THE QUESTION OF MARRIAGE.
Maria reached London in the early days of June. Her voyage had been
uneventful, and though long, not unpleasant. Still she was glad to feel
the earth beneath her feet, and the stir of trafficking humanity around
her. They landed late in the afternoon and she remained with the Gordons
all night, but early the following morning the colonel took her to
Bloomsbury. Mr. Semple's house was not difficult to find; it was the
largest in the fine square, an imposing mansion of red brick with a wide
flight of stone steps leading to its main entrance. This entrance
impressed Maria very much. It was so ample and so handsome.
"I think, indeed," said the Colonel to her, "two sedan chairs could
easily be taken in, or out, at the same time."
Her welcome, if not effusive, was full of kindness and interest; she was
brought at once to the sunny parlor at the back of the house where her
father and stepmother were breakfasting, and nothing could have been
more properly affectionate than the latter's greeting. And although she
had breakfasted with the Gordons, she found it pleasant enough to sit
down beside her father and talk of the voyage and the war, and the
conditions of life in America. He was obviously both astonished and
delighted with his daughter; her beauty was so great, her manner so
charming, her conversation so full of clever observations, that he felt
her to be a personal credit. "There are very few young girls so
perfectly formed, so admirably finished," he said to himself; and he
rose and walked loftily about the room, proudly aware of the piquant
loveliness and intelligence of the girl who called him father. The word
sounded well in his ears, and even touched his heart; and she herself
was a crowning grace to his splendid habitation. And for her, and for
all her beauties and graces and accomplishments, he took the entire
credit. She was his daughter, as much his property as his wife, or his
house, or his purse.
This appropriation of herself did not then displease Maria. She was
longing to be loved, longing to be cared for and protected. And she
loved her father, and felt that she could easily love him a great deal
more. His appearance invited this feeling. He was a strikingly handsome
man, though touching fifty years of age, tall and erect like her
grandfather, but with a manner much more haughty and dictatorial. He was
dressed in a dark blue cloth coat lined with white satin and ornamented
with large gilt buttons; his long vest and breeches were of black satin,
his stockings of black silk, and his low shoes clasped with gold
latches. He wore his own hair combed back from his large ruddy face and
tied behind with a black ribbon.
His new wife was very suitable to him. She was thirty-eight years old
and distinctly handsome, tall and fair, rather highly colored, and
dressed with great care in a morning robe of Indian silk. She was very
cheerful and composed, had fine health, lived in the unruffled
atmosphere of her interests, and had no nerves worth speaking of--a nice
woman apparently, who would always behave as nice women were then taught
to behave. And yet there were within her elements much at variance with
that habitual subservience she showed her husband. Maria was not long in
discovering that, though she spoke little and never boasted, she got all
she wished to get and did all she wished to do.
After Mr. Semple had gone to business she took Maria to the rooms
prepared for her. They were light and airy and prettily furnished, and
Mrs. Semple pointed out particularly the little sitting-room attached.
It contained a small library of books which are now classic, a spinnet
for practice, maps and globes, and a convenient desk furnished with all
the necessary implements for writing or correspondence.
Maria had fully resolved not to be forced into any kind of study, but as
she stood listening to her stepmother's plans and explanations she
changed her mind. She resolved rather to insist on the finest teachers
London could furnish. She would perfect herself in music and singing;
she would enlarge her knowledge and accomplishments in every direction,
and all this that she might astonish and please Lord Medway when he came
for her. That he would do so she never doubted; and he could not doubt
_her_ love when he saw and heard what she had done to make herself more
worthy of him.
But this incitement she kept to herself. She permitted her father and
stepmother to believe that the fulfilling of their desires was her sole
motive, and this beautiful obedience gave her much liberty in other
directions. So the weeks and months went past very pleasantly. She had
an Italian singing master and a French dancing master, Kalkbrenner gave
her music lessons, Madame Jermyn taught her embroidery and lace, and two
hours every day were spent in the study of history and geography, and
her much neglected grammar. It was all pleasant enough; every master or
mistress brought in a fresh element, a little gossip, a different
glimpse of the great city in which they all lived. And the preparation
of her studies and the practice of her music gave her almost unbounded
control of her time. If things were not agreeable down stairs her study
was a safe retreat, and she began to take off their shelves the books
provided for her amusement and instruction, and to make friends of them
and become familiar with their thoughts and opinions.
