"A FASHIONABLE WEDDING."
Another night had passed, another day had come. At twelve sharp Mr.
Liston and a hackney carriage had come for "Mrs. Laurence." Her trunks
had been packed by her own-hands. Mr. Liston had settled the claim of
the Misses Waddle, and white and still she had come out, shaken hands
with the kindly spinsters, entered the hack, fallen back in a corner,
her hand shading her eyes, and so was driven away from the Chelsea
cottage forever.
"And dead and in her shroud," said the younger Miss Waddle,
melo-dramatically, "she will never look more like death than she does
to-day."
She had scarcely slept the night through. That pleasant cottage chamber
overlooking the sea was haunted for her, full of memories that nearly
maddened her to-night. With all her heart she had loved--with all her
soul she had trusted. She stood here in the darkness, forsaken,
deceived. She hardly knew whether it were passionate love still, or
passionate hatred that filled her now. The boundary line between strong
love and strong hate is but narrow at the best. A tumult that was agony
filled heart and brain. He had never cared for her; never, never! Out of
pure revenge upon Richard Gilbert he had mocked her with the farce of
love--mocked her from first to last, and wearied of her before one poor
week had ended.
"Lightly won, lightly lost," man's motto always, never more true than in
her case. Without one pang he had cast her off contemptuously, glad to
be rid of her, and had sent his uncle's servant to take her back to the
home she had disgraced, the hearts she had broken. She clenched her
hands--in the darkness she was walking up and down her room, and hoarse,
broken murmurs of a woman scorned and outraged came from her lips. She
could picture him even at this hour seated by the side of the girl he
was so soon to marry, his arm encircling her, his eyes looking love into
hers, his lips murmuring the old false vows, sealing them with the old
false caresses. Face downward she flung herself upon the bed at last,
wild with the remorse, the despair of her own thoughts.
"Oh," she cried; "I cannot bear it! I cannot, I cannot."
The darkness wrapped her, the deep silence of the night was around her.
Up stairs the Misses Waddle slept their vestal beauty sleep, commonplace
and content. A month ago she had pitied their dull, loveless, plodding
lives. Ah, Heaven! to be free from this torturing pain at her heart, and
able to sleep like them now. But even to her sleep came at last, the
spent sleep of utter exhaustion.
The morning sun was shining brightly when she awoke. She got up feeling
chilled and stiff, worn and grown old. Mechanically she bathed and
breakfasted--Miss Waddle the younger gazing askance at her white cheeks
and lustreless eyes. Mechanically she returned to her room, and began
packing her trunks. And then, this done, she sat with folded hands by
the window, looking out upon the sparkling sea, until noon and Mr.
Liston should come. Her mind was a blank; the very intensity of the blow
benumbed pain. Last night she had lain yonder, and writhed in her
torture; to-day she felt almost apathetic--indifferent to past, present,
and future. And so, pale and cold, and still, Mr. Liston had found her,
so she had shaken hands, and said good-by to the Misses Waddle, and so
she had been driven away from her "honeymoon paradise" to begin her life
anew.
They reached New York. If Mr. Liston had indeed been the fondest of
uncles, he could not have been more affectionately solicitous for the
welfare and comfort of his charge. She was indifferent to it
all--unconscious of it indeed, looking upon all things with dull,
half-sightless eyes.
"Take good care of her, Mrs. Wilkins," he said to his landlady; "she is
ailing, as you can see, and don't let her be disturbed or annoyed in my
absence. She has had trouble lately, and is not like herself."
It was a shabby-genteel boarding-house, in a shabby-genteel street,
close upon East Broadway. At first "Mrs. Liston" had her meals served in
her room, and spent her time, for all Mrs. Wilkins could see, in sitting
at the window, with idly-lying hands, gazing out into the dull street.
Mr. Liston was absent the chief part of the day, and Mrs. Liston
steadfastly kept her room; but in the evenings, always closely veiled,
Mrs. Wilkins observed he could prevail upon her to go out with him for a
walk. He was kind to her, the girl vaguely felt--she would obey him, at
least; and, since she could not die and make an end of it all, why, she
might as well take a little exercise for her health's sake. He was very
good to her, but she felt no gratitude--it was not for her sake, but for
the sake of the grudge he owed their mutual foe. Their mutual foe! Did
she hate Laurence Thorndyke she wondered. There were times when her
very soul grew sick with longing for the sight of his face, the tone of
his voice, the touch of his hand, and the sound of his name from Mr.
Liston's lips had power to thrill her to the inmost heart still.
Gradually, as the weeks passed, matters changed.
"Time, that blunts the edge of things,
Dries our tears and spoils our bliss,"
was quietly at work for Norine. She came down to the public table, and
the pale, spirituelle beauty of the invisible and mysterious Mrs. Liston
caused a profound sensation among the boarders. Next, she took to
spending the long afternoons in the dingy boarding-house parlor, playing
upon the jingling, toneless boarding-house piano such melodies of
mournful sweetness that Mrs. Wilkins and her handmaidens of the kitchen
paused in their work, to listen, and wonder, and admire.
"That young woman has seen trouble," Mrs. Wilkins said, shaking her
head. She had her own opinion--a pretty correct one--of what nature that
trouble was; but her beauty and her youth were there to plead for her.
She was a lady to her finger-tips, that was evident; and--most potent
reason of all with Mrs. Wilkins--Mr. Liston had been her boarder and
friend for the past ten years.
