THE WEDDING-BELLS.
Josephine, like the enchanting witch she could be when she chose, lost
no time in making up with Delmar, whose heart in secret was yearning
for her with a mighty rush of emotion.
A morning call on the convalescent soldier, a moment alone together,
a sigh, a melting glance, a little show of humility, and the end was
gained.
The glance was caught and answered by her lover, the sigh reechoed,
and, thus encouraged, Josephine came very close, faltering:
“You are very cruel, Del. Can you never forgive me for one night’s
folly?”
“If I were only sure of your love, Josephine!” he exclaimed in a
wistful, pleading tone, and she raised her radiant brown eyes to his
face with a glance that melted his heart like snow on fire.
He caught her jeweled hand and drew her close.
Love, tortured and repressed for weary months, could not bear
repression now. Delmar clamored for an immediate marriage, without
realizing that Josephine herself had artfully put the idea into his
head.
“It breaks my heart to see you so thin and pale, my own dear love,” she
cried, adding sweetly: “Mama thinks that an immediate change of scene
would do you more good than anything else, but--I can never let you go
away without me!”
Delmar laughed happily.
“We can be married at once and go together on our bridal-tour.”
And it did not occur to him in his infatuation that he was having a
change of scene now in his recent return home from the exciting scenes
of war, and that the sweet influences of home were the best adjuncts to
his recovery.
He was dazzled by his sudden accession to power and wealth, dazzled by
Josephine’s charms, and he saw everything through her cunning eyes.
She was so afraid of her prize slipping through her fingers that she
determined to make sure of it as soon as possible.
“What a dreadful hurry you are in to be married,” she cried
encouragingly.
“And I mean to have my way!” cried Delmar, seeing clearly that she was
fully as eager as himself.
“I would not agree to it only that we have to humor and spoil invalids
to aid their recovery,” she said gaily, with a caressing touch on his
white brow as he pleaded:
“Then name the day, sweetheart.”
“Suppose we saw next June?” coyly and mischievously.
“Nonsense! this day week.”
“Preposterous!”
“And we can go abroad on a wedding-tour--for a change of scene!”
“Oh, Del, how you tempt me! But--but--perhaps that would be too soon!”
“Well, let us say two weeks hence, my darling. Surely that would give
you time enough to get ready?”
“Yes, for I needn’t get my trousseau proper until we reach Paris. Fancy
shopping in Paris!” cried Josephine cunningly, for she knew that if
there were any trousseau it must come out of Barrington’s coffers, for
the Shirley funds were very low.
When they told Barrington what they had decided upon he frowned in
surprise.
“There is something that you both seem to have forgotten,” he said
gravely.
“What can you mean?” cried Delmar impatiently, and shrugged his
shoulders as Byrd replied solemnly:
“Your wife, Maisie, has not been dead a year until April.”
Josephine pouted prettily, and Delmar answered resentfully:
“No, I had not forgotten, but it really does not make any difference.
It is just the same as if I had never married Maisie!”
Byrd’s blue eyes flashed with swift indignation.
“I beg your pardon, it makes all the difference in the world, and you
are ungrateful if you show this contemplated disrespect to her sweet
memory. Remember that to that brief marriage ceremony, so fatal to her
life, poor girl, you owe all your present prosperity--love, wealth,
happiness!”
Josephine made great eyes of surprise, protesting:
“Why do you make such absurd charges? Del is not rich. We shall be poor
together, and I don’t think any one ought to delay our happiness.”
“You may tell her now if you choose, Delmar,” said his brother gravely,
so the young soldier took her hand and explained:
“It has been discovered, Josephine, that Maisie was a great heiress,
and I inherit all her money. I did not tell you any sooner because I
wished to win you as a poor man--to be married for love alone.”
Josephine’s surprise was beautifully acted, and she applauded her lover
warmly.
“You were right, and I am glad that I stood the test so well. Of
course, I am glad for your sake that you will have Maisie’s money, but
I could have loved you quite as dearly as a poor man!”
Delmar thanked her with a radiant glance and neither noticed Byrd’s
coldly cynical smile. He knew how false she was, but he held his peace.
Delmar loved her and the Barrington love ran its roots deep down into
the heart.
