A LUCIFER MATCH.
"Rev. Mr. Parks, Mr. Babbington-Cole, of whom you have heard us speak, from Canada," said Miss Villiers; and Bengough's modern curate of the conventional type flashed across the memory of poor Cole. He was a meek young man, though a true Christian, who spoke in a monotone, his hair parted, to a hair, in line with the bridge of his nose, and wearing his hands meekly folded.
After their going round and round the barometer, English and Canadian, Miss Stone said, primly:
"It matters little whether the poor carnal bodies suffer from the cold. I fear, out there, souls are cold unto death, starving for spiritual life and heat. I have been telling Mr. Babbington-Cole, and I feel sure you will coincide with me, Mr. Parks, that with so many infidels and wild Indians in his land, they should have their lamps trimmed and burning."
"You are always orthodox, Miss Stone," chanted Mr. Parks, meekly. "You look ill, Mr. Babbington-Cole; was the sea too much for you?"
"Yes, and now my head is in a whirl. I feel as if I am in for brain fever. Would to God I had remained in Canada," he answered feverishly.
"Tut, tut; a night's rest will set you up," said Stone hastily. "You Canadians are pale in any case, looking as though you feed on gruel."
"Cablegram, sir," said Simon, tapping at the door.
"It's for you, Babbington-Cole," said Stone, handing it.
"From my father's medical man," said Cole nervously, as, on reading it, he returned it to the envelope, and was about pocketing it, when Miss Villiers said, putting out her hand:
"I presume we may see it."
Cole, though with visible reluctance, handed it to her, when she read as follows:
"St. Lawrence Hall,
"Montreal, 25th Sept."To C. Babbington-Cole, Esq.
"Typhoid fever left; but taken cold, sore throat; looking most anxiously for the return of yourself and Mrs. Cole. Pray don't delay.
"John Peake, M.D."
"Too bad, too bad; but you may yet find your father quite well," said Stone, with assumed feeling.
"'In the midst of life we are in death,'" said Miss Stone. "I trust your father has not been a careless liver, Mr. Charles; as a young man, I remember he was much given to the things of the world."
"My father is no smooth-tongued hypocrite, but has a truer sense of religion than many representative men and women in our church of to-day," said Cole, warmly; while thinking, but for his mistaken sense of honor, I would not now be in this abominable fix.
"You will, I am sure, be anxious to return at once, Mr. Babbington-Cole," said Mr. Parks, in measured tones. "And as the first step towards it, as it grows late, if you will arrange yourselves, I will proceed at once with the service."
"To-night!" exclaimed the victim.
"I think it best, Babbington-Cole," said Stone, firmly, "for you are not the only one who has received a telegraphic message this evening; mine summons me away at daybreak for the Isle of Wight, on urgent business; and as you have crossed the pond to marry my niece, what do you gain by postponement?"
"By delay," said Miss Villiers, fixing her stony eyes on him, as she motioned him to stand beside her, "by delay we may miss seeing your father alive."
"True," said Cole, "and I must find him alive to explain all this," he added, with feverish haste. And while the service was said in monotone by the clergyman, so intent was he in performing hidden rites of vengeance upon his bride for the pantheon of hideous idols she was making him walk through life in, that he was deaf to the words:
"Wilt thou take this woman to be thy wedded wife?"
And the first caress he received from his bride was a pinch, sharp and telling; he said, excitedly:
"Take it all for granted, Mr. Parks, I am really too ill to take part."
At the words, "I pronounce that they be man and wife together," etc., muffled footsteps and the noise of panting breath is distinctly heard, and a pale woman, who had evidently come from a distance, with flying feet entered; the clergyman only seeing her, the others having their backs to the entrance; but she nears, staying her feet to listen as she hears the words which add another couple to the long line of loveless unions, her hurried breathing falls on the ears of those present. All turn round. Miss Villiers eyes her menacingly, while Miss Stone and her brother simultaneously point to the door, as she interrupting Mr. Parks' congratulations, says in heart-rending tones of despair:
"Yes, I will go, for I am too late, too late, alas! for my poor young mistress and my oath to protect her." And she vanished noiselessly.
