ANTICIPATIONS
With the assembling of Congress, in the first week of December, the
usual crowd of officials, pleasure-seekers, fortune hunters, adventurers
and adventuresses poured into Washington. Hotels, boarding houses and
private dwellings were full.
The serious business of fashion and the light recreation of legislation
began.
Mr. Force went down to the capitol every day to listen to the disputes
in the House or in the Senate.
Mrs. Force and Odalite drove out to call on such of their friends and
acquaintances as had arrived in the city, and to leave cards for the
elder lady’s “day”—the Wednesday of each week during the season.
Letters came from Le. His ship was still delayed for an indefinite time
at Rio de Janeiro, waiting sailing orders, which seemed to be slow in
coming.
Le’s letters betrayed the fact that he was fretting and fuming over the
delay.
“Don’t know what the navy department means,” he wrote, “keeping us
here for no conceivable purpose under the sun. But I know what I mean.
I mean to resign as soon as ever I get home.
“If there should come a war I will serve my country, of course; but in
these ‘piping times of peace’ I will not stay in the service to be
anybody’s nigger, even Uncle Sam’s!”
Odalite, Wynnette and Elva cheered him up with frequent letters.
Christmas is rather a quiet interlude in the gay life of Washington.
Congress adjourns until after New Year.
Most of the government officials—members of the administration and of
both houses of Congress, and many of the civil service brigade, leave
the city to spend their holidays in their distant homesteads.
In fact, there is an exodus until after New Year.
The gay season in Washington does not really begin until after the first
of January.
The public receptions by the President and by the members of the cabinet
take the initiative.
Then follow receptions by members of the diplomatic corps, by prominent
senators and representatives, and by wealthy or distinguished private
citizens.
Mr., Mrs. and Miss Force went everywhere, and received everybody—within
the limits of their social circle.
Odalite, for the first time in her short life, enjoyed society with a
real youthful zest.
There was no drawback now. Her mother’s deadly enemy had passed to his
account, and could trouble her no more, she thought. Le was coming home,
and they were to be married soon, and go to Europe and see all the
beauties and splendors and glories of the Old World, which she so longed
to view. They were to sojourn in the old, ancestral English home which
had been the scene of her mother’s childhood—ah! and the scene of so
many exploits of her ancestors—sieges, defenses, captures, recoveries,
confiscations by this ruler, restorations by that—events which had
passed into history and helped to make it. She would see
London—wonderful, mighty London!—St. Paul’s, the Tower. Oh! and Paris,
and the old Louvre!—Rome! St. Peter’s! the Coliseum! the
Catacombs!—places which the facilities of modern travel have made as
common as a market house to most of the educated world, but which, to
this imaginative, country girl, were holy ground, sacred monuments,
wonderful, most wonderful relics of a long since dead and gone world.
And Le would be her companion in all these profound enjoyments! And,
after all, they should return home and settle down at Greenbushes, never
to part again, but to be near neighbors to father, mother, sisters and
friends; to give and receive all manner of neighborly kindnesses,
courtesies, hospitalities.
Odalite’s heart was as full of happy thoughts as is a hive of honey
bees. Her happiness beamed from her face, shining on all who approached
her.
If Odalite had been admired during the two past seasons when she was
pale, quiet and depressed, how much more was she admired now in her
fair, blooming beauty, that seemed to bring sunshine, life and light
into every room she entered.
Mrs. Force felt all a mother’s pride in the social success of her
daughter.
But to Odalite herself the proudest and happiest day of the whole season
was that on which she received a letter from Le, announcing his
immediate return home.
“This letter,” he wrote, “will go by the steamer that leaves this port
on the thirteenth of January. We have our sailing orders for the first
of February. On that day we leave this blessed port homeward bound.
Winds and waves propitious, we shall arrive early in March, and
then—and then, Odalite——”
And then the faithful lover and prospective bridegroom went off into the
extravagances that were to be expected, even of him.
Odalite received this letter on the first of February, and knew that on
that day Le had sailed, homeward bound.
“He will be here some time in the first week of March,” said Mrs. Force,
in talking over the letter with her daughter. “Congress will have
adjourned by the fourth. All strangers will have left. The city will be
quiet. It will be in the midst of Lent also. I think, Odalite, that,
under all the circumstances, we had better have a very private wedding,
here in our city home, with none but our family and most intimate
friends present. Then you and Le will sail for Europe, make the grand
tour, and after that shall be finished, go to my brother at Enderby
Castle, where we—your father, and sisters, and myself—will join you in
the autumn. What do you think?”
