CHAPTER XXXIX.A CRUSHING BLOW.
The next morning when the company met at breakfast, Josephine experienced a feeling of intense relief upon learning that Lord Carrol had been called away to London at an early hour on “important business.”
This was the day of their departure also, and she was not sorry to leave the house which had been the scene of her humiliation and despair over her unrequited love.
The meal was not a very social one, for every one was tired out with last night’s dissipation, and it required more of an effort than they felt capable of making to be very merry.
After it was over, and as Josephine was passing through the hall on her way to her own room, she espied the morning papers lying on the table.
Mechanically she took up one, glancing carelessly over the columns, when almost the first thing she saw was a notice of the arrival of a steamer from New York two days previous, with a list of the passengers below.
A lurid light shot into her eyes and an angry exclamation burst from her lips as she read; for, among the other names in that list, she read those of Jacob Rosevelt, Miss Star Gladstone and maid, from New York.
“What on earth can have possessed them to come aboard just at this time?” she muttered, with lowering brow. “If they had only waited a month they would have missed him, but now they will be sure to meet.”
She took the paper and went up stairs to her mother’s room, and showed the notice to her.
She was very angry also.
“It seems as if that girl was bound to be the ruination of us. They are continually crossing our path, and I declare it is more than human nature can patiently bear. I wonder what has brought them to England?”
“I suppose Uncle Jacob thinks he must give his charmingprotegeeevery advantage possible,” Josephine sneered, bitterly.
“Well, I’m sure we do not need to mind them now,” Mrs. Richards said, with a sigh of satisfaction. “Even if she gets every penny of his money, your position will henceforth be far superior to hers.”
“I don’t know about that,” the girl retorted, with a painful flush. “If Lord Carrol meets her, and they make up their quarrel, I shall still be rather in the background, I imagine.”
“True; I had not thought of that,” her mother replied with a blank look. “I wish you could have managed to entrap him, Jo.”
“Jo” bit her lips until the blood spurted from them, as she remembered how her “trap” had sprung and wounded only herself.
“Lord Carrol is afool!” she said, passionately.
Her mother looked up at her searchingly, mistrusting that her daughter had more reason for her pale face and heavy eyes than she knew of.
“If only that marriage last night could have been a real one, I should have been the happiest woman in England this morning,” she said, wistfully.
“With one exception,” Josephine thought, with a bitter sigh and a hard glitter in her eyes; but she said nothing.
They did not leave Sherbrooke House that day, however. A sudden storm came on during the afternoon, too violent to admit of the departure of any one, and Lady Sherbrooke would not allow any of her guests to mention such a thing. And so the long, dreary day was spent in rest and quiet.
But the next day broke bright and pleasant, and just as thecompany were sitting down to the morning meal, Minnie Shelton came dancing into the breakfast-room, her cheeks glowing, her eyes sparkling, and her lips parted in the brightest of smiles, while a paper fluttered in her small hands.
“Such fun!” she exclaimed, merrily. “Here is a description of your ball, Lady Sherbrooke, in the CheshireGazette—the mock marriage and all; and the best of the whole thing is, they have written up that event so that at a first glance any one would naturally suppose that a real wedding had occurred. Listen.”
She held up the paper and read:
“MARRIED.—At the country residence of Lady Sherbrooke, on the 10th instant, Sir Archibald Sherbrooke and Lord Carrol, of Carrolton, to Miss Josephine Richards, formerly of New York, U. S. A., but recently reported to be the heiress presumptive to the Thornton estates in Devonshire. The fair bride was lovely in her bridal robes, not the least noticeable of which was the exquisite point lace vail, which was also of great value.”
“There—isn’t that too rich for anything?” the gay girl cried; “and do look at the mock bride’s blushes!” pointing at Josephine, whose face was crimson from varied emotions; “what a pity it is that our handsome groom is not here to see them; and one would almost imagine she was a real bride by her confusion.”
“Then there follows a long account of the ball, which explains everything,” she added, laying down the paper; “but I’m so out of breath that I can’t read any more, and you’ll have to peruse it for yourselves.”
There was an awkward silence for a moment after she had ceased speaking; then Lady Sherbrooke said, in tones of grave reproof:
“Minnie, my dear, what a wild child you are; but you must learn to be more thoughtful of the feelings of others.”
“Why, what have I done?” she asked, with great, round, innocent eyes, yet a guilty flush rose to her cheeks.
“I am very glad if you enjoyed the ball,” her ladyship continued, still gravely; “but I regret that you should have proposed turning so serious a subject as marriage into mockery, and I am very sorry—yes, deeply displeased, that any one, in writing an account of our gathering here, should have given that farce such an appearance of reality, for it might make it very awkward, not only for my son, but also for some of our guests,” she concluded, with glance at Josephine’s downcast face.
Little Miss Shelton was very uneasy during this reproof, but she rallied, and said, lightly:
“But, dear Lady Sherbrooke, it was all done so nicely; and everything was so lovely that it almost seemed like a real wedding. I wish wecouldhave a real wedding. Won’t somebody get married, please, and give me an invitation? I haven’t been to one since I was a little girl in short clothes.”
And the elf looked around her so roguishly, and with such an expression of mock distress on her pretty face, that the company broke into an indulgent laugh, and then the subject was for the time dropped.
But Josephine, watching her opportunity when some of the guests were leaving, and people generally were occupied saying farewell, sought and found that paper, and slipped it unobserved into her pocket.
In one of the rooms of a beautiful suite of apartments looking out upon St. James square, a young girl sat by a window, looking out upon the passers-by in the street below.
