LA MESSE DE REQUIEM
“Married, married, and not to me!
Is it a dream, or can it be
That the tie is bound forever?
Back to the gay world’s busy mart
I go with a pang in my aching heart
But love shall fill it, never!”
Vivian’s engagement proved satisfactory all around. Judge Leigh had
hoped not to lose his daughter so soon, but he consents of course, for
the match seems unexceptionable, even for _his_ daughter. He does not
even take into consideration the young man’s weakness for the wine cup.
He will sober down after marriage, of course, so he gives the pair his
blessing with a sigh that the time has come so soon, and Earle Essex
stays two weeks longer--long enough to persuade the bride-elect to set
the wedding for September.
Diana, in Eve’s phraseology, has made her market, too, this summer,
and is engaged to a rich old widower whose fine estate is in the
neighborhood of Leigh Place. Diana is placidly content, and Eve sinks
into insignificance in the new importance of the engaged maidens, but
she is a comfort to Charlton, who is sarcastic on the subject, and
seeks less sentimental society.
In truth Charlton is surprised and--chagrined at his sister’s haste
to be “off with the old love and on with the new.” If there is to be
“marrying and giving in marriage,” he much prefers that his favorite,
Max Verne, should be the happy man. He has trusted to time to reunite
the estranged lovers, and is vexed and sorry that it is now forever
out of the question. Outwardly, however, he says nothing, for he has
found out by a fine intuition that Vivian does not like to discuss the
matter. Max Verne’s name, once a household word, has become by common
consent a dead letter in the family. Diana and Eve might enlighten him
as to Viva’s real feelings if they chose. Their keen eyes see plainly
through Viva’s mask, and read her secret. But Charlton, who loves his
little sister more than any one else on earth, who would give anything
to shield her from sorrow, is blind, and does not read the handwriting
on the wall, laughs at woman’s fickleness, and lifts no hand to stay
the fatal hour that rushes on so fast.
But perhaps, of all the surprised ones, Earle Essex is the most
surprised. He does not know that Vivian believes Max Verne married to
another, and that her acceptance of his suit was prompted by pique
and despair. Hard as he had schemed to separate her from her young
lover, he had scarcely dared hope for success. But, believing that he
caught her heart in the rebound, he rejoices accordingly. Eve wins
the necklace and a bracelet besides, and is first bridesmaid at Viva’s
wedding.
At her wedding--yes, for the fatal day came swiftly. With the bridal
_trousseau_ from New York comes sister Viola, the rich Mrs. Huntington,
to honor the occasion.
The occasion honors her, it is so brilliant. Judge Leigh spares no
expense, and his youngest daughter’s wedding is the boast of the
country, even when years have come and gone. All the arrangements are
on a grand scale, and many friends from Richmond are invited guests. On
this point Viva and Charlton have one memorable disagreement.
But Charlton wants to invite Max Verne, and she flatly refuses her
consent.
“But why, my dear little sister? It is not right to exclude his name
from the list of invitations. Our old friend, too! Surely you will
not carry your silly little spite about the wine to such a ridiculous
length.”
“Pray leave me alone, Charlton. I will not have Max Verne at my
wedding.”
“Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself! I don’t understand your
whims of late, Viva. Essex has fairly turned your weak little brain,”
and he flings out of the room in a passion.
* * * * *
But Max Verne is not in Richmond to feel slighted by his omission from
the wedding guests.
He is wooing pleasure by the sea, and to him there comes no knowledge,
that moonlight night as he paces “the sea-beat shore” in pensive
reverie and fancies that the waves have a sound of human sorrow in
their moaning, that the stars are shining on Vivian’s bridal hour--his
lost little love “in gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls,” breathing
the solemn vows that make her his rival’s bride.
The next day he goes home to the marriage of his uncle, the next day
he leaves for New York, then to Europe. It is only when he receives in
Paris a budget of papers from home that he reads the news--first the
elaborate account of his uncle’s wedding, ending with the item that his
nephew, Doctor Max Verne, sailed the ensuing day for Europe to pursue a
course of medical study in Paris.
The next society item details at length the grandeurs of Miss Leigh’s
wedding at her country home, expatiating on the beauty of the bride and
the elegance of the home Mr. Essex has prepared for his wife.
The room grows too small for Max after this. He cannot breathe; he must
seek the open air.
He jams his hat down over his eyes, and going out, chance leads him
before a vast cathedral, whence comes a sound of music ineffably sad
and sweet. Some great and good Catholic is dead, and a solemn requiem
mass is being chanted in Latin by the choir.
Max follows the crowd, and asks a gamin on the steps:
“What is going on? Is anybody being married here?”
“_Non, monsieur, c’est la messe de requiem_,” the gamin replies,
smiling at the foreign gentleman’s mistake.
But it is all like a dream to Max, and he never even knows what great
and good man that funeral chant bewailed. To his dazed mind, in its
cruel pain, it was then and ever afterward a funeral dirge for the
Vivian who was now dead to him forever.