University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.
HER MANACLE.

The next day, after the understanding arrived at in the
last chapter, was Thursday; and Mr. Le Roy started
for New York in the morning. Friday afternoon, the
last train brought him back again, and he went over in
the gloaming to see Elizabeth. She trembled a little
when he came to her side. It gave her a curious feeling
to meet again, after his brief absence, this man, in
whose hands her future lay. The agitation of her
manner made him think of the fluttering of some newly
caught woodland bird. He called her again, in his
thought, his “wild thing, shy thing,” and experienced

some of the pleasant excitement he had expected to feel
in her capture.

“Did you know you were to wear my fetter?” he
asked after a while. “I went to New York partly for
the purpose of providing myself with a manacle for
your securer binding.”

“I think I shall not want to run away if you are
good to me,” she said, in a low, shy tone.

“And I, you see, do not mean you shall run away,
whether or no. I shall hold on to you like Fate.”

He laughed as he spoke; but he and she, in those
two sentences, had unconsciously struck the key-note
of their two lives.

The ring he put upon her finger was the conventional
diamond solitaire, but unusually large and brilliant,
for Le Roy was rich, and not niggardly. Elizabeth
had the intense love for beautiful things, which inheres
in such temperaments as hers; but the ring, handsome
as it was, gave her a singular feeling of discomfort. It
seemed to watch her, like a great, fiery eye. She felt
as if, in some subtle, inexplicable way, that eye were
her keeper. She was never quite the same self-willed,
independent girl after she wore it. It was as though,
like a conquered fort, she had given up her defences, and
hung out now the colors of the enemy. Not that she
allowed these thoughts any room in her consciousness.
She imagined herself very happy indeed, only some
occult influence had changed her from her old self.

Perhaps, as the days went on, Le Roy may have felt
this subtle change. At any rate, the two weeks which

followed his betrothal were duller than he had expected.
Some sauce piquante was wanting. He was
precisely one of those men, to whom the chief charm
of any object consists in the winning of it, — once his,
it was apt to pall upon his fancy. For six weeks past
there had been a certain kind of excitement about long
morning sessions in Elizabeth's little parlor, listening to
and drawing out her quaint fancies and crude theories,
afternoon rides behind his high-stepping horse, and
evening lingerings under moon and stars, amid falling
dew, and air heavy with summer odors. But now, that
all these things were orthodox, and he knew that it
was expected of him to pass a good share of his days at
Elizabeth's side, he began to grow tired of it all. He
thought of the little girl in Sydney Dobell's song, who
asked, —

and would have liked to pat the aforesaid little girl
on the head for expressing his idea so well. Still, he
contrived to satisfy all Elizabeth's demands, — partly,
perhaps, because she knew so little of the ordinary
ways of love and lovers. Then, too, her nature was
generous, and not exacting. Moreover, she had logical
foundation for an entire faith in him. She had
neither fortune nor social influence, nor did she think
herself in the least handsome. She thought, therefore,
that the love which had sought her out, in spite of all
these disadvantages, must be deep, if silent. So she
went on, fancying herself altogether happy; but something
had changed about her, she knew not what. She
was quiet and submissive to an authority, recognized, if
new; and, after all, the tamer had nothing to tame. It
was a household bird, which came and went at his
call, and wore his manacle willingly, but he could not
fancy her his “wild thing, shy thing,” any more.

One day, in the first week of August, he stopped at
his Cousin Julia's on his way to Elizabeth.

“I am off for Newport to-morrow, Jule,” he said,
when she came into the room, “and I thought I'd look
in on you a few moments before I went away.”

“Are you off with Elizabeth?”

“No; without her.”

“You know what I mean, — is it all over between
you?”

Le Roy laughed. “Oh, no; it is all impending. I
want to be married the last of October. I hate bridal
tours, and all similar exhibitions of one's self to the
million; so I want the wedding just when it will be
pleasant to go back to town. Elizabeth will have
enough to do in the mean time, and there is no reason
why I shouldn't have my usual five or six weeks at
Newport.”

Mrs. Henry Fordyce looked at him for a silent moment;
then she said, with an expressive lift of her eyebrows,
— “Upon my word, you are a cool lover. But
Queen Bess can't blame me, whatever comes. I told
the Fordyces, before they ever saw you, that your
heart was left out.”

“If that be true of me, you will at least acknowledge

that I did well to select a wife who will not demand
that I should dance perpetual attendance upon her.
Elizabeth knows little of the ways of the world; and,
thank God, she is neither exacting nor demonstrative.”

