THE STAB IN THE BACK.
A brighter morning for a wedding never dawned. The house was alive with
merry voices and the echo of footsteps hurrying to and fro. The most
fashionable society of the city was to be present at the ceremony which
was to take place at noon. Then would come the festivities, the feast,
the dancing, and after that the drive of the newly-married pair to the
beautiful house three miles away, that Stephen Archdale had built and
furnished for his bride, and that had never yet been a home.
Before the appointed hour the guests began to arrive and to fill the
great drawing-room. There each one on entering walked toward the huge
fire-place, in which on an immense bed of coals glowing with a
brilliancy that outshone the rich red furniture and hangings of the room
lay great logs, which blazed in their fervor of hospitable intent and
radiated a small circle of comfort from the heat that did not escape up
the chimney. The rich attire of the guests could bear the bright
sunlight that streamed in through the numberless little panes of the
windows, and the gay colors that they wore showed off well against the
dark wainscotting of the room and its antique tapestries. The ladies
were gorgeous in silks and velvets which were well displayed over
enormous hoops. On their heads, where the well-powdered hair was built
up in a tower nearly a foot in height, were flowers or feathers.
Precious stones fastened the folds of rich kerchiefs, sparkled on dainty
fingers, or flashed with stray movements of fans that, however
discreetly waved, betrayed their trappings once in a while by some
coquettish tremulousness. The gentlemen were resplendent also in
gold-laced coats and small clothes, gold, or diamond shoe buckles,
powdered wigs and queues, and with ruffles of the richest lace about
their wrists. These guests, who were among the people that in
themselves, or their descendants, were destined to give the world a new
nation, strong and free, showed all that regard to the details of
fashion said to characterize incipient decay in races. But with them it
was only an accessory of position, everything was on a foundation of
reality, it all represented a substantial wealth displaying itself
without effort. The Sherburnes were there, the Atkinsons, the
Pickerings, Governor Wentworth, the first of the Governors after New
Hampshire separated from Massachusetts and went into business for
itself, and others of the Wentworth family. Conspicuous among the guests
was Colonel Pepperrell who had already proved that the heart of a strong
man beat under his laced coat. His wife, well-born and fine-looking, was
beside him, and his son, fresh from College honors, and sipping eagerly
the sparkling draught of life that was to be over for him so soon; his
daughter also, last year a bride, and her husband. These were leaders in
that brilliant assembly called together to the marriage of Katie and
Stephen Archdale.
While waiting for the event of the morning they talked in low tones
among themselves of the wedding, or more audibly, of personal, or of
political affairs.
"It wants only ten minutes of the hour," said one lady, "perhaps our
good parson may not come this morning."
"What do you mean?" asked her companion.
"Why, this; that his wife, perhaps, will lock his study door upon him as
she did one Sabbath when we all went to the house of God and found the
pulpit empty. There's no end to all the malicious tricks she plays him.
Poor, good man."
"Do you know," said a beruffled gentleman in another part of the room to
his next neighbor, "what a preposterous proposal that ragged fellow,
Bill Goulding, made to Governor Wentworth last week? He is a
good-for-nothing, and the whole scheme is thought to have been merely a
plan to talk with the Governor, whom he has wanted to see for a long
time. It gave him access to the fine house, and he stalked about there
an hour looking at the pictures and the splendid furniture while its
owner was taking an airing. The general opinion is that the object of
his visit was accomplished before his Excellency's return."
"Poor fellow! One can't blame him so very much," returned the listener
with a complacent smile, offering his gold-mounted snuff-box to the
speaker before helping himself generously from it. "But what was his
scheme?"
"Something the most absurd you ever listened to. He proposed, if other
people would furnish the money, to establish a public coach from this
city to Boston, to run as often as once a week, and, after the first
expense, to support itself from the travellers it carries; each one is
to pay a few shillings. Where did he expect the travellers to come from?
