CHAPTER XXXVIII.THE WEDDING.
Gladys went to her room with a sweet and tender gravity on her beautiful face.
Every passing moment made her feel more sensibly the sacredness of the vows that she was about to take upon herself, and the responsibilities she was so soon to assume.
“I know this great joy is far more than I deserve,” she murmured. “I cannot understand why no shadow has ever been allowed to cloud my life, when so many are born to a lot of sorrow, trial, and toil. I will try to lift the burden from some hearts in the future; I will not live all for self, but reflect some of my own happiness, if I can, to brighten other lives less favored than mine.”
Could any bride, on the eve of her marriage, have made a holier resolve than this?
Very lovely she looked, when she came forth from her chamber, in her spotless wedding attire.
Her simple, yet elegant dress, of white ottoman silk, was madeen train, and its only garnishing was the voluminous vail, which covered her from head to foot, and was caught, here and there, in graceful draperies, with clusters of orange blossoms and lilies of the valley.
Unlike many brides, she was not pale, but a delicate and lovely color was on her cheek. Her eyes were brilliant and expressive with the deep and holy joy that filled her heart, and she was calm with that perfect content which an unwavering confidence and affection alone could give.
She rode alone with her father, who was to give her away, to Plymouth Church, where Geoffrey was to meet her. He was not there when they arrived, although he left the house some time previous to their own departure, and they waited for him in the vestibule, but somewhat anxiously, as it was already five minutes past the hour set for the ceremony.
At last there was a slight commotion about the door, and a voice was heard to say:
“He has come! All is well now!”
Gladys looked up as he came forward, and thought he looked a trifle pale and excited, but it might be because the light was dim, while her vail rendered everything a little indistinct.
He nodded and smiled reassuringly at her, however; they would not let him come near her, for her dress was all arranged to go in, and must not be disturbed, while her maidens were hovering about her like a band of fairies around their queen, and, with girlish superstition, they waved him off, saying he must not speak to her again until after the ceremony.
Mr. Huntress interviewed him regarding the delay, and then came and told Gladys it had been caused by a change in clergymen at the last moment. Their own pastor had been summoned by telegraph to a brother who was lying at the point of death, only a little more than an hour previous, and had been obliged to send a stranger—a friend who happened to be visiting in his family—to officiate in his place.
This was the only shadow that had marred the young bride’s joy that day. She dearly loved her noble pastor, and was deeply disappointed not to have him pronounce her nuptial benediction.
But she had no time to express it, for Mr. Huntress gave the signal to the ushers to throw open the church doors, while the groom, followed by his attendants, passed down one aisle, and Gladys, on her father’s arm and attended by her maids, went down another.
They all met at the altar, where the strange clergyman was already awaiting them.
Everybody wondered at the self-possession and the lovely bloom of the bride.
But the secret of it was that Gladys forgot herself and all her surroundings; forgot the crowd of witnesses behind her; the curious glances—the place—everything in the solemn moment and the vows she was plighting.
The clergyman, stranger though he was, made the service very beautiful and impressive, while the few words of kindly advice and congratulation which he uttered at its close, when he pronounced the young couple husband and wife, were exceedingly apt and well chosen.
Then it was over, and those two, before whom life seemed reaching out so fair and full of promise, passed slowly down the center aisle, every eye following them, while every lip seemed to have something to say in praise of them.
Gladys was very quiet as her husband put her into the carriage, for the solemnity of the service was still upon her. He, too, seemed in a like mood, for he only gathered the hand that wore his ring close within his own, and thus they sat, mute from excess of joy, during their drive home.
Very tenderly the young husband helped his bride to alight,led her up the steps, never relinquishing her hand until he placed her beneath the magnificent arch at the lower end of the drawing-room, where they were to receive the congratulations of their friends.
They had driven back very rapidly, and thus they had gained several minutes to themselves before the arrival of any others.
“My darling! mywife!” said the exultant young husband, as he stretched forth his arms to gather his beautiful bride to his breast.
Gladys looked up with a startled, searching glance. Something in his tone had struck strangely on her ears, although he had spoken scarcely above a whisper. She saw that he was still somewhat pale, but his whole face was lighted with triumph.
“Geoff——” she began, then the word suddenly froze on her lips, a bewildered look shot in her eyes, when all at once she started away from him, flinging out her arms with a wild gesture of horror and loathing, her face as white as her dress, her eyes almost starting from her head.
“Everet Mapleson!Oh! Heaven! how cameyou here?” she shrieked.
He strode up to her, the look of triumph still on his pale face.
“Because I have a right to be here—beside mywife!”
“Never!never!” she panted, wildly. “You have no right—I amnotyour wife!”