The evenings were often spent at the theatre or opera, and still more
frequently at Vauxhall or Ranelagh gardens, and at the latter places she
was always sure of a personal triumph. Her beauty was so remarkable and
so admirably set off by her generally fine toilets that she quickly
became a noted visitor. Sir Horace Walpole had called her on one
occasion "The American Beauty," and the sobriquet clung like a perfume
to her. When the Semples had a box and a supper in the rotunda the most
noble and fashionable of the young bloods hung round it, paraded past
it, or when possible took a box in such close proximity that their
toasts to "The Divine American" could be distinctly or indistinctly
heard. Both Mr. and Mrs. Semple were proud of this notoriety. It was
quite in keeping with the social _elat_ of the age that every glass
should be raised when they entered their box at the theatre or opera;
quite honorable and flattering to walk between the admiring beaux who
watched their entry into the gardens. Maria gave them distinction,
exhilarating notice and attention. She was spoken of in the papers as
"the lovely Miss Semple, the beautiful daughter of our new collector,"
and her _debut_ at the next spring functions of the Court was
confidently predicted.
The break in this generally agreeable life came, of course, through a
man's selfish desires, dignified with the name of love. Mrs. Semple had
a cousin who was largely engaged in the Mediterranean trade--then
entirely in English hands--and when Maria had been about eighteen months
in London he returned to that city after a sojourn in Turkey and the
Greek islands of nearly three years. He had been named at intervals to
Maria, but his existence had made no impression upon her, and she was
astonished on coming to the dinner table one day to meet him there. The
instinct of conquest was immediately aroused; she smiled and he was
subdued. The man who had snubbed Turkish bashaws and won concessions
from piratical beys in Tunis and Algiers was suddenly afraid of a woman.
He might have run away, but he did not; he was under a spell, and he
went with her to the opera, and became her willing slave thereafter.
Now during her residence in London, Maria had had many admirers; some
she had frowned away, some her father had bowed out, but Richard Spencer
was a very different man to be reckoned with. He was Mrs. Semple's
cousin, and Mrs. Semple was strongly attached to every member of her
family. Cousin Richard's suit was advocated, pressed, even insisted upon
by her. He was present at every meal and went with them to every
entertainment, and the generality of Maria's admirers understood that he
was her accepted lover.
In fact, this relationship was speedily assumed by the whole Semple
household, and before the man had even had the courage to ask her to be
his wife she was made to understand that her marriage to Cousin Richard
was a consummation certain and inevitable. Of course she rebelled,
treating the supposition at first as an absurdity, and, when this
attitude was resented and punished, as an impossibility.
The affair soon became complicated with business relations and important
money interests, Mr. Semple becoming a silent partner in the gigantic
ventures of the Spencer Company. He had always felt, even in Maria's
social triumphs, a proprietary share; she was his daughter, he could
give or refuse her society to all who asked it. She had never denied his
power to dismiss all the pretenders to her favor that had as yet asked
it. He considered himself to have an equal right to grant her hand to
the suitor he thought proper for her.
And as his interests became more and more associated with Mr. Spencer's
he became more and more positive in Mr. Spencer's favor. There was
little need then for Mrs. Semple's diplomacies. He had "taken the
matter in his own hands" he said, "and he should carry it through."
For some time Maria did not really believe that her father and
stepmother were in earnest, but on her twentieth birthday the position
was made painfully clear, for when she came to the breakfast table her
father kissed her, an unusual token of affection, and put into her hand
an order on his banker for a large sum of money.
"It is for your wedding clothes, Maria," he said, "and I wish you to
have the richest and best of everything. Such jewels as I think
necessary I will buy for you myself. Our relatives and friends will dine
with you to-day and I shall announce your engagement."
