CHAPTER II.
Shortly after this everything about “The Gables” seemed to take on new life. Andrew had bade Victoria make ready and issue invitations for a grand fête, which should be given on a scale of magnificence never equalled, and which should hold a week. Victoria was thunderstruck. This indeed was a new departure for her husband, who had tabooed all society for nearly ten years, and who now chose to plunge headlong as it were into gayeties to which he was wholly a stranger. It is no wonder that she looked apprehensively at him, and wondered if he had not suddenly taken leave of his senses, but knowing his dislike to being questioned she merely asked: “How many invitations shall I issue, Andrew?”
“As many as the house will hold without crowding, Victoria. We can accommodate nearly a hundred who may come from a distance. The lodge will room twenty more. We can erect a temporary barracks for the men who come unaccompanied by ladies, so I think with the neighboring gentry who will, of course return home at night, you can get out three hundred invitations. I will get the necessary lumber and have the men begin erecting whatever is needful at once. Will this please you, my love?”
“It certainly ought to,” laughed Victoria. “Why, Andrew, the expense will be frightful.”
“It will not exceed ten thousand dollars, Victoria, and I shall never miss so small a sum. Even if it is twice that amount I shall not grumble. We have received many pressing invitations from friends. It is but courtesy on our part to return them. See that there is an abundance of everything, dear wife. There will be plenty of time to order anything you wish from New York. You have my consent to go in as deeply as you may desire.” And Victoria decided to obey her husband to the letter, and to make the fête one to be long remembered.
When it became known that “The Gables” was to be thrown open to the public, that everybody far and near had been invited by its master, the people could hardly believe the startling news. Very few had ever been inside the grand salon and reception-rooms, and those who had been so favored, had much to tell of their magnificence, and of the rare paintings and works of art with which the rooms were adorned. If Andrew was unpopular, Victoria was not, so there were very few regrets sent, and as the week approached, not a few anxious glances were cast at the threatening clouds which presaged bad weather; but the first day of the fête dawned cloudless, and before night every room in the spacious old house had been assigned to an occupant. Andrew laid aside his reserve, and proved himself to be a prince of entertainers. Victoria was amazed at this sudden transformation, and after seven years of married life saw her husband in an entirely different character, and also it was one which became him well. The first night was spent in all getting acquainted with one another, or in renewing old acquaintance, and in visiting the picture-gallery and other places of interest. The second day was to be devoted to the hunt. At night there was to be a hunt ball, and the grand ball-room was to be opened to the public for the first time in thirty-five years.
It was a merry party which assembled before the main entrance the morning of the hunt to say au revoir for a few hours to the hostess and those ladies who did not hunt. The gentlemen in their scarlet coats and buckskin breeches were bright bits of color among the more sombre riding-habits of the ladies, and Andrew, who sat his horse with a grace not equalled by any man present, noted the look of wifely pride on Victoria’s face, as she waved him an adieu with Mary perched upon her shoulder. The lady riding by his side saw the tender expression on his face as he kissed his fingers to Victoria, and as their horses cantered slowly down the avenue, she said: “You have a most charming wife, Mr. Willing, and the little one is simply cherubic.”
Andrew glanced at his companion. She was young and extremely beautiful. Rumor said that for three seasons she had been a reigning belle in New York and Baltimore society, and that, strange to relate, she cared more for the society of middle-aged men than for that of men nearer her own age. Was she fishing for a compliment, thinking that Andrew, as scores of other men might have done, would at once begin a flirtation on the strength of the few words of praise bestowed upon his wife? All this flashed through Andrew’s mind as he watched the blooming color, like the heart of a sea shell, come and go on the riante face of his fair guest. His dark, mournful eyes, whose sadness was their greatest charm, looked straight into the melting blue ones so near him while he said: “There is no woman on this earth to equal her, Miss Marchon. There never will be for me. Without her and the child, who is a part of us, my life would become a void. I should not care to live.”
A slightly sarcastic smile curved the beautiful lips of his hearer. “Such devotion after nearly fifteen years of married life is truly commendable, Mr. Willing. So you never have desired to bask in the smiles of any other fair lady?”
Andrew saw the drift which the conversation was beginning to take. It was as he had thought. His beautiful guest was endeavoring to draw him into a perhaps harmless flirtation, but nevertheless, in his loyalty to Victoria, one which would be extremely distasteful to him. He resolved to at once nip this evident admiration of Miss Marchon for himself in the bud. He turned his horse and pointed with his whip to “The Gables,” which in the next turn of the avenue would be lost to their view. “That house holds all I care for in the world. No woman, not even if she possessed the wiles of a Cleopatra, could turn my allegiance from the angel we have left behind. Other women when compared with her seem soulless, dead, devoid of all those graces which she alone possesses. My God, how I love her! It is something more than love. It is adoration, worship, an unquenchable fire, which, when I hold her in my arms burns with a fever heat. Ah, Miss Marchon, few women are loved with the devotion which I give Victoria. When I say that to save her one heart pang I would die for her, they are not idle words. They come from a heart whose every drop of blood flows for her.”