"I wonder, sir, since wives are monstrous to you, "And that you fly them, as you swear them, lordship, "Yet, you desire to marry." All's Well that Ends Well.
Cecil had left the room of her grandmother, with the consciousness of sustaining a load of anguish to which her young experience had hitherto left her a stranger. On her knees, and in the privacy of her closet, she poured out the aspirations of her pure spirit, in fervent petitions to that power, which she who most needed its support, had so long braved by the mockery of respect, and the seemliness of devotion. With her soul elevated by its recent communion with her God, and her feelings soothed even to calmness by the sacred glow that was shed around them, the youthful bride at length prepared to resume her post at the bed-side of her aged relative.
In passing from her own room to that of Mrs. Lechmere, she heard the busy voice of Agnes below, together with the sounds of the preparations that were making to grace her own hasty bridal, and for a moment she paused to assure herself that all which had so recently passed was more than the workings of a disturbed fancy. She gazed at the unusual, though modest ornaments of her attire; shuddered as she remembered the awful omen of the shadow, and then came to the dreadful reality with an overwhelming conviction of its truth. After laying her hand on the door, she paused with secret terror, to catch the sounds that might issue from the chamber of the sick. After listening a moment, the bustle below was hushed, and she, too, heard the whistling of the wind as its echoes died away among the chimneys and angles of the building. Encouraged by the deathlike stillness of those within her grandmother's room. Cecil now opened the door, under the pleasing impression that she should find the resignation of a Christian, where she had so lately witnessed the incipient ravings of despair. Her entrance was timid, for she dreaded to meet the hollow, but glaring eye of the nameless being who had borne the message of the physician and of whose mien and language she retained a confused but fearful recollection. Her hesitation and her fears, were, however, alike vain; for the room was silent and tenantless. Casting one wondering look around, in quest of the form most dear to her, Cecil advanced with a light step to the bed, and raising the coverlid, discovered the fatal truth at a glance.
The lineaments of Mrs. Lechmere had already stiffened, and assumed that cadaverous and ghastly expression which marks the touch of death. The parting soul had left the impression of its agony on her features, exhibiting the wreck of those passions which caused her, even in death, to look backward on that world she was leaving for ever, instead of forward to the unknown existence, towards which she was hurried. Perhaps the suddenness and the very weight of the shock, sustained the cheerless bride in that moment of trial. She neither spoke nor moved for more than a minute; but remained with her eyes riveted on the desolation of that countenance she had revered from her infancy, with a species of holy awe that was not entirely free from horror. Then came the recollection of the portentous omens of her wedding, and with it a dread that the heaviest of her misfortunes were yet in reserve. She dropped the covering on the pallid features of the dead, and quitted the apartment with a hurried step. The room of Lionel was on the same floor with that which she had just left, and before she had time for reflection, her hand was on its lock. Her brain was bewildered with the rush of circumstances. For a single instant she paused with maiden bashfulness, even recoiling in sensitive shame from the act she was about to commit, when all her fears, mingled with glimmerings of the truth, flashed again across her mind, and she burst into the room, uttering the name of him she sought, aloud.
The brands of a fallen fire had been carefully raked together, and were burning with a feeble and wavering flame. The room seemed filled with a cold air, which, as she encountered it, chilled the delicate person of Cecil; and flickering shadows were playing on the walls, with the uncertain movements imparted by the unsteady light. But, like the apartment of the dead, the room was still and empty. Perceiving that the door of the little dressing-room was open, she rushed to its threshold, and the mystery of the cold air and the wavering fire was explained, when she felt the gusts of wind rush by her from the open door at the foot of the narrow stairs. If Cecil had ever been required to explain the feelings which induced her to descend, or the manner in which it was effected, she would have been unable to comply, for quick as thought she stood on the threshold of the outer-door, nearly unconscious of her situation.
The moon was still wading among the driving clouds, shedding just light enough to make the spectator sensible of the stillness of the camp and town. The easterly wind yet howled along the streets, occasionally lifting whirlwinds of snow, and wrapping whole squares in its dim wreaths. But neither man nor beast was visible amid the dreariness.
The bewildered bride shrunk from the dismal view, with a keen perception of its wild consonance with the death of her grandmother. In another moment she was again in the room above, each part of which was examined with maddening anxiety for the person of her husband. But her powers, excited and unnatural as they had become, could support her no longer. She was forced to yield to the impression that Lionel had deserted her in the most trying moment, and it was not strange that she coupled the sinister omens of the night with his mysterious absence. The heart-stricken girl clasped her hands in anguish, and shrieking the name of her cousin, sunk on the floor in total insensibility.
