THE WEDDING AT WILLOW BEND.
It will be remembered that Mr. Noel was forced by indisposition to leave
his guests at the dinner table, on the night that ended in such bitter
feeling between the parties left behind. Before morning he became
seriously ill, and the next day was pronounced in imminent danger, from
one of those acute attacks of a disease which might any moment prove
fatal. Another morning found him worse, and the doctor despondent.
In this strait, the sick man had but one overpowering anxiety: his
daughter’s welfare. He had consented willingly to her marriage with
Waldon, who was so well known as an author and a rising man in public
life, that his lack of wealth was of little importance to a person who
possessed so much.
Few kinder or more indulgent fathers ever lived than Mr. Noel; and now,
when death seemed very near, anxiety to leave his only child under safe
protection grew strong within him. He sent for the girl and won from her
a half-frightened, half-delighted consent that the marriage should be
celebrated then and there in his sick-room.
An hour after Mary Noel gave her consent to this, a young man was
galloping at full speed toward Hyde’s plantation.
Young Hyde, being a bachelor, and entire master of himself, led a
careless life on the estate his father had bequeathed him. Without much
regard to the elegancies of society, he extended a hearty, almost rude
hospitality to such friends as chose to make his house their
headquarters for lounging, shooting, or any other country amusement that
their own ingenuity could devise. With plenty of old family servants
ready to bestow their labor upon his guests, a stable full of blood
horses, and any amount of empty sleeping-rooms, the Hyde mansion was
usually a scene of great hospitality and free living. Guests remained in
that house so long as it pleased them, without any idea of restraint. In
fact, each one soon became a sort of amateur master. Certainly, the
party now assembled under its roof had a jolly, idle, rollicking time of
it, and seemed in no hurry to depart.
Hyde and some idle young Virginians from Richmond were lounging around
the windows of the smoking-room, half in and half out of doors, at the
very time that Mary Noel was giving her consent to a speedy wedding.
They had been discussing the unpleasant termination of the dinner, and
seemed rather astonished at Waldon’s apathy in the matter; but he sat
apart and smoked much, leaning back on one chair with his feet on
another, while his friends went into an eager discussion of his duties.
He had seen Mary after her interview with Mrs. Forbes, and that young
person, having misunderstood the indignant lady entirely, and, as such
people will, added a good deal of her own to what had really been said,
Waldon was satisfied that, through this underground channel, he had
secured an apology from young Fletcher ample as he could wish. Hyde’s
interference he chose to ignore entirely. He was well aware that a
quarrel with her brother would be sure to enlist Mrs. Forbes against
him; and an open rupture with Hyde would have left him without a home,
when it was most important that he should be in the neighborhood of
Willow Bend.
“Alice never will allow me to run the risk of being shot,” he reasoned.
“There is enough left of the old feeling to set her actively to work,
and she is a deuced clever woman. In fact, I never took the trouble to
please any but clever women until this bit of cream and honey came in my
way. I wonder how she will manage it? The fellow is plucky enough, but
she can control him, and will. The woman who once loves Waldon never
wholly throws off his chains. I shall be in no haste here, but give
ample time.”
In this way the man reasoned, while his companions chatted lazily,
sending up clouds of smoke among the stags’ heads, foils and
fowling-pieces that ornamented the great open hall where they were
sitting.
“Let him alone,” said one of the young Virginians, who could not
understand this cool way of taking an affront. “He is not likely to put
up with an insult like that. New Yorkers are not fond of duelling, but
such want of pluck as that would drive him from the clubs.”
Waldon heard this, and was stung by it, as Lane saw with great
satisfaction; for a sharp, underground antagonism was going on between
these two men, which threatened every moment to break out in an open
rupture.
