Her white wedding veil obscured her view of the room, but that mattered little to Angelique, for she knew every detail of the parlor by heart. It was not a cathedral as she had seen in the pen-and-ink sketches of Barnabas's books; there was no towering steeple, stained glass windows, or angelus bells to ring the hours of the day. This room contained the floors she had swept and polished with a rag, the Persian carpets she had beaten the bugs out of, the mahogany furniture she had wiped with lemon oil, and the crystal chandelier she had meticulously dusted. Now she stood in the very spot where she had stood on the first day of Josette's arrival, where she had watched Barnabas in all his callous audacity kiss his fiancee full on the mouth right in front of her. No doubt he had made a display of their love to hurt Angelique, to push her away, but his plan had not worked. She had redoubled her efforts that very afternoon. Now seven weeks later, her plans had come to fruition.
"As we read in Genesis," droned the minister Reverend Jennings. "''Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife...'
Angelique smiled amusement beneath the shelter of her gossamer veil, thinking of the verse that followed, And they shall be two in one flesh. And they were both naked; to wit, Adam and his wife, and were not ashamed. Barnabas himself had taught her to read and write English by copying passages out of the bible. There were quite a few passages that she had memorized close to her heart. Still smiling, she was not surprised that the minister truncated his quote at that point.
"...thus God our Father has ordained that the husband shall be the head of the wife, and the wife shall submit to the husband."
Naomi Collins, his mother, wept softly and sniffled into her handkerchief. Aside from little Sarah the flower girl, she was the only family member present. Barnabas's father disapproved of this union so much that he had offered Angelique a hefty sum of money to leave town and never return; she had refused. Joshua Collins had brought his wrath to bear, full force, and disowned his one and only son. Barnabas stood beside Angelique now as simply a man, who owned nothing but his name. He lived under the threat of poverty, occupying what was virtually an abandoned house. All the servants except Ben Stokes had deserted him.
"Do you, Barnabas Collins, take this woman Angelique Bouchard to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health? Will you love, honor and cherish her all the days of your life, until death do you part?"
"I will," he mumbled.
"Who has the ring?" the minister asked.
"Here." Ben Stokes standing as best man moved in closer.
Angelique trembled as Barnabas gently took hold of her hand. His fingertips were cold. The silver band was colder. Hail stones outside tinkled on the window glass.
"Do you, Angelique Bouchard, accept this man Barnabas Collins to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health? Will you love, honor and obey him all the days of your life, until death do you part?"
"I do," she said in the clear strong voice that she used for her incantations. Of all the people gathered in the room, she alone understood the frightening and terrible power of words spoken in vow. This was the moment she had fought to achieve: she belonged to Barnabas Collins body and soul, and he belonged to her. Nothing but death could separate them now.
"Then, by the authority vested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife. What God has joined together, let no man put asunder."
Sarah whispered, "Put us under what?"
Phyllis Wick hissed back, "Shush."
Barnabas lifted Angelique's veil. For the first time she beheld him as her husband. Candlesticks lit only part of the room. Vast patches of shadows loomed behind him. His black suit coat and maroon waistcoat blended him into the darkness. He gazed at her, immobile, like a confused ghost freshly called forth from his grave. What's wrong, she wanted to ask, but dared not make a scene in front of his mother. Am I not the face you wished to see?
"You may kiss the bride," the minister suggested.
"Oh yes." Barnabas blinked into awareness. He swooped down, pecked a quick loud smack on Angelique's mouth, and then withdrew.
Sarah giggled, putting her hands over her eyes.
Phyllis Wick as maid of honor shot Angelique a sideways smirk, the wink of a confidante and fellow conspirator saying, We both got what we wanted, didn't we, dearie.
Naomi Collins embraced her son in a loud rustle of silk and taffeta skirts. Barnabas wrapped his arms around her dainty frame. With eyes closed, he bent down close to her neck where a diamond necklace glittered.
"God bless you, my son," she murmured quietly in French tinged with her native quebecois accent. "I hope you'll be happy."
"Merci, maman," he whispered.
Naomi turned to Angelique, who also politely closed her eyes to receive the older woman's gentle embrace. His mother was a surprisingly small woman beneath the puffs and pleats of taffeta and the frilly lace around her bodice. Her dainty face carried the scent of talcum powder, and deeper on her breath lingered the odor of sherry.
"Welcome to the family, my dear daughter."