Agnes was busily and happily employed with her domestics, in preparing such a display of the wealth of the Lechmeres as should not disgrace her cousin in the eyes of her more wealthy lord and master. The piercing cry, however, notwithstanding the bustle of hurrying servants, and the clatter of knives and plates, penetrated to the supper-room, stilling each movement, and blanching every cheek.
" 'Tis my name!" said Agnes; "who is it calls?"
"If it was possible," returned Meriton, with a suitable emphasis, "that Master Lionel's bride could scream so, I should say it was my Lady's voice!"
" 'Tis Cecil—'tis Cecil!" cried Agnes, darting from the room; "O, I feared—I feared these hasty nuptials!"
There was a general rush of the menials into the chambers, when the fatal truth became immediately known to the whole family. The lifeless clay of Mrs. Lechmere was discovered in its ghastly deformity, and, to all but Agnes, it afforded a sufficient solution of the situation of the bride.
More than an hour passed before the utmost care of her attendants succeeded in restoring Cecil to a state in which questions might avail any thing. Then her cousin took advantage of the temporary absence of her women, to mention the name of her husband. Cecil heard her with sudden joy; but looking about the room wildly, as if seeking him with her eyes, she pressed her hands upon her heart, and fell backward in that state of insensibility from which she had just been roused. No part of this expressive evidence of her grief was lost on the other, who left the room the instant her care had succeeded in bringing the sufferer once more to her recollection.
Agnes Danforth had never regarded her aunt with that confiding veneration and love which purified the affections of the granddaughter of the deceased. She had always possessed her more immediate relatives, from whom she derived her feelings and opinions, nor was she wanting in sufficient discernment to distinguish the cold and selfish traits that had so particularly marked the character of Mrs. Lechmere. She had therefore, consented to mortify her own spirit, and submit to the privations and dangers of the siege, entirely from a disinterested attachment to her cousin, who, without her presence, would have found her solitude and situation irksome.
In consequence of this disposition of her mind, Agnes was more shocked than distressed by the unexpected death that had occurred. Perhaps, if her anxiety had been less roused in behalf of Cecil, she might have retired to weep over the departure of one she had known so long, and of one, also, that, in the sincerity of her heart, she believed so little prepared for the mighty change. As it was, however, she took her way calmly to to the parlour, where she summoned Meriton to her presence.
When the valet made his entrance, she assumed the appearance of a composure that was far from her feelings, and desired him to seek his master, with a request he would give Miss Danforth a short interview, without delay. During the time Meriton was absent on this errand, Agnes endeavoured to collect her thoughts for any emergency.
Minute passed after minute, however, and the valet did not return. She arose, and stepping lightly to the door, listened, and thought she heard his footsteps moving about in the more distant parts of the building, with a quickness that proved he conducted the search in good faith. At length she heard them nigher, and it was soon certain he was on his return. Agnes seated herself as before, and with an air that seemed as if she expected to receive the master instead of the man. Meriton, however, returned alone.
"Major Lincoln!" she said; "you desired him to meet me here?"
The whole countenance of Meriton expressed his amazement, as he answered—
"Lord! Miss Agnus; Master Lionel has gone out! gone out on such a night! and what is more remarkable, he has gone out without his mourning; though the dead of his own blood and connexions lies unburied in the house!"
Agnes preserved her composure, and gladly led the valet on in the path his thoughts had taken, in order to come at the truth, without betraying her own apprehensions.
"How know you, Mr. Meriton, that your master has been so far forgetful of appearances?"
"As certain, Ma'am, as I know that he wore his parade uniform this evening when he left the house the first time; though little did I dream his honour was going to get married! If he hasn't gone out in the same dress, where is it?— Besides, Ma'am, his last mourning is under lock, and here is the key in my pocket."
" 'Tis singular he should choose such an hour, as well as the time of his marriage, to absent himself!"
Meriton had long learned to identify all his interests with those of his master, and he coloured highly under the oblique imputation that he thought was no less cast on Lionel's gallantry, than on his sense of propriety in general.