“I think as you do, mamma, and would much prefer the marriage to be as
quiet as possible,” Odalite assented.
“After you and Le leave us we shall still remain in the city until the
girls shall have graduated. Then we will go down to the dear old home
for a few weeks, and then sail for Liverpool, to join you at Enderby
Castle.”
“That is an enchanting program, mamma! Oh! I hope we may be able to
carry it through!” exclaimed Odalite.
“There is no reason in the world why we should not, my dear,” replied
the lady.
Odalite sighed, with a presentiment of evil which she could neither
comprehend nor banish.
“And now,” said her mother, “I must sit down and write to Mrs. Anglesea
and to Mr. Copp. The house at Mondreer will need to be prepared for us.
It wanted repairs badly enough when we left it. It must be in a worse
condition now; so I must write at once to give them time enough to have
the work done well.”
And she retired to her own room to go about her task.
When Wynnette, Elva and Rosemary came home in the afternoon, and heard
that Le had sailed from Rio de Janeiro, and would certainly be home
early in March, they were wild with delight.
When, upon much cross-examination of Odalite, they found out that the
marriage of the young lovers was to be quietly performed in the parlor
of their father’s house, and that the newly married pair would
immediately sail for Europe in advance of the family, who were to join
them at Enderby Castle later on, their ecstasies took forms strongly
suggestive of Darwin’s theory concerning the origin of the species. In
other words, they danced and capered all over the drawing room.
“We want Rosemary to go with us, papa, dear,” said Elva.
“We must have Rosemary to go with us, you know, mamma,” added Wynnette.
“That is not for us to say,” replied Mr. Force.
“It is a question for her mother and her aunt,” added Mrs. Force.
But the little girls did not yield the point. Rosemary’s three years’
association with them had made her as dear to Wynnette and Elva as a
little sister. And when they found out that Rosemary was heartbroken at
the prospect of parting from them, and “wild” to accompany them, they
stuck to their point with the pertinacity of little terriers.
Now what could Abel Force—the kindest-hearted man on the face of the
earth, perhaps—do but yield to the children’s innocent desire?
He wrote to Mrs. Hedge and to Miss Grandiere, proposing to those ladies
to take Rosemary with his daughters to Europe, to give her the
educational advantage of the tour.
In due time came the answer of the sisters, full of surprise and
gratitude for the generous offer, which they accepted in the simple
spirit in which it was made.
And when Wynnette, Elva and Rosemary were informed of the decision there
were not three happier girls in the whole world than themselves.
The same mail brought a letter from the housekeeper at Mondreer, who was
ever a very punctual correspondent.
She informed Mrs. Force that such internal improvements as might be made
in bad weather were already progressing at Mondreer—that all the
bedsteads were down, and all the carpets up, the floors had been
scrubbed, and the windows and painting washed, and the kalsominers were
at work.
But she wanted to know immediately, if Mrs. Force pleased, what that
news was that she was saving for a personal interview. If it concerned
her own “beat,” she would like to know it at once.
“Why, I thought you had told her, mamma,” said Odalite, when she had
read this letter.
“No, my dear. I did not wish to excite any new talk of Angus Anglesea
until you and Le should be married and off to Europe. I shrink from the
subject, Odalite. I am sorry now that I hinted to the woman having
anything to tell her.”
“But, mamma, ought she not be told that he is dead?”
“He has been dead to her since he left her. In good time she shall know
that he is dead to us also. And, my dear, remember that he was not her
husband, after all, but——”
“Oh! don’t finish the sentence, mamma! What will Le say?” sighed
Odalite.
“Nothing. This will make no difference to you or to Le. That ceremony
performed at All Faith, three years ago, whether legal or illegal, was
certainly incomplete—the marriage rites arrested before the registry was
made. You have never seen or spoken to the would-be bridegroom since
that hour; and now the man is dead, and you are free, even if you were
ever bound. Let us hear no more on that subject, my dear. Now I shall
have to answer this letter, and—as I have been so unlucky as to have
raised the woman’s suspicions and set her to talking—I must tell her the
facts, I suppose. And—as for her sake as well as for our own, I choose
to consider her the widow of Angus Anglesea—I shall send with the letter
a widow’s outfit,” concluded the lady, as she left the room.
The whole remainder of that day was spent by Mrs. Force in driving along
Pennsylvania Avenue and up Seventh Street, selecting from the best
stores an appropriate outfit in mourning goods for the colonel’s widow.
These were all sent home in the evening, carefully packed in a large
deal box, which, with a letter at its bottom, was dispatched by express
to Mrs. Angus Anglesea, Charlotte Hall, Maryland.