HER WEDDING DAY
“A wild bird in a cage; a trapped beauty and a disconsolate beast,”
muttered Camperdown late in the evening of the day of his marriage.
He sat in a corner of his drawing room, his eyes riveted on Stargarde’s
back as she stood holding aside the lace window curtain and gazing out
into the street.
“It seems to me,” he went on grumblingly, “that I’ve seen a picture
called ‘Alone’ or ‘At Last’ or some such rubbishy name, where a
bridegroom, and bride having got rid of all their dear friends and
relatives are hanging on each other’s necks; this isn’t much like it,”
grimly. “What is it now, Stargarde?”
“I thought I heard a child crying in the street,” she said, coming to
rest on the sofa beside him.
“You are nervous,” he said, smoothing back the curls from her brow, and
noting with a pang at his heart the unearthly pallor of her face, from
which every vestige of its usually delicate color had fled. “Your entire
specialized apparatus for receiving irritation is up in arms.”
“I am usually counted a steady, firm person, Brian.”
“You’re like all women; you want careful treatment at times. Look at
this fine hair, this thin skin, these muscles, small, though they are
strong; and don’t tell me that you haven’t a nervous temperament.”
“I wonder how they’re getting on at the Pavilion?” she said dreamily.
He looked down at the head lying on his shoulder with an aggrieved
expression. “The Pavilion, the Pavilion, always the Pavilion. It doesn’t
matter about me.”
“I am afraid to think of you,” she murmured.
“Why?”
“I am frightened, nay, terrified at my own happiness, when there are so
many sore hearts in the world.”
“She’s lying, sweet soul,” he communed with himself as he stared at her;
“there’s no happiness in her heart. She’s nearly frantic in this
decently furnished house and on this quiet street away from her
offscourings. It’s like tearing her soul from her body to give them up.
Stargarde!”
She did not hear him.
“Am I to lose her now?” he reflected with sudden anguish; “now, on the
threshold of happiness? She’s dropping into one of her ‘misery of the
world’ agonies, and if she goes off this time! Stargarde,” he said
almost roughly dislodging her head from his shoulder and jumping up,
“I’m going for a walk.”
“Are you?” she said with languid surprise.
“Yes. Getting married and being in a crowd indoors all day doesn’t agree
with me. Do you know where I’m going?”
“No.”
“Up to Rockland Street, to look at the house where you have slept for so
many years, with your narrow white bed dragged against the wall so that
even in your sleep you might be near the people who passed on the
street.”
She smiled faintly at him.
“You come too. Your namesakes are all out. It is a lovely night.”
She hesitated, but he went to the hall and seizing a cap and a shawl
from the hat-rack, came back and put them on her.
“I feel as if I should fall,” she said rising unsteadily.
“Nonsense, my dear girl; nerves again. Take my arm and you’ll be all
right when we get into the street. You’re better now, aren’t you?” he
asked as they strolled along the flagged pavement.
“Yes,” she murmured absently.
“Don’t dawdle,” he said, “but let us go briskly, and breathe all the
fresh air we can, and don’t go to sleep but talk to me. Stay, I’ll do
something amusing. Lean against this wall for a jiffy till I see if I
can jump this barricade. If I can’t, you shall have twenty dollars for
your soup kitchen. Now, Camperdown, distinguish yourself,” and to
Stargarde’s mild amazement he proceeded to the middle of the street
where some repairs were being carried on, and running back attempted to
leap over an erection of planks.
Again and again he went at it, stumbling, falling, and never once
clearing it, though it was a marvel to Stargarde that with his great
agility he could not do so.
While she stood smiling at him, some one came around the corner of the
street. “Ha, ha!” she heard in a laughing voice, “how much for the
exhibition? Has matrimony gone to your head or your heels, Camperdown? I
beg your pardon, Mrs. Camperdown, I did not see you,” and a young man
who was a friend of Valentine’s took off his hat with a flourish.
“Hurrah, I’ve cleared it!” vociferated Camperdown with a final leap,
after which he approached them; “but your soup kitchen sha’n’t lose,
Stargarde. How do you do, Dana?”
Mr. Dana saluted him with a succession of teasing remarks. “Is it an
eviction? If not, what do you mean by dragging your wife through the
streets at this hour? This comes of setting yourselves up to be models
for your neighbors—refusing wedding presents and not taking a honeymoon
trip. You’ll come to a bad end. Why don’t you leave him, Mrs.
Camperdown?”
“Any news, Dana?” inquired Camperdown agreeably.
“Nothing but your marriage, with which the town is ringing. All the
little newsboys are running about patting their stomachs in
satisfaction.”
“My wife wished to give everybody a feast,” returned the physician,
“though she did not feel much like entering into it herself on account
of her recent affliction.”
“She looks horribly pale to-night,” said the younger man, lowering his
voice so that Stargarde who was standing at a little distance from them
should not hear.