Gentlemen would never travel in other than private conveyances?" And
these representatives of conservatism threw back their heads and laughed
over the absurdity of the lightning express in embryo. Governor
Wentworth standing before the fire was commenting on some of Governor
Shirley's measures, giving his own judgment on the matter, with a
directness more bold than wise, and the circle about him were discussing
affairs with the freedom of speech that Americans have always used in
political affairs, when a stir of expectation behind them made them take
breath, and glance at the person entering the room. It was the minister.
"He has come, you see," whispered the lady to her neighbor of the
forebodings. After greeting him, the group about the fire went back to
their discussions. It had been the good parson's horse then, which they
had heard tearing up the road in hot haste; they had not dreamed that so
much speed was in the nag. But Master Shurtleff was probably a little
late and had been afraid of keeping the bride and groom waiting for him.
Master and Mistress Archdale were there; all the company, indeed, but
the four members of it most important that morning, Katie and Stephen,
the bridesmaid, Mistress Royal, and the best man, a young friend of
Archdale's. After a few moments in which conversation lagged through
expectancy, the door opened again.
"Ah! here they are. No, only one, alone. How strange!"
Every eye was turned upon Elizabeth Royal as she came in with a face too
concentrated upon the suggestion under which she was acting to see
anything about her. Without sign of recognition she glanced from one to
another, until her eyes fell upon good Parson Shurtleff watching her
with a gentle wonder in his face. It was for him that she had been
looking. She went up to him immediately, and laid a tremulous hand upon
his arm. She tried to smile, but the effort was so plain and her face so
pale that an anxiety diffused itself through the assembly; it was felt
that her presence here alone showed that something had happened, and her
expression, that it was something bad. She did not seem even to hear the
minister's kind greeting, and she was as little moved by the wonder and
scrutiny about her as if she had been alone with him. At Mistress
Archdale's reiterated question if Katie were ill, she shook her head in
silence. Some thought held her in its grasp, some fear that she was
struggling to speak.
"It is a cruel jest," she cried at last, "but it must be only a jest.
The man's horse is blown, he came so fast. And he insisted on seeing me
and would give this only into my own hands; his message was that it was
life and death, that I must read it at once before the--" She stopped
with a shudder, and held out a paper that she had been grasping; it was
crumpled by the tightening of her fingers over it. There was a sound of
footsteps and voices in the hall; the minister looked toward the door,
and listened. "You must read it now, this instant, before they come in,"
cried Elizabeth: "it must be done; I don't dare not to have you; and
tell me that it has no power, it is only a wicked jest; and throw it
into the fire. Oh, quick, be quick."
Parson Shurtleff unfolded the paper with the haste of age, youth's
deliberateness, and began to read at last. At the same instant a hand
outside was laid on the latch of the door. The room was in a breathless
hush. The door was swung slowly open by a servant and the bride and
bridegroom came in, stopping just beyond the threshold as Katie caught
sight of Elizabeth, and with a wondering face waited for her to come to
her place. But the minister, not glancing up, went sternly on with the
paper; and Elizabeth's gaze was fixed on his face; she had drawn a step
away from him; and her hands were pressed over one another. All at once
he uttered an exclamation of dismay, and turned to her, a dread coming
into his face as he met her eyes.
"What does it mean?" he gasped. "Heaven help us, is it true?"
"Oh, it can't be, it can't be," she cried. "Give me the paper. I had to
show it to you, but now you've seen that it must be all false. Give it
to me. Look, they are coming," she entreated. "Think of her, be ready
for them. Oh, burn this. Can't you? Can't you?" and her eyes devoured
him in an agony of pleading.
"Stop!" he said, drawing back his hand. Then in a moment, "Is any of it
true, this wicked jest at a sacred thing? Was that all so?"
"Yes."
By this time the scene had become very different from the programme so
carefully arranged. The bride and groom had indeed gone across the room
and were standing before the minister. But the latter, so far from
having made any preparations to begin the ceremony, stood with his eyes
on the paper, his face more and more pale and perplexed.
"What is it?" cried Master Archdale, laying a hand on his shoulder.
"Yes, what does it all mean?" asked the Colonel, advancing toward the
minister, and showing his irritation by his frown, his flush, and the
abruptness of his speech usually so suave.
"I hardly know myself," returned Shurtleff looking from one to the
other.
