Marcia stood quivering, trembling. She comprehended all in an instant.
David Spafford had come a day earlier than he had been expected, to
surprise Kate, and Kate was off having a good time with some one else. He
had mistaken her for Kate. Her long dress and her put-up hair had deceived
him in the moonlight. She tried to summon some womanly courage, and in her
earnestness to make things right she forgot her natural timidity.
“It is not Kate,” she said gently; “it is only Marcia. Kate did not know
you were coming to-night. She did not expect you till to-morrow. She had
to go out,—that is—she has gone with—” the truthful, youthful, troubled
sister paused. To her mind it was a calamity that Kate was not present to
meet her lover. She should at least have been in the house ready for a
surprise like this. Would David not feel the omission keenly? She must
keep it from him if she could about Captain Leavenworth. There was no
reason why he should feel badly about it, of course, and yet it might
annoy him. But he stepped back laughing at his mistake.
“Why! Marcia, is it you, child? How you have grown! I never should have
known you!” said the young man pleasantly. He had always a grave
tenderness for this little sister of his love. “Of course your sister did
not know I was coming,” he went on, “and doubtless she has many things to
attend to. I did not expect her to be out here watching for me, though for
a moment I did think she was at the gate. You say she is gone out? Then we
will go up to the house and I will be there to surprise her when she
comes.”
Marcia turned with relief. He had not asked where Kate was gone, nor with
whom.
The Squire and Madam Schuyler greeted the arrival with elaborate welcome.
The Squire like Marcia seemed much annoyed that Kate had gone out. He kept
fuming back and forth from the window to the door and asking: “What did
she go out for to-night? She ought to have stayed at home!”
But Madam Schuyler wore ample satisfaction upon her smooth brow. The
bridegroom had arrived. There could be no further hitch in the ceremonies.
He had arrived a day before the time, it is true; but he had not found
_her_ unprepared. So far as she was concerned, with a few extra touches
the wedding might proceed at once. She was always ready for everything in
time. No one could find a screw loose in the machinery of her household.
She bustled about, giving orders and laying a bountiful supper before the
young man, while the Squire sat and talked with him, and Marcia hovered
watchfully, waiting upon the table, noticing with admiring eyes the
beautiful wave of his abundant hair, tossed back from his forehead. She
took a kind of pride of possession in his handsome face,—the far-removed
possession of a sister-in-law. There was his sunny smile, that seemed as
though it could bring joy out of the gloom of a bleak December day, and
there were the two dimples—not real dimples, of course, men never had
dimples—but hints, suggestions of dimples, that caught themselves when he
smiled, here and there like hidden mischief well kept under control, but
still merrily ready to come to the surface. His hands were white and firm,
the fingers long and shapely, the hands of a brain worker. The vision of
Hanford Weston’s hands, red and bony, came up to her in contrast. She had
not known that she looked at them that day when he had stood awkwardly
asking if he might walk with her. Poor Hanford! He would ill compare with
this cultured scholarly man who was his senior by ten years, though it is
possible that with the ten years added he would have been quite worthy of
the admiration of any of the village girls.
The fruit cake and raspberry preserves and doughnuts and all the various
viands that Madam Schuyler had ordered set out for the delectation of her
guest had been partaken of, and David and the Squire sat talking of the
news of the day, touching on politics, with a bit of laughter from the
Squire at the man who thought he had invented a machine to draw carriages
by steam in place of horses.
“There’s a good deal in it, I believe,” said the younger man. “His theory
is all right if he can get some one to help him carry it out.”
“Well, maybe, maybe,” said the Squire shaking his head dubiously, “but it
seems to me a very fanciful scheme. Horses are good enough for me. I
shouldn’t like to trust myself to an unknown quantity like steam, but time
will tell.”
“Yes, and the world is progressing. Something of the sort is sure to come.
It has come in England. It would make a vast change in our country,
binding city to city and practically eradicating space.”
“Visionary schemes, David, visionary schemes, that’s what I call them. You
and I’ll never see them in our day, I’m sure of that. Remember this is a
new country and must go slow.” The Squire was half laughing, half in
earnest.
Amid the talk Marcia had quietly slipped out. It had occurred to her that
perhaps the captain might return with her sister.
She must watch for Kate and warn her. Like a shadow in the moonlight she
stepped softly down the gravel path once more and waited at the gate. Did
not that sacred kiss placed upon her lips all by mistake bind her to this
solemn duty? Had it not been given to her to see as in a revelation, by
that kiss, the love of one man for one woman, deep and tender and true?
In the fragrant darkness her soul stood still and wondered over Love, the
marvellous. With an insight such as few have who have not tasted years of
wedded joy, Marcia comprehended the possibility and joy of sacrifice that
made even sad things bright because of Love. She saw like a flash how Kate
could give up her gay life, her home, her friends, everything that life
had heretofore held dear for her, that she might be by the side of the man
who loved her so. But with this knowledge of David’s love for Kate came a
troubled doubt. Did Kate love David that way? If Kate had been the one who
received that kiss would she have returned it with the same tenderness and
warmth with which it was given? Marcia dared not try to answer this. It
was Kate’s question, not hers, and she must never let it enter her mind
again. Of course she must love him that way or she would never marry him.