"Why, Miss Agnus, you will please remember, Ma'am," he answered, "as this wedding hasn't been at all like an English wedding—nor can I say that it is altogether usual to die in England as suddenly as Ma'am Lechmere has been pleased"—
"Perhaps," interrupted Agnes, "some accident may have happened to him. Surely no man of common humanity would willingly be away at such a moment!"
The feelings of Meriton now took another direction, and he unhesitatingly adopted the worst apprehensions of the young lady.
Agnes leaned her forehead on her hand, for a minute, in deep reflection, before she spoke again. Then raising her eyes to the valet, she said—
"Mr. Meriton, know you where captain Polwarth sleeps?"
"Certainly, Ma'am! He's a gentleman as always sleeps in his own bed, unless the king's service calls him elsewhere. A considerate gentleman is captain Polwarth, Ma'am, in respect of himself!"
Miss Danforth bit her lip, and her playful eye lighted for an instant, with a ray that banished its look of sadness; but in another moment her features became demure, if not melancholy, and she continued—
"I believe, then—'tis awkward and distressing, too, but nothing better can be done!"
"Did you please to give me any orders, Miss Agnus?"
"Yes, Meriton; you will go to the lodgings of captain Polwarth, and tell him Mrs. Lincoln desires his immediate presence here, in Tremont-street."
"My Lady!" repeated the amazed valet— "why, Miss Agnus, the women says as my Lady is unconscionable, and does not know what is doing, or who speaks to her! A mournful wedding, Ma'am, for the heir of our house!"
"Then, tell him," said Agnes, as she arose to leave the room, "that Miss Danforth would be glad to see him."
Meriton waited no longer than was necessary to mutter his approbation of this alteration in the message, when he left the house, with a pace that was a good deal quickened by his growing fears on the subject of his master's safety. Notwithstanding his apprehensions, the valet was by no means insensible to the severity of the climate he was in, nor to the peculiar qualities of that night in which he was so unexpectedly thrust abroad to encounter its fury. He soon succeeded, however, in making his way to the quarters of Polwarth, in the midst of the driving snow, and in defiance of the cold that chilled his very bones. Happily for the patience of the worthy valet, Shearflint, the semi-military attendant of the captain, was yet up, having just discharged his nightly duties about the person of his master, who had not deemed it prudent to seek his pillow without proving the consolations of the trencher. The door was opened at the first tap of Meriton, and when the other had expressed his surprise, by the usual exclamations, the two attendants adjourned to the sitting-room, where the embers of a good wood fire were yet shedding a grateful heat in the apartment.
"What a shocking country is this America for cold, Mr. Shearflint," said Meriton, kicking the brands together with his boot, and rubbing his hands over the coals—"I doesn't think as our English cold is at all like it. It's a stronger and a better cold is ours, but it doesn't cut one like dull razors, as this here of America."
Shearflint, who fancied himself particularly liberal, and ever made it a point to show his magnanimity to his enemies, never speaking of the colonists without a sort of protecting air, that he intended should reflect largely on his own candour, briskly replied—
"This is a new country, Mr. Meriton, and one shouldn't be over-nice. When one goes abroad one must learn to put up with difficulties; especially in the colonies, where it can't be expected all things should be as comfortable as we has 'em at 'ome."
"Well, now, I call myself as little particular in respect of weather," returned Meriton, "as any going. But give me England for climate, if for nothing else. The water comes down in that blessed country in good, honest drops, and not in little frozen bits, which prick one's face like so many fine needles!"
"You do look, Mr. Meriton, a little as if you had been shaking your master's powder-puff about your own ears. But I was just finishing the heel-tap of the captain's hot toddy; perhaps if you was to taste it, 'twould help to thaw out the idears."
"God bless me! Shearflint," said Meriton, relinquishing his grasp of the tankard, to take breath after a most vigorous draught—"do you always stuff his night-cap so thick?"
"No—no—the captain can tell a mixture by his nose, and it doesn't do to make partial alterations in his glass," returned Shearflint, giving the tankard a circular motion to stir its contents, while he spoke, and swallowing the trifle that remained, apparently at a gulp; "then as I thinks it a pity that any thing should be wasted in these distressing times, I generally drinks what's left, after adding sum'at to the water, just to mellow it down. But what brings you abroad such a foul night, Mr. Meriton?"
"Sure enough, my idears wanted thawing, as you instigated, Shearflint! Here have I been sent on a message of life and death, and I was forgetting my errand like a raw boy just hired from the country!"