“I think they can leave Waldon to take care of his own honor,” muttered
that gentleman, as he caught the drift of this conversation, while he
twisted a loose leaf around the end of his cigar, and polished it down
with his finger. “I am waiting for that young hound to send me an
apology. Wasn’t it a statesman who taught us the value of ‘masterly
inactivity?’ There! I have lost my light, and the whole thing isn’t
worth that! Boy, bring me a match.”
A young mulatto, who was lolling against a post of the veranda,
listening greedily to the talk, went off like a flash, and that moment a
horseman appeared in the road, coming full gallop toward the Hyde
mansion.
“It is one of Noel’s people, I think,” observed Hyde, leaning forward to
get a good view of the approaching horseman, “riding like the mischief.
I wonder what is up at the Bend? Old fellow dead, perhaps.”
Waldon set down his chair with a crash, and started up. Hyde laughed,
and snapped the ashes from his cigar with vicious emphasis.
“Perhaps it is the apology coming!” he said, with a curl of the lips, as
he replaced the cigar between them.
Waldon gave him a glance of fire, and walked forward to meet the man,
who rode straight toward them.
“A letter, sar,” said the young fellow, taking off his hat, from which
he produced a canary-colored note, on which gleamed a tiny monogram of
gold. “Ole marse done sick. Couldn’t send noffin hisself, so young
missus done writ it.”
Waldon heard nothing of this, but tore open the note, rending the pretty
monogram, in twain, and read it eagerly.
“MY DEAR MR. WALDON:
“Papa is ill; the doctor thinks worse. He is very, very anxious that you
should come to the Bend at once. I do not know how to write it, and am
blushing all over, but he wishes so much to see us married before he
dies. Of course, it is dreadful—without trousseau or anything—and I was
just sending to France for such lovely things! But poor, dear papa, how
can his own—own child refuse him anything in his dying hour? I have just
been looking over my things, and find a white _gaze de Chambery_ that
has never been worn but once. My maid is now busy putting new lace on
the flounces. She works in breathless haste, and oh, dearest, I shall be
ready by the time one of Mr. Hyde’s swiftest horses can bring you here.
I don’t know how to subscribe myself, standing on the edge of a
precipice to which your noble love has so sweetly led me, but, for the
last time, am
“MARY NOEL.”
A flash of haughty triumph brightened Waldon’s face as he came back to
his friends with this note in his hand.
“Does he send an apology on canary-colored paper?” Hyde cried out.
“Hyde, pray excuse me,” said Waldon, ignoring the young man’s sneer,
because of the swift revenge his words would bring, “it is an
extraordinary request; but pray make a speedy toilet without delay, and
permit me to order the carriage. A very impatient old gentleman, who
thinks himself on his death-bed, is anxious to have me married at once,
and the lady is waiting. Will you go with me and witness the ceremony?”
Hyde turned livid; but a guest seized him by the arm before he could
speak and hurried him away, startled by the bitter resentment that
whitened his face.
“Go!” he said. “Do not let the man see that you feel it so deeply. We
will both see him married.”
“He is my guest,” answered Hyde, “I must not forget that.”
Hyde’s carriage drew up in front of the mansion at Willow Bend, and,
after a few moments’ delay, the gentlemen were ushered up the broad
staircase into Mr. Noel’s chamber, where the physician and a clergyman
were in attendance.
The sick man reached forth his hand when Waldon entered, and spoke with
him some minutes, while the rest stood apart, waiting.
Waldon seemed greatly impressed, and grasped the hand held out to him
with much apparent ardor, as if some sacred promise were confirmed by
the act.
Then the door opened, and, with a soft flutter of lace, the bride
entered, followed by her maid, who stood just within the room, smiling
till her teeth glimmered like ivory.
When the sick man saw his child in all the snowy cloudiness of her
bridal array, his hand dropped that of Waldon, and, drawing her gently
down to his pillow, he kissed her fair cheek, and left a trace of tears
upon it. Then the hands of those two were joined, the clergyman stepped
forward, and they were pronounced man and wife.
Then, one by one, those present stole from the room, and the sick man
was left alone.