BRIDE AND GROOM
Wedded fast were we.
E. B. BROWNING.
“Salute your wife,” said the priest.
The young bridegroom turned to his wife—his face all glorious with the
noblest love that ever inspired the soul of a world-renowned poet or
warrior—and took her hand and drew her to his heart and bowed his head
to offer her the customary kiss that was to seal the ceremony just
performed between them.
She did not yield him her lips—she did not even leave him her hand, but
shuddered and coldly withdrew herself.
David Lindsay turned deadly pale.
The priest and the witnesses looked surprised. Such an exhibition of
unkindness, not to say rudeness, they had never seen in all their
experience.
“Come into the vestry, if you please,” then said the priest.
David Lindsay, struck to the heart by his bride’s repulsion, recovered
himself by an effort, drew her arm within his own and followed the
clergyman.
The two sacristans and the three witnesses brought up the rear.
The parish register lay open on the table.
The newly married pair were now required to sign their names.
David Lindsay steadied himself and wrote his in clear characters.
Gloria’s hand shook so in her attempt to write that the scratches and
blotches she made might have meant anything or nothing.
The witnesses affixed their signatures, and the deed was done.
Then David Lindsay courteously thanked the priest and shook hands with
him, leaving in his palm a very liberal fee.
Finally, he drew the arm of his bride under his own to lead her forth.
As he led her down the aisle, on their way out of the church, some
whispered words among the three women who had witnessed their marriage,
and who now followed close behind them, fell on his ears.
“A runaway match, as sure as you are born, and the girl repents already.
She looks like death, she does,” said one woman.
“She’s scared nearly out of her wits for fear her father or somebody
will be after her,” said another.
“I declare I don’t know how any conscientious minister of the gospel
ever can find it in his mind to marry a runaway couple—and such children
as these are, too. I must say, I am astonished at Mr. O’Halloran!” added
the third woman.
“Well, for my part,” recommenced the first, “if one of my daughters
should be so lost to all sense of propriety as to go off with any young
man, I should be exceedingly thankful to the first minister, or even
magistrate, who should tie them lawfully together.”
“To be sure, there is something in that, which I never thought of
before,” answered the caviler.
David Lindsay drew his trembling companion on faster, in order to escape
hearing any more of these unpleasant comments.
He took her out and put her in the carriage, stepped in, and seated
himself by her side and ordered the hack to drive back to the hotel.
“Gloria, dear Gloria, my own dearest lady,” he began, as he took one of
her frozen hands.
“DON’T speak to me! DON’T touch me!” she exclaimed, snatching her hand
from his gentle hold, pulling her veil over her face, and tucking her
head down in a corner of the cushions.
“Ah! what have I done to offend you, lady?” he pleaded.
“BE SILENT, I say! And keep your hands to yourself, unless you wish to
kill me! But you may do that one thing! You may kill me, if you like! I
wish you would!”
“Great Heaven! Gloria, what is the matter with you?”
“I am crazy! crazy! I told you I was crazy! And if you do not leave me
alone I shall go raving mad!” she wildly exclaimed, and then pushed her
head down in the cushions again, as if she would shut out all sight of
earth and heaven.
David Lindsay sank back in his seat and turned deadly pale as he asked
himself the question:
What had he done to offend and alienate her? To fill her mind with such
abhorrence of himself? He had obeyed her in everything. He had
consecrated his life to her happiness. True, she was a rich heiress, and
he was but a poor boy; yet, if their cases had been reversed, and he had
been the wealthy man and she the poor girl, he felt that he would
equally have consecrated his life to her. He loved her with his whole
being, and since she had condescended to him, he had hoped finally to
become more worthy of her, and to win her love; for deep down in his
soul he felt the prophecy that he should become worthy of her—
“Worthy as a king.”
But ever since, at the priest’s command, he had offered her the
bridegroom’s kiss, she had shrunk from him in loathing.
Was it possible after all, that the mind of his beloved was unbalanced?
That her reason was deranged, and had been so at the time she had made
her strange marriage proposal to him? Had he himself been culpably
hasty, even criminally reckless, in his acceptance of her offered hand?
Had he unconsciously taken advantage of a poor child’s lunacy to make
her his wife?
