At last the eventful day arrived. All the invitations had been accepted, and Mr. Wildair, and Mr. Curtis, and Mr. Randall, and all the rest were to come.
Through that whole day Georgia had seemed like one delirious. There was a blazing fire in her eye, and two dark crimson spots, all unusual there, burning on either cheek, bespeaking the consuming fever within.
How she ever got through her school duties she could not tell, but evening came at last, and with it Georgia"s excitement rose to a pitch not to be endured. She could not stay there and hear them, perhaps see them enter. She felt sure, even amid thousands, she would distinguish _his_ step, hear _his_ voice; and who knew what desperate act it might drive her to commit--perhaps to burst into the room, and in the presence of all to fall at his feet and sue for pardon.
Unable to sit still, with wild gusts of conflicting pa.s.sions sweeping through her soul, she seized her hat and mantle and sought that panacea for her "mind deceased," a long, rapid, breathless walk.
It was a delightful May evening, soft, and warm, and genial as in June.
There was an air of repose and deep stillness around; one solitary star hung trembling in the sky, and brought to her mind the nights long past, when she had sat at her little chamber window, and watched them shining in their tremulous beauty far above her. Everything seemed at peace but herself, and in her stormy heart was the Angel of Peace ever to take up his abode?
On, and on, and on she walked. It was strange the charm rapid walking had to soothe her wildest moods. Star after star shone out in the blue, cloudless sky, and the last ray of daylight had faded away before she thought of turning. Taking off her hat, and flinging back her thick, dark hair, that the cool breeze might fan her fevered brow, she set out at a more moderate pace for home.
It was a lonesome, unfrequented road especially after night. There was another, new road, which had of late been made the public thoroughfare, and this one was almost entirely deserted; therefore, Georgia was somewhat surprised to see a man approaching her at a rapid pace. He was a gentleman, too, and young and graceful--she saw that at a glance, but in the dim starlight she could not distinguish his features, shaded as they were by a broad-leafed hat. He stopped as he approached her, and hurriedly said:
"Can you tell me, madam, if this road leads to the Widow O"Neil"s?"
That voice! it sent a thrill to Georgia"s inmost heart, as, with her eyes riveted on his face, she mechanically replied:
"Yes; a little farther up there is a gate. Go through, and the road will bring you to it."
"Thank you; I shall take a shorter way," said the stranger, lifting his hat courteously, and turning rapidly away, but not before she had recognized the pale, handsome face and beautiful, dark eyes of Charley Wildair.
For an instant she stood, unable to speak. She saw him place one hand on the fence, leap lightly over, and disappear, then, with a sort of cry, she started after him. But ere she had taken a dozen steps some inward feeling arrested her, and she stopped. What would he think of her following him thus? He was no longer the boy Charley, any more than she was the child Georgia. Might he not think prying curiosity had sent her after him? Would he be disposed to renew the acquaintance? Perhaps, too, he had recognized her, as she had him, and gave no sign. The strange revelation of Richmond gave her a sort of dread of him, and after a moment"s irresolution, she turned and walked back.
The whole house was one blaze of light when she reached it. On the dining-room windows were cast many shadows. Which among them was _his_?
Did either brother dream he was so near the other? Did Richmond dream _she_ was so near him, and yet so far off? She could not enter the house; her heart was throbbing so loudly that she grew faint and sick, and she staggered to a sort of summer-house, thick with cl.u.s.tering hop-vines, and sank down on a rustic bench, and buried her face in her hands.
How long she had sat there alone in her trouble, and yet so near him who had vowed to "cherish" her through all her trials until death, she could not tell. Foot-steps coming down the graveled walk startled her. The odor of cigars came borne on the breeze, and then, with a start and a shock she recognized the voice of d.i.c.k Curtis saying, with a laugh:
"I wonder if Ringlets has got through that appalling howl on that instrument of torture, the piano, she was commencing when we beat a retreat? It"s a mercy I escaped or I should have gone stark staring mad before the end."
"Come, now, Curtis, you"re too severe," said a laughing voice, which Georgia recognized as Mr. Randall"s. "Ringlets, as you are pleased to denominate Miss Felice, is only performing a duty every young lady considers she owes to society nowadays, deafening her hearers by those tremendous crashes and flourishes, and crossing her hands, and flying from one end of the piano to the other with dizzying rapidity."