“But, my darling, you are. I have never left your side for an instant since we were pronounced, before God and man, to be husband and wife. You are mine, Gladys! by the laws of the land, as well as by the laws of God! You plighted your vows to me in the presence of hundreds of witnesses, and I shall claim you before all the world!”
She never moved while he was saying this. She stood looking at him with that wild, incredulous light still in her eyes, that deadly whiteness on her face, her arms still outstretched in that attitude of horror and loathing.
She was like a beautiful piece of sculpture that had suddenly been transformed from a happy, living being into pulseless marble by the blighting influence of some congealing wand.
“Can you not believe it, and be sensible?” Everet Mapleson—for it was really he—went on rapidly, for the sound of wheels from without came to him, and he knew that the room would be full in a few moments. “Do not make a scene. You are mine, and no earthly power can sever the bonds that unite us! I love you madly! I worship you! There is nothing I will not do to prove my devotion to you! I have given you a proud name; I have wealth, position, influence, and I am your slave if you will give me but a crumb of love upon which to feast my hungry heart. Gladys, again I implore you not to make ascene! Receive your friends as if nothing unforeseen had happened, and they will never suspect; and to-morrow we will go away over the ocean, and leave the world to get over its astonishment as best it can.”
He paused, for the horror, the despair on her face, which grew every instant more terrible, filled him with fear and dismay.
She did not stir; she was as if frozen in that attitude. She simply stood staring into his face, her own as rigid as a stone, but with such suffering, such anguish, in that fixed gaze as he had never seen depicted in human eyes before.
Steps and voices sounded in the hall. He caught a glimpse of Mr. and Mrs. Huntress hurrying in, to be the first to congratulate their darling.
Another minute, and he knew there must come a fearful disclosure and explosion.
He moved a step nearer the motionless girl and attempted to take one of those outstretched hands in his.
His touch seemed to unlock those tense nerves and muscles as if by magic.
She shrank away from him with a low, shuddering cry, and then, without word or warning, fell forward, and would have dropped to the floor had he not caught her in his arms.
Mr. Huntress, who entered the room at that moment, sprang forward, with a cry of alarm.
“What is the matter?” he asked, his attention all concentrated upon Gladys, and never suspecting the dreadful trick that had been played upon them all.
“The excitement has been too much for her, I fear,” Everet responded, in a low tone.
Mr. Huntress took the senseless girl from him, saying:
“Open that door behind you; we must get her away before that crowd comes pouring in. My poor girl! what can have caused this unusual fainting turn?”
Everet eagerly obeyed his command, and Gladys was borne into a small sitting room, and laid upon a sofa there.
The next moment Mrs. Huntress’ anxious face appeared in the door-way.
“Oh, August, what has happened?” she cried.
“Gladys has fainted, from some cause or other. Go, Geoff” he continued, turning to Everet, “and send some one immediately for Doctor Hoyt.”
The young man hastened to obey, glad to get away from the sight of that white, rigid face for a moment.
He found a servant in the hall, dispatched him for the family physician, and then went back to his post beside Gladys.
He was nearly as pale as the unconscious bride, for he knew that the truth must soon come out, and, hardened and dogged ashe was, the prospect of the inevitable explosion was not a pleasant one.
Mrs. Huntress was on her knees beside her daughter, bathing her face with water, which she had poured from an ice pitcher standing near.
She had thrown back the delicate vail, and it lay all in a heap, like a fleecy cloud, about the pretty brown head upon the sofa pillow, while Mr. Huntress had torn off his gloves, and was chaffing the small limp hands with anxious solicitude.
“What could have been the cause of this? When was she taken ill?” he asked, half turning toward Everet, but still keeping his eyes fastened upon the face he loved so well.
“Just before you entered,” Everet answered, in a clear, natural tone.
Mr. Huntress started, and turned a questioning glance upon him.
Their eyes met, and held each other for one brief moment.
Then Mr. Huntress dropped the hands he was chaffing, arose slowly to his feet, his own color fast receding.
“Geoffrey?” he said, in a doubtful tone, going close up to the young man.
“No, sir;Everet Mapleson, if you please.” replied the young man, haughtily, as with a mighty effort he braced himself for the encounter.
“By Heaven,it is!” August Huntress hoarsely exclaimed, and recoiling as if he had been struck a heavy blow. “What—what is the meaning of this?”
“It means that your daughter has becomemywife instead of marrying Geoffrey Dale, as everybody supposed she was going to do.”
Mrs. Huntress sprang up with a faint shriek at this.
“No, no!” she cried, “that cannot be.”
Then, as she peered closely into his face, and realised the truth of the fearful disclosure, she tottered feebly toward her husband, moaning:
“Oh, August! he has practiced a terrible deception upon us, and it will surely kill Gladys.”
