CHAPTER XIX
The day Mr. Tescheron was to receive notification of the wedding in his immediate family came so quickly the announcement could not be made in the morning. Gabrielle needed the day to prepare, for while she was brave, the meeting with her father must bring tears of disappointment. Perhaps the glowering skies made postponement easy. Better the night for sorrow, thought she, and then hurried down-town, her hands full of small packages containing bits of finery not available to enter into the ornamentation of the dressmaker's conceptions in silk and lace. These must be exchanged for other shades, and the light of a cloudy day was not suitable for matching colors; her feminine mind turned to the more important details of preparation.
As she entered the office her thoughts were wholly away from the law of her country and its business operations. The gowns that were to be fitted and the untrimmed hats loomed larger than the intricate questions in various states of litigation that came under her supervision. In a week she was to pass from this realm of worldly detail, and would assume the larger rôle of wife, better equipped by freedom and the good uses she had made of its opportunities. Still the hats and gowns must not be ignored by any high-flown philosophy. She was about to hitch her wagon to a star, to be a whole woman, the head of a home and all that; but what would we think even of the president of Sorosis if she appeared in last year's sleeves?
Among her letters that morning, Gabrielle found one from Hygeia, and regretted that she must place it with her packages as soon as she glanced at the name, for there was no time to read it then; perhaps in a car she would find the time. Letters written at leisure in the country and read in the crowded city cars lose their native sweetness. Such as I have ever received from there must be opened tenderly and read slowly far from the throng.
By one o'clock the mills of Justice ceased to claim the attention of Gabrielle. Two hours were spent in the stores, every minute consumed in the closest study of fabrics, miles of floor-walking and volumes of questioning—all composing the art and science of shopping, the one sphere in which woman can carry the weight of a fur cloak and do a hundred-yard dash or a mile run to the most distant department, while her man companion takes his coat off and worms his way twenty feet to the necktie counter, which is always found opposite the main entrance. Ten feet farther in, it would fail. Gabrielle shopped with system, to save time, and then used the time she saved to shop some more.
Not long after three o'clock on that memorable Wednesday, Mrs. Gibson, Nellie and Gabrielle gathered around the enthroned Jim in his castle retreat to talk it all over again for the thousandth time.
"The wedding ring fitted the first time we tried it, and so do all my clothes, ties, gloves and hats," said Jim, with a smile intended to aggravate argument. "It is no trouble at all for me to get married."
"You're not original, though," laughed Nellie. "Originality, you know, takes time, thought and effort. Gabrielle will outshine you."
"Of course, she will," said Jim—"if there is anything left of the poor girl to wear these things."
"Oh, don't fear that, Jim," Gabrielle advised. "This is great fun."
"The stores always seem to be filled with women," remarked Jim. "Are they all about to get married, I wonder?"
"Those who go the earliest and stay the longest are women who are getting ready for the fourth trip," said Mr. Gibson, the jolly father, whose grim face belied his heart. He had entered in time to catch Jim's query. "It's a case of accelerated motion," he added.
The girls laughed and chided him for his wantonly cruel words. They chatted along merrily for an hour, first about this trifle and then that, completely under the influence of the glorious event, without one thought being given to the cloud, as big as a postman's hand, among Gabrielle's packages, for they did not see it there.
The happy prospective bridegroom, who had escaped the dire fate the letters threatened to throw across his path by dodging beneath the quilts at the hospital, was now full of the heroism that thrives in peace. The calamity which seemed prepared to fall upon him in the hour of his greatest happiness, Fate had tossed aside, and his star combination proved to be intact and in good working order. Trouble had gathered near in murky concentration for a few minutes that anxious day, but when Hygeia passed out of the door of his room to answer my bell, the knight stood forth with visor up, resumed his normal color, and gradually his power of speech. Those old breadcrumbs cast upon the waters of love years before had washed ashore at a most untimely moment, thought he; but the audience had not reached the end to ponder on the writer's name. A miss was as good as a mile in slipping between the cup and the lip.
But the course of true love is a rugged path to the close of the ceremony; beyond, it is still more rugged, and the surrounding country, they say, is often wild and desolate, and quite unlike the park gardening and its beckoning vistas to be seen along Lovers' Lane before the turn in the road at the altar.