For the first time, Naomi Collins spoke in French to her. The soft yet deep husky voice reminded Angelique of other nights long ago in front of another fireplace far away. Time for a crick-crack story. Old childish feelings swelled to the surface. It had been so long since someone was genuinely kind to her. Surprised, off guard, the warmth of the simple sentiment pierced through to her heart. Angelique fluttered her eyes, fighting back the genuine tears that filled her lashes.
"I'll make your son a good wife, you'll see." In that brief moment, she truly believed that she would.
Barnabas said to Ben Stokes, "Let's pop open that champagne."
"Yes sir, Mister Barnabas."
The brawny servant tugged off the cork with a loud pop. He tilted the bottle over a silver tray holding several fluted champagne glasses of Waterford crystal. Instead of bubbling golden wine, a dark red liquid dribbled out.
"How strange," said Barnabas. "It's not supposed to be a claret."
Ben Stokes raised a crystal flute to his nose. "It's not wine, sir. It's blood!"
Angelique looked fearfully to the smoky eyes of spirits in the blazing fire, only this time they were not laughing. The old ones lurking in the leafless trees outside also turned their backs. Desperately she searched in the shadows for new and uninvited trickster spirits; was there someone she had overlooked—someone she had offended? Who could do this to me?
Naomi Collins clutched her jeweled necklace. "Could it be... Dare I say it?"
"Witchcraft," Phyllis Wick finished, and by chance, her gaze drifted in Angelique's direction.
Little Sarah calmly pointed to the top of the stairs. "It's Uncle Jeremiah."
A window blew open on the second floor. A chilling wind howled in the corridor. Angelique shivered in genuine fear. She cringed closer to Barnabas and he wrapped his strong protective arm around her.
"Let's not have any of this nonsense," he said. "Switching the champagne for blood is a cruel prank, probably cousin Daniel's idea. As for this ridiculous idea of witches and ghosts, I've heard just about enough of it. We make our own choices and our own mistakes. What Jeremiah did to me, he has paid for. What I did to him..."
In the pause, Angelique looked up to him and saw the gloom of regret pass over his dark eyes.
"...I can't take it back. Just this once, I wish there were such a thing as ghosts. I would give anything I own for the chance to tell my uncle that I was a damned fool."
Naomi with tears in her blue eyes took a step toward him. "Oh Barnabas."
"Please don't, mother." He turned away from her sympathy. "Ben? Would you escort the ladies back to the new house?"
The brawny servant was so choked up, he could not answer except to nod. He shuffled to the foyer and began to gather the women's cloaks and muffs.
Phyllis Wick, in the temporary role of a lady's chambermaid, escorted Naomi Collins to the door. "Come along, Sarah," the governess snapped over her shoulder. "Let's not bother your new sister-in-law."
Sarah grabbed Barnabas by the hand. She tugged insistently on his arm until he surrendered. He genuflected down on one knee. Once more the disparity of their ages made a startling contrast: the child and the man; innocence and maturity; light and dark. Yet strangely, the nine-year-old had an air of confidence much like the wise Obeah woman who lived on the slopes of the sleeping volcano. A lost and bewildered Barnabas sadly looked at his little sister eye-to-eye.
The girl said, "Uncle Jeremiah heard you, and he's glad. He forgives you."
"Does he?"
Such anguish drained the strength out of his voice that it broke Angelique's heart to know the pain he felt. She could not restrain herself from reaching out to him. There was no reason to hold back now. He was her husband, and she was his wife, and it was no scandal anymore for her to gently stroke his shoulder.
"Promise me," Sarah said sternly. "Swear to me that you won't ever hurt anyone, ever, ever again."
"I swear."
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On their wedding night, Barnabas performed his duty but showed none of the unrestrained passion he had shown in Martinique. He climbed on top of her as if mounting a saddle. She stroked his back to encourage him. She spoke his name, but he kept his eyes closed. After he reached the inevitable conclusion, he rolled over and settled into his pillow. She wrapped her arms around him from behind. By her touch, she comforted him; her fingertips stroking his naked shoulder explained more than she could say in mere words. She understood that the events of the past month weighed upon his heart. So much had happened! A lesser man would have broken. He had been betrayed by a woman; he had killed his uncle in a duel; his sister had been ill; his father had disowned him. My love will heal you, my darling.
