A Map of Glass - Jane Urquhart [91]
“Was it a Catholic ceremony?” Marie asked her son.
Caroline began to laugh. She put her hand on Maurice’s arm. “The state father was in … can you imagine what he would have said had we been married by a papist?”
“We were married secretly,” Maurice said, “by the first minister we could find. A Presbyterian, I think.”
“Lutheran,” Caroline corrected. “A German. Papa wasn’t too happy about that either. He’s always said that he runs a good Methodist business in a good Methodist town, and that all his ships are good Methodist ships manned by good Methodist men.”
Marie, much to Annabelle’s astonishment, had brightened somewhat. “You’re not really married then,” she said to her son, “if there was no priest.” She turned to Caroline. “If your father doesn’t approve, you could tell him that because Maurice was baptized a Catholic, you’re not really married. He might be pleased to hear that.”
Maurice continued to gaze at his bride. “No,” he said, “we are most certainly husband and wife. And, anyway, Mister Gilderson cheered up a bit once we began to talk about the barley.”
“Gilderson?” said Annabelle. “Can you possibly mean Oran Gilderson?”
Maurice nodded.
“Of course,” said Caroline. “I don’t believe there is another Gilderson in the vicinity.”
It took Annabelle a moment to digest this information. Oran Gilderson had been writing letters to her of late, letters in which he had offered to be of assistance with the salvage operations of what remained of the Woodman empire. Annabelle, remembering her father’s distrust of his primary competitor, had grave suspicions about these missives. What exactly had this gentleman in mind for the diminished business toward which she had developed a surprising protectiveness. Thank God Father is dead, she thought, recalling his last words. She was about to say something but changed her mind. “What’s all this about barley?” she asked instead.
The land that Maurice had purchased with his grandfather’s money comprised one hundred acres, the narrowest, easternmost parameters of which touched the grounds of his parents’ hotel just at the spot where the grass tennis court ended and the poplar woods began. The western edge joined a further hundred acres—acres that were under cultivation and that had been given to him, reluctantly to be sure, by his new father-in-law. Their house would be built on the far side of the woods and was to be, as his bride explained, made of brick and very modern. A great many bay windows and round towers and oddly shaped windows were to be seen in the plans Maurice pulled from a suitcase and unrolled at their feet. The meadow was to be ploughed and the poplar woods cut down.
“Why would you want to do that?” Annabelle was genuinely incredulous.
“Barley,” Caroline said before Maurice had a chance to respond. She went on to explain that there were already ten acres of barley on the property, but they wanted more.
“That’s all very well,” said Branwell to his son, “but what will you have to look at if you are surrounded by nothing but fields of barley?”
“Look at?” asked Caroline. “Why should we need something to look at? We’ll have a view of the lake, after all, and even barley can be quite lovely when the crop is high.”
Annabelle noted that the young woman had stiffened in her chair. She had the defensive air of one who was vaguely frightened by the company and was asserting herself as a result. Her eyelashes, Annabelle noted, were almost as thick as Marie’s but of a lighter hue, offsetting, quite beautifully, the blue of her eyes and the gold of her hair. Annabelle could see that the young woman was very attractive, but would not have called her pretty. There was something significant missing, and suddenly Annabelle knew what it was. Caroline gave off no light. She did not glow. Rather, in the manner of a coal fire, she smouldered and seemed, somehow, to be just on the edge of emitting a poisonous, though odourless, gas.
“Barley,” said Maurice, “is very profitable. It is right now selling to the Americans at eighty cents a bushel and —”