The night crept slowly for the anxious little watcher at the gate. Had she
been sure where to look for her sister, and not afraid of the tongues of a
few interested neighbors who had watched everything at the house for days
that no item about the wedding should escape them, she would have started
on a search at once. She knew if she just ran into old Miss Pemberton’s,
whose house stood out upon the street with two straight-backed little,
high, white seats each side of the stoop, a most delightful post of
observation, she could discover at once in which direction Kate had gone,
and perhaps a good deal more of hints and suggestions besides. But Marcia
had no mind to make gossip. She must wait as patiently as she could for
Kate. Moreover Kate might be walking even now in some secluded, rose-lined
lane arm in arm with the captain, saying a pleasant farewell. It was
Kate’s way and no one might gainsay her.
Marcia’s dreams came back once more, the thoughts that had been hers as
she stood there an hour before. She thought how the kiss had fitted into
the dream. Then all at once conscience told her it was Kate’s lover, not
her own, whose arms had encircled her. And now there was a strange
unwillingness to go back to the dreams at all, a lingering longing for the
joys into whose glory she had been for a moment permitted to look. She
drew back from all thoughts and tried to close the door upon them. They
seemed too sacred to enter. Her maidenhood was but just begun and she had
much yet to learn of life. She was glad, glad for Kate that such
wonderfulness was coming to her. Kate would be sweeter, softer in her ways
now. She could not help it with a love like that enfolding her life.
At last there were footsteps! Hark! Two people—only two! Just what Marcia
had expected. The other girls and boys had dropped into other streets or
gone home. Kate and her former lover were coming home alone. And,
furthermore, Kate would not be glad to see her sister at the gate. This
last thought came with sudden conviction, but Marcia did not falter.
“Kate, David has come!” Marcia said it in low, almost accusing tones, at
least so it sounded to Kate, before the two had hardly reached the gate.
They had been loitering along talking in low tones, and the young
captain’s head was bent over his companion in an earnest, pleading
attitude. Marcia could not bear to look, and did not wish to see more, so
she had spoken.
Kate, startled, sprang away from her companion, a white angry look in her
face.
“How you scared me, Marsh!” she exclaimed pettishly. “What if he has come?
That’s nothing. I guess he can wait a few minutes. He had no business to
come to-night anyway. He knew we wouldn’t be ready for him till
to-morrow.”
Kate was recovering her self-possession in proportion as she realized the
situation. That she was vexed over her bridegroom’s arrival neither of the
two witnesses could doubt. It stung her sister with a deep pity for David.
He was not getting as much in Kate as he was giving. But there was no time
for such thoughts, besides Marcia was trembling from head to foot, partly
with her own daring, partly with wrath at her sister’s words.
“For shame, Kate!” she cried. “How can you talk so, even in fun! David
came to surprise you, and I think he had a right to expect to find you
here so near to the time of your marriage.”
There was a flash in the young eyes as she said it, and a delicate lifting
of her chin with the conviction of the truth she was speaking, that gave
her a new dignity even in the moonlight. Captain Leavenworth looked at her
in lazy admiration and said:
“Why, Marsh, you’re developing into quite a spitfire. What have you got on
to-night that makes you look so tall and handsome? Why didn’t you stay in
and talk to your fine gentleman? I’m sure he would have been just as well
satisfied with you as your sister.”
Marcia gave one withering glance at the young man and then turned her back
full upon him. He was not worth noticing. Besides he was to be pitied, for
he evidently cared still for Kate.
But Kate was fairly white with anger. Perhaps her own accusing conscience
helped it on. Her voice was imperious and cold. She drew herself up
haughtily and pointed toward the house.
“Marcia Schuyler,” she said coldly, facing her sister, “go into the house
and attend to your own affairs. You’ll find that you’ll get into serious
trouble if you attempt to meddle with mine. You’re nothing but a child yet
and ought to be punished for your impudence. Go! I tell you!” she stamped
her foot, “I will come in when I get ready.”
Marcia went. Not proudly as she might have gone the moment before, but
covered with confusion and shame, her head drooping like some crushed lily
on a bleeding stalk. Through her soul rushed indignation, mighty and
forceful; indignation and shame, for her sister, for David, for herself.
She did not stop to analyze her various feelings, nor did she stop to
speak further with those in the house. She fled to her own room, and
burying her face in the pillow she wept until she fell asleep.