"And it"s a duty they never neglect, I"ll say that for them," said Mr.
Curtis. "And that"s what they call fashionable music, my friend? Oh, for the good old days, when girls weren"t ashamed to sing "Auld Robin Gray"
and the "Bonnie Horse of Airlie." The world"s degenerating every day.
Thank the G.o.ds, we have escaped the infliction, anyhow. Here"s a seat; suppose we sit down, and, with our soul in slippers, take the world easy. Poor Wildair! he"s in for being martyrized this evening."
"So much for being a lion," said Mr. Randall. "If he will persist in being a burning and shining light, he must expect to pay the penalty."
"Miss Maggie--little blue eyes, you know--has made a dead set at him.
Did you observe?" said Mr. Curtis.
"Yes; but I can"t say she has met with much success, so far. If report says true, she is not the only young lady who has tried that game of late."
"Poor Rich!" said Curtis. "If they knew but all, they would find how useless it was doing any thing of the sort. I suppose you heard of that sad affair that happened last winter?"
Oh, what would not Georgia have given to be a thousand miles off at that moment! She writhed where she lay; it was like tearing half-healed wounds violently open to sit there and listen to this. But move she could not without discovering herself to Curtis, so she was forced to remain where she was, and hear all.
"No, I can"t say as I have," said Mr. Randall, in a tone of interest.
"There are so many rumors afloat about his wife--suppose you allude to that--but one cannot even tell for certain whether he was ever married or not."
"Oh, he was; no mistake about it," said Curtis; "I was present--was groomsman, in fact. Such a magnificent creature as she was. I never saw a girl so splendid before or since! beautiful as the dream of an opium-eater, with a pair of eyes that would have made the fortune of half a dozen ordinary women. By George! that girl ought to have been an empress."
"Indeed! I should think Wildair _would_ be fastidious in the choice of a wife. How came they to separate in so short a time? Did she not love him?"
"Yes, with her whole heart and soul; in fact, I believe, she loved nothing in earth or heaven but him, but then that is nothing strange, for Richmond is a glorious fellow, and no mistake! But you see, she was as poor as Job, and proud as Lucifer, with a high spirit that would dare and defy the Ancient Henry himself--one of that kind of people who will die sooner than yield an inch. Well, it appears his mother did not like the match, and persisted in snubbing her, and making little of her before folks and behind backs, in fact, treated her shamefully, until she drove the poor girl to the verge of madness."
"And Wildair allowed her to do this?" said Randall, indignantly.
"Well, I don"t know how it was, but he was blind to all; but I think the truth of the matter is they deceived him, and only did it when he was absent. There was a cousin there, a little female fiend, whom I should admire to be putting in the pillory, who tried every means in her power to make him jealous, and succeeded; and you don"t need to be told a jealous man will stop at nothing."
"Poor girl! poor Wildair! What an infernal shame."
"Wasn"t it! You see, he had invited a party to his country-seat--Richmond Hall they called it--and I was there among the rest. Poor Mrs. Wildair had a wretched life of it, with them all set against her. If she had been one of your meek, spiritless little creatures, she would have drooped, and sunk under it, and died perhaps of a broken heart, and all that sort of thing; or if she had been a dull, spiritless young woman, she would have snapped her fingers in their faces, and kept on, never minding. Unfortunately, she was neither, but a sensitive, high-spirited girl, whom every slight wounds to the quick, and you would hardly believe me if I were to tell you the change one short week made in her--you would hardly have known her for the same person. What with her mother-in-law"s insults, her cousin-in-law"s sneers, her husband"s jealousy and angry reproaches, and the neglects and slights of most of the company, a daily stretch on the rack would have been a bed of roses to it."
"Shameful! atrocious!" exclaimed Randall, impetuously. "How could Wildair have the heart to treat her so? He couldn"t have cared much about her."