“Neither exacting nor demonstrative, is she? Elliott,
I quite understand the estimate you put upon my
penetration; but, trust me, if that is your opinion, I
know Elizabeth Fordyce better than you do.”

A sarcastic smile crossed Le Roy's lips, but he suppressed
it before it had time to rouse his cousin's ire,
and said, with the air of one willing to listen to reason,
— “You may be more than half right; but at any
rate, the thing is done, and I came this morning to ask
your aid towards its being well done. If I have sometimes
questioned your penetration, you know I have
never questioned your taste. The future Mrs. Le Roy
will not be a woman of fashion; but some society she
must see, and I am unwilling to be mortified by her
toilets. You have lived in New York so long that
you will understand just what she ought to have. I
want you to help her with her preparations. Suppose
you go down with her next week, and arrange about
dressmakers, and the like. I will give you some blank
checks, and you must see that she has every thing
which she needs.”

“But how will Elizabeth like this supervision?”

“I will make that all right with her. Of course
I don't mean that her taste is to be set aside in the matter;
only you must tell her what and how much she
requires, and make sure that she has it.”

Elizabeth swallowed a little pang at the announcement
of her lover's approaching departure. She did
not speak just at first, but he saw a quiver of pain flutter
round her sensitive mouth, and I think he was
human enough not to be sorry that she would regret
him.

“I thought you understood all that, dear,” he said,
kindly. “My plans have been made for this sojourn at
Newport from the first. I am to meet a party of friends
there. It was an arrangement before I left New York.
It will give you all the more time for your preparations.
The last of October I want to take you home.”

“My preparations will not be much,” she said, a red
spot burning on either cheek.

“But I want them to be a good deal. Mrs. Le Roy
will not be shut up in a convent, and I want her
properly made ready for presentation to her husband's
friends. I have been talking to Julia about it this
morning. She will go to New York with you, and
help you shop. To save you trouble, I have left the
sinews of war in her hands, and she will see to all the
bills.”

“But, Elliott,” — she called his name very timidly,
for she had not spoken it often, — “I don't like you
to do this. I should feel so much happier if you would
just let me have what my uncle chooses to give me,
until — afterwards.”

He silenced the pleading lips with a kiss.

“I want you to be prepared for afterwards,” he said,
resolutely, though not unkindly. “If you are ready to

give yourself to me, and let me take care of you for
life, surely you need not oppose my pleasure in this
trifle.”

She looked at the great diamond eye glittering on
her finger, — her manacle. The color came and went
in her cheeks. She shut her lips firmly to keep them
from betraying her by their quivering. Her eyes grew
moist. A tenderer, more generous man would have
understood her well enough to spare her this humiliation;
but Elliott Le Roy was not tender, or in any
large sense generous, and he silently waited for her
acquiescence. She did not venture to blame him, even
in her heart. He did not know how she felt, and of
course it was not to be expected that he would. And
perhaps, after all, he had a certain right to make sure
that she would not mortify him. So she said at last,
very quietly, — “I will give up my own will in the
matter to yours, and do as you and Aunt Julia tell me;
but I wish you had not desired this thing.”

He ignored the last part of her sentence altogether,
and only thanked her for being such a good, sensible
little girl, just as he had felt sure she would be, when
she came to consider.

After all, the weeks of his absence passed quickly.
It was not in the heart of woman, least of all such a
beauty-loving woman as Elizabeth, not to be interested
in all the elegant things which were purchased so
lavishly for the future Mrs. Le Roy. Nor, indeed, was
she quite enough in love to have her lover's absence
take away all the brightness from her life. She understood

herself so little that she was not conscious of any
lack in her experiences; but there were depths in her
nature which Elliott Le Roy, let him love her never so
well, could not have sounded. And yet, if he had
loved her generously and fondly, she would have gone
through life beside him, and he would never have
lacked any thing in her eyes. It is almost always easy
for even a man, who is not the right man, to hold a
woman's heart, if he will but love her enough.

Twice a week Le Roy wrote to her, and she was
very proud of his letters. They were not love-letters,
though he always addressed her as the one to whom his
future belonged; but they were very brilliant letters,
full of wit, and observation, and satire. She was proud
that he should thus give her of his best; and her
answers, though she was not vain enough to perceive
it, paid him back his own coin with usury. Elizabeth,
in her modesty, had never understood her own
capacities; but Le Roy began to discover, during this
correspondence, that it would be in her power to dispute
the bays with him on his own ground, if she chose.