She was almost as helpless as the unconscious girl herself, and her husband was forced to put her into a rocker that stood near him, simply because he, too, was so weakened and unmanned by what he had heard that he was unable to support her.
But a terrible wrath began to rise within him; with it came a false kind of strength, and turning toward the wolf who had thus stolen into his household, he commanded, in a fearful voice:
“Young man, explain yourself!”
“Willingly, sir; the sooner the truth is out, the better it will suit me,” Everet replied, haughtily. “I have loved your daughter for more than three years. Twice I have offered myself toher, and twice been rejected. When I learned of her engagement to the low-born boy whom you adopted, and whom I have despised and hated from the very first of our acquaintance, I vowed it should never be consummated. I worshiped her, and I resolved that I would win her at any cost. I have done so; she is mine, wedded to me this night, in the presence of yourself and hundreds of others, and I shall assert my claim in spite of you all. I hoped, in the excitement and confusion, and from my close resemblance to Huntress, that I should escape discovery until our departure from New York. If we had not reached the house quite so early—if the guests could have followed close upon us and kept Gladys’ attention from being especially called to me, I think I could have warded off detection until we were well on our way to Boston. She seemed turned to stone when she did recognize me, and realized how she had been duped, and when I attempted to reason with her she swooned.”
For a minute after Everet concluded, Mr. Huntress stood like one dazed by some fearful shock, his glance wavering between the still unconscious bride and the man whose victim she had become.
“It is a fraud!” he cried at last. “You have practiced a most damnable fraud upon us all; but I hope that you do not imagine for a moment that you can enforce your claim. The courts of New York will promptly annul the marriage.”
“Allow me to suggest, sir, that you will first have to prove your point regarding fraud,” Everet retorted, with quiet defiance. “Miss Huntress has been heard to affirm that she could distinguish between Geoffrey Dale and myself without any difficulty, and yet she went to the altar with me and pledged herself to me without a demur.”
Mr. Huntress groaned.
“Was that strange clergyman a tool of yours?” he demanded, excitedly. “Was that all a clever device of yours also?”
“No. Strange as it may seem, he was substituted just as I related to you, although it proved a most fortunate circumstance for me; but the telegram which called your pastor from his home wasnotabona fideone. I never should have dared to face him, who has so long known Geoffrey, for he would have detected the trick at once.”
“Scoundrel!” said Mr. Huntress, between his teeth. “Where is my son?—where is Geoffrey?”
“I cannot tell you, sir. Ithink, however, he has also been invited out of town—for a few hours, at least,” Everet returned, a little smile of triumph curving his lips as he became more accustomed to the situation and realized his power.
Mr. Huntress caught it, and a dusky flush mounted to his forehead.
“Leave this house instantly!” he commanded, unable to control himself any longer in the face of such effrontery.
“I could not think of it, sir,” Everet quietly replied, and composedly seating himself by a window. “My place is beside my wife, and here I shall stay until she shall be able to accompany me elsewhere.”
What Mr. Huntress would have done next it is impossible to say, but before he could even reply, the door opened and Doctor Hoyt entered.
“What am I wanted for? Bless me! what does this mean?” he exclaimed, glancing about him with undisguised astonishment, and perceiving the condition of the newly made bride.
“Gladys was taken ill immediately upon returning from the church,” Mr. Huntress hastened to explain, suddenly bethinking himself that it would be wise to avoid a scandal, at least until he could take legal advice and see what hope there was of a release for Gladys from the hateful bonds that bound her.
“Ah, yes—a protracted swoon, caused by excitement or some sudden shock,” said the energetic little doctor, with a professional air, as he took one of the limp, white hands that lay on Gladys’ still breast, and felt for the pulse.
He could not find any, nor was there any movement about the heart, and he began to look very grave.
“She must be put to bed immediately, and there must be perfect quiet throughout the house,” he said. “Huntress, you must explain this to your guests, and get them away as soon as possible. It is unfortunate, but I won’t answer for the consequences if there is any confusion when she comes to herself. Here madame,” to Mrs. Huntress, “get this finery off her head and loosen her corsage, and you, sir,” to Everet, whom he supposed to be Geoffrey, “unlace those pretty number twos, and give the blood a chance to circulate in her feet.”
His coming seemed to put life and confidence into the nearly distracted parents.
Mr. Huntress braced himself to encounter the crowd of wondering people in the drawing-room, and, going out, explained as briefly as possible the sudden illness of the bride, and the sympathetic guests, with a few well-bred expressions of regret, immediately dispersed, and in less than fifteen minutes the mansion was cleared and the stricken household left to itself, while not a suspicion of the fearful truth had got abroad.