"Didn"t he, indeed! That"s all you know about it. If ever there was a man loved his own wife, that man was Rich Wildair; but when a man is jealous, you know, he becomes partially insane, and allowances must be made for him. One night, this little vixen of a cousin I mentioned somewhere before, began taunting Mrs. Wildair about her mother, telling her she was no better than she ought to be, and calling herself all sorts of scandalous names--one of the servants accidentally heard her--until she maddened the poor girl so that, in a fit of pa.s.sion, she caught her and hurled her from her, with a shriek I will never forget to my dying day. Of course, there was the old--what"s his name--to pay, immediately; but Freddy"s injuries did not prove half so severe as she deserved, and a piece of court-plaster did her business beautifully for her. But you never saw any one in such a rage as Wildair was about it, knowing it would be all over town directly. Three or four of the mean crowd he had invited went off, declaring his wife was a lunatic, and that they were afraid to stay in the same house with her. Wasn"t that pretty treatment, after his hospitality?"
"It"s the way of the world, _mon ami_."
"And a very mean way it is. Well, Wildair went to his wife and said all sorts of cutting things to her, was as sharp as a bottle of cayenne pepper, in fact, and wound up by telling her he was going to apply for a divorce, which he had no more notion of doing than I have of proposing to one of the Misses Leonard to-morrow. She believed him, though, and, driven to despair by the whole of them, made a moonlight flitting of it, and from that day to this Richmond Wildair has never seen or heard of his wife."
"Poor thing! it was a hard fate. What do you suppose has become of her?"
"Heaven knows! She left a note saying she had gone and would never disgrace him more--these were her words--and bidding him an eternal farewell. Wildair nearly went crazy; he was mad, I firmly believe, for awhile, and it was as much as any one"s life was worth to go near him.
He searched everywhere, offered enormous rewards for the least trace of her, did everything man could do, in a word, to find her again; but it was of no use, no one had seen or knew anything of her."
"Could she have destroyed herself?"
"Just as likely as not; she was the sort of desperate person likely to do it, and she had no fear of death, or eternity, or anything that way.
Well, he was frantic when he found she was lost forever, and would have given even every cent he was worth in the world for the least tidings of her, dead or alive, but it was all a waste of ammunition; and, maddened and despairing, he fled from the scene of disaster, sprang on board a steamship bound for Europe, and was off. But he couldn"t stay away; he couldn"t rest anywhere, so he came back, and plunged headlong into the giddy maelstrom of politics, and became the man of the people--the Demosthenes; the magnificent orator whose lips, to quote the _Political Thunderbolt_, "have been touched with coals of living fire;" a pleasant simile, I should think. Poor Rich! they don"t know the crucible of suffering from which this fiery, impa.s.sioned eloquence has sprung.
Ambition will be to him for the rest of his mortal life, wife, and family, and home, for he is not the man to dream for a second of ever marrying again."
"A sad story! And yet he can smile, and jest, and talk gayly, as I heard him half an hour ago, when he was the very life and soul of the company."
"He must--it is expected of him; a man of the people must please the people; and besides, he does it to drown thought; he tries to forget for a time the gnawing remorse that, if indulged, would drive him mad. He lives two lives--the inward and outward--and both as essentially different as day from night. He believes himself the murderer of his wife; in fact, an old lady who brought her up--for the girl was an orphan--told him so, and would not look at him or let him in her house.
His mother, touched with remorse, confessed what she had done, and thus he learned all his wife had so silently suffered. It was enough to drive a more sober man insane, and that"s the truth. Ah! there was more than one sad heart after her when she went. Poor little Emily Murray! the nicest, and best, and prettiest girl from here to sundown, was nearly broken-hearted. I offered her my own hand and fortune, though I didn"t happen to have such an article about me, and she gave me my dismissal on the spot. Heigho! Burnfield"s done for poor old Rich and me."
"What! Burnfield, did you say?" exclaimed Randall, with a start.
"Yes, Burnfield. You have no objections to it, I hope?"
"You--did you know--did you ever happen to hear of a widow and a little girl by the name of Darrell there?" said Mr. Randall, in an agitated voice.
"Well, I should think I did--rather!" said Curtis emphatically. "The widow died one night, and the little girl was brought up by one Miss Jerusha Skamp of severe memory, and it"s of her I have been talking for the last half-hour, if you mean Georgia Darrell."
"What!" exclaimed Randall, wildly, as he sprang to his feet. "Do you mean to tell me that Georgia Darrell grew up in Burnfield, and was the wretched wife of Richmond Wildair?"