So December came.
How the time had gone Norine could hardly have told--it did go somehow,
that was all. Trouble, remorse, despair, do not kill; she was still
alive and tolerably well, could eat and sleep, play the old tunes, even
sometimes sing the old songs. She looked at herself in a sort of dreary
wonder in the glass. The face she saw a little paler than of old, was
fair and youthful still--the bright hair glossy and abundant as ever.
She had read of people whose hair turned gray with trouble; hers had
passed and left no sign, only on the lips that had forgotten to smile,
the eyes that never lit into gladness or hope, and the heart that lay
like lead in her bosom.
The crisp, frosty December days seemed to fly, bringing with them his
wedding-day. Every hour now the old agony of that night in the Chelsea
cottage came back to stab her through. The seventh of December was the
day--could she bear it?--and it was in her power even yet, Mr. Liston
told her, to prevent it. Twice during the last fortnight she had seen
him, the first time, when, closely veiled, her dress had brushed him on
Broadway. He was advancing with another gentleman, both were smoking,
both were laughing gayly at some good story Thorndyke seemed to be
telling. Handsome, elegant, well-dressed, nonchalant, he passed her,
actually turning to glance after the graceful figure and veiled face.
"That figure should belong to a pretty girl," she had heard him say.
"Deuce take the veils, what do they wear 'em for. There--there's
something oddly familiar about her, too."
She had turned sick and faint, she leaned against a store window for a
moment, the busy street going round and round. So they had met and
parted again.
The second time it was almost worse. Mr. Liston had taken her to the
opera--in her passionate love of music she could forget, for a few brief
hours, her pain, when, coming out, in the crush, they had come almost
face to face. His bride elect was on his arm, by instinct she knew it, a
tall, stylish girl, in sweeping draperies, with blonde hair, blue eyes,
and a skin like pearl. He was bending his tall head over her,
devotedly; both looked brilliantly handsome and happy.
"For Heaven's sake, come this way!" Liston had cried, and drawn her with
him hurriedly in another direction. She had been literally unable to
move, standing, white and wild, gazing upon him. Presently came the
fateful wedding day. All the night preceding she lay awake, the old
tempest of feeling going on within her.
Should she denounce him, or should she not, on his wedding-day? Should
she take his bride from him at the very altar, and proclaim him to the
world as the liar and betrayer he was, or should she wait? She could not
decide. When morning came her mind was in as utter a tumult as ever.
"Have you decided?" Mr. Liston asked her. "Shall Laurence Thorndyke
leave his uncle's house to-day, with his bride by his side, or as an
outcast and a pauper, scorned by all? It is for you to say."
"I don't know," she answered, hoarsely. "Take me to the church--I will
decide there."
He had taken her, led her in, placed her in one of the pews, and left
her. His manifold duties kept him with Mr. Darcy; he would be unable to
join Norine again that day.
The church filled; an hour before the ceremony it was crowded. Then they
came; the bridegroom a trifle pale and nervous, as bridegrooms are wont
to be, but, as usual, handsome of face and elegant of attire. Then on
her guardian's arm, the bride, a dazzling vision of white satin, Honiton
lace, pearl, orange blossoms, gold hair, and tender drooping face. A
breathless hush fills the church--in that hush the officiating clergyman
came forth--in that hush the bridal party take their places, a flock of
white bridesmaids, a group of black gentlemen. And then a voice out of
that great stillness speaks.
"If any here know of just cause or impediment why these two should not
be joined in the bonds of matrimony, let him speak now, or forever hold
his peace."
Mr. Liston turns his quiet face and watchful eyes to one particular pew,
to one slender figure and veiled face. The five seconds that follow are
as five centuries to the bridegroom. His face is quite white, his gloved
fingers are like ice. He glances up at Liston, and then--the ceremony
begins. What a horrible time it takes, Laurence Thorndyke thinks; what a
horrible ordeal a fashionable public marriage is. Does a dingy hotel
parlor rise before him, the rain beating on the windows, and a pale,
wistful face look up at him, while a mockery of this solemn rite is
being gabbled through by a tipsy actor? Is it the fair, happy, downcast
face of his bride he sees or that other face as he saw it last, all
white and drawn in the anguish of a last farewell?
"What God hath joined together let no man put asunder!"
It is over. He draws a long, hard breath of relief. Come what may, Helen
is his wife.
They rise; they file slowly and gracefully out of the church; the bride
hanging on the bridegroom's arm. Closely, very closely, they pass one
particular pew wherein a solitary figure stands. She has risen with the
rest; she has flung back her veil, and people who glance at her stop
involuntarily and look again. The face is like stone, the dark eyes all
wild and wide, the lips apart; she stands as if slowly petrifying. But
the bridal party do not see her; they pass on, and out.
"Who is she?" strangers whisper. "Has she known Laurence Thorndyke?"
Then they too, go, and all is over.
The wedding party enter their carriages and are whirled away. Mr Liston
sees his employer safely off, then returns hurriedly to the church. He
is angry with Norine, but it is his duty to look after her, and
something in her face to-day has made him afraid. There is nothing to
fear, however; she is very quiet now; she sunk down upon her knees, her
head has fallen forward upon the rail. He speaks to her; she does not
answer. He touches her on the shoulder; she does not look up. He lifts
her head--yes, it is as he feared. The edifice is almost deserted now;
he takes her in his arms and carries her out into the air. For the
second time in her life she has fainted entirely away.