"Let us have the ceremony at once, then," said Master Archdale
authoritatively. "Why should we delay?"
"I cannot, until I have looked into this," answered the minister in a
respectful tone.
"Nonsense," cried the Colonel with an authority that few contested.
"Proceed at once."
"I cannot," repeated the minister, and his quiet voice had in it the
firmness, almost obstinacy, that often characterizes gentle people. His
opposition had seemed so disproportioned and was so gently uttered that
the hearers had felt as if a breath must blow it away, and interest
heightened to intense excitement when it proved invincible.
"What is all this?" demanded Stephen, holding Katie's arm still more
firmly in his own and facing Mr. Shurtleff with eyes of indignant
protest. As he received no immediate answer, he turned to Elizabeth.
"Mistress Royal," he said, "can you explain this unseemly interruption?"
Then all the company, who for the moment had forgotten her share in the
transaction, turned their eyes upon her again.
"That wicked jest that we had all forgotten," she said, looking at him
an instant with a wildness of pain in her eyes. Then she turned to
Katie's fair, pale face full of wonder and distress at the unguessed
obstacle, and with a smothered cry dropped her face in her hands, and
stood motionless and unheeded in the greater excitement. For now Mr.
Shurtleff had begun to speak.
"You ask me," he said, "why I do not perform the ceremony and marry
these two young people whose hearts love has united. I do not dare to do
it until I understand the meaning of this strange paper I hold in my
hand. What do you remember," he said to Stephen, "of a singular game of
a wedding ceremony played one evening last summer?"
The young man looked uncomprehending for a moment, then drew his breath
sharply.
"That?" he said, "Why, that was only to give an example of something we
were talking about; that was nothing. Mistress,"--he stopped and glanced
at Elizabeth who, leaning forward, was hanging upon every word of his
denial as if it were music--"Mistress Royal knows that was so."
"Yes," cried Elizabeth, "indeed I do."
"Nevertheless," returned Mr. Shurtleff, "it may have been a jest to be
eternally remembered, as all light-minded treatment of serious matters
must be. I hope with all my heart that a moment's frivolity will not
have life-long consequences of sorrow, but I cannot proceed in this
happy ceremony that I have been called here to perform until the point
is settled beyond dispute."
"See how habit rules him like a second nature," whispered Colonel
Pepperrell aside to the Governor. "Nobody but a minister would stop to
give a homily with those poor creatures before him in an agony of
suspense."
"My dear," said his wife softly in a tone of reproof, laying her hand
warningly on his arm.
"Stephen Archdale isn't the man to stand this," retorted the Governor in
a higher key than he realized. But the words did not reach their object,
for he had already laid hold of the paper in Mr. Shurtleffs hand.
"If this paper explains your conduct, give it to me," he said haughtily.
The other drew back.
"I will read it to you and to the company," he answered. "There can be
no wedding this morning. I trust there will be soon. But first it is my
personal duty to look into this matter."
Katie, whose face had grown rigid, swung heavily against Stephen. "She
has fainted," her mother cried coming forward.
"Take her away," commanded the Colonel. "This is no place for her." But
the girl clung to Stephen.
"I will stay," she said, with a tearless sob. "I must listen. I see it
all, and what he meant, too, that evil man."
"Master Shurtleff," cried the Governor, "I command you to make all this
clear to us at once. If that paper in your hand tells us the cause of
your refusal to marry these young people, I bid you read it to us
immediately."
The parson, bowing with respect, cleared his throat and began, premising
that Governor Wentworth's commands had been his own intention from the
first.
"It is a confession," he said, "made by one whom many of us have
welcomed to our homes as a gentleman of blameless character and
honorable dealing. Why it was sent to Mistress Royal instead of to
Master Archdale, or the bride, I am at a loss to understand."
Elizabeth raised her head with a flash in her eyes, but anger died away
into despair, and she stood silent with the others, and listened to the
fate that fell upon her with those monotonous tones, each one heavy as
lead upon her heart. She wondered if it had been sent to her because it
had been feared that Stephen Archdale would keep silence.