The colonel and his daughter finished their call andreturned home disappointed; Nellie with her instinctive dislike to Mr. Helmstedt much augmented.
The fashionable season was over, or so nearly so, that, to electrify society into new life, it required just such an event as the reappearance of its late idol as a bride, and Mrs. De Lancie Helmstedt (for by the will of her father, his sole child and heiress was obliged to retain her patronymic with her married name).
Numerous calls were made upon the newly-wedded pair, and many parties were given in their honor.
Marguerite was still the reigning queen of beauty, song, and fashion, with a difference—there was a deeper glow upon her cheeks and lips, a wilder fire in her eyes, and in her songs a dashing recklessness alternating with a depth of pathos that “from rival eyes unwilling tears could summon.” Those who envied her wondrous charms did not hesitate to apply to her such terms as “eccentric,” and even “partially deranged.” While her very best friends, including Nellie Houston, thought that, during her three months’ retirement on Helmstedts Island, Marguerite had
“Suffered a sea changeInto something wild and strange.”
No more of those mysterious letters had come to her, at least among those forwarded from their home post office, and nothing had transpired to revive the memory of the exciting events on the island. But Mr. Helmstedt, although he disdained to renew the topic, had not in the least degree relaxed his vigilant watchfulness and persevering endeavors to gain knowledge of Marguerite’s secret; vainly, for not the slightest event occurred to throw light upon that dark subject. Marguerite was not less tender and devoted in private than brilliant and fascinating in public; and, despite his bounded confidence, he could not choose but passionately love the beautiful and alluring woman, who, with one reservation, so amply satisfied his love and pride.
Their month’s visit drew to a close, when Mr. Helmstedt accepted an invitation to a dinner given to Thomas Jefferson, in honor of his arrival at the capital. Upon the day of the entertainment, he left Marguerite at four o’clock. And as the wine-drinking, toasting, and speech-makingcontinued long after the cloth was removed, it was very late in the evening before the company broke up and he was permitted to return to his hotel.
On entering first his private parlor, which was lighted up, he missed Marguerite, who, with her sleepless temperament, usually kept very late hours, and whom, upon the rare occasions of his absence from her in the evening, he usually, when he returned, found still sitting up reading while she awaited him. Upon glancing round the empty room, a vague anxiety seized him and he hurried into the adjoining chamber, which he found dark, and called in a low, distinct tone:
“Marguerite! Marguerite!”
But instead of her sweet voice in answer, came a silent, dreary sense of vacancy and solitude. He hurried back into the parlor, snatched up one of the two lighted lamps that stood upon the mantelpiece, and hastened into the chamber, to find it indeed void of the presence he sought. An impulse to ring and inquire when Mrs. Helmstedt had gone out was instantly arrested by his habitual caution. A terrible presentiment, that he thought scarcely justified by the circumstances, disturbed him. He remembered that she could not have gone to any place of amusement, for she never entered such scenes unaccompanied by himself; besides, she had distinctly informed him that preparations for departure would keep her busy in her room all the evening. He looked narrowly around the chamber; the bed had not been disturbed, the clothes closets and bureaus were empty, and the trunks packed and strapped; but one, a small trunk belonging to Marguerite, was gone. The same moment that he discovered this fact, his eyes fell upon a note lying on the dressing-bureau. He snatched it up: it was directed in Marguerite’s hand to himself. He tore it open, and with a deadly pale cheek and darkly-lowering brow, read as follows:
Our Private Parlor, —— House, 6 P.M.My Beloved Husband: A holy duty calls me from you for a few days, but it is with a bleeding heart and foreboding mind that I go. Well do I know, Philip, all that I dare in thus leaving without your sanction. But equally well am I aware, from what has already passed, that that sanction never could have been obtained. I pray you to forgive the manner of my going, an extremity to which your former inflexibility has driven me; andI even venture further to pray that, even now, you will extend the shield of your authority over my absence, as your own excellent judgment must convince you will be best. Philip, dearest, you will make no stir, cause no talk—you will not even pursue me, for, though you might follow me to New York, yet in that great thoroughfare you would lose trace of me. But you will, as I earnestly pray you to do, await, at home, the coming of your most unhappy but devotedMarguerite.
Our Private Parlor, —— House, 6 P.M.
My Beloved Husband: A holy duty calls me from you for a few days, but it is with a bleeding heart and foreboding mind that I go. Well do I know, Philip, all that I dare in thus leaving without your sanction. But equally well am I aware, from what has already passed, that that sanction never could have been obtained. I pray you to forgive the manner of my going, an extremity to which your former inflexibility has driven me; andI even venture further to pray that, even now, you will extend the shield of your authority over my absence, as your own excellent judgment must convince you will be best. Philip, dearest, you will make no stir, cause no talk—you will not even pursue me, for, though you might follow me to New York, yet in that great thoroughfare you would lose trace of me. But you will, as I earnestly pray you to do, await, at home, the coming of your most unhappy but devoted
Marguerite.
It would be impossible to describe the storm of outraged love and pride, of rage, grief, and jealousy that warred in Philip Helmstedt’s bosom.
“Yes! by the eternal that hears me, I will wait her coming—and then! then!” he muttered within himself as he cast the letter into the fire. All night long, like a chafed lion in his cell, he paced the narrow limits of his lonely apartments, giving ill vent to the fierceness of his passions in half-muttered threats and curses, the deeper for suppression. But when morning broke, and the world was astir, he realized that he had to meet it, and his course was taken. His emotions were repressed and his brow was cleared; he rang for his servant, made a careful toilet, and at his usual hour, and with his usual appearance and manner, descended to the breakfast table.
“I hope Mrs. Helmstedt is not indisposed this morning,” said a lady opposite, when she observed the vacant chair at his side.
“Thank you, madam; Mrs. Helmstedt is perfectly well. She left for New York last evening,” replied Mr. Helmstedt, with his habitual, dignified courtesy. And this story went the rounds of the table, then of the hotel, and then of the city, and though it excited surprise, proved in the end satisfactory.
Later in the day he took leave of his friends. And by the next morning’s packet he sailed for the island, which he reached at the end of the week. And once in his own little, isolated kingdom, he said:
“Yes, I will await you here, and then, Marguerite! then!”