Early in September he came to see her for a day, and
admired the progress of her trousseau, delighting Mrs.
Henry Fordyce with his unqualified approval. He
gave her at this time a second commission, — bridesmaid
dresses of the loveliest blue silk for the “three
Graces.”

“Not white?” she asked; for colored dresses were
less in vogue for bridesmaids then than they are now.

“Decidedly not white,” he answered. “White is

for Elizabeth, alone. They will be grouped around
her, and it is my fancy to have my pearl set in turquoise.”

Elizabeth opened her gray eyes a little wider when
he told her that his absence was to be still farther
prolonged. He was going to the White Mountains
with the same friends whom he had joined at Newport.
She did not utter a word in opposition; but he answered
the unspoken protest in her eyes.

“You are busy, my Queen, and I should only be in
your way. Besides, you know these are my last months
for enjoying myself en garçon.”

She looked at him gravely. “Am I to be a burden
to you, Mr. Le Roy, — to stand in the way of your
enjoyment?”

“Not at all, foolish girl; only to change its nature a
little, perhaps;” but he thought to himself as he
spoke, that even this last was extremely unlikely to
happen.

So he went away again, and the preparations went on.

He extended his trip into Canada, and was gone a
week or two longer than he expected. Then there
were arrangements to be made in New York for the
reception of the bride in her new home; so that somehow
October was over before a positive time could be
fixed for the wedding; and it came off at last, on a
November morning, gloomy and despondent, which of
itself seemed to Elizabeth's imagination to presage ill.

The “three Graces,” having made their own toilets
at an earlier hour, assisted at the bride's, by their presence

and comments; but a quiet little dressmaker, who
had set most of the stitches in the white robes, put them
on. Elizabeth stood up at last, fair and pale as a snow
image, with a wonderful radiance of shimmering silk
and falling lace about her. Mr. Le Roy came to look
at her before her uncle took her to church; his most
gallant, debonair self, on this occasion, quite ready to
pay her compliments.

“Am I all right?” she asked him, a little anxiously.

“If the other Queen Bess had been a tithe as fair
she would never have died unwedded. But you look
like a wraith, — unreal, illusive. Will you `slip like a
shadow, a dream, from my hands'?”

“Not now,” she answered. “If you should tire of
me, by and by, who knows what I would do?”

“Well, at least you shall wait for that,” and then he
took her in his arms, and kissed her for the last time as
Elizabeth Fordyce. Did his kiss lack any thing, or did
some secret whisper of destiny make itself heard just
then in her soul? She clung to him an instant, in a
strange passion of emotion; was it regret for the well-known
past, or dread of the untried future, — who
knows? She only said, — “I shall have no one in the
whole world an hour hence but you. God help us if
we are making a mistake!”

Elizabeth Le Roy came out of the church, where
she had stood, a pale pearl, among her cousins,
brave in blue and gold and in thier young, strong,
healthy beauty, whose brilliance no sentimental sorrows

would ever dim, — among them, but not of them,
as she had been for so many years. She came out,
leaning on her husband's arm, and the keen, penetrating
November air seemed to strike to her heart
with a sudden chill.

She had speculated sometimes, as what girl does not,
in her dreaming girlhood, about her wedding morning;
but somehow her fancies had never been any thing like
this reality. Still she tried to believe that she was not
only very prosperous, but very happy.

Mr. Le Roy, wealthy, elegant, critical, had chosen
her, — her, out of the world full of women he knew.
He was going to take her from the stillness and inaction
of which in those long, dreamy years her very
soul had grown tired, and carry her into the thick of
life, — such a life of stir, and tumult, and endeavor as
she had longed to try. What did it mean, that fate
should so have filled her cup to the brim? Why, to
her of all others, had this brilliant destiny opened?
And what ailed her, that she was not fuller of self-gratulation,
that she could take it so quietly?

They went home, and ate bride-cake, and drank
champagne; and then Elizabeth went away to take off
her misty robes. One last look her husband had of her
in those garments, as she turned at the foot of the stairs
to speak to him, her drapery, white and fleecy as
a cloud, falling about her, — a tall, slim shape, with
gleaming eyes, and hair of silken dusk, and face of
lilies not roses, save where the lips had budded red.
She looked too much like a spirit. Le Roy was glad

when she came back again in her travelling dress, and
they went away.

