I
Week after week sped by, summer ripened into fall, and fall faded into winter. All was monotony: the bleak winter season, the shorter days, the longer evenings, the city settling down into a period of seclusion and social inaction. There would be little of gayety this year. No foreign visitors would be entertained by the townsfolk. There would be no Mischienza to look forward to. It would be a lonely winter for the fashionable element, with no solemn functions, with no weekly dancing assemblies, with no amateur theatricals to rehearse. Indeed were it not for the approaching marriage of Peggy Shippen to the Military Governor, Philadelphia would languish for want of zest and excitement.
The wedding took place at the home of the bride on Fourth Street. The élite of the city, for the most part Tories, were in attendance. Mrs. Anne Willing Morris, Mrs. Bingham—all the leaders were there. So were Marjorie, John Anderson, Stephen, the Chews and Miss Franks from New York. The reception was brilliant, eclipsing anything of its kind in the history of the social life of the city, for Mrs. Shippen had vowed that the affair would establish her definitely and for all time the leader of the fashionable set of the town.
The center of attraction was of course Peggy; and she carried herself well, enduring the trying ordeal with grace and composure. And if one were to judge by the number and the quality of the gifts which loaded down one whole room, or by the throng which filled the house to overflowing, or by the motley crowd which surged without, impatient for one last look at the bride as she stepped into the splendid coach, a more popular couple was never united in matrimony. It was a great day for all concerned, and none was more happy nor more radiant than Peggy as she sat back in the coach and looked into the face of her husband and sighed with that contentment and complacency which one experiences in the possession of a priceless gem.
Their homecoming, after the brief honeymoon, was delightful. No longer would they live in the great slate roof house on Second Street at the corner of Norris Alley, but in the more elegant old country seat in Fairmount, on the Schuylkill,—Mount Pleasant. Since Arnold had purchased this great estate and settled it immediately upon his bride, subject of course to the mortgage, its furnishings and its appointments were of her own choice and taste.
It rose majestically before them on a bluff overlooking the river, a courtly pile of colonial Georgian architecture whose balustraded and hipped roof seemed to rear itself above the neighboring woodland, so as to command a magnificent broad view of the Schuylkill River and valley for miles around.
"There! See, General! Isn't it heavenly?"
She could not conceal her joy. Arnold looked and smiled graciously with evident satisfaction at the quiet homelike aspect of the place.
Peggy was on the stone landing almost as soon as she emerged from the coach,—eager to peep inside, anxious to sit at last in her own home. Although she had already seen all that there was to see, and had spent many days previous to the marriage in arranging and planning the interior so as to have all in readiness for their return on this day, still she seemed to manifest a newer and a livelier joy, so pleasant and so perfect did all appeal.
"Oh, General! Isn't this just delicious?" And she threw her arms around his neck to give him a generous hug.
"Are you happy now?" he questioned.
"Perfectly. Come let us sit and enjoy it."
She went to the big chair and began to rock energetically; but only for a minute, for she spied in the corner of the room the great sofa, and with a sudden movement threw herself on that. She was like a small boy with a host of toys about him, anxious to play with all at the same time, and trying to give to each the same undivided attention. The massive candelabra on the table attracted her, so she turned her attention to that, fixing one of its candles as she neared it. Finally, a small water color of her father, which hung on the wall a little to one side, appealed to her as needing adjustment. She paused to regard the profile as she straightened it.
The General observed her from the large chair into which he had flung himself to rest after the journey, following her with his eyes as she flitted about the great drawing-room. For the moment there was no object in that space to determine the angle of his vision, save Peggy, no other objective reality to convey any trace of an image to his imagination but that of his wife. She was the center, the sum-total of all his thoughts, the vivid and appreciable good that regulated his emotions, that controlled his impulses. And the confident assurance that she was happy, reflected from her very countenance, emphasized by her every gesture as she hurried here and there about the room in joyous contemplation of the divers objects that delighted her fancy, reanimated him with a rapture of ecstasy which he thought for the moment impossible to corporeal beings. The mere pleasure of beholding her supremely happy was for him a source of whole-souled bliss, illimitable and ineffable.
"Would you care to dine now?" she asked of him as she approached his chair and leaned for support on its arms. "I'll ask Cynthia to make ready."
"Yes, if you will. That last stage of the trip was exhausting."
And so these two with all the world in their possession, in each other's company, partook of their first meal together in their own dining-room, in their own private home.