She slipped into a dream obscured by thick drifts of fog swirling around her feet. Snowflakes sprinkled from a slate sky. Leafless trees snagged on her hair. She kept walking, with a sense that she needed to get somewhere, but was not sure of her destination or her direction.
"Angelique! Angelique!" Women's voices howled in the wind. She followed them uphill, over craggy rocks that pinched her bare feet. Soon she came to a cliff by the sea. From the very edge, she gazed down at gray sand and black rocks as sharp as wolf's teeth poking out of the surf. Waves like the ostrich plumes on a lady's hat crashed and sprayed against the rocks. Angelique had seen the power of the sea before and respected its raw, unfocused force of destruction. One more step, and she could plunge over the vertical drop. Her body would be smashed in the rocks. If that did not kill her, the undertow would sweep her out to sea.
"Angelique! Angeli-i-i-que!" the chorus of women howled.
She whirled around and shouted at the brambles and thorny trees that blocked her view of the safe pathway home. "Who are you?"
"We are the widows who have found release from despair at the base of this cliff. Angelique, you will join us. You will be a widow, too, and soon."
"No, never! Nothing will ever happen to Barnabas; I'll see to it! I am his wife, now, and I will love, honor, and protect him for all of eternity!"
The force of will alone woke her up.
Angelique sat up in bed, clasping her own throat. She blinked for her eyes to adjust to the dim moonlight from the frosty window. All colors were gray. It took a few moments for her to gather her composure and recognize the room where she slept—the room she shared with her husband.
"I'm sorry, my darling, did I disturb you?" She looked over to his pillow and startled to see it empty.
Angelique jumped out of bed. Barefoot on the cold floor, her lacy nightgown billowed out behind her. She dashed out into the dark corridor. Looking left and right, she spied a faint glow at a doorway. Not just any doorway.
Josette's room.
She tip-toed down the corridor. Her fears settled into a hard lump of rage. At the door frame, slightly open, she peered inside.
Barnabas stood by the four-posted bed, gazing through the lacy swag at the neatly spread quilt. He wore his brocade dressing robe with velvet collar. From behind, all she could see of him was the smooth cap of his dark hair. The jasmine scent of Josette's perfume wafted heavy in the air. The clink of crystal told Angelique that he was using her perfume bottle. He dabbed a little on his wrist and held his hand up near his face. Even from across the room, Angelique could hear him breathe—a deep inhale, a pause, and then an anguished sigh.
Angelique shoved the door open with a bang. Barnabas startled and dropped the perfume.
"You dare to be unfaithful to me, on our wedding night, no less!"
"I am not." From the rug, he picked up the perfume bottle and its crystal cork. "I was... Well, uh, I was packing up some of Josette's things for Ben to deliver to her, tomorrow."
"When are you going to accept the fact that she betrayed you? She doesn't want you! She loved you no more than she loved a new hat from Paris..."
"Please don't." Barnabas carried the perfume bottle back to the little dressing table and, with shaking hands, set it carefully on the silver tray.
"...and when she grew bored with that new hat, she got another."
"Must you be so cruel to me?"
"I'm telling you the truth!" She gripped the velvet collar of his dressing robe. "I'm sorry that I must say hurtful things, but you need to hear them. You need to forget about Josette. You are my husband now. I will never betray you, Barnabas. I will be your faithful wife throughout all eternity."
He merely stood there, eyes half closed, looking down at the cushion of the empty chair. "I know."
The blast of rage left her as quickly as it had come. He looked so forlorn that she could not resist reaching out to him. She slipped her arms underneath his elbows and pressed herself against him. Deftly she loosened the buttons of his dressing robe. He wore only his flannel nightshirt underneath.
"Make love to me again."
"All right." He stepped away, around her, and moved toward the door.
She caught his wrist and pulled him back. "No, here."
"Here?"
"Yes, here." She kept hold of his wrist, tugging him as she stepped backwards toward the lace-draped canopy bed. Josette's bed.
"I can't. Not here. Please, not here." His eyes widened and his dark irises glittered in the moonlight from the window.
"You must." Angelique loosened the tie strings at the neckline of her lacy chemise. She separated the bodice panel and revealed a little more of her bosom.
Barnabas drew back. "No, please!" He whirled about. She was too slow to rush across the carpet and catch him.
He dashed down the corridor, sprinting full out. His long brocade dressing robe flapped at his heels.
"Where are you going!" she shrieked, chasing after him.