"Something is stirring, then!" said the other, offering a chair, which his companion received, without any words, while Polwarth's man took another, with equal composure. "I thought as much, from the captain's hungry appearance, when he came home to night, after dressing himself with so much care, to take his supper in Tremont-street."
"Something has been stirring, indeed! For one thing, it is certain, Master Lionel was married to-night, in the King's Chapel!"
"Married!" echoed the other—"well, thank heaven, no such unavoidables has befallen us, though we have been amputrated. I couldn't live with a married gentleman, no how, Mr. Meriton. A master in breeches is enough for me, without one in petticoats to set him on!"
"That depends altogether on people's conditions, Shearflint," returned Meriton, with a sort of condescending air of condolence, as though he pitied the other's poverty.—"It would be great folly for a captain of foot, that is nothing but a captain of foot, to unite in hymen. But, as we say at Ravenscliffe and Soho, Cupid will listen to the siyths of the heir of a Devonshire Baronet, with fifteen thousand a year."
"I never heard any one say it was more than ten," interrupted the other, with a strong taint of ill-humour in his manner.
"Not more than ten! I can count ten myself, and I am sure there must be some that I doesn't know of."
"Well, if it be twenty," cried Shearflint, rising and kicking the brands among the ashes, in a manner to destroy all the cheerfulness of the little fire that remained, "it wont help you to do your errand. You should remember that us servants of poor captains have nobody to help us with our work, and want our natural rest. What's your pleasure, Mr. Meriton?"
"To see your master, Mister Shearflint."
"That's impossibility! he's under five blankets, and I wouldn't lift the thinnest of them for a month's wages."
"Then I shall do it for you, because speak to him I must. Is he in this room?"
"Ay, you'll find him somewhere there, among the bed-clothes," returned Shearflint, throwing open the door of an adjoining apartment, secretly hoping Meriton would get his head broke for his trouble, as he removed himself out of harm's way, by returning to the fire-place.
Meriton was compelled to give the captain several rough shakes before he succeeded in rousing him, in the least, from his deep slumbers. Then, indeed, he overheard the sleeper muttering—
"A damn foolish business, that—had we made proper use of our limbs we might have kept them. You take this man to be your husband— better for worse—richer or poorer—ha! who are you rolling, dog? have you no regard to digestion, to shake a man in this manner, just after eating!"
"And what the devil do you mean by this liberty. Mr. I, or Meriton, or whatever you call yourself!"
"I am sent for you in a great hurry, sir— awful things have happened to-night up in Tremont!"—
"Happened!" repeated Polwarth, who by this time was thoroughly awake—"I know, fellow, that your master is married—I gave the bride away myself. I suppose nothing else, that is particularly extraordinary, has happened."
"Oh! Lord, yes, sir—my Lady is in faintingfits, and master Lionel has gone, God knows whither, and Madam Lechmere is dead!"
Meriton had not concluded, before Polwarth sprang from his bed in the best manner he was able, and began to dress himself, by a sort of instinct, though without any definite object. By the unfortunate arrangement of Meriton's intelligence, he supposed the death of Mrs. Lechmere to be in consequence of some strange and mysterious separation of the bride from her husband, and his busy thoughts did not fail to recall the singular interruption of the nuptials, so often mentioned.
"And Miss Danforth!" he asked—"how does she bear it?"
"Like a woman, as she is, and a true lady. It is no small thing as puts Miss Agnus beside herself, sir!"
"No, that it is not! she is much more apt to drive others mad."
"'Twas she, sir, as sent me to desire you to come up to Tremont-street, without any delay."
"The devil it was! Hand me that boot, my good fellow.—One boot, thank God, is sooner put on than two! The vest and stock next. You, Shearflint! where have you got to, sirrah! Bring me my leg, this instant."
As soon as his own man heard this order, he made his appearance, and as he was much more conversant with the mystery of his master's toilette than Meriton, the captain was soon equipped for his sudden expedition.
During the time he was dressing, he continued to put hasty questions to Meriton, concerning the cause of the disturbance in Tremont-street, the answers to which only served to throw him more upon the ocean of uncertainty than ever. The instant he was clad, he wrapped himself in his cloak, and taking the arm of the valet, he essayed to find his way through the tempest to the spot where he was told Agnes Danforth awaited his appearance, with a chivalry that in another age, and under different circumstances, would have made him a hero.
