BEFORE THE BRIDAL.
There was a fresh grave made in the churchyard, and another chair
vacant at the cottage, when Maddy was at last alone. Unfettered by care
and anxiety for sick ones, her aching heart was free to go out after
the loved ones over the sea, go to the elm-shaded mansion she had heard
described so often, and where now two brides were busy with their
preparations for the bridal hurrying on so fast. Since the letter read
in the smoky, October woods, Maddy had not heard from Guy directly,
though Lucy had written since, a few brief lines, telling how happy she
was, how strong she was growing, and how much like himself Guy was
becoming. Maddy had been less than a woman if the last intelligence had
failed to affect her unpleasantly. She did not wish Guy to regret his
decision; but to be forgotten so soon after so strong protestations of
affection, was a little mortifying, and Maddy’s heart throbbed
painfully as she read the letter, half hoping it might prove the last
she should receive from Lucy Atherstone. Guy had left no orders for any
changes to be made at Aikenside; but Agnes, who was largely imbued with
a love of bustle and repair, had insisted that at least the suite of
rooms intended for the bride should be thoroughly renovated with new
paper and paint, carpets and furniture. This plan Mrs. Noah opposed,
for she guessed how little Guy would care for the change; but Agnes was
resolved, and as she had great faith in Maddy’s taste, she insisted
that she should go to Aikenside, and pass her judgment upon the
improvements. It would do her good, she said—little dreaming how much
it cost Maddy to comply with her wishes, or how fearfully the poor,
crushed heart ached, as Maddy went through the handsome rooms fitted up
for Guy’s young bride; but Mrs. Noah guessed it all, pitying so much
the white-faced girl, whose deep mourning robes told the loss of dear
ones by death; but gave no token of that great loss, tenfold worse than
death.
“It was wicked in her to fetch you here,” she said to Maddy, one day
when in Lucy’s room she found her sitting upon the floor, with her head
bowed down upon the window sill. “But law, she’s a triflin’ thing, and
didn’t know ’twould kill you, poor child, poor Maddy!” and Mrs. Noah
laid her hand kindly on Maddy’s hair. “Maybe you’d better go home,” she
continued, as Maddy made no reply; “it must be hard, to be here in the
rooms, and among the things which by good rights should be yours.”
“No, Mrs. Noah,” and Maddy’s voice was strangely unnatural, as she
lifted up her head, revealing a face so haggard and white that Mrs.
Noah was frightened, and asked in much alarm if anything new had
happened.
“No, nothing; I was going to say that I’d rather stay a little longer
where there are signs and sounds of life. I should die to be alone at
Honedale to-morrow. I may die here, I don’t know. Do you know that
to-morrow will be the bridal?”
Yes, Mrs. Noah knew it; but she hoped it might have escaped Maddy’s
mind.
“Poor child,” she said again, “poor child, I mistrust you did wrong to
tell him no!”
“Oh, Mrs. Noah, don’t tell me that; don’t make it harder for me to
bear. The tempter has been telling me so, all day, and my heart is so
hard and wicked, I cannot pray as I would. Oh, you don’t know how
wretched I am!” and Maddy hid her face in the broad, motherly lap,
sobbing so wildly that Mrs. Noah was greatly perplexed, how to act, or
what to say.
Years ago, she would have spurned the thought that the grandchild of
the old man who had bowed to his own picture should be mistress of
Aikenside; but she had changed since then, and could she have had her
way, she would have stopped the marriage, and, bringing her boy home,
have given him to the young girl weeping so convulsively in her lap.
But Mrs. Noah could not have her way. The bridal guests were, even
then, assembling in that home beyond the sea. She could not call Guy
back, and so she pitied and caressed the wretched Maddy, saying to her
at last:
“I’ll tell you what is impressed on my mind; this Lucy’s got the
consumption, without any kind of doubt, and if you’ve no objections to
a widower, you may——”
She did not finish the sentence, for Maddy started in horror. To her
there was something murderous in the very idea, and she thrust it
quickly aside. Guy Remington was not for her, she said, and her wish
was to forget him. If she could get through the dreaded to-morrow, she
should do better. There had been a load upon her the whole day, a
nightmare she could not shake off, and she had come to Lucy’s room, in
the hope of leaving her burden there, of praying her pain away. Would
Mrs. Noah leave her a while, and see that no one came?
The good woman could not refuse, and going out, she left Maddy by the
window, watching the sun as it went down, and then watching; the wintry
twilight deepen over the landscape, until all things were blended
together in one great darkness, and Jessie, seeking for her found her
at last, fainting upon the floor.
Maddy was glad of the racking headache, which kept her in her bed the
whole of the next day, glad of any excuse to stay away from the family,
talking—all but Mrs. Noah—of Guy, and what was transpiring in England.
They had failed to remember the difference in the longitude of the two
places; but Maddy forgot nothing, and when the clock struck four, she
called Mrs. Noah to her and whispered, faintly:
“They were to be married at eight in the evening. Allowing for possible
delays, it’s over before this and Guy is lost forever!”
