 | CHAPTER XII.
VALENCIA. West Lawn and The rector of St. Mark's |  |
12. CHAPTER XII.
VALENCIA.
VERY extensive preparations were making at Prospect
Hill for the double wedding to occur on the
15th of January. After much debate and consultation,
Fanny had decided to take Mr. Bellamy then,
and thus she, too, shared largely in the general interest
and excitement which pervaded everything. Both brides-elect
were very happy, but in a widely different way, for
while Fanny was quiet and undemonstrative Lucy seemed
wild with joy and danced gayly about the house, now in
the kitchen, where the cake was made, now in the chamber,
where the plain sewing was done, and then flitting to
her own room in quest of Valencia, who was sent on
divers errands of mercy, the little lady thinking that as
the time for her marriage was so near it would be proper
for her to stop in-doors and not show herself in public
quite so freely as she had been in the habit of doing.
So she remained at home, and they missed her in the back
streets and by-lanes, and the Widow Hobbs, who was still
an invalid, pined for a sight of her bright face, and was
only half consoled for its absence by the charities which
great many airs and making Mrs. Hobbs feel keenly how
greatly she thought herself demeaned by coming to such
a heathenish place. The Hanoverians, too, missed her
in the streets, but for this they made ample amends by
discussing the preparations at Prospect Hill and commenting
upon the bridal trousseau, which was sent from
New York the week before Christmas, thus affording a
most fruitful theme of comment for the women and maids
engaged in trimming the church. There were dresses of
every conceivable fashion, it was said, but none were
quite so grand as the wedding-dress itself,—a heavy
white silk which “could stand alone,” and trailed a full
yard behind. It was also whispered that, not content
with seeing the effect of her bridal robes as they lay upon
the bed, Miss Lucy Harcourt had actually tried them on,
wreath, veil, and all, and stood before the glass until Miss
Fanny had laughed at her for being so vain and foolish,
and said she was a pretty specimen for a sober clergyman's
wife. For all this gossip the villagers were indebted
mostly to Valencia Le Barre, who, ever since her
arrival at Prospect Hill, had been growing somewhat dissatisfied
with the young mistress she had expected to rule
even more completely than she had ruled Mrs. Meredith.
But in this she was mistaken, and it did not improve her
never very amiable temper to find that she could not with
safety appropriate more than half her mistress' handkerchiefs,
and pomades; and as this was a new state of
things with Valencia, she chafed at the administration
under which she had so willingly put herself, and told
things of her mistress which no sensible servant would
ever have reported. And Lucy gave her plenty to tell.
Frank and outspoken as a child, she acted as she felt and
did try on the bridal dress, did scream with delight when
Valencia fastened the veil and let its fleecy folds fall
gracefully around her.
“I wonder what Arthur will think. I so wish he was
here,” she had said, ordering a glass brought, that she
might see herself from behind, and know just how much
her dress trailed, and how it looked beneath the costly
veil.
She was very beautiful in her bridal robes, and she
kept them on till Fanny began to chide her for her vanity,
and even then she lingered before the mirror as if loth
to take them off.
“I don't believe in presentiments,” she said, “but do
you know it seems to me just as if I should never wear
this again,” and she smoothed thoughtfully the folds of
the heavy silk she had just laid upon the bed. “I don't
know what can happen to prevent it, unless Arthur
should die. He was so pale last Sunday, and seemed so
weak that I shuddered every time I looked at him. I
mean to drive round there this afternoon,” she continued.
has no carriage, either.”
Accordingly she went to the rectory that afternoon,
and the women in the church saw her as she drove by,
the gorgeous colors of her carriage-blanket flashing in the
wintry sunshine, and the long white feather in her hat
waving up and down as she nodded to them. There was
a little too much of the lady patroness about her to suit
the plain Hanoverians, especially those who were neither
high enough nor low enough to be honored with her notice;
and as they returned to their wreath-making and
gossip, they wondered under their breath if it would not
on the whole have been better if their clergyman had
married Anna Ruthven, instead of the fine city girl with
her Parisian manners. As they said this, a gleam of intelligence
shot from the gray eyes of Valencia Le Barre,
who was there at work in a most unamiable mood.
“She did not like to stain her hands with the nasty
hemlock, more than other folks,” she had said, when, after
the trying on of the bridal dress, Lucy had remonstrated
with her for some duty neglected, and then bidden her go
to the church and help if she was needed.
“I must certainly dismiss you unless you improve,”
Lucy had said to the insolent girl, who went unwillingly
to the church, where she sat tying wreaths when the
carriage went by.
She had thought many times of the letter she had read,
upon her lips to tell her mistress that she was not Mr.
Leighton's first choice, if indeed she was his choice at all;
but there was something in Lucy's manner which held
her back, besides which she was rather unwilling to confess
to her own meanness in reading the stolen letter.
“I could tell them something if I would,” she thought,
as she bent over the hemlock boughs, and listened to the
remarks; but for that time she kept her secret and worked
on moodily, while the unsuspecting Lucy went her way,
and was soon alighting at the parsonage-gate.
Arthur saw her as she came up the walk, and went out
to meet her. He was looking very pale and miserable,
and his clothes hung loosely upon him, but he welcomed
her kindly, and lead her in to the fire, and tried to believe
that he was glad to see her sitting there with her
little high-heeled boots upon the fender, and the bright
hues of her balmoral just showing beneath her dress of
blue merino. She went all over the house as she usually
did, suggesting alterations and improvements, and greatly
confusing good Mrs. Brown, who trudged obediently after
her, wondering what she and her master were ever to do
with the gay-plumaged bird, whose ways were so unlike
their own.
