CHAPTER XXXIX.
The day came. Alice Morgeson, and Helen with her baby, arrived the night before; and Ben and Mr. Somers drove from Milford early in the afternoon. Mr. Somers was affable and patronizing. When introduced to Veronica, he betrayed astonishment. "She is not like you, Cassandra. Are you in delicate health, my dear!" addressing her.
"I have a peculiar constitution, I believe." He made excuses to her for Mrs. Somers and his daughters to which she answered not a word. He was in danger of being embarrassed, and I enticed him away from her—not before she whispered gravely, "Why did he come?" I went over the house with him, he remarking on its situation, for sun and shade, and protection from, or exposure to, the winds; and tasting the water, pronounced it excellent. He thought I had a true idea of hospitality; the fires everywhere proclaimed that. Temperance had the air of a retainer; there was an atmosphere about our premises which placed them at a distance from the present. Then Alice came to my assistance and entertained him so well that I could leave him.
We had invited a few friends and relations to witness the ceremony, at eight o'clock. I had been consulted so often on various matters that it was dark before I finished my tasks. The last was to arrange some flowers I had ordered in Milford. I kept a bunch of them in reserve for Verry's plate; for we were to have a supper, at father's request, who thought it would be less tiresome to feed the guests than to talk to them. Verry did not know this, though she had asked several times why we were all so busy.
It was near seven when I went upstairs to find her. Temperance had sent Manuel and Fanny to the different rooms with tea, bread and butter, and the message that it was all we were to have at present. Ben had been extremely silent since his arrival, and disposed to reading. I looked over his shoulder once, and saw that it was "Scott's Life of Napoleon" he perused; and an hour after, being obliged to ask him a question, saw him still at the same page. He was now dressing probably. Helen and Alice were in their rooms. Mr. Somers was napping on the parlor sofa; father was meditating at his old post in the dining-room and smoking. It was a familiar picture; but there was a rent in the canvas and a figure was missing—she who had been its light!
I found Verry sound asleep on the sofa in my room.
A glass full of milk was on the floor beside her, and a plate with a slice of bread. The lamp had been lighted by some one, and carefully shaded from her face. She had been restless, I thought, for her hair had fallen out of the comb and half covered her face, which was like marble in its whiteness and repose. Her right arm was extended; I took her hand, and her warm, humid fingers closed over mine.
"Wake up, Verry; it is time to be married."
She opened her eyes without stirring and fixed them upon me. "Do you know any man who is like Ben? Or was it he whom I have just left in the dark world of sleep?"
"I know his brother, who is like him, but dark in complexion—and his hair is black."
"His hair is not black."
I rushed out of the room, muttering some excuse, came back and arranged her toilette; but she remained with her arm still extended, and continued:
"It was a strange place where we met; curious, dusty old trees grew about it. He was cutting the back of one with a dagger, and the pieces he carved out fell to the ground, as if they were elastic. He made me pick them up, though I wished to listen to a man who was lying under one of the trees, wrapped in a cloak, keeping time with his dagger, and singing a wild air.
"'What do you see?' said the first.
"'A letter on every piece,' I answered, and spelt Cassandra. 'Are you Ben transformed?' I asked, for he had his features, his air, though he was a swarthy, spare man, with black, curly hair, dashed with gray; but he pricked my arm with his dagger, and said, 'Go on.' I picked up the rest, and spelt 'Somers.'
"'Cassandra Somers! now tell her,' he whispered, turning me gently from him, with a hand precisely like Ben's."
"No, it is handsomer," I muttered.
"Before me was a space of sea. Before I crossed I wanted to hear that wild music; but your voice broke my dream."
She sat up and unbuttoned her sleeve. As I live, there was a red mark on her arm above her elbow!
I crushed my hands together and set my teeth, for I would have kissed the mark and washed it with my tears. But Verry must not be agitated now. She divined my feelings for the first time in her life. "I have indeed been in a long sleep, as far you are concerned; this means something. My blindness is removed by a dream. Do you despise me?" Two large, limpid tears dropped down her smooth cheeks without ruffling the expression of her face.
"I have prided myself upon my delicacy of feeling. You may have remarked that I considered myself your superior?"
"You are all wrong. I have no delicate feelings at all; they are as coarse and fibrous as the husk of a cocoanut. Do for heaven's sake get up and let me dress you."
She burst into laughter. "Bring me some water, then."
I brought her a bowl full, and stood near her with a towel; but she splashed it over me, and dribbled her hands in it till I was in despair. I took it away and wiped her face, which looked at me so childly, so elfish, so willful, and so tenderly, that I took it between my hands and kissed it. I pulled her up to a chair, for she was growing willful every moment; but she must be humored. I combed her hair, put on her shoes and stockings, and in short dressed her. Father came up and begged me to hurry, as everybody had come. I sent him for Ben, who came with a pale, happy face and shining eyes. She looked at him seriously. "I like you best," she said.
"It is time you said that. Oh, Verry! how lovely you are!"
"I feel so."
"Come, come," urged father.
"I do not want these gloves," she said, dropping them.
Ben slipped on the third finger of her left hand a plain ring. She kissed it, and he looked as if about to be translated.
"Forever, Verry?"
"Forever."
"Wait a moment," I said, "I want a collar," giving a glance into the glass. What a starved, thin, haggard face I saw, with its border of pale hair! Whose were those wide, pitiful, robbed eyes?