Mrs. Noah had no consolation to offer, and only pressed the hot,
feverish hands, while Maddy turned her face to the wall, and did not
speak again, except to whisper, incoherently, as she half slumbered,
half woke:
“Did Guy think of me when he promised to love her, and does he, can he,
see how miserable I am?” Maddy was indeed passing through deep waters,
and that night, the fourth of December, the longest, dreariest she ever
knew, could never be forgotten. Once past, the worst was over, and as
the rarest metal is purified by fire, so Maddy came from the dreadful
ordeal strengthened for what was before her. Both Agnes and Mrs. Noah
noticed the strangely beautiful expression of her face, when she came
down to the breakfast-room, while Jessie, as she kissed her pale cheek,
whispered:
“You look as if you had been with the angels.”
Guy was not expected with his bride for two weeks, or more, and as the
days dragged on, Maddy felt that the waiting for him was more
intolerable than the seeing him with Lucy would be. Restless and
impatient, she could not remain quietly at the cottage—while at
Aikenside, she longed to return again to her own home, and in this way
the time wore on, until the anniversary of that day when she had come
from New York, and found Guy waiting for her at the station. To stay
that day in the house so rife with memories of the dead was impossible,
and Flora was surprised and delighted to hear that both were going up
to Aikenside in the vehicle hired of Farmer Green, whose son officiated
as driver. It was nearly noon when they reached their destination,
meeting at the gate with Flora’s brother Tom, who said to them:
“We’ve heard from Mr. Guy; the ship is in; they’ll be here sure
to-night, and Mrs. Noah is turnin’ things upside down with the dinner.”
Leaning back in the buggy, Maddy felt for a moment as if she were
dying. Never until then had she realized how, all the while, she had
been clinging to an indefinable hope, a presentiment that something
might yet occur to spare her from a long lifetime of pain, such as lay
before her if Guy were really lost; but the bubble had burst, leaving
her nothing to hope, nothing to cling to, nothing but black despair;
and half bewildered, she received the noisy greeting of Jessie, who met
her at the door, and dragged her into the drawing-room, decorated with
flowers from the hothouse, told her to guess who was coming.
“I know; Tom told me; Guy is coming with Lucy,” Maddy answered, and
relieving herself from Jessie, she turned to Agnes, asking where Mrs.
Noah was, and if she might go to her for a moment.
“Oh, Maddy, child, I’m sorry you’ve come to-day,” Mrs. Noah said, as
she chafed Maddy’s cold hands, and leading her to the fire, made her
sit down, while she untied her hood, and removed her cloak and furs.
“I did not know it, or I should have stayed away,” Maddy replied; “I
shall not stay, as it is. I cannot see them to-day. Charlie will drive
me back before the train is due; but what did he say? And how is Lucy?”
“He did not mention her. There’s the dispatch” and Mrs. Noah handed to
Maddy the telegram, received that morning, and which was simply as
follows:
“The steamer is here. Shall be at the station at five o’clock P. M.
GUY REMINGTON.”
Twice Maddy read it over, experiencing much the same feeling she would
have experienced had it been her death warrant she was reading.
“At five o’clock. I must go before that,” she said, sighing as she
remembered how, one year ago that day, she was traveling over the very
route where Guy was now traveling with his bride. Did he think of it?
think of his long waiting at the depot, or of that memorable ride, the
events of which grew more and more distinct in her memory, making her
cheeks burn even now, as she recalled his many acts of tenderness and
care.
Laying the telegram on the table, she went with Mrs. Noah through the
rooms, warmed and made ready for the bride, lingering longest in
Lucy’s, which the bridal decorations, and the bright fire blazing in
the grate made singularly inviting. As yet, there were no flowers
there, and Maddy claimed the privilege of arranging them for this room
herself. Agnes had almost stripped the conservatory; but Maddy found
enough to form a most tasteful bouquet, which she placed upon a marble
dressing table; then within a slip of paper which she folded across the
top, she wrote: “Welcome to the bride.”
“They both will recognize my handwriting; they’ll know I’ve been here,”
she thought, as with one long, last, sad look at the room, she walked
away.
They were laying the table for dinner now, and with a kind of dizzy,
uncertain feeling, Maddy watched the servants hurrying to and fro,
bringing out the choicest china, and the glittering silver, in honor of
the bride. Comparatively, it was not long since a little, frightened,
homesick girl, she first sat down with Guy at that table, from which
the proud Agnes would have banished her; but it seemed to her an age,
so much of happiness and pain had come to her since then. There was a
place for her there now, a place near Guy; but she should not fill it.
She could not stay; and she astonished Agnes and Jessie, just as they
were going to make their dinner toilet, by announcing her intention of
going home. She was not dressed to meet Mrs. Remington, she said,
shuddering as for the first time she pronounced a name which the
servants had frequently used, and which jarred on her ear, every time
she heard it. She was not dressed appropriately to meet an English
lady. Flora of course would stay, she said, as it was natural she
should, to greet her new mistress; but she must go, and finding Charlie
Green she bade him bring around the buggy.