“You must drive with me to the church,” she said at
last to Arthur. “Fresh air will do you good, and you
stay moped up too much. I wanted you to-day at Prospect
brought—” she stood up on tiptoe to whisper the great
news to him, but his pulses did not quicken in the least,
even when she told him how charming was the bridal-dress.
He was standing before the mirror, and glancing at
himself, he said half laughingly, half sadly, “I am a pitiful-looking
bridegroom to go with all that finery. I
should not think you would want me, Lucy.”
“But I do,” she answered, holding his hand and leading
him to the carriage, which took him swiftly to the
church.
He had not intended going there as long as there was an
excuse for staying away, and he felt himself grow sick and
faint when he stood amid the Christmas decorations, and
remembered the last year, when he and Anna had fastened
the wreaths upon the wall. They were trimming the
church very elaborately in honor of him and his bride-elect,
and white artificial flowers, so natural that they
could not be detected from the real, were mixed with
scarlet leaves and placed among the mass of green. The
effect was very fine, and Arthur tried to praise it, but his
face belied his words, and after he was gone, the disappointed
girls declared that he looked more like a man
about to be hung, than one so soon to be married.
It was very late that night when Lucy summoned
Valencia to comb out her long, thick curls, and Valencia
awkwardly, and snarled her mistress's hair so often, that
Lucy expostulated with her sharply, and this awoke the
slumbering demon, which, bursting into full life, could
no longer be restrained, and in amazement which kept
her silent, Lucy listened, while Valencia vulgarly taunted
her with “standing in Anna Ruthven's shoes,” and told
all she knew of the letter stolen by Mrs. Meredith, and
the one she carried to Arthur. But Valencia's anger
quickly cooled, and she trembled with fear when she saw
how deathly white her mistress grew, and even heard the
loud beating of the heart which seemed trying to burst
from its prison, and fall bleeding at the feet of the poor,
wretched girl, around whose lips the white foam gathered
as she motioned Valencia to stop, and whispered “I am
dying.”
She was not dying, but the fainting-fit which ensued
was more like death than that which had come upon
Anna when she heard that Arthur was lost. Once they
really thought her dead, and in an agony of remorse
Valencia hung over her, accusing herself as a murderess,
but giving no other explanation to those around her than:
“I was combing her hair when the white froth spirted
all over her wrapper, and she said that she was dying.”
And that was all the family knew of the strange attack
which lasted till the dawn of day, and left upon Lucy's
face a look as if years and years of anguish had passed
Early in the morning she asked to see Valencia alone,
and the repentant girl went to her, prepared to take back
all she had said, and declare the whole a lie. But something
in Lucy's manner wrung the truth from her, and
she repeated the story again so clearly, that Lucy had no
longer a doubt that Anna was preferred to herself, and
sending Valencia away, she moaned piteously:
“Oh, what shall I do? What is my duty?”
The part which hurt her most of all was the terrible
certainty that Arthur did not love her, as he loved Anna
Ruthven. She seemed intuitively to understand it all,
and see how in an unguarded moment he had offered
himself to save her good name from gossip, and how ever
since his life had been a constant struggle to do his duty
by her.
“Poor Arthur,” she sobbed, “yours has been a hard
lot, trying to act the love you did not feel; but it shall be
so no longer, for I will set you free.”
This was her final decision, but she did not reach it till
a day and night had passed, during which she lay with
her face turned to the wall, saying she wanted nothing
except to be left alone.
“When I can, I'll tell you,” she had said to Fanny and
her aunt, who insisted upon knowing the cause of her
distress. “When I can, I'll tell you all about it. Leave
me alone till then.”
So they ceased to worry her, but Fanny sat constantly
in the room watching the motionless figure, which took
whatever she offered, but otherwise gave no sign of life
until the morning of the second day, when it turned
slowly towards her, and the livid lips quivered piteously
and made an attempt to smile as they said:
“I can tell you now. I have made up my mind.”
Fanny's eyes were dim with the truest tears she had
ever shed when Lucy's story was ended, and her voice
was very low as she asked:
“And you mean to give him up at this late hour?”
“Yes, I mean to give him up. I have been over the
entire ground many times, even to the deep humiliation
of what people will say, and I have come each time to
the same conclusion. It is right that Arthur should be
released, and I shall release him.”
“And what will you do?” Fanny asked, gazing in
wonder and awe at the young girl, who answered: “I do
not know; I have not thought. I guess God will take
care of that.”
And God did take care of that, and inclined the Hetherton
family to be very kind and tender towards her,
and kept Arthur from the house until the Christmas decorations
were completed and the Christmas festival was
held. Many were the inquiries made for Lucy on
Christmas Eve, and many thanks and wishes for her
speedy restoration were sent to her by those whom she
too, who had come to town and was present at the
church on Christmas Eve, asked for her with almost as
much interest as Arthur, who bade Fanny tell her that
he should call on her on the morrow after the morning
service.
“Oh, I cannot see him here! I must tell him at the
rectory in the very room where he asked me to be his
wife,” Lucy said, when Fanny reported Arthur's message.
“I am able to ride there, and it will be fine
sleighing to-morrow. See, the snow is falling now,” and
pushing back the curtain Lucy looked drearily out upon
the fast-whitening ground, sighing as she remembered the
night when the first snow-flakes were falling, and she
stood watching them with Arthur at her side.
Fanny did not oppose her cousin, and with a kiss
upon the blue-veined forehead, she went to her own
room and left her to think for the hundredth time what
she should say to Arthur.
| CHAPTER XII.
VALENCIA. West Lawn and The rector of St. Mark's | |