A cloud no larger than the tiny mist from the whistle of one of those tooting tugs familiar in the harbor scene was gathering while the sun shone so brightly in the tower apartment. An electric shock will gather and burst a cloud large enough to bring midnight and deluge at noonday. Mr. Gibson understood the importance of lightning arresters, but was not prepared to apply them in his home. The women could do nothing; and, of course, I, the only person in the world who might have transformed the current to a harmless voltage, had been shunned as an enemy.
Then came the lull before the hurricane—the soft whispering of the wind in the tree-tops. Jim alone could see the havoc it raised along the mountain ridge, foretelling by a few minutes the arrival of the twisting and wrenching blast.
"Oh, Nellie, you remember my telling about the gushy love-letters the nurse read to us at the hospital, for our entertainment. Well, here, please take this; she has sent another, which I see by a glance is quite as good as the rest. Would you mind reading it aloud? and then I ask you all to excuse me while I snatch a moment to read her long letter."
In this way, Gabrielle believed she would solve the problem of time, that had been so limited that busy day.
"Why, certainly; let us have the pleasure, and go ahead with your reading." Nellie was always ready to entertain the company.
But Gabrielle did not advance more than a few lines with Hygeia's accompanying letter. The Gibson family were so delighted with Nellie's reading of my celebrated collaboration with Lord Byron, constructed by the drip of my pen welding some of the choicest gems of the inspired poet to bring together the hearts of Jim and that fair Margaret, it was quite out of the question for Gabrielle to withdraw from the fun. She became as attentive as the other auditors and added her applause to sustain the clever elocutionist. Comment flowed freely from all except Jim at nearly every interruption.
"Father, this is supposed to be the proper way to make love," said Nellie, and she began to read:
"'My Darling Margaret:
"'Your letter of this morning bids me with many playful thrusts to be more hopeful during your absence, which you say will be brief in one paragraph and in another that it will be "about three months." How is it possible for me to reconcile these statements? Three months may be an eternity. The criminal bound and held beneath the spigot, from which water, drop by drop, pounds with thundering impact upon his hot head, and the idlers in sylvan dells, view time differently. Your advice, though, shall be taken and followed with such will as I am able to command. Weakness, backsliding from my purpose to be as cheerful as you wish, you must forgive. If you would have me display an even interest in life, undisturbed by the moaning which creeps into these letters, you know the sure, swift course to take—the fastest express train to New York, and a telegram summoning me to the depot—that is all.
"'For the past two nights my sleep has been blessed with visions more lovely and hope inspiring. Fear has been driven away, to give place to fairer thoughts of you. Not to dream of you crowded the hours of absence too heavily upon me. Henceforth I am determined that you shall be with me in my thoughts, tenderly ministering to me with those eyes whose soft light I would have my steady beacons. Darling Margaret, their flickering, or the fear that they will flicker, sets me almost crazy.
"'Thy form appears through night, through day:
Awake, with it my fancy teems;
In sleep, it smiles in fleeting dreams—
The vision charms the hours away,
And bids me curse Aurora's ray,
For breaking slumbers of delight,
Which make me wish for endless night;
Since, oh! whate'er my future fate,
Shall joy or woe my steps await,
Tempted by love, by storms beset,
Thine image I can ne'er forget.'"
"He pursued her hard," interrupted Mr. Gibson. "I can remember when I used to feel that way about girls, but I couldn't put it on paper."
"Indeed!" exclaimed Mrs. Gibson. "What you put on paper would never compromise you. The name of the man who wrote the letter, you understand, father, is not known, and neither do we know the woman. Still, I hardly think it can be one of yours, so I shan't worry. Go on, Nellie."
Nellie had observed as she paused in her reading and glanced upward, that Jim seemed much disturbed. He was very red and his eyes seemed to be afire. But Gabrielle did not give any of her attention to Jim, and Nellie was too busy with her task of deciphering my wretched manuscript to interject a gay remark at Jim's expense. Jim moistened his lips, wiped his beading brow, and nerved himself for the worst. There were now no quilts for him to dodge under, and no acute pain to serve as a standing account against which he might charge these evidences of the anguish he could not conceal.
Nellie continued, and Gabrielle forgot all about Hygeia's letter. This I think flattering to my style.
