Shortly after this everything about “The Gables” seemed to take on new
life. Andrew had bade Victoria make ready and issue invitations for a
grand fête, which should be given on a scale of magnificence never
equalled, and which should hold a week. Victoria was thunderstruck. This
indeed was a new departure for her husband, who had tabooed all society
for nearly ten years, and who now chose to plunge headlong as it were
into gayeties to which he was wholly a stranger. It is no wonder that
she looked apprehensively at him, and wondered if he had not suddenly
taken leave of his senses, but knowing his dislike to being questioned
she merely asked: “How many invitations shall I issue, Andrew?”
“As many as the house will hold without crowding, Victoria. We can
accommodate nearly a hundred who may come from a distance. The lodge
will room twenty more. We can erect a temporary barracks for the men who
come unaccompanied by ladies, so I think with the neighboring gentry who
will, of course return home at night, you can get out three hundred
invitations. I will get the necessary lumber and have the men begin
erecting whatever is needful at once. Will this please you, my love?”
“It certainly ought to,” laughed Victoria. “Why, Andrew, the expense
will be frightful.”
“It will not exceed ten thousand dollars, Victoria, and I shall never
miss so small a sum. Even if it is twice that amount I shall not
grumble. We have received many pressing invitations from friends. It is
but courtesy on our part to return them. See that there is an abundance
of everything, dear wife. There will be plenty of time to order anything
you wish from New York. You have my consent to go in as deeply as you
may desire.” And Victoria decided to obey her husband to the letter, and
to make the fête one to be long remembered.
When it became known that “The Gables” was to be thrown open to the
public, that everybody far and near had been invited by its master, the
people could hardly believe the startling news. Very few had ever been
inside the grand salon and reception-rooms, and those who had been so
favored, had much to tell of their magnificence, and of the rare
paintings and works of art with which the rooms were adorned. If Andrew
was unpopular, Victoria was not, so there were very few regrets sent,
and as the week approached, not a few anxious glances were cast at the
threatening clouds which presaged bad weather; but the first day of the
fête dawned cloudless, and before night every room in the spacious old
house had been assigned to an occupant. Andrew laid aside his reserve,
and proved himself to be a prince of entertainers. Victoria was amazed
at this sudden transformation, and after seven years of married life saw
her husband in an entirely different character, and also it was one
which became him well. The first night was spent in all getting
acquainted with one another, or in renewing old acquaintance, and in
visiting the picture-gallery and other places of interest. The second
day was to be devoted to the hunt. At night there was to be a hunt ball,
and the grand ball-room was to be opened to the public for the first
time in thirty-five years.
It was a merry party which assembled before the main entrance the
morning of the hunt to say au revoir for a few hours to the hostess and
those ladies who did not hunt. The gentlemen in their scarlet coats and
buckskin breeches were bright bits of color among the more sombre
riding-habits of the ladies, and Andrew, who sat his horse with a grace
not equalled by any man present, noted the look of wifely pride on
Victoria’s face, as she waved him an adieu with Mary perched upon her
shoulder. The lady riding by his side saw the tender expression on his
face as he kissed his fingers to Victoria, and as their horses cantered
slowly down the avenue, she said: “You have a most charming wife, Mr.
Willing, and the little one is simply cherubic.”
Andrew glanced at his companion. She was young and extremely beautiful.
Rumor said that for three seasons she had been a reigning belle in New
York and Baltimore society, and that, strange to relate, she cared more
for the society of middle-aged men than for that of men nearer her own
age. Was she fishing for a compliment, thinking that Andrew, as scores
of other men might have done, would at once begin a flirtation on the
strength of the few words of praise bestowed upon his wife? All this
flashed through Andrew’s mind as he watched the blooming color, like the
heart of a sea shell, come and go on the riante face of his fair guest.
His dark, mournful eyes, whose sadness was their greatest charm, looked
straight into the melting blue ones so near him while he said: “There is
no woman on this earth to equal her, Miss Marchon. There never will be
for me. Without her and the child, who is a part of us, my life would
become a void. I should not care to live.”
A slightly sarcastic smile curved the beautiful lips of his hearer.
“Such devotion after nearly fifteen years of married life is truly
commendable, Mr. Willing. So you never have desired to bask in the
smiles of any other fair lady?”