"But father!" she exclaimed, "I do not want to marry. Let me return this
money. Indeed, I cannot spend it for wedding clothes. The idea is so
absurd! I do not want to marry."
"Maria, you are twenty years old this twenty-fifth of November. It is
time you settled yourself. Mr. Spencer will have his new house ready by
the end of next June. As nearly as I can tell, your marriage to him will
take place on the twenty-ninth of June. Your mother thinks that with the
help of needlewomen your clothing can be finished by that time."
"I told Mr. Spencer a month ago that I would not marry him."
"All right; girls always say such things. It appears modest, and you
have a certain privilege in this respect. But I advise you not to carry
such pretty affectations too far."
"Father, I do not love Mr. Spencer."
"He loves you, that is the necessary point. It is not proper, it is not
requisite that a girl should take love into her consideration. I have
chosen for you a good husband, a man who will probably be Lord Mayor of
London within a few years, and the prospect of such an honor ought to
content you."
It is difficult for an American girl at this time to conceive of the
situation of the daughters of England in the year 1782. The law gave
them absolutely into their father's power until they were twenty-one
years old; and the law was stupendously strengthened and upheld by
universal public approval, and by barriers of social limitations that
few women had the daring to cross. Maria was environed by influences
that all made for her total subjection to her parent's will, and at this
time she ventured no further remark. But her whole nature was insurgent,
and she mentally promised herself that neither on the twenty-ninth of
June nor on any other day that followed it would she marry Richard
Spencer.
After breakfast she went to her room to consider her position, and no
one prevented her withdrawal.
"It is the best thing she can do," said Mr. Semple to his wife. "A
little reflection will show her the hopeless folly of resistance to my
commands."
"Her behavior is not flattering to Richard."
"Richard has more sense than to notice it. He said to me that 'there was
always a little chaffering before a good bargain.' He understands
women."
"Maria has been brought up badly. She has dangerous ideas about the
claims and privileges and personal rights of women."
"Balderdash! Claims of women, indeed! Give them the least power, and
they would stake the world away for a whim. See that she dresses herself
properly for dinner. I have told her I shall then announce her
engagement, and in the midst of all our relatives and friends she will
not dare to deny it."
In a great measure Mr. Semple was correct. Maria was not ready to deny
it, nor did she think the relatives and friends had anything to do with
her private affairs. She made no answer whatever to her father's notice
of her approaching marriage, and the congratulations of the company fell
upon her consciousness like snowflakes upon a stone wall. They meant
nothing at all to her.
The day following Mrs. Semple went to buy the lawn and linen and lace
necessary for the wedding garments. Maria would not accompany her; her
stepmother complained and Maria was severely reprimanded, and for a few
days thoroughly frightened. But a constant succession of such scenes
blunted her sense of fear. She remembered her grandfather's brave words,
"Be strong and of good courage," and gradually gathered herself together
for the struggle she saw to be inevitable. To break her promise to Lord
Medway! That was a thing she never would do! No, not even the law of
England should make her utter words false to every true feeling she had.
And day by day this resolve grew stronger, as day by day it was
confronted by a trial she hardly dared to contemplate.
There was no one to whom she could go for advice or sympathy. Mrs.
Gordon was in Scotland, where her husband had an estate, and she had no
other intimate friend. But at the worst, it was only another year and
then she would be her own mistress and Ernest Medway would come and
marry her. Of this result she never had one doubt. True, she heard very
little from him; but if not one word had come to assure her she would
still have been confident that he would keep his word, if alive to do
so. Letter-writing was not then the easily practised relief it is now,
and she knew Lord Medway disliked it. Yet she was not without even these
evidences of his remembrance, and considering the conditions of the
country in which they had been written, the great distance between them,
the difficulty of getting letters to New York and the uncertainty of
getting letters from New York to England, these evidences of his
affection had been fairly numerous. All of them had come enclosed in her
Uncle Neil's letters, and without mention or explanation, for Neil was
sympathetically cautious and did not know what effect they might have on
the life of Maria, though he did not know _his_ letters were sure to be
inquired after and read by her parents.