He had been quite ready to fulfil his engagement
with Elizabeth, rash and ill-considered as in his secret
soul he had already begun to think it; but the whole
matter of the wedding had bored him, and he was glad
to be done with it. He had not enough of faith or
spiritual insight to have the words of the marriage service
impress him with their solemnity, or even touch
him by their beauty. It was simply a necessary evil,
with which he was thankful to be done. He was rejoiced
that Elizabeth did not cry. It was like her good
sense, he thought. But, indeed, she had not loved
any of the Fordyces enough to melt into tears over
them. The hills, as lonely as herself, were the friends
to whom her heart was knit the most closely: and as
she stood at the old window for a few silent moments,
looking out towards them, over her eyes there “began
to move something which felt like tears.” But she
turned away resolutely. She was bidding them and
her past good-by. Who knew what heights of joy,
what depths of woe, her soul would touch before she
should see those hills again?

Their long car ride was a strange bridal journey.
During those monotonous hours, Elizabeth had plenty
of leisure to think of what she had done. Now and
then she stole a look at her companion's handsome, inscrutable
face, as he bent over the newspapers with
which he had provided himself at the second station.
It did not cross her mind that he was an uncommonly

inattentive bridegroom. She knew very little of the
world's usages. She had never been accustomed to be
watched and tended, and she did not expect very much
in that way even from him; but she would have liked
him to talk to her a little, to satisfy her doubts of herself,
if such satisfaction were possible. She was suffering,
as she rode along, from a singular oppression, — a
dread, lest she should not be elegant enough to please
him, — should shame him by her ignorance of the ways
of that world in which he moved.

She struggled with these doubts and fears in silence,
for it was not her nature to make much ado about her
feelings. She had always borne whatever she had to
bear without words. A woman more exacting, more
accustomed to be an object of interest, would have
demanded Le Roy's attention, told him her thoughts,
constrained him to soothe or reassure her. It is possible
that this course would have suited him better,
though he did not understand himself well enough to
think so. At least, it would have given him an interest
of some kind in the affair, and an occupation. As it
was, he began to feel himself ennuied. He would have
liked to think it a respectable proceeding to take himself
off to the smoking-car, and enjoy a cigar or two in
peace. Since this would not quite do, he began to
watch Elizabeth covertly over the edge of his paper.

She was always handsomest when she talked. Now
her face was colorless and motionless, and it lacked that
perfect classical regularity which makes repose statuesque.
The excitement of capture was all over. His

“wild thing, shy thing,” had been curiously tame and
submissive ever since she had worn his ring on her
finger. He felt in his heart that he might be tempted
by too much submission to become a tyrant, and he
wondered if the instinct of serfdom belonged to Elizabeth.
He was destined to find out some day.

He asked himself, in a vague discontent, to what end
he had hastened their marriage. Why could they not
have remained engaged for a few years? Then he remembered
that he had felt impelled to hurry matters
because Elizabeth had had it in her mind to go out governessing,
and plumed himself anew on the right he had
earned to her gratitude, by having saved her from this
career. At length, out of very shame, he roused himself
from this train of thought, and pointed out to his
wife some familiar object. They were nearing New
York.

Elizabeth had understood from Mrs. Henry Fordyce,
that Mr. Le Roy had a handsome establishment, but
she was hardly prepared for the quiet elegance of the
house on Madison Square to which he took her. A
housekeeper, stately in black silk, received them; and
Le Roy, bidding his wife welcome home, with more of
tenderness than he had shown her at any time during
the journey, told her that Mrs. Murray had managed
his household for years in a way that could hardly be
improved; therefore, there would be nothing for the
new queen to busy herself about but her own pleasure,
— the prime minister behind the throne would take all
trouble off her hands.

Whether or not she liked this arrangement, Elizabeth
submitted to it silently. Mrs. Murray led her upstairs
to her own room, — a spacious chamber, — from
which opened on one side an elegant sitting-room, on the
other, Mr. Le Roy's dressing-room. Strangely enough,
a passage from the Bible came into her mind at that
moment, — “All these things will I give thee if thou
wilt fall down and worship me.”

Just then, in a rush of enthusiastic emotion, she
thought it would be only too easy for her to worship
her elegant, handsome husband, from whom all her good
gifts came. She felt a new thrill of tender thankfulness
for the love which had elected her to share the half of
this man's kingdom, which brought to her eyes some
silent tears. If she had married him with any thing
short of the entire consecration of her whole being, she
had erred from pure ignorance of her own nature. But
if either this man or this woman had loved with that
unqualified surrender of self, which is so entire and so
holy, that it is little less than religion, and which is so
mighty that, felt on one side only, it has before now
made of marriage a saving ordinance, I should not have
had my story to tell.