IN HASTE FOR THE WEDDING.
Miss Ellen Post was taking in the waist of Miss Spicer’s white silk
dress, and had altered the trimming till it really seemed as good as
new. Miss Spicer, herself, had come down into the servants’ parlor to
examine the effect, and had brought from her own room a quantity of
tulle scarcely the worse for wear, which had once covered a trained
over-dress, but was quite fresh enough for the wedding veil; especially
as the breadths were joined neatly by a white wreath, which had been
beautifully freshened up for the occasion.
Some deeper anxiety than the wedding dress had evidently brought the
young heiress into the servants’ department, for she pushed aside a mass
of silk tulle and fragments of lace from a couch which stood near the
expectant bride, and seemed to prepare herself for a conversation of
some length.
Miss Post was very busy with the bridal veil, and threw her whole
energies so completely into the pleasant task, that she had little
attention to bestow even on the young lady who had honored her by a
visit, and from whom she expected so much.
Thus Miss Spicer was compelled to begin the subject that was resting
heavily on her mind, without help from the waiting maid.
“You are quite sure, Ellen, that there is no mistake about the arrests,”
she said, at length.
Miss Post was holding up the wreath from which a cloud of tulle floated
to the floor, and did not answer for half a minute, but she spoke at
last.
“Sure, Miss Spicer, of course I am. The young man, Boyce, came round and
told us the minute it was done. They first took up the boy, then walked
the old woman off between two policemen. Boyce waited to see it done,
then come to inform Mr. Mahone, who is anxious beyond anything, knowing
that our wedding depends on their being safely locked in prison.”
“Your wedding, Ellen, pray what has that to do with it?” questioned Miss
Spicer, who was not entirely informed of the wheels within wheels which
revolved in the kitchen department.
“Just as much as the five thousand dollars that you are to pay over for
clearing these people out of the madam’s path.”
“Oh, you depend on that; but it will take some time before they can be
safely disposed of, Ellen.”
“They are in prison this minute; by to-morrow, at farthest, they will be
remanded—that is the word Mr. Mahone calls it—back for trial. That ought
to be disgrace enough for one family, Miss Spicer.”
“But this money was to be paid on conviction, Ellen, you must remember
that.”
“No, I do not,” answered the waiting maid, casting aside her veil and
entering into the subject with spirit, “and if you take it so, it isn’t
too late to draw back. The young man Boyce has only to clear out of the
city, and they’ll have to be acquitted. Everything depends on him.”
Miss Spicer changed color and gave the fragments of silks and laces
around her a spiteful toss to the floor. Her love of money was almost as
warm as her attachment for young Lambert, or her dislike of Eva
Laurence. She had, in fact, promised this large sum of money with a
reserved hope of evading the payment after her vengeance was secured.
But Ellen Post was not exactly the person to be so dealt with. She had
no abiding faith in the honor of her confederate, and was resolved that
the trust should not be all on one side. Another reason, still more
urgent, gave her courage to be firm. Ellen had met with disappointments
in her life, and she was in haste to secure herself from a mournful
repetition of them by wearing the snow-white robe at the earliest
possible moment. Before she could do that, the money which Miss Spicer
had promised must be forthcoming. Mahone had expressed himself very
decidedly on that point.
“It seems to me,” said Miss Spicer, “that you and your friends are going
off from the terms of our agreement, Ellen.”
“Not at all,” answered the bride. “Mr. Mahone is the very soul of honor.
At first he declined to act without the money in hand, but a word from
me was enough to persuade him into waiting till these persons were in
prison. Then,” says he, “dearly as I love you, Ellen, superior as you
are to all other women, I must be firm; for your own dear sake. I should
be prepared to support you like the lady you are. For this reason I must
have the money down.”
“There was no resisting an argument put in this complimentary way, Miss
Spicer. It went at once to the heart.”
“I should think it was rather intended to go to my pocket,” answered the
young lady with a short, sneering laugh. “So if I do not pay the money
down your Mr. Mahone will allow these people to escape. Is that what you
mean?”
“I am inclined to think that was Mr. Mahone’s meaning,” answered Ellen,
holding up her veil again and admiring it with her head on one side like
a heron looking at his shadow in the water. “But it was all for my sake,
so you must not think hard of him.”
“Miss Post, my Ellen!”
The voice which uttered these words came from the kitchen out of which a
door opened. Then Mr. Mahone appeared.
“Your Adonis,” said Miss Spicer with a short laugh.
“No,” answered Ellen, innocently, “his name is Mahone.”
“I beg pardon,” said the footman, advancing into the room, “I thought
this young lady was alone. Boyce has just come in, would you like to
speak with him?”
Ellen looked at Miss Spicer, who nodded her head.
“He can come in if you desire,” said Ellen with dignity, “but first
allow me to put these garments out of sight.”
Directly the footman entered the room again, followed by Boyce, who
presented himself with an air of mingled awkwardness and audacity that
would have excited either anger or ridicule in Miss Spicer at any other
time; now her mind was occupied with the business in hand, so she
watched him with keen interest.
“This young man has brought me word that the person whom you take so
much interest in is safe in prison and will be examined to-day,” said
Mahone, addressing Ellen, but looking at the young lady. “He has just
come from the Tombs.”