They were intensely symbolic of a man who preferred to _do_ rather than
to _say_, and are fairly represented by the three quoted:
* * * * *
"SWEETEST MARIA: Have you forgiven your adoring lover?
ERNEST."
* * * * *
"MY LITTLE DARLING: I have been wounded. I have been ill with fever; but
no pain is like the pain of living away from you.
ERNEST."
* * * * *
"STAR OF MY LIFE: I have counted the days until the twenty-fifth of
November; they are two hundred and fifty-five. Every day I come nearer
to you, my adorable Maria.
ERNEST."
* * * * *
This last letter was dated March the fourteenth, and with it lying next
her heart, was it likely she would consent to or even be compelled to
marry Richard Spencer? She smiled a positive denial of such a
supposition. But for all that, the preparations went on with a stubborn
persistence that would have dismayed a weaker spirit. The plans for
furnishing the Spencer house, the patterns of the table silver, all the
little items of the new life proposed for her were as a matter of duty
submitted to her taste or judgment. She was always stolidly indifferent,
and her answer was invariably the same, "I do not care. It is nothing to
me." Then Mr. Semple would answer with cold authority, "You have
excellent taste, Elizabeth. Make the selection you think best for
Maria."
Mr. Spencer's method was entirely different. He treated Maria's
apathetic unconcern with constant good nature, pretended to believe it
maidenly modesty, and under all circumstances refused to understand or
appropriate her evident dislike. But his cousin saw the angry sparkle in
his black eyes, and to her he had once permitted himself to say, "I am
bearing _now_, Elizabeth. When she is Mrs. Spencer it will be her turn
to bear." And Elizabeth did not think it necessary to repeat the veiled
threat to Maria's father.
Medway's last letter, dated March the fourteenth, did not reach Maria
until May the first. On the morning of that day she had been told by
Mrs. Semple to dress and accompany her to Bond Street.
"We are going to choose your wedding dress," she said, "and I do hope,
Maria, you will take some interest in it. I have spoken to Madame Delamy
about the fashion and trimmings, and your father says I am to spare no
expense."
"I will not have anything to do in choosing a wedding dress. I will not
wear it if it is made."
"I think it is high time you stopped such outrageous insults to your
intended husband, your father and myself. I am astonished your father
endures them. Many parents would consider you insane and put you under
restraint."
"I can hardly be under greater restraint," answered Maria calmly, but
there was a cold, sick terror at her heart. Nevertheless she refused to
take any part in the choosing of the wedding dress, and Mrs. Semple went
alone to make the selection.
But Maria was at last afraid. "Under restraint!" She could not get the
words out of her consciousness. Surely her dear grandfather had had some
prescience of this grave dilemma when he told her if she was not treated
right to come back to him. But how was she to manage a return to New
York? Women then did not travel, could not travel, alone. No ships would
take her without companions or authority. She did not know the first of
the many steps necessary, she had no money. She was, in fact, quite in
the position of a little child left to its own helplessness in a great
city. The Gordons would be likely to come to London before the winter,
but until then she could find neither ways nor means for a return to New
York. All she could do was to take day by day the steps that
circumstances rendered imperative.
The buying of the wedding dress brought things so terribly close to her
that she finally resolved to tell her father and stepmother of her
engagement to Lord Medway. "I will take the first opportunity," she said
to herself, and the opportunity came that night. Mr. Spencer was not
present. They dined alone, and Mr. Semple was indulging one of those
tempers which made him, as his father had said to Neil, "gey ill to live
with." He had been told of Maria's behavior about the wedding dress, and
the thundery aspect of his countenance during the meal found speech as
soon as the table was cleared and they were alone. He turned almost
savagely to his daughter and asked in a voice of low intensity:
"What do you mean, Miss, by your perverse temper? Why did you not go
with your mother to choose your wedding dress?"
"Because it is not my wedding dress, sir. I have told you for many weeks
that I will not marry Mr. Spencer;" then with a sudden access of
courage, _"and I will not_. I am the promised wife of Lord Medway."