I hurried into the room in advance to show them their place in front of a screen of plants. When they entered the company rose, and the ceremony was performed. Veronica's dress was commented upon and not approved of; being black, it was considered ominous. She looked like a 'cloud with a silver lining.' I also made my comments. Temperance, whose tearful eyes were fixed on her darling, was unconscious that she had taken from her pocket, and was flourishing, a large red and yellow silk handkerchief, while the cambric one she intended to use was neatly folded in her left hand. She wore the famous plum-colored silk, old style, which had come into a fortune in the way of wrinkles. A large bow of black ribbon testified that she was in mourning. Hepsey rubbed her thumb across her fingers with the vacant air of habit. I glanced at Alice; she was looking intently at Fanny, whose eyes were fixed upon father. A strange feeling of annoyance troubled me, but the ceremony was over. Arthur congratulated himself on having a big brother. Ben was so pale, and wore so exalted an expression, that he agitated me almost beyond control.
After the general shaking of hands, there came retorts for me. "When shall we have occasion to congratulate you?" And, "You are almost at the corner." And, "Your traveling from home seems only to have been an advantage to Veronica."
"I tell you, Cousin Sue," said Arthur, who overheard the last remark, "that you don't know what they say of Cassandra in Rosville. She's the biggest beauty they ever had, and had lots of beaus."
A significant expression passed over Cousin Sue's face, which was noticed by Alice Morgeson, who colored deeply.
"Have you not forgotten?" I asked her.
"It was of you I thought, not myself. I cannot tell you how utterly the past has gone, or how insignificant the result has proved."
"Alice," said father, "can you carve?"
"Splendidly."
"Come and sit at the foot of my table; Mr. Somers will take charge of the smaller one."
"With pleasure."
"Slip out," whispered Fanny, "and look at the table; Temperance wants you."
"For the Lord's sake!" cried Temperance, "say whether things are ship-shape."
I was surprised at the taste she had displayed, and told her so.
"For once I have tried to do my best," she said; "all for Verry. Call 'em in; the turkeys will be on in a whiffle."
Tables were set in the hall, as well as in the dining-room. "They must sit down," she continued, "so that they may eat their victuals in peace." The supper was a relief to Veronica, and I blessed father's forethought. Nobody was exactly merry, but there was a proper cheerfulness. Temperance, Fanny, and Manuel were in attendance; the latter spilled a good deal of coffee on the carpet in his enjoyment of the scene; and when he saw Veronica take the flowers in her hand, he exclaimed, "Santa Maria!"
Everybody turned to look at him.
"What are you doing here, Manuel?" asked Ben.
"I wait on the señoritas," he answered. "Take plum-duff?"
Everybody laughed.
"Do you like widows?" whispered Fanny at the back of my chair. I made a sign to her to attend to her business, but, as she suggested, looked at Alice. At that moment she and father were drinking wine together. I thought her handsomer than ever; she had expanded into a fair, smooth middle age.
The talking and clattering melted vaguely into my ears; I was a lay-figure in the scene, and my soul wandered elsewhere. Mr. Somers began to fidget gently, which father perceiving, rose from the table. Soon after the guests departed. The remains of the feast vanished; the fires burnt down, "winding sheets" wrapped the flame of the candles, and suppressed gaping set in.
The flowers, left to themselves, began to give out odors which perfumed the rooms. I went about extinguishing the waning candles and stifling the dying fires, finished my work, and was going upstairs when I heard Veronica playing, and stopped to listen. It was not a paean nor a lament that she played, but a fluctuating, vibratory air, expressive of mutation. I hung over the stair-railing after she had ceased, convinced that she had been playing for herself a farewell, which freed me from my bond to her. Mr. Somers came along the hall with a candle, and I waited to ask him if I could do anything for his comfort.
"My dear," he said with apprehension, "your sister is a genius, I think."
"In music—yes."
"What a deplorable thing for a woman!"
"A woman of genius is but a heavenly lunatic, or an anomaly sphered between the sexes; do you agree?"
He laughed, and pushed his spectacles up on his forehead.
"My dear, I am astonished that Ben's choice fell as it did—"
"Good-night, sir," I said so loudly that he almost dropped his candle, and I retired to my room, taking a chair by the fire, with a sigh of relief. After a while Ben and Veronica came up.
"It is a cold night," I remarked.
"I am in an enchanted palace," said Ben, "where there is no weather."
"Cassy, will you take these pins out of my hair?" asked Verry, seating herself in an easy-chair. "Ben, we will excuse you."
"How good of you." He strode across the passage, went into her room, and shut the door.
"There, Verry, I have unbound your hair."
"But I want to talk."
I took her hand, and led her out. She stood before her door for a moment silently, and then gave a little knock. No answer came. She knocked again; the same silence as before. At last she was obliged to open it herself, and enter without any bidding.
"Which will rule?" I thought, as I slipped down the back stairs, and listened at the kitchen door. I heard nothing. Finding an old cloak in the entry, I wrapped myself in it and left the house. The moon was out-riding black, scudding clouds, and the wind moaned round the sea, which looked like a vast, wrinkled serpent in the moonlight.
I walked to Gloster Point, and rested under the lee of the lighthouse, but could not, when I made the attempt, see to read the inscription inside my watch, by the light of the lantern. I must have fallen asleep from fatigue, still holding it in my hand; for when I started homeward, there was a pale reflection of light in the east, and the sea was creeping quietly toward it with a murmuring morning song.