The Senator's Bride. Alex. McVeigh MillerЧитать онлайн книгу.
but there is naught to say,
Married eyes with mine have met,
Silence, oh! I had my day!
Margaret! Margaret!—Jean Ingelow.
Mrs. Conway was not wearing the willow for her wandering nephew. On the contrary, her elegant rooms constantly witnessed merry gatherings, where mirth and music reigned supreme. She was still a handsome woman, still a brilliant woman, and the world of society, fashion, and folly held her as one of its leaders. The delicate state of her health had improved, she had dispensed with her fair companion, and on a sweet spring night, just four years from the date of the beginning of this story, she was giving a splendid ball in honor of the wife of the distinguished and handsome Senator Winans, of Virginia.
The elite of Norfolk was gathered there, the house was garnished with wreaths and garlands of flowers, till the long drawing-rooms opening into each other looked like fast succeeding vistas of intoxicating bloom. Music rose voluptuously overall, and the proud hostess moved among her guests looking handsome as a picture, and young for her fifty-four years, in the sea-green silk and misty laces that accorded so well with her dark eyes and hair, and sweetly smiling mouth.
But under all her brightness and gayety Mrs. Conway carried an uneasy pang in her proud heart. It was the neglect of her idolized nephew. She had never had any children of her own, and at the death of her husband the orphan boy of her only brother crept into her heart, and held the only place in it that was worth having; for the heart of a fashionable fine lady, I take it, has little room to spare from the vanities of dress and fashion; but whatever vacant room there remained in Mrs. Conway's, it all belonged to her self-exiled nephew, and for many months no news had come of the traveler. He had roved from one end of Europe to the other, and wearied of it all, but still talked not of coming home, and his aunt missed him sadly. He had been unfeignedly fond of her. He was her nearest living relative, her chosen heir, and she wanted him home for the few remaining years of her life. But with the underlying strength of her proud heart she kept those feelings to herself, and none were the wiser for them.
And in the midst of the music and dancing a stranger crept to the door of the anteroom, and looked anxiously in—Bruce Conway. A little thinner, a little bronzed by travel, a little more grave looking, but every bit as handsome as the dashing young follow who had gambled with a meteor for his chance of happiness and—lost.
Was he looking for his aunt? Twice she passed near enough to have touched him with her hand, but he smiled and let her pass on, not dreaming of his near presence.
At last his eyes encountered what they sought, and, half unconsciously, he drew nearer, and scanned the peerless vision framed in the door-way of the conservatory, in the soft but brilliant light of the wax-lights half-hidden in flowers.
Was she a creature of this lower earth? He had thought, that spring four years ago, with Grace Grey at seventeen, leaning on his arm, looking into his face in the moonlight, that she was more a creature of heaven than earth. He thought so again to-night, as he looked at her leaning there under the arch of flowers that framed the conservatory door. He thought of all the living loveliness, the sculptured perfection, the radiant beauty that seemed to breathe on the canvas—all he had seen in his wanderings from shore to shore—and nothing he could recall was half so glorious as Grace Grey at twenty-one, in her calm repose, standing quietly looking on at the scene, seeming herself, to the fascinated eyes that beheld her, like a young angel strayed away from paradise.
Mr. Conway slipped around and entered the room by a side door in the rear of where she stood. At sound of his footstep she turned slowly and looked at him carelessly, then looking again, threw up one hand. Was she going to faint? Not she! Her face whitened, her pansy-violet eyes grew black with intense emotion, but without a tremor she offered the little cold hand he had dashed away from him so long before. It was as cold now as it had been then—had it never been warm since, he wondered.
"Welcome home!" he heard in the remembered music of her voice.
"Oh, Grace, my darling, my wronged little love!" He knew his own mind at last, and was down on his knees before she could prevent him, passionately entreating, "My darling, will you forgive me, and give yourself to me? I have come home to make reparation for the past. I never knew how dear you were, how entirely I loved you, till the ocean rolled between us."
For a moment the silence of unspeakable emotion fell between them; she struggled for speech, waving her hand for him to pause, while over her pure, pale face a flood of indignant crimson warmly drifted.
"Rise, sir," she answered, at last, in low, proud tones, "such words are an insult to me!"
"And why? Oh! Grace, can you not forgive me, can you not love me? You loved me once, I know. Don't send me away. Promise that I may still love you, that you will be my worshiped wife!"
She did not laugh at him, as you or I might have done, my reader. It was not in the nature of the girl Bruce Conway had scorned for her low estate to be anything but sweet and merciful. She looked at him, still faintly flushed and excited, but answered with unconsciously straightening figure, and a firm but gentle dignity peculiar to her always:
"Possibly you are not aware, Mr. Conway, that your words of love are addressed to one who is already a wife—and mother."
Mr. Conway had never fainted in his life, but with a feeling that sense and strength were giving way, he rose, and, dropping into a chair, white as death, looked at the young creature whose quiet assertion of matronly dignity had fallen on his ears like a death-warrant. And as he looked, with that strange power we have of discriminating details even in the most eventful hours, he noticed many things that went far to prove the truth of her words. He had left her poor and almost friendless, her richest dress a simple white muslin, and scarcely another piece of jewelry than the simple trinket of gold and pearls that clasped the frill of lace at her white throat. To-night she wore a sweeping robe of costly white silk, with flouncings of real lace, that was worth a small fortune in itself. There were diamonds on the wavering swell of her white bosom, depending from the pearly ears, scintillating fire from her restless taper wrists, clasping her statuesque throat like sunshine glowing on snow. She was wealthy, prosperous, beloved now, he read in the restful peace that crowned her innocent brow; and bitterest thought of all to the man who had loved and deserted her—another man called her his wife—another man's child called her mother.
While she stood with that flush of offended wifely dignity burning hotly on her pure cheek, while he looked at her with a soul's despair written on his handsome features, a gentleman entered the room carrying an ice. He was tall and splendidly handsome, his countenance frank, and pleasant, but a slight frown contracted his brow as he took in the scene, and it did not clear away as the lady said, distantly:
"Mr. Conway, allow me the pleasure of presenting to you my husband, Senator Winans."
Both gentlemen bowed ceremoniously, but neither offered the hand. Mr. Conway hated Winans already, and the gentleman thus honored felt intuitively that he should hate Conway. So their greeting was of the briefest. The discomfited traveler turned and walked over to the Hon. Mrs. Winans.
"I beg your pardon," he said, in low, earnest tones; "I did not know—had not heard the least hint of your marriage."
He was gone the next moment. Senator Winans looked inquiringly at his beautiful young wife. She did not speak; he fancied she shrank a little as he looked at her, but as he set down the ice on a small flower-stand near by, she took up the little golden spoon and let a tiny bit of the frozen cream melt on her ruby lip, while a faint smile dimpled the corners of her mouth.
"My love," he said, lifting the small, white hand, and toying with its jeweled fingers, "are you ill? Your hand is cold as ice."
"I never felt better in my life," smiling up into his questioning eyes, and nestling the small hand still closer in his. "The cold cream chilled me after dancing so much, or," her natural truthfulness asserting itself, "I may be a little nervous, and that makes my hands cold."
"And what has made you nervous to-night?" his tone unconsciously stern and his thoughts full of the dark, despairing face that had looked up from the depths of the arm-chair at his queenly looking wife.
"Nothing,"