Mr. Semple laughed, and then asked scornfully, "And pray, who is Lord
Medway?"
"He is my lover; my husband on the twenty-ninth of next November."
All the passion and pride of a lifetime glowed in the girl's face. Her
voice was clear and firm, and at that hour she was not a bit afraid. "I
will tell you about him," she continued, and her attitude had in those
few minutes so far dominated her audience that she obtained the hearing
she might otherwise not have gained. Rapidly, but with singular dramatic
power, she related the story of her life in New York--her friendship
with Agnes Bradley, the attraction between herself and Harry Bradley,
his arrest, trial and death sentence, Lord Medway's interference and her
own engagement, her subsequent intimacy with the man she had promised to
marry, and the love which had sprung up in her heart for him.
"And I will not break my word, not a letter of it," she said in
conclusion.
"If there was any truth in this story," answered her father, "who cares
for a woman's promises in love matters? They are not worth the breath
that made them."
"My promise to Lord Medway, father, rests on my honor. I could give him
no security but my word. I must keep my word."
"A woman's honor! A woman's word to a lover! Pshaw! Let us hear no more
of such rant. What do you think of this extraordinary story, Elizabeth?"
"I think it is a dream, a fabrication. Maria has imagined it. Who knows
Lord Medway? I never heard tell of such a person."
"Nevertheless, he will come for me on the twenty-fifth of November,"
said Maria.
"Long before that time you will be Mrs. Richard Spencer," answered her
father.
"I declare to you, father, I will not. You may carry me to the altar,
that is as far as you can go; you cannot make me speak. I will not say
one word that makes me Richard Spencer's wife. I entreat you not to
force such a trial on me. It will make me the town's talk, you also."
"Do not dare to consider me as a part of such a mad scene. Go to your
room at once, before I--before I make you."
She fled before his passion, and terrified and breathless locked the
door upon her sorrow. But she was not conquered. In fact, her resolution
had gained an invincible strength by the mere fact of its utterance.
Words had given it substance, form, even life, and she felt that now she
would give her own life rather than relinquish her resolve.
In reality her confidence did her case no good. Mr. Semple easily
adopted the opinion of his wife that Maria had invented the story to
defer what she could not break off. "And you know, Alexander," she
added, "those Gordons will be back before the date she has fixed this
pretended lover to appear, and in my opinion they are capable of
encouraging Maria to all lengths against your lawful authority. As for
myself, I am sure Mrs. Gordon disliked me on sight, I know I disliked
her, and Maria was rebellious the whole time they were in London. I
wonder Richard does not break off the wedding, late as it is."
"I should not permit him to do so, even if he felt inclined. But he is
as resolute as myself. Why, Elizabeth, we two men should be the
laughing-stock of the town for a twelvemonth if we allowed a chit of a
girl to master us. It is unthinkable. Go on with the necessary
preparations. The Spencers living in Durham and in Kendal must be
notified at once. The greater the company present the more impossible it
will be for her to carry out her absurd threat. And even if she will not
speak, silence gives consent. I shall tell the clergyman to proceed."
After this there were no more pretenses of any kind. Maria's reluctance
to her marriage was openly acknowledged to the household, and her
disobedience complained of and regretted. Among the two men-servants and
three maids there was not one who sympathized with her. The men were
married and had daughters, from whom they expected implicit obedience.
The women wondered what the young mistress wanted: "A man with such
black eyes and nice, curly hair," said the cook, "any proper girl would
like; so free with his jokes and his money, too; six foot tall, and well
set up as ever I saw a man. And the fine house he is giving her, and the
fine things of all kinds he sends her! Oh, she's a proud, set-up little
thing as ever came my way!" These remarks and many more of the same kind
from the powers in the kitchen indicated the sentiment of the whole
house, and Maria felt the spirit of opposition to her, though it was not
expressed.
She could only endure it and affect not to notice what was beyond her
power to prevent. But she wrote to her Uncle Neil and desired him to see
Lord Medway and tell him exactly how she was situated. In this letter
she declared in the most positive manner her resolve not to marry Mr.