Andrew saw the drift which the conversation was beginning to take. It
was as he had thought. His beautiful guest was endeavoring to draw him
into a perhaps harmless flirtation, but nevertheless, in his loyalty to
Victoria, one which would be extremely distasteful to him. He resolved
to at once nip this evident admiration of Miss Marchon for himself in
the bud. He turned his horse and pointed with his whip to “The Gables,”
which in the next turn of the avenue would be lost to their view. “That
house holds all I care for in the world. No woman, not even if she
possessed the wiles of a Cleopatra, could turn my allegiance from the
angel we have left behind. Other women when compared with her seem
soulless, dead, devoid of all those graces which she alone possesses. My
God, how I love her! It is something more than love. It is adoration,
worship, an unquenchable fire, which, when I hold her in my arms burns
with a fever heat. Ah, Miss Marchon, few women are loved with the
devotion which I give Victoria. When I say that to save her one heart
pang I would die for her, they are not idle words. They come from a
heart whose every drop of blood flows for her.”
He lowered his whip, and they rode on in silence. Andrew’s dreamy,
melancholy eyes had no further charm for Miss Marchon. He could not be
drawn into a flirtation, be it ever so mild, so, as they joined the rest
of the party she gradually drew away from him, and attached herself to
the side of the governor of the state, who was a widower, and a noted
gallant. Her bright beauty soon captivated him, and before long she had
given him her views of their host.
“He is a boor; a perfect numskull. He does not know enough to compliment
any lady but his wife, and his ravings about her are ridiculous in the
extreme.”
“Do you mean to say that he has been in your charming society for a
whole hour; has looked into those glorious eyes; has gazed upon those
tempting lips; and yet has been so ungallant as not to have seemed to
appreciate so much loveliness, and his own good fortune in being near
it?” inquired the governor, bending from his saddle to touch lightly
with his gloved hand the damask cheek of his companion.
“Even so,” she replied, giving him a bewitching smile.
“Then he is indeed all that you have called him and a great deal more.
He is wanting in courtesy, but then you must excuse him on the plea of
his not having been in society of late. He has withdrawn from the world
so completely since that dreadful accident to his brother, of which he
was an eye-witness, and which for a time ’tis said unbalanced his mind
so that he has acted strangely ever since. His wife was also his
brother’s, you no doubt know?”
“No, indeed. This is news,” replied Miss Marchon, eagerly, woman-like,
scenting a romance. “Do tell me all about it, dear governor. I know very
little regarding them except what Mrs. Lewis, where I am visiting, has
told me. She said that the Willings were people a little eccentric, but
it would not do to slight them in any way, as they are immensely
wealthy, and their ancestors were among the bluest blood of England’s
peers, and that the present Mrs. Willing is a titled English lady, who
dropped her title upon marrying an American.”
“All of which is very true,” rejoined the governor, “but what I shall
tell you borders on the romantic. Roger and Andrew Willing were twin
brothers, and as unlike as you can imagine. I knew them both from
childhood. Roger was one of the finest fellows I ever knew. Jolly, full
of jokes, and always ready for a good time. He had the handsomest blue
eyes I ever saw, excepting, of course, these at my side.”
Miss Marchon was one of the few women who can blush conveniently and at
just the right time. A delicious rosy wave of color dyed her cheeks, and
she laughingly tapped her admirer with her whip. “Go on, go on, you
flatterer,” she cried, “I am becoming deeply interested. I wish I might
have known this Roger Willing whose picture you sketch so charmingly.”
“You can see his portrait in the large gallery, Miss Marchon, taken in
the heyday of his youth, but it does not do him justice. Well, as I was
saying, he was a fellow beloved by everybody, and was so different from
his twin brother, who was always as you see him now; moody, quiet, and
sadly wanting in gallantry toward the fair sex, and if I am not
mistaken, a little jealous of his more popular brother. Then when Roger
was in his twenty-second year, just when life looked the fairest to him,
he lost his eyesight in a powder explosion during a Fourth of July
celebration in New York.”
“How very sad!” exclaimed Miss Marchon. “Those beautiful eyes! It must
have been a serious affliction to him.”
“It was; but he was a fellow who always looked on the bright side of
everything, and you can imagine how surprised all society was, when it
became known that only two months after his accident, he had been
quietly married to Lady Victoria Vale, who was visiting his mother, and
who had fallen violently in love with the invalid, and he with her.”
“Oh, how romantic!” cried Miss Marchon, clapping her hands. “Just like a
novel. Pray, hasten, governor.”
“Yes, very romantic, but nevertheless a most unfortunate marriage. Lady
Vale had higher views for her daughter, and was much displeased, so she
left immediately for England, and never became reconciled even when her
child was made a widow, and Rumor says she is not pleased with this
second marriage, but I am digressing. It seemed as if nothing but
ill-fortune followed this hasty bridal, for Andrew and his mother had
some high words over a matter which no one has ever been able to
discover, and the poor lady died that night in a paralytic fit.”
“How dreadful! Why, it seems almost like a fatality, does it not,
governor?”
