Isabel had heard Frederic speak of Marian, and when they were half way home, she put her head from the window and said to Phil, “Where is the young girl who used to live with Colonel Raymond—Marian was her name, I think?”
“Bless you,” returned the negro, cracking his whip nervously, “haint you hearn how she done got married to marster mighty nigh three weeks ago?”
“Married! Frederic Raymond married!” screamed Isabel; “it is not true. How dare you tell me such a falsehood?”
“Strue as preachin’, and a heap truer than some on’t, for I seen ’em joined with these very eyes,” said Phil, and, glancing backward at the white face leaning from the window, he muttered, “’spects mebby she calkerlated on catchin’ him herself. Ki, wouldn’t she and Dinah pull har though. Thar’s a heap of Ole Sam in them black eyes of hern,” and, chirruping to his horses, Philip drove rapidly on, thinking he wouldn’t tell her that the bride had ran away—he would let Frederic do that.
Meantime, Isabel, inside, was choking—gasping—crying—wringing her hands and insisting that her mother should ask the negro again if what he had told them were so.
“Man—sir”—said Mrs. Huntington, putting her bonnet out into the rain, “is Mr. Frederic Raymond really married to that girl Marian?”
“Yes, as true as I am sittin’ here. Thursday’ll be three weeks since the weddin’,” was the reply, and with another hysterical sob, Isabel laid her head in her mother’s lap.
Nothing could exceed her rage, mortification and disappointment, except, indeed, her pride, and this was stronger than all her other emotions and that which finally roused her to action. She would not turn back now, she said. She would brave the villain and show him that she did not care. She would put herself by the side of his wife and let him see the contrast. She had surely heard from him that Marian was plain, and in fancy, she saw how she would overshadow her rival and make Frederic feel keenly the difference between them, and then she thought of the discarded Rudolph. If everything else should fail, she could win him back—he had some money, and she would rather be his wife than nobody’s!
By this time they had left the highway, for Redstone Hall was more than a mile from the turnpike, and Isabel found ample opportunity for venting her ill-nature. Such a road as that she never saw before, and she’d like to know if folks in Kentucky lived out in the lots. “No wonder they were such heathen! you nigger,” she exclaimed, as Phil drove through a brook; “are you going to tip us over, or what?”
“Wonder if she ’spects a body is gwine round the brook,” muttered Phil, and as the carriage wheels were now safe from the water, he stopped and said to the indignant lady, “mebby Miss would rather walk the rest of the way. Thar’s a heap wus places in the cornfield, whar we’ll be pretty likely to get oversot.”