Enemy In The House Read Online Free

the same and he didn’t approve of secret weddings.
    “Being nothing but trouble,” he said, settled his snuff-colored broadcloth coat on his narrow shoulders with an angry jerk. “Why only today a poor girl wrote to me wanting help—couldn’t substantiate her marriage—husband married out of his class, refuses to recognize her. A very shocking case, indeed. Very painful. My duty is clear. I must establish the truth, see that this girl is established, too. Very difficult in every way.” He looked at Parson Shincok with thin-lipped distaste. “Parson Shincok will bear me out. I understand you advised her to appeal to me, Parson.”
    Parson Shincok’s red face emerged briefly from behind a glass of brandy he had already contrived to obtain. “Yes, yes—she wrote to me first and—but what could I do, sir? Clearly a man of the law—but very painful as you say—”
    His balloon face disappeared again. Lawyer Benfit permitted himself an angry kind of cluck. “The point is I’ll have nothing to do with a secret marriage.” He looked severely at Amity. “Where’s your uncle, miss? Where’s your aunt?”
    “Here’s China—my stepmother—” Amity said, taken aback by the lawyer’s fierceness.
    “But I don’t approve,” China cried, quick to take her advantage. “I don’t give my consent!”
    Simon ended it. “Sir, this is a perfectly legal and honorable marriage. We prefer it this way but of course we can elope, it has been done. I promise you on my honor”—there was a twinkle in his eyes but he was sober, too—“not to desert my wife.”
    “And you would elope,” Lawyer Benfit said crankily, eyeing Simon. “I remember you well, sir. Willful as a boy and now turning against your king. Oh, very well—very well—have it your own way.”
    The papers were signed.
    Dr. Shincok’s breath was redolent of brandy. His voice, however, was fruity and full as always and he remembered the right and solemn words.
    “… to love and to cherish …” Again Amity’s conscience stirred uneasily; the love in her marriage was onesided. Simon had intended to marry for love and he was being cheated out of that. But he would cherish.
    A ring slid on her finger; it was Simon’s carnelian seal ring. The parson had not brought the parish register from the church; Simon said something to him and the parson sat down at the table and wrote out a certification of their marriage in a wavering hand which Lawyer Benfit and then China, reluctantly, frowning over the pen, signed. Simon took the two papers and put them in his pocket. Servants peered in at the door, pleased and smiling. Old Jason, beaming, brought in an enormous bowl of syllabub and followed it with ham, turkey and the Christmas fruit cake. They were determined to give it at least some of the trimmings of a wedding and Amity felt tears in her eyes.
    After that it was all haste. She was in her own chamber, slipping off the pink brocade, pulling on a blue wool traveling dress, snatching up her red cloak with its great fur-lined hood.
    She was coming down the stairs again and Lawyer Benfit, apparently still disapproving of their sudden marriage and always a stickler for form, had scrawled a letter; he put it down on the table beside the door and Amity saw that it was addressed, Mr. Grappit, Immediate, with such impatience that the pen dug into the paper. “See that he has this at once, Ma’am,” he said to China. “And I wish him to know all the circumstances of this marriage.” He did summon up a grudging smile for Amity. “My good wishes, child,” he said. The servants shouted good wishes; Dr. Shincok, flushed and hearty, waved a glass of brandy at them; China’s lips were still tight and angry. The light, small carriage was waiting, with Willie holding the horses’ heads and Simon’s horse secured by a leading strap behind it. It was full dark, so she could barely make out the glints of gilt molding of the carriage doors, and its graceful, curved