“Almost, Miss Marchon; but Lady Victoria’s troubles were not over by any
means, for less than five years after her marriage, Roger was killed in
a railway accident and brought home a shapeless bit of flesh, to be
buried in the family plot beside his mother, whose favorite he had
always been, and from whom he was not long separated.”
Here Miss Marchon brushed a few pearly tears—which had conveniently
appeared just at the right moment—from her blue eyes. “It is so
affecting,” she said in excuse, as the governor watched her admiringly.
“It only shows what a tender little heart it has,” he said, riding close
to her, and softly brushing her eyes with his own daintily monogrammed
cambric.
“Is there more?” she inquired, putting up her face in the most innocent
manner, and squeezing out still another tear which was tenderly taken
care of by the devoted governor.
“I wish there was more so that I might still perform this pleasant
task,” he said, as he lingered long over the last tear, “but there is
nothing of any interest except that Andrew profited much by his
brother’s death, and not three years after, married the widow who had
seemed inconsolable at first. She is certainly a most beautiful woman,
but she is no longer in the full bloom of youth, and not to be compared
with the charmer by my side in whom her husband can see no beauty.”
“Oh, you are a naughty man,” cried Miss Marchon, “you don’t mean a word
you have said, and for punishment I shall ride on and join Miss Fairley,
who has no companion.”
“Ah! do not be so cruel,” exclaimed the governor, catching her horse’s
bridle. “The hunt will have no pleasures for me, if you desert me. Pray
remove that glove that I may see your hand. Ah, it is still unfettered.”
He caught the white hand and pressed it to his lips. “May I, dare I
hope, that this little hand shall be mine for——”
Miss Marchon turned away her head, so that he should not see the smile
of triumph on her lips. Here was a proposal worth accepting, but she
would not make haste to jump at it too quickly. She must appear
diffident, coy, and quite innocently maidenish, although she had passed
the rubicon some time before and was anything but an amateur in
conducting love affairs to the desired point. His finishing words,
however, brought her reverie to the ground with a thud, which she felt
if no one else did, and she could have struck him in the face as he
wound up with—“several dances at the ball to-night?”
For a moment she lost her head and came near bursting into tears. How
glad she was that she had turned her head away. When she _did_ look
toward him her face was wreathed in smiles, and with a bewitching
gesture, she replied: “As many dances as you wish dear governor. How can
I refuse when asked in such a charming manner? But see, our party is
already at the field. We are way in the rear. Come, let us hasten, or
they will start without us.
And so ended the brief dream of Miss Marchon of some day becoming a
governor’s lady, for he never proposed, but rode away when the fetê was
ended, and she never saw him more.
Andrew opened the ball that night with Miss Marchon, and her unwilling
ears were obliged to listen, while he berated the custom which tabooed
him from dancing the first figure with his wife. Victoria, feeling
happier than at any time since her marriage, was dancing with the
governor, and as Andrew watched the face so dear to him, and noted every
changing mood from grave to gay, from laughter to serious thought, he
did not regret the step he had taken in throwing open his doors to this
“howling mob,” as he called it, much as it was distasteful to him. He
watched the governor as he bent in a most lover-like attitude over
Victoria, and although he knew that Victoria was no flirt, yet the
attention of any man toward his wife stirred something within him which
if not exactly jealousy was very near akin to it. What man but himself
had a right to clasp that slender waist, or press the exquisite figure
of his loved one, perhaps with more tenderness than was at all
necessary. He could hardly wait for the figure to be ended, so eager was
he to join his wife, and with scarcely a word he led Miss Marchon to a
seat, and crossed the room to where Victoria sat surrounded by a crowd
of gallants.
She looked up with a bright smile as Andrew approached. “How charmingly
Miss Marchon and you dance together,” she said, as he bent over her. “Is
she not royally beautiful? I call her the most beautiful and the best
dressed lady here.”
“I had not thought of her beauty,” replied Andrew, glancing at the
sweet, serious face of Victoria, “and as for her costume I cannot tell
you whether it be black or white. All women look alike to me save one,
Victoria. That one I have deified. She stands a queen among her lesser
satellites, and overshadows them all.”
Victoria looked up into her husband’s face. His eyes were full of
slumbering passion, ready to burst into flame at a kind word from her.
The other men had left them alone as Andrew began speaking to his wife,
and somehow, as Victoria caught the fire in her husband’s eyes,
something which she had not felt before stirred within her. A tremor,
delicious in its vagueness, shot through her veins, and she thought:
“Can this be love which I feel coming to me? Love for a man whom I have
said I hated?” She laid her fan upon his arm. “How much you do love me,
Andrew? I wonder if there be another man in this ball-room who is saying
such devoted words to his wife as I am hearing?”