The moon-shadows grew longer about the arbored gateway where the two she
had left stood talking in low tones, looking furtively now and then toward
the house, and withdrawing into the covert of the bushes by the walk. But
Kate dared not linger long. She could see her father’s profile by the
candle light in the dining room. She did not wish to receive further
rebuke, and so in a very few minutes the two parted and Kate ran up the
box-edged path, beginning to hum a sweet old love song in a gay light
voice, as she tripped by the dining-room windows, and thus announced her
arrival. She guessed that Marcia would have gone straight to her room and
told nothing. Kate intended to be fully surprised. She paused in the hall
to hang up the light shawl she had worn, calling good-night to her
stepmother and saying she was very tired and was going straight to bed to
be ready for to-morrow. Then she ran lightly across the hall to the
stairs.
She knew they would call her back, and that they would all come into the
hall with David to see the effect of his surprise upon her. She had
planned to a nicety just which stair she could reach before they got
there, and where she would pause and turn and poise, and what pose she
would take with her round white arm stretched to the handrail, the sleeve
turned carelessly back. She had ready her countenances, a sleepy
indifference, then a pleased surprise, and a climax of delight. She
carried it all out, this little bit of impromptu acting, as well as though
she had rehearsed it for a month.
They called her, and she turned deliberately, one dainty, slippered foot,
with its crossed black ribbons about the slender ankle, just leaving the
stair below, and showing the arch of the aristocratic instep. Her gown was
blue and she held it back just enough for the stiff white frill of her
petticoat to peep below. Well she read the admiration in the eyes below
her. Admiration was Kate’s life: she thrived upon it. She could not do
without it.
David stood still, his love in his eyes, looking upon the vision of his
bride, and his heart swelled within him that so great a treasure should be
his. Then straightway they all forgot to question where she had been or to
rebuke her that she had been at all. She had known they would. She ever
possessed the power to make others forget her wrong doings when it was
worth her while to try.
The next morning things were astir even earlier than usual. There was the
sound of the beating of eggs, the stirring of cakes, the clatter of pots
and pans from the wide, stone-flagged kitchen.
Marcia, fresh as a flower from its morning dew in spite of her cry the
night before, had arisen to new opportunities for service. She was glad
with the joyous forgetfulness of youth when she looked at David’s happy
face, and she thought no more of Kate’s treatment of herself.
David followed Kate with a true lover’s eyes and was never for more than a
few moments out of her sight, though it seemed to Marcia that Kate did not
try very hard to stay with him. When afternoon came she dismissed him for
what she called her “beauty nap.” Marcia was passing through the hall at
the time and she caught the tender look upon his face as he touched her
brow with reverent fingers and told her she had no need for that. Her eyes
met Kate’s as they were going up the stairs, and in spite of what Kate had
said the night before Marcia could not refrain from saying: “Oh, Kate! how
could you when he loves you so? You know you never take a nap in the
daytime!”
“You silly girl!” said Kate pleasantly enough, “don’t you know the less a
man sees of one the more he thinks of her?” With this remark she closed
and fastened her door after her.
Marcia pondered these words of wisdom for some time, wondering whether
Kate had really done it for that reason, or whether she did not care for
the company of her lover. And why should it be so that a man loved you
less because he saw you more? In her straightforward code the more you
loved persons the more you desired to be in their company.
Kate had issued from her “beauty nap” with a feverish restlessness in her
eyes, an averted face, and ink upon one finger. At supper she scarcely
spoke, and when she did she laughed excitedly over little things. Her
lover watched her with eyes of pride and ever increasing wonder over her
beauty, and Marcia, seeing the light in his face, watched for its answer
in her sister’s, and finding it not was troubled.
She watched them from her bedroom window as they walked down the path
where she had gone the evening before, decorously side by side, Kate
holding her light muslin frock back from the dew on the hedges. She
wondered if it was because Kate had more respect for David than for
Captain Leavenworth that she never seemed to treat him with as much
familiarity. She did not take possession of him in the same sweet
imperious way.
Marcia had not lighted her candle. The moon gave light enough and she was
very weary, so she undressed in the dim chamber and pondered upon the ways
of the great world. Out there in the moonlight were those two who
to-morrow would be one, and here was she, alone. The world seemed all
circling about that white chamber of hers, and echoing with her own
consciousness of self, and a loneliness she had never felt before. She
wondered what it might be. Was it all sadness at parting with Kate, or was
it the sadness over inevitable partings of all human relationships, and
the all-aloneness of every living spirit?
She stood for a moment, white-robed, beside her window, looking up into
the full round moon, and wondering if God knew the ache of loneliness in
His little human creatures’ souls that He had made, and whether He had
ready something wherewith to satisfy. Then her meek soul bowed before the
faith that was in her and she knelt for her shy but reverent evening
prayer.
She heard the two lovers come in early and go upstairs, and she heard her
father fastening up the doors and windows for the night. Then stillness
gradually settled down and she fell asleep. Later, in her dreams, there
echoed the sound of hastening hoofs far down the deserted street and over
the old covered bridge, but she took no note of any sound, and the weary
household slept on.