“‘There has been enough of this,’ he said, sternly, ‘come to breakfast, time is passing.’
“He put his arm around me and led me to the dining-room, where we breakfasted alone. Katy was upstairs crying and Miss Errington was ordering her valise to be taken to her room, as she would not need it now. Her brother, who had recovered his composure and was as quiet and calm and cool as ever, suggested that she still go with us and take Katy. But she declined. Katy, I think, wished to go, and clung to me at parting in a way which wholly upset me.
“‘Remember Jack,’ she whispered to me, ‘have pity on him and give it up. It is not too late, and will not be till the very last.’
“Was there ever a girl more wretched on her wedding day than I was, I wonder? Of the journey to New York I can recall very little, except that the Colonel was unremitting in his care for my comfort, and that once when he spread his rug across my lap I smiled on him and said ‘You are very kind.’ Aside from that I hardly spoke, but sat leaning back in my chair with my eyes closed, sometimes asleep, for I was perfectly exhausted, and sometimes thinking, always the same thought, ‘It is not too late yet.’ The words were whispered into my ears continually by something which seemed to be sitting on my shoulder and croaking, until I was nearly mad. There was, however, a comfort in knowing that I could still draw back, and I counted how many hours probation were left me before it would be too late. Jack will hardly suffer more than I did during that rapid journey, when to everything else, was added homesickness for The Elms, and you and the dear old life I was throwing away. It was a kind of nightmare, I think, and by the time our train was nearing Jersey City I had made up my mind to jump from the car the moment we stopped and lose myself in the crowd; in short, to run away! The bustle and excitement at the station and the hurrying to the boat revived me. The thing on my shoulder stopped its croaking, and the Colonel had my arm in his and held my hand tightly as if he divined my thoughts. So the newspapers lost an exciting paragraph headed ‘Strange disappearance of a bride on her wedding day.’
“When we reached the hotel and were ushered into the suite of rooms the Colonel had ordered for us I felt better, and when Mr. and Mrs. Darcy, friends of the Colonel, who board at the hotel and whom I had met when I stopped there with Miss Errington, came in to see me and made much of me as the future Mrs. Errington, I was quite myself, and all through dinner, which they took with us and which was served in our private parlor, I was in high spirits, too high, I fear, as I saw them look curiously at me once or twice, as if wondering whether I were quite sane. After dinner the three conferred in low tones, while I stood with my back to them looking into the busy street below and vaguely wondering if it would break one’s neck to jump from the second story to the sidewalk, and if one could so manage as not to land on the head of some pedestrian. I heard the Colonel say, ‘As soon as possible now. I have dispatched a messenger boy.’ I knew what he meant and grew hot and cold again in a minute, while the creature on my shoulder began its warning cry, ‘Not too late yet,’ and pressed so close to my ears that I fancied it touched my hair with its wings. In the car I had thought of Poe’s raven, but now I said to myself, ‘It is a bat.’ I have a mortal terror of bats and put up my hand to brush it away. But it stayed and clamored louder and louder, while I kept trying to brush it off, until Mrs. Darcy came to me and said, ‘There is a lock of hair loose on your neck. I think that is what annoys you. Let me fix it.’
“She took out a hairpin and fastened the refractory lock, while I wondered if she would see the thing on my shoulder. She didn’t, and I began to fear I was losing my mind, and made a great effort to pull myself together. There was a knock at the door and the Rev. Mr. Gillson came in, book in hand, ready for business. I was presented to him, and the Colonel explained as a reason for this seemingly sudden marriage that I could not decide to brave the ocean in the winter until the night before. The clergyman bowed and looked very searchingly at me as I stood in the corner with a face white as a corpse. If Mr. and Mrs. Darcy had not been his parishioners he might have questioned me, thinking me an unwilling bride. But they were my vouchers and Col. Errington was well known to him by reputation. It was all right and the ceremony began, while the bat, if bat it were, shrieked and fluttered and flapped, until it seemed to me they must all hear it. But when the Colonel took the ring, it gave one despairing cry, ‘Too late, too late!’ and flew away, leaving me calm and quiet, with a strange hallucination of the brain. It was Jack putting the ring on my finger,—Jack’s voice, which said, ‘With this ring I thee wed, with all my worldly goods I thee endow.’ I smiled as I thought how few were his worldly goods, compared to what might have been mine, but I was glad that the nightmare was over, the horrid dream passed, and I awake again in the old spare room at home with Jack at my side. I was very much awake when Mr. and Mrs. Darcy kissed me and called me ‘Mrs. Errington,’ while somebody, who was not Jack, kissed me and called me his wife. The room at The Elms resolved itself into the parlor at the hotel, and Jack was lost to me forever by my own act, and I felt like a block of stone as I received the congratulations of the clergyman and felt that the Colonel’s eyes were upon me.
“I have read somewhere that in the great crises of one’s life the most ridiculous thoughts will sometimes intrude, and there came to me a saying I have heard father use so often when I was fretting over some disaster, ‘Never cry for spilled milk!’ It helped me wonderfully. I had spilled all mine,—a brimming pail, and drowned my heart in doing it. I could never undo what I had done, but I could make the best of it, and I mean to. I have written you thus fully because I wanted you to know that I am not altogether callous, and that I did struggle against my fate. A stronger will than mine conquered me. I am Col. Errington’s wife and shall be faithful to him, and however my heart may ache for the might have been, no one, not even you, shall know it. My husband——. I have written the word, and feel better,—is very kind and generous. He knows I did not marry him for love, and I think he means me to have my price,—all the money I want. His wedding present is $10,000, to do with as I please. Half of it I shall send to you, as I know how low our finances are. He does not object. He thought I would do it, he said, and has made arrangements to send it before we sail. He has bought me a lovely fur cloak for the voyage, and given me two one hundred dollar bills for pin money. More than I ever had in all my life. One of the bills I am sending to Jack in payment for what he sent me on the pretense of buying Black Beauty. I bought the tailor-made gown with it, my wedding gown, which I am wearing now, and which I can not bear to think was bought with Jack’s money. Make him take it. Tell him it is to buy Black Beauty back, and don’t let him hate me. Tell him I did love him dearly and am afraid I do now when to do so is a sin. I am another man’s wife, and my husband has come in and says I have but little more time, as he wishes to get settled in our staterooms before the ship sails. I wonder if I shall throw myself into the sea. Perhaps. If you hear of an ‘accidental drowning of the lovely young bride of the Hon. George W. Errington,’—that’s the way they will word it,—you will know it was not accidental, but keep it to yourself.
“I have not time to read what I have written. If I had I probably should not send it. I think I have told you everything in a wild, disconnected and perhaps contradictory way, and I have felt disconnected and wild as I told it. You may show this letter to Miss Errington, who still intends going to The Elms with Katy. Perhaps she will feel less hard towards me. You may also tell Jack some things that are in it and which I could not write to him. Oh, Jack, oh Annie! Good-bye, Good-bye! I put my arms around your necks and kiss you both. God bless you. Write to me and tell me about Jack. The Colonel will cable from Queenstown. He is getting impatient and to save time has directed the envelope for me. Good-bye, again.
“Fanny Hathern Errington. Ah me!”