“No,” replied Andrew, “for no man loves his wife with the strength of
passion which you inspire in me. Plenty are devoting themselves to the
entertainment of other men’s wives, leaving their own neglected, or to
be led into a flirtation which belittles them in the eyes of serious
people. The men are vain and careless of the reputation of those who
should be the most cherished by them. The women are silly and frivolous,
and so the world moves on, and this reminds me that I have a request to
ask of you, my darling. Will you dance with nobody but me to-night? I do
not care for any partner but your sweet self, and you may deem me very
silly, but I cannot see you in the arms of any one of these men who are
so inferior to you, without a jealous pang.”
Victoria laughed. “What an idea, Andrew. Would you monopolize your wife
at your own ball? What will people say?”
“I don’t give a continental for what people may say. I want you for
myself. What is your decision, sweetheart?”
“Of course I will do as you wish, Andrew. I don’t care to dance a very
great deal. What I have promised I can no doubt get excused from.”
“Then do. Are you promised for the next? Yes, I see you are. I will at
once seek your partner and get a substitute in your place. Then I shall
claim my rights. Do you know, sweet wife, that this will be our first
dance together? Can you imagine how eager I am to try my step with
yours?”
He pressed her hand to his lips and left her. She watched him treading
his way among the crowd. Surely she had every reason to be proud of him,
and she ought to love him. Such devotion was certainly worthy of a
return. Then she thought of that other husband, asleep under the freshly
cut flowers which Mary and herself had strewn upon his bed that morning.
Every morning ere the sun was up she took Mary, and together they walked
to the pines where Roger lay, and laid their tribute of affection over
the quiet sleeper. Andrew knew of these early visits but he never
objected as any other man might have done under the circumstances, and
as she sat there thinking of his careful tenderness for her and their
child; of his patient love which had grown instead of diminished during
nearly eight years of married life; how he had bourne without any
outward signs of how it hurt him, her days of lamentations for Roger,
when she had shut her door against everybody including her beloved
child, and refused to be comforted. As she thought of all these things
she saw her selfishness in many ways, and she resolved to gradually drop
those early visits, and by so doing remove one thorn from Andrew’s path,
for it had been a thorn to him she well knew. This morbid love of hers
for the dead who could never return. She welcomed him with a smile when
he returned, and he saw that in her face which was new to him. He looked
at her searchingly.
“Have you been communing with unseen spirits, Victoria?” he said, as he
led her upon the floor, “your face is angelic.”
“Yes,” she replied, looking up to him with a strange light in her eyes.
“I have seen a vision which I never expected to behold. A vision of love
in which only you and I, and our child were the central figures.”
He understood, and for a moment, strong man that he was, he reeled under
the exquisite meaning conveyed in her words. She was beginning to love
him. She had put Roger away out of her thoughts. He placed his arm about
her to begin the figure, and he pressed her to him with such passion as
to crush the flowers at her bodice. “Don’t, Andrew,” she whispered, “you
hurt me; besides, people about us are remarking your actions.”
“The whole world may see and comment,” he replied, as he strained her to
him again. “I could shout it out from the house tops, I am so happy. I
feel as if I were drunk, Victoria. Drunk with joy. Have I not waited for
eight long weary years to hear the blessed words? Ah, if I had you
alone, away from this gaping crowd, I would kneel before you and worship
you as a divinity. My God! was ever woman so sweet as you? Was ever man
so blessed as I? Will this ball ever come to an end?”
Indeed, Andrew in his ecstatic state of mind was nearer being a madman
than a rational creature, and seemed to have thrown aside melancholy,
and he entered into the sports of the ball with a zest equal to the
youngest gallant there. Not until the revel was over, and he had sought
his study for a few moments before retiring, as was his custom no matter
how late the hour, did he remember the sword suspended by a single hair.
Ah, yes, now it came back to him with cruel force after the sweet
assurance held out to him by Victoria. With a maddening rush, all the
simple events of the past ten years crowded upon his brain in a seething
whirlpool, and beating his breast with his clenched hands, the strong
man fell upon his knees, and for the first time in his life prayed God
to forgive him his sins while he wept like a child. Ah, he was not
without a conscience, which goaded and pricked him sharply. He had no
need to wear a garment of hair next his flesh to remind him of a sin for
which to do penance, and now—now that he knew Victoria was his; that in
time she would give to him the sweet love for which he so craved, his
sins looked more heinous than ever, yet he could not bring himself to
confess them, for fear of losing both Victoria and his child; and he
seemed to see written in letters of fire upon the study wall the words:
“Be sure in time your sins will be discovered. Repent then, and
confess.”
“I cannot! I cannot!” cried the miserable man, in answer to those
unspoken words, yet which were visible to _his_ eye. “If my soul goes to
torment I cannot confess. God help me!”