Rutledge Part 46

Rutledge were at the other end of the room.

"We shall miss you so much, Mr. Viennet," Josephine was saying, in a very charming tone. "Your place cannot be filled. Mr. Rutledge, cannot you manage to have him arrive at the station a few minutes too late?"

"Why didn't you suggest it a little sooner, Miss Josephine?" said Mr.

Rutledge, with a smile, as he looked at his watch. "I think I hear the horses at the door now. Thomas will attend to your baggage--don't trouble yourself, Mr. Viennet."

"It is all ready, sir; I have nothing to do but make my adieux, and such painful work had better be short. Mrs. Churchill, I have many pleasures to remember during my residence in America, but none so great as those for which I am indebted to you. Will you accept my sincere thanks?"

I had not dared before to look at him, but I stole a glance at his face now. It was deadly pale, and showed but too plainly the pain and disappointment that he was trying to conceal.

The whole party now gathered round him; his parting with Josephine was very courteous, on her part very gracious; with Grace the same; a little less warm with Miss Wynkar, perhaps; but no one cared to revive old quarrels now. When he approached me, I gave him my hand, but my eyes were fastened on the ground. He held it for one instant, then dropping it, turned hastily away.

"Mr. Rutledge," he said, in a voice that trembled audibly, despite his manly efforts to control it, "I have to thank you for your hospitality.

I shall not soon forget my visit here."

Mr. Rutledge's manner had less coldness than usual in it, as he bade his young guest good bye; there was no lack of warmth in the adieux of the other gentlemen.

And I, cruel and cowardly, stood rooted to the floor; I was afraid to acknowledge what I had not been afraid to promise; I was letting him go without a word of kindness, when I might never see him again; when I was, in the sight of heaven, affianced to him, when nothing could absolve me from my vow, shrink and falter as I might. He had reached the hall, and stood for an instant in the doorway as I raised my eyes. They met his; I sprang forward from the circle where I stood.

"Victor, I am not afraid they should know it now," I whispered, putting my hand in his.

I only knew the misery I had caused him, when I saw the change that came into his face, the light that hope lit in his eyes. He had but short grace to tell his love--a few brief minutes before we parted, perhaps for many years, yet nothing could have made me more certain of the depth and ardor of it, than those few moments did.

We walked once down the hall, then slowly back again,

"You must go now," I whispered, as we reached the door. "Good bye!"

For a moment he stood as if it were an effort rending soul and body to leave me; he held my hands tightly in his own, then, bending forward, pressed a kiss on my forehead, and was gone.

It was the seal of our engagement, that first kiss; I stood in the sight of what was all the world to me, tacitly acknowledging what I had done.

I was parting from the lover to whom they all fancied I was devoted, but it was shame, and not love, that brought the blood into my cheeks to meet his first caress. I did not move or raise my eyes till the sound of carriage-wheels died away down the avenue. Then the treacherous color receded slowly from my face, and left it white as marble. Conquering as best I might the giddy faintness that came over me, I walked steadily into the parlor, where the whispering and amazed group of ladies still stood. Not heeding Josephine's, "Well, my dear, we weren't quite prepared for this! We didn't know how far things had gone," I went up to Mrs. Churchill and said:

"I should have told you of this before, Aunt Edith. I have accepted Mr.

Viennet."

"I should have been gratified by your confidence if you had chosen to bestow it. However, you have my congratulations," and she gave me her hand, and touched her lips lightly to my forehead.

"I suppose we must all congratulate you," said Grace, with a laugh.

"But, really, it took _me_ so entirely by surprise, that I shan't be able to collect my wits for an appropriate speech under two hours."

"I will excuse you from it altogether," I said, turning away to the door. I stopped involuntarily as I pa.s.sed Josephine.

"If it is a matter of congratulation at all, I hope I have yours, Josephine," I said, holding out my hand.

"Of course," she returned, awkwardly, accepting my hand. "Of course you have."

I looked at her for a moment; it was so strange that I should be so miserable and she so blessed. We, "two daughters of one race"--the same blood flowing in our veins--the same woman's heart beating in our bosoms--why was it that I was forbidden every good, tempted of the devil, driven into evil, and she, unfeeling and light-hearted, smiled down at me from her secure height of happiness, wore carelessly the love that I would have died to win, played thoughtlessly with it in my jealous sight, and made a jest of what was life and death to me.

She did not understand my strange and wistful look, and, with a smothered sigh, I withdrew my gaze, and turned away. Perhaps her mother could have interpreted it better; perhaps, if she had chosen, she could have told her daughter I was not the happy fiancee I seemed; and perhaps, if she had chosen, she could have told her to whom I owed the greater part of what I suffered.

I mounted the stairs with a slow and heavy step; Mr. Rutledge pa.s.sed me coming down. He did not raise his eyes nor look at me, but in the glance I had of his face it seemed to me darker and moodier than ever, and his step heavier and more decided. He went toward the stables, and in a few minutes I heard his horse's hoofs clattering down the avenue.