“That’s why I have her out,” said Camperdown with a sudden burst of
confidence; “I feel like those classic fellows who used to get entangled
with goddesses, thinking that they were mortal women. That wife of mine
is so ultra-human that though she is happy herself she can’t go to sleep
till she knows that everything is straight in her old home.”
“I’m glad you haven’t been beating her,” said Mr. Dana serenely, “for as
you say, she is beyond the human. Who takes charge at the Pavilion now
that she has left it?”
“The Salvation Army—it is too much for one woman.”
“What was your objection to a wedding tour?” asked the young man
curiously.
“There it is again,” said his companion in an aggrieved voice,
“everybody is badgering me about it. I’ve no objection to tours of any
kind, but I can’t go proclaiming through the city that my wife isn’t fit
to travel. People are utterly senseless about traveling, which is one of
the most fatiguing things on earth. They come to me saying, ‘Doctor, I’m
run down, no appetite, can’t sleep—where shall I go?’ ‘Go to bed, you
idiots,’ I say, ‘and sleep and eat and take your journey when you
recover.’”
Mr. Dana laughed at him and held out his cigar case. “Have one, you will
find it composing.”
“No, thank you,” and Camperdown threw a keen glance at his wife. He saw
that Mr. Dana’s chatter had partly roused her from the state of deadly
languor that always preceded her severe paroxysms of pain, and in
intense relief he ejaculated, “Glad we met you, Dana. Good-night,” and
offering Stargarde his arm, he proceeded along the street in a leisurely
fashion.
Arrived on Rockland Street, they paused outside the dark windows of her
deserted room, then walking softly inside the courtyard, skirted the
walls of the long building. The lights were nearly all out and the
people were asleep. Here and there a feeble gleam told of a sick-bed,
and Stargarde, who knew the condition of all, murmured a prayer as she
passed such places. Finally her silent adieux were said and there was no
longer an excuse for her to linger.
“Remember Lot’s wife,” said Camperdown dryly when she paused under the
archway to look back.
She turned to him with a troubled face. “Never mind, Philanthropia, I am
only joking,” he said, suppressing a laugh. “It is a satisfaction to you
to see that they are all resting quietly without you, is it not?”
“Yes; my work is done here,” she murmured.
“But you can still come back, sweetheart. Here is one gnarled sinner
that will be greatly edified by pilgrimages to the Pavilion.”
She clung to his arm without speaking, and as they sauntered out to the
street he muttered, “I mustn’t bother her with talk. She won’t slip back
into that state again.”
Passing quietly by one door after another, they came suddenly upon a
slight, gentle-faced young man with a weak, irresolute mouth, who stole
like a ghost around the corner and put his foot on the lower step of a
small house with dormer windows.
Camperdown looked at him narrowly without speaking, but in an instant
Stargarde’s hand was on his shoulder. “Charlie, you are not going in
there!”
He blushed, frowned, and bit his lip.
“Now for the last time I speak to you about it,” said Stargarde. “I want
you to decide tonight. Will you not promise me—this is my wedding night,
you know. One can refuse nothing to a bride.”
A bride, and such a bride—and on those upper streets by those stealthily
closed houses. The boy, for he was scarcely more than that, looked
strangely at her. The cool night wind came sweeping down the street
blowing to his ears the striking of a distant bell.
“Charlie,” breathed Stargarde in tones of supplication, “you must
promise me. You were once such a good boy; and your father—I think,” she
said, putting up one of her white hands to her face, “that he was one of
the best men that God ever made. Every one loved him.”
The young man saw with manifest distress the tears trickling down
between her fingers. “For Heaven’s sake, Miss Turner, compose yourself,”
he said. “Come, I will walk back a little way with you.”
“Promise her, boy,” said Camperdown, coming up and clapping his hand on
the young man’s other shoulder.
“Your sister and your mother,” whispered Stargarde, “you are breaking
their hearts.”
At the mention of his mother the young man’s lip quivered. He hid his
face in his hat that he held in his hand, and Camperdown, withdrawing to
a little distance, saw a hand uplifted to the quiet sky, and heard the
muttered, “So help me, God.”
Stargarde caught the attesting hand in her own. “May God bless you,
Charlie; let us go a little way with you. You have made me so happy.”
Side by side the three people went quietly to a house in the northern
part of the town. As they stopped before the door, Stargarde said: “You
will come to see me to-morrow evening and bring your sister, will you
not?”
“Yes, I will,” and the voice had a new ring of truth and cheerfulness in
it.
The distinct tones reached the ears of a woman in a widow’s cap who
knelt by an open window above. With dry eyes from which all tears had
long since been shed, she strained her gaze after Stargarde and her
husband, and when they had vanished she threw herself on the floor, and
with a sob of thankfulness prayed for the best of blessings on their
married life.