She was tall, and slender, and graceful as a young elm, her small head crowned with masses of golden hair, her eyes—“heaven’s own blue”—looking out from under a broad forehead, which was partially concealed by the shining mist which lay lightly upon it, her red lips parted with an expression ofeager interest as she gazed upon the hurrying throng below. She was as fair as the day—a perfect picture, upon which the eye would love to linger.
It is our Star, fresh and beautiful as ever, but with something more of maturity and dignity in her bearing than when we last saw her.
She has been in London just one week, and is enjoying every day, despite the proverbial rain and fog, for she has returned to her native land once more, and every inch of ground is replete with interest for her.
The past few months have been full of enjoyment, for she has “been everywhere and seen everything” in the far West of the New World—at least as far as that was practicable, and as she had warned Mr. Rosevelt she should wish to do—and with such congenial companions as he and Miss Meredith always were the time could not fail to pass pleasantly.
But she had turned her face with even keener anticipations toward England’s shores, while not even the memory of her previous terrible experience at sea had power to make her shrink from the long voyage, or mar the delight of this glad return.
As she sits there in her handsome parlor, looking out upon the street, a door opens, and Jacob Rosevelt enters.
He looks younger and in better health than we have ever seen him before, while his face is animated and genial, as if life was at its brightest with him.
Star looked around as he entered.
“How quickly you have returned, Uncle Jacob,” she said, rising, and going to meet him, and taking his hat.
“Yes; I knew you would be impatient for your letters, and, as there is quite a budget to be gone through with, I thought it best not to keep you in suspense.”
As he spoke he drew from his capacious pocket a half-dozen letters, and as many papers, which he had just received fromthe American Legation, and half of which he gave into Star’s own hands.
“This is from Grace, this from Mr. Appleton, and—this must be from Nattie Browning, to whom I gave up my position as a teacher,” she said, running the letters through her white fingers.
She laid the papers, which, of course, were of minor importance, upon the table, and, sitting down in a low chair, carefully cut the ends of the envelopes, and was soon deep in the contents of her news from beyond the sea.
It took her nearly an hour to read them all.
Miss Meredith’s was full of chat and innocent gossip, just like that charming young lady’s own self, and contained a number of commissions and charges, not the least important of which was that Star must be sure to hunt up her brother Ralph, who wrote that he should spend nearly the whole of the month of December in or near London.
Mr. Appleton’s letter was mostly on business, and regarding the book she had written, as well as another which he wanted her to write. It contained also a check, and Star always felt very proud whenever these bits of paper came made out to her. They gave her a feeling of independence and pleasure which no other money did.
The third letter was an entertaining one from a classmate—a poor girl to whom she had, as she said, resigned a position as teacher upon finding herself the heiress to a million.
After reading these she took up her papers in a listless way; she did not feel much in the mood for looking them over; they seemed tame and uninteresting after the letters.
But all at once she noticed that one was not a home paper; it bore the London postmark, and was addressed in a hand she did not recognize.
“It cannot be from Ralph Meredith,” she said to herself,“for he does not know that I am here. Besides, it is not his handwriting. I wonder who could have sent it?”
She opened it with considerable curiosity, and yet with a feeling of foreboding at her heart.
The CheshireGazette, she read, as she espied the heading, and then her eye glanced down over the columns underneath.
Suddenly she started.
There is a paragraph marked.
Her eyes dilate—a look of horror comes into them; her lips grow pale, and she feels as if she is suffocating as she reads:
“MARRIED.—At the country residence of Lady Sherbrooke, on the 10th instant, Sir Archibald Sherbrooke and Lord Carrol, of Carrolton, to Miss Josephine Richards, of New York, U. S. A., and heiress presumptive to the Thornton estates in Devonshire, etc.”
Could it be true? The paper dropped from her nerveless hands. Was the deed really done at last, and Archibald Sherbrooke lost to her forever?
She had not realized until that moment how much of hope had lived in her heart during all this time.
But these dreadful words had suddenly cut it down, as the sharp sickle cuts down the tender grass.
Had she really read them, or had her imagination played her some terrible trick?
Feeling as if she were turning to stone, she picked up the paper and compelled herself to go over the horrible sentence again.
Yes, it was all true—it was as plain as print could make it. But what was this?
A new terror seized her—something that she had not thought of until now, she had been so stunned by the bare fact that her lover was married.
“Sir Archibald SherbrookeandLord Carrol, of Carrolton!”
A mist comes over her eyes; her heart drops like a thing of lead in her bosom.
In an instant a suspicion of the truth flashed upon her.
Had she done her lover an irreparable wrong? she asked herself, with a feeling of despair. Had she driven him from her, taunting him with treachery and cowardice, and refusing to listen to his defense, when perhaps he had the best in the world to offer her?
Oh! if she had but heeded Mr. Rosevelt when he begged her to let him see him and learn the reason of his mysterious conduct. Oh! if she had only answered that advertisement and allowed him to come to her as he had entreated.
She had been cruel, unjust, wicked; and now it was too late to atone for it.
She felt as if bands of ice were being bound about her heart—as if coals of fire were heaped upon her brain, and branded upon it, in letters which would haunt her till her dying hour, those two names, Sir Archibald Sherbrooke and Lord Carrol, of Carrolton.
Familiar as she was with English customs, she could understand readily enough how he had become possessed of them, and it was so strange that she had never thought of it before.
In all her suffering upon learning, as she had supposed, that she had been betrayed, she had never endured pain like this; and, with her sight failing, her senses reeling, without sound or warning, she slipped from her chair to the floor, where she lay white and still in a lifeless heap at Jacob Rosevelt’s feet.