The fetters securely fastened, Mrs. Babbington-Cole said, wrathfully:
"A lunatic asylum is the only fit home for Sarah Kane." Turning to her new-made husband, she says explanatorily, "an old servant, and a crank. Uncle Timothy, you had better see her caged up somewhere, or pay her off, and dismiss her."
"Yes, I must; we can't have a madwoman going about like this."
"Alas! how ungrateful of Sarah," sighed Miss Stone. "I fear the seed we have sown fell on stony ground, Mr. Parks."
"I fear so, indeed," echoed Mr. Parks, as he departed, his heart gladdened on thinking of the good British gold in his pocket; and from Mr. Stone, mean though he was, it was worth paying a sovereign to become the possessor of a yearly income of two thousand pounds. The poor bridegroom thought not of the parson's fee, which, had he wedded a woman of his own choice, he would have paid with an overflowing heart, he, poor fellow, being as generous as morning sunbeams on a beauteous June day.
The ceremony over! the fraud consummated! the bird snared! the man fettered! all joy in living, all hope in his heart crushed by a woman. Cole since hearing the solemn words of the agitated woman, felt as he threw himself into a chair, burying his head in his hands, as he leaned forward elbows on knees, as though did some one put a knife to his heart he would be grateful; he felt feverish and his brain throbbed as it had never throbbed before. Starting to his feet, he said brokenly, "It is now my turn to dictate; you will excuse me, I must have time to think, and in solitude; I go to my own apartment."
"You had better have some supper with us first to celebrate the event," said his bride, jocosely, for she feels triumphant.
"No, I thank you, food would choke me, and I am in no mood for revelry."
"You had better, Babbington-Cole," said Stone (who never offered a meal that he had to pay for), "you had better; an empty stomach is a cold bed-fellow."
But he was gone. Six ears sharp as needles listened to the sound of his retreating footfalls, slow and heavy, in ascending the stairs; they heard him go in and lock his door.
"A loving bridegroom," said Stone, malevolently. "You have evidently made an impression, Margaret."
"As you did on my sainted step-mother, when she spurned your offer beneath her feet, history repeats itself, most affectionate of uncles."
"'The tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity,'" said Miss Stone, reprovingly; "let us show a Christian spirit, and prove we are thankful everything is settled; we have worked hard for it, and have a right to partake of the feast prepared for the wedding party."
"Had you not better call your recalcitrant spouse, Margaret," said her uncle, as they repaired to the dining-room and seated themselves; "perhaps you do not know that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach."
"No, I shall not disturb his peaceful slumbers; by leaving him to himself he will the sooner come to his milk. For a beggarly eight hundred-dollar clerk—Colonial at that—he does not show gratitude as he should for a three thousand pound per annum wife.".
"I agree with you, Margaret, but I doubt not you will bring him to a more Christian frame of mind," said Miss Stone, dwelling on each mouthful of veal-and-ham pie with the relish of an epicure.
"Alone once more, thank God!" said Cole to himself in despairing tones, throwing himself on to a sofa of stiff, cold horse-hair; "and now to collect my unwelcome thoughts," he sighed wearily, now walking restlessly to and fro, now flinging himself down, lying perfectly still.
Some one says that "locality is like a dyer's vat." This room assigned to Cole would in itself have lent a gloomy, funereal aspect to one's tone of mind, from the cumbrous bedstead of dark mahogany to the darkest of hangings and carpet, every article as cold and polished as the black hair-cloth furniture. No pretty feminine knick-knacks, no bright pictures, nothing to relieve the eye.
"Alone," he groaned, "yes, but for how long? She will, I expect, think she has the right to come here; had she forced her hateful presence upon me to-night I feel that reason would have fled. What could my father have been about to sell me like this? But there has been some devil's work. He has been deceived, and I have been completely hemmed in by the moves of the miscreator circumstance, the cablegram of his physician to them and to myself to-night. She a modern Medusa, to be a panacea for him or any one! Poor father, how you have been duped. That they are all playing some devil's game is clear even to my throbbing brain, no wonder that ever since I set foot on England's shore I have had a terrible presentiment of evil hanging over me, and now the very worst has come to pass: they have roped me in. I have given her, that awful woman, my name! God save me from madness! Hist! what sound was that? They come! and yet the hideous midnight revelry is still on below; but they come, a tap! Jove's thunderbolt, or Vulcan's hammer would be of no avail. I shall feign sleep."