AFTER THE WEDDING.
Cora Lander ran down stairs into the parlor, whose frescoed ceiling,
dove-tinted walls and thickly carpeted floors were lighted up for the
first time, and there, standing as it were in the midst of an enchanted
bower, was Seymour, her bridegroom.
“Great Heavens, how beautiful you are!” he exclaimed, coming forward
with both hands extended. “So radiant and so lovely, all for me!”
She placed her two gloved hands in his, and stood before him blushing
and with downcast eyes. Her hands shook and quivered in his like young
birds caught among the roses.
“Oh! Seymour, _do_ you love me? Shall this last through our whole
lives?”
“So long as we live, Cora Lander, I will love you for better for worse,
in good or evil, in holiness or sin. You and I belong to each other.
_Nothing but death shall part us, so help me God._”
Why did her hands cease their happy flutter and grow cold in his clasp?
What was it that sent the blood from her face and neck till they were
white as the pearls on her bosom?
“Why, love, how white you are!”
“Your love is savage, Seymour. It half frightens me.”
“My love frighten you! What have I said, dearest, only that I would love
you forever and ever?”
“But you spoke sternly.”
“Solemnly, sweet one, not sternly.”
“I am very foolish to let the tone of your voice wound me so.”
“Yes, darling; but it is over now. There, there, lean your head on my
shoulder, so; and let me kiss the roses back to these lips.”
They sat down on a sofa near the window. Her lips had got back their
redness; her cheek, warm with a flush of happiness, lay close to his.
She half clouded him with her bridal veil.
“And you, Cora, will it be always thus with you?” he whispered. “Will my
love content you forever?”
“It contents me now, Seymour—I am supremely happy—nothing comes between
my heart and yours. In this place we can be happier than mortals ever
were before.”
“And is this to be our home?” said Seymour, glancing around the
sumptuous room.
“Yes, it is our home; I give it to you. Thank Heaven, my love does not
come empty handed!”
Seymour gently released her from his arm, and moving to a window, looked
out. The little garden in front was flooded with moonlight; drops from
the fountain were shooting through it in bright flashes and raining back
upon the flowers, which repaid them with perfume. It was indeed a little
Paradise that his bride had created for him. There every sense could be
gratified. The most refined idea of beauty must be satiated in a place
like that—a creation of love itself.
Was he satisfied? I think not. This man, with all his faults—and he had
more than the reader yet knows of—was proud in his way, and it is in the
nature of proud men, good or bad, to give benefits to the women they
love; to receive them entirely wounds all sense of manhood. In the first
abandon of her love, Cora had felt great pleasure in the idea of
bestowing benefits on the man who was to be her husband. In her
short-sighted egotism, she expected every new benefit conferred on him
to add another link to the chain of flowers which was to bind their
lives together. She was generous to him, because at that time, she
considered his destiny as her own, and it was simply being generous to
herself. She made no calculation for change, either in herself or him.
The rash, impetuous passion that carried her selfish nature out of
itself she really believed would last forever. It pleased her to be
munificent with him—to make his life one dream of Paradise was her
ambition. But it was to be a Paradise she was to give him and share with
him.
Did she expect gratitude for this or a greater harvest of affection?
Yes, in simple truth, this was what lay in her heart. With all her
ability, her craft and daring, the young girl sitting there in her
bridal dress knew little of human nature, or she would not have
attempted to humiliate the man she loved with obligations with which it
was his place to endow her. From every point of earth she, with her
money, had gathered materials of enjoyment for him, exulting in the
power of thus proving her love. The result was that he stood there by
the window, moody, and with a clouded brow. Was he, too, an appendage?
Did she wish to overshadow him with her wealth—crush him down with her
munificence?
She came to the window where he stood and laid her hand on his shoulder.
“You look sad, darling. Why is it? I expected to see you all joy.”
“And so I am, dearest girl. Why should you think otherwise? No woman
ever gave her pet macaw a more glittering cage.”
He spoke with something of bitterness. She had been too lavish of her
superior gifts, and he felt it.
“You have taken a dislike to my house—our house—and I—I thought it so
beautiful,” she said with tears in her eyes.
She was keenly disappointed. After all, objects of material beauty are
very uncertain things when we depend on them to perfect our happiness.
He looked down upon her and relented. Other and deeper causes of regret
lay in his heart; but he crowded them back and allowed all the warm
tenderness of his love to answer that tearful look.
“It is beautiful,” he said, “but how can I think of that with you by my
side? Come closer to the window, love, and let us watch for the man who
will make you my wife.”
She drew close to his side and allowed him to circle her with his arm as
they stood looking out upon the moonlight.
“How lovely and how still it is,” she said; “we can almost hear the
bell-like tinkle of those water drops as they fall back into the
fountain. Softer and sweeter music never heralded in a wedding. Will you
accept the omen, Seymour?”
“I can accept nothing that does not promise happiness with you so close
to my heart, Cora.”