Agnes was not particularly surprised, for a vague suspicion of
something like the truth had gradually been creeping into her brain, as
she noted Maddy’s pallid face, and the changes which passed over it
whenever Guy was mentioned. Agnes pitied Maddy, for in her own heart
there was a little burning spot, when she remembered who was to
accompany Dr. Holbrook. So she did not urge her to remain, and she
tried to hush Jessie’s lamentations when she heard Maddy was going.
One long, sad, wistful look at Guy’s and Lucy’s home, and Maddy
followed Charlie to the buggy waiting for her, bidding him drive
rapidly, as there was every indication of a coming storm.
The gray, wintry afternoon was drawing to a close, and the December
night was shutting down upon the Honedale hills in sleety rain, when
the cottage was reached, and Maddy, passing up the narrow, slippery
walk, entered the cold, dreary room, where there was neither fire nor
light, nor friendly voice to greet her. No sound save the ticking of
the clock; no welcome save the purring of the house cat, who came
crawling at her feet as she knelt before the stove and tried to kindle
the fire. Charlie Green had offered to go in and do this for her, as
indeed he had offered to return and stay all night, but she had
declined, preferring to be alone, and with stiffened fingers she laid
the kindlings Flora had prepared, and then applying the match, watched
the blue flame as it gradually licked up the smoke and burst into a
cheerful blaze.
“I shall feel better when it’s warm,” she said, crouching over the
fire, and shivering with more than bodily cold.
There was a kind of nameless terror stealing over her as she sat
thinking of the year ago when the inmates of three graves across the
meadow were there beneath that very roof where she now sat alone.
“I’ll strike a light,” she said, rising to her feet, and trying not to
glance at the shadowy corners filling her with fear.
The lamp was found, and its friendly beams soon dispersed the darkness
from the corners and the fear from Maddy’s heart, but it could not
drive from her mind thoughts of what might at that moment be
transpiring at Aikenside. If the bride and groom came at all that
night, she knew they must have been there for an hour or more, and in
fancy she saw the tired, but happy, Lucy, as up in her pleasant room
she made her toilet for dinner, with Guy standing by and looking on.
Just as he had a right to do. Did he smile approvingly upon his young
wife? Did his eye, when it rested on her, light up with the same
expression she had seen so often when it looked at her? Did he commend
her taste and say his little wife was beautiful, as he kissed her fair,
white cheek, or was there a cloud upon his handsome face, a shadow on
his heart, heavy with thoughts of her, and would he rather it were
Maddy there in the bridal room? If so, his burden was hard indeed, but
not so hard as hers, and kneeling on the floor, poor Maddy laid her
head in the chair, and, ’mid piteous moans, asked God, her Father, to
help them both to bear—help her and Guy—making the latter love as he
ought the gentle girl who had left home and friends to live with him in
a far-distant land; asked, too, that she might tear from her heart
every sinful thought, loving Guy only as she might love the husband of
another.
The prayer ended, Maddy still sat upon the floor, while over her pale
face the lamplight faintly flickered, showing the dark lines beneath
her eyes and the tear stains on her cheek. Without, the storm still was
raging, and the wintry rain, mingled with sleet and snow, beat
piteously against the curtained windows, while the wind howled
mournfully as it shook the door and sweeping past the cottage went
screaming over the hill. But Maddy heard nothing of the tumult. She had
brought a pillow from the bedroom, and placing it upon the chair, sat
down again upon the floor and rested her head upon it. She did not even
know that her pet cat had crept up beside her, purring contentedly and
occasionally licking her hair, much less did she hear above the storm
the swift tread of horses’ feet as some one came dashing down the road,
the rider pausing an instant as he caught a glimpse of the cottage lamp
and then hurrying on to the public house beyond, where the hostler
frowned moodily at being called out to care for a stranger’s horse, the
stranger meanwhile turning back a foot to where the cottage lamp shone
a beacon light through the inky darkness. The stranger reached the
little gate and, undoing the fastening, went hurrying up the walk, his
step upon the crackling snow catching Maddy’s ear at last and making
her wonder who could be coming there on such a night as this. It was
probably Charlie Green, she said, and with a feeling of impatience at
being intruded upon she arose to her feet just as the door turned upon
its hinges, letting in a powerful draught of wind, which extinguished
the lamp and left her in total darkness.
But it did not matter. Maddy had caught a sound, a peculiar cough,
which froze the blood in her veins and made her quake with terror quite
as much as if the footsteps hurrying toward her had been the footsteps
of the dead, instead of belonging, as she knew they did, to Guy
Remington—Guy, who, with garments saturated with rain, felt for her in
the darkness, found her where from faintness she had crouched again
beside the chair, drew her closely to him, in a passionate, almost
painful, hug, and said, oh! so tenderly, so lovingly:
“Maddy, my darling, my own! We will never be parted again.”