Worry returned, in full force. "I just hope it works out okay. I know it's going to be hard for all of us, getting used to each other."
James studied him for a moment. "You worried about Gretchen? Think she'll be unhappy?"
Jeff shook his head. "Not really," he admitted. "I showed her the place yesterday, you know."
His thoughts fell aside. James grinned. "Gorgeous, ain't she?"
Jeff nodded happily. But his fretfulness returned within seconds. "You know what she said, the minute she stepped in? 'You are so rich.'
" 'Rich'!" he snorted. "Look at this place, Dr. Nichols. It's nothing but a trailer."
James reached up and placed his hand on the shoulder of the large boy-young man-standing before him. "Are you really worried about that 'gold digger' business?" he asked. "Myself, I think it's a lot of-"
"No, no. It's not that." Jeff hesitated. "I can understand why she'd think the way she does, coming from"-he waved his hand-"all that. It's just that-"
He lowered his head. The next words were sad, spoken in a whisper. "She doesn't love me, you know. I don't think she even knows what the word means. Not in the same way I do, anyway."
That very moment, as it happened, Melissa was discussing the same subject with Gretchen. When she finished her awkward, half-English/half-German explanation, Gretchen frowned.
"Zat iss fьr nobles," she protested.
Melissa sighed. Gretchen studied her intently. "But you sink ziss iss important? Fь-for Jeff?"
Melissa nodded. "It will matter to him more than anything, Gretchen. Trust me. As long as he thinks you love him, he'll be able to handle anything."
Not certain if her words had made any sense, Melissa tried to stumble through a German semitranslation. But Gretchen waved her down.
"I understand." The frown on her face cleared away. "Iss not a problem, zen. I vill vork at it. Very hard. I am a good vorker. Very-" She groped for the word, for a moment, before finding it. "Ja. Determined. Not lazy."
Melissa couldn't help laughing. And if some of her humor was rueful, most of it was not. "That you most certainly are, girl!"
She examined the young woman standing before her. "That you most certainly are," she repeated. Smiling, shaking her head: "You know what, Gretchen Richter-soon-to-be-Higgins? I do believe this is one marriage that's going to fly."
Melissa laughed again. " 'Work at it!' I like that!"
Chapter 30
In the end, the wedding went off without a hitch.
Willie Ray showed up on time. And if he wasn't exactly sober, he had a lifetime's experience to lean on. So, stubby and half-inebriated as he was, he managed to get Gretchen down the aisle without mishap. True, it took her quite a while. But she didn't stumble once and the organist didn't mind having the time to show off.
Neither did the audience. The church was packed. Standing room only, and likewise the street outside. At least half the town showed up for the wedding, spilling off the sidewalks.
The huge crowd was in a very festive mood. More so, in truth-much more-than at most weddings. For all of those people, American and German alike, the wedding came like a burst of sunlight. Quentin Underwood had spoken for thousands. After this nightmare we've been plunged into, I swear I can't think of a single thing that'd be better for my soul than to watch a young woman walk down the aisle in a wedding dress.
That sentiment, everyone had in common. From there, the viewpoints diverged.
For the German participants and onlookers, the wedding came as something of a promise. Or, perhaps, a reassurance. Although they now numbered well over half of this new society coming into existence, the Germans-former refugees, mercenaries, camp followers-were well aware of their subordinate position within it. They were still groping to understand, much less accept-much less feel they were accepted.
The habit of centuries had shaped them. The acid of hereditary privilege had corroded their souls. Without even being aware they were doing it, the German newcomers automatically reacted to Americans as commoners to nobility. It didn't matter what the Americans said. Words are cheap, especially the promises of aristocracy to their underlings.
What mattered-what had always mattered, more than anything-was what people are. And the Americans, it was plain to see, were nobility. It was obvious in everything they said and did, and didn't say and didn't do. It shone through in their simple carriage.
Had they been told, the Americans would have been mystified. Their own centuries had also shaped them, and healed an ancient wound. Every American, on some level, took a fundamental truth for granted. I am important. Precious. Human. My life is valuable.
That attitude infused them, whether they knew it or not. And it was that unspoken, unconscious attitude which the German newcomers immediately sensed. They reacted automatically, just as Gretchen had instantly assumed that an American schoolteacher was really a duchess. Just as Rebecca had instantly assumed that a coal miner was an hidalgo.
Ingrained habits, beaten into people by centuries of oppression and uncaring cruelty, cannot be removed by words alone. Deeds are also necessary, especially deeds which cut to the heart of the thing.
Some people are really human. Most are not.
Good blood. Bad blood. That simple, vicious dichotomy had ruled Europe for centuries. For more than a decade, now, it had turned central Europe into a charnel house. The nobility, as always when they bickered over the price of their meat, presented the butcher's bill to the common folk. And why not? Those people don't value life much anyway. They don't feel pain the way we do.
Good blood, bad blood. Today, in the clearest way possible, the Americans were making a pledge to their new brethren. We do not care. It means nothing to us.
For the Americans who watched and participated, the thing was seen from a different angle. "Blood" was irrelevant. A goodly number of them, after all, had more than a little German ancestry in them. What did matter was a subtler definition of class.
Regardless of Jeff's plebeian Appalachian "stock," he was one of the town's good boys. Everybody knew it, for all that some of them-yahoos-might have ridiculed him in private as a "nerd" or a "geek."
Gretchen, on the other hand The word "trash" had been bandied about in private, often enough, in the days since the public announcement was made. To that coarse term, some had added others even worse. Slut, tramp-whore.
But, as Mike had rightly said, public sanction carries a powerful weight. So, the foul words were spoken only in private. And, even then, not so very often as all that. The days passed, and the terms faded away. By the afternoon of the wedding, they were forgotten by all but a handful. Grantville's Americans had been swept up in a tidal wave of romance.
Yes, yes, yes-it was all very peculiar. So what? There were a thousand fairy tales to fall back upon. Jeff Higgins was one of their own, after all. Everyone knew the story of how he and his friends had stood off a mob of thugs with their shotguns. If you looked at it the right way, he was a knight in shining armor. Appalachian style, of course-and what's wrong with that?