CHAPTER XXII.
“GO BACK TO YOUR HAUGHTY BRIDE.”
“And will she love thee as well as I?
Will she do for thee what I have done?
See all the pomps of the world pass by,
And look only for thee—beloved one?
“Will she feel when another pronounces thy name
All the thrilling sensations that I have done?
Pride when they praise thee, regret when they blame,
And tenderness always—beloved one?
“Will she watch when a cloud passes over thy brow
And strive to chase it—as I have done?
Forgetting all but the thought that now
It is hers to console thee—beloved one?”
Mrs. Maxwell raised herself on her elbow and looked at the fallen girl with her lovely face and closed eyes upturned to the light. In her alarm she did not heed Viola’s presence.
“Oh, Rolfe, what have you done?” she groaned, wildly. “You have broken dear little Mae’s heart!”
“Mother!” in bewilderment.
“You have broken Mae’s heart!” she repeated, angrily. “She loved you dearly. She thought you loved her in return, and would marry her when your fortune mended, and I—as blind as she was—I encouraged her to think so. And now this terrible blow!”
It was a strange welcome for the young bride. She stared with dazed eyes at the prostrate girl, while her ears drank in every word of Rolfe’s mother.
As for him, he grew pale with indignation as he pressed Viola’s hand against his arm, replying:
“Mother, before Heaven I never dreamed of such fancies on your part, or Mae’s, whom I loved as a dear little sister only, and I am sorry I have unwittingly given her pain. But you have done wrong to betray my cousin’s tender secret to me and to my wife.”
The invalid turned her sorrowful dark eyes quickly on Viola, exclaiming:
“I beg your pardon for my indiscreet speech, dear, and for forgetting to welcome you in my fright over Mae. I am sure I shall love Rolfe’s wife dearly.”
And she held out her hand; but the one that Viola placed in it was cold as ice, as she answered, proudly:
“I am sorry I have disappointed your wishes for your son, madame.”
Meanwhile, Rolfe stooped over Mae, and lifting her gently in his arms, said:
“Mother, I had better carry her to her room, so that you can attend to her, I think.”
“Yes,” she answered, following him weakly, then sending him out, saying, bitterly: “Go back to your haughty bride. I can manage Mae best alone.”
He returned to Viola, most bitterly pained and chagrined by this awkward contretemps.
She had thrown herself into an easy-chair, her burning eyes fixed on the floor, and her face a marble mask in its deep pallor.
If she had loved him he would have clasped her to his heart, telling her of his deep devotion and begging her to forget what had happened just now.
But he fancied she would not have tolerated that, so he drew a chair to her side, and venturing to touch one of her cold hands caressingly, said, tenderly:
“Viola, I hope you will forget the scene of just now. It was most embarrassing for us both, but my mother, who has been an invalid several months, was overcome by surprise and excitement. She and Mae have been very silly in their fancies, for I never thought of the dear child only as a cousin or sister. I have been in love with you long before you ever saw me or heard my name, though you would never have known it but for the happenings of tonight.”
Viola started, glanced keenly at him, then dropped her eyes again without a word, and he did not dream how he had eased her heart with those simple words: “I have been in love with you long before you ever saw me or heard my name.”
“How strange! I wonder where he first saw me,” she mused, for but a moment ago her heart had been racked by the fear that he shared little Mae’s pain of hopeless love—that she had come between them by almost asking him to marry her outright to save her from tomorrow’s keen humiliation.
To have added this blunder to her other trials must have driven poor Viola nearer insanity than she was already.
Rolfe Maxwell continued in his deep, musical tone that had in it the soothing note we use to a hurt child:
“When you know mother better, you will find that she is incapable of knowingly giving pain. She will prepare our little spare room for you presently, for I am sure you are weary and would like to be alone. In the meantime, let me take your hat and jacket away, and then I will brew you some tea. Would you not like it?”
Viola assented wearily, and he waited on her with the tenderness of a lover and the skill of a woman.
The bright, warm little parlor seemed very cozy after her adventures that cold March night, and she actually swallowed the fragrant tea Rolfe put to her lips, though she had fancied she would choke in the effort.
“How comforting he is!” she thought mechanically through the haze of her wretched thoughts, that wandered hither and thither, but mostly toward home, wondering what they would say there when they found her gone in the morning.
She had locked her room-door and put the key in her pocket on leaving, lest the inquisitive ladys’-maid should find out her flitting; so she knew her absence would not be known till morning—perhaps not even until at breakfast, when her father opened his morning paper.
Suddenly she burst into a passion of grieving tears, breaking up all the stony calm she had preserved since the marriage.
With a cry of dismay, Rolfe Maxwell knelt by her side, daring to draw the dark head tenderly against his breast, and Viola did not resent it; to his great relief, she simply nestled there like a grieving child, while the tears rained down her cheeks.
“What is it, my dearest love, my darling?” he whispered, anxiously.
She moaned piteously:
“I was thinking of—of—poor papa. He will not know I am gone till he opens his paper at breakfast in the morning—and—and—it will break his heart!”
“What would you wish me to do for you, dear love? Go to him or write to him? I will do anything you wish,” he promised, earnestly.
“Do nothing yet—he will be too angry to listen. We must wait till his wrath blows over,” she panted in dread, drawing her face away and resting it against the soft cushion of her chair.
In another moment the strange, narcotic influence of grief overpowered the unhappy girl, and she slept like a child, losing for a time the memory of her sorrows.
Rolfe Maxwell gazed on her a few minutes with his passionate heart in his eyes, then pressed his lips softly on the rich waves of her perfumed dark hair ere he turned away to see that the little spare room was made comfortable for her to occupy.
In the meantime, his mother’s efforts had, after a time, restored his unhappy cousin to consciousness.
The girl lay still and dazed for some moments, then, as memory returned, she sobbed, miserably:
“Oh, Aunt Margaret, is it really true? Has Rolfe married that proud girl who looked like a queen?”
“It is true, dear, and I am very sorry; but we must make the best of it; only I wish he had not taken us by surprise!” sighed Mrs. Maxwell.
“I hate her! I wish I could part them, even now!” declared Mae, her sweet young face flushing with baleful anger.
“Dear Mae, you must not feel like that. Rolfe loves his beautiful young bride, and it is our duty to love her too,” the lady said, gently.
Mae sat up in bed, her azure eyes flashing with an anger her aunt had never suspected in her before. She sobbed, bitterly:
“I will not love her, the proud, beautiful creature who has stolen Rolfe’s heart from me so cruelly, and broken mine!”
“Dear Mae, we were mistaken in our hopes of Rolfe. He only loved you as a little sister, while we dreamed of something nearer and dearer. I am to blame for fostering such hopes in you. Will you forgive me, dear, and try to be happy without Rolfe?” pleaded Rolfe’s mother.
“I can not be happy without him. I have loved him more than a year, and all my hopes centered on him. That proud beauty can never love him as dearly as I love him!” sobbed Mae, casting pride to the winds in the shock of her grief, and refusing all pacification as she cast herself, weeping, back among her pillows, so that the perturbed aunt had perforce to excuse herself presently and go away to look after the comfort of her unwelcome guest.