A WIDOWED BRIDE.
“For front to front in an hour we stood.
And a hundred horrible, bellowing echoes broke
And thundered up into heaven the Christless code,
That must have life for a blow.” --TENNYSON.
“The best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft aglee,” says a Scottish
proverb, and Earle Essex learned this truth to his rage and dismay.
He had counted with certainty on being present at the projected
wedding. Those limitations with which godly people prefix their
intentions, such as, “Providence permitting,” “God willing,” etc., did
not enter into his calculations at all. He made no allowance for the
uncertainty of railway trains, the probability of accidents, above all,
the difficulty of procuring fast teams in the remote Virginia town to
which he was hastening, yet, all the same, these delays occurred to him.
To begin with, there occurred an accident that, while involving no loss
of life, delayed the train at one station four hours. This proved the
prolific parent of other delays, for a telegram from the dispatcher
ordered the conductor to lie over an hour or two at various stations
in order to avoid collisions with trains running on their regular time.
Mr. Essex fretted, fumed, and swore at this most provoking detention.
It was all he could do to restrain himself from entering a saloon
and drinking heavily, but he fought down his almost insane passion
for liquor, for he knew that his mission required a clear head and
steady nerve. The broad gleams of morning saw the train slowing into
the obscure station where his journey ended, yet it was necessary to
secure a vehicle of some kind to transport him into the country, for he
expected to bring a lady back with him.
A lumbering old carriage, with a lame horse, was all he could procure
after the most diligent inquiry, and he set off with a lazy black boy
as driver, his mind full of misgivings as to whether he could possibly
reach Richmond that night in time for the wedding.
* * * * *
While he is still absent, and the hovering wings of night fall over
Richmond, let us gaze, my reader, on the brilliant scene to which he
hopes to return in the character of a Nemesis.
All is light and gayety in the superb mansion to which the wedding
party have come to hold a reception. It is Monsieur Orne’s house. He
has insisted on holding the reception there, and Eve assents, proud
of its elegance and luxury. Diana is there in the gay throng, grown
stouter in the air of her country-home, or perhaps through the agency
of old port wine, we are in doubt which.
But certainly Diana is not the pale, fair goddess of old. Her delicate
features have put on a fullness and redness not at all becoming, and
her blue eyes are not so bright. Charlton Leigh is there, too, but
quieter, paler, with eyes that have lost much of their old debonair
joyousness.
He is there almost against his will, but through an impelling sense of
courtesy, and he wonders idly why Eve chooses to flaunt her diamonds
and orange blossoms and her wild gayety in his vicinity so often.
But Eve has gone upstairs now to exchange her white satin for a
traveling gown. It is twelve o’clock, and one hour later they will go
away on their bridal tour.
She comes down presently, graceful, elegant and smiling, and leaning
lightly on the arm of her liege lord makes her adieus to her friends.
Gently and quietly, not to disturb the flow of good wishes, two persons
pass down the length of the room, and pause opposite the wedded pair.
The man is Earle Essex, looking tired, flushed, and excited. He has
stopped in the supper-room and poured down in succession several
glasses of wine. A veiled lady by his side every one supposes to be his
wife.
“Friends,” Earle Essex exclaims, raising his voice until its loud,
deep, excited tones echo clearly through the room, “while you exhaust
your good wishes in behalf of Monsieur Orne’s fair bride, pray spare
some of your tender sympathies to his injured wife, who stands before
you.”
With a deft movement of his hand he threw back his companion’s heavy
black veil, and continued, his voice breaking clearly on the sudden
silence:
“Monsieur Orne’s legal wife, whom he has kept shut up in a lonely
old mansion in a mountainous district of remote Virginia, guarded by
servants bribed to do his bidding, and seeing from year to year no
faces but her jailer’s--his wife, whom I have delivered from her prison
house, and brought here to confront him with his crimes.”
“You lie!” the Frenchman shouted madly, and springing forward struck
his accuser sharply in the face.
Earle Essex recoiled at first, then rallying sprang forward, and
closed in a fierce hand-to-hand conflict with his assailant. Before
the bystanders could part them, amid shrieks of women and outcries of
men, a pistol was seen glimmering in the Frenchman’s hand, its muzzle
pressed against the temple of Mr. Essex. The latter was unarmed, but
before a moment could elapse the doomed man struck up the arm of
his assailant with a strength that turned it completely backward.
The pistol exploded, burying its fatal ball in the forehead of the
Frenchman, who fell instantaneously to the floor dead--dead in one
second, in which life and time, sin and weakness, and all earthly
belongings were exchanged for death and eternity.