Spencer, and described the uneasiness which her stepmother's remark
about "restraint" had caused her. And this letter, with one to Mrs.
Gordon, were the only outside influences she had any power to reach.
At length the twenty-eighth day of June arrived. The Spencer house was
filled with relatives from the Northern and Midland countries, and in
Maria's home the wedding feast was already prepared. A huge wedding cake
was standing on the sideboard, and in the middle of the afternoon her
wedding dress came home. Mrs. Semple brought it herself to Maria and
spread out its shimmering widths of heavy white satin and the costly
lace to be worn with it.
"It is sure to fit you, Maria," she said. "Madame Delamy made it from
your gray cloth dress, which you know is perfect every way. Will you try
it on? I will help you."
"No, thank you. I would as willingly try my shroud on."
"I think you are very selfish and unkind. You know that I am not well;
indeed, I feel scarcely able to bear the fatigue of the ceremony, and
you are turning what ought to be a pleasure to your father and every one
else into a fear and a weariness."
She did not answer her stepmother, but in the hurry of preparations
going on down stairs she sought her father and found him resting in the
freshly decorated drawing-room. He was sitting with closed eyes and
evidently trying to sleep. She stood a little way from him, and with
many bitter tears made her final appeal. "Say I am ill, father, for
indeed I am, and stop this useless preparation. It is all for
disappointment and sorrow."
He listened without denial or interruption to her words, but when she
ceased in a passion of weeping he answered, "There is no turning back
and there is no delay, Maria. You are very silly to cry over the
inevitable, especially when both my love and wisdom decide that the
inevitable is good for you. You will certainly be married to Richard
Spencer to-morrow morning. Prepare yourself for ten o'clock. I shall
come to your study for you at five minutes before ten. At nine o'clock
Madame Delamy will send two women to arrange your dress. See that you
are ready in time. Good night."
There was nothing now to be done in the way of prevention, and a dull,
sullen anger took the place of entreaty in Maria's mind. "If they will
set my back to the wall, they shall see I can fight," she thought, as
she wretchedly took her way to her room. The beauteous gown was shining
on her bed, and she passionately tossed it aside and lay down and fell
asleep. When she awoke it was morning, a gusty, rainy morning with
glints of sunshine between the showers. She was greatly depressed, and
not a little frightened. What she had to do she determined to do, but
oh! what would come after it? Then she was shocked to find that the
scene she was resolved to enact, though gone over so often in her mind,
slipped away from her consciousness whenever she tried to recall or
arrange it. For a few minutes she was in a mood to be driven against her
will, and she fully realized this condition. "I must be strong and of
good courage," she whispered. "I must cease thinking and planning. I
must leave this thing to be done till the moment comes to do it. I am
only wasting my strength."
Fortunately, she was continually interrupted. Coffee was sent to her
room. Then the hairdresser arrived, and the women to robe her for the
ceremony. She was quite passive in their hands, and when her father
appeared, ready to answer his "Come, Maria."
The parlors were crowded with the Spencers and their friends, and
congratulations sounded fitfully in her ears as carriage after carriage
rolled away to St. Margaret's Church. Mr. Semple and Maria were in the
last coach, and his wife and the bridegroom in the one immediately
before them. So that when they arrived at the church, the company were
already grouped around the communion railing.
Maria felt like a soul in a bad dream; she was just aware when she left
the carriage that it was raining heavily, and that her father took her
arm and sharply bid her to "lift her wedding dress from the plashy
pavement." She made a motion with her hand, but failed to grasp it, and
then she was walking up the gloomy aisle, she was at the rail, the
clergyman was standing before her, the bridegroom at her side, the
company all about her. There was prayer, and she felt the pressure of
her father's hand force her to her knees; and then there was a constant
murmur of voices, and a spell like that which held her during her last
interview with Lord Medway was upon her. But suddenly she remembered
this fateful apathy, and the memory was like movement in a nightmare.
The instant she recognized it the influence was broken and she was
almost painfully conscious of Richard Spencer's affirmative:
"I will."