“Then they are both shut up, the mother and the boy,” said Ellen.
“That’s so,” answered Boyce, seating himself on the edge of a chair and
crushing his hat with both hands, “salt can’t save ’em after this.
They’ve got to go.”
“Then these poor creatures are certainly in prison?” questioned the
young lady, breaking out of all prudent bounds when she thought her
vengeance on the fair way to completion.
“No mistake about that, Miss, you’d a thought so if you had seen how
they took on—affecting, I can tell you, enough to bring tears from a
common ball. Almost snivelled myself, if you’ll excuse the word, Miss.”
“Then it is certain?” questioned Miss Spicer.
“As bolts and bars can make it,” said Mahone. “This young man’s evidence
is enough to convict a born angel.”
“And I have given it—and shall have to give it again—nothing but cutting
loose and running away can stop that,” said the youth, adding the last
sentence in reply to a wink from Mahone.
“Thank you very much,” said Ellen Post, dismissing the grocer’s clerk as
if she had been an Empress. “I took an interest in these people on
account of the boy, but if they are really guilty, of course all
sympathy ends.”
“Guilty, I should think so,” answered Boyce, getting himself up from the
chair, “good morning—good morning Miss. I hope I have not intruded nor
nothing?”
“Good morning,” said Ellen blandly, as became a not very young lady so
near the hymenial altar.
Mahone followed Boyce from the room, and the two men held some moments
of eager conversation in the farthest corner of the kitchen.
“Did I do it up brown?” questioned the younger man.
“That you did,” answered the other. “Jared, I always have said you were
a trump.”
“What is best, every word of it is true. I’m going down to the court
now. The young lady has only got the news a little in advance. Good-bye,
old boy. I’ll come up and give you particulars when it’s all over.”
“Good-bye, and see that you make no blunders,” answered Mahone, “they
would be too costly just now.”
“I say,” said Boyce, coming back a step or two, “don’t take the screws
off from that rich girl in there. Nail her before we are in too deep.”
“Oh, never fear, Ellen will do that,” answered Mahone, and the two
parted.
Meanwhile Ellen Post was proving herself worthy of the confidence Mr.
Mahone expressed in her. The moment those two young men left the room
she turned to Miss Spicer.
“Now are you satisfied, Miss?”
“Yes, that the work you undertook is half done,” answered the young lady
tartly.
“One thing is certain,” replied Miss Post quietly resuming her work,
“the money we depended on must be paid within an hour, or that young man
will come up missing at the examination.”
Miss Spicer started to her feet, and flushed angrily, feeling herself
coarsely coerced.
“Ellen Post, I have made you a promise and it shall be performed. It
seems that we cannot trust each other. Let that young man go on and I
will pay you half the money now, the rest when these people are
convicted, not a cent more. Take your choice, a check for two thousand
five hundred now, the rest to abide the result of a trial, or nothing.
Which will you have?”
“The check,” said Ellen Post, still going on with her work with a
leisurely motion.
Miss Spicer left the room without a word. Ellen Post worked faster, and
her needle flew. This was all the sign of excitement that she gave.
Directly the young lady came down again with a check fluttering in her
hand. She flung it into the waiting maid’s lap.
“Will that do?”
Ellen took the check up, and examined it closely.
“Yes, it will do,” she said, “thanks!”
Miss Spicer flung herself out of the room.
The moment she was gone, Ellen Post dropped her work in a white heap on
the carpet, and opened the kitchen door.
“Mr. Mahone!”
The footman answered the call of his lady love promptly. She closed the
door and held up the check. He flushed crimson with pleasure.
“You don’t say so!”
“That is all we shall get till after the trial,” said Ellen.
“Let me look at it,” entreated Mr. Mahone, reaching out his hand.
“No, the ink is wet,” answered his betrothed.
“But, but when—”
Mahone hesitated, some coward thought, which might have been conscience
in another man, checked the criminal proposition he was about to make.
“Did you ask anything?” inquired Ellen, slowly folding the check which
she hid carefully away in her bosom.
“Yes, I did, Miss Post. What are we a waiting for? how long will you
keep this ardent heart on the fence?”
“Mr. Mahone, you speak so metaphorically that I can’t quite understand.”
“When—when are we to be married—to unite our fortunes and share and
share alike?”
Miss Post cast down her eyes and began to roll up one of her cap
strings, feeling herself to be a young lady of romance with an ardent
hero before her.
“When will that confounded—that gorgeous wedding dress be done?”
“It—it can be finished in an hour,” faltered the damsel, “I was just
fastening flowers into the bridal veil.”
“Then what is in the way? Who is to hinder us from being married this
very night?” demanded the lover whom a single glimpse of that check had
rendered half frantic with greed.
“To-night! Oh! Mr. Mahone!”
“Yes, this very night. The dress is ready—I have got what would amount
to a basket of champagne stored away, and my heart—my heart!”
“Don’t! don’t appeal to me in that way; you know my weakness, you know
how impossible it is to refuse you anything.”
“Is that so? Prove it then, Ellen, prove it by having that dress on at
eight o’clock this evening. I will have a carriage at the back entrance,
and a minister ready. Promise now; if your love for me is the genuine
thing, you will.”
“Oh, Mahone, I promise!”
“At eight, then?”
“At eight you will find me here waiting.”