Indeed, the present aspect of affairs looked as if this must be the
case. And if so, what earthly amends could he make her? How atone for
the deep wrong he had done her?
These were terrible questions, that he could in no way answer.
While they still tortured his soul, the carriage drew up before the
hotel, and the coachman left his seat on the box and came down and
opened the door.
Gloria’s face was still tucked down out of sight in the corner of the
carriage.
“Come, lady, we have arrived,” the young bridegroom whispered, in a
gentle and deprecating tone.
She pulled her veil down closer over her face, doubling it so that not a
feature could be seen, and then allowed him to take her hand and assist
her from the carriage.
David Lindsay, in his distress, forgot to pay the hackman and discharge
the hack. But that functionary jogged the memory of his employer and
received his own dues.
Then young Lindsay led his companion into the house and up to the
ladies’ parlor, when she left his arm and hurried away by herself to a
corner, where she sat down in a large chair and hid her head in its back
cushions.
Meanwhile David Lindsay went down stairs and registered their names and
engaged rooms.
When this was done he came back to the parlor, accompanied by a waiter
with a couple of keys in his hand.
Leaving this man at the door, laden with the two traveling-bags which
had been pointed out, David Lindsay approached Gloria and whispered:
“A waiter is here to take up your bag and show you to your room. Will
you go now, and will you have some tea, or whatever you prefer, sent up
to you?”
She did not answer by one word, but, shuddering, arose, peeped through a
fold of her veil, and, seeing the waiter at the door, walked towards
him.
The man nodded, and led the way to a small suite of rooms on the same
floor, consisting of a little parlor, chamber and bath-room.
He opened these and put down the bags, and then struck a match and set
fire to the kindlings already piled in the grates ready for ignition.
Having performed these duties he turned to the lady and inquired:
“Any more orders, madam?”
“Madam!” echoed the girl, with bitter scorn, though in so low a tone
that the word was nearly inaudible. “No, I want nothing; but, yes, you
may bring me a cup of tea. My throat is as parched as a desert.”
The waiter nodded and went out.
“Now, what have I done!” exclaimed Gloria, as she tore off her gloves,
her hat, and her sack, and threw them angrily on the bed. “Now, what
have I done! Oh, Marcel! I will never, never, no, NEVER forgive you for
driving me to this pass! Oh! how I hate you! How I hate you for this,
Marcel! And I hate David Lindsay! And I hate myself worse than all! My
odious self! I hate everybody! And I wish everybody was dead! I do!” she
cried, flinging herself down on the floor, and rolling and crying like a
passionate child.
It is of no use to repeat all her ravings.
David Lindsay was more than half right in his surmises, and Gloria was
really more than half insane.
She was still rolling and crying on the carpet, when the shuffling steps
of the waiter approaching the door, caused her to start up in time to
answer his knock.
She placed herself behind the door, opened it, put out her hand and took
the little tea-tray, without showing her own tear-stained face.
She drank the tea with eager thirst, and then sat down the empty cup and
threw herself on the sofa.
“The cup that cheers,” and so forth, seemed to do her good, and perhaps
her fit of hysterical weeping had temporarily exhausted itself, for she
wept and raved no more, but lay, with her hands clasped over her face,
in perfect stillness.
An hour later there was a knock at her door. She started up and opened
it, and David Lindsay entered the room.
She recoiled to the farthest corner, and sat down and hid her head over
the back of the chair.
“Do not shrink from me. Indeed I will not intrude my presence on you
more than is absolutely necessary,” he began, in low and deprecating
tones.
But she shuddered and shrank into herself, more fearfully than ever.
He sat down at some little distance from her, sighed heavily, because he
could not help doing so, drew out a handkerchief from his pocket and
wiped his forehead, which was beaded with a cold moisture, and paler now
than it had ever been in his life before.
“I only wished to discover, if indeed I can do so, through you, whether
you really knew what you were about when you came to me on the beach,
when you accompanied me to the city here, and when you gave me your hand
in the church?”
These words acted upon the motionless form with more power than a
galvanic battery on a corpse.
She sprang from her seat to the middle of the floor and, confronting him
with a wild and agonized face, she exclaimed:
“No, I did not know what I was doing! I was mad—mad—mad! and you ought
to have known that I was mad to have done such an unheard-of thing. Oh,
David Lindsay, if you ever loved me, have pity on me now and leave me!