A sharp click of the iron latch startled them both. The gate fell to
with a clang that struck those two young creatures like a blow. Then,
like a spectre, came the dark form of the clergyman, sweeping the
moonlight from the flowers with its shadow.
“He is coming,” whispered Cora, chilled, she knew not why.
Seymour did not speak, but be strained her to his bosom so violently
that she gasped for breath.
“Have you no fear of me—no questions to ask? It is not too late.”
“Fear of you,” she answered, clinging to him tenderly when his arm would
have released her. “Fear of you—I should as soon fear the flowers around
that fountain. Questions—why should I ask questions just as our two
lives are trembling together? Hark, he is ringing the bell!”
They left the window and sat down upon the couch, waiting for the
clergyman. He came in, after some delay, smiling blandly and rubbing his
white hands over each other, while he paused on the threshold and cast a
wandering glance over the room. Then his observation fell on the young
couple. He moved forward and greeted them cordially.
“Then it is to be a wedding, after all,” he said, glancing at the
costume of the bride. “I was not prepared for that.”
“No,” said Cora, blushing under his gaze. “There will be no one present
but ourselves.”
The minister smiled, glanced at her a second time, with a look that
bespoke as much admiration as clerical eyes are ever permitted to
express, and answered still more blandly:
“And the witnesses, dear lady—we must have witnesses.”
The young people looked at each other in dismay.
“Alice Ruess might do for one,” said Cora, in a low voice. “But the
other?”
“My boy, Brian Nolan; I wish I had brought him; he might be of use, he
is sufficiently intelligent.”
“Is he trustworthy?” asked Cora, in a whisper.
“I would trust him with a secret that held my life, if needful,”
answered Seymour. “But we have no one to send for him.”
“No,” said Cora. “But the Frenchman—he will do.”
A few minutes after, Alice Ruess and Lubin came into the room and stood
near the couple while they were married.
Then the clergyman kissed the bride on her burning cheek, shook hands
with Seymour, pledged them in a glass of amber-hued wine, and went away
for richer than he had expected to become that night, leaving a wedding
certificate behind, and any amount of warm congratulations. The name of
the bride written on that certificate was Virginia Cora Lander, and the
bridegroom’s name was written out in full, Alfred Nolan Seymour.
Cora scarcely stopped to read the document, but put it in her bosom,
afraid to trust it away from her own heart, so precious did it seem to
her.
Seymour did not think of the fact then, but he afterward had cause to
remember it. The clergyman was an utter stranger to him. Alice Ruess had
employed a friend to engage him, and so he came personally unknown to
them all. His name was signed to the certificate, but no one cared to
examine that just as the man was going away.
That little supper had been served in the dining-room, and Lubin, the
French cook, was in an ecstasy of impatience lest his favorite dishes
would be spoiled. The clergyman had been a little late, having met with
some difficulty about finding the house. Then he had lingered awhile
after the ceremony, charmed by the sprightliness and beauty of the
bride, lured, as even clergymen will be sometimes, by the sparkle and
flavor of rare wines, taken in moderation, and therefore slowly.
Thus it happened that Lubin’s supper was put back, and Lubin himself
almost driven to despair. He stood ready to serve out his own rich
viands—for, to secure that pleasure, he was willing to give up any
amount of dignity—waiting for some signal of the clergyman’s departure.
But, as I have said, the good man was in no haste, and Lubin had plenty
of time to survey the round table, rich with gold and silver plate,
glittering with cut crystal and crowned by a swelling mound of flowers
covered by a glass shade, so transparent that it seemed a film of woven
air. Thus the poor fellow stood with a snow-white vest contrasting with
his black clothes, kid gloves, spotless as the vest, half broken-hearted
and ready to cry with vexation. The chandelier over his head was one
blaze of gas; the ceiling to which it hung was aglow with flowers, that
seemed to burst into fresh bloom under that blaze of light and open out
new folds of beauty. A carpet, thick and soft as forest turf spread away
from the table and met the edges of the room in a heavy rope of flowers
that coiled all around it, chaining in a broad medallion in the centre.
All this was new, and thus had a claim on the Frenchman’s imagination;
but he had neither heart nor eye for anything but the dishes left under
black Hagar’s care, which he knew were losing something of their
perfection every instant. At last he heard the front door close, and
Alice came into the dining-room to say that Madame and Monsieur were
ready for supper.
Into this blaze of lights and glory of flowers the young couple came and
seated themselves at their first home repast. In his travels, once,
Seymour had passed through a forest twenty miles deep, haunted with
birds and full of wild deer that had never heard the crack of a hunter’s
gun. In the very heart of this forest, close by the corduroy road, stood
a log cabin, so newly built that tufts of hemlock and pine still clung
to the green bark of the logs. Two or three acres of land were cleared
around this rude dwelling, but a great walnut tree had been left to
shelter it, and morning glories were already creeping toward its tiny
windows. The door of this dwelling was open as he rode by, and at a
small table, covered with a cloth white as snow, he saw a young couple
eating bread and milk. Seymour thought of that picture and sighed as he
sat down to the exquisite little supper with his wife.