If my head had ached twice as madly as it did, I should not have dared to stay away from dinner. As I entered the dining-room, it was with rather a doubtful feeling of relief that I found only ladies there. The presence of the gentlemen always proved something of a restraint upon the vivacious tongue of Grace, and Josephine was never in a good humor when there was no one upon whom to exercise her charms. Indeed, the whole table presented a significant contrast to its usual animation.

Toilettes had been deferred till evening, I found. Josephine and Ella took no pains to conceal their ennui, and Grace revelled in impertinence. The gentlemen--_i.e._ Phil, Captain McGuffy, and Ellerton--were shooting woodc.o.c.k, and Mr. Rutledge had gone off on business, and it was possible, he had left word, that he might not return till late.

"Let's have a glorious nap," said Josephine, as we left the table. "It will be time enough to dress just before tea-time. They will none of them be back sooner than eight o'clock."

Ella had been asleep all the morning, but she never objected to a nap; indeed, I believe sleeping was, next to the pleasure of dressing herself, the princ.i.p.al _divertiss.e.m.e.nt_ of her life. Josephine and Ella went to their rooms, Mrs. Churchill followed them upstairs, Grace ran off to find "old Roberts" and get the key of the locked-up bookcases in the library, and I was left to myself.

It was a hot and sultry afternoon; not a breath moved the motionless leaves in the park, not a ripple stirred the lake; the insects hummed drowsily in the hot, hazy air, the declining sun abated neither heat nor power as he neared the horizon, but glared steadily upon the still parched earth. Too languid and miserable to find a cooler place, I sat on the piazza hour after hour, and watched listlessly the slowly-declining sun, the inanimate and sultry landscape.

Even nightfall brought no relief. The sun withdrew his light, it is true; but the sultriness that his reign had bred continued to brood over the earth; no dew refreshed it, no moisture wet the thirsty flowers. The stars, faint and dim, hardly shed a ray of light through the thick air.

It was a night that, superst.i.tion and presentiment whispered, would prompt dark deeds. Under cover of its weird-like gloom, treachery and murder would steal abroad, and black sins would stain the souls of some of the sons of men before the light of day renewed the face of the earth.

None of us could help feeling the influence of it; dispirited and languid, the whole party dragged through the evening with an unwonted lack of vivacity. Music and dancing failed; the gentlemen pleaded fatigue, and the ladies were very ready to accept the excuse, and at an early hour we separated to our rooms. But I dreaded mine; I dreaded the sleepless hours that I must count before the dawning.

Once that night I slept, but it was a short sleep, and worse than waking. The nightmare of my fate was less horrible than the nightmare of my fancy, and, shuddering with terror, I paced the floor to drive away the chance of its recurrence; I pressed my clenched fingers tightly on my breast to drive away the chill of that Phantom Hand, that had frozen my very soul.

Why had that long-forgotten terror come back to haunt me now?

CHAPTER x.x.x.

"Death is King--and _Vivat Rex!_"--TENNYSON.

It was late on the following morning when I entered the breakfast-room; very fluttering and nervous, I antic.i.p.ated the usual allusions to my pale looks, and Grace's amiable bantering, but quite a different scene from the one I had expected met me. Too much absorbed to notice my entrance, the whole group were cl.u.s.tered together, intent upon the newly-arrived paper. They had evidently devoured it, and now were commenting eagerly upon the news it contained, and referring constantly to it. Only Mr. Rutledge, with knit brow, leaning forward on the table, seemed to note my entrance.

"I never heard a more cool-blooded, revolting thing," said Phil.

"I suppose the whole country is alive with it now," remarked the captain. "The wretch can hardly escape detection, thanks to the telegraph, railroads, and police of this nineteenth century. The news, no doubt, has spread far and wide by this time."

"It will haunt me till the day of my death!" exclaimed Josephine. "I never read so horrible a murder."

"Oh," said Grace, coolly, "it's only because we knew him that it seems so dreadful. There are just as awful things in the paper every day."

"There has never been anything in this part of the country though, I fancy, that has caused as much excitement," said Phil. "Thomas tells me that the furore in the village is intense; the men do not think of going to their work, but stand in groups about, while most of them have formed themselves into a sort of vigilance committee, and swear that the murderer shall be tracked. The poor doctor, you know, was quite a popular man, and such a thing as this is so unheard of, that the country-people are entirely beside themselves about it."

"What is it you are talking about?" I faltered, leaning on the back of a chair for support, and trying to be self-possessed.

"Oh! Why, have you just come down?" exclaimed Grace, delighted to find a fresh auditor for the awful tale that she seemed really to enjoy relating. "Why, you must know that last night, a man coming from Norbury, late in the evening, discovered the body of Dr. Hugh lying at the entrance of a wood about four miles from the village, stabbed in four or five places, and quite cold. His horse and gig were tied to a tree close by, and the footprints on the ground beside where the body was found, show that the poor wretch did not yield to his murderer without a desperate struggle. His hands were"----

"You are making it unnecessarily horrible," said Mr. Rutledge, sternly, and starting forward, placed a chair for me, and poured out a gla.s.s of water.

"Why, she's going to faint!" exclaimed Ella Wynkar, staring at me with her dull, blue eyes, while Mrs. Churchill came forward ejaculating,