If you have a spark of mercy in your soul, grant my prayer, and leave
me. If you have the least instinct of honor, do not insist on keeping
the position that my act has given you. If you are a man and not a
monster, and not a maniac, leave me and never let me see your face
again.”
He gazed on her in anguish and amazement. Then he arose from his chair,
crossed over to the fireplace, and stood upon the corner of the hearth,
with his elbow leaning on the mantel-shelf, and his hand supporting his
forehead. His eyes were fixed upon the floor, his face was white as
death, and looked older by a dozen years than it should be. Yet he was
very firm and patient. Boy as he was—but a few months past his
twenty-first birthday—he could never descend to the weakness of pleading
his suit, and playing upon the sympathies of his beloved, as older and
wiser men have done, and still do. No. If her love could not approve
him, her pity should not accept him. He adored her with his whole soul.
He had married her, yet he would not persecute her with an unwelcome
suit. But neither must he leave her now, in her childishness and
helplessness. He must see her in some place of safety, and under some
proper protection.
Such were the thoughts that passed rapidly through his mind, as he stood
on the corner of the hearth, with his elbows resting on the mantelpiece,
his head leaning on his hand, and his eyes fixed on the floor.
“David Lindsay, will you act the part of an honorable man, and leave me
at once and forever, or will you stay here and drive me furious?” she
demanded again, in a voice of anguish.
“Patience for one moment, lady. I will leave you—as far as the next
room—and never cross this threshold again. This chamber shall be your
sanctuary. I will occupy the parlor. But I cannot leave you alone and
unprotected in a strange city, dear. I must be on hand to take care of
you, if needful. You are frightened now, Gloria. There is no need to be.
I will not intrude. But we must have time to think what we shall next
do.”
He spoke very gently.
And now she was weeping aloud.
He left the room at once.
“Oh! what a selfish and cruel wretch I am! What a change has come over
me! I have turned into a demon! I must be a demon to hate those who love
me! To hate them for loving me! Oh, I wish I were dead! I wish I had
never lived!” she sobbed, throwing herself down upon the sofa in an
agony of self-reproach and self-loathing.
David Lindsay walked up and down in the adjoining room, his steps
noiseless on the soft carpet. He was sorely perplexed in mind and
distressed at heart, only certain of two obligations resting upon
him—not to intrude on her privacy, yet not to desert her in her weakness
and distraction. She was but a child, he felt, a child who had grown up
under very peculiar circumstances, so that she must not be judged as
ordinary children or young girls. And what a heavenly child she had
been! How full of love, how free from selfishness! Now she seemed indeed
to have been driven into a state akin to insanity. Had he, her old
playmate, who loved her better than his own life, had any hand in this?
He could not think so. He, with all his honesty of inquiry, could not
see any other way than that they had taken to save her from an odious
marriage, which her religious faith would have condemned even if her own
heart had not revolted against it—a marriage into which she could not
have been compelled, of course, but into which she might have been,
through her pity, persuaded. Now she was safe, at least from that
danger.
Meanwhile, what was now his duty to her?
Not to intrude on her, and not to abandon her, certainly.
But afterwards?
He now remembered all that she had told him, while they sat together on
the steamboat deck, concerning her father’s will, and how, on her
attaining the age of eighteen, or on her marriage, she was to enter upon
the possession of her estate, and the authority of her guardian was to
cease; that this will had been made in Washington city, and recorded in
the office of the Register of Wills.
He determined to go thither and examine the document for himself.
He rapped gently at Gloria’s door.
“What do you want?” she inquired, in smothered tones.
“I am going out for an hour. Shall I send any one to you?”
“No, thanks; I want nothing.”
He turned away and went down stairs and out of the house, and bent his
steps to the City Hall.
On inquiring of the proper officers he obtained a view of the folio
containing the record of the testament he sought. Having read it over,
he thought he saw his way clearly enough towards placing his young bride
in her own house, surrounded by her own servants, and safe from any
annoyance from her late guardian. But he concluded that it would be
better to take a lawyer’s opinion.
