FIVE YEARS LATER
"Married, this morning, at St. Paul's Church, by the Rev. Dr. ----,
assisted by the rector, Guy Thornton, Esq., of Cuylerville, to Miss
Julia Hamilton, of this city."
Such was the notice which appeared in a daily Boston paper one lovely
morning in September five years after the last entry in Miss Thornton's
journal. Guy had reached the point at last when he could put Daisy from
his heart and take another in her place. He had never seen her or heard
directly from her since the night she brought him the marriage
settlement and tore it in pieces, thinking thus to give it to him beyond
a doubt. That this did not change the matter one whit he knew just as he
knew she could not give him the ten thousand dollars settled upon her
until she was of age. She was of age now, and had been for a year or
more, and, to say the truth, he had expected to hear from her when she
was twenty-one. To himself he had reasoned in this wise: Her father told
her that the tearing up that paper made no difference, that she was
powerless of herself to act until she was of age, so she will wait
quietly till then before making another effort. And in his heart Guy
thought how he would not take a penny from her, but would insist upon
her keeping it. Still he should respect her all the more for her sense
of justice and generosity, he thought, and when her twenty-first
birthday came and passed, and week after week went by, and brought no
sign from Daisy, there was a pang in his heart and a look of
disappointment on his face which did not pass away until October hung
her gorgeous colors upon the hills of Cuylerville, and Julia Hamilton
came to the Brown Cottage to spend a few weeks with his sister.
From an independent, self-reliant, energetic girl of twenty-two Julia
had ripened into a noble and dignified woman of twenty-seven, with a
quiet repose of manner which seemed to rest and quiet one, and which
told insensibly on Guy, until at last he found himself dreading to have
her go and wishing to keep her with him always. The visit was lengthened
into a month; and when in November he went with her to Boston he had
asked her to take Daisy's place, and she had said she would. Very freely
they had talked of the little golden-haired girl, and Julia told him
what she had heard of her through a mutual acquaintance who had been on
the same vessel with the McDonalds when they returned from South
America. Cousin Tom was with them, a rich man then and a richer now, for
his gold mine and his railroad had made him almost a millionaire, and it
was currently reported and believed that Mr. McDonald designed him for
his daughter. They were abroad now, the McDonalds and Tom, who bore the
expenses of the party. Daisy, it was said, was even more beautiful than
in her early girlhood, and to her loveliness were added cultivation and
refinement of manner. She had had the best of teachers while in South
America, and was now continuing her studies abroad with a view to
further improvement. All this Julia Hamilton told Guy, and then bade him
think again ere deciding to join her life with his.
And Guy did think again, and his thoughts went across the sea after the
beautiful Daisy, and he tried to picture to himself what she must be,
now that education and culture had set their seal upon her. But always
in the picture there was a dark background, where cousin Tom stood
sentinel with his bags of gold, and so, with a half-unconscious sigh for
what "might have been," Guy dug still deeper the grave where years
before he had buried his love for Daisy, and to make the burial sure
this time, so that there should be no future resurrection, he put over
the grave a head-stone on which were written a new hope and a new love,
both of which centered in Julia Hamilton. And so they were engaged, and
after that there was no wavering on his part--no looking back to a past
which seemed like a happy dream from which there had been a horrible
awaking.
He loved Julia at first quietly and sensibly, and loved her more and
more as the winter and spring went by and brought the day when he stood
again at the altar and for the second time took upon him the marriage
vow. It was a very quiet wedding, with only a few friends present, and
Miss Frances was the bridesmaid, in a gown of silver gray; but Julia's
face was bright with the certainty of a happiness long desired; and if
in Guy's heart there lingered the odor of other bridal flowers, withered
now and dead, and the memory of other marriage bells than those which
sent their music on the air that summer morning, and if a pair of sunny
blue eyes looked into his instead of Julia's darker ones, he made no
sign, and his face wore an expression of perfect content as he took his
second bride for better or worse, just as he once had taken little
Daisy. In her case it had proved all for the worse, but now there was a
suitableness in the union which boded future happiness, and many a
hearty wish for good was sent after the newly married pair, whose
destination was New York.
It was nearly dark when they reached the hotel and quite dark before
dinner was over. Then Julia suddenly remembered that an old friend of
hers was boarding in the house, and suggested going to her room.
"I'd send my card," she said blushingly, "only she would not know me by
the new name, so if you do not mind my leaving you a moment I'll go and
find her myself."
Guy did not mind, and Julia went out and left him alone. Scarcely was
she gone when he called to mind a letter which had been forwarded to him
from Cuylerville, and which he had found awaiting him on his return from
the church. Not thinking it of much consequence he had thrust it in his
pocket and in the excitement forgotten it till now. He had dressed for
dinner and worn his wedding coat, and he took the letter out and looked
at it a moment, and wondered whom it was from, as people ofttimes do
wait and wonder, when breaking the seal would settle the wonder so soon.
It was postmarked in New York, and felt heavy in his hand, and he opened
it at last and found that the outer envelope inclosed another one on
which his name and address were written in a handwriting once so
familiar to him, and the sight of which made him start and breathe
heavily for a moment as if the air had suddenly grown thick and
burdensome.
Daisy's handwriting! which he had never thought to see again; for after
his engagement with Julia he had burned every vestige of a
correspondence it was sorrow now to remember. One by one, and with a
steady hand, he had dropped Daisy's letters into the fire and watched
them turning into ashes, and thought how like his love for her they were
when nothing remained of them but the thin gray tissue his breath could
blow away. The four scraps of the marriage settlement which Daisy had
brought him on that night of storm he kept, because they seemed to
embody something good and noble in the girl; but the letters she had
written him were gone past recall, and he had thought himself cut loose
from her forever--when, lo! there had come to him an awakening to the
bitterness of the past in a letter from the once-loved wife, whose
delicate handwriting made him grow faint and sick for a moment as he
held the letter in his hand and read thereon:
"GUY THORNTON, ESQ.,
Brown Cottage,
Cuylerville, Mass.
Politeness of Mr. Wilkes."
Why had she written, and what had she to say to him, he wondered, and
for a moment he felt tempted to tear the letter up and never know what
it contained.
Better, perhaps, had he done so--better for him, and better for the fond
new wife whose happiness was so perfect, and whose trust in his love so
strong.
But he did not tear it up. He opened it and read--another chapter will
tell us what he read.