"Listen!" commanded Nellie, and again she read:
"'Yes, my darling, dreaming always of you, night and day, surely, surely, hope should inspire me. This is the place and now the time to wander in love's enchanted realm. I shall not put off till your home-coming the joys I would experience. Let my "heart be a spirit," and then I may be wafted to your side this minute and sit beside you from early morn till twilight and the even-song of birds softly and sweetly hint the flight of time. Yes—
"'He who hath loved not, here would learn that love,
And make his heart a spirit; he who knows
That tender mystery, will love the more:
For this is Love's recess, where vain men's woes,
And the world's waste, have driven him far from those—
For 'tis his nature to advance or die;
He stands not still, but or decays, or grows
Into a boundless blessing, which may vie
With the immortal lights in its eternity!'"'And now, my darling, I must not forget to remind you that you have quite overlooked my request for a lock of your golden hair. You acknowledged the receipt of mine, and asked why I did not tie it in a pretty ribbon instead of a piece of cotton thread.'"
"There is the lock of hair again!" exclaimed Gabrielle. "I saw it in the other letter when Jim was at the hospital. It was a trifle lighter than his. The poor girl—I suppose she thought it more precious than strands of pure gold."
"Hair has a lot to do with love, Gabrielle," whispered Mr. Gibson. "Think what an uphill job it would have been for Jim with a bald head."
"Never could have done it," said Jim, huskily, determined to break in somewhere on a long chance that the letter would blow out to sea or the Produce Exchange tower topple over.
"'Haste, my sweetheart,'" continued Nellie, "'is my excuse—haste which wholly disregards the trifling detail; but I see my error now and enclose a yard of blue ribbon to be converted by your deft hands into a tight bow-knot where the unpoetic cotton now binds the clipped token of my love. I pray there may be enough left to gather a generous lock of the golden tresses for which I yearn. You will not withhold them, will you, Margaret? What sweet thoughts proceed from memory's strongholds:
"'Can I forget—canst thou forget,
When playing with thy golden hair,
How quickly thy fluttering heart did move?
Oh, by my soul, I see thee yet,
With eyes so languid, breast so fair,
And lips, though silent, breathing love.
"'When thus reclining on my breast,
Those eyes threw back a glance so sweet,
As half reproached, yet raised desire,
And still we near and nearer prest,
And still our glowing lips would meet,
As if in kisses to expire.
"'And then those pensive eyes would close,
And bid their lids each other seek,
Veiling the azure orbs below,
While their long lashes' darken'd gloss
Seemed stealing o'er thy brilliant cheek,
Like raven's plumage smoothed on snow.'
"'While it may be true that absence makes the heart grow fonder, there are limitations, believe me, to man's endurance. Three months will find me worn to a scant shadow, a mere tissue, so sharp that the dial at noonday cannot point with finer finger the passage of the sun under the meridian wire. Only the first month is now waning, and I dare not look a weighing machine in the face, for fear I might fall in the slot. I am not facetious, believe me, Margaret.
"'Fear underlies my woe. Annoying images, at first vague, gather strength of outline and haunt me like evil prophecies. Of course, there is naught but fear to account for these distressing delusions, but is it not as real when it wounds as the dagger's point? How shall we banish the terrors that arise in lonely hours? In writing to you these thoughts as they flow from the deep reservoirs of my soul, through the conduit of pen, in inky tracings on this fair page, my sweetest hours are spent. Here is an outlet that reduces in some measure the roaring flood-waters, as strength abides to perform the necessary physical evolutions till repose comes o'er me; then I slip into the Land of Nod through a lane of sweet magnolias, and approach the rose-bedecked gates garlanded as if for the entry of a prince and his bride. You are with me then, and as the cheering populace greets us, a herald stands forth and addresses you thus:
"'She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes,
Thus mellowed to the tender light
Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.
"'And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent.'"
"My! but he puts it on thick," gasped Nellie, pausing for breath.
"Oh, pshaw!" said her father; "impossible to mix it too thick."
"What would he have done without Lord Byron?" asked Mrs. Gibson, who gave me scant credit, apparently.
"Well, Byron wouldn't mind," said Gabrielle, smiling. "He would be glad to help the cause along. The lover is strengthening his persuasion with good poetry."