She knew then what was coming and what she had to do, and those who
watched her saw the girl lift herself erect and listen to the priest
asking those solemnly momentous questions which were to bind her forever
to obey Richard Spencer, to love and honor him, and in sickness and
health, forsaking all others, keep unto him as long as she lived. She
had but to say two words and her promise would be broken, her lover lost
and her life made wretched beyond hope.
"But I will never say them!" and this passionate assurance to her soul
gave her all the strength she needed. When the clergyman stopped
speaking she looked straight into his face and in a voice low, but
perfectly distinct, answered:
"I will not."
There was a moment's startled pause. Her father's voice broke it:
"Go on, sir."
But before this was possible Maria continued:
"I am the promised wife of another man. I do not love this man. I will
not marry him."
Her eyes, full of pitiful entreaty, held the clergyman's eyes. He looked
steadily at the company and said, "God's law and the laws of this realm
forbid this marriage until such time as the truth of this allegation be
tried." And with these words he walked to the altar, laid the Book of
Common Prayer upon it, and then disappeared in the vestry.
Before he did so, however, there was a shrill, sharp cry of mortal pain,
and Mrs. Semple was barely saved by her husband's promptitude from
falling prone on the marble aisle before the chancel. Immediately all
was confusion. The sick woman was carried insensible to her coach. Mr.
Spencer took his sobbing sister on his arm, and the guests broke up into
couples. With hurrying feet, amazed, ashamed, all talking together, they
sought the vehicles that were to carry them away from a scene so painful
and so unexpected. Maria sat down in the nearest pew and waited to see
what would happen. She heard carriage after carriage roll away, and then
realized that every one had deserted her.
In about twenty minutes the sexton began to close the church, and she
asked him, "Has nobody waited for me?"
"No, miss, you be here alone." Then she took a ring from her finger and
offered it to him: "Get me a closed carriage and I will give you this
ring," she said, but he answered:
"Nay, I want no ring from a little lass in trouble. I'll get the
carriage, and you may drop into the church some better day to pay me."
She went back home in the midst of a thunderstorm. The day was darkened,
the rain driven furiously by the wind, and yet when she reached her
father's house the front entrance stood open and there was neither men
nor women servants in sight. She ran swiftly to her room, locked the
door and sank into a chair, spent with fear and sick with apprehension.
What had happened? What would be done to her? "Oh, to be back in New
York!" she cried. "Nobody there would force a poor girl into misery and
make a prayer over it, and a feast about it."
A sudden movement of her head showed her Maria Semple in her wedding
dress. She turned herself quickly from the glass, and with frantic haste
unfastened the gown and hung it up. All the trinkets in which they had
dressed her were as quickly removed, and she was not satisfied until she
had cast off every symbol of the miserably frustrated marriage. But as
hour after hour passed and no one came near her she became sick with
terror, and she was also faint with hunger and thirst. Something must be
ventured, some one must be seen; she felt that she would lose
consciousness if she was left alone much longer.
After repeatedly ringing her bell, it was answered by one of the women.
"I want some tea, Mary, and some meat and bread. What is the matter with
every one?"
"The doctors do say as Mrs. Semple is dying, and the master is like a
man out of his mind." The woman spoke with an air of distinct
displeasure, if not dislike, but she brought the food and tea to Maria,
and without further speech left her to consider what she had been told.
Oh, how long were the gloomy hours of the day! How much longer those of
the terrible night! The very atmosphere was full of pain and fear;
lights were passing up and down, and footsteps and inarticulate
movements, all indicating the great struggle between life and death. And
Maria lay dressed upon her bed, sleepless, listening and watching, and
seeing always in the dim rushlight that white shimmering gown splashed
with rain, and hanging limply by one sleeve. It grew frightful to her,
threatening, uncanny, and she finally tore it angrily down and flung it
into a closet.
[Illustration: MARIA LAY DRESSED UPON HER BED.]
But the weariest suspense comes to some end finally, and just as dawn
broke there was a sudden change. The terror and the suffering were over;
peace stole through every room in the house, for a man child was born to
the house of Semple.