He lost one of his leather slippers on the stairs as he thundered down to the first floor. Angelique held up the swathes of gauzy gown as she hurried to follow him. He yanked open the door knob. A flurry of snowflakes swirled inside.
"Stop!" Her fears turned now to his physical safety.
Barnabas tore into the snowstorm. Angelique followed. Winds howled between the Doric columns of the grand old house. Her bare feet were instantly chilled on the frozen bricks, but she thought nothing of herself. She turned left and right but in the swirl of flurries saw no sign of him. She rushed down the stone stairway to the carriage road. She screamed his name into the icy wind. He did not answer.
She had no choice but to return to the house. I must find him, and quickly, before he freezes to death!
First, she lit a candle as it was faster than building a fire. "Eyes of flame," she said with chattering teeth. "Eyes of fire. Eyes of night. Be my eyes where I cannot go. Find my beloved. Find Barnabas."
Angelique stared into the flickering candle. Her awareness of the room where she stood blurred and faded away, to be replaced by a scene tinted in sienna and gray. She recognized the door at the back of the house as the entrance to the servants' quarters.
Ben Stokes had a room similar to her previous room. He had a modest cot, a broad rocking chair, and a brick fireplace. The brawny servant slept on his stomach with one arm draped over to the floor.
Barnabas entered the room. He moved slowly to the fireplace. A few times, he glanced back to Ben sleeping in his cot, in the manner of someone not wanting to wake him up. Angelique watched him build a fire out of the tinderbox, step by step, with straw and kindling sticks. Eventually he placed a good sized log on the grate. Barnabas sat on the hearth stone and watched the flames grow higher. He stretched his hands towards the warmth.
Angelique smiled to herself, relieved that he was not outside in the freezing weather. But her smile was short-lived to think her husband would rather spend his wedding night on a rug in a servant's room.
Ben Stokes arose from bed. Her mystic eyes watched his mouth move, but being only eyes, she could not hear what was said.
Barnabas turned aside to continue staring at the fire. Angelique knew that posture of his all too well; it meant he did not want to talk about what had happened.
The servant crossed the room. He settled his great bulk on the hearth stones alongside his master. Angelique watched him speak a few words of what had to be clumsy encouragement.
Barnabas lowered his head. He placed a hand over his eyes. Perhaps he said something, or perhaps he was merely weeping.
Tell him all about it, Angelique thought as she watched him succumb to this latest fit of melancholy. Confess to your simple-minded priest. Pour out your heart, Barnabas, to the man you trust most in the world. If you only knew that he has unwillingly assisted me all along. Tell poor Ben Stokes about how much you love Josette, even still. Tell poor Ben Stokes that you'll never understand why she betrayed you. Confess how much you regret killing your uncle Jeremiah, even though your rage still boils and you will hate the name of his ghost until the end of your days.
Ben Stokes gestured in the air, struggling to say something. Angelique smirked to watch the servant's agony.
You cannot tell him a word about me, Ben. The spell I have cast over you is too strong. If you say one hint of a clue that I am more than what I seem to be... If you even breathe the first letter of the word 'witch'... Your throat will constrict, you will choke on your own tongue, and it will render you mute for the rest of your life.
Barnabas slowly drew his fingers away from his eyes. Firelight sparkled in those onyx irises. Even from afar, Angelique longed to be near him again, to have those dark powerful eyes staring into her. Barnabas spoke briefly to his servant. Ben Stokes's massive shoulders shook—the brawny man was breaking down weeping. Barnabas said a little more, obviously comforting him. Angelique's heart swelled with tender love, her rage at his rejection melting away. This is why she loved him so dearly; he was so unlike his father, so merciful, so compassionate, so fair to all men, even those born beneath him.
Ben Stokes removed a charred stick from the fireplace. He toyed with scratching at the coarse stack of rocks forming the hearth where they sat.
Barnabas looked down to the stones.
At that point, Angelique grew weary of watching the men talk. She closed her eyes. She snuffed out the candle. She went back upstairs to her cold bed and settled into the chilly sheets. She imagined the two men would complain about the fickle nature of women for a while longer. Ben Stokes would of course offer his master the cot while he slept on the floor. In the morning, she would apologize for being so insensitive about his painful memories of Josette; it would do no harm to feel sorry for his broken heart, for a little while. She closed her eyes while pondering what flavor of fruit preserves Barnabas might like with his breakfast toast.
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