Nellie read more rapidly now, for she had learned many of my pen oddities:
"'What a worldly fellow I was till your eyes met mine and brought me far, far up from the depths to the heights of contemplation. My philosophy was naught. I saw not the beauty of life, for I was lost in a wilderness of its petty distractions. Remembering our happy days together, why should their inspiration not sustain me now? At the time of parting—
"'I saw thee weep—the big bright tear
Came o'er that eye of blue,
And then methought it did appear
A violet dropping dew;
I saw thee smile—the sapphire blaze
Beside thee ceased to shine;
It could not match the living rays
That filled that glance of thine.'"'The feeling so tenderly expressed in that tear preceding the smile holds me in thrall when I bid fear depart and wake no more the ogres of its dread. Let me rather fondle that cherished smile,
"'As clouds from yonder sun receive
A deep and mellow dye,
Which scarce the shade of coming eve
Can banish from the sky;
Those smiles, into the moodiest mind,
Their own pure joys impart;
Their sunshine leaves a glow behind
That lightens o'er the heart.'"
Would luck ever come? Would it ever come? What would be the outcome? Jim tried to plan for the approaching emergency, but the best he could do was to struggle to conceal the acute case of chills and fever then torturing his weak body and adding confusion to his dazed mind. The reader proceeded:
"'All the deep feelings of the lover have been experienced by the poets, and to them we must turn to find words attuned to the harmonies surging within, clamoring for expression, where passion has just been born. These gifted singers have searched the human heart as only genius can and have given their songs as a universal heritage to all who feel the melting murmurs. If there is aught of inspiration in their words, it belongs to me as the harper's music belonged to Byron when he craved it:
"'My soul is dark—oh! quickly string
The harp I yet can brook to hear;
And let thy gentle fingers fling
Its melting murmurs o'er mine ear.
If in this heart a hope be dear,
That sound shall charm it forth again;
If in those eyes there lurk a tear,
'Twill flow and cease to burn my brain.'"'And how natural, Margaret, it is for the man steeped in love as I am to search out consolation amid the sweet concord of poetry. And so seeking the thought attuned to mine, I also say:
"'But let the strain be wild and deep,
Nor let the notes of joy be first;
I tell thee, minstrel, I must weep,
Or else this heavy heart will burst;
For it hath been by sorrow nursed,
And ached in sleepless silence long;
And now 'tis doomed to know the worst
And break at once—or yield to song.'"'My writing is usually over at midnight, and when I have returned from the corner, where I post the letter, I sit me down in the darkness to ponder on what I have composed. How dull it seems to me then; how poorly expressed these sentiments too deep for words of mine, and not always within range of such poetry as I can find! Moods are so fleeting, too; some tender thought passes over me and for a moment I am lost in the rare atmosphere of mountain-tops to which it summons me. When I come to tell of this magic wrought by your innocent witchery, I find it quite impossible to explain, as the essence of my heavenly flight is all so poetic and strange a mere mortal like myself cannot interpret the feeling. It surely cannot be that all men who love are so entranced. It must be that within the circle of your enchanting power a superior charm prevails:
"'There be none of Beauty's daughters
With a magic like thee;
And like music on the waters,
Is thy sweet voice to me;
When, as if its sound were causing
The charmed ocean's pausing,
The waves lie still and gleaming,
And the lull'd winds seem dreaming."'The moon is your partner in this mysterious midnight revel, Margaret:
"'And the midnight moon is weaving
Her bright chain o'er the deep,
Whose breast is gently heaving,
As an infant's asleep;
So the spirit bows before thee,
To listen and adore thee,
With a full but soft emotion,
Like the swell of Summer's ocean.'"'How wise, after all, your advice to be hopeful! The sweetest moments of our lives are passing now while we are wrapped in our devotion to each other. All sounds are sweet—
"''Tis sweet to hear
At midnight on the blue moonlit deep,
The song and oar of Adria's gondolier,
By distance mellowed o'er the water's sweep.
'Tis sweet to see the evening star appear;
'Tis sweet to listen to the night winds creep
From leaf to leaf; 'tis sweet to view on high
The rainbow, based on ocean, span the sky.'"
Gabrielle now took up Hygeia's letter again. The rainbow of hope based on ocean seemed to Jim to be disappearing beneath its watery foundation. If Obreeon had appeared and offered to remove those letters at that point, he might have doubled the price, and Jim would have paid it gladly.
But the reader did not stop.
