling.
They can look then, if they have the mind, but by rights they should do no such thing.
Their eyes should be on their prayer books.”
“A high bench surrounds the pew, with curtains to it,” I told her.
“Once kneeling there you will be concealed from view.
You can even play marbles if you want to.
I used to, as a child.”
“Your childhood,” she said; “don’t speak of it.
I know every detail.
How Ambrose dismissed your nurse when you were three.
How he took you out of petticoats and put you into breeches.