He had noticed, as he came along that morning, almost every front
basement on the north side of Louisiana Avenue, opposite the City Hall,
to be the office of some attorney-at-law.
He therefore knew where to go to look for one.
He left the building and crossed the street, but went into at least a
dozen places without finding any one disengaged. At length, however, he
paused before the last and plainest on the block, which bore the sign:
“Patrick McLoughlin, Attorney and Counsellor at Law.”
He entered a shabby little room, where a very young and briefless lawyer
sat at a dusty desk, and seemed to have no heavier labor on hand than
the perusal of the morning paper.
To this young fellow David Lindsay introduced himself, and stated his
case, omitting only two circumstances—that the marriage proposal had
come from the lady herself, and that immediately after the ceremony she
had repulsed him. The knowledge of these unusual facts was, however, not
at all essential to the right understanding of the situation.
The young Irishman, with all the ardor and frankness of his race,
heartily congratulated his client on having so successfully run away
with an heiress; for that was the light in which he viewed the affair.
He made no pretense of being busy, but announced himself ready to attend
Mr. Lindsay at once. They crossed over together to the City Hall, and
went to the Registrar’s office, where McLoughlin read the recorded will,
while David Lindsay stood by. Then he closed the folio with a rap,
clapped his client on the shoulder, and exclaimed:
“That’s all right! Take the lady home to the finest house she possesses,
my dear fellow, and tell the old guardian, if he comes bothering around,
to go to the divil; his consent was not necessary!”
Not very elegant language to couch a lawyer’s opinion in; but McLoughlin
has improved since then, and now you would hardly find a more dignified
man at the Washington bar than he is.
The young lawyer thought he had found a “big bonanza” in this fortunate
young fellow, who had married an heiress, and so he charged him fifty
dollars for his advice. (He would charge five hundred for the same
service now, bless you.)
David Lindsay paid the fee without demur; but he was appalled, it
reduced his funds so alarmingly low. He had left home with only two
hundred dollars—the accumulated savings of ten or twelve years.
Traveling expenses, and clergymen’s and lawyer’s fees had reduced it to
less than a hundred already, and this circumstance warned him that he
must lose no time in stopping expenses at the hotel, but must take
Gloria to her home, while yet he had the means of doing so—for he was
resolved that he would not draw upon her resources.
He took leave of young McLoughlin and walked rapidly towards their
hotel.
He went up stairs to their private parlor and rapped at her door.
“Well?” she said, in a subdued voice.
“Will you come out, dear, and let me speak to you?”
“Yes,” she murmured, in a low tone; and presently she appeared, closed
the door behind her, and sat down on the nearest chair. She did not wait
for him to speak, but, with a dry sob, commenced:
“David Lindsay, I am a lost spirit—an evil spirit. I cannot help that. I
have treated you unpardonably. I cannot help that, either—I——”
“Do not reproach yourself, dear. There is no thought in my heart that
reproaches you,” he answered, gently, as he stood with his back to the
window and with his eyes cast down, so that she should not see the
trouble that he could not entirely banish from his face.
“Ah, but I do and must. I feel how wickedly, yes, how basely I have
acted towards you, David Lindsay, and am still acting, and must still
act; but I cannot help it! I cannot help anything. We must part, David
Lindsay.”
“I know it, dear,” he answered, in as steady tones as he could command,
for he knew her sympathetic nature, and knew how much she would suffer
from compassion if she should see him suffer. “I know we must part. It
would be scarcely natural, scarcely possible, that you should love me,
to live with me. The ceremony of this morning must go for nothing, so
far as I am concerned, but just this—to be a shield and defence about
you, to protect you from your guardian’s suit and from your own heart’s
weakness—that is all. When you are older and stronger, and able to do
without it, the empty ceremony of this morning can be set aside,
annulled—for, Gloria, the marriage rites, so sacred between souls that
are already one, was but an idle and empty ceremony between you and me,
and is good for nothing but a temporary defence to your helplessness. It
has given me a husband’s right to protect you before the world, Gloria,
but I shall use it only as a brother. As a brother, I will escort you to
your own home, Gloria, and establish you there.”
“And then?” she inquired, in a voice scarcely above her breath.
“Then, dear, I will bid you good-bye, when I see you safe.”