"'Of course, I am interested,'" read Nellie, "'in your daily doings in the country, so do not chide me for not asking more questions. I should like to know the number of cows your Uncle Reuben keeps, and if the cheese factory is running on full time. These items savor of rural thrift, and as the farmer is the backbone of the country, I would not eliminate him—scratch him as it were—from our worldly calculations. The cows, the cheese factory and Uncle Reuben, however, stand in the dim background fading into the hazy purple of the tree-lined brook, as I think of you, my May Queen, laughing, in the center of the picture. When I correspond with Uncle Reuben it will be by telegram at my end of the line.
"'Before I close to-night I must again assure you that a happier view of the outlook for the coming two months will be taken. Your happiness must be mine:
"'Well! thou art happy, and I feel
That I should thus be happy, too;
For still my heart regards thy weal
Warmly—'"
"Stop, Nellie! James Hosley, you wrote that letter! Do you deny it?"
Gabrielle Tescheron crumpled Hygeia's note in her clenched hand as she said that, and arose, fastening her steady eyes on the crouching form of the cripple, who appeared to cringe under the blast of the storm. He had tried to be prepared, but he failed utterly when he attempted to speak. He was seen to raise his hand and elevate his eyebrows, but now words were impossible; a low murmur and heavy breathing, an effort to stand and a surrender in despair to the hopelessness of his fate, were all that marked Jim Hosley's resistance to this accusation.
"You wrote this letter—you wrote the others—do you deny it?"
This came quickly after the first question from her lips; her manner completely changed, betraying the nervous strain under which she suppressed her emotions, as she bravely faced the man for whom the world had seemed a small sacrifice. Jealousy might have waged its battle in privacy; but the revelation of a detestable crime so convincingly corroborated by this letter from the nurse, whose pricking conscience had at last reported my version of Hosley with her view of the ownership and purpose of the damaging poetic documents, outlined to Gabrielle's quick intelligence the method of a deep, patiently pursued course of crime. Her father's claims, to which her deaf ears had been turned in the ardor of youth, came now with terrible force to win instant conviction. She would not falter in the crisis. The man should be given a hearing—brief, to be sure—but he should have it.
"Speak!" The command brought the Gibsons to their feet, but Jim was paralyzed and dumb. After a long pause, he took all the responsibility for my folly and pleaded:
"I wrote it, Gabrielle—and forgive me."
"Then you must leave this house at once. You go your way and I shall see you no more. I know it all now. This letter from the nurse—Mr. Hopkins—my father—they were right. I have been blind. You have deceived me, just as you deceived this poor woman, whose awful fate I know. Mr. and Mrs. Gibson and Nellie"—she turned, grasping her chair—"you have been kind friends. If I have imposed on your hospitality, you will forgive me—"
Unstrung and in tears, she threw herself into Mrs. Gibson's outstretched arms, and Nellie and her mother, overcome with surprise and grief, supported her as she walked into another room.
"Hosley, I demand that you tell me what this means," said Mr. Gibson, advancing, the lines of his stern face tightly drawn. He had such faith in Gabrielle he could not doubt her words—and yet he had loved Jim Hosley these many years, and he could not, dared not, believe that his faith in Jim was founded on a cleverly contrived imitation of the finest qualities of manhood. "What does this all mean—this opposition of Tescheron, this sudden action of Gabrielle?"
"I WROTE IT, GABRIELLE—AND FORGIVE ME."—Page 286.
Jim could only feebly remonstrate against the pursuing evil which had clung close to his heels since the very day he had asked Mr. Tescheron for his daughter's hand, he told Mr. Gibson; since the very night of the fire; since the very night of my connection with the problem when it began to develop as a simple affair of the heart.
"Mr. Gibson, I wrote those letters years ago, foolishly, to be sure, but innocently, believe me. They now appear to ruin me," he huskily proceeded. "But Gabrielle would be fair and forgive me that. No, it is not that I wrote the letters—there is something hidden. She will not tell me what it is. I have begged her to tell me, but she will not. She would only tell me she loved me when I entreated her to confide in me the cause of her father's hatred. Now in a flash she infers something, and I can see she believes her father, and joins him against me. Mr. Gibson, bear with me a moment. Let me see her now—"
Mr. Gibson went to the door and called her softly.
His wife's voice was heard in reply:
"Gabrielle has gone."