“But,” he said gravely, “surely you will agree with me, Josephine, that
Delmar owes a year, at least, of mourning to Maisie’s memory.”
The girl laughed heartlessly:
“As to a year, I don’t think Del ever gave her a day of mourning. He
hated her for coming between our hearts, for taking advantage of his
moments of reckless despair. But, of course, if he wishes to make
a pretense of grief, I am too proud to offer any protest. If I let
him persuade me into an early marriage it was for his own good; not
that--that----” she broke down and sobbed, and Barrington understood
she was pretending to be jealous of the dead.
“Byrd, I don’t thank you for fretting my darling so!” Delmar
cried, with a convalescent’s sharp impatience. “I shall not let any
sentimental fad over Maisie’s death hinder my happiness. It was all a
grievous mistake, but a year’s mourning would not bring her back--nor
do I want her back.”
“You are more heartless than I could have believed,” Byrd cried hotly,
in his anger.
“Not heartless--only half-way ill yet, and very much in love--and a man
in love is always half a fool, isn’t he?” rejoined Delmar, smiling at
Josephine, who was now emerging from behind her lace handkerchief with
bright, triumphant eyes.
They remained at Castellane till after Christmas, and each day was the
scene of some joyous festivity, while not a sorrowful thought flew to
the dead save from two hearts--Byrd’s and tender old Aunt Constance.
They two, in the cold of the Christmas morn, slipped from their guests
for a little while to the lonely cemetery lying under a shroud of
glistening white snow, to bear the rarest floral treasures from the
conservatory to the dead, and their bitterest tears fell on Maisie’s
grave, while Aunt Constance sobbed:
“Last Christmas she was with us--so beautiful, so sweet--poor little
one! Ah, Byrd. I can’t help wishing she might have loved and married
you! How different all might have been now!”
“How different!” he echoed bitterly, while deep down in his heart ran
the thought:
“Even if I had taken her at her word that day in the library, how
different it might have been! Who knows but that, freed from Delmar, I
might have caught her heart in the rebound. Alas, in my eagerness to be
just to my brother I made a terrible, an irretrievable mistake!”
So, from the lonely little grave under the white drifting snow, he
turned sorrowfully away, whispering to the flowers he kissed as he laid
them down: “I will go back to them in their happiness, darling, but all
my heart I leave behind with you.”
He led Aunt Constance back to the carriage, and they were soon at home
again, their absence scarcely missed by Delmar and Josephine, who could
think of no one but each other, though the bride often thought within
herself:
“He is not nearly so handsome as he was before he went to the war! How
pale his face is still, and how hollow his big, dark eyes! And they are
not gay and laughing as of yore, but have a solemn gaze as if somehow
in the dreadful war they looked on things that took all the gladness
out of them. Of course, I am proud that he is a lieutenant now, but I
had as lief that he had never gone to the war and come back so altered
for the worse.”
It was pitiful to see so shallow a nature, and so fickle a heart given
in exchange for Delmar’s devoted love that recked of nothing but its
idol.
But he was happy in his blindness. How pitiful would be the awakening
if it ever came; how he would curse the hour he first saw her fair,
luring face.
But that time was not yet, and Delmar was very happy in his
honeymoon--the first week at least, for when they sailed, the last
week in December, Josephine was so ill of sea-sickness all the way
over that she was a positive thorn in the flesh, peevish, petulant,
and irritable; a sore trial to her husband, who, still weak and ailing
himself, preferred not to divide the privileges of invalidism with
another. He would have been bitterly disappointed of all the care and
coddling he needed if it had not happened that Byrd and Aunt Constance
bore them company.
The old lady had taken a sudden notion to the trip, but would not agree
to go without Byrd, to whom she confided, privately:
“Delmar needs more care and petting than he will ever get from his
spoiled little wife, and I ought to go along to watch over him, I
think, but I should be lonely without you. Please come, dear Byrd.”
He had never denied her a wish in his life, and he could not now, so
they joined the bridal-party, not obtrusively, but for Delmar’s sake.
The hand of fate was in it, for Maisie had sailed with the Warrens
three days after her ill-fated visit to Castellane.