Not a word was spoken between them till they reached the parade in the
center of the town. There, in the shadow of the City Hall, Camperdown
eyed one of the benches on the grass and guided Stargarde’s footsteps to
it. “You are tired,” he said. “Let us rest a bit.”
In three minutes she was sound asleep with her head on his shoulder.
Camperdown drew the shawl more closely about her, then sat thinking, not
at all of the historic spot that they were on, with its old-time
memories of _feux de joie_ and drilling of troops, nor of the lords and
the ladies of ancient days whose fair faces used to brighten the old
stone building that stood on the site of the present City Hall, nor of
the terrible year of 1834 when the parade was dotted with tar barrels
sending forth volumes of smoke to purge the air from the trail of the
cholera demon. Neither did his thoughts wander to the old parish church
across the street whose frame was brought from Boston in the year 1750,
and whose timbers, if they could talk, would tell many a tale of gay
weddings, and pompous buryings of gallant soldiers, whose bones now lie
mouldering beneath its aisles. No, he thought only of the woman by his
side, of her incomparable worth and goodness, of the little claim that
he could put forth to deserve so great a treasure, until a shadow,
falling across her face, caused him to look up.
A policeman, who had been observing them at a distance, had at last
drawn near.
“Evening, policeman,” said Camperdown. “Situation is peculiar, but can
explain. I’m not a tramp, and I think you know my wife.”
“Know her,” said the man lifting his helmet from his head, “I have cause
to know her, sir.”
“She’s been walking and is tired,” said Camperdown. “We’re just on our
way home.”
“’Tis too heavy a contract she’s been under, sir,” said the man
respectfully; “one woman can’t reform a city; but she’s done a powerful
lot. Since she came and the Salvation Army followed her, they say the
badness has dropped off wonderful, and there’s been less for the police
to do.”
“How long have you been on the force?” asked Camperdown, putting an end
of the shawl over his wife’s face.
“Three years, sir; ’twas your wife as got me on. I’d thrown up a good
job in the country and come to the city, where I thought I’d better
myself. I might have been in a heathen country for all the notice I got.
Then my wife died and my little girl got fever and I was going to the
bad when one day there was a rustlin’ beside me just as if an angel had
dropped down from the sky——”
“The angel, I suppose, being my wife,” said Camperdown with interest.
“Yes, sir, and she found me in work, and I’m a happy man to-day, and if
there ever was any mischief a-going to happen to her, I’d like to be on
the spot,” and replacing his helmet on his head the man ejaculated, “Beg
pardon, sir, for disturbing you,” and stalked away.
Camperdown smiled and gently shook his wife. “Come, we must go; you’ll
get a stiff neck.”
Stargarde pulled the shawl from her face, blinked her eyes at the
electric lights staring at her, and gazed at the back of the retreating
policeman. “Where am I? Brian, why did you allow me to fall asleep? That
is John Morris, isn’t it? Mr. Morris, how is your little girl?”
The man turned and came back. “Well and hearty, ma’am, thank you.”
“She’s a dear little girl, and so fond of you,” said Stargarde. “Take
good care of her. Good-night, good-night,” and she smiled kindly at him.
The man stood with hands crossed behind his broad back until she was out
of sight. “Looking at her it seems as if ’twas easy to be good,” he said
with a sigh.
“How kind you are to me,” Camperdown heard in his wife’s musical tones
as they were about rounding a corner.
“Am I?” meekly. “What is the latest proof of my goodness?”
“Bringing me out to-night. You did it on purpose to make me more
contented.”
“Is a similar excursion to take place every night?” he asked, trying to
hide a yawn from her.
“No, no; you ridiculous boy,” and stopping short she put up her other
hand and rested her cheek against his encircling arm. “I don’t believe
that there is another man in the world who would be so indulgent to me.”
“This is joy double-distilled!” he exclaimed. “We are acting that
picture.”
“What picture, dearest?”
“One that I saw somewhere,” and he favored her with a brief description
of it.
“You mean ‘Married Lovers’?”
“Yes, that’s it,” he said excitedly. “Go on, please; keep your position
and talk some nonsense to me; you are irresistible when you talk
nonsense, Stargarde. Come now, you think me handsome, don’t you?”
“Superlatively handsome, Brian,” and she laughed gently at him.
“And sweet-tempered?”
“Exquisitely so; and personally I have no objection to continuing this,”
she said, lifting her head from his arm, “but there is a dear old man in
a night-cap at that window over there who is peeping at us in petrified
astonishment.”
“Ugh! you brute,” said Camperdown, turning to shake a fist at him, “go
and get married.”
“You absurd boy,” said Stargarde, pulling at his arm; “come home; the
poor creature may be married already.”
“Poor creature! Stargarde, do you think marriage an affliction?” And
then Camperdown’s conversation became of a nature too personal and
sentimental to be of interest to any one but to the woman who loved him
so devotedly that in her opinion, “even his failings leaned to virtue’s
side.”