Page 21 of To Bed the Bride
“Of a sort,” he said.
What did that mean? The longer they talked the more confused she became. She had a feeling that he did it on purpose in order to confound her.
The puppy finally woke, stretching, then decided to chew on the fabric of her skirt.
“Stop that, Bruce,” she said.
“Bruce?”
She nodded. “It seemed to fit him.”
He regarded the puppy for a moment. “You’re right. It does.”
When Bruce didn’t stop chewing she gently put him on the carpet, which meant that he attacked her shoes next.
“See? He already has an affinity for you.”
“I’m not prepared to raise a puppy,” she said, wishing she had a distraction. Something, anything to get Bruce’s attention away from her shoes.
“What happened?” he asked. “Why are you so afraid of dogs?”
He really did have a great deal of effrontery. Nothing stopped him from saying whatever he wished, including asking intrusive questions.
She hadn’t intended to tell him, but she heard the story tumbling from her lips.
“I was reading,” she said. “I was eight years old and my father was busy with a meeting at the stables. I grabbed one of my favorite books and went into the garden. There’s an old tree there that I liked to sit under so that’s what I was doing.”
Everything about that spring day was stark and memorable. She recalled how the wind blew the hair onto her face. The sun was bright, filtering through the leaves and casting islands of light around her. She was wearing a yellow pinafore with a white apron and she’d already gotten the bottom of her apron soiled. It didn’t matter; her father would forgive her such a little sin. In minutes she was occupied with the story she was reading, a tale of a magical prince and a princess in hiding.
Something had disturbed her. A sound, a movement, something that made her look up. There he was, a large brown dog with a black face. He was walking toward her, but something was wrong with his legs. He moved like a spider, not a dog. There was something wrong with his face, too. It looked swollen and he was drooling too much.
“Don’t move, Eleanor.”
She was so afraid that she didn’t even turn to look at her father. The dog approached her slowly, growling, his mouth open and his fangs showing. She knew something was terribly wrong because of his eyes. They looked strange, as if he’d suddenly gone blind.
Any second now the dog was going to reach her.
“Close your eyes, Eleanor,” her father said.
Up until this point, she’d been obedient. Anything her father wanted her to do she’d done without complaint. On this sunny afternoon, however, she was too afraid to close her eyes for fear that the dog would jump on her. Her eight-year-old mind told her that if she kept her eyes fixed on him she could will him away.
The gunshot was so loud that it sounded like it had gone through her right ear. The dog’s head disappeared in a spray of blood.
Her father gathered her up in his arms, turning her face so she couldn’t see the sight. Yet she’d seen enough. Nor had she ever been able to forget it, even after all these years. She could still recall the terrible cold fear that chilled her insides and made her feet and hands feel like ice.
Now she looked down at her intertwined fingers. “I didn’t realize until the other day that we’ve never had dogs at Hearthmere.”
He didn’t say anything. Nor did he launch into a persuasive lecture on how that experience had nothing to do with the border collies or even Bruce. All he did was place his cup and saucer on the table between them.
“Death is one of those things that makes an indelible impression,” he finally said. “I don’t think I’ll ever forget the sight of my first dead body. It didn’t matter that the man was an enemy or that he wanted to kill me. He was dead and all the hope of his life was gone.”
“I hardly think that the death of the dog and that of a human being are similar.”
“The beings aren’t, of course. Death is. Death isn’t simply the absence of life. It’s a presence of something malevolent. It’s an overwhelming force.”
She remembered the newspaper accounts of the Battle of Magdala. If he had been there, he’d seen a great many people die.
“That’s a terrible thing to have happen to you when you were a child. I still think it’s a pity, however, that we judge things so harshly.”
